Resolved: pacifism is a chimerical and egoistic ethical system

Great Debates
1

Inspired, of course, by this thread currently running in the Blandness Pit.

Before I make my case, let me specify what I mean by the words “chimerical” and egoistic." In neither case am I satisfied that those words mean what I am trying to communicate, but I haven’t the inclination right now to search out a bon mot.

“Chimerical,” in my idiosyncratic meaning, is a comment only on the belief system itself, not the person holding it. I don’t mean to imply that any person styling herself a pacifist is mentally ill; rather, I am saying that the pacifism bases its central premises on stipulations for which there is no evidence (or no convincing evidence).

“Egoistical” is a term that could easily be misunderstand. I don’t mean egotisical; I’m not claiming that pacifists are necessarily conceited, arrogant, pompous, or so forth. Rather, I am saying that, in one specific way, pacifism values the well-being of the individual pacifist greater than it does the well-being of the world in general.

Okay? All righty then.

I’m going to cite a specific poster’s words, but I won’t identify him or because I don’t wish this to become about personalities:

The reason I call this line of reasoning chimerical is that it assumes facts not in evidence. Specifically, it offers no reason why the taking of an arbitrarily chosen Homo sapiens’s life is worse than killing a non-human animal. What is the difference? Is it that humans possess a spirit or soul? If that is the pacifist’s contention, I must ask him to show evidence that such a thing exists. If the pacifist is not stipulating the exisntece of a soul, then I must ask what, exactly, makes the killing of a human so uniquely destructive to the universe.

The pacifist may answer that no claim is being made about the universe in general, but rather human society in particular. In that case, my response is that the killing of one person in self-defense, or in the defense of a single innocent, clearly does no more damage to society than a than it would be to allow the attacker to kill his or her intended victim; and it probably does less damage, as the person who initiated the attack is demonstrably more likely to do violence to others than the person who only defended him/herself. Moreover, if the assailant has established a pattern of attacking and killing others, or shown intent to attack and kill others, then removing that person is a net gain for society.

The pacifist may also claim that greater harm is done to the defender by taking on the guilt of killing another than would be done if the defender submitted to his or her fate. This argument seems specious. If I am killed, I no longer exist; how, then, is it possible for me to profit (or be harmed) in any way?

I have a few other thoughts on this issue, but I don’t want this OP to be overlong. Therefore I will skip ahead to the issue of egoism. I have heard pacifists say that they would prefer not to kill in defense of others because they wish to spare their own consciences. This quote, again from the other thread, is typical:

Here, the pacifist is privileging his own comfort of conscience over the lives of others. This strikes me as enormously selfish; it basically saying that the the peace of mind of one individual is more important than anything that happens to anyone else. It is different only in degree from the actions of a person who watches someone drown but declines to offer assistance because he doesn’t want to get his suit wet or to miss a business meeting.

:: checks OP ::

Okay, this is getting on to a thousand words, so I’m going to stop here and await responses (if any) before I continue.

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If soldiers, who are trained specifically to deal with the taking of human life, can have deep misgivings about their actions, it is perfectly natural that a civilian might want to avoid such scenarios.

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I did not say that it is wrong to have misgivings about taking human life.

4

I would offer several reasons, including the sapience of the human versus the animal, the possibility of escalated revenge-violence on the part of other humans which animals don’t engage in, the fact that I, myself, am human and therefore have more empathy for my fellow humans than, say, a cat, etc. But see further on for why I’m not really going to bother.

Are you by this claiming that there is no marked difference between man and other animals?

I certainly don’t think so, in the sense I think you mean. Consciousness, ,yes, but it’s made of meat. Just the meat.

Never said it was “unique”. I also don’t condone the killing of apes and cetaceans, for instance, and for much the same reason. Then there’s a sliding scale down from there, sapience/sentience-wise. So while you are correct that I see killing humans as “the worst”, it is a continuum from there, not a dichotomy.

I would not so claim. I see human society as essentially determined by violence, so how could I argue this?

Well, the bit I bolded answers itself, doesn’t it? If I kill and live, I am continuously harmed (IMO). If I’m dead, there’s no me to be harmed anymore. So where’s the hurt then?

But that’s not quite so relevant. Yes, there is a drive in me to lessen what I consider those actions that I consider unworthy of the kind of man I want to be, and I do not wish to be a killer. But I don’t avoid killing primarily to avoid the guilt. It’s a side-effect, more like.

You’re making a false connection - when I said the killing wouldn’t be on my conscience, I was replying to the appeal to pity, by indicating it was misplaced. But that is not the reason I would not kill in that scenario. The reason is the Gandhi quote I gave about change, and my belief in a shared humanity.

That’s quite a leap. Just because, in the Holocaust scenario, I said their deaths wouldn’t be on my conscience (because I didn’t kill them) doesn’t mean I would have peace of mind. You make it sound like the snuffing of 6 million lives would be OK to me, as long as my hands were clean. That’s far from the case.

That’s a trite and quite offensive comparison. My conscience isn’t something I can put on or off like a suit.

But anyway, how many times do I have to say this - I would not do nothing in a situation where there was violence. So until someone addresses this continual fallacy of excluded middle, I’m done discussing this.

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Personally, I find any absolutist morality to be suspect. The idea that a given act is always, under any circumstances immoral strikes me as a lazy way of thinking. The truth, from my perspective, is that we are always forced to choose between less than ideal choices and it is our duty to predict as best we can what the consequences will be and act accordingly. When people say that something is always good or bad, my suspicion is that they crave certainty because that makes life easier for them. It turns horribly complicated messes with no ideal solution into simple decisions. After all, if I know that violence is always wrong, then I will probably sleep better the night after choosing between hurting someone in defense of another or choosing not to intercede. The more certain someone is that they’re right, the more likely I am to believe that they’re thinking dogmatically rather than rationally.

Life is never that simple, in my view.

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When I was in high school back in the early 80’s and the Cold War was raging, I was a member of the Student Teacher Organization to Stop Nuclear War. We had a Pacifist come to speak to our group.

We asked him what to do about national protection, what to do if our country got invaded. He said that people could throw themselves in from of the tanks, and that while a few people would surely die, in the end we could depend on the goodness of the invading soldiers not to run over unarmed civilians.

We asked what if the soldiers didn’t refused to run over the people and he just shrugged. He said that you can’t act like pacifists and then pull out guns if it doesn’t work. You have to be totally committed.

I went into the meeting feeling very pulled towards pacifism, but by the end of the meeting the guy seemed so naive that I thought he (and the theory of pacifism) were just nuts.

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What about religiously based pacifism, like the Amish or the Quakers? How about the Buddhist monks who immolated themselves during Vietnam? Were they egotists? How about Martin Luther King or Gandhi?

Pacifism is not confined to self-righteous hippies.

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I have a hard time understanding why one would base his decision to kill on his own moral code, yet criticize someone else for not killing even though he’s basing his decision on the exact same thing.

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Diogenes, I specifically constructed my OP as I did because I was seeking to respond to MrDibble’s arguments as he has stated them, and he is an atheist. But since you mention it, I’d say that persons who aspire to total pacifism out of religious reasons–concern for their souls–are committing just as egregious an error. They are elevating the importance of a hypothetical future existence, for which there is no evidence, over the concerns of the world in which we love, for which there is beaucoup evidence. I believe that the notion an afterlife is misguided at best and contributes to the commission of atrocities at worse.

And, before anyone complains that I’m calling all religious persons the committers of atrocities, I am not. Non-religious people can do evil things just as easily as the religious, and vice-versa.

No, I wasn’t making a claim at all. I try to avoid asking rhetorical questions, as I find them annoying; generally, if I phrase a remark in the form of a question, it is because I am asking for information. I’ll rephrase it if you like: Why is the killing of a human being more morally significant, in your world-view, than the killing of a non-human animal?

This is a part of the pacifist mindset I find particularly wrong-headed; I just didn’t want to overload y’all in the OP. As much as I respect what Dr. King and Mr. Ghandi did for the world, I am dubious about the overall utility of non-violent resistance to violent oppression. It only works if the oppressor is violating his or her own moral code, but doesn’t want to admit it. If I genuinely believe that women are whores who all deserve to be raped, that white persons are the spawn of Satan and must be killed in punishment for the years of slavery, or that Jews murdered Christ and must be slain for their continued unbelief, it’s not going to faze if me my victim refsues to defend himself vigorously; at most I may add “stupid” to the list of reasons the person I am hurting is inferior.

I’m not saying that non-violence is useless. I’m not even advocating that we solve all conflicts by first resorting to violence. But non-violence & passive resistance work only if the attacker already knows himself to be on the wrong side (by his own lights) and is rationalizing violent actions. It does not, in other words, work with Nazis.

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Kalhoun, I believe killing should be a last resort, for both practical and ethical reasons. What bothers me about MrDibble’s assertions is that there is an impliciation that someone who kills an attacker in defense of himself or his family is morally equivalent to the attacker.

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Pacifism is often the right thing to do in the right time and place. It’s just not for *every *time and place.

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Well if it isn’t the right time and place no one is forced to listen to the pacifist and no one is harmed by his actions. That is the beauty of the idea.

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As I stated in the other thread, I personally see the issue as not just about killing but about violence in general. The forcing of one person’s will onto another, and the inevitable harm that does to all of humanity. I’m not even sure that killing is the worst thing you can do, but I am convinced that it is virtually guaranteed to do much more harm than good no matter how justified it may seem.

As for the issue of pacifism not being based on evidence, I suppose that’s true in some ways. But then the desire for happyness and fulfilment in life isn’t really based on evidence either is it? I’m hardly one to dismiss science, but there are things it is good for and things it is not. Science gives us an understanding of the world which we can use to predict the results of our actions. But only we can decide what results we want to achieve. Pacifism is based on the same desire for happyness we all share… with one added fact. A fact which seems to elude many, but for which I believe there is ample evidence. That fact is: My happyness is no more real than that of others. That’s all it comes down to.

With that understood, you surely see how the claim about pacifism being egoistical is silly. I am not concerned about who must bear the guilt of any given harm. My concern is the results for the world at large. The point you seem to miss is that while my happyness is no more real than that of others, I can only directly control my own choices and not those of others. Although I would certainly prefer that others are nonviolent, I can only influence their choices through discussion and example. If they decide to act violently, I simply cannot change that. I can however decide what my choices in response will be. I can choose to act violently or not. The choice of another person to be violent is not a valid excuse to be violent myself. When one ignores that reality, a cycle of violence begins which can only be ended when someone accepts the harm done without responding with more violence.

Garula:
I can’t speak for MrDibble, but I don’t consider pacifism to be an absolutist morality. My concern is, like yours, to choose the actions which have the best consequences. That is precicely what makes violence a bad choice. It is not inherent to the act itself, it is the consequences of the act. Surely you can see that the policy of responding to violence with violence of your own is doomed to create nothing but a never-ending cycle of violence. This cycle of violence has become rampant throughout the world. It can only end when we choose to forgive others for the harm they’ve done and not respond with more violence.

In fact I would say it is the concept of justice which offers a false certainty while ignoring the actual consequences of actions. And The reality of violcence always being wrong is hardly comforting. Like every other human I am imperfect and will do harmful things. I have never said that I wouldn’t choose a violent act, only that I shouldn’t. Taking my failings and wrapping them in virtous terms like justice, or loyalty, or defense of the innocent would be very comforting. But simple logic reveals the fact it does nothing but harm.

autz:
I’m not so sure about throwing myself under tanks… I would think a better option would be to just run like hell :slight_smile: Remember, the goal is not to protect the nation, the goal it to respect and preserve human life. When someone is violent, there may not be any way to avoid negative outcomes. But your choices will determine just how negative the outcome is. You can choose to accept the harm that others are doing, or you can choose to add to the violence with more violence of your own, making things worse.

geez I gotta learn to type faster :slight_smile:

Skald:
As you might have guessed, I don’t consider myself religious in any way, and I have to agree that the myth of the afterlife has resulted in a great deal of violence in the world.

As for the Issue of pacifism only working if the attacker knows he is wrong… that depends on your notion of ‘working’. You are mistaking the goal. The goal is NOT necessarily to stop the attacker, nor to protect the nation. The goal is the well-being of ALL people. That includes the attacker as well. As long as you, who know the actions of the attacker are wrong, choose to act violently as well, the cycle of violence can never end and all people continue to suffer.

As for a person acting in self defense being morally equivilant to the attacker, I neither know nore care. Once again the concern is not with guilt but with the actual consequences of actions and the well-being of all people.

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You said that given the chance, you’d likely kill Kim’s murderer. From the other thread:

I’m reading that you consider this an incorrect response but that your emotions would get the better of you and you would do a Very Bad Thing.

So, if MrDibble doesn’t succumb to his emotions, he is taking the moral high road. He is defending his moral code by not contributing to a violent problem. As far as killing goes, there IS no difference between the two. Killing is killing.

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Please explain how humanity is harmed when one person acts in defense of an innocent in jeopardy. Please explain how that harm outweighs the harm of permitting the violent person to have his way without being opposed.

The above are not rhetorical requests. I’d like to know your definition of “harm.”

A year ago yesterday, not far from where I live, a man entered his brother’s house and killed his brother, his brother’s wife, two people who happened to be visiting, and three children, gravely injuring two more. Are you saying that less “damage” would have been done if the brother who was attacked had managed to overcome his assailant and killed him in the process?

Please explain what you mean by “real.” Happiness is a subjective state. Do you mean valuable? Worthy of protection? Meaningful to God? What, exactly?

By your own argument, if your happiness is no less real than others, than others’ happiness is no less real than yours. More to the point, my wife & stepdaughter’s happiness is no less important than someone who attacks them. If a man breaks into our house to attack them because it will make him happy to kill me and rape them, then I will say that his happiness is less worthy of protection than theirs, because it comes at the expense of the suffering of others.

The actual consequence of unrestricted pacifism are that the violent grow more powerful, because they are not opposed.

I am not arguing that killing should be the solution to every problem; it should not be. I am not arguing that I want to go out and kill rapists and murders preemptively. I am saying that sometimes violence can only be countered by violence, and acting violently always has the potential to end in death for the person you are doing violence on. To pretend that it does not is foolish, and to equate acting in self-defense with assaulting another without provocation or necessity is offensive.

A slight digression. Sometimes, in discussions about police shootings,* people who don’t shoot will complain about a police shooting that they concede is justified in every other way because the officer did not shoot to wound or to disarm. This notion is, of course, stupid, because the vast, vast majority of marksmen are not going to be able to shoot a weapon out of another’s hand, or reliably shoot the person in the leg or whatnot. When shooting to defend oneself, one always aims for the center of mass, because that is the place you are most likely to be able to score a hit. Unfortunately that also makes it very likely that you are going to kill the person you are shooting at. By the pacifist argument, such a course of action is unjustified; the person defending himself should only take a shot that is more likely than not to be non-lethal. But that doesn’t work. It just leads to the assailant being able to continue his or her non-justified violence.

If a violent reaction is justified in a given situation, then it is likely that killing is also justifiaed.
*I speak here of discussions I have had in real life, not on the Dope, so obviously I won’t be linking to a citation.

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There’s a difference between revenge killing and killing in defense of self or others, though. My main problem with pacifism is that it inevitably means the bad guys win. That is, if the only ones willing to perpetrate any sort of violence are aggressors, then the aggressors take over. This in my mind is not a good place to lead humanity.

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:dubious:
:smack:
:stuck_out_tongue:

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You are reading it wrong, but not so wrong that I feel like arguing at length. It’s conceivable that I would do such a thing even after the heat of the moment had passed; it would be a moral failing on my part, and not one I care to excuse myself for.

Not at all.

If a man breaks into our house and assaults my wife, and ultimately kills her, he has committed murder, a morally repugnant act. By the social contract, she has the right not to be killed without provocation, justification, or due process.

If I kill the man who killed my wife by lying in wait for him, I have also committed murder. Though I certainly have provocation, and justification in the minds of some, I still cannot kill him in such a fashion because it violates due process and contributes to a culture of lawlessness. Some people would say that my guilt is less than the guilt of the man I am taking revenge upon because I have provocation; I am not certain I agree. But I am willing to say that the act is immoral.

If a man breaks into our house to assault my wife and she kills him in self-defense, she has not committed murder. She has commited a morally justifiable act. In fact I would say that she has committed a morally good act, though she would not likely be able to see so in the short term, becasue we have evolved to be repelled by the act of killing. But the person initiating the violent encounter has surrendered his right not to be attacked.

I have a friend who killed her mother. Her mother was dying of cancer and in agony, and she upped the morphine drip (or some such; I wasn’t there, for obvious details). I would say that my friend is not guilty of murder in any reasonable sense; that her act was different in kind from the first two examples I gave, and probably from the third example.

Not every killing is the same. It is impossible to judge the morality of an act without knowing its context.

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Rape is no different than making love. Sex is sex.

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Defense of an innocent in jeopardy can be accomplished nonviolently. It may be less reliable, but it is possible. Violence can be opposed nonviolently. Heck violence can only be opposed nonviolently. Violence causes harm, both to the person you are violent towards and to all others who must live in a world with that much more violence in it. Harm is a difficult thing to define. Generally, if you feel that you have been harmed, you have been. I’m not sure I can do better than that. You may think you can improve the world by stopping the violence of others, but if you force your will upon others you are adding your own violence in so doing. The irony is, the violent person who is posing the threat you percieve, is likely doing what he is because he has made that very same error.

I can say, that at any point during that event, less damage would have been likely to occur if the attacker had been opposed nonviolently. It may not have succeeded but one can never be sure. You may think the risk of greater violence outweighs the violence you might use to stop it, but that is a short sighted view. Simply writing off another human being as not worth the risk they pose has reprecussions far beyond the immediate events. It devalues all human life, and indirectly, leads to occurences like this being that much more likely. People need to know that their life has value no matter what. The contrary belief, pervasive in society today, plays a large role in why people do things like what you just described. Don’t you think?

Yeah, this is kind of hard to explain in concrete terms, it’s sort of too simple for that. I mean happyness in the sense that people choose their actions based on what makes them happy. I mean real in the sense that sometimes we do something which makes us feel good but makes others feel bad. It may feel that you have done something good because… well it feels good, but that is an illusion. The suffering of others should not be dismissed simply because we don’t feel it ourselves. It’s easy to see that the happyness of poeple we know and care about is as important as our own. But that is supported by certain ingrained instincts. When someone does harm to us or those we care about, we often loose sight of the fact that the attacker is still just as human, and his happyness or suffering is still no different than that of our loved ones. We need to place equal value on the happyness of all people, otherwise we create excuses to treat each other badly. Which, obviously leads to less happyness and more suffering for everybody.

Once again, you can oppose someone nonviolently. If you choose violence you are only making the world a worse place to live for everyobdy. You seem to think that there are people who are just inherantly different than you in that they are violent, and that somehow the violence you use against those people is not as bad as the violence they may use against you. That is simply not true. When you use violence, regardless of your motives, it has the same impact on the world as when others do. If you oppose a someone nonviolently, you may fail to prevent violcence, but if you resort to violence yourself you are always failing to prevent violence since you are committing it yourself.

I personally don’t think the line between violence and deadly force is particularly signifigant. I think that any violence is always bad, and that the primary goal should always be to avoid it. You will often fail to prevent violent acts by others, but the one area where you have the greatest potential to be successful is in choosing to not to be violent yourself.