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155,https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/show/155,"Box 149, Item 1: War and peace I - On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear deterrence and the political fallout","Series: Discussion papers in environmental philosophy ; no. 5. Published by Australian National University. Department of Philosophy.",,"Richard Routley","The University of Queensland's Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291, Box 149, Item 1","Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy",,"This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, Dr. N.A.J. Taylor.","For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.",,"iii, [80] leaves; 25 cm. 153.15 MB. ",,Manuscript,"https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:63da645",,"Discussion Papers
in environmental philosophy
Philosophy Departments
The Australian National University
PO Box 4, Canberra, Australia 2600.
NUMBER 5
WAR AND PEACE
Zgt
ON THE ETHICS OF LARGE-SCALE NUCLEAR WAR
AND NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AND THE POLITICAL FALL-OUT
<
RICHARD ROUTLEY
FOR CIRCULATION AND
EVENTUAL LIBRARY DEPOSIT
WAR AND PEACE.
I
ON THE ETHICS OF LARGE-SCALE NUCLEAR WAR
AND NUCLEAR DETERRENCE AND THE POLITICAL FALL-OUT
by
R. Routley
Number 5
Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy
Department of Philosophy
Australian National University
1984
INTRODUCTION.
Virtually all the philosophical literature on nuclear war is written from
either a superpower (predominantly American) or else European (mainly German,
British or French) viewpoint.
This article,
after connecting in initial
sections with Northern Catholic literature, adopts a very different Antipodean
stance.
Such regional perspectives, while the should not affect
the morality
of the matter, are highly politically relevant.
Much of the philosophical literature, especially that emanating from the
USA, also fails the test of morality.
It is concerned only or primarily with
what is good or ""rational"" or prudential for Americans, or for the American
state,
to do - whereas morality is independent of place, race, nationality and
the like. This article tries to take the morality of the matter, and the
resulting redistribution of moral and political obligations, seriously.
It
concludes, among other things, that the American and Russian states have no
moral business putting nonaligned peoples at such grave risk as present nuclear
arrangements involve.
CONTENTS AND OUTLINE: Italicised headings §3-§8 indicate the main
structure of the argument
Page No
§0.
Introduction. Nuclear vs conventional wars, and new moral
issues. Large-scale (LSN) vs limited nuclear wars, the focus on the
former, but the implications for the latter.
§1. How nuclear wars differ from other wars; wars and states, and the
resulting limited appropriateness of older models and theories of war.
War characterised. The essential role of the state. New and different
features of nuclear wars.
§2. The moral situation: the recent tendency of moral considerations
to become entirely submerged in the context of war.
The ancient distinction of morality and expediency. Strategic planning
based on expediency. Arguments that war must be expediency-based refuted.
Morality does not have to, and ought not to, give way to expediency.
Utilitarianism and expediency distinguished. Limits to consensus:
supermen and superhawks. National interest and expediency assimilated.
Limits of state entitlement.
§3. The initial argument to the immorality of LSN wars.
One key argument, from the wrongness of killing noncombatants in mass, is
presented, assessed, and criticisms met. Arguments for the premisses of
the key argument elaborated.
§4. Arguments from historical requirements on just wars, the important
argument from convergence, and environmental arguments.
Arguments from just war requirements: discrimination, proportionality,
prospect of success. The detailed convergence argument, from rival moral
positions. Arguments from environmental principles.
§5. The shift to nuclear deterrence: arguments to its immorality.
Deterrence seen as the only practical way to satisfy major desiderata:
prevention of war and maintenance of prudential values. Pure deterrence
not the policy. Deterrence as practiced has increased the probability of
nuclear war. The first argument to immorality of deterrence, from the
plausibility of probability of immorality. Further arguments through
deontic connecting principles: the probability linkage. Refuting the
counterargument from the success of deterrence. The way the onus of
1
2
5
11
14
17
Page No
proof falls on deterrence policy, which cannot meet evidential require
ments. The second connecting principle: the wrongness of serious
preparation for nuclear war. The general form of connecting principles;
separating out those that are correct. The third connecting principle:
the wrongness of serious threats of nuclear devastation. Criticism of
this principle leads to further connecting principles, through intention
and through commitment. Meeting counterarguments from utilitarianism.
Applying the connecting principles to argue to the immorality of
deterrence. Arguments from limited convergence: pro- and anti-utilitarian
versions. Other reasons for deep dissatisfaction with deterrence.
§6. Practical, prudential and more moral arguments from national
dangers to nuclear build-up of the superstates, and the genesis of
nuclear dilemmas.
The arguments from nuclear blackmail and foreign domination, and from
risk of nuclear destruction. The crucial argument from basic rights and
fundamental values. The argument from isolated people to superstate
immorality. The superstate theme, and reasons for its appeal. The much
less persuasive dependent state theme. Challenging the assumptions of
the underlying relatiatory model.
§7. The resulting nuclear dilemmas - for aligned states and their
supporters.
Character of the nuclear fix. Subsidiary dilemmas: national security vs
freedom and democratic arrangements; personal and role dilemmas. Features
of deontic dilemmas. Deterrence presented as second-best escape from the
nuclear fix. The nuclear fix a fix of states' own making. Interconnections
between the nuclear fix and nation-state arrangements.
§8. Ways out of nuclear dilemmas: initial political fall-out from the
ethical results.
The inevitability of limitations on national sovereignty. Interstate
and extrastate approaches. The Way Up and the Way Down of extrastate
approaches. Arguments for the Way Up, and the decisive case against it.
Failure of international agreements, especially on human rights and
genocide. Exclusion of nuclear deterrence under the Genocide Convention.
Need for the reexamination of current political arrangements imposed by
the nuclear fix. Deficiencies in present antiquated political arrange
ments revealed by nuclear problems. Further arguments from the nuclear
fix for political reassessment. The weak link: the sovereign nation
state. Forfeiture of political obligation by many states. Alternative
political arrangements vs nuclear time horizons.
The multi-track Way Out of the nuclear dilemma. The main political
means lie outside state governmental apparatus. Laying the spectre of
ideological domination. Social restructuring and devolution of power.
Graduated disarmament and transarmament, and letting state sovereignty
go. Dissolving the arguments from national dangers. State resistance to
loss of power. Further lines of organised action against nuclear states.
Appendix 1: On the fate of mankind and the earth, according to
Schell and Anders.
Nuclear prophets and prophetic rubbish. The extinction assumption.
Common emerging themes of Schell and Anders. The extravagant anthro
pocentric assumption, and some of what is wrong with it. Second death
dismissed. The universality of peril. The alleged universality of
responsibility: the Pogo theme. The correct, but undeveloped, whole
earth theme. Ultimately Schell offers little hope and superficiality.
Nuclear war is war. The logic and illogic of deterrence.
ii
37
43
49
Page No
Appendix 2:
On matters of collective and individual responsibility
and on regional strategies.
Individual and state responsibility. Opt-out positions, and arguments
to them.
Failure of the arguments, and the impact of group cooperation.
Arguments to direct obligations of individuals to the nuclear
dissociation.
Limitations of rival political obligations.
Different policy reorganisation for different regions.
Shallower and
deeper goals.
The important opportunity for deeper reorganisation
afforded by nuclear dilemmas.
Obligations of those in the Antipodes:
what is required, and justified.
Social and economic reorganisation
in the Antipodes, and reducing costs involved.
Blockages to social
and political adjustment.
iii
73
ON THE ETHICS OF LARGE-SCALE NUCLEAR WAR AND NUCLEAR DETERRENCE
AND THE POLITICAL FALL-OUT
Large-scale nuclear wars raise ethical questions not generated,
either
at
or nearly so forcefully, by previous human military encounters.This is at
all
bottom because of their projected effects, which are often
to
said
differ
so
those of even the largest conventional wars (the World Wars) as to yield a
from
difference in kind of war.
involve,
and
threatened
Certainly massive exchanges
such
as
nuclear
exchanges such as nuclear deterrence presupposes, are
neither envisaged nor fully accommodated by traditional theories of
Much
wars
just
wars.
new philosophical reflection and investigation is required, even if rather
well-tested and old-fashioned moral principles will
serve
as
initial
ethical
base.
Although nuclear wars are, thus
nonexistent
objects,
nuclear
wars
(extrapolated from a very limited
varieties.
In
far, only a decidedly
class
menacing
of
proper have several distinctive properties
nuclear
experience^)
and
come
in
several
particular, confined or limited nuclear wars, of which tactical
or strategic are subvarieties, contrast with Idrge-scale nuclear wars (LSN wars)
1.
The US Catholic Bishops in their Pastoral Letter (PL) make the point
forcefully:
'Nuclear weapons ... and nuclear warfare ... are new moral
issues ... There exists a capacity to do something no other age could
imagine:
we can threaten the created order ... We could destroy [God's]
work' (PL, p.312). While the independent analysis offered in what follows
has a great deal in common with the Bishop's position,
it differs
significantly in removing the religious backdrop and associated features
and, it is hoped,
in bringing out the logical structure of the argument
more clearly and sharply. To illustrate the differences that emerge with
removal of the religious backdrop and its the associated unity-of-evil
theme, consider what happens to two examples from PL,
p.323:- Firstly,
peace is possible without religious enlightenment if it is possible with
it:
religious enlightenment is not an essential condition as there
implied.
Secondly, violence does not take all the forms the Bishops try to
give it,
e.g.
sexual discrimination is hardly a form of violence,
pornography can operate without it, etc.
It is a serious mistake to try to
heap so many diverse and independent issues together under the one heading
(forms of violence) along with war as if they stood and fell together, e.g.
abortion and nuclear war.
Note that referencing, where not through an author's name, is by way of
acronym explained in the references at the end.
2.
an
The isolated, and unnecessary, bombing of two Japanese cities at the very
end of World War II did not render that war a genuine nuclear war. Nuclear
wars proper will be very different and very much more horrifying.
Nuclear
wars proper,
though elements of uncomfortably adjacent possible worlds,
ought therefore to be confined to merely possible worlds. Enough of their
features we can appreciate without their being brought to actuality.
2
A large-scale nuclear
which need not however be unlimited 3.
explosion
war
it is
of large quantities of nuclear devices over a sizeable region;
a function of two main parameters:
distribution.
war
strategic) nuclear
of
quantities
war
a
Such
quantity
markedly
differs
which
limited,
is
where
and
explosives,
(megatonnage
a
from
targets
to
are
and
explosive)
limited
assumption,
by
the
of
the
involves
(tactical
much
or
smaller
characteristically
circumscribed, for instance confined in principle to military installations in a
given
region.
Though
focus
the
in
what follows is upon LSN wars and their
prevention, limited nuclear wars are by no
a
separate
wars to LSN wars are high (given usual reasonable assumptions
second
strike,
since
issue,
a
is a prerequisite, and the probabilities of escalation of such
arsenal
nuclear
means
etc.).^
Because
of
these
of
follow-up
or
connections, much of the case made
against LSN wars transfers to more limited wars, as will become evident.
§1.
How nuclear wars
resulting
differ
from
other
wars
wars:
and
party
and
limited appropriateness of older models and theories of war.
of war that has dominated much thinking, including strategic
two
states
(or
thinking,
the
A model
is
the
several person) game or, as a complication of that, the clan or
tribe battle3.
A picture of
war
thus
on
requirements
for
legitimate and just wars, which technological
reflection
advances have
traditional
now
theory
rendered
of
war,
emerged,
inappropriate
hardly
and
especially
sometimes
surprisingly,
as
a
result
inapplicable.
of
The
made no allowance for such
3.
Another dimension of variation concerns the sequence of the war, especially
the type of strike involved.
Though the sequence is important for the
moral assessment, for example of the main actors, it in no way alters the
immorality of LSN wars, as will emerge.
4.
'The overwhelming probability [is] that a nuclear exchange would have no
limits'
(PL, p.314). Hence a major argument against limited nuclear wars:
that any such war risks, indeed renders highly probable, an unlimited war,
and the risk is far too large to take. The point in fact follows by
straightforward application of decision theory, multiplying the massive
undesirability (moral and otherwise) of an LSN war by its probability given
a limited nuclear war. Given the character of weapons development and
present communication arrangements,
the idea of a highly circumscribed
purely nuclear exchange between the superpowers, perhaps in the European
""theatre"", is really a myth.
5.
There was a substantial element of sport (and connected features of
prowess)
in traditional wars that has been eroded in modern technological
wars. Nuclear wars may be not just unsporting, in that no notice is given,
etc.,
they are also remote and impersonal, and differently unjust, in a
much deeper way.
3
phenomena as mass bombing of large cities, such as
with
Dresden
and
nuclear bombing, with its many further crucial effects beyond mass
And
Tokyo.
occurred
bombing, adds further new dimensions.
Yet it is important for the argument
anchors,
retain
historical
were
accounted
unjust
war is essentially a matter of states and their control:
the Oxford English Dictionary account, war is 'hostile contention
armed
protagonists, antagonists or players;
of
contention
or
combat;
exchange is the actual experience.
but
other
are not literal, but transferred, metaphoric, etc.8
'war'
means
and
or
wrong.
to elaborate
by
means
of
forces, carried on between nations, states, or rulers, or between parties
in the same nation or state' for control of the state?;
noun
linkages
to be aware of what counted as war (the semantics of the matter^), and
of when, and why, wars and military actions
Firstly,
to
always
a
function
of
senses
of
the
States are the
forces comprising armed soldiers are
the
and combat or forceful and typically violent
Thus wars are external or internal
states or their rule.
(civil),
Thus too wars have grown in
quantity and frequency as states have expanded, wars have changed as states have
transformed,
and
nuclear
war
has
emerged 'with
nuclear states.
theoretical way then to eliminate wars is to remove states:
An obvious
in short, wars
are
6.
There are interesting sidelights concerning even the etymology of the term
'war', which was derived from a term meaning 'confusion'. In particular,
'it is a curious fact that no Germanic nation in early historic times had
in living use any word properly meaning 'war'':
Oxford English Dictionary
(OED) on war.
7.
But of course there can be something quite analogous to war waged between
clans,
gangs, multinational firms,
even against Nature, and still more
metaphorically against poverty, etc. To this extent, a strict definition
of 'war' is being insisted upon. Even so the diffusion of power structures
the argument will direct us to, has to extend beyond just the break-down of
nation-states .
8.
Into this category (since Nature is no nation)
falls the ubiquitous and
unwarranted war against Nature of modern times, which features just as
large in Marxism as in capitalism. As could have been guessed,
someone it was James - suggested channelling all war into ""war"" in the metaphorical
sense against that unarmed and nonaggressive ""opponent"", Nature.
James
proposed as a substitute for war proper, conscription of the youth for a
war against Nature (see Wasserstrom,
p.12).
What it boiled down to,
however, was that youth was to be channelled into all the dirty work, in
that way to acquire manly virtues military activities ""rightly"" instil,
especially discipline,
but also service, devotion, physical fitness,
constructive exertion, responsibility, and order. Another less diabolical
substitute for wars proper (in American ecotopian literature) is through
war games and other games of competitive cast.
Again specious arguments
enter for those bringing out the ""best"" in human males, etc.
4
an outcome of political and associated technological structure, and are
by
structure.
the
altering
state arrangements,
arrangements.
be
to
can thus be seen as a structural problem of
War
from
along
defective)
political organisation of states;
they are a
helps
these
This semantically based picture
situational fix, a structural malformation.
war
with
(otherwise
removed
arise
Wars
of
explain why the radical argument against nuclear wars and deterrence
argument
devolves into an
war-makers,
against
against
In
states.
the
fact
(self-legitimised)
on
and
war-declarers
traditional theory, wars were
the
restricted to external wars, which were construed as
the
right
or
states
of
rulers (princes) to conduct for certain political purposes;
their
removed
the argument
was that private persons with grievances had access to the courts^, while states
did
not (wars were, so to speak, the international analogue of the law courts).
But this is itself a very statist conception of the legitimate
place
of
wars;
the semantics is not so restrictive and permits internal wars within states, for
example to end wars, injustice, etc.
Let us however - to bring out what is different now - confine attention
a
basic and most familiar case, external wars between two states or sets (axes)
of states, two-player external wars,
games,
competitive
could
be
won,
attentuated form for some ""victors"")
the World Wars.
agglomerations
surrounding
traditionally
firstly
for
massive
armed
like
wars,
such
exchanges
as
there may well be no winning
in
areas
Northern
the
of
very
hemisphere
countryside.
Thus,
and
the
secondly,
for
waste
laying
the
point
of
of
substantially
substantially
obliterated^,
(exercised
and
most
as
nothing
all
worse off than at the outset of the ""play"".
are
huge
war
seen, to settle serious interstate disputes, is removed:
another point of difference, the phenomenon of wars that
prepared
that
That assumption still held good (though in
With LSN wars it no longer holds;
is settled with main protagonists
players
It was assumed
An LSN war could involve destruction of all main Western metropolitan
strategy.
9.
to
main
Hence
elaborately
for, etc.), but which can never be pointfully fought;
Thus Aquinas and Grotius for example (see Barnes,
p.776,
top).
The
argument
presupposes rather a lot,
including a neat public/private
distinction. Put Aquinas's way,
it looks as if it could be readily
transferred into an argument for international government, or at least
effective law-courts. Yet all Christendom was supposed at that time to be
one state!
5
hence the inevitable emphasis on pure deterrence.
and
the
other
elements of gamesmenship had a role in earlier wars, but it was
not pure deterrence.
military
to
Certainly, deterrence, bluff,
Lastly, traditional wars could be confined in
targets
and
military
principle
This feature is fundamental as
exchanges.
for, as will appear, wars that spill over in gross
regards just wars;
ways
to
The special effects of
uninvolved parties sacrifice any pretension to morality.
nuclear explosives, especially operated in mass, mean however that large nuclear
cannot
wars
be
legitimately
horrifying detail in popular sources
ozone
destruction,
These
confined.
shockwaves,
such
effects
gigantic fumigations
and
become
entirely
rapid
speed
include
pulses, fireball or firestorm
etc., etc.
As a result
of
these
of exchange, LSN wars will resemble
the
recent
tendency
submerged in the context of war.
of
moral
and expediency.
considerations
to
It is particularly important
in the case of war to maintain a firm grasp on the ancient
morality
radioactivity,
more than they resemble older-style wars.
The moral situation:
§2.
the
Schell)
electromagnetic
devastation, rogue bacteria and viruses, ...
compounded
as
special effects (presented in
distinction
between
What is done in war, especially for local or national
advantage, may be very different from what ought morally to be done, whether the
10. There is however the degenerate idea of war as involving annihilation or
extinction, and of winning a nuclear war as annihilation of the enemy while
not being entirely annihilated oneself:
the side that somehow ""survives""
sufficiently to rebuild is said to ""win"".
But this is, at best, an
extremely tenuous sense of winning, which in any case neglects the medical
evidence concerning nuclear destruction.
Recent talk about winning or even surviving a nuclear war must
reflect a failure to appreciate a medical reality: Any nuclear
war would inevitably cause death, disease and suffering of
pandemonic proportions and without the possibility of effective
medical intervention ...
(PL, p.313).
Moreover any such phoenix war is radically unjust, because of violation of
the traditional requirement of proportionality, and for other reasons
developed in the text.
Unfortunately as documented in Scheer,
significant officials who are
responsible for the nuclear destiny of the USA - and so of the world think that the devastation of nuclear war can be survived by Americans and
that a global nuclear war can actually be ""won""!
They rely, among other
things, on an incredibly low, and unacceptable, redefinition of ""winning"".
11.
In practice they often were not,they drained limited economies, they layed
waste countryside (though to a minor extent compared with nuclear or
chemical warfare or modern mining), impoverishing inhabitants, etc.
6
latter is determined using the codes and conventions
Much
not to be done in war i^ done, for one (alleged) advantage or
ought
that
otherwise^.
or
war,
of
another, despite modern military codes and conventions and the like.
we
not
live
go
a rather barbarous age:
in
unremarked,
the
if
Militarily
the horrors of the twentieth century will
history
gets
written
that
(accurately)
is.
Furthermore military thinking and strategic planning tend (as Nagel explains) to
induce a certain moral numbing, so that a range
as
such
wiping
rural populations, become real possibilities, included in
out
calculations.
consequentialist
characteristically
based
on
is
that
strategic
Each
side
in a military encounter
reasont
The
expediency
only
disadvantages,
its
own
gains
and
own
its
planning
advantages
is
and
losses as a result of alternative possible
it ought, morally, to consider those of the other side(s) as
moves:
actions,
excluded
morally
of
well.
In
this way strategic planning displaces morality.
Indeed it has been contended that war should be planned and conducted
way,
a
no-holds barred combat fought to the maximal (local) advantage, without
limits, moral or other (except insofar as technology limits the means of
etc.).
Such
the
classical
through
""bald
an
incremental
limit)
escalation
distinct
argument
terms.
from
an
that
the
It
would
And
(but
The
externally
will be broken by each player in turn for advantage.
an extraordinarily narrow motivational base is assumed.
the
argument
man"" fallacy *3), that there can be no limit.
assumption is that any merely selected limit (as
enforced
force,
is the so-called ""classic"" view of Clausewicz, oft repeated.
Clausewicz tries to argue,
really
this
Thus too
follow
from
idea of a limited war is some sort of contradiction in
But it is not, though breaking off in the heat of war, or the
of a supposedly limited nuclear exchange, may be singularly improbable.
confusion
Nuclear
12.
For as Nagel contends (early on),
there are moral restrictions on the
conduct of warfare which are not legalistic only and which are neither
arbitrary nor merely conventional, nor a matter of usefulness.
These
themes run entirely counter to the classic theory of war of Clausewicz - a
theory outlined in Walzer.
13.
As one less hair doos not, at any stage, distinguish a bald man from a
hirsute man,
there are, starting from the hirsute end, no bald men. The
progressive escalation argument concerning war is an incremental argument
like the technical Sorites syllogisms, formalising the type of fallacious
argument which shows that one more straw never makes a heap.
The
fallacious escalation argument is part of the so-called ""logic of war"", for
more on which see the conclusion of Appendix 1.
7
wars thus appear decidedly Clausewiczian.
the
for
players
Still the argument
inconclusive;
is
can choose, at least in smaller calmer wars, not to escalate,
and, for example, agree to abide by arranged practices, types of weapons, etc.^
A state engaged in war seldom sees itself as entirely bound by
of
morality:
it is taken to be mere prudence on the part of those attacked to
take account of the no-immoral-holds-barred approach they
from the other side.
especially
constraints
the question not only
as
to
may
encounter,
well
So each group potentially engaged in war faces
ought
it
what
do
to
in
permissible
morally
situations, but also both what it ought really do, and what it can morally do in
the morally flawed situations it finds itself.
not,
But the last question does
in that case, reduce to one of expediency.
There is no question, then, of morality giving or having
even
expediency,
For it is not as if shaky considerations of
involves.
give
bound
are
morality
theoretical
fact
is
that
miraculously
deliver
us
from
value
the
theory.
to
Expediency
fact,
but
that
local values - of self, family, clan, class, or nation - are
considerations.
proper characterisation, a
therefore,
much
universalizable
more
universal
fairness,
equitability and
principles,
justice.
distribution
value
of
and,
And morality thereby imposes, through
principles.
intersubstitutivity
certain
requirements
of
general
Expediency yields an unfair, inequitable
value system, one that subscribers would not adhere to if differently
placed
\
deep theoretical unsatisfactoriness of expediency, and associated strategic
thinking, also derives from this failure
evaluations
14.
remote
By contrast, morality requires, as a matter of its
resultant
The
takes
It assumes, or
what really count, and override or are to be maximized at the expense of
foreign
not
does
simply
narrowly-construed local advantage or power as what is valuable.
urges,
crucial
But the
morality and* expediency fall within the same,
both
equally shaky or equally solid, domain of value
or
to
to the firm ground of expediency when the chips are down, since often
way
enough such moral erosion does not occur in crisis situations.
even
to
circumstances such as the prospect of LSN war
extreme
under
way
give
to
of
interreplacement,
from
the
same
and results not holding when persons X and Y are interchanged under
As Walzer argues, p.24. An historical example is the era of genuinely
limited wars in Europe following the barbarism of the Thirty Years war.
8
For expediency does not elude
expediency assessments^.
it
deontic
presentation:
be presented as through such popular slogans as ""local might is right"",
can
or given tight formal
characterisation.
The
will
characterisation
normally
that of utilitarianism, except that utilities are only assigned to, or
resemble
are biassed in favour of, certain individuals.
However, theories of utility
not have to be positions of expediency if utility is not locally confined.
do
Thus
utilitarianism proper is not to be dismissed as considering only expediency;
meet intersubstitutivity requirements of morality;
can
it
it does not, unlike the
methods of war game theory, assign different weights to the
individual
utility
of (certain) Americans, as opposed to Russians, say.
are
There
especially,
deontologists
regarding war^.
which
differences,
between
or
justify, ugly strategies and practices as regards
to
some
render
to
seemed
enemy civilians, that deontological principles would not permit.
effect
and
utilitarians
serve to further complicate the moral picture
In particular, utilitarian approaches have
permissible,
morally
significant
however
utilitarians
this
But
is
would
reject the
description of practices permitted under their principles as 'ugly';
whereas an
to
already
in
aim
what
follows
since
partisanship,
is
to
avoid
meta-ethical
meta-ethical neutrality, though of course not
there
is
a
moral
partisanship,
neutrality.
to
achieve
And
morally
large area of consensus, or at least moral convergence, from which
argument can begin.
Virtually all positions
agree
that
obliteration
of
several major cities in a LSN war would be wrong, indeed morally outrageous.
If
the
there is dissension, as there may be among nuclear strategists who seem to
feel
no qualms when it comes to trading loss of some American cities for some Russian
ones, simply increase the costs
involved,
up
to
loss
of
whole
nations
if
15.
The severe limitations of those lesser ""virtues"",
nationalism
and
patriotism, also come from the failure of replacement which excessive
applications of nationalism easily engender. Try for example swapping a
person from inside the homeland with one from outside as regards treatment.
The point of, and reasons for,
intersubstitutivity as a requirement of
morality,
is well explained in Hare, p.78ff. Hare applies the requirement
to make a telling case against nationalism (a case which extends to
strategic decision-theory).
Nationalism,
along with fanaticism, is the
main cause of war, so Hare contends, p.72.
16.
The case against expediency was developed in detail
especially the criticism of Thrasymachus in The Republic.
17.
Thus the differences between Nagel on the one side, and Brandt and Hare
the other, in Cohen et al.
by
Plato;
see
on
9
then try to work down
necessary, until moral repugnance ijs encountered;
The
again.
fact remains however that in the nuclear area things have got substantially
abandon
tended
Strategic thinking, in particular, has
out of perspective, morally.
to
suppress moral considerations (as indeed theories of the state also
or
do, sometimes flamboyantly, in favour of partisan values).
Naturally the fact of broad consensus as to the morality of the matter does
mean that there are none who would welcome such outrageous happenings, that
not
total nuclear destruction of the North even, would be
Consider
the
rising
world empire.
be
southern
(hemisphere)
no
advantage.
one's
strongman, SS, who has visions of
While the superpowers of the north remain, SS's dream can
realised.
Thus
his
best
strategy,
having
rid
submarines and southern lands of US bases, is to try
nuclear
to
exchange
in
the
North.
There
be
would
waters
southern
to
encourage
a
hardly
of US
all-out
an
point then in securing
institutional arrangements so that potential SS's do not accumulate much
given
especially
the
apparent instability of crucial world arrangements.
that is to anticipate:
the present point is that (the fact of) moral
has
and
its
power,
limitations,
is
an
inadequate
But
consensus
constraint without accompanying
structural adjustments.
national
For, typically,
differently
to
impose
interest
is
taken
hostages
or
override
morality,
even
holding
civilian
populations
as
of those
those of Eastern Europe.
things.
substitution
of
justification;
fails
in
The
first,
expediency
classes
regimes,
But morally national interest can do neither
the
overriding
for
morality,
of
morality,
which
the second, the alleged moral dominance of
important
And,
killing millions in the national interest*8).
unfortunately, these assumptions are not confined to more totalitarian
such
or
irresistible ethical claims that dominate more ordinary
ethical considerations (such as those concerning
nuclear
to
is
entirely
national
simply
lacks
the
moral
interests,
of cases, including, so the argument will go, the
case of LSN war.
18.
As Schell bluntly puts it, 'What is being claimed is that one or two
countries have the right to jeopardise all countries and their descendents
in the name of certain beliefs' (p.132). However this way of putting it
leaves room for ambiguity, since the beliefs may be morally grounded rather
than based on national interests.
10
States may insist upon operating on a selfish national interest basis,
let
it
not
be
that
pretended
expediency (namely,
that
of
is
it
a moral basis as distinct from one of
There
egoism"").
""group
but
moral
special
no
is
dispensation
for governments.
individuals:
there is no logical difference in the pattern of justification, or
analysis of obligation.
Morality works in the same way for groups as for
For example, what ought to be as regards X is (analysed
semantically) what would happen as regards X in all ideal worlds;
no
whether
difference
is
an
reasons
aside,
just
behaving
as
system, group or
individual
or
individual
States such as Israel (in its recent invasion
organisation.
extenuating
X
immorally
of
as brigands or mass
Certainly there are grounds on which states or their agents
conceded, special moral dispensations;
been
more than that and do not stand up to criticism.
cannot
furnish
two
(incompatible)
claimed,
have
but the excuses offered are no
A
moralities,
satisfactory
a
state
theory
moral
or public one and a
private or individual citizen one — state expediency and individual
morality
because this would lead to violations of substitutivity, neutrality, etc.
instance, a state operative X could use state
cover
morally impermissible ways, ways ruled out (e.g.
Y are permuted.
special
are,
Lebanon)
there is no moral difference.
killers:
or
makes
and it
to
considerations
citizen
*
For
Y
in
by state interests) when X and
A group or organisation or person can be
derivative
damage
19
bound
of
course
by
in virtue of role, but these are derivative
principles - good for any such institution - which fit within and answer back to
general
moral principles.
So it is also with a state which is an institutional
arrangement justified (insofar as it is) by the way it answers back to some
least)
of
its
citizens:
its
charter does not legitimate emergent allegedly
moral principles which conveniently coincide with those of state expediency.
particular,
a
survival.
In
state is not (morally) entitled to risk the lives of many of its
own citizens and of other peoples and creatures for its own ends, even
own
(at
for
its
Thus it is not entitled to do what both nuclear war and nuclear
deterrence require, as will emerge.
19.
There are also other arguments against two (or
see Routley and Plumwood.
multiple)
morality
lines:
11
§3.
The initial argument
pacifism
yield
arguments
to
the
immorality
of
to
the
immorality
of war.
controversial in an area where there is no
LSN
for
But such arguments are
be
to
reason
good
Arguments
wars.
controversial.
Pacifism can accordingly be set aside as a special case, since the immorality of
LSN wars follows.
All but pacifist positions concede that war in itself is not a crime.
all
wars are immoral, though even inoffensive wars may be pointless or inferior
Among more or less admissible
ways of settling political issues between states.
wars
who
Not
are
the international ""tournaments"" of aristocratic young men or warriors
volunteer
as
and
soldiers
action
whose
not
does
spill
over
onto
noncombatants, and some early and medieval wars, where few or even no combatants
were killed in war.
conscription,
Since the establishment
press-gangs
and
recruitment
of
such
of
the
largely ceased to take these less offensive forms;
induction
practices
as
near-destitute, wars have
modern massive wars are
far
removed from the ideal war-tournament types (which feature now only in ecotopian
portrayals, in ways that are increasingly dubious).
immoral,
sorts
Most
of
wars
are
because of what is done to the essentially uninvolved, but few to such
an extent as LSN wars.
The first argument to the
immorality
of
LSN
and
wars
sufficiently
of
large-scale wars generally, takes the following form:
Pl.
The (deliberate) killing in mass of noncombatants is wrong.
P2.
LSN wars involve the killing in mass of noncombatants.
P3.
What involves what is wrong is wrong.
- (KA)
LSN wars are wrong.
The particular argument given is just one representative of a set
of
this
type.
taken
off
killing:
the
on
(KA)
replaces
But the
quite
'killing
sufficiently
evil.
creatures'.
can
Thus
a
first
in mass of noncombatants' by a suitable
clause concerning 'huge destruction of lifestyle of uninvolved or
involved
focus
destruction of lifestyle of nonhumans and humans
alike that an LSN war will bring is
variation
arguments
Characteristically, in Western culture, it is thought that mass
killing of humans is about the worst thing that can happen.
be
of
not
directly
Other variations will emerge in the discussion (including
that where the bracketed 'deliberate' figures).
but
The argument is valid,
attacked)
on
the
of
basis
be
may
attacked
(and
of its premisses.
each
has
in
effect
been
Let us consider these in
reverse order. The principle, P3, used in the argument, that what involves ""what
is wrong"" is wrong, has been challenged on rather Scholastic grounds. There are,
in particular, problems like those generated by Good Samaritan arguments,
purport to show that some proper obligations involve wrongdoing.
assisting an injured robbed person is said
robbed;
but, since the robbing is wrong,
""involve""
to
providing
For
which
instance,
that person's
assistance
being
is also wrong.
But these problems derive from too slack a notion of involvement; with a tighter
account of involvement the problems disappear and P3 stands.
As against P2, it may
legitimately
directed
be
argued
against
that
military
nuclear
targets.
20
can
wars
be
encounters
But given the character of
There is
nuclear weapons, LSN wars could in no way be confined to such targets.
not
merely
the likelihood that many missiles explode off target, there are all
the other effects of large-scale nuclear bombings.
fallout
down-wind
from
military
people, especially in the case of
targets
US
and
For example, the radioactive
will affect large concentrations of
European
targets,
and
may
affect
uninvolved countries such as Canada.
There may be an attempt to avoid the problem of massive civilian casualties
by
appeal
effect)21.
to such dubious principles as the doctrine of double effect (or side
if missiles were characteristically
reliably
on
target,
and
one
20.
The challenge to P3, which is often expanded to a ""distribution of
obligation over entailment"" principle, can be removed by a tighter
involvement connective, linked to a good paradox-free entailment.
For
details see Routley and Plumwood, where Good Samaritan problems are
diagnosed.
21.
According to the doctrine, which is one concerning responsibility, we are
responsible
only
for the intended effects or consequences of our
freely-chosen actions, and not for other (side) effects or consequences,
even if these are foreseen and/or intimately tied to the intended
consequences.
Unless carefully hedged, the doctrine is
pernicious,
allowing those who suitably adjust their intention to escape responsibility
for evil they knowingly perpetrate. Thus, for instance, a Russian supreme
command which intended only to take out US military targets would, under
double effect, have no responsibility for the resultant effect on American
and Canadian cities!
Taking the issues concerning double effect to a more
satisfactory
conclusion would however require a larger theory of action, which duly
distinguished acts (what is done) and outcomes from attached intentions.
13
which was
intended
unfortunately
went
only
off
to
destroy
an
underground
unmanned
course and destroyed a large city, it could be claimed
that the (unintended) mass destruction is legitimised under
principle.
a
make
Nonetheless
effect
double
the
circumstances
difference, for they may mitigate attitudes to those responsible
for firing the missile, since it was not as if they had
deliberately
aimed
at
The double effect principle conflates [diminution of] responsibility
city.
the
the
the action would be wrong, and the
Such claims should be rejected:
wrongness not lessened by the given intention.
could
silo
missile
assigned for an act with the [diminution of] wrongness of the act.
As against Pl, and as regards the middle term of
argued
that there is an important equivocation.
While it will
the bracketed term, 'deliberate'.
killing
and
Pl
P2,
may
it
be
The equivocation is induced by
conceded
be
that
deliberate
of genuine innocents is impermissible, two challenges will be made.
It
will be charged firstly that noncombatants, insofar as they are distinguishable,
are
no means all innocent, many being directly involved in military effort,
by
whether just as taxpayers or as suppliers of
military,
e.g.
farmers
or
goods
or
services
bootmakers or entertainers.
as
innocent.
The
second
defensible — version of premiss P2.
and
for
other
reasons,
it
properly
point concerns a much narrower - and less
Because P2 so amended is
is best to leave out the
less
defensible,
""modifier"" 'deliberate'.
What is important for the present purposes is the moral status of what is
not
a
mixture
that with the motives of the perpetrators.
of
require
the
qualification
'deliberate'
or
done,
So 'deliberate'
gets left out, equivocation is avoided, P2 stands, and so does Pl.
not
the
Secondly, it will be
contended that LSN wars do not involve the deliberate killing of those
excluded
by
used
For Pl
does
'intentional' or the like.22
Admittedly also 'noncombatant' is a fuzzy term, but none the worse for that, and
there
is
noserious
people who are
is,
moreover,
problem
in
marking out a class of
notdirectly involved in the command and action
no need
to
adopt the practice, deriving
stating an initialversion of Pl in terms of innocents -
22.
clear noncombatants,
at
chains.
There
from Catholicism, of
least as problematic
Despite Nagel's suggestion that it does (p.158).
The suggestion depends
upon similar mistaken assimilations, of act with intention, and wrongness
with responsibility, to those of the double effect doctrine.
14
a class as that of noncombatants to try to characterize - and then
endeavouring
to make the difficult transition to noncombatants.
Not only can arguments against the premisses of the argument be met,
are
arguments
the
for
there
premisses, though for the substantive moral premiss Pl
they are of the characteristically nonconclusive moral sort
and
tend
will
For example, one argument for
vary somewhat with the underlying ethical theory.
Pl, and for objecting to the killing of noncombatants, is the Kantian one,
(to
seriously
understate
point)
the
doing
to
that
fails to treat them with the
so
minimal respect owed to them as persons 2 3.
§4.
Arguments
from
historical
requirements
on
just
argument from convergence, and environmental arguments.
wars,
The conclusion that LSN
wars cannot be justly waged - and accordingly are unjustified something
dreamed
up
by
contemporary
""free-enterprise"" capitalist state (and
opponents
communist
important
the
of
is
America
inspired,
merely
not
or
the
of
The
etc).
same
conclusion falls out of various traditional requirements, worked out in medieval
times, for just wars.
One of the requirements gives but a variant on the
first
argument (KA). 2** For a necessary condition for fighting a war justly was that it
not be the case that large numbers of [innocent] noncombatants are bound
killed (cf.
to
be
Barnes, p.775).
A just war requires just means, that the war should be
means,
fought
by
morally
which
implies in particular that there is no indiscriminate
killing of noncombatants.
The implied principle was escapsulated in a principle
legitimate
of
discrimination
(between combatants and others) which 'prohibits all actions
directly intended to take the lives of
p.312)
25
.
civilians
and
of
noncombatants'
(PL,
LSN wars, where not only military installations are targeted, violate
this requirement 2 6.
23.
Of course there are counterarguments too, and not merely from the military
angle in the case of small numbers of obstructive noncombatants.
One
favored argument is a variation on the Bald Man:
there is no clear line
between combatants and noncombatants. However as Nagel argues (p.20) there
are distinctions between them, firstly in terms of their roles, e.g.
in
carrying or using arms or directing those who do, and secondly in terms of
their harmfulness, the threat they offer.
See also PL,
p.312, where a
simple and effective paradigm case argument is applied.
24.
Note that throughout, the text adopts the OED equations, reflecting common
usage,
of just with morally right or correct, and unjust with morally
15
Overlapping the requirement of just means is that of
being that of net evil to net good:
proportion
proportionality ,
'the damage to be inflicted and
costs incurred by the war must be proportionate to the good expected
up
arms'
(PL,
requirement:
the damage and costs,
to
goods
moral
proportionality requirement is
of
the
achieved
nationally
not
that
in
doctrine
through war.
""improvement""
are
which
way.
overall
consequences
of
war
conditions
way
bad,
(Barnes, p.782).
'a nation wages war
justly
the
than
Similarly
only
if
the
for that nation or the wronged nation it is supporting have a decent
chance of being better after the fighting ends' (Wakin, p.20).
no
and
According to the first, 'X wages war
abstaining from war'
improvement ""puts wrongs to rights"":
are
Entangled with the
""ameliorative""
of
confined,
justly upon Y if the overall consequences of war are better, or less
the
taking
by
p.312).2? It is not difficult to see that LSN wars violate this
disproportionate
criterion
the
satisfy
LSN wars can
in
these conditions, as scenarios depicting the aftermath of such
wars reveal.
Some of the lesser requirements for a just war are also
wars,
for
example
that
of
infringed
reasonable expectation of success.
by
LSN
It seems that
there can be no reasonable expectation of state success in an LSN war - whatever
the
very
differently,
exchanges.
limited
prospects
of
success
for
some
whatever the prospects of success in
What
small
strictly
state
limited
elite,
or
nuclear
is less clearcut is the question of whether LSN wars conflict
with the requirements of just cause or due fault, and of right
intention.
For
25.
The principle can be argued to in various ways.
One (by no means
conclusive) way is Nagel's way, from the requirements of directness and
relevance in combat, the underlying (controversial) principle being that,
'whatever one does to another person intentionally must be aimed at him as
a subject, with the intention that he receive it as a subject' (p.15).
26.
The situation with strictly limited nuclear wars where the targets are
essentially military ones, and noncombatants are unaccountably killed
""indirectly"",would be different.
Such wars are not however excused by the
pernicious doctrine of double effect.
For such wars remain unjust on
several counts, e.g.
they inflict disproportionate damage, e.g.
on life
systems,
etc.
As Zuckermann says,
'It is still inevitable that were
military installations rather than cities to become the objectives of
nuclear attack, millions,
even tens of millions of civilians would be
killed ...' (quoted in Thompson and Smith,
p.14, where the italics are
added).
27.
This is not to be confused with what is very different, the vicious ancient
doctrine of proportional response - an eye for eye, tooth for tooth, and so
on - recently adapted by the Americans in their latest official policy of
flexible response, adjusted to the level of attack.
16
this depends on the sensitive issue of the weight assigned to what are
seen
as
basic human rights and fundamental values, and the extent to which just wars can
While the mainstream position
be ideologically justified.
theory
medieval
opposed to ideologically justified wars and ""humanitarian"" wars, these were
was
not definitively excluded by the traditional theory (cf.
is
of
merit,
little
when
(and
issues will arise again subsequently).
historical requirements
are
arguments
not
do
simply
not
There
in puzzling over dubiously effective requirements,
however,
when so many are decisive against LSN wars
sensitive
Barnes, p.778).
commit
arguments
any
from
matters
the
underlying
Finally, these arguments from
prescriptive
fallacy;
historical
authority
for
to
the
moral
conclusions, but use also premisses to the effect that the requirements imposed,
and sometimes applied, were justified.
As they are.
In the Christian tradition there were two main strands of reflection on the
moral
rightness
justness of wars, the just war theory and a rival pacifist
or
strand, prominent in early Christianity, but largely submerged from Augustine on
contemporary
until
times.
Both exclude nuclear wars, one strand because they
are inevitably unjust, the other because they are wars and
This
is
the
beginning of the convergence argument against nuclear wars:
that
is
duly
expediency
such wars are excluded from all ethical perspectives, once
removed
(and
even,
very
frequently, when it is not).
however you look at it morally.
consensus
violence^^.
involve
argument;
it
The argument is not
proceeds
They are morally wrong
the
same
as
the
weaker
from similar results from the full sweep of
genuinely ethical positions, not from massive agreement of opinion.
The detailed convergence argument is an exhaustive case by case
each
type
of
moral
theory.
Fortunately
details
can
be
deontological and contractual theories lead back to requirements
28.
one,
from
shortcut.
For
for
just
war
These alternatives are not as far removed practically as may appear.
For
the aim of just war theory is not 'to legitimize war but to prevent it.
The presumption is against the use of force' (PL, p.312). And most types
of wars are ruled out by the theory. However not all wars or violent
revolutions are excluded, and that is enough to guarantee the distinction
between the alternatives.
In particular, defensive wars are allowed - at
least for the defending side, though from a wider viewpoint these too may
be condemned 'the classic case [of the just war] ... was the use of
lethal force to prevent aggression against innocent victims'
(PL, p.311).
Under recent international law, defence, narrowly construed, is the only
legitimate basis for war;
Roman law was only slightly more generous,
in
allowing for the restitution of goods (see Barnes, p.780).
17
which, it has already been shown, LSN wars violate.
war
arrived
sometimes
were
defended through principles of such moral
or
at
In fact conditions for just
work
theories, so that a good deal of the requisite argumentative
been
The latter point holds also as regards utilitarianism, where it has
done.
in effect been shown that whatever brand of utilitarianism is
maximisation
utility
already
has
is
finally
LSN
accomplished,
adopted,
wars
however
excluded
are
utilitarian grounds.The reason for such convergence is not far to seek;
LSN
such massive infliction of pain and colossal removal of pleasure,
involve
wars
on
that this dominates in assessments however they are accomplished in
utilitarian
Thus any genuine alternative to LSN war is better30.
fashion.
The arguments
so
moral
overwhelming
far
case
outlined
against
principles
are
derivable
some
from
war
worse
substantially
are
of the theories just considered).
These
the obligation to maintain
to
accountable,
condition
than
the
these
we
violate
would
earth in proper shape and not degrade its systems:
we
exhaust
not
(again
LSN
principles include environmental ones, such as:
generations, to whom
do
wars
For there are other significant
wars.
such
moral principles which the waging of an
LSN
against
the
the responsibility to future
the
world
it"".
Such
""pass
""received
on""
not
in
conservative
bound
principles - however they are finally satisfactorily formulated - are
to
be violated in the event of an LSN war.
§5.
The shift to nuclear deterrence:
support
nuclear
arguments to its immorality.
Those
arrangements have had a way of halting - and if not defeating,
certainly turning and deflating - arguments from the immorality of LSN wars,
engagement
done is, it is claimed, quite different from
is
most
important
precisely
in
preventing
LSN
in
such
war:
is
continued,
deterrence
is
the
only
practical
desiderata, prevention of war and maintenance of values.
way
indeed
wars from ever
occurring, as well as in maintaining other fundamental Western values.
it
by
What is being
pointing out that there is no actual engagement in any such wars.
deterrence
who
Indeed,
of obtaining both
Similar arguments
are
But compare Hardin.
29.
For details see, e.g., Lackey, especially MM.
30.
An argument of this sort is developed in more detail,
complete generality, in Goodin, especially 'Disarmament'.
though
not
in
18
advanced for all the various guises that deterrence is presented
in:
mutually
assured destruction as formerly, flexible response as latterly, or otherwise.
Such claims as to the roles and
dubious,
several
for
reasons.
objectives
of
If it were, ""sufficiency"" to deter would be an adequate goal.
superiority.
than
this,
and
sometimes
goal.
In fact there has
renewed
a
even
military
drive
for
Pure deterrence can account neither for actual nuclear weapons nor
for orthodox Western military strategy32.
process
decidedly
A first reason is that there is much evidence,
despite pronouncements, that deterrence is not the - the only -
been a quest for more
are
deterrence
Nor has deterrence set in motion
the
of disarmament to be expected to reduce armaments to levels appropriate
fRichard Routley","The University of Queensland's Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291, Box 149, Item 2","Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy",1983,"This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, Dr. N.A.J. Taylor.","For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.",,"[31] leaves; 25 cm. 58.22 MB. ",,Manuscript,"https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:cde8c5d",,"Discussion Papers
in environmental philosophy
Philosophy Departments
The Australian National University
PO Box 4, Canberra, Australia 2600
NUMBER 9
WAR AND PEACE. II
ON THE ALLEGED INCONSISTENCY, MORAL INSENSITIVITY
AND FANATICISM OF PACIFISM
RICHARD ROUTLEY
FOR CIRCULATION AND
EVENTUAL LIBRARY DEPOSIT
WAR AND PEACE.
II
ON THE ALLEGED INCONSISTENCY, MORAL INSENSITIVITY AND
FANATICISM OF PACIFISM
by
R. Routley
Number 9
Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy
Department of Philosophy
Australian National University
1983
ON THE ALLEGED INCONSISTENCY, MORAL INSENSITIVITY AND
FANATICISM OF PACIFISM
Pacifism,
despite
its
revival
limited
through
the
nonviolent
action
1
movement
and
as a respectable tradition within the Catholic church , continues
to have a bad philosophical press.
one
way
or
another,
It is commonly portrayed
characteristically
as inconsistent.
as
incoherent
Even philosophical
defences of pacifism are liable to be extremely defensive, conceding
pacifism
is
in
only
that
consistent, but insisting otherwise that it is as false as a moral
2
position can be, bizarre, and morally insensitive .
What follows challenges the
prevailing wisdom put out in the philosophical press, but using its own analytic
methods.
§1.
Slide arguments to inconsistency;
from
rights.
an
In
influential
and
and arguments from irresponsibility and
widely
disseminated
set
of articles
3
attacking pacifism , Narveson says that the pacifist's position is
not only that [Tl] violence is evil but also that [T2] it is morally
wrong to use force [violence] to resist, punish, or prevent violence.
This further step makes pacifism a radical moral doctrine.
What I
shall try to establish below is that it is, in fact, more than merely
radical - it is actually incoherent because self-contradictory
(p.408, italics added).
Subsequently (p.414) he characterises pacifism by way of T2, though it would
be
better characterised by the more sweeping
1.
According to the US Catholic Bishops, pacifism is
'a valid Christian
position', with a long tradition going back to Christ and the early
Christians who were committed to a nonviolent lifestyle:
see Origins 12
(1982) pp.310-311.
The revival in the nonviolent action (NVA) movement is a somewhat qualified
one (as will emerge), many in that movement wishing to distance themselves
from traditional pacifism.
2.
In particular, T. Regan 'A defence of pacifism', Canadian Journal of
Philosophy 11 (1972) 73-86. Page references to this article are prefixed
by R.
Regan ends by saying 'To regard the pacifists' belief
vaguely ludicious"" is, perhaps, to put it mildly'.
as
""bizarre
and
P2.
It is morally wrong to use violence.
However T2 captures the cases that
orthodox
opposition.
separate
comprehensive
pacifism
from
main form of pacifism under investigation is called
The
'comprehensive' to distinguish it from standard pacifism, in the usual
is
which
sense
narrower
restricted to certain theses concerning (state) order, notably
opposition to (violence in) war, which does not necessarily
elsewhere.
the
But
if
violence
is
violence
is impermissible, then it should be so
what
Pacifism, as a
universally and not merely in war.
out
rule
moral
position,
should
be
comprehensive.
On its own showing, it is contended,
proper
action
to
preventative action
commitment
to
prevent,
what
would
involve,
it
pacifism
acclaimedly
in
the
case
of
pacifism.
incoherence Narveson and others find in pacifism:
claims
Narveson's
or
of
from
taking
violence;
But
force.
genuine
actively
defend
on
them,
pain
Hence
the
initial
that it cannot underwrite its
of
inconsistency.
However
location of incoherence in pacifism depends, essentially, on several
connected slides, all of which the pacifist should resist - without force.
initial
for
a moral position must allow action to back up commitment, action
of a type logically excluded
own
prohibits,
use
sometimes,
precluded
is
The
slide is from the theme T2 italicised above to what results by deletion
of the crucial phrase 'to use force', or as it
should
be
'to
use
violence',
namely
3
J. Narveson 'Pacifism: a philosophical analysis', Ethics 75 (1968) and
'Is pacifism consistent', Ethics 78 (1968). The first article is reprinted
in War and Morality (ed. R. Wasserstrom) Wadsworth, Belmont, California,
1970 pp.63-77. The first article is also rewritten and combined with part
of the second in 'Pacifism: a philosophical analysis', Moral Problems (ed.
J.
Rachels), Third Edition, Harper & Row, New York, 1979, pp.408-425.
Page references without further citation are to this latter article.
Narveson's theme that pacifism is incoherent is headlined and further
elaborated in his 'Violence and war', Matters of Life and Death (ed.
T.
Regan), Temple University Press, Philadelphia,
1980, pp.109-147. Page
references prefixed by 'N' are to this article.
2
It is morally wrong to resist, punish, or prevent violence -
R2.
and similarly from special and related cases of T2 to special and related
of
R2 (e.g.
It is
cases
from T2S, It is forbidden to use force to resist violence, to R2S,
forbidden
to
violence).
resist
The
slide
is
illegitimate
because
commitment to T2 does not entail commitment to the rejected proposition R2;
for
one thing there are many ways of confronting, reducing and controlling violence,
worked
out
by
pacifists
and others, which do not involve use of violence (or
perhaps force).
The initial slide is however what
assault
on
pacifism
(after
Narveson
several
clearing
exploits
confusions,
explain the popularity of pacifism, out of the way).
irresponsibility
of
in
This
his
first
main
which he takes to
argument,
from
the
does not actually lead to contradiction, but it
pacifism,
does suggest that there is a serious tension between pacifism and any method
of
maintaining social order, so serious that pacifism is socially irresponsible:
... to hold the pacifist position as a genuine full-blooded moral
principle is to hold nobody has a right to fight back when attacked
... It means that we are all mistaken in supposing that we have the
right of self-protection ... It appears to mean, for instance, that
we have no right to punish criminals, that all our machinery of
criminal justice is, in fact, unjust.
Robbers, murderers, rapists, and miscellaneous delinquents
this [irresponsible] theory, to be let loose (pp.415-6).
Since one can protect oneself and avoid and resist aggression
back
violence),
(with
unless
a
slide
(tentatively)
by
is
without
fighting
pacifism
does
not mean what Narveson claims it means,
Nor
does
comprehensive
made.
theses
on
ought,
T1
T2,
and
imply
that
pacifism,
characterised
we have no right to punish
criminals, but simply that such punishment (or the imposition of penalties) will
not
apply
violent
methods.
Nor
therefore
does
it
imply
that
conventional machinery of criminal justice is unjust, but only that some,
good
4.
deal,
of
that
machinery
is.
One
hardly
the
all
or
a
needs to be a comprehensive
Pacifism, as involving the active use of defensive methods, can be traced
back as far as the Mohist philosophers of ancient China. On modern methods
see especially G. Sharp, Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives, Boston,
1971.
As will emerge, there is a point in distinguishing (as Narveson does not in
his earlier work) force from violence; they are not equivalent.
3
pacifist to coherently think the latter.
the
This provides
some
for
confirmation
key point which is that there is, so far at least, no inconsistency evident
in maintaining that those who hold that violent methods are
legitimate
morally
are mistaken.
The next slide is closely connected with, and really generalises upon,
initial
slide.
is to imbue a range of more neutral terms with the
stunt
The
connotation of violence or at least of force which
and defending are taken to imply (use of)
or
force
use of force is taken to by implied in R2.
resist
cannot
proceeds
Hence
(p.415).
and
violence,
so
to
Hence
the
also
Narveson's
assumption
that
against attack' (pp.417-8).
to
and
so
pacifism
render
a
much
less
can
be
resisted,
without
by
Force can be applied, as in opening
sliding out of handcuffs and running away).
a jam jar or pulling a person out of danger, without violence.
force, but not vice versa;
and
violence.
things like arrest, without violence (e.g.
even
be
But
defensible position.
positions can be defended, as in this paper or on the field,
Things
a
If the stunt were got away with, it would
deprive pacifism of, for instance, the general methods of nonviolent action
resistance,
be
unwarranted
""recharacterisation"" of pacifism as the position that 'no one ought ever
defended
to
Hence the conflation of T2 and
excluded from among admissible pacifist methods.
pacifist
here
Narveson
Thus such activities as resisting, punishing, preventing,
equate with violence.
R2;
the
Violence implies
and it is violence, not all applications
of
force,
that comprehensive pacifists are bound to exclude.
The attempt
nonviolent
to
castrate
practices,
any case indefensible.
development
themselves
compromise,
and
from
pacifism,
by
of
it
depriving
the
range
of
is not confined to those who (want to) think pacifism in
It enjoys some popularity even
among
those
advocating
expansion of nonviolent methods, who no doubt want to distance
older
mediation,
pacifism,
whose
methods
they
see
as
confined
to
negotiation, and involving the granting of concessions.
The newer (nonviolent) activists have justification;
for
pacifism
has
often
by an unsympathetic opposition, as confined to passive methods
oeen
presented,
(cf.
even the Concise English Dictionary account, where it is erroneously
4
said
pacifism
of
'positively, it holds that all disputes should be settled by
that
negotiation', and, negatively, that it is 'the
hostilities
added).
and
of
total
doctrine
of
non-resistance
non-cooperation with any form of warfare':
But nothing in the characterisation of pacifism, whether
or standard, need so limit its admissible methods:
to
italics
comprehensive
nothing excludes resistance,
uncompromising methods, and imposition of sanctions which offer no concessions.
It
is
simply
that
comprehensive
pacifism
has
not yet developed its fuller
potential, especially in conflict resolution.
Subsequent slides in the development of the argument against
just
variations
qualifier.
on
those
pacifism
are
given, writing violence-involving in as an internal
Thus the measure of a person's opposition to something in
terms
of
'the amount of effort he is willing to put forth against it' is taken - somewhat
perversely - to be violence-involving effort or opposition in the
pacifist's
'opposition
to
If
violence'.
this
slide
were
pacifist would be caught in an elementary inconsistency since in
case
of
the
permissible any
being
opposed
to violence, by definition, he is prepared to use violence and so is not opposed
to violence.
it
is
Even Narveson 'cannot make too much' of this inconsistency, though
not so far removed from the alleged inconsistencies he does want to make
much of in his main inconsistency argument.
5.
In the way Sharp, for example, has illicitly assumed in several works: see
for instance the unduly narrow definition of pacifism given in his Social
Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent Publishers, Boston,
1980,
p.198.
Again, however, there is some historical basis for dissociating nonviolent
action from pacifism;
and given the difficulties comprehensive pacifism
can lead to, there are philosophical reasons as well.
But even without much in the way of organised sanctions, worthwhile
positive results can often be obtained, as the case of international law
reveals: cf. H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, Oxford University Press,
1961, p.212.
5
A similar slide, together with a further slide, is made in the argument
inconsistency
based
pacifism theme,
P2(R).
on
to
notion of rights, especially as it figures in the
the
transformed to the claim
No one has a right to indulge in violence (p.418).
For Narveson tries to incorporate the right to indulge in violence in
notion
of
The
right.
initial move is to work in assumptions of defence from
breaches of a right and of
Because
very
the
action
preventative
against
infringement
'a right just is a status justifying preventative action ...
of
it.
what does
follow logically is that one has a right to whatever may be necessary to prevent
infringements of his right' (p.419).
That 'whatever may be necessary' turns out
to include force, now very generously construed - here is the further slide - to
such
incorporate
things
Moreover 'it is a logical truth,
as social pressure.
not merely a contingent one, that what might be
For
these
necessary
the
against
question
(p.421)!
nonviolent
quite indefensibly strong.
him
be,
to
to
or
be
limited
to,
In any case the 'whatever may be necessary' requirement is
action.
entitle
rights
with
The argument accordingly
To block the argument it is enough for
pacifism.
associated
preventative action
not
force'
logical transformations to work, however, the notion of preventative
action must have the notion of violence built into it.
begs
is
to
For example, D'Agostino's right to his umbrella does
kill a person who is trying to steal the umbrella even if
such action is necessary in the circumstances to
prevent
infringement
of
his
right.
to
How the argument from rights leads
inconsistency
is
summed
thus
up
(p.421):
SAI.
'If we have any rights at all then we have a right to use force to prevent
the deprivation of the thing to which we are said to have a right'.
SA2.
We have, according to the pacifist's 'the right not to have violence
done
to us', as a consequence of the objection to avoid violence.
But, therefore, we have the right to use violence, so the pacifist's position is
self-contradictory,
both
granting
and not granting the right to use violence.
The argument fails because SAI is readily rejected.
claiming
Narveson
that 'our standard concept of rights' yields SAI (cf.
6
is
mistaken
p.423).
in
That a
right can be sustained by right-supporting or right-defending
require that that action is violent.
action
does
Pacifists can provide an adequate analysis
of rights - essentially the usual one - without letting themselves in
by
simply
rejecting
the
Narveson
not
slide^.
What
for
SAI,
appears in place of SAI is
something like
SAI#.
If we have any rights at all then we have a right to uphold them.
But the right to uphold them, defend them, protect them, etc.,
facto,
give
an entitlement to the use of violence.
no dilemma for the pacifist.
not,
does
ipso
Without the slide there is
The ""pacifist's dilemma"" and Narveson's slide
are
two aspects of the one thing.
The arguments from lesser
§2.
violence
and
In
evil.
lesser
outline
the
argument - which is independent of the notion of rights - is that pacifists must
admit, in terms of their own principles, that there are cases where the
violence
those
be
would
where
Inconsistency
some
is
morally
use
of
immediate
permissible
violence
by T2.
and morally justified.
would
evil,
of
The cases are
greater
violence.
More explicitly, and in (Narveson's) terms
which also import the notion of evil, pacifists have
lesser
much
prevent
use
to
admit
both
that
the
some use of force, is admissible, in preventing greater evil, and
that it is not admissible because it involves violence.
An argument
like
this
as gets summarized as follows:-
It seems to me logically true, in any moral theory whatever, that
[E2'J the lesser evil must be preferred to the greater. If the use of
force by me, now is necessary to avoid the use of more physical force
(by others, perhaps) later, then to say that physical force is the
6.
Narveson, in responding to a suggestion of Armour (pp.423-4), sees nothing
between (1) forceful defence of rights, with the slide to violence in, and
(0) nothing really answering to rights at all, where words like
'rights'
occur without stuffing.
This shows a serious blindspot. What lies in
between are a range of notions which do not guarantee the slide to
violence.
An account of rights which will serve is given in R.
and V.
Routley
'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics' in Environmental Philosophy
(ed. D.
Mannison and others), Research School of Social Sciences,
Australian National University, 1980; see especially p.l75ff.
7
supreme (kind of) evil is precisely to say that under
circumstances I am committed to the use of physical force ?.
these
Now there are several somewhat different arguments snarled up in these sketches.
It
is
to
important
them unsnagged 8, especially if a clearer view of the
get
ethical place of pacifism
is
to
result.
The
from
argument,
basic
lesser
violence, goes as follows:Cl.
There are cases where use of violence would prevent greater violence.
C2.
One ought to minimize violence.
Therefore
C3.
There are cases where one ought to use violence,
since in this way, in any arbitrary one of
minimized.
*^P2.
the
indicated,
cases
violence
is
Therefore
It is not (always) morally wrong to use violence,
contradicting the pacifist principle, P2,
according
to
it
which
is
morally
wrong, always, to use violence.
All the ingredients
premisses,
can
be
of
this
argument,
together
with
pulled together from Narveson's work.
support
for
the
He not only espouses
C2, but suggests two distinct arguments for it, the first of which connects
the
argument with the lesser evil argument:El.
(Use of) violence is an evil.
E2.
Evil should be minimized.
The second argument to C2 is simply from the pacifist premiss, varying P2,
E3.
One ought not to undertake violence
-
period;
that
is,
the
level
of
violence ought to be zero.
Narveson, 'Is pacifism inconsistent', Ethics 78 (1968) p.148.
7.
J.
8.
Without getting into the level of complication, not to say epicycling, that
Regan lands himself in:
he is obliged to distinguish three mirage-like
senses of 'lesser evil': quantitative, qualitative, and resultant (Rp.78).
9.
See Np.127 where it is asserted that violence as a source of evil should be
minimized, and Np.119, where the point is put in terms of absolute evil.
That way of putting it already starts to give the game away, since Narveson
is all too evidently interested in negotiable evil which can be traded off
against other evils.
8
Neither argument is decisive;
of
that
reference
they
both in fact begin easing pacifists into a
frame
resist, where moral absolutes are warped into
should
moral relatives, where obligations give way
to
obligations-other-things-being-
In any event E3 only directs one not to get involved in violence at
equal, etc.
all, and says nothing about minimizing it when one
compatible
got
E3
it.
into
is
directives quite different from minimization where violence is
with
rooting it out, which may
involved, e.g.
has
involve
nonminimization
strategies.
Thus E3 does not entail E2, and commitment to E2 does not commit pacifists to C2
- a principle nonviolent activists usually do not accept either, being
to
prepared
violence perpetrated against them, for example, as a means to social
accept
justice.
Nor do El and E2 entail 02;
so neither does
principles like El and E2 oblige them to accept 02.
by
commitment
violence^"",
evil—perpetrating
Narveson's
such
e.g.
but
argument
some
increases
well-known hypothetical cases as the slaying of an
non-violent
fails
to
For in particular, violence
is not the only evil, and (so) evil may sometimes be reduced by
in
pacifists
for
dictator.
similar
reasons.
Regan's
reconstruction
of
Regan argues from premisses
concerning the ranking of evil and a premiss like E2', specifically
3.
The use of force is a substantive evil.
4.
Therefore, a lesser quantity of force must
quantity of force (Rp.79).
The argument is invalid:
be
preferred
to
a
great
an ordering of evils does not induce a similar ordering
force, even when force is an evil.
of
It is enough to observe that increasing force may
still reduce evil, and so, on Regan-Narveson assumptions, be preferrable.
Resort to the theme that
Elt.
Violence is an irredeemable evil
(proposed by Regan in his
by
Narveson,
defence"" of pacifism, Rp.80, and
Np.118) promises a way around the difficulty.
subsequently
considered
An irredeemable evil is
figuratively so black that no combination with grays (lesser evils) or whites (goods)
10.
An argument like the argument from lesser violence itself would appear to
undercut the argument from El and E2 to premiss C2 for the argument for lesser
violence.
9
will lighten its hue;
now
it always dominates.
Elt together with E2 will yield C2,
but
What are the grounds for that?
the problem with the argument shifts to Elt.
As
Narveson points out (Np.119), it is not widely acceptable, most people being prepared
to
countenance
some
small
amount
of violence in exchange for considerable goods.
(But then, not so long ago, most people were tolerant of cruelty to animals providing
it
was
not
too
Moreover, so Narveson implies, appeal to Elt does not get
gross.)
pacifists out of the argument from lesser violence;
deeper,
by
indeed it seems to get
It does break the argument however;
underwriting C2.
them
in
for it removes Cl
and, more importantly, the corresponding premiss of the more difficult argument
from
lesser evil, which starts from
DI.
There are cas^s where the use of violence would avoid greater evil.
For given, by Elt, that use of violence is irredeemably evil,
evil
than that tainted with violence;
requires.
however
pacifism
is
no
of
pacifism
(see
(utilitarian
which
Rp.80ff.),
into a 'bizarre and vaguely ludicrous' position (Rp.86),
extreme pacifism, some of the (problematic) features of which Regan outlines
But the approach
greater
and there are accordingly no cases such as DI
This is the core of Regan's defence
converts
there
through
violence
as
an
irredeemable
evil
is
a
.
mistaken
inspired) attempt to get at moral absolutes, which is what pacifism is,
like other deontological positions, grounded upon.
But such absolutes are adequately
expressed in such commandments as, One ought not to commit violence, meaning thereby,
as it says ought not, not just for the time being, or so long as reasons
otherwise
don't
arise,
or
for
acting
other things being equal, or prima facie, but ought not
11.
That is by no means the only element in Regan's torturous reformulation of
Narveson's argument that can be faulted. Consider, for example, premiss '5. If
any given action, A, is necessary to bring about a lesser rather than a greater
quantity of qualitatively equivalent evil, then one's obligation is to do A.'
While the premiss has considerable appeal as a principle of supererogation,
there is little reason to accept it as one supplying obligations.
12.
Extreme pacifism can be seen as taking the rule that one ought never to use
violence as having priority over all other moral rules - which is indeed an
extreme position even if a consistent one.
Such a priority rule is an
unsatisfactory way to deal with moral dilemmas: see further below.
10
come what may, period.
such
pacifism
as
is
Such old-fashioned deontological, moral absolutist positions,
at
collide
bottom,
head-on
more fashionable, highly
with
malleable moral positions like utilitarianism, which both Narveson and Regan (at
time) were working from.
The reason for collision is simply that 'utilitarianism ...
is incompatible with pacifism':
some
one who acts
for the utility 'that will be brought out
by
may be greater than that produced by any alternative' (Np.121)
violence
the
according
to
the
to
utilitarian-commandment
maximize
doing
13
So
.
utility
may
sometimes commit violence, contravening pacifist principles.
On its own inconsistency with a false
little:
every
position
doctrine
inconsistency
suffers
such
with
utilitarianism
as
very
many
false doctrines.
Narveson does have another (small) argument to the effect that pacifism
odds
the
with
contractarianism.
other
ethical
positions
But this argument would
only
no deeper ecological
position
insidious,
is
however,
for
Firstly, as we
such as pacifism.
generally,
have
have
provisional.
theory-saving
seen,
made
at
also
libertarianism
were
it
and
otherwise
however they are not, including
has
which
happened
is
more
it
utilitarianism,
seem
as
climate
unfavourable
to
incompatible
There are two more specific damaging features.
and
consequentialist
approaches
more
no deontic principle were firm, but all are
if
The theory of prima facie principles
This is entirely mistaken.
is
a
device, designed to get consequentialist positions out of difficulties
such as moral dilemmas.
13.
weight,
is
that utilitarian thinking has permeated much of the rest of
ethical thought, thus helping to establish a
positions
What
instance.
presents,
carry
if the positions were suitably exhaustive;
correct,
ethical
he
shows
Secondly, consequentialist positions tend
to
suggest
that
To show what Narveson goes on to claim that people are sometimes justified in
using force rather more is required, as Regan points out, Rp. 85, n.18.
It has
also to be shown that there are cases of these types (as in Cl) and that agents
can know that use of force will increase utility, reduce evil, etc. A pacifist,
rightly sceptical of utilitarian tracing of consequences, and fond of noting
that violence begets violence, could, with a small dose of scepticism also, dig
in at this point and claim that because no one can be sure that use of force
will
reduce
evil,
so no one is justified in using force. This is
sceptically-based pacifism.
11
only consequentialist reasons carry argumentative weight, and so try
such
positions,
as
into
pacifism,
offering
sometimes
to
rival
ease
incongruous consequential
support for their themes.
Narveson
assumptions
takes
such
procedures
upon pacifists:
stage
a
further,
and
utilitarian
foists
thus he says that the pacifist's 'objection to violence
is that it produces suffering, unwanted pain,
in
the
recipients'
These
(p.425).
incongruous utilitarian grounds are something of a travesty of pacifists' reasons for
objecting to violence, which concern rather the type of action involved and
what
it
does - though not only or always at all in the way of suffering - to the perpetrators
as
well
as
those
on
whom
it
is
inflicted.
Even
more
astonishing,
such
utilitarian-style considerations are supposed to commit the pacifist to the following
three statements, one of which however he must deny (!):
[N]l.
To will the end (as morally good) is to will the
to
it
(at
Other things being equal, the lesser evil is to be preferred to
the
means
least prima facie).
[N]2.
greater.
[N]3.
There are no ""privileged"" moral persons ...
(p.425)^ .
'These three principles' which feature in the summation of 'the pacifist s problem ,
among them imply, as far as I can see, both the commitment to force when it
is necessary to prevent more violence and also the conception of a right as
an entitlement to defense. And they therefore leave pacifism, as a moral
doctrine, in a logically untenable position (p.425).
It would take not merely logic, but a good deal of magic, to coax
out
of the statements given.
such
consequences
For implications to hold the substantive terms such as
'violence' and 'right' must also figure, in one way or
otherwise the implications fail just on formal grounds.
another,
in
the
implicans;
The intended argument to the
""commitment to force"" conclusion appears however to be some sort of
variant
on
the
lesser evil argument, with N2 replacing E2' (N3 and N1 have more oblique roles , N3 to
stop exceptions being made for oneself
14.
and
one's
group,
and
N1
to
ensure
that
:se may be defended on purely
Narveson also wants to contend that 'all of
logical or ""meta-ethical"" grounds'. This is likely false, especially the claim
as to logical status, since some of the principles are rejected in substantive
ethical theories.
12
violence adopted or even required as a means has its full import, e.g.
in
Cl,
in
ethical
an
end.
But,
is
reflected
for one thing, principle Nl, which is at least
dubious unless 'prima facie' is unbracketed,
which
as
the
begs
bound morally to shun violent means.
question
pacifism,
against
Under pacifist reformulation Nl will
give way to something more like
To choose an end as morally good is to choose (only) morally
Nl#.
means
acceptable
to it.
For another, without much further construction work the suggested arguments need
the three principles duly adjusted;
pacifists since nothing damaging emerges;
worry
not
they hardly leave pacifism as untenable.
More threatening is the argument from lesser evil itself, which has
countered.
This
and
E2
N2
or
inconsistency
is
of
evil)
comprehensive
to
pacifism.
Narveson's stock examples concern murder, one
what is the moral situation here?
to
not
(admissibility
What
of
these
are
them
being
violence)
of
difficult
the
Indeed the example is very similar to
dilemma,
situation
where
turns
on
Jim
shoots
one
of
what account is given of moral dilemmas.
pacifist does not do, unless he wants coherence trouble, is to
utilitarian
line
N
But
ought
The situation is that
of
a
paradigmatic
that of Pedro and Jim, where Pedro volunteers to call off his firing
squad about to shoot several captives if
everything
that
and
cases 15?
N ought to prevent mass murder, but also
kill B, because that is murder and involves violence.
of a moral dilemma.
moral
03
N (Narveson in fact) must kill the (potential) mass-murderer B (Np.119).
person
be
the argument from DI (cases of violence to avoid greater evil)
(minimization
in
to
yet
of
trying
them^,
almost
Now
What a comprehensive
take
the
inadequate
to explain moral dilemmas away, as if they didn't ever
occur (at least at other than an initial intuitive level), as if all obligations were
prima
facie, negotiable, etc., etc.
No, the conflicting obligations stand.
to be done is however a very consequentialist thing, to try
to
determine
What is
the
best
15.
A surprising feature of Narveson's argument, also Regan's ""reconstruction"", is
that these cases are usually nowhere in sight, as if again one got to
conclusions logically out of the air, without any of the hard work the cases
involve.
16.
The example was first discussed in B. Williams, 'Conflict of values', reprinted
in his Moral Luck, Cambridge University Press, 1981, 71-82.
13
do
thing (or a sufficiently good thing) to
the
In
circumstances.
trying
N2M, that it is preferrable to minimize evil, will presumably be satisfied.
the best course in the circumstances is a violent one, e.g.
that
B.
No inconsistency in pacifism follows.
evil,
minimize
it
Suppose
N had better shoot
is
preferable
to
and that in this sense (not a deontic one) evil should be minimized,
On the contrary the situation
N ought not to shoot B, but in the appalling circumstances, he had
fix.
a
that
Even granted
it does not follow that N ought to resort to violence.
remains
to
is the appropriate course of action principles like N2 and its mate,
what
determine
in
There is the real-life complication
better do so^.
of
dilemma,
moral
a
but
no
inconsistency through arguments like that from lesser evil.
Narveson's jackpot question, entangled in his discussion of
rights, can now be met.
the
argument
The question presents a dilemma:
If force is the only way to prevent violence in a given case,
justified in that case? (p.420)
is
its
use
Narveson is thinking of cases where one is about to be murdered, Regan where
to
be
raped.
No, it is not deonticly justified^.
and
amount to making out a case.
But
justification
on
proposes
is
solution,
back-up
ambiguous,
in
p.423).
against
may
dilemma
a
another
argument, taking his proposals as evident.
pacifist can simply dispute it - the jackpot question does not
argument
and
just
situation.
the contrary, that enough violence for the given occasion is
morally justified - it can go at least as far as killing
no
It is certainly not morally
The response is qualified then because some force might
be consequentially justified, as a second-best
presents
is
it is not justified, in the sense of 'justified' which reflects its
deontic origin in 'making right'.
Narveson,
one
Given that such force again presupposes violence, the pacifist answer
is a qualified No:
obligatory,
from
pacifism
-
person
but
he
As it is not - the
lead
to
a
decisive
(though Narveson gives the impression that it does, e.g.
What it can lead to is the argument from lesser evil over again.
17.
This corresponds to the account of moral dilemma, given in much more technical
detail in R. Routley and V. Plumwood 'Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic
notions' in Paraconsistent Logic (ed. G. Priest and others) 1983, to appear;
also available in this Discussion Paper series.
18.
An extreme pacifist would answer with an unqualified No.
14
The accusation of fanaticism, and the charge of moral
§3.
its
adherence
to
unexceptionable
fanaticism, so Hare contends.^
principles
Insofar
as
such
Hare
as
manages
insensitivity.
P2,
to
Through
pacifism is a form of
get
his
remarkable
accusation off the ground, he does by conflating pacifism with extreme pacifism:
the
pacifist ... solves the conflict of principles, not by critical thought,
but by elevating one principle quite irrationally, over all the others
(P.174).
Comprehensive pacifism in not always resolving the conflict of principles, in letting
stand, does neither of these things, and so does not fit into Hare's
dilemmas
moral
deceptively neat two-level
thought,
into
intuitive
Nor it is the particular ""critical thinking"", anti-pacifist solution
pacifism.
himself
helps
moral
of
to,
without
any
violence is apparently fine for countries like Israel (cf.
redefinition,
a
Harey-fanatic,
e.g.
p.175).
Hare's accusation turns on an extravagant redefinition of fanaticism.
Hare's
Hare
of the requisite supporting argument, according to
which pacifist principles are inappropriate in many places at the present time,
on
and
pacifism is not, as standard pacifism is not, extreme
comprehensive
But
critical.
classification
A fanatic
is a person who adheres to ideals which
diverge from what utilitarianism (in approved form) recommends (cf.
p.170)!
Since
comprehensive pacifism is committed to principles and ideals of nonviolence which, as
already observed, diverge from where utilitarianism (as massaged by Hare or Narveson)
namely
tends,
towards the
pacifists are Harey—fanatics. This
usual
whether they are
sense:
whether
The
'bigoted'.
idea
that
violence
in many situations, such
does not of course make them
fanatics
position comprises
their
of
appropriateness
'wild
of
some
of
pacifist principles^.
the
depends on the very different matter of
or
extravagant opinions'
or
(OED)
is
pacifism consists of such opinions can be removed by an
appeal to history:- A great many of the sages, especially Eastern thinkers,
founders
in
fanatics,
and
the
the world's main religions, have been pacifists, committed to
But the relevant opinions
hardly be, all of the condemned type.
of
such
thinkers
Whence the conclusion follows.
are
not,
can
By this simple
syllogism, the accusation of fanaticism is rebutted.
19.
R.M. Hare, Moral Thinking, Clarendon Press, Oxford,
1981,
p.173.
references to Hare's work without further citation are to this text.
15
All
page
Nor do comprehensive pacifists come out at fanatics under Hare's
satisfactory, though seriously incomplete, account of fanaticism:
is treating something that is not morally relevant, such as
being
as
Jewish,
is
completed,
it
there^^ fanaticism
wearing
beads
Naturally, given that using of characterising
or
moral
hardly exclude the violence is a morally relevant
can
matter, so are other procedures with similar damaging results to
violence:
blue
For however the sensitive task matter of using
morally relevant.
violence as morally irrelevant.
relevance
more
earlier,
those
of
applying
this does lead to a residual problem for comprehensive pacifism (taken up
at the end of §4).
Does it really matter then that
fanatics?
it
Although
argument that it does.
homework
appears
pacifists,
that
though
not
Harey-fanatics are bigots, inasmuch as had
guess
what,
they
their
done
the
Thus, e.g.
p.15:
go
over
to
Hare's
As one might anticipate, Hare's argument, upon which he sets great
store, 'from universal perscriptivism to utilitarianism ...
20.
Harey-
properly, had they performed their critical thinking adequately, they would
utilitarianism).
of
are
it does not matter in the least, Hare has an
abandon the principle they are fixated upon (and,
logic
fanatics,
concepts
A.
based [entirely] on
involved' (p.176), is unsound, and in fact fails at several
Naess, Gandhi and Group
Conflict,
Universitetsforlaget,
...among the generally acknowledged moral leaders from the time of
ancient China and India down to present day, the principle of
nonviolence has been the rule, and the condoning of violence, even in
defence, the exception.
21.
the
R.M. Hare, Applications of Moral philosophy, Macmillan, London,
1972,
p.78.
Note that the elegant prototype argument Hare develops in this
article on peace — from universalisation, directed against fanaticism and
nationalism, there presented as the main causes of war - does not lead to
utilitarianism (though the seeds of the later, more obscure, route are
present, e.g. on p.79) and does not tell against pacifism. What has gone
wrong in Hare's later argument to the much more sweeping conclusions just
alluded to, can be seen by comparing the later argument with the clearer
prototype argument developed against nationalism.
16
Oslo,
crucial points.
objectionable
to
getting
Before
of
feature
these
of
some
theory.
The
a
highly
Hare's procedure that deserves comment, namely the way in
which the whole highly informal argument is set within the framework
two-level
is
there
details,
procedure
adopted
is
methodologically
Hare's
of
own
radically unsound
because it takes for granted the adequacy of Hare's theory, a matter that is open, at
the very least, to serious doubt, since it supposes a quite particular, and eminently
rejectable (utilitarian) way of handling and resolving moral dilemmas, a way
above.With that rejection goes a rejection of the standard deontic logic
rejected
Hare presupposes, which he assumes any serious opponent must adopt.
which
logic,
already
But
since
that
Hare assumes uniquely determined, rules out any approach what, go over
As one might anticipate, Hare's the question against some
to Hare's utilitarianism).
important opponents of utilitarianism.
In his arguments Hare divides fanatics into pure and
comprise
intuitionists
moral
and
pure
Impure
impure.
fanatics
who stick to their deontic
deontologists,
principles, who 'cling to their intuitions' (p.176), and do not advance to what
calls
'critical
thinking'.
Hare's dismissal of ""impure fanatics"", such as extreme
pacifists, 'because of [their] refusal
clearly'
Hare
or
inability
to
facts
face
or
to
think
involves a quite illicit shift in the notion of critical thinking,
(p.170)
originally introduced to account for a particular (primarily utilitarian) fashion
accommodating
ff.).
But
cases
this
comprehensive
bit
intuitive
principles
conflict, of moral dilemmas (p.28
dirty-trick
philosophy
can
where
of
pacifists
are
presumably
""pure
willing to think critically, but somehow survived
opinions
different
from
here
be
fanatics"";
the
ordeal
those of the utilitarian' (p.171).
set
aside,
still
holding
his
argument
is
correct
argument is not correct.
See further, again, Routley and Plumwood, ibid.
17
moral
They are in fact ""pure
to
be
According to Hare there cannot be
inconsistent with utilitarianism, as we have seen.
any fanatics of this type, if
since
for they are 'able and
fanatics of the first type"", since they go on holding opinions which turn out
22.
of
(p.171).
Therefore,
his
One sufficient reason for incorrectness we have already glimpsed, namely failure
to
consider
the
possibility
a Harey-fanatic operates with different logical
that
assumptions and concepts from those of utilitarians
(cf.
other
p.177 ff.) depends on preference
reasons.
substitution,
preferences
For
which
can
be
one,
argument (e.g.
Hare's
requires
a
base
class
intersubstituted.
Hare,
chauvinistically contracts this base class
representation
whole
of
to
ff.).
p.176
preference-havers,
in
the
of
course
There
are
whom
among
his
discussion
humans.Differently,
certain
the
of moral matters by way of preferences of this type is open to
familiar objection, even by utilitarians of a different cast.
As to the moral insensitivity of pacifism, this
is
less
an
argument
a
than
damaging charge:
A person committed to an extreme pacifism, though he need make no logical
mistake, yet lacks a fully developed moral sensitivity to the vagaries and
complexities of human existence (Rp.86).
The smear is not without basis.
applied
to
avert
greater
Regan is envisaging
where
situations
violence
and he points to what he takes to be the evident
evil;
moral permissibility of a woman's using 'what physical power she has to free
from
an
aspiring
rapist'
is
Interestingly,
(Rp.86).
has
Regan
situation in a way which is incompatible with a pacifist stand:
herself
not described the
there is nothing
in
to
prevent a woman wriggling free (even in a way that involves some force) and
fleeing.
What is at issue is the permissibility of using violence, which implies the
(perhaps
wilful)
that
infliction
death, by forceful means^ (cf.
mere
use
of
of
damage,
non-negligible
Np.110);
that is, which
physical force or power (or energy).
including pain, injury or
involves
much
more
than
And it is by no means so evident
that the woman is entitled to
inflict
violence
from force, a pacifist can hardly be accused, in a way
is
duly
separated
violence
upon
the
aspiring
rapist.
Once
that can be made to stick, of crass moral insensitivity.
23.
On the defectiveness of such contractions of the base
Routley, op. cit., especially the concluding section.
18
class,
see
R. and
V.
But
a
straightforward
action
violence
disentangling
defective
It
is
of
subcase
not
depend
force
by
is
means
no
of
on
violence.
a
tight
Fortunately
characterisation
what
indicate
some
done, in the way of inflicting damage.
constraints
Firstly,
presupposed.
force:
is
legalised force,
violence,
so
violence,
a
on
satisfactory
violence
is
not
applied
on
behalf
account
adequately
of
some
of
violence,
where no force is applied.
violence.)
24.
supposed
that
and
are
which
distinguished as illegitimate
""legitimate
authority,
long as it is physically similar to acts not so legitimated.
so often mistakenly
of
However it is important to
is not removed by the imprimatur of the law.25 Secondly, violence is not
of
the
enough, for main purposes, that violent actions are a subclass of
actions by forceful means, a subclass picked out both through the forcible means
through
so
Indeed the literature on nonviolent
characterisations
arguments developed in this paper do
violence.
a
matter as may at first seem.
with
abounds
as
the
is
Violence
threat
(This only needs emphasizing because it is
threats,
intimidation
and
the
like,
involve
Thirdly, violence can be perpetrated without intention to inflict damage.
Directed against other creatures and more generally against ecological systems
such as ecosystems which can be hurt. There is a difference here between live
(goal-directed) systems and property, and comprehensive pacifism does not
necessarily exclude wilful damage to property. Thus eco-pacifists may destroy,
or at least disable, bulldozers but not harm those who use bulldozers to destroy
habitat. However sensitive eco-pacifists will not condone sabotage or ""violent
destruction of property either: disabling of equipment may be different.
It follows from the account of violence sketched that intimidation, threats of
violence, and ""psychological violence"" are not violence, because they do not
involve forcible means: violence is physical violence. Naturally, intimidation
and psychological violence are open to moral criticism and censure on grounds
related to those that tell against violence proper.
For similar reasons,
""economic violence"" and ""structural violence"" are also not violence: such
procedures are generally open to criticism on other grounds and hardly need to
be covered under the blanket charge of violence. Nor is poverty, e.g., violence
or violence-involving, except figuratively, in the way that war is an obscenity.
Even given the warranted restriction of violence to physical force, many
difficult cases remain; e.g. questions as to when usually approved surgical
practices involve violence.
19
There can be unintentional violence, e.g.
the women may have applied violent
Fourthly, such matters as the distance
without intending to, in escaping the rapist.
at which force is applied and the indirectness of
military operations, are irrelevant.
modern
means,
the
means,
as
instance
for
in
The submarine operator who, by causally
pressing a button, fires a missile at a distant Russian
city
instigates
violent
a
By contrast, an adjacent blockade of a city, which results in hardship but not
act.
in direct damage, may be affected by nonviolent
confined
to
action
done
against
persons,
means.
but
can
violence
Finally,
be
directed
not
is
against
other
life-forms, as will soon emerge.
Pacifism, like most positions, has its weaknesses, and
the
from
fact
that
one
of
them^
derives
violence (like pain) is a partly quantitative matter, and that
there is no sharp cut-off point at the bottom end of the scale with small amounts
violence greater than zero.
of
Yet minute (non-foot-in-the-door) amounts do not seem to
matter all that much morally, at least compared with the gross evils that confront us
on
most sides when we look.
Morally sensitive pacifists will not focus or fixate on
small quantities of violence to the undue exclusion of larger moral
certainly
will
problems.
They
give it to be understood that by 'violence' in principles such as P2
they mean 'nontrivial violence'.
Arguments to the moral insensitivity of pacifism, on the basis of pacifists' not
taking
obvious
steps
passivity and pacifity.
to
prevent evil occurrences, depend also upon a confusion of
Both Regan and Narveson (e.g.
p.425) assume
that
pacifism
25.
The point is explained in more detail in G. Sharp, Social Power and Political
Freedom, op.cit., p.288n.
Note however that Sharp's account of 'political
violence'
is defective in various other respects.
It is curious,
but
understandable, that in his major, and massive, texts on nonviolent action,
Sharp never really gets to grips with the problem of characterising violence,
and indeed appears tempted by such defective equations as that of violence with
force and threat with use.
26.
Another comes from the necessary circumscription of permissible nonviolent
action, to ensure that it does not include actions worse than nontrivial violent
action.
20
This is far from true, as the variety of methods
is a passive do-nothing position.
or adopted by nonviolent action groups has made plain.
considered
Narveson correctly comprehend the real scope or possibilities of
Otherwise,
Narveson
negative
later
Narveson's
action.
nonviolent
hardly b<- able to assert, in the automatic (but carping)
would
way he does, that the pacifist is standing by 'not
(p.425).
Neither Regan nor
doing
assessment
nonviolence' does not change the situation:
for this
of
anything
about'
violence
what
calls
'positive
positive
he
approach
simply
is
nonviolence practised in an exemplary :.&y, as by Christ, in the hope that others will
follow suit, and fails to recognise the potential
or effectiveness of nonviolent practices.
extent
when
assembled^,
much
the
reduce
of
and
training
the
Fuller details of these practices,
the
of
impact
nonviolent
argument
from
social
irresponsibility, which is part of what lies behind the charge of insensitivity.
§4.
The
argument
corollaries.
The
from
radical
practice
political
corollaries
by
definition.
But
from
other
awkward
of pacifism would certainly tend to eliminate war.
war involves violence, typically on an extensive scale.
war
and
the
position
Although normally war would be excluded,
Standard pacifism takes
For
out
of comprehensive pacifism is not so clear.
what
of
dilemma
situations?
War
would
always be counted morally impermissible, but in exceptional extenuating circumstances
it might be the (second-) best thing
27.
to
do.
A
strange
pacifism!
Comprehensive
The methods also include anticipatory action, for instance, the policemen going
off to enact violence find their vehicles won't start, e.g. because components
have been removed.
As to variety, Sharp has distinguished 197 methods falling into 3 broad types:
protest, noncooperation and intervention;
op.
cit.
pp.32-3.
Of course
pacifisms and nonviolent action postions need not coincide: the interrelations
are those of overlap (see. e.g. Sharp, Politics, p.68).
28.
See e.g. B. Martin 'How the peace movement should be preparing for nuclear
war' Bulletin of Peace Proposals 13 (1982) 149-159, and references cited therein
pp.152-3, especially G. Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, op.cit.,
(referred to as Politics) and V.
Coover and others, Resource Manual for a
Living Revolution, New Society Publishers, Philadelphia, 1981.
21
pacifism thus does not include standard pacifism, in contrast
to
extreme
pacifism.
Comprehensive pacifism can of course be brought progressively closer, in practice, to
If
extreme pacifism through principles emphasizing the evil of violence.
is
given
a
large
suitably
that
evil
weighting then second-best choices will yield the same
results as extreme pacifism does (deontically), and entirely exclude war.
Now it can hardly be cogently argued as telling against pacifism that
eliminate
since
wars,
of
war
an
as
or
mounted from
upon
rely
the
institutions.
only
obviously police and military forces but
many of their institutions, most
legal
state
arrangements,
States are however desirable social institutions,
typically depend on violent means.
and war is a by-product of nation-state arrangements (in the case of just
comprehensive
implies
pacifism
the
of
inadmissibility
institutions, such as police forces and states typically are;
be ruled out either
individuals,
as
directly
delegates,
who
violence-dispensing
violence
effect
however exclude the replacement of such
forces,
by
nonviolent
nonviolent means.
state;
but
it
substitutes,
is
nonviolent
methods
or
such organisations may
else
because
their behalf.
evolved
will
Pacifism
institutions concerned with
does
not
public
that
order
have
Pacifism does not
organisations
maintain
they
by
fully
as
police
alternative
nonviolent
will be applied, where necessary, to
The force of the objection should thus not
entail
order,
sweeping charges of social irresponsibility.
22
the
and
are
coercive
actively
Law and authority can still operate then in the
back-up authority and ""enforce"" laws.
overestimated.
on
recently
which
wars,
A more telling objection, then, is
no doubt further evils to prevent greater evils).
that
which
violence-underpinned
these
of
directly
less
institutions
and a more general argument may be
and
nation-states
particular,
or
arrangements
social
inevitability,
or
not without much further ado.
least
extensively:
violence
desirability,
In
at
institution,
However wars are by no means the
dispense
exchanges that should certainly be avoided at all
nor therefore can an argument be mounted against pacifism from the
reasonable costs;
desirability
are
wars
would
it
elimination
accordingly
of
does
Nor is it true that
prominent
not
be
social
succumb
to
pacifism ... would also entail anarchism, that is,
the illegitimacy of
government. For a purely voluntary ""government"" is not a government in the
sense that defines a state at all (Np.127).
A government or administration can certainly operate by nonviolent,
noncoercive,
arrangements.
political
arrangements not of this sort are morally impermissible.
imply
the
absence
or
illegitimacy
of
government,
political community organised under a government.
state
with
authority
and
not
necessarily
pacifism does not entail anarchism.
main
implies
it
Accordingly,
that
not
does
or therefore of a state, of a
Nor does
it
even
that
imply
a
certain coercive institutions may not be a second-best solution to moral
dilemmas of political organisation.
and
only
pacifism
Comprehensive
or (differently)
objective,
attained,
not
was
Since it admits of states with frameworks of law
based
on
the free agreements of individuals,
Gandhi's practice affords a counterexample:
a
nonviolent
Indian
genuine interconnections between pacifism and nonviolent anarchism
simple as derivability.
Nor is comprehensive pacifism as a
it was not the
state;
replacement of British India by a stateless or anarchist society.
moral
his
Granted there
are
they are not so
so
ideal
easily
brought down by its political corollaries.
Comprehensive pacifism upsets other widely accepted social practices than
concerning
like:
external
and
internal state relations, such as war, civil order and the
it also tells against the received treatment of
example.
While
other
species,
animals
for
it does not entail vegetarianism, while it does not prohibit eating
of meat, it does morally forbid violence to animals.
29.
those
At least it does this
so
long
Both hold that the coercive state which relies upon violent methods is without
moral basis or legitimacy. Both involve pretty tall orders, the replacement of
violence-dispensing political organisations by alternative arrangements (on
replacement in the case of anarchism, see R. Routley and V. Plumwood 'The
irrefutability of anarchism', Social Alternatives, 2(3) (1982) 23-8). But they
differ as to what justifies these arrangements and what means can be applied
(see further Sharp, op. cit., under index headings to anarchism, especially
Politics, p.67). Roughly, while pacifism pushes removal of violence to a limit,
anarchism pushes removal of authority (especially state
authority)
and
restrictions on liberty, to a limit.
Naturally the interconnections did not escape Gandhi:
'The ideally nonviolent
state will be an ordered anarchy'
(unreferenced citation at the end of the
Ecophilosophy Newsletter, #5, p.24).
23
as what normally counts as violence, to animals, continues to rank as
is
humans (or persons).
restriction.
30
controversial
euthanasia,
the category by restriction of the application of violence to
from
removed
not
There is little good basis
in
And,
humans,
of
violence?
At
the
suicide,
But
must
creatures does not have to take overtly violent forms.
simply
the new ""abattoirs"" or hospitals a creature
killing
of
No force need be applied:
in
a
eats
and dies painlessly and without a struggle.
The
or
pill
given
is
life is extinguished, are not pacifist ones, which focus on violence?
technical
purely
arrangements
pacifist
will
to
objections
in
solve,
eating
meat
worthwhile
On the face of
obtained.
so
New
any rate, the disruption of
at
principle
an
Then the proper objections to
such practices, for example that consent may not have been obtained, that
it, there are no
they
risk of opening a hornet's nest, consider what examples
like euthanasia may suggest, the possibility of nonviolent killing.
injection
several
into
e.g.
So long as these involve violence, pacifism excludes such practices.
involve
chauvinistic
spread
corollaries
killing
a
such
indeed wherever violence plays a significant role.
punishment,
capital
the
concerning
for
however
similar
case,
any
areas
moral
and
violence,
practices threatened by vegetarian corollaries.
But suppose now that the new technology
is
as the anti-neutron bomb, which selectively destroys
which
by
further
clever
newly devised ""weapons"", such
scientists, working in their accustomed military role:
devices
much
extended
property
but
not
people,
or
""dissolve"" people, enable ""wars"" to be fought without violence.
just
Even a pacifist who goes as far as countenancing nonviolent killing can however avoid
these
reaches
of
technological
For ""dissolving"" people requires energy,
fantasy.
which (since reflecting force) can stand in for force in
violence:
Was
(upgraded)
account
of
that is, the new wars will still involve violence.
there
old-fashioned
however
violent
anything
methods
wrong
so
such
as
with
hunting
eating
meat
obtained
by
more
or raising and killing one's own?
Pacifism, like vegetarianism, runs counter to ""natural""
iO.
an
behaviour
of
creatures
to
cit.
See R. and V. Routley, 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics', op.
Such a restriction to persons is however imposed by Sharp, op. cit. (e.g.
Politics, p.608), and it does remove the problems of vegetarianism and
predation.
24
which the principles are supposed to apply.
Aggression is a fairly common feature of
and human behaviour, and it sometimes (though by no means so often is as made
animal
out) erupts in violence.
ways,
various
for
The force of the
example
along
these
argument
can
however
Aggression
lines.
is
assumed to be an
evolutionary adaption developed to enable creatures to be better fitted for
(of
their offspring) in their natural environment.
and
themselves
ir
mitigated
be
survival
But most humans
now live in rather artificial environments substantially removed from situations
which
evolution
for
gradually adapted their features (there is no way they are going to
adapt in time to absorb massive doses of radiation, for instance).
Much
humans
as
have adjusted their living environment in nonevolutionary ways, so along with it they
should substantially adjust their social practices - including aggressive and violent
practices,
now
ill-adapted
to
their
and mostly counterproductive.
situation
So
argues the pacifist.
is a residual problem,
There
like
that
of
and tribal
people, to be condemned as morally
Sometimes,
yes,
Are
wrong
when
predators
involve
these
the
violence?
when the violence grossly exceeds what is required given the end to
Though a way
but always?
can
it is a rather unsatisfactory way.
problem
vegetarianism.
creatures living in (relatively) natural conditions, such as
practices
be attained:
confronting
beaten
be
the
around
of
edge
this
What this suggests is that nonviolence
is not an absolute, but at best a qualified ideal.
The arguments for
nonviolence
-
which are mostly practical arguments which do not exclude occasional uses of violence
and do not strictly apply to creatures in natural surroundings -
sort
of
But
conclusion.
exclude.
nonviolent
what
is
called
charge
for
state,
is
is much more investigation aimed, among other things, at
This is^ to concede
an
of moral insensitivity against comprehensive pacifism so long as
P2 remains unqualified.
31.
would
The further suggestion that emerges upon granting that moral
sharper, more sensitive, and less blanket principles than P2.
attentuated
similar
approaches
thinking and associated principles in this area are in a pretty primitive
that
a
the suggestion is a dangerous one, practically at least,
since it opens the door a chink to other options which
categorically
suggest
The sheer moral power of such pacifism
As Singer has in the analogous case of
Liberation, Jonathan Cape, London, 1975.
25
vegetarianism:
is
one
see
reason
e.g.,
for
Animal
There is no reason however why
giving its adoption some pause.
a
genuine
pacifism
(making for real peace) should not be built on a modified version of P2 which permits
such natural phenomena as predation.
Nothing logically rules out such a genuine
and
more sensitive pacifism.
There are other requirements the position to be worked out should meet as
In
particular, a rationality requirement implies that pacifists go on to oppose acts
similar to those using violence:
This
is
a
requirement
of
otherwise they could have a case made against them.
in a different sense from the pure logical
consistency
sense, namely that of keeping to the same story.
for
well.
pacifism,
Again there need be no deep problem
so long, this time, as it is not erroneously supposed that there must
be a single principle
(e.g.
just
P2)
-
as
distinct
from
a
bundle
of
moral
principles, others of which serve to oppose acts accounted similar to those involving
violence.32 To meet the rationality requirement the position should,
be
integrated
into
a
in
larger framework of nondestructive practices, which are of a
piece with nonviolent practices.33 For, except metaphorically, practices
to the environment, for instance, do not involve violence, e.g.
mining in a fertile valley, damaging a wild river, dumping toxic
and
oceans.
In
an
does
not
destructive
such things as strip
wastes
in
streams
extended sense, which gets beyond the confines of the property
picture, all these practices are environmental vandalism.
vandalism
particular,
cover
violence
But
even
metaphorically,
against persons (and certainly not nonphysical
violence such as ""psychological violence"").
What is sought then
is
an
appropriate
of these notions covering destructive practices;
and also an accompanying
synthetic term, better than the umbrella term 'vandolence'.
Then P2 is superseded by
synthesis
an appropriately qualified
P2#.
It is morally wrong to use vandolence.
It remains to characterise
the
cluster
of
destructive
practices
that
count
as
vandolence and to try to justify the principle - no easy tasks.
32.
It is important that pacifism, like other deontological positions, reject
assessments of similarity simply in terms of similar damaging consequences.
Features of the means deployed, for example, also matter.
33.
The position has been called 'pacifism.
26
APPENDICES
§ 5.
from
arguments
The
and
pacifism in the real world.
of
impracticality
impracticality
reality:
social
the
alleged_
Even if it is conceded that pacifism
is a viable moral ideal, that it does not fall down as incoherent or ludicrous, still
the
feasibility
of
pacifism
as a sensible practice to live by will be contested -
despite, or perhaps because of, major examples such as Christ and Gandhi.
to
be
that
admitted
the
pacifism to severe tests.
real
world,
with
all its horror and squalor, does put
But in this regard pacifism is not an exception.
Nowhere is the practice of nonviolence usually thought less
than in replacing war^.
prepared
for
to
likely
succeed
Yet nonviolent social defence methods, to replace the usual
violent methods, have been described in some detail^, though they
properly
And it has
or
given
a
have
been
never
The prospects for success of
dress rehearsal.
nonviolent defence of a region can vary significantly, depending upon whether the war
convention
is
observed
or not.
If the convention is observed then pacifism stands
reasonable prospects of success.
The difficult cases are where the war convention
perhaps
unleashed,
in
broken,
is
and
violence
is
According to Walzer, in his
massive ways, on noncombatants.
superficially sympathetic sketch and assessment of nonviolent defence and resistance,
'success
is possible only if the invaders are committed to the war convention -
...
and they won't always be' (Wp.331^^).
attained
-
there
is
conventions are flouted.
reasons,
some
got homesick.
ruthless
of
This is
presumably
be
never any guarantee of it, without or with war - even if some
The invaders may give
them irrelevant, e.g.
up
and
depart
for
all
sorts
or
they needed a quick decisive victory, they
What Walzer no doubt means is something like this:
invaders
may
Success
false.
that
sufficiently
in sufficient numbers with sufficient time and sufficient support
34.
The more sweeping replacement of the state (of the main source
considered in Routley and Plumwood, in Social Alternatives, op.cit
35.
Again for example, in Sharp, Politics, op.cit.
references given there.
36.
All page references prefixed by 'W' are to
Allen Lane, London, 1977.
27
See also
M. Walzer,
Martin,
Just
and
of
war)
op.cit.,
Unjust
is
and
Wars,
But that sort of thing is also true even if the
lines, etc., can eventually succeed.
defending
to violence.
resorts
side
The difference lies in the pattern of events;
is
if the defence ""forces"" are well-armed it
invaders
to
easier
and
with
start
difficult
more
than
afterwards
and
with
costly
the
for
civil
well -prepared
resistance.
Walzer is
nonviolent
the
of
model
the
in
way
enslaved
Jews,
misleading
The
way.The
Nazis,
many
like
who
to
jump
that
conclusion
the
cannot succeed when the war convention is abandoned, in terms of
defence
inappropriate examples.
command,
however,
thinking,
who
He is thinking of an extreme totalitarian
the
in
state,
total
Nazis were in Germany, the Jews of Germany providing the
the
population,
by
The
""resistance""
picture
is
highly
and large, did not resist extermination in an organised
invaded
never
Germany,
were
in
control
the
all
or
For
infrastructure and had the cooperation (at least) of the bulk of the population.
Walzer's comparison to work, there would have to be an enormous occupying army
took
over
and
managed
all
key
Australia it is not even so clear
largely
united
and
actively
With island territories such as
infrastructure.
that
resisting
this
is
which
logistically
population.
Walzer's
feasible
against
impression
resistance fragmenting and the populace moving into dulled acquiscence (e.g.
a
of the
Wp.332)
might have got things the wrong way around, with disbelieving and frustrated soldiers
ready to leave.
Non violent resistance is however unlikely to be put to the test in any adequate
No state would be prepared to risk
way
in
37.
It has been argued, moreover, that when church leaders, Christian or Jewish,
opposed the deportations, most of the Jews were saved (when country by country
comparisons are made). See, for one of many treatments of this sensitive issue,
R.L.
Rubenstein, The Cunning of History:
the Holocaust and the American
Future, Harper, New York, 1978, chapter 5.
38.
The argument suggested in Walzer (e.g. p.333) that nonviolent methods would
increase evil, or at least its distribution, is weak. It is countered by
Sharp's observation that the suffering likely to be induced is less than in
comparable wars.
present
state-determined circumstances.
28
training its
populace
different).
It
in
would
full
techniques
defence
(civil
all too easy for them to ""rout"" the police:
be
then
action
nonviolent
is
civil
obedience, for example, could no longer be ensured by the customary violent means.
The argument
thus
far
§6.
On the positive case for pacifism:
has
been largely defensive, meeting a range of objections to comprehensive pacifism.
That in itself is revealing.
deviations
from
it
are
initial sketchings.
Pacifism is the
what
require
rest
position
explanation.
(inertial
and
state)
The reason for this is simple
violence is, on most ethical systems, at least a prima facie evil, so use of
enough:
it is what has to be justified.
Positive arguments for pacifism can take advantage of
and
merely
justified.
case
try
privileged
dispose of ""exceptional cases"" where violence is supposed to be
to
in
that
the
defender
(person
or
nation)
is
morally—excluded situation, since the attacker has overstepped moral
the
position
The favourite exception is self-defence against a violent opponent:
curious
is
its
the
in
already
a
Still
bounds.
defender is not morally committed to violence whatever he does - as in a dilemma
And since it is at least prima facie wrong, and he does not have
situation.
to
use
it, he should not resort to it.
An elementary syllogistic argument, given by Narveson (Np.117), can
be
adapted
to give a similar result:-
Violence is (intrinsically) wrong
Violence in any excepted cases (e.g.
self-defence) is still violence
Violence in any excepted cases is still (intrinsically) wrong.
Naturally those opposed to pacifism will challenge the first premiss, and a dialectic
already glimpsed will begin.
None of the arguments for pacifism is conclusive, since even where arguments are
deductively
tight
assumptions
can
be
challenged
arguments for pacifism particularly good ones.
for
pacifism,
(as
above).
Nor
One of the poorer positive
are all the
arguments
for example, makes similar assumptions to those of the classic theory
29
of war, namely that once war is embarked upon it cannot be limited,
that
nuclear
or
chemical
case is overstated.
hope
weapons will be used selectively and restrictively is an
illusion, escalation is inevitable.
are bound to be overstepped.
the
e.g.
The (moral) limits in war - whatever they are
-
Although the chances of escalation are real enough, the
Limited exchanges and confrontation are possible.
Wars are much
more social arrangements and much more conventional than the classical theory allows.
Wars can, for example, be started and stopped
things intervene (e.g.
(as
support
more
should
midstream
for
first
the
those
inevitably,
premiss
above)
for
mixture
a
suffering
and
anguish
of
violent
the
methods,
They
nonviolence.
of
consideration, a range of consequentialist and practical reasons, e.g.
pain,
important
a pollution crisis affecting other neighbouring states).
The main reasons for pacifism are,
include
in
injustice
characteristically works, the futility and counterproductiveness of
means-ends
cost
the
in
violence
that
violence
within
the setting of modern industrial societies, the broader popular support base obtained
by avoidance of violence, the desirable social consequences of nonviolence such as
more
less furtive, society.
open,
the why of
pacifism)
considerable.
These
are
None of these well-known types of reason (giving
separately
decisive,
but
their
cumulative
affords a model for one way of proceeding^:
Mill's
defence
Mill's
procedure
works
(st
least
As was pointed out by F. D'Agostino in discussion.
30
of
liberty
nonviolence,
it works as well as it works for
liberty).
39.
is
it is enough (a nonelementary exercise)
to adapt Mill's consequentialist arguments for liberty to arguments for
otherwise
effect
reasons can be put together, in various ways, to make a strong
positive case for pacifism, as principled nonviolence.
as
a
A
decisive
more
consequentialist
data.,
argument,
takes
a
but
making
semantical
preference rankings on worlds, and these worlds
modelling
nonviolence
Again
principles.
use
and
The data is used to arrive at
route.
are
practical
similar
of
then
pacifism
in
applied
is
derived
semantically
principled
as
nonviolence.0
R.
40.
Routley*
*
The details of such an esoteric defence of moral principles are outlined in R.
and V.
Routley, op.cit.: a fuller account may be found in their 'Semantical
foundations for value theory', Nous (1983), to appear.
* With thanks to R. Beehler, F. D'Agostino, B. Martin, L. Mirlin, R. Goodin, and
participants in the Philosophy Seminar, Research School of Social Sciences,
Australian National University.
The main outlines of the paper were drafted
associate at Simon Fraser University.
31
while
the
author
was
a
research
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R.K. Meyer, Why I am not a relevantist, 1978.
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R.K. Meyer and M.A. McRobbie, Firesets and relevant implication, 1979.
R.K. Meyer, A Boolean-valued semantics for R, 1979.
R.K. Meyer, Almost Skolem forms for relevant (and other) logics, 1979.
R.K. Meyer, A note on R_
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R.K. Meyer and J.K. Slaney, Abelian logic (from A to Z), 1980.
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/
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4
---------- =^A,W7/7/////7//7777 r/
)r
% ./
",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Box 149: Publications (to como)",https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/664f37e435c9d6f4d1314b33f7a6ded9.pdf,Text,"Self-published Papers",1,0
154,https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/show/154,"Box 149, Item 3: War and peace II - on the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism","Series: Discussion papers in environmental philosophy ; number 9. Published by Australian National University. Department of Philosophy. Published under Richard Sylvan's previous name Richard Routley.","One of two copies in collection. Annotation on cover: Part corrected.","Richard Routley","The University of Queensland's Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291, Box 149, Item 3","Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy",1983,"This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, Dr. N.A.J. Taylor.","For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.",,"[31] leaves ; 25 cm. 58.71 MB. ",,Manuscript,"https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:4d46fce",,"Discussion Papers
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Phitosophy Departments
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PO Box 4, Canberra, Australia 2600.
NUMBER 9
WAR AND PEACE. II
ON THE ALLEGED INCONSISTENCY, MORAL INSENSITIVITY
RICHARD ROUTLEY
FOR CIRCULATION AND
EVENTUAL LIBRARY DEPOSIT
WAR AND PEACE.
II
ON THE ALLEGED INCONSISTENCY, MORAL INSENSITIVITY AND
FANATICISM OF PACIFISM
by
R. Routley
Number 9
Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy
Department of Philosophy
Australian National University
1983
ON THE ALLEGED INCONSISTENCY, MORAL INSENSITIVITY AND
FANATICISM OF PACIFISM
Pacifism,
despite
its
limited
revival
through
the
nonviolent
action
1
movement
and
as a respectable tradition within the Catholic church , continues
to have a bad philosophical press.
one
way
or
another,
It is commonly portrayed
characteristically
as inconsistent.
as
incoherent
Even philosophical
defences of pacifism are liable to be extremely defensive, conceding
pacifism
is
in
only
that
consistent, but insisting otherwise that it is as false as a moral
2
position can be, bizarre, and morally insensitive .
What follows challenges the
prevailing wisdom put out in the philosophical press, but using its own analytic
methods.
§1.
Slide arguments to inconsistency;
from
rights.
an
In
influential
and
and arguments from irresponsibility and
widely
disseminated
set
of articles
3
attacking pacifism , Narveson says that the pacifist's position is
not only that [Tl] violence is evil but also that [T2] it is morally
wrong to use force [violence] to resist, punish, or prevent violence.
This further step makes pacifism a radical moral doctrine.
What I
shall try to establish below is that it is, in fact, more than merely
radical - it is actually incoherent because self-contradictory ...
(p.408, italics added).
Subsequently (p.414) he characterises pacifism by way of T2, though it would
be
better characterised by the more sweeping
1.
According to the US Catholic Bishops, pacifism is
'a valid Christian
position', with a long tradition going back to Christ and the early
Christians who were committed to a nonviolent lifestyle:
see Origins 12
(1982) pp.310-311.
The revival in the nonviolent action (NVA) movement is a somewhat qualified
one (as will emerge), many in that movement wishing to distance themselves
from traditional pacifism.
2.
In particular, T. Regan 'A defence of pacifism', Canadian Journal of
Philosophy 11 (1972) 73-86. Page references to this article are prefixed
by R.
Regan ends by saying 'To regard the pacifists'
belief
vaguely ludicious"" is, perhaps, to put it mildly'.
as
""bizarre
and
P2.
It is morally wrong to use violence.
However T2 captures the cases that
orthodox
opposition.
The
separate
comprehensive
pacifism
from
main form of pacifism under investigation is called
'comprehensive' to distinguish it from standard pacifism, in the usual
sense
which
is
narrower
restricted to certain theses concerning (state) order, notably
opposition to (violence in) war, which does not necessarily
elsewhere.
the
But
if
violence
Pacifism, as a
universally and not merely in war.
violence
is impermissible, then it should be so
what
is
out
rule
position,
moral
should
be
comprehensive.
On its own showing, it is contended,
proper
action
to
preventative action
commitment
to
prevent,
what
would
involve,
it
use
in
the
case
Narveson's
or
of
pacifism.
of
incoherence Narveson and others find in pacifism:
claims
prohibits,
acclaimedly
sometimes,
precluded
from
taking
violence;
But
force.
genuine
actively
defend
on
them,
pain
Hence
the
initial
that it cannot underwrite its
of
inconsistency.
However
location of incoherence in pacifism depends, essentially, on several
connected slides, all of which the pacifist should resist - without force.
initial
for
a moral position must allow action to back up commitment, action
of a type logically excluded
own
is
pacifism
The
slide is from the theme T2 italicised above to what results by deletion
of the crucial phrase 'to use force', or as it
should
be
'to
use
violence',
namely
J. Narveson 'Pacifism: a philosophical analysis', Ethics 75 (1968) and
'Is pacifism consistent', Ethics 78 (1968). The first article is reprinted
in War and Morality (ed. R. Wasserstrom) Wadsworth, Belmont, California,
1970, pp.63-77. The first article is also rewritten and combined with part
of the second in 'Pacifism: a philosophical analysis', Moral Problems (ed.
J.
Rachels), Third Edition, Harper & Row, New York, 1979, pp.408-425.
Page references without further citation are to this latter article.
Narveson's theme that pacifism is incoherent is headlined and further
elaborated in his 'Violence and war', Matters of Life and Death (ed.
T.
Regan), Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1980, pp.109-147. Page
references prefixed by 'N' are to this article.
2
It is morally wrong to resist, punish, or prevent violence -
R2.
and similarly from special and related cases of T2 to special and related
of
R2 (e.g.
It is
cases
from T2S, It is forbidden to use force to resist violence, to R2S,
forbidden
to
resist
The
violence).
slide
is
illegitimate
because
commitment to T2 does not entail commitment to the rejected proposition R2;
for
one thing there are many ways of confronting, reducing and controlling violence,
worked
out
pacifists
by
and others, which do not involve use of violence (or
4
perhaps force).
The initial slide is however what
assault
on
pacifism
Narveson
clearing
(after
several
exploits
confusions,
explain the popularity of pacifism, out of the way).
irresponsibility
of
in
This
his
first
main
which he takes to
argument,
from
the
does not actually lead to contradiction, but it
pacifism,
does suggest that there is a serious tension between pacifism and any method
of
maintaining social order, so serious that pacifism is socially irresponsible:
... to hold the pacifist position as a genuine full-blooded moral
principle is to hold nobody has a right to fight back when attacked
... It means that we are all mistaken in supposing that we have the
right of self-protection ... It appears to mean, for instance, that
we have no right to punish criminals, that all our machinery of
criminal justice is, in fact, unjust.
Robbers, murderers, rapists, and miscellaneous delinquents
this [irresponsible] theory, to be let loose (pp.415-6).
Since one can protect oneself and avoid and resist aggression
back
violence),
(with
unless
a
slide
(tentatively)
by
is
without
fighting
pacifism
does
not mean what Narveson claims it means,
Nor
does
comprehensive
made.
theses
on
ought,
T1
T2,
and
imply
that
pacifism,
characterised
we have no right to punish
criminals, but simply that such punishment (or the imposition of penalties) will
not
apply
violent
methods.
Nor
therefore
does
it
imply
that
all
conventional machinery of criminal justice is unjust, but only that some,
good
4.
deal,
of
that
machinery
is.
One
hardly
the
or
a
needs to be a comprehensive
Pacifism, as involving the active use of defensive methods, can be traced
back as far as the Mohist philosophers of ancient China. On modern methods
see especially G. Sharp, Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives, Boston,
1971.
As will emerge, there is a point in distinguishing (as Narveson does not in
his earlier work) force from violence; they are not equivalent.
3
pacifist to coherently think the latter.
the
This provides
confirmation
some
for
key point which is that there is, so far at least, no inconsistency evident
in maintaining that those who hold that violent methods are
legitimate
morally
are mistaken.
The next slide is closely connected with, and really generalises upon,
initial
slide.
The
is to imbue a range of more neutral terms with the
stunt
connotation of violence or at least of force which
equate with violence.
use of force is taken to by implied in R2.
cannot
here
resist
Hence
(p.415).
violence,
or
force
and
to
so
Hence
the
against attack' (pp.417-8).
also
Narveson's
and
so
to
a
much
less
can
be
resisted,
But
without
violence.
things like arrest, without violence (e.g.
even
by
Force can be applied, as in opening
sliding out of handcuffs and running away).
a jam jar or pulling a person out of danger, without violence.
force, but not vice versa;
and
defensible position.
positions can be defended, as in this paper or on the field,
Things
be
If the stunt were got away with, it would
pacifism
render
a
unwarranted
deprive pacifism of, for instance, the general methods of nonviolent action
resistance,
be
that
assumption
""recharacterisation"" of pacifism as the position that 'no one ought ever
defended
to
proceeds
Hence the conflation of T2 and
excluded from among admissible pacifist methods.
pacifist
Narveson
Thus such activities as resisting, punishing, preventing,
and defending are taken to imply (use of)
R2;
the
Violence implies
and it is violence, not all applications
of
force,
that comprehensive pacifists are bound to exclude.
The attempt
nonviolent
to
castrate
practices,
any case indefensible.
development
and
themselves
from
compromise,
pacifism,
by
depriving
it
of
the
range
of
is not confined to those who (want to) think pacifism in
It enjoys some popularity even
among
those
advocating
expansion of nonviolent methods, who no doubt want to distance
older
mediation,
pacifism,
whose
methods
they
see
as
confined
to
negotiation, and involving the granting of concessions.
The newer (nonviolent) activists have justification;
for
pacifism
has
often
by an unsympathetic opposition, as confined to passive methods
jeen
presented,
(cf.
even the Concise English Dictionary account, where it is erroneously
4
said
of
pacifism
'positively, it holds that all disputes should be settled by
that
negotiation', and, negatively, that it is 'the
hostilities
added).
and
of
total
doctrine
of
non-resistance
non-cooperation with any form of warfare':
But nothing in the characterisation of pacifism, whether
or standard, need so limit its admissible methods:
to
italics
comprehensive
nothing excludes resistance,
uncompromising methods, and imposition of sanctions which offer no concessions.^
It
is
simply
that
comprehensive
pacifism
has
not yet developed its fuller
potential, especially in conflict resolution.
Subsequent slides in the development of the argument against
just
variations
qualifier.
on
those
pacifism
are
given, writing violence-involving in as an internal
Thus the measure of a person's opposition to something in
terms
of
'the amount of effort he is willing to put forth against it' is taken - somewhat
perversely - to be violence-involving effort or opposition in the
pacifist's
'opposition
to
If
violence'.
this
slide
were
pacifist would be caught in an elementary inconsistency since in
case
of
the
permissible any
being
opposed
to violence, by definition, he is prepared to use violence and so is not opposed
to violence.
it
is
Even Narveson 'cannot make too much' of this inconsistency, though
not so far removed from the alleged inconsistencies he does want to make
much of in his main inconsistency argument.
5.
In the way Sharp, for example, has illicitly assumed in several works: see
for instance the unduly narrow definition of pacifism given in his Social
Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent Publishers, Boston,
1980,
p.198.
Again, however, there is some historical basis for dissociating nonviolent
action from pacifism;
and given the difficulties comprehensive pacifism
can lead to, there are philosophical reasons as well.
But even without much in the way of organised sanctions, worthwhile
positive results can often be obtained, as the case of international law
reveals: cf. H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law, Oxford University Press,
1961, p.212.
5
A similar slide, together with a further slide, is made in the argument
on
based
inconsistency
pacifism theme,
the
to
notion of rights, especially as it figures in the
transformed to the claim
No one has a right to indulge in violence (p.418).
P2(R).
For Narveson tries to incorporate the right to indulge in violence in
notion
The
right.
of
very
initial move is to work in assumptions of defence from
breaches of a right and of
Because
the
against
action
preventative
infringement
'a right just i_s a status justifying preventative action ...
it.
of
what does
follow logically is that one has a right to whatever may be necessary to prevent
infringements of his right' (p.419).
That 'whatever may be necessary' turns out
to
to include force, now very generously construed - here is the further slide
such
incorporate
things
as social pressure.
Moreover 'it is a logical truth,
not merely a contingent one, that what might be
For
action must have the notion of violence built into it.
the
against
question
nonviolent
(p.421)!
quite indefensibly strong.
him
To block the argument it is enough for
rights
with
The argument accordingly
to
be,
to
or
be
to,
limited
In any case the 'whatever may be necessary' requirement is
action.
entitle
pacifism.
associated
preventative action
not
force
logical transformations to work, however, the notion of preventative
these
begs
is
necessary
to
For example, D'Agostino's right to his umbrella does
kill a person who is trying to steal the umbrella even if
such action is necessary in the circumstances to
prevent
infringement
his
of
right.
to
How the argument from rights leads
inconsistency
is
summed
up
thus
(p.421):
SAI.
'If we have any rights at all then we have a right to use force to prevent
the deprivation of the thing to which we are said to have a right'.
SA2.
We have, according to the pacifist's 'the right not to have violence
done
to us', as a consequence of the.o&f^e&i^fi to avoid violence.
But, therefore, we have the right to use violence, so the pacifist's position is
self-contradictory,
both
granting
and not granting the right to use violence.
The argument fails because SAI is readily rejected.
claiming
Narveson
that 'our standard concept of rights' yields SAI (cf.
6
is
mistaken
p.423).
in
That a
right can be sustained by right-supporting or right-defending
require that that action is violent.
action
does
Pacifists can provide an adequate analysis
of rights - essentially the usual one - without letting themselves in
by
simply
rejecting
the
Narveson
not
slide^.
What
for
SAI,
appears in place of SAI is
something like
If we have any rights at all then we have a right to uphold them.
SAI#.
But the right to uphold them, defend them, protect them, etc.,
give
facto,
an entitlement to the use of violence.
no dilemma for the pacifist.
not,
does
ipso
Without the slide there is
The ""pacifist's dilemma"" and Narveson's slide
are
two aspects of the one thing.
The arguments from lesser
§2.
violence
and
In
evil.
lesser
outline
the
argument - which is independent of the notion of rights - is that pacifists must
admit, in terms of their own principles, that there are cases where the
violence
would
where
those
Inconsistency
be
some
is
morally
use
of
immediate
permissible
violence
by T2.
and morally justified.
would
prevent
evil,
of
The cases are
greater
violence.
More explicitly, and in (Narveson's) terms
which also import the notion of evil, pacifists have
lesser
much
use
to
admit
both
that
the
some use of force, is admissible, in preventing greater evil, and
that it is not admissible because it involves violence.
An argument
like
this
as gets summarized as follows
It seems to me logically true, in any moral theory whatever, that
[E2'J the lesser evil must be preferred to the greater. If the use of
force by me, now is necessary to avoid the use of more physical force
(by others, perhaps) later, then to say that physical force is the
6.
Narveson, in responding to a suggestion of Armour (pp.423-4), sees nothing
between (1) forceful defence of rights, with the slide to violence in, and
(0) nothing really answering to rights at all, where words like 'rights'
occur without stuffing.
This shows a serious blindspot. What lies in
between are a range of notions which do not guarantee the slide to
violence.
An account of rights which will serve is given in R.
and V.
Routley
'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics' in Environmental Philosophy
(ed. D.
Mannison and others), Research School of Social Sciences,
Australian National University, 1980; see especially p.l75ff.
7
supreme (kind of) evil is precisely to say that under
circumstances I am committed to the use of physical force .
these
Now there are several somewhat different arguments snarled up in these sketches.
It
is
important
to
them unsnagged 8, especially if a clearer view of the
get
ethical place of pacifism
is
to
The
result.
from
argument,
basic
lesser
violence, goes as follows:—
Cl.
There are cases where use of violence would prevent greater violence.
C2.
One ought to minimize violence.
Therefore
C3.
There are cases where one ought to use violence,
the
since in this way, in any arbitrary one of
minimized.
""""P2.
indicated,
cases
violence
is
Therefore
It is not (always) morally wrong to use violence,
contradicting the pacifist principle, P2,
according
to
it
which
is
mora
y
wrong, always, to use violence.
All the ingredients
premisses,
can
be
of
this
argument,
together
with
pulled together from Narveson's work.
support
for
the
He not only espouses
C2, but suggests two distinct arguments for it, the first of which connects
the
argument with the lesser evil argument:-
El.
(Use of) violence is an evil.
E2.
Evil should be minimized.
The second argument to C2 is simply from the pacifist premiss, varying P2,
E3.
One ought not to undertake violence
-
period;
that
is,
the
level
of
violence ought to be zero.
J.
8
9.
Narveson, 'Is pacifism inconsistent', Ethics 78 (1968) p.148.
Without getting into the level of complication, not to say epicycling, that
Regan lands himself in:
he is obliged to distinguish three mirage-like
senses of 'lesser evil': quantitative, qualitative, and resultant (Rp.78).
See Np.127 where it is asserted that violence as a source of evil should be
minimized, and Np.119, where the point is put in terms of absolute evil.
That way of putting it already starts to give the game away, since Narveson
is all too evidently interested in negotiable evil which can be traded off
against other evils.
8
Neither argument is decisive;
of
reference
that
they
both in fact begin easing pacifists into a
resist, where moral absolutes are warped into
should
moral relatives, where obligations give way
to
obligations-other-things-being-
In any event E3 only directs one not to get involved in violence at
equal, etc.
all, and says nothing about minimizing it when one
compatible
frame
got
into
it.
E3
is
directives quite different from minimization where violence is
with
involved, e.g.
has
rooting it out, which may
involve
nonminimization
strategies.
Thus E3 does not entail E2, and commitment to E2 does not commit pacifists to 02
- a principle nonviolent activists usually do not accept either, being
to
accept
prepared
violence perpetrated against them, for example, as a means to social
justice.
Nor do El and E2 entail 02;
so neither does
principles like El and E2 oblige them to accept C2.
by
commitment
evil-perpetrating
Narveson's
such
e.g.
violence
but
argument
some
increases
well-known hypothetical cases as the slaying of an
dictator.
non-violent
fails
to
For in particular, violence
is not the only evil, and (so) evil may sometimes be reduced by
in
pacifists
for
similar
reasons.
Regan's
reconstruction
of
Regan argues from premisses
concerning the ranking of evil and a premiss like E2', specifically
3.
The use of force is a substantive evil.
4.
Therefore, a lesser quantity of force must
quantity of force (Rp.79).
The argument is invalid:
be
preferred
to
a
great
an ordering of evils does not induce a similar ordering
force, even when force is an evil.
of
It is enough to observe that increasing force may
still reduce evil, and so, on Regan-Narveson assumptions, be preferrable.
Resort to the theme that
Elt.
Violence is an irredeemable evil
(proposed by Regan in his ""defence"" of pacifism, Rp.80, and
by
Narveson,
Np.118) promises a way around the difficulty.
subsequently
considered
An irredeemable evil is
figuratively so black that no combination with grays (lesser evils) or whites (goods)
10.
An argument like the argument from lesser violence itself would appear to
undercut the argument from El and E2 to premiss C2 for the argument for lesser
violence.
9
will lighten its hue;
now
it always dominates.
Elt together with E2 will yield C2,
but
What are the grounds for that?
the problem with the argument shifts to Elt.
As
Narveson points out (Np.119), it is not widely acceptable, most people being prepared
to
countenance
some
small
amount
of violence in exchange for considerable goods.
(But then, not so long ago, most people were tolerant of cruelty to animals providing
it
was
not
too
Moreover, so Narveson implies, appeal to Elt does not get
gross.)
pacifists out of the argument from lesser violence;
deeper,
It does break the argument however;
underwriting C2.
by
indeed it seems to get
them
in
for it removes Cl
and, more importantly, the corresponding premiss of the more difficult argument
from
lesser evil, which starts from
DI.
There are cas^s where the use of violence would avoid greater evil.
For given, by Elt, that use of violence is irredeemably evil,
evil
than that tainted with violence;
requires.
however
pacifism
is
no
of
pacifism
(see
into a 'bizarre and vaguely ludicrous
(utilitarian
through
as
violence
an
irredeemable
evil
which
Rp.80ff.),
position (Rp.86),
extreme pacifism, some of the (problematic) features of which Regan outlines
But the approach
greater
and there are accordingly no cases such as DI
This is the core of Regan's defence
converts
there
is
a
.
mistaken
inspired) attempt to get at moral absolutes, which is what pacifism is,
like other deontological positions, grounded upon.
But such absolutes are adequately
expressed in such commandments as, One ought not to commit violence, meaning thereby,
as it says ought not, not just for the time being, or so long as reasons
otherwise
don't
arise,
or
for
acting
other things being equal, or prima facie, but ought not
11.
That is by no means the only element in Regan's torturous reformulation of
Narveson's argument that can be faulted. Consider, for example, premiss 5. If
any given action, A, is necessary to bring about a lesser rather than a greater
quantity of qualitatively equivalent evil, then one's obligation is to do A.
While the premiss has considerable appeal as a principle of supererogation,
there is little reason to accept it as one supplying obligations.
12.
Extreme pacifism can be seen as taking the rule that one ought never to use
violence as having priority over all other moral rules - which is indeed an
extreme position even if a consistent one.
Such a priority rule is an
unsatisfactory way to deal with moral dilemmas: see further below.
10
Such old-fashioned deontological, moral absolutist positions,
come what may, period.
such
is
pacifism
as
collide
bottom,
at
more fashionable, highly
with
head-on
malleable moral positions like utilitarianism, which both Narveson and Regan (at
time) were working from.
The reason for collision is simply that 'utilitarianism ...
for the utility 'that will be brought out
is incompatible with pacifism':
some
one who acts
by
may be greater than that produced by any alternative' (Np.121)
violence
the
according
to
the
to
utilitarian-commandment
maximize
doing
13
So
.
utility
may
sometimes commit violence, contravening pacifist principles.
On its own inconsistency with a false
little:
position
every
doctrine
inconsistency
suffers
such
with
very
many
false doctrines.
Narveson does have another (small) argument to the effect that pacifism
odds
the
with
contractarianism.
correct,
other
ethical
positions
But this argument would
only
position
insidious,
is
however,
for
have
Firstly, as we
generally,
have
provisional.
theory-saving
seen,
made
also
libertarianism
were
it
at
and
otherwise
however they are not, including
has
which
happened
is
more
it
utilitarianism,
seem
as
climate
unfavourable
to
incompatible
There are two more specific damaging features.
and
consequentialist
approaches
more
no deontic principle were firm, but all are
if
The theory of prima facie principles
This is entirely mistaken.
is
a
device, designed to get consequentialist positions out of difficulties
such as moral dilemmas.
13.
weight,
is
that utilitarian thinking has permeated much of the rest of
such as pacifism.
positions
What
instance.
ethical thought, thus helping to establish a
ethical
carry
if the positions were suitably exhaustive;
no deeper ecological
presents,
he
shows
utilitarianism
as
Secondly, consequentialist positions tend
to
suggest
that
To show what Narveson goes on to claim that people are sometimes justified in
using force rather more is required, as Regan points out, Rp. 85, n.18. It has
also to be shown that there are cases of these types (as in Cl) and that agents
can know that use of force will increase utility, reduce evil, etc. A pacifist,
rightly sceptical of utilitarian tracing of consequences, and fond of noting
that violence begets violence, could, with a small dose of scepticism also, dig
in at this point and claim that because no one can be sure that use of force
will
reduce
evil,
so no one is justified in using force.
This is
sceptically-based pacifism.
11
only consequentialist reasons carry argumentative weight, and so try
such
positions,
as
pacifism,
into
offering
to
ease
rival
incongruous consequential
sometimes
support for their themes.
Narveson
assumptions
takes
such
procedures
upon pacifists:
a
stage
further,
and
utilitarian
foists
thus he says that the pacifist's 'objection to violence
is that it produces suffering, unwanted pain,
in
the
(p.425).
recipients'
These
incongruous utilitarian grounds are something of a travesty of pacifists' reasons for
objecting to violence, which concern rather the type of action involved and
what
it
does - though not only or always at all in the way of suffering - to the perpetrators
as
well
as
those
on
whom
it
is
inflicted.
Even
more
astonishing,
such
utilitarian—style considerations are supposed to commit the pacifist to the following
three statements, one of which however he must deny (!):
[N]l.
To will the end (as morally good) is to will the
it
(at
Other things being equal, the lesser evil is to be preferred to
the
means
to
least prima facie).
[N]2.
greater.
[N]3.
There are no ""privileged"" moral persons ...
(p.425)^.
'These three principles' which feature in the summation of 'the pacifist's problem',
among them imply, as far as I can see, both the commitment to force when it
is necessary to prevent more violence and also the conception of a right as
an entitlement to defense. And they therefore leave pacifism, as a moral
doctrine, in a logically untenable position (p.425).
It would take not merely logic, but a good deal of magic, to coax
out
of the statements given.
consequences
such
For implications to hold the substantive terms such as
'violence' and 'right' must also figure, in one way or
otherwise the implications fail just on formal grounds.
another,
in
the
implicans;
The intended argument to the
""commitment to force"" conclusion appears however to be some sort of
variant
on
the
lesser evil argument, with N2 replacing E2' (N3 and N1 have more oblique roles, N3 to
stop exceptions being made for oneself
and
one's
group,
and
N1
to
ensure
that
14. Narveson also wants to contend that 'all of these
may be
defended on purely
logical or ""meta-ethical"" grounds'. This is likely false, especially the claim
as to logical status, since some of the principles are rejected in substantive
ethical theories.
12
violence adopted or even required as a means has its full import, e.g.
in
in
Cl,
ethical
an
end.
for one thing, principle Nl, which is at least
But,
dubious unless 'prima facie' is unbracketed,
which
is
reflected
as
the
begs
bound morally to shun violent means.
pacifism,
against
question
Under pacifist reformulation Nl will
give way to something more like
To choose an end as morally good is to choose (only) morally
Nl#.
acceptable
means
to it.
For another, without much further construction work the suggested arguments need
pacifists since nothing damaging emerges;
worry
not
the three principles duly adjusted;
they hardly leave pacifism as untenable.
More threatening is the argument from lesser evil itself, which has
countered.
This
and
E2
N2
or
inconsistency
is
of
evil)
comprehensive
to
pacifism
Narveson's stock examples concern murder, one
what is the moral situation here?
to
(admissibility
What
of
are
them
these
being
of
violence)
dilemma,
Indeed the example is very similar to
the
turns
that
on
Jim
shoots
one
of
what account is given of moral dilemmas.
pacifist does not do, unless he wants coherence trouble, is to
utilitarian
line
and
where
situation
N
But
ought
The situation is that
of
a
paradigmatic
that of Pedro and Jim, where Pedro volunteers to call off his firing
squad about to shoot several captives if
everything
be
cases
difficult
N ought to prevent mass murder, but also
kill B, because that is murder and involves violence.
of a moral dilemma.
moral
03
N (Narveson in fact) must kill the (potential) mass-murderer B (Np.119).
person
not
to
the argument from DI (cases of violence to avoid greater evil)
(minimization
in
yet
of
trying
them^.
almost
Now
What a comprehensive
take
the
inadequate
to explain moral dilemmas away, as if they didn't ever
occur (at least at other than an initial intuitive level), as if all obligations were
prima
facie, negotiable, etc., etc.
No, the conflicting obligations stand.
to be done is however a very consequentialist thing, to try
to
determine
What is
the
best
15.
A surprising feature of Narveson's argument, also Regan's ""reconstruction"", is
that these cases are usually nowhere in sight, as if again one got to
conclusions logically out of the air, without any of the hard work the cases
involve.
16.
The example was first discussed in B. Williams, 'Conflict of values', reprinted
in his Moral Luck, Cambridge University Press, 1981, 71-82.
13
thing (or a sufficiently good thing) to
in
the
In
circumstances.
trying
N2M, that it is preferrable to minimize evil, will presumably be satisfied.
the best course in the circumstances is a violent one, e.g.
that
B.
No inconsistency in pacifism follows.
minimize
that
Even granted
it does not follow that N ought to resort to violence.
N had better shoot
is
preferable
to
On the contrary the situation
N ought not to shoot B, but in the appalling circumstances, he had
fix.
a
it
Suppose
and that in this sense (not a deontic one) evil should be minimized,
evil,
remains
to
is the appropriate course of action principles like N2 and its mate,
what
determine
do
There is the real-life complication
better do so^.
of
a
dilemma,
moral
but
no
inconsistency through arguments like that from lesser evil.
the
Narveson's jackpot question, entangled in his discussion of
rights, can now be met.
argument
The question presents a dilemma:
If force is the only way to prevent violence in a given case,
justified in that case? (p.420)
its
is
use
Narveson is thinking of cases where one is about to be murdered, Regan where
to
be
No, it is not deonticly justified^.
is a qualified No:
and
amount to making out a case.
But
justification
on
proposes
is
solution,
back-up
ambiguous,
in
p.423).
against
may
just
situation.
dilemma
a
another
argument, taking his proposals as evident.
pacifist can simply dispute it - the jackpot question does not
argument
and
the contrary, that enough violence for the given occasion is
morally justified - it can go at least as far as killing
no
It is certainly not morally
The response is qualified then because some force might
be consequentially justified, as a second-best
presents
is
it is not justified, in the sense of 'justified' which reflects its
deontic origin in 'making right'.
Narveson,
one
Given that such force again presupposes violence, the pacifist answer
raped.
obligatory,
from
pacifism
person
-
but
he
As it is not — the
lead
to
a
decisive
(though Narveson gives the impression that it does, e.g.
What it can lead to is the argument from lesser evil over again.
17.
This corresponds to the account of moral dilemma, given in much more technical
detail in R. Routley and V. Plumwood 'Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic
notions' in Paraconsistent Logic (ed. G. Priest and others) 1983, to appear;
also available in this Discussion Paper series.
18.
An extreme pacifist would answer with an unqualified No.
14
The accusation of fanaticism, and the charge of moral
its
adherence
to
principles
unexceptionable
Insofar
fanaticism, so Hare contends.
such
manages
Hare
as
as
insensitivity.
P2,
to
Through
pacifism is a form of
get
his
remarkable
accusation off the ground, he does by conflating pacifism with extreme pacifism:
the
pacifist ... solves the conflict of principles, not by critical thought,
but by elevating one principle quite irrationally, over all the others
(p.174).
Comprehensive pacifism in not always resolving the conflict of principles, in letting
moral
stand, does neither of these things, and so does not fit into Hare's
dilemmas
deceptively neat two-level
critical.
thought,
into
intuitive
himself
to,
without
any
Hare
of the requisite supporting argument, according to
which pacifist principles are inappropriate in many places at the present time,
violence is apparently fine for countries like Israel (cf.
Hare s
redefinition,
a
Harey—fanatic,
e.g.
p.175).
Hare's accusation turns on an extravagant redefinition of fanaticism.
on
and
pacifism is not, as standard pacifism is not, extreme
Nor it is the particular ""critical thinking"", anti-pacifist solution
pacifism.
helps
comprehensive
But
moral
of
classification
A fanatic
is a person who adheres to ideals which
diverge from what utilitarianism (in approved form) recommends (cf.
Since
p.170)!
comprehensive pacifism is committed to principles and ideals of nonviolence which, as
already observed, diverge from where utilitarianism (as massaged by Hare or Narveson)
tends,
namely
the
towards
pacifists are Harey—fanatics.
usual
sense:
whether
position
their
bigoted .
they
whether
The
idea
appropriateness
violence
This does not of course make
are
'wild
in many situations, such
them
or
extravagant
opinions'
of
some
pacifist principles
of
.
the
or
(OED)
is
pacifism consists of such opinions can be removed by an
appeal to history:- A great many of the sages, especially Eastern thinkers,
founders
in
fanatics,
depends on the very different matter of
fanatics
comprises
that
of
and
the
the world's main religions, have been pacifists, committed to
But the relevant opinions
hardly be, all of the condemned type.
of
such
thinkers
Whence the conclusion follows.
are
not,
can
By this simple
syllogism, the accusation of fanaticism is rebutted.
19.
R.M. Hare, Moral Thinking, Clarendon Press, Oxford,
1981,
p.173.
references to Hare's work without further citation are to this text.
15
All
page
Nor do comprehensive pacifists come out at fanatics under Hare's
satisfactory, though seriously incomplete, account of fanaticism:
is treating something that is not morally relevant, such as
being
Jewish,
as
relevance
is
completed,
it
there^ fanaticism
wearing
beads
Naturally, given that using of characterising
can
or
moral
hardly exclude the violence is a morally relevant
matter, so are other procedures with similar damaging results to
violence:
blue
For however the sensitive task matter of using
morally relevant.
violence as morally irrelevant.
more
earlier,
those
applying
of
this does lead to a residual problem for comprehensive pacifism (taken up
at the end of §4).
Does it really matter then that
fanatics?
it
Although
argument that it does.
homework
appears
pacifists,
that
though
Harey-fanatics are bigots, inasmuch as had
guess
what,
they
their
done
the
Thus, e.g.
go
over
to
Hare's
As one might anticipate, Hare's argument, upon which he sets great
store, 'from universal perscriptivism to utilitarianism ...
20.
Harey-
properly, had they performed their critical thinking adequately, they would
utilitarianism).
of
are
it does not matter in the least, Hare has an
abandon the principle they are fixated upon (and,
logic
fanatics,
not
concepts
A.
based [entirely] on
involved' (p.176), is unsound, and in fact fails at several
Naess, Gandhi and Group
Conflict,
Universitetsforlaget,
p.15:
...among the generally acknowledged moral leaders from the time of
ancient China and India down to present day, the principle of
nonviolence has been the rule, and the condoning of violence, even in
defence, the exception.
21.
the
R.M. Hare, Applications of Moral Philosophy, Macmillan, London,
1972,
p.78.
Note that the elegant prototype argument Hare develops in this
article on peace - from universalisation, directed against fanaticism and
nationalism, there presented as the main causes of war - does not lead to
utilitarianism (though the seeds of the later, more obscure, route are
present, e.g. on p.79) and does not tell against pacifism. What has gone
wrong in Hare's later argument to the much more sweeping conclusions just
alluded to, can be seen by comparing the later argument with the clearer
prototype argument developed against nationalism.
16
Oslo,
crucial points.
objectionable
getting
Before
feature
some
to
these
of
The
theory.
highly
a
Hare's procedure that deserves comment, namely the way in
of
which the whole highly informal argument is set within the framework
two-level
is
there
details,
procedure
adopted
methodologically
is
Hare's
of
own
radically unsound
because it takes for granted the adequacy of Hare's theory, a matter that is open, at
the very least, to serious doubt, since it supposes a quite particular, and eminently
rejectable (utilitarian) way of handling and resolving moral dilemmas, a way
rejected
above.With that rejection goes a rejection of the standard deontic logic
Hare presupposes, which he assumes any serious opponent must adopt.
which
logic,
already
But
that
since
Hare assumes uniquely determined, rules out any approach what, go over
As one might anticipate, Hare's the question against some
to Hare's utilitarianism).
important opponents of utilitarianism.
In his arguments Hare divides fanatics into pure and
comprise
moral
intuitionists
and
pure
impure.
deontologists,
fanatics
Impure
who stick to their deontic
principles, who 'cling to their intuitions' (p.176), and do not advance to what
calls
'critical
thinking'.
Hare's dismissal of ""impure fanatics"", such as extreme
pacifists, 'because of [their] refusal
clearly'
Hare
or
inability
to
face
facts
or
to
think
involves a quite illicit shift in the notion of critical thinking,
(p.170)
originally introduced to account for a particular (primarily utilitarian) fashion
accommodating
ff.).
But
cases
this
comprehensive
bit
intuitive
principles
conflict, of moral dilemmas (p.28
dirty-trick
philosophy
can
where
of
pacifists
are
presumably
""pure
willing to think critically, but somehow survived
opinions
different
from
be
here
fanatics"";
the
ordeal
those of the utilitarian' (p.171).
set
inconsistent with utilitarianism, as we have seen.
any fanatics of this type, if
his
argument
is
for they are 'able and
still
holding
moral
They are in fact ""pure
to
be
According to Hare there cannot be
correct
argument is not correct.
See further, again, Routley and Plumwood, ibid.
17
since
aside,
fanatics of the first type"", since they go on holding opinions which turn out
22.
of
(p.171).
Therefore,
his
One sufficient reason for incorrectness we have already glimpsed, namely failure
to
consider
the
possibility
that
a Harey-fanatic operates with different logical
assumptions and concepts from those of utilitarians
reasons.
other
substitution,
preferences
For
which
can
be
one,
argument (e.g.
Hare's
requires
a
base
class
intersubstituted.
representation
to
ff.).
are
There
p.177 ff.) depends on preference
the
of
course
whom
among
preference-havers,
in
Hare,
chauvinistically contracts this base class
whole
of
p.176
(cf.
his
discussion
humans.Differently,
certain
the
of moral matters by way of preferences of this type is open to
familiar objection, even by utilitarians of a different cast.
As to the moral insensitivity of pacifism, this
an
less
is
argument
a
than
damaging charge:
A person committed to an extreme pacifism, though he need make no logical
mistake, yet lacks a fully developed moral sensitivity to the vagaries and
complexities of human existence (Rp.86).
The smear is not without basis.
applied
to
avert
greater
Regan is envisaging
violence
where
situations
and he points to what he takes to be the evident
evil;
moral permissibility of a woman's using 'what physical power she has to free
from
an
aspiring
rapist'
is
Interestingly,
(Rp.86).
has
Regan
situation in a way which is incompatible with a pacifist stand:
herself
not described the
there is nothing
in
to
prevent a woman wriggling free (even in a way that involves some force) and
fleeing.
What is at issue is the permissibility of using violence, which implies the
(perhaps
wilful)
that
infliction
death, by forceful means^ (cf.
mere
use
of
of
damage,
non-negligible
Np.110);
that is, which
physical force or power (or energy).
including pain, injury or
involves
much
more
than
And it is by no means so evident
that the woman is entitled to
inflict
violence
from force, a pacifist can hardly be accused, in a way
is
duly
separated
violence
upon
the
aspiring
rapist.
Once
that can be made to stick, of crass moral insensitivity.
23.
On the defectiveness of such contractions of the base
Routley, op. cit., especially the concluding section.
18
class,
see
R. and
V.
But
a
straightforward
action
violence
disentangling
abounds
as
It
with
is
subcase
matter as may at first seem.
defective
of
not
depend
force
is
by
means
no
violence.
of
on
tight
a
Fortunately
characterisation
what
indicate
some
done, in the way of inflicting damage.
constraints
Firstly,
presupposed.
force:
is
legalised force,
violence,
so
violence,
a
on
satisfactory
violence
is
not
applied
on
behalf
adequately
of
of
account
some
violence,
where no force is applied.
violence.)
24.
supposed
that
and
are
which
distinguished as illegitimate
""legitimate""
authority,
long as it is physically similar to acts not so legitimated.
so often mistakenly
of
However it is important to
is not removed by the imprimatur of the law.2$ Secondly, violence is not
of
the
enough, for main purposes, that violent actions are a subclass of
actions by forceful means, a subclass picked out both through the forcible means
through
so
Indeed the literature on nonviolent
characterisations
arguments developed in this paper do
violence.
a
the
is
Violence
threat
(This only needs emphasizing because it is
threats,
intimidation
and
the
like,
involve
Thirdly, violence can be perpetrated without intention to inflict damage.
Directed against other creatures and more generally against ecological systems
such as ecosystems which can be hurt. There is a difference here between live
(goal-directed) systems and property, and comprehensive pacifism does not
necessarily exclude wilful damage to property. Thus eco-pacifists may destroy,
or at least disable, bulldozers but not harm those who use bulldozers to destroy
habitat. However sensitive eco-pacifists will not condone sabotage or ""violent""
destruction of property either: disabling of equipment may be different.
It follows from the account of violence sketched that intimidation, threats of
violence, and ""psychological violence"" are not violence, because they do not
involve forcible means: violence is physical violence. Naturally, intimidation
and psychological violence are open to moral criticism and censure on grounds
related to those that tell against violence proper.
For similar reasons,
""economic violence"" and ""structural violence"" are also not violence: such
procedures are generally open to criticism on other grounds and hardly need to
be covered under the blanket charge of violence. Nor is poverty, e.g., violence
or violence-involving, except figuratively, in the way that war is an obscenity.
Even given the warranted restriction of violence to physical force, many
difficult cases remain; e.g. questions as to when usually approved surgical
practices involve violence.
19
There can be unintentional violence, e.g.
the women may have applied violent
without intending to, in escaping the rapist.
Fourthly, such matters as the distance
at which force is applied and the indirectness of
military operations, are irrelevant.
modern
means,
the
for
as
means,
instance
in
The submarine operator who, by causally
pressing a button, fires a missile at a distant Russian
city
instigates
a
violent
By contrast, an adjacent blockade of a city, which results in hardship but not
act.
in direct damage, may be affected by nonviolent
confined
to
action
done
against
persons,
means.
but
can
violence
Finally,
be
directed
not
is
against
other
life-forms, as will soon emerge.
Pacifism, like most positions, has its weaknesses, and
from
the
fact
that
one
of
derives
them^
violence (like pain) is a partly quantitative matter, and that
there is no sharp cut-off point at the bottom end of the scale with small amounts
violence greater than zero.
of
Yet minute (non-foot-in-the-door) amounts do not seem to
matter all that much morally, at least compared with the gross evils that confront us
on
most sides when we look.
Morally sensitive pacifists will not focus or fixate on
small quantities of violence to the undue exclusion of larger moral
will
certainly
problems.
They
give it to be understood that by 'violence' in principles such as P2
they mean 'nontrivial violence'.
Arguments to the moral insensitivity of pacifism, on the basis of pacifists' not
taking
obvious
steps
passivity and pacifity.
to
prevent evil occurrences, depend also upon a confusion of
Both Regan and Narveson (e.g.
p.425) assume
that
pacifism
25.
The point is explained in more detail in G. Sharp, Social Power and Political
Freedom, op.cit., p.288n.
Note however that Sharp's account of 'political
violence' is defective in various other respects.
It is curious,
but
understandable, that in his major, and massive, texts on nonviolent action,
Sharp never really gets to grips with the problem of characterising violence,
and indeed appears tempted by such defective equations as that of violence with
force and threat with use.
26.
Another comes from the necessary circumscription of permissible nonviolent
action, to ensure that it does not include actions worse than nontrivial violent
action.
20
is a passive do-nothing position.
This is far from true, as the variety of methods
or adopted by nonviolent action groups has made plain.
considered
Narveson correctly comprehend the real scope or possibilities of
Narveson
Otherwise,
would
negative
later
Narveson's
nonviolent
action.
hardly b<- able to assert, in the automatic (but carping)
way he does, that the pacifist is standing by 'not
(p.425).
Neither Regan nor
doing
assessment
nonviolence' does not change the situation:
for this
of
anything
about'
violence
what
calls
'positive
he
positive
is
approach
simply
nonviolence practised in an exemplary ;.&y, as by Christ, in the hope that others will
follow suit, and fails to recognise the potential
or effectiveness of nonviolent practices.
extent
when
reduce
assembledmuch
the
of
training
and
the
Fuller details of these practices,
of
impact
nonviolent
the argument
from
social
irresponsibility, which is part of what lies behind the charge of insensitivity.
§4.
The
argument from
corollaries.
The
radical
practice
political
by
definition.
But
from
other
awkward
of pacifism would certainly tend to eliminate war.
For
Standard pacifism takes
out
war involves violence, typically on an extensive scale.
war
and
corollaries
the
position
Although normally war would be excluded,
of comprehensive pacifism is not so clear.
what
of
dilemma
situations?
War
would
always be counted morally impermissible, but in exceptional extenuating circumstances
it might be the (second-) best thing
27.
to
do.
A
strange
pacifism!
Comprehensive
The methods also include anticipatory action, for instance, the policemen going
off to enact violence find their vehicles won't start, e.g. because components
have been removed.
As to variety, Sharp has distinguished 197 methods falling into 3 broad types:
protest, noncooperation and intervention;
op.
cit.
pp.32-3.
Of course
pacifisms and nonviolent action postions need not coincide: the interrelations
are those of overlap (see. e.g. Sharp, Politics, p.68).
28.
See e.g. B. Martin 'How the peace movement should be preparing for nuclear
war' Bulletin of Peace Proposals 13 (1982) 149-159, and references cited therein
pp.152-3, especially G.
Sharp, The Politics of Nonviolent Action, op.cit.,
(referred to as Politics) and V.
Coover and others, Resource Manual for a
Living Revolution, New Society Publishers, Philadelphia, 1981.
21
pacifism thus does not include standard pacifism, in contrast
extreme
to
pacifism.
Comprehensive pacifism can of course be brought progressively closer, in practice, to
extreme pacifism through principles emphasizing the evil of violence.
is
given
a
large
suitably
If
that
evil
weighting then second-best choices will yield the same
results as extreme pacifism does (deontically), and entirely exclude war.
Now it can hardly be cogently argued as telling against pacifism that
eliminate
since
wars,
are
war
of
an
as
or
mounted from
rely
the
institutions.
exchanges that should certainly be avoided at all
upon
only
arrangements
social
and
nation-states
particular,
obviously police and military forces but
of
violence-underpinned
many of their institutions, most
state
legal
arrangements,
States are however desirable social institutions,
typically depend on violent means.
and war is a by-product of nation-state arrangements (in the case of just
comprehensive
pacifism
implies
the
of
inadmissibility
institutions, such as police forces and states typically are;
be ruled out either
individuals,
directly
delegates,
as
violence-dispensing
effect
who
forces,
by
nonviolent
nonviolent means.
state;
but
it
substitutes,
recently
or
such organisations may
because
else
their behalf.
evolved
will
which
is
nonviolent
methods
Pacifism
institutions concerned with
does
not
public
that
order
have
Pacifism does not
organisations
maintain
they
by
fully
as
police
alternative
nonviolent
will be applied, where necessary, to
The force of the objection should thus not
entail
order,
sweeping charges of social irresponsibility.
22
the
and
are
coercive
actively
Law and authority can still operate then in the
back-up authority and ""enforce"" laws.
overestimated.
on
violence
however exclude the replacement of such
wars,
A more telling objection, then, is
no doubt further evils to prevent greater evils).
that
which
institutions
these
directly
less
or
and a more general argument may be
inevitability,
or
not without much further ado.
least
extensively:
violence
desirability,
In
at
institution,
However wars are by no means the
dispense
would
nor therefore can an argument be mounted against pacifism from the
reasonable costs;
desirability
wars
it
elimination
accordingly
of
does
Nor is it true that
prominent
not
be
social
succumb
to
pacifism ... would also entail anarchism, that is,
the illegitimacy of
government. For a purely voluntary ""government"" is not a government in the
sense that defines a state at all (Np.127).
or (differently)
A government or administration can certainly operate by nonviolent,
political
noncoercive,
arrangements.
arrangements not of this sort are morally impermissible.
imply
the
absence
or
illegitimacy
of
government,
political community organised under a government.
state
with
authority
and
not
necessarily
pacifism does not entail anarchism.
main
Accordingly,
that
implies
not
does
it
or therefore of a state, of a
Nor does
even
it
that
imply
a
certain coercive institutions may not be a second-best solution to moral
dilemmas of political organisation.
and
only
pacifism
Comprehensive
objective,
not
attained,
was
Since it admits of states with frameworks of law
based
on
the free agreements of individuals,
Gandhi's practice affords a counterexample:
a
nonviolent
Indian
state;
replacement of British India by a stateless or anarchist society.
his
it was not the
Granted there
are
genuine interconnections between pacifism and nonviolent anarchism 2"", they are not so
simple as derivability.
Nor is comprehensive pacifism as a
moral
so
ideal
easily
brought down by its political corollaries.
Comprehensive pacifism upsets other widely accepted social practices than
concerning
like:
external
and
internal state relations, such as war, civil order and the
it also tells against the received treatment of
example.
While
other
species,
animals
for
it does not entail vegetarianism, while it does not prohibit eating
of meat, it does morally forbid violence to animals.
29.
those
At least it does this
so
long
Both hold that the coercive state which relies upon violent methods is without
moral basis or legitimacy. Both involve pretty tall orders, the replacement of
violence-dispensing political organisations by alternative arrangements (on
replacement in the case of anarchism, see R. Routley and V. Plumwood 'The
irrefutability of anarchism', Social Alternatives, 2(3) (1982) 23-8). But they
differ as to what justifies these arrangements and what means can be applied
(see further Sharp, op. cit., under index headings to anarchism, especially
Politics, p.67). Roughly, while pacifism pushes removal of violence to a limit,
anarchism pushes removal of authority (especially state
authority)
and
restrictions on liberty, to a limit.
Naturally the interconnections did not escape Gandhi:
'The ideally nonviolent
state will be an ordered anarchy'
(unreferenced citation at the end of the
Ecophilosophy Newsletter, #5, p.24).
23
as what normally counts as violence, to animals, continues to rank as
is
There is little good basis
humans (or persons).
restriction.^
controversial
euthanasia,
any
in
And,
moral
areas
concerning
the
corollaries
killing
a
such
for
however
similar
case,
spread
humans,
of
At
violence?
the
suicide,
But
must
creatures does not have to take overtly violent forms.
the new ""abattoirs"" or hospitals a creature
simply
killing
of
No force need be applied:
in
a
eats
and dies painlessly and without a struggle.
The
or
pill
is
given
life is extinguished, are not pacifist ones, which focus on violence?
technical
purely
arrangements
pacifist
will
to
objections
solve,
in
eating
meat
worthwhile
On the face of
obtained.
so
New
any rate, the disruption of
at
principle
an
Then the proper objections to
such practices, for example that consent may not have been obtained, that
it, there are no
they
risk of opening a hornet's nest, consider what examples
like euthanasia may suggest, the possibility of nonviolent killing.
injection
several
into
e.g.
So long as these involve violence, pacifism excludes such practices.
involve
chauvinistic
indeed wherever violence plays a significant role.
punishment,
capital
and
the category by restriction of the application of violence to
from
removed
not
violence,
practices threatened by vegetarian corollaries.
But suppose now that the new technology
is
extended
scientists, working in their accustomed military role:
as the anti—neutron bomb, which selectively destroys
devices
which
much
but
clever
'weapons , such
newly devised
property
by
further
not
people,
or
""dissolve"" people, enable ""wars"" to be fought without violence.
just
Even a pacifist who goes as far as countenancing nonviolent killing can however avoid
these
reaches
of
technological
fantasy.
For ""dissolving"" people requires energy,
which (since reflecting force) can stand in for force in
violence:
Was
(upgraded)
account
of
that is, the new wars will still involve violence.
there
old-fashioned
however
violent
anything
methods
so
such
wrong
as
with
hunting
eating
meat
obtained
by
more
or raising and killing one's own?
Pacifism, like vegetarianism, runs counter to ""natural""
M.
an
behaviour
of
creatures
to
See R. and V. Routley, 'Human chauvinism and environmental ethics', op.
cit.
Such a restriction to persons is however imposed by Sharp, op. cit. (e.g.
Politics,
p.608), and it does remove the problems of vegetarianism and
predation.
24
which the principles are supposed to apply.
Aggression is a fairly common feature of
and human behaviour, and it sometimes (though by no means so often is as made
animal
The force of the
out) erupts in violence.
various
for
ways,
example
along
these
argument
lines.
can
however
Aggression
assumed to be an
is
evolutionary adaption developed to enable creatures to be better fitted for
themselves
(of
their offspring) in their natural environment.
and
ir
mitigated
be
survival
But most humans
for
now live in rather artificial environments substantially removed from situations
which
evolution
gradually adapted their features (there is no way they are going to
adapt in time to absorb massive doses of radiation, for instance).
as
Much
humans
have adjusted their living environment in nonevolutionary ways, so along with it they
should substantially adjust their social practices - including aggressive and violent
practices,
ill-adapted
now
to
their
and mostly counterproductive.
situation
So
argues the pacifist.
There is a residual problem,
practices
like
that
vegetarianism.
the
Are
creatures living in (relatively) natural conditions, such as predators
of
and tribal people, to be condemned as morally
Sometimes,
confronting
yes,
be attained:
when
wrong
these
violence?
involve
when the violence grossly exceeds what is required given the end to
Though a way
but always?
can
problem 3 1, it is a rather unsatisfactory way.
be
beaten
the
around
of
edge
this
What this suggests is that nonviolence
is not an absolute, but at best a qualified ideal.
The arguments for
nonviolence
-
which are mostly practical arguments which do not exclude occasional uses of violence
and do not strictly apply to creatures in natural surroundings -
sort
of
But
conclusion.
exclude.
nonviolent
what
is
called
charge
for
state,
is
is much more investigation aimed, among other things, at
This is^ to concede
an
of moral insensitivity against comprehensive pacifism so long as
P2 remains unqualified.
31.
would
The further suggestion that emerges upon granting that moral
sharper, more sensitive, and less blanket principles than P2.
attentuated
similar
approaches
thinking and associated principles in this area are in a pretty primitive
that
a
the suggestion is a dangerous one, practically at least,
since it opens the door a chink to other options which
categorically
suggest
The sheer moral power of such pacifism
As Singer has in the analogous case of
Liberation, Jonathan Cape, London, 1975.
25
vegetarianism:
is
one
see
reason
e.g.,
for
Animal
There is no reason however why
giving its adoption some pause.
a
genuine
pacifism
(making for real peace) should not be built on a modified version of P2 which permits
such natural phenomena as predation.
Nothing logically rules out such a genuine
and
more sensitive pacifism.
There are other requirements the position to be worked out should meet as
In
particular, a rationality requirement implies that pacifists go on to oppose acts
similar to those using violence:
This
is
a
of
requirement
otherwise they could have a case made against them.
in a different sense from the pure logical
consistency
sense, namely that of keeping to the same story.
for
well.
pacifism,
Again there need be no deep problem
so long, this time, as it is not erroneously supposed that there must
be a single principle
just
(e.g.
P2)
-
as
distinct
from
bundle
a
of
moral
principles, others of which serve to oppose acts accounted similar to those involving
violence.32 io meet the rationality requirement the position should,
be
integrated
into
a
in
larger framework of nondestructive practices, which are of a
piece with nonviolent practices.33 For, except metaphorically, practices
to the environment, for instance, do not involve violence, e.g.
mining in a fertile valley, damaging a wild river, dumping toxic
and
oceans.
In
an
does
not
destructive
such things as strip
wastes
in
streams
extended sense, which gets beyond the confines of the property
picture, all these practices are environmental vandalism.
vandalism
particular,
cover
violence
But
even
metaphorically,
against persons (and certainly not nonphysical
violence such as ""psychological violence"").
What is sought then
is
an
appropriate
of these notions covering destructive practices;
and also an accompanying
synthetic term, better than the umbrella term 'vandolence'.
Then P2 is superseded by
synthesis
an appropriately qualified
P2#.
It is morally wrong to use vandolence.
It remains to characterise
the
cluster
of
destructive
practices
that
count
as
vandolence and to try to justify the principle - no easy tasks.
32.
It is important that pacifism, like other deontological positions, reject
assessments of similarity simply in terms of similar damaging consequences.
Features of the means deployed, for example, also matter.
13.
The position has been called 'pacifism.
26
APPENDICES
§5.
The
from
arguments
impracticality
impracticality
and
pacifism in the real world.
of
the
reality:
social
alleged
Even if it is conceded that pacifism
is a viable moral ideal, that it does not fall down as incoherent or ludicrous, still
the
feasibility
of
pacifism
as a sensible practice to live by will be contested -
And it has
despite, or perhaps because of, major examples such as Christ and Gandhi.
to
be
admitted
the
that
real
world,
with
all its horror and squalor, does put
But in this regard pacifism is not an exception.
pacifism to severe tests.
Nowhere is the practice of nonviolence usually thought less
than in replacing war^.
prepared
or
for
succeed
Yet nonviolent social defence methods, to replace the usual
violent methods, have been described in some detail^, though they
properly
to
likely
given
a
dress rehearsal.
have
been
never
The prospects for success of
nonviolent defence of,a region can vary significantly, depending upon whether the war
is
convention
observed
or not.
If the convention is observed then pacifism stands
reasonable prospects of success.
The difficult cases are where the war convention
perhaps
unleashed,
in
broken,
is
massive ways, on noncombatants.
and
violence
is
According to Walzer, in his
superficially sympathetic sketch and assessment of nonviolent defence and resistance,
'success
is possible only if the invaders are committed to the war convention -
...
and they won't always be' (Wp.331^^).
attained
-
there
is
conventions are flouted.
reasons,
some
got homesick.
ruthless
of
This is
presumably
be
never any guarantee of it, without or with war - even if some
The invaders may give
them irrelevant, e.g.
up
and
depart
for
all
sorts
or
they needed a quick decisive victory, they
What Walzer no doubt means is something like this:
invaders
may
Success
false.
that
sufficiently
in sufficient numbers with sufficient time and sufficient support
34.
The more sweeping replacement of the state (of the main source of
considered in Routley and Plumwood, in Social Alternatives, op.cit.
35.
Again for example, in Sharp, Politics, op. cit.
references given there.
36.
All page references prefixed by 'W' are to
Allen Lane, London, 1977.
27
See also
M. Walzer,
Martin,
Just
and
war)
op.cit.,
Unjust
is
and
Wars,
lines, etc., can eventually succeed.
defending
The difference lies in the pattern of events;
to violence.
resorts
side
But that sort of thing is also true even if the
is
if the defence ""forces"" are well-armed it
to
invaders
start
and
with
difficult
more
civil
well -prepared
with
than
afterwards
easier
the
for
costly
and
resistance.
Walzer is
inappropriate examples.
in
command,
model
the
of
way
the
Jews,
The
way.The
Nazis,
to
jump
who
that
conclusion
the
He is thinking of an extreme totalitarian
the
enslaved
misleading
many
like
cannot succeed when the war convention is abandoned, in terms of
defence
nonviolent
however,
thinking,
who
in
state,
total
Nazis were in Germany, the Jews of Germany providing the
the
population,
by
The
""resistance""
picture
is
highly
and large, did not resist extermination in an organised
never
invaded
Germany,
were
in
control
all
or
the
infrastructure and had the cooperation (at least) of the bulk of the population.
Walzer's comparison to work, there would have to be an enormous occupying army
took
over
and
managed
all
key
Australia it is not even so clear
largely
united
and
actively
resisting
this
is
which
With island territories such as
infrastructure.
that
For
logistically
population.
Walzer's
feasible
against
impression
resistance fragmenting and the populace moving into dulled acquiscence (e.g.
a
of the
Wp.332)
might have got things the wrong way around, with disbelieving and frustrated soldiers
ready to leave.
Non violent resistance is however unlikely to be put to the test in any adequate
present
state-determined circumstances.
No state would be prepared to risk
way
in
37.
It has been argued, moreover, that when church leaders, Christian or Jewish,
opposed the deportations, most of the Jews were saved (when country by country
comparisons are made). See, for one of many treatments of this sensitive issue,
R.L.
Rubenstein, The Cunning of History:
the Holocaust and the American
Future, Harper, New York, 1978, chapter 5.
38.
The argument suggested in Walzer (e.g. p.333) that nonviolent methods would
increase evil, or at least its distribution, is weak. It is countered by
Sharp's observation that the suffering likely to be induced is less than in
comparable wars.
28
training its
populace
different).
It
full
in
techniques
(civil
is
defence
all too easy for them to ""rout"" the police:
be
then
would
action
nonviolent
civil
obedience, for example, could no longer be ensured by the customary violent means.
thus
The argument
initial sketchings.
far
§6.
On the positive case for pacifism:
has
been largely defensive, meeting a range of objections to comprehensive pacifism.
That in itself is revealing.
deviations
from
are
it
Pacifism is the
require
what
rest
position
(inertial
and
state)
The reason for this is simple
explanation.
violence is, on most ethical systems, at least a prima facie evil, so use of
enough:
it is what has to be justified.
Positive arguments for pacifism can take advantage of
and
merely
justified.
case
try
dispose of ""exceptional cases"" where violence is supposed to be
in
that
the
defender
(person
or
nation)
is
morally-excluded situation, since the attacker has overstepped moral
the
position
privileged
The favourite exception is self-defence against a violent opponent:
curious
is
to
its
already
the
in
bounds.
a
Still
defender is not morally committed to violence whatever he does - as in a dilemma
And since it is at least prima facie wrong, and he does not have
situation.
to
use
it, he should not resort to it.
An elementary syllogistic argument, given by Narveson (Np.117), can
be
adapted
to give a similar result:-
Violence is (intrinsically) wrong
Violence in any excepted cases (e.g.
self-defence) is still violence
Violence in any excepted cases is still (intrinsically) wrong.
Naturally those opposed to pacifism will challenge the first premiss, and a dialectic
already glimpsed will begin.
None of the arguments for pacifism is conclusive, since even where arguments are
deductively
tight
assumptions
can
be
challenged
arguments for pacifism particularly good ones.
for
pacifism,
(as
above).
Nor
One of the poorer positive
are all the
arguments
for example, makes similar assumptions to those of the classic theory
29
of war, namely that once war is embarked upon it cannot be limited,
nuclear
that
or
chemical
hope
weapons will be used selectively and restrictively is an
illusion, escalation is inevitable.
are bound to be overstepped.
case is overstated.
the
e.g.
The (moral) limits in war - whatever they are
-
Although the chances of escalation are real enough, the
Limited exchanges and confrontation are possible.
Wars are much
more social arrangements and much more conventional than the classical theory allows.
Wars can, for example, be started and stopped
things intervene (e.g.
support
(as
midstream
more
should
the
for
first
inevitably,
premiss
for
those
mixture
a
above)
suffering
and
anguish
violent
of
methods,
the
They
nonviolence.
injustice
characteristically works, the futility and counterproductiveness of
means-ends
of
the
consideration, a range of consequentialist and practical reasons, e.g.
pain,
important
a pollution crisis affecting other neighbouring states).
The main reasons for pacifism are,
include
in
cost
that
in
violence
violence
within
the setting of modern industrial societies, the broader popular support base obtained
by avoidance of violence, the desirable social consequences of nonviolence such as
more
less furtive, society.
open,
the why of
pacifism)
considerable.
These
are
None of these well-known types of reason (giving
separately
decisive,
but
their
cumulative
affords a model for one way of proceeding^;
Mill's
defence
Mill's
procedure
works
(at
least
As was pointed out by F. D'Agostino in discussion.
30
of
liberty
nonviolence,
it works as well as it works for
liberty).
39.
is
it is enough (a nonelementary exercise)
to adapt Mill's consequentialist arguments for liberty to arguments for
otherwise
effect
reasons can be put together, in various ways, to make a strong
positive case for pacifism, as principled nonviolence.
as
a
A
more
decisive
consequentialist
data ,
argument,
takes
a
but
making
semantical
preference rankings on worlds, and these worlds
modelling
nonviolence
Again
principles.
use
of
route.
are
similar
practical
and
The data is used to arrive at
then
pacifism
in
applied
is
derived
semantically
as
principled
nonviolence.^0
R.
40.
Routley*
*
The details of such an esoteric defence of moral principles are outlined in R.
and V.
Routley, op.cit.: a fuller account may be found in their 'Semantical
foundations for value theory', Nous (1983), to appear.
* With thanks to R. Beehler, F. D'Agostino, B. Martin, L. Mirlin, R. Goodin, and
participants in the Philosophy Seminar, Research School of Social Sciences,
Australian National University.
The main outlines of the paper were drafted
associate at Simon Fraser University.
31
while
the
author
was
a
research
OTHER PUBLICATIONS OF THE PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT, RESEARCH SCHOOL OF SOCIAL
SCIENCES, AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY
School publications:
R. and V. Routley, The Fight for the Forests, First edition 1973, Second
edition 1974, Third edition 1975.
Departmental publications:
M.K. Rennie, Some Uses of Type Theory in the Analysis of Language, 1974.
D. Mannison, M.A. McRobbie, and R. Routley, editors, Environmental
Philosophy, 1980.
R. Routley, Exploring Meinong's Jungle and Beyond, 1980.
Yellow series (Research Papers of the Logic Group):
1. R.K. Meyer, Why I am not a relevantist, 1978.
2. R.K. Meyer, Sentential constants in R, 1979.
3. R.K. Meyer and M.A. McRobbie, Firesets and relevant implication, 1979.
4. R.K. Meyer, A Boolean-valued semantics for R, 1979.
5. R.K. Meyer, Almost Skolem forms for relevant (and other) logics, 1979.
6. R.K. Meyer, A note on R-^ matrices, 1979.
7. R.K. Meyer and J.K. Slaney, Abelian logic (from A to Z), 1980.
8^ C. Mortensen, Relevant algebras and relevant model structures, 1980.
9. R.K. Meyer, Relevantly interpolating in RM , 1980.
10. C. Mortensen, Paraconsistency and C^, 1981.
11. R.K. Meyer, De Morgan monoids, 1983.
12. R. Routley, Relevantism and the problem as to when Material Detachment
and the Disjunctive Syllogism Argument can be correctly used,
and N. da Costa, Essay on the foundations of logic, 1983.
13. R. Routley and G. Priest, On Paraconsistency, 198314. R. Routley, Research in logic in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, 1983
15.
R.K. Meyer, Where y fails, 1983.
Green series (Discussion papers in environmental philosophy):
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
R. Routley, Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and
action, 1982.
R. Routley, In defence of cannibalism I.
Types of admissible and
inadmissible cannibalism, 1982.
moo
R. Routley and N. Griffin, Unravelling the meaning of life?, 1982.
R. Routley, Nihilisms, and nihilist logics.
R. Routley, War and Peace. I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war
and war-deterrence and the political fall out.
R. Routley and V. Plumwood, Moral dilemmas and the logic of deonti
R°""ouU.y and V. Plumwood, A. expensive repair-kit for utilitarianism.
7.
10.
R. Routley, Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing:
rational behaviour under rival paradigms.
the difference 1
",,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,"Box 149: Publications (to como)",https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/4bdf0fc19be362d2a697b5695b65a2df.pdf,Text,"Self-published Papers",1,0
71,https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/show/71,"Box 15, item 1161: Grand philosophies and environmental crises: an initial report","Typescript of paper dated 3.7.95.
","Title in collection finding aid: RS: Grand Philosophies and Environmental Crises. Ts (2 cops).
","Richard Sylvan","The University of Queensland's Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291, Box 15, item 1161","Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy","1995-07-03.
","This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, Dr. N.A.J. Taylor.","For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.",,"[18] leaves. 18.47 MB.",,Manuscript,"https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:9c7973c",,"1161
• I
3.7.95
GRAND PHILOSOPHIES AND ENVIRONMENTAL CRISES:
an initial report.1
Much of what follows is organised around the following anti-mainstream thesis, which it
aims to further, to sharpen and to support:
mainstream Western philosophy is dismal environmental news,
or still more colloquially and generally, mainstream philosophy continues to be bad socio-
environmental news. Presumably that expands, in turn, to something like: grander mainstream
Western philosophy continues to be a significant factor in the ideologies (or paradigms) that
inform destructive social and environmental practices. There are some striking corollaries,
among them that, like dialectical material in Eastern Europe, such Western philosophy should
be substantially abandoned, its furthering and frequent celebration in the schools and
universities discontinued, its place taken by more benign humble alternatives.
Sharpening the anti-mainstream thesis.
All the qualifications prove to be important. Mainstream, because there are lesser or
recessive traditions that are comparatively benign. Grander, because small-scale analytic
philosophy for example, while likely operating within a damaging paradigm, may have little or
no impact on its own (consider the impact of a philosopher who spends all research time on the
unexpected examination problem). Western, because classical Taoism affords a counter
example to the anti-mainstream thesis, virtually however it is sharpened.2 However the
qualification Western is decidedly narrower than need be, and moreover gives a misleading
impression. For conspicuous non-Westem philosophy, such as Confucianism and Islam, is
also dismal news. Other major philosophies can, and do, drive environmental destruction as
well. Accordingly too what uniqueness there is to the Western role has to be differently made
out, in terms of its special (though perhaps inessential) linkage to industrialization.
Although it is expositionally advantageous to highlight present serious predicaments in
terms of crises, one thing should be clarified at the outset. It is not essential, or even critical, to
the main arguments outlined that there should be environmental or other crises. It is enough
that severe degradation or the like is occurring. Some sort of responsibility for this will afford
a solid basis for criticism of a doctrine or practice.
1
The main title evolved from that of Caldera, Philosophy and Crisis, who was searching (rather
unsuccessfully) for a Latin-American philosophy. Some of this report was thought through in
Brasil, under the partial support of FASPEC.
2
See, for instance, the explication of Taoism in UTD.
2
But, as it happens, conditions for crises are satisfied.3 There are crises conditions in
many places in many regards (some of which we will simply allude to, as there is copious
documentation). Elsewhere, where crises have not yet broken, there are often near crises
conditions.
Many there are, of course, conspicuously politicians and economists, still labouring
under the impression that the current dominant ideology and its development model is not
obsolete, that all is more or less well. They imagine ‘that we are passing through an unusually
severe but still cyclical crisis. That all we have to do is stimulate demand through public
investment and build up enough business confidence so that there is a recovery of private
investment and production. Then we can afford to resume efforts to control environmental and
social problems.4 They have misread the signs. The problems are not merely cyclic or
temporary; they are intensifying (if in a wavelike pattern, with deterioration surging in, then
ebbing somewhat before the next bigger wave).
Nor are larger ideological cycles quite the same, though much of the rhetoric is similar
from cycle to cycle. No longer is it imagined that social or environmental problems can be
substantially resolved next times around business cycles (though the illusion that most of us
will be ‘better off persists, conveniently buttressed by loaded statistics).
Comparisons, features and pedigree.
Of course European civilization has more to answer for than its environmental practice,
and its extraordinarily destructive impact on natural systems, especially non-European systems.
It has to answer also for its impact upon humans, in particular classes, cultures or races marked
out as inferior (persisting prominently into this century, emanating from sources of high
Western culture). But for many of these human impacts Western philosophy does not have to
answer, by contrast with other impacts.
Indicative of dominant environmental attitudes are attitudes towards and treatment of what
were, and often still are, seen as lesser humans: slaves, blacks, women, yokels, children, or so
on. Take women.
Among significant philosophers, virtually the only exception before
contemporary times is J.S. Mill, who, under feminine influence, deplored the subjection of
women. Unfortunately, for all the brilliant and oft-quoted Millean anti-mainstream passages,
Mill himself did not swim far out of the mainstream. Most notably he did not amend his
utilitarianism in the direction already contemplated by Bentham, to take passing account of the
3
For definitional details, see GE. For one of numerous summaries of present dire circumstances, see
Paleocrassas.
4
Paleocrassas p. 12: one among many voices.
3
interests and sufferings of other animals. Human chauvinism survived, relatively unscathed,
for all that Mill deplored loss of flowers and habitats, throughout his works.
Features of the anti-mainstream thesis, its justification and relevant qualifications, can be
brought out by considering its pedigree. Partial versions of, or variations upon, an anti
mainstream thesis can be found in several sources; for instance in the deeper-environmental and
rival-paradigms productions of the 70s. Consider the following examples:
• the contrast of the Cartesian technocratic paradigm with the person planetary paradigm, where
destructive environmental attitudes and practices are ascribed to adherence to the CartesianEnlightenment analytic-reductionist mind-set.5
Similar related clusters of contrasts appeared across social sciences, in political science,
sociology and economics. For example
• the dominant modern paradigm, essentially the same as the Cartesian technocratic paradigm
was contrasted, by Rodman, with a benign classical paradigm.
• the dominant social paradigm, another version of the same environmentally oppressive
schema, was contrasted, by Cotgrove and Duff, with the alternative environmental paradigm.
All these and other similar examples were duly elaborated in work on the roles (and limits) of
paradigms in environmental thought and action.6 A critical point is that what social scientists
were digging up (and reditching) was pretty much what mainstream philosophy was espousing
or assuming (and, despite the new global wave of environmentalism, not that much has
changed philosophically).
It is worth recording that restricted versions of these contrasts (which do not touch basic
shallow utilitarian assumptions) are now being presented and considered not only by academic
theorists but by bureaucrats and working politicians and economists. Thus for example
• a new development model, as contrasted with the current development model, outlined by a
member of the European Commission (I. Paleocrassus)—who incidently devotes much space to
documenting the present environmental crises {environment construed in a wide sense, to
encompass decaying and dangerous urban environments often unfit for human habitation).
Many features of the crisis are attributed to a faulty development model, portrayed as once
perhaps appropriate, but no longer so.7 But there is more, much more to it than that.
5
Just such a contrast was elaborated by Drengson, drawing heavily upon Roszak.
documentation then, see their work.
6
Thus Routley in an exercise with just that title. Needless to add, paradigms are rough and uneven.
Some components of them have much more to answer for than others. For example, possessive
individualism with its self-interest hypothesis, has been a particularly damaging part of dominant social
ideology.
7
Curiously, though his entire discussion circulates around ‘the current development model’, what
went wrong with it and what might replace it, Paleocrassus never bothers to explain that model or
For
4
The current ubiquitous development model did not derive from nothing, but is, in main,
an Enlightenment parcel, fuelled by ideals of material progress and the like, which is duly
underpinned by the dominant social paradigm.8 It is not enough to simply change the
development model; what drives it has also to be changed, namely the supporting philosophy.
Development of anti-mainstreamism in recent critical philosophy.
Differently, impacts of thorough-going (deep) environmental ethics, and of deep ecology,
on philosophy and social theory were being assessed. It was observed that very much in
mainstream philosophy would have to be jettisoned or substantially modified.9 Heavily
targetted were forms of idealism, including phenomenalism and existentialism, and forms of
empiricism. But the criticism swept much further, to prevailing metaphysics and ‘the limiting
ideological principles of both the Renaissance and the Enlightenment’. In effect the criticisms
extended to mainstream Western civilization.
But no doubt claims here are technically different, because, for all the merits of deep
positions, it is not usually being suggested that environmental storms could not be weathered to
some extent under shallow cover,10 or that duly environmental but shallow philosophies are in
some way responsible for gathering environmental crises.
More sweeping anti-mainstream theses have been stated however by Hargrove, by Gare,
and by others, including famous philosophers in their latter days.11 To the late Heidegger we
appear to owe a rather interesting (if abominable) argument, which runs as follows:
Western philosophy
— or some such, with
-*
technological mastery (supremacy, dominance)
-»
environmental destruction
’ symbolising leads to, or yields (granted leads to faces a validity
issue).
to supply its components. But what can be gleaned indicates that it is a submodel of the dominant
social paradigm. For instance, we are informed that natural resources are treated as ‘expendable raw
materials or even worse as free goods’ (p.24), in effect as without initial value.
8
For details see DP, and in condensed form Sylvan 95.
9
Notably at the end of EE, pp. 188-9.
10
Deep positions divide significantly on this issue. For it is now widely argued that shallow environmentalism
coupled with heavy technofix— a common position among scientists—is not going to succeed.
11
See Hargrove and Gare, and the ensuing discussion below in the text.
It is a little tempting to suggest that Hargrove presents his thesis as it were by accident, given how
little he actually does to defend it. In the main, Hargrove looks as if he is repeating Roszak and
Drengson rather than proceeding to a larger sounder claim.
5
If something like this enjoyed plausibility, it would support a different thesis: Western
philosophy should end.12 That argument is by contraposition, and then should transmission
from an evident premiss. (Thatcherites and Wittgensteinians and others of a decidedly mixed
company, reached a similar conclusion, that philosophy should end, by entirely different, very
dubious by-roads.) There are several problems with the Heidegger schema. For one thing, the
argument leaves out other critical components of an important environmental impact equation:
notably excess human population and excess human consumption.
In any event, Heidegger certainly thought that philosophy—as distinct from a quasimystical “thought”—should end. But he exaggerated the importance of such an outcome by
exaggerating, in characteristic German style, the importance of philosophy, the importance of
German philosophy above all. For example he supposed that modern German philosophy
influenced the rise of industrialism and all it brought in train. It can be plausibly contended,
however, in characteristic disparaging British style, that philosophy had comparatively little
influence in such ultimately damaging development as European agricultural and industrial
revolutions (for example, technology, but not philosophy, played a role in the invention of
artificial dyes, a development which can be seen as setting European industrialization in train:)
But such examples do not penetrate deep enough to the conditions of and preparation for
change.
There are myriad ways in which philosophy has shaped historical developments: through
its major input into (other) ideologies such as religions, through its place in politics and law.
With Protestant philosophy, in particular, basic ground for industrialism was prepared: the
further development of highly exploitative Christian attitudes to nature (and to pagans) and of
appropriate attitudes to technology, disciplined education and inculcation of a work ethic, and
so on. Or consider, for instance, the fairly direct role of philosophy in the formulation of
modern appropriation theories of property (notably by Locke), which enabled dispossession
and displacement of native peoples in colonized lands, and are now ceding undue power to
exploitative corporations.
Consider its less direct role in the preparing ground for
industrialization, the presumption that the earth, its habitats and other inhabitants, its natural
landforms and its matter were and are of no value, but of value only as transformed by
industrial activity, that entrepreneurs were free to do whatever they liked with them. No doubt
12
The form of the argument is extracted from Passmore’s end-of-philosophy address (thanks to
Passmore too for further comments). The argument is much harder to find in Heidegger’s later
work. But rudiments are present. The first linkage of philosophy and technology is managed by an
extraordinary redefinition of technology (see p. 17?). For the second linkage, Heidegger was
presumably reflecting upon high destructive technology of war, nuclear weapons and so on. Note
however that the middle term has changed; so the argument fails, courtesy of the ancient fallacy of
equivocation.
6
many untoward things would have happened without much philosophy, where for instance
philosophy had little influence (as with habitat destruction by excessive populations of animals).
Unfortunately such examples are exceptions; as a rule, noticed philosophy appears to have
helped in underwriting, shaping and even fostering dominant practices. It could regularly have
been different: wherever theory operated to influence practice, philosophy could have served
negatively, as a prime element of resistance.13 That too could be a significant role for
philosophy today.
Whatever the extent—arguably, then, very substantial—to which they actually impinge,
main philosophical traditions and ideologies do have very negative implications for
environmental theory and practice. So much has been argued or alleged, in one fashion or
another, in several contemporary sources.14 For example, Hargrove has recently investigated,
in uneven detail, negative implications of mainstream philosophy for three environmental
reaches: environmental attitudes concerned with nature and creature preservation, with nature
appreciation, and with development of a proper ecological perspective. However Hargrove has
ventured some of his particularly challenging themes in insufficiently careful form, thereby
leaving himself unnecessarily vulnerable to criticism and counter-claims. These include the
criticisms assembled by Attfield, who, though not unsympathetic to Hargrove’s case, has
excessively weakened the themes. For example, what Attfield presents as ‘substantially
correct’ is Hargrove’s ‘verdict that the history of philosophy has discouraged preservationist
attitudes’, vastly less than Hargrove’s actual negative verdict which comprehended considerably
more than just “preservationist attitudes”, and recorded a situation conspicuously worse than
mere “discouragement” of nature and creature preservation, as well as much else. Indeed it is
worse than Hargrove has charged; Hargrove’s indictment of mainstream philosophy is itself
weaker than that here ventured, which takes mainstream philosophy as thoroughly implicated in
the present escalating environmental mess, through its roles as a major source and supplier of
operative ideas and paradigms.
There is a single qualification, invoked incidentally by Attfield himself, that would
remove much of Attfield’s criticism: a restriction to mainstream philosophy (or differently, to
dominant philosophy in a region). Consider Attfield’s exceptions to ‘the adverse impacts of
Western philosophy’, those alleged ‘philosophical traditions that have encouraged taking nature
seriously’:Firstly, insofar as the Church Fathers, medieval Christians and others that Attfield alludes to are
13
On the place in philosophy, and in environmental thought in particular, of resistance, see the
discussion of Rodman’s preferred fourth ideal type, Ecological Resistance, in EE, p,146ff.
14
For example, see Hargrove, p.21.
7
philosophers at all, they are entirely minor figures, unlikely to be known to many philosophers,
and but rarely or never referred to in regular philosophy courses; they do not form part of
mainstream philosophy. Consider the sorts of exceptions:
• minor philosophers, many of whom we know very little about, outside gossip and
speculation, such as Theophrastus, early Stoics, and lesser Epicureans.
• figures who are only secondarily or marginally philosophers, such as Hooke, Boyle, Ray and
Evelyn.
• medieval and early modem Christians, who typically are not significant philosophers, and in
fact were usually not committed to nature preservation and the like, but to nature management
or perfection.
Secondly, these minor figures do not afford the clear support for his claims that Attfield has
regularly assumed.15 Many of the statements supposed to offer support are ambivalent, or
environmentally dubious, supporting some form of managerialism (e.g. perfectionism or
stewardship). And in any case they have to be set against the remainder of what a figure says
and does (so far as that can be ascertained), often telling against substantial environmental
sensitivity and concern.
As regards the latter matter, there are, inversely, isolated claims in major philosophers
(Plato is regularly cited in this regard) which may make them appear environmentally aware and
even sympathetic.
Although Plato’s philosophy generally suggests that he neither knew or
cared about environmental problems, one passage in the Critias shows that
he was very much aware of at least one problem: the effect of deforestation
on soil quality in Greece during his own lifetime.16
Unfortunately Hargrove does but a comparatively poor job in accounting for what he alleges,
Plato’s indifference and lack of ecological concern.17
The reasons for Plato’s indifference to serious ecological degradation of forests and soils
in Greece can be ascribed to a combination of several elements of Plato’s philosophy (a natural
world-dismissive ideology) including: elevation of transcendental forms as what was truly real
and really of value; denigration and dismissal of the everyday natural world as utterly inferior,
of entirely lower existence or even illusory, and certainly not of rational concern. This dualistic
15
In work referred to on p. 127. The main historical claims, many of them based on secondary sources,
are stated in his The Ethics of Environmental Concern. A more detailed criticism of these claims
will be attempted elsewhere.
16
Hargrove, p.29.
17
This sort of problem arises not merely in regard to Plato, as Attfield observes, with decided relish.
There is little doubt but that what Attfield pronounces as Hargrove’s historical “excess” needs to be
sharpened and much elaborated, and, in some critical areas, rectified.
8
ontology and axiology—a wonderfully valuable world of forms standing in complete contrast
with the illusory material world of perception—was supplemented and reinforced by a
corresponding epistemology. Under a tripartite theory of mind, the higher rational part, which
gave epistemic access to the forms, a part exhibited only by humans and more elevated beings,
was sharply separated from the two lower animal parts. Thus under Plato’s conception of the
human, humans and especially the important rational component of the human, stood in
opposition to nature; the distinctively human task is completely separate from nature and
concerned with control of it and its unruly elements. It is because what really has value—
rational selves cavorting among the forms—is separate from nature, transcending it, with nature
at best comprising very inferior copies, of lower existence, that it does not matter what happens
to the earth and earthly things, to mere matter. That is a matter of indifference.18
A significantly better critical exercise, as regards not merely Plato, but the extensive and
important neo-Platonic tradition, is effected by Gare, who also advances however an
insufficiently specified version of the anti-mainstream thesis. In fact Gare tends to slide back
and forth from Western civilization and metaphysics, both of which are too wide, to
mechanistic materialism (and social Darwinism), which is much too narrow, particularly if
social Darwinism is included (about which Gare vacillates). The latter leaves out such
damaging sources as Cartesianism and contemporary idealism; the former would include the
recessive Western metaphysical tradition Gare wants to refurbish, what has grown into
“process” philosophy. So while there is a great deal of worthwhile historical documentation to
be found in Gare, the target thesis has so far eluded his critical exercise.
While the restriction of the anti-mainstream thesis to Western doctrine is both somewhat
misleading and more confining than need be, that to mainstream is different. Something of the
sort is essential.
But it itself raises other difficulties, beginning with: what counts as
mainstream! How is the image cashed out? A contextual explication is conveniently
straightforward, an abstract definition of ‘mainstream’ in terms of the principal course or flow
less helpful.
By mainstream Western Philosophy—Western philosophy providing the
context—is meant the principal movements in that philosophy, the chief philosophers and
schools and their relevant philosophical interrelations. And who and what these are gets
shown, nearly ostensively in some cases (with portraits and diagrams), in histories of Western
philosophy.19 Shorter and less encyclopaedia histories in fact tend to portray just the sought
For requisite
18
On this classical polarisation of nature and higher humanity, see Plumwood.
elaboration, see Gare.
19
One admirable example in this regard is B. Russell’s Wisdom of the West, a popular work with a
title that should be viewed henceforth, given that Russell was serious, with some incredulity.
9
mainstream (that they differ somewhat in coverage does not matter, but emphasizes, in a supervaluational fashion, the blurred edges of this typically vague mainstream). Long histories
usually indicate the mainstream both by the way they apportion their space, and also in their
judgements as to what is important, which were principal movements, and so on.
The essential qualification, to mainstream or similar, is independently grasped by Singer
. in his account of the dominant Western paradigm and his brief but pointed criticism of
Aristotelianism and mainstream Hebrew and Christian philosophy.
The biblical story of creation, in Genesis, makes clear the Hebrew view of
the special place of human beings in the divine plan:
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and
let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of
the air, and over the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth
upon the earth.
And God blessed them, and God said upon them, Be fruitful, and
multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it; and have dominion
over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air, and over every
living thing that moveth upon the earth.
Today Christians debate the meaning of this grant of ‘dominion’; and those
concerned about the environment claim that it should be regarded not as a license
to do as we will with other living things, but rather as a directive to look after
them on God’s behalf, and be answerable to God for the way in which we treat
them. There is, however, little justification in the text itself for such an
interpretation; and given the example God set when he drowned almost every
animal on earth in order to punish human beings for their wickedness, it is no
wonder that people should think the flooding of a single river valley is nothing
worth worrying about. After the flood there is a repetition of the grant of
dominion in more ominous language:
And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of
the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon
the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they
delivered.
The implication is clear: to act in a way that causes fear and dread to everything
that moves on the earth is not improper; it is, in fact, in accordance with a God
given decree.
The most influential early Christian thinkers had no doubts about how man’s
dominion was to be understood. ‘Doth God care for oxen?’ asked Paul, in the
course of a discussion of an Old Testament command to rest one’s ox on the
sabbath, but it was only a rhetorical question—he took it for granted that the
answer must be negative, and the command was to be explained in terms of
some benefit to humans. Augustine shared this line of thought; referring to
stories in the New Testament in which Jesus destroyed a fig tree and caused a
herd of pigs to drown, Augustine explained these puzzling incidents as intended
to teach us that ‘to refrain from the killing of animals and the destroying of
plants is the height of superstition’.
It is a little surprising, too, that the usual uncritical apriorism about the natural world and its other
inhabitants, should pervade Russell’s work. But consider, to take just one example, the inaccurate
and demeaning comparison of animals with humans that fires up his neglected analysis Power.
10
When Christianity prevailed in the Roman Empire, it also absorbed elements of
the ancient Greek attitude to the natural world. The Greek influence was
entrenched in Christian philosophy by the greatest of the medieval scholastics,
Thomas Aquinas, whose life work was the melding of Christian theology with
the thought of Aristotle. Aristotle regarded nature as a hierarchy in which those
with less reasoning ability exist for the sake of those with more:
Plants exist for the sake of animals, and brute beasts for the sake of
man—domestic animals for his use and food, wild ones (or at any
rate most of them) for food and other accessories of life, such as
clothing and various tools.
Since nature makes nothing purposeless or in vain, it is undeniably
true that she has made all animals for sake of man.
In his own major work, the Summa Theologica, Aquinas followed this passage
from Aristotle almost word for word, adding that the position accords with
God’s command, as given in Genesis. In his classification of sins, Aquinas has
room only for sins against God, ourselves, or our neighbours. There is no
possibility of sinning against non-human animals, or against the natural world.
This was the thinking of mainstream Christianity for at least its first eighteen
centuries. There were gentler spirits, certainly, like Basil, John Chrysostom,
and Francis of Assisi, but for most of Christian history they have had no
significant impact on the dominant tradition. It is therefore worth emphasising
... major features of this dominant Western tradition, because these features can
serve as a point of comparison when we discuss different views of the natural
environment.
According to the dominant Western tradition, the natural world exists for the
benefit of human beings. God gave human beings dominion over the natural
world, and God does not care how we treat it. Human beings are the only
morally important members of this world. Nature itself is of no intrinsic value,
and the destruction of plants and animals cannot be sinful, unless by this
destruction we harm humans beings.20
Singer goes on to labour the familiar point that anthropocentrism of this harsh tradition
need not exclude some concern for the preservation of nature. But for most of recorded history
it has not included much concern. Moreover, lesser Christian alternatives, notably stewardship
and perfectionism, while they lessen some of the brutal impact of domination upon the natural
world, offer little improvement upon longer term invidious environmental erosion, or as regards
retention of now emphasized desiderata: retention of wilderness, and maintenance and
enhancement of biodiversity.
As disturbingly, the rival humanist paradigm of modem times, running from the French
enlightenment through 20th century Anglo-American empiricism, as exemplified in Russell,
Ayer and Quine among many other luminaries, differs from mainstream Christianity only in
leaving God out of the account (as He does not exist, He is utterly impotent, so to illicitly say).
Exceptional human features themselves, naturalistically achieved, justify dominion and
domination.
20
Singer pp.265-8, itals added. Singer prefers tradition discourse to the substantially equivalent
(historical linkage diminished) paradigm discourse.
11
Outline of a main argument
Detailed argument for the anti-mainstream thesis, as refined, is, so to say, case by case,
through cases in the mainstream history, considering main philosophers and main schools.
Some of this hard piecemeal work, some already illustrated, has been carried out, in more or
less detail by others: Drengson, Gare, Hargrove, Heidegger and Passmore, among many
others. But, within that uneven treatment, there remain conspicuous gaps. For example,
among the principal 17th century rationalists, while there is much material upon Descartes
(along now with a conservative back-lash defending Descartes), and some increasingly divisive
material upon Spinoza, there is little at all on Leibnitz.
As there is no prospect here of reworking the dismal history of Western philosophy, case
by case, let us consider a few illustrative examples, which help plug some obvious gaps. Take
again the distinguished early modern rationalists—Descartes, Leibnitz and Spinoza— as
examples. Descartes’ significant negative contribution is now well-known, so much so that
Descartes is sometimes represented as the main villain of the environmental piece.21 Owing to
the premature enthusiasm of various deep ecologists for Spinoza’s contribution, the blacker
environmental feature of Spinoza’s theory have been enthusiastically exposed to view by a
jubilant opposition. As a result, some deep ecologists have back-tracked, but only a little:
Some Spinoza scholars have recently claimed that an ecological interpretation
of Spinozism is not justified. There are notes in the Ethics where Spinoza
says that we can treat other animals in any way which best suits us. [These
authors] have argued that although the metaphysics is nonanthropocentric,
the ethics is rightfully anthropocentric. Schopenhauer, who was steeped in
Eastern philosophy, was quick to pick up on the anomolous attitude of
Spinoza toward other animals: “Spinoza’s contempt for animals, as mere
things for our use, and declared by him to be without right, is thoroughly
Jewish, and in conjunction with pantheism is at the same time absurd and
abominable.” Arne Naess and I agree that Schopenhauer was correct in his
criticism of Spinoza. Naess admits that although Spinoza himself was what
we would now call a “speciesist”, his system is not speciesist.22
If Spinoza’s system includes his anthropocentric ethics (and is not illegitimately restricted to an
ecologically convenient selection from his holistic metaphysics), then it seems Naess is astray.
The negative character of Spinoza’s contribution was rediscovered by Bookchin (unversed in
basic deep ecological texts), who applies this finding to lambast deep ecology regarding ‘double
standards’ in its
one-sided treatment of philosophers and philosophical traditions. Spinoza,
for example is cast frequently as a nouveau Taoist and is interpreted more in
the romantic tradition than in the scholastic one to which he has more
affinities, despite his many differences with medieval thinkers. That this
great thinker was militantly anthropocentric is consistently ignored by deep
21
Thus for example by Drengson.
22
Session, in Appendix D to Devall and Sessions, p.240.
12
ecologists, as far as I have been able to ascertain. I have yet to encounter
any attempt to explain Spinoza’s extraordinary statement: “Besides man, we
know of no particular thing in nature in whose mind we may rejoice, and
whom we can associate with ourselves in friendship or any sort of
fellowship; therefore, whatsoever there be in nature besides man, a regard
for our advantage does not call on us to preserve, but to preserve or destroy
according to its various capabilities, and to adapt to our use as best we
may.”23
So much for sensitive treatment of natural environments and their other inhabitants! Spinoza
appears to have irreparably damaged any claim to exceptional positive standing.
So far the third of the great rationalist trio, Leibnitz, appears to have escaped critical re
appraisal (in an overdue green history of philosophy). Yet, as it happens, Leibnitz’s position
can be applied to illustrate features of considerable green generality. In brief, any philosophy is
liable to be environmentally unfriendly that guarantees satisfaction of all or enough elements of
the consumption impact equation, and so would generate excessive impacts. Leibnitz’s overall
position does just that. Consider what might be called Leibnitzianism, in honour of Leibnitz
(though Leibnitz's fragmentary work did not initiate any genuine historic school). Leibnitz was
heavily committed to all of human population growth, unfettered technological advance, and
human lifestyles of consumption, in short, to precisely those factors that combine in the familiar
impact recipe to produce excessive human impacts upon environments. There is fair evidence
for these contentions. First, Leibnitz was an early exponent of utilitarianism, indeed he was all
round an enthusiastic maximizer. From his formulation of utilitarianism, he drew an immediate
obvious corollary: the directive to increase human population (maximizing on aggregate human
pleasure is most obviously achieved by production of more happy humans, other aspects of
which technology and affluence can assure).24 Secondly, Leibnitz was a technology enthusiast;
he was heavily committed to the development and use of scientific technology, for which he had
all sorts of schemes (e.g. not only the characteristica universalis intended to encapsulate all of
knowledge in an accessible useable form, a complete calculus duly mechanised, but as well
numerous technological projects.25). Thirdly, he was committed to an affluent lifestyle for
himself and (through symmetry and basic assumptions of utilitarianism) for others. For his
own part, he abandoned an academic career at an obscure German university ‘in favour of the
23
Bookchin, p.261. The quotation from Spinoza’s Ethics is fully cited in Bookchin.
24
For Leibnitz’s anticipation of utilitarianism, see Hruschka. For Leibnitz’s immediate application
of the principle, to support human population increase, see p.172.
25
‘Leibnitz’s interest in machinery is illustrated by his complicated plan to drain the Harz mines,
which involved the construction of a new type of windmill, and a virtually friction-free pump’,
Cottingham p. 193. For a detailed account of Leibnitz’s extensive entrepreneurial and technological
activities, see Aiton.
13
more active and lucrative pursuits of the courtier and diplomat’ and, so it turned out, the bright
lights of major European cities and grand tours of Europe.26
No doubt Leibnitz’s lifestyle
commitments need not (and may not) be reflected in his philosophy, which may have
independent environmental merit, for example as stimulation or input for later developments.
There is unfortunately little evidence that that is so. Nonetheless, substantial fragments of
Leibnitz’s philosophy—of a different unauthentic subphilosophy—do admit environmental
bending and adaptation, in a way that Descartes’ philosophy does not at all easily.
Leibnitz has sometimes been accounted environmentally friendly. Some of that apparent
friendliness appears due rather to scholastic conservativism.
Thus he was opposed to
mechanism; he was sympathetic to the organic and teleological, which did not contract to
isolated human and superhuman loci. His metaphysical theory of monads, which are centres of
living energy, effectively distributed life everywhere, though not equally. Harmony and order
too prevailed throughout the universe, though under God's maximizing management, the
presence of which they duly established! But even this life-expanding harmonious order,
variants of which are now familiar from Whiteheadian and deep ecological quarters, was not as
benign as it has superficially appeared.
Leibnitz supposed that, by virtue of pre-established harmony and final causes governing
inevitable progress, humans would not go wrong in the longer term in their environmental
activities, that they could not ‘cumulatively make undesirable changes in nature’.27 Leibnitz
joyfully foresaw more and more of the Earth coming under cultivation, and its long-term
advancement to a complete intensive garden, even if there were occasional relapses where parts
deteriorated back temporarily towards wild state. Leibnitz even criticised Cartesianism, now
widely regarded as prime villain of the environmental piece, as failing ‘to provide the modal
stimulus ... to the control of nature’ ... ‘to scientific advance’. The idea of control, advancing
to total control, total management, is prophesized in Leibnitz (in a sort of chauvinistic Gaia
hypothesis). He saw ‘order as progressively increasing, with the help of man [as] a finisher of
nature. He boldly applauded the idea of progress to the earth as a unit, assuming both an
orderliness on earth and an orderliness in the changes it had undergone by man’.28
An important corollary does emerge: that a promising new partial metaphysics is no
panacea for improved environmental performance or paradigms.
Not merely neutral
26
Cottingham p.24, p.26.
27
Glacken p.478. As he remarks, these bold assumptions made by Leibnitz have proved wrong. The
preposterous infallibility-in-practice assumption has resurfaced recently in a less attractive aspect of
the Gaia hypothesis as peddled by Lovelock.
28
Glacken p.506.
14
metaphysics, but even positive metaphysics, such as certain organic and process theories, are
compatible with, and can be coupled with, damaging philosophies, social theories and life
styles. It is almost enough to consider the theories and practices, commitments and lifestyles of
Aristotle, Leibnitz and Whitehead.29
Things even deteriorated on many fronts under the main philosophical movements that
succeeded Leibnitz in Germany, and overwhelmed European and much of Western philosophy
for more than a century, namely Kantianism and subsequent German idealism. Virtually all the
prominent positions in this philosophical galaxy, in the main strongly supportive of a
supposedly enlightened Protestantism, presumed and imposed a blanketing human chauvinism
and associated social reductionism. For example, the universal universe of Kantian ethics
comprosed the circle of humans (and perhaps super humans) only; nothing else counted, and
even the proper treatment of animals (which was at least not entirely neglected) was supposed
reduced to that of interhuman relations. Regrettably human chauvinistic assumptions also
underlay and handicapped more benign reccessive alternatives in Germany, such as those
afforded by Herder and through the much heralded nature romanticism movement. As is
widely appreciated now, later parts of the broad German mainstream flowing on from Kant
were much more deleterious, neglecting Enlightenment advances and sponsoring elements of
Aryan or super-race chauvinism.
Things were certainly rather different off the Continent in modem England, but in most
environmental respects hardly better.
But no doubt a different example is furnished by
mainstream British philosophy, a philosophy which has influenced most of the English
speaking world for the worse, environmentally and also otherwise. This philosophy is highly
empiricist in orientation, a reductionistic ideas, impressions or sense-data empiricism
characteristically sharing the anthropocentrism of idealism,. Worse, this empiricism normally
expands through ethics and social theory in the form of utilitarianism, typically a possessive
individualistic human chauvinistic utilitarianism.30
Despite appearances and propaganda, there has been comparatively little improvement in
recent times. For positivism and its irrationalist successors, all ecologically shallow, all
committed to technofix and for the most part to social engineering, have been prime
29
Leibnitz’s standing in the history of philosophy is somewhat curious. His main achievement,
setting aside his reputation as an intellectual wizard with lots of ideas, appears to be spasmodic
work upon a beautiful ruin, an incomplete (and incomputable) metaphysics, of which only
tantalizing fragmentary structures were ever available. It is not even as if there is a surviving
supply of challenging bad arguments that can be put before baffled students, as with Descartes and
Berkeley for instance.
30
For elaboration and defence of these stark claims, see Sylvan 94.
15
philosophical inputs into the physical sciences and also into mainstream economics. Shallow
utilitarianism persists as the main philosophical informant of and input into social sciences,
including fashionable new areas such as ecological economics, public choice theory, and so on.
Incidentally, not much is to be expected in the way of deeper change from contemporary
universities and research institutions from where these new fashions emanate. For these places
are, by and large, part of the advanced industrial problematic; they are, almost without
exception, urbanocentric conjectural-information factories. Unfortunately, the other main
movements in Anglo-American philosophy are even more conservative, for example analytic
philosophy and its variants, such as conceptual analysis, and Wittgensteinianism. For they
leave almost everything as it is, as environmentally unsatisfactory as it is.31
Nor is recent Continental philosophy, a main contrast class, any better, but in many
respects worse.
Anthropocentric emphases remain heavy in both French and German
philosophy, which are the predominant forms. Both existentialism and phenomenalism, as well
as passe-isms such as Marxism, are mired in human chauvinism. Social criticism, which has at
least seriously addressed wider environmental problems, remains shallow. For example, the
communicational theory of Habermas is heavily biassed in favour of articulate humans, and
excludes other animals and the rest of creation from any but very secondary roles.
Modest out-fall.
No doubt the anti-mainstream thesis is not the sort of proposition that most philosophers
care to encounter. For one reason, it may seem like offering free ammunition to those who
would like to put an end to philosophy, for political or ideological purposes. But it does not:
not without a serious confusion of change—or end in present dominant form—with end, end
period. Similarly, it may appear to give reinforcement to those who, with scant justification,
have prematurely pronounced the end of philosophy.32 But this makes a similar confusion.
Spectacular conclusions such as those that have sometimes been drawn from
considerations like those assembled—such as, again, the end of philosophy, the demise of
grand philosophy, the deconstruction of metaphysics— do not then emerge. For one reason, it
is not philosophy that leads to disaster, but only certain sorts of grand philosophy, gray and
brown sorts, which accordingly are liable to critical rejection. No end is implied to less grand
and greener regional philosophies, recessive metaphysics, or the like.
31
Such a theme is developed, though poorly and in a social setting, by Gellner. His case applies,
with even more force, to environmental matters.
32
Later authors tend to appeal back to earlier false prophets, notably Heidegger, who really had no
viable arguments for his floated claims. There are other, quite different, equally poor, arguments to
an end to philosophy, for instance those to an end of ideology, from the fall of one awful
alternative, soviet “communism”. And so on; see also above.
16
Development of some recessive alternative or other—different ones—is now a favoured
alternative idea (thus Gare and others advocating elaboration of process philosophy,
environmentalists favouring ecological paradigms, etc.). But a more effective course, duly
pluralistic, looks to locally and regionally based philosophies, with worthwhile linkages with
local aspirations and regional cultures.33
Once again, there are philosophies and
philosophies—and appalling regional philosophies (e.g. business philosophies, as promoted by
local chambers of commerce; fundamentalist philosophies stoked by organised religions).
Ways out, if they can be found, lie not through reproduction of dominant destructive ideologies
at local levels, but through less damaging alternatives, fitted to ecoregional circumstances.
Some broad corollaries of the anti-mainstream thesis are accordingly evident. Philosophy
teaching and practice should be drastically reorganised, almost everywhere. Many features of
historical approaches would be transformed. “Great thinker” and like series would vanish.
Celebratory aspects of philosophy approached through its history would be abandoned: both the
mainstream historic emphasis and the celebration. Grand but invariably flawed figures from
history would no longer be revered, or celebrated in the same way, even if some of their
arguments are retained for exhibition or criticism. There would be new histories of philosophy,
different in different regions, with their own pantheons ofprominent philosophers, pantheons
not set in stone. Nor would systematic philosophy remain unscathed. For its usual operational
framework is that of the dominant social paradigm. It would be relocated and reoriented.
There would be an end to the transfer of inappropriate models, technology (including
logical) and practices (as of temperate agriculture to tropical regions). There would be a
reduction in borrowing and unseemly imitations. Borrowed philosophy is inappropriate for
Latin America, or elsewhere in the South. Consider French philosophy, which along with
Catholicism and Marxism, still tends to swamp what little happens in Latin America. The
mileau in which French philosophy occurs is not established, the infrastucture is not in place,
namely a variety of literary criticism and like mags, an active cafe society, and so on. French
philosophy does not export that well and, by and large, should not be imported, for all its
flashy fashionability.
Regions should try to do their own appropriate intellectual things, importing only what
they really need. Regional philosophies do not, after all, have to start from nothing or
nowhere; they can draw upon and adapt what already has some local basis, perhaps a strong
base. What is more, they can be directly applied to prevent or delay outside destructive
incursions. For illustration, consider the place of tribally recognised values of forests in
delaying grand pulpwood and integrated forestry [integrated destruction] projects. Through a
33
No doubt this is an intended idea in Caldera, for all that it is scarcely articulated or developed.
Similarly in other productions on Latin-American philosophy.
17
regional network, a mesh of constraints can be introduced, controlling intrusions of unregulated
or prejudically regulated international capitalism. Compare a promising strategy for trying to
achieve a nuclear free world, building up by free or freed regions.
Nor does a case for ideological regionalism have to start from nothing. Some of the
arguments for regionalism in organisation also support or suggest regionalization in reaches of
ideas, including philosophy. For example, many of the advantages of subsidizarization
transfer. Naturalism regionalism does not preclude global linkages; what it should resist are
forms of imperialism.34
None of this will be easy, or achieved without effort. Change is generally hard to achieve
against inertia. And most intellectuals, for all their craving to be first in little approved ideas,
are resistant to extensive change. Moreover the changes modestly proposed will not be simple;
there is not, and cannot be, a simple uniform alternative. What is needed is fragmentation,
pluralisation, regionalisation—unpopular, unfashionable ideas.
References
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Attfield, R., ‘Has the history of philosophy ruined the environment?’, Environmental
Ethics 13(1991) 127-137.
Attfield, R., The Ethics of Environmental Concern, Second edition, University of
Georgia Press, Athens, 1991.
Bookchin, M., ‘Rediscovering evolution’, Environmental Ethics 12(1990) c.261.
Caldera, A.J., Filosofia e Crise, Pela filosofia iatino-americana, Editora Vozes,
Petropolis, Brasil, 1984.
Devall, B., and Sessions G., Deep Ecology, Salt Lake City, Utah 1985.
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Gare, A., Nihilism Incorporated, Eco-logical Press, Bungendore N.S.W., 1993.
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1967.
Hargrove, E., Foundations of Environmental Ethics, Prentice Hall, New Jersey, 1989.
Heidegger, M., The End of Philosophy, Harper & Row, New York, 1973.
34
Fortunately we have not yet ascended to an edified world philosophy, any more than the world car
(despite American efforts at globalization, including Solomon and Higgins), but the number of
mainstream models is now rather small, and almost all so far are noisy and polluting.
Hruschka, J., ‘The greatest happiness principle and other early German anticipations of
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Passmore, J., ‘The end of philosophy’, address on the occasion of his 80th birthday,
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Paleocrassas, Y., Environmental crime and
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Plumwood, V., Feminism and the Mastery of Nature, Routledge, London, 1993.
Roszak, T., Where the Wasteland Ends, Doubleday, Garden City New York, 1972.
Russell, B., Wisdom of the West: a historical survey of western philosophy in its
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Routley, R., ‘Roles and limits ofparadigms in environmental thought and action ’,Green Series
#1, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1982.
Solomon, R., and Higgins, K., (eds.), From Africa to Zen, An Invitation to World
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Canberra, 1994.
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referred to as GE.
Sylvan, R. and Bennett, D., ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Green Series #19, Research
School of Social Science Australian National University, 1990; referred to as UTD.
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90,https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/show/90,"On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear deterrence and the political fall-out",,,"Richard Routley",,"Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy",1984-01-01,"This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, Dr. N.A.J. Taylor.","For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library.",,Manuscript,,Report,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/6ac75cab884e6903e8ca85828a326c92.pdf,Text,"Self-published Papers",1,0