Weapons of mass destruction—most of us try not to think about them, such is the enormity of our fear. Just hearing the phrase conjures up images of mushroom-shaped clouds, nuclear winter, and plagues born of biological warfare. To prevent the catastrophes technology has given us the tools to create, leading international scholars are thinking about these weapons, and some of the best in the field will gather at MHC April 27–29 for Weapons of Mass Destruction: Diverse Ethical Perspectives, a conference focusing on the ethics of developing and disseminating nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.

The conference is open to invited participants only. However, a public symposium, titled "Ethics and Weapons of Mass Destruction: The Continuing Debate," will be held Thursday, April 26, in Gamble Auditorium at 7:30 pm. The panelists will be Kanti Bajpai (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Steven Lee (Hobart and William Smith Colleges), Lucinda Peach (American University), and Michael Walzer (Institute for Advanced Study). Other conference participants will also attend. The event is designed to support and stimulate discussion in related courses in the Five Colleges.

Each symposium panelist will address the same set of questions for approximately fifteen minutes. After his or her comments, there will be discussion among the panelists as well as with the audience. Panelist Steven Lee specializes in the ethics of weapons of mass destruction. His best-known work is Morality, Prudence, and Nuclear Weapons, which surveys ethical debates on nuclear deterrence and develops Lee's own views. Kanti Bajpai is a political scientist whose work focuses on Indian politics and foreign policy. He has written extensively on the Indian nuclear program and is one of India's most prominent antinuke activists as well as scholars. Lucinda Peach's work focuses on feminist theories and military issues. She recently published articles that offer feminist critiques on the proliferation of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Michael Walzer is one of America's best-known and most prolific public intellectuals. His book Just and Unjust Wars has been a standard text over the past twenty years for all who engage in moral evaluation of war.

The conference has been organized by the Ethikon Institute, a nonprofit organization that prepares conferences on moral issues of international concern and publishes the proceedings. Sohail Hashmi, newly named Associate Professor of International Relations on the Alumnae Foundation and a leading scholar in the field of Islamic politics and ethics, was instrumental in bringing the conference to MHC. The papers presented at the conference will be published as a volume in the Ethikon Series on Comparative Ethics published by Princeton University Press.

The conference has three goals: to update the debate on the morality of nuclear weapons development and deterrence in light of changes in the international system brought about by the end of the Cold War and the proliferation of nuclear weapons in South Asia; to broaden the Cold War debate by including other voices, most notably of those with non-Western ethical perspectives; and to incorporate into the moral discussion the proliferation of chemical and biological weapons, a topic that has been neglected because of the emphasis on nuclear weapons.

The Ethikon approach is to bring together scholars who act as analytical reporters on ethical perspectives and have them discuss a set of questions. Each ethical tradition is represented by a presenter whose task is to provide a survey of how his or her tradition has addressed the moral concerns of the conference, to indicate where lacunae exist in the moral discussions within that tradition, and to suggest the direction in which the tradition is heading in its moral considerations. The presenter highlights whatever moral controversies are present within the tradition he or she is analyzing. In order to ensure full coverage of the disagreements within the broadly defined ethical traditions, a respondent is asked to provide a critique of the presenter's paper, to develop points neglected in that paper, and to explore alternative moral positions.

Ethikon conferences, including the one hosted by MHC, are structured as a dialogue, rather than as a sequential presentation of papers. Each session focuses on a set of questions that participants have been asked to consider. Each ethical tradition is discussed in each session, with the presenter and respondent alternating as spokespersons. A discussion follows the presentation of each tradition, and the conference concludes with an overview of how the traditions deal with the themes of the conference.

At the MHC conference participants, who will approach the dialogue from perspectives that include international law, feminism, Hinduism, pacifism, Confucianism, Judaism, and liberalism, will focus on such questions as: Are there any general norms that govern the use of weapons in the conduct of war? If so, what are the sources from which the tradition derives these norms? Is there any circumstance under which it is morally permissible for any agent to use weapons of mass destruction? Is development or deployment of weapons of mass destruction for the sake of deterrence a licit moral option? If some nations possess weapons of mass destruction (either licitly or illicitly) for defensive and deterrent purposes, is it proper to deny such possession to others for the same purposes?

Says Hashmi, "I am thrilled that this conference is being held at Mount Holyoke. The question of what role ethical debate plays in the proliferation or nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction is an old one, with roots in nineteenth-century efforts to control the use of chemical weapons. Moral issues were central to the public debate on American nuclear strategy during the Cold War. But since the demise of the Cold War, we see much less of such ethical debate or discussion, in spite of the fact that control of weapons of mass destruction remains a vital international concern. We are very fortunate to have some of the most renowned scholars in the field of ethics and weapons of mass destruction attending this conference. They are women and men who significantly influenced the Cold War debate as well as those who are shaping the post– Cold War discussion. The conference is being held at MHC because of the generous financial support of the Weissman Center for Leadership and the dean of the faculty's office."

The proceedings of Ethikon conferences have resulted in the preparation of more than ten books. In 1996, Princeton University Press agreed to publish the Ethikon Series on Comparative Ethics. To date, two books have been released in this series, two others will be published in 2001, and three more are being prepared for outside review. This volume on the ethics of weapons of mass destruction will be the eighth in the series and serve as a companion to The Ethics of War and Peace, edited by Terry Nardin.

About the Ethikon Institute

The Ethikon Institute is concerned with the social implications of ethical pluralism. It has no endowment and relies entirely upon financial support from foundations and educational institutions for its activities. Its dialogue-publication programs in intersocietal relations, civil society, family life, and bioenvironmental ethics are designed to explore a diversity of moral outlooks, secular and religious, and to clarify areas of consensus and divergence between them. By encouraging a systematic exchange of ideas, the institute aims to advance the prospects for agreement and to facilitate the accommodation of irreducible differences. The Ethikon Institute takes no position on issues that divide its participants, serving not as an arbiter but as a neutral forum for the cooperative exploration of diverse and sometimes opposing views.