The Philosophy of War and Exile

The Philosophy of War and Exile argues that our current paradigms for thinking about the ethics of war - just war theory - and the suffering of war - PTSD theory - judge war without a proper understanding of war. By continuing the investigations of J. Glenn Gray into the meaning of how war is experienced by combatants we can find an alternative understanding of not only war, but of peace, culminating in a new theory of responsibility centered around embodiment and mortality rather than praise and blame. This conception of responsibility will in turn allow us to not only ask new questions about torture, unmanned warfare, and the treatment of veterans, but also to ask new questions about what it means for noncombatants to experience as home what combatants experience as exile.

Nolen Gertz is an Instructor in Philosophy at Delta College, USA. He specializes in applied ethics, political philosophy, and existential phenomenology. He edited War Fronts: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on War, Virtual War, and Human Security (2009), and has numerous publications on the experience of war.

Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART I: BECOMING RESPONSIBLE
1. The Lust for War vs. The Lust for Judgment
2. A World Without Responsibility
PART II: BEING IN EXILE, BEING AS EXILE
3. What's Wrong with (How We Think About) Torture?
4. Drone Operators, Cyber Warriors, and Prosthetic Gods
5. Of the Many Who Returned and Yet Were Dead
Conclusion: Our Veterans, Ourselves
Notes
Bibliography
Index