A lecture titled "Just War and Military Intervention" will be presented Thursday, Oct. 25, on campus.
Jean Bethke Elshtain, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics at the University of Chicago, will speak at 4:30 p.m. in Computer Science Building 104. A reception will follow.
Elshtain was the only academic in a group of 20 religious leaders who met with President Bush on Sept. 20 to reflect on the significance of America's newly emerging struggle against terrorism.
The principles of just war provide guidelines for determining the conditions under which using violence against a foe is justified. The requirements include exhausting all efforts to resolve the conflict without force, pursuing a war only if there is a reasonable chance of its success, and making every effort to ensure that noncombatants are not killed during the conflict.
Elshtain's interests range from social and political theory and ethics to moral and political thought and women's studies. She has published 16 books, including most recently "Who Are We? Critical Reflections and Hopeful Possibilities," and has two more on the way. She also has written more than 200 essays for political opinion journals.
Elshtain is the co-director of the Pew Forum on Religion and American Public Life and co-director of the Religious Assembly for Uniting America, a project of the American Assembly, a nonpartisan forum that develops consensus and offers a plan of action on issues vital to the American people.
Her address is the Alpheus Mason Lecture in Constitutional Law and Political Thought and is sponsored by the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions and the Department of Politics .
