War as a Challenge to Moral Values

Round Table

Abstract

On November 29, 2024, the H. S. Skovoroda Institute of Philosophy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, in cooperation with the editorial board of the journal Filosofska Dumka (Philosophical Thought), held an online roundtable dedicated to the pressing issue of the war’s impact on the moral and ethical world of individuals and society. This scholarly event continues the tradition of philosophical reflection on war, carried out by researchers from the Institute and invited experts from other academic institutions in Ukraine. The following topics were proposed for discussion:
– the universalism of ethics and the particularity of ethoses in wartime contexts; paradigms of the ethics of war and the ethics of peace;
– the ethics of the soldier and the ethics of a citizen of a country at war;
– religious morality and war: confessional challenges and differences;
– the acceptability of negotiations and the limits of compromise during war;
– moral boundaries of resistance and pacifism in the discourse of war and peace.
The participants’ presentations and subsequent discussions may serve as valuable guidelines for developing new scholarly themes raised by Russia’s aggressive war against Ukraine.

The roundtable featured contributions from A. Yermolenko (moderator), S. Balinchenko, Ye. Bystritsky, M. Boychenko, O. Buchma, T. Hardashuk, V. Zhulai, Yu. Ishchenko, S. Yosypenko, O. Kyrychok, S. Loznytsia, Ya. Liubyvyi, Ye. Muliarchuk, V. Nechyporenko, S. Proleiev, M. Rohozha, and V. Fadieiev. Some of the presentations, with the consent of the authors, were expanded into full-length articles and included in this issue of the journal.