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James Kellenberger - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Arguments Against Pacifism and Moral Support for Pacifism
Religion Pacifism and Nonviolence, 2018Co-Authors: James KellenbergerAbstract:In this chapter some seven arguments against Pacifism are presented and answered. These include the arguments that it is internally incoherent, and that it is counter to human nature. Also in this chapter moral support for Pacifism is presented. Pretheoretical moral intuitions are divided on Pacifism, it is conceded, but theoretical moral reflection does provide support for Pacifism. It is argued that utilitarian thinking, Kant’s deontological ethics, and virtue ethics can all be mustered in support of Pacifism and that, as well, the requirements of moral justice provide an argument for Pacifism. Pretheoretical morality is divided on the issue of Pacifism, on whether killing in war is ever proper, but this is not to say that no support for Pacifism or the repudiation of war is to be found in the received categories of pretheoretical morality. The argument for Pacifism based on moral justice that is discussed proceeds from a consideration of the pretheoretical moral concept of justice.
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The Approach of Pacifism
Religion Pacifism and Nonviolence, 2018Co-Authors: James KellenbergerAbstract:The subject of this chapter is the fourth religious approach to war: the way of Pacifism. Pacifism is a central concern of this book, and in the chapters that follow the implications of Pacifism – what it requires and what is allows – are discussed, as well as animadversions of Pacifism and its moral and religious support. In this chapter the history of Pacifism and nonviolence in early Christianity are documented, and the roots of nonviolence in both Eastern and Western religious traditions are noted. Pacifism has been given different interpretations and several of these interpretations are examined in this chapter. The most coherent form of Pacifism, this chapter’s discussion will conclude, is the moral or religious acceptance of nonviolence and the repudiation of war and violence in personal relations and in all its expressions.
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Religious Support for Pacifism
Religion Pacifism and Nonviolence, 2018Co-Authors: James KellenbergerAbstract:When Pacifism is understood as the acceptance of nonviolence and the rejection of all war and violence in personal relations and in all its expressions, religious support for Pacifism can be found in various world traditions. The subject of this chapter is the multiplicity of religious support for Pacifism. That support is presented in its breadth as found in traditions ranging from Islam and Judaism to Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. In addition, in a treatment of Christianity’s support for Pacifism, it is argued that the Christian message of love provides a deeper support for Pacifism than the moral support offered by utilitarianism and deontological ethics.
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The Status of Pacifism
Religion Pacifism and Nonviolence, 2018Co-Authors: James KellenbergerAbstract:The current status of Pacifism is considered in this chapter. After the arguments against Pacifism presented in Chap. 7 and their rejoinders have been briefly commented upon, several noteworthy twentieth-century pacifists are cited, including Mahatma Gandhi and Bertrand Russell. In the Second World War, it is observed, there were American conscientious objectors, and later many Americans protested the Vietnam War and other American war efforts. While many of these protestors objected only to specific wars, some were pacifists. The effort of one contemporary philosopher to reconcile just war theory and Pacifism is examined, and it is observed that, though just war theory and Pacifism finally are logically and morally incompatible, because no modern wars meet the just war criteria just war proponents and pacifists in recent decades have been able to protest against these war efforts together.
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The Future of Pacifism
Religion Pacifism and Nonviolence, 2018Co-Authors: James KellenbergerAbstract:In this chapter the future of Pacifism is contemplated. Five alternative futurescapes are sketched, each a possible scenario for the future. In three of them wars between belligerents continue to take place as either limited conflicts or as a new world war. In the fourth a supranational world order is adopted or imposed, which enforces peace using military might where necessary. In the fifth futurescape there emerges a sense of world family that puts violence toward other members of that family beyond the pale of consideration. Pacifism would have a role to play in the first four futurescapes. In the fifth, however, the advocacy of Pacifism as a repudiation of war would lose its point, for the renunciation of war would already be essentially universal.
Kevin J Wanner - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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in a world of super violence can Pacifism pack a punch nonviolent superheroes and their implications
IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control, 2016Co-Authors: Kevin J WannerAbstract:In From Warism to Pacifism, philosopher Duane L. Cady asserts that "[pjacifism rarely gets taken seriously in Western culture," while warism, the view that violence is in principle justifiable and often in practice the rational or even necessary course to adopt, "is so pervasive as to form an unexpressed attitude that is manifest in virtually all aspects of the culture," including informing "the fundamental attitudes of popular heroes like Rambo, Dirty Harry, GI Joe, and a wide array of superheroes" (17, 20). Cady identifies as an "obstacle to taking Pacifism seriously the widespread inclination to regard anyone sympathetic to peaceful alternatives to war to be a pacifist of the most extreme sort[, as someone who thinks] that it is wrong always, everywhere, for anyone to use force against another human being" (25). He states that Pacifism's tendency to appear in regnant discourses "in stereotyped extreme form" makes its proposals liable to be "rejected as naive and misguided" (xv). Cady also laments that "Pacifism is regularly confused with passivism," and blames this confusion for "the sometimes hysterical reactions with which pacifists are met"; he counters this perception by insisting that "[tjhere is more to Pacifism than the moral opposition to war; there is the active effort to understand and make peace" (24).This article considers whether reasons for a more optimistic appraisal than Cady gives of the cultural profile of Pacifism can be found in the perhaps unlikely place of mainstream American superhero comic books. Of the fictional icons listed by Cady as reflecting and reinforcing a warist ethos when his book's first edition appeared in 1989, superheroes have retained the most, and indeed gained greater, cultural salience, due to the growing number of megabudgeted and usually highly successful films featuring Marvel or DC Comics characters that are now released yearly. Also, what Cady said then about superheroes and violence still applies now. Superhero films are basically fantasy-tinged action movies, and so violence, if of a usually nongraphic and hyperstylized sort, is part of what they are expected to and what they reliably deliver. In this, they follow their source material. It remains rare for a superhero comic published by Marvel or DC not to feature at least one fight, or for the resolution of their stories not to involve violence. Depictions of superhuman acts of violence, their preparation, or their aftermath also remain central to comics' visuals, serving as focus of many a fullor multipage tableau. As journalist Mikal Gilmore observes, "it's almost as if the medium [of comics] had been designed to invite contemplation of brutal action and physical conflict."Yet despite American superhero comics' spotlighting and often apparent celebration of violence, they have featured some explicitly pacifist protagonists, and have done so in increasing, if still small, numbers in the last several years. Three recent depictions of nonviolent superheroes and the ways in which they and their stories may serve both as models of and potentially for "realworld" Pacifism will be considered.1 Somewhat belying Cady's complaints, each of these heroes can be placed at a different point along a continuum of types or degrees of Pacifism. Although many theorists of nonviolence, Cady included, employ more elaborate classifications, most differentiate pragmatic, or strategic, from principled, or absolute, Pacifism (see, e.g., Nojeim 2528; Jahanbegloo 4-5). The major difference between these forms is that the former employs nonviolent strategies as a means toward achieving other ends, while the latter values nonviolence as an end or good in itself.2While this distinction remains useful, a threefold typology allows for a more nuanced or precise analysis. These types are: (i) palliative or partnering Pacifism; (ii) pragmatic or preferential Pacifism; and (iii) principled, persistent, or even pigheaded (or, although none of these choices indulges the urge to alliterate, absolute, obdurate, obstinate, inflexible, intractable, unyielding, etc. …
Iain Atack - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Tolstoy’s Pacifism and the Critique of State Violence
Pacifism’s Appeal, 2019Co-Authors: Iain AtackAbstract:The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy became a prominent proponent of Pacifism during the final phase of his life, based on his highly personal interpretation of Christian doctrine. Tolstoy extended his Pacifism to include a rejection of the state as a form of institutionalized violence, expressed through war and internal repression. Tolstoy regarded normative change, or a change of values and beliefs, as the key to social and political change. Furthermore, Tolstoy views Christianity as primarily a moral doctrine, based on the ‘law of love’ and non-resistance to evil. Tolstoy’s combination of ethical commitment with his critical evaluation of contemporary political and social issues provided him with a platform to promote Pacifism as a relevant and persuasive response to war, violence and social conflict.
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tolstoy s Pacifism and the critique of state violence
2019Co-Authors: Iain AtackAbstract:The Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy became a prominent proponent of Pacifism during the final phase of his life, based on his highly personal interpretation of Christian doctrine. Tolstoy extended his Pacifism to include a rejection of the state as a form of institutionalized violence, expressed through war and internal repression. Tolstoy regarded normative change, or a change of values and beliefs, as the key to social and political change. Furthermore, Tolstoy views Christianity as primarily a moral doctrine, based on the ‘law of love’ and non-resistance to evil. Tolstoy’s combination of ethical commitment with his critical evaluation of contemporary political and social issues provided him with a platform to promote Pacifism as a relevant and persuasive response to war, violence and social conflict.
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From Pacifism to War Resistance
Peace & Change, 2001Co-Authors: Iain AtackAbstract:Pacifism is often interpreted as an absolute moral position that claims it is always wrong to go to war. As such, it is often rejected on the grounds that it excludes or overlooks other moral considerations, such as an obligation to resist aggression or defend fundamental human rights. Vocational Pacifism, restricted to those who choose nonviolence as a way of life, is one version of Pacifism that might overcome some of the objections connected to its moral absolutism. Contingent Pacifism, on the other hand, acknowledges the complexities of moral reasoning connected to decisions concerning the use of armed force while retaining pacifist objections to war and preparations for war. Even contingent Pacifism is limited by its individualism or voluntarism as a moral position, however. War resistance contributes its analysis of the political or structural factors responsible for war or preparations for war while retaining Pacifism's moral impetus for action.
Jan Narveson - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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Pacifism—Fifty Years Later
Philosophia, 2013Co-Authors: Jan NarvesonAbstract:I suppose I’m writing this because of my 1965 paper on Pacifism. In that essay I argued that Pacifism is self-contradictory. That’s a strong charge, and also not entirely clear. Let’s start by trying to clarify the charge and related ones. Pacifism has traditionally been understood as total opposition to violence, even the use of it in defense of oneself when under attack. I earlier maintained (in my well-known “Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis” (Narveson, Ethics , 75:4, 259–271, 1965 )) that this position is contradictory, if it is intended to mean that one has no right to use violence. While that is perhaps going too far, Pacifism as so characterized is surely, as I have later argued, self- defeating in an obvious sense of that expression. But in any case, contemporary theorists who describe their views as pacifist profess to hold no such doctrine—they regard that familiar characterization of Pacifism as a caricature. They do express strong opposition to war, but even that is not unlimited. If the chips are genuinely down, they will approve going to war-level self-defense—but they deny that it ever is really necessary, or at least that it is necessary nearly as often as actual war-making behavior among nations would suggest. In this it is not clear that we have a purely philosophical disagreement. How much opposition to war qualifies a view as “pacifist”? That is now very hard to say. After all, all decently liberal thinkers are against violence as a standardly available way of pursuing one’s ends. We all agree that if violence is to be justified, it takes something special. It should be a “last resort,” Just War theorists have classically said, and while ‘last’ is very difficult to pin down, at least, violence should be very far from the first thing a responsible nation thinks of. What’s more, the “something special” is not just that one’s ends are so important. It has to be that the violence would be employed in defense, of self or of other innocent parties under threat. So if there is genuine disagreement, it must be along this line: that we are morally required to make very substantial sacrifices in the pursuits of our otherwise legitimate interests, including our interests in security, in order to avoid using the violence of war. Is this reasonable? I think not. We should, of course, be reasonable, and that includes refraining from violence—except when the violence is necessary to counter the aggressive violence of others. For we reason, on practical matters, in terms of benefits and costs. Agents, especially political agents, can, alas, benefit from violence where that violence is unilateral. Thus it is rational to see to it that it won’t be unilateral. And when it is not unilateral, then the balance is in favor—strongly in favor—of peace. It remains that we must, alas, be able to make war in the possible case that we can’t have peace. When everybody shares the preference for peace, then we can scale down and hopefully even eliminate war-making capability. (Contemporary nations have already scaled down considerably—there have been few wars in the classic sense of military exchanges between states as such in recent times.) But until the scaling down is universal and includes a genuine renunciation of the use of warlike methods to achieve ends other than genuine self-defense, what most of us think of as “Pacifism” is a non-option in the near run.
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Pacifism fifty years later
Philosophia, 2013Co-Authors: Jan NarvesonAbstract:I suppose I’m writing this because of my 1965 paper on Pacifism. In that essay I argued that Pacifism is self-contradictory. That’s a strong charge, and also not entirely clear. Let’s start by trying to clarify the charge and related ones. Pacifism has traditionally been understood as total opposition to violence, even the use of it in defense of oneself when under attack. I earlier maintained (in my well-known “Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis” (Narveson, Ethics, 75:4, 259–271, 1965)) that this position is contradictory, if it is intended to mean that one has no right to use violence. While that is perhaps going too far, Pacifism as so characterized is surely, as I have later argued, self-defeating in an obvious sense of that expression. But in any case, contemporary theorists who describe their views as pacifist profess to hold no such doctrine—they regard that familiar characterization of Pacifism as a caricature. They do express strong opposition to war, but even that is not unlimited. If the chips are genuinely down, they will approve going to war-level self-defense—but they deny that it ever is really necessary, or at least that it is necessary nearly as often as actual war-making behavior among nations would suggest. In this it is not clear that we have a purely philosophical disagreement. How much opposition to war qualifies a view as “pacifist”? That is now very hard to say. After all, all decently liberal thinkers are against violence as a standardly available way of pursuing one’s ends. We all agree that if violence is to be justified, it takes something special. It should be a “last resort,” Just War theorists have classically said, and while ‘last’ is very difficult to pin down, at least, violence should be very far from the first thing a responsible nation thinks of. What’s more, the “something special” is not just that one’s ends are so important. It has to be that the violence would be employed in defense, of self or of other innocent parties under threat. So if there is genuine disagreement, it must be along this line: that we are morally required to make very substantial sacrifices in the pursuits of our otherwise legitimate interests, including our interests in security, in order to avoid using the violence of war. Is this reasonable? I think not. We should, of course, be reasonable, and that includes refraining from violence—except when the violence is necessary to counter the aggressive violence of others. For we reason, on practical matters, in terms of benefits and costs. Agents, especially political agents, can, alas, benefit from violence where that violence is unilateral. Thus it is rational to see to it that it won’t be unilateral. And when it is not unilateral, then the balance is in favor—strongly in favor—of peace. It remains that we must, alas, be able to make war in the possible case that we can’t have peace. When everybody shares the preference for peace, then we can scale down and hopefully even eliminate war-making capability. (Contemporary nations have already scaled down considerably—there have been few wars in the classic sense of military exchanges between states as such in recent times.) But until the scaling down is universal and includes a genuine renunciation of the use of warlike methods to achieve ends other than genuine self-defense, what most of us think of as “Pacifism” is a non-option in the near run.
Frances H Early - One of the best experts on this subject based on the ideXlab platform.
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revolutionary Pacifism and war resistance jessie wallace hughan s war against war
Peace & Change, 1995Co-Authors: Frances H EarlyAbstract:This article discusses the antiwar work and pacifist writings of the founder of the War Resisters League. Jessie Wallace Hugh. The intertwining of the biographical and organizational narrative approach to writing history permits the author to explore the interplay of the personal and political in the life of Jessie Hughan. The author argues that Hughan played a central role in the new pacifist movement of the post-World War I era. This view of Hughan is contextualized in terms of what scholars are now discovering about the interconnections among progressive and left-wing politics, feminism, and Pacifism in the era that spans World War I and World War II.
