Pacifism for practical rather than idealistic reasons?

I am not a pacifist. Rather, I am a strict just war theorist. In short, I believe that before a war can be just it must meet many conditions. One of these conditions is that the evil to be averted by going to war must be greater than the evil that would be incurred by going to war.

But has there ever been a war that fulfilled this condition? Is there any war in which one can point at it and clearly establish that the evils incurred by waging the war were less than the evils prevented by the war? I don't know one way or the other. I'm interested in hearing both sides.

What got me thinking about this was meditating upon the wise words of Canon Sydney Smith, the great classical liberal and anti-interventionist of early nineteenth-century England. When Lord Grey, the Prime Minister, was moving toward a foreign war, Sydney Smith wrote the following to Lady Grey in 1832:

"For God's sake, do not drag me into another war! I am worn down, and worn out, with crusading and defending Europe, and protecting mankind; I must think a little of myself. 1 am sorry for the Spaniards--I am sorry for the Greeks--I deplore the fate of the Jews; the people of the Sandwich Islands are groaning under the most detestable tyranny; Baghdad is oppressed; I do not like the present state of the Delta; Thibet is not comfortable. Am I to fight for all these people? The world is bursting with sin and sorrow. Am I to be champion of the Decalogue, and to be eternally raising fleets and armies to make all men good and happy? We have just done saving Europe, and I am afraid the consequences will be, that we shall cut each other's throat. No war, dear Lady Grey!--No eloquence; but apathy, selfishness, common sense, arithmetic! I beseech you, secure Lord Grey's swords and pistols, as the housekeeper did Don Quixote's armor. If there is another war, life will not be worth having.

"?May the vengeance of Heaven? overtake all the legitimates of Verona! but, in the present state of rent and taxes, they must be left to the vengeance of Heaven. I allow fighting in such a cause to be a luxury; but the business of a prudent, sensible man, is to guard against luxury.

?There is no such thing as a ?just war,? or, at least, a wise war."

Is Canon Smith correct? Have there been no just wars? Or have there been bona fide just wars?

 

What would the practical goals of pacifism be, and how can they be made to fit within the current political paradigm?

Largely, pacifism is based out of idealistic reasons, which, to me, appears to have the focus of the individual at stake.

Because, like the Simth example above, pacifism seems to be concerned about the self. Smith, above, doesn't want war for him..

His belief does nothing to mitigate the situation of the people (the Greeks and the Jews and the Deltas..) who are already conflicted.

 

War is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners, only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, World War II, and the Star Wars Trilogy.
-- (From Bart The General, written by John Swartzwelder)

 

By a practical pacifist, I mean someone who says, "Sure, in theory there could be a just war. But in reality there never has been. Each war has produced more evil than it prevented."

I'm really curious to know if the First American War of Independence (1775-1783) was a bona fide just war. Did it prevent more evils than it produced? For seven long years the colonists had to endure the misery of a war in their midst. The American colonists were taxed to pay for the war. Were their taxes lower than they were under the English? Also, about 25,000 Americans were killed in the war, plus a great deal more sustained life-long wounds, plus all the widows, orphans, grieving parents, etc. If one takes all this misery and puts it on a scale, does it outweigh the misery that the Americans would have suffered by remaining English subjects?

 

But whether something is 'just' or not is so complex, and any particular conflict has effects that last long, long after the end of a conflict - often in different directions to what could have been predicted.

The American war of Independence exemplifies this. The war was a brutal, viscious civil war that divided both the mother country and the colonies themselves. Englishman fought Englishman, families were divided, people died, and a legacy of bitterness and suspicion that lasted a century, and at times nearly pitted the world's only two democracies against each other. And for what? America was one of the most free, prosperous, and lowest taxed countries in the world before independence. What they gained in terms of democracy they would have done eventually anyway. The war was fought because of the arrogant and condicending attitude of the Tories and the King, rather than a brutal and oppressive regime.

Yet, this is only one part of the picture. Independence spurred the US to expand, to grow, and eventually it rose to become a power that provided protection and stability, and a source of innovation and wealth. Under British control, the colonies may never have achieved what they have done. But do these benefits - benefits only felt a long century after the Independance war was over - mean that the war was just? In 1804 - perhaps even 1904 - the benefits and advantages to having a strong, non-European power would not have been as evident. So would this have made the war of independence less just?

And of course, the most important point is that the winners of the wars paint themselves as the heroes - there evolves a mythology of the war, in which a war is, virtually by definition, turned into one where good triumphs, and the winners define the morality. Had the US lost the war of independence, the conflict may long have been viewed as a pointless slaughter that would have condemened the colonies to disintigration and oppression, were it not for the valient and hard fought battles of the British and Loyalist forces. The war would still have been 'just' - even with a totally different outcome.

 

Foofaspoon, you make some very good points about how wars have very long-term consequences that can last far beyond the lifetimes of the men fighting the wars.

I guess what I'm interested in is roughly contemporary benefits. Is the generation that fought a given war better off for having fought it? In the example chosen, were the colonists who fought in 1775-1783 better off for having fought, or did they pay-out more than they got in return?

I'd be interested in doing a sort of cost-benefit analysis, in which on one side of the tally-sheet are listed all the sufferings the war caused the generation of colonists that fought the war, while on the other side of the tally-sheet are listed all the benefits gained by winning the war enjoyed by the generation of colonists that fought it.

Then, a comparison of the two columns should yield a pretty good answer.

 

If your only interest is in an immediate cost benefit analysis in which you calculate the worth of lives like an aco****ant squeezing eveyr last penny from an audit, then no war could ever be justified.

If, however, you realize that there is more to life then merely existing then you have to acknowledge that as abd as war is, it is nothing compared to the worse options that follow when it's discarded.

 

"If, however, you realize that there is more to life then merely existing..."

Yes, there is certainly more to life than mere existence. Let me give a couple of extreme examples to illustrate what I'm trying to get at:

If the Ruritanians were invading the USA, would it be just to resist them? It depends.

EXAMPLE 1: Suppose the Ruritanians were invading to steal one penny each from America's billionaires, and that it would cost taxpayers $1,000 each to repel the Ruritanians. In that case it would be unjust and frankly ridiculous to mobilize against the Ruritanians.

EXAMPLE 2: Suppose on the other hand that the Ruritanians were invading with the intent of putting 99% of Americans to death (and keeping the most beautiful 1% as sex slaves), and that it would cost each taxpayer only one cent to repel the Ruritanians. In that case it would be just to mobilize against them.

Obviously these are extreme examples. Real-world examples tend to not be so extreme, but not always. For example:

In the War of Jenkins' Ear, England went to war against Spain because Captain Jenkins got his ear cut off by a Spaniard. Thousands of men lost their lives because of an ear.

Also, sometimes being "conquered" is a good thing. For example, in the Arab conquests of the seventh century, the conquered peoples were in most cases better off. The Arabs introduced basically two changes in their subjects' lives: 1) They lowered their taxes, and 2) they didn't try to forcibly convert their subjects (unlike the Roman [Byzantine] Empire, which tried to force heretical Christians to be Orthodox Christians--the Muslims didn't care if a Christian was a heretic or not). So it would have been absurd for a person living in the Roman Empire to fight against the Arab invaders. In doing so he would be risking his life, plus cities that would surrender without a fight were spared from pillage (unlike cities that had to be conquered, which were subject to pillage). What would such a Roman citizen be fighting for? To keep his taxes high? To ensure that the authorities would continue to hassle him about his faith? In short, that's the biggest reason the Arabs were able to conquer so much of the Roman Empire in just a few short decades--because the "conquered" more often than not welcomed the Arabs as liberators.

So, what did the American colonists gain in terms of life, liberty, and property by going to war against England? What did they lose?

 

In the War of Jenkins' Ear, England went to war against Spain because Captain Jenkins got his ear cut off by a Spaniard. Thousands of men lost their lives because of an ear.

Wrong. The colony wars of the period didn't happen because peoples ears got cut off. You might as well blame WW1 on the assassination of an archduke.

Furthermore, your 'extreme' examples more then imply that the monetary costs of going to war outweigh the human costs. That is, if it costs one cent to repel fight invaders intent on mass murder, it's okay, but if it costs an unspecified amoutn more, it would be better to less the mass murder occur.

That isn't pascifism, it's accounting. You're turning people into dollar signs and doing cost benefit analysis about how much a person is worth. Eichmann would be proud.

Please tell us how much is a persons life worth so that we know when it's cost efficent to defend it.

 

If you are interested in this thread, I must suggest the anime 'Gundam Wing' and its movie, 'Gundam Wing Endless Waltz.' Although confusing, it does talk about the point of fighting in a rather ideal situation. One of my quotes is from Endless Waltz.

"The more you fight, the more the sacrifice for peace becomes a waste." Basically, if you are fighting for a greater good (peace in this case) fighting in and of it self is against that greater good. Yet it may be needed. However, the more you fight, the more you are working against that greater good. It can get to the point where to keep fighting is wrong.

Any type of fighting for a greater good must be put in perspective to what will be lost by winning, or what was lost to what was won.

 

Farraday, your mention of Eichmann reminds me of something Hermann Goering said in his cell during the Nuremberg trials:

"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship...the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."


You asked, "Please tell us how much is a persons life worth."

That in part depends on the person and his relationship to the person doing the defending. For example, I would pay all I own to defend my wife, but I wouldn't pay a cent to defend Charles Manson. Of course, it's difficult to put an exact price on anything, even a car. (If you would pay $10,000 for a certain car, would you pay $20,000? No? How about $15,000? No? How about $10,001? Yes? How about $10,002? Etc.) At some point, the exact cut-off point becomes arbitrary. Some things are clear, however:

The GDP of the US is well over 7 trillion dollars. Suppose the Ruritanians kidnapped a single American and said they'd kill him unless the US's entire GDP of $7,000,000,000,000.00 were given to them. It would be absurd to pay such a sum. That would entail the US government confiscating every single possession of every single American and giving it to the Ruritanians in exchange for this single fellow. Obviously only a madman would contemplate doing that.

At the other extreme, say the Ruritanians had a deadly virus and were poised to release it in the US, which could kill every single American within 24 hours. They threaten to release it unless they receive one penny from the US. In this case, it would be insane not to pay.

Obviously, some prices are worth paying and others aren't. As with my car example above, it's all but impossible to give exact figures on such things, but that doesn't change the fact that some prices are too high to pay for what you get.

 

You know for someone arguing for practical pacifism you seem entirely incapable of coming up with a practical example.

 

EnforcerSG, you make a very good point in your post. I'm going to have to look into Gundam Wing and Gundam Wing Endless Waltz. Thanks for the tip!

 

What are you looking for, farraday? I've explained why I can't give you an exact figure. There are too many variables. That, plus the fact that any exact cut-off point becomes arbitrary:

CUSTOMER: "I am willing to pay you $20.00 for that widget."

BUSINESSMAN: "How about $20.01?"

Etc.

At some point in the haggling, the buyer will refuse to buy the widget because it's a single penny more than he's willing to pay. Then, looked at out-of-context, it would seem ridiculous:

"You mean to tell me you'd gladly give $20.77 for this widget, but you adamantly refuse to give $20.78 for it? What are you, some kind of nut? It's only a penny difference!"

It's because of such considerations that I am unable to give you an exact figure. Farraday, what is your answer to your question? How much money would you be willing to spend to defend a life?

 

Unlike you I'm not counting the cost in money spent.

Furthermore, since you freely admit that practical pacifism is only obvious when the examples are extreme, then in the real world there is nothing it can accomplish without hard numbers.

Finally calling it pacifism at all is a misuse of the word since it accepts that war is workable.

Unless of course we go back to your original hypothesis that no war has been practical to date, in which case you once again run into having to defend the position with ahrd numbers, which you've been unwilling to do.

So what am I to believe that this is something real or just a way to hide your idealistic views as fiscal soundness?

 

Farrady, before I could even begin to pronounce on the justness (or not) of a given war, I'd have to have the facts:

1. the life, liberty, and property lost in waging the war

2. the life, liberty, and property saved in waging the war

Then I'd be able to take a look at the two sets of data and have something to work with. How else would a civilized man do it? Of course, an idealistic pacifist would reject all war out of hand, regardless of how small (1.) was or how large (2.) was. But most human beings are not pacifists. For the rest of us, how can we judge whether a given war is a good idea unless we have some data to work with? In the absence of facts, what do we use? Whipped-up emotion? Machismo? Prejudice? Dice? Of course not. A just war can be fought only after it has been thoroughly examined and found to be worth the cost. Such an examination can be done only with the facts. Without the facts, no examination can be done. Without an examination, no war can be considered just.

Just as the unexamined life is not worth living, so the unexamined war is not worth fighting.

 

Farrady, before I could even begin to pronounce of the justness (or not) of a given war, I'd have to have all the facts:

Which, as we all know, happens so often before war. Everyone knows exactly what it will cost, how many lives will be lost and what the future ramifications will be.

You're absolutely right in that, as long as we can know the future perfectly we'll be able to tell the just wars form the unjust.

Do you have any other support for your impractically practical pacifism?

And please quantify liberty for me, that would be of great help, thanks.

 

Hey BInary, did you ever get KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC?

 

Farraday, here is the type of thing I'd like to see for the First American War of Independence (1775-1783):

COSTS:
life: 25,324 American were killed in the war.
liberty: A huge number of Americans were punished by the Revolutionary governments for not fighting against the British. I'd like to know what this number is. Governments continued to exist in America after the British were expelled. I'd like to know what rights were and were not respected by each.
property: A huge dollar amount of wealth was expended in defeating the British. Again, I'd like to know this number. Also, even after the British were expelled the Americans had to continue paying taxes. I'd like to know the difference in tax levels between the two regimes.

BENEFITS:
life: I don't think any lives were actually saved. I don't think the English were rampaging around putting colonists to death.
liberty: The colonists no longer had to pay any mind to the Crown. They were independent. They no longer had to billet English soldiers. They no longer had to worry about English mercantilism.
property: The colonists no longer had to pay any taxes to the Crown. The Stamp Act and all the other acts were made null and void.

If one could have relatively complete data on the above points, he would be in a position to judge if the war was "worth it". Some pertinent questions would be:

Did the level of taxation go down after the British were defeated? If so, by how much?

What rights did the Americans enjoy under the British Crown? What rights did the Americans enjoy under the US government? Which government respected which rights more?

With those questions answered, then one could move on to the more difficult question of whether the 25,000 American lives lost was worth the changes in taxation levels and in respect for rights.

 

TripleB, I'm sorry to say that I still haven't gotten Knights of the Old Republic. My computer is kind of iffy, and I'm kind of apprehensive that the game might overwhelm it. I do certainly plan on getting KOTOR, though. The only question is when.

 

Binary it's so refreshing to see someone honestly and openly unrepentent about bartering away peoples lives and freedoms for money.

It's so nice to see the benefits fo a free society cast away like uncut diamonds, too self involved to realize the value of what was lost.

I like how you pretend paying taxes was the cause of the revolution, completely forgetting even the simple history taught to 8 year olds. It is taxation without representation that becomes a problem, the denying of basic liberties to colonists which Englishmen enjoyed simply because they did not live on the home isles.

I do not know where your interest lie, but history apepars not to be one.

furthermore, you are not claiming the Revolutionary war was unjust because it was impracticle, you're claiming all wars to be so.

A position which is predicated on your ideological opposition rather then any facts you care to name.

 

Farrday, I don't understand this dichotomy you present between freedom and money. Part of being free is not having your money taken from you through taxation. The more money taken from a person, the less free he is.

I'm not saying this is so, but if the only beef the colonists had was that they couldn't send representation to the English Parliament, then I'd definitely say the war wasn't worth it. If, on the other hand, the war was about significantly reducing the tax load and significantly increasing people's liberties, then we're on the road to possibly having an honest-to-goodness just war.

 

Binary I do not see any need to continue on this discussion with you since you contunally misrepresent your own views.

To quote.

my position(on war) is basically that of the Vatican.

I am a strict just war theorist. Here is a good list of criteria that a war must meet in order to be a just war:

1. It must be a defensive war against either your own government or against foreign invaders. Crusades on the other side of the earth don't count. God save us from the do-gooders.

2. It must be fought by guerrillas. Governmental armies, funded by stolen money and often staffed by slaves, cannot fight just wars.

3. Non-combatants must never be harmed. Their lives, liberties, and property must not be touched.

4. The cost (in both human lives and suffering and in economic terms) of fighting the war must be considerably less than the cost of simply putting up with your government or with the foreign invader.

5. There must be a reasonable chance of success.

6. The probable state of affairs after the war is over must be preferable to the probable state of affairs that would have existed had the war never been fought.

7. The war must be fought as a last resort, after all other options have been thoroughly tried and exhausted.

You are as idealistically and ideologically blinkered as can be binary, going on about practicality is merely a way for you to avoid having everyone immediately realize those facts.

I disagree entirely with you, although I am willing to accept that these are your beliefs, but hiding them behind a mask of practicality is dishonest.

I hope no one else comes in here to argue with you on this since I don't think you're not entirely rational, much less practical.

 

What i don't understand is why the disucssion is focusing around the cost of a war in monetary terms...a war isn't just or unjust because it cost too much......the way its being discussed here sound a tad absurd...as if a clothing sale leads to "just" purchases...

The direction of the topic seems a little strange as well...one can't truly deterimine if a war is just or not until well afterwards if at all...

Was the American Revolution just? What if the american revolutinaries, at the end of the war, turned around and setup a brutal dictatorship instead of a representative democracy (yes, i know, government wasn't setup as it is now at the end of the war but thats beside the point)...would the war have been just?...

In some sence, it seems that its the actions that happen after the war that justify it...

 

Hmm, but even if we look at within the generation, things are often much more complex. I personally think that eventually, the British government would have to have given into the majority of American demands - the colonists (even after the war had begun) enjoyed considerable support among the population at large, and the opposition, and the UK was becoming increasingly democratic anyway. However, there is enourmous complications to this picture.

The Napoleonic war, for a start. In part, the French were motivated by the American victory in overthrowing their monarchy. Without a successful American revolution would this have happened? Would it have happened in the way it did? The French revolution was highjacked by despots in the end - though in the end, it did result in more freedoms for the French. But a collary of the Napoleonic war was that it slowed down democratic and institutional reform in the UK as a result. How does this, events within the lifetime of the people of the war, effect the justice of the independence war?

And what about the effects on the non-white populations of the colonies? Independence for America meant that slavery persisted when, within a generation, it was abolished by the british. And what of the justice towards the Native americans? One American grievence was that the British would not allow them not expand westward - why? In part, because it would violate their treaties with the native tribes. Independence meant that the colonists could tear up those treaties at their leisure. Were these things 'just'?

Yet, of course, all of these are hindsight considerations. But, in truth, there is little other way of justifying a war in any absolute sense, as Jastermereel says. ALmost all wars that are fought are thought to be just, and vital, by the nations that fought them at a time.

I agree with you in many ways, Binary, because I think that the only immediate way of determining whether to go to war is a cost/benefit analysis. And for governments, this usually boils down to a question of money. Moral considerations usually have to wait until later, and are almost always of secondary considerations when determining national interests.

Farrie, Your arguments are just as arbitary though, and according to your list no war has ever been just according to my view. Civilians are always hurt, attacked, their property destroyed - mainly because they are not viewed as civilians - they are, after all, essentially giving aid, succor, and resources to an enemy. Number 2 is just plain daft. Where do you think guerillas get there resources from? Most live of the land the same way a government does! Number four can only ever be assessed after a war is fought. Number 5 is a pure economic/ practical decision. Number 7 is open too interpretation - ones persons 'last resort' will not be anothers. Number 1 is the most difficult of them all, and ties in with some of Binary's cost/benefit arguments.

The trouble is, one's country can be affected by events all over the world. And events can build up, and become increasingly dangerous as time wears on. Binary's examples of a country invanding to steal 1 cent from the rich - or whatever. But the trouble is, they will go away, and think, 'hang on lads, lets go back next year and get 2 cents'. Also, their neighbours, Duckland, and Plodderland both think 'ah-ha, America is weak, we want our one cent as well'. And so on. Not responding to crises can leave a nation open to future, graver threats. Think of the English Kings trying to pay of the Danes to leave them alone - all that happened was the Danes just kept coming back in ever increasing numbers, until finally, when the English had to fight them, their strength had grown. This is the problem in a cost/benefit calculation - things only start to become costly when they can actually do some damage, whereas an earlier response may have nipped the problem in the bud. So a war may not be 'just' in a cost effective sense on the basis of current circumstances - but it may have been