Y1S1 Week 2 (What is Peace?

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REQUIRED:
[LITERATURE] David Cortright (2008) Peace: A history of movements and
ideas. New York: Cambridge University Press [Introduction, pp. 1-21]
This partly explains the inadequacies of many of the theories of peace. For much
of history the cause of peace has predominantly been a religious concern. Moral
reformers embraced the teachings of love and compassion in religious doctrine,
but they often overlooked the challenges of political realism. Classical liberals
extolled the virtues of democracy and free trade, but they underestimated the
virulence of nationalism and the power of imperialism. Immanuel Kant probably
came closest to crafting a comprehensive philosophy of peace, but his theory did
not address questions of social equality

Warmakers are often wrong – disastrously so in the cases of Vietnam and Iraq.
Peace advocates are sometimes right, especially when their ideas are not only
morally sound but politically realistic.

New Wars:

While interstate war has largely disappeared, intrastate conflicts have increased
markedly. The new paradigm, wrote Smith, is “war amongst
the people.” Of the thirty-one wars in the world in 2005 (as measured by the
Uppsala Conflict Data Program), all were armed conflicts fought within nations
between communities divided by ethnicity, language, religion, and/ or geography.
Nearly all military deployments, UN peacekeeping operations, and peace-
building missions in recent decades have taken place in settings of intrastate
conflict.

This change in the nature of war has not meant an end to the scourge of deadly
violence. On the contrary the number of people dying in war in recent years has
been extremely high. Since the 1990s millions have died in the Congo, Sudan,
and other African countries, and hundreds of thousands in former Yugoslavia
and Iraq. In today’s “new wars,” to use peace scholar Mary Kaldor’s phrase,
methods of terror, ethnic cleansing, and genocide are deliberate strategies to

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 target civilians. The result is that more than 80 percent of the casualties are
civilian, and the number of refugees and displaced persons has increased
sharply. “Violations of humanitarian and human rights law are not a side effect”
of armed violence, wrote Kaldor, “but the central methodology of new wars.” The
strategy of violence in the new paradigm utilizes terror and destabilization to
displace populations and gain control of territory and sources of income.

In response to the rise of intrastate war international humanitarian action and

peace-building efforts have increased. Those who seek to prevent war have
recognized the need to act in the midst of violent conflict to ameliorate its
consequences and prevent its recurrence. The responsibility to protect
civilians has emerged as a new principle of global action.

In the 1992 report An Agenda for Peace UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-

Ghali identified four phases of international action to prevent and control armed
violence:

Preventive diplomacy, which includes early warning, mediation, and

confidence-building measures

Peacemaking efforts such as arbitration and the negotiation of peace

accords

Peacekeeping, the deployment of impartial forces to monitor and implement

peace settlements

Peace-building, which the UN defines as post-conflict efforts to rebuild war-

torn societies and prevent the recurrence of violence.

Defining Terms:

At the outset we face definitional challenges and the need to differentiate among
different terms and concepts. What exactly do we mean by peace? The term is
highly emotive, historian Michael Howard wrote, and is often abused as a tool of
political propaganda. When peace is defined narrowly it can imply passivity and
the acceptance of injustice.15 During the cold war the word had subversive
implications and was often associated with communism.

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 Peace is more than the absence of war. It is also “the maintenance of an orderly
and just society,” wrote Howard – orderly in being protected against the violence
or extortion of aggressors, and just in being defended against exploitation and
abuse by the more powerful.

Many writers distinguish between negative peace, which is simply the absence
of war, and positive peace, which is the presence of justice. “Peace can be
slavery or it can be freedom; subjugation or liberation,” wrote Norman Cousins.
Genuine peace means progress toward a freer and more just world. Johan
Galtung developed the concept of “structural violence” to describe situations of
negative peace that have violent and unjust consequences. Violence in
Galtung’s expansive definition is any condition that prevents a human being from
achieving her or his full potential. Leonardo Boff, the Brazilian priest and
theologian, employed the term “originating violence,” which he defined as an
oppressive social condition that preserves the interests of the elite over the
needs of dispossessed and marginalized populations.20 Originating or structural
violence can include impoverishment, deprivation, humiliation, political
repression, a lack of human rights, and the denial of self-determination. Positive
peace means transcending the conditions that limit human potential and
assuring opportunities for selfrealization.

Gandhi’s meaning was deftly summarized by Jonathan Schell: “Violence is a

method by which the ruthless few can subdue the passive many. Nonviolence is
a means by which the active many can overcome the ruthless few.” Yet the word
nonviolence is “highly imperfect,” wrote Schell. It is a word of “negative
construction,” as if the most important thing that can be said about nonviolence
is that it is not something else. It is a negation of the negative force of violence, a
double negative which in mathematics would yield a positive result.

In this context, peace is understood as a dynamic process not an absolute end

point. The goal of peacemakers is to develop more effective ways of resolving
disputes without violent conflict, to identify and transform the conditions that
cause war.

What's in a word?

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 “Pacifism.” He and others used it in a generic sense to describe the broad
international peace movement. It was meant to suggest a coherent body of
thought and developed set of political beliefs and policies for preventing war and
assuring peace. The term elevated the philosophy of peace into an official “ism.”
It had international appeal and could be integrated easily into different
languages. The term was officially adopted at the Glasgow congress. Thereafter
those who participated in the various peace organizations and societies around
the world began to refer to themselves as “pacifists.” It was a term of distinction
and had a broad social connotation. It was meant to encompass all of those who
worked to preserve peace and prevent war.

They narrowed its definition to the unconditional rejection of war in all its forms.
As revulsion at the horrific bloodletting of the war deepened, a growing number
of people pledged never again to participate in or support war. These “pacifists”
played a major role in the peace movement of the interwar era, which grew to
unprecedented scale. Internationalists remained an important force, especially in
Britain, where the LNU attracted widespread public support, but the influence of
those who rejected war under all circumstances was substantial. The restrictive
meaning of pacifism became the accepted standard and was adopted by A. C. F.
Beales in his influential 1931 volume, The History of Peace.

Thereafter it became the standard in both scholarly and popular discourse. This
narrow definition of pacifism left most of the peace community out in the cold.
Many of those who considered themselves pacifist were uncomfortable with the
absolutist stand. As the menace of fascism mounted pacifism became
increasingly marginalized and associated with isolationism. The term sank into
disrepute and was largely abandoned, even by those who considered
themselves advocates of peace. Many peace supporters, especially the
internationalists, urged vigorous action to confront aggression.

The majority of peace advocates found themselves in a state of confusion and

uncertainty. They were part of a broad social movement amorphously defined as
for peace, but they lacked a coherent program for preventing the impending war
and had no commonly accepted “ism” to describe the prevailing philosophy

Ceadel defined pacificists as those who believe that war can be prevented and
with sufficient commitment to justice can be abolished, or nearly so. This is an

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 apt description of the position of most peace advocates. The distinction that
Ceadel and others make between absolute and pragmatic pacifism is vital,
although often obfuscated.

"Pacifist" Japan?

In Japan absolute pacifism is official national policy, as enshrined in Article 9 of

the postwar Constitution This extraordinary and unequivocal rejection of war has
no precedent in history. Other countries have renounced war in their
constitutions but never with such totality. Japan’s Constitution was imposed by
US occupation authorities, but many Japanese nonetheless supported its
rejection of war, and a vigorous peace and disarmament movement developed
over the decades – although the traditions of nationalism also retained their
appeal among some conservatives.

The common understanding is that force may be used in self-defense or in

humanitarian or peacekeeping missions authorized by the United Nations, but
that other uses of military force are unacceptable. The government has pursued
its foreign policy objectives mostly through economic means, principally
through overseas development assistance.

Latin American and African Traditions

In Latin America absolute pacifism is rare, but the use of nonviolent action as a
method of social change is widespread. The commitment to nonviolence is often
more pragmatic than principled, based on the calculation that violence leads to
further oppression, and that firmeza permanente (“relentless persistence”) can
be a powerful means of achieving justice. The use of active nonviolence is
rooted in the historical example of Latin America’s indigenous communities,
which struggled over the centuries to resist assimilation by Spanish conquerors
and national governments, often through nonviolent methods of mass
noncooperation. In recent decades numerous

Latin American social movements have utilized nonviolent action to overcome

repression, end military dictatorship, and defend human rights. The commitment
to nonviolent action gained momentum after the Second Vatican Council of
1962–5 and the Latin American bishops conference in Medellín, Colombia, in
1968, as liberation theology emerged to proclaim a “preferential option for the

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 poor.” Some appropriated the new theology to justify armed revolution, but most
agreed with Leonardo Boff that liberation theology and active nonviolence were
“two facets of a single reality.” Both are rooted in the Gospel and seek to
transform a society of violence and oppression into one of compassion and
justice.

In African traditions peace means order, harmony, and equilibrium, not merely
preventing war. Western concepts of absolute pacifism or nonresistance have
little meaning in societies that place primary value on maintaining social
harmony. Peace is a function of social justice. It depends on preserving the
integrity of communities. This concept of shared humanity is embodied in the
African phrase ubuntu, which literally means “I am because we are.”

"Pacifism" and "Just War"

Pacifism and the just war tradition are analytically distinct and are often
considered opposites. The concept of pragmatic pacifism helps to bridge the gap
and provides a more holistic framework for understanding peace advocacy. It
reflects the dominant position of those who consider themselves peace
supporters. Absolute pacifists have always been a minority, even within peace
movements. The majority of those who work for peace seek to avoid war but are
willing to accept some limited use of force for self-defense or to uphold justice
and protect the innocent. Some uses of military force are more objectionable
than others. This is evident from the fact that certain wars, such as those in
Vietnam and Iraq, arouse vociferous movements of protest, while other uses of
force, such as the multinational operation in Bosnia, are broadly accepted, even
by many peace supporters. As the United States prepared to take military action
in Afghanistan following the September 2001 terrorist attacks, Scott Simon of
National Public Radio wrote “Even Pacifists Must Support This War.” Some
peace advocates accepted the attack against Al Qaida as justified self-defense,
but many cautioned against militarizing the struggle against terrorism. Because
just war language is often abused by political leaders to justify military
aggression there is concern that misuse of the framework can be a slippery
slope toward the legitimation of indiscriminate violence. As Michael Walzer
emphasized, just war reasoning is a challenge to political realism. The just war
doctrine establishes a rigorous set of moral conditions that must be met before
armed conflict can be considered. If thoroughly and honestly applied these

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 criteria would rule out most of the armed conflicts that political leaders claim to
be just and would make war a rare occurrence.

The just war position also contains a continuum of perspectives, extending from
limited police action to all-out war, based on a set of moral criteria that can vary
significantly in different settings. Views on whether a particular use of force is
justified range from a restrictive interpretation that permits military action only
under narrowly constrained circumstances, to more expansive claims that seek
to justify large-scale military operations and even the unprovoked invasion of
other countries. Analysts often differ on whether a particular use of force, such
as the 1991 Gulf War, meets the classic moral criteria of a just war.

An Overview of Peacemaking ideas

The rise of peace advocacy in recent centuries is directly tied to the spread and
deepening of democracy. It is no accident that peace societies first emerged in
democratic Britain and the United States, and that the largest peace
mobilizations have occurred in democratic countries. Pacifism is by its very
nature an activist commitment that depends for its expression on the right of
people to assemble and speak freely.

The advent of feminism and the growing involvement of women significantly

influenced the agenda for peace. Women tended to give greater emphasis to the
social dimensions of peace, and linked the concerns of family and community life
with the larger realm of state and international affairs. In the late nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries feminists noted the heavy burden of war on women,
including impoverishment from the loss of male breadwinners. In the twentieth
century they emphasized the rising death toll among women and children
caused by the increased lethality of war and the spread of civil conflict. Feminists
pointed to the connection between the institutionalized violence of war and
violence against women. They sought to achieve greater equality for women as
an essential requirement for creating a more just and peaceful world. They
enlarged the definition of peace beyond narrow legalistic and institutional
concerns to encompass a more holistic social, economic, cultural, and political
strategy for preventing violence.

Support for human rights has become an essential element of the strategy for
peace and was a key factor in ending the cold war. The cause of political

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 freedom is sometimes misused by governments, however, as when US and
British leaders claimed a human rights argument for the invasion of Iraq.

[LITERATURE] Brain Orend. (2013) The Morality of War. Second Edition. New
York: Broadview Press [Evaluating the Pacifist Alternative]
It is not violence in all its forms to which the most challenging kind of pacifist
objects; rather, it is the specific kind and degree of violence that war involves to
which the pacifist objects. A pacifist objects to killing (not just violence)in general
and, in particular, he objects to the mass killing, for political reasons, which is
part and parcel of the wartime experience. So, a pacifist rejects war; he believes
that there are no moral grounds which can justify resorting to war. War, for the
pacifist, is always wrong.

The most relevant pro-pacifist arguments here include the following:

1) “teleo- logical” form of pacifism (or TP), which asserts that war and killing are
at odds with human excellence and flourishing

2) “consequentialist” form of pacifism (or CP), which maintains that the benefits
accruing from war can never outweigh the costs of fighting it
3) “deontological” form of pacifism (or DP), which contends that the very activity
of war is intrinsically unjust, since it violates foremost duties of morality and
justice, such as not killing other human beings.

Most common and compelling amongst contemporary secular pacifists, such as

Robert Holmes and Richard Norman, is a mixed doctrine which combines, in
some way, all three.

Describing & Criticising TP (Teleo-logical Pacifisim)

Virtues are praised since they are difficult to develop, corrective of natural
deficiencies and are beneficial to both self & society

Many different virtues such as honour, courage, wisdom, moderation, justice,

faith, love, hope, charity, honestly, helpfulness, forgiveness, tolerance, etc

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 The essence of TP is this: when we think of warfare and war-fighting, we see
that none of this is praiseworthy activity. Violence, killing and blood-shed are not
virtuous activities; they seem clearly at odds with the kind of ideallife—a fully
realized and excellent human life—which is the focus of virtue ethics. War is not
part of any sane person’s idea of a flourishing life. Warfare causes terrible pain
and suffering, and the infliction of violence brutalizes the victim and corrupts the
character—making it hard and insensitive—even of the inflictor.

TP pacifist would also suggest that, although some aspects of courage might,
admittedly, be called upon in war, just as common is the experience of post-
traumatic stress disorder, which reduces the formerly strong soldier to a broken
shell. Moreover, which is truly more courageous: fighting, or refusing to fight in
spite of the danger? There are a number of sharp questions here: is war truly a
wise choice? A moderate and humane one? One expressive of hope and charity,
instead of hatred and malice? Doesn’t war, as a destroyer, seem the opposite of
creativity and life? How can war be consistent with love?

A world where aggressors are allowed to triumph, and then to inflict rights-
violating brutality, is not part of any sane person’s idea of the best life, either.
And there is something to be said, in the case of a just war, for: the virtues of
defending one’s people (or fellow citizens) from aggression; the courage it takes
to confront an aggressor; the self- discipline it takes to fight justly; and the
strength and ingenuity it takes to formulate and execute a successful war plan.
More generally, justice is also a virtue, and a major one at that.

📌 Just war theorists, like Michael Walzer, argue that, by failing to resist
international aggression with effective means, pacifists end up
rewarding aggression and failing to protect people—fellow citizens—
who need it.

Pacifists reply to these just war arguments by contending that we do not need to
resort to war in order to protect people and to punish aggression effectively. In
the event of an armed invasion by an aggressor state, an organized and

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 committed campaign of non-violent civil disobedience—perhaps combined with
international diplomatic and economic sanctions—would be just as effective as
war in expelling the aggressor, with much less destruction of lives and property.
After all, the pacifist might say, no invader could possibly maintain its grip on the
conquered nation in light of such systematic isolation, non-co-operation and non-
violent resistance. How could it work the factories, harvest the fields, run the
transportation network, staff the stores and banks, when everyone would be
striking, refusing to comply or quietly sabotaging orders? How could it maintain
the will to keep the country in the face of crippling economic sanctions and
diplomatic censure from the inter-national community?

They often use these examples to support their claim (but were technically
unsuccessful and doesn't apply when the aggressor doesn't care. It had very
limited results):

1. Mahatma Gandhi’s campaign to drive the British Imperial regime out of India
in the late 1940s, leading to the independence of modern India

2. Martin Luther King Jr.’s civil rights crusade in the 1960s on behalf of African-
Americans.

3. Retort that even Hitler was faced with his own non-violent resistance,
namely in Scandinavia after he conquered those lands in 1940, the point
must be made that the problems that the Swedes, Norwegians and Danes
put in his way because of their strikes, sabotage and protest cannot really, in
my view, be considered successful acts of pacifist resistance to aggression.
They happened, after all, after Hitler had already conquered those lands.
Second, perhaps the reason why the Nazis didn’t crush these Scandinavian
protest movements were:

a. They had already conquered Scandinavia and didn’t consider these

protests a serious threat to their control;

b. They now had bigger fish to fry, like England, Russia and America.

c. Thirdly, and speaking of the major powers, they were the ones who beat
Hitler—with force—resulting amongst other things in the liberation of
Scandinavia.

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 It was not home-grown pacifist protest which got the Nazis out of Stockholm,
Oslo and Copenhagen; it was the decisive military defeat of Germany by the
remaining Allies. This is not to deny the fact that Scandinavian resistance did
cause problems for the Nazis, that it did bolster the spirits of the locals, and that
the co-ordination required was impressive and the acts often ingenious. It is,
rather, to put them into their proper perspective as smart and bracing tools of
resistance but not, ultimately, as tools successful in rolling back aggression.

📌 Walzer puts the whole issue persuasively when he says that the idea
of an effective “war without weapons,” much less a world without war,
is (for now) a “messianic dream.” For the foreseeable future, and in
the real world we all inhabit, it is better to follow just war theory, which
is committed to an effective yet principled use of defensive armed
force in the face of aggression. The constraints on violence
established by just war theory are, in fact, the necessary conditions for
the more peaceful world which pacifists mistakenly believe is already
within sight. “The restraint of war,” Walzer concludes, “is the beginning
of peace.”

Describing & Criticising CP (Consequentialist Pacifism)

As the name indicates, the core focus of consequentialism is on the concrete
results of one’s actions. So consequentialism involves a serious attempt to
predict the costs and benefits of one’s options, and then a mandate to act in
accord with the one promising the highest “payoff”—in terms of pleasure,
happiness or welfare—to the world at large.

The first critical question to raise here, by way of response, is: what kind of costs
and benefits are being appealed to here? Short-term or long-term costs and
benefits, or both? Prudential or moral costs and benefits, or both? And costs
from whose point of view? And so on. There is a lack, in the literature, of a
detailed breakdown of war’s costs and benefits; pacifists prefer instead to
gesture towards very general—almost clichéd—understandings of war’s
destructiveness, such as those just offered in the last paragraph. Could this

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 tendency towards sweeping generality and abstraction exist due to a lack of
confidence in the results of a more finely grained analysis?

One important element to note, in this regard, is that we have to consider not
only the explicit costs of war action (i.e., both military and civilian casualties, the
costs of deployment, and the destruction of property), but also the implicit costs
of war inaction: not resorting to war to defend political sovereignty and territorial
integrity may well be tantamount to rewarding aggression in international
relations. The lack of armed resistance and forceful punishment allows the
aggressor state to keep the fruits of its campaign, thereby augmenting the
incentives in favour of future aggression. The costs of inaction here—as we
tragically witnessed in Rwanda in 1994—are not simply sovereignty and land but
literally hundreds of thousands of lives.

World War I seems a fitting example of the futility, waste and sheer human
tragedy of many wars our ancestors fought. But not all wars seem to fall neatly
under this objection. World War II, for instance, is much more debatable. Many
thoughtful people, including participants who actually made the sacrifices, have
argued—appealing to both prudential and moral costs— that defeating ultra-
aggressive regimes like Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan was
worth the costs of fighting the war, as enormous as those admittedly were. Can
we, they ask, imagine and endorse what our world would currently look like had
the Nazis been allowed to conquer Europe and rule it, had Mussolini spread his
“New Roman Empire” beyond Ethiopia, and/or had Imperial Japan been allowed
to subdue most of East Asia? George Orwell’s searing image of a soldier’s boot
stomping on a human face comes to mind. World War II didn’t create a
wonderful world—the world of our dreams—but it did prevent a truly terrible
world from coming into being. It also ushered in many international
improvements—the spread of democracy, the creation of the United Nations, the
growth of international law and respect for human rights—which have made the
modern world a more humane place.

A third issue to raise, with regard to CP, focuses on the relationship between
consequentialism and the denial of killing, especially on the level which is
endemic to warfare. Pacifism places great, perhaps overriding, value on
respecting human life, notably through its usual injunction against killing. But this

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 core pacifist value seems to rest uneasily with the appeal to consequentialism in
CP. For there is nothing to a consequentialist approach to the ethics of war and
peace which would always outlaw killing. There is here no firm principle that one
must never kill another person, or that nations ought not to launch military
campaigns which kill thousands of enemy soldiers. With consequentialism, it is
always a matter of considering the latest costs, benefits and circumstances.
Consequentialism was actually first designed, quite explicitly, to be flexible in a
way in which teleology and deontology are not.

📌 To put it plainly, it seems rather bizarre for the consequentialist

pacifist, whose principles exhibit a profound abhorrence for killing
people, to be willing in such a scenario to allow an even greater
number of people to be killed by acquiescing in the violence of others
less scrupulous.

Two related points are being made here:

1) The general point that the CP element of pacifism does not, of itself, seem to
ground the categorical rejection of killing and war which is the very essence of
pacifism

2) The particular point that CP seems open to counter-examples (like World War
II) which question whether consequentialism would even reject killing and war at
all in certain conditions. Consequentialism might actually recommend warfare, if
the circumstances were dark enough and the other options limited enough.

Describing & Criticising DP (Deontological Pacifism)

DP element varies from thinker to thinker, but the core notion is that the very
activity of fighting a war violates a foremost duty of morality. Thus,
undertaking such activity can never be justified by appealing to the aims or
consequences of the action in question. War, as a means to an end, is
thought to be intrinsically unjust. The supposed “justice” of the goal sought,
through war, does not redeem the injustice of the means used to pursue it.
There must be consistency between means and ends. War ought never to
be resorted to: there is always some vastly superior option with regard to
international dispute-resolution, such as diplomacy, sanctions or organized
campaigns of non-violence.

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 Not Killing People

There is a raft of complex issues, addressed in the rhetorical questions

above, which requires a much fuller development. The first concerns the
permissibility, perhaps even the right, to kill a person who presents a severe
threat either to oneself or to others. Why exactly is this permissible? Does it
not, for instance, violate the human rights of the person presenting the
threat? The employment of lethal force against an aggressor is permissible
because the victim of the aggression would lose too much if she were not
permitted to kill the aggressor. Indeed, the victim could literally lose every-
thing. But perhaps it will be objected that the aggressor, if killed in response
to his attack, would also lose everything. So, why may the victim kill the
aggressor? The answer seems to be that the aggressor is responsible for
forcing the victim to choose between her life and that of the aggressor, and it
would be not only unreasonable but unfair to bar the victim from choosing
her own life.

We cannot hold victims to excessively stringent interpretations of

proportionality in such cases: they are, after all, under an immediate,
grievous threat to their lives
and rights.

Not Violating Rights

That the violent response of V to A’s aggression violates no human rights.

The obvious, and important, question here is: why would V’s killing A, in
response to A’s aggression, not violate A’s human rights? As the DP pacifist
would say: doesn’t the above principle CPA actually compound the
wrongness of the tragic situation by permitting V to kill A if required? Isn’t
this all just the delusion that “two wrongs make a right”? There is a new
slogan bandied about in this regard: “An eye for an eye leaves us all blind.”
The response of just war theorists is no: V does no wrong whatsoever—
violates no rights— by responding to A’s aggression with lethal force if
required. The reason grounding this just war claim is that the commission of
aggression by A causes A to forfeit his human right not to be dealt with
violently or even killed. It must be understood that rights are reasons.

Once A has stopped his aggression, and poses no imminent threat of

renewed aggression, his full set of rights spring forth intact, save for those

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 still deemed forfeit for legitimate reasons of appropriate punishment and
restitution for his act of aggression. The notion of “springing forth” is nothing
more puzzling or magical than the claim that now the weight of reasons with
regard to how we should treat this person has changed. Since he is no
longer a clear and present danger to another’s vital needs, for example, he
may no longer be killed—though he may, perhaps, still be jailed, fined and/or
rehabilitated as appropriate punishment.

Innocent Aggressors

My view is that only rarely, if ever, do we come across a genuinely “innocent

aggressor” in the heat of battle. Many soldiers are only too glad to fight on
behalf of their own country, for good or ill. Conscription does nothing, one
way or the other, to shed evidential light on their interior innocence or guilt.
And the external fact remains that they are aggressors. Thus, states
possess an on-the-whole justification in responding to aggressive armed
force with forces of their own, for the reasons of reasonableness, fairness
and implicit entitlement described above. There may well be exceptional
cases where this will mean targeting an innocent aggressor (i.e., a soldier
involved in the war, somehow, through no fault of his own) with lethal force. I
think, as opined by Helen Brocklehurst, that the closest to an “innocent
aggressor” in real life would be a child soldier. Some civil wars in developing
countries—especially in Central Africa—have recently conscripted child
soldiers as young as nine or even eight. They remain aggressors because
they are combatants deploying armed force, yet they are also innocent in the
sense that they have been grossly manipulated by cruel adults and have
probably not developed intelligent free will and moral capacities. Now, I still
think such child soldiers are legitimate targets—you cannot ask them their
age while they’re shooting at you—even though the whole affair becomes
imbued with tragedy. I understand the problem of child soldiers to boil down
to this: they are not a case for pacifism, rather, they are a case for creating a
new category of jus in bello war crime. Generals and officers caught using
child soldiers to execute their will should be arraigned on severe charges for
it after the war.

Never Killing The Innocent

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 Only armed forces, and the political-industrial-technological complexes
which guide them, constitute serious threats against which threatened
people may respond in kind. Civilian populations are morally off-limits as
targets.

For all possible wars in this world—given the nature of military technology
and tactics, the heat of battle, the proximity between legitimate and
illegitimate targets, and the limits of human knowledge and self-discipline—
involve the killing of innocents, thus defined. We know this to be true from
history, and have no good reason for thinking otherwise. There simply has
never been a war, nor will there ever be a war, without at least some civilian
casualties. But the killing of innocent non-aggressive civilians, Holmes says,
is always unjust. Therefore, just war theory’s claim that resort to war can be
mandated, or at least permitted, by justice conflicts with the supposed moral
fact that the very acts constitutive of war in our world are unjust. So, for a
pacifist like Holmes, no war can ever be fought justly, regardless of the ends
(such as self- or other-defence) supposedly aimed for.

The only thing for the just war theorist to do is:

1) Stress the importance of the cause as providing the moral context for the
conduct issues; and
2) Argue that due care for civilians is morally enough, given the stringency with
which it is defined by just war theory, and the remaining need to defeat
aggression. In other words, the cause does matter, and it affects our evaluation
of fair conduct.

📌 To summarize this section, DP raised a number of important duties,

and alleged that just war theory violates them all. But:

1. The duty not to kill another person seems questionable, in light of compelling
cases of self- and other-defence.

2. The duty not to violate rights is not broken by just war theory, which
stipulates that war may be fought only in response to aggression. Once
aggression has been committed by a state, it forfeits its state rights not to be
attacked, for reasons of responsibility, reasonableness, fairness, and implicit

Y1S1 Week 2 (What is Peace?) 16

 entitlement. Although the people in the aggressor state retain their human
rights, these will not be violated, provided that the victim state fights its just
war in accord with the laws of war.

3. The duty not to kill innocent human beings is likewise not violated by just war
theory, owing to its appeal to the doctrine of double effect. The foremost duty
just war theory should seek to substitute and enshrine, in this regard, is the
duty never to kill innocent human beings directly, deliberately and without
just cause.

📌 Pacifism can be incorporated into just war theory, just as parts of

realism were. Pacifism and jus post bellum can find many common
causes and support for reform, and pacifism reminds us of ultimate
ideals most reasonable people would like to see realized. The other
thing pacifism provides, in the meantime, is a rich source of material
regarding the last resort rule in jus ad bellum. The traditional
interpretation of last resort, we saw in Chapter 2, is that after you have
tried diplomacy and sanctions, force remains as the final option.
Pacifism calls that small triad into question, and offers us many more
tools within the anti-aggression tool-box. Some of these tools and
tactics of non-violent resistance (general strikes, mass protest,
systematic un-co-operation, etc.) may well be smartly deployed in
several instances, even though we cannot count on them working
against the most ferocious aggressors, like the Nazis. Non-violent
tactics, in some instances, hindered the Nazis but they didn’t defeat
them. What did was armed force. I see this illustrating the main
conclusion here: that pacifism (like realism) does substantially
contribute to the ethics of war and peace but it does not—at least, not
yet—dislodge just war theory from its central position.

[LITERATURE] Robert M Sapolsky. (2006) "A Natural History of Peace," Foreign

Affairs 85, no. 1, 104-120

Y1S1 Week 2 (What is Peace?) 17

 Facts and Research has proven that humans aren't really unique. Things that we
thought made us unique such as our bodies and realm of cognition, knowledge,
are also possessed by other animals. For example, a baboon's heart can be
transplanted into a human's body and work for a few weeks. Other animals are
able to communicate and use simple language.

Many paragraphs go on to talk about aggressive baboons as well as nicer

primates, their ability to reconciliate after fights, etc, and how their society works.

In the experiment led by Kummer, it was shown that the female savannah
baboon was able to adapt quickly to a different practice by different species
despite having been practicing their own practices all along.

In the second experiment led by de Waal, the animal's adapting ability was yet
again proven as they quickly adapted to the other species'.

In the third story, it shows how culture is 'taught' to the foreign species/monkeys
by the female savannahs the moment the males enter the forest.

Goes on to talk about how humans can go beyond their nature to become
peace-loving creatures as seen by the high adaptability. Mentions trade, fission
fusion relationships,etc

OPTIONAL:
[LITERATURE] Barack Obama, "Nobel Lecture: A Just and Lasting Peace," 10
Dec 2009
Force is sometimes necessary - the limitations of man. Pacifism cannot stop Al-
Qaeda, it cannot stop Hitler.

Instruments of war have a role to preserve peace, war promises human tragedy.

Y1S1 Week 2 (What is Peace?) 18

 War stories are glorious and proof of courage and bravery but War is never
glorious.

Inaction can lead to more costly consequences.

3 ways to build a just and lasting peace:

1. Dealing with nations that break rules and laws, must develop alternatives to
violence that are tough enough to change behaviour, and be held
accountable; sanctions, etc

a. i.e To prevent spread of nuclear weapons and seek a world without it.
Nations agree to bound to have access to nuclear power, those with will
disarm, those without will not build

2. Nature of the peace that we seek. A just peace based on the inherent rights
and dignity of every individual

a. Drafted the human rights agreement, since without it, peace would be a
hollow process

3. A just peace includes not only civil and political rights but also encompass
economic security and opportunity. True peace is freedom from want

a. Absence of hope can rot a society from within

No holy war can be a just war. If you truly believe that you are carrying out divine
will, then there is no need for restraint, no need to spare the pregnant mother,
the medic, or even a person of one own's faith.

[LITERATURE] The Dalai Lama (2002) "The Global Community and the Need for
University Responsibility," International Journal of Peace Studies 7, no. 4, 1-14

Could only find a 3 page excerpt so this will be based on that:

[LITERATURE] Senecca "On tranquility of mind" in Dialogues and letters.

London: Penguin Books. [Excerpts]

Could only find a 3 page excerpt so this will be based on that:

Y1S1 Week 2 (What is Peace?) 19

 [LITERATURE] Robert Luyster (1999) "The Meaning of Peace in the Bhagavad
Gita and New Testament," The International Journal of Humanities and Peace 15,
no. 1 (1999): 39-41

Could only find a 3 page excerpt so this will be based on that:

[LITERATURE] Ellen Zhang (2012) "Weapons are Nothing but Ominous

instruments: The Daodejin's view on war and peace." The Journal of Religious
Ethics 40, no.3 (2012): 473-502
Could only find a 3 page excerpt so this will be based on that:

[LITERATURE] Mahatma Gandhi (1909) Indian Home Rule [Chapter 17: Passive
Resistance]

Could only find a 3 page excerpt so this will be based on that:

[LITERATURE] Malcom X. (1964) "The Ballot or the Bullet." Delivered at the

King Solomon Baptist Church, Detroit, Michigan, April 12

Could only find a 3 page excerpt so this will be based on that:

Y1S1 Week 2 (What is Peace?) 20