Political philosopher Jean Bethke Elshtain died this week. A professor of ethics at the University of Chicago, she was a strong proponent of the just war theory and defended U.S. intervention in Iraq:

Professor Jean Bethke Elshtain: “In the classic just war teaching, it’s protecting the innocent from certain harm. The data on what was going on in Iraq was horrid and overwhelming.”

A convert to Catholicism, Elshtain was 72 and had suffered heart problems. Cardinal Francis George of Chicago called her “a woman of deeply held principles.”