The Just War Tradition and the Question of Authority

Abstract

This article asks who is an authority to comment on the just war tradition through an engagement with the work of James Turner Johnson. Primarily, it explores Johnson's critique of the American Catholic bishops on the tradition as a means to flesh out this question. This is achieved by way of a review of Johnson's ethical methodology and his writings on the just war. It concludes that Johnson's critique of the bishops is premised on a particular understanding of a tradition and the role of interpretive authority within that tradition, a perspective I seek to open up by providing alternative views of what constitutes such a tradition. © 2009 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.