40. Samuel Moyn - On ‘Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War‘

Today, I spoke with Samuel Moyn, who is the Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and a Professor of History at Yale University. We discussed his latest book, Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, published in September this year. As you will hear, I found this book to be of immense importance and hope that its contents get attention far and wide, most notably amongst those who send us to war.

Some of the topics Sam and I covered are how the idea of humane war entered our collective conscience; the role the war in Vietnam had in a pivot towards humane war; abdication of diplomacy for the ‘cleanliness’ of war; the traps of the Just War doctrine and its selective interpretations; the role of lawyers in making war ‘just’; impact of 9/11 on making war more ‘humane’; future dangers and much more.  

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Full show notes:

My guest today is Samuel Moyn, who is the Henry R. Luce Professor of Jurisprudence at Yale Law School and a Professor of History at Yale University. He has written several books in his fields of European intellectual history and human rights history, including The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History (2010), and edited or coedited a number of others.

His most recent books are Christian Human Rights (2015), based on Mellon Distinguished Lectures at the University of Pennsylvania in fall 2014, and Not Enough: Human Rights in an Unequal World (2018). His newest book, published in September this year, is titled Humane: How the United States Abandoned Peace and Reinvented War, and will be the focus of our conversation today.

Over the years, Samuel has written in venues such as the Boston Review, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Dissent, The Nation, The New Republic, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

I recently finished his latest book, Humane, and to say that it was a perspective-altering read would be a huge understatement. It is a deeply insightful and undoubtedly controversial book, and I hope it gets the global attention it deserves. For that very reason, I am truly humbled to have hosted Sam on the show. Some of the topics we covered include:

• Sam’s introduction into the field of human rights
• The genesis of humane war thinking
• Outlawing war vs. humane war
• Distinction between pacifism and being anti-war
• Vietnam and the focus on the conduct of war
• How ending conscription helped perpetuate humane war
• Trade of diplomacy for humane war
• Importance of 9/11 in evolution of humane war
• The issue of terrorists and ‘associated forces’
• The role of lawyers in making wars ‘just’
• Jus in bello and it’s illusions
• Ongoing trajectory of ‘safe’ and ‘clean’ war
• Potential dangers of ongoing humane war