What is the difference between personal and political pacifism

While the distinction between universal and particular pacifism is related to the distinction between absolute and contingent pacifism, it is primarily focused on the question of who is obligated by pacifism. Universalism in thinking about pacifism will hold that if war is wrong, it is wrong for everyone and thus that soldiers who fight are wrong, as are those who support the war system that encourages them to fight. Particular pacifists articulate their position as merely personal and do not condemn the war system or soldiers who choose to fight.

Universal pacifism is closely connected with absolute and maximal versions of pacifism; particular pacifism is related to contingent and minimal pacifisms. One way that this distinction between universal and particular pacifism has been enacted in history is through the idea of vocational pacifism discussed above Vocational pacifism holds that pacifism is a special obligation of a particular vocational service; but that it is not required of all. In this sense, pacifism is a supererogatory obligation.

Religious clerics may thus be required to renounce violence, while ordinary members of their congregations may not be so obliged. This distinction can be understood by considering whether pacifism is morally necessary or whether it is merely morally permitted.

The universalist answer to this question is: if war and violence are wrong, then pacifism is morally necessary and those who fight are wrong.

But some pacifist appear to hold that it is not wrong to fight or that some persons are permitted to fight , even though the pacifists herself may choose or is obliged by some vocational commitment not to fight. A conscientious objector may thus choose not to fight while not condemning those who do. Conscientious refusal may be articulated as a personal belief about pacifism that does not apply to others.

This is one way pacifists who refuse to fight may avoid the charge that they are traitors who are opposed to their compatriots who fight: they may deny that their refusal has any universal moral significance or application.

One way of understanding this is to connect it with the idea of tolerance. A personal pacifist may believe that pacifism is the right choice; but she may choose to tolerate others who do not make the same choice. A personal pacifist may also espouse a sort of relativism that holds that a commitment to pacifism is merely a personal commitment that cannot be used to condemn others who make different commitments. This idea of particular pacifism is a subtle one. And critics will argue that it is incoherent, especially if it is understood as a sort of relativism.

Those who claim that conscientious objectors are traitors may argue that pacifism cannot be a particular or personal choice. Critics of pacifism will argue that pacifism is morally wrong because they think that patriotism or justice requires fighting or at least supporting the war effort.

This objection would hold that if a war is justified, then conscientious objectors are wrong to reject it. Particularists may reply by claiming that their rejection of war is a personal choice without universal significance. Arguments in defense of pacifism are usually based on assertions about the immorality of violence and war.

Thus pacifism is usually derived by negation. Pacifism, primarily, tells us what not to do. One of the skeptical problems that Ryan addresses is the problem that occurs in killing in self-defense. When a Victim kills an Aggressor in self-defense, this killing occurs before the Aggressor has actualized his malicious intention. In this case, killing in self-defense is out of proportion to the harm done, since the Victim who kills in self-defense was not himself killed.

A skeptical version of pacifism can thus develop from the worry that when we choose to kill in self-defense, we never know whether this killing is in fact justifiable.

Skeptical pacifists wonder how we would know that we ever reach the stage of last resort, when violence becomes necessary. One way that pacifists articulate this concern is to focus on the variety of nonviolent measures that could be employed before it becomes necessary to resort to force. Indeed, it may be argued that to resort to violence is to admit to a failure of imagination and to give up hope that more humane forms of problem solving and conflict resolution can be effective.

Moreover, pacifists will note that it is not sufficient to try nonviolent methods once and then disregard them.

Rather, one must engage in a variety of nonviolent actions; and one must try these nonviolent alternatives more than once. A somewhat different version of skeptical pacifism can be found in critiques of militarism and the ideology and propaganda that lead people to support war.

This skeptical stance has been defended by the author of the present entry Fiala and In this approach, skepticism produces a practical political pacifism that is based upon the fact that citizens have no good reason to trust that their governments are telling them the truth about war and its justification.

This skepticism is derived from historical judgments about the tendency of governments to manipulate information in order to provoke the citizenry toward war. In light of such skepticism, the burden of proof for the justification of war is placed upon the government, who must prove that the dangerous and presumptively immoral activity of war can in fact be justified. Prima facie pacifism presumes that war is wrong but allows for exceptions. Prima facie pacifism places the burden of proof upon the proponent of war: it is up to the proponent of war to prove, in a given circumstance, that war is in fact morally necessary.

Transformational pacifism is understood as aiming at a transformation of psychological, cultural, social, and moral sensibility away from acceptance of violence and war. Transformational pacifism articulates a broad framework of cultural criticism and includes an effort to reform educational and cultural practices that tend to support violence and war. The goal of transformational pacifism is a world in which war and violence appear to be archaic remnants of less civilized past.

One traditional version of transformational pacifism can be found in pacifist religious traditions. Transformational pacifism is often connected to a progressive interpretation of history that points toward a pacifist goal for human evolution.

Transformational pacifism has been described by Joseph J. Transformational pacifism can also be linked to feminism and feminist critiques of the masculine values found in warrior cultures and the war system see Poe Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams is a prominent figure here.

Addams connected her pragmatic hope for peace to democracy and the empowerment of women and the oppressed masses, who had in the past silently suffered from the horrors of war. More recently authors such as Sara Ruddick and Nel Noddings have connected feminist criticism with pacifism and the ethics of care. Nonetheless, Noddings argues that care ethics and feminism are concerned with a general critique of the militaristic and violent assumptions of male-dominant culture.

Her solution is to re-create culture and education in such as way as to devalue aggression and provide support for love, nurturance, solidarity, and care. Deontological prohibitions against war are usually absolute, while consequentialist prohibitions against war are for the most part contingent. Consequentialist pacifism is usually grounded in some sort of rule-utilitarianism. A utilitarian pacifist may argue that a rule against war or other sorts of violence will tend to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Utilitarian pacifists must appeal to empirical and historical data to support this rule. A utilitarian argument for pacifism could be grounded in the claim that history shows us that wars tend to produce more harm than good. Utilitarian defenders of the just war theory will argue that some wars help alleviate suffering, as for example, in the case of humanitarian wars in defense of human rights.

Utilitarian pacifists may articulate a rule-based argument that holds that a general rule against war will, in the long run, produce more happiness. A utilitarian might support such an argument by also arguing that economic and other resources that are spent on war and preparation for war could produce more happiness if spent on peaceful goods such as education, hunger relief, and so on.

And a rule-utilitarian might argue that a rule against humanitarian intervention would produce more happiness in the long run by protecting international stability and preserving important values like national sovereignty. It is important to note that, unlike deontological pacifism, consequentialist pacifism is not opposed to killing per se.

It is difficult to see how absolute pacifism can develop from act-utilitarianism that is devoid of side-constraints against killing. The rule-utilitarian approach can, however, allow for general rules that allow killing in certain circumstances, say in self-defense.

The idea of proportionality in just war theory is an example of such a rule: killing in war is justifiable if it promotes general long-term happiness.

The claim that war produces more harm than good is disputable; at least, it requires empirical research to decide if it is true. Empirical research into the consequences of war provides mixed results depending upon contexts and circumstances in which wars are fought and the range of consequences considered whether short-term or long-term.

Some authors Pinker and Goldstein suggest that the use of judicious military power during the last several decades has produced good results.

But other authors reach different conclusions. Given the difficulty of assessing the empirical data, consequentialist pacifism will usually be a sort of contingent pacifism. But this is not always true, since absolute pacifism might be justifiable on consequentialist grounds as a rule that will in the long run produce good consequences. There may be variable judgments among consequentialists about whether some wars produce more harm than good.

Thus pacifists such as Einstein and Russell could agree that the First World War was wrong, while admitting that the Second World War could be justified. The Second World War is in fact often used as an example of a war that can be justified in consequentialist terms: the good produced by the war—the defeat of Nazism in Europe, for example—is thought to outweigh its negative consequences, especially the massive numbers of persons killed in the war.

In response, consequentialist pacifists might emphasize the negative utility of the deaths caused by the war while also arguing that the Second World War produced long-term negative consequences with the introduction of nuclear weapons, the partition of Europe, and the madness of the Cold War.

Consequentialist defenders of pacifism will also argue that creative and coordinated nonviolent action can produce good consequences that are at least as good as the consequences of war.

One of the issues that consequentialists must consider is the temporal and spatial scope of our concern for consequences. It is possible that wars may produce short-term benefits for some and long-term disadvantages for others. Judgments about benefits and harms are thus complex and we must clarify our understanding of what matters in thinking about consequences. Often consequentialist arguments for pacifism emphasize the short-term damage of war. It is obviously true that wars kill people.

But the further question to be asked from the standpoint of consequentialism is whether the harms that occur in the near-term are outweighed by the long-term benefits of the war. Just war theorists believe that some wars do have positive long-term consequences. Pacifists do not think that long-term benefits outweigh such near-term harms.

Consequentialist pacifists often also consider the broad and long-term negative effects of war on the economy, on culture, on political life, and on the environment.

Moreover, pacifists worry that war contributes to long-term international instability. When thinking about the negative consequences of war it is important to recognize that we are engaged in comparative cost-benefit analysis.

Critics of consequentialist pacifism often skew the results of such cost-benefit analysis by comparing war to passivity or inaction. But most forms of pacifism do not advocate complete passivity. It is a mistake to compare the consequences of going to war to the consequences of doing nothing. Rather, the cost-benefit analysis must compare the costs and benefits of going to war against those of creative, organized, and sustained nonviolent action.

A further consequentialist argument claims that cultures and states that fight wars tend to become militaristic and expansionist. This argument focuses on the long-term negative consequences of a social and political system that is committed to militarism. A negative consequence of militarism is the tendency of militarist states to become centralized, secretive, and imperial.

This critique of military expansionism can be connected to a general critique of the potential negative consequences of imperial power. One such negative consequence is found in the illiberal tendencies of military power. And other negative consequences include the danger of an arms races and the wasted money and energy that are spent on preparing for war.

Judgment about these empirical facts will likely vary in accord with historical, geographical, and political differences, as well as in light of which consequences we chose to emphasize.

Thus while pacifists argue that resources are squandered in war and environmentalists will point out the military is one of the largest polluters on the planet, proponents of war argue that war and the military produces goods and technologies, such as airplanes, satellites, and so on, that are useful for civilians Ruttan One significant worry of just war pacifism is that modern wars fought with weapons of mass destruction can never be justified.

There are deontological concerns behind this sort of pacifism—with regard to concern for noncombatants. But there are also consequentialist reasons to be skeptical of wars fought with weapons of mass destruction, most notably the problem of escalation.

Nuclear deterrent strategy relies upon the threat of escalation to keep antagonists in check. The idea of deterrent strategy is to make the negative consequences of war for the enemy so horrifying that war will not occur. Even more limited conflicts that occur among states that possess weapons of mass destruction could produce horrible consequences.

Nuclear proliferation remains a concern along with the general threat of terrorists in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Just war pacifists generally claim that the negative consequences of modern war make war unjustifiable.

Just war pacifism might be more narrowly focused on the immorality of nuclear war and nuclear deterrence strategy. But those who reject nuclear warfare might still allow that limited defensive or even humanitarian wars can be fought provided we could be sure that just war principles were respected.

Perhaps the most important conclusion of just war pacifism is that the burden of proof rests on the proponent of war: for just war pacifists who base their conclusions on consequentialist reasoning, war is presumed to produce negative consequences until is proved otherwise.

Related to these consequentialist arguments against war is a more positive consequentialist argument about the positive power of nonviolence as a social force.

This is grounded in a consequentialist argument that active nonviolence can produce social goods like respect for human rights as well as peace and reconciliation.

Although the roots of this approach can be found in the long history of pacifism from Jesus onward, the Gandhi-King approach both clarified the basic principles of nonviolent resistance and successfully put these principles into action in the Indian struggle for self-determination and in the American civil rights movement.

One of the important contributions of this approach is the idea that there should be a coordination between means and ends. Peaceful means should be employed in pursuit of the end of peace and justice. For peaceful means of social change to be effective, they must be coordinated and organized.

Gandhi and King thought that the power of nonviolence was linked to its ability to motivate and move large numbers of people. Pacifism as a personal stance will not be effective at creating social change: it requires a coordinated social effort. Proponents of active nonviolence will claim that coordinated nonviolence can be successful even in the face of aggression.

Advocates of this position will point to the successes of Gandhi and King. And they will point to the example of Lithuania in —91, when unarmed civilians succeeded in turning back Soviet troops. However, subsequent oppression by military and police forces remind us of the fragility of nonviolent social movements. Proponents of nonviolent action argue that nonviolence could be even more effective if society focused its resources on training citizens for nonviolent resistance and on coordinating nonviolent action.

For pacifism to be effective, the social resources—money, technology, and investment of labor and creative power—that are currently used for military training would have to be converted to nonviolent applications. Deontological pacifism is closely related to absolute pacifism.

Deontological approaches to morality focus on duty and right. It is difficult to supply content to this imperative. Thus, it is not clear that the Kantian imperative can be used to rule out war. Indeed, Kant is a defender of a version of the just war theory, in part because he believes that states have a duty to defend their citizens.

Some pacifists use the second formulation of the categorical imperative to support their position by claiming that war treats persons as means and does not respect them as ends in themselves. Although Reader argues that one can arrive at this perspective from both a consequentialist approach and a Kantian one, she relies on the basic intuition that respect for persons as ends in themselves requires us not to kill them.

It is possible to use this deontological principle to support a maximal extension of pacifism such that the prohibition against killing might be extended to include a prohibition against killing non-human persons.

This interpretation would obviously require a further analysis of the notion of personhood. Another version of deontological pacifism has been defended by Robert Holmes who claims that morality, properly speaking, focuses on individuals, while war focuses on defending collectives, which are not the proper focal point of morality Holmes b. In addition to killing human persons, war violates the moral status of persons when, for example, soldiers are viewed as interchangeable cogs in the war machine.

And pacifists may argue that it is somehow disrespectful to require soldiers to conform to military virtues such as obedience to authority. The more important critique of the way that war betrays human dignity can be found in the pacifist critique of the killing that happens in war. Pacifists might claim that war is a violation of human rights. More concretely the pacifist may claim that all human beings have a right to life and that killing in war violates this right.

This idea has been rejected by Anscombe, Narveson, and others who argue that the idea of human dignity or human rights can necessitate the use of violence in defense of these rights. This sort of objection holds that it is both inconsistent and immoral for pacifists to reject the use of violence in defense of human rights. One of the ways that pacifists can reply to this objection is to emphasize the difference between personal nonviolence and war.

Pacifists may accept that personal self-defense is acceptable; and they may accept the idea of using violence in defense of the innocent in concrete personal encounters. Of course, absolute pacifists who emphasized complete nonresistance will not accept such violence at all. But pacifism as anti-warism will argue that the violence of war is of a different kind.

War is dehumanizing violence that kills masses of persons without any concern for them as persons. Along these lines, Thomas Nagel claims that we should be able to justify to the victim what is being done to them, in light of morally relevant facts about them. At the level of personal violence, it is possible to say that an aggressor deserves the violence that is inflicted upon him.

But at the level of war, this personal element is lost and instead we have killing en masse , which is an assault on human dignity. A pacifist might argue that it is wrong to kill enemy combatants because killing is always wrong. Such an argument runs counter to the just war ideal that combatants can be killed. Those who claim that it is acceptable to kill enemy combatants claim that enemy soldiers deserve to die; or at least that it is not wrong to kill them. There are open questions in just war theory about how this notion of desert functions.

One of the problems is that young conscripted soldiers may not fully support the war into which they are drafted; and thus it may seem odd to claim that such soldiers are guilty for or deserve to be killed in a war for which they hold no personal responsibility see McMahan But the most obvious way to justify killing combatants is to link such killing to the notion of self-defense. In the language of just war theory, an enemy combatant is guilty of the crime of aggression; and in the context of war, this crime is punishable by death.

This notion of killing as punishment can easily be connected to the issue of the death penalty. For deontological proponents of the death penalty, murderers can be executed because the nature of their crime merits death. While consequentialists add in other considerations such as the deterrent value of the death penalty, the deontological approach focuses on the moral desert that is connected to the guilt of the murderer.

This notion of guilt—as a moral quality that adheres to an individual in light of his past actions—is also found in the idea that enemy combatants may be killed. Those individuals who are engaged in fighting have done something or have adopted some characteristic that makes it permissible to kill them. Absolute and maximal versions of deontological pacifism maintain that killing is never permitted, even the killing of enemy soldiers.

They may also claim that the death penalty is wrong; and they may deny that killing in self-defense is ever justifiable. Opponents of war may also deny that international aggression is punishable by death.

A more subtle argument along these lines will claim that it is wrong to kill enemy combatants because enemy combatants are occasionally or usually—depending on the strength of this particular claim not responsible for their participation in war. This is especially true of conscript armies who are forced to fight. A pacifist might want to make an exception for killing soldiers who have malicious intent; but they may argue that it is immoral to kill soldiers who are forced to fight.

Although some maximal versions of deontological pacifism will claim that it is wrong even to kill combatants in war, other versions will argue that war is wrong primarily because of the risk to noncombatants. A cherished principle of the just war tradition is the idea of noncombatant immunity. This idea holds that those not actually engaged in the fighting should not be put at risk and should not be deliberately targeted.

This idea is often connected to the idea that the innocent should not be killed. Noncombatants are presumed to be innocent and thus immune from being killed.

There is an open question as to whether all noncombatants are really innocent. But the just war tradition stipulates that noncombatants should be immune from intentional harm.

A version of pacifism can thus be derived from this principle of the just war tradition by arguing against wars that do in fact end up killing innocent noncombatants. Just war pacifists will argue that this is especially true given the nature of modern warfare, which includes the use of mechanized weapons, aerial bombardment, and weapons of mass destruction.

Such weaponry does not adequately discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. Thus modern war cannot be just, according to the pacifist interpretation of the just war tradition.

The just war tradition, however, allows that innocent noncombatants may be killed according to the principle of double effect. This idea is derived in the Christian tradition from Aquinas, who holds that a single act may have two effects. Aquinas uses an example of killing in self-defense: the act has one effect of saving a life but another effect of killing the aggressor. Killing an aggressor in self-defense may be permitted, if the death of the aggressor is not the primary intention of the defensive act.

It is significant that Aquinas does not expand this discussion to make it permissible to kill an innocent third party. But the just war tradition has employed this idea in a way that makes it permissible to kill innocent third parties i. Absolute pacifists will argue against this employment of the doctrine of double effect and will claim that the killing of the innocent in war is always wrong, even if it is an unintended effect.

Indeed, some pacifists may also claim that since we know that war will kill noncombatants, it is disingenuous to claim that the deaths of innocent noncombatants are not intended. The pacifist may claim that the real problem of war is that noncombatants are killed intentionally as a means of warfare. Anscombe thought that war could be justified—if it did not directly intend to kill noncombatants.

And Anscombe thought that pacifists were wrong to ignore the distinction between shedding innocent blood and shedding blood in just warfare. But pacifist might argue in response that war is wrong because innocent noncombatants are killed—whether intentionally or not. Pacifism that is absolutist and deontological is often grounded in religious belief. Christian philosopher Stanley Hauerwas has claimed that pacifism is a theological position because it is as much about eschatological faith as it is about ethics and politics Hauerwas A variety of religions have supported pacifist positions.

Hindus, Jains, and Buddhists share a concern for ahimsa or nonviolence as a basic moral virtue. Likewise, Christians also find a commitment to nonviolence at the heart of their tradition. But for some religious believers the world of political life is only an apparent world and not the real world at all.

In the Buddhist tradition, the world of dependent arising is a world of appearances in which suffering is ubiquitous.

One of the ways to overcome this suffering is to see through the veil of maya and the illusions of this world. The structure of this sort of religious belief is closely related to the absolute, deontological, and transformational nature of religious pacifism.

Of course, this is a contentious point; and some deny that Christianity requires pacifism see Fiala Related to this is the faith that God will provide both the strength to endure suffering and a final reward for those who remain committed to principles of nonviolence.

Even though pacifism may seem imprudent or even idiotic from the standpoint of consequentialism or political realism, these consequences have no lasting significance from the standpoint of Providence.

Indeed, religious pacifists are not averse to the pain that they might suffer as a result of their refusal to take part in violence because they believe that this suffering will be redeemed in the larger structure of divine justice. A further variety of religious pacifism is closely connected with the ideas of virtue ethics.

Virtue ethics emphasizes the cultivation of virtues over the course of a lifetime. Religious pacifism has a virtue ethics component when the commitment to peace is conceived as a lifelong project of personal transformation. In the Christian tradition this is understood as a project in which human beings learn to imitate Jesus in order to become closer to God. Christian martyrs have looked to this paradigm for millennia. However, it is important to note that virtue ethics need not be reduced to a merely religious idea: there are important non-religious articulations of virtue ethics.

And there are authors who defend versions of pacifism based upon claims grounded in humanistic virtue ethics. David K. Chan has argued, for example, that while virtuous individuals would generally be averse to killing, they would not be absolute pacifists Chan and A different argument for pacifism, based in virtue ethics, has been made by Trivigno , who argues that training soldiers to kill turns them into bad persons.

A similar idea about the practical impact of violence or nonviolence is found in the Indian traditions.

For Gandhi, nonviolence is part of a total practice of virtue. This is true because we are not born virtuous. Rather, we learn to cultivate the virtue of peacefulness by gradually learning habits that help us control and resist anger, hatred, pride, competitiveness and the other emotions that lead to violence.

In the Christian tradition this is linked to the idea of original sin: we are born in violence and have to learn to overcome violence. Theological questions arise in Christianity about whether human beings can overcome violence by themselves or whether grace is needed in order to cultivate the virtue of peace. It is possible to develop a version of virtue-pacifism from a non-religious standpoint.

In the ancient world, some versions of Stoicism and Epicureanism come close to this. Stoics, for example, emphasize the virtue of tranquility or undisturbedness. One attains this state by learning proper discipline and by cultivating the other virtues that are essential for reigning in hubris. Hubris is wanton violence or pride run amok.

Since Plato, the Greek tradition has claimed that justice, courage, moderation, and wisdom were needed to overcome hubris. It is conceivable that these virtues would conjoin in a sort of peacefulness. It should be noted, however, that although Socrates refused to carry out unjust orders, he did serve the state in battle. A non-religious version of virtue-pacifism can be found in the ideas of 20 th Century humanists such as William James. At the beginning of the 20 th Century, James acknowledged that war and military service did produce certain virtues, such as courage and discipline.

But James hoped that there could be a non-military way of producing these virtues. The general rejection of war has a long history that parallels the just war tradition and its idea that wars should be fought for the sake of peace and justice. In the West, pacifism and the just war tradition have roots in both Christian and non-Christian sources. For Christian thinkers, one of the primary problems is trying to reconcile the pacific commandments of Jesus with the apparent moral necessity of using war to defend the innocent.

In the European tradition, pacifism is an ideal that develops alongside of and in contrast to the just war tradition, with adherents of pacifism including the Mennonites and Quakers, as well as Christian humanists such as Erasmus. And in the Crito , Socrates considers the problem of whether it is ever justified to return evil for evil.

It seems that this idea is behind Socrates decision to remain in prison and allow himself to be executed. Pacifism shows up in non-European traditions as well. Jains, Buddhists, and others in the Indian tradition share a commitment to ahimsa or nonviolence as a cardinal virtue see Howard The ideal in these traditions is a sort of selflessness in which, through the dissolution of the self, a larger truth emerges. For Buddhists this is based upon the idea of nonattachment: war, violence, anger, and hatred result from our attachment to material things.

Ahimsa is also linked to the idea that all sentient beings are interdependent. Thus nonviolence is extended toward a rejection of violence toward sentient beings in general and a commitment to vegetarianism. Mohandas Gandhi is perhaps the most famous adherent of ahimsa of the last century. Gandhi based his commitment to nonviolence on a spiritual foundation that emphasized self-renunciation brahmacharya and the positive action of the force of love or force of truth that he called satyagraha.

While Indian traditions are often cited as sources of pacifism, it is also important to note that pacifism and nonviolence can be found in Islamic traditions and in African religious and philosophical traditions. Ramin Jahanbegloo argues, for example, that Islam whose root is salaam , which means peace includes a rich conversation about violence and peace. African thought includes the influence of Christianity and Islam; and Gandhi was also at work in South Africa, where we might also note the work of Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

While Tutu works in the Christian tradition, we also see an emphasis on nonviolence in indigenous African contexts. Gail Presbey has traced out numerous examples of this, including the way that nonviolence is related to concepts such as ubuntu Presbey Gandhi and King both claim that one of the most important ideas underlying this sort of pacifism is love, especially the disinterested brotherly love that is described in the Greek New Testament using the word agape.

All humanity is involved in a single process, and all men are brothers. Further discussions should more systematically consider how such ideas have spread to Latin America, East Asia, and the Muslim world, as well as the ways that nonviolence shows up in the religious and philosophical traditions of the rest of the world.

Research projects in pacifism and peace studies should continue to explore ideas found in the variety of world traditions including Taoism, African thought, and indigenous American philosophies. Here we will summarize briefly several objections to pacifism and pacifist replies to these objections. These objections and replies will, of course, vary according to the different sorts of pacifism being attacked or defended.

Objection : This objection holds that the reason pacifists advocate nonviolence is that they are afraid of suffering from violence; or that they are too lazy or self-interested to take up arms to fight. This objection focuses on the motivation and psychology of pacifists and accuses pacifists of the vice of cowardice.

Moreover, such an objection may also argue that pacifists are egoists who are too selfish to do what is required to serve justice, protect the innocent, and defend the nation. The free rider objection adds that pacifists benefit from social goods that are produced through military power, while they contribute nothing substantial to the production of these goods.

This objection thus claims that pacifism is unjust since pacifists share in social benefits, without also taking up the burdens and obligations that are tied to these benefits.

Related to this is the charge that pacifism is unpatriotic and even treasonous. The concern here is that if pacifists are unwilling to fight to defend the nation, then they effectively betray the nation and help the enemy. This objection holds that it is easy for those who are not oppressed to advocate nonviolence and indeed, that the powerful can use the ideology of pacifism as a tool with which to further oppress those who are unwilling to take up arms in defense of human rights.

This idea can be traced back to ideas found in Marcuse, who argued that the weaker parties in social conflict are forced by the stronger party to employ nonviolence and thus that resort to nonviolence is both ineffective and an admission of weakness. Reply : One way that a pacifist might reply to this objection is to argue that pacifism results from noble motives and not vicious ones.

To support this reply, pacifists might show examples of the virtuous individuals who have advocated pacifism, while also emphasizing the ethical basis on which pacifism is grounded. Indeed, pacifists can avoid the cowardice objection by stressing that pacifists are willing to suffer violence even though they refuse to participate in it. With regard to the free rider problem, a principled pacifist can argue that her moral principles require that she be a pacifist and that these principles also require that she work to transform society.

Moreover, pacifists can engage in productive social endeavors that do not necessitate the use of violence or war. This sort of compromise occurs when military states find ways to employ the talents of conscientious objectors.

Pacifists who refuse to fight can volunteer their talents and energies in nonviolent activities that support the common good. With regard to the accusation of treason, a pacifist might claim that there are higher goods than the state.

Finally, a consequentialist pacifist can reply that she is concerned with the long-term interests of the community and not with the short-term question of winning a war or staging a revolution. While violence may create short term benefits, the long term project of creating a stable peace will require nonviolent means and projects focused on reconciliation and restorative justice.

Objection : The clean hands objection holds that pacifists are so committed to keeping their hands clean that they fail to act on other requirements of life. The clean hands objection holds that pacifists are disconnected from the world of concrete human reality. This is tied to a theological objection that holds that pacifists incorrectly believe that they can overcome the limits of human nature. A version of this objection that is often directed against Christian pacifism holds that war will remain necessary because of the fallen and sinful nature of human beings.

The objection holds that since we are not perfect, we must employ the imperfect means of war and violence to attain moral ends.

From this standpoint, defenders of the idea of a just war argue that love of the neighbor and the need for a just social order will occasionally necessitate just wars. Reply: Pacifists might reply to this sort of objection by delving deeper into the requirements of both religious faith and ethics. This objection is tied to a much larger problem of coordinating the demands of ordinary political life with the requirements of morality and religion.

Moreover, Christian pacifists will argue that pacifism is part of a religious worldview that looks beyond a materialistic defense of the finite goods of this world. For religiously oriented pacifists in many traditions, a commitment to nonviolence is tied to the attempt to see through the vanity of temporal things. Nonreligious pacifists will reply to this objection by clarifying the importance of clean hands in morality. Absolutists will claim that we have an obligation to uphold the requirements of morality and keep our hands as clean as possible.

They will also claim that the world would be a better place if everyone took this obligation seriously and refused to compromise with evil. Objection : This objection claims that pacifism results in a performative contradiction because an absolute pacifist who is unwilling to defend himself simply ends up dead. A more subtle version of this argument has been articulated by Jan Narveson Narveson who argued that pacifism involves an internal contradiction that is related to the idea of justice and human rights.

Pacifists are unwilling to use violence to defend against aggression because they respect life or respect persons. But a contradiction occurs when the pacifist who claims that life is an absolute good is unwilling to take the necessary steps to defend lives that are threatened by aggression. This objection shares something with those defenders of the just war idea who, like George Weigel, are inspired by the Augustinian ideal of using war to defend a tranquil and just social order.

The objection holds that it is immoral to avoid war, when war could be used to defend the innocent, protect sovereignty, and uphold a just international order. This objection can be applied both to defensive wars, in which the state has an obligation to protect its own citizens, and to wars of humanitarian intervention, in which military power is used to defend the human rights and to establish domestic tranquility and social order in pursuit of peace.

Related to this is the claim that nonviolent means of producing social change are ineffective. Critics will claim, for example, that although there appear to be cases of successful nonviolent action in India or in the American civil rights movements, these movements were successful because of unique set of historical circumstances. Moreover, critics will argue that Gandhi and King were successful because their opponents were for the most part sympathetic to their cause from the beginning.

But such critics will argue that non-violence will simply not work against Nazis or terrorists; and that those who think so are dangerously deluded. President Barack Obama articulated this sort of objection to pacifism in his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech Obama Obama expressed respect for pacifists such as Gandhi and King.

Reply : One way that a pacifist may reply to this objection is to focus on pacifism as a skeptical political stance about war.

Some political pacifists do allow for personal self-defense and defense of loved-ones while remaining skeptical of war as a social movement.

Another way that a pacifist may reply is to focus on consequences and argue that war produces more negative consequences than nonviolence. Against Narveson, the pacifist might argue that pacifism is no more contradictory than the idea that we might kill in order to defend life. Deontological pacifists will also reply that while they do value a just and tranquil social order, and may even be willing to die in defense of such as just order, their basic principles prohibit them from killing in its defense.

A pacifist might further reply to this objection by arguing that the idea that war can be used to defend the innocent is also imprudent and unwise. Pacifists will argue that nonviolent means of defending the just political order are the best means to be employed in practice because they remain consistent with the ideals of justice and order that are to be defended. A pacifist might add that history shows that violent revolution often either escalates or provokes more oppression.

With regard to humanitarian intervention, some deontological pacifists will worry that interventions by outsiders will run counter to the national right to self-determination.

And more prudentially minded pacifists will worry that humanitarian intervention will produce resistance and an escalation of violence that will undermine the long-term goals of political stabilization, justice, and reconciliation. Finally, the pacifist might also appeal to the tragic element in human life: that we often have to make tragic choices in which there is no genuinely good alternative.

Dallmayr provides an alternative history that focuses on Continental philosophy. Brock, Peter. Succinct overview of pacifism from the ancient world to the modern. The primary focus is on Christian pacifism, and there is the useful introduction to pacifist sects such as Mennonites and Quakers.

Concludes with Tolstoy and the First World War. The fourth edition was published in first edition, Brock, Peter, and Nigel Young. Pacifism in the 20th Century. Includes pictures and historical documents. Discussions of important pacifists of the 20th century including Dorothy Day and Gandhi. Concludes with Vietnam-era pacifism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Cortright, David. Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas. DOI: Traces the history of pacifism, including the global focus. Defines absolute, pragmatic, and conditional forms of pacifism. Rejects pacifism as an absolute moral position.

Favors Gandhian nonviolent activism as a social movement and political ideology—so-called realistic pacifism. Boulder, CO: Paradigm, An overview of key figures in the history of pacifism and nonviolence, including Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. Explains the contributions of these figures and applies nonviolence to current affairs.

Dallmayr, Fred. Peace Talks—Who Will Listen? Historical account based upon Erasmus and Continental philosophy. Reflects on peace proposals and pacifist arguments found in a variety of philosophical texts and traditions, including Gandhi, Arendt, Heidegger, Islam, and Confucius.

Argues for a sustained critique of war and focus on peacemaking. Kurlansky, Mark. New York: Modern Library, A book for popular consumption with a series of lessons based in historical sources from multiple traditions. Claims that pacifism is passive, while nonviolence is active. Maintains that nonviolence is an effective political strategy, while violence is not effective.

Considers a number of examples of successful nonviolent activism. Discusses effective peace movements.

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