People who start wars may claim that they are starting wars because of principle when they are really starting them because of expediency.
The author of the submitted blog post is an economist, and as his example points out, if people are FRANK that what they are arguing about is personal expediency, they can usually be persuaded to make reasonable trade-offs that reach a mutual, peaceful agreement. But if people think "justice" (who defines that?) must always be defended to the utmost, they are unlikely to reach agreement with other people who have different ideas of what justice is.
A readily apparent example: is there some basis in "justice" to say which national government should control the territory of east Jerusalem?
> People who start wars may claim that they are starting wars because of principle when they are really starting them because of expediency.
This makes it very hard to evaluate whether "if you want war, work for justice" is a true statement. (The counterargument runs something like "appeasement never works, etc. etc." Of course, the proponents of this position find lots of examples where appeasement fails, but that's obviously only half the story.)
The author of the submitted blog post is an economist, and as his example points out, if people are FRANK that what they are arguing about is personal expediency, they can usually be persuaded to make reasonable trade-offs that reach a mutual, peaceful agreement. But if people think "justice" (who defines that?) must always be defended to the utmost, they are unlikely to reach agreement with other people who have different ideas of what justice is.
A readily apparent example: is there some basis in "justice" to say which national government should control the territory of east Jerusalem?