The Idea of Just War in French Thought of the Eighteenth Century and of the Early Nineteenth Century

This research paper is dedicated to the investigation of the phenomenon of just war in political philosophy and ethical thought from the eighteenth to the early nineteenth centuries; it considers some studies of such philosophers as Voltaire (war as an act of dishonest attitude and a violation of justice), Montesquieu (the idea of just war), Rousseau (the impossibility of warfare's justification), Holbach (international right and right of war) and Diderot (the impossibility of moral justification of war). Furthermore, the research focuses on the problem of cultural roots of the French revolution (the Enlightenment did not give rise to future revolutionary wars) and the "philosophy of war" of G. de Chambray. This study employs different methodological approaches, such as the method of comparative analysis, the historical framework, the method of synthesis and the scrutiny of primary and secondary sources.