Week 3

Points to note:

• King held that nonviolent civil disobedience is sometimes right
• Sometimes it is right to break the law
  
• But there are very compelling reasons to always uphold the law
• So what is King’s moral argument for nonviolent civil disobedience?

Three parts:

1. In general terms, which type of pacifism/nonviolence are we talking about?
2. Why is fidelity to law so important? What’s the problem with break the law?
3. What is MLK’s moral argument for nonviolent civil disobedience?

What kind of pacifism is King’s “Letter”?

• Letter written while King was jailed for “parading without a permit”
• Major text of U.S. Civil Rights Movement (1955-68) which ultimately brought to an end racial segregation
• This is the most famous moral argument given during the modern era for nonviolent civil disobedience

Three general categories of pacifism:

• Spiritual pacifism (e.g. Christ, Gandhi)
• Political pacifism (Gandhi, Walzer #1)
• Institutional pacifism (Kant, Walzer #2)
  
• King is influenced by Christian pacifism
• This is primarily a political pacifism, influenced by Gandhi’s Satyagraha
• King’s purpose is to define the underlying philosophy of the Civil Rights Movement

Gandhi’s Satyagraha:

• “A type of political activism excluding the use of violence in any shape or form”

Difference #1

Two sides of Satyagraha:

• Nonviolence as a political strategy
• Nonviolence as a moral argument

As a political strategy:

• Sets a powerful example
• Confirms the correctness of a moral position
• Confirms the depth of commitment to a worthy cause
  
• Justice of the cause will “grow” within your opponent

As a moral argument:

• King believed that nonviolent civil disobedience is sometimes right
  
• Why did he believe this?
• What are the major challenges?
• Is the moral argument a convincing one?

Difference #2:

• U.S. society includes the “rule of law”
• The movement needs to rely on the U.S. Constitution

King is writing to two audiences:

1. Radical elements of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement

• Black Power Movement; Racial separation, Black nationalism, and the necessity of violence
• Malcolm X: “Freedom by any means necessary”
  
• If the cause is just, why shouldn’t we resort to violence?

2. Moderate Southern religious leaders who held that reform should take place in the courts, not “on the street”.

• Lawbreaking was “unwise and untimely”
• Fidelity to law is essential to justice
  
• How can it be right to break the law?

The problem with lawbreaking:

• Fidelity to law is a fundamental value and an essential part of justice
  
• Queuing behaviour
• Traffic regulations
• Contracting with your business partner

• Legal rules sustain our society
• We benefit from the rule of law

• We comply with the legal order
• We consent to the legal order

• “The ethics of making exceptions for yourself”
  
• Self-serving exceptions?
• Exceptions for unjust laws?

King’s moral argument

• “An unjust law is no law at all” (St. Augustine)
• How do we decide?

Argument #1

• Lawbreaking for Civil rights activists is different: their cause is right
  
• Supreme Court decision of 1954 (Brown v. Board of Education) prohibited segregation in public schools
• Still, this involves conscious lawbreaking

Argument #2

• “An unjust law is no law at all” (St. Augustine)
  
• “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God”
  
• “An unjust law is a code out of harmony with the moral law”
  
• An unjust law human law not rooted in the eternal law and natural law (St. Thomas Aquinas)

The eternal law:

• Any law that uplifts the human personality is just
  
• Any law that degrades the human personality is unjust
  
• Segregation reveals radical inequality within the law
  “Difference made legal”

Argument #3:

• Segregation is law of an “undemocratic character”
  
• A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that had no part in enacting it
  
• Segregation reveals radical inequality in the law...
  “Difference made legal”

Critical summary questions:

1. Is the moral argument compelling?
   
2. Is King’s account of nonviolent civil disobedience radical enough?
   

King’s constraints on nonviolent civil disobedience

Non-violent political campaigns have four stages:

1. Gathering of facts about injustices
   
2. Attempts to eliminate injustices via negotiation
   
3. Personal cleansing meant to resist hatred and aggression
   
4. Non-violent civil disobedience

MLK’s constraints:

• “One who breaks the law must do so openly, lovingly and with a willingness to accept the penalty”
  
• Openness
• Love
• Self-sacrifice

Rawls’s renowned constraints:

• Principled conditions

Civil disobedience is right only if it is:

• Public
• Non-violent
• Conscientious yet political
• Contrary to the law
• Aimed to create reform in government policies
  
  
• This is how the law advances
• This is how a just society fixes a spotlight on its gross injustices

Proposition taken for granted by King and Rawls:

• Collective disobedience over individual disobedience
  
• What about “private injustices”?

King concludes by saying:

• “I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him/her is unjust, and who willing accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law”
  
• ...In reality expressing the highest respect for law
  
  ---

Last points about King’s nonviolent civil disobedience:

• If your cause is just, why is it wrong to break the law?
• If your cause is just, why shouldn’t you resort to violence?

MLK’s constraints:

• Openness
• Love
• Self-sacrifice

• One who breaks the law must do so openly, lovingly and with a willingness to accept the penalty
  
• I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him/her is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law

Aboriginal Peoples – at a turning point

• Fidelity to law is a fundamental value and an essential part of justice
• Respect for law seems a bit cynical
• Willingness to accept penalties seems too much to ask
  
• Why shouldn’t our movement turn over into violence?

Kant’s perpetual peace thesis:

• “The way to bring about perpetual peace is to establish a federation of separate republican nation-states”
  
• An early precursor of the “democratic peace hypothesis”

What does Kant mean by “republican”?

• For Kant, “republican constitution”
  = non-despotic society
  = democratic society

Three principles:

• Citizens are all free
• Citizens are subject to the same domestic government
• Citizens are legally equal under the law

• “It is the only constitution [type of government] which can be derived from the idea of the original contract, upon which all rightful legislation of a people must be founded”

“The way to bring about perpetual peace is to establish a federation of separate republican nation-states”

Three types of pacifism:

• Spiritual pacifism
• Political pacifism
• Institutional pacifism

Two underlying propositions:

1. The republican form of government offers the prospect of perpetual peace
   
2. A state of peace must be formally instituted

Republican government offers the promise of peace

• Republican citizens are unlikely to embark on war
• Despotic government is inclined toward war
  

Republican government is special because citizens are unlikely to embark on war

• Consent of citizenry is required before declaring war
• Citizens understand the supreme cost of war:
• They do the fighting; they pay for the war
• Citizens sooner or later suffer war’s antagonisms
  
• Hence, citizens have a “natural hesitation” to non-essential or unjust wars

Despotic government is inclined toward war

• Dictators aren’t “fellows citizens”, but rather like owners of the state
• “It is the simplest thing in the world to go to war”. “War will not force him to make the slightest sacrifice”
• The dictator can “decide on war without any significant reason, as a kind of amusement”
  
• For these reasons, dictatorships resort to war with no hesitation

Problems with Kant’s argument:

• The perpetual peace thesis is a factual proposition
• What does the evidence tell us?
  
• Are republican countries less inclined to go to war?
• In our own times:
• Republican citizens acquire militaristic tendencies (e.g. the United States, France, Israel)
• Despotic regimes show reluctance to go to war (e.g. North Korea, China, Cuba, Myanmar)

Critical summary question:

1. How close is the relationship between the democratic peace hypothesis, Kant’s perpetual peace idea, and the state of enduring peace they supposedly bring about?

Shouldn’t this suggest a “worldwide republic”?

• Separate nation-states are a “natural” form of political community
  
• Laws progressively lose their impact as the government increases its range
• A world republic would become: i) a “soulless despotism”, or ii) “a thousand petty fortresses”
• Either: i) a constant state of war, or ii) permanent anarchy

The PPT is also rooted in the “spirit of commerce”

• Citizens of a republic will engage in commerce
• Commerce pacifies competition among nation-states

Cobden’s great project:

• In 19th Britain, Richard Cobden argued that trade is the roadmap to peace
• “In the present day [1800s], commerce is the grand panacea, which, like a beneficent medical discovery, will serve to inoculate with the healthy and saving taste for civilization all the nations of the world.”

Problems with commerce as panacea:

• Trade may actually foster greater competition
• Perhaps this creates new antagonisms
  
• Trade, as Kant says, is the “actual mechanism of human inclinations” that produces perpetual peace
• Trade --> economic self-interest --> peace
• A major reversal; pacifists typically link peace to the “better angels” of human nature

A state of peace must be formally instituted

• A suspension of hostilities is not in itself a guarantee of peace

1. State of war
2. Modus Vivendi
3. Wide consensus
4. Unity in a single community

• Cheyney Ryan’s interpretation of pacifism:
  
• Pacifism is “the intent to acknowledge another person’s status as a fellow creature”
• Our labels and categories create the distance necessary to ignore feelings of human community
  
• Gandhi’s tragic choice:
  
• Should we submit to animal instincts?
• Should we turn away from the worst of human nature?
  
• Should we become brutish animals?
• Should we follow the “better angels of our nature”?

Conclusion:

• Kant’s “perpetual peace thesis”:
• The way to bring about perpetual peace is to establish a federation of separate republican nations

Walzer’s “Theory of Aggression”

• The nature of international society
• The underlying philosophy of the laws of war
  
• Sovereign states possess rights in the international community similar to how individuals possess rights in domestic society
  
• We can comprehend the rights of states in much the same way as we comprehend the rights of individuals
  
• This is the ‘domestic analogy’

Two presumptions follow:

1. Presumption in favour of armed resistance once aggression has begun
   
2. Presumption that resistance can be undertaken by i) the victim, and ii) members of the community
   

The Theory of Aggression:

1. There exists an international society of independent states
2. This international society has a law that establishes the rights of its members—above all, the rights of territorial integrity and political sovereignty
3. Any use of force or imminent threat of force by one state against the territorial integrity or political sovereignty of another constitutes aggression and is a criminal act
4. Aggression justifies two kinds of violent response: a war of self-defence by the victim and a war or law enforcement by the victim and any other member of the international community
5. Nothing but aggression can justify war
6. Once the aggressor has been militarily repulsed, it can also be punished

Philosophical questions within Walzer’s Theory of Aggression?

1. What is the moral argument?

• Is it based on the value of stability?
• Is it based on universal human rights?
• Is it based on the rights of nation-states?

2. How useful is the domestic analogy?

3. Is the theory “radical enough”? Does it give enough flexibility to work toward a just world?

15-minute essay:

1. Select one of the following three categories of pacifism: spiritual, political or institutional.
2. Summarize the basic thrust of this category, and state it’s this in one or two clear sentences
3. Give one or two clear sentences explaining why you think this pro-pacifism argument should be taken seriously

Test study questions

Details about the test

• Location: regular classroom (Ellis Auditorium)
• Day & time: regular classroom (Tuesday January 29th, 4:00pm)
  
• Bring minimal books, bags, electronic devices
• Bring your books, bags etc. to the front of the class before the test begins

The following readings ARE covered on this in-class test:

• Walzer, “Nonviolence and the Theory of War”
• Lackey, "Pacifism"
• Jesus of Nazareth, "The Sermon on the Mount/The Good Samaritan"
• Cheyney Ryan, “The Morality of Pacifism”
• Gandhi, “The Practice of Satyagraha”
• Martin Luther King Jr., "Letter from Birmingham Jail"
• Kant, "Perpetual Peace”
• Walzer, “Just and Unjust War”

Below are suggestions for your preparation. The first section contains concepts, definitions, etc. The second contains questions to give you practice choosing your words carefully and developing clear and concise arguments. The test has both multiple choice and short-answer questions.

Questions on the test are drawn from course readings and lectures. Some questions on the test are not covered in the suggestions below.

Concepts & definitions

• Mohandas Gandhi
• Douglas Lackey
• Leo Tolstoy
• Jesus of Nazareth
• Michael Walzer
• St. Augustine
• The war convention
• International realism
• Non-combatant immunity
• Just cause
• inter arma silent leges
• Clausewitz
• Universal pacifism
• Anti-killing pacifism
• Anti-coercion pacifism
• Private pacifism
• Anti-war pacifism
• The Biblical prohibition
• The sacredness of life view
• The right to life argument
• Christian pacifism
• Political pacifism
• Institutional pacifism
• The ‘moral exemplar’ argument (e.g. Tolstoy)
• Gandhian pacifism
• St. Augustine’s ‘limited pacifism’
• Pacifism/nonviolence as personal ethic
• Pacifism/nonviolence as political doctrine
• Pacifism/nonviolence as absolute principle
• Pacifism/nonviolence as qualified principle
• The ancient ethic
• The Jewish law
• The new Christian ethic of nonviolence
• Thrasymachus of Chalcedon
• Instrumental value
• Intrinsic value
• Nonviolence as a political strategy
• Nonviolence as a moral argument
• The content of Satyagraha
• Respect for self
• Respect for fellow human beings
• The best of religious traditions
• Universal community of humankind
• Universal human rights
• Militarism
• ‘Perpetual peace’
• Satyagraha
• The Theory of Aggression
• The domestic analogy
• Non-combatant immunity
• Martin Luther King’s principle of non-violent political action
• Civil disobedience
• Fidelity to law

Short answer-type questions

1. Explain in your own words a moral argument found in the “The Sermon on the Mount”.
2. What is ‘the domestic analogy’ and how does it relate to Walzer’s Theory of Aggression?
3. Describe some of the variants of pacifism we’ve examined in class, and explain in your own words which of the variants you consider the most compelling.
4. In your own words, outline Walzer’s argument against non-violence.
5. In your own words, clearly describe your understanding of Walzer’s concept of the “war convention”.
6. Explain in your own words ONE of Lackey’s variants of pacifism, and give your own argument explaining his challenge against this variant is successful.
7. Do you think Satyagraha is an effective method of challenging political injustice?
8. Does Kant support the idea of a “world republic”?
9. Do you think Satyagraha provides a convincing moral argument? What kind of moral argument do you think it establishes?
10. What are the differences between Rawls’s and Martin Luther King’s accounts of ‘civil disobedience’?
11. Is non-violence unique to Christianity?
12. Does Christian non-violence go beyond the “ancient ethic”?
13. Why do we consider fidelity to law an important value?
14. In your own words, explain Martin Luther King’s argument for civil disobedience, including the restrictions MLK places on it and his underlying moral argument.
15. Clearly explain why you think Gandhi’s satyagraha either does or does not establish non-violence as an absolute moral principle.
16. Is it ever justifiable to break the law for political reasons?
17. What is the foundation of Kant’s perpetual peace idea?
18. What are the major problems with Kantian pacifism?
    
    
    
    
    
    

Week 2

The Sermon on the Mount

Two helpful distinctions (we’ve looked at both before):

• Pacifism/nonviolence as personal ethic
• Pacifism/nonviolence as political doctrine

• Pacifism/nonviolence as absolute principle
• Pacifism/nonviolence as qualified principle

Today's argument:

• In this short reading, we encounter a powerful and influential doctrine of nonviolence
  
• But, when we look ‘analytically’ at the underlying moral argument, it becomes difficult to accept it as an unqualified political doctrine

Christ juxtaposes three philosophies:

1. The ancient ethic
2. The Jewish law
3. The new Christian ethic of nonviolence

The ancient ethic:

• A view of right and wrong as common today as it is throughout antiquity
  
• “Love your friends, hate your enemies”
  
• “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”
  
• Athenians in the Melian Dialogue:
• -->“The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must”
  
• Thrasymachus of Chalcedon:
• -->“Justice is the advantage of the stronger”
  
• Violence flows naturally out of the ancient ethic

The Jewish law:

• The law of Moses
  
• The Ten Commandments of Moses
  
• The laws of a ‘civilized’ society to be built by the Jewish people
  
• “You shall not commit adultery”
• “You shall not steal”
• “You shall not murder”
  
• The Jewish law includes a prohibition on violence

The new Christian ethic of nonviolence:

• Be generous, merciful, forgiving, and loving
• Not only in your ‘outward’ actions, but in your heart and soul
  
• The Christian ethic includes the deepest possible commitment to nonviolence flows naturally from this ethic

Against the ancient ethic (#1):

• “But now I tell you: love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, so that you will become the sons of your father in heaven”
  
• “But now I tell you: do not seek revenge on who does you wrong. If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, let him slap your left cheek too”

Against the Jewish law (#2):

• “Do not think that I have come to do away with the Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets. I have not come to do away with them, but to make their teachings come true.”
  
• “You have heard that it was said, “Do not commit adultery.” “But now I tell you: anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of committing adultery with her in his heart. So if you right eye causes you to sin, take it out and throw it away! It is much better for you to lose part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell.”
  
• “I tell you, then, that you will be able to enter the Kingdom of heaven only if you are more faithful that the teachers of the Law and the Pharisees, in doing what God requires.”

Preliminary questions:

1. Is this new creed of nonviolence unique to Christianity?
   
2. Does it go beyond the ancients’ view?
   
3. Is Christian nonviolence merely a personal ethic?

1. Nonviolence unique to Christianity?

• Nonviolence is not (strictly speaking) unique to Christianity

2. Does it surpass the ancients’ view?

• Those who follow the Christian ethic will:
  
• ‘Receive what God promised’
• ‘Secure their eternal place in heaven’
• ‘Become the sons of their father in heaven’

3. Christian nonviolence merely a personal ethic?

• An article of personal faith
  
• You owe it to God to adhere to these virtues
  
• Needed to secure your eternal place in heaven

The underlying moral argument:

• The principle of nonviolence is easily justified on articles of Christian faith: mercy, forgiveness, and love
  
• But, to anchor it as a political doctrine, it needs to be rooted in some 'universal' ideas

Helpful distinction:

• Instrumental value:
  
  “That which has value only in relation to something else, or as a means to achieving some end of fundamental value”
  
  E.g., courage, politeness, economic value ($$)
  

• Intrinsic value:
  
  “That which has value in itself, for its own sake, regardless of its possible value towards achieving some other end”
  
  E.g., human life, human pleasure & happiness

Alternate ‘anchors’ for Christian pacifism

(ideas that might be said to have "intrnsic value" ):

1. Human happiness
   
2. Avoidance of suffering
   
3. Respect for human life
   
4. Respect for the dignity inherent in human beings
   
5. Respect for the moral equality of human beings

Do these 'anchors' enable us to construct a moral argument for nonviolence that is 'absolute'?

Ryan’s “The Morality of Pacifism”

Today's argument:

• Ryan’s essay appears to provide a solution to the central dilemma of pacifism
  
• But, if we accept the solution, we seem to empty pacifism of its great power and promise

The central dilemma (as Ryan sees it):

• Pacifists assert that it’s always wrong to use violence or resort to war
  
• But, how should we react when we or our loved ones face the threat of violence?
  
• If we follow a), by refusing to defend ourselves against violence, aren’t we ultimately supporting violence, and/or going against nonviolence?
  
• In other words, if violence is truly evil, should we not combat it even when doing so requires the use of violence?

The common challenge against pacifism:

• The standpoint of nonviolence is too strong
  
• In the end, the standpoint of nonviolence is ‘self-negating’

Ryan thinks pacifism can be rescued:

• Pacifism is a term we use to denote feelings of compassion towards our fellow human beings
  
• These are the source of Orwell’s vulnerable fascist allegory
  
• Orwell’s feeling of “fellow creature-hood” with his vulnerable enemy shows the human feeling that is the essence of pacifism

• Ryan detects in Orwell’s story the idea of a ‘universal moral community of humankind’
  
• The morality of pacifism is concerned with this universal community
  

Conclusion #1:

• Pacifism is best understood as “the intent to acknowledge the other person’s status as a fellow creature”
• Pacifists desire a world in which we nurture these feelings

Conclusion #2:

• Our labels and categories create the distance necessary to ignore feelings of human fellowship

Conclusion #3

• In the real world, pacifists can’t always live up to the impulse
  
• But, Ryan says, this should make us reject pacifism

Concluding questions:

1. Ryan's "rescue" for pacifism as a moral argument is attached to the "impulse" or "feeling" he describes. Does the inner feeling have any ‘moral content’?
2. Can Ryan’s universal moral community be put forward in a moral argument that comes close to what we have called a political doctrine or absolute principle?
   
   

Gandhi’s Satyagraha

• Satyagraha:
  
  “A method of political resistance that excludes the use of violence in any shape or form”

The views of Gandhi (and other pacifists) presuppose a kind of a tragic choice:

• Should we submit to animal instincts?
• Should we turn away from the worst of human nature?
  
• Should we become ignorant beasts?
• Should follow the “better angels of our nature”?

Today's reading is really more like two separate readings:

1. Gandhi’s discussion of India’s anti-colonial independence
   
2. Gandhi’s anti-war argument addressed to Britain during WWII

We can examine both parts by dividing Satyagraha into two separate types of argument:

1. Nonviolence as a political strategy
   
2. Nonviolence as a moral argument
   

1. Nonviolence as a political strategy

• We can evaluate a strategy based on whether it achieves success or positive results
  
• Political independence for India
• Any other political objective

What is the content of Satyagraha?

• Self-sacrifice & humility
• Respect for the law
• Freedom from anger & retaliation
• Restraint
• Non-cooperation

• “Though citizens never take up arms, they rally, demonstrate, and strike”
  

• General strikes
• Mass demonstrations
• Boycotts
• Sit-ins

Why does Gandhi think Satyagraha is effective?

• It sets a powerful example
• It confirms the correctness of a moral position
• It confirms deeply-held commitments
  
• Consequently, the justice of the cause will “grow” within the opponent

Perhaps Gandhi’s writings display a fatal over-confidence in Satyagraha

• “it is not without considerable success in its use in India”
• “excellent results”
• “amazing success”
• “Swaraj is attainable in less than one year”

Especially problematic in the context of WWII

• "War is wrong in essence"
  
• Fighting Nazism "without arms"
  
• “You [should] invite Hitler and Mussolini to take what they want of your beautiful island, with your many beautiful buildings. If they do not give you free passage out, you [should] allow yourselves, man, woman and child, to be slaughtered, but you will refuse allegiance to them"

Question for discussion: Is Satyagraha effective?

• India’s successful defeat of Britain might suggests that Satyagraha is effective
• Michael Walzer & George Orwell believed it was not...
• Dictators utilize violence and repression
• Nonviolent resistance is easily crushed

Sharpening the question: Can Satyagraha be effective today?

• Modern dictatorships are “scientific” in their methods of repression and use of violence
  
• But, resistance against repression--methods of nonvioence--are also highly evolved and technologically advanced. Consider the following modern creations:
  
• The United Nations
• Global media (‘The CNN effect’)
• The internet

Three repressive regimes:

• Zimbabwe
• Myanmar
• Nepal

Is Satyagraha likely to be effective as a strategy for victims of repression in these countries?

One final point on ‘effectiveness’:

• Violence is often the basis for future government
• The birth of a nation, or founding movement of a nation, always endures

2. Nonviolence as a moral argument

• More than a strategy
• Deeply-held truths
• A philosophy that should guide our lives
  
  
• Satyagraha as a moral argument --> universal principle -->
  
• --> condemnation of violence --> abolishing any excuse for violence

Three separate arguments:

i) Respect for self

• Self-love
• The human soul is by nature corrupted by hatred, anger, and violence

ii) Respect for fellow human beings

• Law saves us from chaos: violence brings violence
• The human soul is inclined toward fellowship and love

iii) The best of Religious tradition

• Enduring faiths teach #1 & #2
• Faiths therefore overlap in supporting satyagraha

Universal community:

• Gandhi’s arguments can be interpreted as different versions of a “universal community of humankind”
  
• Self-regard --> regard for family -->
  regard for the nation --> regard for all humanity -->
  --> regard for the universe

The essence of Gandhi’s view:

• We should nurture and even purify this sense of community
• We should resist those impulses that push against it

Surely this is a great and noble idea of morality. But, are there problems with it?

• Does a universal community exist?
• Is it simply, as Walzer might suggest, a "messianic" dream?

What about Gandhi’s other moral arguments?

i) Respect for self

• I accept that one’s soul may be purified by self-sacrifice
• Should I be condemned for resisting moral tragedies such as the holocaust?

ii) Respect for fellow human beings

• I accept the picture of the soul as naturally inclined toward fellowship
• Should I be condemned for resisting violence to protect an innocent bystander?

iii) The best of Religious tradition

• Conflicting messages are found in the Bible, Koran, Torah, which ‘permit’ certain acts of violence - i.e., no tradition is completely single-minded when it condemns violence
• Therefore, if I want to be fully committed to the messages contained in sacred texts, perhaps I should look at all the ‘permissions’ found in them

Final question:

• Should we always condemn violence or law-breaking as a method of politics? Is there any situation where violence is permissible?

Critical summary guidelines

Basics:

• 40% of your final grade
• Each critical summary graded out of 10
• You submit only 4 [only your first 4 count]
• Submit at the start of class
• Submit maximum of one critical summary / class
  
• Length suggestion: approx. 500-750w (2-3p DS)
• Write your critical summary on any course reading ...-->
• ** yes you CAN choose to write on a reading after it has been discussed in class
• Maximum one critical summary on any given reading

Return of your critical summaries:

• Expect a ‘turnaround’ two weeks after you submit
• Returned at the end of class
• Past critical summaries can be retrieved at the end of class or during office hours

Writing guidelines:

1. Select one or more readings
2. On the basis of your reading of the article and in-class discussion, prepare your own interpretation of the author's argument using one or two clear propositions
3. Explain the propositions as clearly as you can adding only details you think are necessary
4. Provide your own position on the argument by stating whether you agree or disagree with the author's standpoint
5. Add details and/or examples if you think they help to make your own position more persuasive
6. Edit your critical summary for clarity of language

At a minimum, your critical summary should generally include:

• Explanation of the main argument in your own words
• Evaluation of that argument where you take a stand

Grading standards to be aware of:

1. Insight
   (Do you tackle an interesting issue? Do you develop a thoughtful argument?)
2. Clarity
   (Is your explanation concise? Is your own point of view understandable?)
3. Charity
   (Do you anticipate objections? Consider the opposing side of the debate?)

Consulting instructor / TA about critical summaries:

Free to speak to the instructor or your TA (Octavian) if you have any questions about: writing style, improve your critical summaries, if your explanation or your own point of view is a defensible one, and so on.

Octavian: 5ob3@queensu.ca - Wednesdays @ 10am, Watson Hall rm 113

Mike Kocsis: 9msk@queensu.ca - Tuesdays @ 2pm, Watson Hall rm 024

TA office hours & contact

Our Teaching Assistant for PHIL 202 (winter 2008) is Octavian Busuioc.

Email address is: 5ob3@queensu.ca

Office hours: Wednesday @ 10am, Watson Hall rm. 113 (ground floor of Watson Hall)

Week 1

Walzer’s Nonviolence and the Theory of War

1. Context
   
2. Walzer’s arguments against ‘nonviolent defence’
3. Evaluation of Walzer’s argument

1. Context

• This is the concluding chapter in Walzer’s influential book Just and Unjust Wars (1973)
• In that book, Walzer tries to create a theory of the ethics of war
• He calls his theory “the war convention”

• Ethics of going to war
• “Just cause”
• “Last resort”

• Ethics of individual soldiers’ and officers' actions during a war
• “Non-combatant immunity”
• Prisoners of war
• Proportionality

• Walzer’s target is “international realism”

• Realism says:

• inter arma silent leges
• (“in times of war the law is silent”)

• Clausewitz – “War is the continuation of politics by other means”

• Walzer fails to consider the different varieties of pacifism and nonviolence
• He only considers the idea of “nonviolence defence”
• “War without weapons”

• “You cannot shoot at me because I am not going to shoot at you”
• The Gandhian strategy of satyagraha

• Perhaps pacifism and nonviolence are somehow connected to the war convention or deeply embedded within it

2. Arguments against ‘nonviolent defence’

• Nonviolent defence differs from the war convention in that it concedes the conquest of the country that is being defended and occupied
• “Though citizens would never take up arms, they would rally, demonstrate, and strike; and the soldiers would have to respond coercively like the hated instruments of a tyrannical regime”

Challenge #1:

• Nonviolent resistance can easily be crushed
• Aggressors can use excessive violence and repression

Challenge #2:

• If it does succeed, that’s because occupying soldiers empathize with the occupied people and refuse to use violence against them
• But here they seem to follow the war convention voluntarily, making non-violence subsidiary to the war convention

3. Evaluation of Walzer’s argument

• In our world, is it impossible to imagine nonviolent resistance effectively stopping military occupation?

• The United Nations
• Global media
• The internet

• Does Walzer misunderstand the philosophy of nonviolent resistance?
• The political community and its ‘shared life’ are easily crushed

• But, many individual lives might be saved
• Advocates like Gandhi believe that protecting one’s soul from hatred and violence is superior to protecting one’s political community

Lackey’s Pacifism

General aims:

• To classify pacifist arguments by their underlying structure
• To outline which arguments are strong and which are weak

Seemingly distinct pro-pacifism arguments by:

Albert Schweitzer Mohandas Gandhi Leo Tolstoy

St. Augustine Pythagoras Jesus of Nazareth

• At a philosophical level, we often find the similar ‘types’ or ‘structures’ of argument
• Understanding the ‘structure’ of the major pacifist arguments is one of Lackey’s goals
  

Three major categories:

1. Universal pacifism
2. Private pacifism
3. Anti-war pacifism

Four major structures of argument:

• The immorality of killing (universal pacifism)
• The immorality of violence (universal pacifism)
• Private pacifism (immorality of personal violence)
• Anti-war pacifism (immorality of war)

Anti-killing pacifism

• Albert Schweitzer
• Pythagoras

Anti-coercion pacifism

• Mohandas Gandhi
• Leo Tolstoy

Private pacifism

• St. Augustine

Anti-war pacifism

• ?

• Anti-killing pacifism

• The Biblical prohibition

• The sacredness of life view

• The right to life

• Anti-coercion pacifism

• Christian pacifism

• The ‘moral exemplar’ argument (e.g. Tolstoy)

• Gandhian pacifism

• Private pacifism

• St. Augustine’s ‘limited pacifism’

• Anti-war pacifism

• Killing of soldiers

• Killing of innocent civilians

• ‘Consequentialist’ pacifism

The right to life argument:

1. “The immorality of killing is that it violates the right to life that every person possesses”
2. If human beings have a right to life, then it is always wrong to kill
3. Human beings have a right to life
4. Therefore, it is always wrong to kill

• But, what does it mean to say that “human beings have a right to life”?

• “..the possession of any right implies the permissibility of defending that right against aggression”

• “The right to life implies the right to self-defense, including violent self-defense”

The moral exemplar argument:

General idea:

• “Moral action consists in choosing to act in such a way that your conduct could serve as an example for all humankind”

• Tolstoy believes that violence comes from feelings of vengeance, hatred, jealousy etc.,

• These feelings stem from the evil & animalistic side of our nature

• This nature is what deprives humankind of true happiness

• Therefore, in order to find true happiness, we should always resist vengeance, hatred, jealousy, and the violence that comes from them

• But, why can’t we arrive at true happiness if we commit violence only in self-defense?

• Consider the two competing rules:

1. “Never use violence”
2. “Use violence only in self-defense”

• Which of the two rules is likely to lead to true happiness?