Jean Bethke Elshtain, 72, Christian ethicist
Christian ethicist Jean Bethke Elshtain, a scholar at the University of Chicago who shaped national conversations on war and peace, died August 11 at age 72.
She’d had two heart attacks in 2012 and, according to the school, she had another “cardiac incident” earlier this summer that led to her death.
The widely admired political philosopher regularly wrote and lectured on ethics, politics and religion. She defended American military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan using “just war theory,” a position that suggests there are times when it is necessary and perhaps right to go to war.
