Are “just wars” possible? This class examines reflections on just war thinking at the core of the political, military, religious and philosophic traditions within Western civilization, and how they apply to contemporary reflections on human rights and international law. It begins with military justifications from classical antiquity, moving to the origins of just war theorizing in the early Church, Judaism and Islam. It then weighs the most serious criticisms of the moral and political teachings of the classical and Christian world posed by the “Catholic New Left,” feminist political theory, Islamist terrorism, and the allure of a world without borders.