The School of Sciences and Humanities at Nazarbayev University, in collaboration with the NU Library, invites you to the presentation of the book A History of Military Morals: Killing the Innocent, published on April 21, 2022.

About this book

The history of noncombatant immunity is well established. What is less understood is how militaries have rationalized violating this immunity. This book traces the development of how militaries have rationalized the killing of the innocent from the thirteenth century onward. In the process, this historiography shows how we have arrived at the ascendant convention that assumes militaries should not intentionally kill the innocent. Furthermore, it shows how moral arguments about the permissibility of killing the innocent are largely adaptations to material changes in how wars are fought, whether through technological innovations or changes in institutional structures (source).

The presentation will take place with the participation of the author, Dr. Brian Smith.

Dr. Brian Smith is an Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science and International Relations at NU. He received his PhD in Political Science from Boston University. He also earned an MS in Ethics and Public Policy from Suffolk University. Prior to working at NU, Dr. Smith taught at the  School of Advanced Studies, University of Tyumen (Tyumen, Russia), and before that, he was a full-time lecturer at Suffolk University’s (Boston, USA) Politics, Philosophy, and Economics program.

Dr. Smith broadly works in political theory/philosophy, though he also has an interest in military ethics and International Relations theory. He is broadly interested in alternative models of citizenship found within anarchist communities, New Social Movements (NSMs), and the new left. Many of these groups privilege the concept of active or deliberative citizenship over rights-based, ascriptive, or state-centered notions of citizenship. He also has an interest in pre- and early-liberal approaches to transmigration and the movement of people. His published work can be found in Citizenship Studies, History of Political Thought, Polity, Science and Society, Locke Studies, Philosophy and Literature, and elsewhere (source).

Join us for an engaging discussion on military ethics, historical perspectives, and the moral dilemmas of warfare. As a special gesture, a copy of this edition will be donated to the NU Library.  

Venue: Nazarbayev University Library, 5e.228 (Conference Hall)