Pacifism
"Pacifism" is moral opposition to war. The concept embraces a wide range of positions from an absolute prohibition of all use of force against persons to a selective and pragmatic rejection of particular forms of such force under varying circumstances. Pacifists vary on their moral grounds for rejecting war and on their commitments to varieties of nonviolence.
Etymologically, pacifism comes from the Latin pax, pacis, "peace" (originally "compact") + facere, "to make," and literally means "peacemaking." Often, pacifism is incorrectly identified as passivism, which derives from the Latin passivus, "suffering," and means being inert or inactive, suffering acceptance. Pacifists may be passivists but often are activists, choosing nonviolent means to resolve conflict and achieve personal and social goals.
Pacifism consists of two parts: the moral opposition to war and the commitment to cooperative social and national conduct based on agreement. Beyond the mere absence of war, peace is a condition of group order arising from within by cooperation among participants rather than order imposed from outside by domination by others. Pacifism's opposition to war is much more frequently reflected in philosophic literature than is its active creation of peace.
Moral opposition to war is discussed across the history of Western philosophy. While early considerations of the morality of war can be found in ancient Greek texts (e.g., Plato, Republic, Book IV, 469c–471c), more thorough treatments are much later—notably from Desiderius Erasmus in the sixteenth century and Immanuel Kant in the late eighteenth. Adin Ballou articulated pragmatic pacifism in the mid-nineteenth century, and William James explored pacifist philosophy in the early twentieth. Arguments for pacifism tend to focus on the evils of war, including human suffering—especially of innocents—and moral degradation of participants as well as the uncontrollability of modern warfare.
The case for pacifism varies with the form of pacifism being put forth. Absolute pacifism, the view that it is wrong under all circumstances to use force against persons, may rest on one interpretation of Kant's categorical imperative, on Mohandas Gandhi's Satyagraha (truth force), on Martin Luther King Jr.'s notion of Christian love, or on other moral bases. Weaker forms of pacifism may rest on interpretations of these same principles or on other grounds. Epistemological pacifists stress the impossibility of knowing sufficiently to warrant taking lives, while pragmatic pacifists trace the empirical history of war to emphasize failures in achieving the ends that were to justify carnage. Nuclear pacifists focus on the projected effects of thermonuclear exchange, and ecological pacifists consider the effects of modern war on ecosystems.
Erasmus, Desiderius; James, William; Just War Theory; Kant, Immanuel; King, Martin Luther; Love; Peace, War, and Philosophy; Plato; Russell, Bertrand Arthur William; Social and Political Philosophy; Violence.
Bibliography
Ballou, A. "Christian Non-Resistance." In Nonviolence in America: A Documentary History, edited by S. Lynd. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1966.
Cady, D. L. From Warism to Pacifism: A Moral Continuum. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989.
Cromartie, Michael, ed. Peace Betrayed?: Essays on Pacifism and Politics. Washington, DC: Ethics and Public Policy Center, 1990.
Erasmus, D. Complaint of Peace. 1517.
Erasmus, D. Praise of Folly. 1512.
Gandhi, M. K. Non-violent Resistance. Edited by B. Kumarappa. New York: Schocken, 1951.
Holmes, Robert L. On War and Morality. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.
Holmes, Robert L. "Pacifism for Nonpacifists." In Social and Political Philosophy, edited by James P. Sterba. New York: Routledge, 2001.
James, W. "The Moral Equivalent of War" (1910). In War and Morality, edited by R. Wasserstrom. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1970.
Kant, I. Perpetual Peace (1795). Edited and translated by L. W. Beck. New York: Liberal Arts Press, 1957.
King, M. L., Jr. A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King Jr. Edited by J. M. Washington. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1986.
Ruddick, S. Maternal Thinking: Toward a Feminist Peace Politics. Boston: Beacon Press, 1989.
Sharp, Gene. Power and Struggle, part 1 of The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Boston: P. Sargent, 1973.
Teichman, J. Pacifism and the Just War. Oxford: Blackwell, 1986.
Tolstoy, L. The Kingdom of God and Peace Essays (1909), 2nd ed. Oxford, 1951.
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