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Published by Australian National University. Department of Philosophy. Published under Richard Sylvan's previous name Richard Routley.","One of two copies in collection.","Richard 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 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. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. and 13. 14. 15. R.K. Meyer, Why I am not a relevantist, 1978. R.K. Meyer, Sentential constants in R, 1979. 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_ * matrices, 1979. R.K. Meyer and J.K. Slaney, Abelian logic (from A to Z), 1980. C. Mortensen, Relevant algebras and relevant model structures, 1980. R.K. Meyer, Relevantly interpolating in RM , 1980. C. Mortensen, Paraconsistency and C^, 1981. R.K. Meyer, De Morgan monoids, 1983. R. Routley, Relevantism and the problem as to when Material Detachment and the Disjunctive Syllogism Argument can be correctly used, N. da Costa, Essay on the foundations of logic, 1983. R. Routley and G. Priest, On Paraconsistency, 1983R. Routley, Research in logic in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania, 1983. R.K. Meyer, Where y fails, 1983. Green series (Discussion papers in environmental philosophy): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 10. 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. 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 deontic notions. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, An expensive repair-kit for utilitarianism. R. Routley, Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing: the difference in rational behaviour under rival paradigms. / /- ' nw^4) 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