McDonald Distinguished Scholar of Ethics, War, & Public Life @ProvMagazine, adjunct professor US Naval Academy, author: The Good Kill: Just War & Moral Injury
Joined April 2015
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Marc LiVecche retweeted
D-Day commemoration, Omaha Beach, June 6 2024
Zelensky arrived, the crowd applauded. And then this happened:
🇺🇸 veteran: You’re a saviour of the people
Zelensky: No, no, you saved Europe
🇺🇸 veteran: My hero
Zelensky: No, you are our hero
🇺🇸🇫🇷🇺🇦
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Marc LiVecche retweeted
May 22
First Annual Maymester on Christian Realism @ProvMagazine was four-day intensive seminar on Christian Realism taught by @PaulDMiller2 @mlivecche.
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May 15
Plenty wrong here, but @myleswerntz's assertion tht the language of virtue is too often replaced by the language of law isn't one of them. Happily, our service academies ground just war study firmly in moral character. Lethality & virtue go well together.
christianitytoday.com/2026/0…
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Marc LiVecche retweeted
Apr 27
Providence is now accepting applicantions for the Jean Bethke Elshtain Fellowship in Christian Realism, a nine-month educational program on the Jewish and Christian roots of realist ethics in foreign policy and public life, led by @mlivecche
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Apr 21
Whatever this might be in keeping w/, it's not in keeping w/ classical JWT; which posits both required criteria (right authority, just cause, proper intent) & prudential ones: proportionality of ends, reasonable chance of success, last resort. The latter are, literally, judgments
Apr 21
At @firstthingsmag I show that the standard view in the Catholic just war tradition is that for a war to be just, it's not enough that it be merely arguable or even probable that it meets all just war criteria. We must be morally certain that it meets them firstthings.com/does-just-wa…
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Apr 21
It's also an odd move to say that fellow eggheads, wonks, pundits, and anyone else not read into the classified briefings have to have moral certainly or oppose the war. They're allowed tentative judgements based on available evidence.
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Marc LiVecche retweeted
Apr 17
Catholics completely remade the Just War tradition in the 80’s and are doing it again. This is not “Just War Doctrine”.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church on Just War Doctrine.
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Apr 15
Grotious didn't live w/ nukes. Let's ignore the debate over the "jus ad bellum" justification for @RealIRAN in order to agree on a premise that all serious moral thinkers should agree on: modern allowances for what makes for premptive war need to be expanded.
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Apr 15
is "nuclear panic" & tht we shld trust Mullahs would never risk destruction of their entire nation w/ a nuclear first strike (b/c, you know, they think just like us!). Crazy, I say! But, wld they also insist tht even this hypothetical doesn't warrant premptive attack? I think so.
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Marc LiVecche retweeted
Apr 15
Just war tradition starts from the assumption that war is ***tragic.***
There’s a big difference. And not just in terms of the way we think about war but in the way we care and support the warfighter.
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Marc LiVecche retweeted
Apr 15
I know it's a partisan debate and all nuance is therefore lost, but the just-war condition of "last resort" is not at all the same as a "war of necessity" by contrast to a "war of choice."
If Germany hadn't declared war on the US after Pearl Harbor, the US could have still chosen to go to war with Germany and it would've still been as a "last resort" for facilitating a just peace in Europe. (Meaning, there were no viable alternatives for achieving that legitimate objective. They could've still opted not to enter the war, though).
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Apr 15
To be sure, it would be a terrible theme for an "eve of battle" speech. Also: the moral/non-moral evil distinction takes getting used to. But, left of boom, it's proved helpful in the classroom & over pints. It helps clarify a warfighter's experiences...
I think it’s impossible to properly motivate soldiers by telling them their actions are inherently evil. “A necessary evil.”
They are good when in a just war.
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Apr 15
Partly by clarifying tht while they are causally responsible for killing, they are not morally to blame. "Lesser evil" language tries to account for doing hard things (war, surgery) when absent perfect options. Better phrasing: Xians ought to aim at "greatest possible good." *
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Apr 15
*Apologies for the long-wind. I'm always trying to find betters ways to express this. Refining out loud here...
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