## 1. Defining Peace



Pacifism is the broad commitment to making peace. The idea is
complicated by the fact that peace is a family resemblance term: there
are many varieties of peace. Peace is easiest to define dialectically
as the opposite of war or violence. Pacifism has thus been described
simply as anti-warism or as commitment to nonviolence. One conceptual
difficulty here is that when peace is defined negatively, pacifism
appears as a reactionary response to war and violence. Discussions of
peace thus often employ negative terms and creative neologisms to
express the concept of peace: "nonviolence,"
"nonwar," "nonkilling,"
"nonconflict," or "nonwar." Peace advocates
will however insist that peace should be understood as a primary
concept connected to cooperation, harmony, and positive human
relations and that it is a mistake to understand peace in merely
negative terms (see Fox 2014). At any rate, peace scholarship has long
emphasized the distinction between *negative peace* and
*positive peace*: negative peace is the absence of violence or
war while positive peace encompasses cooperative, tranquil, and
harmonious relations and the broader concerns of human flourishing and
integration (see Galtung 1969; Boersema 2017). A related distinction
is that between what Sims et al (2014) call "personal
peacefulness," involving small groups of people, and peace at a
larger international scale, up to and including "world peace" (see
Bellamy 2019).



When pacifism is defined as anti-warism, we encounter the difficulty
of defining war. War is usually thought of as violence between states
or, more broadly speaking, political communities. But the term
"war" can also be applied to violent conflicts among
individuals, as in Hobbes' idea that the state of nature is a
state of war. Similarly, although peace is usually thought of as a
political condition of amicable relations between states, terms like
"peace" or "peaceful" can also be used to
describe a relation between individuals or even a person's state
of mind.



If pacifism is defined as a commitment to nonviolence, we encounter
the same problem of definition. Violence usually has a normative value
and is defined as something like "an unjustified injury or
harm." But it is possible to speak of justified
violence--as in the just war theory. And so, the normative value
of violence remains an open question. The concept of violence can also
be extended metaphorically and used as an
adjective--"violent"--to mean something like
unbridled, uncontrolled, rough, or intense. Thus we speak of
"violent storms" or "violent emotions." A
commitment to nonviolence is, at least, a commitment to avoiding
unjustified intentional injury. Pacifists will tend to think that most
intentionally caused harms are unjustifiable. But the ideal of
nonviolence might be extended to include the idea of controlling rough
and intense emotions. In his essay, "Journey to
Nonviolence," for example, Martin Luther King Jr. claimed that a
commitment to nonviolence required overcoming the "internal
violence" of hatred and anger by cultivating love and compassion
(King 1986, 46).



There are a variety of possibilities for thinking about the nature of
peace and thus for understanding what pacifism aims at creating.


### 1.1 Peace as Slavery or Submission



Peace can result from submission to power; and war can end with
unconditional surrender. Rousseau maligned this sort of peace by
calling it the "peace of Ulysses and his comrades, imprisoned in
the cave of the Cyclops and waiting their turn to be devoured"
(Rousseau 1917, 125). We might claim that absolute rule and absolute
submission produce a sort of peace. But this is peace conjoined with
injustice. So it is clear that the sort of peace that is worth
pursuing is peace that is also linked to justice. The idea of justice
is at the heart of the just war tradition, which claims that we are
entitled to fight back against injustice. As Patrick Henry asked in
his famous "Give me Liberty or Give me Death Speech":
"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the
price of chains and slavery?" One might claim that the peace of
the Cyclops' cave is not peace at all but a state of war.



Most pacifists will claim that the false peace of slavery is not what
they have in mind. Rather, for the majority of pacifists, pacifism is
not simply acquiescing passively to evil--pacifism is not
passive-ism. Rather, pacifism involves actively but nonviolently
resisting evil. Nonetheless, some pacifists, such as Tolstoy, do
appear to advocate nonresistance. Tolstoy said, for example,
"the only means of deliverance from violence is the submissive
and peaceful endurance of it" (Tolstoy 1906, 36; see
Christoyannopoulos 2020). Nonresistant pacifists in the Christian
tradition often base the idea of submitting to evil on Jesus'
ideas as expressed in the Sermon on the Mount. "Do not resist
one who is evil" and "love your enemies and pray for those
who persecute you" (Matthew 5.39 and 5.44; Luke 6.27-30).
Some Christian martyrs take this ideal seriously and look to
Jesus' life and execution as a model of pacific virtue.


### 1.2 Peace as Modus Vivendi or Truce



The dialectical definition of peace as the absence of war can
encompass the idea of the armed peace of the Cold War. Peace as the
absence of war may be a mere *modus vivendi* in which armed
opponents refrain from attacking one another out of fear. This sort of
peace is the peace of a truce or stalemate. While it is true that in
such conditions, there is no overt damage done, the opponents have not
been reconciled and hostile intentions have not been eliminated. Some
may claim that the best we can do to make peace is to reach a state of
detente that is made possible by mutual deterrent force. Related to
this is what might be called, following Raymond Aron, "peace by
impotence" or peace by exhaustion (Aron 1966, 159 ff). In this
sort of peace, the antagonistic parties are simply no longer willing
to fight. Hostile intentions may persist; but the will to fight can no
longer be actualized. Kant rejected this sort of peace, claiming that
peace means "an end to all hostilities" (Kant 1991, 93).
This is why Kant maintains that the first principle of perpetual peace
is that states should not make "secret reservation of the
material for future war" (93).



Those who call themselves "pacifists" will usually agree
with Kant that a mere *modus vivendi* produced by impotence or
exhaustion is not actually peace, since hostile intent remains. And
pacifists will argue that the peace of deterrence and detente are not
really peace either, because they are the result of an increase in
armaments and the threat of escalating violence.


### 1.3 Peace of a Just and Tranquil Order



Opposed to peace as *modus vivendi* is what Aron calls,
"peace by satisfaction" (Aron 1966, 160 ff). This is a
peace that results from a lack of grievances and hostility. In the
history of the West, this sort of peace is often linked to what
Augustine called the "tranquility of order" (Augustine
1958, Book 19, Chapter 13) In recent Western thought, this idea often
follows Kant in claiming that liberal democracy is the key to such a
tranquil order.



Francis Fukuyama's Hegelian idea about the "end of
history," for example, hoped that the end of the Cold War would
bring about the end of war in general, as liberal-democracy spread
(Fukuyama 1992). Similarly, Michael Doyle has claimed that democracies
do not go to war with one another (Doyle 1997; see Gursozlu 2017).
John Rawls has explained the stability of well-ordered democratic
states as follows: "There is true peace among them because all
societies are satisfied with the status quo for the right
reasons" (Rawls 1999, 47). More recently, this idea about the
stabilizing and peace-making power of democracy has influenced
neo-conservative ideas in U.S. foreign policy, where the hope is that
peace will occur as democracy is spread.



The idea that peace is founded in a just political order is connected
to the ideas of the just war tradition. Defenders of the just war
tradition--from Augustine to Walzer--argue that occasionally
it is necessary to make war in order to establish such a tranquil and
just social condition. More recent defenders of the just war idea have
argued that interventionist wars should be fought in order to create
stable conditions by defending human rights (see
 footnote 1).



Pacifists will disagree with those who claim that wars should be
fought in pursuit of the ideal of a just and stable social order.
Proponents of humanitarian intervention maintain that war is a
suitable means for attaining the goal of respect for human rights and
satisfaction of human needs; but pacifists will argue that only
nonviolent means are coherent with the these intended ends.


### 1.4 Positive Peace



Positive definitions of peace go beyond merely dialectical definitions
of peace as the opposite of war and instead focus on peace as a state
of rest, wholeness, or completion. The peace of a just and tranquil
order points toward something like a condition of wholeness in which
there is solidarity, mutual respect, and satisfaction of needs. In
this vision of peace there is genuine community and human flourishing.
This includes not only the absence of direct violence but also the
absence of structural violence (Galtung 1969). The concept of
structural violence has been widely discussed in recent years in
connection with racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression.
Structural violence involves very generally practices and institutions
that undermine human flourishing and create social tension. One
central concern from the standpoint of positive peace is the project
of criticizing and remediating structural violence. This may include
what Llewellyn (2018) has called "emancipatory peace," i.e., peace
related to liberation or emancipation from structures of oppression.
This also includes the work of peace education, as well as work on
nonviolent conflict resolution and mediation (see Fitz-Gibbon 2010).
Related concerns point toward the importance of justice, with a
special focus on restorative justice and community building. However,
recent work (Davenport, Melander, and Regan, 2018) in the field of
peace studies has argued that positive peace is both too broad and too
vague to be of use for empirical work in peace studies. The worry is
that the notion of positive peace includes a broad range of social and
political concerns (equality, economic justice, environmental
sustainability, and so on) that stray far from the core idea of peace
as the absence of direct violence. Despite this criticism, the notion
of positive peace remains in use.



The positive ideal of peace can be found in religious conceptions of
peace. Stanley Hauerwas has explained that some Christian pacifists
claim that the concept of shalom (Hebrew for "peace") is focused
on positive peace: it is more than the absence of war; rather, it is
"harmony, health, and well-being in all human relations" (Hauerwas
155). Shameer Mondongal maintains that something similar is found in
Islam, where *salaam* is more than the absence of war, "it also
requires the presence of justice and an atmosphere that promotes
self-actualization" (Mondongal 2023, 18). In some traditions, this
appears to point beyond the merely political realm and aim toward
spiritual transformation. In Christian contexts this is related to the
peace of God that surpasses all understanding (as in Philippians 4.7).
In Buddhism, this is related to the idea propounded by Thich Nhat Hanh
(1987) of "being peace" that is connected to Buddhist
practice. The Dalai Lama claims that peace is more than the absence of
war and he connects his vision of world peace to peacefulness as a
state of mind: "peace is a state of tranquility founded on the
deep sense of security that arises from mutual understanding,
tolerance of others' point of view, and respect for their
rights" (Dalai Lama, 202). This is closely related to the ideal
of social stability; but the Dalai Lama also connects it to the deeper
process of personal transformation.


### 1.5 Peace as a Virtue and Intrinsic Value



Building upon these ideas, Michael Fox has described "peace as a
way of life": "a peaceful way of life will be such as to
incorporate nonviolence toward oneself and others, and will be guided
by cooperation, mutual respect, creative problem-solving, negotiation
of differences, and caring concern or compassion" (Fox 2014,
202).This conception of peace is not mere quietism or passivity. Jay
McDaniel (2005) has argued in favor of a notion of "creative
peace" in which there is tension and activity as individuals and
cultures must learn to listen to and interact with one another. This
notion of peace as a way of life can be understood in connection with
virtue ethics, where peacefulness is understood as a virtue that is
connected to other virtues such as modesty, tolerance, and mercy
(virtue ethics is discussed further below).



As we conclude this consideration of what peace means in pacifism, it
is important to note that pacifists often view peace as an
end-in-itself or as a having a kind of intrinsic value. This is
expressed in a variety of ways by pacifists. Pope Francis has said,
for example, "Peace alone is holy. Peace alone is holy, not war"
(Francis 2017). This idea has roots in Augustine, who says in *The
City of God* that peace is the *summum bonum*(Augustine 1958,
book 19, chapter 11). This is connected to Augustine's idea that we
should only go to war if we are aiming at peace. Of course, that idea
is central to the just war tradition that develops after Augustine.
Pacifists have responded by arguing that there ought to be a unity of
means and ends and stipulating that only nonviolent means may be
employed in pursuit of peace. This notion of peace as the *summum
bonum* has been developed in Islamic thought by Wahiduddin Khan
(2015), who suggests that peace is like the soil that provides a
foundation for all other good things.



This conception of peace as having intrinsic value helps explain how
pacifists may respond to the question of what peace is good for. If
peace is conceived as having intrinsic value, it is not good for
anything else; it is simply good in itself. In understanding peace in
this way, pacifists may rely on a kind of intuitionism that holds that
peace and its value are known through a kind of moral intuition. Fiala
has developed this account of pacifist metaethics (Fiala 2022b),
building on work in pacifist metaethics done by Holmes (Holmes 2017a
and 2015). Those who hold that peace is an end-in-itself with
intrinsic value may question the idea that peace should be understood
in instrumental terms. For example, some will argue that peace is good
because it produces prosperity (see Pinker 2011). But for pacifists
who hold that peace has intrinsic value, we should do not pursue peace
because it leads to prosperity; rather, we ought to pursue peace for
its own sake. 



Positive peace can be best understood from the tradition of virtue
ethics, where peacefulness is understood as a virtue that is connected
to other virtues such as modesty, tolerance, and mercy. It is
important to note that peace is not mere quietism and the passivity of
meditation or contemplation. Jay McDaniel (2005) has argued in favor
of a notion of "creative peace" in which there is tension
and activity as individuals and cultures must learn to listen to and
interact with one another.


## 2. Varieties of Pacifism



Pacifism includes a wide variety of ideas and commitments. Pacifism
has typically been understood as a critical or negative argument
against war (or violence), even though Fiala has argued that pacifism
could be understood as a comprehensive normative theory that
postulates peace as the highest good (Fiala 2018a). Pacifism in its
broadest sense can be distinguished from application of pacifist
critique to particular issues such as: domestic violence (Hall
Fitzgibbon 2017), environmental issues (Woods 2017), the death penalty
(Steffen 2017), nonhuman animals (Chapple 2017), and so on. This
article will not focus on those applications. Rather, it organizes the
variety of pacifisms in several ways according to interrelated
conceptual distinctions: absolute and contingent pacifism; maximal and
minimal pacifism; universal vs. particular pacifism. These
distinctions overlap, as we shall see here.


### 2.1 Absolute vs. Contingent Pacifism



This distinction organizes different answers to the question of how
obligated we are to reject violence and war. Absolute pacifism is
understood as a maximal and universal rejection of violence and war.
Absolutism in ethics (or moral absolutism) holds that moral principles
are eternal and unchanging and that they admit no exceptions. So,
absolute pacifism holds that war and violence are always wrong. One
recent proponent of a version of absolute pacifism is Michael Allen
Fox. Fox argues that war is inconsistent with morality and with human
well-being. He concludes by asserting a "very strong form of
pacifism" and admits that this results in some uncomfortable
conclusions, such as that "even military action aimed at
protecting people against acute and systematic human-rights violations
cannot be justified" (Fox 2014, 126). Fox explains that pacifism
results in a difficult dilemma that is reminiscent of the question of
whether two wrongs can make a right. Fox asks, "Should immoral
actions be used to stop other (perhaps gravely more) immoral
actions?"(Fox 2014, 127). He answers "No," and
maintains that this shows us that we have to work to find ways to move
beyond our reliance on war as the solution to social and political
problems. A similar conclusion has been argued by Holmes who concludes
that morality and warfare are "antithetical" (Holmes 2017a
p.25).



Non-absolute pacifism may be called contingent pacifism. While
absolute pacifism admits no exceptions to the rejection of war and
violence, contingent pacifism is usually understood as a principled
rejection of a particular war. A different version of contingent
pacifism can also be understood to hold that pacifism is only an
obligation for a particular group of individuals and not for everyone.
Contingent pacifism can also be a principled rejection of a particular
military system or set of military policies. Contingent pacifists may
accept the permissibility or even necessity of war in some
circumstances and reject it in others, while absolute pacifists will
always and everywhere reject war and violence.



Absolute pacifism is often connected with a religious standpoint in
which nonviolence is seen as a religious commandment. Thomas Merton
explains that Gandhi and most other absolute pacifists have a larger
metaphysical view: "as Gandhi saw, the fully consistent practice
of nonviolence demands a solid metaphysical basis both in being and in
God" (Merton 1971, 209). There is an open question about how
"absolute" Gandhi was in his pacifism (Fiala 2022a), but it is
clear that he is often viewed as a paradigmatic figure of what we
Allen calls "absolute nonviolence" (Allen 2022). In the West,
absolute pacifism is often derived from the Christian ideal of
nonresistance to evil as required by Jesus' pronouncements about
nonresistance in the Sermon on the Mount (in Matthew) or the Sermon on
the Plain (in Luke). In Indian traditions, it is grounded in the
commitment to ahimsa or nonviolence that is derived from a larger
metaphysical picture which emphasizes karmic interdependence, ascetic
self-abnegation, and compassion. The religious foundation of absolute
pacifism is often tied to the idea that there is merit in suffering
violence without retaliating. As Martin Luther King Jr. puts this,
"unearned suffering is redemptive" (King 1986, 18).



Absolute pacifism is an ideal. Some versions of absolute pacifism go
so far as to abjure the idea of personal self-defense. Other absolute
pacifists may allow for personal self-defense while rejecting the
impersonal and political violence of war. Almost every defender of
absolute pacifism recognizes the difficulty of attaining to the
absolute idea. Gandhi writes the following in his autobiography:
"Man cannot for a moment live without consciously or
unconsciously committing outward *himsa* (violence)... A
votary of *ahimsa* (nonviolence) therefore remains true to this
faith if the spring of all his actions is compassion, if he shuns to
the best of his ability the destruction of the tiniest creature, tries
to save it, and thus incessantly strives to be free from the deadly
coil of himsa. He will be constantly growing in self-restraint and
compassion, but he can never become entirely free from outward
himsa" (Gandhi 1993, 439). The absolute ideal is nearly
impossible to achieve because we must harm other beings in order to
survive: we must kill in order to eat. And the world often presents us
with difficult "kill or be killed" choices as in the
question of self-defense or war. Absolute pacifists may hold that it
is better to be killed than to kill. But such a choice may be
impossible for many of us to make. Pacifists will often argue that
this way of describing a situation--as one where the choice is
"kill or be killed"--usually presents us with a false
dilemma: often there are other nonviolent alternatives to either
killing or being killed. But when presented with such a stark choice,
absolute pacifism may require self-sacrifice.



Contingent or conditional pacifism qualifies such an uncompromising
condemnation of violence and warfare. Albert Einstein and Bertrand
Russell, for example, were both supporters of the war against Nazi
Germany, despite the fact that each considered himself to be a
pacifist. Russell identified his position as what he called
"relative political pacifism" (Russell 1943). Russell uses
the word "relative" to describe the contingent nature of
the commitment to peace: one's commitment to pacifism depends
upon or is relative to the nature of the war. Relative pacifism means,
for Russell, "that *very few* wars are worth fighting,
and that the evils of war are *almost* always greater than they
seem to excited populations at the moment when war breaks out"
(Russell 1943, 8). Russell calls his position "political"
because his emphasis is on war and political institutions, not on a
personal commitment to nonviolence.



Along these lines, David Cortright has described what he calls
"realistic pacifism." Cortright claims that in the realm
of nuclear war, pacifism is absolute. But in other sorts of conflict,
pacifism is "conditional and pragmatic" and
"predicated on a presumption against armed violence, but it
acknowledges that the use of force, constrained by rigorous ethical
standards, may be necessary at times for self-defense and the
protection of the innocent" (Cortright 2008, 334). Such an idea
is clearly related to just war theory. Indeed, some authors (such as
Larry May) have derived contingent pacifism from just war
thinking.



There are several varieties of contingent pacifism. A basic
distinction to be made here is whether one's argument against a
given war is is merely occasional or situational (what we might call a
contingently pacifist argument against a given war); or whether one is
offering a broader argument against wars of a certain type or wars
that are generally fought under certain conditions (see Fiala 2014;
Morrow 2017).



First, pacifism may not be required of all moral agents. Thus pacifism
may only be required for members of particular professions. Pacifism
is often thought to be a professional obligation of certain religious
vocations. But such a vocation may be thought of as a choice of
conscience that is not universally required. In this version of
contingent pacifism, the prohibition against violence only applies to
those who take a vow or make a pledge to renounce violence and war.
Within this two-tiered approach, the vow of peacefulness might be
considered as a sort of supererogatory ideal that is not required of
others. But it is also possible for the two-tier approach to contain
an implicit condemnation of those who do not take up the higher
calling of pacifism.



A second sort of contingent pacifism holds that if a particular war or
military policy is prudentially unwise it should be resisted. Such
prudential pacifism is based upon cost-benefit analyses focused on the
facts of particular conflicts. A more principled sort of prudential
pacifism can be based upon the general claim that war usually causes
more harm than good.



A third sort of contingent pacifism will appeal to the just war theory
and claim that a given war is unjust according to this theory. As John
Rawls says of what he calls "contingent pacifism,"
"the possibility of a just war is conceded but not under present
circumstances" (Rawls 1971, 382). This idea is closely related
to "just war pacifism" as developed in the last couple of
decades by critics of the just war tradition: just war pacifism
maintains that modern wars are not fought according to the standards
of the just war theory because, for example, they make use of aerial
bombardment and other means that do not adequately discriminate
between combatants and noncombatants. Such a claim may result in a
nearly absolute proscription against war under present circumstances.
And it may contain an absolute prohibition against certain sorts of
war, such as nuclear war. Most so-called "just war
pacifists" are contingent pacifists in this sense: they object
to the way modern wars are fought.



With the just war theory in mind, contingent pacifism may focus either
on the basis for war (as in the just war idea of *jus ad
bellum*), on the way that the war is being fought (as in the just
war idea of *jus in bello*), or on the expected outcome of the
war (as in the idea of *jus post bellum*). With regard to
*jus ad bellum*, contingent pacifists may reject the legitimacy
of the authority who is fighting, they may claim that war is not being
fought as a last resort, or they may deny that the war is being fought
for a just cause. With regard to *jus in bello*, contingent
pacifist may worry that innocent noncombatants are being harmed or
that soldiers are employing means *mala in se* (such as rape or
torture). Finally, with regard to *jus post bellum*, contingent
pacifists may object to wars that will undermine long-term peace,
justice, and stability.



A fourth form of contingent pacifism might be called "political
pacifism." This approach adheres to pacifism as a strategic
political commitment within an adversarial system. In political
discourse, the so-called "doves" are usually not absolute
pacifists. Rather, they define themselves in opposition to the
"hawks" who advocate war and funding for the war-system.
Political pacifists need not have an absolute commitment to
nonviolence; nor need they have a principled commitment to the ideas
of the just war theory. Rather, they can reject militaristic policies
for strategic political purposes that have to do with budget
priorities or other issues. Political pacifism may seem to be merely
opportunistic; but opposition parties who offer critical perspectives
on militarism are an important component of adversarial democracy.
Moreover, political pacifists can end up forming useful coalitions
with other more principled pacifists and absolute pacifists.



Finally, another version of contingent pacifism can be called,
following Robert Holmes, "liberal-democratic" or
"liberal pacifism." Holmes argues that modern warfare runs
counter to the values of liberal-democracy. Thus those who are
committed to liberal values should not support war. Essential for this
claim is the idea that "no one has a right to command others to
kill, and no one is justified in killing on command" (Holmes
1999, 398). The sort of pacifism that is derived from this claim is
contingent upon the fact that modern warfare involves a hierarchically
organized military system and mass conscription. It is possible that
war could be fought without conscription or without military
hierarchy; but Holmes argues that this is unlikely in the modern
world. Moreover, this sort of pacifism is contingent upon our social
and political commitments. Those who are committed to other social and
political ideologies may find that war and the war system are morally
and politically acceptable.



Contingent pacifism is often based upon empirical and historical
judgments about the way wars are fought. Such judgments will vary
depending upon changing circumstances. And these judgments are also
contingent upon the availability of information about why and how wars
are fought. It is possible, then, that contingent pacifists can admit
that there may be conflicting judgments about the justice of a
particular war. Unlike contingent pacifism, absolute pacifism rejects
war in an a priori fashion: one of the first principles of absolute
pacifism is that war (or violence more generally) is always wrong.
Thus absolute pacifism will claim that any judgment that leads to the
justification of war is wrong.


### 2.2 Maximal vs. Minimal Pacifism



The difference between maximal (or broad) and minimal (or narrow)
pacifism has to do with the extent of the commitment to nonviolence.
This difference can be explained with reference to the questions of
what sorts of violence are rejected, and who is the recipient or
beneficiary of nonviolent concern. Pacifists reject violence and war.
But there is an open question about how war and violence are defined
and thus about what sorts of actions are rejected by pacifists. There
is, of course, a continuum between maximal and minimal pacifism, with
maximal pacifism rejecting all forms of war and violence. Minimal
versions of pacifism fall away from this in various directions.
Maximal pacifism is closely related to absolute and universal
formulations of pacifism; minimal pacifism has more in common with
contingent and particular versions of pacifism.



There are a variety of actions that can be described as
"war": terrorism, insurgency, civil war, humanitarian
intervention, full-fledged inter-state conflict, and world war that
includes the possible employment of nuclear weapons. Most pacifists
will reject nuclear war and full-fledged inter-state conflict. But
there are differences about whether, for example, civil war or
humanitarian intervention can be justified. For example, some who
could be described as pacifists supported the use of military force
during the American Civil War (William Lloyd Garrison, for example,
compromised his pacifist beliefs to support the cause of emancipating
the slaves). At issue in thinking about these differences are
questions about the importance of key values such as sovereignty and
human rights, as well as the question of how best to create stability
in the face of social unrest. One difficult issue for some pacifists
is the question of using violence in defense of human rights or in
opposition to tyranny. Maximal pacifists will reject all use of
military force, even in defense against dictators or in response to
human rights violations.



Maximal versions of pacifism will condemn all taking of life.
Pacifists may also extend their rejection of violence to include a
rejection of the death penalty, meat-eating, and abortion. More narrow
versions of pacifism may take into account the distinction between the
innocent and the guilty, holding only that the innocent may not be
harmed. This distinction is important for thinking about the question
of noncombatant immunity in war, with many pacifists arguing that war
is wrong because it puts the innocent at risk. Some opponents of the
death penalty will make a similar argument about the death penalty and
the risk of executing the innocent. And opponents of abortion will
also claim that it harms the innocent. The connection between war, the
death penalty, and abortion is made in the Catholic "seamless
garment" approach to the problem of developing a
"consistent ethic of life." This approach condemns all
actions that harm innocent persons; and it is often extended toward a
rejection of all harm, without regard for the distinction between
innocence and guilt. Such a view has been defended most famously by
Pope John Paul II, who rejected (or was skeptical toward) all sorts of
violence including war, the death penalty, suicide, euthanasia, and
abortion. Pacifists may also extend moral concern to include concern
for all sentient beings; and thus pacifists may also condemn
meat-eating and animal cruelty. Gandhi, for example, extended ahimsa
maximally to include avoiding harm to sentient beings.


### 2.3 Universal vs. Particular Pacifism



This distinction has to do with the issue of whether everyone is
required to be a pacifist or whether pacifism can be a moral choice of
some particular individuals. This is related to the question of
whether pacifism is a duty for all or whether it supererogatory. 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. Particular pacifism is thus connected to contingent pacifism:
the moral demand of pacifism may be contingent upon one's social
position.



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. Eric Reitan has argued
that one may adopt a sort of "personal pacifism" that need
not be universally applied. 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.


### 2.4 Skeptical and Prima Facie Pacifism



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. As Cheyney
Ryan has argued, pacifism is a "skeptical position." As
Ryan puts this: "its general claim is that the proponent of
killing cannot produce a single compelling argument for why killing
another person is permissible" (Ryan 1983, 509). 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.



This sort of skeptical position can be linked to the just war
tradition's concern with the question of "last
resort" in thinking about *jus ad bellum*. 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
Fiala (Fiala 2008 and 2010). 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.



This sort of skepticism might also be called "prima facie
pacifism": this is the idea that war is usually wrong except in
certain extraordinary circumstances when it is compellingly shown that
the evil of war is a sort of lesser evil that is necessary for some
greater good. 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.


### 2.5 Transformational Pacifism



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. The author of the present entry has contributed to the idea of
"transformative pacifism" as a critical theory of society
that critiques militarism and the assumptions of warrior culture while
offering a more peaceful ethical alternative (Fiala 2018).



One traditional version of transformational pacifism can be found in
pacifist religious traditions. For example, Jesus articulated a
revaluation of values from the standpoint of a more pacific
understanding of God's commandments. Instead of retaliation and
the logic of "an eye for eye," Jesus claimed that we must
evolve a new idea--of not returning evil for evil.
Transformational pacifism is often connected to a progressive
interpretation of history that points toward a pacifist goal for human
evolution. Gandhi thought that such progress was already underway and
that history "has been steadily progressing towards ahimsa
(nonviolence)" (Gandhi 1972, 310-11).



Transformational pacifism has been described by Joseph J.
Fahey--who also calls it "reconstructionist"
pacifism--as follows: "transformational pacifists stress
the spiritual unity of all people... they seek not only the
abolition of war, but also the creation of an international juridical,
political, and economic order that will promote the rights of all
species" (Fahey 1997, 393). War resistance can be located under
this general rubric--insofar as war resistance is linked to a
general criticism of those structures of authority, economic and
political choices, and institutional frameworks that support what is
often called "the war system" (see Atack 2001).



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 2017. 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. During
World War I, Addams and her Women's Peace Party worked to end
the war and eventually ended up creating the Women's
International League for Peace and Freedom. More recently authors such
as Sara Ruddick and Nel Noddings have connected feminist criticism
with pacifism and the ethics of care. Ruddick notes that military
thinking utilizes a variety of conceptual strategies that create a
myth of "the manly just warrior, which interlocks myths of
masculinity, sacrifice, and heroic death" (Ruddick 1995, 202).
Noddings has noted that "care ethics" does not support
absolute pacifism, since care-givers may in rare circumstances kill in
order to defend those they love. Nonetheless, Noddings argues that
care ethics and feminism are concerned with a general critique of the
militaristic and violent assumptions of male-dominant culture.
Noddings contends that our culture "puts a high value on the
aggressive tendencies of males" (Noddings 2010, 215). 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.


## 3. Consequentialist Pacifism



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. A broader prohibition
against violence other than war can extend the "greatest
happiness" concept to take into account the happiness of
sentient beings other than humans.



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. As Bentham put it, "The happiest of mankind
are sufferers by war; and the wisest, nay, even the least wise, are
wise enough to ascribe the chief of their sufferings to that
cause" (Bentham 1789, Fourth Essay) One of the problems for
consequentialist arguments against war is that judgments vary about
whether war always causes more suffering than it prevents. 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. Nor is the
consequentialist approach especially concerned with the distinction
between combatants and noncombatants, since the "greatest
happiness" principle adopts a perspective that includes both
combatants and noncombatants. Indeed, the combatant/noncombatant
distinction is better understood as a deontological principle, as
discussed below. 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.
Ian Bickerton concludes that the wars of the past 200 years have
produced ambiguous results: "victory did not achieve its desired
results and war sacrifices were largely in vain. The reality is that
the costs of war are rarely, if ever, worthwhile" (Bickerton
2011, xi).



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. One of these
negative consequences is the rise of the so-called
"military-industrial complex" in which social capital is
expended on military infrastructure at the expense of other social
projects. 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. Another negative consequence can be found in the
possibility of "blow-back" or retaliation in which those
who are subjugated turn against the colonial 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.



Empirical research is required to say whether it is true that what
pacifists often call "the war system" does produce these
negative political consequences. 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 2006).



Another consequentialist argument can be located in the idea of the
sort of "just war pacifism" that developed during the late
20th Century (see Sterba 1998 and Neu 2011). 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. But if the threat of escalation is real and the results of war
are really so atrocious, then there are good consequentialist reasons
to be opposed to war: wars fought with weapons of mass destruction
will tend to produce horrifying consequences including the potentially
total devastation of what was called during the Cold War,
"mutually assured destruction." During the Cold War, this
concern was located in the worry about "nuclear winter,"
which was the catastrophic destruction of the earth's climate
and biosphere that would occur if an all out nuclear war had erupted.
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.


### 3.1 Active Nonviolence



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.



The basic theory and strategy of nonviolent action were worked out by
Mohandas Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Cesar Chavez, Gene Sharp, and
others who were engaged in nonviolent social protest in the
20th Century. 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. They will also point to the "velvet revolutions"
that occurred in Eastern Europe in the late 1980's and early
1990's. And they will point to the example of Lithuania in
1990-91, when unarmed civilians succeeded in turning back Soviet
troops. Some initially viewed the so-called "Arab Spring"
that began in late 2010 as an example of the power of nonviolence.
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. The ideal here would
be a sort of nonviolent "army" that is funded, trained,
and coordinated for national self-defense in a way that mimics
military training. 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. This idea draws
on what James called "the moral equivalent of war" and
what Gandhi called the "nonviolent army."


## 4. Deontological Pacifism



Deontological pacifism is closely related to absolute pacifism.
Deontological approaches to morality focus on duty and right. One
typical idea for deontological pacifism is that there is a basic law
or principle that prohibits killing, such as "thou shall not
kill."



The most famous theory of deontological ethics is Kant's.
Kant's categorical imperative is formulated as follows:
"Act according to that maxim by which you can at the same time
will that it should become a universal law" (Kant 1990, 38). 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.
Although Kant is not himself a pacifist, one might be able to ground
pacifism in Kant's alternative version of the moral law:
"Act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or
in that of another, always as an end and never as a means only"
(Kant 1990, 46). 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. One version of this idea has been defended by Soran
Reader, who argues that the basic presumption of the "moral
status of persons" leads to pacifism. 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 2017b).



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. One might then criticize the apparent "herd
mentality" of militarism, as Albert Einstein did when he called
the militaristic patriotism of the masses a sort of "loathsome
nonsense" (Einstein 1954, 8) The idea of conscription seems to
run counter to the idea of respect for persons. And pacifists may
argue that it is somehow disrespectful to require soldiers to conform
to military virtues such as obedience to authority. Arguments against
militarism along these lines were made famous by Thoreau who claimed
that in military service "the mass of men serve the State thus,
not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies" (Thoreau
2000, 669)



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. As David Luban puts
this: "Such rights are worth fighting for. They are worth
fighting for not only by those to whom they are denied but, if we take
seriously the obligation which is indicated when we speak of human
rights, by the rest of us as well" (Luban 1980, 170).



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.


### 4.1 Killing Combatants and Killing "The Guilty"



One aspect of the deontological condemnation of war focuses on the
killing of combatants, although the killing of combatants has also
been connected to contingent pacifism by way of just war
theory's proportionality constraint (Bazargan 2014). 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. Critics will argue that pacifism thus
fails to distinguish between "innocence" and
"guilt." As Anscombe puts this, "pacifism teaches
people to make no distinction between the shedding of innocent blood
and the shedding of any human blood" (Anscombe 1981a, 58) The
just war tradition holds that it is permissible to kill enemy
combatants because these combatants are, in some sense, no longer
innocent. 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 2009). But the most
obvious way to justify killing combatants is to link such killing to
the notion of self-defense. In war, soldiers are confronted with enemy
combatants who will kill them and their comrades, if they aren't
killed first. 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.


### 4.2 Killing Noncombatants



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.e.,
noncombatants) in war, so long as the primary intention is to
accomplish a legitimate war aim and so long as the killing of
innocents is merely a foreseen but unintended secondary effect.
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. Although Anscombe argued against pacifism, she
made a similar argument in her criticism of the attacks on Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, "it is nonsense to pretend that you do not intend
to do what is the means you take to your chosen end" (1981a).
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 pacifists might
argue in response that war is wrong because innocent noncombatants are
killed--whether intentionally or not.


## 5. Religious and Cultural Basis


### 5.1 Religion and Virtue Ethics



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
2006). 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. One reason
that absolutist and deontological pacifism appears to require a
religious foundation is that the commitment to peace can lead to
suffering in the 'real' world of political life. 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. Ahimsa or nonviolence is a virtue that renounces the ubiquitous
violence of the 'real' world. In a different way, the
Christian tradition holds that the 'city of God' or divine
providence is a mysterious reality that is infinitely more important
than the reality of the 'city of Man.'



The structure of this sort of religious belief is closely related to
the absolute, deontological, and transformational nature of religious
pacifism. In Christian pacifism, it is God's commandments as
articulated by Jesus that necessitate a commitment to pacifism. Of
course, this is a contentious point; and some deny that Christianity
requires pacifism (see Fiala 2007). But Christian pacifists maintain
that Christians should refuse to kill regardless of the consequences
in the 'real' world. 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. Virtue ethicists are reluctant
to judge actions in isolation from the total context of an
individual's life. 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. The Christian model of virtue is
Jesus, and Jesus' practice of nonviolence culminated in his
crucifixion. 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 2017 and 2012). A different argument for
pacifism, based in virtue ethics, has been made by Trivigno (2013),
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. Gandhi's practice of
self-renunciation (*brahmacharya)* including his vow of poverty
and his fasts were closely tied to his commitment to *ahimsa*.
For Gandhi, nonviolence is part of a total practice of virtue. In the
Buddhist tradition this is developed for example, in Thich Nhat
Hanh's (1987) idea of "being peace." The virtue
approach emphasizes that pacifism is a lifelong project that requires
discipline and practice. 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. Indeed, one can see the roots of nonviolent
social protest in Socrates' nonresistance to the Athenian state.
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 20th Century humanists such as William James. At the
beginning of the 20th 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. This was the basic idea behind his proposal
for a "moral equivalent to war," which was an attempt to
find a way to produce virtues without connecting them to militarism
(James 1910).


### 5.2 Diverse Religious and Cultural Sources



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. This problem is acute for Christians
since Jesus seems to advocate an ethic of nonviolence both in the
Sermon on the Mount and in his submission to violence, while Augustine
and others use both Biblical sources (such as Paul's letter to
the Romans) and natural law to argue in favor of the just war idea. 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.



The problem of justifying war is also found in Greek thinkers, such as
Plato, who argued in the *Laws* that war should only be waged
for the sake of peace and that "it is peace in which each of us
should spend most of his life and spend it best" (803d). And in
the *Crito*, Socrates considers the problem of whether it is
ever justified to return evil for evil. Socrates begins with the
assumption that we must do no harm; and he and Crito agree at one
point that one "ought not retaliate or render evil for evil to
anyone, whatever evil we may have suffered from him" (49d). 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 2017).
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 (2017) argues, for example, that Islam
(whose root is *salaam*, which means peace) includes a rich
conversation about violence and peace. In the South Asian context of
the 20th Century, Muslims such as Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and Khan
Abdul Ghaffar Khan joined Gandhi in affirming the power of
nonviolence. There has been discussion among some Western politicians
and journalists in the past couple of decades about whether there is
something inherently violent about Islam and its notion of
*jihad*. But scholars such as Cole (2021) and Shadi (2017) show
that the diverse Muslim tradition includes a number of pacifist
thinkers. And Alvi (2021) explains that a notion of *nonviolent
jihad* can be found in Islam in relation to the idea of jihad as
spiritual struggle, and with regard to the role of nonviolent activism
in Islamic contexts.



A similar kind of diversity can be found across the world's
traditions. This includes pacifist ideas found in a variety of
indigenous traditions. And often this involves a kind of syncretism
that results from colonialism. One example in North America is worth
noting: the case of Papunhank, a native American convert to Quaker
religion in Pennsylvania during colonial times, who has been cited as
a "pacifist prophet" (see Pointer 2020). In African thought this
syncretism also includes the influence of Christianity and Islam. For
example, the Jahkanke pacifists of West Africa were an Islamic sect
(see Sanneh 2016). And it is important to note that Gandhi was also at
work in South Africa, where Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu
are now seen as important figures in the history of nonviolence. 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 2017).



It is to note that the distinction between European and non-European
traditions breaks down in the 20th Century: Gandhi was
inspired by Thoreau and by Tolstoy; and Gandhi in turn inspired
Western pacifists such as Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, and
Martin Luther King Jr. 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*. King explains it this way:
"In the final analysis, agape means recognition of the fact that
all life is interrelated. All humanity is involved in a single
process, and all men are brothers. To the degree that I harm my
brother, no matter what he is doing to me, to that extent I am harming
myself" (King 1986, 20) This idea represents the extension of
Christian pacifism in light of Gandhian principles.



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.


## 6. Objections to Pacifism and Possible Replies



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.


### 6.1 Pacifism is for Cowards, Free Riders, Traitors, and Other Vicious Persons



**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. As
Jan Narveson once put this, pacifists have "too many
friends" (Narveson 2003; also Narveson 2017) since they are
unwilling to take up arms against their enemies. A more forceful ad
hominem argument against pacifism can be found in Ward
Churchill's idea that pacifism is a pathology of the privileged,
a point that has been reiterated by Derek Jensen. 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.
Indeed some pacifists--such as Tolstoy or Hauerwas--are also
anarchists who claim that Christian faith requires that one overcome
one's attachment to the state as well as one's hatred of
enemies. A similar argument can be made against Churchill's
"pacifism as pathology" objection, with principled
pacifists claiming that nonviolence is a moral requirement that
transcends class and national ideology. 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. Contra the Churchill/Jensen objection, pacifists
will emphasize the moral and political importance of unifying means
and end. And, as Jose-Antonio Orosco has argued, nonviolent
activism can be an effective means of countering oppression (Orosco
2017).


### 6.2 Pacifists are Wrong to Aspire for the Purity of "Clean Hands"; and Pacifism is Based on Bad Theology



**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. As Anscombe puts this in her critique of pacifism, the
pacifist holds "withdrawal from the world as man's only
salvation" (Anscombe 1981a, 52). 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. This objection also reminds Christian pacifists that there is
explicit advocacy for war in the Old Testament and that Paul's
letter to the *Romans* allows the sovereign to use the sword to
execute God's wrath. 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. Christian pacifists will reply
to the "bad theology" objection by focusing on the message
of Jesus in the Gospels; and they will argue, as John Howard Yoder
does, that just war theory is a later development of a lapsed sort of
"Constantinian" (or Augustinian) Christianity. 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.


### 6.3 Pacifism is Self-contradictory, Unjust, and Not Effective



**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 1965) 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. Critics
will argue that Gandhi's success was made possible by British
exhaustion from the World Wars; and they will argue that the success
of Martin Luther King Jr. was made possible by the threat of violence
from radicals such as the Black Panthers. 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 2009).
Obama expressed respect for pacifists such as Gandhi and King. He
said, "there is nothing weak, nothing passive, nothing naive in
the creed and lives of Gandhi and King." But he claimed that a
head of state cannot be guided by pacifism. And he concluded: "A
nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies.
Negotiations cannot convince al-Qaeda's leaders to lay down
their arms." A similar argument about the efficacy of violence
has been made by defenders of insurrectionary violence such as
Marcuse, Fanon, and Sartre.



**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. This claim about the unity of means and ends can be used to
argue against the Fanon/Marcuse justification of violence in
insurrection by noting a contradiction in revolutionaries using
violence to oppose the violence of oppressive states. 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. When confronted with such tragic conflicts, the
pacifist will argue that we should err on the side of peace and take
care that we do no harm. The examples of King and Gandhi may in fact
require careful historical analysis; and different historical
circumstances will require different sorts of nonviolent action. But,
for the pacifist, history shows us the horror of war; and the success
of Gandhi and King reminds us that there is an alternative. Finally, a
pacifist might also point out that the long term goal of a
transformation beyond war is shared by a variety of people, including
those who are reluctant to call themselves pacifists. As Obama pointed
out in his Nobel Peace Prize speech, even if war may be necessary, it
is also "at some level an expression of human folly."
Pacifists usually deny that war is necessary. But they agree that war
is usually an expression of human folly.