Box 77, Item 1: Draft of On extirpating war: Tao and deep-green pacifism

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Box 77, Item 1: Draft of On extirpating war: Tao and deep-green pacifism

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Previous title of paper: War and peace IV: Tao and deep-green.

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Paper from floppy disk containing 21 files. Directory and file name: war and peace I V\on extirpating war tao & depgre.pdf.

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The University of Queensland's Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291, Box 77, Item 1

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This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, Dr. N.A.J. Taylor.

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ON EXTIRPATING WAR:
TAO AND DEEP-GREEN PACIFISM
Taoism and deep-green environmental theory, although closely aligned on very
many issues, diverge over war. For Taoism, by contrast for instance with Buddhism, is
not a pacific doctrine, but is committed to skilful defensive militarism. While it does
not espouse a fortress mentality, Taoism certainly condones limited defensive military
operations for specific purposes, a sort of guerilla warfare. By contrast, deep-green
theory, while acknowledging the role of organised social defence, stands opposed to
professional militarism, and thereby to military defence, and is committed to a
principled pacifism. Conveniently a route through Taoism, philosophically fascinating
in its own right, will lead us to problems of pacifism and towards deep-green theory.
1. Features of a Taoist critique of war and militarism.
War did not receive a favourable press in ancient Chinese philosophy. Generally
aggression and war were to be avoided. Even Confucius imposed very demanding
conditions: for example, ‘when good men have instructed the people [in morals,
agriculture, military tactics] for seven years, they may be allowed to bear arms,’ ‘If a
ruler ... does not set himself right, even his commands will not be obeyed’ ( SB p.41,
italics added). Mo Tzu went much further than Confucius, roundly condemning war –
on utilitarian grounds, that war yields no net benefit at any level ( SB p.227). What is
more, he backed his heavy condemnation practically (unlike some conspicuous
contemporary theoretical utilitarians); ‘he did not hesitate to walk for ten days and ten
nights in an effort to dissuade a ruler from making war’ ( SB p.212). But none, it is
said, went as far, in a detailed and sophisticated criticism of war, as Lao Tzu; ‘none
has condemned war more strongly than Lao Tzu’. ‘[T]he opposition of Taoism to the
use of force is well-known, and the most bitter attack on militarism if found in the Lao
Tzu’ (Chan, p.154, p.17.)
But, after that splendid build-up, the text is slightly disappointing. Lao Tzu does
not assert outright that war is an abomination, or even roundly condemn it. His
critique of war, militarism, and military technology, is subtle and oblique, and, on the
surface, far distanced from pacifism. For he does not recommend an end to war - in
that genuine Taoists, those who possess Tao, will never participate in them – but
expects wars to continue as unavoidable evils. Worse, he even goes so far as to outline
proper attitudes to war and conduct in war, and indeed to suggest military techniques
and strategies, some of which look decidedly devious. Among the classical works of
Taoism, we focus on the Lao Tzu because, by contrast with other works, a remarkable
component of that book is devoted to war and militarism.
The apparent deviousness of the tactics Lao Tzu allocates serves to highlight what
has been seen as ‘the most troublesome element’ in his philosophy (Chan p.17) – not
so much however because they concern military operations, but because they are taken

to apply much more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p.17). But why should military
activity obtain some special

dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated
there? But given that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on
principles) and of universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done.
• Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils
There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the militarypractices paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices
paradoxes. The special paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements:
on the one side, ‘the most bitter attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of
Taoism to the use of force (p.17) and to the possession and use of smart military
weapons and technology – implying that war is far from all right – and on the other,
advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful) conduct in war,
and so on – implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward generalisation of
this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some practice
was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas
assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians
concerns the conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the
life of the sage. For a Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life,
yet appears to engage in devious and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a
life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle paradox.
Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently
take the positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more
generally. A desirable preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what
position is taken, especially on war and militarism. One key pasage runs:
Fine weapons are instruments of evil
They are hated by creatures
Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them. ...
Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler.
When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best
principle
Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy,
For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men.
He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire.
...
For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies
(LT p.154).
Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly
themselves evil. They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But
they are also sometimes unavoidable (also p.152). Therefore such wars are
unavoidable evils. Such discourse, obtained by almost immediate inference from the
passage, is within the standard orbit of dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through

deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse which enables direct expression of
such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of clever weapons. Instead the
points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao does, how the good ruler
conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death.

Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories,
underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly).
Where something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad,
doing it is excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which
has its weaknesses), an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with
inconsistent features. Certain wars have looked, since ancient times, like such
dilemmatic objects.
Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the
military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking:
It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles
of taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most
dynamic and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic,
the Bhagavadgita chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the
terrible dilemma whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a
soldier, and kill, or should fail in his duty and refrain from killing
(p.17).
‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented
in contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are
incompatible duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not
to kill, because of one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in
and fulfilling one's duties. These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are
replicated in dilemmas regarding war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation
to engage in war (for one set of compelling reasons) as contraposed with the obligation
not to engage in war (for another, perhaps overlapping, set of reasons).
A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an
adequate treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become
evident) for a viable strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks
the apparatus to state or develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from
giving a full or adequate account of what is going on conceptually. One of the
philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is the fashion in which it manages to
avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic discourse or improvise
circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear inevitable (cf. UT for
examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism of deontic
dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements
and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically
conspicious feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing
moral dilemmas is missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over.
Only the outcomes, as Taoism sees them, are presented, as if from a black box.
Taoism blacks out the story on deontic dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the
following diagram tries to show:

Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are “resolved”.

Deep-green chart:
dilemma
input

Arguments to
incompatible
prescriptions

§

Processing of dilemma, directive
situational procedures output

Corresponding Taoist chart:
Black

directive

Box

output

input

It is evident that Taoism can be extended; information can be put into the Black
Box rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deepgreen theory, i.e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the
deep-green one. That is indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in
terms of conformity of the extension to deep ecological theory (see UT).
We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the
paradoxes deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation
in the case of Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic
dilemmas. The principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the
persisting suboptimality (or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where
there is a dilemma, involved parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal
circumstances (for a much fuller account, see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a
non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists will not abandon Taoism. Taoist
methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued.
So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and
other dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of
Taoism. A prior substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not
whether wars are evil (typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars
are unavoidable. Analysis of wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively.
Many wars could have been avoided, through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc.,
and no worse results apparently obtained, through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc.
Through a typology of wars (coming up) that conjecture can be given some substance.
Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs. Then there is little point in making
a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an occupation, to be met in a
different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other types of war. But,
more generally, try this:Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an
aggressor could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of

action. Therefore,

every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable.
Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other
events unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without
an aggressor, an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for
scepticism regarding such examples; for such intensification can only occur if
provocative military moves are made, for instance troops are stationed in provocative
or risky positions.
The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a onesided perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is
routinely averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even if that should be so
sometimes, when there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish
that such a war is unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter
formulation, relevant features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may
not be unavoidable, defensive action in wars that have been initiated may be
unavoidable. At least such action may be unavoidable if unacceptably high costs
(death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided. Thereupon another highly relevant
feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For whether an action is
unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur before and
when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is
“unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with
basics like survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An
important type of unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but
kindly brought within range by modern technology, which may appear to justify
aggressive strikes.
State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose
unacceptably high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist.
It could, for example, be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make
the case vivid, let us suppose that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find
convincing (they are committed to a faith which depicts all humans as incorrigible
sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday machine. Would an (aggressive)
preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine be unavoidable? 1 In a sense,
No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate. Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their
zealous work. But deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the human race is worth
anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically

1

Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident
enought that such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For,
according to received doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be
fought at all is another matter; coherence requires relativization to ‘just war for party
d’.)

unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves illuminating. Obligation is explicated
through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e. excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic
unavoidability analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical costs. Then if it can be
established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can
envisage scenarios like that), then that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined towards
pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is also justifiable, on pacific grounds.
Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable require but little or no elaboration to
render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting
evidence. But it has taken to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition.
The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized:
Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow.
Great wars are always followed by famines (p.152).
And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition of the widely-observed socioenvironmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces.
That critique is not however developed in Taoism. 2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And only recently could a
new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a military objective, with environmental security.
The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and roles with the apparent warming of
West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters:
regulation and policing of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and similar. This is a bit
like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of
environmental vandalism. What the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters. But,
to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that should be wound down and up as soon as
the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”).

2

But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an
updating of Taoism in confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat
thin and threadbare on war; for what there is so far, see Naess p.160). On neoDaoism, see UT.

2. On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism.
Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though generally evil, may be sometimes
unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about how they – those of the theoretical residue – are to be conducted. By
appropriate conduct the damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature of wars (to
exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep-green theory begins to diverge from Taoism.
In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections to them, a rough and preliminary
typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a
‘contest carried on by force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game – in the generous technical
sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on – carried on in significant part by military means, normally
between states or substates. Call the contestants, (warring) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set-up
between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several analogical extensions of the term war to
cover games where one of the parties is an object, construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or
Nature. These we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities. Military interests and
objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include surveillence and security, easily extended to resource
security, environmental security and life-style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently
military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns.
An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate
the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations,
cultures, races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably abolished), between inhabited
regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or, perhaps by extension, between factions within other social structures
(thus, for instance, gang wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and virtually all the
worst wars.
While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token wars, limited wars, and so on, are not:
for instance, wars fought by small armed teams representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars
are hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should not be reduced to two person contests,
fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial contests. But in modern times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have
been much larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us distinguish such wars as
techno-powered wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the

technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure (indeed the bulk of contemporary
science is devoted – misdirected – in one way or another to this effort).
Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An offensive war is one which ventures off
a given party's territory or recognised pad, “invading” that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not
also invaded. Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not strictly features of a war,
but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding
defensively is excluded, unless they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor, which
started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars between contemporary states are impossible (but
would be possible if states shared territory, e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were
defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken ( LT p.152).3
The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the subterfuge that departments or ministries of
war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to
war.) Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinitional strategems, such as redefining ‘defensive’ to include
defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence” of a third
party or place (whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is engulfed (February 1991),
one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending
(what Kuwait did not enjoy) democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive.
Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to resources or markets, a matter often
disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is represented as a war of liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly
economic ones, such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and so on. Nor are those
reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market

3

There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable,
namely ‘For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can
compassion be appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger
context of unavoidability or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this
interpretation:
I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive:
I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222).
These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting.

capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion.
The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the advent of an integrated world economy. At
the same time many of the independent reasons for economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of
war without war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without expensive wars, through trade,
institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and
booty, a kind of piracy meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of politicaleconomy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove
competition, to boost a sagging weapons economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed
economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu:
When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to
fertilize
When

Tao

does

not

prevail

in

the

world,

war

horses

(the
thrive

in

fields

...).

the

suburbs.

There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. ( LT p.181).
But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessary, for cessation of such practices.
The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is reminiscent of older, much ridiculed
practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to
war every 5-15 years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth, the USA, which proceeds
to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years (the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would.
For ridicule was a favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite targets.
Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and abolishing wars, their costs and
damage, restructuring societies away from war and military practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism. A main distinction is
between
• conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals, and
• social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is carried out through social networks of a
significant part of society.4

4

Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin.

It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will have a standing army, but a defensive
army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will
operate in secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark about smart weapons of the
state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be
no hidden smart weapons of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should retain influence
in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more generally military organisation, will be wound down
altogether.
Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily acquired by standing armies with
time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism. For example, Taoism is opposed to domination ( LT p.152), whereas
military operations frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and authoritarian. Taoism
aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep-green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of
standing armies, as an important preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of state
control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has no project for ending the era of wars; deepgreen theory does. That project involves an elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference.
A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the means and manpower. The initial
stages are well-known, and include
• elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and
• force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed very far on even this complex of stages.
The next stage consists in
• contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in
• elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social defence practices. The complete route
thus involves complete demilitarisation.
Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by considering the environmental shallowness of
an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has
been primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From
these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that
only just wars should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much
effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically,
upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust facts.

Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive perspective on wars, which encouraged the
exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the
long and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into long-term problems), the short and
unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of
war as heroic, and glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war – finally shattered by the first World
War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars – though no longer in ascendency,
have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping
capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine.
With the development of highly technological wars – the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially
military – the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much
more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The opposition to
war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Wars have almost
always and everywhere been Men's affairs; likewise conquest.
Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture
against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism:
All wars should be fully just wars.
Modern wars cannot be fully just wars.
Therefore, there should be no modern wars.
A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a
war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much
information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such
wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing
radiation or chemical or biological weapons around.
From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just defensive war, is seriously out of date. The
reasons for this reach wider than the new features introduced by modern technological wars and the character of modern civilization,
with its giant cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice
proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures
or to the Earth (cf

Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow a notion of justice, and
ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, of what counts.
The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the
environmental dimension.

It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities.

Earlier, of course,

“environments” were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama.
Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a doctrine of
just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological
war. Unless any such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological wars, it would overstep
permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous
unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of
maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity.
Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism:
All wars should be environmentally sound wars.
Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound.
Therefore, there should be no modern wars.
The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information accumulating on what wars do to natural
and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them.
The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for
instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from
tanks, etc. As well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that make for social callousness
or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity and cruelty.
3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence
‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such
strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’ strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to
quietism? Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does not oppose certain uses of
force (only really ill-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling.
The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include
• seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222)

• surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics: marching without formation, holding
weapons without seeming to have them, confronting enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace,
‘smart weapons of the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel the charge of
deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the
people have, the more troubled the state will be’ (p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in
conspicuous consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced ( LT p.194).
• advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will overcome strength ( LT p.164, p.233).

• coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies are standard Taoist practices simply
applied to military conduct. For these standard practices the charge of deviousness looks feeble.
The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For the strategies are but application of
Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are
accounted, in general, unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to meet the main
criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the legalist tactic, ‘In order to grasp, it is necessary first to
give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving ‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But in
order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing
morally questionable. All the tactics permit of benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, ‘In order to contract, it is
necessary first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to bend it first a little further than
required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look
devious!) neatly illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and weakness turned hardness
and strength.
The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might
now say, come in for much critical attention, as we have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or
flaunted (p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained unexhibited. The people will not have
them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions:
‘Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ ( LT p.238). Much technology, military and other, is excluded under the
Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices

paradox).5
The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition to violence. Some of the linkage is
evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices
will come to an unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may occur in spectacular, but
satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence.
To force the growth of life means ill omen.
For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence
(LT p.197).
One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing requital (p.152). Dominating force, like
power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wu-wei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying
harmony. To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and violence. To intentionally employ
destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or
practice violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non-interference that are excluded.
However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite

5

Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the
storage of quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars
have assumed new and very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly
irresponsible.
A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer
things that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the
fray. An important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing
the technology of war, above all from irresponsible state power.
As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is
not so difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is
wanted is technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology
that is indifferent or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do
something worthwhile, it has to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why
merely indifferent technology is out; there is no virtue in technology for technology's
sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is because of the crucial evaluative
component in choice of technology that appropriateness, itself evaluative, comes
closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size, such as
smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive
technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler
societies, small technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good
there. From known criteria for what is good these other features for locally
appropriate technology can be read off: reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning
well and safely under the expected range of operating conditions (which may be
difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair inexpensiveness, environmental
benignness, and meeting sound social needs.

right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts as violence, which is more
generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates, profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an
evil force in some specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to regard Taoism as
condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is
deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the
machines of war industry stop.
Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and
strategies, have been confronted not merely with much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here
is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence:


War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs are enormous.

Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism.
• Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence involved, without what amounts to war.
According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound
that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war.
˚ But then war cannot be abolished without war.
Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished. 6
This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far. For this paradox does not involve selfreferential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war.
Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given
again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However,
while the dissolution of the argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the

6

Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous
puzzles alongside it – designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political,
and especially alternative, thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and
repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following inconsistent
triad:
• capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained.
• capitalism cannot be removed without repression.
• repression is antithetical to liberty.
The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last
capitalist” action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution
overthrowing capitalism.

second premiss.
4. Standard and moral pacifism.
Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace – and accordingly by prevailing standards a
substantially pacific position – it is not (nowhere in the central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons:-

• It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart defensive wars.
• It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance through the watershed thesis
P2.

It is morally wrong to use violence.

By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is committed in principle to nonviolent
technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles. Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to
pacifism, notably European forms. Is deep green?
There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the warring times when Taoism was first
being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most
prominent contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they claim entitlement to use them
widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use. As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt
to maintain that monopoly. They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to wars, are in
constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a
recent example see the appendix).
Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily in “justificatory” exercises in favour
of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical
repetoire consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and important early task commits in
unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery can be thwarted in this way.
Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and contains two components, negative
and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component is, in Arnauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further
specified) to all forms of warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what it is supposed
that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation, arbitration, ... – and, adding to too narrow dictionary
accounts – sanctions, substitutions (e.g. of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures), ... . In brief standard pacifism is
opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means.

Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military (using soldiers and other devices of
war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as
with nonviolent demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g. turning the forces of war upon
themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident, then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which,
by restricting the negative components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise English definition
of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’.
Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise
English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item: ‘often, with depreciatory implication, the
advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has
many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non-violent action and social defence, from
Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest.
Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries, of rendering pacifism more difficult
from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions. They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to
state and organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is very different, personal and
interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use
violence, according to which P2 holds, stretched pacifism.7 While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism (unless the
notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to
stretched pacifism, which is a much more problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially
different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim.
Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy critical target to moral philosophers. Many
the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”,
“insensitive”, “fanatical”.

However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and treating moral

dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous investigations (see esp. AI, also MD). A main aim was to
demonstrate that stretched pacifism was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant
violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism

7

In AI this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive
pacifism: overcomprehensive might have been better.

could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects envisaged); whence it will finally
be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and many ordinary women, but much more extensively.
The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of moral dilemma that stretched pacifism
can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now
this implies to WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances develop which lead to W ~B,
because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock
example from the literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist shoots one of them (it is
elaborated in AI p.13). Interestingly, another stock example from the literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in
terms of patriotism; for details of both see MD p.10).
Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent decides in the situation, within the fix,
what to do. There are many ways in which such decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or
involving bad faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see MD, pp.32-9). A decision
theory taking account of all that should be included will not however be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant
motivation.
This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the
defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes pacifism’ (p.153 twice). The rehabilitation
trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ from a form of activism which
holds that while violence is always wrong one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring
violent acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the commonsense position
which most people hold – yet ... pacifism after all was supposed to be radical moral doctrine ... (p.153

rearranged).8
Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized – JWS “activism” is hardly trivial – as that pacifism is
popularised, deflated from a radical position to the commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence
is adduced that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace movements and oppositional
opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most people support state-justified conventional wars with the military
violence they incur, and

8

JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move
effects his criticism, I don't know.

accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle, pacifism with its condemnation of
conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a radical doctrine.
As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism is, as previous explained (e.g. AI p.3),
a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a
certain level of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism pacifism may include. That
misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where
dilemmas arise will not generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such principles are
suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A small amount of violence may be less bad in its
consequences than verbal offence, but a principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude
it.
A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma situations into purely consequentialist form. In
fact consequential decision theory was deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic
procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a
very consequentialist thing’ (AI p.13), not ‘one acts in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’
(JWS p.152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision making (modified from maximizing to
satisizing objectives) may be adopted ( MD p.38). Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or
tries to reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in principle (in advance of attempted
consequentialization of motives), to design situations where motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes
upsetting consequential calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism, sometimes at
variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed.
A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to “second best” consequentialist
considerations, ... already explicitly condemned’ (p.154). What was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only
consequentialist considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p.152), so undercutting other deontic principles, such as those
of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and
decision making. The conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray.
After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon consequentialist modes of thought, it is
surprising, and inconsistent, to find ... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties
raised by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p.152)

There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has wrongly contracted all situational decision
making to consequentialist modes.
There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow too much violence to be (perpetrated
and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p.153). This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution
rather than populatization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed on a mistake: that one can
‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts, providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives
facing social agents’ (p.153). Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never part of the
position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly erroneous example. The potential victim of an
aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the
woman to prevent herself from being raped’ (p.153 italics added). In the example so far described there is no dilemma, and no such
easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence.
What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially justified; for example that the woman
is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p.153). Since she
may thereby inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent with ‘the basic principle of
self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is ‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to
defend oneself against the threat’ (p.150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence which exceed
his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The ‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the
contorted discussion of what weapons are appropriate in response to what attacks, p.150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would
enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense stretched pacifism is compatible with the
‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper bound on level of force.
As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing objections to pacifism is one thing;
solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far hardly conclusive (as AI tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was
advanced, hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally compulsory position, or, for
that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed.
To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non-violence, that case was not
conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled,
the most important of which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world. Simply consider the
practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are
often obliged to, engage

routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that the natural order is an immoral
order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are
converted to dog biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and beyond human
capacities – even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there
are millions of other species to be converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of
hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their own excessive numbers, such regulation
appears entirely remote. Aside however from the practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed,
a desirable improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as alternative systems of morality
in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the
natural order is more or less in order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly.
More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended, be right out of step with the natural
order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition,
combat and predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus, for instance, the ludicrous
picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even
under decent depiction, the “natural order” is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral dilemma for
any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not separate humans out from the natural order ) and which
eschews the desperate vegetarian route:
The natural order is not an immoral order
The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence.
Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral –
in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly occurring, for them all to be plausibly
shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are
not immoral (neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far).
The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was alrady indicated in AI ). While P2 is alright
in context, within a particular, perfectly viable, ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for
ethical theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of modification envisaged.
Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally
degenerate humans, but to

peace-sensitive agents.

With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably modified P2 results:

MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence. 9
To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the proposition that every human agent ought to
be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modern humans; it sets
too high a moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for something less demanding,
such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively:
Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for much moral progress in humans, it is
pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced.
Richard Sylvan10*
Appendix
I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. The optly
named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there
was much talk of peace. There was even – in what was effectively a declaration of war – reiteration of the modern quest for ‘a new
world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’
(Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely
pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it – through war. Impeccable logic?
President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred
to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’.
‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go
well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and
thought it may now have to followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now

9

The generalization of P2, suggested in AI, to cover also the parallel situation
of environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence
principle becomes
MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use
vandolence.

10

*

Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in JWS)

supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world order ... which governs the conflict
of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one, enforcable law, is achieved, unless backed by the the other, is not explained
(Medlin's paradox hits back). Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that ‘peace is a great good,
war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has shifted; practice has scarcely changed at all.

REFERENCES
W.-T. Chan, A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1963; referred to as ST.
W.-T. Chan (ed.), The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1963; referred to as LT.
B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984.
A. Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1989.
R.A. Rapaport, Pigs for the Ancestors : ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea People, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967.
R. Routley, ‘War and Peace II. On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism’, Discussion papers in
environmental philosophy #9, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1983 (also in Inquiry );
referred to as AI.
R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #6,
Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984 (also in Paraconsistent Logic); referred to as MD.
R. Routley, ‘War and Peace I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear-deterrence and the political fall-out’, Discussion
papers in environmental philosophy, #5, Research School Of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984.
G. Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1980.
J.W. Smith, The Worms at the Heart of Things , Public Relations Unit, Flinders University, 1989.
R. Sylvan, ‘War and Peace III, Australia's defence philosophy’, Social Philosophy, for Nuclear Conference, University of Queensland,
1985.
R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #19, Research School
of Social Science, Australian National University, 1990; referred to as UT.

Collection

Citation

Richard Sylvan, “Box 77, Item 1: Draft of On extirpating war: Tao and deep-green pacifism,” Antipodean Antinuclearism, accessed March 28, 2024, https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/show/134.

Output Formats