Abstract
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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Notes
- 1.
This is a variant of an argument presented by Robert L. Phillips. War and Justice (Norman OK: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984); quoted by Robert L. Holmes, On War and Morality (Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989), p. 202.
- 2.
Holmes, On War and Morality, p. 202.
- 3.
Holmes, On War and Morality, p. 209.
- 4.
Holmes, On War and Morality, p. 210. On this point Holmes cites Jeffrie Murphy, “The Killing of the Innocent,” The Monist, 57, no. 4 (Oct. 1973), pp. 527–51.
- 5.
Holmes, On War and Morality, p. 210 (Holmes’s emphasis).
- 6.
Holmes, On War and Morality, p. 210.
- 7.
Richard L. Purtill, “On the Just War,” reprinted in Ethics and Public Policy, ed. Tom L. Beauchamp (Englewood Cliffs NJ: Prentice Hall, 1975), p. 195.
- 8.
Thomas Nagel, “War and Massacre,” reprinted in Ethics and Public Policy, p. 222 (The first emphasis is mine; the second is Nagel’s).
- 9.
Nagel, “War and Massacre,” p. 222.
- 10.
Nagel, “War and Massacre,” p. 222.
- 11.
Nagel, “War and Massacre,” p. 226.
- 12.
Nagel, “War and Massacre,” p. 223.
- 13.
G.E.M. Anscombe, “War and Murder,” reprinted in Moral Problems, 3rd ed., ed. James Rachels (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 402.
- 14.
C. John Cadoux, The Early Christian Attitude to War (New York: Seabury Press, 1982 [1919]), p. 245.
- 15.
Anscombe, “War and Murder,” pp. 393–94.
- 16.
Jan Narveson, “Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis” reprinted in a rewritten and expanded version in Moral Problems, p. 408.
- 17.
Narveson, “Pacifism: A Philosohical Analysis,” pp. 421 and 423.
- 18.
Narveson, “Pacifism: A Philosohical Analysis,” p. 421. in the previous chapter we saw that James P. Sterba identifies three forms of pacifism. He rejects the first form, “nonviolent pacifism,” because following Narveson, he judges it to be “incoherent.” Sterba cites Narveson’s original article in Ethics (1965).
- 19.
Douglas P. Fry, “War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Challenge of Achieving Scientific Objectivity,” in War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views, ed. Douglas P. Fry (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), pp. 4–5 (Fry’s emphasis) [electronic resource].
- 20.
Fry, “War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Challenge of Achieving Scientific Objectivity,” pp. 1–2, 5, and 20.
- 21.
Fry, “War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Challenge of Achieving Scientific Objectivity,” p. 5.
- 22.
Richard J. Hughbank and Dave Grossman, “The Challenge of Getting Men to Kill: A View from Military Science,” in War, Peace, and Human Nature: The Convergence of Evolutionary and Cultural Views, ed. Douglas P. Fry (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2013) [electronic resource], pp. 486 and 496–97. Hughbank and Grossman are retired US Army officers who were involved in military training. Hughbank is currently associated with Graduade Homeland Studies, Northwestern State University of Louisiana, and Grossman is the Director of the Killology Research Group.
- 23.
Hughbank and Grossman, “The Challenge of Getting Men to Kill: A View from Military Science,” pp. 500, 505, and 507.
- 24.
Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay, trans. M. Campbell Smith (New York and London: Garland, 1972), Sec. 1, p. 112 and First Supplement, p. 151. Perpetual Peace was originally published in 1795.
- 25.
Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Essay, p. 157.
- 26.
Clyde Kluckhohn, “Ethical Relativity: Sic et Non,” reprinted in Ethical Realtivism, ed. John Ladd (Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 1973), p. 89.
- 27.
Nagel, “War and Massacre,” p. 215.
- 28.
Jeremy Bentham, “A Plan for an Universal and Perpetual Peace,” Part 4 of The Principles of Internatioanl Law. Available. 2017, via https://www.laits.utexas.edu/poltheory/bentham/pil/pil.e04.html. Benthams’s The Principles of International Law was published 1786–89, before Kant’s Perpetual Peace.
- 29.
Immanuel Kant, The Metaphysics of Morals, Part I The Metaphysical Elements of Justice, Sec, 55, in The Metaphysical Elements of Justice, Part I of The Metaphysics of Morals, trans. John Ladd (Indianapolis IN, New York, Kansas City MO: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), pp. 116–118. The Metaphysics of Morals was originally published in 1797.
- 30.
Immanuel Kant, Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, Chap. 2, in The Moral Law: Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals, trans. H. J. Paton (London: Hutchinson, 1948), p. 91. Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals was originally published in 1785.
- 31.
Holmes develops this argument at length in his Pacifism: A Philosophy of Nonviolence (London, Oxford, New York, New Delhi, Sydney: Bloomsbury, 2017).
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Kellenberger, J. (2018). Arguments Against Pacifism and Moral Support for Pacifism. In: Religion, Pacifism, and Nonviolence. Palgrave Frontiers in Philosophy of Religion. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-95010-5_8
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