Conclusion

Ideas play a larger role in conflicts than many theorists, with their roots in the social sciences and its behavioral analysis, tend to acknowledge. Christians and Muslims have fought for their faith. Manifest destiny provided justification of a sort for the US expansion westward from its initial base on the eastern sea-board of North America. Hitler spoke of liebensraum. Some are resolved through increased knowledge. Events resolve others, sometimes by war (which as the bumper sticker has it, may not decide who is right, only who is left—but does resolve the conflict). Some conflicts produce only temporary accommodation or are simply set aside (“lets not talk about politics”). Still others prove particularly intractable when they also involve moral conflicts, to which we now turn.