Is Pacifism Immoral?

Great Debates
81

I’m not a pacifist, but Kelly’s rant angered me because of its misuse of “logic”. FWIW, here’s my response (written last week: I should perhaps modify some of the statements about “evidence that has been released”):

There has been little evidence of pacifism in the commentary in the media, including the Post, yet Michael Kelly has deemed it necessary to attempt a preemptive strike against it [“Pacifist Claptrap”, 9/26]. He has gone so far as to employ the atomic bomb of rhetoric, saying pacifism is “evil”.

What is the logic that Kelly finds “implacable”?

-“Organized terrorist groups have attacked America.”
These groups remain unidentified, by Kelly or anyone else. The Bush administration claims to have evidence linking the hijackers to Osama bin Laden, but to date the evidence that has been released amounts to this: someone who may have known the hijackers once made a phone call to bin Laden. No one would spank a dog on this kind of evidence. Does the administration have more convincing evidence that has not been released? We have heard such claims before, when the Reagan administration claimed to have compelling evidence linking Libya to the 1986 bombing of a Berlin discotheque. That evidence was shared with the leaders of allied countries who remained unconvinced, but the U.S. bombed Libya anyway.
It is already clear that the objective has become political rather than military. Military action against a loose, international network of terrorists never made much sense, anyway. The real goal is now the removal of the Taliban from Afghanistan. Bush’s “declaration of war” effectively makes him judge, jury, and executioner, and “evidence” will be found justifying the targeting of Afghanistan.

-“These groups wish the Americans not to fight.”
An unwarranted assumption. Perhaps the terrorists’ goal was precisely to get the U.S. involved in a war - it would not be the first time that had happened.

-“If Americans do not fight, the terrorists will attack America again.”
And if we do fight? The bombing of Libya did not end terrorist attacks. Can any “honest person” pretend that the current military action will?
Perhaps we need to ask the following question: If the U.S. is the champion of freedom and justice that we believe ourselves to be, why were so many people cheering when the planes struck? I am not defending those who cheered, far less the hijackers themselves, but asking the question, “Why is the U.S. so hated in some areas of the world?” That hatred is at the root of all terrorist attacks. A military response will not diminish it.

-“The American pacifists, therefore, are on the side of future mass murders of Americans.”
Let’s turn the argument around: “Michael Kelly is on the side of U.S. military action. Military action causes resentment against the U.S. Resentment leads to terrorist acts. Therefore Kelly is on the side of future mass murders of Americans.” See? It works just as well (or as poorly) the other way around.

There is deep irony in the fact that if we go to war in Afghanistan we will be fighting against U.S. Stinger missiles and weapons bought by U.S. funding of an earlier round of military action. That funding and those weapons fragmented Afghanistan into small regions controlled by warlords and drug lords and created the conditions that allowed the Taliban to come to power. We will reap what we have sown.

There is as yet no proof that anyone other than the hijackers themselves was involved in the planning of the attacks. Kelly would have us fight persons of whose guilt we are unsure in the hope that we may kill those who might commit some future acts of terror. Even if we were sure of their guilt and of our ability to kill those responsible, would not others step in to take their place? I refuse to believe that the only answer is to continue the cycle of violence. Let us look for another way.

82

So, Friend of Rob, jes’ wonderin’—do you consider that pacifism is immoral, moral, flawed, or the best thing since sliced bread?

83

Not at all. Pure logic places no value whatsoever on human life. Generally, when speaking of the value of a life we are talking about a moral evaluation. Others are possible, of course: economic, military, resource-utilization, etc. But usually we mean that there is a moral component to saving or ending a human life.

I still don’t know what you meant by a logical obligation, but I suspect that it was actually a moral obligation.

This, of course, is a direct contradiction of your earlier statement that, there can never be a moral obligation to kill the innocent. The chain is:
We are morally obligated to do what is just.
Some wars are just.
All wars kill innocents.
We are sometimes morally obligated to kill innocents. QED.

Actually, that was my point. I thought we were discussing the morality of pacifism, so I took your comment to be irrelevant to the OP.

As a digression, I agree both that pacifism fares poorly under pragmatic analysis and that absolute precepts are a poor guide to the potential complexities of human morality. However, I must quibble with the following wording:

That sentence presupposes that a morality exists external to and distinct from the “absolute mindset” in question. Thus it is assuming the conclusion. Any system of determination which is separate and distinct from “morality” will necessarily fail to provide the “moral answer” under some scenarios.

Actually, another possibility (theoretically, at least) is that a not-morality system might be distinct in internal characteristics yet yield identical results to “morality” under all conditions. In such a case, however, your statement holds only if morality is defined with or as an entirely internal component. I do not think that you intend to present this “internal view of morality”, but I may be wrong.

Well, you didn’t respond to the original hypothetical because you objected to the use of time machines. Thus, I provided a second hypothetical that did not require time machines–to which you have also chosen not to respond. Was the porridge too cold this time?

Well, I am not a pacifist, but the view that pacifism is immoral is not one with which I agree. Thus, I argue a position which I hold about a philosophy which I do not. It can get confusing, sometimes. Hell, up to know I haven’t even been able to get anyone except erl (almost) to state under what model of morality they judge pacifism to be immoral.

84

Logically, human life would have some value, even if coldy put in terms of potential economic output only, but that’s probably another thread.

Well done. May I amend the statement to “there can never be a moral obligation to intentionally kill the innocent.”?

True, the statement does predispose the idea of a universal existence of some perfect morality. If such a thing does not exist we have to take into account just what morality is. Is it, as you later theorize, an internal component? If we decide that morality is relative, we cannot conclude that any form of pacifism is immoral because the individual sets the standard for what is moral. But by the same token we cannot even conclude that the actions of the Taliban are immoral. This disturbs me.

I do find you a challenging debater, but I find your constant references to me as “Goldilocks” disrespectful and irritating. If you find me unworthy of your attention, ignore me. If you want to call me names, drag me to the pit if you dare. If we knew each other better and I knew I had some level of your respect, I would not mind a little name calling in fun, but I don’t know this and can only wonder if you mock my efforts here or have some strange fetish that involves seeing grown men wearing a curly blonde wig. I find neither possiblity very appealing.

I find the porridge nonsensical. Your hypothetical situation was this:

So without the “time machine” your Hitler child hypothetical makes no sense. Even if you’re trying to modify my hypothetical adding “the child in danger was on his way across the street to kill a child who had teased him at recess” requires the would be rescuer to possess telepathy in order to evaluate the full moral weight of the rescuer’s actions.

I’ve stated that I believe pacifism to be immoral only when it is an excuse for apathy. But now perhaps we have to define what morality is.

85

This is incorrect. Logic is not a value system. If you put it coldly in terms of potential economic value, then economically human life has some value. Logically, one might make decisions based upon that economic value.

Of course. May I note that an action taken with full awareness of inevitable consequences must be viewed as intending those consequences.

I disagree. Erl and I had a lovely discussion about this some time ago. If morality is relative, then I as an individual can decide that pacifism is immoral according to my own moral system. People in this thread, for instance, have made exactly that judgment. So far as I know, nobody has asserted that they are privy to an absolute and infallibly correct understanding of morality. Thus, each person determines the morality of pacifism according to his or her own system of moral valuation.

I have simply been trying to explore why some people arrive at the conclusions they do by asking what are the principle elements of each person’s moral valuation.

I have no trouble doing so. What I cannot do is demonstrate that some absolute, external principle agrees with me. I can live with that.

Fair enough. I found your refusal to respond to hypothetical questions after you had posed them to me to be disrespectful and irritating. I’ll stop if you will.

Telepathy? Is that the only way human beings have to determine intent? In the hijacking hypothetical, how was I supposed to know that the hijackers intended to crash the plane into a populated building. In the “assault” situation, how was I supposed to know that the attacker intended to continue his violence against the child?

I said that I would stop if you would. [~porridge reference deleted~]

Well, since I believe apathy is the denial of morality I agree with that sentiment. But the same holds true for any “excuse for apathy”; it is not a property of pacifism (for me).

It does not seem that you base your conclusion on a similar general relationship between apathy and morality, though. Your posts have focused upon a consequentialist analysis. I have been trying to figure out the active elements and boundary conditions of your (and others) moral valuation. After all, simply saying “I disagree” is less interesting than trying to figure out what is the true basis for our disagreement. Apart from my fetish for blonde wigs, of course.

86

Does it make any difference if you not desire those consequences but are unable to follow what you consider a moral action otherwise?

I don’t think you should be taking my failure to understand your hypotheticals or every point you try to make as a sign of disrespect. If I don’t grasp the point you are trying to make is it fair to assume I mean offense? I’m usually pretty clear when I mean to offend.

The hijacking hypothetical was taken from the tragic event of Sept 11th. The only hypothetical added was the presence of a pacifist. It was stated in the hypothitical that the intentions of the hijackers, to crash the aircraft into a large population center, were known. In the real life scenario the hijackers’ intentions were revealed to the passengers through a series of phone calls.

In the assault scenario I suppose you don’t know how long the attack would continue, but wouldn’t simply waiting to see how long it continued fall into the category of apathy?

But if you see a child moving across the street towards another child how would you know the child’s intent if you had never seen either child before? But if your hypothetical assumes that we know the child’s intent… let me see if I have your hypothetical correct:

Child moves across street to kill another child.

Hmm… then is it child is attacked by assailent or almost hit by a car?

87

[qyuote]
Does it make any difference if you not desire those consequences but are unable to follow what you consider a moral action otherwise?

[/quote]

Well that’s the question, isn’t it. You are making the statemnt that it is never morally correct to intentionally kill innocents. I am pointing out that this view is inconsistent with the view that a war can be morally correct. You apparently find it easy to draw the line for assassination but not for the innocent casualties of warfare. I am trying to explore how that line gets drawn.

Well, you did not say that you didn’t understand them. You said that you would not answer them.

Me too.

Exactly my point. Yet somehow I managed to respond to the hypothetical without complaining that the pacifist would require telepathy to know the intent of the hijackers.

Yes. Real life provides many instances of human beings extrapolting the motives of another person without resorting to telepathy. I never imagined that faced with a hypothetical involving intent someone would immediately assume that telepathic abilities were required. Let’s pretend that another child just told you, “he’s got a knife and he’s going to stab Johnny.”

Either will suffice. Since you are not a pacifist, the necessity to use violence is a non-factor. Choose the one which seems least likely to offend your hypothetical sensibilities.

88

Summarily ruling out a certain behavior doesn’t make sense to me. That that behavior is also implimented in self-defense, something I do find to be moral, then anything which acts against morality can in no uncertain terms be considered immoral.

If you adopt that idea of moral valuations :wink:

But then, the pacifist would say, “I am defending myself. I am trying to make a world where violence doesn’t exist and I won’t have to defend myself.”

Anyone feel like arguing solipsism? :stuck_out_tongue:

89

Well, the pacifists I have known would be more likely to say, “I value my life, but I do not value it above all other moral principles.” Most other people that I know feel the same, they simply do not include non-violence among those principles for which they are willing to suffer physical harm or death.

Pacifism does not mean “absence of self-defense”. For some pacifists, it menas “absence of violence in defense of self”.

90

You are claiming that my view is inconsistent because in a war it is almost a near certainity that innocents will be killed and because it is almost a near certainty, their deaths become my intent. This is not accurate logic. My intent is to defeat a greater evil. The fact that innocent lives will be lost does not mean that my intent changes or that I desire their deaths.

Michael Waltzer in Just and Unjust Wars outlines it thus:

He goes on to later amend that every means necessary to reduce the unintended evil be made. So if I need to take out a target in a populated area, I am morally obligated to use the most accurate weapon I have, rather than “carpet bombing” the area.

I find point number 3 interesting as the phrase “the evil effect is not one of his ends, nor is it a means to his ends” directly describes the actions of the hijackers. Although the Pentagon is a military target, because they intentionally used civilians as a means to their ends, their actions are still immoral.

My objection to telepathy was really a result of my frustration in trying to understand your hypothetical. At first I though that you were trying to amend the Hitler child scenario with the “intends to harm another child” and it simply didn’t make any sense. After all, Hitler eventually hurt a lot of people so why add that? But then I realized you were trying to amend a different hypothetical. The problem I’m having is your hypotheticals are spread out now between some 5 different posts and when you throw a new curve onto one I’m not certain what the original one was much less the new creation.

It’s clear I’m continuing to irritate you, so I drop all objections to any hypotheticals you want to throw out. Time machines, space aliens, whatever. Just please give me a nice clear summary of what you want me to respond to.

If a child, intending to harm another child, is placed in danger we still have a moral obligation to help that child. Being a child places a special instance of innocence on him. We don’t hold a child to the same standards as we do an adult. For a child, the opportunity for reform is seen as greater than that of an adult.

So if the child is in danger of being hit by a car, remove the child from danger but also protect the targeted child from the aggressor child by taking the agressor child someplace that the aggressor child can be detained and his needs seen to.

91

Well, the logic is fine, but that isn’t exactly my intent. I have no wish to attack your morality, and I apologize for generating that impression. the inconsistency that I believe exists, and that I am trying to explore, is between your morality and the statement: “There can never be a moral obligation to intentionally kill the innocent.” I hope you will believe that I mean no offense with that statement.

I think very few people ever rigorously question the foundations of their personal morality, and by question I mean examine in order to understand not examine with an intent to change. As humans, we tend to group ideas and categorize with broad definitions. In moral practice, we often rely upon a “sense of what’s right”. Moral philosophers like to give such things 6-syllable adjectives. Me, I like to think about what shapes them. In discussions of morality, I have found that this encourages absolute pronouncements like the one you initially made. What I often find, though, is that these unyielding pronouncements are not entirely in accord with the person’s “moral sense”. I find this very interesting. In most situations, the precept is an accurate reflection of the deontological morality (sorry-couldn’t resist). But in the boundary cases this identification fails.

By itself, that isn’t very interesting. It’s good for attacking folks and being a boor at parties, but that’s only good for the first decade or so (hey, I was young.) What I think is interesting, though, is what “rules” take over when the “RULE” we thought we were following breaks down.

I apologize for the ling-winded digression, but I wanted to be clear about what I am trying to do and why I want to do it. Now–as to the logic . . .

The same would be true for the hypothetical assassin (Thugee, anyone?). We do not speak of intent for actions which are reflexive or instinctual. We speak of intent for actions which are considered, studied, deliberate. When we study an action, understand the full range of consequences for that action, and then choose to take that action–how can we claim we did not intend to cause teh consequences we have deliberately created?

When we drop thousands of bombs from the air, we know beyond any reasonable doubt that innocent people will be killed. Are those deaths our sole intent? No. Are they our primary intent? No. Might we regret them deeply and sincerely? Yes. Do we cause them in full knowledge and deliberation. Yes. Did we intentionally cause them? Absolutely.

[list][li]1) Well, apart from the danger that “legitimate act of war” is assuming the conclusion, this seems to say primarily that the action should not be evil when evaluated without considering the innocent deaths. That seems reasonable.[/li][li]2) This confuses me, mostly because it would seem to be a recapitualation of (1). If the direct effect were not morally acceptable, then it would fail the “act is good in itself” test, no?[/li][li]3) Is sophistry. How can the actor “aim only at the acceptable effect”. He knows that both the acceptable and the unfortunate will occur. How can he pretend that he was aiming for only one outcome when he knew that the single outcome was not possible?[/li]
Let’s go back to the terrorists. Pretend that the fourth plane had not gone down. It is flying toward a population center, but a missile battery has it locked on radar. Can I fire on the plane without intending to shoot down innocent passengers? How? Shooting down the plane is the direct an unequivocal desire behind my act. It is not possible to down the plane without downing the passengers. I cannot “aim only to shoot down the bad passengers”, however much it might alve my conscience to think so.
[li]4) Is a proportionality test. I am not familiar with Sidgwick’s rule, but it would appear to be a consequentialist analysis. Does the good result weigh more than the bad result. That also seems a reasonale requirement, but I have to note that the spirit behind such an evaluation is diametrically opposed to the declaritive rule that you have proposed. If it is always immoral to intentionally kill innocents, then weighing the evil against the good results is an empty exercise.[/li]

Thanks for answering. Just so I understand where you are coming from: are you saying that the potential for future moral behavior by the victim is an element of determining my moral response to a person in danger?

Also, if you don’t mind would you answer the same question as if the potential victim/future criminal were an adult (threatened by a car, for simplicity)? I had carried through your child example without anticipating that the detail of age would be significant in the moral evaluation.

I like that answer, truly. It is close to what think that I would try. The question that leads me to, though, is what is my moral obligation if I perceive that the person I rescue is determined to carry out a deadly assault as soon as the opportunity arises? For present purposes, let’s say that I do not have enough evidence to convince the authorities to detain him.

92

“Pacifism” is an umbrella term that could have many shades of meaning. It could signify an ideology of “violence is never justified”, or one that seeks “violence only as a last resort (when no other alternative is a reasonable solution)”. The first type of pacifism is too rigid and absolute, but the latter type of pacifism represents a sensible middle path between the ultra-doves and ultra-hawks.

93

I would still wonder what is so special about physical force (violence) and other means of conscious or unconscious (that is, not directed) coercion apart from simply declaring it so 9that is, on no grounds).

94

Spiritus,

Just so you know, I didn’t take any offense at any of your observations. I thought all of your observations were quite fair.

But see, I don’t think that we did intentionally caused them. If we could have avoided every innocent death possible we would. And given today’s current technology we can reduce the risk to innocent lives to such an extent that civilian deaths in a given attack are unlikely. Although over the course of an entire campaign that includes a large number of attacks, civilain deaths are still almost a certainty.

I understand your rationalization of Mr. Walzer’s points. Your comments on the third point are intriguing.

In the actual scenario, US fighters were given orders to do exactly this. Fortunately for the pilots’ sanity, they did not have to carry out these orders.

This is a significant hypothetical for us to work through since it takes away any probablity that civilians will not die. I can’t simply argue that the civilian deaths were not intended because it was not an absolute certainty that they would occur.

I find myself falling to a proportionality arguement. Less than a hundred civilian deaths is better than the potential 5,000 or more. The order would have to be delayed as long as possible in the hope that the passengers might bring the plane back under control.

But if I had to fire and bring down the plane, would the civilian deaths be my intent? If intent is “something done on purpose,” was my intent really to kill the civilians in the plane or was it to save thousands of civilians on the ground? Or could it be both?

The benifit of facing an aggressive child is that I know that can subdue the child with a good chance of success with a minimum of risk to myself. If I save the life of an adult as he is crossing the street to attack someone I might be placed in the ironic situation of sparing the aggressor physical injury only to have to physical injure him a moment later if he tries to continue his assualt. And if I fail in stopping his assualt, my actions have placed the aggressor’s target in danger whereas if I had simply let the car hit the aggressor, the aggessor’s target would have been safe.

I suppose the moral action would be to save the life of the attacker and hope that his owing the rescuerer his life would let rescuerer have some sway over his following actions and thus stop the attack from happening.

On a personal level I wonder if what I knew about the aggressor might sway my actions. If I knew he was a violent jerk who was just as likely to attack me for pushing him out of the way, I can’t help but wonder if calling an ambulance would be an easier action if not a moral one.

My first response to this question was “Gaaa!” My wife works with “severely behavior disturbed” children as part of her job and this scenario is all too common. If you are a guardian of the child, the answer is give up your entire life and devote it to watching this child every moment. There are treatment centers for such children that can help and if a child is showing unnatural signs of aggression, the child can be hospitalized.