Seeing the devout passion of sports fans I've often wondered if sports today are a substitute for war. People root for their hometown team and despise people from other towns because of their sport teams. This also isn't just an American thing and it seems as if this is the case all around the world. Since most people in non-third world countries at least are not constantly at war and fighting traditional country against country wars I've wondered this. My question is this: do we use sports as a substitute for war?

Is it possible for a war to be fought in which both sides are justified? Or is every war necessarily problematic in the sense that at least one party must be wrong?

In one answer to a question posted on your forum on 30 July 2009 on the issue of human collaterals of wars (http://www.askphilosophers.org/question/2794), one 'philosopher' panelist remarked that it's not always practical to take the moral grounds when faced with a war situation like in Palestine, Afghanistan or Iraq and that in reality a choice has to be made of the better of unpleasant alternatives. In my opinion, it is precisely this kind of rhetoric that gives license to killing innocent people and waging indiscriminate wars. How would the author react if one of his fellow mates or beloved ones was caught as an innocent hostage and had to be killed as collateral? The UN role in establishing peace is important, difficult and at times hypocritical but the role of civil society and agents such as 'philosophers' to continue to teach freedom and critical reasoning based on experienced truth, one that is lived by the agents themselves, cannot be overshadowed by notions of skepticism. Wars are...

Why is the use of police force justifiable to stop the attempted murder of a neighbor, but military force unjustifiable when used to stop the attempted murders of civilians in other countries who peacefully advocate for human rights (speech, assembly, voting, etc.)?

The recent conflict in Gaza resulted in what has been described as a high civilian casualty number. (Although, considering that in the Gulf War coalition forces killed over 3000 civilians and 3000 people die ever week in the Iraq War, I’m not sure several hundred constitutes as a high casualty rate.) But, I do think that there was an issue. Human Rights Watch claims to have investigated and discovered that most of the civilian deaths resulted from misuse of unmanned aircrafts, white phosphorus, and cluster missiles. The more I think about it the more I feel that weapons like these should be banned. Their lack of precision seems to be the main cause of civilian deaths in all three of the mentioned wars. For example, a bunker with 400 civilians (many children) was hit by a US stealth bomber during an air raid in the Gulf War. What is the UN’s stance on such methods of war and how would one go about influencing these in such a way that puts strict regulations on the usage of weapons that are so...

I hear this argument a lot: If you're old enough to fight for your country, then you're old enough to do X. X might be "drink," or "gamble," or "do crack cocaine," or "rent a car"; basically anything. Whenever people say this, it strikes me as kind of silly. But at the same time it kind of makes sense, because fighting and dying seems more serious than almost anything else you could possibly do. So I wanted to ask: What do the panelists think?

If Hitler in 1941 had the right to send vast numbers of German men to their deaths in Russia and to cause there the deaths of vast numbers of Russians, did he not also have the right to send to their deaths vast numbers of German Jews, whom he viewed as Germany's enemies?

Is it ethical for the civilized nations of the world to research weapons of mass destruction [chemical and biological] for the purposes of warfare? Both Russia and America have stockpiles of small pox a deadly virus that could do considerable damage to humanity. Is it ethical to keep said stockpiles as a precaution, as a counter measure to terrorists and warlike nations? Is it ethical to keep up a chemical and biological arms race through research and weapons development? I find myself wondering how we can fight a war with weapons like Ebola and smallpox. Do you have to become your enemy to defeat them? How far should we go to preserve the West? Are some things not worth the loss of moral standing? Do those that serve and protect our nation states really have to go that far and is it worth it? My concern likely echoes the dilemmas faced by many during World War Two and the question as to whether using nuclear weapons was worth the loss of humanity; either the lives lost or the abstract ideal of...

How can politicians across the globe get away with saying that they support a 'War on Terror'? How can terrorism possibly be something that can be defeated? We don't try to preemptively stop violent offenders in the developed nations, so why are 'terrorists' people that can be so easily branded and fought against?

Are military drafts unethical or immoral?