Science AI Journal
Arts and Humanities · Research topic

Open research questions in War, Ethics, and Justification

270 unresolved questions extracted from the limitations and future-work sections of 3,076 War, Ethics, and Justification papers in our library. Each links back to the study that raised it.

What the literature leaves open

  • establishing regulatory systems that are both fair and effective, - developing new regulations that rely not solely on legal norms based on sociology or common sense

    Just Peace or Just War? Theological, Ethical and Technological Reflections on Armed Conflict · 2026 · DOI

  • The law cannot function effectively in isolation. The regulatory failures of recent decades have triggered two opposing trends: an increase in formalized, technical regulation, and a renewed search for more human, community-based forms of governance rooted in ethics and religion. The challenge is to develop regulatory systems that are both fair and effective, combining the strengths of each normative order.

    Just Peace or Just War? Theological, Ethical and Technological Reflections on Armed Conflict · 2026 · DOI

  • The complexity of moral injury as a multifaceted condition. The need to develop a comprehensive framework for understanding moral injury. The challenge of interrupting cycles of violence and promoting an ethic of just peace.

    A Journey of Necessity: Moral Injury in Light of the Divine Comedy · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of a comprehensive framework for understanding moral injury. The need for a more nuanced understanding of the thematic intersections between the Divine Comedy and contemporary literature on moral injury. The gap in current scholarship on the use of narrative reviews to explore developing areas of inquiry.

    A Journey of Necessity: Moral Injury in Light of the Divine Comedy · 2026 · DOI

  • The gap is the lack of inclusion of noncombatant civilian perspectives in analyses of war. The paper identifies the need to prioritize civilian protection and welfare in just war theory.

    Collateral Voices: Civilian Perspectives, Moral Injury, and the Ethics of War · 2026 · DOI

  • the coalition's counting methods are limited by their narrow understanding of what counts as civilian harm, - the coalition's counts are insufficient to recognize the harm inflicted upon civilians, - the study relies on declassified civilian harm assessments, - the study compares the coalition's count with Airwars figures, which may have different methodologies

    Enumerating Civilian Harm: Experience, Ethics, and Erasure · 2026 · DOI

  • The gap in understanding the impact of counting civilian casualties on ethical debates and accountability. The lack of consideration for indirect, cumulative, and reverberating violence in the coalition's counting methods. The difference in methodology and interpretation between the coalition and Airwars.

    Enumerating Civilian Harm: Experience, Ethics, and Erasure · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper identifies the challenge of incorporating the experience of war into just war theory. It notes the difficulty of balancing the need for critical distance with the need to engage with the lived experience of conflict. The paper also highlights the challenge of avoiding the insularity of combat Gnosticism and the esotericism of contemporary ethics of war scholarship.

    Introduction: Ethics, Experience, and War · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper identifies a gap in the discussion on the ethics of war, which often neglects the experience of war. It notes that the exposure to experience can contaminate, not benefit, our efforts to think ethically about war. The paper argues that bracketing the lived experience of combat from the task of thinking ethically about war risks losing contact with the bloody realities of violent conflict.

    Introduction: Ethics, Experience, and War · 2026 · DOI

  • The lack of an adequate account of the moral distinctiveness of terrorism. The need for a clear definition of terrorism that captures its moral significance. The requirement for a nuanced understanding of the features that make terrorism morally distinctive.

    Terrorism and Moral Distinctiveness · 2025 · DOI

  • The paper identifies a gap in the consideration of social context, relationships, and political complexity in moral philosophy. It argues that the 'Trolley Problem' tradition has neglected these factors, leading to pernicious real-world consequences. The author claims that a more nuanced approach to ethical thought is necessary.

    Trolleys, Drones and the Deadly Effects of Scientistic Ethics · 2025 · DOI

  • Weaving ribbons and yarn around military installations as an act of weaving the web of life happens almost weekly at one installation or another, although rarely reported.

    TWO CULTURES OF RELIGION AS OBSTACLES TO PEACE · 1986 · DOI

  • The paper notes that demoralizing the civilian population was seen as a legitimate objective of military strategy. The paper highlights the challenges of addressing mental health needs in conflict situations. The paper discusses the challenges of evaluating the effectiveness of MHPSS programs.

    Between the lines: Naming mental suffering in armed conflict in the ICRC Library · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research could explore the effectiveness of the ICRC's MHPSS programs. Future research could examine the impact of mental health on humanitarian workers and organizations.

    Between the lines: Naming mental suffering in armed conflict in the ICRC Library · 2026 · DOI

  • 2) Beitz, C. R. (1979). Political https://doi.org/10.1515/9780691225975 theory and international relations. Princeton University Press. 3) Caney, S. (2005). Justice beyond borders: A global political theory. Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/019829350X.001.0001 4) Clausewitz, C. von. (1984). On war (M. Howard & P. Paret, Eds. & Trans.). Princeton University Press. 5) De Coning, C. (2022). Adaptive peacebuilding and complexity in contemporary conflict environments. International Affairs, 98(3), 789–805. https://doi.org/10.1093/ia/iiac045 6) Duffield, M. (2001). Global governance and the new wars: The merging of development and security. Zed Books.

    War, Structural Injustice, and Global Political Economy: Rethinking Armed Conflict through a Social Justice Perspective · 2026 · DOI

  • The article first demonstrated that war is not simply the breakdown of political order but often one of its most organized institutional expressions. Modern warfare depends upon systems of political authority capable of mobilizing economic resources, technological infrastructures, ideological narratives, and institutional legitimacy. Contemporary armed conflict therefore reflects not only strategic competition among states but also broader struggles over geopolitical influence and institutional control within the global order. The analysis further showed that structural inequalities embedded within the global political economy significantly shape the conditions under which conflict emerges. Unequal access to resources, technological systems, financial networks, and institutional influence contributes to geopolitical asymmetries that intensify insecurity and competition among political actors. In this respect, contemporary warfare increasingly reflects tensions associated with globalization, economic dependency, strategic vulnerability, and institutional exclusion. The article also critically examined recent debates in just war theory concerning individual moral responsibility. While analytic approaches to war ethics have made important contributions by emphasizing questions of liability, proportionality, and civilian protection, the discussion argued that ethical analysis centered exclusively on individual conduct remains incomplete. Political violence emerges within institutional systems shaped by structural inequality, geopolitical pressures, and global asymmetries of power. Consequently, understanding war requires integrating moral evaluation with broader analyses of political authority and institutional organization. Building upon this argument, the article connected contemporary debates on war ethics to broader theories of global justice. International institutions do not simply regulate cooperation among sovereign states; they also shape the distribution of opportunities, vulnerabilities, and political capacities across societies. Structural inequalities embedded within systems of global governance may therefore contribute indirectly to the persistence of political instability and armed conflict. War should thus be understood not merely as an episodic military event but also as a phenomenon rooted in broader systems of institutional power and structural injustice. Importantly, the structural perspective developed throughout this article does not claim that economic inequality or institutional asymmetry mechanically causes war. Armed conflict remains a multidimensional phenomenon influenced by historical experiences, ideological tensions, political leadership, strategic calculations, cultural dynamics, and regional conditions.

    War, Structural Injustice, and Global Political Economy: Rethinking Armed Conflict through a Social Justice Perspective · 2026 · DOI

  • Future research should explore the role of language in constructing international conflict. It should challenge dominant explanations of war and examine the securitizing function of war discourse.

    Language(s) of War: A Discursive Framework for the Linguistic Construction of Interstate Conflict · 2026 · DOI

  • The paper identifies a gap in the literature on the role of language in constructing international conflict. It challenges dominant explanations of war and highlights the need to explore the role of language.

    Language(s) of War: A Discursive Framework for the Linguistic Construction of Interstate Conflict · 2026 · DOI

  • The prevailing sanguinity in sociological thinking about war has led to a lack of understanding of the social dynamics of war. The dominant perspectives on war in late modernity are limited and require critical examination. There is a need for a new understanding of the role of organised violence in social change.

    The Return of War in Europe: Contemporary Sociology and Organised Violence · 2025 · DOI

  • The paper identifies a gap in the understanding of violent resistance to sexual violence, highlighting the need for a nuanced exploration of its ethical value. The gap is characterized by a lack of consideration for the ethical implications of violent resistance, particularly in the context of sexual violence.

    Violent Resistance to Sexual Violence · 2025 · DOI

  • It draws attention to previously neglected or understudied but crucial aspects of wartime legitimacy, eminently the role of recognition by foreign powers, the rhetoric of the ‘Big Three’ Allies regarding post-war Europe, and the relevance of democratic legitimacy as a powerful antidote to civil conflict during the period of transition into peacetime.

    Antidote to Civil War? · 2018 · DOI

  • The author suggests that Agamben?s concept of ?effectivity? through ?special actions? which mark one?s belonging to a particular community or profession is a useful conceptual strategy to explore the compatibility of drone warfare with traditional military ethics; this strategy shows mixed results at best.

    The ethics of drone warfare · 2017 · DOI

  • This article explores how the United States has moved from a culture of militarism, which was limited to the military values associated with the military, to a more pervasive culture of militarization, with its belief in force and violence as a dominant mediating and structuring force for the whole of social life.

    Militarism's Killing Fields: From Gaza to Ferguson · 2014 · DOI

  • Yet I have argued in the past (initially against Judith Jarvis Thomson, but also against McMahan) that it is insufficient, and misleading, to think about warfare and its moral assessment in merely individualistic terms.

    Double Effect and Double Intention: A Collectivist Perspective · 2007 · DOI

  • In Section 3 I argue that even if considerations from Section 2 are insufficient to establish that we must dismantle our war‐machines, facts about war which conflict with MSP do establish that we must never use them.

    Making Pacifism Plausible · 2000 · DOI

Most-cited papers in War, Ethics, and Justification

Most recent work

Find a gap in your own War, Ethics, and Justification sub-topic

This page shows what the War, Ethics, and Justification literature already flags as unresolved. To narrow it to your specific question, run the guided finder — it searches the gap library on demand and checks candidates against 250M+ OpenAlex works.

Open the Research Gap Finder →

Related topics in Arts and Humanities

EFL/ESL Teaching and Learning
1,670 open questions
Second Language Learning and Teaching
1,084 open questions
Themes in Literature Analysis
874 open questions
Diverse Music Education Insights
847 open questions
Language, Discourse, Communication Strategies
786 open questions
Art Education and Development
740 open questions
Reformation and Early Modern Christianity
730 open questions
Biblical Studies and Interpretation
720 open questions
270 open questions have been extracted from the limitations and future-work passages of 3,076 War, Ethics, and Justification papers in our library. Each one below links back to the study that raised it, so you can read the original claim in context.

Tools for your next paper

Gaps & Literature SearchFind open questions in any field — 120,000+ open gaps mined from our own library.Pre-CheckIs your paper ready? A Tier 1–5 acceptance probability in seconds.Journal FinderA ranked shortlist of target journals from a 17,500-venue index.Duplicate Publication CheckerCheck prior-publication & salami-slicing risk across 8 sources.Citation GeneratorFreeA DOI or title → APA, MLA, Vancouver, Chicago, BibTeX, RIS. No signup.Graphical Abstract MakerFreeTurn your findings into a colorblind-safe graphical abstract.

Compare the category — Honest roundups of the AI research tools, ours listed alongside the alternatives.

Command palette

Jump anywhere, run any action.