Tony Coady
Tony Coady is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Melbourne and Honorary Professor at the Australian Catholic University. His latest book, The Meaning of Terrorism was published by Oxford University Press in 2021. His article “The Significance and Complexity of Conscience” has recently been published in the journal Philosophia.
Tony's recent articles
8 July 2024
Nine months of slaughter: my analysis of Gaza and just war principles
Reflecting on some relevant aspects of just war thinking that I mentioned in my recent contribution to Pearls and Irritations on “Why Israel’s war violates just war principles” I decided it would be worth addressing some of those issues further and also broaching some important ones that I then did not discuss. I do so partly in response to comments I’ve since received from a number of people about my earlier presentation.
6 June 2024
Why Israel’s Gaza war violates Just War principles
Israeli defences of their current military assault on Gaza invoke various defences of it couched in moral terms that evoke the concept of a just war. What follows discusses the war and its defences from the perspective of the widely acknowledged (though often misused) theory of the just war and find that the defences offered by Israeli leaders and spokespeople fail badly.
22 December 2023
The Khawaja Debacle: Freedom of expression for the Boxing Day test?
Usman Khawaja played an important batting role in Australias recently finished demolition of Pakistan in the first Test in Perth. The ongoing controversy, however, around his writings on his cricket boots and black armband as a protest display have raised questions about the relations of sport and politics and the role of sporting and other institutions in policing what their players can or cannot do by way of using their vocational positions to promote what they believe to be pressing socio-political issues. Below I explore some of the roots of this significant dispute.
19 January 2023
Extremism and the sensible centre
The labelling of people as extremists or radicals as abolitionists and women's suffrage advocates were once called - is determined not by the soundness of the views expressed, but by the relative scarcity of the people expressing them in proportion to the amount of people holding different views in the sensible centre. Given the various noxious myths that have pervaded Australian politics for so many years, it is surely time for a dose of good new political radicalism.
17 November 2020
Australian War Crimes and the Asymmetry Myth
There is a widespread asymmetry myth about the perpetration war crimes that will affect the reception of the forthcoming Brereton report on alleged Australian military war crimes and what Scott Morrison predicts will be the difficulties it creates.