# If pacifists are attacked, are onlookers obliged to help? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 7, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526 "2006-07-07T17:55:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/21 "2006-07-08T18:11:44Z")
I’d help a pacifist out. My help might just consist of calling the police but I wouldn’t just sit there and allow someone to pound them into the ground. What kind of horrible person would that make me? Marc ---
**Author:** ![XaMcQ](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/f9ae1b/32.png) [@XaMcQ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XaMcQ)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/22 "2006-07-08T19:27:08Z")
Just for kicks, why don’t we give this pacifist a name? How about Jesus Christ? Can we agree that guy was a fairly pure pacifist, by most people’s definition of the word? Since I’m an agnostic I am not at all interested in getting into a religious debate about his death being ordained and all that. When they came to arrest him, he not only didn’t fight, but he forbade his followers to resist by violence. I tend to think that Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to live up to this ideal as well. I am not a pacifist; I could never hold such lofty ideals, but I do admire them. Pacifists believe humanity can outgrow violence, that we are better than animals who use brute force to get our way. They would not want you or your children to defend them with violence or with anything except nonviolent protest, and if you, your children or they are killed for it, well, some people do think that dreams are worth dying for. ---
**Author:** ![Malienation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Malienation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malienation)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/23 "2006-07-08T20:20:07Z")
[QUOTE=ITR champion] Even if we accept the bizarre idea that a pacifist is a person who’s opposed to violence, that doesn’t mean that a pacifist isn’t willing to participate in violence, just as a person who’s opposed to cancer may participate in it. “Opposed” simply means that they don’t want to participate in it. [/QUOTE] C’mon, who _does_ want to participate in violence? :rolleyes: By your definition, everyone but violent criminals are pacifists. And your cancer analogy is ridiculous. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/24 "2006-07-08T20:23:10Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson] Gee, I guess that makes me a pacifist then. After all, I don’t want to participate in violence because I have no desire to get hurt nor do I have any desire to hurt someone else. [/quote] Welcome to the ranks of pacifists, brother. (Or maybe sister? You can never tell on the internet.) > [@](#): > > It’s nice to know that I can be a pacifist and still knock someone’s teeth out when they try to take my wallet. Are you trying to win some award for stating the obvious.? It is pacifistic to defend your wallet, non-pacifistic to take someone else’s wallet. This concept really isn’t all that difficult. > [@](#): > > I get to have my cake and eat it! [I hope you aren’t expecting me to be impressed.](http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/15/mar97/simon.htm) > [@](#): > > As they should because it is not a commonly held belief that beef and foul are the same. However I think an awful lot of people would be surprised to learn that you can be a pacifist and still use violence. You may be right, since there are an awful lot of people who aren’t as smart as me. There are also an awful lot of people whol believe in creationism, ESP, alien abductions, etc… As someone once said,“A fallacy remains a fallacy even if it becomes a fashion.” Then again, the man who said that was a pacifist. > [@](#): > > Pot meet kettle. You might also want to consider that the common usage of words can change quite a bit over the years and the dictionary doesn’t always keep up. Ah, so you’re one of the ones who think that words don’t have fixed meanings. I guess that explains why you use “foul” where ordinary people use “fowl”. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/25 "2006-07-08T20:36:25Z")
[QUOTE=Malienation] C’mon, who _does_ want to participate in violence? :rolleyes: By your definition, everyone but violent criminals are pacifists. And your cancer analogy is ridiculous. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] There are few, if any pacificists who match your own definition. You’re making up a philospohical position which doesn’t actually exist much in real life. Your entire OP is invalidated by the fact that you’re attacking a strawman. Pacificism does not preclude minimal self-defense, nor does it preclude the defense of others. Having said that, even if your imaginary version of a pacifist did in fact exist and was being assaulted, you would still have a moral obligation to help if you could, even if your assistance involved nothing more than calling the police. Your objection that the pacifist would not help you is morally irrelevant. Expectations of reciprocity are not a component of (and are arguably antithetical to) true ethical behavior. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/26 "2006-07-08T20:36:34Z")
[QUOTE=Malienation] C’mon, who _does_ want to participate in violence? [/quote] Al Capone, Osama bin Laden, and probably a few others. > [@](#): > > By your definition, everyone but violent criminals are pacifists. Nope. By the dictionary definition (which, you’ll recall, corresponds with my definition) a pacifist is a person who opposes “war or violence as a means of resolving disputes”. That means exactly what is says it means. For instance, George W. Bush has never personally committed a violent crime, yet he favors war and violence as means of solving disputes. Thus he’s not pacifist. Joe, walking down the street, is a pacifist if he views violence as the least desirable way of solving disputes. If Bob has a dispute with Joe and begins beating Joe up, then the dispute will be settled violently regardless. Hence, Joe’s pacifism is no longer violated when he fights back. Nothing difficult to understand there. > [@](#): > > And your cancer analogy is ridiculous. :rolleyes: I don’t suppose we’ll be seeing any explanation for why you’ve labelled it ridiculous. A rolleyes smiley may win the day on certain other message boards, but not here. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 8:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/27 "2006-07-08T20:39:39Z")
[QUOTE=FriarTed] =(Paraphrased) The pacifist believes that it is better to allow a brute to beat down someone smaller and weaker than to use force to stop him. I’d rather let a child associate with lepers than with people who teach such things. - G. K. Chesterton [/QUOTE] Can you name a pacifist who teaches such things? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 9:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/28 "2006-07-08T21:45:39Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Can you name a pacifist who teaches such things? [/QUOTE] Well, Gandhi did say about the Holocaust: > [@](#): > > And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 9:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/29 "2006-07-08T21:58:08Z")
Gandhi was speaking theoretically about how the Jews themselves might win an ultimate victory, he wasn’t talking about what bystanders should do. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/30 "2006-07-08T22:25:18Z")
**Malienation** has delcared, against reason, authority, and common sense, that the word “pacifist” describes a person who won’t fight back if they are attacked during everyday life. We have asked for an example of a person who qualifies as a “pacifist” by this bizarre definition; none has been provided. While pacifists by the real definition do exist, “pacifists” by **Malienation** ’s definition obviously don’t. By any standard, then, it appears that this entire thread was a meaningless exercise; one might as well start a thread to explain why one can kill unicorns morally. ---
**Author:** ![Malienation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Malienation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malienation)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/31 "2006-07-08T22:31:13Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] There are few, if any pacificists who match your own definition. You’re making up a philospohical position which doesn’t actually exist much in real life. [/QUOTE] Tell that to the Amish [QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Your entire OP is invalidated by the fact that you’re attacking a strawman. Pacificism does not preclude minimal self-defense, nor does it preclude the defense of others. [/QUOTE] How the hell is that pacifist? [QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Having said that, even if your imaginary version of a pacifist did in fact exist and was being assaulted, you would still have a moral obligation to help [/QUOTE] Why? I hate to sound all 5-year old about it, but why? I could be injured. If I do become injured to the point of it affecting my livelihood, is he obliged to help me financially? I ain’t running a charity. I expect something in return. If I am obliged to help if I am able, aren’t I owed help if they are able? [QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] if you could, even if your assistance involved nothing more than calling the police. [/QUOTE] Calling the cops is fine…there’s no risk involved [QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Your objection that the pacifist would not help you is morally irrelevant. Expectations of reciprocity are not a component of (and are arguably antithetical to) true ethical behavior. [/QUOTE] I don’t agree, I think they’re a key part. I’m not gonna be a sucker, and I ain’t running for blessed sainthood. Apparently, that’s **ITR champion’s** job. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/32 "2006-07-08T23:02:15Z")
[QUOTE=Malienation] Tell that to the Amish [/quote] Do the Amish make up a significant percentage of all self-described pacifists? I don’t think so. Even so, if theperson being attacked is Amish, you are still not morally absolved from doing anything about it. > [@](#): > > How the hell is that pacifist? Most people who call themselves pacifists are more pragmatic about it than you’re trying to make it. Pacificism most often denotes an aversion to _unnecessary_ violence, not ALL use of force whatsoever. > [@](#): > > Why? I hate to sound all 5-year old about it, but why? I could be injured. If I do become injured to the point of it affecting my livelihood, is he obliged to help me financially? I ain’t running a charity. I expect something in return. If I am obliged to help if I am able, aren’t I owed help if they are able? What does your personal welfare have to do with moral obligations? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 11:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/33 "2006-07-08T23:04:04Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Gandhi was speaking theoretically about how the Jews themselves might win an ultimate victory, he wasn’t talking about what bystanders should do. [/QUOTE] Gandhi was saying that the Jews shouldn’t violently respond to the Germans if they were themselves attacked. Part of Gandhi’s philosophy was that violence against another person is never acceptable, even if that person is being violent toward you. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2006, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/34 "2006-07-08T23:19:41Z")
So what would you call a Person 1 whose _ **own** _ moral code compelled him to aid to the extent of his ability, including use of adequate proportional force, on behalf of any Person 2 that were being victimized, regardless of Person 2’s position on “pacifism”/nonviolence? ---
**Author:** ![Malienation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Malienation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malienation)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2006, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/35 "2006-07-09T01:56:35Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] Most people who call themselves pacifists are more pragmatic about it than you’re trying to make it. Pacificism most often denotes an aversion to _unnecessary_ violence, not ALL use of force whatsoever. [/QUOTE] Uh huh. So, if they get attacked violence is necessary, but if someone else or some other country is attacked they should respond with, oh, I dunno, a long round of outraged handwringing? Okay, they could call somebody…what if there is no time and thus _they’re the “somebody”?_ [QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] What does your personal welfare have to do with moral obligations? [/QUOTE] _Everything_. That’s the point. Unlike most of the posters excoriating my viewpoint, I’m smart enough to know when to be afraid. The way I see it, I’m not obliged to set that fear aside and disregard my own personal safety to assist strangers, pacifist or not. It’s just that while I might help an ordinary person, I don’t feel the obligation others seem to feel for someone that I don’t feel would help me. As I posted, I didn’t sign up for sainthood, and never pretended otherwise. ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2006, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/36 "2006-07-09T01:58:50Z")
That’s fine but you’re talking about self-interest, not morality. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2006, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/37 "2006-07-09T02:47:49Z")
You should have started right off the line with the premise that you feel no obligation _“to assist strangers, pacifist or not”_. Then of course it would have been a fair conclusion that you may condition assistance to the likelihood of reciprocity. The OP could be misunderstood seemed to imply that aiding the non-pacifists _would_ be an “obligation”. In any case, in such a set-up in the end it’s up to _each_ onlooker if s/he intervenes or not and under what conditions,and yes he may have his own different set fo conditions. Now… should it happen that the community of other onlookers has established a social consensus that rendering aid is the “right” thing to do, the non-interventionist \*will \* by his inaction incur a risk of reproach and/or censure. But whether _that_ is worth it should also go into the “calculus of utility” when making the decision. ---
**Author:** ![Magiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4491bb/32.png) [@Magiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Magiver)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2006, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/38 "2006-07-09T04:19:32Z")
Yes you are obligated to help but if they complain you get to bitch-slap them. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2006, 5:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526/39 "2006-07-09T05:05:59Z")
[QUOTE=ITR champion] Are you trying to win some award for stating the obvious.? It is pacifistic to defend your wallet, non-pacifistic to take someone else’s wallet. This concept really isn’t all that difficult. [/quote] How do you figure? If I hit someone to prevent the theft of my wallet then I’m using violence. Pacifism includes the rejection of violence “as a means of solving disputes.” It isn’t limited to international disagreements. > [@](#): > > Ah, so you’re one of the ones who think that words don’t have fixed meanings. I guess that explains why you use “foul” where ordinary people use “fowl”. You must be one of those people who think languages don’t change with time and remain in a stasis. Thanks for pointing out the whole “foul” thing. I’m sure you were quite excited about finding my error and ejaculated a triumphant huzzah. Marc [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-pacifists-are-attacked-are-onlookers-obliged-to-help/363526.md?page=1)