Peace

Abstract

I am going to talk, in a philosophical way, about the attitudes which have to be adopted if there is to be any hope of world peace; and it is a great pleasure to be giving this talk in the Australian National University, where, perhaps, these attitudes are to be found, if not universally, at least more frequently than almost anywhere else in the world. I am not going to try to give a general answer to the question of how to preserve peace. This is a question to which experts of all kinds have devoted their attention — experts in strategy, diplomacy, political theory, even sociology, psychology, ethology and medicine. Although Kant once wrote a book on the subject, philosophers have, as such, no specialised knowledge of any of the fields which are generally thought to be relevant to the question today. If one wanted, for example, to know where the balance of military power lay, and how it would alter under certain conditions, one would be wise to ask a strategical expert and not a philosopher. It may therefore seem to you surprising that I, a philosopher, should have chosen to speak on this subject; you may wonder what I have, professionally, to contribute.