Pacifism Defended By Bryan Caplan

It’s time to reply to my critics. Here goes:

Mike DC writes:

Suppose some jerk burns a Koran, and devout Muslims respond with by

killing every American they come across. Should I, and other Americans

not organize for our collective defense? Whether we agree with Koran burning or not would be irrelevant once

people that violently oppose Koran burning (but support all sorts of

other violence against me) decide to target me.

If you’ve got a plan for “collective defense” that doesn’t involve reckless endangerment of large numbers of innocent bystanders, I’d like to hear it. But modern warfare sadly doesn’t qualify.

Steve_0 writes:

You’re normally an excellent philosopher, but here you seem too

close to straw-man arguments, unjustified equivocation, and the fallacy

of the excluded middle. The right to defense in the face of initiated

violence does not mean unleashing WWIII. But the answer doesn’t have to

mean pacifism to the extent of losing ones own right to life. There’s an enormous middle ground between those two… Defensive response may be messy, and I agree with the urge to

minimize the collateral damage. But we don’t become pacifist martyrs

simply because the outcome isn’t perfect.

I deny that pacifism makes us into martyrs. The long-run consequences of war are sufficiently unpredictable that pacifism could easily be in our narrow self-interest. Consider: If any of the main players in World War I – billed as “the war to end all wars” – had simply surrendered, even the “martyr” nation would likely have been better off than it was by the war’s end – and World War II would have been avoided.

Lester Hunt writes:

The reason for the “not quite” is the doctrine of Double Effect. I see

a difference between and evil effect which is intentionally brought

about and a evil effect that is brought about as a foreseen but

unavoidable side effect of pursuing a legitimate goal.

Is there a difference? Sure. But we greatly exaggerate the moral difference when foreigners are the ones who suffer the “unavoidable side effects.” If the police firebombed a domestic apartment complex to pursue the legitimate goal of killing Charles Manson, few people would consider the doctrine of Double Effect a strong defense. Would you?

Kevin asks:

Would you say that the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto were morally in the

wrong? That wasn’t literally a *war* of self defense – it would be more

accurately classified as a *battle* of self defense, but does that

create a substantial moral distinction?

The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was about as close to a true battle of self-defense as you’re likely to find in modern warfare. But I’d still say that it recklessly endangered large numbers of civilians. And it’s a perfect example of my point that the consequences of war are hard to predict. The uprising (a) led to another 150,000 to 200,000 civilian deaths (most at German hands, of course), (b) didn’t free Poland from the Germans, and (c) allowed Stalin to indirectly eliminate most of the Polish resistance while the Red Army sat on the sidelines. Not worth dying for, not worth endangering bystanders for.

One-Eyed Man writes:

Recognizing that you have the right to something is very different from

saying such conduct is obligatory or desirable. It might be morally

permissible to kill thieves but still better to avoid doing so when

possible.

Again, I’m not objecting to killing thieves. I’m objecting to killing innocent bystanders while thief-hunting.

hsearles writes: