The Law of Peoples

When it comes to the moral justification of war, there is a remarkable overlapping consensus: a common justification of war that is shared by contemporary secular liberalism, Islamic Sharia, and Buddhist traditions. In this age of misunderstanding, it is important to appreciate the Islamic commitment to just war theory. It is equally important to appreciate the surprising realism and pragmatism of Buddhist just war theory, which is actually much closer to Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize address than it is to the idealized Gandhian pacifism attributed to the Dalai Lama. For both Muslims and Buddhists, aggressive war is always wrong, but defensive war is a necessary evil in a world of violent aggressors. This shared moral response to the inevitability of human conflict reveals the deeper commonality of our humanity.