The Pros And Cons Of Pacifism

During the World War II battle some people believed that pacifism was the answer toward stopping it. George Orwell, one of the most important controversial writers during the twentieth century, was stunned and enraged at the people who believed pacifism would help end the war. How can someone expect to win by being pacifist when the enemy cannot be reasoned with? Orwell’s passionate antifascism during War World II led him into conflict with the liberal pacifist movement. This led him to attack back against active pacifist with his writings in the “London Letter”, a column in the American magazine Partisan Review .This addressed how pacifism during a war does nothing to stop the enemy but instead gives them

The issues of Japanese-American internment camps is one of the most controversial, yet important time periods of American history. Many have asked: Why should we learn about this event? The event of Japanese-American internment camps has changed the way America and its citizens are looked upon. As Americans, this event is important to learn so that an injustice like this will never happen again in our history. This event has helped many people gain more rights and civil liberties. This event has also helped other groups fight for their rights and freedoms. Although this event had caused fear and pain, it had changed America and its treatment toward citizens of different descents and ethic backgrounds.

While World War II had been ongoing since 1939, Japan had been fighting for the Axis powers, against the United States. In 1941, when Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor, the United States government had assumed the viewpoint that the Japanese were not to be trusted, and that the Japanese-American citizens of the United States were much the same. As such, they had resorted to establishing internment camps, or preventive labor prisons, so as to keep them in check and ostensibly to prevent further Japanese sabotage. However, the government’s actions were not fully justified, as several factors had interplayed into the circumstances that directly contradicted the intentions and visible results of the internment of the Japanese-Americans, in the social, political, economical, and cultural aspects. On the whole, the internment camps served as drastic measures which were not wholly without reasoning; contrarily, those factors in support of the internment camps did not override those which had gone against it, since the United States’ own legislation, in the form of the Constitution and other laws, had explicitly prevented the depriving of human rights, privileges, and pursuits, which had doubtless applied in light of the Japanese-Americans’ universal citizenship along the Pacific Coast in the early 1940s. As such, while the internment camps were not completely unjustified and without purpose from the viewpoint of the government, they did not align with standards of law and

A universal and unavoidable product of war is that soldiers get killed. Most people accept these killings as a necessary evil and that the ends justify the means. If the war is “justifiable”,the killing of enemy soldiers is deemed as a necessary triumph of what is right. If the war is unjustified, it is seen as honorable to fight for one's country, whether you agree with them or not. But antiwar pacifists do not take the lives of soldiers for granted. Everyone has a right to life and killing on the battlefield is a direct violation of that right. In a standard interpretation of basic rights, it is never morally justifiable to violate a right in order to produce some good. In war, the argument goes, kill or be killed, and that type of killing is killing in self-defense. But, according to anti-war pacifists, killing in the name of self-defense during times of war cannot be justified unless a) they had no other way to protect their

Throughout history, many conflicts have happened, some with resolution, and other without. We often tend to think of solving conflicts with war, since most of our history classes are based around World War I, World War II, and so forth, but many conflicts were fought, and successfully won using nonviolent resistance. Many people would use Gandhi as a well known example. Gandhi’s plan of civil disobedience revolved around this big idea called “satyagraha,” which he explains as, “a satyagrahi should always possess civility and humility, qualities that indicated self-control and an humble approach to truth” (Gandhi 50). He later explains that satyagraha is “truth-force” and that truth is soul and spirit, or “spirit-force.” “It excludes the use of violence because man is not capable of knowing the absolute truth and, therefore, not competent to punish” (51). He used this strategy to fight for indian independence. Many other incidents in the world have been fought using civil disobedience, including Women’s Suffrage.

A thoughtful realist would want to agree with every statement within the Just War Theory. However, understanding when protection and vital interests are at stake, a thoughtful realist would agree to disregard most of the Just Law Theory to safeguard the

The belief that the end justifies the means also aided in Japanese internment. Known as military necessary,

An absolute pacifist claims that it is never right to take part in war, even in self-defence. They believe that peace is intrinsically good and should be upheld whether as a duty or on that it is better for humans to live at peace than war. They think that the value of human life is so high that nothing can justify killing a person deliberately. These pacifists claim that they would prefer to die rather than raise their fists to protect themselves. This is because; killing in self-defence is ‘an evil that makes the moral value of the victim’s life less important than our own’. They rely on the fact that there can be no justification for killing which stems from the scriptures of the bible ‘thou shalt not kill’ (Exodus 20:13). Absolute pacifists usually hold this view as a basic moral or spiritual principle, without regard to the results of war or violence, however they could logically argue that violence always leads to worse results than non-violence in other words, there can never be any good that comes out of war or violence.

Throughout history, many people have debated over the ethics of war and peace which lead to the creation of the just war theory. There have been a number of wars in the past and even in today’s world that have been proven to be unjustified by the means of this theory. Any war in my opinion, is hard to justify due to the violence, destructiveness, the nature of humans doing during war, and the impact it has on humans and the world. However, I have chosen to discuss why America’s decision to jump in to World War II was justified and by proving it by using the just war theory, mainly focusing on jus ad bellum.

The notion of an American way of war informs how scholars, policymakers, and strategists understand how Americans fight. A way of war—defined as a society’s cultural preferences for waging war—is not static. Change can occur as a result of important cultural events, often in the form of traumatic experiences or major social transformations. A way of war is therefore the malleable product of culturally significant past experiences. Reflecting several underlying cultural ideals, the current American way of war consists of three primary tenets—the desire for moral clarity, the primacy of technology, and the centrality of scientific management systems—which combine to create a preference for decisive, large-scale conventional wars with clear objectives and an aversion to morally ambiguous low-intensity conflicts that is relevant to planners because it helps them address American strategic vulnerabilities.

David Rodin claims that, 'the case for both for and against preventative war is made in consequentialist terms' which he believes to be a mistake. Rodin states that, 'Consequentialism suffers from debilitating epistemdpgical problems that renders it effectivly useless as a moral theory of war'. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong however concludeds that conseqentiaism under certain cercumstances can be benifical in preventive war. Sinnott-Armstrong argues that 'conseqentialism raises serious doubts about cases that previously seemed easy might show how illluminating consequentialism is' asserning that this is a virtue not a vice of consequentialism'. Futhermore, Snniott-Armstrong argues that despite Rodins claim that consequentialism is usless in preventive war, that the evidence is there its just a matter of weighing it all together. Although Sinnott-Armstrong admits that Rodin assertion that 'Consequenistialism is frequently a deeply disapointing guide', that

The final paragraph from For the Common Defense Introduction (xiv) says: “American’s have had a peculiar ambivalence toward war. They have traditionally and sincerely viewed themselves as a peaceful, unmilitaristic people, and yet they had hardly been unwarlike. Statistics alone testify to the pervasive presence of war in the nation’s history, for tens of millions of American’s have served in wartime and more than a million have died in

Most pacifists are committed to finding new and imaginative methods of conflict resolution. “The Quakers”, for example, are a Christian group who are famous for their pacifist stance. This is not a doctrinal tradition and there is no rule to say that Quakers must not fight under any circumstances, they have chosen to follow this path, as they have done for over 300 years. Quakers believe there is something of God in all people. They believe that more can be accomplished by appealing to this capacity for love and goodness than can be hoped for by threatening punishment or retaliation. Instead of harming and killing, they us “spiritual weapons” – love, truth, imagination and laughter – weapons that heal, not destroy.

As a citizen of the United States, I am part of an institution that has been, and is currently, killing people. Whether or not all or some of these killings are ethically defensible is a difficult question to answer and most people simply never confront the issue. I will evaluate literature on the topic, identify the different justifications for killing in time of war and decide if they legitimize our actions. After describing some compelling arguments, I will defend my own position that pacifism is the only ideal which mankind should embrace.

First point in differentiate between Pacifism and Militarism is in term of ideological oriented. In pacifism, their ideology is they belief that international disputes can and should be peacefully resolved. Here means the Pacifism is opposition to war and violence in making decision. The words of Pacifism are a related to the term of ahimsa (to do no harm) which is a core philosophy in Buddhism, Jainism, and Hinduism. Whereas, Militarism is the belief or desire of a government or people that a country should maintain a strong military capability and be prepared to use it aggressively to defend or promote national interests (New Oxford American, 2007). It may also imply the glorification of the ideals of a professional military class and the