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Professor Christopher Finlay's Outputs (44)

Political Violence Misliked: The Meaning of ‘Terrorism’ (2024)
Book Chapter
Finlay, C. J. (2024). Political Violence Misliked: The Meaning of ‘Terrorism’. In H. Williams, D. Boucher, P. Sutch, D. Reidy, & A. Koutsoukis (Eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of International Political Theory (231-247). Springer Nature. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-52243-7_12

Public discourse often seems to imply that ‘terrorism’ is something about which we know three things: first, we know what it is; second, we know what is wrong with it and, hence, why the word has such negative connotations; and third, we know that it... Read More about Political Violence Misliked: The Meaning of ‘Terrorism’.

Political Violence: The Problem of Dirty Hands (2023)
Journal Article
Finlay, C. J. (2023). Political Violence: The Problem of Dirty Hands. The Journal of Ethics, 27(4), 561-583. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-023-09447-4

This paper argues that the reason why political leadership often involves dirty hands is because of its relationship with violence. To make the case, it maintains that violent means create and assert a form of dominating power that is in tension with... Read More about Political Violence: The Problem of Dirty Hands.

Ethics, Force, and Power: on the Political Preconditions of Just War (2022)
Journal Article
Finlay, C. J. (2022). Ethics, Force, and Power: on the Political Preconditions of Just War. Law and Philosophy, 41(6), 717-740. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-022-09452-y

Benbaji and Statman’s contractarian ethics of war offers a powerful new philosophical defence of orthodox conclusions against revisionist criticism. I present a two-pronged argument in reply. First, contractarianism yields what I call ‘decent war the... Read More about Ethics, Force, and Power: on the Political Preconditions of Just War.

Deconstructing Nonviolence and the War Machine: Unarmed Coups, Nonviolent Power, and Armed Resistance (2021)
Journal Article
Finlay, C. J. (2021). Deconstructing Nonviolence and the War Machine: Unarmed Coups, Nonviolent Power, and Armed Resistance. Ethics & International Affairs, 35(3), 421-433. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0892679421000423

Proponents of nonviolent methods often highlight the extent to which they rival arms as effective means of resistance. Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan, for instance, influentially compared civil resistance techniques favorably with armed insurrecti... Read More about Deconstructing Nonviolence and the War Machine: Unarmed Coups, Nonviolent Power, and Armed Resistance.

Assisting Rebels Abroad: The Ethics of Violence at the Limits of the Defensive Paradigm (2020)
Journal Article
Finlay, C. J. (2022). Assisting Rebels Abroad: The Ethics of Violence at the Limits of the Defensive Paradigm. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 39(1), 38-55. https://doi.org/10.1111/japp.12456

In this article, I analyse the theory and practice of interventions in foreign civil wars to assist rebels fighting against violently oppressive government. I argue that the indirect nature of this kind of intervention gives rise to political complic... Read More about Assisting Rebels Abroad: The Ethics of Violence at the Limits of the Defensive Paradigm.

Justification and Legitimacy at War: on the Sources of Moral Guidance for Soldiers (2019)
Journal Article
Finlay, C. J. (2019). Justification and Legitimacy at War: on the Sources of Moral Guidance for Soldiers. Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy, 129(4), 576-602. https://doi.org/10.1086/702973

Attempts to simplify ethics in war by claiming exclusive legitimate authority for the law of armed conflict underestimate the moral complexities facing soldiers. Soldiers risk wrongdoing if they refuse moral guidance that can independently evaluate t... Read More about Justification and Legitimacy at War: on the Sources of Moral Guidance for Soldiers.

Just War, Cyber War, and the Concept of Violence (2018)
Journal Article
Finlay, C. J. (2018). Just War, Cyber War, and the Concept of Violence. Philosophy & Technology, 31(3), 357-377. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-017-0299-6

Recent debate on the relationship between cyber threats, on the one hand, and both strategy and ethics on the other focus on the extent to which ‘cyber war’ is possible, both as a conceptual question and an empirical one. Whether it can is an importa... Read More about Just War, Cyber War, and the Concept of Violence.

The Deadly Serious Causes of Legitimate Rebellion: Between the Wrongs of Terrorism and the Crimes of War (2017)
Journal Article
Finlay, C. J. (2018). The Deadly Serious Causes of Legitimate Rebellion: Between the Wrongs of Terrorism and the Crimes of War. Criminal Law and Philosophy, 12(2), 271-287. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-017-9420-2

This article challenges the tendency exhibited in arguments by Michael Ignatieff, Jeremy Waldron, and others to treat the Law of Armed Conflict (LOAC) as the only valid moral frame of reference for guiding (and judging) armed rebels with just cause.... Read More about The Deadly Serious Causes of Legitimate Rebellion: Between the Wrongs of Terrorism and the Crimes of War.

The Perspective of the Rebel: A Gap in the Global Normative Architecture (2017)
Journal Article
Finlay, C. J. (2017). The Perspective of the Rebel: A Gap in the Global Normative Architecture. Ethics & International Affairs, 31(02), 213-234. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0892679417000089

If people have a right to rebel against domestic tyranny, wrongful foreign occupation, or colonial rule, then the normative principles commonly invoked to deal with civil conflicts present a problem. While rebels in some cases might justifiably try t... Read More about The Perspective of the Rebel: A Gap in the Global Normative Architecture.