ABSTRACT
Security has been defined as an 'essentially contested concept'. To the degree that security studies has historically been associated with strategic studies and the study of the hard edge of international politics, there has been some reluctance to acknowledge its ethical dimensions. The chapter examines the scope of ethical reasoning in respect of what we might term 'power politics'. This involves two principal areas of focus. The first speaks to what Matt McDonald calls a 'master concept' of international relations, security. The second specifically addresses warfare and armed conflict. The literature on the ethics of war is rich and diverse. Interdisciplinary in nature, it is the preserve of religious ethicists, theologians, political theorists, philosophers, lawyers, and military ethics educators, as well as international relations scholars. War is ostensibly a hard case for ethicists. It is a realm of extreme violence where mass killing approximates a form of business-as-usual.
