The concept of the just war poses one of the most important ethical questions to date. Can war
ever be justified and if so how? When is a cause of war proportional to its costs and who
must be held responsible? The monograph Just and Unjust Wars in Shakespeare demonstrates that
the necessary moral evaluation of these questions is not restricted to the philosophical moral
and political discourse. This analysis of Shakespeare's plays which focuses on the histories
tragedies and Roman plays in chronological order brings to light that the drama includes an
elaborate and complex debate of the ethical issues of warfare. The plays that feature in this
analysis range from Henry VI to Coriolanus and they are analysed according to the three
Aquinian principles of legitimate authority just cause and right intention. Also extending the
principles of analysis to more modern notions of responsibility proportionality and the jus in
bello-presupposition this monograph shows that justwar theory constitutes a dominant
theoretical approach to war in the Shakespearean canon.
