Is Pacifism Ethical?

by cofty 76 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  cofty

  SBF - I don't understand how it can be ethical to make a stand on pacifism, it seems to me to be making a virtue out of a vice, so I started a thread to invite discussion. This isn't about certainty its about wanting to test my thoughts on a subject to see if there is somthing I've missed.

  You don't like my style - that's absolutely fine by me. Please save me the psycho-babble.

  Using Bosnia as an example can anybody say it was ethical for the forces under UN control to hold back from killing as many Serb troops as it took to prevent the attrocity of Srebrenica?

  Sometimes killing for peace is not an oxymoron in the real world.
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  slimboyfat

  When you sign up to an army you don't sign up on the condition that you will only act to kill in situations like Srebrenica. So it is a moot point. History should tell any prospective conscript that they are unlikely to be deployed in such noble circumstances and instead are entirely likely to be inserted into conflicts with highly problematic moral justifications.

  http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=mKz4oSferpc&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DmKz4oSferpc
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  cofty

  Its not a moot point really is it? It demonstrates that it is not a given that pacifism is ethically good.

  Both of our positions have moral problems but pacifists are too quick to take a moral high ground they have not earned.
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  slimboyfat

  Actually it confounds your argument, because in the instance you cited the UN force did not act to protect civilians. So as a matter of fact (indisputable fact if you like) whether a person chose to join that force at an earlier date or opted out as a pacifist would have had no bearing on the massacre. The army let it take place.

  People cannot join an army on the condition that they will only be faced with situations like Srebrenicia and that their commanders will make the right ethical choices. They have to weigh up the likelihood that if they join the army they will be deployed for good or ill. In modern nation states recent history has shown that the chances of being deployed in ethically justified circumstances is vanishingly small, therefore it is entirely rational and ethical to refuse to be conscripted in those circumstances. The fact that theoretically you may be deployed in ethical circumstances is simply not a good enough. You might as well tell people that they should speed in their cars because theoretically they might run over a mass murderer who has not been caught.
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  transhuman68

  ‘Pacifism’ seems to be an old-fashioned word from a time when the survival of nations was in peril, and a full-scale mobilization was seemed necessary to avert a catastrophe. This hasn’t really been the situation for Western countries since the end of WWII. Pacifism in a ‘pure’ context is probably unethical- if every person and country has an equal right to exist, then they also have the right to resist being dominated or destroyed. In a practical sense however, signing up for military service for a number of years in the service of a particular government means adopting that governments aims as your own, even when the reasons for going to war are contrived or fabricated from false evidence, and the outcome will most likely not be what is anticipated.
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  Sulla

  Sorry, slim. But this thing you are doing -- that's what losing an argument looks like.
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  Hortensia

  I don't know that I can address the ethics of pacificism, but over time my position toward it has changed. When I was young, my position was that pacificism was the only way to go, refuse to fight wars, period. However, I've seen over the decades that some people are really dangerous and that fighting/killing them just helps keep everyone else a little bit safer. Some people, some groups, some governments are really dangerous and they want to harm us. Self-defense and even being proactive seems ethical to me.

  Of course, my point of view my be tainted by the fact that I was the victim of attempted murder a few years ago. I would kill to defend myself if possible.
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  Hortensia

  I read your link, cofty. Very interesting. Pacificism is idealisitc, not realistic. And I agree that WWII was a just war in the face of the atrocities of the German and Japanese governments.
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  Sulla

  Hortensia, setting aside those atrocities as a justification -- a counter-factual, if you will -- was the war justified without those?
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  tec

  You don't become an unethical person by refusing to harm any others, just because someone else decided to come and harm you or yours. - Tammy

  Yes I think you do. Cofty

  This gets to the core of my question. If I see somebody being beaten up in the street or sexually assaulted and I have the ability and equipment to stop the attack how could it possibly be ethical to walk on by? Even using deadly force if necessary to prevent somebody being murdered is an ethical obligation. What is the difference in principle on a national scale? cofty

  Well, being a pacifist doesnt' mean you walk on by. There are other ways.

  Regardless, I think it is individual choices and perspectives.

  Lets say that some people are trying to change the world in the sense of hoping that we can move on to a better way. For them, that might mean never harming another person. Even though that could mean that they die for it. Sometimes a statement like that goes farther (in the long run) to making people consider something different, than the same-old same-old. I mean, we teach (in theory) our kids that violence is not the answer; but we teach them in deed something else entirely.

  Note that I am not saying it is unethical to step in and defend someone... loved one or not. Just that it is not necessarily unethical to have a different approach. Both can be ethical, depending upon what is within that person making them act as they do. Pacifism isn't 'not acting'; it is just not acting in the norm.

  Peace,

  tammy