Does pacifism allow violent resistance to violence in your book?

The only moral path is pacifism. Comments? — frank

If I am violently attacked I shall likely resist as personally militaristic-ally as possible.

Am I therefore immoral?

To accept military action is to accept the violent deaths of many and the continued suffering of many more from the social and economic chaos created by war, and from the loss of loves ones. To accept the horror of war is clearly immoral — frank

Is this suggestive, in the positive, for diplomatic engagement with historically defined state foes?

Does pacifism allow violent resistance to violence in your book? — fdrake

Coordinated military action of any kind is immoral because commonplace military strategies make indiscriminate lethal force a likelihood.

It's also immoral to value a city or cultural center over human life. So the moral response to invasion is to flee. During flight, immediate self defense is moral.

If am violently attacked I shall likely resist as personally militaristic-ally as possible.

Am I therefore immoral — raza

If your personal military includes your body and weapons that may be available to you at the time you are attacked, it is not immoral to engage your attacker in defense of your life and/or the lives of those in your immediate environment.

Eh, this pacifism as an ideal gives a comparative advantage to immoral violence as a strategy. When a coordinated military shows up, you cede all ground to them no matter the strength of their imposition (so long as it is much greater) and no matter what their goals are. It's a very convenient moralism for any coordinated oppressor.

Methodologically, it's an ideal imposed from on high to a world too conflicted for it to work as intended. As soon as military power differentials show up, the targets of intervention become immoral if they resist.

I suspect any pacifist society will eventually erupt in a bloody, violent catharsis, much like an abstinent ascetic will eventually release their loins. Murder is a natural expression of social frustration. War is fun, at least for the politicians who wager they can win.

, this pacifism as an ideal gives a comparative advantage to immoral violence as a strategy. — fdrake

Possibly. Russians have historically robbed invaders of any prize by abandoning their cities. But if we stipulate that pacifism encourages invasions, that doesn't address the claim that any coordinated military action is immoral.

Have you read Augustine's City of God? He points to the storage of excess wealth that goes on in cities as the real cause of invasions.

I think it might be that cultural centers tend to be conglomerations of "necessary evils." Defending them is just one more.

Various members of the Maquis ended up in the D quadrant of the galaxy. They were probably better off than the comrades they left behind.

War is fun, at least for the politicians who wager they can win. — darthbarracuda

The environment of the average video game suggests you're right. What does that mean about us as a species?

It seems like every person is a potential murderer. Pull the wrong strings too many times and they're bound to snap eventually. Even the most benevolent person has their limits (and it seems like God has a relatively low limit himself if the Old Testament is to be taken literally).

From what I can tell, most murders come from jealousy or envy, as a sort of "revenge". It may start out as a benign sorrow, but over time, or after an especially traumatic episode, the murderous zealotry develops. It's megalomania, the idea that a person has the right to end another person's life.

Murder, and crime in general, is an inevitable aspect of any society because society is and always will be constituted by inequality. Crime, including murder, is a reflection of the current state of a society as much as it is a reflection of the individual's mental state. That crime is "separate" from society (and in particular, the state), is sort of an illusion, I think. That the "state" exists to keep crime in check is ridiculous because the state is the condition from which crime couldn't exist without. In my opinion, the state perpetuates itself by making problems that can only be solved by state intervention; i.e. the state creates the conditions of its own necessity.

It's also immoral to value a city or cultural center over human life. So the moral response to invasion is to flee. During flight, immediate self defense is moral. — frank

It's not the city you're fighting for. It's the principles it stands for. Liberty, for instance, is worth fighting for, and that would mean defending the state that provides that freedom as opposed to clinging to your life at all costs, even should it involve being enslaved.

I think I can agree that war is basically an evil. I don't know if I'd say immoral, because morality tends to refer to either acts or character and war is neither of those. What it is depends upon one's position in a society. For some it is almost like a natural disaster -- a regrettable context that causes suffering but which we have no control over. For others they have a direct say in whether or not to pursue war, and it is closer to moral deliberation in that context. But even then it is somewhat out of one's control, because it's not something a person does all on their own.

And even though war is basically evil, there can be greater evils than fighting a war. I don't believe that there is such a thing as a just war. It is evil. But sometimes a choice between evils is all you get.

any society because society is and always will be constituted by inequality. Crime, including murder, is a reflection of the current state of a society as much as it is a reflection of the individual's mental state. That crime is "separate" from society (and in particular, the state), is sort of an illusion, I think. That the "state" exists to keep crime in check is ridiculous because the state is the condition from which crime couldn't exist without — darthbarracuda

Thank you. That's exactly what I was thinking. The implications of the immorality of political entities is escaping me.

Should we think of a city or nation as a living thing that would be immune from judgment? Or what? What do you do with the fact that a thing that you're dependent on and to some extent defines you is inherently immoral?

It's not the city you're fighting for. It's the principles it stands for — Hanover

Honestly, I think this is mostly feel-good justification. Wars are fusions of multiple agendas.

But if one is fighting for liberty, is it really moral to kill another for the sake of your own freedom?

You're saying it's a moot point for most of us. Probably so.

For most of us it is something beyond our control. How we react to war is something else. But it's not something we really have a choice in, and so isn't much of a moral deliberation.

Still, it's worth noting that war is an evil, so I don't know if I'd say it's moot. People certainly talk about war like it's a good often enough that it's worth saying that there isn't such a thing as a good war, even if we happen to need to go to war.

Following the example of nature, specifically our older siblings the animals is a good basic default position. Early humans watched what plants animals ate to know that they were at least not poisonous, if not delicious. Except for food and self-defense most animals are surprisingly peaceful. There is little evolutionary advantage to risk injury by fighting all the time. They fight for territory and mating, too. But often these are more like quarrels than battles. To follow their general example is a good starting point, though obviously humans are different in many ways. (Which should go without saying).

I am usually suspicious of extreme or absolute statements of morality and behavior. We live in the relative world. Statements that frame things in “black-and-white” usually lead to “whack-and-blight” thinking, so to speak.

Possibly. Russians have historically robbed invaders of any prize by abandoning their cities. But if we stipulate that pacifism encourages invasions, that doesn't address the claim that any coordinated military action is immoral.

Have you read Augustine's City of God? He points to the storage of excess wealth that goes on in cities as the real cause of invasions. — frank

I've not read Augustine's City of God. Perhaps it's insightful in other ways, but demonstrably that's not why most military conflict takes case now. The barbarians sacking the city for economic resources is somewhat incidental nowadays, when its concomitant, terrorist depravity is legitimised through propaganda and noise. It's an antiquated picture.

Anyway, it doesn't address whether coordinated military action is immoral if you construe morality as an intellectual exercise towards good conduct out with any context of decision. That's exactly what I'm criticising; military resistance to military oppression and terror is a no-brainer but not a blank cheque. Morality without politics is empty, politics without morality is blind.

But if one is fighting for liberty, is it really moral to kill another for the sake of your own freedom? — frank

Yes, both yours and your own.

Are you suggesting that it would be more moral for the North Koreans to live for the next thousand years under an oppressive, murderous regime than to rebel today and live the next thousand years in freedom?

The barbarians sacking the city for economic resources is somewhat incidental nowadays, — fdrake

Really? Certain parties find themselves being invaded and it's just incidental that they're sitting on top of a lot of oil? Yes there are complexities to our world that didnt exist back when, but our prioritiea are fundamentally the same.

Anyway, it doesn't address whether coordinated military action is immoral if you construe morality as an intellectual exercise towards good conduct out with any context of decision. That's exactly what I'm criticising; military resistance to military oppression and terror is a no-brainer but not a blank cheque. — fdrake

In what context is the death of an innocent bystander ok with you?

Are you suggesting that it would be more moral for the North Koreans to live for the next thousand years under an oppressive, murderous regime than to rebel today and live the next thousand years in freedom? — Hanover

Inevitably innocents suffer in a bloody revolution. Life has no price. My interest in NK emancipation doesn't change that.

Really? Certain parties find themselves being invaded and it's just incidental that they're sitting on top of a lot of oil? Yes there are complexities to our world that didnt exist back when, but our prioritiea are fundamentally the same. — frank

Wars for land control have economic features of motivation and strategy, yes. Big difference between that and a city being sacked for its accumulated wealth. Dispossession's always been a thing, accumulation by dispossession and economic risk management through military force are more than a bit different. The barbarians don't want your stuff, they want to secure their interests or develop what's now their property, or both at once.

In what context is the death of an innocent bystander ok with you? — frank

Since I'm the moral arbiter of the entire world why don't you come up with some situations and I'll tell you once and for all if they're good or evil.

The barbarians don't want your stuff, they want to secure their interests or develop what's now their property, or both at once. — fdrake

True enough. Fact remains: pacifism doesn't inspire invasions. The promise of wealth does. Nobody's planning to invade the Amazon just because we know those people have no defense.

Therefore defense is first and foremost about protecting property.

Since I'm the moral arbiter of the entire world why don't you come up with some situations and I'll tell you once and for all if they're good or evil. — fdrake

That question suggests that you believe there are situations where you'd give a thumbs up to the death of an innocent.

'Course I dont believe that.

How is anything clearly immoral? Morality is heavily nuanced by our values and our psychology. What is immoral to one person may be considered moral by someone else. Therefore, your argument may be valid for you and others who share similar values and psychology, but may not be valid for someone else.

As an example, look up the thought experiments: "trolly problem" (choosing to kill one person to save 5 others) and the related "fat man problem" (pushing a fat man to his death to stop a runaway train to save others). One can make logical rules for what is most moral (e.g. actively choosing to kill one person to save more than one person results in a net effect of saving lives), but different people will choose differently, and often people will chose to save one life for many in the "trolly problem" but choose not to do so for the "fat man problem".... and the main difference seems to be that with the trolly problem, they are flipping a switch (not directly interacting with the person they are choosing to kill) vs with the other problem they have to directly interact with the man to kill him. You see similar behavior in everyday life, as "nice" people can sometimes be angry and confrontational when driving a car, or on online forums, where there is some depersonalization.

In the case of pacifism, your choice to avoid war may allow a tyrannical leader to walk in, send all the people that the tyrant considers undesirable to death camps, and cause the rest to suffer through a miserable obedient life as peasants in service to the tyrant. Your choice might have resulted in killing more people and caused much more suffering by choosing a pacifist approach. Perhaps we don't know what the outcome will be and have to make a guess of what seems best.

We can also take this in all sorts of directions, any of which could be argued by someone to be the moral decision, while considered immoral by someone else. One can argue that the society is killing a lot of other plants and animals to sustain itself, and therefore it is moral to kill them off to save those other plants and animals being killed. One could argue that a lot of people are suffering, and if we just kill off everything on Earth quickly, we can finally put an end to all that suffering (afterall, there are a lot of lifeless planets in the universe and there's nothing wrong with them). One could argue that the natural path of evolution is to let the strongest survive, so letting the tyrant conquer and dominate is a natural process that should be allowed. One could argue that nature has all sorts of examples of things killing things for evolution and survival, so it's no biggie for one group of people to kill another group, and let the strongest survive. One could argue that choosing the most peaceful loving action is always the best, regardless of what other people do.

Inevitably innocents suffer in a bloody revolution. Life has no price. My interest in NK emancipation doesn't change that. — frank

Yeah, well, this post just seems so poorly thought out as you sit wherever you are in your freedom, reaping the benefits others provided you, at the cost of countless lives.

That question suggests that you believe there are situations where you'd give a thumbs up to the death of an innocent. — frank

Exactly. I wear mostly black so that it doesn't show any of that disgusting Bangladeshi or Vietnamese blood from their dirty little hands on it. Then I sit in Starbucks, get fairtrade, and post mostly about metaphysics on here in my hard earned free time.

If that sounds ridiculous, horrible, sociopathic to you - it should. It's because you're not realising the consequences of your own issue framing. You're deliberating about what's moral or immoral without reference to any choices which are actually made. This comes equipped with its dual - an ethics of ideas without actions, in which disembodied propositions float above the world as impossible maxims. Ethical dilemmas, in all their ambiguity and sacrifice, are beneath this perspective.

I don't think pacifism tout court is admirable. Sometimes it can just be plain fucking stupid. If someone threatened to kill my cat (which I unfortunately do not have because allergies) I would go defensive. Defensive aggression, i.e. self defense, is perfectly acceptable I think.

In fact to lay yourself down prostrate in front of an oppressor is a passive evil because you are merely enabling them to continue oppressing you and other people. Pacifism sometimes seems to me to be a cheap way out of difficult moral problems that demand some degree of intervention.

However, there are a few caveats to this, I think. First and foremost, self defense should never be taken further than necessary. Additionally, and most importantly, the concept of irreversibility should be taken into account. The death penalty, for example, is absolutely wrong, in my opinion, because for the simply fact that empirical observations are always, on principle, about to be doubted. Guilt is never proven absolutely - it is only proven within reasonable doubt - yet death is an absolute punishment with no way of going back if it turns out the justice system failed in its operation.

You're deliberating about what's moral or immoral without reference to any choices which are actually made. This comes equipped with its dual - an ethics of ideas without actions, in which disembodied propositions float above the world as impossible maxims. Ethical dilemmas, in all their ambiguity and sacrifice, are beneath this perspective. — fdrake

Actually, it might do you good to climb up on this cloud with me and take in the bigger picture for a change.

Yes you're enmeshed in a web of necessary evils. But the only thing keeping you there is your own short sightedness, your own failure to imagine the longterm costs and consequences of your readiness to embrace injustice.

Stand up out of that web of greed and propaganda. If the world isn't in your hands, then whose? It's not particular instances of blown-up orphanages and the facts about why it happened that we need to look to to give morality meaning.

Do you have a vision of what the world should be? If so, then become the embodiment of morality and follow that vision.

Yeah, well, this post just seems so poorly thought out as you sit wherever you are in your freedom, reaping the benefits others provided you, at the cost of countless lives. — Hanover

Freedom of religion becomes a religion worth killing for?

There are many things I enjoy. I wouldn't sanction killing to get them.

someone threatened to kill my cat (which I unfortunately do not have because allergies) I would go defensive. — darthbarracuda

I appreciate your need to defend your phantom cat. Its organized military exploits I was really condemning.