Transformative Pacifism: Critical Theory And Practice 1350039209, 9781350039209

Citation preview

Transformative Pacifism

Also available from Bloomsbury The Ethics of Nonviolence, Robert L. Holmes Environmental Ethics, Marion Hourdequin Introduction to Applied Ethics, Robert L. Holmes Pacifism, Robert L. Holmes The Bloomsbury Companion to Political Philosophy, edited by Andrew Fiala

Transformative Pacifism Critical Theory and Practice Andrew Fiala California State University, Fresno, USA



BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA BLOOMSBURY, BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2018 Copyright © Andrew Fiala, 2018 Andrew Fiala has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. vi constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover Design by Toby Way Cover image © WAKIL KOHSAR/Getty Images All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISBN: HB: 978-1-3500-3920-9 ePDF: 978-1-3500-3919-3 eBook: 978-1-3500-3921-6 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India

To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters.

Contents Acknowledgements Preface

vi vii

  1   2   3

Pacifism as a Positive Theory of Human Flourishing 1 Gandhi, Buber, and the Dream of a Great and Lasting Peace 19 Pacifism in Applied Ethics: Normative Theory and the Pacific Virtues 35   4 Pacifism as Critical Theory 63   5 Pacifism, Utopia, and Human Rights 87   6 The Peaceful Self 107   7 Domestic Tranquillity 129   8 Pacific Culture and Cultural Violence 151   9 Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy 167 10 Thinking Beyond War 199 11 Eco-pacifism 225 12 Philosophy and Practices of Peace 245 Index

265

Acknowledgements Chapter 2 is a revised version of Andrew Fiala, ‘Transformative Pacifism in Theory and Practice: Gandhi, Buber, and the Dream of a Great and Lasting Peace’, in Dialogue and Universalism 4 (Winter 2016), 133–48: it is reprinted here with permission.

Preface This book explains the way things look from the pacifist’s critical vantage point. It defends pacifism as a powerful and important moral, social, and political theory. It shows how pacifist insight can be applied in a variety of cases. It is written in the hope that by taking pacifism seriously, we can continue the work of transforming the world in a more peaceful direction. This book is offered in solidarity with those who have confronted violence and war. This includes people who have been tormented by bullies, women who have been abused by their husbands, refugees who have fled war-torn lands, and people who have been oppressed by their own governments. The basic insight of pacifism dawns when you listen to the victims of violence: too many people suffer from violence in this world. This book is also written with respect and affection for people who have served in the military. My uncle fought in Korea, my fatherin-law served in the Navy, and I have been fortunate to meet a number of Second World War veterans. My students have fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pacifists do not hate warriors. We want to transform the war system and eliminate war because we love the warriors and because we do not want other people to suffer what our veterans have suffered. The task of eliminating violence and war may sound absurd. But we are actually already living in a world that has been transformed by the work of those who value peace, love, mercy, and non-violence – from Jesus and the Buddha to Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. There is more work to be done. But peace is natural, normal, and often near at hand. Most people are committed to nonviolence, most of the time. We generally understand that violence is pointless, subhuman, and irrational. Pacifists want to spread peace and make it more stable, while supporting nonviolent institutions, practices, and virtues. Peace is health, natural growth, and intrinsic well-being. It is the normal harmony of social relations. Peace is cooperation, rest, tranquillity, fullness, wholeness, rest, happiness, love, and joy. We take peace for granted as the native element in which we live. Like health, we only notice it when it is gone. And so we often focus more on the absence of peace than on its presence. We thus have extensive discussions of the justification of violence and the ethics of war.

viii Preface

We agonize and puzzle about crime and destruction. And we ignore the fact that peace is naturally prevalent. Peace is the flow of things in the universe. It is the easy-going order of social systems, customs, and norms. It is the structure of the cosmos, which operates smoothly and harmoniously. Yes, there are conflicts, wars, and disruptions. But they resolve themselves and we return to the background flow of peace. Peace is our fondest wish and desire. So we say when someone dies, ‘rest in peace’. In religious traditions it is common to offer a greeting of ‘Peace unto you’ or ‘Peace be upon you’. Those are basic greetings, found in the Christian Bible. Jews say something similar in Hebrew: shalom aleikhem. The term shalom is also the root of the name Jerusalem, which means city of peace or foundation of peace. In Arabic, Muslims say salaam alaikum. There is a shared root of shalom and salaam. In New Testament Greek, the word for shalom is eirene. Eirene is also the name of the goddess of peace, who is called in Latin Pax. In Latin Christianity, it is common to say pax vobis (‘peace to you’). The standard greeting in the three Abrahamic religions is focused on peace. These terms do not only mean the absence of war. Peace also connotes well-being, wholeness, and tranquillity.1 Thomas Aquinas explains that peace is the result of having our desires fulfilled.2 In this sense, peace is the highest good. Peace occurs when we resolve fear and disturbance. The ancient Greeks – the Epicureans especially – used the term ataraxia (translated as tranquillity) in this regard: ataraxia is literally un-disturbedness. It is what we aim for, as the end or goal of all of our labours. One example of this is the idea of peace of mind or inner peace. For many spiritual traditions – Buddhism, for example – the goal is to develop spiritual calmness, tranquillity, or serenity. Peace is wished for others. This wish is offered when greeting others. We hope that others will experience peace when we offer a benediction in our departing words. ‘Go in peace’ is a common parting comment. Like the Hawaiian aloha, shalom can be used to say both ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’. The Hawaiian term aloha can also mean peace and love. In the Hindu context, peace is another kind of invocation and benediction. It is invoked, for example, in the concept of shanti and the chant of om shanti, shanti, shanti. Peace (shanti) is repeated three times to indicate peace of body, mind, and speech. Peace is positive, full, and whole. But our language confuses us. The Greek ataraxia is a negative term meaning not-disturbed. In a-taraxia, the a- (what is See Albert B. Randall, Strangers on the Shore: The Beatitudes in World Religions (Bern: Peter Lang, 2006), Chapter 9. 2 Thomas Aquinas Summa Theologica, II:2, 19 (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3029.htm). 1

Preface

ix

called the ‘alpha privative’) negates -tarasso, which means disturbance. A similar etymological point holds for the Sanskrit word ahimsa, which is translated as non-violence: -himsa means violence, injury, or harm, a-himsa means nonviolence, non-injury, or non-harm. This negative point also holds in Chinese tradition, where wu wei, which means non-action, is connected to a kind of peaceful coexistence. Wu wei is a method or practice that helps attain harmony, balance, and inner peace. So, peace and tranquillity involve a negation of disturbance – a return to rest from unrest. We wouldn’t need a philosophy of peace, a theory of pacifism and non-violence, if peace prevailed all of the time. It is because of disruptions and lack of peace that we are forced to think about peace and non-violence. From within our oft-troubled world, peace can seem mysterious. Thus the hope for peace is often linked in Christianity to the mysterious peace of God. It is the ‘peace of God that passes all understanding’ (eirene tou theou) (Phil. 4:7). That peace is a kind of mystery is no surprise. In the midst of sickness it is hard to imagine health – and its return seems like a mysterious gift. But balance, harmony, serenity, and wholeness are really not that mysterious. In ancient Chinese, wu wei is connected to ping or heping (peace, harmony, or balance). Balance or harmony depend upon the wholeness and interconnection of the opposing forces of nature – the yin and yang interconnected in the clear, simple, stillness of the Tao. Lin Yu Tang, the great Chinese–American syncretic scholar, explains that in Confucianism world peace is a grand harmony (tashun) found not in the absence of conflict but in the healthy coordination of society.3 Lin explains peace in terms of music. In music there is ebb and flow, pattern and development, a rhythm and change – but throughout there is harmony. He imagines that good, peaceful government would be more like music than like science and math – it would require a sense of balance and harmony and taste. Peace requires courtesy, accommodation, humility, gratitude, and respect. All of this is natural, obvious, and easy. Sometimes violence disrupts or threatens peace. But by the time we need coercive law, governmental power, and military force to ‘keep the peace’, peace has already been disrupted. In those reactive cases there is always the risk that the application of force and coercion will lead to resentment, fear, hatred, and more violence. We often focus on law and government, the science of war and the justification of violence in thinking about building and keeping peace. But this focus keeps us preoccupied with the very things that disrupt peace. The Lin Yu Tang, Peace is in the Heart (Sydney: Peter Huston, 1948), 24.

3

x Preface

true pursuit of peace begins with a shift of focus and a transformation of spirit, a softening of the heart and a move away from toughness towards tenderness, a maturing and mellowing of the spirit. Indeed, the soft, mellow, and tender already exists as the normal and natural condition of much of our lives. When softness and tenderness are missing, there is dysfunction and unhappiness. Hardness cannot produce softness. Likewise, violence cannot end violence. As Martin Luther King Jr. explained: Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction.4

Pacifist philosophy begins from the assumption that peace is a basic good of life. Critics may claim that pacifists and advocates of non-violence appear to dwell in an idealistic world that hovers outside of the real world of history, politics, and violence. There is a fundamental dispute here about human nature and the order of the universe. Peace philosophy and pacifism begins from the assumption that peace is basic, normal, natural, and healthy. For the most part, we are peaceful. We wish peace for others. Violence is an exceptional disruption of the normal status quo. Of course there is violence in the world. Pacifists dream of a world where violence is rare. That dream may make pacifists appear to be ‘citizens of a country that does not yet exist’, as Vincent Harding and James Lawson have each suggested.5 But for the most part, we already live in peace. Or we live as if peace were the norm. Peace is what we hope for. It is what morality requires. War and violence are exceptional, abnormal, disruptive, and wrong. War is not normal. Defences of war and violence are less than optimal. They are reactionary rationalizations and secondary responses. Moral defences of violence and war only come after the fact, as a response to attacks and aggression. There is no primary justification for violence and war. There is no morally acceptable theory that holds that we ought to destroy things for the sake of destruction. Rather, destructive force can only be justified as a response and a reaction. This shows that justifications of violence are derivative and imperfect. Justifications of Martin Luther King, Jr. A Gift of Love: Sermons from Strength to Love and Other Preachings (Boston: Beacon Press, 2012), 49. Vincent Harding, ‘Is America Possible?’ http://onbeing.org/blog/is-america-possible/; James Lawson refers to Harding’s idea in ‘Non-Violence and the Non-Existent Country’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017).

4

5

Preface

xi

violence offer a defence of what is primarily indefensible. There is always a sense of tragedy and failure woven into the project of justifying violence. Justifications of violence offer concessions to moral failure, for example, in the application of the doctrine of double effect, which permits collateral damage. The moral reasoning that allows collateral damage makes sense in a damaged world. But the best world – the normal, natural, and healthy world – does not offer excuses for destruction. Moreover, justifications of violence open the door to ongoing cycles of violence, resentment, and retaliation as King explained. Violence propagates itself through a process of tit for tat, hate for hate, evil for evil. And even when retaliation appears to be justified (as in eye-for-eye, tooth-for-tooth rules of the lex talionis), something else is needed to transform the world beyond the dialectic of reprisals towards a world of peace. In the world of retaliation, as it has frequently been said (and misattributed to King and Gandhi), we end up toothless and blind. The pacifist points us towards a different world where evil and hate are prevented from growing, where violence is minimized, and where justice is accompanied by mercy and love. Imagining a peaceful world does not make it so. This world is a tragic one. No one is perfect. Horrors and crimes happen. And we are often confronted with difficult and morally troubling choices. But living and thinking from a vantage point that is grounded in peace is the first step towards conjuring that world into existence. Gandhi is often quoted as saying, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world.’ There is no evidence that Gandhi put it in those exact terms. But he did say, ‘If we could change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him.’6 The world responds to our actions and our words, our character, and our commitments. When we show mercy, the world becomes more merciful. When we offer forgiveness, the world becomes more forgiving. When we behave peacefully, the world becomes more peaceful. And when – we offer a greeting of peace – ‘peace be upon you’ – or a peaceful benediction – ‘go in peace’ we invoke words that change the world. This is not mysterious at all. It is as common as the reassuring words, ‘I love you.’ And yet we do have here a kind of conjuring act. Our words and deeds have the power to create the world as we want it to be. We transform the world – and ourselves – by thinking, speaking, and acting. If we M. K. Gandhi, The Collected Works of Gandhi (Electronic Book – New Delhi: Publications Division Government of India, 1999 http://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-literature/mahatmagandhi-collected-works-volume-13.pdf ) vol. 13, p. 241.

6

xii Preface

want peace, we ought to think more about peace, speak more peacefully, and act non-violently. We will be confronted by tragedy and violence. But tragedy is interesting because it is exceptional. The exceptions should not distract us from the fundamental things we value, which are peace, harmony, wholeness, community, tranquillity, serenity, justice, love, and related goods such as liberty, rationality, dialogue, and contemplation. Pacifism views the world from a vantage point in which those values are primary. This provides us with a critical standpoint with which to encounter the world. That critical vantage point is directed at finding ways to transform the world in a pacific direction.

1

Pacifism as a Positive Theory of Human Flourishing

Pacifism is a coherent and comprehensive moral and social theory. As a moral theory pacifism postulates peace as the highest good. It criticizes violence while advocating non-violent action. It outlines a way of life that is oriented around pacific virtues such as tolerance, mercy, forgiveness, kindness, generosity, love, and the pursuit of inner peace. As a critical social theory pacifism is similar to other critical theories, such as feminism, which open our eyes to structural, cultural, and institutional issues that are often ignored. While feminism helps us see male dominance, pacifism helps us see violence: in the cultural imagination and in structures and institutions that purvey and support violence. Pacifism offers an agenda of social transformation, encouraging us to imagine alternatives to violent structures and institutions: in domestic life including family and sexual relations, in our relation to the natural world, in business and economic life, in political life within nations, and in the realm of international relations. Pacifism is not mere utopian dreaming: it asks us to become actively engaged in transforming the world. It begins from understanding that peace is natural, normal, and good – and that violence represents a failure of rational humanity. These insights have inspired the work of pacifists who have in fact changed the world for the better. There is a deep tradition of pacifism. It is found in Jesus’s vision of love, in Buddha’s call for compassion, in the Taoist art of harmonious non-doing, and in the Greek pursuit of tranquillity and peaceful contemplation. It is found in proposals for peace and resistance to war in the work of Christian Anabaptists, in authors such as Erasmus and the Abbé de St. Pierre, and the American transcendentalists. The term pacifism is only about a hundred years

2

Transformative Pacifism

old. It was likely coined by Émile Arnaud at the turn of the twentieth century.1 A related term pacific-ism was employed by William James at around the same time.2 Meanwhile, Mohandas K. Gandhi was using the terminology of ahimsa (non-violence), a term found in South Asian traditions, to describe his commitment to non-violence, as a spiritual and ethical way of life that disclosed truth. Gandhi’s comprehensive vision linked non-violence to truth and a comprehensive ethic of compassion. He said, ‘A perfect vision of Truth can only follow a complete realization of Ahimsa. To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself.’3 Gandhi’s active non-violence inspired others such as Martin Luther King, Jr., whose Christian vision of love and non-violence was put into work in the American Civil Rights Movement. In addition to the terminology of pacifism, some scholars have used the term nonviolentism to describe this commitment.4 Others have noted that there are a variety of pacifisms that can be qualified in various ways: contingent pacifism, vocational pacifism, personal pacifism, sceptical pacifism, just war pacifism, a priori pacifism, a posteriori pacifism, conditional pacifism, political pacifism, and absolute pacifism.5 There are some technical differences to be noted in this terminology, which we will confront as we proceed. But in general, the big tent of pacifism includes those who are interested in peace as the highest good, while also advocating that peaceful means be employed in pursuit of that good. This theory and world view is much more than a negative critique of violence: it offers a comprehensive vision of human flourishing, an ethical theory, and theory of social and political life. Not everyone who is committed to non-violence and peace accepts the label pacifist. There are disagreements about the various meanings of pacifism. But there is widespread agreement that peace is a fundament good, that violence should be avoided, and that we should actively endeavour to build and maintain peace. The etymology of the term indicates that pacifism is primarily about Émile Arnaud, Le Pacifisme et ses Détracteurs (Paris: Aux Bureaux de la Grande Revue, 1906). See Heloise Brown, The Truest Form of Patriotism: Pacifist Feminism in Britain, 1870–1902 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003). Also see Andrew Fiala, ‘Pacifism in the Twentieth Century and Beyond’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017). 2 William James, ‘A Moral Equivalent of War’, in William James, ed., Memories and Studies (New York: Longmans, Green and Co, 1911). 3 Mohandas K. Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments With Truth (Boston: Beacon Press, 1993), 504. 4 See Robert Holmes, The Ethics of Nonviolence: Essays by Robert Holmes, Predrag Cicovacki, ed. (London: Bloomsbury, 2013); Kit Christenson, Nonviolence, Peace, and Justice: A Philosophical Introduction (Peterborough, ON: Broadview Press, 2010). 5 See Andrew Fiala, ‘Pacifism’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta, ed., https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/pacifism. 1

Pacifism as a Positive Theory of Human Flourishing

3

peace-making and building peace. In the Bible, Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the pacifists’ (beati pacifici) (Mt. 5.9). The Latin term pacifici combines paci- (from pax or peace) with -fici (maker). The pacifici are those who make peace – the peacemakers as this is often translated. In Greek the word is eirenopoios, which combined eirene (peace) with poiesis (making), which gives us the same idea. Pacifism as a moral and social theory is thus more than mere nay-saying with regard to violence. Peace-making philosophy – the philosophy of pacifism – is a positive theory that outlines a way of life, a moral theory, and an agenda for social and political transformation. Critics of war and violence are sometimes reluctant to call themselves pacifists.6 But as I show in this book, this aversion is misguided and unfortunate. Indeed, this aversion results from the fact that pacifism has been turned into a straw man. Pacifism ought to be understood as a broad and transformative moral and social theory. Critics of violence, and those who work for peace, ought to affirm pacifism as a legitimate and important theory. They should not allow themselves to be painted into a corner by critics who attempt to reduce pacifism to absurdity by defining it as mere nay-saying rejectionism. Pacifists do reject violence. But they need not be absolutist in this rejection. And indeed, pacifism is best understood as a positive theory that postulates peace as the goal of human life, while advocating non-violent means in pursuit of this telos. The straw man argument holds that pacifism is absurd, incoherent, and inconsistent because pacifists are willing to let people die in order to avoid violence – including their loved ones, their fellow citizens, and even themselves. If this is the case, then pacifism is indefensible. Some version of this argument has been made in a various ways by a number of authors, who often appeal to something like the so-called ‘trolley problem’.7 Trolley problem scenarios present Important recent exceptions are Duane Cady and Robert Holmes. Cady has described himself as a reluctant pacifist – who backed into pacifism, as he explains in Cady, From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum, 2nd edition (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2010). Robert Holmes also embraces the term in Pacifism: A Philosophy of Nonviolence (London: Bloomsbury, 2017). But other authors are less enamoured of the term. For example, Barry L. Gan does not examine the concept in his excellent book Violence and Nonviolence: An Introduction (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013). Michael Allen Fox discusses pacifism in more detail in Understanding Peace: A Comprehensive Introduction (New York: Routledge, 2013). Iain Atack provides an explanation that distinguishes between pacifism and non-violence. He writes, ‘Pacifism and principled nonviolence may share a long-term vision of a peaceful or nonviolent society, but they differ in terms of their immediate political analysis of the role of the state and its use of violence’, (Iain Atack, Nonviolence in Political Theory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2102), 161). As Atack points out, pacifism is an ethical theory, while non-violence is a strategy of political action (Atack, Nonviolence in Political Theory, 3). 7 I discuss this in much more detail in Andrew Fiala, ‘Pacifism and The Trolley Problem’, The Acorn: The Journal of the Gandhi-King Society XV: 1 (Winter-Spring, 2014), 33–41. 6

4

Transformative Pacifism

a choice in which we asked to kill one person in order to save a number of others. For anyone who thinks consequences matter in thinking about ethics, such an argument seems decisive: in some circumstances, killing can be justified. But as they say, tough cases make bad law. Exceptional problems do little to inform the commitments of broad moral and social theory. Such exceptions may defeat a kind of absolutism in ethics. But pacifism is not best conceived as an absolutist moral doctrine. Pacifism would be uninteresting if it merely asserted that ‘violence and killing are always absolutely wrong’. A more interesting and philosophically robust form of pacifism is concerned with a broad critique of violence that includes questioning the social conditions that leave us with the sorts of forced choices found in trolley problem scenarios. Pacifists question warism, militarism, and the military-industrial complex. Pacifists criticize social relationships, structural violence, and cultural images of violence. Pacifists encourage us to imagine and deploy creative and active non-violence. And in general, pacifists ask us to reconsider much of what we take for granted with regard to violence. The most important commitment of philosophical pacifism is the idea that might does not make right. Violence may be permissible in some rare circumstances, but even justified violence does not thereby make everything all right. Violence teaches nothing. Violence does not create justice. Nor does it create peace. Violence may prevent violence; but the prevention of violence is a minor point in comparison with the task of building peace. Reactionary violence may avert a near-term disaster, but it does nothing to improve the world in the long term. What is justifiable in the world of force can have little effect in the world of culture, ideas, morality, and social structure. Killing or defeating an enemy can prevent a concrete emergency, but it does not change the underlying social and political dynamic that leads to such emergencies. Defeated enemies are not thereby converted in the moral realm. And unless victory is total, resentments linger for the defeated parties. Violence stimulates violent reprisals and so on. To say that in some concrete emergencies some form of violence can be justified does not defeat pacifism, as I describe it here. Pacifism is not about the exception, it is about the general effort to promote peace through nonviolent means. Often when students discuss the trolley problem in class, they want to avoid the forced choice of the scenario. They ask why there are no emergency brakes on the runaway trolley. They wonder why we cannot call out to the potential victims and warn them to flee. They may also wonder what those people are doing caught on the tracks in the first place. The straw man argument against

Pacifism as a Positive Theory of Human Flourishing

5

pacifism simply stipulates that those alternatives are off the table. But pacifism, as I conceive it, builds upon the paradigm-bending intuitions of those who are interested in avoiding violence by imagining alternative social, political, and moral arrangements. Pacifists want to create safeguards against violence. They want to find ways to avoid violence. They want to rescue victims. They even want to find ways to reconcile with offenders. And they are interested in a comprehensive critique of the whole of moral, social, and political life. The problem to be fixed is that our world seems to take violence and war for granted as a moral given. The opponent of pacifism throws down the trump card of the trolley problem and concludes that pacifism is absurd. This smug anti-pacifist conclusion often serves to support a status quo in which violence is valorized and non-violence is mocked. Meanwhile the pacifist continues working to imagine ways to transform the world in a more peaceful direction. The comprehensive and critical vision of what I call transformative pacifism is what I find most inspiring in the work of a variety of people who ought to properly be called pacifists. There is a deep and inspiring tradition of pacifism broadly construed. It includes a number of important and influential thinkers and activists, even folks who are reluctant to call themselves pacifist. Consider the powerful influence that pacifists, anti-war activists, and advocates of nonviolence have had in our culture, including such notables as Leo Tolstoy, William James, Jane Addams, Bertrand Russell, Albert Einstein, Martin Buber, Mohandas Gandhi, Albert Schweitzer, Dorothy Day, Martin Luther King, Jr., Cesar Chavez, the Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu, and recent popes John Paul II and Francis.8 These authors will not all accept the moniker of pacifism. But their commitments and activism are generally directed towards a critique of violence and the effort to build a peaceful world. The terminology of pacifism is only about a hundred years old, even though the general critique of war and advocacy for non-violence and peace has been with us for thousands of years and exists in many of the world’s traditions. Despite this lineage, David Cortright, a scholar of peace, has argued that the terminology of pacifism should be set aside. He writes, I am not suggesting that the term should be resurrected. The meaning of pacifism has been distorted beyond the point where it can be restored to the original intent. It is best to set the term aside and to describe the practice and theory of Some of these figures explicitly use the term pacifism, others do not. But they are united in their general critique of war and in their focus on and understanding of the importance of non-violence. For discussion of some of these figures and the terminology of pacifism, see Fiala, ‘Pacifism in the 20th Century and Beyond’.

8

6

Transformative Pacifism peace in the context of more contemporary terms, such as peacebuilding and peacemaking.9

Cortright continues, ‘To be called a pacifist is almost an insult, to be labeled cowardly or selfish, unwilling to fight for what is right.’10 The critic’s insulting mischaracterization of pacifism is misguided. Pacifists are engaged in active non-violent struggle, and pacifism is not cowardly or selfish. We should not give in to this pejorative misconstrual of pacifism and we should retain the term. Peace makers, peace builders, and critics of violence should proudly identify with those who belong within the broad movement of what is properly called pacifism. Indeed, despite his caveats about the terminology, Cortright defends a version of what he calls ‘pragmatic pacifism’ or ‘realistic pacifism’. He accepts that there are some rare cases in which violence can be justified. But despite himself, he finds that he needs to use the word pacifism, even when qualified by these adjectives. The word is useful. And it resonates with historical and cultural significance. The world has evolved in a more pacific direction, as a result of the ideas and activism of pacifists. We no longer take war and violence for granted as a natural, normal, or heroically manly thing. Some people have still not learnt that lesson. But we no longer assume that violence is normal, natural, or easily defensible. In a very real sense, we can say that the pacifists have won the basic argument, despite the fact that they are often mocked. There are still specific details to be worked out and not everyone agrees. But for the most part, the mainstream of moral thinking rejects murder, rape, terrorism, war, and violence. This wasn’t always true. But the mainstream was converted away from violence by the critical work of pacifist authors and activists such as we mentioned above. To understand the extent of the pacific revolution, we need only go back half a century ago to the Second World War, when Americans firebombed cities and dropped atomic bombs – and celebrated this as a good war. Such moral callousness and triumphal patriotism will simply not work today. If we go back further, we find slavery, colonialism, and genocide based upon overt and unapologetic racism and ethnocentrism. Although racism and ethnocentrism still exist, they are no longer part of the mainstream of moral, political, and legal discourse. Nor is it possible to get away with domestic violence, bullying, rape, or child abuse – as it was in the good old days. Progress in all of these areas David Cortright, Peace: A History of Movements and Ideas (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 334. 10 Cortright, Peace, 1. 9

Pacifism as a Positive Theory of Human Flourishing

7

was made because people affirmed peace and criticized violence. It is simply not possible to defend the indefensible in public any longer. Other moral theories have been instrumental in the general progress we have made: utilitarianism, Kantianism, natural law, and human rights theory. But alongside of these progressive moral theories, we ought to include pacifism – a point I shall argue in detail in Chapter 3. For example, moral argument in favour of the abolition of slavery in the United States was often articulated by Christian pacifists. Arguments in favour of gender equality and against domestic violence were often made by women who were also opposed to war, especially during the First World War when feminist pacifists met in international conferences and actively worked to promote the end of war and the dawn of women’s rights. And the general movement towards international law and international institutions was built upon the insights of those who advocated world peace. A more complicated story would flesh out details and controversies, including the development of the Nobel Peace Prize (inspired by Bertha von Suttner’s pacifist novel Die Waffen Nieder), the birth of the Olympics and the international idea of Olympism as a path towards peace (as developed by Pierre de Coubertin), and the development of international peace conferences, which eventually helped to foster the League of Nations and the United Nations.11 Astute readers will note that I have left the just war tradition out in the account in the preceding paragraph. It is true that just war theory has served a progressive purpose of limiting war during prior centuries. But just war theory is not a comprehensive moral theory. It is a narrowly focused application of morality to the problem of war. The just war theory, for example, does not postulate a telos for moral action. Pacifism is different: it stipulates peace as the good that we ought to pursue. As I argue in Chapter  3, pacifism ought to be considered as a full-fledged moral theory and that it ought not be placed on a par with the just war theory. At any rate, we have arrived at a moment when violence, war, domination, and oppression are no longer taken for granted. Although there are a few unfortunate exceptions, very few people openly speak of conquering and dominating through violence today.12 This is quite different from the language See Dietrich R. Quanz, ‘Civic Pacifism and Sports-Based Internationalism: Framework for the Founding of the International Olympic Committee’, OLYMPIKA: The International Journal of Olympic Studies 2 (1993), 1–23. Also see Michael Allen Fox, ‘Nonviolence and Pacifism in the Long 19th Century’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017). 12 Supremacists and ‘warists’ of various sorts have to guard their language and speak carefully in public. At the time that this book was being written in the summer of 2017, a firestorm of controversy 11

8

Transformative Pacifism

and public discourse of previous centuries. Contemporary police and military forces are directed to restrict violence – and they are intensely scrutinized by the moral conscience of the general public and by a legal system that seeks to minimize violence. Yes, there are still unpunished police killings and collateral damage in war. But instead of celebrating such violence, we prosecute it, criticize it, and publicly reject it. The resurgence of the just war tradition is part of the general move in the direction of minimizing violence. This general move in the pacifist direction includes, for example, efforts to provide moral justifications for the death penalty and other forms of government-sanctioned violence. It also includes a rapidly developing set of international standards, laws, and institutions, including especially regulations governing war crimes. As the moral and legal conversation about violence develops, the presumption against violence becomes clearer. War, the death penalty, and other usages of violence are viewed as exceptions and last resorts. They are not to be preferred or celebrated. And their usage is slowly fading away.13 There are exceptions, and significant work needs to be done. But the general movement of history is towards a reduction in violence. We should also mention the growing awareness of the need for humane treatment of animals, the disabled, and others who are dependent and in need of care. The fact that more people are becoming vegetarian or vegan is an important data point.14 Our awareness of the need for humane treatment of animals is connected to a growing sympathy for those who suffer and a corresponding desire to eliminate violence. Even among scholars discussing just war tradition, it is acknowledged that war is very difficult to justify.15 erupted as President Donald Trump flirted with white supremacists. This was disheartening. But two facts are important in this case. First, even Trump paid lip service to notions of peace and equality, condemning violence. Trump condemned violence on ‘many sides’ in the racially charged violence that erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia. Importantly, he did not justify violence on any side. More importantly, a broad swathe of people wanted Trump to offer a more strenuous and unequivocal condemnation of violence, racism, and white nationalism. 13 The death penalty is being abolished across the world and across the United States. Amnesty International reports that two-thirds of the countries of the world have abolished the death penalty, along with nineteen states in the United States – in the United States the number of executions in 2016 was at a twenty-five-year low, with only twenty people being executed (https://www. amnestyusa.org/issues/death-penalty/; accessed August 2017). 14 The Guardian reports that in the past ten years (2006–16) in the UK the number of vegans has increased by 350 per cent (The Guardian, 27 May 2016 https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/ 2016/may/27/the-rise-of-vegan-teenagers-more-people-are-into-it-because-of-instagram; accessed August 2017). 15 Authors such as Jeff MacMahan, Larry May, and James Sterba have pointed the conversation towards the possibility of a form of pacifism that is based upon the just war theory – what we might call ‘just war pacifism’ or ‘contingent pacifism’. See Larry May, Contingent Pacifism (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2015); Jeff McMahan, Killing in War (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008); Jeff McMahan, ‘Pacifism and Moral Theory’, Diametros 23 (March 2010), 44–68; James Sterba, ‘The Most Morally Defensible Pacifism’, in Barbara Bleisch and Jean-Daniel Strub, eds, Pazifismus: Ideengeschichte, Theorie und Praxis (Bern: Haupt Verlag, 2006); Robert Holmes, ‘Pacifism for Non-

Pacifism as a Positive Theory of Human Flourishing

9

In general, the world is evolving according to pacifist norms. The progress we are making towards peace and in the reduction of violence is a direct result of the work of committed pacifists and dedicated adherents of non-violence. The unspoken truth of the past century is that pacifism is a powerful and influential moral theory. It is odd, then, that the power and influence of pacifism is routinely ignored. Steven Pinker wrote a bestselling book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, in which he argued that violence was generally decreasing in the world. The data he presents there are important and compelling. But Pinker tends to ignore pacifism as a force that is driving this social change. He focuses on institutional changes and emotional and psychological causes to explain this development. But the moral theory of pacifism itself is an important causal role. Moral arguments made by pacifists and adherents of non-violence have been efficacious. The moral argument against war and violence is as simple as the claim that ‘might does not make right’. The negative consequences of violence and war are obvious. The continued power of militarism in our culture is dangerous and pernicious. And creative and active non-violence has worked to promoting positive social change. In this book we will discuss pacifism as a moral theory, as a critical social theory, and as a theory of the good life and human flourishing. We will see that pacifism has deep roots in the world’s spiritual and philosophical traditions. And we will consider ways in which pacifists have imagined (and acted upon) a project that seeks to transform the world in a more peaceful direction.

The Just War Myth revisited In contemporary philosophy, there is an ongoing debate between pacifists and just war theorists.16 Just war theorists argue that war is needed as a response Pacifists’, Journal of Social Philosophy 30 (1999); James Sterba, Justice for Here and Now (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), Chapter 7; Paul Morrow, ‘Contingent Pacifism’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017); I discuss this in Andrew Fiala, ‘Contingent Pacifism and Contingently Pacifist Conclusions’, Journal of Social Philosophy 45:4 (Winter 2014), 463–77. 16 See, for example, Jenny Teichman, Pacifism and the Just War (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986); Robert Holmes, On War and Morality (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989); Barry Gan, Violence and Nonviolence: An Introduction (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013); Fox, Understanding Peace; Jan Narveson, ‘Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis’, Ethics 75:4 (1965): 259271; Jan Narveson, ‘Pacifism – Fifty Years Later’, Philosophia 41 (2013): 925–43; Cheyney C. Ryan, ‘SelfDefense, Pacifism and Rights’, Ethics 93:3 (April 1983): 508–24; Brian Orend, Evaluating War, 2nd Edition (Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2013); J. Daryl Charles, Between Pacifism and Jihad: Just War and Christian Tradition (Downer’s Grove, IL: Intervarsity Press, 2009); and Michael Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars (New York: Basic Books, 1977).

10

Transformative Pacifism

to aggression or as a response to human rights abuses and that war can be justified so long as it is appropriately targeted, fought for the right intentions, proportional, and so on. I have contributed to this discussion by outlining a sceptical interpretation of the just war theory, holding that most wars fail to live up to the standards of the just war tradition and that it is difficult to know whether just war principles obtain in actual and proposed wars. I have thus defended positions that could variously be called contingent pacifism, just war pacifism, practical pacifism, or sceptical pacifism.17 I stand by those arguments, which attempt to avoid absolutism by admitting the point that violence could be justified in rare exceptional cases. But in the present work I am interested in a much broader consideration of pacifism as a critical social and moral theory. This builds upon my earlier critique of what I called the just war myth. Our culture – our myths, symbols, images, etc. – makes it seem that just wars are easily fought, that the wars we fought have always been just, and the good guys always win in just wars. Violence and war often slip free of the realm of rational justification and become mythic constructs, associated with the other myths of political and cultural life. We find ourselves within a culture that celebrates violence and war, that normalizes this, and in which war and violence are rationalized and justified in uncritical fashion. Justifications of war and violence in a culture like ours are often post hoc rationalizations that provide theoretical support for militaristic behaviours, institutions, and ideas that we already support, based upon status quo emotions, intuitions, and ongoing practices. Jonathan Haidt has argued in his work on moral psychology that this is the way moral theorizing works.18 If Haidt is right about this, this explains why pacifism has generally been discounted and rejected. In a violent culture in which the just war myth informs much of our daily lives, we can’t help but think that pacifism is absurd. Consider for a moment how ubiquitous the images of violence are in our culture: in movies, television shows, pop music and so on. Also consider how the mythic structures of our political life celebrate violence and military power: in history curricula, in holidays and celebrations, in political discourse and imagery. Questioning violence in such a culture appears as a prima facie absurdity, despite the fact that we are mostly all committed to non-violence in our ordinary daily activities. The mainstream of our culture takes it for granted that pacifism is absurd, marginalizing the critique of violence, and giving unreflective support to Andrew Fiala, Practical Pacifism (New York: Algora, 2004); Andrew Fiala, The Just War Myth (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008). 18 Jonathan Haidt, ‘The Emotional Dog and Its Rational Tail’, Psychological Review 108:4 (2001), 814–34. 17

Pacifism as a Positive Theory of Human Flourishing

11

militarism. This process of moral rationalization is typical of justifications of violence such as are found in the literature of the just war tradition.19 Pacifists tend to see these justifications of the necessity of war as post hoc rationalizations  – at best they are emergency responses to a world that needs substantial transformation. The question of what is necessary and morally appropriate depends upon our conception of the world and our moral theory. In a world of military force, violence seems normal. But that world is in need of serious critique. This world takes violence for granted, as necessary, normal, and even heroic. It prepares for war and avoids confronting the critical work of disarmament. It neglects the complicated task of ameliorating the causal factors of violence, which includes ongoing structural and institutional violence in both domestic and international affairs. A different world is possible, along with a different conception of morality and of social and political life. The importance of pacifism as a larger critical theory of social and political life is that pacifism does not acquiesce to war and violence; rather the goal is to transform the moral, social, and political world so that war is abolished and violence is minimized. One part of this project is to develop a critical vantage point that allows us to see war and violence from outside of our mythologizing culture. If the just war myth blinds us, in a sense, then critical and transformative pacifism opens our eyes. Pacifism shows us that wars are not always inevitable or necessary; nonviolence can be effective, and so on. Furthermore, when we adopt the pacifist point of view we begin to see how what we might call peace blindness is caused by the ubiquity of the just war myth and related ideas that valorize violence (including images of masculinity, assumptions about family and social life, cultural images, and the way that pacifism itself is often painted into an absurd corner). Peace blindness is cured when we learn more about what Galtung and others in the field of peace studies call structural violence and cultural violence. We will look at this in detail in subsequent chapters. Once we understand that violence is often taken for granted in a cultural and social system that is structured by violence and its myths, it is possible to admit what we have known all along, which is that ‘might does not make right’. Michael Walzer once explained that the just war theory made war morally possible in a world in which war was necessary. He explains how the just war tradition developed out of earlier Christian pacifism. He writes,  Seen from the perspective of primitive Christianity, this account of just war was simply an excuse, a way of making war morally and religiously possible. And that was indeed the function of the theory. But its defenders would have said, and I am inclined to agree, that it made war possible in a world where war was, sometimes, necessary. (Michael Walzer, Arguing About War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 3) 19

12

Transformative Pacifism

Once we see the moral and logical absurdity of violence, it becomes possible to imagine peaceful solutions for a variety of social and political problems.

Peace as the end and as the means This book argues that pacifism and non-violence ought to be seen as legitimate and central components of moral and political theory – and indeed, that they provide a coherent theory and way of life. Pacifism postulates peace as the highest end towards which we ought to be directed. Peace is not merely the absence of war. It is a positive state of human flourishing. In this section, let’s consider how deeply this idea is woven into our philosophical and religious traditions. Our peace blindness, however, often prevents us from seeing this. Aristotle clearly explains that peace is among the highest ends of human life in his Nicomachean Ethics. He states that peace is the goal or end towards which we work. War, business, and political life are mere means towards the highest end of human activity, which is peaceful contemplation.20 The importance of peace as a focal point and guiding principle has been overlooked in much contemporary moral and political theory. It is usually noted that Aristotle, Hobbes, and others understand violence and war as central concerns of moral and political theory. But we often fail to note that peace is the end towards which moral and political activity are supposed to be directed. For Aristotle virtue, education, and law allow us to overcome violence and savagery, thus perfecting our humanity and allowing for the highest good in human life, which is peaceful contemplation. Indeed, he suggests that in peaceful contemplation we are most like the gods – complete, self-sufficient, and happy. In Hobbes’s theory, the political state results from a ‘peace treaty’ (the social contract) which is based upon the first law of nature, which is, as Hobbes explains, ‘to seek peace, and to follow it’.21 This pacifist command is thus a primary focus in the Hobbesian system, which is so central to the modern conception of political philosophy. What is remarkable is that usual accounts of Western political and moral philosophy overlook the basic commitment to peace found here. Aristotle explains the activity of contemplation as follows:  And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action. And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 10, section 6, 1177b (http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.10.x.html)) 20

Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), 100.

21

Pacifism as a Positive Theory of Human Flourishing

13

We might also consider authors and ideas from the Christian tradition. Jesus is seen as the ‘prince of peace’ (see Isa. 9.6). Jesus establishes a new kingdom based upon a set of pacific virtues: love, forgiveness, mercy, and peace. As we saw above, Jesus teaches that the pacifists or peacemakers are blessed (Mt. 5.9). Jesus explains that the pacifists should be called ‘the children of God’ – implying that there is something divine about peace and those who create it. Augustine further explains that peace is found when things are properly ordered: peace is the ideal order or structure of all things.22 In Augustine, peace becomes an ontological source of moral and political regulation: the order, harmony, and structure of the whole is of value because it provides peace. In this important sense, Christian metaphysics is opposed to those who hold that war, chaos, and entropy rule the world. This chaotic and violent vision is found in Heraclitus, who argued that ‘war is the father of all’. The Heraclitean universe is structured by violence – it is a dog-eat-dog world of power, domination, and brutality. The Christian universe is structured by peace, by a God who loves the world and his creation and who wants it to be at peace. The rationalistic philosophical tradition aims in a somewhat different direction than the Christian metaphysic based upon a loving God. When Aristotle speaks of the peace of contemplation, he is pointing towards reason, suggesting that it is reason that is the divine aspect of humanity – and of the world. The claim that violence is irrational draws upon that intuitive idea that the world and our behaviour ought to be based upon rationality. This means that violence is not a proper means for obtaining truth or cultivating virtue. The proper means of education and development ought to be non-violent. Indeed, for Aristotle, the activity of peaceful contemplation is both a means and an end: we do it peacefully and in doing it we find peace. Violence brutalizes us, reducing us to animalist physicality. The problem is this: violence occurs outside of the space of argument. When reasonable conversation breaks down, we are left with violence. To say that violence is Augustine writes:  The peace of the body then consists in the duly proportioned arrangement of its parts. The peace of the irrational soul is the harmonious repose of the appetites, and that of the rational soul the harmony of knowledge and action. The peace of body and soul is the well-ordered and harmonious life and health of the living creature. Peace between man and God is the well-ordered obedience of faith to eternal law. Peace between man and man is well-ordered concord. Domestic peace is the well-ordered concord between those of the family who rule and those who obey. Civil peace is a similar concord among the citizens. The peace of the celestial city is the perfectly ordered and harmonious enjoyment of God, and of one another in God. The peace of all things is the tranquility of order. (Augustine, City of God, Book 19, Chapter 13 – no page numbers (http:// www.newadvent.org/fathers/120119.htm)) 22

14

Transformative Pacifism

irrational and peace is the end is to posit a world in which logic and reason are intimately tied to peace and harmony. That is the ideal of many philosophers in the Western tradition, even though many of these philosophers also accommodate justified violence. But the justification of violence is an exception for dealing with the irrational and violent – who assault the presumed baseline ideal of non-violent reason. The logic of violence – if we want to even call it logic – is the logic of power and domination: kill or be killed. In such a state of conflict, we are thrown back into animal relations. One option is to submit to the predation of the other, and allow oneself to be enslaved by the other or killed. This is the master–slave dialectic made famous by Hegel. This can be described as having a certain logic. But this logic remains subhuman: the master threatens violence; the slave submits; and the master then treats his slave as an object or an animal to be manipulated and coerced. As Hegel points out, this is simply insufficient as a social philosophy. True human relations are peaceful and rational. True human relations push beyond violence. They involve reciprocal respect for liberty and recognition of the inherent dignity of persons. The defenders of violence will argue that if human life is valuable (since we are only here talking about justifications and evaluations that apply in the human realm), then it is reasonable to kill in defence of human life. This justification can apply in terms of personal self-defence. And it can apply in justifications of defence of others – especially the innocent who cannot defend themselves against an invading enemy. The problem of this justification is that it in resorting to violence to defend human life we seem to affirm less-than-human means to be used in working towards a higher end. Thus violence and its justification leave us with an unfortunate compromise. Violence is something we ought to properly be ashamed of and which we should view with a sense of tragedy. Justifications of violence remain sub-optimal: they require us to take up the apparently irrational mechanisms of force and necessity found in the realm of brute things, requiring us to respond to human beings as things and no longer as persons. The metaphors employed here give us a clue. The violent world is dog-eat-dog, a rat-race that operates according the law of the jungle. In a dog-eat-dog world, the goal is not to be eaten – and to transform yourself into wolf, lion, warrior, or superpower. Violence no longer appeals to the rational element in a human being. When we take up violence, we no longer offer reasons, arguments, and justifications. Instead, we operate the levers of physicality and emotionality: our tools are brute power, coercion, manipulation, fear, and pain. Thus justifications of violence are

Pacifism as a Positive Theory of Human Flourishing

15

tragic: they are rationalizations based upon the reality of force in the realm of necessity. Even attempts to justify violence and war appear to recognize that violence is never the best or optimal thing: violence is a reluctant last resort, affirmed because of necessity and not by choice. The just war tradition radically curtails justified violence. It tells us that justified war must only be a last resort. Before turning to war, we ought to try non-violent means. We ought to do our best to remain within the sphere of reason and persuasion. We turn to violence and war only when reason fails. Thus the just war tradition shows us that war always begins in a failure of humanity and the goods of civilization. War is nothing to be proud of; it is a tragic necessity. When violence ends in victory, we also ought to exercise moral caution. Martial triumph is ethically hollow since we know that ‘two wrongs do not make a right’. To return evil for evil may be a necessity in the real world; but it is an amoral necessity. Victory proves nothing in the realm of ideas, justice, or morality. We know that lions kill lambs. This proves that lions are physically stronger than lambs; but it does not demonstrate that lions have justice on their side. Pacifist teaching asks us to imagine that the lion or the wolf lies down with the lamb. This imagery from the Bible is, of course, a metaphor. In the world of nature, predators eat prey. That is the logic of the brutes. But the higher ideal of human justice teaches that human beings are not merely brutes who operate according to the necessities of the predator–prey relation. Rather, this higher ideal teaches us that human beings have inherent value and that they flourish in peaceful relation. To destroy a human being is to destroy a thing of great or infinite value. To treat a human being as a means – to view human bodies as things to be levered and manipulated in the realm of necessity – is wrong. Pacifism rejects violence because the logic of violence is dehumanizing. But the rejection of violence is narrowly focused. Transformative pacifism will also affirm the arts of peace and the goods that flow from peace: love, community, reason, and spiritual development. Some human beings do behave beastly – they attack and assault us, thus requiring a reactive appeal to violence that is justified in self-defence. In the real world, the ideal theory of respectful human interactions occasionally runs aground. There are threats that undermine peace and cause us to fail to actualize the goods of peace. There are impassioned attackers, cold-blooded psychopaths, totalitarian regimes, and genocidal ideologies. Many hairs have been split and much ink has been spilt defending violence in response to atrocity. But one cannot base an entire philosophy, normative theory, or way of life on exceptional cases in which physical force is employed as last resort. Justifications of violence

16

Transformative Pacifism

are exceptional. Pacifism as a transformative normative theory and social critique is much broader and more important than such a narrow and exceptional justification of violence. The just war tradition is about war while pacifism is about life in general. But war is rare, while the pursuit of peace is pervasive and inclusive. Narrow debates about the justification of violence should give way to the larger question of how we cultivate peace. Justifications of violence indicate a failure. They are sub-optimal arguments in the realm of non-ideal theory. But the point of ideal theory is to look beyond moral and cultural failures towards the best version of things. The point of ideal theory is to imagine the best world, criticize those things that do not live up to the ideal, and imagine ways of transforming the world in order to bring it into conformity with the ideal. If we begin from the ideal vantage point provided by pacifism, a general moral, social, and political outlook emerges. The ideal begins from a first principle, which I call the ideal principle of pacifism: 1. The Ideal Principle of Pacifism: Peace is the highest good. Human beings ought to seek peace, to live in peace, and to develop non-violent means of conflict resolution that respect the liberty, rationality, and autonomy of persons. From this ideal a corollary follows, which is the general critique of violence: 2. The Critique of Violence: Violence is limited as a means for promoting peace because it is irrational and negative and thus unable by itself to build a positive and lasting peace. From this follows another principle: 3. The Call for Non-violence: The preferred means of activity are non-violent. We ought to strive for a coherent system of means and ends. If peace is our end, then the means employed should be non-violent. These principles should be understood in serial order. The first principle is the most important one. But, the critics of pacifism often ignore the ideal peace principle, while attacking the second principle, holding that the critique of violence is misguided, incoherent, or wrong. In reality, the first principle is much more important. It is a positive principle that tells us to build peace. Moreover, the second principle need not be construed as an absolute rejection of all violence – even though it does tell us that violence is generally sub-optimal and inadequate. Rather, this is a critical principle that tells us that violence is limited and negative. And the third principle, which establishes how we ought to act is

Pacifism as a Positive Theory of Human Flourishing

17

a reminder of the need to find ways to unify means and ends. As we shall see in Chapter 3, this call for coherence in means and ends is one of the reasons that pacifism should be taken seriously as a moral theory. Implicit in these statements are several definitions and values: peace, nonviolence, rationality, liberty, and human personhood. These concepts are notoriously slippery and difficult to define. Often they are defined dialectically in relation to their opposites. We will fill in details throughout this text. But let’s begin with some preliminary definitions. Peace is a positive condition in which there is harmony, order, integrity, and wholeness. Peace is not merely the absence of violence. It also includes respect, love, justice, solidarity, and other affirmative or positive values associated with the ideal of a freely embraced, genuine or beloved community. Peace is one of the primary aspirations of human life. It is central to human flourishing. Non-violence is a concept used to describe actions. Non-violence is not passive – it is a way of acting. Non-violence is not an end in itself. Indeed, non-violence can be used in pursuit of unjust and evil ends. But when linked to the pursuit of peace, non-violent action seeks to avoid coercion, to limit the infliction of harm, and to avoid the use of power in order to dominate, degrade, or dehumanize. It seeks to build rather than destroy. Rationality is among the highest goods to be developed in human life. It helps us disclose truth, while providing non-violent means of persuasion. Human relations should be guided by reasons and argument, self-critical analysis, and reasonable dialogue. Violence disrupts rational discourse. Emotions are also important but our emotions need rational discipline such as is found in the rational critiques of moral theory and social and political philosophy. Community is essential to human flourishing. Human beings do not live in isolation from one another. Rather, we frequently enter into relations with others that are grounded on respectful interaction and mutual affection. Within and between communities there will be conflict. But the goal should be to minimize violence and find ways for communities to experience domestic tranquillity and social and political peace. Liberty is essential for human development and must be respected in a peaceful and rational community. Liberty involves the capacity for self-directed activity based upon rational analysis and autonomous commitment. Liberty also requires a supportive social and political world, which provides for the means of social action, happiness, and self-development. Liberty cannot be fully developed without peaceful social and political conditions. Human persons have intrinsic worth or inherent dignity, at least in part because of our capacity for reason, liberty, and love. Human personhood is respected

18

Transformative Pacifism

when human persons are treated as rational beings and when human persons are permitted the freedom to pursue their own lives in their own way in community with others they love (provided that their liberty is compatible with the similar liberty of others). Non-violent means of persuasion respect persons by avoiding coercion and focusing on rationality and liberty. Peace is essential for human persons, since peace allows human persons to develop their own humanity within the larger framework of the human community.

The rest of this book will flesh out and apply these concepts and principles. Pacifist theory and practice – pacifism as a moral, social, political theory and as a way of life – is thus more than a nay-saying denial of violence; it is an affirmative theory committed to the idea that peace is the telos of human life, as well as to the idea that non-violent means ought to be employed in building peaceful, free, and rational communities.

Conclusion We do not live in a completely peaceful world. Occasionally, violence and war afflict us. But the basic goods of ordinary life are goods of peace. Pacifism as a transformative social and moral theory seeks to develop peace. We can be distracted by the need to consider tough cases such as trolley problem dilemmas. But those dilemmas are few and far between in actual life. And when confronted by such a challenge, we ought not rest comfortably with a tragic accommodation to the violence that the world sometimes imposes on us. Rather, we should seek to transform the world such that those tragic cases are fewer and farther between. This is what transformative pacifism is and what it does. It is more than a merely negative rejection of violence. Rather, it asks us to imagine how we might change the world in order to actualize the ideal conception of a good life, which is a life spent in liberty in community with others, a life in which human persons are valued and not dehumanized, and a life in which we are free to develop reason in order to actualize the highest good for a human being, which is peaceful contemplation in a nurturing and supportive human community.

2

Gandhi, Buber, and the Dream of a Great and Lasting Peace1

Pacifists imagine a great peace, to borrow a phrase from Martin Buber, who explained, ‘the great peace is something essentially different from the absence of war’.2 This great peace will uphold justice and respect for humanity. It will not efface difference or negate liberty and identity. The great peace will be a space in which genuine dialogue can flourish – in which we can encounter one another as persons, listen to one another, embrace our common humanity, and acknowledge our differences. The great peace is much more than the absence of war. It is dialectical, holistic, organic, dialogical, and thick with human relation. That dream runs aground on the reality of petty conflicts, dehumanizing institutions, selfishness, egoism, arrogance, murder, war, and psychopathology. While ordinary selfishness poses a mundane obstacle to the great peace, genocide appears to create a reductio ad absurdum argument against the dream of the great peace and against pacifism itself. Critics will argue that in extremis a pacifist would be either mad or immoral to remain committed to non-violence. This idea has been explored by a number of critics who argue that pacifism is primarily for dreamers and idealists, who are not willing to do what is necessary to confront evil and atrocity in the real world. Nonetheless, a moderate commitment to pacifism and non-violence remains plausible despite the atrocity objection. Some may argue that the term pacifism is not applicable to a position that admits that there are exceptional cases in which violence can be justified. But as I have argued elsewhere, there are This chapter is a revised version of a paper that won a Jacobsen Research Award at the meeting of the International Society for Universal Dialogue in Warsaw, Poland in July of 2016. It was published as ‘Transformative Pacifism in Theory and Practice: Gandhi, Buber, and the Dream of a Great and Lasting Peace’, in Dialogue and Universalism 4 (Winter 2016), 133–48 – and is reprinted here with permission. 2 Martin Buber, ‘Genuine Dialogue and the Possibilities of Peace’, (1953) in Martin Buber, ed., Pointing the Way (New York: Harper Brothers, 1957), 235. 1

20

Transformative Pacifism

varieties of pacifism. The type of pacifism described here is transformational or transformative pacifism. Transformational pacifism is not absolutist in its rejection of violence, even though it offers a comprehensive critique of violence that aims at creating great peace by changing the way we think and talk about war, violence, and peace itself. Martin Buber is a good example of a transformational pacifist. He admitted that some form of violence could be justified (say, in response to the Holocaust). But his goal was not to justify violence – rather, he wanted to transform the world in order to prepare the way for the great peace. One important consideration here is that Buber is not primarily a political thinker or an applied ethicist: rather, he offers a metaphysical, religious, psychological, and cultural theory. Transformative pacifism is located at that higher level. It idealizes, speculates, and imagines. For this reason, critics might condemn it as utopian. But transformative pacifism remains inspiring and useful.

Gandhi, Buber, and the challenge of Nazism Let’s begin with a historical discussion in order to ground this discussion in something concrete. I argue that the concept of transformational pacifism allows us to recognize both Gandhi and Buber as pacifists despite their disagreement about what to do about Hitler and the Holocaust. Most will readily admit that Gandhi is a pacifist, although Gandhi admits exceptions and complications in his approach to the ethics of non-violence. Buber’s pacifism is even more problematic. One recent article indicates the complexity of Buber’s approach, concluding that despite Buber’s recognition of tragic circumstances in which war could be reluctantly admitted Buber remained a ‘strong’ sort of pacifist.3 My point here is not to offer a detailed exegesis of Gandhi or Buber or to quibble about whether Gandhi or Buber really was or was not a pacifist. Indeed, we should admit that Buber explicitly stated ‘I am no radical pacifist: I do not believe that one must always answer violence with nonviolence. I know what tragedy implies; when there is war, it must be fought.’4 Gandhi also had an ambiguous relationship with war and pacifism. Although he condemned war as ‘wholly wrong’ and stated that he did not ‘believe in violent war’, he also admitted that one party could be justified in fighting and ‘would deserve my moral help and Alex Guilherme and W. John Morgan, ‘Peace Profile: Martin Buber’, Peace Review 23:1 (2011), 110–17. Martin Buber, A Land of Two Peoples: Martin Buber on Jews and Arabs (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 293.

3 4

Gandhi, Buber, and the Dream of a Great and Lasting Peace

21

blessings’.5 One preliminary conclusion is in order here: life is complicated and often tragic – and our moral principles and spiritual commitments have to be moderated in response to the exigencies of the world. The examples of Buber and Gandhi demonstrate this fact. I turn to these examples in order to illustrate what I see as the heart of a plausible transformative pacifism – which is its visionary commitment to dialogue and peace, which moves beyond a simplistic moral calculus and which points beyond merely ‘political’ solutions to our problems. Consider, as an example, Buber’s discussion of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He acknowledged that peace in the Middle East cannot be created by political means. The calculus of power and the moral casuistry of the just war tradition will not create a great and lasting peace. Buber explained, ‘Political action must be preceded by a revolutionary change in the peoples of the Near East.’6 Buber’s solution may have retained a bit of a Eurocentric bias – he wanted the Jews to educate the Arabs. But at his best, his goal is best conceived as a spiritual transformation based upon mutual dialogue. And indeed, like Gandhi, Buber was a pioneer of intercultural and interreligious dialogue. At any rate, here is how Buber explained his idea of a great peace, in the context of his discussion of the Arab–Israeli conflict: A peace that comes about through the cessation of war, hot or cold, is no real peace. Real peace, a peace that would be a real solution is organic peace. A great peace means cooperation and nothing less.7

This vision of the great peace is quite different from the typical conversation in applied ethics about pacifism and just war. Pacifism is usually located on a continuum that includes realism and the just war theory. Realism permits killing in the name of power and efficiency. Just war ideas permit killing in pursuit of a just cause so long as that killing is circumscribed by certain prohibitions, such as the rule against deliberately targeting non-combatants or the requirement to treat prisoners benevolently. Pacifism is typically located on the far end of the spectrum, as an absolute or near-absolute prohibition against the use of violence and war. As I shall argue in the next chapter, this construal downplays the importance of pacifism as a moral theory. Transformational pacifism is more than a nay-saying theory about exceptional cases in which violence can be justified. Rather, transformational pacifism is a broad account of the importance of non-violence, which includes Mohandas K. Gandhi, The Essential Gandhi, 2nd edition (New York: Vintage, 2002), 292. Buber, A Land of Two Peoples, 276. 7 Ibid. 5 6

22

Transformative Pacifism

a critique of violence and which advocates for the development of peaceful institutions and pacific virtues. It rises above and looks beyond political and moral justifications of violence towards an imagined world of great peace, outlining the basic framework of a world of lasting or perpetual peace. In the eighteenth century, Kant, Rousseau, and others constructed a political and moral vision of a peaceful world. Some of that vision has come to fruition in the development of the United Nations, international law, and the growing power of the international community. But what we need today is a spiritual and cultural supplement to the political and moral ideal, which helps us imagine how we might transform culture, psychology, and social systems in a more peaceful direction. Without that focus, our moral and political reforms will only moderate war without building peace. Transformative pacifism should be understood as a broad, critical theory that aims at moving the world in the direction of harmonious coexistence, non-violent conflict resolution, genuine dialogue, and mutual respect. The just war tradition and the institutional remedies that we’ve developed in the past centuries remain important. But they are limited by the fact that they are primarily focused on the justification of war (and concerns about the limits of force within war). Those concerns are important; but transformational pacifists are concerned with a much broader social, political, and psychological critique. A common objection made against pacifism is the atrocity objection. The atrocity objection holds that pacifism is either foolish because it cannot respond to atrocities such as the Holocaust or that it is immoral because it refuses to do what is morally responsibility in the face of atrocity. As an example, critics point out that Gandhi argued against a war against Nazi Germany. He even addressed letters and essays to Hitler, hoping to persuade the Germans to stop the war in Europe. Gandhi’s protests, of course, fell on deaf ears. And his apparent naivety produced backlash and the lasting impression that pacifists are political fools and moral imbeciles. Consider an essay that Gandhi wrote in 1938. Although admitting that Hitler was a madman and that a war against Nazi Germany ‘would be completely justified’, Gandhi stated that he could not support a war against Germany, concluding: ‘I do not believe in any war.’8 This sentence betrays a hint of Mohandas K. Gandhi, Mohandas K. ‘Statement of November 26, 1938’, in The Gandhi Reader (New York: Grove Press, 1994). Reprinted at: http://www.gandhiserve.org/information/writings_online/ articles/gandhi_jews_palestine.html. (no page numbers).   Another relevant excerpt is the following (Gandhi 1938):  The German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he 8

Gandhi, Buber, and the Dream of a Great and Lasting Peace

23

absolutism in Gandhi’s view. Since he rejects all war, he even rejects a war against Hitler and Nazism. But most would admit that if any war could be justified, it would be a war to prevent Holocaust. This may lead us to conclude that absolute pacifism is either foolish or immoral. But, like Buber, Gandhi’s goal was a greater peace: to foster a movement beyond war and militarized politics and culture. Gandhi’s 1938 essay and other of Gandhi’s writings and activism prompted a reply from Martin Buber, as well as from other Jews. Buber had long been interested in Gandhi’s work and sympathetic to the idea of satyagraha, although Buber’s focus on dialogue required a sort of two-way communication that was somewhat different from the one-sided truth-force of Gandhian non-violent resistance. In 1930 Buber wrote an essay about Gandhi’s problem with political action. He worried that Gandhi was too religious and not political enough. Buber explained, The most natural of all questions, the question concerning success, is religion’s ordeal by fire. If religion withdraws from the sphere where this question is asked, it evades its task, despite all hosts and sacraments of incarnation; and if it sinks into that sphere, then it has lost its soul.9

This sets the stage for Buber’s 1939 reply to Gandhi. Buber explained that satyagraha was simply not effective in the case of the Jews of Germany. Buber concluded, ‘We should be able even to fight for justice – but to fight lovingly.’10 Buber said the Jews were justified in fighting against Nazi atrocity. But such a fight – for it to be morally appropriate – must be guided by love and a commitment to peace. This may mean that a morally appropriate fight is an oxymoron. The difficulty of the just war tradition is that it often makes it too easy to fight. But for a loving, moral, peace-loving humanity to engage in war as it is ordinarily understood is a is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified. Martin Buber, ‘Gandhi, Politics, and Us’, (1930) in Martin Buber, ed., Pointing the Way (New York: Harper Brothers, 1957), 131. Martin Buber, ‘Letter to Mohandas K. Gandhi 1939’, in Martin Buber, ed., Pointing the Way (New York: Harper Brothers, 1957), 146.   Another relevant excerpt (Buber 1939):  An effective stand in the form of non-violence may be taken against unfeeling human beings in the hope of gradually bringing them to their senses; but a diabolic universal steamroller cannot thus be withstood. There is a certain situation in which no ‘satyagraha’ of the power of the truth can result from the ‘satyagraha’ of the strength of the spirit. The word satyagraha signifies testimony. Testimony without acknowledgement, ineffective, unobserved martyrdom, a martyrdom cast to the winds – that is the fate of innumerable Jews in Germany. 9

10

24

Transformative Pacifism

near impossibility. And this is the way it ought to be: killing should never be easy, nor should it be celebrated or enjoyed. At the very least a transformational sort of pacifism would change the very way wars are fought, if and when they are deemed necessary, replacing cold, diabolical warfare with a loving fight for justice. The debate between Buber and Gandhi and the fact of atrocities such as the Holocaust point to a deep and significant problem. We want peace and justice; but the means to obtain these great goods are often immoral, disturbing, and disgusting. The need for radical and immediate action appears to push us in some cases beyond non-violence. The reality is that it is not easy to be a peaceful person in a world that is broken, tragic, and sometimes atrocious. In extremis, violence may be justifiable. But this tragic fact ought not to be celebrated. Rather, it should stimulate us to work even harder to change the world so that there is less need of violence. Buber and Gandhi share much in common: a common hope and a common method. They share pacific ideas about dialogue and non-violence. They disagree at the limit of tragedy and atrocity. That’s an important point of disagreement; but it must be connected with the majority of what they agree about in terms of the need for a radical transformation of the human spirit. Gandhi’s satyagraha is a method of non-violence that aims to motivate truth and love. This is also Buber’s dialogical method. Buber explained in 1953 – less than a decade after the end of the Holocaust – that dialogue is the essence of what he calls ‘the great peace’ and a central focus for the transformation that must take place if we are to find a peace that is more than the absence of war: Peoples must engage in talk with one another through their truly human men if the great peace is to appear and the devastated life of the earth renew itself. The great peace is something essentially different from the absence of war. … This peace does not signify that what men call war no longer exists now that it holds sway – that means too little to enable one to understand this serenity. Something new exists, now really exists, greater and mightier than war, greater and mightier even than war. Human passions flow into war as the waters into the sea, and war disposes of them as it likes. But these passions must enter into the great peace as ore into the fire that melts and transforms it. Peoples will then build with one another with more powerful zeal than they have ever destroyed one another. (My italics)11

Martin Buber, ‘Genuine Dialogue and the Possibilities of Peace’ (originally published 1953), reprinted in Martin Buber, ed., Pointing the Way (New York: Harper Brothers, 1957), 235.

11

Gandhi, Buber, and the Dream of a Great and Lasting Peace

25

The point here is not to justify war. War may turn out to be necessary – as a short-term accommodation to the exigencies of the moment. But the larger goal is to transform the world. This is the heart of transformative pacifism: to move through and beyond the fire of violence towards peace. The dream of the great peace asks us to build rather than to destroy.

Fighting fire with fire Pacifists are accused of being unwilling to fight fire with fire. Jan Narveson, for example, has argued in a number articles beginning in the 1960s that pacifism appears to be inconsistent and even self-contradictory. In a recent revision, published fifty years after his original critique of pacifism, Narveson explains: The basic question is: can you claim to be opposed to violence if you refuse to use certain means to prevent it if those should prove to be the only means that will work? Firefighters who fight fire with fire are not inconsistent – indeed, they are trying, often successfully, to be efficient. But perhaps the answer to that is, nevertheless, in the affirmative: you can have that attitude, and if you’re fortunate, you may live long enough to teach it to a philosophy class. If not, and if you live in circumstances readily imaginable from no end of human history, you will probably be dead rather early on.12

This complaint against pacifism can be summarized in terms of three basic points: 1. Violence may be necessary – as the only means that work. 2. It is not inconsistent to fight fire with fire or to use efficient means that work to achieve your greater ends. 3. Those unwilling to use necessary means will suffer and probably end up dead. The general worry is that pacifists are idealists and deontologists who forget that this world is tragic, violent, and often atrocious. Connected to this is a moral claim about the importance of necessity and efficiency, which holds – based upon consequentialist reasoning – that good ends can necessitate violent means. Behind this is a practical point about managing consequences and the most efficient means to produce intended outcomes. The dispute between pacifism Narveson ‘Pacifism – Fifty Years Later’, 928.

12

26

Transformative Pacifism

and its critics can be understood in terms of a dispute about means. There is also a basic difference in the end in view between the pacifist and the non-pacifist critic. The pacifist imagines a Buberian ‘great peace’, while the non-pacifist is focused on short-term peace, what we might call a ‘lesser peace’. We’ll turn to that point in a moment. But let’s continue to consider the case against pacifism. One way that Narveson puts the case against pacifism is to say that pacifists have ‘too many friends’.13 He means that pacifists are too friendly with bad guys. The discussion of Gandhi and Hitler may be used by a critic to make this sort of point. Some critics of Gandhi point out that he addressed Hitler as a friend in his letter dated Christmas Eve of 1940.14 But Gandhi explained that his offer of friendship to Hitler provided no excuse for the immorality of Hitler’s deeds. Critics will point out that Gandhi refuses here to condemn Hitler as a monster. Perhaps Hitler’s truly monstrous nature was not yet apparent to Gandhi. But the point is rather that Gandhi is expressing some version of the Christian idea of loving the sinner but hating the sin. For critics of pacifism this is unacceptable. To offer friendship to Hitler is wrong. Thus Gandhi provides an example of what Narveson suggests in terms of the pacifist having too many friends. This pithy phrase is a gross oversimplification, of course. Despite Gandhi’s friendly address to Hitler, the letter makes it clear that Gandhi has no sympathy for Hitlerian atrocities. Pacifists do not condone terrorists, tyrants, and atrocities. Pacifists condemn violence in all forms – including the violence of Nazism. But critics will point out that pacifists are not willing to do what it takes to defend themselves and their friends against the wrongdoing of the bad guys. Even if they condemn atrocity, and advocate satyagraha, their lack of violent action leaves them on ‘friendly’ terms with evil people.

Jan Narveson, ‘Terrorism and Pacifism: Why We Should Condemn Both’, International Journal of Applied Philosophy 17:2 (2003), 157–72. 14 From Gandhi (Letter to Hitler (24 December 1940); from: http://www.mkgandhi.org/letters/hitler_ ltr1.htm: Dear Friend,   That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33  years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, colour or creed.   I hope you will have the time and desire to know how a good portion of humanity … living under the influence of that doctrine of universal friendship view your action. We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents. But your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the estimation of men like me who believe in universal friendliness. 13

Gandhi, Buber, and the Dream of a Great and Lasting Peace

27

Similar accusations have been made against pacifists by a variety of critics who generally defend the just war tradition.15 Revolutionaries and radicals have also criticized pacifism as a conciliatory cop-out by those who lack courage or who are too comfortable in their privileged position.16 The critics of pacifism appeal to a basic claim about the necessity of violence. These claims ultimately hit ground upon some form of consequentialist analysis. While the just war tradition has roots in natural law thinking, the basic claim of moral necessity hinges upon an account of the usefulness of violence/war in producing intended outcomes. A number of examples could be discussed taken from authors writing in defence of the just war tradition showing the common use of the idea of necessary violence.17 This echoes the natural law idea that a legitimate defence can employ Anscombe argues that pacifists fail to make a distinction between the evil and the innocent: the evil deserve to be opposed, punished, and killed, while the innocent deserve to be protected. See: G. E. M. Anscombe, ‘War and Murder’, in G. E. M. Anscombe, ed., Ethics, Religion, and Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981); also see Jean Bethke Elshtain, Just War against Terror (New York: Basic Books, 2003); C. S. Lewis, ‘Why I Am Not a Pacifist’, in C. S. Lewis, ed., The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses (New York: Macmillan, 1965); George Orwell, ‘Pacifism and the War’, Partisan Review (August-September, 1942) reprinted in George Orwell, Collected Essays: Volume Two, My Country Right or Left, 1940–43 (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, 1968), 226–40 and George Weigel, ‘Moral Clarity in a Time of War’, First Things 128 (2003), 20–7. Sam Harris has written that pacifism is ‘flagrantly immoral’ because it is ‘a willingness to die, and to let others die, at the pleasure of the world’s thugs’ (Harris, The End of Faith (New York: Norton, 2004), 199). Defenders of the just war theory have argued that pacifism is not a morally serious option. Michael Walzer argues, for example, that the just war tradition developed as Augustine and others recognize the need to transform original Christian pacifism into Christian political power. Walzer concludes that the just war tradition makes war morally possible in a world where war was sometimes necessary (Michael Walzer, ‘The Triumph of Just War Theory (and the Dangers of Success)’, Social Research 69, no. 4 (Winter 2002), 925–44)). For Walzer and others, the just war idea is the only ‘morally serious’ option. The point here is that the just warrior is not only focused on the end of peace and justice – but also interested in the means that are necessary in order to achieve a just peace. George Weigel explained in 2003 in defence of the Iraq War, ‘Willing ends without concurrently willing the means necessary to achieve them is not morally serious. Functional pacifism cannot help us traverse the hard, stony path from today’s world’ (Weigel, ‘The Just War Case for the War’, America: The National Catholic Review, 31 March, 2003). 16 Derek Jensen claims that pacifists are ‘pacified’ by their belief that pacifism can be effective (Jensen, Derrick Jensen, Endgame (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2006) vol. 2, p. 732). Non-violence cannot combat the power of the state, according to Jensen. So pacifism is allowed and even encouraged as a non-threatening, ineffective game that does nothing to change the status quo. Jensen’s argument is connected to Churchill’s argument in Pacifism as Pathology (Winnipeg: Arbeiter Ring, 1998). Indeed, Jensen wrote a new preface for Churchill’s book in 2007. These authors think that violence is needed to fight violent systems, while holding that pacifism is a pathology of the privileged. Jensen goes so far as to claim that pacifism is a ‘death wish’: pacifists are willing to die (and let others die) – but they are willing to kill (Jensen 2006, 2: 627). Jenson concludes that this is ‘despicable and insane’ and irresponsible (688). 17 In the City of God, Augustine writes the following: ‘Surely, if he remembers that he is a human being, he will lament the fact that he is faced with the necessity of waging just wars; for if they were not just he would not have to engage in them, and consequently there would be no wars for a wise man. For it is the injustice of the opposing side that lays on the wise man the duty of waging wars; and this injustice is assuredly to be deplored by a human being, since it is the injustice of human beings, even though no necessity for war should arise from it’ (Augustine in Larry May, et al., eds, The Morality of War (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall, 2006), 16 – my italics). Augustine also says that ‘those whom we have to punish with a kindly sincerity, it is necessary to handle in many ways against their will.’ (Ep. Ad Marcellin cxxxviii – quoted in Aquinas in May, ed., The Morality of War, 28 – my italics). Aquinas quotes this passage from Augustine and echoes in his own words 15

28

Transformative Pacifism

whatever means are necessary to accomplish the goal of self-defence. Of course the natural law tradition also views necessity as a brake on violence – since you are permitted to do what is necessary, but only what is necessary. (In other words, you cannot go beyond mere self-defence to create further violence.) Narveson makes it clear that the concept of necessity that is employed here makes violence and war a duty: there is a moral obligation to fight when necessary. Said differently, it would be wrong not to fight.18 Narveson appears to think that the necessity of using force in defence of rights follows analytically from the very concept of rights. Narveson and other defenders of justifiable violence seem to advocate what might be called a ‘strong defense of rights’. This idea obliges us to use force in defence of rights. Thus we must use force in defence of right; and it would be wrong to refrain from using force. I will consider an objection to this view in a moment. Before proceeding to that critique, we must also consider how necessity functions with regard to the question of what sort of violence must be employed in defence of rights. In the just war tradition, this is the question of proportionality.19 the idea that war is sometimes necessary. ‘We should always be ready to forbear violence’, Aquinas says. But ‘it is necessary sometimes for a man to act otherwise for the common god, or for the good of those with whom he is fighting’ (28 – my italics). More recently, President George W. Bush clarified his foreign policy in his Second Inaugural Address: ‘This is not primarily the task of arms, though we will defend ourselves and our friends by force of arms when necessary’; Bush continued by describing ‘the idealistic work of helping raise up free governments; the dangerous and necessary work of fighting our enemies’ (Address at his Second Inaugural, 21 January 2015 at: http://www. inaugural.senate.gov/swearing-in/address/address-by-george-w-bush-2005). President Obama said something similar at the United Nations in 2015: ‘I lead the strongest military that the world has ever known, and I will never hesitate to protect my country or our allies, unilaterally and by force where necessary’ (‘Remarks by President Obama to the United Nations General Assembly’, 28 September 2015 at: https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/28/remarks-presidentobama-united-nations-general-assembly). Narveson utilizes the concept of necessary violence throughout his critique of pacifism. He says, ‘One has a right to whatever may be necessary to prevent infringements of his right’, (Narveson, ‘Pacifism’, 259–71). Narveson argues that violence should be employed, when necessary, in order to prevent and defend against violations of rights. Another way he puts this is to ask ‘if force is the only way to prevent violence in a given case, is its use justified in that case?’ (Narveson 1965, my italics) He goes on to make this even more explicit: This is true because ‘if a man threatens to kill me, it is desirable, of course, for me to try to prevent this by the use of the least amount of force sufficient to do the job. But I am justified even in killing him, if necessary’ (Narveson 1965, my italics). 18 This is found in Narveson’s account of the idea of ‘rights’ as things that oblige us to use violence in defence of them. As Narveson puts it: ‘We also have a right to anything else that might be necessary (other things being equal) to prevent the deprivation from occurring. And it is a logical truth, not merely a contingent one, that what might be necessary is force’ (Narveson 1965 – my italics). Of course, the question for pacifists is whether this is really a ‘logical truth’. 19 Aquinas says that ‘and yet, though proceeding from a good intention, an act may be rendered unlawful, it if be out of proportion to the end. Wherefore if a man, in self-defense, uses more than necessary violence, it will be unlawful’ (Aquinas in May, ed., The Morality of War (2006) – my italics). Proportionality asks the question of how much violence is necessary to attain a justifiable end such as self-defence. Thus the question is not only whether force is necessary in defence of rights, but also how much force is necessary. Narveson puts it this way: ‘One has a right to use as much force as necessary to defend one’s rights’ (‘Pacifism’, in Ethics (1965)).

Gandhi, Buber, and the Dream of a Great and Lasting Peace

29

This points us towards a consequentialist analysis: the question of how much violence is needed depends upon our goals – and it also depends upon real world factors. Pacifists tend to think that there are broader goals beyond mere immediate defence of rights. And they tend to think that the real world shows that in pursuit of those broader goals, violence is not always useful (and perhaps not always necessary). The question of how much force is needed is the just war tradition’s idea of proportionality. The question of proportionality cannot be resolved, however, analytically. Proportionality asks an empirical question that has to do with history, present circumstances, tactics, and strategies.20 The idea of proportionality opens the question of how much violence is necessary to attain one’s ends. But when we take this question seriously, we see that it returns us to the previous question of whether violence is ever necessary in pursuit of a just cause such as defence of rights. One answer to the question of how much violence is necessary may after all be that none is necessary. An absolute pacifist may argue that the end we are pursuing in defence of rights does not require that we ever use violence in its defence. Even non-pacifists can admit that it is permissible in some circumstances to refrain from violence in defence of rights. Most everyone admits that this is true: we are not wrong to fail to prosecute our rights using violence. And it is not cowardice to refrain from using violence in defence of rights. Prudential considerations must be accounted for: whether it is worth fighting a particular battle at a particular time. But the deeper point is that in many circumstances one should not be condemned for failing to fight in defence of rights: it is not wrong not to fight. At least this is true at the level of personal pacifism: one could simply acquiesce and submit – even unto death, as many martyrs have done. This is why George Weigel, for example, argues that the question of proportionality raises contingent concerns that are not properly the subject of moral analysis. For Weigel, the primary questions to be considered in thinking about war are the ad bellum questions, especially the question of just cause. This approach is, however, insufficient. Surely moral evaluation involves both a consideration of ends and means. If we fail to consider the means for attaining our ends, we can end up with a Machiavellian doctrine in which the end justifies the means.   The risk here is the possibility that there are no principled limits to the amount of force or type of violence that may be used in pursuit of a just cause such as the defence of rights. Claims about the necessity of violence often slide down the slippery slope towards back-to-the-wall arguments against principles that would limit violence. We find this in contemporary just war discourse in Walzer’s idea of the ‘supreme emergency exemption’ (Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars). This idea is also taken up by John Rawls (Rawls, The Law of Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), when ‘necessary’ almost any means of fighting can be employed. We see this also in the history of just war discussions. Vitoria claims, ‘It is undoubtedly unjust in the extreme to deliver up a city, especially a Christian city, to be sacked, without the greatest necessity and the weightiest reason. If, however, the necessities of war require it, it is not unlawful even if it be likely that the troops will perpetrate foul misdeeds of this kind, which their generals are none the less bound to forbid and, as far as they can, to prevent’ (Gentili in May, ed., The Morality of War 46 – my italics). Gentili claims, ‘Extreme necessity forms an exception to every law’ (56 – my italics). 20

30

Transformative Pacifism

Things become much more difficult, however, when we are talking about defending the rights of others. It seems that we have a stronger moral obligation to do what is necessary to defend our friends, family, and those who are dependent, weak, and needy. It might be that it is not wrong to fail to defend yourself – but that it is wrong to fail to do what is necessary to defend others (again, assuming we had a good idea about what was empirically necessary). This is where the atrocity objection arises: it seems that we have a positive obligation to do what is necessary in order to combat genocide, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.21 Narveson and others in the just war tradition view violence as a necessary duty. Absolute pacifism reverses claims about necessity and argues that it is never permissible to use violence as a means towards legitimate ends. Another way of understanding the idea of ‘never permissible’ is to say that it is necessarily wrong: there is no possible world in which it would be permissible. Absolute pacifism holds that it is always wrong to use violence in defence of rights. Thus we are left with a clash of necessity claims. The defender of violence and the just war tradition claims that violence is sometimes morally necessary and the absolute pacifist claims that violence can never be morally necessary. When the positions are viewed in this way, there is no way to mediate between them. But as we shall see in the next section, it might be the case that pacifism should be reconceived in a way that is not absolutist in this sense: rather than viewing pacifism as morally necessary and violence as necessarily wrong, a pacifist can view violence as less than optimal and non-violence as better.22

Quenching fire with transformational pacifism The critique of pacifism is serious and important. It cuts to the quick, when pacifism is described as a merely ethical position, articulated within the context of applied ethical decision-making. In the midst of a concrete emergency, when lives are on the line, it does seem that some forms of violence can be easily This is the basic idea behind humanitarian intervention and the international community’s evolving idea of a ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P). We should note, by the way, that the R2P doctrine includes the idea that proportionality requires the use of the minimum amount of force necessary to accomplish the goal of protection (International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (2001) ‘Responsibility to Protect’, at http://responsibilitytoprotect.org/ICISS%20Report.pdf). 22 One version of this idea might be cashed out in terms of so-called ‘contingent pacifism’. Contingent pacifism is a variety of just war pacifism, which holds that war can be justified in principle – but that in a given case, it is not justified. 21

Gandhi, Buber, and the Dream of a Great and Lasting Peace

31

and obviously justified. In some cases, it is necessary to fight fire with fire. But transformational pacifism is not focused on putting out concrete and individual fires. Rather, the point is to create a situation in which fires don’t erupt – or in which the fires of violence are kept in check and under control. Rather than fighting fire with fire, pacifists introduce a new element – dialogue and other forms of cultural transformation – aiming to quench and prevent fire. In order to make sense of this, let’s consider how pacifists may reply to the necessity objection and Narveson’s accusation about pacifists being too friendly with bad guys. We can outline two typical ways that a pacifist may reply. First, a pacifist might argue that active non-violence is a better response to aggression and evil. Pacifists insist that pacifism is not passive. One can be opposed to violence while being actively engaged in opposing tyranny, resisting evil, and fighting against aggression. However, the fight must be engaged in a non-violent fashion: through civil disobedience, non-violence direct action, and so on. Pacifists argue that if we invested more of our resources into creative active non-violence, these non-violent methods would have more of a chance of success. Second, a pacifist may simply respond by saying that to look at outcomes and consequences is to misunderstand pacifism. For an absolute pacifist who is grounded in a deontological approach to ethics, pacifism is morally right, even if it ‘doesn’t work’ in the real world. Absolute pacifism of this variety appears to make most sense when connected to an eschatological religious view, which claims that the innocent will be rewarded in the long run. This helps explain what Martin Luther King Jr. meant when he said that undeserved suffering is redemptive. Those who are harmed by evil aggressors will be rewarded in the next life. For religious pacifists, in order to receive that reward, one must remain committed to the absolute prohibition against returning evil for evil or against killing. Transformational pacifism aims beyond the discourse of applied ethics in which the above replies are offered. By the time we are confronted with the sorts of challenges that lead to the necessity objection, it is too late. Said differently, transformational pacifism looks to criticize and alter the background conditions in which violence arises and violent responses to violence becomes necessary. Transformational pacifism aims at a transformation of psychological, cultural, social, and moral sensibility away from acceptance of violence and war towards the creation of peace, love, justice, and community. Transformative pacifism is not merely an option among moral positions on the realism–just war

32

Transformative Pacifism

continuum. Rather, transformational pacifism articulates a broad framework of cultural criticism. The goal of transformational pacifism is a world in which war and violence appear to be archaic remnants of a less civilized past, a world in which war and violence appear to be so disgusting, puzzling, and undignified that violence is no longer on the table. Transformational pacifism is found in the thinking of some of the world’s most important historical pacifists – Jesus, Gandhi, Addams, Schweitzer, and King. In the contemporary scene, it can be found in the transformational approach of feminists and those concerned with care ethics. Nel Noddings, for example, in her later work, such as The Maternal Factor (2010) has turned towards the question of peace education – that’s part of the project of transformational pacifism.23 Noddings explained in Caring, ‘Our efforts should be directed to transforming the conditions that make caring difficult or impossible. This means … rejecting violence as a means of defense except under conditions of direct attack and then only to prevent immediate harm.’24 Care and love and nurture and community are central values for transformational pacifism. Another central value is dialogue. Noddings explains in a passage that echoes the insights of Martin Buber: Dialogue as described here rejects the ‘war model’ of dialogue. It is not debate, and its purpose is not to win an argument. It may, of course, include intervals of debate, and both participants may enjoy such intervals. But throughout a dialogue, participants are aware of each other; they take turns as carer and cared-for, and no matter how great their ideological differences may be, they reach across the ideological gap to connect with each other.25

Care, dialogue, love, peace – and social transformation – are radical values that push us beyond a simplistic focus on applied ethical positions. The point of this approach is not simply to condemn or to recommend any given course of action – any war or non-violent campaign. Rather, the point is to direct our attention to the larger context of cultural, social, political, and historical life. The transformational thrust of this sort of pacifism is often lost when pacifism is reduced to a merely ethical position on the continuum. The goal is to create a spiritual, cultural, and psychological change such that war and violence become less plausible. One point is to change the burden of proof. Critics of pacifism hold that violence is a necessary means for achieving social goals. From that standpoint, Nel Noddings, The Maternal Factor (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010). Noddings, Caring, 2nd edition (Berkeley: University of California, 2003), xiv – my italics. 25 Nel Noddings, Educating Moral People (New York: Teacher’s College Press, 2002), 17. 23 24

Gandhi, Buber, and the Dream of a Great and Lasting Peace

33

the burden of proof rests on the pacifist to show that pacifism will work or that it is not immoral. But our thinking about what works, what’s necessary, and what’s moral depends upon psychological, social, and cultural presuppositions. Transformational pacifists want to shift those presuppositions so that the burden of proof rests on the proponent of violence and war to show that resort to violence will work better than some non-violent alternative. Transformational pacifism wants to move us in a direction that regards violence and war as not obviously necessary. It may turn out that in some rare emergencies, violence could be justified. But the transformational pacifist aims at creating a culture in which such resorts evoke moral and psychological disturbance and in which the necessity of violence is doubtful. The larger question and the greater goal is how we transform our global culture in the direction of the ‘great peace’ that Buber talked about. The goal of transformational pacifism is to recreate the world in a way that makes atrocities such as genocide unimaginable. In the short term, we may have to do something violent to stop atrocity. But that is merely a short-term fix. The longer project is to create a world in which there are fewer atrocities. Transformative pacifism has important practical impacts on how we think about militarism, economic injustice, religious intolerance, gender relations, and inequality. Those concerns lie outside of the purview of the just war tradition. But they are essential for thinking about transforming the world in the direction of peace, harmony, and universal dialogue. The just war tradition can tell us little about the damage done by militarism. It does not address economic injustice. It has nothing to say about religious intolerance. It is not interested in considerations of gender injustice or other kinds of inequalities. In a sense, the just war tradition and the justifications of violence we have discussed are very limited in the scope of their application. It is surprising, then, that the just war tradition is often the focus of much scholarship and debate. Perhaps that’s because those other cultural, social, economic, and political problems are much more difficult – and because a solution to those problems might force us to confront a radical reorganization of our social life and a deep critique of our values. To make the world safe for the ‘great peace’ will require a transformation in values that goes far beyond what moralistic justifications of necessary violence can offer. One first step is obvious, however – and that’s to find better and more inclusive ways to engage in universal dialogue. As Buber explains, In a genuine dialogue each of the partners, even when he stands in opposition to the other, heeds, affirms, and confirms his opponent as an existing other.

34

Transformative Pacifism Only so can conflict certainly not be eliminated from the world, but be humanly arbitrated and led towards its overcoming.26

Buber, Gandhi, Noddings, and others discussed here point the way towards a transformed world in which violence no longer appears necessary and we can each affirm the dignity and worth of our dialogical partners. And that is the basis of a great and lasting peace.

Buber, ‘Genuine Dialogue and the Possibilities of Peace’, 237.

26

3

Pacifism in Applied Ethics: Normative Theory and the Pacific Virtues

This chapter argues that pacifism and a commitment to non-violence ought to be understood as a major normative theory and taken as seriously as utilitarianism, deontology, and other moral theories. Pacifism should be understood as a critical social theory, as powerful and important as feminism. It can also be understood as a kind of virtue tradition with deep global roots. Pacifism articulates a vision of the highest good – the telos of human life. It offers a path for obtaining this highest good. It provides social critique based upon this idea. And it aims to transform the world and the self through a process of peaceful practice.

Pacifism as normative theory Pacifism is a normative theory that ought to be considered alongside utilitarianism, Kantian deontology, and other normative theories. Pacifism stipulates peace as the good to be pursued and it requires that peaceful means be employed in pursuit of that good. Each of the great normative theories stipulates a definition of the good, which can then be applied in concrete cases. In many cases, there are multiple interpretations of exactly how these theories can be applied. Thus utilitarians may disagree about the morality of euthanasia and Kantians may disagree about the morality of abortion. One source of this disagreement is the fact that the major normative commitment of each theory is both vague and ambitious. Indeed, the attempt to find a broad and inclusive idea of what is good leads to imprecision in application. Each stipulative definition of the good opens a whole world of philosophical questions.

36

Transformative Pacifism

Utilitarianism argues that we should produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. But significant questions remain: what is happiness, whose happiness counts, and what means are permitted in pursuit of this goal? These are not easy questions. Kantian deontology tells us that we should do our duty, respect persons as ends in themselves, and avoid contradiction in universalizing our maxims. But what exactly is respect? Who counts as a person? And how do we move from the abstract formulation of the categorical imperative to the concrete goods of ethical life? In applied cases these theories also provoke many questions.1 In the case of euthanasia, for example, a utilitarian will have to consider how we maximize happiness at the end of life that too easily disposes of inconvenient persons. Kantians will struggle with the problem of how to formulate and then universalize the maxims of euthanasia. Or with regard to abortion, there is a question about whose happiness matters (for utilitarians) and who is the object of respect (for Kantians). Or consider the question of the death penalty, to cite another example: Kant and Mill both supported the death penalty, even though the moral consensus about the death penalty generally points towards abolition, and the other great author in the utilitarian tradition, Jeremy Bentham, opposed capital punishment.2 There are significant questions and outstanding disagreements within the major normative theories – including other theories such as natural law, care ethics, and virtue ethics. We should also note that the fathers of contemporary normative theory were European males with a limited perspective. Mill was fairly progressive with regard to women. Kant was not. But Mill was also a Eurocentrist, who defended colonialism and the need to occupy barbarian countries in order to educate them so that they could eventually become free. Kant was a defender of the idea of establishing peace through a league of nations, but he was also a racist and Eurocentrist. Similar points have been made with regard to natural law theory (e.g. with regard to Aquinas and Catholicism) and with regard to virtue ethics (and the critique of Aristotle). There are substantial critiques and defences of each of these major normative theories. These theories are not monolithic; nor are they perfect or complete. Each theory has internal complexity and leaves us with outstanding problems. Pacifism is no different. See, for example, Andrew Fiala and Barbara MacKinnon, Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, 9th edition (Boston: Cengage, 2017), for an extended set of examples and cases that arise in the context of applied ethics. 2 For a revision of Kant on the death penalty, see Nelson T. Potter, ‘Kant and the Capital Punishment Today’, The Journal of Value Inquiry 36 (2002), 267–82; also see Lloyd Steffen, Executing Justice: The Moral Meaning of the Death Penalty (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2006). 1

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

37

In stipulating a normative framework, we open a world of interpretation. Philosophical ethics in general makes things more difficult, since each interpretive framework gives rise to further questions. Those questions become more difficult when we step back and realize that there are competing frameworks and multiple normative theories. The complexity of application and the definitional concerns regarding foundational issues (what is happiness? what is a person? and so on) is not an argument against normative theory. Rather, the richness of debates in moral theory depends upon these problems and questions. A philosophical theory of ethics ought to give rise to those sorts of problems and questions. Pacifism should be considered as one of the major normative theories in philosophical ethics. It stipulates that peace is the good to be pursued. Seek peace is the normative commitment of pacifism; behave non-violently is the maxim of non-violent ethics. As observed in these other theories, there are complications involved in the very definition. What is peace? What counts as non-violence? And at the level of application there are difficulties and complications. How do we seek peace in the context of abortion? How do we behave non-violently at the end of life? What about peace, punishment, and the death penalty? And – to raise a question that often comes up in discussions of pacifism – how do pacifists propose to deal with war, violence, and the important question of self-defence? Some critics think that this last question – the question of pacifist reaction to war and self-defence – is a defeating question. Critics will argue that pacifism fails because it cannot adequately respond to the problem of war and violence. But each normative theory confronts a defeating question. Kantian deontology has long been maligned for offering an empty formula for duty and for ignoring the content of morality, including the importance of happiness. In the opening pages of Utilitarianism John Stuart Mill said that Kant ‘fails, almost grotesquely, to show that there would be any contradiction, any logical (not to say physical) impossibility, in the adoption by all rational beings of the most outrageously immoral rules of conduct’.3 There are also defeating questions that have been thrown up against utilitarianism, most notably, the problem of doing seemingly immoral things as means for creating the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Torture, slavery, and other seemingly immoral deeds all appear to be on the table in the utilitarian calculus, including the possibility of sacrificing some innocent people in order to defend a greater number of innocent people – such as shows up in the so-called trolley problem. A related John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (1863 – at https://www.utilitarianism.com/mill1.htm), Chapter 1.

3

38

Transformative Pacifism

critique, offered by Bernard Williams, holds that utilitarianism offers us a coldly objective view of morality that ignores moral identity and other aspects of personal integrity.4 And so it goes. Students of moral theory understand that each normative theory comes with its own set of problems. Contractarians have difficulty dealing with irrational or recalcitrant individuals who refuse to agree to ‘morals by agreement’. Virtue ethicists have difficulties finding a source of virtue that is not overly context-dependent or tied to what Alisdair MacIntyre called ‘traditions’. Natural law theorists run into questions about how we should understand those ‘natural’ functions and purposes that are supposed to give content to morality. Divine command theories are confronted with the question that has been with us since Plato’s Euthyphro about how we prioritize religion and ethics – and how we are supposed to understand and integrate religious diversity and the challenge of atheism. And so on. Pacifism as a normative theory stipulates that we ought to seek peace. This has its own set of objections and defeating questions. But the presence of those questions by itself is not enough to eliminate pacifism as a normative theory. Those questions are difficult. But their difficulty does not mean that pacifism is not a useful moral theory – any more than the difficulty of Kantian deontology or utilitarianism rules out those theories. Rather, those questions show us the limits of any moral theory – and the need at a more general level for pluralism in ethics. A different book would pursue the idea of pluralism in normative ethics in much more detail.5 Suffice it to say, for our purposes here, that pacifism ought to be considered as one of the major normative theories within a pluralistic account of normative theory. Within the broader context of pluralism about normative theory, we ought to note that one theory cannot simply be reduced to another. For example, in the conversation between Kantians and utilitarians, each side attempts to make such a reduction. The Kantian claims that happiness is not worthy of deep moral consideration, while the utilitarian claims that duty without happiness is empty, abstract, and formal. This same non-reductive commitment to a basic normative ideal can be found in thinking about pacifism.

Bernard Williams and J. J. C. Smart, Utilitarianism: For and Against (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973). 5 For discussions of pluralism in ethics see: Judith Jarvis Thomson, ‘The Right and the Good’, The Journal of Philosophy 94 (1997), 273–298; Susan Wolf, ‘Two Levels of Pluralism’, Ethics 102:4 (July 1992), 785–98; or John Kekes, The Morality of Pluralism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993). 4

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

39

The pacifists’ commitment to peace cannot be reduced to some other primary value. The value of peace is a fundamental starting point for pacifism. We do not seek peace because it makes us happy (rather, happiness become part of peace) – and so pacifism cannot be reduced to utilitarianism. We do not behave non-violently because violence cannot be universalized (to use a Kantian formulation). Each of those explanations is helpful and informative – and there might be Kantian and utilitarian arguments for peace and in support of pacifism. Indeed, it is likely that among the major normative theories there is much overlap and mutual support – a kind of pluralistic convergence. But the point of stating that pacifism is a unique normative theory is to maintain that when pacifism states that peace is a primary good, the value of peace is not entirely explained by using other moral terminology. A clue about this is found in some of the often cryptic and mysterious languages used to describe peace as a foundational principle – for example, in the Christian idea of ‘the peace of God that passes all understanding’ (Phil. 4.7). This – and other theological or religious accounts of peace – indicates that peace is a concept, idea, or experience that is so profound as to seem unanalysable. In the Christian tradition, peace and God are in some ways synonymous (indeed, Dionysius the Areopagite indicates that peace is one of the names of God – a point that influenced Aquinas and others). Peace has been defined in various ways. Synonyms include tranquillity, harmony, wholeness, serenity, calmness, and cooperation. Peace is said to be a result of conflict resolution strategies that help us to move forward – the result of what can be called constructive conflict.6 That definition reminds us that the absence of peace is destructive conflict – which is another way of speaking of violence and war. Peace is often defined negatively as the absence of war or violence. Johan Galtung, the leading expert in peace studies, provides original insight into the difference between positive and negative peace; Galtung also indicated that peace can further be defined in structural terms, where it is related to justice and human flourishing.7 The rich and complex discussion about the meaning of peace is an indication of the power of pacifism as a normative theory: it includes diverse and important conceptual issues and it gives rise to productive and insightful reflection. Within this conversation, there are very complicated questions. Our understanding of peace and non-violence depends in part upon a conception See Louis Kriesberg, Realizing Peace: A Constructive Conflict Approach (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015). 7 See Johan Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace, and Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research, 6:3 (1969), 167–91. 6

40

Transformative Pacifism

of war and violence. But these concepts are themselves difficult to define. War is a broad term that encompasses diverse phenomena such as the two world wars, the Cold War, civil wars, and the war on drugs or the war on terrorism. Violence is also a slippery notion. In other work I have advanced a definition of violence that focuses on (1) harm and (2) lack of consent. On this definition, violence is harmful action that is done against our will.8 The problem of this definition is that it makes it difficult to conceptualize structural violence, since those who suffer under structural violence can in fact be complicit in structural violence – due to ignorance or misunderstanding that clouds judgement but is not fully lacking in voluntary consent – and since the harms of structural violence are also often unnoticed or not described exactly as harms. We understand that when soldiers shoot at each other, war is under way. We also understand that when husbands beat their wives, this is a form of violence (although this was not always recognized as such). But things become more difficult to describe when there are attacks on computer systems (as in cyberwarfare) or when women are subjugated through coercive psychological manipulation. Given these difficulties it is also difficult to describe what peace and non-violence exactly look like. Moreover, to further demonstrate the importance of peace as a normative first principle we should note that an attempted normative reduction can go in the other direction: other normative theories can be derived from pacifism. Thus one could say that we ought to seek to maximize the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people because maximizing utility leads to peace. When, for example, there are large numbers of unhappy people, there is social disorder and unrest. Such a lack of widespread happiness is what we might call structural violence. The utilitarian calculus is a way to help minimize structural violence and promote positive peace. We could also say that we ought to obey only those moral maxims that can be universalized because universality creates conditions for peace. When there are internal contradictions in our set of maxims, there is disharmony and lack of peace. Or, using the other Kantian formula, it is wrong to use a person as a mere means and disrespect him as an end-inhimself because such disrespect is violent. Indeed, violence can be defined as violating the autonomy of an individual. Thus the Kantian formulae can be understood from within pacifism: they help us understand how to harmonize our maxims and create non-violent social interaction. In a similar fashion, we could reinterpret other moral language and normative terms by translating them into the terminology of pacifism. When Bernard Williams speaks of integrity, See Andrew Fiala, Public War, Private Conscience (London: Continuum, 2010), Chapter 10.

8

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

41

for example in his objection to utilitarianism, we might translate that into the language of peace. The idea of integrity rests upon a conception of inner peace: we have integrity when we are whole and integrated. We are whole and integrated when we are at peace; and we seek wholeness and integrity because we seek peace. Let’s conclude this discussion by considering where pacifism fits within one standard typology of normative theories. One typical way of describing normative theories distinguishes between consequentialist and nonconsequentialist moral theory. Consequentialist theories focus on the outcomes or consequences of actions. Utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism. So also is egoism. The egoist aims to maximize good outcomes for the individual, while utilitarianism seeks the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. Non-consequentialist theories focus in a different direction: for example, on rule following, on obedience to duty, or on the intention behind our actions. Kantian deontology is a typical non-consequentialist approach, which tells us to do our duty regardless of the consequences and which directs moral evaluation towards the intentions behind our actions. So where does pacifism fit in this typology? Pacifism is a hybrid theory of sorts, which calls the distinction between consequentialism and nonconsequentialism into question. On the one hand, peace is a consequence. Or to use other language, pacifism is teleological. We ought to seek peace as an end (as a telos). But pacifism also makes a claim about the unity of means and ends. We ought to seek peace using non-violent means. So pacifism is committed to a kind of non-consequentialism. A different way of putting this would be to say that pacifism establishes certain rules for moral action, which are not simply focused on creating good consequences. This stipulation of rules of non-violent action is what often leads to the defeating question of what the pacifist would do in response to war or regarding using violence in self-defence. The fact that this problem exists, shows us that pacifism is not merely a consequentialist moral theory. Furthermore, like Kantian deontology which tells us to focus on ‘the good will’ behind moral deeds, pacifism is also focused on the question of inner peace and peaceful intention behind the deed. This focus on intention is clear in the role that love plays in pacifism. When Jesus says we should love our enemies – one of the deepest and most puzzling claims in the pacifist canon – this focuses our attention on intention. The fact that pacifism is a hybrid theory is a virtue of the theory. The distinction between consequentialism and non-consequentialism is overly simplistic. Our moral lives include a consideration of the full range of moral

42

Transformative Pacifism

outcomes, attitudes, intentions, behaviours, habits, and actions. Pacifism directs our attention to all of that. In this sense, pacifism is similar to virtue theory, which tells us to consider morality in terms of doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right amount, for the right reasons, and in the right way. Indeed it is fruitful to consider pacifism as a type of virtue theory: one that holds that the pacific virtues are the best. We’ll return to that later in the chapter.

Beyond the Pacifism–Realism Continuum The preceding discussion aims to explain how pacifism can be considered as a major normative theory alongside of Kantian deontology, utilitarianism, and the like. This understanding of pacifism offers a rejoinder to the way pacifism is usually understood within typical applied ethics curricula. Applied ethics textbooks usually locate pacifism in one corner of the discussion of the justification of violence: pacifism is understood as the endpoint on a continuum that extends from realism, through just war theory, and on to pacifism.9 This way of organizing these ideas already presumes that pacifism is an extremist position. It also presumes a sort of moral equivalence between these three options, which puts realism on a par with pacifism. But in fact, pacifism offers a basic normative theory, while realism falls outside of the moral realm entirely. Realism, as usually described in this continuum, offers a kind of egoism or relativism, which is outside of what we properly think of as morality.10 Realism is another complicated moral concept. In international relations, realism can be understood as the view that nations (or other collectives) are either a-moral or that they are entitled to pursue their own self-interest. When applied to thinking about war and violence, realism abjures moral limitations that prevent victory and the maximization of self-interest. This should not be confused with ‘moral realism’, which holds that morality is grounded in moral facts, values, or concepts that are real or actually exist. Moreover, we should point out that there are less extreme and cynical forms of realism associated with ideas found, for example, in Reinhold Niebuhr and Hans Morgenthau. Some scholars call this view ‘ethical realism’.11 Morgenthau defended realism, saying in a widely quoted passage: Indeed, this is how we have organized things in Fiala and MacKinnon, Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues. 10 See Holmes, Pacifism, Chapter 3; also see David Mapel, ‘Realism and the Ethics of War and Peace’ and Jeff McMahan, ‘Realism, Morality, and War’, in Terry Nardin, ed., The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996). 11 See Anatol Lieven and John Hulsman, Ethical Realism (New York: Vintage, 2007). 9

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

43

The equation of political moralizing with morality and of political realism with immorality is itself untenable. The choice is not between moral principles and the national interest, devoid of moral dignity, but between one set of moral principles divorced from political reality, and another set of moral principles derived from political reality.12

But ethical realism remains focused on collectives, while interpreting the world primarily in terms of a struggle for power. Pacifism tends to have a different normative focus. It is concerned about the rights of individuals, including the idea that there is a right to peace. It is also more interested in cosmopolitan norms that aim to promote international order through the propagation of universal moral principles and a concern for global ethics. We will consider these issues in detail in subsequent chapters. At any rate, realism in thinking about war is simply not morally equivalent with either pacifism or just war theory. This point is made clear by defenders of the just war theory. Brian Orend states, for example, ‘One concludes that, whatever strengths realism has, such are already incorporated within just war theory and international law. Thus in light of its remaining – and very substantial – weaknesses, realism must on the whole be renounced, and put to the side.’13 It is possible to support a form of realism by appealing to consequentialist normative theory. Some realists may view themselves as utilitarians, for example, arguing that limits on violence are merely prudential – and that there are no moral limits on violence so long as violence produces the greatest happiness for the greatest number. This could be fleshed out in either global terms – as the concern for global utility maximization – or in terms of the utility of a given collective – in terms of maximizing the well-being of a given nation-state. But for the most part realism is an a moral or even immoral theory. Realists about war usually hold that morality does not apply in the context of war. One could also imagine a form of realism articulated at the individual level, which holds that in competitive struggles among individuals, anything goes (or we can do whatever we can get away with). ‘Anything goes realism’ can be restrained and limited. But for realism of this sort, there are no fundamentally moral limits to violence – which is why just war theorists reject the view. Rather, if realism advocates limitations on violence, these are understood as merely prudential or strategic limits. If realism is either immoral or a-moral, then it is not morally Hans Morgenthau, In Defense of the National Interest (Washington: University Press of America, 1982), 33; quoted in Lieven and Hulsman Ethical Realism and in Sean Molloy, ‘Truth, Power, and Statecraft: Hans Morgenthau’s Formulation of Realism’, Diplomacy and Statecraft 15 (2004), 1–34. 13 Brian Orend, The Morality of War, 2nd edition (Peterborough, ON: Broadview, 2013), 270. 12

44

Transformative Pacifism

equivalent with either pacifism or the just war theory. Thus pacifism and the just war theory are the only properly moral theories in the usual continuum of positions vis-à-vis the justification of violence. Furthermore, if we agree that peace is a basic good, this helps us reorganize our thinking about the relation between pacifism and just war theory. The burden of proof rests upon the proponent of violence or war. The just war theory does not say that war or violence is what we always ought to pursue. War is not a good or an end (telos) for just war theory. Indeed, just war theory wants to avoid violence (holding that violence ought to be a last resort) and just war theory is often interpreted as viewing peace as something to be created after war (according to theories of what is now called jus post bellum). In the just war theory, justice is a more basic good than peace. Indeed, the just cause for war is often articulated in terms of a violation of justice. Aggression is unjust – and the just war theory permits war as a response to aggression. Similarly, humanitarian intervention is justified as a response to injustices. But aggression is unjust precisely because it destroys peace. In ordinary language aggression is understood as hostile, violent (and un-peaceful) behaviour. Thus when a country starts a war by invading another country this is called a crime against peace. The conditions that justify humanitarian intervention may also be described in the terminology of peace – either as overt violence against people or as a kind of structural violence. Pacifism can thus be understood as the more inclusive category. Justifications of violence such as we find in the just war tradition are exceptions to the presumption of non-violence and the background assumption that peace is a primary good. Pacifism holds that peace is an end in itself, a good that we ought to pursue. It also holds that there is a unity of means and ends such that peaceful means ought to be employed in pursuit of peace. The disagreement between pacifism and just war theory is about appropriate means for seeking peace. The just war tradition allows for the use of war in pursuit of peace. This idea is usually grounded in a natural law framework that allows for the use of violence in self-defence (i.e. to defend against unjust aggression and violence). But the just war tradition includes prohibitions against means that are evil in themselves (e.g. rape). The just war tradition only permits violence as a last resort and so long as violence is appropriately targeted (in the principle of discrimination) and is proportional. My point here is that even those who justify violence in pursuit of peace have a preference for peaceful means and understand violence as an exception to the general rule that we should only employ peaceful means.

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

45

In order to demonstrate the conceptual organization of our subject matter, let me offer three graphic representations. The first represents the traditional way that pacifism is understood as an extreme position. Notice here that the description of pacifism articulates it as an absolute prohibition against war (and or violence).

We could expand this traditional picture as follows, allowing for degrees of justification along the continuum. A form of just war pacifism could be included in this continuum. Just war pacifism would be a pacifist interpretation of the just war theory. For example, just war pacifism might hold that wars can be justified in theory but that no actual war lives up to the standards of the theory. Furthermore, a version of realism could also be included in this continuum: what we might call limited war realism. Limited war realism would hold that there are reasons to limit the violence of warfare – but that these reasons are prudential and not moral. For example, one could argue that ‘winning the hearts and minds’ of a population is an important part of war-making strategy and that in order to win the hearts and minds, one should avoid atrocities, limit violence, treat prisoners respectfully, and so on. This more subtle or complicated moral continuum is undoubtedly preferable to a stark trichotomy since it reminds us that there are variations and gradations of moral judgement, including concerns that are both prudential and moral.

46

Transformative Pacifism

Nonetheless, despite the advantage of this more complicated moral continuum, there is still something pernicious about viewing pacifism (or absolute pacifism as I call it here), as an extreme view. Indeed, this expanded continuum makes pacifism appear to be even more marginal and extreme. Thus I suggest that we ought to re-conceptualize pacifism and its relation to realism and justified forms of violence. The following diagram attempts to represent this schematically.

Pacifism is the larger category here, establishing a background condition for most theories of justified violence. The assumption is that there is substantial agreement about the claim that peace is an end in itself and that peaceful means ought to be employed. Within that moral background it is possible to imagine that violence or war could be justified as an exception. The just war theory thus falls under pacifism as a subset. However, we should note that not all just war theorists agree that there is a presumption of peace in the background of just war theory. Thus the sphere of justified violence may fall outside of the sphere of pacifism. The point is this: it is possible to affirm pacifism as a background commitment while imagining that in some rare and tragic cases violence could be justified; it is also possible – as some just war theorists suggest – that justified violence takes us firmly outside of the sphere of pacifism. In this representative scheme, pacifism is a much larger sphere. This represents what may appear as a reversal of contemporary discussions in applied ethics. The idea that violence can be justified is a much discussed idea within ethics and political philosophy. The just war theory provides a widely discussed framework for justified violence. It might seem that just war theory (or justified violence) is the larger concept. However, this representation aims to indicate that the

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

47

commitment to peace is the more pervasive and all-encompassing idea. When we adopt pacifism as a basis for moral theory, it becomes clear that justifications for violence are rare and exceptional. These justifications occupy much of the literature and much of our thinking because they are difficult and conceptually interesting. But we ought not forget that the background assumption is focused on peace. In this representation of pacifism and moral theory, realism is understood as a distinct sphere of consideration. For pacifists – who advocate peace as a means and an end – realism is simply immoral. This way of representing these concepts makes it clear that realism and pacifism are discontinuous. Unlike in the more traditional way of representing these concepts along a continuum with just war in the middle, this way of framing the matter indicates that pacifism and justified violence overlap, while emphasizing that a discontinuity exists even between just war theory and realism. This discontinuity is apparent in the fact that realism maintains that ‘anything goes’ so long as it is prudentially useful. But the just war tradition rejects that idea, stipulating that there are certain deeds that are evil in themselves.

Pacifism as critical social theory If we admit that pacifism is the more inclusive framework within the typical Realism–Pacifism Continuum, then it becomes clear that pacifism ought to be considered as a full-blown moral theory. To further this point, we ought to consider how broadly pacifism can be applied. We shall see in later chapters that pacifism provides a useful scheme that can be applied in various ways with regard to various concrete issues. In other words, pacifism provides a moral world view that extends beyond the question of the justification of war. When pacifism is applied in this broad way, we begin to understand pacifism as a critical social theory. In this regard pacifism is similar to other critical social theories, such as feminism, critical race theory, animal welfare, ecology, and even human rights theory. The just war theory, on the other hand, is focused on a limited set of concerns. It tells us what we ought to do – and not do – within war (in the theory of jus in bello) and it provides criteria for deciding when we are permitted to go to war (in the theory of jus ad bellum). But just war theory cannot tell us much else. As such it is a limited and narrow theory. Some scholars have attempted to apply the methodology of just war thinking to a variety of other cases. Lloyd Steffen

48

Transformative Pacifism

has offered this expansion of just war reasoning in applications to abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty, arguing that in cases such as these that involve violence, the justification scheme of just war theory provides a guide.14 Steffen’s work makes innovative use of just war theory as what he calls a ‘hybrid theory’. He sees just war theory as offering a framework that combines elements of natural law, consequentialism, and other moral theories, allowing for limited violence in exceptional cases. Steffen’s work is useful. But even such an expanded use of just war theory is derivative of the basic question of the justification of violence and the primary value of peace. A theory of ‘just execution’ based upon just war theory – such as Steffen provides – is only useful for deciding whether the death penalty can be justified. But such a theory does not really help us understand the broader question of punishment, the prison system, and so on – and a broader conception of how we might seek peace in the context of crime and punishment. Pacifism encourages us to imagine, in this case, preventative community building, restorative justice, and rehabilitation. Steffen acknowledges this, we should note – and he is sympathetic to the emphasis on non-violence in critiques of the death penalty.15 The just war theory – and its derivatives – is valuable. But it is of limited use for engaging in broad and critical social theory. Even within the domain of war and violence, just war theory does not tell us much about violence prevention or creating a world in which war is less likely. Just war theory does not take into account economic, psychological, and historical forces. It does not tell us how to avoid war or how to engage in productive social change. It does not have much to say about the myths of warrior culture or the problems of PTSD and moral injury.16 Just war theory is limited in application to the question of when violence can be justified. Just war theory has this narrow application and focus because violence – and justifications of violence in response to violence – is a limited occurrence. In short, the just war theory (as well as derivatives such as the just execution theory) is for exceptional cases in which the question of justified violence arises. But those cases are exceptions. The rest of social, political, and cultural life is not a concern for just war theory. See Lloyd Steffen, Ethics and Experience: From Just War to Abortion (Lanhan, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012). 15 Lloyd Steffen, ‘The Death Penalty and Nonviolence’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017). 16 See Fiala, The Just War Myth and Andrew Fiala, ‘Moral Injury and Jus Ad Bellum’, Essays in Philosophy (Special Issue on Moral Psychology and War, Summer 2017) 18:2 (https://doi.org/10.7710/15260569.1585). 14

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

49

Pacifism is different. It is focused both on the question of morally permissible means of responding to violence – as the usually narrow characterization of pacifism is understood – and on the question of how to prevent violence and build a culture of peace. Pacifists and non-violentists are interested in transforming the social, political, psychological, historical, and cultural circumstances that give rise to violence. They are interested in articulating an alternative form of life or way of living that is more peaceful and less violent. Given that broad agenda, pacifists are interested in broad-ranging social critique. Consider, for example, Duane Cady’s critique of what he calls ‘warism’, the larger social and political institution of what is often called ‘militarism’, and the ‘military-industrial complex’.17 Warism and militarism are ideologies and mythic constructs that organize our thinking, our economy, and our social and political lives. These constructs are so deeply woven into our way of living that we often simply take them for granted. It is important to note that warism and militarism are not supported by the just war theory. The just war theory does not tell us to support a militaryindustrial complex in which standing armies and massive defence budgets keep us always on the edge of war. Nor does the just war theory tell us that our heroes ought to be soldiers or that our national holidays ought to be organized around military victories. Indeed, the just war theory reminds us that it is exceedingly difficult to fight a just war. And the just war theory ought to warn us away from what I have elsewhere described as the just war myth, which is the idea that just wars are easy to fight and win – and that our side usually or always fights and wins just wars. But notice that the critique of warism, militarism, and the just war myth is simply not a concern of the just war theory. That critique is properly the purview of pacifism. It is only from the vantage point of pacifism that we come to see that warism and militarism are ideological constructions. In this sense, pacifism is similar to feminism. The mainstream culture long took it for granted that men were superior to women and that male dominance was normal and natural. It took a concerted effort by feminists to point out the ideology of sexism and male chauvinism. Indeed, we see sexism only after taking up the critical vantage of feminism. And once we take up the feminist’s critical vantage point we soon learn to see sexism and male dominance in various places, manifesting itself in many ways – in the economy, in political structures, Cady, From Warism to Pacifism; Duane Cady, ‘Warism and the Dominant Worldview’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017); and William Gay, ‘The Military-Industrial Complex’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017).

17

50

Transformative Pacifism

in family life, in academia, and even in our moral, religious, and philosophical language and traditions. Feminism is a broad and deep critical social theory. The same is true of critical race theory. Again, racial hierarchies were long taken for granted. Racism was not understood as a problem until critical social theorists directed our attention to it. Once this critical theory is embraced, we come to see racism manifesting itself in various ways across and throughout our culture, our economy, and even within the depths of consciousness in what is called implicit bias. Pacifism is similar to these critical social theories – and to other broadly critical social theories such as socialism (which sees class discrimination and economic hierarchies as primary) or even deep ecology (which looks at ecosystem health as primary, while exposing anthropocentrism and speciesism as pernicious ideologies). Let’s pursue the analogy with feminism a bit further. There are several varieties of feminism. One version, known as liberal feminism primarily seeks equality for women. But what makes liberal feminism specifically feminist is the fact that the primary point of emphasis is the pervasively illiberal structure of gender relations within society. Liberal feminists want men and women to be treated equally. But the primary impediment to gender equality is the fact that gender discrimination, sexism, and male dominance are so deeply woven into society. Thus liberal feminists must engage in a deep and pervasive critical enterprise – taking on everything from prostitution and pornography to wage structures, family relations, political representation, and even seemingly tangential issues such as freedom of speech. In the latter case, free speech becomes a feminist issue when freedom of speech contains or supports a male-dominant point of view (as for example, when free speech is used to privilege the male vantage point as in the laws that permit pornography).18 If men and women were equal – and if the social and historical situation did not contain deep structural inequalities – then liberal feminists might be able to focus less on the gender issue and more on liberty and equality. But within the present historical and cultural situation, liberal feminism still has substantial work to do simply drawing our attention to male dominance and sexism. Other forms of feminism – socialist feminism, radical feminism, etc. – are engaged in a similar set of projects. The details would take us too far afield at the moment. The analogy with pacifism works as follows. Pacifism can be side-tracked into a discussion of the justification of the use of violence in self-defence. That discussion is similar to the discussion of whether liberal feminists ought to See, for example, Catherine MacKinnon, Only Words (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).

18

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

51

permit pornography. It seems that liberals should permit free speech – but in some cases free speech runs counter to the feminist ideal of gender equality. In an ideal world of gender equality, free speech would not contribute to sexism – and perhaps there could even be pro-feminist pornography. But outside of that ideal world, the critique of free speech and porn will continue to be an issue for liberal feminists. Analogously, in the ideal world as imagined by pacifism, there would be very few cases in which we would need to employ violence in self-defence. And in that ideal world, if violence were employed it would be easily contained and appropriately limited. The reason we continue to need to discuss the use of violence in self-defence is that we still live in a world structured by violence, warism, militarism, and the like. The goal of pacifism is to transform the world so that there is less violence, so that warism and militarism are less pervasive, and so that peace is normal and war and violence are viewed as extraordinary and exceptional. Similarly, the goal of feminism is to transform the world such that sexism is rare, gender equality prevails, male sexuality would not be predatory and domineering, and so on. Or to spin out the analogy with critical race theory, we might explain that in the ideal world of racial harmony, there would be no more discrimination or hate crimes. The goal is to minimize discrimination and hate by criticizing them in all of their manifestations – both overtly racist criminality and as found in structural and institutional racism. Until a racially harmonious future dawns race theorists may have to continue to employ racial categories and employ alliances among racial subgroups that themselves may seem divisive. But those strategies of deconstruction, critique, and resistance are needed within a world in which there is simply too much racism. Pacifists confront similar challenges in arguing for peace within a violent world. In each case – whether it is pacifism, feminism, or racial theory – the goal is to transform the world by offering a critical vantage point on the status quo. And in each case, the critical social theory is broader than a simplistic application of concrete discourses of justification that focus narrowly on given cases. Thus while pacifists may grudgingly have to accept some concrete cases where violence can be justified in self-defence, the ultimate goal is not to rest easy with those cases – rather the goal is to transform the social scene so that those cases are fewer and farther between. And the pacifist vantage point makes it clear that our dominant ideology’s commitment to warism and militarism is an impediment to obtaining that goal. Likewise, the liberal feminist may have to argue that some restrictions on liberty are necessary in order to protect women from male dominance and abuse. But those restrictions are grudgingly acknowledged, while the larger goal is to transform the social scene so that male dominance is less common.

52

Transformative Pacifism

Some radical feminists may claim that feminists ought not even engage in those sorts of legalistic restrictions on liberty, perhaps claiming that to use the courts and laws to restrict freedom is to be co-opted by the very structures that have long been employed to oppress women. That form of radicalism is similar to absolute pacifism, which steps outside of the militarism of the status quo in order to affirm a radical alternative. Some pacifists have opted out of dominant society and have formed pacifist communes (often combining their rejection of militarism with a kind of anarchism). Some feminists have also stepped outside of the status quo – for example, in so-called ‘lesbian separatism’ – aiming to live in pure women-first communes and the like. But these radical and separatist movements are in the minority. There are very few absolute pacifist communes. Purity and radical transformation is quite demanding. Beside the absolutists and radicals we find a more mixed and morally complicated set of commitments. We must live and work in a world that includes sexism, racism, and violence. And within that world we need non-ideal theory and practice, which includes compromises and exceptions – but which also does not lose track of the larger moral commitment. Despite such non-ideal compromises, pacifists are in general – like feminists and those interested in racial justice – interested in a deep critique of the status quo that aims to transform the world. A last word is in order here, regarding the question of where pacifism ought to be located with the discourse of ethics. It is important to note that in applied ethics textbooks feminism has migrated. At one point feminist concerns were simply viewed as an applied ethics topic. Thus one could address women’s issues from a utilitarian vantage point or from the standpoint of natural law or Kantian deontology. But feminism has grown beyond that conception – and moral theory has changed in response. Feminists have argued against the marginalization of women’s concerns within moral and political theory, pointing out that mainstream ethical theory – utilitarianism, natural law, and Kantian deontology – had long been involved in the ongoing marginalization of women and their legitimate concerns. A similar critique has been provided by critical race theory, which has pushed back against the dominant thread of Western moral and political theory – along with postcolonial theory and critiques of Eurocentrism. And so, feminism and race theory have ended up being recognized as offering a broader moral theory – or as offering a critique of moral theory itself. Following the model of the reconceptualization of moral theory that has occurred because of feminist, postcolonial, and racially conscious critique,

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

53

I argue that pacifism should be seen as engaging at the level of comprehensive normative theory and critical social theory. Pacifists are concerned with important foundational issues in moral and political theory. Pacifism articulates an ideal vision of the good life. It establishes an end towards which our moral and political worlds ought to develop. It provides a theory of what counts as legitimate means for that development. And it offers a comprehensive critique of cultural, social, psychological, economic, religious, and political ideas. Pacifism is, in short, a major normative theory.

The pacific virtues Pacifism has been historically associated with religious points of view. This may have prevented some humanistic and secular ethical theorists from taking pacifism seriously as a moral theory. Thus as part of the reconceptualization of pacifism, we ought to avoid religious entanglement. One way to do that is to reinterpret traditional pacifism from within the vantage point of virtue theory. The religious commitment to peace and non-violence can be reinterpreted in a more general way as a commitment to certain virtues that promote human flourishing as conceived in these traditions. It is possible that adherents of religious traditions will resist the secularization of these traditions. The general connection between religious and secular ethics needs much further consideration.19 My goal is not to dismiss religious pacifism. Rather, the point is to suggest that it is possible to derive a broader humanistic and secular pacifist ethic. Virtue ethics focuses on the question of which set of habits provides the key to human flourishing and the good life. In Aristotelian tradition, virtue orbits around the idea of eudaimonia – happiness or flourishing. We are happiest and we flourish when we fulfil our telos, that is, when we organize our lives according to a pattern that allows us to achieve our purpose and goal. The ideal of human flourishing includes a set of excellences or virtues (Greek areté). Contemporary virtue ethicists have followed Alasdair MacIntyre in understanding these virtues and the ideal of human flourishing as connected to traditions and practices. Traditions and practices are defined by institutions, cultural identity, and

I discuss some of this in Andrew Fiala, Secular Cosmopolitanism, Hospitality, and Religious Pluralism (New York: Routledge Publishing 2016).

19

54

Transformative Pacifism

narratives that outline a conception of what it means to be a good or excellent human being.20 The idea of human flourishing that is found in pacifism is fleshed out by way of a number of specific virtues including kindness, compassion, tolerance, patience, mercy, forgiveness, and love. These virtues are opposed to a rival set of vices: mean-spiritedness, anger, spitefulness, intolerance, impatience, vindictiveness, cold-heartedness, and hate. In other work, I have outlined a genealogy of the pacific virtue tradition, locating the development of pacifism specifically in the Christian tradition.21 This is not the only pacific virtue tradition. We can find related ideas in Buddhism, for example; or in Gandhi’s teaching and practice. As I argue here, peaceful human flourishing can be described in a more inclusive secular fashion. Aristotle understands virtue as a ‘mean’ or middle point between vices. Thus courage is the mean between fear and rashness. The pacific virtues may be explained in this way as well. Thus peacefulness might be explained as the mean between angry violence and passive acquiescence. Pacifism is often confused with passive-ism. One standard objection against pacifists is that they simply do nothing when confronting violence and evil. But the virtue approach makes it clear that pacifists can and should act to confront and resist injustice and violence. But resistance should remain peaceful. It ought not become angry and violent. Thus the concept of non-violent resistance can be understood as a middle path between passivity and angry violence. This analysis of pacifism as a middle path is at odds with those who view pacifism as creating a set of absolute commitments. Absolutism may posit some virtues as non-negotiable singular excellences representing the highest good. One example is found in Christian teaching about the theological virtues: faith, hope, and love (or charity – caritas/agape). For these virtues there may be no middle path, no such thing as ‘too much’. Can there be too much love of God, for example? Thus a form of absolute pacifism can develop from out of the Christian tradition, which is not amenable to the Aristotelian understanding of virtue as a mid-point. A similar kind of absolutism can be found in South Asian traditions such as Jainism, which takes the virtue of ahimsa/non-violence to an extreme level. A less absolutist approach locates the pacific virtues within a more complicated and less theologically oriented world view and account of the virtues. Such a See Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1984). Andrew Fiala, What Would Jesus Really Do? The Power and Limits of Jesus’s Moral Teaching (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007), Chapter 4.

20 21

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

55

humanistic pacifism considers virtues (in their plurality) as needing to be integrated into a consistent world view. From this point of view, the virtues are not absolute commands or prohibitions – but rather rules of thumb and guideposts for living well. From this point of view, we ought to continually ask ourselves whether and how we can do the right thing, at the right time, in the right way, in the right amount, and so on. A pacifist response to that set of questions will say that most of the time we ought to be peaceful, kind, generous, compassionate, merciful, and loving. And we ought to cultivate a set of habits that make us more peaceful, kind, etc. But in concrete cases we need what is called practical wisdom. There is no recipe for peaceful behaviour. Rather, the virtuous person who has developed the habits of peacefulness will respond appropriately. Does this mean that a virtuous pacifist will never employ violence? This is a complicated question that would require us to consider the totality of the circumstance and to imagine how a wise and virtuous person who is committed to pacifism would respond. This analysis admits that it may turn out that in some cases a pacifist might employ limited violence. Thus Gandhi, for example, allowed that in some cases killing could be allowed – for example, with regard to rampaging animals or in cases of human euthanasia.22 Benevolence, self-defence, and other concerns might require us to kill in some rare circumstances. And the totality of human virtues are involved in thinking about such cases, including how our actions embody other commitments we have to truth, justice, and courage – as well as the obligations we accrue through the promises we’ve made and the relationships we have. This discussion shows that there are complicated questions to consider with regard to understanding pacifism from the standpoint of virtue ethics. Let’s return to the thesis I have been defending throughout this chapter, which is that pacifism ought to be considered as a substantial normative theory. The fact that there is a sustained pacifist tradition in virtue ethics is an indication of the importance of the theory. We find virtue pacifism in Christian traditions, in South Asian traditions such as Jainism and Buddhism, in Taoism, and in Gandhi’s more recent example. In those traditions, peacefulness is understood as a way of life, an ongoing practice of what I will describe in a subsequent chapter (Chapter 6) as the peaceful self. Once one has embraced the pacific way of life, ethical decision-making is coloured by the commitment to peace.

See Nicholas Gier, The Virtue of Nonviolence: From Gautama to Gandhi (Albany NY: SUNY Press, 2004), 53–4.

22

56

Transformative Pacifism

The pacifist traditions are many. They are deep and reflective and internally complex. And the plurality of these traditions reminds us of the need for a cosmopolitan approach to moral theory.

Applying pacifism to ‘the life issues’ In applied ethics curricula, pacifism and non-violence are often only considered constrained in discussions of war, revolution, and terrorism. But like utilitarianism, natural law, or Kantian deontology, the normative theory of pacifism is applicable to a variety of issues including the so-called ‘life issues’ (abortion, euthanasia, the death penalty) as well as related issues including sexual ethics, animal welfare, and ecology. We will discuss some of this in subsequent chapters. But let’s consider here briefly abortion and euthanasia, as an example of how pacifism may be applied. A pacifist approach to abortion would emphasize non-violence in reproduction. This means, obviously, that rape is wrong. But the issue of nonviolence in the context of abortion depends upon whom we think of as a victim of violence. It is wrong to use coercive violence to impose a pregnancy on a woman. But are foetuses also the kinds of beings who can be victims of violence? This vexing question points towards deep ontological, spiritual, and moral difficulties. These difficulties cannot be resolved simply by coming at them from the point of view of pacifism. Indeed, pacifism has nothing unique to offer with regard to the ontological question. The same point holds, by the way, for other normative theories: utilitarians and Kantians will also be vexed by the problem of the moral status of the foetus. Many natural law theorists think that they have the answer in stating the life begins at conception. But that ontological claim is not an essential feature even of natural law. But notice what pacifism can contribute to the abortion discussion. A culture of peace would want to minimize violence in all cases. Thus, in general, it would be better to provide sex education that emphasizes non-violent loving and sexual relationships. This would minimize coercion and maximize caring and compassionate relations, while also preventing unwanted pregnancy. In many cases, unwanted pregnancies occur because of coercive sexuality (incest and rape – including sex with girls who have not yet reached the age of consent). Unwanted pregnancies also occur because of lack of access to birth control and sex education. This lack can be understood as a form of structural violence in

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

57

which conditions are oriented against teen mothers, single mothers, and working mothers. The fact that it is easy for a girl to be manipulated into unprotected sex, while it is also difficult for a woman to be supported should she become pregnant is an important feature of structural violence against women. This includes more overt violence that can result when abortion is illegal and women are subjected to unsafe abortions – as well as structural injustices that result when unsupported women give birth and raise children. And yet, abortion itself does seem to be a form of violence. Some will deny this by simply denying that foetuses are the sorts of beings who can be recipients of violence – or as the literature often explains this, who can experience harm.23 But the act of abortion does seem to involve physical violence – as foetuses are dismembered and destroyed. Perhaps abortion is a form of violence that can be justified by an analysis that involves focuses on conflicting rights, as in the influential argument by Judith Jarvis Thomson.24 But a non-violent approach to the abortion issue would likely want to minimize the use of abortion, while also generally working to minimize violence against women. Furthermore, a nonviolent approach to abortion would be strongly opposed to the use of violence against abortion providers. It would also be opposed to the idea that abortion could be imposed upon a woman against her will (as happens in patriarchal situations when fathers force their daughters to abort and in state-sanctioned population control policies such as China’s previous one-child policy). One suggestion that fits, at least in part, with pacifism is to take seriously the idea of what has been called ‘a consistent ethic of life’. That idea seems to resonate with the basic values of a culture of peace, although the phrase has often become a kind of code for right-wing conservative political causes. It would be better, I suggest, to emphasize a consistent non-violent ethic. The point here is that the effort is to build peace and engage the world non-violently – rather than to get bogged down in the quagmire of nitpicking about what counts as life (when it begins, when it ends, and so on). There are philosophical rabbit holes here regarding the status of embryos created by IVF processes or regarding the status of brain-dead people kept alive on life-support machines. Related issues concern cognitively deficient human beings as well as the status of non-human animals. Those considerations are important and difficult. But the overarching moral See Mary Anne Warren ‘On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion’, The Monist (January 1973) – also Warren, ‘Postscript on Infanticide’, in Richard Wasserstrom, ed., Today’s Moral Problems (New York: MacMillan, 1979), pp. 135–6. For response, see Don Marquis, ‘Why Abortion is Immoral’, The Journal of Philosophy 86:4 (1989), 183–202. 24 Judith Jarvis Thomson, ‘A Defense of Abortion’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 1:1 (1971), 47–66. 23

58

Transformative Pacifism

framework of non-violence instructs us about how to think about these issues. Our goal should be to minimize violence and build peace. This goal should be comprehensive and inclusive. It may turn out that there are exceptions to be made and that the details in given cases can lead us to accept some forms of ‘lesser evil’ violence. But we should avoid turning these exceptions into rules that are celebrated and valorized. It is possible to apply a modified version of the just war theory to thinking about abortion. Lloyd Steffen has done just this with regard to abortion – as well as with regard to euthanasia and other life issues.25 Steffen’s approach aims to avoid absolutism. There are some easily imaginable exceptions in which violence (and even war) could be justifiable. When a woman’s own life is in danger, it seems obvious that she may use abortion to preserve her own life. Steffen’s work helps to explain how this happens in many of the applied cases in these various fields. For the most part I agree with his analysis. But the goal of transformative pacifism is to find ways to avoid normalizing the exceptions and to build a world in which the exceptions are rarer. With regard to abortion, a culture of peace would want to minimize the use of abortion – as well as to minimize violence against women. One problem is our hyper-sexualized environment in which women are coerced into having unprotected sex and then offered abortion as a matter of course. Instead, the norm should be for there to better sex education, better access to birth control, better sexual relationships, supportive nurturance for pregnant women, and safe abortions as a rare exception. The idea of a consistent non-violent ethic is connected to the idea of a consistent ethic of life. This idea has roots in the work of pacifists, albeit in the sectarian pacifism of contemporary Catholicism. The idea of a ‘seamless garment’ that shows up in Catholic thinking about a consistent ethic of life can be traced to ideas espoused by Eileen Egan, a colleague of Dorothy Day who helped found Pax Christi.26 Egan was a vocal critic of war who extended that critique to abortion and the life issues. In 1971, before abortion became legal in the United States, Gordon Zahn – a pacifist affiliated with the Catholic Worker movement – argued that there is a convergence of pacifism and anti-abortion ideas. He explained, ‘Pacifism and opposition to abortion converge here, for Lloyd Steffen, Ethics and Experience: Moral Theory from Just War to Abortion (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012). 26 See Linda L. Baratte, ‘Religious Education in the Prophetic Voice: The Pedagogy of Eileen Egan’, Journal of Catholic Education 9:2 (2005), 198–214.   Retrieved from http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/ce/vol9/iss2/6; also see John Dear, The God of Peace: Toward A Theology of Nonviolence (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1994), Chapter 16. 25

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

59

both find their ultimate justification in the Christian obligation to revere human life and its potential and to respect all of the rights associated with it.’27 This kind of position was further developed, especially in Catholic thinking, in the direction of a consistent ethic of life, holding that all life is sacred and that all killing is wrong including suicide, murder, war, the death penalty, abortion, and euthanasia. A primary source here is Cardinal Joseph Bernardin and Pope (and now Saint) John Paul II. This line of thinking begins from reflection upon war and peace, as an extension of anti-war pacifism.28 A culture of peace should take the presumption against killing seriously. John Paul II fleshed one version of this out in Evangelium Vitae (the Gospel of Life), where he offered a comprehensive account of opposition to killing that includes abortion, the death penalty, war, suicide, euthanasia, and so on. He criticizes in general what he calls a ‘culture of death’, which he describes as being focused on individualism, utilitarianism, and efficiency – and which views the aged, the disabled, and the unborn as disposable and inconvenient.29 What John Paul describes as a culture of death is similar to the problem of cultural violence. He proposes a culture of life as the opposite of a culture of death. We might emphasize building a culture of peace as an antidote for a culture of violence. The Catholic tradition has its limitations: Catholic sexual ethics and views of women, contraception, and homosexuality are narrow and not applicable in a more secular world. But the Catholic example reminds us that there is more to be said in terms of the cultural shifts that would have to occur if we were to create a culture of peace. Those shifts would include significant changes with regard to how we view war, abortion, the death penalty, and so on. They would change our understanding of how we view masculinity, relationships, sexuality, and so on. Gordon C. Zahn (1971) ‘A Religious Pacifist Looks at Abortion’, The Linacre Quarterly 38: 4, Article 9; available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol38/iss4/9 28 Bernardin explains,  What is found in the letter is the traditional Catholic teaching that there should always be a presumption against taking human life, but in a limited world marked by the effects of sin there are some narrowly defined exceptions where life can be taken. This is the moral logic which produced the ‘Just-War’ ethic in Catholic theology. While this style of moral reasoning retains its validity as a method of resolving extreme cases of conflict when fundamental rights are at stake, there has been a perceptible shift of emphasis in the teaching and pastoral practice of the Church in the last 30 years. To summarize the shift succinctly, the presumption against taking human life has been strengthened and the exceptions made ever more restrictive. (Joseph Cardinal Bernardin, Consistent Ethic of Life (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1988), 5) 27

John Paul II (Pope) (1995) Evangelium Vitae at Vatican website http://w2.vatican.va/content/johnpaul-ii/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_jp-ii_enc_25031995_evangelium-vitae.html; accessed July 2017.

29

60

Transformative Pacifism

Furthermore, pacifists will disagree among themselves about significant details. Secular pacifists will likely reject, for example, Catholic teaching about contraception. Gandhi’s emphasis on brahmacharya (sexual continence, celibacy, and marital fidelity) as a key to non-violence will likely be dismissed by twenty-first-century pacifists who have different views of sexuality.30 And so on. Before we conclude, let’s briefly consider one further issue: the question of euthanasia and the end of life. Such a discussion can give us insight into the complexity of these discussions. Pacifists will want to diminish violence and suffering; but given this goal it will be very difficult to draw absolutizing conclusions about these topics. As with the other topics we have discussed here there is little discussion in the literature of how pacifism or non-violence should inform our thinking about these topics. The same is true with regard to euthanasia. Some insight can be found, for example, in considering what Gandhi says about euthanasia.31 Gandhi, for example, thought that mercy killing was acceptable, despite his commitment to non-violence.32 But the point is not to normalize euthanasia or to advocate for a proactive or state-sponsored campaign of euthanasia, which would sweep up the disabled and the aged. Rather, euthanasia can be justified only in exceptional circumstances. Moreover, our thinking about these exceptions, from within a culture of peace, would have to be comprehensive and systematic. One short article that See Veena R. Howard, Gandhi’s Ascetic Activism: Renunciation and Social Action (Albany: SUNY Press, 2013). See Joris Gielen, ‘Mahatma Gandhi’s View on Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide’, Journal of Medical Ethics 38:7 (July 2012), 431–4. 32 With regard to killing rabid dogs and vicious persons, for example, Gandhi explained:  Imperfect, erring mortals as we are, there is no course open to us but the destruction of rabid dogs. At times we may be faced with the unavoidable duty of killing a man who is found in the act of killing people (Gandhi, Collected Works 36:390 (The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi electronic Book (New Delhi, Publications Division Government of India, 1999) in ninety-eight volumes; at: http://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/gandhi-literature/mahatma-gandhicollected-works-volume-36.pdf)). Gandhi goes on to explain that while non-violence should structure our thinking and our actions, in this world where we are often confronted with choices that require violence. He concludes, ‘To destroy a rabid dog is to commit the minimum amount of violence.’ (Gandhi, Collected Works, 36:391). Gandhi expands his thinking about this further in another essay where he concludes:  I cannot for a moment bear to see a dog, or for that matter any other living being, helplessly suffering the torture of a slow death. I do not kill a human being thus circumstanced because I have more hopeful remedies. I should kill a dog similarly situated, because in its case I am without a remedy. Should my child be attacked by rabies and there was no hopeful remedy to relieve his agony, I should consider it my duty to take his life. Fatalism has its limits. We leave things to Fate after exhausting all the remedies. One of the remedies, and the final one to relieve the agony of a tortured child, is to take his life. (Gandhi, Collected Works, 37:22 (at http://www.gandhiashramsevagram. org/gandhi-literature/mahatma-gandhi-collected-works-volume-37.pdf)) It is clear here that even a ‘votary of nonviolence’ such as Gandhi can imagine circumstances in which euthanasia is a merciful act that embodies non-violence. 30

31

Pacifism in Applied Ethics

61

addresses the topic of euthanasia and pacifism, by Dan Dombrowski, makes a significant point, which is that it is much easier to justify euthanasia than it is to justify war.33 His reasoning is that it is possible for an individual to waive their right to life – and that in some cases life is no longer good for the person living. But war is a different case, in which people who value their own lives are killed against their will. Dombrowski offers a statement of principled non-killing that allows for euthanasia. He says, ‘It is wrong to kill people unless we do so with their consent and for their benefit.’ This principle would allow for euthanasia in some cases, while also providing a robust argument against war and other sorts of violence. And it provides us with criteria that help us understanding a systematic approach to non-violence: consent matters, as does benefit. Indeed, those concepts factor into a theory of what counts as violence: violence occurs when something is done which is against our will and which harms us.34

Conclusion This chapter has argued that pacifism ought to be included among the major normative theories. Pacifism is more than merely one extreme endpoint on the continuum for thinking about war and violence. Rather, pacifism is a normative theory that stipulates a definition of the good – which is peace – and which provides an account of the proper means for obtaining this good, which is by way of non-violence. Like feminism, pacifism offers a critical social theory that focuses our attention on cultural, economic, social, religious, and political problems. It asks us to see and criticize violence – both overt and structural violence – wherever it occurs. Pacifism can also be understood as a virtue theory, which connects pacific virtues to an account of human flourishing. And pacifism can be applied to concrete issues in applied ethics, aiming to focus our attention on violence in these issues, while encouraging us to transform culture in a more peaceful direction.

Daniel Dombrowski, ‘Must a Pacifist Also Be Opposed to Euthanasia?’, The Journal of Value Inquiry 30 (June 1996), 261–3. 34 Also see Fiala, Public War, Private Conscience, Chapter 10. 33

62

4

Pacifism as Critical Theory

Pacifism is often dismissed as a trivial and naïve theory. Pacifism seems merely to say ‘Stop fighting’ or ‘Make peace, not war.’ But a slogan is not a philosophy. Philosophically interesting pacifism is a critical social theory. It delves into many difficult questions. And it makes the task of social transformation more difficult – or, rather, the depth of its critique makes clear how difficult the transformation towards peace will be. Transformative pacifism is a comprehensive critical theory of society. It offers a critical perspective on violence, asking us to understand violence in all of its manifestations: physical, psychological, cultural, social, religious, and political. The task of understanding is a theoretical one. To theorize is to see, to contemplate, to think about, to explain, to interpret, to evaluate, to comprehend, and to criticize. Critical theory interprets and explains the world, while seeking also to liberate, enlighten, and transform the world. But as we shall see here, reflective pacifist theory and practice is complicated – and impossible to reduce to any superficial slogan.

The dis-ease of critical pacifism A critical pacifist theory is not abstract, disembodied, and removed from the world. Indeed, self-critical pacifist theory contains the seeds of a kind of dis-ease that prompts action. The more we think about the problem of violence and the need for peace, the more we see the need for transformative action. Critical theories are aware of the material, psychological, social, cultural, religious, political, and historical conditions that give rise to the theoretical enterprise. Critical theories help us see these conditions in new ways by examining what we often take for granted with an eye towards enlightenment and improvement. A critical theory of pacifism – or a pacifist critical theory – considers violence as it appears throughout the life-world, while seeking

64

Transformative Pacifism

to articulate a peaceful alternative and the means to achieve that alternative. It seeks to transform the world by offering a critique of violence and an agenda for promoting peace. Genuine critical theories are also self-critical: the critical vantage point should be aware of its own limitations and recognizes itself as merely one possible vantage point. This kind of self-critical self-awareness is central for transformative pacifism. This is true for at least three reasons. (1) We ought to admit that not everyone experiences the world in the same way. Victims of violence will have a different experience than perpetrators. And the disengaged theorist will have a different vantage point than those who are at work in the trenches and on the streets. (2) The self-critical theorist understands that theory can itself be violent – a point made by post-structuralists such as Derrida.1 A pacifist critical theory will be aware that a pacifist theory can contain a seed of violence – when it essentializes, domineers, and insists. A dogmatic pacifism risks succumbing to violence of this sort. And so (3) pacifism ought to encourage us to seek peace by becoming aware of the complexity of the theory–practice matrix and by keeping our eyes open to violence in all of its forms – including becoming aware of the potential violence contained within the very project of pacifism. With regard to the first point, consider how critical theory arises from engaged practice in the world. We come to see things when we act and respond in the real In his article ‘Violence and Metaphysics’, Derrida uses the phrase ‘the imperialism of theoria’ (Jacques Derrida, ‘Violence and Metaphysics’, in Claire Elise Katz and Lara Trout, eds, Levinas, Phenomenology and his Critics (London: Routledge, 2005), 94). Derrida bases his account on ideas found in the work of Emmanuel Levinas, arguing that there is violence contained in the act of expressing, articulating, and theorizing. As we step outside of things and impose a point of view, a word, or a theory upon them we commit a kind of violence. Derrida suggests that peace would be a kind of silence. But to talk about peace is already to disrupt the peace and get caught up in what he calls ‘the economy of war’ (Derrida, ‘Violence and Metaphysics’, 157). So peace is the hoped for endpoint of discourse. Derrida explains peace as ‘a certain silence, a certain beyond of Speech, a certain possibility, a certain silent horizon of speech’ (Derrida, ‘Violence and Metaphysics’, 126). He continues, ‘There is war only after the opening of discourse, and war dies out only at the end of discourse. Peace, like silence, is the strange vocation of a language called outside itself by itself ’ (Derrida, ‘Violence and Metaphysics’, 126). This provocative idea reminds us that theorizing is a process that is ongoing – and may never reach an end point (or that the endpoint would be silence). But here’s the point: by theorizing we engage in a process of transformation. It may be that transformational processes are a kind of violence: there is creative destruction in any process – old forms are destroyed as new ones replace them. Thus there may even be a form of violence contained with pacifism as a transformative theory. And we should always be aware of the fact that as we theorize about peace, we step outside of the practices of peace. It is also possible that non-violence or peace may need to be a form of silence, as Derrida suggests. This may be something like the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding (Phil. 4.7). Or it maybe the kind of silence Wittgenstein imagined at the end of the Tractatus and in his Philosophical Investigations. Consider what Wittgenstein says in paragraph 133. Philosophical therapy would put an end to questions and to theorizing. It would be what ‘gives philosophy peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions which bring itself into question’. But the peace of silence is both more and less than we should hope for. In a condition of pure peace, there might in fact be no further need for words. But silence is not itself a sign of peace. Silence can also be the result of indifference, confusion, or passive-aggression.

1

Pacifism as Critical Theory

65

world. This is why some of the best theories of pacifism and non-violence are articulated by activists who use non-violence and who are actively engaged in the act of transforming the world in a more peaceful direction. This does not mean that pacifist activism is a requirement of pacifist theory. But pacifist theory is tested in the face of violence and war. And the confrontation with violence and war helps to give rise to a sober and informed pacifism. One need not be a Gandhi or a King in order to understand this. We come to understand violence when we confront all of its manifestations: in domestic relations, in business and professional life, and in our own local communities. There is no seamless system in which theory and practice are perfectly harmonized. Our practice can benefit from criticism; and our criticism can benefit from informed practice. Theory and practice are complex and convoluted; each aspect of the theory–practice matrix is situated in history, culture, and political life. We are reminded of this by a variety of critiques from the margins: postcolonial critique, critical race theory, feminism, and so on. These critical  theories show that theorizing is always situated within a given historical, economic, social, cultural, etc. framework. Moreover, these critiques caution us to look for violence contained within the framework. The traditional, modern, or enlightenment framework evaluates the world in a way that creates and defends hierarchical ordering of the universe in a way that is violence. The traditional theoretical enterprise is also based upon the concrete violence of class and gender hierarchies, colonial exploitation, slavery, war, domination, and so on. Enrique Dussell claims, for example, that European modernity is made possible by ‘constitutive, originary, essential violence’.2 And he argues that liberatory philosophy is based upon a critique of ‘violent, coercive, genocidal reason’.3 For example, Dussell points out that European modernity is made possible by exploitation of the Americas: the expropriated wealth of the ‘new world’ helped to fuel the advances in science and philosophy in the ‘old world’. Similar critical points can be made with regard to racial categories, gender relations, religious hierarchies, and so on. This is not the place to delve into all of these critiques. But note that to lump all of these critical frameworks into a general category (sometimes called ‘critique from the margins’) and to ignore the content and detail of these critiques – as I am doing now – is to do violence

Enrique Dussell, ‘Eurocentrism and Modernity’, in John Beverley-José Oviedo, ed., The Postmodernism Debate in Latin America (Durham: Duke University Press, 1993), 76: from Dussell’s website: http:// www.enriquedussel.com/DVD%20Obras%20Enrique%20Dussel/Textos/c/1993-243.pdf. 3 Dussell, ‘Eurocentrism and Modernity’, 75. 2

66

Transformative Pacifism

to them. And so, a kind of violence seems typical of theorizing: even when theorizing aims to talk about violence. All of this seems quite abstract. The point is that we can always do better in our attempts to become aware of violence and in our effort to promote peace. I once had a long conversation with a man whose father was a pacifist in the Mennonite tradition. The father had raised his children to be strict pacifists and had schooled his children in Mennonite readings of the Bible, religious practices, etc. But the son – who was a middle-aged adult when I talked with him – had broken away from his father’s pacifist religion. He complained about his upbringing and said, more or less, that his father had done violence to him by forcing him to be a pacifist. The problem is obvious: if pacifism is compulsory, it is violent. In order to prevent this, pacifism must be voluntarily affirmed and pacifists must be aware of the potential for coercion and violence within pacifist theory and practice. Said differently, pacifism ought to be the result of peaceful, non-violent persuasion – and it does not properly result from coercion, manipulation, threats, and violence. Thus, when we theorize properly – critically self-aware and without coercion – we are already operating according to pacific principles. Or at least we are on our way towards a transformation of both theory and practice that helps us to minimize or avoid violence, while opening the possibility of peace. Genuine dialogue is typical of what I am calling here critical theory. It is hospitable and inclusive. It admits diversity and difference, while managing this non-violently and aspiring towards harmonious, ongoing philosophical conversation. The term theory comes from the Greek theoria, which means to see – and is related to our word theatre, which is a place to see things. But critical theory is also critique. It aims to judge things and evaluate them. The Greek verb krinein means to judge, evaluate, or distinguish. And such judgement and evaluation take place from a particular vantage point: these are the judgements of a certain way of seeing. Some critics – including postmodernists and post-structuralists – worry about the legitimacy or the foundations of such a critical exercise.4 Others may worry that the pacifist critique is based upon certain material foundations that conceal violence, such as the fact that to offer a critical theory relies upon a police and military structure that provides the stability and security that is needed to theorize. We might also point out that theorizers are supported in See Jacques Derrida, ‘Force of Law’, in Jacques Derrida, ed., Acts of Religion (New York: Routledge, 2002).

4

Pacifism as Critical Theory

67

their work by marginalized populations – often women and labourers – who support the endeavour of theoria. A genuinely critical pacifist theory will see all of this, including remaining contradictions that plague the theoretical vantage point. But to see and admit these remaining contradictions takes us at least part of the way in the direction of peace. To see things is to gaze at them peacefully. The theoretical enterprise is committed to seeing peacefully. Thus a critique of violence emerges from within practices of theorizing: when we think about violence critically we are already committed to a form of pacifism.5 But to really think critically about violence is to acknowledge that thinking about violence can still conceal violence, oppression, and the like. In seeing this – that violence can be concealed even in the act of theorizing about violence and peace – we ought to experience a kind of discomfort and disease that disrupts complacency. We ought to feel guilty and responsible for the violence that remains in the world because this violence is part of the system that makes it possible for us to think about violence and peace. That discomfort and unease reminds us that the goal of obtaining peaceful serenity through tranquil contemplation is an ideal, which requires work and effort in the world. In other words, a genuinely self-critical pacifist theory should prompt us to act in the world – to begin to work on transforming the world in the direction of peace.

On seeing structural and other violence Pacifism as a critical theory of violence encourages us to see violence and to judge it accordingly. Thoroughgoing pacifism imagines peace or non-violence as the primary good. In pursuit of that good, it criticizes violence in all of its forms. This includes an account of structural and cultural violence. Such pervasive and inclusive pacifist critique can be the source of unhappiness and dis-ease – once we begin to realize how much work remains to be done in terms of promoting peace. Johan Galtung, the father of modern peace studies, provides us with definitions of both structural and cultural violence. Galtung notes that there are a variety of distinctions to be made with regard to types of violence. Direct, personal, intentional, physical violence occurs, for example, when one person I have made this argument in Andrew Fiala, Against Religions, Wars, and States (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013).

5

68

Transformative Pacifism

punches another in a fight. Structural violence is different: it need not be directly intended, it can be impersonal, and it can also be more psychological than physical. Moreover, structural violence can often occur in a silent structure that may not even be seen by those who suffer under it. As Galtung puts it, ‘Structural violence may be seen as about as natural as the air around us.’6 Structural violence is a condition of social injustice, inequality, or oppression. It may turn out that structural violence does not manifest any personal violence. But it is likely that structural violence depends upon prior cases of personal violence that created injustice and inequality. Thus, for example, slavery was first created by capturing slaves against their will. Subsequent generations of slaves may well be born into the structural violence of the slavery system and not experience as much personal violence. But if the inequalities and oppression of the status quo are called into question, personal violence remains as an administrative remedy. Thus the escaped slave will be captured and beaten; and slave revolts will be severely punished. A further point is worth noting, which is that members of the oppressor class may themselves be forced into supporting the system they are born into. Thus a slave-owner who wants to dismantle slavery may be subject to peer pressure, coercion, and even personal, direct violence when he tries to disrupt the status quo. Galtung concludes his discussion of structural violence by noting that peace is the absence of both personal and structural violence. This important point allows us to rule out seemingly peaceful social and political situations in which there is no overt personal violence – but in which oppression, inequality, and injustice persist. And thus Galtung offers us a dialectical definition of positive versus negative peace. Negative peace is the absence of personal and direct violence: it is the mere absence of overt hostility. But positive peace occurs when there is also no structural violence. Positive peace would occur when there is no injustice, oppression, or inequality. Transformative pacifism aims at positive peace in this sense, seeking not only to end personal, direct violence but also to eliminate structural violence. The difficulty of this project becomes apparent when we realize how much structural violence there is. Slavery, to stick with this example, is part of the American heritage. To be an American is to inherit the legacy of slavery, along with a history that includes genocidal acts against Native Americans and other violence. It is not clear exactly how to remedy this in the present – whether reparations or affirmative action or other steps are justifiable. But pacifism as a critical theory of structural violence will be open to those issues. And in general, Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace, and Peace Research’, 173.

6

Pacifism as Critical Theory

69

pacifists will understand the depth of the transformation needed in order to alleviate the harms of structural violence. Related to the concept of structural violence is the idea of cultural violence. Cultural violence has to do with what Galtung calls ‘the symbolic sphere of our existence’.7 It is in the realm of symbols that violence is justified, legitimated, taught, and disseminated. Some cultural complexes – perhaps most of them – make violence (both direct, personal violence and indirect, structural violence) ‘look, even feel, right – or at least – not wrong8’. In other work I have connected this with the myths of political life, which make violence seem noble and patriotic. Cultural and structural violence point to a deep problem for pacifist theory: the theory develops out of and within a cultural, political, and social matrix that includes much violence. Walter Benjamin, for example, discusses ‘law-making violence’ and ‘mythic violence’ as part of the cultural matrix that we inherit.9 Our interpretation of violence will be coloured by these cultural ideas, providing us with a way of distinguishing between what Benjamin calls sanctioned violence and unsanctioned violence. But the difficulty in thinking about peace and nonviolence is that our language, our moral sensibility, and our self-understanding are coloured by those myths, structures, and ideas. Thus, with regard to another example connected with the history of slavery, we might think about the value of Confederate battle flags and statues erected to celebrate Confederate war heroes. Some people view these as icons to history; others view them as symbols of violence. Recently (2017), when statues commemorating Confederate soldiers and the US Civil War were removed or threatened with removal, violence erupted. A pacifist will wonder what should be done in a case such as this: if you remove statues commemorating violence and symbolizing structural violence, you risk provoking further violence. The world is complex. It is woven through with violence. The work of transformation is ongoing and never simple, clean, or pure. The same evaluative complexity holds for thinking about all of the other symbols and icons of our cultural, social, and political worlds. The difficulty is that since we are immersed with structures and cultures of violence, we can never be sure that we are seeing these properly or that we understand what is required in terms of peaceful transformation. Nor can we be sure that violence will not result from our efforts to transform violence. Johan Galtung, ‘Cultural Violence’, Journal of Peace Research 27:3 (August 1990), 291. Galtung, ‘Cultural Violence’, 291. 9 Walter Benjamin, ‘A Critique of Violence’, in Walter Benjamin, ed., Reflections (New York: Schocken Book, 1978). 7 8

70

Transformative Pacifism

A different difficulty is related to what Pierre Bourdieu calls ‘symbolic violence’ or ‘symbolic power’. Symbolic violence is defined by Bourdieu as ‘violence that is exercised upon a social agent with his or her complicity’.10 This complicity occurs because we participate in and uphold the violent symbols, images, structures, and institutions that also exercise violence over us. Bourdieu explains in another work, ‘Symbolic power is that invisible power which can be exercised only with the complicity of those who do not want to know that they are subject to it or even that they themselves exercise it.’11 Bourdieu distinguishes between overt and gentle violence.12 Overt violence occurs when an agent acts upon a victim in visible, cruel, and ruthless ways. Gentle violence (which sounds a bit like an oxymoron) occurs in ‘invisible’ ways: it is the subtle set of relationships that structure our world – including our symbolic interactions, ethical principles, and so on. When we begin to see this, the work of peace becomes much more complicated. Related to Bourdieu’s ideas are Foucault’s ideas about discipline and power. Power arranges relations in a way that is mutual, pervasive, and that involves a kind of ‘complicity’ to borrow Bourdieu’s word. Power and disciplinary structures give rise to meaning, identity, and to the very act of theorizing about all of this. Foucault is careful to point out that he is not talking about ‘violence’ per se.13 He sees violence as a one-sided relation: the violent person attacks the victim, acting upon the other. But disciplinary structures of power work differently: each party in the relationship is formed and structured by and within the relationship. Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc J. D. Wacquant, An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), 167. 11 Pierre Bourdieu, Language and Symbolic Power (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1991), 164. 12 Bourdieu explains:  The ‘choice’ between overt violence and gentle violence depends on the state of the power relations between the two parties and the integration and ethical integrity of the group that arbitrates. So long as overt violence, that of the usurer or the ruthless master, is collectively disapproved of and is liable to provoke either a violent riposte or the flight of the victim – that is, in both cases, for lack of any legal recourse, the destruction of the very relationship that was to be exploited – symbolic violence, gentle, invisible violence, unrecognized as such, chosen as much as undergone, that of trust, obligation, personal loyalty, hospitality, gifts, debts, piety, in a word, of all the virtues honoured by the ethic of honour, presents itself as the most economical mode of domination because it best corresponds to the economy of the system. (Pierre Bourdieu, The Logic of Practice (Oxford: Polity Press, 1990), 127) 10

Foucault explains:  Obviously the bringing into play of power relations does not exclude the use of violence any more than it does the obtaining of consent; no doubt the exercise of power can never do without one or the other, often both at the same time. But even though consensus and violence are the instruments or the results, they do not constitute the principle or the basic nature of power. The exercise of power can produce as much acceptance as may be wished for: it can pile up the dead and shelter itself behind whatever threats it can imagine. In itself the exercise of power is not violence. (Michel Foucault, ‘The Subject and Power’, Critical Inquiry 8:4 (1982), p. 789) 13

Pacifism as Critical Theory

71

Nonetheless, Foucault’s ideas are very close to what Galtung is talking about with regard to structural and cultural violence. Foucault’s work leaves us wondering whether transformational pacifism can be persuasive without being violent. When non-violent social protest is utilized, it seems coercive and may draw upon hidden and invisible violence. Nonetheless, we tend to think that theory is non-violent. An argument can be powerful – it can move us, transform us – without being violent. Of course, there is a fine line to be drawn between force, power, and violence. And in reality there is slippage between and among these. But if pacifism as a critical theory is to be truly transformative, it must be powerful without also being violent. And it must carefully attend to this issue. Gandhi’s theory and practice of satyagraha provides a useful example of a selfcritical approach to transformational pacifism. Satyagraha is not a method of coercion, as Gandhi says, it is one of conversion. The goal of satyagraha is not to coerce but to convert. As Gandhi says, ‘It is never the intention of a satyagrahi to embarrass the wrongdoer. The appeal is never to his fear; it is, must be, always to his heart. The satyagrahis object is to convert, not to coerce, the wrongdoer.’14 It does this by focusing on truth. Thus Gandhi describes satyagraha as truth-force. The use of force in this case falls short of violence – but it remains a matter of pressure, strategic manipulation, creative pushing and pulling, and persuasion. Gandhi’s work demonstrates careful and self-critical attention to all of this. Nonetheless, people will disagree about violence, power, and even about truth. Thus when Confederate statues are taken down – to stick with the case we discussed above – some will view this as a kind of violence, say to the Southerners who value these statues. Others will claim that those statues themselves continue to perpetuate violence, say to African Americans whose ancestors suffered under slavery and who continue to suffer oppression, exclusion, and violence. The problem is this: there is no perfect theoretical solution in the real world that can resolve all of the conflicting claims of individuals and social groups. Social transformations that seem to promote peace will be viewed by others as violent provocations. And so it goes: the work of peace is complicated, incremental, and imperfect.

M. K. Gandhi, Selections from Gandhi (http://www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/selections-fromgandhi/satyagraha.php; accessed August 2017), #561. Other related quotations are found on this page; also see Eric Webber, ‘Satyagraha: The Gandhian Approach to Conflict Resolution’, http:// www.gandhiashramsevagram.org/conflict-resolution/satyagraha-the-gandhian-approach-toconflict-resolution.php; accessed August 2017.

14

72

Transformative Pacifism

Now some will want to claim that what matters here is justice. It seems likely that the claim of justice is on the side of African Americans who claim that Confederate statues cause them harm. Justice says, ‘Take down the statues’, and if violence results, then that is what is just and necessary. But the pacifist theory is less concerned with who is justified, grieved, or harmed in such a case and more interested in how to promote peace in and through the conflict. Pacifist theory is less interested in who has a right to demand satisfaction for a grievance (although this obviously matters) and more interested in building community through processes that speak truth but aim for reconciliation – and in Gandhi’s terms ‘conversion’ or transformation. One suggestion, from the pacifist point of view, is that we need strategies of conflict resolution in such a situation: active listening, consensus building, and the slow work of establishing common ground. There is no guarantee that this will work: there are tragic conflicts in the real world. But the pacifist approach continually tries to imagine creative problem-solving that promotes long-term peace. Let’s return to the notion of cultural or symbolic violence. One important fact is that our cultural imagination colours how we see (or don’t see) violence. One side of this is captured in Bourdieu’s idea of ‘complicity’: we participate in violence in a way that makes it ‘invisible’ and even ‘gentle’. Although Bourdieu’s analysis digs deep into our social relations, this idea is most useful when thinking about the notion of justified violence. We often take for granted that certain forms of overt violence are justifiable. Most cultures contain images and ideas about justified violence that are so deeply entrenched that we see them as normal and natural – or don’t see them as violence at all. So, to cite one example, police force is often seen as natural, normal, justifiable – and often not seen as violence. It is ‘violent crime’ that is the subject of our critical gaze, not the violence of policing. Or if policing is subject to critical analysis it is usually only the extraordinary cases of police violence that are examined: the shooting of unarmed men – especially black men – by police, for example. But we ignore all of the rest of the violent mechanism of police force – it is invisible: for example, the use of handcuffs, frisking, holding cells, even bail, which creates harm to poor people, and so on. In the same way, to cite another example, meat eating is not seen as violent, since it is so natural and normal for us, even though the act of killing dismembering, cooking, and chewing up an animal’s corpse would seem, from a critical perspective, to be obviously violent. In general, cultures normalize violence, making it seem natural, inevitable, and unavoidable. Thus strategies of resistance to structural and cultural violence

Pacifism as Critical Theory

73

will often call for violent opposition. Some militants want to fight the cops. Others want to attack factory farms. Others want to destroy racist statues. The problem here is that violence thus reiterates and reverberates. Pacifism wants to transform the echo-chamber of violence. The opposite of cultural violence would be peace culture or a culture of peace. In such a culture, the symbolic realm would support peace, promote peace, teach peace – and criticize violence in all of its forms, personal, direct violence and structural violence – both institutional and revolutionary violence. But a peace culture requires intense self-consciousness to dig out and analyse much that we take for granted and to avoid falling into the well-worn habits of a violent culture.

Normative critique In order to create peace and build a culture of peace we need a critical theory of society that is grounded in peace. Transformative pacifism offers a comprehensive critique that analyses and evaluates (1) personal, direct violence, (2) structural, indirect violence, and (3) cultural violence. Such a critical theory is grounded in a theoretical commitment to peace and non-violence. But rather than offering a simplistic condemnation of violence, pacifist critical theory offers a detailed cultural, political, and ethical theory that traces violence in all of its forms in order to prepare the way for a transformation towards peace. For pacifism in this sense, it is not enough to condemn direct violence and simplistically advocate for merely negative peace. In other words, it is not enough simply to say, ‘Stop fighting’ or ‘War is bad’. Rather, what it is needed is a theory that explores the conditions that would curtail direct violence, while also seeking to overcome structural violence, create positive peace, and transform culture in a peaceful direction. And in all of this we need to understand that pacifism is not a neutral theory: rather pacifist theorizing comes from a particular standpoint – one that holds that violence is unreasonable, that individual liberty matters, that community is good, that human persons are valuable, and that might does not make right. Pacifism offers a comprehensive moral theory than can be applied to the various issues encountered within a usual applied ethics syllabus. This idea has been foreshadowed by another important theorist of violence, Iris Marion Young. Young is a feminist political theorist, well known as the author of an oft-anthologized essay ‘The Five Faces of Oppression’. She offers her feminist

74

Transformative Pacifism

approach to ‘the politics of difference’ as a rejoinder to traditional liberal theories of distributive justice. Young explains that she has an ‘enabling concept of justice’. Justice, according to Young, refers to ‘the institutional conditions necessary for the development and exercise of individual capacities and collective communication and cooperation’.15 Injustice occurs when there are disabling constraints, which Young identifies as oppression and domination. Young identifies five ways that oppression, domination, and injustice manifest themselves: exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, cultural imperialism, and violence. Each of these is interrelated – and clearly connected to the lack of genuine, peace. The first four of these faces of oppression – exploitation, marginalization, powerlessness, and cultural imperialism – are closely connected to what Galtung calls structural violence. To my knowledge Young does not acknowledge Galtung’s work. But the connections are obvious. This becomes clear in Young’s discussion of the fifth face of oppression which is violence itself. Young reminds us that direct personal violence becomes a structural problem, when it is systematically employed (even when the ‘employment’ of violence is not deliberate or even intentional).16 Young’s focus is not on pacifism. To my knowledge she does not discuss the idea. Her concern is with group identity and struggles for justice based upon that. But Young does begin her philosophizing from a standpoint that she describes as ‘critical theory’, which is a theory of immanent critique that develops from within existing social relations. She explains, A critical theory does not derive such principles and ideals from philosophical premises about morality, human nature, or the good life. Instead, the method of critical theory, as I understand it, reflects on existing social relations and processes to identify what we experience as valuable in them, but as present only intermittently, partially, or potentially.17

Transformative pacifism is a critical theory in this sense. It begins from a standpoint that holds that peace/non-violence is valuable. But it acknowledges that peace does not often obtain in the real world; and it builds its case from within the world of experience. It must also admit that other theoretical value Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 39. 16 For example, Young explains:  The oppression of violence consists not only in direct victimization, but in the daily knowledge shared by all members of oppressed groups that they are liable to violation, solely on account of their group identity. Just living under such a threat of attack on oneself or family or friends deprives the oppressed of freedom and dignity, and needlessly expends their energy. (Iris Marion Young, Justice and the Politics of Difference, p. 62) 15

Iris Marion Young, Inclusion and Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 10.

17

Pacifism as Critical Theory

75

commitments are possible – including the fact that some people enjoy violence or think that violence can be easily justified. Thus for example, realists will maintain that the logic of history is guided by the quest for power/supremacy and violence used in serve to that goal. And militarists and warists will maintain that war is manly and warrior virtues are commendable. To be committed to peace is to stake a normative claim in opposition to such an alternative. That commitment has a genealogy and a location in culture. This does not mean that there is no basis for being committed to peace or for seeing violence as a problem: there is a long history of pacifism that provides that basis. Rather, the point is that the value of peace is itself a dialectical value: it develops over time, it continues to evolve, and we are in the middle of a process of becoming aware of what peace and violence are (including the fact that we are becoming aware of structural violence, cultural violence, and so on). Pacifism, as a critical transformative theory, ought to be aware of its genealogy and limitations. An analogy may help, derived in part from a discussion by Heikki Patomäki: peace is like health.18 It is both a descriptive and a normative concept. We can understand health by examining healthy people. But in order to examine healthy people, we must already have a conception of what counts as healthy. And as our notion of health evolves, we will come to see different ideas about health as counting in different ways. For example, ideas about obesity, reproductive potency, and longevity evolve along with changing social circumstance, including changing knowledge. The same is true with regard to peace. At one point something like the Pax Romana or the Pax Brittanica was viewed as a highpoint of peace: with a condition of domination by a global superpower keeping the peace. Later, when we begin to understand concepts such as structural and cultural violence, we may conclude that prior peace was not peace at all. The point of pacifism as a critical theory is to be as self-aware as possible of the ways that the concepts involved change and interrelate. Thus we should admit that throughout our discussions there are fundamental definitional problems. In order to make sense of these claims we need to understand peace, violence, non-violence, and critique among other terms. The terms peace and non-violence are nearly interchangeable – and are dialectically related to the term violence. It is important to note that it is very difficult to stipulate a non-normative definition of violence. One attempt at a non-normative Heikki Patomäki, ‘The Challenge of Critical Theories: Peace Research at the Start of the New Century’, Journal of Peace Research 38:6 (2001), 723–37.

18

76

Transformative Pacifism

definition is the following: ‘Violence is deliberate use of destructive force.’19 By focusing on the idea of ‘deliberate’ use of force, this definition stipulates that we can safely ignore ‘violent storms’ or ‘violent sneezing’. In such cases violence is a term that is employed metaphorically or anthropomorphically. Such metaphorical uses of the term connect it to Latin violentia, which can also be translated as vehemence, which means strong, passionate, or intense. It make sense to say, for example, that we experience ‘violent emotions’ – and this does not mean that they are aimed at harming others, only that they are powerful or vigorous. A related Latin term is violare, which means violation or infringement.20 This term points towards a moral harm that occurs through violence: on this interpretation violence is a harmful violation. We will return to this in a moment. But let’s return to our preliminary definition: ‘Violence is deliberate use of destructive force.’ Even in that definition, we encounter a difficulty, which is that destruction is a normative term. For example, we usually think of eating and digestion as productive/creative processes. But this is not true from the vantage point of the things we eat, which are destroyed in the process. This difficulty is often remedied by adding in a normative qualifier and describing certain activities as justified violence. Killing animals in order to eat them is thought by some to be justified violence. Carnivores generally do not see killing animals for food as violence at all. Vegetarians will disagree. And so we can see that this terminology is both vexing and provocative. An entire world view is opened by the pacifist perspective, including questions about what counts as violence, as justified violence, and so on. A related definition of violence will offer a somewhat more explicitly normative claim. This normative definition is: ‘Violence is deliberate use of destructive force that harms people.’ The notion of harm is another complicated term, which leads to complicated questions. What counts as harm? Do people need to be aware that they are harmed? Can harm occur to us when we are unconscious or dead? Does harm have to include pain and suffering? Entire books have been written about those questions. But let’s connect back to the previous idea of violation in order to offer one set of insights here. This definition of violence focused on a violation, which is a harm – and which is also something that is done against our will; it is an infringement against our rights, done to us without our consent. And again, we are left with puzzles about what rights are and what Also see Fiala, Practical Pacifism. I discuss this in Fiala, Public War, Private Conscience, 129.

19 20

Pacifism as Critical Theory

77

counts as authentic consent. The fact that pacifism creates (or discovers) these puzzles is a sign of its depth and import. Naïve pacifism simply says ‘be peaceful’. Philosophical mature pacifism realizes how complicated this really is.

The complexity of violence and harm Violence is often unhelpfully defined as the opposite of non-violence. This is also true for peace, which is opposed to war. Galtung explains: ‘Peace is the absence of violence’, or peace is ‘the vast region of social orders in which violence is absent’.21 Those expressions remain dialectical, dealing with opposites. Galtung does provide a less dialectical definition, as follows: ‘Violence is present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realization.’22 This definition points to violence as inhibiting the realization of our potential. Peace would then be what helps us flourish, as we discuss throughout this book. This is why it makes sense to think of peace as a first principle of ethics. Further note, with regard to Galtung’s above definition, that the point of this definition is to articulate a vision of violence (and of peace) that is not merely focused on ‘somatic incapacitation’ that is the result of an agent who intends this result. This definition opens the door towards inquiries about structural violence and cultural violence – for which Galtung is famous. It also allows us to discuss negative peace (which would be a social state that does not actively cause harm) and positive peace (which is a social state that provides us with ample opportunities for human flourishing). On Galtung’s account, the harm in question is normally avoidable (i.e. someone could do something to prevent the harm – and when they do not, there is a form of violence). Consider the example of someone dying today from tuberculosis, which could be prevented if resources were adequately distributed. This is a form of structural violence for Galtung. More obviously, war is violence – in Galtung’s terminology ‘direct violence’ – because there is an obvious case of undermining somatic realization when people are killed. The difficulty of Galtung’s definition lies in the question of ‘potential realization’. A different way of putting this would be to say that violence occurs when human beings are harmed, where harm is defined in a broad way that is Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace, and Peace Research’, 167 and 168. Ibid., 168.

21 22

78

Transformative Pacifism

connected to potentiality. We are harmed when we are prevented from actualizing our potential. Or, we are harmed when we are prevented from becoming fully realized persons. Or, we are harmed when we fail to achieve human flourishing. And so we have a definition of harm. Harm is a slippery word, notoriously difficult to describe. And indeed, we have a circle of concepts here that are interrelated and slippery: harm, violence, violation – and related slippery concepts such as flourishing, potentiality, fulfilment. Harm is one of those concepts that we seem to understand – but which upon scrutiny becomes deeply puzzling. It is an important concept in liberal conceptions of politics and law, for example. Since John Stuart Mill it has been commonplace to say that liberty should be permitted except when liberty becomes harmful to others. According to Mill’s harm principle, ‘The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.’23 But what is harm? It turns out that this concept is never easily defined. Joel Feinberg has written extensively about harm in his book Harm to Others. He points out that ‘harm is both vague and ambiguous’. He continues, ‘The harm principle is a mere convenient abbreviation for a complicated statement that includes, among other things, moral judgements and value weightings.’24 Feinberg offers three definitions of harm. The first has to do with damage. This includes the idea that non-human things can be harmed: a smashed window is harmed, frost does harm to the crops, and so on. So harm can merely mean damaged or broken. But to be broken only seems to matter if some moral being has an interest in the thing: a broken rock is different than the broken window in my house. The second sense of harm has to do with damaging, thwarting, or defeating an interest. When you have a stake in something’s well-being, you can be harmed when the thing is damaged or broken. Our interests, according to Feinberg, include all those things we have a stake in – in which we have invested ourselves (our time, energy, emotion, and money). The third sense of harm has to do with unjust treatment or wrong. We harm someone when we violate his/her rights. And yet, Feinberg notes that harm changes when someone consents to it. Stephen D. Smith has argued that the harm principle is an ‘empty vessel’: it seems profound but upon inspection is hollow.25 Smith’s problem is that harm John Stuart Mill, On Liberty (Project Gutenberg: accessed April 2017, https://www.gutenberg.org/ files/34901/34901-h/34901-h.htm), p. 17. 24 Joel Feinberg, Harm to Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984), this paragraph refers to Chapter 1. 25 Steven D. Smith, ‘The Hollowness of the Harm Principle’, (2004) University of San Diego Public Law and Legal Theory Research Paper Series, 17 (at http://digital.sandiego.edu/lwps_public/art17; accessed July 2017), 8. 23

Pacifism as Critical Theory

79

is often defined subjectively. There is a larger moral, cultural, and political framework implicated in discussions of harm – and so appeal to the harm principle begs some questions (and avoids some others). As Smith says, there is an element of circularity in all of this. The harm principle is a kind of empty tautology: we should avoid actions that we think we should avoid. The subjective element in harm is deeply puzzling. When people sincerely claim to be harmed, they are harmed. But if people claim to be harmed and believe they have been harmed, could they be wrong? It seems that there must be some objective standard here. Let’s say that you believe that I have harmed you by running over your cat, for example (and have also harmed the cat, by the way). But it turns out that your cat was not killed or that it was not me who ran it over. In such a case have you really been harmed – or is it me that harmed you? It seems we need an objective account of events that is also linked to an objective account of responsibility and value. Consider, for example, the problem of the objectivity of value. To run over your cat would seem to be worse than to run over a favourite piece of artwork that you’ve somehow left in the driveway – there is more significant harm, we would think, when a sentient being is killed than when an inanimate object is destroyed. And yet it is possible to imagine that someone could have invested more value in the work of art than in the cat. Thus harm does seem to be subjective. And so it goes – the complications abound. Usually accounts of harm are grounded in some kind of utilitarian assumption that holds that we are harmed when we experience pain or suffering. More generally we might say that we are harmed when our happiness is undermined or when our preferences are not satisfied. The utilitarian approach seems to leave us with a kind of subjectivity – unless we assume that there is some objective source that allows us to define happiness or appropriate preferences – or even something as abstract as human flourishing. A seemingly more objective approach would cash out harm in terms of rights violations, maintaining that we are harmed when our rights are violated. But it turns out that there are deep complications when it comes to thinking about what our rights are. Utilitarians such as Jeremy Bentham think that discussions of rights are ‘nonsense on stilts’, since they import metaphysical notions into the moral field, which primarily ought to be focused on a discussion of pain and pleasure. Others will claim that we cannot have a discussion of human rights without theology, since rights claim are grounded in an imago dei argument, which holds that what is of value in human beings is the spark of the divine or the image of God contained within us. Others reject theology and claim that human rights can be grounded

80

Transformative Pacifism

in consensus, contract, or some other humanistic theory. And so it goes: complications pile upon complications. One important difficulty for the utilitarian approach is that some things that cause pain are not harmful. Dentistry comes to mind as an example, as well as education. What the dentist does causes pain – and it also seems to violate my rights (my right to not have someone invade my mouth, for example) – unless I consent to the pain and to the invasion of my body. Feinberg, you will recall, did emphasize the importance of consent. So perhaps the notion of autonomy is the key to all of this. But in a sense this merely pushes us back to another vague and ambiguous principle. Thus the subjective definition of harm is probably not viable. So we need an objective account of human flourishing or happiness. Maybe an Aristotelian account of eudaimonia would help us. But even this seems to beg important questions. Which version of eudaimonia or flourishing is the correct one? Should we go with a Christian theory of happiness and virtue – in which there are theological virtues (as we see in Aquinas, for example)? Or is the theological story mere nonsense, in which case we should focus on a humanistic account of flourishing (such as we would find in humanists such as Paul Kurtz)? And again we note a problem: harm – even in this robust sense of a violation of flourishing – is contextually dependent. We disagree about what counts as human flourishing. Given all of this complexity in moral theorizing, it is apparent that philosophical pacifism will open the door to a number of interesting problems. Naïve and superficial pacifism ignores the problems at its peril and is easily dismissed.

The importance of dialectic A fully self-critical theory of violence would have to admit all of these complications and questions: that there are multiple definitions of harm and violence, that violence and harm is sometimes in the eye of the beholder, and that it is possible that some harmful things are not violent, and so on. The same kinds of complexity exist with regard to the definition of peace and its synonyms and corollaries. Tranquillity, serenity, and the like are equally complicated – as is the concept of human flourishing. We discuss these complexities throughout this book. The point here is that pacifism as critical theory cannot be a simplistic ‘no to violence’ and ‘yes to peace’ kind of theory. The theory contains significant

Pacifism as Critical Theory

81

conceptual puzzles that prompt further and extensive reflection. Again, the fact that this makes us uneasy or causes discomfort is a sign that this is a robust critical theory, which is rich, extensive, and significant. Any serious and genuine pacifism will have to attend to these substantial dialectic problems. It is easy enough to assert pacifism as a moral commitment to non-violent social activism, as a critique of war and political violence, and as an activist orientation towards the eradication of violence, injustice, and oppression. But assertion is not philosophically interesting. A self-conscious theory digs into the depths. Moral commitment and political advocacy have material conditions and they are quite complex. And when the material conditions for pacifism include background conditions of violence and hidden structures of violence, we have a serious and interesting dialectical entanglement. Pacifism is often dismissed because of this dialectical entanglement. A pacifist critique of violence must run quite deep if it is to be consistent: it must consider all of the ways that violence structures our lives – including the violence that makes pacifism itself possible. Pacifism looks absurd to those who live in a culture where violence is routine, normalized, and taken for granted. Pacifism as critical social theory calls all violence into question. While it does reject violence as immoral, a genuinely self-critical pacifism must also seek to understand how violence structures human experience and our own self-understanding. This deep understanding can leave us with a recognition of our own finitude and moral failings. This fact was noticed even by Gandhi. Gandhi recognized that violence was all around us. Gandhi writes that We are helpless mortals caught in the conflagration of himsa. The saying that life lives on life has a deep meaning in it. Man cannot for a moment live without consciously or unconsciously committing outward himsa. … A votary of ahimsa therefore remains true to his 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.26

A self-critical pacifism must try to be aware of the ubiquity of violence, while criticizing violence, including the violence that makes it possible for the pacifist to articulate his/her criticism. A self-critical pacifism must also avoid abstract and dogmatic moralizing. It is easy enough to condemn violence, when you Gandhi, An Autobiography, 349.

26

82

Transformative Pacifism

are a moral theorist or a spectator on the sidelines. But such condemnations must be offered with humility and the awareness that such condemnations refract upon the one who condemns. One of the reasons that pacifism is often dismissed out of hand as a silly, immoral, or naively utopian idea is that it is often articulated as a simplistic sort of moral condemnation. Abstract absolute no-saying pacifism is aloof from the world and untroubled by its own real-world conditions. Self-critical pacifism, on the other hand, must be acutely aware of its own limitations and possible hypocrisy. It is also theoretically engaged by the conceptual difficulties found in defining key terms such as peace, violence, harm, and the like.

Conclusion: Critical theory and the difficulty of pacifism One inspiration for this approach to pacifism as a critical theory is the basic approach of the critical theorists associated with the Frankfurt School: Horkheimer, Adorno, Marcuse, Benjamin, Fromm, etc. Most of these critical theorists were not pacifists. Horkheimer was the only committed pacifist in this group. But the critical theorists provide a model for the sort of critical pacifism I have in mind. Critical theory is a hermeneutical approach that seeks to interpret the status quo with an eye open towards liberation from dogma and unjustified constraint, along with an awareness of our material, social, and historical situation. Critical theory is interested in understanding why things are the way they are: in terms of social, economic, political, and cultural forces. It makes use of critical frameworks developed by Freud, Nietzsche, Marx, and others. One problem for the critical theorists named above is militarism: the rampant growth of state and military power. Walter Benjamin described militarism as follows: ‘Militarism is the compulsory, universal use of violence as a means to the end of the state.’27 Benjamin goes on to say that critiquing militarism is more complicated than ‘the declamations of pacifists and activists suggest’. The problem is that we need a total social critique that ‘critiques all legal violence’. Benjamin claims that the anarchist refusal of all state-centred violence is ‘childish’. Rather, for Benjamin, what is needed is a total social critique that examines the ways that violence and militarism are structured by society, in political rhetoric, and throughout the economy. More thoroughgoing Benjamin, ‘A Critique of Violence’, 284.

27

Pacifism as Critical Theory

83

criticism of militarism is found in the writings of Karl Liebknecht. And it was Liebknecht’s murder (along with Rosa Luxembourg) that helped to radicalize the young Max Horkheimer. Horkheimer explained that critical theory aims to liberate us from and transform those social conditions that enslave us.28 Among these circumstances are the forms of violence that structure our existence. The aim of liberation is utopian. However, the aspiration for liberation that is found in critical theory also recognizes that theory and practice are limited by context, circumstances, and social situations. Critical theory acknowledges that the external vantage point or utopian perspective that guides us remains something of a dream. Critical theory does not simply retreat to the dream world of abstract and absolutist moralizing. Rather, it struggles to imagine concrete alternatives from within the present, while also trying to understand the material conditions that structure the present and limit us. Authors such as Seyla Benhabib maintain that critical theory is both immanent and transcendent. Or, as Benhabib further explains, critical theory provides both an ‘explanatory diagnosis’ and an ‘anticipatory utopia’.29 The point here is not to argue that critical theorists were or should be pacifists. But there is a resonance with pacifism in the work of the critical theorists – especially in terms of a general critique of militarism. Horkheimer appears to be one of the critical theorists who can be most clearly described as a pacifist. Zoltan Tarr has concluded, regarding Horkheimer, that ‘he went one step beyond pacifism in saying that he did not want to belong to any nation, that being human is enough for him’.30 Horkheimer served in the military in 1916 but, after the First World War, he became a pacifist. He was not an absolutist about it. Indeed, Horkheimer recognized that pacifism was fraught and problematic. Horkeimer explained that pacifists were like angels in hell, confronted by violence and aware of the problematic nature of the commitment

Max Horkheimer, ‘Traditional and Critical Theory’, in Critical Theory: Selected Essays (Continuum, 2002). 29 ‘A critical social theory views the present from the perspective of the radical transformation of its basic structure, and interprets actual lived crises and protests in the light of an anticipated future. In its anticipatory-utopian capacity, critical theory addresses the needs and demands expressed by social actors in the present, and interprets their potential to lead toward a better and more human world’ (Seyla Benhabib, Critique, Norm, and Utopia (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986), 226). 30 Zoltan Tarr and Michael Landmann, The Frankfurt School: The Critical Theories of Max Horkheimer and Theodor W. Adorno (Piscataway: Transaction Publishing, 2011), 56. 28

84

Transformative Pacifism

to non-violence. This leaves pacifism with questions enough to destroy any pacifist’s peace of mind.31 This is honest and disquieting. We live in a world that can be cruel, brutal, and hellish. Given the brutal realities of the twentieth century – including Auschwitz and Hiroshima – pacifism is no utopian cakewalk. Moreover, oppression remains ubiquitous. Authors like Herbert Marcuse, for example, defended the use of militant violence to oppose the violence of the status quo. Marcuse wrote, ‘Non-violence is normally not only preached to but exacted from the weak – it is a necessity rather than a virtue, and normally it does not seriously harm the case of the strong.’32 The critical theorists tended to condemn state-centred, repressive violence of militarism – both in the Nazi state and in the United States during the Cold War. But if one is opposed to militarism and state-sponsored violence – which is ubiquitous and severe – it is possible to imagine that violent resistance could be justified. Marcuse’s claims about insurrectionary violence have a lineage that can be traced back to Trotsky, Lenin, Bakunin, and Marx. These arguments have been echoed recently by authors such as Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen. And here is where, I argue, leftist critical theory has something to learn from pacifism. Only pacifism offers a completely radical break from the tit-fortat cycle of violence that predominates in history. Defenders of state-centred violence can appeal to the just war tradition to argue that violence in defence of the state is a good and just thing. And opponents of state-centred violence can appeal to some version of Marxism or even a slightly modified form of the just war tradition to claim that violence against the state can be justified. This is a recipe either for totalitarian domination (when the state final triumphs against insurgency) or for perpetual war. The logic of violence is one of might making right; and it leads to the demand for total victory (which can only be achieved Horkheim writes,  A pacifist is always sure of himself; should he become the object of violence, he will choose not to take up the challenge. His life is thus more harmonious than that of the revolutionary. In situations of extreme misery he must appear to the revolutionary as an angel in the realm of hell. Just imagine the scene: the man of violence lies unconscious on the floor, conquered by his enemies and victimized by the opposing forces just as the masses he led experienced before him. Then he is assisted by an angel who is in the position to help him because the man never approved the practice of violence and was therefore spared of it! But then the thought keeps coming back: would not humanity have sunk deeper into barbarism without those in the course of history who set out to liberate it by the use of force? Is it possible that humanity needs such violence? Is it conceivable that we have to pay for our ‘harmony’ with the renunciation of all practical help? These questions are enough to destroy one’s peace of mind. (Max Horkheimer, Dämmerung: Notizen in Deutschland (Berlin: S. Fischer, 1974), 231–2. Quoted in Zoltan Tarr and Michael Landmann, The Frankfurt School, 50). 31

Herbert Marcuse, Critique of Pure Tolerance (Boston: Beacon, 1969).

32

Pacifism as Critical Theory

85

by way of bloody battles and totalizing repression). Only the pacifist offers an alternative: one that denies the legitimacy of violence – both on the Left and on the Right; and one that continues to direct our attention to the ubiquity of violence – both the overt violence that hits the mainstream media and erupts on college campuses and in wars of choice in foreign land and the covert violence that occurs in distant hidden and forgotten places. As we have seen in this chapter, the pacifist alternative remains complicated. It is dialectically related to its own historical conditions. It opens our eyes to a variety of difficult moral and political questions. It forces us to admit tragedy and complexity. Horkheimer suggested that the pacifists remind us of the angels of our better nature and that they might be praised for refusing to sink into the mire of violence. But he admits that in the hellish reality of this world, it may not be possible to remain angelic. He is right that a self-critical approach to pacifism – a self-critical theory of non-violence that is not merely a triumphalist account of pacification, a self-aware advocacy for non-violence amid the ubiquity of violence – is in the end not a peaceful theory. Critical theory does not leave us with simple, superficial inner peace. Rather a critical theory of pacifism leaves us with questions that can destroy one’s peace of mind.

86

5

Pacifism, Utopia, and Human Rights

Pacifism is often criticized for being a utopian theory. But the same charge holds for many other ethical and political theories, when those theories are conceived in absolutist terms. Those who object that pacifism is utopian should consider a similar objection with regard to socialism, utilitarianism, Kantianism and even to the virtue tradition, since each of these contains utopian elements. The utopian objection has numerous variations. Indeed, several typical objections to pacifism can be conceived as variations of the accusation of utopianism. This basically holds that pacifism would only work if everyone was a pacifist, or that pacifism is a philosophy for angels, but pacifism won’t work in a world of devils. For example, critics argue, 1. Peace and non-violence only make sense in an ideal world where there is no war or criminal aggression and in which people are persuaded by arguments and acts of conscience. 2. Pacifism is inconsistent and incoherent since it claims to value life but refuses to do what is necessary to defend life. 3. Pacifism is immoral when it ignores the real-world need to respond to violence with violence and when it thus appears to allow innocents to be killed. 4. Pacifism and the demand for non-violence are defended from within a bubble of privilege that ignores the groans of the oppressed, the demand for revolution, and the violence that undergirds the status quo. These objections are important and cannot be easily dismissed. But it is these objections that lead to the need to understand pacifism as a critical and transformative social theory. It is only when pacifism and commitment to nonviolence are painted into an absolutist, monistic, and perfectionist corner that these objections are decisive. Pacifism as a transformative critical theory accepts much of what is implied by these criticisms – that is, the remaining violence in

88

Transformative Pacifism

the real world – but transformative pacifism maintains that our task is to work to eliminate residual violence. Pacifism appears to be inconsistent, immoral, and bourgeois (or even reactionary) in a world in which violence is taken for granted as natural and normal, or in a world in which structural violence is simply ignored. The solution is to stress the transformative activism of pacifism, which aims to change the world and our way of understanding ourselves so that violence is no longer taken for granted.

Utopianism and meliorism in pacifism The first objection is that peace and non-violence only make sense in an ideal world where there is no war or criminal aggression and in which people are persuaded by arguments and acts of conscience. We can respond to this objection directly by simply stipulating that the strategies of non-violence – including argument and applying the persuasive power of acts of conscience – often do work. The fact that they do not always work is a significant problem. But it is not a decisive argument against pacifism. Indeed, as we shall see here, the same difficulty holds for most other moral theories – each of which has utopian elements. We might say that Kantianism only makes sense in a world in which everyone is a Kantian, and so on. But the virtue of pacifism, understood as a transformative social critique, is that it explicitly takes up the question of how to melioristically transform the world in a more peaceful direction. We will consider the problem of utopianism in detail in this chapter. We will turn briefly to the other three objections towards the end of the chapter. Utopianism is a concern for a variety of moral and political theories. But most normative theories avoid the utopian objection by giving up on absolutism, monism, and perfectionism. Absolutism, monism, and perfectionism create utopian expectations. Utopian theories imagine a conception of a perfect world (a eu-topia) usually based upon a single absolute principle or an institutional framework that is universally accepted; but it is obvious that such a world is non-existent since in the real world there is conflict, discord, and so on (it is an a-topia). A utopia is thus both a perfect place and no place at all. The obvious solution is to avoid absolutism, perfectionism, and monism – and develop a theory that is pluralistic, melioristic and that is responsive to the facts in the world.

Pacifism, Utopia, and Human Rights

89

Thus pacifism has been qualified in a number of ways, often in response to the sorts of objections that were mentioned above – as contingent pacifism, conditional pacifism, pragmatic pacifism and so on. Furthermore, transformative pacifism, understood as a critical social theory, provides a critique of the real world that aims to transform it into a better world. It is possible to understand pacifism as being committed to a pragmatic and melioristic understanding of moral theory. Rather than seeing it as a kind of perfectionism, pacifism seeks peace but recognizes that there is work to be done in improving the world incrementally in that direction. Admittedly, there are many details to be worked out – such as what a pacifist would do in any given concrete situation. What is at issue in these applications is not a question of the conception of peace as the highest good or the general critique of violence; rather, the difference between meliorism and perfectionism is a matter of strategy and commitment. Meliorists are pragmatically interested in transformation, while perfectionists are idealistic and absolutist about their principles. Pacifists can indeed appear to be idealistic dreamers. Martin Luther King Jr.’s ‘I have a dream’ speech, for example, articulates a dream of brotherhood and equality to be obtained by non-violent means. King said, In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline. We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence. Again and again, we must rise to the majestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.1

Here we see deliberately idealistic language: physical force is degenerate; non-violence is majestic. But the method of non-violence – as developed and implemented by Gandhi, King, and others – is pragmatic. It acts in the world on a practical level with strategies and techniques that are intended to produce social change in piecemeal fashion. These strategies were collected by Gene Sharp, for example, in a famous list of nearly 200 techniques ranging across a number of general categories which include non-violent protest and persuasion, social non-cooperation, economic non-cooperation, political non-cooperation, and active non-violent interventions. The study of non-violence can thus be quite practical and focused on the question of which strategies actually work in a given context. Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘I have a Dream’ (1963), http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/mlk01.asp (accessed 12 March 2018).

1

90

Transformative Pacifism

We should note that one could use non-violent techniques without being a pacifist. These techniques could be used for any number of causes and purposes. So, the commitment to non-violent strategy can simply be a practical or prudential choice. As we’ve been arguing throughout, pacifism as a moral theory is committed to the idea that peace is the highest good. And pacifism as a critical social theory provides a critique of violence throughout the social system. I have also argued that pacifists tend to hold that there ought to be a unity of ends and means. So, pacifists will tend to say that peace is the highest good and that only non-violent means should be employed in pursuit of peace. This unified view can still employ, in creative fashion, the various strategies of non-violence without being naively utopian: the pacifist can admit that there is much work to be done and approach the task of social transformation in melioristic fashion. Indeed, pacifists must often be melioristic and pragmatic, since they will have to acknowledge that non-violent social struggle is a complicated process that requires creativity, tenacity, and stamina. A certain kind of utopianism, on the other hand, may in fact undermine pacifist commitment to non-violence. A utopian scheme for world peace may tempt us to use immoral means in order to produce that goal once and for all. It is hard to imagine a committed pacifist, whose proposal for developing a more peaceful world includes a violent conflagration that kills off the opponents of peace. But that kind of objection – which points to a conflict between means and ends – has often been used to object to other utopian and perfectionist schemes as we shall see later in this chapter. A related problem may occur for idealistic pacifists who think that it should be possible to have peace now. Without a sense of tragedy that acknowledges the hard work of building peace, pacifists can easily give up in despair and retreat to cynicism. A related worry is that utopians are not willing to compromise when it comes to their understanding of the highest good. Thus some will object that in focusing on peace as the highest good, pacifists will ignore justice, truth, or some other value. Pacifists have responded to this objection in various ways. But there are very few (if any) pacifists who will argue that justice or truth should be sacrificed in the name of peace. Rather, pacifists tend to view truth and justice – and other goods – as integral parts of lasting and substantial peace. Peace based upon a lie or upon injustice is not stable. One could argue, for example, that such a peace would contain elements of structural violence. As I have been arguing throughout, although pacifists will hold that peace is the highest good,

Pacifism, Utopia, and Human Rights

91

there are other values that are complementary to peace, including justice, truth, happiness, and virtues such as courage and moderation.

Utopianism in other moral theories Utopianism is a problem for any moral theory that is monistic, absolutist, and perfectionist. Pure absolutism in ethics is rare. There are very few absolute utilitarians, very few absolute Kantians, and very few human rights theorists who endorse absolutism in morality or the law. The risk of absurdity holds for any moral theory that is postulated in absolute terms. Absolute egoism causes social disorder. An unreflective commitment to hedonism (focused purely on animal pleasures) can actually produce unhappiness. And when absolutist moral theories are imposed upon political life we can end up with totalitarianism. An important example is found in the conflict between liberal and communitarian/multicultural political theories: communitarian multiculturalists who want to defend the autonomy of closed communities with traditional or religious values will accuse liberals of imposing a modern secular world view upon them. Meanwhile, liberals will worry that communitarians have a closed and absolutist conception of the communal ideal that violates liberty, individuality, and so on. The problem is not merely the content of the theory in question. Rather, it is the problem of perfectionism in moral and political theory, which is so adamant about its utopian vision that it is willing to stop at nothing to change the world according to its own image. The same sorts of qualifications and amendments are also typical of other moral theories, which find ways to reflect pluralism, contingency, and the complexity of application in the actual world. Egoists and hedonists qualify their commitments in various ways in order to make room for the complexity of our ethical lives. Utilitarianism and other consequentialist theories may have to stipulate side-constraints that limit certain kinds of crass cost–benefit analysis and the idea that the end justifies the means. Kantians have to deal with a variety of apparent exceptions to the categorical imperative (e.g. in the problem of truth-telling that causes bad consequences), and so on. It turns out that it is very difficult to hold to an absolute and monistic view of the highest good, which is willing to sacrifice or ignore other conceptions of the good.

92

Transformative Pacifism

Nonetheless, utopian aspiration forms an important component in many theories of ethical and political life. We find it in Plato’s Republic, for example, in the heart of the virtue tradition. In Plato’s case, the unrealistic nature of his utopia is explained within the dialogue. He admits that his description of the utopian Republic will appear ridiculous and absurd when viewed from within the present world: as for example, the idea of men and women exercising together in the ideal state, and so on (see Republic 452). His idea of the philosopher-king is also absurd. Plato admits that it will be viewed as futile and as a daydream (see Republic 499). He says, there will be no rest from troubles – no peace, justice, or stability – until philosophers become kings or kings become philosophers. Obviously, the dream of the philosopher-king is simply that: a dream or ideal – a picture of how a good world ought to be organized. Plato’s point may be a tragic one: that in this world, there is no rest from troubles and no peace – since the ideal solution of the philosopher-king is itself absurd. Kantian philosophy contains a utopian element in his idea of the ‘kingdom of ends’ in which persons would be respected as ends in themselves and in his reflection on ‘perpetual peace’. Indeed, Kant’s idea of actions that are based entirely on duty is utopian – assuming that it would be possible to distinguish between the motives of duty and our own self-interest. The famous problem of truth-telling seeks to expose a utopian element in his theory. Absolutist interpretations of Kantian deontology confront a standard dilemma involving lying. If lying is always wrong, a Kantian should not lie in order to promote the greater good (e.g. as in a case where you are asked by the Nazi guard whether you are hiding Jews in the attic). If we cannot lie to the Nazi at the door about Jews in the attic, then Kantian ethics is supposedly not cut out for the real world. Often this critique of Kant is articulated in terms of a critique of his ‘formalism’ and the ‘abstract’ nature of his moral theory (e.g. as found in Hegel’s critique of Kant). The critique of Kant articulated by Mill in Utilitarianism basically accuses Kant of being too idealistic and other-worldly: Mill says that Kant’s formal principle of duty is useless for deducing ‘any of the actual duties of morality’.2 While Kant endeavoured to supply formal principles of reasoning to ground ethics, which aimed at avoiding contradiction and incoherence (in the application of the categorical imperative), others claim that Kant fails to deliver. Kantianism looks inconsistent or incoherent when it relies upon a strong but abstract notion of freedom of the will that is combined with the strong sense of duty and obedience to the moral law that is divorced from a consideration Mill, Utilitarianism (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2001), p. 4.

2

Pacifism, Utopia, and Human Rights

93

of consequences and the concrete values of moral life. This sort of objection to Kant has been made by Hegel, Mill, and MacIntyre. Mill explained in the beginning of Utilitarianism, When he begins to deduce from this precept any of the actual duties of morality, he fails, almost grotesquely, to show that there would be any contradiction, any logical (not to say physical) impossibility, in the adoption by all rational beings of the most outrageously immoral rules of conduct. All he shows is that the consequences of their universal adoption would be such as no one would choose to incur.

Moreover, we might point out that Kant himself was inconsistent – or his world view contained seeming contradictions and incoherence. Despite his universalism, he was a sexist, a racist, and an anti-Semite. Although he advocated enlightenment ideals including a deep respect for liberty, he supposed political absolutism and rejected the idea of liberal democratic revolution. Despite these problems, Kantian deontology remains important in contemporary ethical theory. Mill’s utilitarianism also contains utopian elements and aspirations.3 He recognized that people do not accept the doctrine of utilitarianism. So he suggested a project of radical re-education for the ‘uncultivated herd who now compose the labouring masses’ in order to complete the project of utilitarian transformation.4 He seemed to believe that a utilitarian government would act in the best interests of the masses, while also recognizing that in the status quo of the nineteenth century the rich and the powerful ruled at the expense of the masses. He sympathized with communist and socialist reformers, arguing that those projects were not impracticable.5 And he had a very hopeful vision of the moral revolution that would be accomplished if utilitarian socialism were to be put in place.6 Mill thought a moral revolution would result once we instituted his See Michael Montgomery, ‘John Stuart Mill and the Utopian Tradition’, in Jürgen Georg Backhaus, ed., The State as Utopia (Berlin: Springer, 2011). 4 John Stuart Mill, Autobiography (1873 – at https://www.utilitarianism.com/millauto/seven.html), Chapter 7. 5 John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy (1848 – at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/millprinciples-of-political-economy-ashley-ed), Book II, Chapter 1. 6 Mill writes: 3

 It is scarcely possible to rate too highly this material benefit [of socialist cooperation], which yet is as nothing compared with the moral revolution in society that would accompany it: the healing of the standing feud between capital and labour; the transformation of human life, from a conflict of classes struggling for opposite interests, to a friendly rivalry in the pursuit of a good common to all; the elevation of the dignity of labour; a new sense of security and independence in the labouring class; and the conversion of each human being’s daily occupation into a school of the social sympathies and the practical intelligence. (John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy, Book IV, Chapter VI)

94

Transformative Pacifism

proposals for utilitarian reform. Utopians often project a transformed humanity into the future. Such theories descend from the utopian vantage point when they actually get into the weedy details and offer concrete proposals for social, psychological, and moral transformation. Utilitarians often do become practical in this way – as do pacifists who emphasize the complexity of non-violent strategies and the variety of ways that society ought to be transformed. Another famous problem for utilitarianism comes from Bernard Williams’s critique of utilitarianism, involving the question of whether one should violate one’s own integrity in order to promote the greater happiness. Significant challenges in moral theory have to do with conflicts of goods, ‘lesser evil’ choices, and so-called ‘sliding scales’ in ethical judgement. We see this in versions of the trolley problem and in the question of whether ‘the numbers count’ in ethics; we also see it in the idea of whether there are exemptions and exceptions to be made in supreme emergencies,7 and so on. Each major normative theory has its own set of limitations. In this regard, pacifism is neither better nor worse. Furthermore, utilitarianism has been accused of incoherence. The conflict between rule-utilitarianism and act-utilitarianism has been described as a kind of incoherence in rule-utilitarianism.8 In general one wonders whether it is possible to synthesize an entire system of utilitarianism, that is, whether it is possible to actually complete Bentham’s dream of a hedonic calculus. It seems, furthermore, that there are conflicting values. With regard to Mill’s case and example, it has long been a puzzle as to how we ought to connect Mill’s libertarianism with his utilitarianism; and critics have struggled to make sense of the difference in Mill between lower pleasures and higher pleasures.9 I mentioned before that Hegel and MacIntyre offered critiques of Kantian ethics. MacIntyre also objects to utilitarianism. Indeed, he finds the entire project of modern moral theory to be incoherent. In After Virtue, he points out that the effort to ground ethics in abstract formulas that are divorced from content, tradition, and teleology is destined to fail – a point also made by Anscombe in her influential essay ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’.10 The communitarian focus of this critique connects back to Hegel. I discuss some of these challenges in more detail in Fiala, Public War, Private Conscience, Chapter 9. See, for example, Dale E. Miller, ‘Mill, Rule Utilitarianism, and The Incoherence Objection’, in Ben Eggleston, Dale Miller and David Weinstein, eds, John Stuart Mill and the Art of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 9 See David O. Brink ‘Mill’s Deliberative Utilitarianism’, in David Lyons, ed., Mill’s Utilitarianism: Critical Essays (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1997). 10 Alasdaire MacIntyre, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press, 1981); G. E. M. Anscombe, ‘Modern Moral Philosophy’, Philosophy 33:124 (January 1958), 1–19. 7 8

Pacifism, Utopia, and Human Rights

95

We see a related kind of utopianism in Marxism and the Communist Manifesto. The basic call for revolution points towards a transformed humanity to be cultivated after the revolution. Marx, like Mill, provides an explanation of the reason that communism will appear to be utopian: in the ideological philosophy of the prevailing liberal world view. Marx, like other radical reformers, believes that critical theory can transform the world and usher in a new era. If this seems absurd from within the limited vantage point of the status quo, it is because the status quo is in need of radical revolution. And indeed, the Marxists take up Marx’s ideal and attempt to recreate the world according to the ideal image. Marx had suggested as much in his ‘Theses on Feuerbach’, where he said that the point of philosophy was not merely to interpret the world but also to change it. The danger, of course, is that when utopian philosophy is unleashed upon the world, we can end up with totalitarianism, violence, disorder, and unhappiness. The Marxist revolutions that broke out around the world are an indication of the dangers of utopianism that allow for a divorce between means and ends. Finally, we should note that the charge of utopianism can be applied to human rights theory. In a world in which human rights are routinely violated, human rights theory suffers from the same sorts of objections that are raised against pacifism. It is easy enough to declare that human beings are endowed by their Creator with inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. But in the real world, these rights are rarely respected. Indeed, the founders of the American Republic, who were inspired by the human rights doctrine, violated the rights of slaves and women. Thus, there is an important difference between aspirational ideals of moral and political theory and the real world in which these ideals are articulated and institutionalized by imperfect human beings. In fact, that is why we need to articulate such ideals: they establish a programme for action and a vantage point from which to critique immoral institutions. Human rights doctrine wants rights to be respected. Pacifism wants peace to be created. Obviously, the real world often fails to cooperate with these ideals. But the non-ideal world does not thereby refute the value of the ideal. Rather, the conflict between the real and the ideal world is fodder for social critique; it shows us the remaining work that must be done in order to eventuate social transformation. Furthermore, with regard to human rights theory, we should note that a number of prominent critics have objected to the idea of human rights based upon the fear that human rights are revolutionary, anarchic, and overly idealistic. Edmund Burke and Jeremy Bentham each made such an argument. Bentham claimed that human rights were ‘nonsense on stilts’ and that they were based

96

Transformative Pacifism

upon a set of anarchical fallacies.11 It is easy to see that a similar charge could be made against pacifism. As Bentham says, ‘Hunger is not bread.’ Nor is the hunger for peace, peace itself. But the point of moral theory is to postulate a good (e.g. the alleviation of hunger or the end of war). Moral theory gives way to critical social theory when that postulated good is used in a way that provides critical insight into what is lacking in society. And this gives ways to attempts to transform society in the direction of this ideal. In a world in which human rights are routinely violated, human rights theories appear to be utopian. Moreover, there are fundamental conflicts within human rights theory. Can we violate the rights of some in order to defend the rights of others? How do we negotiate conflicts of rights – in cases such as abortion or personal self-defence, or in other cases in which, for example, my free speech rights conflict with other person’s rights to be left alone, and so on? And in fact, from a certain vantage point human rights theory is either incoherent or immoral. Critics of secular human rights doctrine will claim that human rights without God or a basis in divinely ordained natural law is incoherent; at the same time, secularists will claim that the appeal to theology has no place in a putatively global and all-inclusive secular theory of ethical and political rights. As mentioned, utilitarians have another problem with human rights theory since declarations of human rights can be employed in the defence of all kinds of actions that run counter to social stability and human happiness. Consider, for example, the classic dilemma posed for utilitarianism in which the rights of one person must be sacrificed in order to bring about the greater good – say, for example, in a conflict between the rights of a property holder and the general social need to take possession of private property in order to create some public benefit (in cases of eminent domain). Absolutism about human rights implies that no human right should ever be sacrificed in this way. Nonetheless, utopian speculation remains a useful tool of moral theory. We can learn much from Plato, Kant, Mill, Marx, and the defenders of human Bentham wrote,  In proportion to the want of happiness resulting from the want of rights, a reason exists for wishing that there were such things as rights. But reasons for wishing there were such things as rights, are not rights; – a reason for wishing that a certain right were established, is not that right – want is not supply – hunger is not bread. That which has no existence cannot be destroyed – that which cannot be destroyed cannot require anything to preserve it from destruction. Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense, – nonsense upon stilts. (Jeremy Bentham, ‘Anarchical Fallacies’, in Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the Superintendence of his Executor, John Bowring (Edinburgh: William Tait, 1838–43), 11 vols. Vol. 2. 9/1/2017. http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/1921#Bent ham_0872-02_6148; accessed August 2017; no page numbers) 11

Pacifism, Utopia, and Human Rights

97

rights. The Platonic utopian ideal clarifies values and thinking about virtue, justice, and political organization. The purity of the Kantian formula helps us understand the power of duty and its difference from happiness. The problem of application with regard to utilitarianism reminds us of the difficulties we face in transforming a world in which class-interests and egoism prevail. And the Marxist revolutionary philosophy helps us understand the power of ideology and interest in political economy. Let’s leave Marx and Plato aside, in what follows – since there are in fact good reasons to be sceptical of these authors from a pacifist standpoint, since each proposes to deliberately use violence in pursuit of their utopia. Kantians, utilitarians, and human rights theorists are less enthusiastic about the efficacy of violence. Nonetheless, there are important objections to these theories based upon the difficulty of applying them in the so-called real world. Utilitarians remind us that we ought to be impartial in applying the utilitarian calculus. It turns out that this is difficult to do in practice. Our local loyalties and partiality conflict with the impartiality of the utilitarian framework. Concrete systems of social and political life tend to rest upon nepotism, cronyism, and local loyalties; to demand impartiality, as utilitarians do, seems to be both immoral and inhuman. Kantians emphasize the importance of abstract duty and acting out of respect for the moral law. Again, it turns out that this is difficult to do in practice. Our motives and intentions are often mixed and opaque. And in the real world there is the danger that abstract obedience can result in conformism, compliance, and obedience for its own sake – a charge that has been levied against a form of Kantianism that may be susceptible to the machinations of totalitarian regimes. Finally, human rights theory has several difficulties including the problem of drawing up a final list of human rights, as well as the problem of finding ways to negotiate apparent conflicts among rights. In the case of communitarianism, as mentioned before, there are other difficulties, such as the conflict between an individual’s right to religious liberty and the right of religious communities to be left alone to educate their children.

Transformative pacifism’s avoidance of utopianism So is pacifism merely a laughable idea – ridiculous and absurd, like the idea of the philosopher-king? Is it ‘nonsense on stilts’ as Bentham argued with regard to human rights? I have argued here that pacifism is no more absurd and ridiculous than any other major normative theory. The idea that we should pursue peace by

98

Transformative Pacifism

peaceful means may appear to have limitations. And criticisms and objections are possible. But the theory of pacifism is robust enough to sustain itself despite these criticisms – at least as robust as these other mainstream ethical theories. Thus, the charge of utopianism levied against pacifism does not leave pacifism better or worse off than other moral and political theories. Every moral theory is susceptible to the problems that arise from perfectionism, absolutism, formalism, abstraction, and utopianism. But pacifism is better than some other theories insofar as it insists on the unity of means and ends. It is also better than some other moral theories insofar as pacifism has developed under the long shadow of the utopian objection. Transformative pacifists have developed a melioristic and long-sighted understanding of moral transformation. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. reminds us that non-violence and peace work requires both external nonviolence and internal transformation. He explains in ‘Pilgrimage to Nonviolence’ that non-violence ‘avoids not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit’. The ethic of non-violence requires a transformation of the spirit that involves avoiding hate and learning to love. King explains, To retaliate in kind would do nothing but intensify the existence of hate in the universe. Along the way of life, someone must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate. This can only be done by projecting the ethic of love to the center of our lives.12

The idea of cutting off the chain of hate and projecting love outlines the transformative project. This is a spiritual idea that rests upon social and political practice. The peace ethic becomes viable to the extent that we behave peacefully, transform our spiritual economy in a non-violent direction, and actively work to overcome hate with love. And King, James Lawson, Cesar Chavez, and others who have put non-violence into practice have developed techniques of spiritual and social transformation that begin the work of actualizing peace, in addition to the strategies outlined by Gene Sharp, which we mentioned previously. In this regard, one could argue that pacifism has an advantage over other more abstract moral theories. Pacifists have been forced to recognize that social and psychological transformation is an essential part of the theory itself. That deeper spiritual, psychological, social, and political agenda is lacking in many of the other mainstream moral theories. Utilitarians rarely discuss how Martin Luther King, Jr., ‘Pilgrimage to Nonviolence’, in Stride Toward Freedom (Boston: Beacon, 1986), p. 92.

12

Pacifism, Utopia, and Human Rights

99

we are to get from here to there: how we ought to implement and develop a utilitarian moral outlook through moral education or practice. The same is true for Kantians and human rights theories. Admittedly, the virtue ethics tradition – as well as contemporary feminism and care ethics – are exceptions. Virtue ethics focuses on habit formation, moral education, and practical wisdom. Feminism emphasizes consciousness raising and engaging in social and political activism as a way of embodying and enacting feminist insight. Care ethics is deeply focused on the actual practice of care: in the so-called caring professions, in family life, and in moral education. Pacifism has more in common with those approaches insofar as the ideal – the utopian agenda, if you will – is connected to practical advice, spiritual and psychological insight, community building, political activism, educational reform, and a general theory of living. Now it is true that absolute pacifism can appear as naively and hopelessly utopian. Absolute pacifists may simplistically declare that violence is wrong, draw a line in the sand and say, ‘Here I stand.’ Such a stand is inspiring in its purity and simplicity – but it is obviously ineffective. Transformative pacifism is more than a simple statement or declaration of values. Rather, transformative pacifism is as much about cultivating pacific virtues and concrete strategies of non-violence as it is about making simplistic assertions. Transformative pacifism seeks to change the world by beginning from within the moral economy of individual lives and communities. Insofar as it understands that its largest goal – world peace – is ideal and utopian, it adopts the long historical point of view, insisting on incremental change and sustained critique. The dream of world peace is obviously complicated and utopian: but the transformational pacifist offers concrete steps to take – incremental and slow steps to take – in the right direction. One of the virtues of pacifism is that it takes seriously the challenge of transforming the world through non-violent change, social critique, and psychological work and character formation. The practical focus is often lacking in other moral theories. Kantian deontology does not usually provide an account of moral psychology or social critique. Utilitarians do offer concrete plans for rearranging social conditions. But the risk of utilitarian social engineering projects is that they can quickly devolve into a situation in which the end justifies the means – especially when the theory ignores the complexity of the psychological, educational, and spiritual elements of social change. Pacifism’s effort to unify means and ends is valuable insofar as this idea reminds us of the need for careful and consistent social and psychological critique. In this effort, the pacifist steps down from utopian dreaming and gets to work in the real world.

100

Transformative Pacifism

Reply to further objections Now that we have sufficiently responded to the utopian objection, let’s turn to the other objections to pacifism raised at the outset of this chapter.

Objection 2: Pacifism is inconsistent Given the fact that pacifism tends to want to unite means and ends, it is significant that critics of pacifism will claim that it is incoherent or inconsistent. For a philosophical theory of ethics, such an accusation is damning: philosophical theories ought to make sense and avoid inconsistency. This objection to pacifism has been articulated by Jan Narveson in a series of articles, beginning in the 1960s.13 A related argument can be found in an article by Tom Regan in the 1970s.14 The basic point is that when the pacifist claims that violence is wrong, he/she should be willing to do whatever is needed to prevent violence. The charge of inconsistency or incoherence is based upon the claim that something ought to be done to prevent the thing that is wrong. Or in a different formulation, the objection holds that if life is held as the most valuable thing – since the pacifist claims that it is fundamentally morally wrong to kill – then the pacifist ought to do something to prevent killing and save life. Said differently, if in some cases killing is necessary to prevent killing and pacifists refuse to kill, then they end up condoning killing. In response to this some pacifists change the subject or qualify the focal point of pacifism.15 Thus a pacifist may say that pacifism is merely an anti-war position – and it is not about killing per se. Or a pacifist may say that his/her commitment is to peace and not to life in all forms and under all conditions. Or a pacifist may question the claim of what counts as necessary in terms of promoting peace or defending life.

Narveson, ‘Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis’; Jan Narveson, ‘Is Pacifism Consistent?’, Ethics 78:2 (1968), 148–50; Narveson, ‘Terrorism and Pacifism: Why We Should Condemn Both’; Jan Narveson, ‘Is Pacifism Self-Refuting?’, in B. Bleisch and J.-D. Strub, eds, Pazifismus: Ideengeschichte, Theorie und Praxis (Bern: Haupt, 2006), 127–44; and Narveson, ‘Pacifism – Fifty Years Later’. 14 Tom Regan, ‘A Defense of Pacifism’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2:1 (1972), 73–86. 15 For discussion of some of these kinds of replies, see Robert Holmes, On War and Morality; James Sterba, ‘The Most Morally Defensible Pacifism’, 193–203; David Carroll Cochran, ‘War-Pacifism’, Social Theory and Practice 22:2 (1996), 161–80; Soran Reader, ‘Making Pacifism Plausible’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 17:2 (2000), 169–80; Cheyney C. Ryan, ‘Self-Defense, Pacifism and Rights’; and M. Jay. Whitman, ‘Is Pacifism Self-Contradictory?’, Ethics 76 (1966), 307–08. 13

Pacifism, Utopia, and Human Rights

101

Here I want to consider two different sorts of response. First, by conceiving pacifism as a transformative and critical social theory, the charge of incoherence is deflected. Second, I want to point out that the charge of inconsistency and incoherence can be levied against any moral philosophy or political theory. First, pacifism as transformative social theory is more interested in social criticism than in postulating absolute prohibitions. Consider, for example, the problem of domestic violence. It is obvious that pacifists will be opposed to domestic violence (I discuss this in detail in Chapter 7). Now a critic of pacifism may object that in some cases violence may have to be employed in order to prevent domestic violence: husbands may have to be restrained, arrested, and perhaps even killed. But moral prohibitions about what we do in such a concrete emergency are less important than the larger critical social point, which is to try to understand why domestic violence occurs and try to imagine non-violent ways to transform the world so that it occurs less. Pacifism of this variety will be focused on empowering women, criticizing patriarchal notions of the family, and arguing against corporal punishment – all of that is included in the critique of family violence. Or consider the pacifist critique of war. The pacifist critique holds that war is brutal, terrifying, and unenlightened. It wonders why the world (and the United States in particular) spends so much money on defence industries and building bombs. It is critical of conscription, concerned about the welfare of noncombatants, and worried about the damage of war, including PTSD and moral injury. It is also critical of the severe damage that war does to the environment. All of that is on the table for pacifists who oppose war. The question of whether a given war could be justified – or whether an individual pacifist is willing to fight in a given war or whether he/she is willing to pay taxes that support the war system – is less important than the question of how we transform the world so that we can avoid the horrors and immoralities of war. The larger social critique ranges both deep and wide. The narrow question of whether one is consistent or inconsistent in a concrete emergency is important, but it pales in comparison to the larger framework. This leads us to the second response to this objection. The charge of incoherence is a problem when pacifism is conceived as an absolute statement of what can or cannot be done. But this problem holds for a variety of other moral and political theories, as we’ve seen. We mentioned before that there are dilemmas and controversies that could be used to challenge most moral theories. Kantian theory, utilitarianism, and human rights theories can also be accused of incoherence and inconsistency, as we saw before. So the accusation against

102

Transformative Pacifism

pacifism as inconsistent or incoherent puts it in good company – and at least should not disqualify it as a moral theory. One further possible solution is to conceive of pacifism from the vantage point of virtue ethics. Transformative pacifism offer an account of virtue and the good life, a vision of human flourishing.16 But virtue ethics is not the best place to find a definitive catalogue of right and wrong actions, prohibitions, and permissions. The accusation against pacifism that is incoherent or inconsistent comes from a vantage point that is interested in the internal consistency of such a catalogue of actions. That misses the point of pacifism conceived as a transformative theory grounded in social criticism and virtue theory. The point for this sort of pacifism is not to say yes or no to a given action but to outline a way of life and a teleological vision of human development.

Objection 3: Pacifism is immoral This objection is similar to the previous one. But it moves beyond a claim about the logic of pacifism and asserts against pacifism an account of right/wrong, good/evil. From this standpoint, pacifism is not only incoherent but also wrong. It is wrong if it allows evil to persist, if it condones murder and terrorism, and if it is not willing to approve action that could be used to prevent violence. One possible reply builds upon what we suggested with regard to other moral theories: no moral theory is perfect and free from contradictions. This may include results that seem to include apparently immoral actions. The Kantian may have to tell the truth about the Jews in the attic, for example. At some point a moral theory must pick sides. Pacifist theory picks sides with peace and nonviolence. This does not mean, by the way, that pacifism condones or supports the violence that may occur when war is avoided. And here we would need to bring in the distinction between doing and allowing. It is not the pacifist opponents of war who kill people – it is war that kills people. And furthermore, as mentioned already, pacifists are not content to simply sit back and let evil happen. Rather, they are committed to employing non-violent means to respond to violence and protect the innocent.

For an account of pacifism from the standpoint of virtue ethics see: Daniel Diederich Farmer, ‘Pacifism Without Right and Wrong’, Public Affairs Quarterly 25:1 (January 2011), 37–52; David K. Chan, Beyond Just War: A Virtue Ethics Approach (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

16

Pacifism, Utopia, and Human Rights

103

Of course, the world includes terror and wickedness. In some cases, pacifists may make exceptions in order to prevent atrocity. In making such exceptions, a pragmatic and melioristic pacifist does not thereby lessen his or her commitment to peace and non-violence. The larger commitment can remain even in the face of concrete emergencies. But the point of pacifism is not to outline those emergency exceptions. Rather, the goal is to transform the world so that there is less need for such exceptions. Furthermore, pacifism ought to have a sense of tragedy. This is true of most other moral theories, as well. The world is an imperfect place. There are conflicts of values. Terrible things happen. There are conflicts among our moral commitments. And there are conflicts between the demands of the short-term emergency and the demands of our long-term moral commitments. In the face of tragedy, however, we ought not simply jettison our moral commitments and retreat to cynicism or despair. The hope of transformation helps us respond to tragedy: we ought to hope that we can transform ourselves – socially, economically, psychologically, and politically – and create a more peaceful world. The work is demanding and will take generations. But the fact that there are tragic exceptions should not distract us from that larger project of social critique and transformation.

Objection 4: Pacifism is bourgeois and reactionary This objection holds that pacifism and the demand for non-violence are defended from within a bubble of privilege that ignores the groans of the oppressed, the demand for revolution, and the violence that undergirds the status quo. This objection is associated with the work of Ward Churchill, Derek Jensen, and other radical militants, who defend the idea of revolutionary violence.17 We discussed this in part, earlier in this chapter, in our discussion of Marxism and human rights theory, each of which advocates and defends revolutionary violence. The question here is a variant of the above objections which basically say that pacifists and non-violentists are unwilling to do what justice demands. As I responded above, this objection can be responded to by understanding that peace and justice are prioritized in different ways by different theorists and by

See Jensen, Endgame; Churchill, Pacifism as Pathology.

17

104

Transformative Pacifism

critically examining the utopian aspirations of those who advocate revolutionary violence. But let’s hone in here on the question of whether pacifism is protected by a bubble of privilege. The first and most obvious reply is that non-violence has often been defended and applied (and effectively applied) by those on the margins: Gandhi, King, and Chavez were not protected by the bubble of bourgeois respectability. Pacifists and non-violentists are indeed motivated by the obvious presence of injustice and oppression. But they stipulate that nonviolent means should be employed in pursuit of those goals. Moreover, what is at issue for non-violentists such as Gandhi, King, and Chavez is not simply justice and equality. Rather, they have a larger vision of what King called ‘the beloved community’. The point is not simply to establish equality. Rather, the goal is to transform the social and political world so that human beings engage one another as persons – in our equality, our uniqueness, our common humanity, and our difference. In this regard, pacifists and non-violentists will agree that a certain kind of privilege is a problem. Any kind of social privilege that prevents us from understanding our common humanity is a significant problem. And in this regard, the pacifists will argue that those who advocate violence and defend war and revolutionary violence are missing an important point. Violence tends to divide us and prevent us from developing human solidarity. Violence breeds hatred, anger, and tit-for-tat reprisals. It is the pacific values – love, forgiveness, mercy, compassion, and so on – that allow for positive growth, the rehabilitation of wrong-doers, and the restoration of broken communities. Of course, the concrete application of all this will be difficult and complicated. It is not likely that we will want to encourage reconciliation between a rape victim and her rapist. But what is the issue for the transformative pacifist is a transformed social world in which there are fewer rapes and in which opportunities for growth and restoration are not foreclosed. The problem of revolutionary violence, including revolutionary violence that is legitimized by the mainstream natural rights tradition, is that it does not break the cycle of resentment and hatred. It might break that cycle if victory is total and all enemies are expelled or exterminated. But pacifism is critical of such exorbitant and excessive violence. Finally, we should note that pacifism does not counsel retreat into a bubble of privilege. Rather, it indicates that hard work is yet to be done to overcome injustice, oppression, and structural violence.

Pacifism, Utopia, and Human Rights

105

Conclusion In this chapter we have completed our analysis of pacifism as a transformative and critical, social and moral theory. In this and previous chapters (2, 3, and 4), we have articulated an account of pacifism as a serious and important moral theory and we have located pacifism in the general context of critical social theory. We have considered a variety of conceptual difficulties. And we have considered and replied to objections. In subsequent chapters, we will apply pacifism to concrete issues, topics, and cases.

106

6

The Peaceful Self

The goal of pacifism is to be peaceful: to be full of peace, to live peacefully. The theory and practice of pacifism aims to create a more peaceful world, that is, a world full of peace. This terminology implies that peace is a positive thing that can fill a person or a world. As a noun, peace signifies something positive; it is not merely a negative term. This is why the terminology of pacifism is preferable to the terminology of non-violence (which is a negative term). Peace becomes an adjective and adverb in the terms peaceful and peacefully. This describes a way of doing or being that is full of peace. Peaceful living is an activity. It is not a passive state. Peacefulness does not simply happen. It is cultivated and nurtured; and it requires discipline and practice. Nor is peace an endpoint or result. Rather, peace is an ongoing activity, best understood in the context of what might be called a practice – a sustained teleological process involving values, goals, and reflection. Peace is not easy. It is not stable or long-lasting. Rather, peace requires constant effort, creative rationality, and practical wisdom. This kind of terminology – emphasizing activity, teleology, cultivation, nurturance, and practical wisdom – is typical of virtue ethics. Associated with Aristotle and contemporary theorists such as Alasdair MacIntyre, this approach focuses on cultivating practical wisdom that transforms the self and the world.1 The self is always part of the world. Indeed, one cannot really be at peace in a world that is riven by violence, oppression, fear, and conflict. Nor can the world be at peace when individuals are afflicted by inner turmoil, anxiety, and hatred. Pacifism, as a transformative project, must consider both the external critique of violence/war and the internal focus on cultivating a peaceful self.

See MacIntyre, After Virtue. For discussion, see Kelvin Knight, ‘Practices: The Aristotelian Concept’, Analyse & Kritik 30 (2008), 317–29.

1

108

Transformative Pacifism

The uncanny retreat to inner peace One way that pacifism has been enacted is in retreat from the larger world. Concepts such as personal pacifism or vocational pacifism have been employed to describe this.2 Thus, one might simply refuse to participate in violence by conscientiously objecting to military service, for example. One might be a pacifist in a monastery or in a separatist commune, pursuing inner peace as a hermit in silence and solitude. But peaceful solitude as escapism is insufficient, since one can never entirely leave the world behind. Aristotle reminds us that we are social/political animals (zoon politikon). And it is in friendship that we see Aristotle provide a model of peace: an ethical friendship (philia) is a caring and peaceful relation engaged in by individuals who are able to enjoy leisure and autonomy.3 Aristotle also suggests that we can find peace in philosophical contemplation (theoria). Aristotelian contemplation is similar to what is called in contemporary discussions ‘mindfulness’. Aristotelian mindfulness is associated with the highest good: in Book X of Nicomachean Ethics, contemplation is described as a practice that is nearly perfect, self-sufficient, and happy; a related term might be ‘wonder’. At any rate, mindfulness connects us with the highest good, which is peace. It is literally the practice of peace. But this is made possible by a social and political life that allows for the kind of freedom and leisure that is the basis of contemplation. In Aristotle’s day, this meant that tranquillity was only possible for male citizens, whose peaceful friendships and contemplative activities were made possible by the working classes, the slaves, and the women who supported them. A social justice agenda can easily develop from understanding this. When we see that inner peace depends upon a worldly support network, we find ourselves concerned with that external network. Justice demands that we consider our obligation to our fellow human beings, especially those who support us, and whose lives lack peace. This means that in the end we must avoid escapism. We see this point made clearly by Plato, who gave us an indelible image of this problem in his account of the philosopher who escapes from the cave. The philosopher, who enjoys peaceful contemplation, would prefer to remain outside of the cave, See Eric Reitan, ‘Personal Pacifism and Conscientious Objection’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017); Peter Brock, ‘Personal Pacifism in Historical Perspective’, The Acorn 11 (2001), 53–9; Kenneth W. Kemp, ‘Personal Pacifism’, Theological Studies 56 (1995), 21–38; and Eric Reitan, ‘Personally Committed to Nonviolence: Towards a Vindication of Personal Pacifism’, The Acorn 10 (2000), 30–41. 3 See William Desmond, ‘Aristotle on Peace’, in E. P. Moloney and Michael Stuart Williams, eds, Peace and Reconciliation in the Classical World (New York: Routledge, 2017). 2

The Peaceful Self

109

freed from delusion and political strife. But he finds that he cannot remain in isolation and that he must return into the cave because his vision of the good and the truth includes a vision of justice. It is justice that impels him back into the world to try and free his peers. The vision of peace gives him a sense of obligation for those he has left behind. There is thus something uncanny about inner peace. Freud’s description of the uncanny provides a clue. He reminds us that in German, the word for uncanny is unheimlich – literally un-homey or not home-like: the uncanny lacks peace and security and a home.4 The kind of inner peace that can be found in solitude and isolation contains a kernel of discord that comes from understanding that peace of mind is made possible by the work of others who continue to suffer from violence, oppression, and injustice. Thomas Merton, a great American expositor of hermit solitude and inner peace has explained this in detail. He says, ‘If you go into the desert merely to get away from people you dislike, you will find neither peace nor solitude.’5 He continues, If you seek escape for its own sake and run away from the world only because it is (as it must be) intensely unpleasant, you will not find peace and you will not find solitude. If you seek solitude merely because it is what you prefer, you will never escape from the world and its selfishness; you will never have the interior freedom that will keep you really alone.6

The peace of escapism is, in Merton’s terms, not a genuine or loving peace. Rather, it is an irresponsible peace. He explains, ‘It produces a kind of peace which is not peace, but only the escape from an immediately urgent sense of conflict. It is the peace not of love but of anesthesia. It is the peace not of selfrealization and self-dedication, but of flight into irresponsibility.’7 This reminds us that inner peace must be incorporated into a larger ethical framework. Popular culture is full of what we might call the soft nonsense of inner peace, which makes it seem that one can simply close one’s eyes, breathe deeply, and find tranquillity or serenity. There is a kind of psychological pabulum that is peddled in the so-called new age spirituality, which tells us that inner peace is easy to achieve. Sometimes a self-help author will even offer a recipe for inner peace. Wayne Dwyer, for example, offers 10 Secrets for Success and Inner Peace. Some of this is common sense with deep roots in the world’s religious Sigmund Freud, The Uncanny (London: Penguin, 2003). Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation (New York: New Directions, 2007), 52. 6 Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation, 87. 7 Ibid., 56. 4 5

110

Transformative Pacifism

and philosophical traditions. But this becomes a kind of soft spiritual nonsense when it is disconnected from a larger consideration of ethics, religion, and social and political philosophy. Sometimes, the focus on inner peace attempts to tap in to a kind of reductive universalism about religion, which teaches that all of the world’s religious traditions are basically the same, teaching love, peace, and harmony. This idea is inspiring. But it is false. Religions are complicated – and they teach about war and division as well as about peace and love. Similar challenges can be raised with regard to the quietistic impulse of some of the inner peace literature. One of the dangers of pacifism is that it can easily become insipid and silly. The internet is full of quotes and memes that tell us about the importance of inner peace. Often these are misquoted or taken out of context. One favourite is a quote ripped form Emerson’s essay, ‘Self-Reliance’. Emerson concludes his famous essay with the following: ‘Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.’ For those who know Emerson’s essay, it is clear that Emerson is insisting on the strenuous effort to become yourself – to follow your own genius and to be willing to be an adventurer and non-conformist. The peace that results from this is not a flaccid kind of bliss; rather it is the satisfaction discovered in a life lived on your own terms. But often this quote and others are taken to mean that all you need to do is take a couple of deep breaths, contemplate your navel, and find the peace within. Serious philosophers and religious figures understand how difficult it is to induce peace – and how much care we ought to take in thinking about the ethics of peace. Closing your eyes and breathing deeply will not stop a fight, a rape, or a murder. Nor will it bring about world peace. The transformative work of pacifism is not mere escapism that denies the reality of things. Indeed, we ought to keep our eyes open as we pursue peace. A soft spirituality may provide comfort. But this is more like a tranquillizer or a pacifier – a false offer of peace that is not a worthy substitute for the real thing. It is much more difficult than it would be to find peace in the face of a world that is often ugly and violent. That is the real project of peace: to confront the world as it really is, while remaining committed to the idea of peace – and while finding peace oneself along the way. Mature adults understand that the project of peace is one of the most difficult projects of all – and that we may not complete this project in our own lifetimes. A better approach recognizes the complexity of all of this: uniting the strenuous quest for inner peace with the even more difficult pursuit of peace in the world. The fourteenth Dalai Lama, in his Nobel Prize Address (from 1989)

The Peaceful Self

111

offers us an example of an approach grounded in the importance of inner peace.8 He suggests that inner peace may help us despite material conditions that are not peaceful. But that is not the whole of the story. He admits that the Tibetan spiritualized approach was mistaken insofar as it neglected the external world. We need to focus on inner peace. But we cannot neglect the material world. Inner peace of the quietistic and retreating sort is both unethical and ineffective. It is unethical because it becomes narcissistic, disregarding the needs of others. It is ineffective because the outer world will always continue to impinge upon the tranquillity of the inner citadel. Indeed, wherever you choose to escape, you will find social pressures, conflict, and potential violence: even within the walls of a cloistered monastery or in your own backyard. There is an uncanny element to inner peace, which ultimately ought to drive us to return to the world in order to work to resolve the remaining contradictions that occur when we find blessed moments of peace in a still violent world. This does not mean that vocational pacifism or personal pacifism is wrong. Nor does it mean that there is no benefit in silence, solitude, and quiet retreat. Nor does it mean that inner peace is useless, ideological, selfish, or delusional. Rather it means that the pursuit of inner peace must be incorporated into a larger ethical framework that includes psychology and spirituality, as well as social and political philosophy. The pursuit of inner peace is a process of self-transformation. It is hard and serious work. But the process of self-transformation is always already part of a project of social transformation, which is also hard and serious work. The self inhabits a social world, which cannot be ignored. Society is made up of individual selves, whose psychological and spiritual habit cannot also be ignored. We transform this totality by working both on the self and on the social whole. Furthermore, this means that those who are interested in finding inner peace ought to be very sympathetic to the project of transformative pacifism. It might Dalai Lama writes,  Material progress is of course important for human advancement. In Tibet, we paid much too little attention to technological and economic development, and today we realise that this was a mistake. At the same time, material development without spiritual development can also cause serious problems. In some countries too much attention is paid to external things and very little importance is given to inner development. I believe both are important and must be developed side by side so as to achieve a good balance between them. Tibetans are always described by foreign visitors as being a happy, jovial people. This is part of our national character, formed by cultural and religious values that stress the importance of mental peace through the generation of love and kindness to all other living sentient beings, both human and animal. Inner peace is the key: if you have inner peace, the external problems do not affect your deep sense of peace and tranquility. In that state of mind you can deal with situations with calmness and reason, while keeping your inner happiness. That is very important. Without this inner peace, no matter how comfortable your life is materially, you may still be worried, disturbed or unhappy because of circumstances. (Dalai Lama, Nobel Prize Speech (1989) at: https://www.dalailama.com/messages/ acceptance-speeches/nobel-peace-prize/nobel-peace-prize-nobel-lecture; accessed August 2017) 8

112

Transformative Pacifism

be too much to conclude that everyone who discusses inner peace in self-help and new age literature is a pacifist or ought to be. Indeed, it is possible that one could be devoted to martial arts and a militarist view of the world, while still hoping to find inner peace. Although this may in fact be the case for many people, the contradiction of such an approach becomes apparent when we consider the connection between personal peace and the larger social world. Those who seek inner peace should also consider the depth of their commitment to peace in general, including opposition to war and violence. The connection between new age inner peace and the larger ethical framework of pacifism is often overlooked. If we included all of those who view the pursuit of inner peace as a significant spiritual commitment among the ranks of the pacifists, there will be more pacifists than previously acknowledged. The Pew Center reports the growth of ‘spiritual peace’ among Americans, despite a general decline in religion.9 According to their survey data, nearly 60 per cent of Americans report that they regularly feel a sense of ‘spiritual peace’. This does not mean that all of these people are pacifists. But those who see the pursuit of inner peace as an essential component of their spiritual lives should have sympathy for pacifism and would benefit from thinking more carefully about the ethical, social, and political implications of their sense of spirituality. Let’s leave this point aside and return to the language of virtue ethics and the ethical and social philosophy of the virtue tradition in order to indicate the importance of a coherent world view that includes spiritual, ethical, and social practices and commitments. Inner peace is uncanny when it is homeless – that is, when it is practised in a world torn by violence. The activity of peace – and the spiritual practice of cultivating inner peace – should be supported by institutions and a social context in which peace is a general rule, a shared goal, and communal value. It would be difficult to cultivate inner peace in the middle of a war zone or in a culture that is infused by images of violence, hatred, and conflict. That peace is a social practice is obvious from the fact that those who retreat into monasteries or backyard gardens rearrange their own social worlds in order to cultivate the peace they seek. If we want peace, we must build a home for peace. The activity of making peace or building peace – or living peacefully – is supported by a network of social relations, educational systems, cultural images, and moral vocabularies. The practice of peace is in turn supported and nurtured by individuals who understand Pew Center Report, 21 January 2016 at: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/21/ americans-spirituality/; accessed August 2017.

9

The Peaceful Self

113

the value of peace – who experience some form of inner peace – and who understand the ethical demand or moral responsibility to create and build peaceful communities, relationships, and homes. This way of conceiving peace and pacifism in terms of an interconnected set of virtues, practices, and institutions builds upon the insights of MacIntyre and his interpretation of Aristotle and the virtue tradition. But MacIntyre is not a pacifist (nor is Aristotle). Indeed, MacIntyre accuses pacifists of being moral free-riders, in cases where their commitment to absolute principles prevents them from acting to prevent harm or defend the innocent. MacIntyre, in this discussion, views pacifists as Kantians who cling unflinchingly to moral absolutes. He writes, ‘The social and civic orders within which the vast majority of human beings live out their lives are sustained by systematic uses of coercion and lying that Kantians, pacifists, and others may disown and condemn, but the benefits of which they cannot escape.’10 We can respond to this objection by noting that pacifists want to transform the social and civic order that MacIntyre describes. Pacifism need not be understood in Kantian terms (we might also quibble about MacIntyre’s interpretation of Kant). The point is that we ought to view pacifism as a form of life or cultural practice that is not absolutist. Rather, it aims to cultivate peace as a practice, to foster relationships and institutional structures that support peace, and to instil the spirit of peace within individuals. Exceptional cases that seem to demand that we break the rule of non-violence must be considered from the standpoint of what Aristotle would describe as ‘practical wisdom’ (phronesis). Practical reasoning involves being able to understand current situations within a larger teleological purview that is structured by a vision of the good life; it also involves a kind of self-knowledge and capacity for self-control and rational deliberation; and it is supported by social contexts, institutions, and practices. Pacifism teaches that peace is essential to the good life, that non-violence is a preferred means for obtaining peace, and that rationality, self-control, and peaceful institutions should be created and supported as means of working towards peace. Virtue pacifism need not state in categorical terms that violence is always an evil that must be avoided at any cost; rather, it teaches that violence ought to be minimized while non-violence and peace must be maximized; nor does pacifism of this sort view peace as the absolute cessation of conflict. Practical wisdom reminds us that life and the world are full of conflict – and will always be so. Absolutism here Alasdair MacIntyre, Truthfulness, Lies, and Moral Philosophers: What Can we Learn from Mill and Kant? (Tanner Lectures at Princeton University: 6 and 7 April 1994 – at http://tannerlectures.utah. edu/_documents/a-to-z/m/macintyre_1994.pdf; accessed August 2017), 350.

10

114

Transformative Pacifism

is a recipe for failure and guilt. Pacifism will always be viewed as inadequate if it is understood in absolutist terms, since the world contains violence and war. But the point of transformative pacifism is not to cling to absolutism. Rather, we must work to transform ourselves and the world in a way that creates more peace. This requires effort, commitment, reflection, and ongoing practice.

Traditions of inner peace Understood in this way – as a teleological practice of peace that depends upon practical wisdom – pacifism lies at the heart of many of the world’s ethical and religious traditions. The importance of activity and practice can be found in various forms in traditions as disparate as Christianity, Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. These traditions call into question an account of inner peace that is quietistic and passive. They recognize peacefulness as a virtue and peace as a practice. To live peacefully is the goal, which means to fill yourself and the world around you with peace. This idea forms a core part of the thinking of the great contemporary Buddhist author, Thich Nhat Hanh, whose insights are part of the movement called ‘engaged Buddhism’. Engaged Buddhism is not merely quietistic withdrawal, rather it aims to transform the world. It is opposed to war and killing, but it also opposes absolutism, while encouraging compassionate and reflective participation in the world.11 Hanh points out that the practice of peace – what he describes in places as ‘being peace’ – helps us see and understand peace and its importance: the practice of peace transforms the self in a way that makes peace easier to see, understand, and practice. He writes, Peace is all around us – in the world and in nature – and within us – in our bodies and our spirits. Once we learn to touch this peace, we will be healed and transformed. It is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of practice.12

Hanh further explains this using the metaphor of a path or way. He says that the path of ahimsa is a ‘path of harmlessness’.13 No one can be perfectly non-violent. But we can practice non-violence and make an effort to be more peaceful. The See Thich Nhat Hanh, ‘14 Precepts of Engaged Buddhism’, Lion’s Roar, 12 April 2017: https://www. lionsroar.com/the-fourteen-precepts-of-engaged-buddhism/ 12 Thich Nhat Hanh, Touching Peace: Practicing The Art of Mindful Living, revised edition (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 2009), 1. 13 Thich Nhat Hanh, Love in Action: Writings on Nonviolent Social Change (Berkeley, CA: Parallax Press, 1993), this phrase is the title of Chapter 4, p. 65 ff. 11

The Peaceful Self

115

practice of non-violence includes careful speech, intent listening, and an effort to understand the world. Hanh explains this as a practice that involves body, mind, and speech. When we practice non-violence, ‘non-action’ and ‘mindfulness’ are essential. But non-action cannot merely be removed from the world. Rather, the mindfulness of non-action provides a space for deliberation and for seeing what needs to be done to engage the world in a less violent way. He explains this as a process of ‘becoming ahimsa’ – or becoming non-violent. He writes, Most important is to become ahimsa, so that when a situation presents itself, we will not create more suffering. To practice ahimsa, we need gentleness, loving kindness, compassion, joy, and equanimity directed to our bodies, our feelings, and other people. Real peace must be based on insight and understanding, and for this we must practice deep reflection – looking deeply into each act and thought of our daily lives. With mindfulness – the practice of peace – we can begin by working to transform the wars in ourselves.14

This passage resonates with ideas and insights common to the virtue tradition. It emphasizes the need for practice in pursuit of transformation. It lists key virtues: gentleness, loving kindness, compassion, joy, and so forth. And it focuses on deliberate activity in the idea of deep reflection and mindfulness. Hanh’s approach reminds us that one could practice peace or behave nonviolently by acting mindfully in all sorts of contexts. One can eat mindfully and peacefully, make love mindfully and peacefully, protest wars mindfully and peacefully, and so on. One could also, of course, do these things in a mindless or distracted fashion and do them violently. As Hanh indicates above, the practice of peace transforms us, prepares us for adversity, and works to create the world we want. The more we practice peace, the more peaceful we become, and the more peaceful the world can become. In his book, Creating True Peace, Hanh explains that peace – and the mindfulness connected to peace – must be practised in all parts of life. The practice of mindfulness is already the action of peace. The practice of mindfulness has the power to transform us and to affect the whole world. We have to practice the cultivation of peace individually and in our relationships. We need to practice peace with our partner, children, friends, neighbors, and society. Only this kind of practice will allow the flower of peace to take root in our families, in our communities, and in the world.15

Hanh, Love in Action, 70. Thich Nhat Han, Creating True Peace (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2003), 9–10.

14 15

116

Transformative Pacifism

The language of transformation that Hanh uses here provides a clear connection with the idea of pacifism I am defending in this book. The examples Hanh gives show that living peacefully is a comprehensive project that extends from our intimate relations up towards social and even global concerns. Indeed, Hanh suggests that when peace is a primary value it can be used to transform the way we do all kinds of things. He continues, We must examine the way we consume, the way we work, the way we treat people in order to see whether our daily life expresses the spirit of peace and reconciliation, or whether we are doing the opposite. This is the practice of deep looking that will make peace possible in our daily life. There is hope for future generations only if we can put into practice our deep aspiration for a culture of peace and nonviolence.16

In another place, Hanh connects non-violence with love, and he explains that peace is a process and not a set of absolute moral rules: ‘The essence of nonviolence is love. Out of love and the willingness to act selflessly, strategies, tactics, and techniques for a nonviolent struggle arise naturally. Nonviolence is not a dogma; it is a process.’17 The idea that non-violence is a process connects to the standpoint of virtue ethics. Our commitments unfold throughout life as a process of development, requiring ongoing discipline and reflection. When we develop practical wisdom within this practice or path, we will know better what the strategies, tactics, and techniques of a peaceful life should be. When one takes up the pacifist way of life, strategies and solutions arise naturally. Practical wisdom appears as a habit or disposition to do the right thing. The virtue tradition teaches that virtues are ‘second nature’ – they are the result of education, deliberation, reflection, and ongoing practice. But once one engages in the practice of a virtue tradition, actions and habits begin to appear as natural. This does not mean that these habits and actions are easy – rather it means that they form a natural and normal part of the ongoing practice of living well. Understanding pacifism in this way – as a set of habits on a path or in a practice, or as a process of developing practical wisdom oriented around peace – is quite helpful for fending off a typical charge that is made against pacifism, which is that it is passive. It also provides a concrete response to those who claim that pacifism is a kind of self-centred navel-gazing. Peacefulness is not merely passive quietism. Rather, it is the result of an active and strenuous effort to cultivate a stable set of habits that produce or induce peace. Hanh, Creating True Peace, 10. Hanh, Love in Action, 39.

16 17

The Peaceful Self

117

The idea of cultivating inner peace and becoming peaceful has a deep history. Plato suggests, in the Republic, that the just man will have a kind of self-harmony that some translators describe as inner peace or being ‘at peace with oneself ’.18 Plato (and Aristotle) holds out hope for a kind of wisdom and virtue that would involve self-mastery and peace. One interpreter explains this in connection to sophrosyne, which is often translated as temperance or moderation: Sophrosyne is thus in a sense a virtue of self without self, the virtue of empty and mindless peace that belongs to the fully mindful and enlightened sage. It is the wisdom of self-mastery in which wisdom, self, and mastery vanish, and what remains is the quiet, orderly, effortless grace of skilled living.19

This ideal – of a peaceful self that is full of effortless grace, quiet order, wisdom, and virtue – is of course an ideal. There are no peaceful sages of this sort. Or they are very few and far between. The rest of us struggle for virtue, wisdom, and peacefulness. And we hope to be lucky enough to live in a good city in a peaceful time with good friends – and to have a long life and good health. Aristotle pointed out that there is much luck involved in living well. But the ideal and the goal of a peaceful self remains a focal point for moral education and philosophical development. The ideal of the sage at peace with himself continued to be a focus in Greek thought after Plato. In the Greek tradition this is always a male figure, by the way, supported by a family and social structure that allows for the male-only pursuit of wisdom and peace. For contemporary readers, this is a reminder of the work that needed to be done to share this ideal equitably across society. While virtues, practical wisdom, justice, and sophrosyne are key terms in thinking about this ideal in the Greek tradition, related concepts are developed in the Epicurean and Stoic traditions in their pursuit of tranquillity (ataraxia or undisturbedness), equanimity (apatheia or indifference), and positive and reasonable emotions (eupatheia). The Epicureans counselled retreat from the world in the famous Epicurean garden: a place of peace, tranquillity, and serenity apart from the tumult of political life. The Stoics, on the other hand, did not counsel retreat. Jowett’s translation of Republic, 443d says:  But in reality justice was such as we were describing, being concerned however, not with the outward man, but with the inward, which is the true self and concernment of man: for the just man does not permit the several elements within him to interfere with one another, or any of them to do the work of others, – he sets in order his own inner life, and is his own master and his own law, and at peace with himself. (Plato, Republic Book IV (at http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/ republic.5.iv.html; accessed August 2017)) 18

L. A. Kosman, ‘Charmides First Definition: Sophrosyne as Quietness’, in John Peter Anton and Anthony Preus, eds, Essays in Ancient Greek Philosophy II (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1973), 216.

19

118

Transformative Pacifism

Rather, they maintained that one had a duty to serve the state and engage in political life. But that engagement was supposed to be free of unworthy passions and structured by equanimity and peace of mind. Pierre Hadot has explained this in his interpretation of Marcus Aurelius. Marcus aimed to discipline his desires in order to find peace of mind. The goal for Marcus was a kind of peaceful equanimity that comes from being free of fear and anxiety. Marcus writes (in Hadot’s translation), If you apply yourself to living only that which you are living – in other words, the present – then you can live the rest of your life until your death in peace, benevolence, and serenity.20

Hadot further explains that serenity comes from a kind of amor fati – loving one’s fate and learning to embrace what happens, instead of wanting things to happen in any other way. This occurs when we learn to discipline our desires. Hadot writes, The result of the discipline of desire, as we saw, was to bring people inner serenity and peace of mind, since it consisted in the joyful consent to everything that happens to us through the agency of universal Nature and Reason. Amor fati, or the love of fate, thus led us to want that which the cosmos wants, to want what happens, and to want what happens to us.21

There is, indeed, a kind of peace in fatalism and in learning to accept things as they happen. But again, we should worry that this kind of quietism is uncannily indifferent and leaves us without the passion to engage the world in order to make it more just and more peaceful. In the Stoic tradition Diogenes the Cynic was often viewed as a model. The Cynics lived outside of social convention in close contact with nature in a kind of separate peace with the world. For the Cynics, self-control, liberty, and tranquillity were seen as easy to obtain through a kind of retreat to the inner citadel. One example from Epictetus helps to show the radical extent of Cynic disengagement. Epictetus views Diogenes as a kind of scout for the philosophical life. He explains what he learnt from Diogenes about the connection between simplicity and peace in the following passage: Diogenes, who was sent as a scout before you, made a different report to us. He says that death is no evil, for neither is it base: he says that fame is the noise Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, XII, 3,4 – quoted in Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel: The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1998), 134. 21 Hadot, The Inner Citadel, 183. 20

The Peaceful Self

119

of madmen. And what has this spy said about pain, about pleasure, and about poverty? He says that to be naked is better than any purple robe, and to sleep on the bare ground is the softest bed; and he gives as a proof of each thing that he affirms his own courage, his tranquility his freedom, and the healthy appearance and compactness of his body. ‘There is no enemy’, he says; ‘all is peace’.22

This passage links tranquillity and peace to a radical revaluation of the world’s values. Poverty, nakedness, and indifference to death and fame provide a path to freedom and tranquillity. Diogenes extends this indifference to the goods of the world in a radically cosmopolitan direction, asking us to no longer see ‘enemies’. There is indeed a kind of tranquillity in seeing no enemies. If we viewed no one as an enemy, there would be no need for war or violence. And indeed, the Stoics provide a source for understanding the importance of toleration and peaceful coexistence that values humanity in general over and above the friend–enemy distinction.23 What Diogenes says here about ignoring enemies points us towards a further development of this idea in Christianity. Indeed, some have argued that Jesus was a Cynic sage and that Christianity developed as a religion based upon a mythic reconstruction of Jesus’s Cynic philosophy.24 This is a complicated historical and theological question, which we cannot pursue here. But there is no denying that Jesus does suggest that we ought to learn to love our enemies (Mt. 5.44; Lk. 6.27). He also explicitly points out that pacifists (the ‘peacemakers’ or pacifici) are to be blessed (Mt. 5.9). The Christian tradition thus emphasized peacefulness in a way that goes beyond Stoicism and Cynicism. While the Stoics pursued peace of mind, they were not pacifists. Marcus Aurelius, after all, was a Roman emperor who wrote much of the Meditations while on his military campaigns – and he also used violence to persecute the Christians. The Stoics seemed to think that it is possible to have peace of mind, while engaging in warlike actions. Whether this is actually possible remains an open and important question. In contemporary discourse, the problem of PTSD and the moral injury suffered in war raises a significant point of concern here.25 One could argue that this is a central problem for Christianity: the extent to which peace of mind or inner peace is possible in a violent world. When Augustine criticizes Stoicism, for example, this seems to be a concern. Augustine Epictetus, Discourses (http://classics.mit.edu/Epictetus/discourses.mb.txt; accessed August 2017), Chapter 24. 23 See Andrew Fiala, Tolerance and the Ethical Life (London: Continuum, 2005), Chapter 4. 24 See John Dominic Crossan, The Historical Jesus (New York: HarperCollins, 1993); for a response, see Gregory Boyd, Cynic Sage or Son of God? (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2010). 25 See Fiala, ‘Moral Injury and Jus Ad Bellum’. 22

120

Transformative Pacifism

recognizes that there is some value in Stoic philosophy and the Stoic view of the emotions. But he denies that one can find peace of mind, contentment, or joy in what he calls ‘wickedness’.26 He explains that tranquillity is not to be found in the ‘city of man’ and that those who suppose this is true are ignoring the importance of the city of God. Augustine thus postulates peace as the ultimate goal of human beings. But this form of peace is not of this world: it is the peace of eternal life. Augustine explains: The end or supreme good of this city [the city of God] is either peace in eternal life, or eternal life in peace. For peace is a good so great, that even in this earthly and mortal life there is no word we hear with such pleasure, nothing we desire with such zest, or find to be more thoroughly gratifying.27

In Augustine’s vision of peace, the wicked are punished and the blessed are rewarded with eternal peace. This metaphysical view helps solve the problem of finding peace in a world of war. We won’t find it here, Augustine suggests, because this world is not our home. Rather, we need to admit sin, ask for forgiveness, and seek atonement and grace – and hope to be received into the home of peace in the city of God. As is well known, Augustine did not affirm pacifism. Rather, he thought that morally limited, just war could be used in pursuit of the limited form of tranquillity that could be obtained in the city of man. Nonetheless, within this larger metaphysical framework, the Christian tradition continued to build upon the Stoic virtue tradition in holding that peace of mind was connect to virtue. We see these two ideas – the virtue of peace of mind and the importance of grace and atonement – combined in Francis of Assisi. Francis writes in a document entitled ‘How Virtue Drives Out Vice’: Where there is charity and wisdom, there is neither fear nor ignorance. Where there is patience and humility, there is neither anger nor disturbance. Where there is poverty with joy, there is neither covetousness nor avarice. Where there is inner peace and meditation, there is neither anxiousness nor dissipation. Where there is fear of the Lord to guard the house, there the enemy cannot gain entry. Where there is mercy and discernment, there is neither excess nor hardness of heart.28 Augustine, City of God, Book XIV, Chapter 8 (Translated by Marcus Dods. From Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2. Edited by Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887). Revised and edited for New Advent by Kevin Knight. http://www.newadvent. org/fathers/120114.htm). 27 Augustine, City of God, Book XIX, Chapter 11. 28 Francis of Assisi, ‘The Admonitions’, in Regis J. Armstrong and Ignatius C. Brady, ed. and trans., Francis and Clare: The Complete Works (Mahwah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1982), p. 35. 26

The Peaceful Self

121

Francis indicates that ‘inner peace and meditation’ are part of the key to virtue. But he also notes that ‘fear of the Lord’ is also required. Francis is a significant figure in the Christian tradition. Early in his life he served in the military and he accompanied the Fifth Crusade; but he is also associated with peacefulness and an incipient form of pacifism.29 Full-blown Christian pacifism develops later, as Christians found it difficult to reconcile war and the pursuit of peace. But we don’t witness this in any sustained form until the modern era: in the thinking of Mennonites, Quakers, and others. This eventually develops – under the influence of Tolstoy, Dorothy Day, Gandhi, and King, along with others – into the engaged pacifism of the Christian tradition. The point in this tradition is to work to transform this world, rather than deferring the dream of peace to the next world. To build a peaceful world, for example, Christian pacifists peacefully resist war. We see something similar in other traditions: that is, the tension between engaged activity in the world and the pursuit of inner peace. We find something like this in Taoism as well. The Taoist effort to cultivate non-action (wu wei) is often described as a path for inner peace: by finding harmony in avoiding doing too much or too little and by allowing things to take their proper course. Taoist sages attempt to retreat and avoid public entanglements, even though they often find themselves caught up in political affairs. In Chuang Tzu, for example, when the sage is requested to appear before the prince, the sage demurs, suggesting that it is better to be left alone in peace. In one interesting passage of Tao Te Ching we see the pursuit of peace and virtue linked to peaceful and inclusive social interaction (in Lin Yu Tang’s translation): The Sage has no decided opinions and feelings, But regards the people’s opinions and feelings as his own. The good ones I declare good; The bad ones I also declare good. That is the goodness of Virtue. The honest ones I believe; The liars I also believe; That is the faith of Virtue. The Sage dwells in the world peacefully, harmoniously. The people of the world are brought into a community of heart, And the Sage regards them all as his own children.30

See Joseph Fahey, War and Christian Conscience (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2005). Tao Te Ching #49 (Lin Yutang translation at https://terebess.hu/english/tao/yutang.html#Kap35).

29 30

122

Transformative Pacifism

What is interesting in this passage is that other moral values are subordinated to the virtue of peaceful, harmonious dwelling. Judgements about good and evil, truth and falsehood are less important than dwelling in peace. The Taoist texts speak of the ‘true man’ (zhenren) who lives in harmony with the Tao, attaining oneness and harmony. In Chuang Tzu, the Tao itself is described as ‘peace in strife’ or ‘tranquility amid all disturbance’ (ying ning).31 Thomas Merton explains this as follows: ‘The true tranquility sought by the “man of Tao” is Ying ning, tranquillity in the action of non-action, in other words, a tranquillity which transcends the division between activity and contemplation by entering into union with the nameless and invisible Tao.’32 Michael Saso explains Taoist ‘interior peace’ as connected with a kind of non-judgemental attitude that is connected with the harmony of body and nature. The writing of the ancient Taoist masters tell us that healing must begin from within the self. When the mind, heart, and body work as one harmonious unit in tune with nature, a new inner peace emerges. The mind is no longer ruffled by the criticism or praise of changeable human associates. This new self is not worried by blame, avoids praise, makes no negative or harmful judgments, in fact avoids making any judgment at all.33

The Taoist traditions focus on non-action, and non-judgement is, however, not only about inner peace and retreat. Indeed, Tao Te Ching contains much advice for rulers and leaders. But throughout, it emphasizes the need for the leader to find harmony with the Tao in order to establish order and peace in the world.

Soma-aesthetics and peace-inducing practices We have seen that the idea of inner peace or peace of mind plays an important role in various religious and philosophical traditions. Indeed, enlightenment and peace are often connected with the image of a blissful person quietly sitting in prayer or meditation. The contemporary imagination pictures peace as a kind of integrated somatic practice. We imagine peace in the practice of yoga or Tai Chi. We might also imagine a blissed out hippy lazing in the sun. Or we might Chuang Tzu, section 6 – ‘The Great and Venerable Teacher’. The first translation is from Burton Watson (https://terebess.hu/english/chuangtzu.html), the second from James Legge (http://ctext. org/zhuangzi/great-and-most-honoured-master). 32 Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu (New York: New Directions, 1965), 26. 33 Michael Saso, Gold Pavilion: Taoist Ways to Peace, Healing, and Long Life (Boston: Charles Tuttle, 1995), 27. 31

The Peaceful Self

123

imagine a Christian saint singing with a beatific smile, or a mother nursing her infant. Often our imagined peaceful person is alone or engaged in a very intimate moment with a significant other. But we could also imagine peace as occurring among large groups of human beings – say in a candle-light vigil or religious service. The fact that we imagine peace in the embodied practices of human beings gives us a significant point of departure for understanding peace and the transformative power of pacifism. ‘Peace of mind’, if we want to use this phrase, occurs in an integrated body–mind. We might borrow the term ‘somaesthetic’ from Richard Shusterman or Andrew Fitz-Gibbon to explain this in technical terms.34 This technical designation and its genealogy (Shusterman traces it through American pragmatism) are less important than the point that peace must be understood in terms of a reflective, yet embodied, practice. A sleeping or drugged person may look peaceful and a dead body may ‘rest in peace’ but genuine peace is focused on alert and active human beings whose bodies are teleologically engaged in the world – even if this engaged practice involves quiet sitting. Even quiet sitting occurs in a world that includes other people. Meditators must also satisfy bodily needs, respond to their friends, care for their dependents, and engage in the activities of work and citizenship. So, while somatic practices of peace can be beneficial, the purpose of pacifism cannot be simply to create a world in which everyone meditates all day. Nonetheless, there are reasons to believe that a peaceful world will be created through the process of somatic and psychological transformation that can occur through peace-inducing practices. I use the phrase peace-inducing here deliberately. One might insert as a technical term the idea of a pacific practice. This can be compared with soporific (producing sleep) or felicific (producing happiness). A pacific practice will tend to produce peace. However, since the word pacific is often used in a more general and less technical sense, it will be preferred to use the term peace-inducing to direct our attention to those psychological and somatic practices that tend to produce peace. But let’s note that this is simply a general tendency. Just as soporifics do not always produce sleep, so too with pacific practices – they do not always produce peace. Rather, See Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, ‘Somaesthetics: Body Consciousness and Nonviolence’, Social Philosophy Today 28 (2012), 85–99; Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, ‘Return to Earth: A New Natural Philosophy?’ in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2015), pp. 19–30; Richard Shusterman, Body Consciousness: A Philosophy of Mindfulness and Somaesthetics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008); and Richard Schusterman, Thinking Through the Body: Essays in Somaesthetics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).

34

124

Transformative Pacifism

peace-inducing practices will transform the self – the embodied psychosocial self – in ways that tend to produce peace. Building upon our earlier discussion on inner peace , it is clear that this idea is found in a broad variety of the world’s traditions – in their psychological, spiritual, and somatic practices. Let’s note again that the wide prevalence and importance of these peace-inducing practices indicate the importance of taking pacifism seriously. The world’s traditions have worked to find ways to produce the peaceful self. We might begin by noting the importance of deep breathing. Common sense rules of thumb for stress reduction, anger management, and self-control tell us to take a deep breath or to count our breaths or to engage in so-called square breathing (in – pause – out – pause, and so on). There is a connection between breath and spirit (inspiration and respiration are etymologically related): spirit is understood as the breath of life. Breath is movement and temporality. Breathing keeps us in time with world and body. It is also a way of taking the world in and giving back to the world. And breath can become song, laughter, and word. Breath is the beginning of life and its lack indicates life’s end. But the somatic technique of watching the breath can also be cashed out in physiological terms, since breathing is connected to the depths of neurophysiological system. Deep breathing – from the belly – helps to oxygenate the blood, stimulate the relaxation response, and helps moderate anxiety and stress responses. We might also note that the rhythms of our breathing are contagious. Breathing stimulates a social response that occurs as yawns spread or as laughter stimulates others to laugh. Beyond deep breathing are a variety of more advanced spiritual practices, including various forms of mindfulness, contemplation, and prayer – including even singing and dancing, along with yoga stretches, meditative walking, and a variety of other activities. These spiritual, psychological, social, and somatic practices are supposed to bring us inner peace. The content of mind associated with these practices and prayers is usually supposed to be peaceful: the content is one of gratitude, compassion, love, and generosity as well as other pacific values and virtues. As an example let’s return to Thich Nhat Hanh. One of the somatic practices that Hahn emphasizes in connection with mindfulness as a way of practising peace: the simple somatic practice of smiling as a way of ‘being peace’. Smiling is a way of inducing peace. Hanh says, Smiling is very important. If we are not able to smile, then the world will not have peace. It is not by going out for a demonstration against nuclear missiles

The Peaceful Self

125

that we can bring about peace. It is with our capacity of smiling, breathing, and being peace that we can make peace.35

This may seem trivial and superficial, from a standpoint that focuses on economics, politics, and international relations. And indeed, the idea that a smile can produce peace must be interpreted and applied with care, lest it be seen as pabulum without depth. Hahn’s spiritual insight has some basis in neurophysiology. Studies show that there is a connection between the physiological experience of smiling and the psychological and emotional experience of happiness. We smile when we are happy. But we also feel happy when we smile. Those who are unable to smile also experience a subsequent inability to experience happiness; and those who smile more live longer.36 This is part of what is called ‘the facial feedback hypothesis’, which holds that our emotional and mental states are responsive to the neurophysiological experiences of our faces. As Shawn Anchor explains, ‘Smiling tricks your brain into thinking you’re happy, so it starts producing the neurochemicals that actually do make you happy.’37 This kind of happiness is linked to the feeling of peace. Smiling, like laughter and yawning, is also contagious: we smile in response to other people’s smiles. An explanation of this might dig back into the sociobiological roots of lip motion and baring of the teeth and the way that rapid breathing and something like a smile is part of play behaviour in many species. This contagious and somatic experience lies deep in our neurophysiology and in our social being. Something similar occurs when we breathe deeply or move our bodies in peaceful and harmonious ways. We can see peace in others – as when we observe someone practising Tai Chi. Furthermore, moving into the realm of contemporary psychology, there is good evidence to demonstrate that positive emotion, learnt optimism, and other psychological traits and practices can help in interpersonal conflict resolution and in the development of a sense of inner peace.38 So-called positive psychology can offer insights and techniques that help in this regard. The same is true of the field called peace psychology and related field of conflict resolution. There are tested practices in these fields that can help us de-escalate conflict, rebuild damaged relationships, and find ways to promote Thich Nhat Hahn, Being Peace (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 2005), 18. See LA Times, 29 March 2010 articles.latimes.com/2010/mar/29/health/la-he-capsule-20100329; Psychology Today: https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cutting-edge-leadership/201206/theres-magic-in-your-smile 37 Shawn Anchor, The Happiness Advantage (New York: Crown, 2010), 206. 38 See J. Cohrs, D. Christie, M. White, C. Das, and N. B. Anderson, ‘Contributions of Positive Psychology to Peace’, American Psychologist 68:7 (2013), 590–600. 35 36

126

Transformative Pacifism

positive peace.39 Psychological research has come up with measurements for peaceful personality types and ways of understanding the dynamics of conflict resolution, as well as other ways of analysing group behaviour in terms of violence and non-violence.40 To cite one example here, one of the techniques of positive psychology is forgiving and forgetting. This can help create peace of mind by allowing one to let go of resentments and negative emotions. Martin Seligman, one of the leading figures in positive psychology, explains how this works in the lives of individuals, and he also suggests that this can work in the life of a nation. Negative thoughts ‘make serenity and peace impossible’.41 The solution involves finding ways to forget or forgive past misdeeds, as well as focusing on good memories instead of negative. Critics argue that this all seems a bit too easy. But the techniques of psychological focus have deep roots in the world’s spiritual and philosophical traditions. The Stoics, for example, also thought that it was important to describe things accurately in order to avoid the entrapment of negative emotion.

Conclusion We create peace by somatic and psychological practices that are peaceful. These somatic practices are obviously important for transformative pacifism. If we want to build a more peaceful world, we must consider somatic peace inducement. But as discussed above, those somatic practices must be understood in their connection to the rest of the social world. The inner peace (or inner turmoil) of one person has somatic effects. And these practical and visible results can have a peaceful (or disturbing) effect on others. As mentioned, the somatic focus of peace-inducing practices occurs in various traditions. We often think of Asian traditions in this regard. Indeed, there does seem to be neglect of the body in the Western tradition. Thus the Aristotelian focus on ‘contemplation’ or theoria is insufficient. According to Aristotle, contemplation is a god-like activity, in which we are self-sufficient, happy, and peaceful. This idea – with roots in Plato’s theory of properly organizing the soul – evolved in the thinking of subsequent philosophers towards the idea of ataraxia (undisturbedness) developed by way of apatheia See D. Christie, et al., ‘Peace Psychology for a Peaceful World’, American Psychologist 63 (2008), 540–52. 40 See Daniel Mayton, Nonviolence and Peace Psychology (Dordrecht, NL: Spring, 2009). 41 Martin Seligman, Authentic Happiness (New York: Free Press, 2002), 78. 39

The Peaceful Self

127

or eupatheia, which involves controlling the emotions – and in some caricatures of Stoicism, strictly disciplining the body. In Plato and Aristotle – and certainly in the neo-Platonists and some early Christians – we can seem to end up with a disembodied experience of peace, in which the mind (or spirit) is separated from the body. Stoicism seems to share a kind of dualism that focuses on the difference between externalities (to which we should be indifferent) and the inner self (which we can control). A better source for a more embodied practice is found among the Epicureans, who remind us that bodily pleasure is part of tranquillity. It seems obvious that need, desire, hunger, and thirst make us less peaceful. Of course, certain ascetic practices can help us minimize our desires. There is much to be learnt from such discipline. But satisfaction of desire is also important; as is relaxation, calmness, connection with nature, companionship, sexual enjoyment, friendship, laughter, and so on. In Buddhist traditions, the idea is somewhat different. Instead of properly organizing the soul and putting reason in charge of the self, Buddhism emphasizes seeing through the illusory nature of the self and its attachments. Buddhism also encourages the practitioner to develop compassion for other sentient beings, while disciplining the body and mind in order to overcome desire and attachment to the transient goods of this world. But Buddhism is supposed to be a ‘middle way’ that is not entirely focused on ascetic self-denial. In Christian tradition, as discussed above in connection with Augustine, peace in this world is imperfect; and our bodies distract us with lust, envy, anger, and so on. This connects with a modified sort of dualism in Augustinian Christianity, which has denied the body in various ways, even though Augustine is not as ‘anti-body’ as the neo-Platonists. The metaphysical differences just noted among these three traditions – Greek, Buddhist, and Christian – are significant. The world contains many more spiritual traditions. We must avoid reductive attempts to eliminate the deep diversity of these many traditions. Within each tradition there is a complex set of theories and practices. My goal here is not to reduce diversity to some singular vision of things; nor do I think we can do justice to any tradition without digging into the genealogy of that tradition, and admitting internal diversity and complexity within these traditions. Nonetheless, the world’s spiritual traditions do contain a common kernel of truth. Most notably, these traditions teach that peace begins with the self and its somatic practices. There is something right about this idea – but also something misleading about it. What is right in all of this is the idea that peace is a practice of the self. But this idea goes wrong when the self is viewed in isolation from nature and from the social and political world. The self finds

128

Transformative Pacifism

itself thrown into the world. Some peace-inducing practices attempt to extricate the self in various ways from the larger world. But the long-run solution cannot be isolationist and escapist. Rather, as we work to transform ourselves, we also ought to work to transform the world; and in order to transform the world, we ought to transform ourselves. The key here is to recognize the interconnected nature of self and world. We create peace when we engage the world peacefully, with a self that has been transformed; and we find ourselves transformed when we create a social and political situation in which peace is possible.

7

Domestic Tranquillity

The previous chapter discussed the need to dwell peacefully and to build a peaceful place of dwelling. Here we dig deeper into the primacy place of peaceful dwelling, the home. Peace begins in the home. Children are taught moral and cultural norms in the home, where they are given models for normal/good behaviour. A pacific home provides children with support and security, hope and love. The home should be a peaceful refuge, a place of solace, belonging, and retreat. Unfortunately, there are too many broken homes. That phrase is pregnant with significance: we think of the home as full, complete, integrated, and whole. When homes are broken – when home life is disjointed, disrupted, and dislocated – violence is both the cause and the result. Domestic violence is not only sad and wrong but it also contributes to an ongoing pattern and cycle of violence. Homelessness is often the result of violence in the home. Criminal behaviour can often be traced to a violent upbringing. And too many people view violence, bullying, and abuse as normal, since this is what they experience on a daily basis in their intimate relationships. Pacifists should be interested in violence within domestic life – and in transforming the family and the home in a more peaceful direction. Pacifists should also be interested in the way that home life responds to and is shaped by external conditions including social injustice, poverty, and cultural images that often link masculinity to power, domination, and violence. If you want to build a more peaceful world, build more peaceful homes. And if you want more peaceful homes, build a peaceful world. The title of this chapter, ‘Domestic Tranquillity’, is borrowed from the Preamble to the US Constitution, where domestic tranquillity has to do with justice, common defence, welfare, and liberty. In political life domestic affairs are those having to do with what we now call the homeland, that is, affairs within the borders of the nation-state. This idea appears, for example, in the phrase

130

Transformative Pacifism

‘homeland security’, which is now the name for a department of the government. Our vision of homeland security is modelled on our vision of what happens in the home: we ought to find peace, security, and happiness in the home. The phrase domestic tranquillity may seem like an old-fashioned phrase. The word domestic comes to us from the Latin word for home, which we see in English in the term domicile. The idea of domesticity and domestication often involves taming and controlling those who live and work in the home: domestic animals, for example – or domestic servants. But let’s be clear at the outset, domestic tranquillity for human beings should not primarily focus on restraint, control, and power. Rather, genuine peace in the home – true domestic tranquillity – should also involve justice, liberty, and equality. In this chapter, we will not discuss domestic tranquillity in the political sense, except to point out that tranquillity in the homeland depends upon a deep and transformational notion of peace that reaches down into the heart and the hearth. Domestic tranquillity depends upon peace in the family; and peace in the family depends upon love, equal consideration, justice, and care. The opposite of domestic tranquillity is domestic violence. This phrase is sadly quite well known (along with related terminology such as child abuse, family violence, and intimate partner violence – even intimate terrorism). The data on domestic violence is appalling. The UN reports that nearly 100,000 children were murdered in 2012. Although that number is itself horrifying, homicide remains relatively rare. A much more common problem is corporal punishment. The UN reports that on average, about 6 in 10 children worldwide (almost 1 billion) between the ages of 2 and 14 are subjected to physical (corporal) punishment by their caregivers on a regular basis.1

In addition, sexual violence, peer violence, and wife beating remain widespread. One in ten girls has experienced forced intercourse. Equally troubling is a kind of acquiescence to the violent status quo.2 The global numbers are sad and troubling. The problem of domestic violence plagues families in the United States

UN, ‘Hidden in Plain Sight: A Statistical Analysis of Violence Against Children’ (2014), 3. Available at: https://www.unicef.org/publications/files/Hidden_in_plain_sight_statistical_analysis_ Summary_EN_2_Sept_2014.pdf; accessed August 2017. 2 The UN reports that 30 per cent of adults believe that corporal punishment for children is necessary. And even more astoundingly, the UN reports that ‘close to half of all girls aged 15 to 19 worldwide think a husband is sometimes justified in hitting or beating his wife’. UN, ‘Hidden in Plain Sight’ (2014), 7. 1

Domestic Tranquillity

131

as well.3 Domestic violence is the most pervasive, ubiquitous, and troubling source of violence in our world. It is worse than war, since it afflicts people even in the midst of so-called peacetime. Domestic violence is ongoing and often inescapable. There is no peace treaty that ends it. It leaves lasting trauma. And it can be deadly. One-fifth of all murders in the United States occur within the family.4 Every day in the United States, on average, three women are murdered by their partners.5 What is especially troubling about domestic violence is that it is often perpetrated on the weakest and most vulnerable among us – on children. And it corrupts a relationship and institution that is supposed to be a refuge from violence. Domestic life – the family and the home – is the building block of society. Common sense tells us that our families and homes are essential determinants of who we are. Traditional social philosophy also recognizes this. The Western philosophical tradition – following Aristotle and Hegel – views the family as the fundamental unit of society. Critiques of traditional social philosophy have often pointed out that the family has long been a patriarchal institution that hides or obscures violence: a place in which men dominate and tyrannize women and children. The patriarchal family – and patriarchal family law – has allowed patriarchal violence to be both legitimized and hidden away.6 Domestic violence is legitimized to the extent that the patriarch is viewed as having a right or entitlement to use violence. Domestic violence is hidden away when the family is viewed as a sacred entity and locus of privacy that is shielded from public view and critique. Traditional families purvey forms of structural violence insofar as they contribute to the subordination of women and insofar as they inhibit the well-being of non-heterosexuals. The hetero-normative ideal of the so-called nuclear family can create injustice, inequality, and violence. We could extend this critique of hetero-normative family life to include a critique of anti-miscegenation laws and customs that prohibit interreligious marriage. We could also extend this into sexual ethics itself with critical discussions of monogamy, incest, heterosexism, and so on. For there to be peace in the family, sex, love, reproduction, and intimate relations ought to be caring, peaceful, and Here are a few data points from the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence: • On average twenty people in the United States experience this sort of violence every minute. • There are 20,000 calls to domestic violence hotlines every day in the United States. • One in three women and one in four men will experience domestic violence in their lifetimes. • One in fifteen children is exposed to intimate partner violence each year. http://ncadv.org/learnmore/statistics; accessed June 2017.

3

https://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fvs03.pdf; accessed June 2017. http://www.apa.org/topics/violence/intimate-partner-violence.pdf; accessed 29 June 2017. 6 See Patrizia Romito, A Deafening Silence: Hidden Violence Against Women and Children (Bristol: Policy Press); Susan Moller Okin, Justice, Gender, and the Family (New York: Basic Books, 1989). 4 5

132

Transformative Pacifism

productive. Intimate relations that undermine well-being, prevent development, and inhibit human flourishing are violent – and wrong. The project of creating a more peaceful world demands that we transform family life in a more peaceful direction. Transformational pacifism must dig deep into the structure of family life in order to understand the psychosocial roots of violence and the possibility of transformation. People learn to be violent or peaceful through their experience of family life. We model our behaviour upon the behaviour of our loved ones. We turn to our intimates for advice, support, reassurance, and ethical evaluation. There is no doubt that the path to building a culture of peace begins in the family. As one recent survey article puts it, ‘Producing a culture of peace requires strengthening families’ ability to model and promote peaceful interactions and prevent violence.’7 Pacifists should also focus on criminal justice, dismantling the war system, and criticizing institutional and structural violence. But here’s the point: punishment and retribution are modelled in the family, war and violence are either celebrated or reviled within the family, and structural/institutional inequities and oppressions are also either embodied or transformed within the family and our conception of what counts as an ideal family.

The public/private distinction Before we consider the dream of a peaceful home in more detail, let’s pause to consider how this concept fits into the idea of pacifism as a transformative critical theory. Pacifism, when it is conceived in traditional terms as a mere argument against war, might have nothing further to say about violence in the home, the structure of domestic life, and the ideal of domestic tranquillity. But when war is the primary (or only) focal point of concern we buy into a version of the public/ private distinction that divorces public (political) affairs from private (domestic) affairs and which then makes us think that pacifism should only focus on the public or political realm. The public/private distinction lies deep in the heart of Western philosophy. It is usually a gendered distinction: masculinity is public and femininity is private.8 Sandra T. Azar, Megan C. Goslin, Yuko Okado, ‘Achieving Peace in the Family’, in Joseph de Rivera, ed., Handbook on Building Cultures of Peace (New York: Springer, 2009). 8 See Jean Bethke Elshtain, Public Man, Private Woman (Princeton University Press, 1981) or Anca Gheaus, ‘Feminism and Gender’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Bloomsbury Companion to Political Philosophy (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). 7

Domestic Tranquillity

133

Feminists have criticized this distinction, especially since the idea that family life is private can serve to conceal domestic violence, keep it secret, and protect it from criticism. Others have called the firmness of this distinction into question.9 But there is no doubt that in Western philosophy citizenship was primarily and originally for men, while women were confined to a role in private life. In the private life of the family, women were traditionally kept subservient to men (along with the domestic servants in more affluent families – and including in some historical epochs serfdom and slavery). Moreover, citizenship and military service were traditionally linked, such that free men had the opportunity (and were even required) to leave the family in order to serve the state in war. Thus one might suggest that a pacifism that focuses primarily on war and the military remains a masculinist project, concerned with violence as conceived on a patriarchal basis. Pacifism that is focused only on war ignores violence in the family and in domestic life, even including wife beating, child abuse, marital rape, incest, and slavery. But it seems clear that a robust transformational pacifism ought to see wife beating, child abuse, marital rape, incest, and slavery as forms of violence which ought to be opposed. Pacifism that ignores domestic violence is blinded by the gendered view of war as the most important thing (or the only thing – or the worst thing) worthy of consideration. War is certainly a terrible and significant concern. But to focus the critique of violence entirely on war leaves out the fact that the most common form of violence is domestic violence. Wars are occasional – but domestic violence is ongoing. Wars disrupt ordinary social and political life – but domestic violence permeates it and in many cases constitutes the lives of individuals. War does incredible damage on a massive scale – but domestic violence sows dysfunction into the very heart of life. Pacifism that is conceived as being primarily about war limits itself to a discussion of public and political affairs. There is no doubt that this is important. The just war tradition and the idea of war crimes provides well-known examples focused on public/political goods such as sovereignty, national borders, and international agreements. There is something solid and transparent in all of this. Family life is less solid and transparent. Instead of laws and institutions, family life seems more customary. Family life is often opaque and less easy to criticize and scrutinize. But our blindness to domestic violence is, again, a gendered

See Jeff Weintraub, ‘The Theory and Politics of the Public/Private Distinction’, in Jeff Weintraub and Krishan Kumar, ed., Public and Private in Thought and Practice: Perspectives on a Grand Dichotomy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997).

9

134

Transformative Pacifism

result: from within a masculine framework it is easy to ignore or downplay the violence that occurs in the domestic realm. Thus if we are interested in pacifism as a transformative and critical theory, one of the important issues is to criticize and transform pacifism itself, so that it takes seriously the ubiquitous violence that occurs in domestic life. A few scholars have sought to remedy the gendered nature of pacifism, offering, for example, accounts of how pacifism and feminism are interconnected.10 Duane Cady has explained that the pacifist ideal of ‘positive peace’ ultimately rests upon a conception of peace at home and the connection between domestic tranquillity and the larger social world.11 Jane Hall and Andrew Fitz-Gibbon have produced useful contributions along these lines, focused on non-violent parenting.12 Jane Hall Fitz-Gibbon has further directed our attention to the ongoing problem of corporal punishment.13 And feminist care ethics provides food for thought about how care and non-violence are combined in loving families, as we’ll discuss later in the chapter. The mainstream misunderstanding of pacifism as a fruitless protest against war rests upon a limited view of what pacifism is, conceiving it only as a simplistic opposition to war. For the critics of pacifism, the pacifist critique of war makes no sense, since war is viewed as a natural and normal occurrence of political life. One important response is to point out that pacifism is not merely about war. Rather, pacifism also seeks to make ordinary domestic life more peaceful. The critique of war can seem both hopelessly abstract and naively quixotic. But the critique of domestic violence is easier to understand and easier to put into practice. Violence in the home is wrong. It should be stopped. About this, there is much common ground. Communities support shelters for battered wives and abused children – including an elaborate foster care system. Feminists and pacifists have made progress in the struggle against domestic violence. There is still much work to be done. But there is actually already much agreement about the need for non-violent parenting, the importance of love and care, the need

See essays in Karen Warren and Duane L. Cady, eds, Bringing Peace Home: Feminism, Violence, and Nature (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996). 11 ‘Human individuals are often at peace first with parents and immediate family, next with kin or clan, then with home region or village, later with state or nation, ethnic group, race, religions, national allies, and so on. … The highest ideal is to see every human being as a kindred being, to see nature itself as a home to live in, not as conditions to conquer’ (Cady, From Warism to Pacifism, 84). 12 Jane Hall Fitz-Gibbon and Andrew Fitz-Gibbon, Welcoming Strangers: Nonviolent Re-Parenting of Children in Foster Care (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 2016). 13 See Jane Fitz-Gibbon, ‘Children, Violence, and Non-Violence’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017). 10

Domestic Tranquillity

135

to protect women and children from abuse, and the importance of domestic tranquillity. This broad social commitment to non-violence in the home could be leveraged and built upon in order to develop a broader commitment to non-violence and the rest of the pacifist agenda. It is too much to say that all who are opposed to child abuse must also be opposed to war. But it is reasonable to suggest that those who understand the evil of domestic violence and the irrationality of corporal punishment ought to be sympathetic to some of the other ideas found within pacifism broadly construed. One important point of agreement is found in the very heart of the just war tradition: in the traditional idea that women and children ought to be spared from the horrors of war. This traditional idea is changing somewhat, given the inclusion of women in the military and in combat roles. But the point is that in traditional discussions of the ethics of war, the private sphere was supposed to be protected from war by principles of jus in bello. The idea of the home as a refuge and source of peace is woven into our thinking about war. When we understand the importance of the traditional idea that family life and the private sphere ought to be excluded from the violence of war, we begin to understand that the image of domestic tranquillity is the ideal and the goal towards which we ought to develop. The just war tradition protects the family because that is where peace and happiness lie. Wars are wrong when they violate the sanctity of the private realm. But if this is true, then it is also true that any violence that disrupts the peaceful sanctuary of the family is wrong. One expression of the traditional ethical view of war is offered by Hegel, who says that war should never ‘be waged either on internal institutions and the peace of private and family life, or on private individuals’.14 Thus a just war ought to avoid destroying families, homes, and private individuals. Hegel makes this claim about peaceable family and private life (das friedliche Familien – und Privatleben) – in the context of a larger discussion of war and Kant’s dream of creating eternal or perpetual peace. Following Kant and the basic outline of just war theory, Hegel holds that even in the condition of war, states ought to recognize one another as having the right to exist – and thus, Hegel says, even in war, there exists the possibility of peace (Möglichkeit des Friedens). This implies that respect for the peace of the family contains the seed of peace. When families are destroyed, there is no hope for peace. Rather, the moral and psychological Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, Philosophy of Right (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), §338.

14

136

Transformative Pacifism

continuity of the family – and the possibility of returning home – provides the ethical substance (to use Hegelian terminology) that allows society to continue and peace to return after war. Hegel also suggests that the family – and the wife in particular – provides a subjectively experienced place of peace and concord. This may sound a bit abstract and it clearly relies upon a masculinist and essentializing view of women. But consider a well-known source from deep in the heart of the Western tradition that makes it clear that women, children, and the home are where peace lies: Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.15 Given the assumption that the home – the place of women, children, and even domesticated animals – is a place of peace, happiness, and wholeness, it is no wonder that the home is supposed to be protected from violence and war by the rules of war. But immediately, we discover a puzzle for the just war account insofar as war does destroy families, as it does to the families of Achilles, Hector, and Odysseus. The Hegelian account would claim that as a male child leaves the family, participates in civil society, and serves in the military he becomes a full citizen and reaches a higher level of development. This is a patriarchal story: on this account, women are left behind and cannot fully participate in the fullness of ethical and political development, since they cannot engage in war. Such an account is not only sexist, it is also callous and cold. Hegel clearly ignores the fact that when a soldier dies in war, the widows and grieving mothers suffer. The idea that war can bypass the home and hearth also ignores the fact that soldiers who return from war bring the trauma of war home with them. War inevitably destroys the peace of the private family – even when war is fought in distant lands and non-combatants are protected from harm – because soldiers always

These texts recount the Trojan War and the return of the heroes after war. In the Iliad we get an account of Achilles’s fateful choice between glory and a peaceful home – a choice that is presented to Achilles by his mother, Thetis. In the Odyssey, we get a poignant account of the long journey home – and Odysseus’s return to his home, his son, and his beloved wife Penelope. The Odyssey even shows us the family dog waiting faithfully for the warrior’s return. Thus, even within the male-dominant, warrior culture of the ancient Greeks there is acknowledgement that the background of war is the home – the family and hearth – the peaceful condition from which the warrior departs and to which he hopes to return. The Iliad provides an example, in the sad demise of Priam’s family. The epic concludes with Priam grieving at home with his wife and family. He goes to Achilles and pleads for Achilles to return the body of Hector so that the family may properly grieve. He asks Achilles to think of his own father and to offer compassion to a grieving family. Achilles understands this appeal to family relations. Hector’s body is returned and the grieving father brings the body of the fallen warrior back to be mourned by his wife and mother. Here at the origin of the Western tradition, we witness grief and sorrow caused by war afflicting women, children, and the aged. The warning is clear: war disrupts families and leaves us bereft. For discussion, see Richard Holway, Becoming Achilles: Child-Sacrifice, War, and Misrule in the Iliad and Beyond (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012). Also see Simone Weil, The Iliad or The Poem of Force (New York: Peter Lang, 2003).

15

Domestic Tranquillity

137

remain part of private families. Thus it is important to note that PTSD often results in domestic violence and broken homes. I have discussed the public nature of war in a previous book that focused more on the just war tradition.16 Here I extend this discussion more deeply into the heart of peace, into the very idea of the home and the family. Transformational pacifists ought to be as concerned about violence in the family as they are about war. And indeed, we may want to begin at home, as it were, when we are thinking about how we might construct a more peaceful society and eliminate war. One hint about this is found in what is often called the domestic analogy in just war theory and international relations. The domestic analogy holds that states are like individuals (or like households) and that war is like crime in the domestic case, wherein one individual violates the rights of some other individual – and thus in which violence can be justified. This analogy has been widely discussed in the just war literature.17 One problem is what the domestic analogy tells us about interventions into the home life of families, especially when we think that there is some logical parallel between our thinking about international affairs and our thinking about family life. According to one interpretation of the domestic analogy, there should be no intervention within the affairs of another state. If a state is like a person or a family, then non-intervention tells us that we ought to leave the other person alone or that we should avoid intruding upon the affairs of another family. But as feminists and critics of domestic violence have often pointed out, non-intervention can cause violence to go uncriticized and unremedied. And here is where a criticism of war and a criticism of domestic violence come together within a pacifist world view: all violence should be criticized and all injustices should be called out and remedied. Transformative pacifism is both broad and deep: we ought to criticize aggressive states; we ought to criticize states that violate their citizens’ rights and cause violence to their own citizens; we also ought to criticize individuals that are violent and aggressive, as well as families that are violent and homes in which there is abuse and injustice. Aggression among states is not acceptable, nor is violence at home or in the family. Transformative pacifists should not allow the public/private distinction to deflect criticism in either direction.

Fiala, Public War, Private Conscience. Cf. Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, Chapter 4; Jeff MacMahan, ‘The Sources and Status of Just War Principles’, Journal of Military Ethics 6:2 (2007), 91–06.

16 17

138

Transformative Pacifism

Tranquillity and peace at home As discussed at the outset, the US Constitution begins with a declaration of aims for social and political life that uses the phrase domestic tranquillity. This phrase uses a synonym for peace – the word tranquillity. Domestic tranquillity provides a model of what scholars call ‘positive peace’. Domestic tranquillity would consist of a pleasant, just, and non-violent community in which people truly felt at home – and to which they could return even in the face of violence and antagonism. It is from the example of peace in the home that a broader conception of peace grows and expands.18 How do we know that peace is possible? Well, because it happens all the time in peaceful homes, when violence and disagreement are defused in the name of brotherhood, sisterhood, maternal love, and paternal compassion. Peaceful homes are not simply quiet, perfect, boring, and bland. There is no home that is without contention and disagreement. But non-violent homes create and support domestic tranquillity by finding common ground and cooperation within and across and despite those differences and disagreements. Non-violent homes – and non-violent people – avoid polarizing and dividing. Members of families love one another and do not allow their differences to break down the ties of love and community. A loving and peaceful family cultivates belonging and a sense of shared solidarity: we are peaceful because we exist fully when we are together, caught in the web of our relationships, part of one family and home. We can choose to live in tension and violence or we can create a tranquil domicile in which we feel at home. The word tranquil means: calm, placid, steady, serene, undisturbed. In the Western tradition, tranquillity is associated with important ancient sources: the Epicureans, the Stoics, and Augustine. Epicurus taught his followers to pursue ataraxia, which is translated at undisturbedness. As a hedonist, Epicurus wanted to diminish pain or suffering while increasing pleasure or happiness. He explained that tranquillity (ataraxia) resulted from understanding how to organize and direct our desires so that we create healthy bodies and souls.19 Cady explains, ‘The point is always to build on and broaden our sense of community by stressing interdependence, respect, tolerance, and common aspirations, and understanding. … Pacifists retain hope for broadening the sense of respect, cooperation, and understanding among people in spite of exploitation of differences’, (Cady, From Warism to Pacifism, 86). 19 See Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus, at 128 (quoted and translated in James Warren, Epicurus and Democritean Ethics: An Archaeology of Ataraxia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 3). As James Warren has pointed out, this sense of tranquillity can also be used to describe the result of scepticism, insofar as the sceptic avoids inflaming passions (Warren, Epicurus and Democritean Ethics). 18

Domestic Tranquillity

139

Tranquillity is ultimately the result of finding ways to overcome violent reactions, attachments, and desires. Philosophical and somatic exercises and practices are important, as we discussed in the previous chapter. A related term is euthymia, which has two roots: eu-, which means good; and thymos (or soul). Euthymia can be translated as cheerfulness, gladness, or serenity – or even stability of mind. Seneca explains, ‘The Greeks have a word for this stability of mind – euthymia (“well-being of soul”) – and there is a fine treatise on the subject by Democritus. My term is tranquility.’20 Seneca’s advice for finding tranquillity is to develop virtue and to be of service. He also advises to connect oneself to the whole world in a kind of cosmopolitanism: to refuse to confine oneself within the walls of a single city; instead to seek ‘relations with the whole earth’ and claim ‘the whole world for our fatherland.’21 Note here the domestic analogy: to be at peace is to feel at home in the wide world. His advice includes knowing your self, finding good friends, avoiding vice, reducing your need for property and externalities, and overcoming your fear of death. The Stoic and Epicurean world views disagreed about the relative value of public and private life. The Stoics focused on public service and the broad cosmopolitan whole. The Epicureans turned away from politics, advising avoidance of public affairs when possible. Epicureans wanted to find a form of domestic tranquillity in the closed doors of the famous Epicurean garden. In the garden, one finds tranquillity with a circle of friends. Friendship goes beyond family relations for the Epicureans. There are patriarchal elements in this form of thinking – as it was likely impossible for Epicurean men to imagine being friends with their wives. Romantic love and erotic entanglements create disturbance. Nonetheless, the model of private tranquillity found in Epicurean (and also in Stoic and Aristotelian) ideas of friendship can be used as a guide. And here the crucial idea is that friends are dedicated to virtue and the good and that friends treat one another as equals.22 Such an ideal can provide us with a model of domestic tranquillity, if we extend it to include equal consideration for children and equality and friendship between the sexes. Tranquillity also shows up in the thinking of Augustine and Christian authors. Augustine explained that peace involved the proper ordering of the parts of a whole. Augustine explains – in a way that builds upon insights that are as old as Plato – that peace in the body rested upon the parts or organs of the body being Seneca, ‘On Tranquility of the Mind’, in The Stoic Philosophy of Seneca: Essays and Letters of Seneca (New York: W. W. Norton, 1958), 79. 21 Seneca, ‘On Tranquility of the Mind’, 85. 22 See Julia Annas, The Morality of Happiness (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 236 ff. 20

140

Transformative Pacifism

in concord and harmony. Violence damages relationships, creating discord and disharmony. Harmonious structures build community and produce stable and healthy and peaceful relationships. Augustine explains that peace between people depends upon well-ordered concord (pax hominum ordinata concordia). Concord, in English, implies agreement and harmony. This requires, as Aquinas indicates, the hearts of different men (and yes, Aquinas is speaking only of men) willing the same thing.23 This rules out the kind of peace imposed by force in a tyrannical household: concord is freely willed and enjoyed for its own sake. As Aquinas explains, the appetites are in agreement or in order, meaning that there cannot be fear or anger or any remaining discord. Thus in this tradition, the peace of all things is well-ordered tranquillity (pax omnium rerum tranquillitas ordinis), as Augustine and Aquinas both claim.24 A further point made by Aquinas is that peace satisfies our desires – or rather, tranquillity is the name we give to what happens when our desires are fulfilled, a point that would seem to echo some of the wisdom we find in the Epicurean tradition (despite the fact that Christians were often explicitly opposed to Epicureanism). Aquinas explains, Hence it follows of necessity that whoever desires anything desires peace, in so far as he who desires anything, desires to attain, with tranquility and without hindrance, to that which he desires: and this is what is meant by peace which Augustine defines (De Civ. Dei xix, 13) ‘the tranquility of order’.25

This important passage reminds us that it is possible to conceive of peace as a first principle of ethics – as that which we desire when we desire anything. We discussed this in Chapter 3; but the point here is to connect the dots with regard to domestic life, tranquillity, desire, and order. It seems that our desires are often oriented around the hope to return to something like the tranquillity that we find in our best moments in a loving home. This idea could be extended towards a consideration of Freudian psychology and other psychological theories that are grounded in an ideal vision of peace, stability, and security in the archetypal home. Without resting too much on such archetypal and mythological theorizing, we might also mention that Hestia, the goddess of the hearth in Greek mythology (Vesta in Latin), was also a goddess associated with peace. She was a virgin goddess assigned with keeping peace in the home. We Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II:2, 19. Augustine, City of God, Book 19, sec 13 (Latin: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/augustine/civ19. shtml; translation: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120119.htm). 25 Aquinas, Summa Theologica, II:2, 19. 23 24

Domestic Tranquillity

141

might also note that in the ancient world, peace was a feminine goddess, Eirene. Peace was also thought to be connected to sexual abstinence. There is more to be said about sex, theology, and war/peace. But let’s return to the most important feature of Augustine’s discussion of tranquillitas ordinis, which is that it has been used to defend the idea of just war to argue that wars can be justified in pursuit of this kind of political order. As a Christian, he obviously connects this all to obedience and conformity with the order of things, as ordained by God. Peace in the home, domestic tranquillity, is similarly based on hierarchical and patriarchal power. He says, ‘Domestic peace is the well-ordered concord between those of the family who rule and those who obey’ (pax domus ordinata imperandi atque oboediendi concordia cohabitantium).26 It is clear that Augustine’s view of tranquillity does in fact rely upon obedience and subordination. The supposed tranquillity of the patriarchal home is entirely one-sided: the father experiences peace, while the rest of the family suffers from obvious forms of structural violence. Some form of structure and obedience is required in the home (with children in a subordinate position); true domestic tranquillity requires us to go beyond obedience and conformity. What is needed is love more than obedience and true harmony rather than forced conformity. The obedience model of domestic tranquillity is the source of much violence. Tranquillity should properly be based upon mutual relationships within a loving community. True tranquillity depends upon friendship, respect, equality, and care.

Phenomenology of the home In order to understand the importance of domestic tranquillity, we must think deeply about the meaning of home. A whole phenomenology of the home could be developed that explores all of what we mean when we speak of home. Michael Allen Fox, an important contributor to the philosophy of peace, has published a book on the philosophical idea of home. He points out that ‘home’ is a family resemblance concept (no pun intended). Home has multiple valences. Some long to leave home; others long to return. One dichotomy Fox considers is the difference between parochialism and cosmopolitanism – the local provincial home and the broader sense of feeling at home in the wider world. Underlying Augustine, City of God, Book 19, sec 13 (Latin: http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/augustine/civ19. shtml; translation: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120119.htm).

26

142

Transformative Pacifism

this diversity is a normative idea of home as a place of belonging and identity: ‘Home represents solace, peace, quiet, warmth, love, acceptance.’27 This idea ought to be contrasted with another idea – of the home as a fortress and place of defence and security. We can create a home base from which to maraud and menace the neighbourhood and the world. These complexities are interesting. But it seems obvious that there is something flawed in the idea of the home as a fortress of violence and cruelty. A peaceful home is not only stable and accepting, quiet and warm for those who live there, but a peaceful home is also a place of hospitality. Indeed, one way to build peace and transform the world is to develop the virtue of hospitality, which requires us to be both good guests and good hosts – to find peaceful ways to share our homes with others and to establish relations that go beyond our households. This goes up to and includes a kind of general cosmopolitan hospitality that opens on to the entire world. Thus, a consideration of home points towards a reconsideration of the idea of the homeland in light of cosmopolitan concerns and whether we ought to be hospitable towards refugees and other strangers. A truly transformative pacifism ought to support broad hospitality and the project of welcoming refugees and helping the homeless. But let’s note here that the notion of hospitality and homelessness shows us that homes are inherently unstable. Children must leave the home and find or build homes of their own. And homes are not entirely isolated from the larger world. People come and go in our homes. New members join our families and households – through birth, marriage, adoption, and so on. Despite all of this, home is what we dream of when we imagine peace. Odysseus, returning from war, was headed home. The dream of home drives him. When he returns home, he finds disarray and injustice – and he unleashes a flood of blood in retribution. The hospitality of his home was abused and taken advantage of – and he kills those who violated his hospitality. So the home is not always a place of peace, despite our dream that it should be so. Nonetheless, we hope for a home and for peace. Often in the Christian tradition, when people die they say that the person has ‘gone home to Jesus’ and that they are ‘resting in peace’. Peace and home are woven into the meaning of our ‘final resting place’. The idea of leaving home and returning home provides a metaphor for understanding psychological and spiritual development. Norman Fisher, a Buddhist teacher, explains in a book about Odysseus: ‘The spiritual journey, the human journey, is as natural as this.

Michael Allen Fox, Home: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016), 3.

27

Domestic Tranquillity

143

We begin at home, we leave home, we return home.’28 Fisher concludes his book with a chapter on peace: it is peace we are seeking in the return home. The dream of a peaceful home – the dream of domestic tranquillity – is woven deeply into our way of understanding ourselves and the world. But critics have often pointed out that the dream is connected to a nightmare of violence, homelessness, and oppression. Charlotte Perkins Gilman explained over hundred years ago in a book entitled The Home: ‘Every human being should have a home; the single person his or her home; and the family their home. The home should offer to the individual rest, peace, quiet, comfort, health, and that degree of personal expression requisite.’29 Gilman understood that the home rarely lived up to this ideal. Her famous short story, ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’, provides an example of a woman confined to her room who goes mad by the oppressiveness of the home. And her book, The Home, outlines challenges from a socialist and feminist perspective. A related view is found in the work of Sarah Ruddick, who explains: ‘Home is where children are supposed to return when their world turns heartless, where they center themselves in the world they are discovering.’30 This is why it is deeply troubling when the home is a place of violence and discomfort, confinement and madness. Another significant problem is that some people lack a home. Thus we might even suggest that homelessness is a kind of violence – a form of structural violence, based upon social and economic inequality that leaves people without the refuge and sanctuary and source of privacy that we often take for granted.31 And even if we do not want to extend the notion of violence in this way, it is important to note that homeless people (especially homeless women) are particularly vulnerable to direct and overt violence. Furthermore, one of the causal factors behind homelessness is violence: domestic violence drives people out of their homes and onto the streets. The sense of being at home is what we often seek when we imagine peace and tranquillity. The opposite of feeling at home is described by a variety of terms that come to us from different philosophical texts and traditions: alienation, estrangement, discontent, uncanniness, and so on. To be integrated, whole, and at home is to experience peace, rest, comfort, security, love, a sense of belonging, Norman Fisher, Sailing Home: Using the Wisdom of Homer’s Odyssey to Navigate Life’s Perils and Pitfalls (Berkeley: North Atlantic Books, 2011), 5. 29 Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Home: Its Work and Influence (New York: Charlton, 1910), no page number; at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44481/44481-h/44481-h.htm 30 Sarah Ruddick, Maternal Thinking: Toward a Politics of Peace (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 87. 31 See Vincent Lyon-Callo, ‘Homelessness, Employment, and Structural Violence’, in Judith G. Goode and Jeff Maskovsky, eds., New Poverty Studies: The Ethnography of Power, Politics, and Impoverished People in the United States (New York: New York University Press, 2001). 28

144

Transformative Pacifism

and tranquillity. What we might call at-home-ness or feeling at home is part of the common sense of what matters in social and political life. Communitarians emphasize the importance of belonging and feeling at home. Cosmopolitans feel at home wherever they are in the broad world. Hospitality is an offer to help others feel at home. And when someone is content with who they are, we say that they are at home in their own skin. Philosophers have, of course, questioned what it means to feel at home. Marxists emphasize alienation and estrangement. Existentialists and phenomenologists focus on strangeness and the uncanny. Social and political critics remind us that often in order to feel at home, we turn away from the stranger – and that a policy of exclusion is often connected to the pursuit of hominess. And there are important criticisms to consider with regard to the idea of a homeland that is also a fatherland or a motherland – along with all of the gendered historical and political baggage that such terminology implies. Furthermore, the philosophical experience of wonder is itself connected to estrangement and a sense that one is not at home in the world. Heidegger once explained (quoting from Novalis) that philosophy is a kind of homesickness.32 Homesickness occurs because of the longing we have to feel at home – to be at peace. Unfortunately, in some cases, homesickness can itself be a cause of violence. In a fascinating account of this issue, Helmut Illbruck builds upon ideas he finds in the work of Karl Jaspers and before him, Hegel, Herder, and the Romantics.33 The issue at hand is this: a sense of displacement and discontent – what we call nostalgia, homesickness, or also alienation and anomie – can lead to violence. When the world seems alien and uncanny – when there is no peaceful home to nurture and sustain us – violence results. Displaced and alienated people lash out in frustration and fear. Thus the estranged and homesick may focus their ire in attacks on alien others, as in anti-immigrant violence, which assails those who are thought to be invaders of the homeland. And in some cases, suicide and self-harm result as the homesick person seeks to destroy him or herself as a way to escape anomie and find rest and peace. Illbruck calls these sorts of violence ‘uncanny acts of violence.’ The violence of the homesick is worth considering in the contemporary world, in which we often feel displaced and not at home, and in which mass murder often seems to have some source in the uncanny feeling of homelessness. Martin Heidegger, The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1995), 5. 33 Helmut Illbruck, Nostalgia: Origins and Ends of an Unenlightened Disease (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2012). 32

Domestic Tranquillity

145

A suggestion for a remedy is to find a way for people to feel at home, that is, to arrange our social and political world (and our family lives) in such a way that people do not feel displaced and suffer from homesickness in this broad connotation of the term. In short, a remedy for violence is to establish domestic tranquillity. When pacifists offer a vision of positive peace, they must thus consider the concept of being at home or feeling at home. We might distinguish between those two because one could literally be at home, while feeling alienated and estranged – which is what happens in domestic violence. We might also, by the way, feel at home in circumstances that are not homey or hospitable – which is what might happen when people learn to love (or at least accept) conditions that are violent and oppressive. An inquiry into such things is important for philosophy of peace and for transformative pacifism because feeling at home often provides a model (and even a synonym) for peace. Duyvendak explains, ‘If one feels at home, one is at peace – a rather passive state where things are selfevident because they are so familiar.’34 Drawing on the work of Bourdieu and others, Duyvendak reminds us that it takes cultural effort and support for people to feel at home. Refugees and migrants do not necessarily feel at home. Nor do those who suffer from domestic violence. Nor do the displaced and estranged people who suffer from homesickness. The idea of what counts as a home – and as a family – depends upon a conception of peace; and our conception of peace depends upon an account of the family and the home.

Care ethics: Relational and transformative justice One place to locate the pacifist critique of domestic violence and the dream of domestic tranquillity is in the work of feminist ethics of care, and in associated conceptions of restorative justice and relational justice. One of the seminal figures for thinking about this is Nel Noddings. Noddings grounds her account in a theory of human development which focuses on maternal and familial relations that are focused on love and care. In one especially pregnant passage she explains, ‘We love not because we are required to love but because our natural relatedness gives natural birth to love. It is this love, this natural caring,

Jan Willem Duyvendak, The Politics of Home: Belonging and Nostalgia in Europe and the United States (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2011), 27.

34

146

Transformative Pacifism

that makes the ethical possible.’35 She connects this to non-violence and peace as follows: ‘Our efforts should be directed to transforming the conditions that make caring difficult or impossible. This means … rejecting violence as a means of defense except under conditions of direct attack and then only to prevent immediate harm.’36 In a more recent book – co-authored with her daughter – Noddings explains, Virtually all feminists seek equality with men in the public world, but some would prefer to change that world – to transform it through a serious analysis and application of women’s traditional thought. In education, these feminist thinkers would give more attention to home life – housekeeping and parenting, to peace studies, and to the criticism of religion.37

We should pause here to note a significant point of criticism, which holds that Noddings and other care ethicists seem to buy into a traditional notion of the home and caregiving as women’s work. The response to this criticism is to deconstruct any essentialist notion of the relationship between care and traditional femininity. In this regard, the conceptual apparatus of pacifism is helpful. Rather saying that there is something feminine about emphasizing caring, relationships, and dependency, we ought to say that caring relationships are central to the project of building peace and living non-violently. Peace and non-violence are gender-inclusive concepts, which help us avoid the problem of keeping care, nurture, and love trapped in the feminized home. It is true that pacifists have often been mocked in pejorative language that feminizes and belittles pacifism. Teddy Roosevelt – who is associated with the phallic phrase of carrying ‘a big stick’ – mocked pacifists as impotent ‘eunuchs’.38 In response to this sort of accusation one should point out that pacifism requires us to transform much of our culture, including our understanding of masculinity, femininity, and domestic arrangements.

Nel Noddings, Caring, 2nd Edition (Berkeley: University of California, 2003), 43. Noddings, Caring, xiv. 37 Nel Noddings and Laurie Brooks, Teaching Controversial Issues: The Case for Critical Thinking and Moral Commitment in the Classroom (New York: Teacher’s College Press, 2017), 78. 38 Roosevelt said,  ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’, not merely the peace-lovers; for action is what makes thought operative and valuable. Above all, the peace-prattlers are in no way blessed. On the contrary, only mischief has sprung from the activities of the professional peaceprattlers, the ultrapacifists, who, with the shrill clamor of eunuchs, preach the gospel of the milk and water of virtue and scream that belief in the efficacy of diluted moral mush is essential to salvation. (Theodore Roosevelt, ‘America and the War’, in The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1915), vol. 20, p. 191) 35 36

Domestic Tranquillity

147

Noddings points in this direction. Moreover, she offers a transformational ethic that is not simply about prohibiting violence. Although she is not inclined to use the term pacifism, she is a pacifist of the transformational variety: her concern is peace, love, and care – and with transforming the conditions that make caring relations difficult. Noddings is not interested in being counted as a pacifist, since she views pacifism as a narrow theory opposed to war. She explains, somewhat paradoxically: (1) ‘From the perspective of care ethics, war is immoral; it is nonsense to talk about the moral conduct of war’; but also (2) ‘Care ethics, bound so closely to this earth, has clear affinity with peace groups but cannot logically advocate absolute pacifism.’39 She rejects absolute prohibitions or labels, and according to her the ‘maternal’ or ‘female’ approach to life is both more natural and more likely to promote peace. She says: The peace ethic growing out of care ethics is not an idealistic, pacifist theory. Females know that they will fight for the lives of their children and that – with great sorrow – they will side with their own in times of conflict, even when their own are demonstrably wrong. This is a descriptive fact, compatible with evolution theory, and a defensible peace ethic must take it into account. All the attempts to regulate and justify war and its conduct are hopeless. Our efforts must concentrate on eliminating or reducing the conditions that contribute to war and violence.40

This passage certainly evokes the spirit of what I am calling transformative pacifism. Noddings is right that a narrow set of prohibitions against violence creates a bind for those concerned with domestic violence. It seems appropriate to find ways to prevent child abuse and spousal battery – and possibly even to use limited and appropriately targeted violence in order get a child or a wife free of an abusive father. So, absolute pacifism seems to run counter to the requirements of care. Feminists should rightly complain of forms of pacifism that allow domestic violence to continue. But as we have noted throughout, the limited justification of violence in such emergency scenarios does not undermine a basic commitment to transformative pacifism. An ethical world view in which peace, care, and love are the guiding principles will want to eliminate and reduce violence in all of its forms. The transformation of the home is a central part of this task. A further feature of care ethics that connects it to transformative pacifism is that it is grounded in a tragic view of life. There are some situations in which Noddings, The Maternal Factor. Ibid.

39 40

148

Transformative Pacifism

there are no good answers – and the appropriate response is sorrow and other emotions. Those emotional responses should not merely be mere acquiescence. Rather, they provide insight into a larger world view, indicate the power of our values but also the fact that the world often conspires to prevent us from obtaining what we desire. One of the most difficult topics in thinking about domestic tranquillity is the fact that those who are abused often continue to love their abusers and stay with them. A strict focus on justice or other moral absolutes can make little sense of this tragic reality. But an engaged pacifist care ethic recognizes the complexity of our relationships and the depth of our emotional lives. Care ethics involves a type of psychological or spiritual involvement in the world that opens us up to tragedy. Abused children love their abusive parents. Even kind and non-violent parents suffer with their children. And eventually children grow up and leave. Our friends, parents, and loved ones die or move away. Relationships often end in grief. Sometimes we become angry, and in some households, violence results. But all of that is part of life. A pacifist ethic is interested in finding peace throughout the life span. It is also interested in the tough work of building and sustaining relationship. This requires equality and justice; but it also requires mercy, forgiveness, patience, hope, and love. Other ethical theories want to remake the world in the image of the imagined ideal. Kantian deontology tends to be quite demanding in this regard. Utilitarianism encourages social engineering projects aimed at happiness. Noddings notes this on the first page of her book. She explains that violence is often done in the name of principle. When we look clear-eyed at the world today, we see it wracked with fighting, killing, vandalism, and psychic pain of all sorts. One of the saddest features of this picture of violence is that the deeds are so often done in the name of principle. When we establish a principle forbidding killing, we also establish principles describing the exceptions to the first principle.41

The problem that Noddings diagnoses here is that a focus on principles detaches us from the concrete and grounded nature of our relationships. Care, love, and peace are persistent but not demanding. Peaceful care giving is willing to bend oneself and one’s principles towards the world and towards others. We ought to strive to make the world more peaceful, to love and support our children and friends, and so on. We can give advice and offer rescues and interventions. But at some point caring involves listening and receiving – and waiting and Noddings, Caring, 1–2.

41

Domestic Tranquillity

149

refraining from meddling. In order to care for another, one must give oneself over to another. As Noddings explains, ‘The one-caring moves toward the other’s needs and projects.’42 This means that one does not impose. Rather, we develop relationally. This is the central idea of what is called relational justice.43 Relational justice emphasizes doing justice to the relation and within our relatedness. This requires attentiveness, attunement, and practical wisdom, that is, more than mere rule following. With regard to the home and domestic tranquillity, consider how parents must pick and choose how to reward and punish. Educators also must use moral judgement and practical wisdom to make such choices. But the overarching goal is peace, tranquillity, and well-being. Strict disciplinarians create disorder and violence when they try to control the home through punishment in accord with some Augustinian or patriarchal notion of domestic tranquillity. This does not mean that we ought to end up with an anything-goes kind of laissez-faire home. We need order, as Augustine showed us: the tranquillity of order is the ideal. But order ought not be instituted for its own sake. Rather, what matters is the relationship itself: our relatedness, our family, and our home.

Conclusion We have seen the importance of the emerging fields or care ethics, relational justice, and feminist critiques of the patriarchal family ideal. We also discussed the importance of the concept of ordered tranquillity, the phenomenology of the ideal family, as well as the problems of homesickness, domestic violence, and homelessness. We also touched upon a perspective that is critical of the traditional family and the hetero-normative account of home and the family.

Ibid., 123. Selma Sevenhuijsen explains,  Because the feminist ethics of care with its relational image of human nature rejects a radical separation between self and other, or subject and object, and replaces this with an interactive image of moral subjectivity, care and responsibility apply not only to ‘others’ but also to moral subjects themselves. In the ideal of the atomistic individual, the moral subject is primarily expected to pursue autonomy and independence. In this way vulnerability and dependency easily become separated from the ideal self and localized in, or projected onto others: weak or ‘needy’ people. A feminist ethics of care, through its image of human nature, is also better able to situate vulnerability, ambiguity, and dependency within the moral subject. A care ethicist cannot think about these issues separately from the network of relations surrounding the moral subject. (Selma Sevenhuijsen, Citizenship and the Ethics of Care: Feminist Considerations on Justice, Morality, and Politics (New York: Routledge, 1998), 57) 42 43

150

Transformative Pacifism

Human beings are relational: we are not atomic subjects living without dependency on others; nor are families or nation-states social or political atoms. We are all interrelated. What happens to my family members happens to me: when violence afflicts one of them, I suffer as well. The same is true at the level of the nation: when one is attacked, all are attacked. This helps to explain patriotic reactions to violence and terrorism, which often seem to reinforce a kind of us-versus-them patriotism. Behind this is a sense of our interrelatedness. Pacifism can build upon this by noting how domestic violence hurts all of us since, after all, the wives and children of violent homes are our friends, students, neighbours, and fellow citizens. In conclusion, let’s highlight a couple other concepts that emerged in this chapter, especially the ideas of cosmopolitanism and hospitality. While the home and the family remain important, we also ought to focus our attention beyond these limited sources of identity and value. The ideal of cosmopolitanism encourages us to feel at home in the whole world and to understand that we are all related and interconnected. Narrow conceptions of the homeland are exclusionary and tend to foster violence. Transformative pacifism ought to embrace the broad cosmopolitan vision of a peaceful world that is home to all.

8

Pacific Culture and Cultural Violence

Pacifism transforms the way we see and understand the world. It does this in a variety of ways, as we begin to see how violence structures diverse phenomenon and as we begin to see the need for non-violence and an express commitment to pursuing peace. A changed way of seeing the world can produce important results – in applied ethics, for example. Moreover, when we are aware of how violence permeates our culture, we can begin to develop strategies of resistance and transformation that help us limit violence and creatively imagine peacemaking strategies and practices of non-violence as a focal point of theory and practice. A key to this is seeing and understanding what is often called cultural violence, that is, the ways that violence and war dominate our cultural imaginary. In the present chapter I examine the role of cultural violence and the hope for a more pacific culture. I consider the complicated issue of causality with regard to violence and culture.

Cultural violence, violent culture, and cultures of peace Johan Galtung explains the idea of cultural violence as ‘those aspects of culture, the symbolic sphere of our existence – exemplified by religion and ideology, language and art, empirical science and formal science (logic, mathematics) – that can be used to justify or legitimize direct or structural violence’.1 Cultural violence is the set of background conditions that provide support for violence – whether direct violence or structural violence. Cultural violence could be understood as a neutral term. It is likely that every culture has some symbolic representation of violence, since violence is a part of life. But Galtung’s definition includes a normative element. On his usage of the concept, cultural violence Galtung, ‘Cultural Violence’ p. 291.

1

152

Transformative Pacifism

occurs when images and evaluations of violence in cultural practices – in the realm of ideology, art, philosophy, religion, symbolism, and so on – make it look as if violence is normal, natural, salutary, and even heroic. It might be clearer if instead of following Galtung’s terminology, we reverse the way in which he connects adjectives and substantives. Instead of talking about cultural violence, it makes more sense to speak of violent cultures – and also, of non-violent or pacific culture. One problem with Galtung’s formulation is that it leaves us with the odd sounding phrase ‘cultural nonviolence’ as the opposite of cultural violence. In the work of other authors, this idea – cultural non-violence – is often described under the nomenclature of ‘culture of peace’ or ‘peace culture’. We might even want to employ the phrase ‘pacific culture’ or ‘pacifist culture’. The idea of a pacific culture (or culture of peace) has been described by Elise Boulding – a founding voice in Peace Studies – who emphasizes ‘peaceable diversity’ that is open to the shape-shifting nature of ‘a constantly changing lifeworld’.2 Boulding describes peace culture as a transformative theory and practice that helps to build a more peaceful world. In her book Boulding points out that no culture is pure: there are mixtures of violence and non-violence in any culture. But she points out that in our predominantly violent culture, we often fail to see the power of non-violence and the value of peace. Her book includes a variety of concrete actions that could easily be taken to build a more peaceful world, including downsizing the military, focusing on local concerns and voluntary simplicity, as well as peace education. She asks us to liberate our imaginations from the prevailing violence of our culture in order to understand and envision a more peaceful world. The difficulty, however, is that violent cultures – like our own – view violence as noble, heroic, manly, exciting, or at least inevitable and necessary. A violent culture provides a system of norms that commends domination and power, that celebrates aggression, and that encourages what I have called elsewhere

Boulding explains,  Put in the simplest possible terms, a peace culture is a culture that promotes peaceable diversity. Such a culture includes lifeways, patterns of belief, values, behavior, and accompanying institutional arrangements that promote mutual caring and well-being as well as an equality that includes appreciation of difference, stewardship, and equitable sharing of the earth’s resources among its members and with all living beings. It offers mutual security for humankind in all its diversity through a profound sense of species identity as well as kinship with the living earth. There is no need for violence. In other words, peaceableness is an action concept, involving a constant shaping and reshaping of understandings, situations, and behaviors in a constantly changing lifeworld, to sustain well-being for all. (Elise Boulding, Cultures of Peace: The Hidden Side of History (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000), 1) 2

Pacific Culture and Cultural Violence

153

‘thuggishness’.3 Violent cultures – or if you will, thug cultures – are male dominant and aggressive. They celebrate destructive force and the power of domination. They hold that ‘might makes right’. They are fascinated with the machinery and instruments of torture and killing. They view war, battle, combat, and fighting as opportunities to demonstrate heroism, masculine virtue, and physical prowess. Violent culture can be wrapped into the dominant narrative of a civilization – it can also show up in subcultural values. In one sense, thug culture is countercultural: it appears in subcultures that celebrate images of violence used in opposition to the dominant culture. But dominant culture can also be thuggish and violent. And unfortunately, in recent years – under the influence of Donald Trump – our culture has become more thuggish, with Trump encouraging his supporters to use violence on the campaign trail and elsewhere. In one incident in the summer of 2017, he appeared to encourage police to be less cautious and more brutal in their handling of criminal suspects.4 Throughout his campaign and presidency his pugilistic style has been aggressive and contentious. The opposite of thug culture is a civil culture, peace culture, or culture of peace. Non-violent cultures represent violence as regrettable, tragic, horrifying, and avoidable. Instead of celebrating violence, pacific cultures criticize and avoid it. They represent thugs as being less than civilized. They encourage care, cooperation, reciprocity, mutuality, sympathy, compassion, and love. This idea has been defended by a variety of voices in various traditions that call on human beings to evolve beyond anger, hatred, revenge, and the vicious cycles of violence.5 Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and others demonstrate the effectiveness of a consistent practice of non-violence. Pacific cultures celebrate non-violence Andrew Fiala, ‘A Critique of Thug Culture’, in Fuat Gursozlu, ed., Peace, Culture, and Violence (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2017). Some of the ideas in the present chapter are also discussed in that chapter. 4 Newsday: ‘Transcript: Remarks by President Trump to Law Enforcement Officials on MS-13’, Brentwood, NY (28 July 2017), accessed 4 August 2017, http://www.newsday.com/news/nation/ transcript-remarks-by-president-trump-to-law-enforcement-officials-on-ms-13-1.13863979. 5 One inspiring recent statement of the aspiration to build a culture of non-violence was recently offered by Pope Francis in a letter sent to the people of Chicago, as they suffer under a wave of violence. Francis wrote,  Walking the path of peace is not always easy, but it is the only authentic response to violence. As Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said, humanity ‘must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression and retaliation. The foundation of such a method is love.’ I urge all people, especially young men and women, to respond to Dr. King’s prophetic words and know that a culture of nonviolence is not an unattainable dream, but a path that has produced decisive results. The consistent practice of nonviolence has broken barriers, bound wounds, healed nations – and it can heal Chicago. (Pope Francis, Letter to Chicago, 4 April 2017, at: https:// www.archchicago.org/documents/70111/70579/Pope%27s+Letter/819bc1e7-a926-4717-991af545e488500d; accessed 8 August 2017. The quotation from King comes from his Nobel Peace Prize Acceptance Speech (10 December 1964), at: https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/ peace/laureates/1964/king-acceptance_en.html; accessed 8 August 2017) 3

154

Transformative Pacifism

and in doing so they bring about change towards a more peaceful world. Violent cultures do the reverse. They valorize violence. Galtung explains, ‘Cultural violence makes direct and structural violence look, even feel, right – or at least not wrong.’6 Violent cultures also make it seem that non-violence is feckless, stupid, and ineffective. Galtung’s way of putting this – with cultural violence making violence ‘feel right’ – implies that cultural violence facilitates actual violence. One terminological problem in all of this is that the term cultural violence seems to evoke the idea that it is cultures that do violence. In Galtung’s work, there is a parallel with structural violence: in structural violence, violence is the result of structures and institutional formations. Galtung implies that with cultural violence, violence is the result of cultural patterns and symbolic formations. This seems to point to a causal story – which, as we shall see here, is very complicated. To avoid that confusion and the difficulty about causality let’s adjust this terminology. Let’s stipulate that violent culture is a culture that normalizes and valorizes violence; and let’s use the term non-violent culture to describe a culture that normalizes and valorizes non-violence. The term cultural violence makes it sound as if culture is actually perpetrating violence. But it is not the case that violent culture directly causes violence; nor does non-violent culture directly bring about peace. There are too many layers of causality and explanation when making the move from culture to action. But the normative framework and system of values expressed in violent or non-violent cultures does have some kind of determining role to play with regard to behaviour and with regard to our ethical evaluation of that behaviour. In a violent culture, violence will appear as normal and it will either be excused or even praised. In a non-violent culture, violence will be condemned and peace-building, peace-making, and nonviolence will be praised and valorized. It is obvious that pacifists want to create a non-violent culture: one in which violence is viewed with disapprobation and non-violence is seen as praiseworthy. And pacifists hope that non-violent culture will actually help to spread non-violence and bring about peace. At issue here is the causal power of culture. Cultural images of violence and non-violence provide us with a set of values by which we evaluate actions, perpetrators, and systems. Culture also provides models and scripts that can either stimulate violent deeds or their opposite. An analysis that takes culture seriously holds that human behaviour is informed by the values that come Galtung, ‘Cultural Violence’, 291.

6

Pacific Culture and Cultural Violence

155

to us from the cultures we inhabit. Sociobiological, neurophysiological, and psycho-social accounts of human nature can teach us about certain tendencies and dispositions within the human being. On the one hand, we seem to have a tendency to care for kin and to work well in large cooperative groups; we may even have an innate disposition to sacrifice on behalf of loved ones and in defence of the larger whole. On the other hand, we also have a tendency towards aggression and selfishness; and the human mind is easily fascinated by destructive force and by systems of domination and totalitarian utopianism. But whatever our innate (biological, sociological, psychological, or neurophysiological) tendencies, these tendencies are cultivated and reinforced (or extirpated and denied) by way of culture. A fruitful tangent would take us through a long and deep discussion of human beings as cultural beings. This story would begin with Aristotle and run through Hegel, Cassirer, and on to contemporary theories of communitarianism, multiculturalism, and intersectionality. The take-away point is this: human identity is formed through a process of education in which innate tendencies and psycho-physiological dispositions are moulded and formed. This process is complex, involving multiple matrices of meaning, historical residues, as well as economic, aesthetic, political, and other values. Human beings do not simply act in the world based upon instinct or reaction. Our responses to the world and to each other are mediated by a whole system of ideas, representations, symbols, concepts, images, models, and scripts. What makes us human is the cultural imaginary that structures our behaviour, our self-understanding, and our system of interactions. We are mouldable, teachable, and open to enculturation. Our perceptions, reactions, and values are not simply a matter of a direct relation between body, brain, and world. Rather, culture is insinuated within the body– brain–world matrix. Culture, in all of its complexity, structures the way our bodies are shaped and conditioned: through diet, exercise, posture, etc. Culture moulds our brains into minds: filling us with ideas and values that guide our thinking, discourse, and self-understanding. Culture gives us values, including aesthetic norms, proverbial wisdom, and explicit ethical and religious commandments. Culture conditions the very world we live in: in the built architecture we inhabit, in our intercourse with other, as well as in the social, political, and economic habitats in which we find work, sustenance, and meaning. Individuals develop within a convoluted historical and cultural matrix that provides a system of norms that guide behaviour, identity formation, and ethics. A non-violent culture provides a system of norms that points towards social peace, that encourages us to sublimate aggression, that valorizes care, and so

156

Transformative Pacifism

on. Non-violent cultures encourage nurturing relationships. They question the importance of domination and power. They cultivate appreciation for rational discourse, the fragility of relationship, and the beauty and wonder of the world. Non-violent cultures celebrate creative problem-solving, conflict mediation, and negotiation. They provide lessons in love, justice, inclusion, and respect. They propagate models and scripts that guide behaviour in non-violent paths. The language of a non-violent culture provides openings for reflection and consensus building. And non-violent cultures include cautionary tales about the problem of violence and war. It is possible to imagine a non-violent culture as the primary cultural structure in a civilization. And indeed, that is what pacifists ought to aspire towards. But the history of civilization has tended to be dominated by violent cultures, which celebrate wars and violence. In the previous chapter, we discussed the problem of violent family culture. Militant culture views wars as pivotal and triumphal events – rather than as tragic, shameful, and regrettable. Consider a well-known example: the US Civil War. The dominant culture views this war as a triumph for abolitionism and for strong federalism. The war kept the Union together and it abolished slavery. This is true. But the problem behind the Civil War is slavery, political dysfunction, the lack of social peace and military power to begin with. It is true that the war produced good outcomes. But it is also true that it would have been better to attain those good outcomes without the massive suffering of war. A violent culture gladly marched off to war in the 1860s. We continue to celebrate this war, while preparing for others. Some Americans – in the old South – also even celebrate the losing Confederate side. And in recent months (during the summer of 2017) Americans engaged in violent conflicts about the meaning of these war memorials. The violence swirling around war memorials provides a symbol of the general phenomenon of the violence–culture matrix. A non-violent culture would view the Civil War was as a disaster that should have been averted by transforming civilization in a direction that does not include slavery or the male-dominant narrative that celebrates war-making as a noble art. Nor would a non-violent culture celebrate the military heroes of this war – whether on the side of the Union or on the side of the Confederacy. Rather, a non-violent culture would celebrate the peacemakers of that era and those who worked non-violently to help runaway slaves, who cared for the sick and injured, and who worked to end the war. It is obvious that the dominant culture of civilization tends to celebrate warrior-statesman and modes of conflict resolution that depend upon violence

Pacific Culture and Cultural Violence

157

and power. Violent civilizational models focus on the heroism of soldiers, cops, and revolutionaries – while ignoring the non-violent work of parents, teachers, nurses, and the toiling masses. Thus non-violent culture has often tended to be subcultural and even subversive. A prime example is early Christianity, which developed as an anti-Roman, anti-Imperial, communal movement that emphasized non-violence, equality, and the inclusion of women. But as history shows, this early community of non-violence was eventually incorporated into the dominant imperial civilization, resulting in what Yoder has called the Constantinian shift (or heresy).7 The same is true of the pacifist abolitionists who opposed the dominant US slavery system prior to the Civil War, such as Adin Ballou, who sponsored a separatist commune, the Hopedale Community, in an effort to found a culture that would be based upon peaceful principles. Ballou opposed the Civil War, claiming that the problem on both sides was faith in violence and the sort of certainty that each side had that God was on their side – and thus on the side of violence. Ballou explained in a pamphlet written in opposition to a Christian defender of war, the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher (in 1862): Here is the rub. In all these bloody conflicts, both parties contrive some how very sincerely to believe that their own motives are good, and those of their enemies bad. Who shall decide when Christian warriors disagree? Alas, brute force – physical violence – the sword must decide! Thus, practically, all this fine talk about the manhood and Christian perfection of fighting for justice, in love, ends in the Satanic conclusion ‘Might makes Right’.8

The point of this brief excursus on the US Civil War is that in a violent culture, the mechanisms of violence come to be seen as noble, heroic, and inevitable. The logic of a violent culture ultimately believes that might makes right. Furthermore, those on the losing side will resent the righteousness of the winners and the dominant culture based on that victory. This is true because when ideas are defeated by violence rather than being overcome by logic and reason, pernicious ideologies are merely suppressed but not sublimated. Thus among contemporary Americans who rally around Confederate Civil War memorials, there is a sense that the cause of white supremacy remains a righteous cause even though it was defeated by the Union army 150 years ago. The same is true of other John Howard Yoder, The Original Revolution (Scottdale, PA: Herald, 2003); see Andrew Fiala, What Would Jesus Really Do? (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007). 8 Adin Ballou, ‘Christian Non-Resistance Defended Against Reverend Henry Ward Beecher’ (Hopedale Pamphlet, 1862) available at: http://www.meadville.edu/uploads/files/275.pdf. 7

158

Transformative Pacifism

defeated peoples, who view their defeat not as a repudiation of the moral logic of their values but as a violent suppression of those values. Non-violent cultures offer a critique of the tit-for-tat violence and ongoing sense of resentment and desire for power and vindication that is typical of violent cultures. In making this point, we move far beyond the usual discussion of pacifism as a simple form of nay-saying to violence. Rather, the inquiry into culture points beyond the question of expediency or necessity in concrete situations and rare emergencies and towards the larger question of transforming culture in a way that is more just, more caring, more flexible, less resentful, more openminded, and less violent. This inquiry into culture delves deeply. For example, the question of whether a pacifist such as Adin Ballou should support the US Civil War only arises in the midst of a culture in which slavery and military force already exist as normal – even legal – ways of organizing life. It is that slaveholding and militarist cultural background that makes it appear that the only option is to fight a war against slavery. But as Ballou points out, in such a culture, the idea that ‘might makes right’ remains a predominant idea. This idea remains a central feature of violent cultures today – and it is a prevalent idea among those who are fuelled by resentment and long for vindication. Further reflection reminds us that cultures are not monolithic: they contain counter-cultures and subcultures. Elise Boulding reminds us that there are nonviolent strands within every culture, even our own. The tradition that follows from Ballou is part of that non-violent culture. He based his pacifism on Christian tradition. His work influenced Tolstoy and through him, Gandhi, King, and others. That is how culture works. Ideas are passed down, disseminated, and institutionalized. When thug cultures arise and dominate, pacific cultures push back in the ongoing dialectic of cultural formation. Non-violent cultures can grow and spread – and they have. The Trump era represents a resurgence of thuggishness in the dominant culture. But counter-forces continue to resist. When Trump encouraged police brutality in the summer of 2017, police organizations themselves gave an encouraging response, saying that the cops ought not employ police brutality.9 When white supremacists declared their allegiance to Trump and rallied around Civil War monuments, peace groups and others marched and protested in response, while many politicians explicitly repudiated white supremacy. Trump himself declared his opposition to violence employed in these rallies. The fact Washington Post: ‘U.S. Police Chiefs Blast Trump for Endorsing “Police Brutality”’ (30 July 2017); accessed 8 August 2017: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/07/29/u-spolice-chiefs-blast-trump-for-endorsing-police-brutality/?utm_term=.e81e26934c5d.

9

Pacific Culture and Cultural Violence

159

that our culture (here I mean US culture) takes seriously the issues of police brutality, white supremacy, and violence is a sign of our growing receptivity to non-violence and pacifism. There is a kind of ratchet effect within the cultural dialectic that should prevent a return to barbaric brutality. Although violent culture still remains powerful, there are institutional safeguards and cultural resources that prevent violent culture from becoming predominant. Mainstream organizations take seriously the effort to minimize violence. Brutality is punished. And we have a growing number of heroes of non-violence – including King, Francis, and others – who provide a counterweight to the thugs. There is no perfect solution here. But the ratchet effect in culture can be understood in terms of the persistence of good ideas (and their propagation through culture). An example of this is the spread of pacifism and growing disillusionment with war. Another example is our growing awareness of the problem of domestic violence and the spread of feminism, as discussed in prior chapters. In this regard it is important to mention the work of Steven Pinker, who has provided an extensive account of the pacification of culture in The Better Angels of Our Nature. As Pinker has explained, violence declined because of the work of cultural norms – what he calls, building upon the work of Norbert Elias and others variously, ‘the civilizing process’ and ‘the humanitarian revolution’. One example provides some insight into Pinker’s point: the case of duelling. Duelling is no longer viewed as a serious option for anyone. It is illegal and indeed, for the most part, unimaginable. We have evolved beyond it – and there is a cultural ratchet effect, preventing its return. In 1804, the American vice president Aaron Burr killed former secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel in New York. The fact that this occurred is a sign of the violence of the culture of the time. Soon thereafter, in 1806, Reverend Lyman Beecher (father of Henry Ward Beecher, mentioned above) published a tract opposing duelling as part of the work of the Anti-Dueling Society of New York.10 An important component of the Reverend Beecher’s argument was that when leaders engage in duels, they set a bad example for the people. He also warned that duellists who are willing to resort to violence will tend towards despotism. Furthermore, Beecher argues that duellists are taught to be duellists by a culture that mis-educates them. He holds that the elevation of duellists to positions of power sets the wrong example for the rest of the people. Lyman Beecher, ‘The Remedy for Dueling’ (A Pamphlet, 1806), available at: https://archive.org/ details/remedyforduellin00beecrich.

10

160

Transformative Pacifism

His solution is a cultural one: to withhold approbation from duellists, to refuse to support them or vote for them, and to stop the spread of the culture of duelling. In this case, the spread of non-violent culture appeared to be successful. As Pinker explains, ‘The career of dueling showcases a puzzling phenomenon we will often encounter: a category of violence can be embedded in a civilization for centuries and then vanish into thin air.’11 Lyman Beecher’s efforts at cultural change was part of the process: moral arguments and a transformed culture caused the end of duelling. These cases – duelling, slavery-abolition, and the US Civil War – remind us that culture is not stable, monolithic, or homogeneous. Subcultures work against dominant cultures and the dominant culture changes. Ideas and values ebb and flow. Duelling faded away for all intents and purposes – but the image of the heroic duellist remains a value, celebrated in Hollywood Westerns. And we continue to see the idea of ‘might makes right’ celebrated in books, novels, and songs about gangsters, superheroes, outlaws, and soldiers. The dominant US narrative also celebrates American military prowess: in flags, memorials, songs, holidays, parades, and so on. Dominant US culture continues to celebrate violence – albeit supposedly justified violence. But sub-dominant violence also provides a warped reflection of this – in the idea that rebels and renegades who use violence are also heroic. Much of this is also connected to images of male dominance, political myths, and ideas about what is necessary or expedient. These images and ideas run deep. They are also protected and disseminated by institutions and cultural powers. In the Trump era, we witness the possibility of a shift in the wrong directly. One hopes that the ratchet effect prohibits too much movement in the direction of violence. But there is still much work to be done by transformative pacifists, who are engaged in the project of building a culture of peace and dismantling the rest of violent culture.

The causal problem Cultural images do not directly cause overt violence, direct or structural. But violence is contagious – and the medium of culture helps to spread it. Furthermore, violent cultures can serve to obscure violence: violence that is viewed as normal, natural, and justified in the symbolic or cultural realm is often not seen as violence. Thus, domestic violence was often seen as natural Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature (New York: Penguin 2011), 23.

11

Pacific Culture and Cultural Violence

161

and normal – and passed down from generation to generation. Indeed, it was not even identified as violence or viewed with moral suspicion until activists and critics – the feminists and pacifists – began pointing out that it was not natural, normal, or justifiable, for men to beat their wives or their children. But we must be careful in thinking about this example. To say that a cultural norm of domestic violence directly causes men to beat their wives and children claims too much. The men who actually beat their wives and children remain human beings with the power of choice and evaluation: they must actually choose to abuse their families. And not all men choose to beat their wives, even in a culture that permits or encourages this behaviour. Nonetheless, choices occur within a cultural field and set of symbolic structures that make certain choices more (or less) likely. When the concepts of husband, father, or manhood are based upon power, dominance, and violence, then domestic violence is more likely. Domestic violence is more likely when the models and scripts for family life include proverbial lessons such as ‘Spare the rod, spoil the child’, or as Mineke Schipper recounts a West African proverb, ‘Beat your wife regularly, if you don’t know why, she will know why’.12 Those proverbs and related scripts and models do not directly cause violence, but they make it more likely – and they normalize it and often obscure it. Philosophers of culture have generally explored the ways that culture structures our choices, behaviours, and identities. There are a variety of explanations of how this happens. In Hegel, Marx, and Nietzsche – as well as in Cassirer, Foucault, and others who follow in this line of thinking – structural and cultural elements are explained in concrete detail. These thinkers show us how human behaviour and identity is connected to or grounded in ideas and values that come from: social and political institutions (Hegel), economic relations and ideology (Marx), morality and religion (Nietzsche), myth (Cassirer), and power and institutional relations (Foucault). In most of this, there is a dialectical relation: with culture developing through a dialectic that includes internal division (counter-cultures and subcultures) and external conflict (with dominant cultural formations defining themselves over and against other dominant cultures). One important lesson in all of this is that values are not merely biological or physiological – they are cultural. This means that we must reject any reductionist account of violence that grounds human violence in some innate or animalistic drive. Other attempts at explanation – say, in Freudian psychology – make this clear by indicating that Mineke Schippe, Never Marry a Woman with Big Feet: Women in Proverbs from Around the World (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 313.

12

162

Transformative Pacifism

there are conflicting drives within human beings: aggression is tempered by Eros and by cultural formations embodied in the superego. Given the complexity of our biological and cultural systems, it is difficult to establish any strict causal relation between culture and violence. And yet, cultural values provide scripts, models – or memes, if we want borrow Richard Dawkins’s term for this purpose. The term meme is useful, since it is based upon the idea of mimesis, which means to copy or imitate. Cultural scripts are memes, which we copy or imitate. Violence is often mimetic: we learn how to express emotions and respond to social conflict by imitating cultural models. One version of this shows up in the work of René Girard who explains how mimesis serves to inspire violence, even when we attempt to limit violence: The more men strive to curb their violent impulses, the more these impulses seem to prosper. The very weapons used to combat violence are turned against their users. Violence is like a raging fire that feeds on the very objects intended to smother its flames.13

Girard focuses on cases when we think that we ought to use violence to fight violence. When violence turns against violence, we are left with a chain reaction of violence. Girard further explains how desire in general is mimetic: we learn to want what others want. This explains how rivalry and competition arise. When something is postulated as valuable by another, it becomes a value for us. We then struggle to obtain this, often at the expense of the other who also desires it. Girard explains, Mimetism is a source of continual conflict. By making one man’s desire into a replica of another man’s desire, it invariably leads to rivalry; and rivalry in turn transforms desire into violence.14

This can be used to explain the myth of Cain and Abel, as Girard does. It can also be used to explain struggles for recognition (as originally explained by Hegel), sibling rivalry, jealousy, envy, and general issues in the politics of identity. More recently, theorists have combined some of these ideas to explain ‘thoughtcontagion’ and the viral nature of memes or ideas.15 While much of this discussion has occurred within cultural theory, the idea that violence is contagious has been René Girard, Violence and the Sacred (London: Athlone Press, 1988), 31. Girard, Violence and the Sacred, 169. 15 See Aaron Lynch, Thought Contagion: How Belief Spreads Through Society: The New Science Of Memes (New York: Basic Books, 1996). 13 14

Pacific Culture and Cultural Violence

163

discussed in scientific journals by medical doctors and public health scientists.16 If violence is a cultural disease, the cure for this particular disease is also cultural – a kind of cultural vaccine that would prevent violence. This remedy is a culture of peace or non-violent culture that can help to prevent the spread of violent memes. Again, we must be careful here to avoid a reductionist causal account. Ideas, values, and norms are disseminated in a complex and dialectical fashion. The virality of ideas is unpredictable. Moreover, the link (or gap) between culture and action is complex. Ideas are appropriated, rejected, re-appropriated, reinterpreted, modified, and so on. At the level of culture all of this is complex. Further complexity occurs as we move from the cultural realm to the choices and actions of individuals. Social, economic, psychological, and physiological factors matter – as do the opportunities and impediments of concrete situations. Some individuals will be resistant to peer pressure, others will not. Some will be swept away by violent ideology, others will not. Some will want to employ violence – but will lack the means or opportunity. Others can find themselves in the midst of an epidemic of violence, with substantial opportunity to cause mayhem – but will resist. The cultural perspective is important and undeniable. But it does not provide us with predictive power in the case of any concrete individual. Nonetheless, a general account of the causal role of violence in culture has been provided by some of the scientific literature. One focus has been the causal role of violent video games and other media.17 There is an association and a consistent relation linking overt violence, aggression, and anti-social behaviour.18 See Gary Slutkin, ‘Violence is a Contagious Disease’ (Forum on Global Violence Prevention; Board on Global Health; Institute of Medicine; National Research Council. Contagion of Violence: Workshop Summary’) (Washington, DC: National Academies Press (US); 6 February 2013. II.9. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK207245/. 17 The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry explains, ‘The typical American child will view more than 200,000 acts of violence, including more than 16,000 murders before age 18’ (American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Statement by Eugene Beresin, ‘The Impact of Media Violence on Children and Adolescents: Opportunities for Clinical Interventions’ (2015); accessed 27 September 2016, https://www.aacap.org/aacap/Medical_Students_and_Residents/ Mentorship_Matters/DevelopMentor/The_Impact_of_Media_Violence_on_Children_and_ Adolescents_Opportunities_for_Clinical_Interventions.aspx). 18 A study of violent video games conducted by the American Psychological Association concludes, ‘The research demonstrates a consistent relation between violent video game use and increases in aggressive behavior, aggressive cognitions and aggressive affect, and decreases in prosocial behavior, empathy and sensitivity to aggression’ (American Psychological Association, Draft Report on violent video games (2015); accessed 27 September 2016, https://www.apa.org/news/ press/releases/2015/08/technical-violent-games.pdf and American Psychological Association, Press Release on violent video games (2015); accessed 27 September 2016, http://www.apa.org/news/ press/releases/2015/08/violent-video-games.aspx). A policy statement issued by the American Academy of Pediatrics similarly concludes, ‘The strength of the association between media violence and aggressive behavior found in meta-analyses is greater than the association between calcium intake and bone mass, lead ingestion and lower IQ, and condom nonuse and sexually acquired HIV 16

164

Transformative Pacifism

But this association is not a direct account of causation. It is true that not all cigarette smokers end up with lung cancer – but there is an association and a causal story to be told there. It is also true that not all who are immersed within violent culture will end up acting violently – but there is an association and causal story that can be told. One version of this causal story can be found in an essay by Malcolm Gladwell explaining how school shootings have been influenced by the shootings that occurred at Columbine High School in Colorado.19 After Columbine, school shooters apparently modelled their behaviour on that prior atrocity. But this fact is only certain in retrospect. We can see that subsequent school shooters were fascinated by the Columbine script. But not everyone who is fascinated by Columbine goes on to become a mass murderer. Another account is provided by David Grossman who claims that violence is like a virus and that violent culture undermines our natural immunity to violence and desensitizes us to it.20 Grossman argues that cultural influences can make violence easier and more likely. We can see that those who do engage in mass violence, terrorism, and the like were influenced by cultural antecedents. But this does not give us enough of a causal story to be of predictive value. Many people are interested in violent images, stories, movies, games, music, etc. – but most of these people will not engage in active violence. Indeed, the trend seems to be away from violence (as discussed in Pinker’s work, for example), despite the ubiquity of violent movies, games, music, and so on. Perhaps the ratchet effect of non-violent culture is doing its job. In some cases, there may be a direct causal role of culture. A speech, book, video, or game may explicitly call for violence. There are videos, manifestoes, and speeches in the online world that do in fact call for violence. In such cases, we ought to be proactive in actively opposing such incitements to violence. But with the more diffuse cases of cultural violence, we ought to tread lightly. Part of the social power of cultural images of violence comes from the shock value infection, and is nearly as strong as the association between cigarette smoking and lung cancer – associations that clinicians accept and on which preventive medicine is based without question’ (American Academy of Pediatrics, Statement on Media Violence (2009); accessed 27 September 2016, http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/124/5/1495.full). 19 Malcolm Gladwell, ‘Thresholds of Violence: How School Shootings Catch On’, New Yorker, 19 October 2015. Also see: Elizabeth Winkler, ‘Malcolm Gladwell Is Wrong about School Shootings’, New Republic, October 2015; accessed 27 September 2016, https://newrepublic.com/article/123139/ malcolm-gladwell-wrong-about-school-shooters. 20 David Grossman, On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society (New York: Little Brown, 2009).

Pacific Culture and Cultural Violence

165

and seemingly counter-cultural impact of violence: it seems cool and subversive to celebrate violence. Thus a deliberate crackdown on this can serve to foster fascination with violence. And violent crackdowns on violent ideologies keep us stuck within the tit-for-tat world of ‘might makes right’, resentment, and the desire for vindication. Rather than suppression of violent culture, what is needed is an effort to delegitimize violence and de-normalize it by emphasizing the values of the culture of peace. We should begin by pointing out the inherent stupidity of the idea that ‘might makes right’. Violence is not effective for creating lasting, positive social change. Rather, the peaceful practices of persuasion and education provide the key to social progress. Nor do we need censorship and a curtailment of liberty. Again, censorship may serve to stimulate desire – as a case of fighting fire with fire that provokes outrage, backlash, and so on. Rather, violent culture should be opposed with non-violent culture. This includes leveraging those deep cultural resources that are non-violent and pacifistic. We need to develop the moral vocabulary of peace – and continually deploy it in a criticism of war, domination, and violence. We need to speak more about Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King. We need to show the power of non-violence. And we need to demonstrate that care, community, and compassion provide the path to happiness and a meaningful life. One example of how this works can be gleaned from the development of criticisms of war during the past one hundred years. Since around the time of the First World War, pacifists and war critics have worked diligently to undermine the mythic and cultural constructs that accompany war.21 This critique argues that war is irrational; that war is rarely (or never) just; and that notions such as national pride, patriotic service, and the like must be re-evaluated. Despite the opposing efforts of those who celebrate warism and warrior culture, the pacifist message has caught on and has been taken seriously. Signs of progress include the following: the draft has been abolished in the United States, international norms and regulations against war crimes are taken (somewhat) seriously, and it appears to be more difficult to justify wars. There is still much work to be done in this regard. And there are occasional outbursts of thuggishness. But the general success of non-violent culture indicates that it is possible to change culture in ways that point towards peace and which de-valorize violence.

For the myths of war, see Andrew Fiala, The Just War Myth.

21

166

Transformative Pacifism

Conclusion The effort to bring pacifism into discussions of ethical theory and applied ethics is part of the process of building a culture of peace. Public discussion of pacifism as a robust and serious ethical theory is an important component of peace education. In this chapter, we considered how we might begin to see violence in its cultural manifestations. As noted in prior chapters, our thinking about applied ethics questions can be informed by the pacifist critique and the point of view of non-violent culture. In this chapter, we have extended this to a broader consideration of the causal power of culture. I have suggested that while culture provides scripts, models, and values, it does not directly cause violence (or peace). Peace depends upon the activity of reflective and educated individuals. One crucial step, from the vantage point of transformative pacifism, is for us to see the absurdity of violence when it occurs and for us to leverage cultural resources that show us that non-violence is valuable and effective.

9

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

Pacifism concerns both the actions and structures of institutions and the behaviour and virtues of individuals. We have already discussed some of the ways that pacifism can inform virtue ethics and moral psychology. We have also discussed ways in which pacifism provides norms that govern intimate and personal relationships. In this chapter we will consider the ways that pacifism can be applied to larger structures and institutions. Pacifism provides a social and political philosophy that is focused on transforming social and political institutions in a more peaceful direction. In general, pacifist political theory postulates peace as the goal of political life, while prescribing non-violent means as the proper means for promoting peace. Pacifist political philosophy reconceives of the social contract, while having much in common with liberal democratic theory. It aspires towards a cosmopolitan vision of a world of international peace. It asks us to re-conceptualize justice in a fashion that moves in the direction of restorative justice, while remaining sympathetic to the idea that distributive and social justice should be concerned with establishing social peace. Pacifism also reconceives our social interactions, our economic commitments, and our view of leadership and community.

Business and civil society Most people spend little time actively engaged in politics. We vote, obey the law, and serve occasionally on a jury. Some write letters or donate money. But active political engagement is sporadic. We spend much of our time and energy in the activities of civil society: in business relations, community groups, and so on. One significant way to build a more peaceful world is to model peace within society. This means that we need peaceful business practices. We need to

168

Transformative Pacifism

build non-violent communities. And we need leadership that models peace and demonstrates the efficacy and importance of non-violence. All social activity is based upon value commitments. Some forms of social activity are competitive; others are cooperative. Some are violent and hateful; others are non-violent and loving. Pacifists support cooperative, non-violent, loving, compassionate, and peaceful social practices and organizations. Pacifism builds up those parts of civil society that exemplify peaceful living. The commitment to peace and non-violence in civil society is both widespread and efficacious. A version of pacifism is already adhered to and widely practised among many civil society groups and organizations. Critics often make pacifism seem like a hair-brained idea that comes out of nowhere. In fact, the commitment to peace and non-violence is woven deeply into our institutions and in our daily practice. When businesses treat their customers and workers well, that is a form of peace. When groups strive for consensus and work to build community, they are practising non-violence. When the economy is set up in a way that prevents violence (including structural violence), we are committed to a form of pacifism. In other words, most of us (at least in the liberal democratic capitalist world) are already committed to a form of pacifism; and we understand the value and the power of non-violence. Let’s make this argument in a negative fashion by imagining what a violent society would look like. It is possible to imagine a society that is organized by competition and violence. Criminal gangs function this way. The organizational structure in a gang is based upon hierarchy, the threat of violence, and fear. That structure is kept in place by layers of violence or threats of violence. Such organizations may be stable and produce outcomes that are of value for the members. Profits are made, status is achieved, and the organization may endure. But there is instability woven into the gang structure. Internally, there will be factions and rivalries, which must be quashed and disciplined by violence or threats of violence. Furthermore, there will be external threats by rival gangs. Violence shows up, in limited ways, in ordinary social groups. The in-group disciplines its members in violent ways, including threats of exclusion, mockery, bullying, hazing, and even outright cruelty. Social cliques define themselves against rival cliques in a competition for status and power. We see this in schools, on sports teams, in the business world, in religious groups, and in other civil society organizations. Cliques and gangs undermine a more general cooperative pursuit of a common good. They prevent us from working to discover and disseminate consensus values. They fail to model non-violent

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

169

interaction and peaceful conflict resolution. They encourage pride, arrogance, stereotyping, intolerance, dogmatism, and in some cases outright violence. Some cliques and gangs define themselves in terms of those they hate. Racists, ethnocentrists, and nationalists do this – as do religious exclusivists and others. Hate-groups fuel violence by making it seem that the world is structured as a zero-sum game in which there is an us-versus-them struggle that must be resolved through violence. The mentality of zero-sum games points in the direction of violence. If my benefit only comes at your expense and if your benefit means my loss, then I may endeavour to win at any cost. This is especially true in winner-takes-all situations, where competition for goods and status can create vast power differentials. Cliques, factions, and gangs often operate according to a kind of implicit belief that the social world is structured in this way. This is the implicit belief of certain conceptions of how capitalism functions as a cutthroat world in which only the strong survive. We see something similar in academia in the idea of publish or perish. And in general there are work environments, social organizations, and even religious groups who organize themselves according to the idea that the social world is a cutthroat, take-no-prisoners, kind of world. Our values and imagined understanding of the world creates a kind of selffulfilling prophecy in social reality. For those who approach the social world as a cutthroat place, the world may come to reflect this: as business partners, clients, customers and social relations respond in kind. But the idea that the social world is a cutthroat zero-sum game is a social construction. We do not have to imagine the world in this way. A transformation in our imaginations can lead to a transformation in the world. The world can become more peaceful if we engage one another with more peaceful expectations and assumptions. Consider as an example, our understanding of capitalism. A distinction has recently been made between ‘cuddly capitalism’ and ‘cutthroat capitalism’.1 Some nations have a form of cuddly capitalism (e.g. Scandinavian countries). But others – the United States – have a form of cutthroat capitalism. Cutthroat capitalism is not a necessary feature of the world. Capitalism could be more cuddly, non-violent, and peaceful. Some of the research on this topic suggests that cuddly capitalism is made possible by the work of the cutthroat global leader See Daron Acemoglu, James A. Robinson, Thierry Verdier, ‘Can’t We All Be More Like Scandinavians? Asymmetric Growth and Institutions in an Interdependent World’ NBER Working Paper No. 18441 (Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Relations, October 2012) at http://www.nber.org/ papers/w18441.pdf (accessed August 2017); also see Lane Kenworthy, Social Democratic America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016).

1

170

Transformative Pacifism

– arguing that Scandinavian social welfare is made possible by the global engine of American entrepreneurial capitalism. But the point remains that we could structure the economic world differently. For example, the vast inequalities of our economic world could be levelled out so that poverty is alleviated. Such a restricting requires that we imagine the economic world differently and that we work to transform it in the direction we want. Or consider the issue of how we structure work and social environments. Sweatshops efficiently produce cheap goods. Hierarchical social clubs also produce benefits: for example, children’s soccer teams with strict systems of rewards and punishments, competitive try-outs, and so on. But there is a kind of structural violence woven into the sweatshop economy; and competitive soccer can be brutal and exclusionary. It is possible to imagine a reorganized work environment; and it is possible imagine soccer clubs as cooperative recreation rather than in terms of cutthroat competition. Admittedly, such transformations and reorganizations involve a shift and exchange of goods. In a recreational soccer league, more kids get more playing time; but the quality of the game may suffer. In a non-sweatshop economy, workers will be safer and paid better; but customers may have to pay more. If the world itself is conceived in competitive, cutthroat terms, such a reconfiguration may seem absurd. But here is where the transformational vision of pacifism is broadly critical. The transformational pacifist holds that we ought to restructure all of our social relations in way that is more inclusive, more humane, more generous, more compassionate, and more peaceful: from sweatshops to soccer leagues. There is evidence to support the idea that this imagined pacific revaluation of the social world is worth pursuing. Consider a recent report in the Harvard Business Review that indicates that cutthroat work environments are harmful.2 Positive work environments can result in more productive workers. And negative work environments include hidden costs in terms of health care, missed time from work, complaints, disgruntled employees, etc. Furthermore, a cutthroat work environment, social world, and economy tends to produce cheating and short-cutting that undermine trust, confidence, solidarity, and long-term sustainability. Business ethics scandals can be prevented while innovation

‘Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive’, Harvard Business Review, 1 December 2015 available at: https://hbr.org/2015/12/proof-that-positive-work-cultures-are-more-productive; accessed August 2017.

2

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

171

and creativity can be stimulated by fostering a better, more productive work environment.3 While the language of business ethics is not explicitly pacifist, the general idea of business and professional ethics is one that is basically committed to the values that we have been discussing in this book. Business ethics typically focuses on conflict resolution, respect for persons, and stewardship for the community. During the past decades, many of these principles and practices have been codified into business regulations and into professional codes of ethics. Consider the problem of workplace violence. Violent behaviour is simply not permitted in the workplace. When gunmen, often including disgruntled employees, assault a place of business and murder people, we view that as evil: one should not need to fear violence in the workplace.4 The presumption of the business workplace is one of peace and that violence prevention, conflict resolution, and peace-building are important to the work environment. We might consider a variety of other issues including fair employment practices or sexual harassment law. In previous generations, outright discrimination and blatant sexism at work were permitted, along with bullying, hazing, and so on. That has all changed. Instead, the business community, professional organizations, and the legal regime are committed to equality, non-violence, and peace in the workplace. Pacifism as an ethical theory can be fruitfully applied to the business environment. Thus, in line with the central thesis of this book, pacifism can indeed be understood as a major normative theory that has much to offer in the way of application. Very little work has been done, however, on the question of non-violence and pacifism in the business world.5 There are a few scattered See Melissa S. Baucus, William I. Norton, David A. Baucus, and Sherrie E. Human, ‘Fostering Creativity and Innovation without Encouraging Unethical Behavior’, Journal of Business Ethics 81:1 (2008), 97–115; http://www.jstor.org/stable/25482200. 4 The US Department of Labor’s website includes an extensive discussion of workplace violence:  Workplace violence is a frustrating problem facing Federal agencies today. While more and more information on the causes of violence and how to handle it is becoming known, there is often no reasonable rationale for this type of conduct and, despite everything we know or do, violent situations happen. No employer is immune from workplace violence and no employer can totally prevent it. The cost to organizations is staggering. It is impossible to overstate the costs of workplace violence, because a single incident can have sweeping repercussions. There can be the immediate and profound loss of life or physical or psychological repercussions felt by the victim as well as the victim’s family, friends, and co-workers; the loss of productivity and morale that sweeps through an organization after a violent incident; and the public relations impact on an employer when news of violence reaches the media. (US Department of Labor Workplace Violence Program: https://www.dol.gov/oasam/hrc/policies/dol-workplace-violence-program. htm; accessed August 2017) 3

One recent contribution should be noted: Luk Bouckaert and Manas Chatterji, eds., Business, Ethics, and Peace (Bingley, UK: Emerald Group Publishing, 2015).

5

172

Transformative Pacifism

discussions of ‘peace economics’, ‘nonviolent management’, and so on. But much more work could be done in this area: working to reconceive the economy and the business environment in pacifist terms.

Non-violent leadership A further point of overlap between pacifism and other discussions in social and political philosophy is found in the question of leadership ethics. We can see a form of pacifism in discussions of so-called transformative leadership and in the idea of servant leadership. Transformative leadership is basically non-violent: it is focused on consensus building that works by strengthening relationships and the sense of communal belonging in an organization that is grounded in key values such as truth-telling, stewardship, and a commitment to the flourishing of members and the larger community. Bad leadership uses threats and bribes, it turns factions against one another, it relies on gossip and lying. Egregiously bad leadership resorts to name-calling, personal attacks, and outright violence. Hitler is an example of a bad leader – a leader for whom violence was a useful tool. Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. provide examples of good leaders: they were focused on building a ‘beloved community’ based upon non-violence and a sense of solidarity, compassion, and justice. The literature on transformational leadership tends not to be explicit about pacifism and non-violence – although King and Gandhi are appealed to as models in some accounts.6 One focus of some of the literature on ‘nonviolent leadership’ is on the question of how leadership works in non-violent social justice campaigns. There is much to be learnt from this. But our focus here is non-violent leadership in ordinary social contexts – in clubs, business, and social organization. In other words, we want to understand connections between pacifism/non-violence and accounts of transformational leadership in other contexts. The leadership principles of pacifists can inspire reflection on how leadership ought to work in social groups of all kinds. A central idea in what we might call the Gandhi–King style of leadership is that leaders lead by enacting love, kindness, and truth. Moreover, they lead by example, uniting means and ends, See Gerard Vanderhaar, Personal Nonviolence: A Practical Spirituality for Peacemakers (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2015); or essays collected in Stan Amaladas and Sean Byrne, Peace Leadership: The Quest for Connectedness (New York: Routledge, 2018).

6

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

173

and embodying transformative action. The transformative enactment of unifying means and ends is a central component of non-violent leadership. When people lead by force, they employ force (coercion, manipulation, and violence) as a means towards the end they have in mind. But pacifism teaches that this is inadequate. Sometimes force produces positive results. But often these results come at great expense in terms of suffering and anxiety; and these outcomes can conceal resentment and instability. A well-known example of this is found in the work of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, one of the key figures in the political turmoil of apartheid South Africa. Tutu has explicitly stated that he is not a pacifist in the absolute sense of being opposed to all violence.7 When he was awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr. Peace Prize in 1986, Tutu stated that unlike King, he was not a pacifist.8 But despite these protestations, Tutu can be included among the transformational pacifists as understood in the present book. He is an advocate of non-violence and condemned all acts of violence in South Africa: both those perpetrated by the apartheid state and those used against it. In addition to his work on truth and reconciliation and peace-building in general, Tutu has worked on the question of leadership. A central key for Tutu is the idea of Ubuntu, which is a term in Bantu language that speaks of interdependence, community relation, compassion, and humanity. Tutu explains, A person with Ubuntu is welcoming, hospitable, warm and generous, willing to share. Such people are open and available to others, willing to be vulnerable, affirming of others, do not feel threatened that others are able and good, for they have a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that they belong in a great whole. They know that they are diminished when others are humiliated, diminished when others are oppressed, diminished when others are treated as if they were less than who they are.9

These words outline a paradigmatic set of ideas for thinking about what we value in transformative non-violent leadership. We should point out that Ubuntu does not require an explicit commitment to pacifism.10 But it is closely related to the See Steven Gish, Desmond Tutu: A Biography (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004), 77. Johnny Bernard Hill, The Theology of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Desmond Mpilo Tutu (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007), 116. 9 Desmond Tutu, God has a Dream (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 26. 10 See Colin Chasi, ‘Violent communication is not alien to ubuntu: Nothing human is alien to Africans’, Communicatio: South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research 40:4 (2014), 287–304, DOI: 10.1080/02500167.2014.992176; also see Gail M. Presbey, ‘Philosophy of Nonviolence in Africa’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017). 7 8

174

Transformative Pacifism

spirit of non-violence and when combined in Tutu’s thinking with Christian ideas about God’s love and desire for peace, all of this forms the core of an ethic of nonviolent leadership. In an essay on leadership, Tutu explains that true leaders are altruistic servants who are credible and consistent and who experience solidarity with those he or she leads. As he says, ‘They enable others to blossom.’11 This is the work of non-violence: to foster growth and the blooming fullness of life. Before concluding this section, let’s consider another example of non-violent leadership from an unlikely place. Mikhail Gorbachev, the last leader of the Soviet Union, wrote an interesting essay on non-violent leadership. Although he does not advocate pacifism (what he calls non-resistance), he advocates the use of persuasion instead of force. And he points out that ‘intellectual and moral authority’ are essential for non-violent leadership. People are persuaded by intellectually and morally compelling people and ideas, more than they are willing to submit to and blindly obey superior force. He says, ‘Wise rulers, even while possessing all means of force, preferred to explain and entice rather than simply coerce.’12 And he points out that one key in non-violent leadership is ‘maximum openness’.13 Gorbachev is primarily referring to political leadership in his discussion. But he cites numerous examples, including Gandhi and Einstein, that point beyond politics towards a general philosophy of non-violence. Building upon insights gleaned from Gandhi, Gorbachev concludes that ‘nonviolence is the art of the possible and of the necessary’.14 Compromise is essential; as is the willingness to give up and give in, when appropriate. Gorbochev explains this by the example of the Soviet Union giving up on satellites such as Poland and Czechoslovakia. The demise of the Soviet Union depended upon a commitment to compromise at the top. Gorbachev could have led a violent campaign and reverted to old-school repression. But his affirmation of non-violence and peace-making prevented that from happening. A central key is to be strategic about one’s actions and ‘not to create problems that sooner or later would need Tutu writes,  The good leader is one who is affirming of others, nurturing their best selves, coaxing them to become the best they are capable of becoming. This style of leadership is not coercive but plays to the strengths of others, giving them space to fulfill themselves. The good leader is not threatened by the accomplishments and gifts of others, for this leader is really not a one-person band but a team player. Such leaders are often described as charismatic – you know you are in a presence when you encounter them. They are inspirational because in the end they enable others to blossom and not to wilt. (Desmond Tutu, ‘Leadership’ in Carnegie Corporation, Essays on Leadership (New York: Carnegie Corporation, 1998), 70) 11

Mikhail Gorbachev, ‘Nonviolent Leadership’, in Carnegie Corporation, Essays on Leadership (New York: Carnegie Corporation, 1998), 42. 13 Gorbachev, ‘Nonviolent Leadership’, 47. 14 Ibid., 50. 12

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

175

to be solved by force’.15 One must be creative and intelligent in order to lead in a way that transforms the world in a direction in which there is more cooperation and less violence. Although Gorbachev’s discussion is primarily about political leadership, these ideas are applicable in business and civil society: enticement, persuasion, peace-making, compromise, and modelling through integrity and responsibility are the key to non-violent leadership.

Politics, violence, and the anarchist impulse It is remarkable what Gorbachev’s revolution in the Soviet Union achieved by way of perestroika (reorganization) and glasnost (openness). Those terms could be fruitfully employed in a more politically focused account of pacifism and non-violence in political theory. Reorganization (perestroika) is basically a political effort that aims at transforming society in a more peaceful direction. An essential part of that is openness (glasnost), which gives up on repressive political structures. Gorbachev tells us that violence and repression are simply not effective means of governance: ‘Violence does not solve problems; it aggravates them and most often creates new ones.’16 Gorbachev describes ‘the impotence of force’ as being supported by a number or examples from the history of the end of the Cold War: violence and the threat of force could simply not keep the Soviet empire together.17 The idea that violence exacerbates conflict and that force is impotent lies at the heart of pacifism as a transformative theory. The idea that violence aggravates and creates problems can lead us to offer a radical critique of all of the violent mechanisms of the political world. And indeed, there is a fairly strong connection between pacifism and anarchism. Anti-war pacifism has an obvious concern with the critique of political power. War is a political event made possible by the structures of political and military power. For this reason, in addition to opposing war, pacifists have also often opposed militarism and the military-industrial complex. Pacifists have also often pushed this critique in the direction of anarchism. The utopian aspiration of pacifism is towards an ideal state of political peace and social harmony. If this ideal were to arrive, we may in fact have no further need of political organization per se. Indeed, there is substantial overlap between Ibid., 54. Ibid., 55. 17 Ibid., 57. 15 16

176

Transformative Pacifism

the political aspirations of pacifism and the dreams of an anarchist utopia.18 One substantial point of contact between these two ideas is found in the development of separatist communities, which were inspired by anarchist and pacifist ideas. This idea could be traced all the way back to the Epicureans of the ancient world, who aspired to avoid politics and live in philosophical gardens separate from the rest of the world. Radical Christian reformers also attempted to establish a separate peace and avoid the wars and power struggles of the mainstream. Some early American colonists were inspired along these same lines. In the nineteenth century, some New England transcendentalists such as Adin Ballou and Bronson Alcott experimented with separatist communes. Ballou explained that human governments were inherently flawed. He explained that human government ‘has no intrinsic authority – no moral supremacy – and no rightful claim on the allegiance of man’.19 As a proponent of non-resistance he is not focused on the violent overthrow of any government. He explains that for those who are not governed by God, human government is a ‘necessary evil’: ‘Its restraints are better than no restraints at all.’20 The goal of Ballou’s non-resistance is neither to reform or to subvert human government. Instead he wants to ‘supersede’ human government following the Christian claim that Christ’s kingdom is not of this world. With regard to the charge of utopian idealism, he claimed that he would rather die in the name of non-resistance and end up with the angels, than make use of the immoral means of violent resistance. And he argued that the morally committed non-resistant individual can have a greater impact on the spirit of the community than can a morally compromised agent of the state. Ballou thought that the non-resistant individual could provide an example that would enlighten the world. The Christian who refuses to participate in the fallen world of political life would ‘show forth a model of what ought to be – not conform to what is’.21 Ballou founded a separatist community called Hopedale in the 1840s and 1850s. This fellowship was based upon non-resistant values. It espoused temperance, abolitionism, and women’s rights. As is true of most utopian experiments, the See Andrew Fiala, Against Religions, Wars, and States (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013). Also see Andrew Fiala, ‘Anarchism’, The Stanford of Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2018/entries/anarchism. 19 Adin Ballou, Non-Resistance in Relation to Human Governments (Boston: NonResistance Society Pamphlet, 1839), 8. See Andrew Fiala, ‘Political Skepticism and Anarchist Themes in the American Tradition’, European Journal of Pragmatism and American Philosophy 2 (December 2013), http:// journals.openedition.org/ejpap/545; DOI : 10.4000/ejpap.545. 20 Ballou, Non-Resistance in Relation to Human Governments, 10–11. 21 Adin Ballou, Christian Non-Resistance (Philadelphia: Universal Peace Union, 1910), 94; etext from www.nonresistance.org (2006). 18

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

177

aspirations of Hopedale eventually gave way to encroaching capitalist concerns, the patriotism and militarism of the Civil War, and the rest of modern American life.22 Nonetheless, Ballou’s ideas had a lasting influence. His writings inspired Tolstoy – who in turn inspired Gandhi. A concern for those subsequent thinkers is that separatism seems to leave larger questions of justice and social/political reform unaddressed. As the separatist withdraws from the rest of society, injustice and war persist. In light of these concerns, separatism and non-resistance evolved – through the work of Gandhi, King, and others – to become non-violent resistance that engages the world and focuses on the work of love and justice. Thus negative – separatist and anarchist – formulations of pacifism are complemented by a more positive vision of political life. Pacifist political philosophy postulates peace, both international and domestic, as the final goal of political life, while maintaining that non-violent means must be employed in pursuit of peace. Pacifism as a political philosophy has a utopian focus: it establishes a goal or ideal for development. But pacifism also focuses on procedural questions within the non-ideal world and melioristic efforts at transforming that world, emphasizing non-violent means for bringing about social change as well as institutional mechanisms that support peace, equality, liberty, and social justice. Pacifism in political philosophy often shows up in discussions of international relations, for example – as a possible way of responding to the challenges of international conflict. Cosmopolitanism and liberal internationalism can be conceived in relation with pacifism: these ideas share with pacifism the goal of creating a just and peaceful international order, even if they are willing to tolerate the use of violence in pursuit of those means.23 There will be a continuum here uniting the pacifists and the cosmopolitans with advocates of just wars and peace-keeping force at one end and less permissive forms of pacifism that emphasize non-violent solutions at the other. See Elaine Malloy, Daniel Malloy, and Allan J. Ryan, Hopedale (Charleston, SC: Arcadia Books, 2002). See Andrew Fiala, ‘Cosmopolitanism, Anarchism, and Injustice at the Border’, in Eddy Souffrant, ed., A Future Without Borders: Essays in Cosmopolitan Peacebuilding (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2016). The affinity between cosmopolitan and pacifist points of view has been noted by other authors. Soran Reader concludes: ‘Cosmopolitan pacifism simply demands that we set the same standard for the use of violence internationally as within each state’ (Soran Reader, ‘Cosmopolitan Pacifism’, Journal of Global Ethics 3:1 (April 2007), 101). This means that in general we should avoid using violence or, at least, that violence should be regulated and appropriately limited. Archibugi even identifies so-called ‘legal pacifism’, which is an approach that prefers non-violent solutions and that constrains violence in international affairs (Danielle Archibugi, ‘From the United Nations to Cosmopolitan Democracy’, in David Held and Danielle Archibugi, eds, Cosmopolitan Democracy (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1995), 124).

22

23

178

Transformative Pacifism

In this context, pacifism is opposed to realism, which can be understood as the claim that moral concepts do not apply in the realm of international (or domestic) politics. The realist (we could also say warist or militarist) perspective dismisses pacifism as a marginal concern, since from this point of view the political realm is conceived as a struggle for power and domination in which violence and war are inevitable, necessary, and definitive tools.24 The pacifist critique of militarized political organization was famously articulated by Randolph Bourne at the time of the First World War. Bourne argued that ‘war was the health of the state’, linking anti-war protest with a general critique of militarism.25 This idea fits with the thinking of others who extol the conjunction of political authority, military power, and war. In the early nineteenth century, Carl von Clausewitz held that war is ‘a continuation of policy by other means’ and his contemporary G.W.F. Hegel maintained that ‘the health of a state generally reveals itself not so much in the tranquility of peace as in the turmoil of war’.26 A basic definition of the state, as found in Max Weber, is that the state exercises a monopoly of legitimate force.27 Indeed, one prevailing view of the political realm is that it is necessarily a sphere of conflict that always includes the possible of violence and war. Carl Schmitt – a political philosopher associated with Nazism – argues that war is essential to the concept of the political. For Schmitt, politics is determined by friend–enemy relation. He suggests that pacifism aims at the negation of politics.28 Thus it might be that a completely pacified or pacific world would leave us with anarchy – as the negation of politics.29 Another possibility – at the other end of a continuum of power – is that a pacified world could result from absolute power and global totalitarian control. Rousseau See Holmes, Pacifism, Chapter 3. Randolph Bourne, ‘The State’ (1918) available at: http://fair-use.org/randolph-bourne/the-state/; accessed August 2017. 26 Carl Von Clausewitz, On War (London: Penguin Books, 1982), 119; G. W. F. Hegel, ‘The German Constitution’, in Laurence Dickey and H. B. Nisbet, ed., Hegel: Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999), 7. For discussion of Hegel and Clausewitz, see Andrew Fiala, ‘The Vanity of Temporal Things: Hegel and the Ethics of War’, in Studies in the History of Ethics, February 2006 (http://www.historyofethics.org/022006/022006Fiala.html). 27 See Max Weber, Theory of Social and Economic Organization (New York: Free Press, 1947). 28 Schmitt writes,  A world in which the possibility of war is utterly eliminated, a completely pacified globe, would be a world without the distinction of friend and enemy and hence a world without politics. … The phenomenon of the political can be understood only in the context of the ever-present possibility of the friend-and-enemy grouping, regardless of the aspects which this possibility implies for morality, aesthetics, and economics. (Carl Schmitt, The Concept of the Political (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985), 35) 24 25

See Andrew Fiala, ‘Anarchism and Pacifism’, in Nathan Jun, ed., Brill’s Companion to Anarchism and Philosophy (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2017).

29

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

179

described this as the peace of the Cyclops’s cave, where pacified but terrified people wait to be devoured.30 Of course, pacifists should reject totalitarianism: the concept of structural violence can be employed to rule out peace that results from pacification of this sort. This indicates that pacifism should not only be committed to peace but also to related values such as justice, equality, and respect for liberty. Somewhere in the middle between these two extremes – of anarchy and totalitarianism – we find the mainstream of contemporary political philosophy, which includes libertarianism, liberalism, and socialism. Pacifism can be considered as part of this mainstream continuum. The commitment to and desire for peace is a deep strain in political philosophy, despite the fact that there is a tradition of views such as those of Hegel, Clausewitz, Weber, and Schmitt – we might also include Machiavelli, Marx, Nietzsche, and Foucault in this tradition – which might make us think that there is a contradiction between peace and politics.

Pacifism and the social contract One of the most important tools of political philosophy is the thought experiment known as the social contract. In this section, I argue that the social contract rests upon the basic assumption of non-violence and peace. Included in the social contract idea is an idea of central importance to non-violent activists, which is the idea that unjust political regimes can be resisted by way of non-violent protest, civil disobedience, and conscientious refusal. The social contract is a peace treaty, but when it fails non-violent civil disobedience is justified. In reality, no state has ever been formed according to the ideal version of the social contract. Most states are founded in violence. They command obedience, using violence, to support themselves. Plato explained the state as something like our parents, who nurture and support us.31 In the modern period this Jean-Jacques Rousseau, ‘The State of War’, in Victor Gourevitch, ed., Rousseau: ‘The Social Contract’ and other Later Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). In Plato’s Crito, Socrates outlines his obligation to the state in terms of a kind of contract: he owes the state allegiance in return for the goods provided by the state. A significant moment in the dialogue occurs when Socrates claims that it would be wrong to do violence to the state. Socrates further expresses a pacifist principle in the dialogue when he says that it is wrong to harm anyone, even saying that it is wrong to return harm to someone who harmed you (Crito 49-50). Socrates thus stumbles upon an idea that pacifists will later explore in more detail. This is similar to Jesus’s claim that we should not return evil for evil. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says: ‘You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”. But I say to you, Do not resist one who is evil. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also’ (Mt. 5.38-39). In Socrates’s argument in Crito – as, perhaps in the life of Jesus, who compliantly goes to his death – these ideas are connected to an account of obedience and submission.

30

31

180

Transformative Pacifism

patriarchal conception is replaced by an account of the state as rising out of a state of nature that is described – at least by Hobbes – as a state of war. The ideal social contract in early modern liberal thought (in Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau) holds that individuals come together and agree about the formation of a state, consensually giving some power to the state in exchange for protection and defence of rights. Hobbes indicates that the basic problem of political philosophy is the war that is found in the state of nature. Hobbes thus describes his social contract theory as a peace treaty. Furthermore, he states that in the condition of war found in the state of nature, the concepts of justice and of ethics no longer have significance. In the state of war our political and moral concepts fail: ‘To this war of every man against every man, this also is consequent; that nothing can be Unjust. The notions of Right and Wrong, Justice and Injustice have there no place.’32 But the decisive point is that Hobbes states that the first law of nature is ‘to seek peace, and to follow it’.33 Hobbes’s claim is often overlooked in an effort to move on to his construction of the social contract. But Hobbes points out that the first principle of political philosophy is a peace principle. And indeed, the institution of the other principles of political life – justice and other ethical concepts – is part of the process of establishing political peace, understood as social cooperation in the social contract. In order to establish the contract – and even to begin talking about justice and the like – we must first seek peace. We need a state of peaceful coexistence – at least as a modus vivendi.34 Social peace is needed in order to develop the further goods of social life, including justice and morality. The fundamental problem of political life is value pluralism. Conflict occurs even at the level of theory. While the pacifist will claim that peace is the primary good, liberals will claim that justice is primary. The conflict between peace and justice is a primary conflict in political philosophy. John Gray explains, ‘When peace and justice are rivals, which is worse, war or injustice? Neither has automatic or universal priority. Peace may be more urgent than justice; the claims of justice may override the immediate needs of peace.’35 This description Hobbes, Leviathan, 98. Ibid., 100. 34 John Gray claims that modern political philosophy begins in the attempt to find a modus vivendi – a ‘way of life’ that creates social peace. Gray writes, ‘For him (Hobbes) toleration was a strategy of peace. Indifferent to belief, the sole concern of government was with practice. In this Hobbesian view, the end of toleration is not consensus. It is coexistence’ (John Gray, Two Faces of Liberalism (New York: New Press, 2000), 3). 35 Gray, Two Faces of Liberalism, 10. 32 33

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

181

takes seriously the idea that peace is an end of political life and a focal point for political theory.36 An influential contemporary version of the social contract theory is found in John Rawls’s Theory of Justice where the idealized contract situation asks us to imagine what contractors would agree to under a ‘veil of ignorance’. This is intended to help us imagine a form of impartiality when we agree upon principles of justice. But only a slight effort of the imagination is required to see that peace is an important but overlooked component of this idea. When the contractors come together it is presumed that they are in a state of peace and that they are not employing violence or coercion in the contracting situation. The contractors cannot threaten one another or kill those who disagree. And indeed, one of the things we ought to ignore in the veil of ignorance is the friend–enemy distinction that is so important for Schmitt’s conception of politics.37 Furthermore, Rawls’s social contract is supposed to be based upon un-coerced consent: violence should play no role in it. Rawls explains the spirit of the contract in terms of the idea of justice as fairness: the contractors have a basic sense of fairness, which implies a kind of reciprocity and cooperation. But one could as easily emphasize that the ideal contractors must be committed to some basic principle of non-violence or that they should be committed to peace. One basis for refusing to admit someone to the contracting situation is if they behave violently or disrupt the peace. We cannot begin to form a social contract with those who are violent, disruptive, and non-cooperative. In Rawls’s language, such behaviour might be described as a lack of fairness.38 Rawls also must assume peacefulness and non-violence as a background condition. The commitment to fairness is different from a commitment to non-violence. From the pacifist vantage point, fairness is not necessarily the highest good. In another work, Gray explains that liberalism must take this more seriously. What he calls ‘postliberal theory’ must respond to the challenge of establishing peace in the context of radical diversity: ‘Finding institutions which can harbor cultural diversity in peace, both in the relations between states and within states, is the pluralist challenge to postliberal thought’ (John Gray, Liberalism, 2nd edition (Minneapolis: Minnesota University Press, 2003), 96). 37 Justice is thus different from what Polemarchus proposes in Plato’s Republic: as giving benefits to friends and hurting your enemies (Plato, Republic, 334–5). The Schmittian conception of political life has more in common with the ideas of Polemarchus (or Thrasymachus), against which Socrates argues throughout the Republic. 38 Rawls explains the idea of justice as fairness as follows:  The guiding idea is that the principles of justice for the basic structure of society are the object of the original agreement. They are the principles that free and rational persons concerned to further their own interests would accept in an initial position of equality as defining the fundamental terms of their association. These principles are to regulate all further agreements; they specify the kinds of social cooperation that can be entered into and the forms of government that can be established. This way of regarding the principles of justice I shall call justice as fairness. (John Rawls, A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1999), 10) 36

182

Transformative Pacifism

Admittedly, fairness and justice are fundamental to any conception of political life. And justice (or fairness) is a part of a basic conception of rationality – as a principle of proportionality that gives things their proper due. But the demand for fairness and justice can run counter to the demand for peace. A commitment to fairness could, for example, lead to the desire for retaliation and revenge when someone is treated unfairly.39 Struggles for fairness can result in tit-for-tat violence. Pacifist political theory encourages us to shift focus and define the chief goal of the ideal contractors as building what is often called ‘a just and lasting peace’, with the emphasis on peace. Pacifists prioritize peace above justice – while not ignoring or denying the claims of justice. Peace may include some elements that are not entirely fair or just. Mercy, forgiveness, and other values associated with pacifism often end up with elements of unfairness or injustice. For example, when mercy is offered, a wrong may remain un-righted. Pacifist political theory may ask us to set justice aside – or reinterpret the demand for justice – in light of the greater good of peace. Thus, to return to the idea of the social contract, the contractors will need to ignore or set aside – in the name of peace – the friend–enemy distinction and the existence of previous injustices. Forgiving and forgetting may be part of the contracting process – at least the contractors must be willing to set aside or refuse to prosecute the claims of justice.40 This does not mean that justice is not an important value. Rather, it means that peace is prioritized over justice. A justice-oriented approach is backward looking, while a peace-oriented approach is forward looking. Justice seems to require that we remedy past wrongs and provide redress for prior unfairness. This is not quite Rawls’s point, since he is more interested in distributive and procedural justice than in retributive justice. But the shift to the distributive and procedural model opens to the door to a more forward-looking idea. We set up fair procedures for distributing goods not in order to remedy past wrong but rather in order to establish conditions that would foster social peace. In terms of the move from justice to peace in the contracting situation, the point is that at some point we must break the chain reaction of returning harm for harm and violence for violence. We affirm nonviolence and build peace, when we prioritize peace over justice and refuse to act upon the claims of retaliatory justice.

See discussion in Clint Jones, A Genealogy of Social Violence: Founding Murder, Rawlsian Fairness, and the Future of the Family (New York: Routledge, 2016). 40 See Andrew Fiala, ‘Radical Forgiveness and Human Justice’, Heythrop Journal 53:3 (May 2012), 494–506. 39

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

183

This is what happens in reality when peace treaties are signed: the various parties give up on their claims against one another and their desire for retaliation, vindication, and victory. In such cases, the concern for peace and reconciliation outweighs the concern for justice. In some sub-optimal cases, peace is imposed by the victorious party – and the victors take their revenge in so-called victor’s justice. But an ideal peace treaty would involve the parties laying down their arms while also relinquishing their claims on justice and fairness in the name of peace. Justice and fairness are, obviously, part of this process: as residual unfairness will not produce a just or lasting peace. But the point here is that a commitment to peace is often the first priority in such a situation, with justice and fairness subordinated to the end of establishing peace. Furthermore, pacifists have often endeavoured to change our understanding of justice, offering restorative justice and ‘truth and reconciliation’ processes as a complement or even replacement for retributive justice. Restorative justice is more interested in building and sustaining peace than it is in establishing fairness or retaliating in a way that re-establishes the status quo ante. Retributivist justice is concerned with balancing the scales of justice in a way that is retrospective: righting past wrongs and addressing prior unfairness. But restorative justice is forward looking: it wants to establish peace in the future by healing the community and reconciling enemies. Restorative justice fits well within the idea of transformative pacifism since restorative justice is a transformational theory and practice: it aims to change the social circumstances in ways that will heal victims, promote peace, prevent violence, rehabilitate wrong-doers, and reconcile victims and offenders. Let’s conclude this section by imagining a pacifist social contract. It would be based upon an effort to reconcile antagonists. The parties would not entirely ignore justice or the past harms that they experienced, even though they would transform fairness into forgiveness. But they would also not ignore the horrors of war – and the related injustices and oppression created by militarism. They would reject the logic of violence – which is that ‘might makes right’. And they would struggle to overcome the friend–enemy distinction. The logic of ‘might makes right’ holds ‘to the winner goes the spoils’. But such a principle simply serves to foster ongoing antagonism. A social contract based upon pacifist principle would encourage us to overcome the friend–enemy distinction by recognizing what we have in common and by celebrating the communal goods created through nonviolent cooperation. A pacifist social contact is not a negotiation that balances powers and interests. Rather, it is a process of transformation that brings parties together, moving from the antagonistic structure of us versus them towards the idea of interconnection, interdependence, and communal belonging.

184

Transformative Pacifism

Libertarianism, liberalism, and socialism Pacifism provides a robust political theory, which holds that peace is the end of political life and non-violence is the proper means to bring about this end.41 Pacifism – as a non-absolute, transformative theory of political life – tells us that non-violent means are preferred and that we ought to work on building institutions and mechanisms that promote peace without requiring violence. Pacifism in political theory is committed to peace as the end (telos) of political. Thus pacifism is a comprehensive term – broader in its import and application than the idea of non-violence. Non-violence is a term that qualifies political action – but does not establish the ultimate goal towards which such action is directed. One could use non-violence in pursuit of justice – as in non-violent civil disobedience used in pursuit of civil rights equality. This is admirable and important. And civil rights are certainly part of justice – and of peace. But pacifism is not merely about the means of political action; it also postulates a telos for political development. Peace as the goal of political theory and political life ought to guide our thinking about the importance of non-violence as a means for obtaining this goal. Much of the contemporary discourse in political theory focuses primarily on justice (or equality or human rights). These are important ideas. But pacifism in political theory is as important – if not more so, given: (1) the fact that liberal democracies abjure the use of violence as much as possible; (2) that these other goods – justice, equality, and rights – can also be understood as means by which we create social peace – or avoid structural/ institutional violence; and (3) that peace in the international sphere is a common goal of much of modern political theory. The relation between means and ends is no less important in other political theories: justice ought to be brought about by just means; liberty is respected when the means of protecting liberty actually protect it; and so on. Pacifism’s One recent attempt to flesh this out is Atack’s Nonviolence in Political Theory, which attempts to broaden the discussion of non-violence. Atack explains, ‘Nonviolence as a form of political action necessarily connects to some of the core themes in political theory, concerning forms of political organization, the relationship between the individual and the state and the role of violence and coercion in political institutions and processes of social change’ (Iain Atack, Nonviolence in Political Theory (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012), iv). Atack makes a distinction between pacifism and non-violence, viewing pacifism as focused primarily on the rejection of war. He writes, ‘Pacifism objects to the institutionalized or organized use of violence, in the form of war and armed conflict, for ethical reasons. It involves the refusal to participate in political violence’ (Atack, Nonviolence in Political Theory, 158). I am in substantial agreement with Atack’s approach and his account of the importance of the role of non-violence in political theory. However, as I argue throughout, the terminology and conceptual apparatus of ‘pacifism’, which Atack wants to avoid – preferring to focus on non-violence – can be fruitfully employed to describe a valid political theory.

41

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

185

emphasis on the unity or coherence of means and ends is thus not nonsensical or self-defeating (or ‘incoherent’ as some critics claim).42 Critics complain that pacifists are unwilling to use violence or war in order to defend life, the state, or human rights. But what matters for the pacifist is creating peace. What the pacifist claims is that it would be wrong or incoherent to use violence in defence of peace, which pacifist political theory holds as a primary good. Notice for example, that the just war tradition uses violence in order to defend the justified or sovereign state (admittedly the just war theory also justifies war that is used in defence of the peace, with international law recognizing, for example, aggression as a ‘crime against the peace’). Libertarians will talk about using violence – in domestic cases of justified politic violence, for example – in defence of rights; they may also justify police violence that is used in defence of social order or peaceful society. Admittedly, there are complexities and overlap among these positions. But the point is that things look different if we focus on peace as a primary good and begin thinking about using violence in order to bring about peace. This seems to indicate a kind of incoherence in the means–end continuum. It is possible to imagine cases in which violence can be used to keep the peace (as in the case of peace officers and peace-keeping troops). But the way that peacekeeping will be understood in pacifist political theory will be different from the way that peace-keeping is understood in liberal democratic or libertarian theory. This charge of incoherence can also be levied against other political theories. This becomes apparent, for example, if we said that we were going to use unjust means in order to bring about or defend justice. If justice-keepers routinely lied, stole, and violated people’s rights in order to defend justice, we would want to point out an incoherence. In general, political philosophies postulate an end, while also clarifying appropriate means – and the appropriateness of the means is connected to the attempt to unify or harmonize means and ends. Pacifism is thus more than a rejectionist theory that is focused on opposing war. It has a broader application in political philosophy in terms of imagining the social and political conditions that would tend to produce peace, while avoiding violence. Nor need pacifism be interpreted as requiring an absolute prohibition on the use of violence and military force. The question of absolutism in political theory is as vexing as the question of absolutism in morality, if not more so – since political theory must take into account the exigencies of the See Narveson ‘Pacifism.’; also Cécile Fabre ‘Jan Narveson’s “Pacifism: A Philosophical Analysis”’, Ethics 125:3 (April 2015), 823–5. The emphasis in these essays is the moral analysis of pacifism, not necessarily the idea I am discussing here, which is pacifism as political theory.

42

186

Transformative Pacifism

non-ideal world. A pacifist political theory understood as a (non-absolutist) transformative critical theory holds that peace should be established, that violence ought to be minimized, that non-violent means ought to be supported and developed, and that in general we ought to aspire towards a unity of means and ends in the promotion of peace. There will be some non-ideal cases in which limited and appropriately justified violence may have to be employed in order to bring about peace. The difference, however, between pacifism and other theories will be that pacifism emphasizes peace and non-violence, while other theories will emphasize other goods such as justice, liberty, equality, and so on. The same problem – of coordinating means and ends in a non-ideal world – holds by the way for all other political theories (with the possible exception of realism). Liberal theories of justice encounter problems in the non-ideal world, for example, in trying to work out the limits of free speech and toleration (should we tolerate the intolerant?) or in trying to establish concrete plans that would help to redistribute social wealth without violating the rights of individuals. Libertarians must consider cases in which the liberty of some might have to be curtailed in order to defend the liberty of others. Socialist theories have to consider the question of efficiency that occurs if wealth and capital are socialized and individual effort and entrepreneurship are de-incentivized. And so on. No theory provides an absolutely coherent and all-encompassing theory of political life because political life is complex and because the non-ideal world presents us with tragic choices that make absolutism and perfectionism impossible. The mainstream political theories – libertarianism, liberalism, and socialism – will tend to view peace as a by-product of properly organized social and political structures; and they will tend to support the use of appropriately justified violent means in pursuit of their postulated end. Pacifists offer a different vision of the end of political life, holding that peace is the goal. Justice, liberty, and equality – from the pacifist point of view – are subordinate goods: these are means towards the larger good, which is peace: both domestic and international. The pacifist ideal is for diverse people to live in a condition of robust and positive peace. The peace of a totalitarian regime may involve pacification – but it rests upon violence (or the threat of violence) and it likely will not be focused on fostering harmonious, caring, compassionate, and hospitable human interaction. Peace in the robust, positive sense occurs when there is basic need satisfaction, when human beings engage in caring communities, and when human beings coexist in a condition that supports and sustains individual autonomy without requiring violence. Justice, equality, respect for rights, social welfare, and other goods are essential components of social peace.

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

187

The basic procedures of liberal democracy are non-violent. In liberal democratic political organizations, killing and fighting are replaced by voting, lobbying, turn-taking, and public deliberation. Institutional safeguards are put in place that guarantee non-violent interaction, including defences of human rights and the customs, habits, and practices of civil society, emphasizing civility and rational public discourse. The norms of what is often called deliberative democracy focus on reason-giving, perspective-taking, reciprocity, cooperation, toleration, and civility. A defence of these procedures grounded in traditional liberal political philosophy will maintain that these procedures respect individual rights, that they are grounded in a social contract model of the state, or that rule by the people is simply better than rule by elites or by the military. A pacifist political theory can offer a defence of the procedures of deliberative democracy by maintaining that participation, communication, reciprocity, and inclusion help to promote social peace. Such an argument would maintain that conflict can be defused by inclusive and participatory governance, while also pointing out that political peace can be maintained when minority points of view are protected by human rights principles such as freedom to speech, freedom to assemble and protest, freedom of religion, and the right of conscientious refusal. Such an a priori argument could be bolstered by empirical accounts that demonstrate how deliberative democracy and liberal democratic polities tend to remain stable, defuse conflict, and build cultures of peace. To conclude the present section, let me reiterate that pacifism can be easily understood as a political theory that lies somewhere on the continuum that includes libertarianism, liberalism, and socialism. And indeed, to make a further point, pacifist parties have often appeared in political life – dedicated explicitly to peace – alongside of parties concerned with protecting human rights, justice, equality, or capitalist free markets. This indicates that political agents often do understand their political commitment in terms of pacifism.

Hospitality, cosmopolitanism, and liberalism In a different book I have defended the importance of hospitality and civility, demonstrating how these values are connected to the basic idea of liberal democratic politics, secularism, and cosmopolitanism.43 The basic argument of that book is that hospitality, cosmopolitanism, and a commitment to religious Fiala, Secular Cosmopolitanism.

43

188

Transformative Pacifism

liberty and public rationality are needed to respond to the fact of diversity, the fact of finitude and mortality, and the growing interconnectedness of the world. Those arguments connect to the idea of transformative pacifism. Pacifism as a normative theory includes a commitment to hospitality and civility. It is a universalizing theory, which directs our attention beyond national borders and towards a cosmopolitan vision of a peaceful globe that is open and welcoming to strangers. Pacifism can thus inform our thinking about domestic political values and international relations. The argument in defence of hospitality, civility, and cosmopolitanism develops out of an interpretation of liberal democratic political theory and out of an account of the virtues needed within the contemporary world. The contemporary world is tightly interconnected. People move and communicate across borders. The global economy is woven across borders. We encounter complex diversity and the need to find ways to peacefully interact and coexist. The good news is that we have actually been fairly successful at developing a peaceful world. The spread of liberal democratic values and human rights doctrine is a key part of this story, as is the development of robust international institutions including international law that helps to regulate international relations and keep the peace. One theory that helps to explain the development of a more peaceful world holds that as liberal democratic values spread, there will be greater peace. This idea, known as democratic peace theory, has roots in ideas found in Kant and in the more recent empirical work of authors such as Michael Doyle.44 The basic point is that democracies tend not to go to war with one another. Democracies share common values including especially the basic framework of human rights. Democracies coexist and cooperate because it is in their interest to trade with one another. One way to conceive of the ideal of cosmopolitanism in political theory is to imagine the spread of democratic values, which would in turn leave us with a world of open borders, international trade, and global cooperation based upon human rights and principles of global justice. Critics will point out that the ideal can be used in an ideological fashion as cover for Eurocentrism and neo-liberal colonialism and neo-imperialism. These are substantial concerns. But my point here is not about the concrete application and historical difficulties of political theory. Rather, my goal is to show how pacifism applies in the realm of political theory. In this regard, understanding the pacifist roots See Michael Doyle, Ways of War and Peace (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997). I discuss this in Fiala, Public War, Private Conscience. Also see Fuat Gorsozlu, ‘The Triumph of the Liberal Democratic Peace and the Dangers of its Success’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017).

44

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

189

of cosmopolitan political theory is crucial. When Kant first proposed the idea of a federation of nations that was connected to liberal democratic political theory, he proposed this under the general rubric of ‘perpetual peace’. European intellectuals, including Abbé de St. Pierre and Rousseau, had also imagined a path to peace. But Kant’s proposal has been the most widely discussed. And his notion of a federation of peace or league of nations has come to fruition – with substantial work, alteration, and elaboration – in both the League of Nations and the United Nations. It is too much to say that Kant inspired these twentiethcentury developments. But there is a kind of pacifist impulse that is found in Kant’s idea.45 Kant’s goal is to end war. He makes two crucial points: first, war is irrational; and second, that what is needed is a global federation based upon pacifist principles. Kant acknowledges that the use of force is irrational and hence immoral (if we adopt Kant’s general way of thinking about the conjunction between rationality and morality). The use of violence does not respect persons as rational, autonomous persons who are ends in themselves. This applies at the level of nation-states. Furthermore, Kant’s reason-based universalism points clearly to the idea of cosmopolitanism, which holds that these values apply across the globe. Kant can be accused of Eurocentrism, racism, sexism, and so on. But the point here is not to return us to Kantian philosophy per se. Rather, the goal here is show that there are deep roots and reasonable arguments that link the notions of cosmopolitanism, pacifism, and the spread of liberal democratic values. Furthermore, Kant links this to a robust notion of hospitality. This third article for perpetual peace stipulates, ‘The Law of World Citizenship Shall Be Limited to Conditions of Universal Hospitality’. Hospitality means treating strangers kindly and behaving as a good guest when in a foreign land. Importantly, in his discussion of hospitality he points out that it is wrong for foreigner armies to oppress native peoples – since this is a violation of the norm of hospitality. Clearly, these ideas needed to be developed, disseminated, and applied throughout the era of European colonialism – and in a truly cosmopolitan, welcoming, and inclusive sense. Kant explains in Perpetual Peace (published in 1795):  Reason, as the highest legislative moral power, absolutely condemns war as a test of rights and sets up peace as an immediate duty. But peace can neither be inaugurated nor secured without a general agreement between nations; thus a particular kind of league, which we might call a pacific federation (foedus pacificum), is required. It would differ from a peace treaty (pactum pacis) in that the latter terminates one war, whereas the former would seek to end all wars for good. (Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace in Kant: Political Writings (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 104) 45

190

Transformative Pacifism

At any rate, Kant shows us that hospitality is a key feature of building a pacific international sphere. Hospitality is often understood as a virtue of individuals. So it is interesting that Kant indicates that it can be understood in political terms. Related virtue terms can also be employed in thinking about political institutions that foster peace. One of these virtues is the virtue of leaving others alone, which is closely connected to the idea of toleration. Liberal political philosophy provides substantial and extensive arguments about the importance of liberty and toleration.46 Rawls indicates that there is a continuum that includes toleration as a mere modus vivendi at one end, with a more robust form of overlapping consensus at the other.47 Rawls applies this to international affairs in his notion of a Law of Peoples that allows for peaceful coexistence despite differences in regime type. And in the domestic sphere, he indicates that a stable constitutional system that allows for toleration provides a recipe for social peace.48

Non-violent distributive justice and social peace In Kant’s discussion of hospitality and Rawls’s discussion of toleration we see ideas found in virtue-based and individualistic pacifism. Pacific virtues include love, mercy, compassion, generosity, tolerance, and hospitality. It is possible to transform these virtues into political ideals. An ideal polity would be loving, kind, generous, and hospitable. While that ideal may appear to be absurd, transformative political values include civility, toleration, and public rationality: these are political values that help us move in the direction of a more pacific social and political world. These are also key values for deliberative democracy and political liberalism, which is the institutional framework that For further discussion, see Fiala, Tolerance and the Ethical Life. John Rawls, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 2001), 192 ff. Also see Rawls, Political Liberalism: Expanded Edition (New York: Colombia University Press, 2005). 48 Rawls is not a pacifist. He defends a version of the just war tradition, even allowing for exceptions to those restraints in ‘supreme emergencies’. But in his early work, A Theory of Justice, he does outline an argument in favour of ‘contingent pacifism’, which he explains as follows: ‘The possibility of a just war is conceded but not under present circumstance’ (Rawls, A Theory of Justice: Revised Edition (Cambridge, MA: Harvard, 1999), 335; for discussion, see Fiala, ‘Contingent Pacifism and Contingently Pacifist Conclusions’, 463–77). Rawls further outlines an argument in favour of conscientious refusal and non-violent civil disobedience – as an important part of liberal democratic politics. But in his later work, he more clearly articulates an argument against pacifism indicating that merely opposing war is insufficient for building peace. He says, for example, ‘One does not find peace by declaring war irrational or wasteful, though indeed it may be so, but by preparing the way for peoples to develop a basic structure that supports a reasonably just or decent regime and makes possible a reasonable Law of Peoples’ (Rawls, The Law of Peoples, 123). 46 47

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

191

best moves us in the right direction. These virtues also guide our understanding of distributive justice. A central concern of political philosophy is the question of distributive justice. This should also be a concern for pacifists; and the question of distributive justice in general can benefit from being reconceived from the standpoint of pacifism. Let’s begin by noting that it is possible to employ the idea of distributive justice in raising a common objection raised by opponents of war, which is that warfare unjustly imposes harms on the poor and vulnerable. Most importantly, poor people suffer the most in terms of collateral damage and the lasting harms left behind after war. Poor people already exist in precarious conditions. War can cause refugee crises, famines, disease outbreaks, unemployment, and ongoing structural and economic problems that have a much larger impact on poor people than on the affluent.49 Furthermore, poor people often end up serving as soldiers. And some people benefit from war – for example, those who are employed in defence industries and the rest of the military-industrial complex.50 This becomes an even more complicated concern when military power is privatized and outsourced. Distributive justice concerns matter when thinking about war and how harms and benefits are distributed within the war system.51 My goal here is not, however, to apply distributive justice concepts to the critique of war. Rather, I want to understand how pacifism as a transformative theory can guide our thinking about distributive justice. The issues of distributive justice can be understood from within the general rubric of social peace. Distributive justice is one of the necessary components of a peaceful society: it helps to create social peace, along with criminal (retributive) justice, restorative justice, political participation, and other considerations. From this perspective, distributive justice is not a final theory – rather, it can be subsumed under the general framework of pacifism as a transformative theory that seeks peace. Distributive justice asks us to consider equality or fairness in economic and related arrangements. The central concern in distributive justice is the degree to which people have fair or equal opportunities and the degree to which benefits and harms are fairly or equally distributed. There are generally two ways of See Patricia Justino, ‘War and Poverty’, Institute of Development Studies White Paper April 2012 available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/store/10.1111/j.2040-0209.2012.00391.x/asset/j.20400209.2012.00391.x.pdf ?v=1&t=j6fer5sg&s=deba8460a408ec3002c1f62458dc44a57dc5f5a5; accessed August 2017. 50 See Andrew Fiala, ‘Just War Ethics and the Slippery Slope of Militarism’, Philosophy in the Contemporary World 19:1 (Fall 2012), 92–102. 51 We may even presume some account of distributive justice when thinking about the so-called ‘moral equality of soldiers’, since some account of equal treatment or equal consideration is involved when thinking about who deserves to be killed (or not killed). See Holmes, Pacifism, Chapter 6. 49

192

Transformative Pacifism

understanding distributive justice: one that focuses on fair or just procedures and another that focuses on outcomes or results.52 Procedural justice permits unequal outcomes provided that everyone has a fair or equal chance of pursuing those outcomes. Procedural justice usually permits wealth disparities, for example, so long as everyone has a fair chance or equal opportunity to accumulate wealth. A different approach is concerned with substantive outcomes: whether in fact the actual distributions of harms and benefits are fair or equal. The concern of substantive equality, for example, will view disparities in wealth, health, education, or other goods as unjust. The concerns of distributive justice can be applied in local/domestic cases; they can also be extended globally in what is often called global justice. The concerns of global justice (and distributive justice in general) are deeper than the merely structural concerns of international relations since these concerns focus on the well-being of individuals and are not simply concerned about relations among nation-states. To understand this, we should recognize that international peace can occur when nations no longer fight one another – even though citizens of various nations can suffer under oppressive regimes and live in poverty. We should also note that within domestic political arrangements oppression can create peace: a society can be well ordered and at peace, even though people are oppressed and massive inequalities exist. What pacifism contributes here is a concern for social peace. The concern for social peace is connected to the problems of structural violence and institutional violence. Structural violence occurs when the basic structures of society encourage or create violations of personhood. Johan Galtung explains the difference between direct and structural violence with an example: ‘When one husband beats his wife there is a clear case of personal violence, but when one million husbands keep one million wives in ignorance there is structural violence.’53 Institutional violence is best understood as a subset of structural violence – as when institutions foster, encourage, or support (or fail to prevent) other forms of violence. Thus when the criminal justice system fails to prosecute abusive husbands, that institution helps foster the structural violence of male dominance. Or more directly, when the police actively engage or attack certain groups, we have a case of direct institutional violence.54

See Fiala and MacKinnon, Ethics, 9th edition, Chapter 14. Galtung, ‘Violence, Peace, and Peace Research’, 171. 54 A useful discussion of these categories is in Gregg Barak, Violence and Nonviolence: Pathways to Understanding (Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, 2003). 52 53

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

193

Social peace can be understood in relation with what is called positive peace. As opposed to negative peace, which is the absence of war or direct violence, positive peace is a social condition in which persons are supported and satisfied with the status quo. Galtung explains this as ‘the integration of human society’.55 But this idea may claim too much. Social peace does not depend upon homogeneity and integration that denies diversity. Nor does it mean that there will be no conflict. A world without conflict and diversity might be peaceful, but it would be bland, boring, and inhuman. Galtung recognizes this, even in his imagined peaceful utopia where there would be a ‘general and complete peace’ (pax omnium cum omnibus): Each human being loves his neighbor like himself, and everybody is his neighbor. This Utopia knows no borderlines. One need not deprive it of conflict and change, only ensure that dynamics without recourse to violence is built into the system; there are other ways of accommodating conflicts.56

For there to be social peace, the conditions of society should be such that individuals are engaged together in productive, ethical relationship. This does not mean that there must be harmonious consensus or homogeneity. Rather, human beings should be connected across their differences by relations of toleration, hospitality, and solidarity, which permits individual liberty while also promoting communal relation. In this regard, discussions of social justice or social peace are connected with discussions of toleration in the liberal tradition, as discussed above. As mentioned, Rawls – one of the key authors in the liberal tradition – indicates the importance (and the challenge) of toleration or peaceful coexistence among diverse people. The aspiration for social peace is thus utopian, as Galtung admits. One substantial difficulty is that the libertarians will disagree with the communitarians (and the liberals, as well) about the basic structure of society. A further challenge appears when we consider the nature of deep diversity and multiculturalism. When ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious diversity runs deep, we may end up with fragmentation and violence. This may be exacerbated by social and political systems that are oppressive, exclusionary, and so on. Yet another challenge appears when we consider the nature of economic inequality and class division. When economic and political opportunities are vastly unequal, resentment builds, along with a sense of the common good. Members Johan Galtung, ‘An Editorial’, Journal of Peace Research 1:1 (1964), 2. Galtung, ‘An Editorial’.

55 56

194

Transformative Pacifism

of different classes may not even agree on how the common good is defined. For example, the wealthy will view free markets as beneficial to all, while the poor will disagree. Related issues involve conflicting views of access to political power and representation, gender and racial disputes, disagreement about environmental issues, and even disputes about the role of public education. But despite these disputes, a condition of social peace exists so long as citizens agree (voluntarily and for the right reasons) to conform to the status quo and to resolve conflicts through established institutional frameworks. Social peace breaks down when citizens (or individuals in the global case) believe that the status quo is destructive, oppressive, or inadequate. In such cases, social protest may occur, which challenges the status quo. While pacifists would recommend that social protest be non-violent, when social peace is lacking, violence looms as a possibility. When protesters employ violent means (from property crime to assassination and terrorism) it is clear that social peace has been disrupted. But violent protesters will often claim that the violence that they employ is a reflection of the status quo. The slogan ‘no justice, no peace’ or some variation thereof is often employed, meaning that when conditions of social justice are lacking, there is already a state of violence, which is reflected in the violence of such protests. Pacifists will object to the strategies of violent protests, maintaining that non-violent protest is a morally preferred method. But they need not object to the complaint that social peace is lacking under conditions of distributive injustice. The notion of social peace has not been sufficiently thematized in liberalism.57 The usual approach to distributive justice as found in liberal philosophers such as Rawls is not primarily interested in creating social peace, even though the notion of fairness does connect to the concept of social peace. When things are unfair (whether procedurally or substantively), resentment builds and violence looms. The notion of social peace does show up in important places worth noting. One example is found at the international level. The United Nations does take up the notion of social peace. In a document from 1992, the then secretary general of the United Nations, Boutros Boutros-Ghali, discussed social peace as fundamental for international peace.58 A focus on social peace can also be Nor is the notion of positive peace as important in the literature as is a focus on just war and discussion of negative peace. See Paul F. Diehl, ‘Exploring Peace: Looking Beyond War and Negative Peace’, International Studies Quarterly 60 (2016), 1–10. doi: 10.1093/isq/sqw005. 58 Boutros Boutros-Ghali, ‘An Agenda For Peace’ (United Nations, 1995) http://www.un-documents. net/a47-277.htm 57

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

195

found in the Roman Catholic tradition. When Augustine describes peace as ‘well-ordered concord’ in City of God, he connects this to an ideal of social life (including family life and other social relations). He explains, for example, ‘This is the order of this concord, that a man, in the first place, injure no one, and, in the second, do good to every one he can reach.’59 These two principles seem essential for a substantial notion of social peace: to avoid violence and to actively do good to others. Aquinas builds upon this to explain that peace is the result of justice and charity working together. He explains, ‘Peace is the “work of justice” indirectly, in so far as justice removes the obstacles to peace: but it is the work of charity directly, since charity, according to its very nature, causes peace.’60 Peace results from giving people their due and from love, generosity, and so on. The focal point in both Augustine and Aquinas is social peace. The idea of social peace is the goal of social justice efforts. Peace is the goal towards which justice and charity are directed. In a more recent discussion Pope Francis explained: The common good calls for social peace, the stability and security provided by a certain order which cannot be achieved without particular concern for distributive justice; whenever this is violated, violence always ensues.61

Francis suggests that when distributive justice is violated, there will be violence. He connects this to issues in ecology, intergenerational justice, and global distributions of harms and benefits, issues which are significant for confronting the problem of climate change. Social peace requires transformational critique that extends across social life. Social peace ought to be a central concern of political philosophy and in particular in our thinking about distributive justice. But saying this does not solve the intractable problems of distributive justice. For example, one substantial question is whether socialism or communal ownership of property is morally superior to private property and the capitalist free enterprise system. Marxists and capitalists will continue to disagree. But we might modestly suggest here that this is a disagreement about means and not necessarily about the end, which ought to be social peace. A libertarian such as Murray Rothbard will emphasize that social peace should be understood as a condition in which we are left alone Augustine, City of God (from: Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series, Vol. 2. Edited by Philip Schaff (Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1887). Revised and edited for New Advent at http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120119.htm), Book XIX, Chapter 14. 60 Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica (translated by Fathers of the English Dominican Province Online Edition, 2016 at http://www.newadvent.org/summa/3029.htm), II–II, 29.1 61 Pope Francis, Laudato Si’ (Vatican: 2015; available at http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/ encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html), para. 157. 59

196

Transformative Pacifism

to enjoy and utilize our property: ‘Social peace is all very well, but true peace is essentially the quiet, unmolested enjoyment of one’s legitimate property, and if a social system is founded upon monstrously unjust property titles, not molesting them is not peace but rather the enshrinement and entrenchment of permanent aggression.’62 On the other end of the political spectrum, Marxists maintain that peace requires violent revolution that radically redistributes property. And they criticize those who use the ideology of social peace as an apology for social violence and oppression. Lenin said, ‘In a cowardly manner they (the liberal opportunists) preach “social peace” (i.e. peace with slave-ownership), renunciation of the class struggle, etc.’63 Other less extreme approaches are also on the table here. Utilitarians will maintain that social peace can be fostered by redistributing wealth and other goods in order to maximize happiness, perhaps allowing for the violation of individual property rights in some cases. Liberals will offer something like Rawls’s two principles of justice as a recipe for social peace: those two principles attempt to balance and coordinate the importance of liberty and the need to mitigate unfair distributions and inequality (under what Rawls calls ‘the difference principle’). Behind all of these ideas is a common claim, which is that social peace is the goal: the dispute within the distributive justice literature is about the connection between the desire for social peace and principles of justice (with regard to property rights, for example.) and about the proper means for establishing social peace (whether by aggressive redistribution or some other method). Each theory will maintain that it has the best recipe. One advantage of the modern liberal theory (following Rawls) is that it allows for a kind of plurality that is grounded in a pragmatic attempt to accommodate diversity. I discuss a pragmatic version of liberalism in other work.64 Other authors have noted the pragmatic or practical argument in favour of liberalism as well. Craig Carr writes, for example that he bases his account of liberalism ‘upon the, perhaps naïve, intuition that social peace and tranquility are desirable as the precondition for anyone’s ability to live her or his life as she or he sees fit. Social peace is here to be considered a practical and not necessarily moral good.’65 This returns us a pacifist interpretation of the social contract. Without some basic interest in peace, the social contract is impossible and our pursuit of distributive justice will be fruitless. Murray Rothbard, The Ethics of Liberty (New York: New York University Press, 2002), 53. Vladimir Lenin, ‘What is Marxism?’ available at http://www.marxist.net/marx/w2frame. htm?WhatIsMarxism2.htm; accessed August 2017, no page numbers. 64 See Fiala, Tolerance and the Ethical Life. 65 Craig Carr, The Liberal Polity: An Inquiry into the Logic of Civil Association (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2006), 12. 62 63

Pacifist Social and Political Philosophy

197

Conclusion In this chapter we have seen that pacifism can be fruitfully applied to a variety of social and political topics and concerns: to civil society, to business ethics and leadership, to the social contract theory, to the concern for peace in international relations and cosmopolitanism, and to the topic of distributive justice. The pacifist concern for peace is woven into the fabric of contemporary political and social philosophy. The pacifist approach reprioritizes the values of peace and justice, focusing our attention on the importance of peace in social and political life, while reinterpreting the idea of distributive justice as a principle of social peace.

198

10

Thinking Beyond War

Pacifism is concerned with imagining alternatives to war. Critics of war should not merely be focused on saying no to war and violence. They should also be involved in imagining ways to lessen the severity of war and to make war less likely. Pacifism need not be an all-or-nothing proposition of the sort we call absolute pacifism. We should also aim to minimize violence. In order to transform the world and ourselves in this way, we will have to reconceive many long-standing notions about the way that social and political life is organized. We will also have to reconceive the way we think about war and the social and political system that gives rise to violence.

Epistemological considerations Mainstream discussions of the ethics of war, grounded in the just war tradition, often ignore non-violent alternatives to war. The just war tradition does stipulate that violence can only be employed as a last resort. Some have rejected that stipulation because it can cause more harm than benefit, especially when nonviolent alternatives (such as embargoes and sanctions) actually cause more harm than a quick and decisive military strike.1 Walzer has warned that too much emphasis on the idea of last resort would ‘make war morally impossible’ since, ‘we can never reach lastness or know that we have reached it. There is always something else to do.’2 But of course, this metaphysical and epistemological problem is not solved by simply begging the question and stating that war must be made morally possible.

Eamon Aloyo, ‘Just War Theory and the Last of Last Resort’, Ethics & International Affairs 29:2 (2015), 187–201. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0892679415000064. 2 Michael Walzer, Arguing About War (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007), 88. 1

200

Transformative Pacifism

Pacifists focus our attention on what we might call ‘the epistemology of the last resort’. In general, there are very difficult epistemological questions in thinking about war and attempting to apply just war categories. How do we know what is proportional? How do we know that warfare will be effective? How do we know what the intentions of political and military leadership are? And how do we know how to distinguish between combatants and non-combatants? Here I want to focus on the question of how we would know when we ought to give up on non-violent means and resort to military options. It is obvious that a form of sceptical pacifism can be derived from reflection on any of those questions.3 The last resort question is linked to the issue of escalation from non-violent means to more violent means. Pacifists will establish a fairly strong burden of proof for escalation. The question of burden of proof is one way to distinguish between forms of pacifism and between pacifism and the just war theory. For absolute pacifists, there is never a case in which resort to war could be justified. Just war theorists assume that the burden can be obviously met in some (or many) cases. Non-absolute pacifists will establish a fairly strict burden of proof. And indeed, we might say that what distinguishes pacifists from non-pacifists is how seriously one judges the importance of the question of the burden of proof. Pacifists will resist the claim that a last resort has been reached. They will offer non-violent alternatives, maintaining that these alternatives must be employed in creative and sustained fashion. And they will generally insist that we ought to work to transform our methods, our social structures, and our thinking so that it becomes rarer and rarer that we would ever need the last resort of violence. The just war tradition is not primarily focused on non-violent alternatives or less violent actions short of war. And the question of how we might know when we have reached the last resort is often left un-discussed.4 It is obvious that this effort will employ a consequentialist cost–benefit calculation. But a significant problem in applying the cost–benefit analysis is that defenders of war often downplay the true damage of war, ignoring the long-term psychological harms, environmental damage, and the larger social cost of militarism. Pacifism as a transformative critical theory takes in that larger purview. It is not simply focused on the question of whether this particular war is justifiable. Rather, it criticizes the general logic of any simplistic cost–benefit analysis, holding that I discuss this in more detail in Fiala, The Just War Myth (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), Chapter 10. 4 One discussion of epistemological issues in just war is found here: Randall Dipert, ‘Preventive War and the Epistemological Dimension of the Morality of War’, Journal of Military Ethics 5:1 (2006), 32–54. 3

Thinking Beyond War

201

the prima facie evil of war requires special justification and pointing out the long-term problem of violence and militarism. Pacifists are interested in alternatives to war. Pacifists will, however, have to be sensitive to the worry expressed above, which is that non-violent alternatives to war may result in more harm than quick and decisive military action. In thinking about this worry, pacifists ought to be responsive to the realities on the ground. Simply asserting that war is always wrong is insufficient. We must admit that sometimes non-action can also be harmful (although we should also be sensitive to the significant moral problem of the difference between acts and omissions).5 Pacifists must admit that some non-violent methods (embargoes) can harm the vulnerable.6 But in general, pacifists will be interested in proposals for alternatives to war, including non-violent or less violent means of promoting social change. And they will point out that resort to war comes along with obvious evils and long-term harms (such as the dangers of militarism), so that in general it is better to work towards a world without war.

Five alternatives to war In this section, I examine five alternatives to war: retreat and avoidance, nonviolent resistance, non-lethal weapons, targeted violence, and peace-keeping force. We could also discuss sanctions, embargoes, diplomatic pressure, divestment, and so on. The point is not to insist that there are only five ways of thinking about alternatives to war. Rather, there are many, many alternatives to war – including creating a just and equitable social and political system, firming up international law and peace-building institutions, and reforming global capitalism. I discuss these five here as a sample of ways of thinking about resorts other than war. These alternatives are listed in ascending order, from the least violent towards more violent. It would be preferable if there was no need for violence. But when violence looms, we ought to do our best to minimize it. It may seem odd that a book on pacifism takes some of these apparently violent alternatives seriously. See Holmes, Pacifism, Chapter 2. Nigel Biggar writes,  Since acts of pacifist omission can also have grave effects, pacifists, too, must deliberate as best they can about the evils of peace. The burden of proof – or rather, since proof of accurate prediction in advance of events is impossible, the burden of practical reason – presses down on their shoulders too. (Nigel Biggar, In Defence of War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 33) 5 6

202

Transformative Pacifism

But any serious proposal for transforming the world in a more violent direction will have to consider transitional steps such as these, even including the possibility of peace-keeping force and humanitarian intervention as an interim step towards building a more peaceful world.

A  Retreat and avoidance One of the most important alternatives to war is to simply avoid fighting. In ordinary discussions of the basic techniques of personal self-defence, the first recommendation is to run away. We also ought to call for help. It is only when we cannot escape that we may take up force and employ violence. In some cases, it also makes sense to accede to the demands of an attacker. It is better, for example, to give one’s wallet to a mugger than to risk one’s life or risk killing him. A basic consequentialist calculus helps to explain that conclusion. But let’s note – contrary to those who think that appeasement is both immoral and imprudent – that short-term acquiescence is not the end of the story. After acquiescing to an initial attack, it is possible to follow up and pursue justice in other ways. In the domestic case, we can call the cops for example. Defences of violence often focus on short-term reaction and immediate need. In some cases, there really may be kill-or-be-killed situations. But apart from those, the best advice is to avoid violence and pursue justice with a long-term strategy that seeks to build peace. The common understanding of the justification of violence employed in selfdefence includes the stipulation that we ought to avoid violence if possible and escape if we can. So-called stand-your-ground laws have attempted to change that idea in the legal realm. But the common law tradition in Anglo-American jurisprudence has long held that there was ‘a robust duty to retreat’, as Caroline Light has explained.7 She continues, explaining that it was traditionally held to be a duty ‘to retreat to the wall behind one’s back’ before using violence. This is the background presumption against violence in our moral and legal tradition from which justifications of violence employed in self-defence unfold. It is easy to see that this is a kind of last resort stipulation: there must really be no other way to avoid violence before violence can be employed. The wisdom of retreat and avoidance is obvious. Violence is unpredictable. One may win in a struggle, but one may also lose. There are no guarantees. Violence can also spread. Thus limited attempts to repel an enemy can provoke Caroline Light, Stand Your Ground: America’s Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense (Boston: Beacon Press, 2017), 11.

7

Thinking Beyond War

203

further violence or cause violence to spread to others. And even when successful, a violent response can be morally, legally, socially, and psychologically traumatic. You may achieve victory and kill your opponent. But there will be repercussions. Even if one kills justifiably in self-defence, there will still be a set of legal proceedings that can be costly. And even if one is ultimately justified in killing in self-defence, there can still be post-traumatic stress including feelings of guilt and recrimination, and so on. Now some may object that retreat and avoidance are cowardice. The militaristic and warrior traditions connect self-esteem and bravery to our willingness to stand and fight. But that ideology and conception of bravery is in question here. Courage may require us to fight when necessary. But the definition of necessity is also in question. Short of the back-to-the-wall situation, fighting is not necessary. Indeed, in some cases it takes more courage to back down from a fight. The difference between cowardly avoidance and wise, prudential, moral avoidance is not difficult to understand. Cowards flee because of fear, motivated by self-interest and emotions that cause them to cower and hide. But prudential avoidance is not based on fear. Nor should it be based upon a mere calculation of self-interest and clinging to life at any cost. Rather, virtuous retreat and avoidance ought to be based on insight into the complexity of violence and its moral justification. It should also be based on the idea that in the long run we all do better when there is less violence, and justice is pursued in ways that minimize violence and seek reconciliation. This does not mean that we should not push back against bullies or that we must appease the powerful. Rather, it means that we must be strategic about how we resist oppression and respond to violence. We should consider what we are really fighting for, if and when we choose to fight. And we must consider whether our backs are really up against the wall or whether we have really reached the last resort. It is morally dubious to resort to violence because of some ideological notion of honour or courage. When the resort to violence is properly justified, this justification must depend upon something more substantial than honour or an outmoded notion of chivalry.8 A war defence of honour is a fight over a trifle. See the discussion of honour and military ethics in Pauline M. Kaurin, The Warrior, Military Ethics, and Contemporary Warfare (New York: Routledge, 2016). The moral flaw of clinging to pride is the source of great tragedy and violence – as seen in examples from ancient literature such as Homer’s Iliad or Odyssey or in the plays of Sophocles. Michael Walzer has explained that while older notions of war emphasized honour, as in the ideals of chivalry, modern warfare and mass armies operate differently. ‘Some sense of military honor is still the creed of the professional soldier, the sociological if not the lineal descendent of the feudal knight. But notions of honor and chivalry seem to play only a small part in contemporary combat’ (Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 34).

8

204

Transformative Pacifism

The contemporary just war theory does not permit war because of insults or diplomatic slights. Nor do we permit duels fought in defence of personal honour. Rather, the substantial just cause for war in the just war tradition is to defend against aggression. But aggression must be substantial before violence can be justified. Again to appeal to the domestic case, it seems obvious that it is wrong to start a fight because of an insult. Indeed, provocateurs often fling insults in the hope of starting a fight. That is why training in non-violence includes learning to take seriously the old saw ‘Sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never harm me.’ Unnecessary escalation is wrong. This is wrong whether we move from insulting words to violence or whether we move from minor violations (say, the theft of a wallet) to major violence (say, in using deadly force to prevent a minor theft). This principle applies in the domestic case. It also holds in the case of law enforcement and criminal justice as well as in war. The principle of proportionality is appealed to as a guide for appropriate violence. It aims to avoid escalation. Thus the principle of the lex talionis (eye for eye, tooth for tooth, life for life) is meant to limit violence. Rather than demanding the death penalty in return for a minor injury, the lex talionis tells us that retaliation ought to be equivalent or somehow proportional. And even then, it is possible to obtain justice without violence. Thus if someone steals from me, I have several non-violent recourses. First, I can call the police and have the criminal arrested, allowing the court system to punish the criminal – noting that prison and fines provide non-violent alternatives to corporal and capital punishment. The contemporary criminal justice and punishment systems evolved in an effort to minimize and even avoid violence. Second, I can call my insurance company and have my losses covered; I can also declare losses and deduct them from my income tax. I can also simply choose to forgive the offender and forget my loss. We will return to this last strategy in the conclusion of this chapter, as part of the transformation that pacifism calls for: moving beyond honour, retaliation, and punishment, while moving towards a culture of forgiveness and peace. In the long run there are ways of following up in response to immediate threats. Such responses may not be as emotionally and psychologically satisfying as a quick and dramatic burst of violence. But the non-violent response is both prudent and moral – and our social system is set up to support these nonviolent alternatives. There is an open question as to whether similar non-violent responses are available in the international realm and with regard to substantial military threats. It is possible to avoid war and follow up with sanctions,

Thinking Beyond War

205

divestment, embargoes, and so on. At any rate, it remains important to imagine long-term non-violent strategies and not merely to leap at the opportunity to employ violence and go to war. The just war tradition gives us permission to fight in response to aggression. But it does not require us to fight. Furthermore, the just war tradition tells us that other consequentialist considerations matter, such as the hope for reasonable success. When strategic and prudential concerns are taken into account, it might turn out that a non-violent response to aggression is preferable. For example, it is possible to imagine simply acquiescing to some invading force, while preparing for a long campaign of non-violent resistance. The case of the Danes under Nazi occupation provides an example. The Danish military was unable to repel German aggression. But the Danes engaged in non-violent resistance under occupation. Obviously, this will not work in every case. But the point is that we ought to be creative and clever in responding to aggression. We might also reassess the importance of short-term versus long-term values and successes. In the short term, a military response can give us emotional satisfaction and fill us with pride and a sense of power. But violence often provokes a violent response and thus supposedly short-term military responses often result in long-term military quagmires, such as we saw in Vietnam or in the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, and the rest of the war on terrorism. Consider the US response to the 9/11 attacks. Soon after these attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan. Just war theory provides a justification for that war, as a response to aggression that originated from within Afghanistan. But the war in Afghanistan continues today more than fifteen years later, with ongoing casualties on all sides and no peaceful end in sight. In retrospect, it might have been better to avoid war as a response to 9/11. The pride and emotion evoked by the post-9/11 military response was substantial – it unified the country, and it also helped to solidify support behind George W. Bush’s administration. Americans wanted war, after 9/11 – Americans wanted to lash out, to demonstrate our power, and to make the bad guys suffer. But there were less violent ways to respond to terrorism. It would have been possible to dismantle the Al-Qaeda terror network and to arrest Osama bin Laden or isolate and disempower him without going to war in Afghanistan. It may have taken a long time to accomplish this. But the war has also been a long slog. And it is likely that if we had resisted the urge to go to war and had taken the nonviolent highroad there would have been less violence and destruction. We would also have demonstrated our moral commitment to the rule of law and the ideals

206

Transformative Pacifism

of non-violence. Going to war to fight against terrorism buys into the logic of terrorism, keeps us mired in a tit-for-tat cycle, and indeed can unfortunately bring support to the terrorist’s cause by making it appear that the violence used by those who fight against terrorism is unjustified. Furthermore, let’s consider contemporary discussions of humanitarian military intervention. The just war tradition and evolving standards of international law tell us that humanitarian military interventions can be justifiable, if they aim to prevent atrocity and respond to crimes that shock the moral conscience of humankind. But often there is a stark dichotomy posed in conversations about humanitarian intervention: between responding militarily and doing nothing. Often in such conversations, we forget about the most plausible third option, which is helping those who are being oppressed to escape. One way to avoid atrocities is to escape them. But offering free entry to refugees is usually not on the table in discussions of responses to atrocity. This was a problem for Jews in Nazi Germany, who were unable to find refuge – including Jews who were prevented from immigrating to the United States. It has been a problem for refugees fleeing other conflicts in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Most recently, it is a problem for refugees fleeing the war in Syria. But if we want to prevent atrocity, the most obvious solution is to give refuge to the would-be victims of atrocity. Pacifism asks us to reimagine and transform our fundamental values. The impulse of humanitarian military intervention is based in the idea that we can simply bomb our way towards a just and peaceful world. The myth here is that quick and decisive violence can provide a long-term solution to deeply dysfunctional social and political systems. But in reality humanitarian intervention often leads to protracted violence and further social and political dysfunction. Consider again the war in Afghanistan, which was also viewed as a humanitarian intervention (i.e. as a war against the Taliban, whose ideology was being used to oppress its own people, including women). The difficulty is that indigenous populations and local governments will resist these kinds of intervention. And so war escalates and continues. Now imagine if we would simply offer to take in any refugee who wanted to flee oppression. Oppression and atrocity would end quickly if cities and the countryside were evacuated. And oppressive governments would find themselves without anyone to oppress. Perhaps an oppressive government might refuse to allow its people to escape (as in the case of East Germany and other Eastern bloc countries). But that is usually not the case. And at any rate, we ought to focus on finding ways to offer

Thinking Beyond War

207

substantial help to would-be refugees, rather than on seeking to invade and occupy. Again, consider the cost–benefit analysis mentioned above: if military budgets were transformed into refugee resettlement budgets, we might be able to resolve many of the world’s conflicts and atrocities. In response, one might argue that escape and rescue operations simply appease oppressive governments. But this objection assumes that we do not also employ other non-violent techniques to disempower oppressors: sanctions, embargoes, and isolation. A dwindling domestic population (who flees as refugees), combined with sustained international pressure, may cause tyrants to rethink their strategies. At any rate, if the goal is to save people and minimize violence, then escape and rescue operations are obviously preferable to humanitarian interventions, which actually put the people you are trying to save at risk. These risks come both from oppressive governments, which can use captive people as human shields, and from intervening forces, who will be tempted to escalate and cause collateral damage. But strategic understanding of escape and avoidance forces us to transform our understanding of the world. Most importantly, those who want to help others avoid atrocity would have to be willing to disrupt their own lives. Rather than spending money on bombs in far-off interventions, we would have to spend money to build refugee camps and infrastructure to support refugees, perhaps even near at home. We would thus have to admit the possibility that our own nation will be transformed by the refugees we take in. And here we see how a number of other issues come into play. Nationalists and racists will often be unwilling to take in refugees. The nationalists and racists may not care about the suffering of distant others. But if they do, they will usually prefer to fight over there, rather than offering hospitality to those suffering others. Pacifist and nonviolent responses to foreign atrocity ask us to reconsider our nationalistic and racist ideologies: replacing militarism with hospitality and compassion. In order to avoid fighting, we may have to offer refuge and change our own way of living. Pacifism of this sort thus asks us to transform our understanding of ourselves, our national identity, and our global obligations.

B  Non-violent resistance The strategies of non-violent resistance have been widely discussed for a century or more. They are familiar from Thoreau’s act of conscientious refusal, from Gandhi’s salt march, from King’s civil rights campaign, from Chavez’s struggle

208

Transformative Pacifism

for farmworker rights, and from the activities of Eastern Europeans during the end of the Cold War. Non-violent resistance has also been employed in warzones and in military conflicts. The Danish example, noted above, is a well-known case. Successful recent cases include the non-violent activism in Czechoslovakia, Poland, and in other Eastern European nations, which led to the downfall of the Soviet system. The so-called Arab Spring of 2011 was a non-violent uprising. That case reminds us that non-violent resistance is no panacea. The non-violent protests of the Arab Spring led to further repression in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Bahrain; and it led to the civil war in Syria. There is no guarantee that non-violence will work. The same is true, of course, with regard to violence: there is no guarantee that war and violence will be effective. However, non-violent resistance is an important alternative to war. This is not passive: it remains a form of resistance. In concrete struggles, when it is no longer possible to avoid or escape, we ought to do something. Non-violent resistance is active. It is not mere non-resistance or passive acceptance. It can satisfy the need to do something and assert oneself. Thus one can experience pride and courage in non-violent protest, which satisfies the sense of honour discussed earlier. But non-violent resistance refuses to play the game of power and violence, which oppressive governments play. The non-violent resister asserts that there is a force more powerful than violence and political power. What Gandhi called ‘love force’ or ‘truth force’ looks beyond violence and war towards solidarity and truthful coexistence. Proponents of violence are often interested in short-term victories. But non-violent resistance is interested in long-term transformation based upon solidarity, compassion, truth-telling, reconciliation, and justice. And this is the transformative aspect of pacifism: in order to create a world of peace, our actions must be peaceful – or as peaceful as possible. If it is possible to engage in non-violent resistance, then this is what we ought to do. But again, we must notice how much this might demand of us. In the domestic case, it might be that we will have to go to jail. We will also have to organize, march, and protest – requiring substantial effort, discipline, organization, and education. We might have to engage in strikes and walk-outs, which mean lack of wages or getting fired. Terrorism and violence are easier. One can pick up a gun, build a bomb, or simply ram your vehicle into a crowd without doing much preparation or without considering how to create a sustainable social and political movement. At the international level, it is also in a sense easier to simply send in the bombers. Diplomacy and negotiation are painstaking and often fruitless. More active non-

Thinking Beyond War

209

violent interventions such as embargoes, sanctions, divestment campaigns, and the like also require substantial work and sacrifice. We may lose money and access to markets as a result. It may seem easier and more profitable to maintain the international status quo, while dropping a few bombs here and there and sending in the commandos. Non-violent resistance can cause suffering. Non-violent protesters can be beaten and arrested. Riots can erupt. And in the international arena sanctions and embargoes often hurt the weakest members of society: poor people, women, and children. There is much more to be said here. But let’s conclude by noting how much transformation would be required if we were to have a sustained effort at non-violent resistance at the international level. Let’s focus our attention for a moment on the global oil economy. Wars in the Middle East involve multiple causal threads: religious disputes, tribal disputes, resource wars, and so on. But in the background is the petroleum economy. The need for a cheap and sustained source of oil is part of the reason that the United States remains friendly with nations such as Saudi Arabia, which are illiberal and oppressive. We use the kingdom of Bahrain as a naval base, and so on. Thus when non-violent protests broke out in Saudi Arabia and Bahrain during the Arab Spring, we did little to help support those who were working for liberty. Indeed, American-made weapons were used to suppress protests in Bahrain and elsewhere. If non-violent resistance were to work as a global strategy, the United States may have to change our alliances, rethink how we operate militarily, and stop selling arms to repressive regimes. All of that is on the table for transformational pacifism. We ought to be critical of economic structures, social systems, political institutions, and international alliances that foster violence and cause oppression. Non-violent resistance challenges all of that. The Montgomery Bus Boycott challenged the Jim Crow status quo in Alabama. Cesar Chavez’s grape boycott and worker strikes challenged the status quo in the farm industry. These boycotts, embargoes, strikes, marches, and sit-ins ask everyone to sacrifice something in solidarity with the cause of justice and equality. We often talk about the importance of sacrifice at the time of war. And we celebrate the sacrifices and heroism of military veterans and their families. But a sustained and serious effort to produce social and political change through non-violent resistance should also be supported in this way, requiring us to reassess our values and commitments while transforming our economy, politics, and indeed our way of living.

210

Transformative Pacifism

C  Non-lethal weapons Somewhere beyond avoidance and non-violent resistance is the possibility of using non-lethal weaponry. We might view this as an exercise in science-fiction, since there is no perfect non-lethal weapon. But non-lethal weapons have often been preferred. The evolution of law enforcement and criminal justice has been in the direction of non-lethal alternatives to lethal violence. Better to capture a bad guy than to kill him. Better to imprison a murderer for life than to execute him. Better to use tear gas than billy clubs, and so on. Pacifists have been in the forefront of efforts to abolish the death penalty and to find ways to make policing less violent. Pacifists have also been involved in seeking to ban certain weapons: gas and chemical weapons, atomic weapons, cluster-bombs, depleted uranium weapons, and so on. Not only are pacifists opposed violence and war, they are also interested in minimizing violence and mitigating harm. A variety of non-lethal weapons have been imagined and used: from good old-fashioned clubs, batons, and nightsticks to stun guns, Tasers, beanbag guns, and rubber bullets. The police can use tear gas to disperse a crowd. Some military and police forces have used sticky foam and sleeping agents. Even ordinary citizens may carry mace or pepper spray – as a weapon that can be used to fend off an attacker. If some kind of physical force is needed, including a weapon that can enhance that physical force, it would be better to cause short-term pain or debilitation rather than to kill or permanently maim someone. Better, then, to use pepper spray than a club to the head; and better to use rubber bullets that cause pain without killing than to use metal bullets that can kill. This idea fits within the general aim of minimizing violence. Pacifists should be sympathetic to the idea. It would be best to avoid violence and allow for escape. It would be better to employ the strategies of non-violent resistance when possible. But in a concrete emergency when force is needed, non-lethal weapons may be justifiable. Pacifists will not be sanguine about these weapons. Non-lethal weapons can cause significant harm – and despite the label, they can kill. Rubber bullets and tear gas can blind people or cause traumatic brain injury (especially when the tear gas canisters launched as projectiles hit people). Tasers can kill by causing heart attacks. And cops with batons can kill or disable people. It would still be better not to employ such weapons – and to constrain and minimize their use. A related worry is that when we think that non-lethal weapons are less harmful, we might be more willing to use them, thus escalating violence.

Thinking Beyond War

211

At the level of international warfare, it is not clear how non-lethal weapons could be employed in battle – especially against a committed enemy who is armed with traditional lethal weapons. A Taser is no match for a tank. Nonetheless, pacifists ought to encourage and support research into non-lethal warfare, while also remaining sceptical of escalation and potential side effects. Cyberwarfare is one area worth considering. If it were possible to undermine an enemy by using a computer virus, such an attack is preferable to a bombing campaign. As with other non-violent alternatives to war, there is the possibility that cyber-attacks can harm the most vulnerable: if the power-grid is taken down by a computer attack, the sick and the poor may suffer most. So we ought to be careful and strategic in our use of such weapons. But if computer warfare minimizes violence, it should be considered. A focus on non-lethal weapons transforms our thinking about war and violence. Instead of aiming to destroy an enemy, we ought to focus on finding ways to achieve supremacy without causing unnecessary harm. A research programme in non-lethal weapons, sustained with adequate funding would be a step in the right direction. But more than that, the idea that we would be able to disable and capture the enemy means that we would then have to think about what do with these captives. In the case of international war, we would need more prisons and camps to manage those enemies who were captured. In the domestic case, as has already happened to some extent, police would have to be trained in the proper use of non-lethal weapons – but then we also need to consider the problem of incarceration and the growth of the carceral state. Transformative pacifists will thus also direct our attention to the challenge of reforming the prison system, rehabilitating criminals, and restoring broken communities. Non-lethal policing is already standard operating procedure to some extent. Consider, as a final example, the use of cameras to record police actions. Our culture does not think that police should be able to use lethal force with impunity. And although cops are often acquitted when put on trial for killing, in the United States we take seriously the idea that the police should use minimal force, and should employ non-lethal weapons whenever possible. When a cop kills, we want to know the details – and we want the police to be held responsible. Behind this is the basic idea that we want to minimize violence. In other places and at other times, this was not the case. Consider, for example, how police forces operate in totalitarian regimes, when they can kill or disappear people with impunity. Liberal democratic societies have substantial restrictions on

212

Transformative Pacifism

police power, intended to minimize violence. In the United States, for example, much of the Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments of the US Constitution) is concerned with limiting the power of the police, including the 8th Amendment’s prohibition against ‘cruel and unusual punishments’. In the contemporary case, we need more funding and support for non-lethal policing, which would include adequate training for the police that would focus on non-violent alternatives and non-lethal weapons. This is a project that pacifists ought to support.

D  Targeted violence The next step in terms of escalating violence is to employ targeted violence instead of all-out war. What I have in mind here is drone attacks, precisionguided missiles, and use of special forces. Pacifists ought to admit that the use of limited and targeted violence is better than a full war involving invasion and occupation. Targeted weaponry may allow us to engage in humanitarian interventions and to pursue suspected militants in ways that minimize harm and avoid escalation. Much more could be said here about how drone technology works, whether precision-guided missiles are really as accurate as they could be, and so on. We should recognize that there has been collateral damage caused by these weapons. And we must acknowledge one very odd feature of targeted weaponry: they take the battle beyond the battlefield, as traditionally construed. Drones kill people deep within enemy territory, attacking targets at home, while the drone pilot is far from the battle space. Thus, while drones can minimize violence, they also ironically spread it. A similar problem holds with regard to teams of special forces. Special forces and commando attacks do keep violence tightly targeted. But the use of such forces changes the way we understand sovereignty – and runs counter to traditional notions of honourable warfare that prohibit the use of spies and assassins. As a case study, we might consider that the team that killed Osama bin Laden found him in Pakistan, while he was at home with his family. One significant danger of these weapons is that they create a world where the idea of the battlefield no longer makes sense. And thus there is a risk of escalation. If the bad guys get drones and missiles, will they be able to use them to carry out assassinations against political leadership here at home? A similar worry occurs with regard to teams of assassins and commandos. What would we think if the bad guys poisoned or assaulted our leaders while at home? In general, we ought

Thinking Beyond War

213

to note that each new weapons system is a double-edged sword: these weapons can be turned against us. So let’s not be sanguine about targeted weapons. They are not a solution to the problem of war. It would be better if we did not need them or use them. If they are employed, they should be employed within a very strict interpretation of the just war theory: they should be discriminate, proportional, and used as a last resort. Indeed, given what we’ve said above, we would only want to resort to targeted weapons in rare cases. Better to avoid violence and employ non-violent techniques than to unleash such weapons and risk escalation and collateral damage. But let’s consider one of the interesting moral and political features of these weapons, which are connected to the question of the battlefield discussed above. These weapons are forcing us to revise our ideas about state sovereignty. Such a revision has already occurred within conversations that consider the importance of humanitarian intervention and what the United Nations has called ‘the responsibility to protect’. If we are obligated or at least permitted to violate the sovereignty of other nations in pursuit of targets, then the traditional Westphalian notion of sovereignty has been significantly revised. This revision should be welcomed by pacifists, since it points in a cosmopolitan direction. Targeted weapons force us to recognize that traditional sovereignty is slowly giving way to the cosmopolitan ideas of the international human rights regime. What matters now is defending human rights and pursuing justice – and bad actors cannot hide behind the borders of sovereign states. Admittedly, there is still much yet to be resolved in this regard. But the point that pacifists should emphasize here is that proponents of targeted weapons who defend their use by appealing to ideas of justice in war and related ideas about defending human rights are already beginning to imagine a transformation of the world in a direction that could make war less likely. The Westphalian idea of sovereignty evolved as an attempt to limit war: the peace of Westphalia aimed to end religious wars within Christendom. But the major wars of past centuries were based upon the Westphalian notion of the nation-state, with border-crossing as a sign of aggression that warranted a military response. We appear to be in the midst of a new transformation – moving away from the old idea of the nation-state and heading towards a cosmopolitan future. In that future, military force and targeted weapons may come to be viewed more as a matter of peace-keeping and policing than as a matter of national sovereignty and struggles for international power. Indeed, the emergence of

214

Transformative Pacifism

the idea of international peace-keeping forces is a move in the right direction. Pacifists should welcome this development. Admittedly, it would be better if we needed fewer peace-keeping armies and if we were more discriminate in our use of targeted weaponry. Pacifists should push in that direction and attempt to transform the world in the direction of cosmopolitanism.

E  Peace-keeping force It is possible to imagine that in some circumstances armed forces will be needed to keep the peace and defend the innocent. Defenders of the just war tradition will often maintain that the need for peace-keeping force is a trump intended to defeat pacifism. But I suggest that in fact the argument points in the opposite direction. The very fact that these forces are called peace-keepers (as they should be) indicates that the use of force in these circumstances should be understood in a transformed way that is inspired by the spirit of pacifism. One essential feature of peace-keeping force is that it is governed by cosmopolitan norms. The most obvious alternative to war is to build a cosmopolitan culture of peace and to establish concrete methods of non-violent conflict resolution in the international arena. Conflict resolution strategies are in place in emerging international institutions such as the United Nations. And we are witnessing a shift from an older model, in which war was used to destroy, expand, and colonize, to a newer understanding of military power being used in peace-keeping efforts. The terminology is important: peace-keeping missions are not best understood as just wars as described in the old just war tradition. Rather, international peace-keeping troops are better understood as a cosmopolitan alternative to traditional war. Traditional just wars were fought by sovereign nations in defence against aggression. International peacekeeping forces are put in place by international coalitions, aimed at defending human rights and the emerging international order. The idea of a responsibility to protect, for example (and the related concept of humanitarian intervention), is not about state sovereignty. In such cases, there ought to be more focus on principles of what the just war tradition calls jus in bello. Peace-keeping forces should adhere to very strict policies limiting the use of force. If the intention is to protect and defend the rights of civilians, then killing civilians in pursuit of that goal is wrong. Even within this general idea of peace-keeping force, three significant problems remain. First, there is the risk that peace-keeping forces can actually

Thinking Beyond War

215

make things worse. Second, there is the worry that peace-keeping force can be manipulated in ways that are ideological and pernicious. And third, there is a worry that there is something wrong with the core of the emerging international order such that it seems to create the need for humanitarian intervention. The first worry is that interventions do not always make things better.9 In some cases, doing nothing is better than adding fuel to the fire by bringing in peace-keepers who are not up to the task. Prior to intervening, creative nonviolence must be explored. One suggestion is a so-called ‘golden parachute’ for oppressive dictators: allowing them to leave by offering them protection, immunity, and even monetary incentives for stepping down. This alternative is often inconceivable within the traditional just war concept because the focus on justice in that tradition seems to require that dictators be brought to justice. A pacifist theory, which holds that creating peace is the primary good, would not be averse to golden parachutes for dictators if they worked to de-escalate conflict and restore peace. The second concern – that humanitarian intervention is used in ideological fashion – is frequently articulated among those who criticize neo-liberalism or neo-Imperialist foreign policy.10 The basic worry from this critical vantage point is that military interventions are proposed for putative humanitarian reasons, when in fact there are other interests being served. The US-led invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq provide obvious examples. In both cases, humanitarian causes were articulated: defending the rights of women, protecting minority populations, toppling dictators – along with the need to respond to terrorist threats. But in both cases, there was significant concern that war was being undertaken based upon lies and manipulated evidence. Other geo-political and strategic goals were being pursued, including the possibility of war for oil. While I doubt that the logic of these wars was based entirely on such a crassly materialistic basis, a more plausible worry is that the United States was seeking to shore up its military empire by establishing a presence in the Middle East and This has been explained, for example, by Alan Kuperman, who outlines ‘the moral hazard’ or humanitarian intervention (Alan Kuperman, ‘The Moral Hazard of Humanitarian Intervention: Lessons from the Balkans’, International Studies Quarterly 52 (2008), 49–80). Kuperman outlines problems that arise in attempting to intervene when there is insufficient force, insufficient international support for intervention, and so on. 10 I have contributed to that critique in a critical discussion of what was called ‘the Bush doctrine’ in the aftermath of 9/11. See Fiala, ‘The Crusade for Freedom: A Just War Critique of The Bush Doctrine’, The Journal of Political Theology 9:1 (January 2008); ‘The Bush Doctrine, Democratization, and Humanitarian Intervention: A Just War Critique’, Theoria: A Journal of Social and Political Theory 114 (December 2007), 28–47; and ‘Crusades, Just Wars, and The Bush Doctrine’, Peace Review 19:2 (Summer 2007), 165–72 – also Fiala, The Just War Myth (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 208) and Fiala, Public War, Private Conscience. 9

216

Transformative Pacifism

Asia in countries that border Iran, Pakistan, Syria, and so on. In conclusion to this brief discussion, we should also note that from a humanitarian perspective these wars were failures. They have produced misery and dislocation and ongoing instability. But from the perspective of building a global US military empire, the ongoing sagas in Afghanistan and Iraq make good sense – since US troops continue to be deployed in the region. This brings us to the third problem, which is that the very need for humanitarian intervention results from a failure to create peace in the first place, which is connected to a general criticism of the current international order.11 Humanitarian interventions are often counter-productive to the goal of peacebuilding because these interventions cause more death, exacerbate conflict, create further instability, and continue to foster an us-versus-them mindset in which the victims of an unjust global system continue to suffer. One sad example is the way in which peace-keeping forces end up exploiting women and children through rape and prostitution. A more substantial and systematic problem is the global system that makes alliances with corrupt regimes, props up strong-men, exploits natural resources in the interest of global capital, and so on.12 International institutions and the globalized economy serve to destabilize parts of the world. We often ignore human rights abuses when this is convenient for the interests of the global order. And then when the structural violence of the international order comes to a head in a crisis, we seek military solutions. Those military solutions often serve to further empower the military powers that intervene and to support the global structure-based military dominance. A critical pacifist perspective demands that we transform the structural violence of the global order in a way that prevents human rights abuses in advance. This likely means that we would have to radically shift our thinking about global justice, globalized capitalism, and so on. This argument has been made, for example, by Anne Orford, who argues that calls for humanitarian intervention are part of a flawed international order. She writes, ‘The legal intervention narratives served to preserve an unjust and exploitative status quo’ (Anne Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention: Human Rights and the Use of Force in International Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 11). 12 Orford writes,  The resort to ad hoc interventionist responses to human rights crises by major powers allowed them to avoid funding, supporting and strengthening the existing multilateral mechanisms for promoting and protecting human rights. The use of force as a response to security and humanitarian crises continues to mean that insufficient attention was paid to the extent to which the policies of international institutions themselves contribute to creating the conditions that lead to such crises. (Orford, Reading Humanitarian Intervention, 13). Orford’s book was published in 2003, before the ongoing disasters in Afghanistan and Iraq. Her argument is built on consideration of cases such as East Timor and Somalia. In the past two decades, there is even more reason to be sympathetic with her account. 11

Thinking Beyond War

217

The pacifist problem with militarism and the military-industrial complex One crucial part of this radical reconfiguration of values is a deep and probing critique of the global military-industrial complex. I have argued so far that pacifists ought to work towards transforming our understanding of how we avoid violence and minimize it. One way to avoid violence is to deconstruct the global order based upon structural violence and the threat of overt military intervention. We should also critique the very heart of militaristic ideology, including its masculinist notion of a world order based upon power and strength.13 Our masculinist and militarist image of ourselves as the global peacekeeper serves to support ongoing military expenditures and military culture.14 We continue to find ways to spend money on militarism, while refusing to channel those expenditures in more productive and peaceful ways. The militaristic ideology in general is a problem that is only seen from the pacifist vantage point. It is not considered from the standpoint of just war theory. Pacifism is concerned with finding ways to transform our discourses about war, violence, and military power – as well as our economic and political systems. There are still significant points of resistance to this transformation. Militaristic ideologies and the military-industrial complex are not amenable to this transformational project. Militarism is a cultural, social, political, and economic system that is grounded on military power, warrior virtues, and a political economy which includes defence industries. Defenders of warrior virtues and the culture of militarism see the ideas of avoidance, retreat, and escape as weak, cowardly, and vicious. They find it impossible to imagine golden parachutes as discussed above or to imagine ways to take in refugees and restructure the global order so as to help those victims of war. Those who benefit from economic militarism will not be interested in shrinking the defence budget or developing non-violent alternatives to war. There is too much money to be made in innovating new deadly weapons and in supplying the world Orford’s work, discussed above, includes that sort of critique, as does recent work by Cynthia Enloe. Enloe notes that in the post-Cold War world, the populations of democratic nations such as Australia and the United States have ironically grown fonder of militarism, marketed as humanitarian intervention. See Cynthia Enloe, Globalization and Militarism: Feminists Make the Link, 2nd edition (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016); also see Cynthia Enloe, The Morning After: Sexual Politics at the End of the Cold War (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993). 14 This sort of argument was also made by Iain Atack in 2002 – prior to the US invasion of Iraq. Atack expresses the concern that ‘humanitarian intervention is merely a new justification for the militarism that pervades our societies and our political structures’ (Iain Atack, ‘Ethical Objections to Humanitarian Intervention’, Security Dialogue 33:3 (2002), 279–92). 13

218

Transformative Pacifism

with an ever-increasing supply of firepower. And indeed, the cultural and political ideology of dominant countries is tied up with militaristic myths and propaganda. I have discussed this extensively in other work as part of the just war myth. But note here, as one example, the automatic tendency with which we celebrate military power, the service of soldiers, and the emblems, symbols, and insignia of military power. I have also discussed elsewhere details of the economic interests of the militarists.15 Note here, for example, the revolving door in the United States between the military, defence contractors, and government service. We should also note the deference given to military power and war in our educational system: in history curricula, in patriotic displays, and so on. Given the myths, propaganda, inertia, and vested interests discussed here, it is no wonder that we do not consider alternatives to war. This means that if pacifists are going to transform the world in a more peaceful direction, there is much work to be done. Transformative pacifists will be critical of defence budgets. They will be critical of the way people celebrate militarism. They will criticize educational practices based upon the unquestioned assumption that military power is a rational and moral solution to social problem. And they may be willing to offer non-violent resistance to the forces of militarism. Thus pacifists may refuse to serve in the military or to register for the Selective Service. Other pacifists may refuse to pay their taxes – or pay only what they claim they owe to non-military spending. Pacifists will speak out against militaristic educational curricula and they may stage protests at military sites. All of that is intended to transform the world away from militarism. This may seem to be a fruitless endeavour. In the United States, pacifist protests are few and far between. Consider, for example, the Plowshares movement inspired by the work of Christian pacifists such as Daniel and Phillip Berrigan. These activists have trespassed at military facilities and hit missiles with hammers. They have spilled blood on military assets. And they have stood in protest outside of military bases. These protesters – including a number of priests and nuns – have been arrested. They serve jail time proudly, as a protest against the militaristic status quo. This may seem like an inspirational case of pacifist in action. But again, the worry is that this is like spitting in the ocean. Such protests do little to change the militaristic status quo. But that is why transformational pacifists must consider multifaceted strategies of transformation. Direct action of this sort may be used to make a splash and inspire reflection. But more concrete action must take the form of education and Fiala, ‘Just War Ethics and the Slippery Slope of Militarism’, Fall 2012.

15

Thinking Beyond War

219

voting. Again, there is no guarantee that peace education and electoral politics oriented towards peace will change things in the short run. But transformational pacifists recognize the need for short-term action oriented towards long-term transformation. The military-industrial complex is vast and powerful. It will take a sustained effort to change it. And yet, for the most part those of us who benefit from life within militarized states live our lives free from overt military power. It may be that militarism actually works to keep the peace. But there are significant risks, including the fact that our military infrastructure includes massive numbers of nuclear weapons, which continue to pose the risk of global nuclear war. There have certainly been terrible outbursts of massive violence. Historian Eric Hobsbawm estimates that during the twentieth century 187 million people were killed by war, which is the same as 10 per cent of the global population in 2013.16 But others note that war has recently been declining in severity. Steven Pinker’s book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, provides substantial data to make this point. And after the publication of the book in 2011, Pinker has continued to spread the good news of the decline in violence. In 2014, he teamed up with Andrew Mack for an article entitled ‘Why the World is Not Falling Apart’, where he continues to cite the data about improvements with regard to violence.17 In 2016, he argued with Joshua Goldstein that ‘for nearly two-thirds of a century, from 1945 to 2011, war had been in overall decline. The global death rate had fallen from 22 per 100,000 people to 0.3.’18 The war in Syria changes the statistics somewhat. But so far, the general trend towards declining violence seems to be continuing. Pinker’s work is worth serious consideration in light of the problem of militarism and the military-industrial complex. What’s worth noting is the fact that we often feel as though violence and war are getting worse. Terrorist attacks clog the headlines, along with images of war. But despite the ongoing challenge of terrorism, the reality is that we are generally quite safe (despite the fact that a terrorist with a nuclear weapon or a nuclear exchange with North Korea could change this dynamic). So what gives here? I submit that our militaristic Eric Hobsbawm, ‘War and Peace in the 20th Century’, London Review of Books 24:4 (21 February 2002), 16–8. 17 Steven Pinker an Andrew Mack, ‘Why the World is not Falling Apart’, Slate 22 December 2014 http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2014/12/the_world_is_not_falling_ apart_the_trend_lines_reveal_an_increasingly_peaceful.html 18 Steven Pinker and Joshua S. Goldstein, ‘The Decline of War and Violence’, Boston Globe, 15 April 2016 (http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/04/15/the-decline-war-and-violence/ lxhtEplvppt0Bz9kPphzkL/story.html?goal=0_aa18ea5b4e-285a81d257-; accessed 3 June 2017). 16

220

Transformative Pacifism

mindset causes us to fear being attacked. It also provides a way for politicians to manipulate our fears. Our culture encourages us to see conflict, to prepare for conflict, and to imagine that the good guys will always emerge victorious in such conflicts. This is a mindset that pacifists must work to criticize. The world is not best described as a fearful place in which bad guys are waiting to harm us. For the most part, we get along fairly well in our daily lives. There are occasional anomalous outbursts of violence – domestic violence, homicide, gang-related violence, schoolroom shootings, attacks by religious terrorists, and so on. But these are rare. We ought to take common sense precautions to avoid and limit the severity of such attacks. But we ought not live our lives and organize our societies as if violence were ubiquitous. In order to understand the complexity of the task of transforming our way of thinking about militarism, it is necessary to understand the extent of the military-industrial complex. One measure of this is military expenditure. In the United States this amounts to well over $700 billion per year (if we include veterans benefits), which is about 20 per cent of all governmental spending and about 3 per cent of GDP.19 Defence spending in the United States has dropped, by the way, as a percentage of GDP since the 1980s, when it was over 5 per cent of GDP. Globally, defence spending amounts to about $1.7 trillion. Compare that with the global GDP, which is estimated at $75 trillion – this means that 2 per cent of global expenditures go to the military. Perhaps this is good news: only 2 per cent of our wealth goes to the military. But on the other hand, we ought to be working to find ways to transform the world so that this amount of spending is not necessary. A significant difficulty is, however, the fact that military spending is a domestic pork barrel. That spending goes to defence firms, lobbyists, and indirectly supports the power of politicians. It serves their interests to keep us fearful of war and terrorism, when in fact it is in all of our interests to transform our priorities and invest the money we spend on militarism in education, poverty, relief, refugee resettlement, and other peace-building projects. Finally, let’s note that the pacifist critique of militarism connects broadly to a critique of power and violence in all of culture. One obvious connection is with the emerging critique of the carceral state and systems of punishment. Militarism has a doppelganger in our criminal justice system. The prison-industrial complex is similar to the military-industrial complex insofar as the profit motive Data from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (https://www.sipri.org/databases/ milex; accessed June 2017).

19

Thinking Beyond War

221

and political lobbying is a major part of the story. There is a connection between the fact that the United States is the largest military power on earth and also the largest jailer. We also have a problem in the United States in terms of militarized policing and killings by police. I have discussed details in another work.20 But here is the point of making this connection: pacifist critique can provide a broad and comprehensive point of view that sees the connections between militarism and police brutality, between the military-industrial complex and the prisonindustrial complex. The general problem is that our culture and our social and political systems are based upon the idea that might makes right and that military and police power are easily justified.

On a moral equivalent of war Let’s conclude this chapter by considering the cultural, philosophical, and ideological work that must be done in order to transform our thinking and lead us beyond war. What is needed is a new way of imagining the world that prioritizes peace, that is hospitable and welcoming of refugees, and that does not view military power as heroic and noble (but at best as a grudging and tragic necessity). We need a productive sublimation of our aggressive tendencies and a radical deconstruction of those cultural and political forces that celebrate. One important aspect of the effort to move beyond war focuses on psychological and cultural forces. One hundred years ago William James and Jane Addams each recognized the need for a ‘moral equivalent of war’. Addams identified militarism as a problem – especially for nations that claim to be democratic. She said that peace and pacifism are not merely objection to war but a larger and more comprehensive ideal.21 This goal is to change the moral universe so that war becomes impossible. One step in this process is to find a way to offer a radical pacifist critique of the ideology of war such as those offered by Addams and James. James explained that a significant remaining problem was that many people view war ‘religiously’ – as Fiala, Against Religions, States, and Wars (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2013), Chapter 11. In a speech from 1899 Addams said,  Peace has come to mean a larger thing. It is no longer merely the absence of war, but the unfolding of life processes which are making for a common development. Peace is not merely something to hold congresses about and to discuss as an abstract dogma. It has come to be a rising tide of moral feeling, which is slowly engulfing all pride of conquest and making war impossible. (Jane Addams, ‘Democracy or Militarism’ in Jane Addams’s Essays and Speeches on Peace (London: Continuum, 2005), p. 1) 20 21

222

Transformative Pacifism

a sacred and noble good. James claims, in opposition to this, that ‘war may be a transitory phenomenon in social evolution’.22 His solution was to organize society in pacific ways that channel militaristic impulses in socially productive ways.23 We benefit from structure, order, commitment (what Royce called ‘loyalty’) and from sacrifice and service. But James argued that these virtues need not be militarized. Indeed, they can be pacified and converted into beneficial activities. The instinct towards aggression is not going to be eliminated without a radical transformation of the human spirit. But we can find morally acceptable ways to channel aggression. Freudians speak of sublimation: we transform primitive energies in ways that transforms them into something morally palatable. James suggested that one way to do this was to engage young men – and indeed this seems to be a gendered problem – in physically demanding projects including efforts to ‘fight’ against nature. Team sports and other physical struggles can also provide an avenue into which we might channel aggression. We might construct activities that provide a moral equivalent of war. James mentions coal-mining, building skyscrapers, and working freight trains. We could also include peace-building work, community service projects, and a variety of other productive activities. Pacifists ought to be interested in these projects as part of the general effort to think beyond war. Again, pacifists should not only be interested in saying ‘no’ to war and violence, they should also imagine things that they are willing to say ‘yes’ to. In imagining moral alternatives to war, the pacifist is not giving in to aggression or violent tendencies.24 Transformative pacifism is not merely a negative judgement about war (or imperial power or militarism). Transformative pacifism also needs to offer a positive agenda that includes moral alternatives to war, violence, and militarism. William James, ‘The Moral Equivalent of War’, in James, Essays and Lectures (New York: Routledge, 2016), 280. 23 James writes,  All these beliefs of mine put me firmly into the anti-military party. But I do not believe that peace either ought to be or will be permanent on this globe, unless the states, pacifically organized, preserve some of the old elements of army-discipline. (James, ‘The Moral Equivalent of War’, 282) 22

Some pacifists, for example, are critical of American football, viewing it as militaristic. There is indeed a kind of militarism in football. It is based upon hitting, sacking, and physically dominating your opponent. It is hierarchical and requires disciplined role-playing that is similar to military structure. It is male-dominant. It involves capturing territory. And so on. But football is better than real war. If men (and yes, this is a gendered issue) can find a way to channel their aggression in war (or other sports), this is much better than if they end up behaving violently on the streets. The story here is complicated. We should also note that in the United States football is closely tied up with American militarism: patriotic displays are common; the military advertises widely during football games; and so on. But rather than rejecting football outright, pacifists ought to be interested in transforming it in a less militaristic direction; and again, pacifists should understand the importance of football as a moral alternative to war.

24

Thinking Beyond War

223

Conclusion In this chapter we have discussed the epistemological problem of justifying violence and war. We have considered several alternatives to violence. And we have discussed the project of imagining a moral alternative to war. Let’s conclude with a brief discussion of what a pacific culture would look like, what a world would look like if we were able to work our way beyond war. A pacific culture would re-organize our basic values. Instead of focusing on honour, retaliation, and justice, we would focus on pacific values. Instead of fighting and insisting on strict retribution, we might be more forgiving of wrong-doing. The just war tradition and the criminal justice system are often focused on the question of retaliatory or retributive justice. Pacifist theory is different. It is doubtful that pacifism would entirely give up on the idea of human rights or the set of entitlements and justifications that are derived from such ideas. But pacifism stipulates that peace is a greater good – or at least a co-equal good. Thus forgiveness is not wrong and it may in fact be preferred on a pacifist way of thinking – along with other approaches such as restorative justice, relational justice, and so on. Much more would need to be said about the details here and how an ethic of forgiveness would work and about how it relates to the varieties of pacifism.25 But the main point is that pacifism asks us to reconceive many of the ways we understand and organize the world. It asks us to imagine non-violent alternatives to war. It asks us to reconceive our system of punishment. It asks us to transform our social, political, and economic priorities. And it asks us to reimagine the cosmopolitan global order, including the structures of global capitalism.

I discuss forgiveness in Fiala ‘Radical Forgiveness and Human Justice’ and ‘Justice, Forgiveness, and Care: A Pragmatic Balance’, Ethical Perspectives 17:3 (December 2010), 508–602.

25

224

11

Eco-pacifism

Pacifism ought to be understood as a transformative world view and practice that opens onto a new way of conceiving the self and the world. We have discussed this throughout, especially in connection with the idea of developing a peaceful self (Chapter 6). Here we’ll take insights developed earlier and apply them to relations to the non-human world. The effort in this chapter is to draw connections between pacifism, environmental ethics, and concern for animal welfare. Peace should structure our relations with the non-human world. This means that pacifists should take seriously critiques of anthropocentrism and that non-violence should apply in our diets, in our treatment of animals, and in our understanding of our place in relation to the earth.

The ecological critique of war For anti-war pacifists, this chapter may seem like a stretch. Anti-war pacifism is focused primarily on an important anthropocentric concern, which is that war harms human beings. But the environmental costs of war give us another reason to be opposed to war. War takes a substantial toll on non-human life and the environment. The immorality of war can be grounded in an extension of the conceptual framework of the Western just war tradition. This critique would be grounded in a shallow or anthropocentric point of view that develops out of a concern for purely human interests. It remains an open question as to whether the concerns of the just war tradition can be developed in a non-anthropocentric direction. Given this apparent limitation, a version of pacifism is preferable since pacifism can easily be extended towards a critique of anthropocentrism. War takes a toll on animals and the environment. I have discussed this elsewhere, using the language of the just war tradition to argue for the need

226

Transformative Pacifism

to consider non-human collateral damage.1 Other authors have offered similar insights. Mark Woods provides an overview of discussions of this issue in the just war literature.2 Woods notes that the just war tradition typically permits substantial environmental destruction. He suggests that what he calls ‘ecological pacifism’ will likely ‘move beyond the just war tradition’. Said differently, a kind of just war pacifism develops when one realizes that the just war tradition seems to permit massive environmental and animal harm. A pacifist interpretation of the just war ideal would hold that wars that cause such animal and environmental harms are not justifiable. Despite these efforts to reinterpret and extend the just war tradition, this framework remains typically anthropocentric. Critics of anthropocentrism will thus likely also be critics of war and attempts to justify it. And pacifist critics of war ought to take seriously the critique of anthropocentrism. A genealogy of the just war theory provides us with a clue for understanding the problem of anthropocentrism. The just war theory develops within the Western tradition of religion and philosophy, which is thoroughly anthropocentric. The just war idea is focused on human concerns. Just causes for war are anthropological issues, having to do with state sovereignty and the crossing of borders, which are drawn by humans for human purposes. Non-anthropocentrists will criticize the ontological status of such things. National borders, for example, are not natural things. Animals and ecosystems flow across borders – as does the weather and the water supply. From a biocentric standpoint, the human focus on national borders and state sovereignty is superficial, artificial, and often environmentally destructive. Or consider the traditional just war concern for non-combatant immunity. This idea is only focused on human beings. Admittedly, it is important to protect human non-combatants from harm. But non-anthropocentrists will argue that this does not go deep enough. Even an anthropocentric or shallow approach to ecology can offer a strong critique of the way that war impinges upon the non-human world. A classic example comes from Grotius, one of the founding thinkers of the just war tradition and international law. In one chapter of his book On the Rites of War and Peace, Grotius considers arguments against ‘wasting’ (destroying trees, animals, sacred places, and cemeteries). He cites a number of ancient sources with approval, including Porphyry, the great vegetarian of the ancient world, Andrew Fiala, ‘Nonhuman Collateral Damage and Just War Pacifism’, Peace Studies Journal 8:1 (October 2015), 10–20. 2 Mark Woods, ‘Ecology and Pacifism’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence (New York: Routledge, 2017). 1

Eco-pacifism

227

who – according to Grotius – argued that Moses himself thought that animals should be spared in war. Grotius also quotes Philo and other ancient sources as offering a defence of trees – especially fruit trees – against ravage and wasting in war. He quotes Josephus, the ancient Jewish author, writing: ‘Josephus adds that if the trees could speak, they would complain of the injustice of their bearing the penalty of the war, of which they are not the cause.’3 Despite this metaphorical claim about the trees complaining, the basic argument against wasting and ravaging trees and animals is anthropocentric. Josephus says that the trees were made for the benefit of men. Grotius and other authors in the developed just war tradition focus on similar anthropocentric arguments. Fruit trees and farm/work animals belong to human beings. It is wrong to wantonly destroy the property of humans in this way. Furthermore, these animals and trees can provide support for one’s own troops. And finally, the non-human agricultural and environmental infrastructure is necessary to support human life, if and when peace returns. A non-anthropocentric critique of war and its damage to animals and the environment will typically lie outside of the mainstream just war tradition. There are authors within the Western tradition who offer a radical critique of anthropocentrism. One important source is Porphyry, the neo-Platonic philosopher, whom Grotius mentions. Porphyry writes of a golden age of prehistory when human beings were vegetarians and lived in peace and justice. He explains that the fall from this period of peace occurred when war and meat eating were introduced – along with competition and private property.4 This mythological account provides a comprehensive view of non-violence, which holds that violence towards animals is connected with war and violence towards Hugo Grotius, On the Rites of War and Peace (London: John W. Parker, 1853), 380. The passage Grotius is referring to here is from Flavius Josephus’s account of the war against the Midianites. Josephus writes,  When you have pitched your camp, take care that you do nothing that is cruel. And when you are engaged in a siege, and want timber for the making of warlike engines, do not render the land naked by cutting down the trees that bear fruit, but spare them, as considering that they were made for the benefit of men; and that if they could speak, they would have a just plea against you, because, though they are not occasions of the war, they are unjustly treated, and suffer in it, and would, if they were able, remove themselves into another land. (Flavius Josephus, Jewish Antiquities in The New Complete Works of Josephus (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Publications, 1999), 162) 3

Porphyry writes:  Hence, at that period there was no war, because injustice was exterminated. But afterwards, together with injustice towards animals, war was introduced among men, and the endeavour to surpass each other in amplitude of possessions. On which account also, the audacity of those is wonderful, who say that abstinence from animals is the mother of injustice, since both history and experience testify, that together with the slaughter of animals, war and injustice were introduced. (Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Food (De Abstinentia), Book IV, paragraph 2 (no page numbers), at: http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/porphyry_abstinence_04_book4.htm.) 4

228

Transformative Pacifism

humans: they are thought to arise in conjunction with one another. Porphyry also provides an argument about the connection between care for animals and care for human beings. He writes, ‘Those whose sense is averse to the destruction of animals of a species different from their own, will evidently abstain from injuring those of their own kind.’5 This may appear to be similar to Kant’s arguments in defence of animals. Kant did not think that animals were worthy of direct moral concern. Rather, such concern is indirect. On the one hand, animals are human property, and so to harm another person’s animal is to damage their property. But Kant makes a stronger argument, which reflects Porphyry’s point: cruelty to animals teaches us to be cruel to humans.6 But Kant remains anthropocentric. Porphyry’s argument goes deeper. Porphyry’s neo-Platonism provides a sense of interconnectedness and wholeness that opens onto the question of animal suffering – and that obviously connects to a critique of human violence and war. For Porphyry and the neo-Platonists, the focal point of vegetarianism was spiritual: it was part of an effort to liberate the spirit from the flesh. Meat eating was thought to stimulate the appetites and passions of the soul. As a form of violence, it connected us with violence; and as regards consumption of flesh, it connected us with the flesh. Building upon this spiritualized account, some have argued that Jesus was a vegetarian – as was his brother James, they claim, and the sect of Jews called Essenes.7 We could connect Jesus’s supposed concern for animals with his pacifism.8 But the vegetarian connection is speculative. The mainstream Christian tradition does not accept interpretation of Jesus as either a pacifist or a vegetarian. Arguments in defence of meat eating and for just war are grounded in claims about the Bible and Christian natural law. Natural law is usually anthropocentric: it locates human beings at the top of the pyramid of beings, viewing the ‘natural order’ of things as rational and defensible – even by violence. The pacifist world view is often critical of this conception of the natural order of things and the need to defend this order by using violence. The natural law tradition also tends to view political states as natural and rationally justifiable entities – part of the order of things – which can use violence to defend themselves. Pacifists have been critical of this supposedly natural Porphyry, On Abstinence from Animal Food, Book II, paragraph 31 (no page numbers), at: http:// www.tertullian.org/fathers/porphyry_abstinence_02_book2.htm. 6 See our discussion in Fiala and MacKinnon, Ethics: Theory and Contemporary Issues, Chapter 17. 7 See Andrew Linzey, Animal Theology (Chicago: University of Illinois, 1994); or Keith Akers, The Lost Religion of Jesus: Simple Living and Nonviolence in Early Christianity (New York: Lantern Books, 2000). 8 See my account of Jesus and war in Fiala, What Would Jesus Really Do?. 5

Eco-pacifism

229

hierarchy. They are often sympathetic to the insights of anarchists, who hold that states are merely human creations that are often based upon violence. And they are less enamoured of the use of violence to enforce a conception of the structure of the universe based upon a hierarchical order of creation. Given the deep connection between war, violence, meat eating, and Western Christianity, it is not surprising that some have looked for a critique of violence and anthropocentrism beyond traditional Western sources. The ontological and moral commitments of the Western natural law tradition tend to support anthropocentrism and war as natural, normal, and rational – and Porphyry and the neo-Platonists provide a rare exception to this point of view. Lloyd Steffen has explained how we might fit protections of non-human nature into the just war framework (by viewing animals as non-combatants). But he also looks beyond this tradition for resources. He recounts how Buddhist teaching about nonviolence (ahimsa) and compassionate concern for sentient beings connects with a moral critique of war.9 The idea of ahimsa and interconnection – as found in Jain, Hindu, and Buddhist sources – is not typical of Western religious tradition or of the just war theory that develops in Western thought grounded in the Christian natural law tradition. That tradition typically establishes a hierarchy of worth that puts human beings – and states – at the apex (or centre – depending upon your preferred metaphor). Let’s leave the discussion of ancient texts and cultural traditions aside and turn to the problem of modern war. Modern warfare includes tactics and weapons that leave behind significant environmental damage and that harms nonhuman animals. Animals are killed directly in combat – including those animals employed in combat: horses, dogs, etc. Combat causes massive dislocations of people – and of animals; deforestation and destruction of habitat occurs in war; abandoned ordinance and land- and sea-mines harm animals; militarism produces massive pollution; and so on.10 The environmental and animal harms of war and militarism expose the ugly and selfish face of anthropocentrism. War is clearly an anthropocentric 9 Steffen writes:  Ahimsa as an ethical principle expresses human interconnectedness with the natural world, so that if we were to ask our question about the status of nature and its standing as a relational partner that should be immunized from warfare injury, we would be able to say that the natural world, including all sentient beings, have inherent worth. (Lloyd Steffen, ‘War and the Environment: A proposed Revision in the Ethics of Restraint’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2015), p. 44.).

For details, see William Gay, ‘Negative Impacts of Militarism on the Environment’, in Andrew Fiala, ed., The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2015).

10

230

Transformative Pacifism

concern. The non-human collateral damage of war is ignored because war is about struggles for supremacy in the human world. But the non-human world is innocent in the sense of the term that often arises in discussions of the ethics of war. Just war ethics suggest that it would be wrong to deliberately target noncombatants. Non-combatants are presumed to be innocent: they are not involved in the war effort or responsible for it. It is obvious that animals are innocent in this sense. They have done nothing that makes them a permitted object of violence. This way of conceiving innocence comes from discussions of the just war idea. Jeff McMahan explains, ‘The English term “innocent” derives from the Latin nocentes, which means “those who injure or are harmful.” The innocent are those who are not nocentes.’11 It might seem that this conception of innocence can be extended to animals and the ecosystem. Andrew Linzey provides four reasons to think that we ought to extend moral consideration to animals: animals cannot give or withhold consent; animals cannot represent or vocalize their own interests; animals are morally innocent; and animals are vulnerable and defenseless.12 Against this idea, someone may suggest that non-human animals can be harmful: mosquitoes bite, lions attack, and so on. If we are entitled to defend ourselves against harm, we are certainly entitled to swat mosquitoes or shoot an attacking lion. Only complete non-resistant pacifism refuses to fight back. Moreover, we may suspect that the idea of animal innocence is a category mistake: the idea of innocence only seems to apply to moral agents – who have the capacity to be held guilty or found innocent. But as Jamieson points out, our ordinary language does extend the concept of innocence in a variety of ways: people claim that foetuses and children are innocent. Jamieson explains that the idea of ‘innocence’ can be applied to those who are ‘moral patients’ – and who need not be ‘moral agents’.13 Jeff McMahan, ‘The Ethics of Killing in War’, Ethics 114 (July 2004): 693–733, p. 695; Also see: McMahan, ‘Innocence, self-defense and killing in war’, The Journal of Political Philosophy 2:3 (1994), 193–221; and McMahan, Killing in War (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2009). 12 Andrew Linzey, Why Animal Suffering Matters: Philosophy, Theology, and Practical Ethics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009), 42. In further explanation of the idea that animals are morally innocent, Linzey writes:  Because animals are not moral agents with free will, they cannot – strictly speaking – be regarded as morally responsible. That granted, it follows that they can never (unlike, arguably, adult humans) deserve suffering nor be improved morally by it. Animals can never merit suffering; proper recognition of this consideration makes any infliction of suffering upon them problematic. (Linzey, Why Animal Suffering Matters, 35.). 11

Jamieson explains,  These are those individuals who, though they are not moral agents and thus can do no wrong, can be the undeserving recipients of wrongs done to them by others. That is, they can be wronged, even though they can do no wrong. Children are the innocent victims of war, in this sense, not because they can be falsely accused of some wrongdoing, but because they can be made to suffer 13

Eco-pacifism

231

Animals, like other innocent victims of war, suffer undeserved harm. This concept leads us in the direction of a general critique of anthropocentrism. Animals do not deserve the harm we inflict upon them. This presumes, of course, that we believe that animals can be harmed. The animal welfare literature includes extensive discussions of this question. One substantial point to be made here is that animals are enough like us to experience pain, to suffer, and so on. They are obviously not exactly the same as us and so may not understand pain and suffering in the same way that we do. But it is fairly obvious that the family dog experiences hunger, cold, fear, and other harmful emotions, if we can use that phrase without unduly anthropomorphizing. Furthermore, we should point out that a thing can be harmed even if it does not experience the harm itself. We can speak of a tree being harmed when its function or integrity is somehow damaged – say if the tree is uprooted or a table is smashed. The point here is that it is not absurd to think that animals can be harmed. If this is accepted, we should also admit that in many cases (perhaps most cases) animals do not deserve the harms that are inflicted upon them: they have done nothing to make themselves responsible, accountable, or otherwise liable to receive harm. This is true when they suffer harms caused by human warfare. It is also true when they are directly harmed in factory farming operations and laboratory experiments.

The war against animals The idea that animals do not deserve harms that are inflicted upon them can point us towards a critique of all sorts of usages of animals. Furthermore, there are a growing number of authors who claim that we are currently engaged in a war against the environment and a war against animals.14 Empirical data can be cited that show the sheer quantity of violence involved in meat production – the billions of animals slaughtered annually to support the growing human appetite for meat.15 This war runs deep and informs the very way we understand ourselves. undeserved harm, in this case, undeserved harm done to them by those who make war. (Dale Jamieson, Morality’s Progress: Essays on Humans, Other Animals, and the Rest of Nature (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002), 121–2.). See Dinesh Wadiwel, The War Against Animals (Leiden, NL: Brill/Rodopi, 2015); Derek Jensen and George Draffan, Strangely Like War (White River Junction, VT: Chelsea Green books, 2003), Vandana Shiva, ‘War Against Nature and the People of the South’, in Sarah Anderson, ed., Views from the South: The Effects of Globalization and the WTO on Third World Countries (Chicago, IL: Food First Books, 2000). 15 I discuss some of this in Andrew Fiala, ‘Animal Welfare’, in Lynn Walter and Laurel Phoenix, eds., Critical Food Issues: Problems and State-of-the-Art Solutions Worldwide (New York: Praeger Press, 14

232

Transformative Pacifism

In an us-versus-them picture of the world (whether it is human vs. animal or human vs. nature) the conflict determines our conception of ourselves. A key concept for understanding how this works is what is called epistemic violence or what we might also call ontological violence. As Wadiwel explains in The War Against Animals, ‘epistemic violence frames personal and structural violence in such a way as to naturalize our war as a form of legitimized sovereignty, through the hierarchization of difference’.16 Although the notions of epistemic violence and ontological violence have been employed by postmodernists and deconstructionists in slippery and elusive discussions, the point I am making here is fairly obvious and straightforward.17 Structures of domination, violence, and war determine who we are, how we understand ourselves, and how we understand the non-human other. In viewing ourselves as superior to the nonhuman other – and entitled to use and destroy the non-human for our own purposes – we establish an ontology and a system of knowledge that is based upon violence, that normalizes violence, and permits or allows violence to be ignored as part of the normal order of things. Transformative pacifism wants to change that way of seeing, knowing, and understanding ourselves. If we are concerned with peace and minimizing violence, then we ought to do our best to live in harmony with the natural environment and non-human beings – and to reconceive our relation with the non-human world. I say that we ought to do our best to live in peace with the non-human world. Some may view this melioristic stance as inadequate. There are militant opinions among animal rights advocates and environmentalists. If non-human beings are held to have rights, then it may be that violence can be utilized in defence of animals or the environment. For this reason, some animal liberationists and deep ecologists have argued directly against pacifism. Tom Regan – one of the leading figures of animal rights theory – has argued that violence can be justified in defence of animals. Part of his argument rests on a claim about the extent of the violence that is done to animals. As Regan says in defence of those 2009). See also: See Peter Singer and Jim Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat (New York: Rodale, 2006); Peter Singer, Animal Liberation, 2nd Edition (New York: Avon Books, 1990), Peter Singer, In Defense of Animals: The Second Wave (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 2006); Sue Donaldson and Will Kymlicka, Zoopolis: A Political Theory of Animal Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 16 Wadiwel, The War Against Animals, 36. Wadiwel builds upon Spivak’s use of the term ‘epistemic violence’ – which was first employed in the context of a response to colonialism: see Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’ in A Critique of Postcolonial Reason: Toward a History of the Vanishing Present (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999). 17 See Jacques Derrida, ‘On Ontological Violence’, in Writing and Difference (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1978) or Slavoj Zizek, Violence (New York: Picador, 2008). Behind much of this approach is ideas found in Heidegger and Levinas.

Eco-pacifism

233

who employ violence to liberate animals, the use of defensive violence is like a drop in the ocean compared to the violence done to animals. He says, ‘On a day-to-day basis, by far the greatest amount of violence done in the “civilized” world occurs because of what humans do to other animals. That the violence is legally protected, that in some cases (for example, vivisection) it is socially esteemed, only serves to make matters worse.’18 Similar sentiment can be found among advocates of militancy in ecology.19 Derek Jensen – a defender of radical ecology – has argued that pacifists are ‘pacified’ by their pacifism. He echoes Ward Churchill’s claim that pacifism is pathological (Jensen wrote a preface for a 2007 edition of Churchill’s book, Pacifism as Pathology). Pacifists, from this point of view, pose little threat to the oppressive and unjust order of the status quo; and so the defenders of the status quo easily permit pacifism to exist while compliant pacifists unwittingly fall in line with the dominant world view, without doing anything effective to transform it. Furthermore, according to this critique pacifists can feel sanctimonious and pure, while in fact their pacifism provides tacit support for the very thing they condemn. Jensen concludes that pacifists are irresponsible if pacifism means that they are willing to allow others to be killed. Such a pacifism is, according to Jensen, ‘despicable and insane’.20 Another author, Steven Best – whose 2004 anthology discussing animal liberation violence includes an essay by Ward Churchill – has also argued against absolute pacifism.21 Best identifies what he calls the ‘fallacies of pacifism’, in a chapter entitled ‘The Paralysis of Pacifism: In Defense of Militant Direct Action’. He is ultimately opposed to fundamentalist and absolutist forms of pacifism, which he claims are really a cowardly form of ‘passive-ism’. He rejects the ‘the glib universal claims’ of pacifists, such as that ‘the ends do not justify the means’ or that ‘violence only begets violence’.22 One focus of Best’s discussion is a careful Tom Regan, ‘How to Justify Violence’, in Steven Best and Anthony Nocella II, eds., Terrorists or Freedom Fighters (New York: Lantern Books, 2004). Also see: Regan ‘A Defense of Pacifism’. 19 I discuss this in Andrew Fiala, ‘Violence and Nonviolence in the Environmental Movement’ the Introduction to Andrew Fiala, ed., The Peace of Nature and the Nature of Peace (Leiden, NL: Brill, 2015). 20 Jensen, Endgame, 688. 21 Best explains that his own approach  exposes the flaws of pacifism while absorbing its partial truths and limited insights in a broader context; it neither opposes nonviolence nor fetishizes violence but rather opts for whichever approach works best in specific situations. The entire range of militant tactics, including physical force, is defended as legitimate and necessary responses to the total war against all life and the earth as a whole. I invoke a principle I call ‘extensional self-defense’ to justify cases where animal activists – the self-appointed ‘voices of the voiceless’ – have a moral duty to use any (intelligent and effective) means necessary to effectively defend animals from violent assault, as animals under attack themselves would if they could. (Steven Best, The Politics of Total Liberation: Revolution for the 21st Century (New York: Palgrave MacMillan), 52–3) 18

Best, The Politics of Total Liberation, 54.

22

234

Transformative Pacifism

consideration of what counts as violence (and a legitimate response to violence). For example, one wonders whether sabotage and property damage, used by animal liberationists and militant environmentalists, counts as violence – and whether this minimal kind of violence (if we want to call it that) is a legitimate response to more overt violence that is found, for example, in commercial animal slaughterhouses. A further consideration is whether non-violent tactics can be effective. Best explains, for example, that the ubiquity of violence against animals shows that something like moral education is insufficient to stop the slaughter. What is needed instead, according to Best, is militant direct action. If we are at war with animals and the environment, then the militant activists are fighting back in defence – and pacifists are in denial about what must be done in order to defend the defenceless.

The transformative pacifist response In response, we ought not give up on the important ontological intuition of those who defend animals and the environment. As noted above, a non-anthropocentric ontology appears to follow from a commitment to transformative pacifism. Those who are committed to non-violence as a primary principle encourage us to see the interconnectedness of things. Moreover, it is clear that what bothers defenders of animals and the environment is violence that is done against animals and ecosystems. This indicates a general critique of violence. And indeed, defenders of the non-human are also often interested in human-directed violence, including gender and domestic violence, racism, structural violence, and so on. Furthermore, authors who discuss non-violence and peace frequently extend this towards the non-human. I will turn to this in more detail towards the end of this chapter. But first, let’s consider a preliminary defence of transformative pacifism against the sorts of critiques that are mounted by defenders of militancy in environmental and animal-focused theories – as this will allow us to once again explicate the fundamental orientation of transformative pacifism. Subsequently, we will further consider how the commitment to non-violence also leads to a commitment to non-anthropocentrism and a form of what we might call deep ecology and deep vegetarianism. But let’s be careful in affirming the deep ethical theories. We would not want to end up with a misanthropic ethic that advocated violence against humans in pursuit of ecological harmony and animal equality. One hyperbolic worry about

Eco-pacifism

235

deep ecology is that it can end up advocating violence and become misanthropic. We even see this in squabbles within the animal rights and ecology communities. Tom Regan – a defender of animal rights – once accused ecosystem holists of a kind of ‘environmental fascism’.23 But as we shall see, Arne Naess, the intellectual father of deep ecology, was also a student of Gandhi and non-violence. Others who are sympathetic to the need for ecological sensitivity have argued that radical veganism is both unnecessary and unwise as a strategy for saving the animals and the earth.24 Obviously, we should be open-minded about the best scientific data concerning diet, animals, and the ecosystem. And we should be careful of absolutism that can be derived from radial or deep approaches. But in general, the point is to transform the world in a more humane, peaceful, and non-violent direction. There are ongoing debates about whether we all must become completely vegan or whether we ought to reject all of the trappings of consumer culture. There is an open question about how deep is deep enough – and about strategies and practices, and institutional versus personal solutions. Transformative pacifism will reject the militancy of some versions of nonanthropocentrism while also arguing that pacifists should be sympathetic to non-anthropocentric ontology. Transformative pacifism is a broad critical social theory that is committed, in general a moral commitment, to non-violence and a project of creating a world of peace. There are various ways that this theory will be put into practice. Ideally, all of our actions and relations would be non-violent and promote peace. But life is complicated and requires us to balance, adjust, and harmonize our various commitments. Thus, it is possible to commend a committed opponent of war who also eats meat. It may also be possible to commend a vegetarian who defends the just war theory. Each is on the way. Ideally there will be harmony and coherence among our various commitments. But the goal of a totally coherent ethical world view and way of life is utopian: something we strive for, while knowing that it is elusive. This means that absolutism in ethics always comes at a price. In this regard, the ecological and animal liberationist’s critiques of pacifism discussed above are correct: absolutism can cloud our thinking, if it tends to leave us passive and disengaged. Nonetheless, the point should not be to find creative ways to justify and defend violence. Rather, the goal should be to find ways to make our world view more coherent – and to transform the world in the direction of this more coherent point of view. There should be coherence between means and ends. Critics of Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights (Berkeley, CA: University of California, 1983), 362. Lierre Keith, The Vegetarian Myth: Food, Justice, and Sustainability (Crescent City, CA: Flashpoint Press, 2009).

23 24

236

Transformative Pacifism

pacifism who argue that, in defence of animals or the environment, ‘the end justifies the means’ are wrong. It may be possible to imagine some circumstances in which violence could be employed to prevent violence. But our goal is not to build a world view based upon this exceptional fact. Rather, the goal is to create a world in which violence is minimized and such exceptions become rarer. The end to be obtained according to the theory of transformative pacifism does inform our understanding of appropriate means. One need not be a fundamentalist or an absolutist about this, even though in most cases violence is to be avoided. More importantly, as noted previously, pacifism of the sort we are discussing here looks beyond consequentialism and a utilitarian calculus in which violence is typically justified. Rather, the goal of transformative pacifism is to imagine the larger project of changing our moral, spiritual, economic, and political self-understanding. This requires broadening our thinking beyond a mere us-versus-them dualism. It is not simply a matter of identifying bad guys and taking them on with violence. Rather, the more difficult task is understanding how all of us are responsible and interconnected. For example, the problem with meat eating is as much a matter of demand as it is of supply. Sabotage or militant action directed at factory farms only focuses on the supply side of the equation – viewing the factory farmer as a bad guy to be fought. Transformative pacifism of the sort discussed in this chapter is focused on the demand side: to change our way of thinking such that there is no more demand for the products of factory farms. Or in the case of ecology, to change our way of thinking such that there is less demand for practices that are harmful to the ecosystem. A utilitarian or consequentialist approach to animal issues can easily end up justifying violence in defence of animals or the environment. Best and Regan offer us some version of this – as indicated above – by cataloguing the massive violence done against animals and offering militant action as a means for preventing this. A difficulty of the consequentialist calculus is that violence tends towards escalation. One worry is that if one uses property damage or sabotage against animal laboratories or factory farms – and that is not effective – then the next step is to ratchet up the violence. But one important consideration is that violence – even the minimal violence of property damage – used in militant direct action will often fail to change the minds of those against whom it is employed. Factory farmers will simply install barbed wire, surveillance cameras, and so on. This may require further escalation on the part of activists. And in any case, militant violence will not force the farmer (or the consumer) to reassess the moral and ontological foundation upon which their work relies.

Eco-pacifism

237

Furthermore, in light of the distinction between supply and demand noted above, what is to prevent militant action from being directed at those consumers who demand the produce of factory farms or animal laboratories? One could argue, in fact, that such violence would be more effective and thus easily justified on utilitarian grounds. If animal liberationists were to poison the meat supply, thereby killing a number of meat eaters, such an action would have a more profound effect on animal consumption than sabotage undertaken against factory farms. But such an approach is – one hopes – beyond the pale even for militant animal liberationists. And this thought experiment reminds us that we are all in this together: the factory farmer is part of a system in which there is demand for meat. It is not his fault that his living is earned by killing animals. Rather, it is our fault as well – or at least it is the fault of all who partake of and support the system that supports factory farming. Transformative pacifism is a comprehensive approach that is concerned with minimizing violence and building peace across the board. Concern for animals and the environment must connect to concern for building just societies and economies, criticizing domestic violence, avoiding war, and so on. The effort to establish peace with animals and the environment depends upon a change of perspective and world view. It requires that we confront epistemic violence and what we might also call a violent ontology. This requires that we critique the ways that domination and hierarchy structure our relations with the nonhuman other. Transformative pacifism encourages us to see violence where before it was ignored. Critics of anthropocentrism also do this. One useful example of this idea comes from Michael Allen Fox – who is an advocate of ‘deep vegetarianism’ and a defender of non-violence and pacifism. Fox explains, Vegetarianism entails seeing connections that others miss or disregard and that vegetarians themselves had previously overlooked or ignored; and taking responsibility for a larger sphere of personal actions, namely dietary choices and their consequences. In the case of meat this includes acknowledging, first, that what is eaten comes from factory farms and/or involves the infliction of suffering and death on sentient creatures; and second, that the meat eater perpetuates certain practices that, if immoral, ought to be opposed.25

Fox’s point is that the vegetarian moral commitment is based upon a way of seeing – and knowing and conceiving the world. This includes seeing the Michael Allen Fox, Deep Vegetarianism (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1999), 47.

25

238

Transformative Pacifism

violence that is involved in meat production. A transformation in seeing leads to a changed set of personal choices – and to a moral imperative and sense of responsibility. All of this is interconnected. Fox indicates that deep vegetarianism is connected to a deeper commitment to non-violence and a sense of the interconnectedness of things. That sense of interconnectedness is central to the ontology of non-violence. One worry about militancy in ecology or in animal liberation is that these approaches become too focused on a single issue and keep us from seeing the interconnectedness of issues, things, and beings. This is ironic, given that the critique of anthropocentrism often calls our attention to the interconnectedness of things. It is further ironic that by adopting violent direct action (including language and arguments that often come from the discourses of war and terrorism), the militant reaffirms the consequentialism of the status quo. Status quo consequentialism is connected to the tendency we have of distinguishing ontologically and epistemically between means and ends (by saying that ‘the end justifies the means’). But that distinction between means and ends is part of the problem. What is needed is a comprehensive transformation of our practices and our self-understanding, such that we understand the interconnectedness of all of our ends and means. In other words, the tendency to instrumentalize our means, viewing them as a tool for creating desired consequences, is connected to our tendency to view nature, animals – and other people – as object or tools, and so to use them as means. When we adopt a more holistic and interconnected ontological and epistemic frame of reference, violent means are less easily justified. A comprehensive understanding of how violence structures our relations with the non-human world makes it less likely that we will want to revert to the consequentialism and instrumentalism that is part of the violent world view of the status quo.

Comprehensive non-violence and the critique of anthropocentrism Transformative pacifism thus provides us with a vision of comprehensive nonviolence, which ‘goes all the way down’. This includes a concern to develop nonviolence towards animals and the environment. This idea can be found in certain religious traditions, including especially Jainism. Jain tradition emphasizes non-violence to animals based upon a metaphysical system that is grounded in notions of karma and the idea that animals – and even non-animals – have a

Eco-pacifism

239

soul.26 Buddhism offers another possible source for a comprehensive approach to non-violence, teaching of the interconnectedness of all sentient beings.27 Such metaphysical ideas are interesting and provocative – even if they are ultimately not persuasive for those who are sceptical of metaphysical notions such as the transmigration of souls. While Jain and Buddhist religious traditions can teach us much, the focus of the present chapter is to understand how a deep and comprehensive commitment to non-violence can be grounded without appeal to such a metaphysic. In Western secular and humanistic philosophical traditions, this question can be understood in terms of the critique of anthropocentrism. Anthropocentric morality focuses on human experience as the source of value; anthropocentric ontology locates value primarily within the human. One can be critical of human-oriented violence without extending this critique beyond the human. One could be a critique of war, for example, without being a vegetarian. A non-anthropocentric theory of comprehensive non-violence will be both broader and deeper. The critique of violence ultimately pushes towards a critique of anthropocentrism. And the practice of non-violence helps to transform our understanding of self and the world in a way that undermines anthropocentrism, while further cementing opposition to war and other forms of human-oriented violence. Here is the point: if you are opposed to war, you should also be sympathetic to the insights of the vegetarians and deep ecologists; and if you practice vegetarianism and attune yourself to the ecosystem, you gain greater insight into the deep problem of violence and the need for a non-violent ethic.

Eco-pacifism Transformational pacifism will thus take seriously the effort to extend care and concern into the non-human world. It will be sympathetic to the efforts to create a non-violent diet. It will be concerned about the way that war and other human endeavours inflict undeserved harm upon animals. The critique of violence includes critical accounts of structural and cultural violence. This critique asks See Veena R. Howard, ‘Nonviolence in the Dharma Traditions: Hinduism, Jainism, and Buddhism’, in Fiala, ed., The Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence. 27 The Dalai Lama provides an example based upon Tibetan Buddhism. He writes,   The Tibetan Buddhist tradition teaches us to view all sentient beings as our dear mothers and to show our gratitude by loving them all. For, according to Buddhist theory, we are born and reborn countless numbers of times, and it is conceivable that each being has been our parent at one time or another. In this way all beings in the universe share a family relationship. (Dalai Lama, ‘A Human Approach to World Peace’, https://www.dalailama.com/messages/world-peace/a-humanapproach-to-world-peace; no date: accessed July 2017) 26

240

Transformative Pacifism

us to look at violence in institutions, practices, and structural arrangements in which hierarchy, oppression, and callous disregard for suffering are present. It also asks us to examine our ideas, images, and ideologies in order to discern ways that violence is propagated and ways that the dominant ideology blinds us to this. In thinking about animals and the environment we see elements of structural violence in the indifference we have to animals and ecosystems. We also find elements of cultural violence in the way that dominant ideologies helps us ignore the violence we inflict on the non-human world, in the carnivorous and ecologically indifferent culture of consumer capitalism. The fact that the mainstream ideology is indifferent to this is related to the way that mainstream ideology is indifferent to militarism and the war system. This blindness is connected to a variety of ways that militarism and anthropocentrism are intertwined and mutually supporting. Some of this interconnection has to do cultural and religious traditions that postulate a hierarchy of beings with men (as a gendered term) at the top of the hierarchy, along with political sovereignty and even divine right. In the Western tradition meat eating is connected with military power – and with images of masculinity. We see this in ancient practices of animal sacrifice that are connected with religious and military power (as in Homer), and so on.28 Killing becomes routinized and rationalized in the practice of meat eating. This is related to male dominance and to militarism. Transformative pacifism will want to work to change this system of violence. Pointing out the violence of meat eating is thus one possible entry point to the general critique of violence. It is also a possible entry point for the feminist critique of gender violence and gender hierarchy. One should not minimize the human horror of war. The same is true for human suffering that occurs due to environmental degradation. Anthropocentric environmentalism is primarily concerned with what is called environmental justice, which demands that we remedy inequalities and injustices in the way that environmental harms and benefits are distributed among humans. We should not minimize or undermine the powerful critical lens provided by anti-war pacifism and environmental justice concern. However, if we are interested in peace and non-violence, then we ought to move in the direction of a complementary nonanthropocentric critique of violence. Carol Adams explores this connection in The Sexual Politics of Meat where she develops a history of the connections between feminism, pacifism, and vegetarianism. She writes,  If feminist vegetarians argued that killing animals becomes a justification for killing human beings, some who adhere to the dominant viewpoint persuade children to eat meat by justifying the necessity, at time, to kill even human beings. (Carol Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat: 20th Anniversary Edition (London: Continuum, 2010), 166) 28

Eco-pacifism

241

One of my efforts in this book is to argue that pacifism ought to be taken seriously as a major normative theory, that holds peace as the highest good and whose first principle is to minimize violence. When pacifism is conceived as a normative theory, we can then take it and apply it in the context of animals and the environment. In much of the mainstream literature on environmental ethics and animal welfare, an explicit consideration of the ethics of non-violence is missing. In these fields, one of the prevailing considerations is the extent of utilitarian concern. In animal welfare discussions, the question is whether animals should be included in the utilitarian calculus. Bentham famously thought that since animals can suffer, they ought to be included. Peter Singer’s animal welfare theory tells us to apply equal consideration to animals – Singer is primarily speaking from a utilitarian standpoint. It is clear that utilitarianism need not be anthropocentric. The same is true for a utilitarian approach to environmental issues: one could include individual animals in the utilitarian calculus – as well as species, habitats, ecosystems, and other non-sentient beings. This becomes a puzzle for utilitarianism, however, insofar as sentience seems to be a central concern: if a being can suffer, its suffering should be minimized; if a being can experience happiness or pleasure, we should include its experience of these goods in the larger calculation of happiness. But ecosystems and species are not sentient. So utilitarianism often reverts back to anthropocentrism. A different version of environmental ethics seeks to extend moral concern beyond sentient beings – and thus pushes beyond utilitarianism. One of the more influential ideas here is what is known as deep ecology. Deep ecology advocates establishing a kind of egalitarianism with regard to the ecosystem. It takes human beings down from the top of the biotic or spiritual pyramid and views the world in a holistic and integrated fashion. It also aspires to nonviolence, despite the fact that the natural world includes killing. It also advocates what Arne Naess calls ‘biospheric egalitarianism’.29 The sense of what Naess calls ‘veneration’ for nature is central to eco-pacifism. The same is true of Naess’s basic Naess explained this as follows:   1. The deep ecology movement rejects the human-in-environment image in favor of the relational, total-field image: organisms as knots in the biospherical net or field of intrinsic relations. …   2. The deep ecology movement accepts biospherical egalitarianism – in principle. The ‘in principle’ clause is inserted because any realistic praxis necessitates some killing, exploitation, and suppression. The ecological field-worker acquires a deep-seated respect, or even veneration, for ways and forms of life. He reaches an understanding from within, a kind of understanding that others reserve for fellow human beings and for a narrow section of ways and forms of life. To the ecological field-worker, the equal right to live and blossom is an intuitively clear and obvious value axiom. (Arne Naess, ‘The Shallow and the Deep, LongRange Ecology Movement: A Summary’, in Drengson A. (eds), The Selected Works of Arne Naess (Springer, Dordrecht, 2005), 7–8) 29

242

Transformative Pacifism

axiom that holds that all things have ‘an equal right to live and blossom’. The ecopacifist is committed to the harmonious blossoming of all things. This idea – or world view – leads us in the direction of vegetarianism. It causes us to be concerned for animal welfare. It gives us a reason to care for the ecosystem. It also helps us re-conceptualize our relation with other human beings. We are all part of an integrated web. We are mutually dependent. We ought to be connected to one another through relations of care, love, empathy, and non-violence. Violence disrupts this network of relations. The eco-pacifist world view has been articulated in various ways by a number of the key authors in the pacifist tradition. We can find inspiration in the work of Tolstoy, Gandhi, and Albert Schweitzer. It should come as no surprise that Naess took Gandhi very seriously. As Naess interprets Gandhi, the method and theory of non-violence is not the final focus on Gandhian philosophy. Satyagraha, Naess reminds us, is about truth. The larger goal of all of this is truth or God – or as we might interpret this in a secular fashion, the integration of life in a peaceful whole.30 Naess explains that Gandhi’s movement and philosophy was not merely negative. It was not a movement against violence. That would mean that it was merely an opposition movement. But Gandhi had a deeper vision, which was for a peaceful, just, integrated, and true world. As Naess explains in another place, a sceptical philosophy of nonviolence does not go deep enough. The sceptical argument holds that we do not know whether violence is justified or will be successful. This can lead us to refrain from violence. But again, the position is merely negative. In addition to being against violence, we must also be in favour of something. On Naess’s interpretation of Gandhi, what we ought to be in favour of is the idea that we are all interconnected. Naess writes, Skepticism of the kind expressed by Gandhi is not sufficient to derive norms of nonviolence. Something must be added – for instance, the position that ultimately all life is one – so that the injury of one’s opponent becomes also an injury to oneself.31 Naess explains,  The doctrine of nonviolence rises from Gandhi’s personal conviction of a fundamental equality in the destiny of all men, and of their equal right to self-expression. His personal identification with all men, however, equates injury to others with injury to oneself. In group conflicts, one gains nothing by injuring others. No fully justifiable goal may be reached by means that include planned or accidental injury to others in such conflicts. Between one’s own self-expression and the self-expression of others there is no sharp boundary. (Naess, ‘Can Violence Lead to Nonviolence? Gandhi’s Point of View’, in The Selected Works of Arne Naess, 206) 30

Naess, ‘The Metaphysics of Satyāgraha’, in The Selected Works of Arne Naess, 26.

31

Eco-pacifism

243

Building upon Gandhian philosophy, Naess develops these ideas further, connecting non-violence to a broader conception of ecology and of society. He explains in one pregnant passage, his vision of a green society: Let me then list some key sentences commonly held to be characteristic of a green society. It should be decentralized and should be a grassroots democracy. There should be social responsibility, mutual aid, and a reign of nonviolence. People should live in voluntary simplicity, with a high degree of self-reliance and with moderate mobility. Different generations should be able to live together and work together. There should be a feeling of community; technology should be appropriate; industrial and agricultural units should be small. Home and place of work should be near each other and transportation mainly public. There should be an absence of social hierarchy and an absence of male domination.32

This pacifist world view incorporates much of what Galtung would describe as positive peace. What Naess adds is a sense of the importance of nature and the non-human. Naess connects his study of Gandhian non-violence back to his experience of joy and beauty in nature. Naess’s experience of the natural world – and his philosophical journey – encouraged him to celebrate peaceful harmony in nature, as well as maximum diversity and the richness of multiplicity. As he explains in his writings, he observed this harmony and richness in tidal pools and elsewhere in the natural world. He connects this insight into the harmony of diversity in nature to the philosophy of non-violence. A human being who has not been deeply hurt by suppression, hatred, or lack of support and care can identify with all living creatures. The sufficiently mature person experiences joy on seeing joyfulness in others, sorrow on seeing sorrow. The mature mind also sees the vast differences of conditions under which fellow creatures live, and understands that the differences will (and should) foster a vast variety of ideas, behaviors, lifestyles, and cultures. To contribute to the maximum richness of differences, human beings should counteract only the growth of ideas, behaviors, and lifestyles that threaten this very richness.33

Conclusion It should come as no surprise that Gandhi was a vegetarian. In his autobiography, he recounts the story of being deeply disturbed by animal sacrifice. He explained, Naess, ‘The Basics of Deep Ecology’, in The Selected Works of Arne Naess, 14. Naess, ‘How My Philosophy Seemed to Develop’, in The Selected Works of Arne Naess, 314.

32 33

244

Transformative Pacifism

‘To my mind the life of a lamb is no less precious than that of a human being. I should be unwilling to take the life of a lamb for the sake of the human body. I hold that, the more helpless a creature, the more entitled it is to protection by man from the cruelty of man.’34 This idea – that the helpless (the defenceless, the innocent) deserve our protection – is a central idea in the pacifist world view and of non-anthropocentrism; a comprehensive pacifist world view points towards a reorientation in our thinking. This means that we think differently about gender, domestic life, social relations, political structures, and our relation with the non-human world. Such a pacifist reorientation is more than opposition to war. In this chapter we have discussed the damage that war inflicts upon the non-human world. That consideration can point us towards the pacifist critique. But the depth of this transformative pacifist critique comes from a radical transformation of how we conceive the relation between self and the world.

Gandhi, An Autobiography, 235.

34

12

Philosophy and Practices of Peace

Transformative pacifism dwells somewhere between retreat and radicalism. Pacifism as a critical moral theory is melioristic. It seeks to transform the world and improve it. But philosophically reflective pacifism recognizes that the task of transformation is difficult, complex, incremental, and ongoing. Pacifism provides no panacea. It leaves us with work to be done. We saw in Chapter 6 that the dream of peaceful retreat is uncanny and vexatious. There is much to admire in the serenity of the monk. There are time-honoured techniques and somatic practices that can help to create inner peace, tranquillity, and peace of mind. But solitary retreat cannot change the world. This world includes much violence – and the monk lives within it. Thus, we might throw ourselves into radical, nonviolent activism opposing violence and working to create positive peace. But the work of the radical is difficult and ongoing. The large and powerful institutions and structures of violence cannot be changed overnight. Non-violent activism can draw upon a host of strategies and techniques – from non-cooperation and civil disobedience to embargoes and strikes. Those techniques are aimed at changing people’s minds – at transforming the ideas and experiences of individuals so that they will in turn transform the structures and institutions of social and political life. The task of changing minds – of creating peace of mind and opening minds to the importance of peace – is a philosophical task. Philosophical reflection and dialogue are essential practices of peace. Philosophy works both within and without: it is a mental and somatic practice that helps us cultivate inner peace; and it is a social process that builds peace and turns us towards peace. There are a variety of complementary methods for cultivating peace. We have touched upon a number of ways that pacifism transforms our understanding of the world – and our practices: in the way we organize our families, think about ourselves, choose what we eat, and so on. Non-violent activism is only the most obvious and politically engaged transformative peace practice. It is also rare:

246

Transformative Pacifism

the opportunities for effective and organized radical activism are few and far between. But the philosophical practice of dialogue and reflection can become a daily practice. The transformative practice of peaceful dialogue requires a bit of distance from the hubbub of political life. And in that distance, we see the promise of peace: it is in genuine dialogue that we get a glimmer of what productive, positive peace looks like. Philosophical pacifism demonstrates the need for thoughtful, reflective engagement with the world, which lies somewhere between retreat and reaction. It is true that one can find peace in retreat. The Epicureans advised retreat and avoidance of political life (as we discussed in Chapter 7). Monks in many traditions find peace in withdrawal. One image of peace shows us the Taoist sage sitting peacefully in nature, enjoying the flow of water, observing the clouds and butterflies. But as we mentioned earlier, the world eventually impinges on the sage’s serenity. Retreat is facilitated by a supporting social world and is only possible at certain times and in appropriate conditions. Other times and conditions require us to engage the world and take action. Indeed, if it is peace we are after, then we must take active steps to transform the world in a more peaceful direction. Thus, pacifism is not passive. However, a kind of disengagement is essential for peaceful transformation. This is the disengagement of thinking – of non-violent dialogue and philosophical contemplation. We discover peace in philosophical practice. But what we discover there impels us back to the world, as Plato suggests in his discussion of the philosopher’s return into the cave. In this chapter, I focus on theorizing and dialogue as practices of peace. Seeking truth and loving wisdom is a practice of peace. Truth and wisdom cannot be created by violence. Rather, those practices that disclose truth – dialogue and contemplation – are essentially non-violent. Indeed, violence disrupts the disclosure of truth and it undermines the pursuit of wisdom. Pacifism of the sort I have been describing throughout is open and committed to truth. Falsehood, lies, and bad arguments undermine peace: they are destabilizing and they destroy tranquillity. Truth is revealed through peaceful practices; and peace is protected by truthful practices. Genuine dialogue and philosophical contemplation model peace, disclose truth, create community, and move us towards wisdom.

Lying, untruth, and epistemic violence Violent discourse is wrong. Pacifism provides us with an argument against lying and untruth. The tangled webs we weave when we lie contain the seeds of disorder

Philosophy and Practices of Peace

247

and discord. This bit of proverbial wisdom reminds us that lying and untruth disturb inner tranquillity and peace of mind. This becomes acute when we lie to ourselves or build our lives upon falsehoods. Lying also disrupts interpersonal relationships. It is coercive and manipulative. And it is often connected with structural violence. Truth requires no weapons to defend it other than honesty and the willingness to follow the evidence. But overt and direct violence is often called upon to defend falsehoods and the liars who use untruth to manipulate and deceive. The philosophical tradition is committed to truth and to truth-telling. Kantians will argue that lying disrespects persons and that it cannot be universalized. Utilitarians will argue that lying undermines happiness. And the natural law tradition focuses our attention on the natural function of communication, which is supposed to be based on truth-telling. Pacifism agrees with much of this, adding that truth-telling builds peace and that lying destroys peace of mind and peaceful social relations. The connection between truth and non-violence is also apparent in Gandhi’s work: satyagraha is understood by Gandhi as ‘truth force’ (satya can be translated as truth).1 Gandhi links the force of truth to the power of non-violence. Truth is persistent and persuasive. When you are defending the truth, promoting the truth, or lobbying on behalf of the truth the path is clear and the approach is consistent. One only must speak the truth and disclose reality. And then one allows reality to guide action and discourse. We see this, as well, in Taoism’s idea of wu wei, which allows things to unfold in their truth and reality. Truth and openness to reality are peaceful, while violence insists and rebounds upon itself. Liars and deceivers have a much more difficult time because their effort to coerce and manipulate is divorced from reality. And when people refuse to see the false truths and distorted realities that they wish to project upon the world, violence and manipulation are employed. This can extend in fact to entire institutions and world views based upon falsehoods, fables, and phony claims: such structures are supported by mechanisms of manipulation, threats of violence, and even direct and overt violence. Gandhi says, for example, ‘Satyagraha is search for Truth; and God is Truth. Ahimsa or non-violence is the light that reveals that Truth to me’ (Gandhi, ‘My Faith’ (Young India, 26 December 1924), in The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 29, p. 507). Furthermore, Gandhi described his lifeproject as a series of experiments with truth. He concluded his Autobiography saying ‘There is no other God than Truth’ and ‘The only means for the realization of Truth is Ahimsa.’ He continues, ‘A perfect vision of Truth can only follow a complete realization of Ahimsa. To see the universal and all-pervading Spirit of Truth face to face one must be able to love the meanest of creation as oneself ’ (Gandhi, An Autobiography, 504). The point is that the interconnected unity of things – truth and/ or God – is disclosed through the practice of non-violence, which is connected to the ability to see and love the world, including all that is different and ‘other.’

1

248

Transformative Pacifism

We see this point made in other places as well. Sissela Bok explained in her book, Lying: Deceit and violence – these are the two forms of deliberate assault on human beings. Both can coerce people into acting against their will. Most harm that can befall victims through violence can come to them also through deceit. … The knowledge of this coercive element in deception, and of our vulnerability to it, underlies our sense of the centrality of truthfulness.2

Bok clearly links lying and deceit. But she also suggests that lying and untruth can be justified. This can be trivial in the case of a white lie. Or a monumental lie can be justified, say in defence of someone who is being pursued by an attacker (we discussed this in a Chapter 5 with regard to the problem typically posed for Kant’s apparent absolutism about truth-telling). This reminds us that truth and truth-telling are complex activities dependent on social contexts and concrete situations. The question of the justification of lies is related to the question of the justification of violence. The transformative pacifist response to this question will avoid absolutism: it is possible to imagine some circumstance in which a lie could be useful, say, in defence of another person. But the transformative pacifist will not rest easy with such exceptional cases. Rather, these cases disclose underlying lies and falsehoods; these cases also disclose underlying violence or threats of violence. Such cases direct our attention to the need for transformation. In a world of violence and lies, lying and violence appear to be justified. But the goal is to transform the world so that there is less violence and fewer lies. The goal is to disclose the deeper truth, which is that the world of violence and lies ought to be transformed into a world of truth and peace. In order to get to that world, we ought to do our best to unite means and ends. It seems obvious, but the point is worth making explicit: truth-telling is the best way to avoid lying; and acting non-violently is the best way to avoid violence. And those social, political, and interpersonal circumstances that seem to require violence and falsehood should be transformed through critique, truth-telling, and non-violent activism. This requires wisdom and care – and melioristic, incremental work. But the overarching goal is to disclose truth and build peace. Untruth and lying are obvious and important problems. A further problem occurs when truths are ignored or excluded. It is wrong to exclude perspectives and points of view, to denigrate and silence speakers and witnesses, to seek to destroy evidence or erase certain ways of knowing. The concept of epistemic injustice has been employed in recent discussions to describe something like what I have in Sissela Bok, Lying: Moral Choice in Public and Private Life (New York: Knopf Doubleday, 2011), 19.

2

Philosophy and Practices of Peace

249

mind. Miranda Fricker offers an explanation focused on testimonial injustice and hermeneutical injustice.3 Testimonial injustice occurs, for example, when someone does not believe you because of who you are (say, when the police do not believe you because you are black or Latino). Hermeneutical injustice occurs when conceptual resources do not allow you to properly describe or account for your experience of oppression or injustice (say, when a woman is harassed in a culture that does not see sexual harassment as an issue). Fricker’s concept of epistemic injustice is important. However, I have something less subtle in mind here, that we might call epistemic violence. Violent discourse occurs in close conjunction with actual violence. Name-calling, threats, hostile words, and deliberate silencing are very close to actual violence. Violent discourse can be an antecedent of real violence: insults usually occur before actual fights. Violent discourse can cause real and substantial harms even when it does not lead to actual physical violence. People are harmed when excluded, shut up, shamed, berated, and so on. This can result in real and substantial violence: ways of knowing may be entirely excluded or actually destroyed. I prefer to employ the term epistemic violence here (as making a stronger claim than mere epistemic injustice) since, in my usage, violence is pernicious, harmful, and often closely connected to the deliberate intention to hurt and dominate. Epistemic injustice, as Fricker describes it, is more like the problem of structural violence: a matter of injustice and oppression in social circumstances that is not connected to the deliberate intention to harm or dominate. The solution to structural violence and epistemic injustice is justice, fairness, reciprocity, and genuine dialogue. All of that is true and important. But we also need a commitment to peaceful dialogue and those practices of peace that allow for justice, reciprocity, and the disclosure of truth. The solution to epistemic violence is epistemic nonviolence: a commitment to practices of non-violence that aims at establishing the conditions under which knowledge, truth, and wisdom can be disclosed. Epistemic violence – as I understand it here – is a form of overt, direct, or deliberate violence: it is an active effort to inflict harm upon another. In this regard, I want to push beyond the way that epistemic violence has been understood in critiques of Eurocentrism that follow from Spivak and others who are critical of Anglo-European domination.4 Postcolonial criticism that employs the idea of epistemic violence also often focuses more on what we Miranda Fricker, Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 4 Epistemic violence is discussed by Spivak, ‘Can the Subaltern Speak?’; also see Kristie Dotson, ‘Tracking Epistemic Violence, Tracking Practices of Silencing’, Hypatia 26:2 (May 2011), 236–57. 3

250

Transformative Pacifism

might view as structural violence. Again, this is important. But epistemic violence is often more overt and direct. Epistemic violence occurs when people are deliberately and explicitly denigrated and when theories of knowledge are used to actively discredit and destroy certain people and ways of knowing. Incivility, rudeness, and verbal cruelty provide examples – as well as exclusionary practices. When, for example, native or indigenous people are forcibly re-educated by dominant colonizers, there is epistemic violence. When internet trolls lambast their opponents, there is epistemic violence. When aggressive crowds shout at each other, there is epistemic violence. Much of this involves silencing and exclusion – but it also often involves outright lying. Ad hominem attacks are, after all, often simply lies. The solution in all of these cases is peaceful interactions and non-violent dialogue grounded in a commitment to truth. It may seem that the antidote for epistemic violence is a kind of modus vivendi or even full-blown relativism. To avoid violence, it might seem that we ought to give up on the aspiration for truth. But pacifism and non-violent communication do not leave us with relativism. Indeed, they are committed to the power of truth and to the idea that there is a common disclosure of truth. If we are to make sense of the problem of lying, we must remain committed to an idea of objective truth. Relativism is thus epistemologically flawed. And as a practical matter, it is unstable. One significant problem is that relativism cannot provide us with the resources we need to combat epistemic violence. We need to be able to say that epistemic violence is wrong and/or false. And we need to be able to demonstrate that lies are not true. It may seem like a form of violence to claim that another idea is false or wrong. But here we ought to affirm a normative stance, claiming that peace is good, that false ideas should be subjected to critique, and that the non-violent practices of dialogue and contemplation provide the best method for disclosing truth (and indeed, for achieving consensus). In a different book, I postulated five transcendental conditions that seem unavoidable in discourse and contemporary life: (1) that individuals possess liberty; (2) that we thrive within caring community; (3) that scepticism and critique are inevitable; (4) that might does not make right; and (5) that we should aspire to cosmopolitan universality. Human beings possess individuality and liberty in community with others; human reason asks sceptical questions; we know that power is different from truth and ethics; and we value this kind of universality. In the previous book, I argued that these commitments lead us to

Philosophy and Practices of Peace

251

be critical of wars, religions, and political organization – since these institutions often undermine such commitments.5 In this chapter, I am arguing in defence of the idea that the pursuit of truth and wisdom rests upon a certain set of essentially non-violent conditions – and that the pursuit of peace also depends upon a commitment to truth and to truth-telling. This is a kind of transcendental argument: non-violence is assumed as a condition for the possibility of the pursuit of truth and wisdom; and a lasting and stable peace depends upon the disclosure of truth. There will still be those who reject this and who will claim that these norms – of peace, dialogue, contemplation, and truth – are violent impositions. Such objections remind us that the project of peace (and disclosure of truth) is never complete: we are always on the way towards peace, truth, and wisdom. But if one were to offer an argument that rejects these norms, one would already be operating within the space of non-violence – aiming to persuade rather than impose. This is how the assumption of non-violence appears as a transcendental condition for the possibility of rational discourse. Non-violent philosophical dialogue and peaceful philosophical contemplation can help us transform ourselves in order to create a more peaceful world. Contemplation and dialogue are both committed to a conception of rationality that is non-violent. This is a normative conception of what philosophy, reflection, and dialogue ought to look like. In philosophical dialogue we aspire to create a rational discussion in which the interlocutors listen carefully and respond reasonably; in which they respond with reciprocity and care; in which they actively attempt to imagine themselves into the point of view of the other; and in which the goal is to disclose truth through self-examination and communal consensus building. Self-interest is left behind in an effort to understand, relate, and produce consensus. Violence is discarded in the attempt to understand and persuade. The point of philosophical dialogue is not to win or defeat your opponent. Rather, the goal is to reveal the truth, achieve insight, and develop wisdom. In non-violent dialogue, ideas are set forth, considered, and reflected upon. In genuine dialogue, thought is directed towards some object or idea in order to disclose and understand it. Non-violent dialogue of this sort is a practice of peace; and it is through non-violent dialogue that the world can be made more peaceful – since the practice is inclusive, caring, and reasonable. This is the heart of what Buber – and Gandhi – was describing in terms of dialogue and its connection to a ‘great peace’ (as discussed above in Chapter 2). Andrew Fiala, Against Religions, Wars, and States.

5

252

Transformative Pacifism

It is also what Socrates practised in Plato’s early dialogues. Something similar can be found in the work of Habermas – and others who are interested in understanding the way that dialogue, reason, and communication point towards universality – and rest upon norms of fairness, impartiality, and non-violence.6 Peaceful means are essential for the discovery, disclosure, and dissemination of truth. Violence that is used to spread the truth moves us from the sphere of knowledge back into the sphere of force. It is true that we could force someone to nod in agreement with regard to a knowledge claim – say, by putting a gun to their head. But forced agreement is not genuine. We want assent to the truth to be based upon a cognitive process in which the truth is known as true. This idea is used to support the basic argument in defence of toleration, as found in Locke and Mill: we want persuasion based upon ‘inward sincerity’ as Locke puts it; and we want individuals to discover the truth freely in an open forum of ideas, as Mill explains.7 We might also find support for this idea in Habermas’s work. Although Habermas does not, to my knowledge, explicitly take up the question of pacifism and non-violence, he does propose that agreement and conformity that rests upon violence is superficial. He explains that the ideal of rational agreement is supposed to be distinct from coercion, imposition, or manipulation. Habermas explains, ‘Agreement can indeed be objectively obtained by force; but what comes to pass manifestly through outside influence of the use of violence cannot count subjectively as agreement.’8 We might also mention here related ideas found in other places, with regard to the need for consensus that is not based upon forced consent: in John Rawls’s notion of overlapping consensus or in other versions of contract theory, as well as in other theories that emphasize unforced consent. Indeed, this ideal shows up in discussions in applied ethics, connected with ideas about informed consent, voluntary assent, and so on. Critics may claim that there is no such thing as unforced consent and that violence and coercion underlie all cultural values. Some view all of reality in agonistic or conflictual terms. This critique can be found within post-Hegelian One useful explanation is found in Stallan Vinthagen’s account of non-violence. Vinthagen writes,  Gandhi, unlike postmodernism, claims that there exists an absolute truth (even if we have only fragmentary access to it). Like Habermas, Gandhi claims that a valid truth is reached mutually, through our transcendence of both the truth of objectivity (which disregards human subjectivity) and the truth of subjectivism (which disregards the common conviction). One of Gandhi’s main reasons for nonviolence was the insight that he, like others, could not be completely certain of what was really true. The act of killing denies alternative truths, and proclaims an impossible monopoly of Truth. The truth of which we are mutually convinced becomes the only plausible alternative. The truth is the end and nonviolence the means. (Stellan Vinthagen, A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works (London: Zed Books, 2015)) 6

I discuss this in detail in Fiala, Tolerance and the Ethical Life, Chapter 7. Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action (Boston: Beacon, 1984), vol. 1, p. 287.

7 8

Philosophy and Practices of Peace

253

philosophies, including Marxism, Nietzsche and his followers, Foucault and the postmodernists, and more contemporary critics such as the idea of ‘agonism’ as found in Chantal Mouffe’s works. Much of this criticism holds that consensus is false or ideological – a form of social/political peace that is forced upon subjects who are either duped or cowed into submission. In response, we might simply stipulate that forced submission is simply not what we have in mind here. Rather, the point is that reason-giving, listening, receptivity, and genuine dialogue form the normative basis for any consensus that is not based upon violence. It may be impossible to achieve non-violent consensus in our world. Epistemic violence is a problem that runs deep. But the ideal of non-violent consensus should guide our theory and practice. Transformative pacifism holds that we ought to work to create a world in which genuine consensus is more likely to occur. One way we do this is to continually criticize – as Marx, Nietzsche, Foucault, and the rest do – false and coerced consensus.

Contemplation and letting things be The previous section focused on dialogue as a practice of peace, recognizing that truth and knowledge often appear in and through non-violent truth-telling dialogue. A different account of knowledge focuses on the disclosure of truth and revelation of knowledge that occurs in solitary contemplation. Contemplation – Aristotle’s notion of theoria – is an activity that is complete and self-sufficient. It is an end that is desired for its own sake. Completion and self-sufficiency are a kind of peace: a state of rest and tranquillity. One way of understanding this is to consider contemplation as a kind of aesthetic experience that allows ideas, objects, and even persons to reveal themselves. Non-violent contemplation is a reflection upon things that is both disinterested and actively engaged. It involves a reflection that lets things appear, without imposing upon them. This peaceful, tranquil mood of resting in objects has been described in various ways by different traditions. It can be connected to the idea of wu wei, in Taoism, or to the idea of Gelassenheit, as found in Heideggerian philosophy and in Christian theology and Anabaptist ethics. We also find it in Plato and Aristotle as well as in contemporary theories of philosophy and aesthetics. In Taoist thought, the idea of wu wei or non-action is a form of leaving things alone that rests in tranquillity. In Chuang Tzu (Thomas Merton’s translation), this is explained as follows:

254

Transformative Pacifism

The non-action of the wise man is not inaction. It is not studied. It is not shaken by anything. The sage is quiet because he is not moved, not because he wills to be quiet. The heart of the wise man is tranquil. It is the mirror of heaven and earth, the glass of everything. Emptiness, stillness, tranquility, tastelessness, silence, non-action: this is the level of heaven and earth. This is perfect Tao. Wise men find here their resting place. Resting, they are empty.9 (emphasis in original)

A similar passage can be found in Lao-Tzu, where the movement of Tao is described as a natural movement. If we could be free of desire and cultivate nonaction in harmony with the Tao there would be peace: The Tao never does anything, yet through it all things are done. If powerful men and women could enter themselves in it, the whole world would be transformed by itself, in its natural rhythms. People would be content with their simple, everyday lives, in harmony, and free of desire. When there is no desire, all things are at peace.10

The Taoist sage seems to merely flow along with things. It is not clear that this tranquil flowing is the same as what we have in mind when speaking of philosophical contemplation. But there seems to be something in common between philosophical contemplation and the meditative arts: to learn to rest in the present, aware of things, but without attachment or desire. If the whole world operated this way (and political leaders in particular), the Taoists suggests, there would be peace. And the dialectical world view of Taoism indicates that violence produces counter-violence. As per Mitchell’s translation of Tao Te Ching: ‘For every force there is a counter-force. Violence, even well-intentioned, rebounds upon itself.’11 A related take on ‘letting things be’ can be found in what Heidegger describes as ‘meditative thinking’ or Gelassenheit.12 It may seem somewhat inappropriate to bring Heidegger into a book on peace and non-violence, since Heidegger is often associated with Nazism – and since Heidegger provides little in the way of political or ethical guidance.13 And indeed, this problem reminds us Chuang Tzu, Merton translation. Tao Te Ching, # 37 (Mitchell translation from: http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/ taote-v3.html). 11 Ibid. 12 This paragraph is based upon Martin Heidegger, Discourse on Thinking: A Translation of Gelassenheit (New York: Harper and Row, 1966). For the connection with Taoism wu wei see Michael Watts, The Philosophy of Heidegger (New York: Routledge, 2014). 13 See Gregory Fried, ‘Heidegger and Gandhi: A Dialogue on Conflict and Enmity’, in Alice MacLachlan and Allen Speight, eds., Justice, Responsibility, and Reconciliation in the Wake of Conflict (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013). 9

10

Philosophy and Practices of Peace

255

that a philosophy of meditative thinking without an ethical grounding can be dangerous. A similar complaint is often turned towards Taoism, which can seem to be a form of ethical relativism. The challenge is to develop peaceful contemplation that ‘lets thing be’, while also remaining committed to the transformative project of building and creating peace. At any rate, Heidegger’s consideration of meditative thinking is useful since it provides an alternative to what Heidegger calls calculative thinking. Calculative thinking aims to produce something, to dominate something, to capture something: it is a form of thinking that is oriented towards power and production – it is the form of thinking of technology. It is obvious – although Heidegger does not make this point – that calculative thinking is also typical of war and warriors, who assess and evaluate in order to achieve advantage, dominance, and victory. Meditative thinking is different: it allows beings to be what they are, permitting them to shine forth and reveal themselves. As Heidegger puts it, this is a form of ‘releasement’ or ‘openness’ – or letting go. He further explains this as a kind of thinking that is divorced from willing, a kind of non-willing (similar to Taoist wu wei). In discussing this, Heidegger struggles to explain that Gelassenheit is somehow distinct from mere passivity. It is more like in-dwelling, resting-with, being-open-to, or abiding. And this fits with Heidegger’s conception of truth as a-letheia: he focuses on the Greek notion of truth (emphasizing the alpha privative), suggesting that truth appears as a kind of disclosure or uncovering or revelation. Heidegger connects his idea about Gelassenheit to the mysticism of Meister Eckhart, for whom the idea means that we give up on ourselves and give in to God: as the saying goes, ‘let go, let God’. Heidegger’s effort is to interpret this same movement in a non-theological fashion. Or, rather, he offers a reinterpretation of theology based upon this idea. As Bret Davis explains, the idea of Gelassenheit can provide a revaluation of what we mean by God. Davis asks, ‘Would the profoundest meaning of “God” then be: “letting beings be”?’14 On this view, we might suggest that peace results from giving in to God and allowing God’s gift to be received with gratitude, humility, and so on. Peace is a common thread woven systematically throughout Eckhart’s sermons. He connects peace to resignation or letting go (or leaving oneself).15 Bret W. Davis, Heidegger and the Will: On the Way to Gelassenheit (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 207), 132. 15 Eckhart explains,  You must know that no man ever left himself so much in this life, but he could find more to leave. There are few who are truly aware of this and who are steadfast in it. It is really an equal exchange 14

256

Transformative Pacifism

For Eckhart, peace is connected with silent receptivity and giving in to God. In such a posture of total submission, Eckhart explains, we find peace. In other words, to find peace we should leave things to God and trust in God’s grace: And so they are all wrong who worry about how God works in you, whether by nature or by grace. Just leave the work to Him, and you will be at peace. For as far as you are in God, you are at peace, and as far as you are out of God, you are not at peace. If anything is in God, it has peace: as much in God, so much at peace. That is how you can tell how far you are in God or otherwise, by whether you have peace or unrest.16

Eckhart offers an account of peace that is understood as the peace of the soul that rests with God. While there are mystical elements here, Eckhart builds upon traditional ideas that extend back to Augustine and Dionysius the Areopagite conceiving peace as the order and structure of a universe created by God and oriented around love. For Dionysius, peace is another name for God.17 Peace is what all created beings desire – and this desire aims for a return to God, who is the source of peace and whose love and intelligence create the peaceful harmony of all things.18 Eckhart’s mysticism remains theological and decidedly Christian. Other Christians have emphasized the practical result and moral practice of Gelassenheit, offering a clearly ethical account of the concept. In Anabaptist traditions, among the Amish or Mennonites, Gelassenheit is connected to humility and submission to God’s will – and this connects explicitly to non-violence and pacifism.19 The and barter: just as much as you go out of all things, just so much, neither more nor less, does God enter in with all that is His – if indeed you go right out of all that is yours. Start with that, and let it cost you all you can afford. And in that you will find true peace, and nowhere else. (Meister Eckhart, The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart (New York: Crossroads Publishing, 2009), 489) Eckhart, The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart, 521–2. Dionysius the Areopagite, On the Divine Names and Mystical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Christian Classics Ethereal Library at: https://www.ccel.org/ccel/rolt/dionysius.pdf ), Chapter 11: ‘Concerning “Peace” and what is meant by “Very Being” Itself, “Very Life,” “Very Power,” and similar phrases’. 18 Eckhart builds upon this, claiming: St. Dionysius says divine peace pervades and orders and ends all things; if peace did not do this, all things would be dissipated and there would be no order. Secondly, peace causes creatures to pour themselves out and flow in love and without harm. Thirdly, it makes creatures serviceable to one another, so that they have a support in one another. What one of them cannot have of itself, it gets from another. Thus one creature derives from another. Fourthly, it makes them turn back to their original source, which is God (Eckhart, The Complete Mystical Works of Meister Eckhart, 168). 19 Kraybill explains:   Various words in the Amish vocabulary capture the meaning of Gelassenheit: obedience, humility, self-denial, submission, thrift, and simplicity … . Gelassenheit stands in sharp contrast to the bold, aggressive individualism of modern culture. The meek spirit of Gelassenheit unfolds as individuals yield to higher authorities: the will of God, church, elders, parents, community, and tradition. Gelassenheit reveals that Amish culture is indeed a subculture whose core value 16 17

Philosophy and Practices of Peace

257

notion of giving up and letting be as a way to connect to God’s grace and peace has deep significance in Anabaptist morality and the ethics of non-violence that we find in the Amish and Mennonite traditions. Much of this still sounds mystical and religious. Perhaps we can find additional resources for thinking about this in other places. One useful source is found in the work of Bertrand Russell. It is well-known that Russell was a pacifist of sorts an atheist, and a humanist. He protested the First World War and was assaulted and locked up for his pacifism. He reluctantly assented to the Second World War. But he continued to fight against war. For Russell the problem of war was related to a lack of philosophical insight. Hatred and intolerance are rooted in a lack of wisdom, which for Russell meant a lack of an impartial and comprehensive vision of the world. Russell explains that philosophy opens our horizons, helps us cultivate benevolent emotions, and makes us see the absurdity of the intolerant partialities of religion, patriotism, and the like. Russell was strongly opposed to nuclear weapons. He warned that knowledge without wisdom was extremely dangerous in the nuclear age. And he warned that hatred keeps us in bondage. His analysis of hatred calls for a revaluation of the idea that enemies should be harmed. Although Russell famously rejected Christianity, he nonetheless appealed to the parable of the good Samaritan to make this point, indicating that the heart of that story is the idea of learning to love our neighbours – even our enemies. He wrote, It might be objected that it is right to hate those who do harm. I do not think so. If you hate them, it is only too likely that you will become equally harmful; and it is very unlikely that you will induce them to abandon their evil ways. Hatred of evil is itself a kind of bondage to evil. The way out is through understanding, not through hate.20

These are the words of one of the world’s most famous logicians and committed atheists. His thinking here connects to the thinking of others who advocate for peace: Jesus, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and so on. But Russell is not a simple-minded non-resistant. He refrains from advocating absolute pacifism. Nonetheless, he recognizes that in the nuclear age, the stakes are high. He collides with the heartbeat of modernity, individual achievement. … The nonresistant stance of Gelassenheit forbids the use of force in human relations. Thus the Amish avoid serving in the military, holding political offices, filing lawsuits, serving on juries, working as police officers, and engaging in ruthless competition. (Donald Kraybill, The Riddle of The Amish (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1989), Chap 2 (ebook – no page numbers)) Bertrand Russell, ‘Knowledge and Wisdom’, in Portraits from Memory (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1956), 176.

20

258

Transformative Pacifism

pointed out in a speech, ‘Mankind is faced with an alternative which has never before arisen in human history: either war must be renounced or we must expect the annihilation of the human race.’21 Luckily, the worst-case scenario has not come true. But the world continues to be plagued by massive numbers of nuclear weapons – and occasional sabre rattling. Russell suggests that one remedy for this was concrete, detailed knowledge of the actual danger of a massive nuclear war – from which civilization would not soon recover. But he also thought that another part of the solution was to understand that force was simply useless in the struggle between communists and anti-communists that structured the Cold War. Russell explained, ‘The propagation of the view which they prefer is to be conducted by persuasion, not by force.’22 This is a philosophical point – about epistemology and critical thinking: might does not make right, only rational persuasion can serve to defend and disseminate the truth. Another source for thinking about the link between the philosophy and peace can be found in the ancient Greek tradition. Indeed, Aristotelian contemplation appears to offer a related account of how thinking or philosophical reflection is a practice of peace. In a remarkable and often overlooked passage in Aristotle’s account of contemplation he explicitly contrasts it with war. In this crucial section of Nicomachean Ethics (Book 10, Chapter 7 – 1177b) he says that we make war in order to bring about peace (polemoumen hin eirenen agomen). Everything else we do is for the sake of contemplation; and this directs our attention to the connection between contemplation and peace. The activity of contemplation provides us with peace, energy, and complete happiness. It brings us as close to divinity as human beings can get – and is the most proper human activity, since the unique and highest human essence is to engage in intellectual contemplation. Aristotle’s notion of divinity is connected with an idea of peace. Aristotle suggests that the gods are best described as peaceful beings absorbed in contemplation. The Homeric myths displayed the gods as bellicose participants in battle. But Aristotle teaches that the gods are not actively involved in this sort of warlike activity. Rather, for Aristotle, the gods are stable, tranquil, and selfsufficient. Human beings develop and fulfil the god-like aspect of our natures, when we emulate the gods in contemplation and self-sufficiency. This does not mean that there is no movement or change within contemplation. Indeed, contemplation can involve a kind of problem-solving activity that moves Russell, ‘Steps Toward Peace’, in Portraits from Memory, 239. Russell, ‘Steps Toward Peace’, 242.

21 22

Philosophy and Practices of Peace

259

and shifts and provides us with energy, attention, and focus. But the goal of such activity is not to achieve dominance or ‘defeat’ a problem. Rather, problems are contemplated in a kind of wonder or beholding.23 When we contemplate, behold, or wonder about things, we are engaged in practices of peace. Of course, we still might worry that contemplation is too divorced from the world and ends up as static engagement with reified ideas that ignore the reality of violence and injustice. A related problem is that contemplation seems focused on presence, while ignoring the background conditions of theorizing – including the exclusion of others, the social and political conditions that make theorizing possible, and so on.24 Those who engage in contemplation must remain attentive to all of this. Indeed, Aristotle – and those who follow him – reminds us that the contemplative theorizer is dependent upon the peace of the social and political world. Aquinas explicates Aristotle as follows: It is rather fitting that by means of politics a person should wish to obtain happiness for himself and everyone else; happiness of this kind sought in political life is distinct from political life itself, and in fact we do seek it as something distinct. This is contemplative happiness to which the whole of political life seems directed; as long as the arrangement of political life establishes and preserves peace giving men the opportunity of contemplating truth.25

Social and political peace are necessary for contemplation and for the disclosure of truth. The goal of social and political peace is to open the door to the deeper meaning of peace, which is connected to contemplative happiness – the pursuit of truth. Aquinas, obviously, means this to connect with religious contemplation, worship, prayer, and the development of theological virtue. But even in our secular era, the same psychological or spiritual value holds: it is the disclosure of truth that is the key to happiness and for which we cultivate social and political peace. This is not to say that contemplation is the only good we desire. Aristotelian contemplation can be a lonely affair: one could contemplate truth without a Thomas W. Smith explains this as follows, ‘Contemplation is a receptive activity … . One is taken outside of oneself. One is invigorated and active … . Contemplation in the sense of beholding is a manner of being held by something wonderful and delightful’ (Thomas W. Smith, Revaluing Ethics: Aristotle’s Dialectical Pedagogy (Albany, NY: SUNY, 2001), 269). Also see: Andrea Wilson Nightingale, Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy: Theoria in its Cultural Context (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004). 24 For some of this discussion, see William McNeill, The Glance of the Eye: Heidegger, Aristotle, and the Ends of Theory (Albany, NY: SUNY, 1999). 25 Aquinas, Commentary on The Nicomachean Ethics, Book X, #2101, translated by C. I. Litzinger, O.P. (Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1964, two volumes; at: http://dhspriory.org/thomas/english/ Ethics10.htm#11). 23

260

Transformative Pacifism

dialogue partner, as a disembodied spirit alone in the universe. Human life also contains a variety of goods, including the goods of care, communication, and social participation. Platonic dialogue provides a better model, then, for this important aspect of human life. In Plato, dialogue occurs in the company of others who are located in concrete situations within the city. But against that background of embodied humanity, Plato provides good models of peaceful dialogue: where ideas are exchanged and truths are revealed. In the best dialogues, violence is avoided – even though Plato does show us occasions where violence threatens to disrupt dialogue. In Republic, Thrasymachus – whose name literally means ‘bold fighter’ – exhibits violent tendencies. In Symposium, Alcibiades bursts in with brazen, violent drunkenness. In Gorgias, Callicles defends the law of violence, power, and force. And so on. Socrates’ response is to defuse violence and threats of violence with discourse, persuasion, dialogue, and more philosophy. His resolution strategy is to keep the dialogue going – to fight the threat of violence with non-violent words and careful persuasion. There are at least two reasons for Socrates’ avoidance of violence. First, he appears to be committed to a basic ethic of non-violence – at least as articulated in the Crito as an explicit rejection of returning evil for evil or retaliation.26 And second, he seems to hold that it is through the non-violence of philosophical practice that truth is revealed. Socrates does not describe it in exactly these terms. Rather, he appeals to the concept of love (eros) in Symposium to explain how truth is revealed. Socrates appeals to metaphors of love, pregnancy, and birth in order to describe the philosophical assent and process of disclosing truth. Furthermore, in Symposium prior to Socrates’s speech about love as disclosing truth, the poet Agathon indicates that love is the source of peace. He explains that if love were the ruler among the gods, the gods would be at peace and there would be no violence. He concludes with a poem, saying that Love ‘gives peace to men and stillness to the sea, lays winds to rest, and careworn men to sleep’. And so on. In his response to Agathon and report of Diotima’s teachings, Socrates points us towards the question of what good love (or peace) is. While love and peace can be viewed as ends in themselves, which give us rest and happiness, they are also essential for the disclosure of truth and the development of virtue, wisdom, and the vision of the beautiful. Socrates tells us that we are motivated by love – we are impelled by desire. This implies that we are never at rest or at peace until we see the beatific vision of See Duane L. Cady, Moral Vision: How Everyday Life Shapes Ethical Thinking (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), 108.

26

Philosophy and Practices of Peace

261

truth, goodness, and beauty. The process may be tumultuous and tempestuous – and dialogue may itself involve conflict and disagreement. But, I submit, the dialogical process and the contemplative process is a practice of peace. It aims at peaceful contemplation of the true and the beautiful. In order to attain that end, non-violent means are employed. And violence disrupts the process. Plato shows us this when Alcibiades bursts in, drunken and agitated. Indeed, Socrates begs Agathon to defend him from Alcibiades’s potential for violence. A thesis about peace and non-violence can be derived from this episode: non-violent exchange of ideas can lead us towards love, beauty, and truth – and violence or threats of violence ends the dialogue, returning us from the heights of philosophical contemplation back into the conflictual affairs of the world.27 Plato provides us with another story that helps explain the aesthetic and playful nature of contemplation. Plato notes, in Laws, that war is less worthy of human beings than peace. War is too serious. It remains mired in the world of political squabbles (a point Plato also makes in Book VII of Republic). In Laws he explains, The truth is that in war we do not find, and we never shall find, either any real play or any real education worth the name, and these are the things I count supremely serious for such creatures as ourselves. Hence it is peace (eirênên) in which each of us should spend most of his life and spend it best.28

It is through play that we cultivate virtues such as patience, tolerance, and love. It is through play that we build peace, find happiness, and discover truth. Plato, Schiller, and others have argued that the highest human goods are to be found in peaceful play.29 A crucial feature of play is that it is sufficiently disengaged

One of the images that Alcibiades provides of Socrates is at the Battle of Potidaea. Alcibiades reports that Socrates was seen standing in silent contemplation for a whole day and a night, while the rest of the camp prepared for battle. Alcibiades reports that it was after that episode that Socrates courageously and single-handedly saved Alcibiades. The momentary pause of contemplation appears to have given Socrates strength and virtue. This shows us that Socrates was not a pacifist. We know that Socrates fought at Potidaea and at Delium. But the higher path begins with wonder and deep contemplation. It is in the extended moment of contemplation that we see the revelation of what is unique about Socrates. In the time of contemplation, Socrates steps outside of the seriousness of the world of war and somehow plays with ideas and finds a bit of peace. Jonathan Lear offers another interpretation of this episode that holds that Socrates’ pausing contemplation is a sign of conflicts within him – that he is puzzled and literally cannot decide how to act or what to do next. See Jonathan Lear, A Case for Irony (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011). 28 Plato, The Laws, 803 d, translated in Hamilton and Huntington, eds., The Collected Dialogues of Plato (New York: Bollingen, 1961). 29 See Friedrich Schiller, On the Aesthetic Education of Man (New York: Dover, 2004). I discuss Schiller’s conception of play in Andrew Fiala, ‘Aesthetic Education and the Aesthetic State: Hegel’s Response to Schiller’, in Hegel’s Aesthetics, ed., William Maker (Albany, NY: State University New York Press, 2000), 171–85. 27

262

Transformative Pacifism

from the world to avoid violence. It is true that there are violent games (boxing, football, etc.). It is also true that games can erupt into real violence (as in soccer hooliganism or baseball players charging the mound). But play generally offers a kind of disengaged seriousness. Like aesthetic experience and philosophical contemplation, play allows us to bracket the deep seriousness that is often at the root of violence. Play is part of the spirit of dialogue. While the subject matter of philosophical dialogue can be deeply serious, the spirit of dialogue is playful. We must be free to play with ideas in order to think them over. The playful peace that occurs in critical rational thought is near at hand and easy to experience. When we discover the solution to a problem, we experience a kind of peace. William James explained that there is pleasure and contentment in solving a puzzle or problem. One of the subjective marks of rationality is ‘a strong feeling of ease, peace, rest’.30 But James warns that such peaceful tranquillity is often false and illusory. Philosophical inquiry keeps moving and is rarely at rest. What James calls the ‘theoretic tranquility of the boor’ is what we find when we rest content on the surface of things, without continuing to probe and think.31 Ignorance can be blissful and tranquil. Wisdom is different. Philosophical spirits are rarely completely content or entirely at peace. If things seem to be resting peacefully, the philosopher will offer an objection or even drum up a non-entity (a thought experiment or imaginary counter-example) in order to keep thought moving. This may seem like a vice of philosophy (and of intellectual inquiry in general). But this restless probing is inevitable. The solution is not to give up thought. Rather, it is to find a way to keep thinking while avoiding polemic, aggression, and violence. The key is dialogue. Genuine dialogue is never at rest – it constantly moves; but it is a great model for the practice of peace in a world that is also never at rest.

Conclusion This book has defended and explained pacifism as a critical and transformative theory and practice. It has offered an account of how pacifism ought to be conceived as an important moral theory with broad application. It has applied William James ‘The Sentiment of Rationality’, in James, The Will to Believe (New York: Longmans Green, 1907), 63. 31 James, ibid., 71. 30

Philosophy and Practices of Peace

263

pacifist insight to a variety of concrete issues. In this chapter, we have considered how pacifist insight connects with the project of philosophical dialogue, philosophical contemplation, and the pursuit of peace. The theory and practice of pacifism does not promise an easy path to inner peace. Nor does it offer a quick recipe for world peace. Indeed, this book appears to make all of this much more difficult. There are important objections to consider, exceptional cases to resolve, and difficult questions to answer. And often we are left with a sense of tragedy. This world is not peaceful and the task of building peace is an infinite one. The pacifist monk may choose to retreat in the face of this reality hoping at least to find peace of mind. The non-violent activist rolls up her sleeves and gets to work pushing the world in a more peaceful direction. The philosopher has a foot in both camps, recognizing that the path is long, the struggle is difficult, and there is much more to talk about.

264

Index abortion  35–7, 48, 56–9, 96 absolute pacifism  2, 23, 30–1, 46, 52–4, 99, 147, 199, 233, 257 absolutism  4, 10, 23, 54, 58, 88–93, 96–8, 113–14, 148, 185–6, 235, 248 active non-violence  2, 4, 9, 31 Addams, Jane  5, 32, 221–2 Afghanistan  205–6, 215–16 agonism  252–3 ahimsa  ix, 2, 54, 81, 114–15, 229 Alcott, Bronson  176 alienation/alienated  143–5 Amish  256 Anabaptist  256 anarchism  52, 82, 175–9, 229 animal liberation  232–8 animal rights/welfare  47, 56, 225, 231–5, 241–2 anthropocentrism  50, 225–31, 234–5, 237–41, 244 Aquinas, Thomas  viii, 27–8 n.17, 36, 39, 80, 140, 195, 259 Arab Spring  208 Aristotle  12–13, 54, 107–8, 113, 117, 126–7, 131, 155, 253, 258–9 Arnaud, É mile  2 ataraxia  viii, 117, 126, 138 Augustine  13, 27 n.17, 119–20, 127, 138–41, 149, 195, 256 Auschwitz  84 Bahrain  208–9 Ballou, Adin  157–8, 176 Beecher, Henry Ward  157 Beecher, Lyman  159–60 Benhabib, Seyla  83 Benjamin, Walter  69, 82 Bentham, Jeremy  36, 79, 94–7, 241 bin Laden, Osama  205, 212 Boulding Elise  152, 158 Bourdieu, Pierre  70, 72, 145 Bourne, Randolph  178

Boutros-Ghali, Boutros  194 boycott  209 brahmacharya  60 Buber, Martin  5, 19–34, 251 Buddha/Buddhism  viii, 1, 54–5, 114, 127, 229, 239 burden of proof  32–3, 44, 200 Burke, Edmund  95 Bush, George W.  28 n.17, 205, 215 n.10 business  12, 65, 167–72, 197 Cady, Duane  3 n.6, 49, 134, 138 n.18 capitalism  169–70, 201, 216, 223, 240 care ethics  32, 36, 99, 134, 145–9 Chavez, Cesar  5, 98, 104, 207, 209 chivalry  203 Chuang-Tzu  121–2, 253–4 Churchill, Ward  27 n.16, 84, 103, 233 civil disobedience  31, 179, 184, 190 n.48, 245 civility  187–8, 190 civil rights  2, 184, 207 civil society  136, 167–72, 175, 187, 197 Civil War (U.S.)  69, 156–8, 177 Cold War  40, 84, 175, 208, 217 n.13, 258 collateral damage  8, 191, 207, 212–13, 226, 230 communism  93, 95, 258 communitarianism  91, 94, 97, 144, 155, 193 community  15–18, 31–2, 48, 73–3, 99, 104, 121, 138, 140–1, 157, 165–8, 171–6, 183, 222, 243–6, 250 compassion  1–2, 54–6, 81, 104, 114–15, 124, 127, 138, 153, 165, 168, 170, 172–3, 186, 190, 207–8, 229 comprehensive non-violence  238–9 conditional pacifism  2, 89 Confederate statues  70–2 consequentialism  25, 27, 29, 41, 43, 48, 91, 200, 202, 205, 236, 238 Constitution (U.S.)  129, 138, 212

266 Index contemplation  1, 12–13, 18, 67, 108, 122, 124, 126, 246, 250–1, 253–62 contingent pacifism  2, 8–9 n.15, 10, 30n. 22, 89, 190 n.48 corporal punishment  101, 130, 134–5 Cortright, David  5–6 cosmopolitanism  43, 56, 119, 139, 141–4, 150, 167, 177, 187–90, 197, 213–14, 250 Coubertin, Pierre de  7 cowardice  6, 29, 203, 217, 233 crime  48, 51, 72, 133, 137, 165, 185, 194, 206 critical race theory  47, 50–2, 65 cultural violence  11, 59, 67–77, 151–97, 239–40 cyber-warfare  40, 211 cynicism  42, 90, 103 Cynicism (school of philosophy)  119 Dalai Lama  5, 110–11, 239 n.27 Dawkins, Richard  162 Day, Dorothy  5, 58, 121 death penalty (capital punishment)  8, 36–7, 48, 56, 59, 204, 210 deep ecology  50, 234–5, 241–3 deep vegetarianism  234, 237–8 deliberative democracy  187, 190 democratic peace  188 deontology  25, 31. See Kant Derrida, Jacques  64 dialogue  17, 19–24, 31–4, 66, 92, 245–6, 249–53, 260–3 Diogenes (the Cynic)  118–19 Dionysus the Areopagite  256 discrimination (in just war)  44, 213–14 discrimination (race/class/gender)  50–1, 171 distributive justice  74, 190–7 Dombrowski, Dan  60–1 domestic analogy  137, 139 domestic tranquillity  129–50 domestic violence  6–7, 101, 129–50, 159–61, 220, 234, 237 double effect (doctrine)  xi Doyle, Michael  188 drone warfare  212 duels/dueling  159–60 Dussell, Enrique  65

Eckhart (Meister)  255–6 economy/economics  33, 48–50, 97–8, 167–72, 188, 191, 193, 209, 217–18 eco-pacifism  225–44 egoism  41–2, 91, 97 Einstein, Albert  5, 174 embargo  199, 201, 205, 207, 209, 245 Emerson, Ralph Waldo  110 environmental justice  240 Epictetus  118 Epicureanism/Epicurus  viii, 117, 127, 138–40, 176, 246 epistemic injustice  248–9 epistemic violence  232, 237, 246–53 escapism  108–10 eudaimonia  53, 80 Eurocentrism  36, 52, 65 n.2, 188–9, 249 euthanasia  35–6, 48, 55–6, 58–61 family  1, 11, 13 n.22, 30, 50, 99, 101, 127, 129–50, 156, 161, 195 Feinberg, Joel  78, 80 feminism/feminist  1, 7, 32, 35, 47–52, 65, 73, 99, 133–4, 137, 143–7, 149 n.43, 159, 161, 240 Fitz-Gibbon, Andrew  123, 134 Fitz-Gibbon, Jane Hall  134 forgiveness  xi, 2, 13, 54, 104, 120, 148, 182–3, 204, 223 Foucault, Michel  70–1, 161, 179, 253 Fox, Michael Allen  141–2, 237–8 Francis of Assisi  120–1 Francis (pope)  5, 153 n.5, 195 Freud, Sigmund  82, 109, 140, 161, 222 Fricker, Miranda  249 Galtung, Johan  11, 39, 67–71, 74, 77, 151–4, 192–3, 243 Gandhi, Mohandas K.  xi, 2, 19–34, 54–5, 60, 65, 71–2, 81, 89, 104, 121, 153, 158, 165, 172–4, 177, 207–8, 235, 242–4, 247, 251–2, 257 Gelassenheit  253–7 gender  7, 33, 50–1, 65, 132–4, 144–6, 194, 222, 234, 240, 244 Gilman, Charlotte Perkins  143 Girard, René   162 Gladwell, Malcom  164 global justice  188, 192, 216

Index golden parachute  215, 217 Gorbachev, Mikhail  174–5 Grotius, Hugo  226–7 Habermas, Jü rgen  252 Hadot, Pierre  118 Hahn, Thich Nhat  114–16, 124–5 harm principle  78–9 hedonism  91, 138 Hegel, G.W.F.  14, 92–4, 131, 135–6, 144, 155, 161–2, 178–9 Heidegger, Martin  144, 253–5 Heraclitus  13 Hindu/Hinduism  viii, 229 Hiroshima  84 Hitler, Adolph  20, 22, 26, 172 Hobbes, Thomas  12, 180 Holocaust  20–4 home  109, 112–13, 120, 129–50, 212 homelessness  129, 142–3, 149 Homer  136, 240, 258 homesickness  144–5, 149 honor  203–4 Hopedale  176–7 Horkheimer, Max  82–3, 85 hospitality  141–2, 144, 150, 187–90, 193, 207 human flourishing  2, 9, 12, 17, 39, 53–4, 61, 77–80, 102, 132 humanism/humanist  53, 55, 80, 239, 257 humanitarian intervention  44, 202, 206–7, 212–17 implicit bias  50 inner peace  viii-ix, 1, 41, 85, 108–28, 245, 263 integrity  17, 38, 40–1, 94, 175, 231 international law  7, 22, 43, 185, 188, 201, 206, 226 Iraq  205, 215–16 Jainism  54–5, 229, 238–9 James, William  5, 221–2, 262 Jensen, Derrick  27 n.16, 84, 103, 233 Jesus  1, 3, 13, 32, 41, 119, 165, 179 n.31, 228, 257 John Paul II (pope)  5, 59 Josephus  227 just war myth  9–11, 49, 218

267

just war pacifism  2, 8 n.15, 10, 30 n.22, 45, 226 just war theory  7–8, 10, 21, 27 n.15, 42–9, 58, 135, 137, 185, 200, 204–5, 213, 217, 226, 229, 235 Kant, Immanuel/ Kantianism  7, 22, 35–42, 52, 56, 87–8, 91–9, 101–2, 113, 135, 148, 188–90, 228, 247–8 kindness  1, 54, 115, 172 King, Martin Luther, Jr.  x, 2, 5, 31, 89, 98, 153, 165, 172–3, 257 Lao-Tzu  254. See also Tao Te Ching last resort principle  8, 15, 44, 199–200, 202–3, 213 laughter  124–5, 127 Lawson, James  x, 98 leadership  172–5 Lenin, Vladimir  84, 196 liberalism  181 n.36, 184–90, 194–6. See also John Rawls libertarianism  94, 184–7, 193–6 liberty  14, 16–18, 50–2, 73, 78, 91–7, 118, 129–30, 165, 177, 179, 184–90, 193, 196, 209, 250 Liebknecht, Karl  83 Lin, Yu Tang  ix, 121 love viii-xii, 1–3, 12–15, 17–18, 23–4, 31–2, 41, 54, 98, 104, 109–11, 116, 119, 129–34, 138–48, 153–7, 172–7 lying  92, 113, 246–53 MacIntyre, Alasdair  38, 53, 93–4, 107, 113 McMahan, Jeff  8 n.15, 42 n.10, 230 Marcuse, Herbert  82, 84 Marx, Karl/Marxism  82, 84, 95–7, 144, 161, 195–6, 253 meat/meat eating  72, 76, 227–9, 231, 235–40 meliorism  88–90, 98, 103, 177, 232, 245, 248 memes  110, 162–3 Mennonite  66, 121, 256–7 mercy  xi, 1, 13, 54, 60, 104, 120, 148, 182, 190 Merton, Thomas  109, 122, 253–4

268 Index might does not make right  4, 9, 11, 73, 153, 157–60, 165, 183, 221, 250, 258 militarism  3, 33, 49–52, 82–4, 175–8, 183, 200–1, 217–22, 240 military expenditures  217, 220 military-industrial complex  4, 29, 175, 191, 217–21 Mill, John Stuart  36–7, 57, 78, 92–6, 252 mimetic violence  162 mindfulness  108, 115, 123–4 monism  57, 87–8, 91 moral injury  48, 101, 119 moral patient/moral agent  230 Mouffe, Chantal  253 multiculturalism  155, 193 Naess, Arne  235, 241–3 narcissism/narcissistic  111 Narveson, Jan  25–8, 30–1, 100 natural law (ethical theory)  7, 27–8, 36–8, 44, 48, 52, 56, 96, 228–9, 247 Nazism  22–3, 26, 84, 92, 178, 205–6, 254 negative peace  39, 68, 73, 77, 193, 194 n. Neo-Platonism  127, 227–9 Niebuhr, Reihnold  42 Nobel Peace Prize  7 Noddings, Nel  32, 34, 145–9 non-action  ix, 115, 201, 253–4. See also wu wei non-lethal weapons  210–12 non-resistance  174–7, 208, 230, 257 nonviolentism  2 non-violent resistance  23, 54, 177, 205, 207–10, 218 North Korea  219 Olympics/Olympism  7 oppression  7, 67–8, 71–4, 81–4, 104–9, 132, 143, 183, 192, 196, 203, 206, 209, 240, 249 Orend, Brian  43 pacific culture  151–66, 223 pacific virtue  1, 13, 22, 53–6, 61, 99, 190 Pakistan  212, 216 patriarchy  57, 101, 131–6, 139–41, 149, 180 patriotism  6, 150, 177, 257 Pax Romana  75

peace blindness  11–12 peace inducing practices  122–4, 126, 128 peace-keeping  177, 185, 201–2, 213–16 perfectionism  87–91, 98, 186 personal pacifism  2, 29, 108, 111 Pinker, Steven  9, 159–60, 164, 219 Plato  38, 92, 96–7, 108, 117, 126–7, 139, 179, 181 n.37, 246, 252–3, 260–1 play  125, 261–2 pluralism  38, 91, 180 pluralism/pluralist  38–9, 88, 91, 180 police/police brutality  8, 72, 153, 158, 185, 192, 204, 210–12, 221, 249 political liberalism  190. See also liberalism pornography  50–1 Porphyry  226–9 positive peace  40, 68, 73, 77, 126, 134, 138, 145, 186, 193, 194 n., 243, 245–6 post-colonial  52, 65 postmodernism  65–6, 252–3 post-structuralism  66 post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)  48, 101, 119, 137, 203 practical wisdom  55, 99, 107, 113–17, 149 pragmatic/practical pacifism  6, 10, 89 prison-industrial complex  220–1 procedural justice  182, 192 professional ethics  167–72 proportionality  10, 28–30, 44, 182, 200, 204, 213 public/private distinction  132–7 quietism  110–11, 114, 116, 118 racism  6, 50–2, 169, 189, 207, 234 Rawls, John  29 n.20, 181–2, 190, 193–6, 252 realism  21, 31, 42–7, 178, 186 refugees  142, 145, 191, 206–7, 217, 220–1 Regan, Tom  100, 232–3 relational justice  145–59, 223 relativism  42, 250, 255 responsibility to protect  30 n.21, 213–14

Index restorative justice  48, 145, 167, 183, 191, 223 retributive justice  182–3, 191, 223 revolutionary violence  73, 103–4 rights  7, 10, 28–30, 47, 76–80, 88–105, 137, 180, 184–9, 213–16, 223 Roosevelt, Theodore  146 Rothbard, Murray  195–6 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques  22, 178–9, 189 Ruddick, Sarah  143 Russell, Bertrand  5, 257–8 satyagraha  23–4, 26, 71, 242, 247 Saudi Arabia  208–9 sceptical pacifism  2, 10, 200 Schmitt, Karl  178–9, 181 Schweitzer, Albert  5, 32, 242 secular/secularism  53–4, 59–60, 91, 96, 187, 239, 242, 259 Seligman, Martin  126 sexism  49–52, 136, 171, 189 sexual violence  130, 133 shalom  viii Sharp, Gene  89, 98 Shusterman, Richard  123 Singer, Peter  241 slavery  6–7, 37, 65, 68–9, 71, 133, 156–8, 160 smiling  124–5 social contract  12, 179–83, 187, 196–7 socialism  50, 87, 93, 179, 184–7, 195 social peace  155–6, 167, 180, 182, 184, 186, 190–6 sociobiology  125, 155 Socrates  179, 252, 260–1 soma-aesthetics  122–6 sophrosyne  117 sovereignty  133, 212–14, 226, 232, 240 Soviet Union  174–5, 208 spirituality/spiritual peace  21–2, 98–9, 109–12, 124–6, 142, 228 Spivak,Gayatri Chakravorty  232 n.16, 249 stand-your-ground law  202 Steffen, Lloyd  47–8, 58, 229 Stoicism  117–20, 126–7, 138–9 structural violence  4, 11, 40–4, 56–7, 61, 68–9, 73–7, 88, 90, 104, 131–2, 141–3, 151–4, 168–70, 179, 192, 216–17, 232–4, 240, 247–50

269

Syria  206, 208, 216, 219 Tai Chi  122, 125 Taoism  ix, 1, 55, 114, 121–2, 246–7, 253–5 Tao Te Ching  121–2, 254 targeted violence  212–14 theoria  64 n.1, 66–7, 108, 253–62 Thomson, Judith Jarvis  38 n.5, 57 thug/thuggishness  153, 158–9, 168 tolerance  1, 33, 54, 169, 190, 261 toleration  119, 186–7, 190, 193, 252 Tolstoy, Leo  5, 121, 158, 177, 242 totalitarianism  15, 84, 91, 95, 97, 155, 178–9, 186, 211 tragedy/tragic xi-ii, 14–15, 18, 20–5, 46, 72, 85, 90, 91–2, 103, 147–8, 156, 186, 221, 263 tranquillity viii-ix, 1, 17, 39, 80, 108–11, 117–20, 122, 127, 138–41, 246–7, 253, 262. See also domestic tranquillity trolley problem  3–5, 37, 94 Trump, Donald  7–8 n.12, 153, 158–60 truth/truth-telling  2, 13, 17, 23–4, 71–2, 90–2, 122, 172, 183, 208, 242, 246–55, 258–61 Tutu, Desmond  5, 173–4 Ubuntu  173 United Nations  7, 22, 189, 194, 213–14 utilitarianism  7, 35–43, 52, 56, 59, 79–80, 87, 91–101, 148, 196, 236–7, 241, 247 utopia/utopianism  20, 82–4, 87–105, 155, 175–7, 193, 235 vegetarian/vegan  8, 76, 226–8, 234–43 Vietnam  205 violent culture  10, 73, 151–60, 163–6 virtue ethics  36, 53, 55, 99, 102, 107, 112, 116, 167 virtue pacifism  55, 113 vocational pacifism  2, 108, 111 von Clausewitz, Carl  178–9 Walzer, Michael  11 n.19, 27 n.15, 29 n.20, 199, 203 n. war crime  8, 133, 165

270 Index warism  4, 11, 49–51 Williams, Bernard  38, 40, 94 women’s rights  7, 176 World War I/First World War  7, 83, 165, 178, 257 World War II/Second World War  6, 257

wu wei  viii, 121, 247, 253–5 Yoder, John Howard  157 Young, Iris Marion  73–4 zero-sum games  169

271

272

273

274

275

276