Pacifism

JENNY TEICHMAN N e w Hull, Cambridge

The main thesis of this paper is that pacifism is not an incoherent

doctrine; contra the arguments of several comtemporary philosophers.
It seems to me that contemporary philosophers generally give pacifism a
pretty raw deal. I have in mind especially the following: M r Barrie
Paskins, Professor Jan Narveson and Professor Anscombe. The usual
move is to first misdescribe pacifism and then to attack the straw
man.
Anti-pacifist philosophers persistently confuse opposition to war
with opposition to violence as such. Secondly they foist on pacifists
the idea that war (or violence) is wrong eo ips0 and/or by defintion:
wrong eo ips0 being then sometimes confused with wrong by defini-
tion. Thirdly they assume that pacifism can be defined or described
without making any reference to what actual pacifists and con-
scientious objectors have said and without making any reference to
the religious and other principles held by pacifists. It is thus suggested
that pacifism need not be concerned with principles.
In what follows I am going to argue that pacifism is a doctrine
based on ethical and religious principles. Most pacifists in the West
believe that there is a connection between pacifism and Christianity
and even atheistic pacifists are inclined to quote the New Testament
in support of their pacifism. I am also going to argue that pacifism as
such is not opposition to violence as such. A pacifist may or may not
be opposed to violence as such. A pacifist is one who believes that,
whether or not some violence is justified in some circumstances, war
is a kind of violence not justified in any circumstances. Finally it will
be argued that pacifism as such is not the doctrine that war is wrong
by definition, as a matter of logic or even per se. Generally speaking
pacifists treat the proposition war is evil as a substantive proposition,
not as a proposition whose denial would be self-contradictory. It is
possible that anti-pacifist philosophers have slithered from the state-
 Jenny Teichman 73
ment A pacifist is, by definition, one who thinks all war is wrong to
the statement A pacifist is one who thinks that all war is wrong by
definition.
Paskins’ description of pacifism runs as follows:
A person is a pacifist if they have beliefs such that, if they acted in the
way those beliefs require, they would refuse all participation in war. . .
Very many sorts of pacifism have something to do with beliefs that the
pacifist has about war or about vio1ence.l

This definition or description succeeds in being simultaneously too

cagey and too broad. It is too broad because it covers the coward
(whose belief that war is dangerous may well require him to refuse
participation), and the aged man who believes his presence and
participation will hinder his comrades in arms; in short it covers
everyone, principled or not, whose beliefs are consistent with refusal
to fight. But a pacifist properly so called is one whose refusal is based
on a moral or religious or political principle, not on any old belief.
Jan Narveson’s account of pacifism runs:
A pacifist believes that violence is evil . . . and that it is wrong to resist,
punish or prevent violence. . . to hold the pacifist position., .is to hold
that no-one has a right to fight back when attacked. . . it means we
have no right to punish criminals, that all our machinery of criminal
justice. . . is unjust.*

Narveson adds that ‘there are many doctrines’ which have been
called pacifism but he thinks that the one described is ‘the only
philosophically interesting kind of pacifism’. The only reason I can
see why Narveson has ignored what has been said and written by real
live pacifists and has insisted that his version is the only interesting
one is that he thinks (wrongly as it happens, but - ) that he can show
that his version is self-contradictory. In other words it is its supposed
vulnerability to attacks by Narveson which makes it so ‘philosophi-
cally interesting’.
Narveson’s definition of pacifism is far too narrow but even his
attack on what is actually a straw man fails to come off.
Narveson’s argument against pacifism runs as follows:
(a) A pacifist is one who believes that all violence is evil.

‘Barrie Paskins and Michael Dockrill, The Ethics of War, p. 112.

2Jan Narveson, ‘Pacifism: a philosophical analysis’ in War and Morality, ed. R.
Wasserstrom, pp. 63,69.
74 Philosophical Investigations

(b) One’s opposition to evil is measured by ‘the effort one puts forth
against it’.
(c) Since violence is evil no-one has a right to be violent and those to
whom violence is done have a right not to have it done to them.
(d) A right just is a status justifying preventive action.
(e) Preventive action must mean successful preventive action.
(f) Sometimes the only possible successful preventive action may be
violent action.

Narveson concludes: ‘And that is why the pacifist’s position is

self-contradictory’. But Narveson’s pacifist’s position, viz: Violence
is evil and must be opposed but not with further violence, is certainly
not formally self-contradictory. Narveson’s own position -if indeed
it is his own position - viz: No-one has a right to be violent (c) but
some rights just are statuses justifying violent action (d, e, fl, looks
much more dubious. If it doesn’t mean Violence is never justified and
violent preventive action is sometimes justified - a plain contradic-
tion - then what does it mean? However, in fairness to Narveson it
must be said that it isn’t at all clear which of the premises in the above
argument he actually believes to be true.
Narveson seems not to have heard of the principle of cost-
effectiveness, neither is he interested in the distinction between inno-
cent and guilty. It would seem to follow from his premises (d, e, f)
that it is sometimes alright to torture hostages, bomb hospitals, and
institute the death penalty for minor but intractable crime. For if
such activities turn out to be the only successful ways of opposing
certain evils then on his argument a refusal to act would either
involve one in contradiction or be tantamount to a denial that the
evil to be opposed was really evil. But the fact is that the principle of
cost-effectiveness, i.e., the principle that the cure should not be worse
that the disease is, like the distinction between guilty and innocent,
absolutely fundamental to all moral reasoning.
Professor Anscombe’s definition of pacifism is actually two defini-
tions, due to the circumstance that she identifies opposition to war
with opposition to the use of State force without noticing that she has
done so. Thus she writes:
I take the doctrine of pacifism to be that it is eo ips0 wrong to fight in
wars.
 Jenny Teichman 75

Two pages later she says:

. . . pacifist doctrine,i.e., condemnation of the use of force by the ruling
authorities. . .3
Anscombe draws the line at direct killing of innocent people so it is
obvious that she must reject Narveson’s idea that it is alright, in
opposing an evil, to do whatever is necessary for success. If the only
way to avoid an evil was to kill some innocent people then according
to Anscombe one would just have to put up with the eviL4 In fact
Professor Anscombe and the pacifist are in agreement on one point,
for they both believe that it is possible and necessary to distinguish
between justified and unjustified methods of opposing evil. It’s just
that they draw the line in different places.
The OED defines pacifism as ‘the doctrine or belief that it is
desirable and possible to settle international disputes by peaceful
means’. This definition seems better than the ones proposed by
Paskins, Narveson and Anscombe. However I will not rely on it in
toto because it seems to me that the best way to find out what
pacifism is is to see what pacifists say they believe. Now of course it is
true that one must start out with an initial rough idea as to what a
pacifist is: but the OED can give us that. And then again it is of course
true that there are different varieties of pacifist, or rather, different
kinds of people who claim the label. For instance, William James,
who argued against war mainly on the grounds that it is expensive,
called himself a pacifist. He is like a man who calls himself a veget-
arian because he doesn’t want to pay the butcher’s bill. At the other
extreme there is Tolstoy who argued against violence as such as well
as against war. In between there are Quakers, Mennonites,
Jehovah’s Witnesses, and those American refuseniks who during the
Vietnam war called themselves just war pacifists, the point of the
label being to imply that the techniques of modern war necessitate
injustice of a grave kind.
What all these pacifists have in common is a belief that war is
wrong, i.e., an avoidable evil. Some also believe that State coercion
of any kind is wrong. Some believe that coercion or violence or any
use of force is always wrong. Some Indian pacifists believe, I under-
stand, that it is wrong to kill animals. Some Buddhist pacifists
believe, I understand, that it is wrong to step on an ant. But it would
’G. E. M. Anscombe, ‘War and murder’ in War and Morality, op. cit., p. 46, p. 48.
4Such as drowning in a pothole the exit from which is blocked by a fat pot-holer.
76 Philosophical Investigations
be intensely silly to suppose that pacifists as such believe that it is
wrong to step on ants. The essence of pacifism is the belief that war is
wrong. This can be seen from examples.
Consider for instance the Mennonites. The Mennonites were
founded in Zurich in 1523 and named after an early member named
Menno Simons. They migrated to America in 1683 to escape
persecution. They have now split into a number of sects, all of which
refuse war service and a minority of which refuse to hold civil office
of any kind. All Mennonites regard themselves as pacifists.
Consider secondly the German Brethren. The Brethren were
founded in 1708 by Alexander Mack in Westphalia in the county of
Wittgenstein and migrated to America in 1719 to escape persecu-
tion. They believe that the Old Testament and the New Testament
are both revelations from God and that the New Testament is ‘a
better law’ in the sense that in cases of apparent conflict you should
rely on the New rather than on the Old. According to the Brethren
the positive teaching of the New Testament is unambiguously
against war. They distinguish between positive teaching (what was
said) and negative teaching (what was not said): positive teaching is
to be found in e.g. the Sermon on the Mount and negative teaching is
exemplified by e.g. what John the Baptist did not say to the soldier,
what Christ did not say to the centurion. The Brethren say that the
State is ordained by God and as far as I can discover they do not
refuse to hold civil office. But they say that the State steps outside its
jurisdiction when it engages in war and so they do refuse military
service. They say quite explicitly that punishment by the State of
lawbreakers within its boundaries is lawful, thus police service is
distinguished from army service.
Consider thirdly the Quakers. The Society of Friends or Quakers
were founded circa 1650 by George Fox in England. They are against
taking oaths but have a thing called the Peace Testimony which runs:
I live in virtue of that life and power which took away the occasion of
all wars.
This is obviously about war and not about State coercion as such.
The Quakers are not against the State as such, in fact in the
seventeenth-century they set up a State of their own; it’s called
Pennsylvania. The Penn Quakers said that the police and the magis-
tracy ‘defend the law under God’ by protecting lives and property:
war, on the other hand, necessarily destroys both lives and property.
 Jenny Teichman 77

That is to say, what is true of necessity of war is not true of necessity

of police action and the actions of magistrates.
Mennonites, German Brethren and Quakers all regard themselves
as pacifists and are so regarded by the community at large. In
wartime their young men become conscientious objectors. They
conform to the dictionary definition of pacifism. Surely therefore
they are paradigm cases of pacifists.
If the essence of pacifism is the belief that war is wrong does this
mean that pacifists believe, or have to believe if they are to be
consistent, that war is wrong either in itself or by definition or both?
It seems possible for a Chrisitan pacifist to believe that war used to
be lawful but it is not lawful now. Idolatry is forbidden in both the
Old and the New Testaments and so may be presumed to be wrong
eo @so: polygamy, in contrast, was apparently lawful in Old Testa-
ment times but is not lawful now. It follows that polygamy is either
not wrong eo ips0 or that, though wrong eo ipso, it was lawful in OT
times as a lesser evil than some alternatives. A Christian pacifist
might well consider war to be similar to polygamy rather than to
idolatry in this, i.e., as lawful once but not lawful now. (Tertullian:
‘The Lord in disarming Peter disarmed every s ~ l d i e r . ’ ~
However it seems probable that a Christian pacifist who believes
that war used to be lawful in Old Testament times would also believe
that it was lawful then only qua lesser evil and would thus believe
that war was and is evil in itself. For something that is wrong or evil
in itself may nevertheless be justified in certain extreme circumstances.
If something is wrong eo ips0 that does not mean that it is utzimagin-
able for that something to be justifiable (in certain circumstances)
qua lesser evil. For instance, some people think lying is wrong
because of its usual consequences, others think it is wrong in itself:
the latter are not thereby committed to the opinion that a situation in
which telling a lie would be a lesser evil than some alternative is
unimaginable. Other deeds besides lying are wrong in themselves,
hence it is logically possible that one might one day have to choose
between two deeds each of which is wrong eo ipso.
Sometimes anti-pacifists argue as follows: Not even military men
think that war is actually good. To be a pacifist it is not enough to
share the general belief that war is a bad thing: one must believe that
war is bad or wrong by definition. Otherwise the only difference

5Tertullian, On Idolutq~,ch. XLX.

80 Philosophical Znvestigations
either both are lawful or both are unlawful, morally speaking. But
the actions of the police and the magistracy are obviously morally
lawful, and necessary for civil peace. Therefore war must be lawful
too. Versions of this argument - which goes back at least to St Paul -
can be seen in the articles by Professors Narveson and Anscombe
already referred to.
Some philosophers have said that war is a kind of punishment.
St Augustine for instance justifies punishment as a means of justify-
ing war. Both war and punishment, he says, should be pursued in a
spirit of compassion with the motive of helping and improving the
person being punished. A just authority punishes (or fights) as a
father punishes his child. Augustine saw that this account of the
matter did not fit the death penalty however, so he gives a different
and more proasic justification for that, via reference to the good of
the community.6
Aquinas makes a comparison between internal and external force
and violence as follows:
They use the sword lawfully in defence against internal disturbances
so they lawfully use the sword of war to protect the community from
foreign attacks.'
The learned canonist Alfonso Tostado wrote circa 1430:
Just war is simply a mode of legal execution (i.e., a kind of death
penalty).s
Francisco Vitorio wrote:
Since the Apostle (i.e.,Paul, in Romans 13) says it is lawful for rulers to
use arms against wrong-doers in the community it must therefore be
lawful to use arms against foreign enemies9
Vitorio takes the analogy with punishment seriously; he says that it is
lawful to kill any combatant, including unarmed prisoners of war,
since all combatants are a kind of criminal to be punished. And he
says that a ruler fighting a just war 'has jurisdiction over the enemy as
a proper judge'.
Calvin too says that killing soldiers in war is just like exacting the
death penalty on a criminal.'O
6Augustine,On the Sermon on the Mount.
'Aquinas, Summa Tbeolog., secunda secundae 40.
*AlfonsoTostado, quoted in the Editor's Preface of VITORIO, see note (9).
9 F r a n c i ~Vitorio,
c~ De Indis ettejure belli relectiones II, trans.J. P. Bate, ed. E. Nys.
''Calvin, Christian Institutions Book IV, ch. XX.
 Jenny Teichman 81
Against these authorities it can be argued that there are many
differences between the use of civil force inside a State, and warfare.
Neither police action nor judicial process is like military action, and
punishment is not in fact at all like war.
(i) Anti-pacifists arguing that war is just like police action usually
omit to mention that not all police action is alright. The move which
runs ‘If you reject the State’s right to engage in war you have no right
to call on State force to protect you against robbers’ similarly omits
to mention the fact that any right one might have to call in the police
must depend initially on how the police are likely to behave. It is only
in a civilised country that the citizen’s moral right to call in the police
can be taken for granted. If the police force is the Ton Ton Macoute it
would not be right or even sensible to ask for their help; if your local
bobby is in the habit of behaving like certain military men - like the
Crusaders in Jerusalem, or the Black and Tans in Ireland, or the
Russians in Berlin for example - it would not be wise or right to
telephone him to report a missing bicycle.
(ii) In civilised countries punishment is in the first place a matter for
the courts and subsequently a matter for the prison service. It is not a
matter for the police, whose job is to apprehend criminals, not to
punish them. This is one of the reasons why it is possible to insist on
the rule that policemen should use a minimum of force when dealing
with criminals. In warfare proper, as against post-war trials of war
criminals, there is no parallel division of roles; the battlefield is police
beat, courtroom, gaol and execution block all rolled into one.
(iii) In a civilised country it is possible to sue the police. It is not
possible to sue a victorious enemy State.
(iv) In many civilised countries the police are unarmed and it is most
unusual for a policeman to have ever killed anyone.
(v) In civilised countries policemen (and judges) uphold laws to
which they themselves are subject. When armies and kings and
generals engage in warfare they are not upholding laws to which they
themselves are subject: what laws would those be? To uphold the
so-called ‘laws of war’ is not a motive for going to war; and the ‘laws
of war’ are anyway held in such contempt that on the rare occasions
on which some soldier is tried for breaking them the newspapers run
‘man bites dog’ headlines for weeks.
(vi) We take it for granted, in a civilised country, that the actions of
the police (and of judges) are generally effective; we assume that
police activity does in the main protect lives and property, keep the