July 2023 – Justice Everywhere

While Justice Everywhere takes a short break over the summer, we recall some of the highlights from our 2022-23 season.

Here are some highlights from this year’s writing on issues relating to nature, climate, and animals:

A two-part series by Angie Pepper on the ethics of keeping pets: Why love isn’t enough and Why love is still not enough. And see also The four-legged therapist, in which Zsuzsanna Chappell examines why getting a pet to improve one’s mental health may be unethical.
Can a ‘war on poaching’ be just? by Sara Van Goozen.
Why we should ‘environmentalise’ the curriculum, written by Talia Shoval, Grace Garland and Joseph Conrad, of the Environmental Working Group at the University of Edinburgh. This is part of our Teaching Philosophy series.
Should you be grateful to nature?, in which Max Lewis discusses the kinds of gratitude appropriate to our relationship with nature. This is part of our longstanding collaboration with The Journal of Applied Philosophy, sharing blog posts about recent justice-related articles.
Fiduciary duties of pension fund managers in the anthropocene, by Peter Dietsch.

Stay tuned for even more on this topic in our 2023-24 season!

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Justice Everywhere will return in full swing on 4th September with fresh weekly posts by our cooperative of regular authors (published on Mondays), in addition to our Journal of Applied Philosophy series and other special series (published on Thursdays). If you would like to contribute a guest post on a topical justice-based issue (broadly construed), please feel free to get in touch with us at justice.everywhere.blog@gmail.com.

A photograph showing group of young people standing in front of a tank being transported through the Russian city Rostov-on-Don by Wagner Group mercenaries. — People standing in front of a Wagner Group tank in Rostov-on-Don, 24 June 2023. Fargoh, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons.

They have been active in Ukraine since the 2014 annexation of Crimea, and in Syria as early as 2013 (in the form of predecessor, the Slavonic Corps). They have significant presence in countries including the Central African Republic, Libya and Mali. But it is their involvement in the invasion of Ukraine since early 2022 that has pushed the Wagner Group into headlines across the globe. Now, especially after the abortive mutiny in late June, everyone knows who they are.

However, Wagner Group, though perhaps especially brutal, and especially shadowy, is far from unique. From Aegis to G4S to Blackwater (now Academi), recent conflicts have seen an increasing number private contractors take on logistics, training and even security and combat roles. (Though in the case of Wagner, it’s somewhat questionable how “private” they really were). It’s the latter, often called mercenaries, which are particularly controversial. But what are mercenaries, and how worried should we be about their proliferation?

a blog about philosophy in public affairs

Month: July 2023

From the Vault: Justice and Nature

Is there a place for mercenaries in the future of war?