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Origins of the Just War: Military Ethics and Culture in the Ancient Near East
A groundbreaking history of the ethics of war in the ancient Near East
Origins of the Just War reveals the incredible richness and complexity of ethical thought about war in the three millennia preceding the Greco-Roman period, establishing the extent to which ancient just war thought prefigured much of what we now consider to be the building blocks of the Western just war tradition.
In this incisive and elegantly written book, Rory Cox traces the earliest ideas concerning the complex relationship between war, ethics and justice. Excavating the ethical thought of three ancient Near Eastern cultures―Egyptian, Hittite and Israelite―he demonstrates that the history of the just war is considerably more ancient and geographically diffuse than previously assumed. Cox shows how the emergence of just war thought was grounded in a desire to rationalise, sacralise and ultimately to legitimise the violence of war. Rather than restraining or condemning warfare, the earliest ethical thought about war reflected an urge to justify state violence. Cox terms this presumption in favour of war ius pro bello ―the “right for war”―characterizing it as a meeting point of both abstract and pragmatic concerns.
Drawing on a diverse range of ancient sources, Origins of the Just War argues that the same imperative still underlies many of the assumptions of contemporary just war thought and highlights the risks of applying moral absolutism to the fraught ethical arena of war.
Origins of the Just War reveals the incredible richness and complexity of ethical thought about war in the three millennia preceding the Greco-Roman period, establishing the extent to which ancient just war thought prefigured much of what we now consider to be the building blocks of the Western just war tradition.
In this incisive and elegantly written book, Rory Cox traces the earliest ideas concerning the complex relationship between war, ethics and justice. Excavating the ethical thought of three ancient Near Eastern cultures―Egyptian, Hittite and Israelite―he demonstrates that the history of the just war is considerably more ancient and geographically diffuse than previously assumed. Cox shows how the emergence of just war thought was grounded in a desire to rationalise, sacralise and ultimately to legitimise the violence of war. Rather than restraining or condemning warfare, the earliest ethical thought about war reflected an urge to justify state violence. Cox terms this presumption in favour of war ius pro bello ―the “right for war”―characterizing it as a meeting point of both abstract and pragmatic concerns.
Drawing on a diverse range of ancient sources, Origins of the Just War argues that the same imperative still underlies many of the assumptions of contemporary just war thought and highlights the risks of applying moral absolutism to the fraught ethical arena of war.
- GenresHistoryAncient History
536 pages, Hardcover
Published October 31, 2023
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February 25, 2026
A masterful study of the just war traditions of the Egyptians, the Hittites and the biblical Israelites. Examining how these societies reckoned with the ethics of war, Cox concludes that just war thinking in the ancient Near East arose from a need to justify the organized killing of outsiders while still preserving an internal sense of justice and proper authority. Common to all of these traditions was a preoccupation with divine will and the moral supremacy of the king (or war-chieftain) over his opposites.
While this suggests sophisticated thinking about who has the authority to initiate a war (jus ad bellum thought), Cox finds little evidence that these societies prescribed rules and limitations on how wars ought to be fought (jus in bello thought).
On the contrary, in a cultural setting where the moral righteousness of one’s own side was absolute and the evil of one’s enemy was inherent and ever-threatening, there was no requirement to develop a tradition of martial restraint. Instead, every war was perceived as divinely ordered and oriented towards an annihilationist end.
While enemy kings and civilians might occasionally be spared execution, Cox concludes that these decisions were made for entirely pragmatic reasons, never out of humanitarian concerns.
While this suggests sophisticated thinking about who has the authority to initiate a war (jus ad bellum thought), Cox finds little evidence that these societies prescribed rules and limitations on how wars ought to be fought (jus in bello thought).
On the contrary, in a cultural setting where the moral righteousness of one’s own side was absolute and the evil of one’s enemy was inherent and ever-threatening, there was no requirement to develop a tradition of martial restraint. Instead, every war was perceived as divinely ordered and oriented towards an annihilationist end.
While enemy kings and civilians might occasionally be spared execution, Cox concludes that these decisions were made for entirely pragmatic reasons, never out of humanitarian concerns.
Displaying 1 of 1 review