Can War Be Just? Religious and Ethical Responses to the Wars in Gaza and Ukraine

Over the last two years, much of the world has witnessed—often taking sides on—major wars in Ukraine and Gaza. But how can we know on which side, if any, justice resides?

Religious traditions provide a rich repository of ethical resources for understanding and evaluating the morality of war and its conduct. This panel will explore how several traditions address these concerns, particularly regarding the implications of the wars in Ukraine and Gaza. Some guiding questions include:

• What does a specific religious or ethical tradition say about the morality of war and the limits of force? How are the precepts it teaches being implemented or violated in today’s wars?

• How do centuries-old traditions hold up in an age of modern war and technological advancements? What can these traditions still teach us about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine? How might they apply to future wars?

• Citizens depend upon information to form moral and political judgments. How does the current media environment—global news sources, information saturation, media bias, faux journalism, digital manipulation and artificial intelligence—facilitate or hinder the insights that traditions of ethical and religious reflection can provide? How does this environment influence or erode public perceptions of the justice or injustice of war?

The Recovering Truth: Religion, Journalism and Democracy in a Post-Truth Era project is supported by a generous grant from the Henry Luce Foundation’s Program in Theology.

Panelists

The Center for the Study of Religion and Conflict at Arizona State University is pleased to play host to this special panel on justice and war. We welcome four experts representing different traditions of moral reflection: