But what would the justification be that would make it moral to just resign the game and say, "Ok. Herr Hitler; it's your turn to run the world; — Bitter Crank

Interesting that you ask that. I have a black hole that I keep in a jar. Through it, I explore alternate realities. In one of them there's a guy names Hans who lives in the Glorious Third Reich. In school he learned about the great victory of the Nazis over the Allies.

Hans is an odd ponderer. He approaches his buddies (they arent really his friends, but whatever). He says that there must have been innocent people who died during the Great Victory and so it cant be said that it was morally right. His buddies proceed to pounce.

His buddies tell him that life is full of hard choices. They ask if he would really give up the GTR? This the greater good, they explain. They reproach him for being so stupid as to condemn the very actions on which his own life and welfare depend.

"But you aren't saying it was right." He says to each of them. "You're just saying it was less wrong than something else."

"But what's the use of this pondering?" He's asked. "If there's no choice for the individual in any of it?"

"It's just pondering, he says." "Trying to get a vantage point on myself and my world."

They shake their heads. Hans heads back to the clinic where he does genetic testing on babies. If one is found to have defective genes, it's mercifully extinguished. One of the things they test for is a marker for Jewishness.

You condemn all war, even against those whose central goal is more war. You oppose all killing, even against those whose central goal is more killing.

Even if the net result of your strategy would be to create more of what you condemn, you still advocate it.

Since you don't judge your decisions by their results, are you just reciting to us your religion?

I didn't offer any strategy.

Has anyone defined terms...operationalized them? How would any of us know to answer yes or no without defining 'pacifist'?


Can a person be a pacifist and still be willing to engage in warfare if the cause is just? Was John Stuart Mill right about war not being the ugliest of things?

I think you made a mistake by not defining your terms, by using the word pasifisim and indicating an absolute stance you seem to be against all force including self defense or law enforcement rather than specifically matters of state.

Hi! I think there are pacifists who reject violence even in self defense. I didnt argue for that form because I cant make it reasonable in my own mind. It's violence in defense of property that I focused on and I argued that national defense is on behalf of property rather than life.

It's violence in defense of property that I focused on and I argued that national defense is on behalf of property rather than life — frank

I agree with you that the value of life is greater than the value of property. It is always wrong for a government (like your local city police force or state National Guard) to kill looters. Nothing in a Walmart, K-Mart, Sears, Macy's, Nordstroms, Target, Bloomingdales, Penneys, 7-11, or Family Dollar is worth more than the life of the guy carting it away.

I would agree with you, up to a point, that national defense, or war, is fought to get property. The Germans certainly wanted property in WWII -- Poland, Denmark, Norway, the Baltic States, Byelorussia, Ukraine, western Russia, France, Belgium, Holland, Greece, Yugoslavia, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, and more -- but they also wanted to get rid of life. For instance, the Nazi's targeted the intellectual resources of Poland -- it's leadership, academics, military personnel, etc. The same policy was carried out in the eastward march across the USSR: find, identify, and immediately execute the leadership personnel of the region. The Nazi's loathed more than just Jews: they also planned on getting rid of the slavs -- through starvation and bullets.

The westward expansion of the United States was about land, of course, but also about eliminating resistance from the inhabitants in place. That's why so many buffalo were killed and left to rot during the later stages of the expansion -- it was to starve the Plains Indians. Or we shot them.

:up:

Pacifism can be as violent as aggression. All that is being debated here is the private meaning applied, or presumed to belong to particular nouns.

Save philosophy: Kill the noun.

M