Professor Kimberly Hutchings: Times of War/Times of Peace | Public Lecture

The last twenty years have seen a large increase in the amount of academic work dealing with the ethics of war and peace, as well as the amount of direct engagement of academics with states and militaries in trying to bring moral considerations into the conduct of war. This lecture explored different ethical traditions of thinking about war and peace and their implications for understanding and judging the present in world politics. It argued that, too often, ethical theorists neglect the messy and complex interrelation of war and peace. Because of this, their arguments either lack purchase on the world or are too easily subsumed into the legitimation narratives of powerful state actors. This suggests that ethical theorists not only need to think differently about war and peace, but also to think differently about the nature of ethical judgment.

About Kimberly Hutchings

Professor Kimberly Hutchings started her academic career teaching philosophy at Wolverhampton University then moved to the Department of Politics at Edinburgh University, where she taught political and international theory and was also Head of Department (1999-2002). She spent the years 2003-2014 in the International Relations Department at the London School of Economics, where she was Professor of International Relations (from 2007), and also Head of Department (2010-2013).

Kimberly came to QMUL in 2014 and was Head of School 2019-20. Her main publications include Kant, Critique and Politics (1996), International Political Theory (1998), Hegel and Feminist Philosophy (2003); Time and World Politics (2008); Global Ethics: an introduction (2nd edition, 2018); Violence and Political Theory (with Elizabeth Frazer) (2020); Women’s International Thought: towards a new canon (Co-Editor with Patricia Owens, Katharina Rietzler and Sarah Dunstan) (2022). She was a founder Editor of the journal Contemporary Political Theory (2000-2004) and Lead Editor of the Review of International Studies, the journal of the British International Studies Association (BISA) (2011-2015). Kimberly was awarded the inaugural British International Studies prize for Distinguished Contribution to the Profession in 2015, and a Distinguished Scholar Award from the Theory Section of the International Studies Association in 2016, and from the Ethics Section of the International Studies Association in 2020.