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
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.
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:
Welcome to the ranks of pacifists, brother. (Or maybe sister? You can never tell on the internet.)
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 hope you aren’t expecting me to be impressed.
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.
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”.
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.
Al Capone, Osama bin Laden, and probably a few others.
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.
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.
Can you name a pacifist who teaches such things?
Well, Gandhi did say about the Holocaust:
Gandhi was speaking theoretically about how the Jews themselves might win an ultimate victory, he wasn’t talking about what bystanders should do.
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.
Tell that to the Amish
How the hell is that pacifist?
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?
Calling the cops is fine…there’s no risk involved
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.
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.
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.
What does your personal welfare have to do with moral obligations?
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.
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?
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”?
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.
That’s fine but you’re talking about self-interest, not morality.
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.
Yes you are obligated to help but if they complain you get to bitch-slap them.
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.
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