Collateral Voices: Civilian Perspectives and the Ethics of War - Professor Jessica Wolfendale

War Studies Seminar Series From its origins, just war theory has been driven by the interests of belligerents, and combatants' moral and emotional wellbeing. But foregrounding and prioritizing combatants’ experiences—important though these are to the ethical understanding of war— excludes the experiences of the most vulnerable—civilians. And the failure to consider civilian perspectives is not only a theoretical problem; it has devastating consequences for thousands of civilians. Using the case studies of US drone warfare, Israel’s war crimes in Gaza, and attitudes towards the victims of the alleged war crimes committed by Australian Special Forces in Afghanistan, this seminar explores the real-life consequences of this moral imbalance. The failure to consider civilian experiences has sustained an unjustifiably narrow conception of collateral harm, in the case of drone warfare; and contributed to the spread of excusing narratives for war crimes, in the case of Israel’s defence of its actions in Gaza and Australia’s response to the conduct of some of its personnel in Afghanistan. These cases show that addressing this moral imbalance requires a radical revisioning of the moral framework of armed conflict. Speaker Jessica Wolfendale is Professor of Philosophy at Case Western Reserve University. She is the author of Torture and the Military Profession (Palgrave-Macmillan 2007), and co-author of War Crimes: Causes, Excuses, and Blame (Oxford University Press 2018), and has written over forty articles and book chapters on topics including torture, military ethics, war crimes, terrorism, and security. Her forthcoming book, American Torture and American Terrorism: The Myth of American Decency, will be published in early 2026 with OUP.