Attorno alla dottrina della “guerra giusta” – la sua evoluzione storica dall’antichità alla prima modernità

Abstract

This article seeks to reconstruct the main historical stages that led to the development of a just war doctrine. The first elements are found in the philosophical thought of classical antiquity, in Plato and Aristotle as well as in Cicero. After the Constantinian turn, Augustine sketched a version in a theological context that would be further developed in the Middle Ages both by university theology and canon law. The beginning of the modern age led to a reworking of the doctrine first in the field of Spanish Catholic theology and then in the reflection of the Reformers and jurists also active in the theological field. From the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries onwards the doctrine of just war left the theological sphere to develop into that of the law of nations and international law. The article sketches only a few contemporary reprises of the problems raised by the just war doctrine.