Ship of Fools: Pacifist Christians are hypocrites if they call the cops?

Thread: Pacifist Christians are hypocrites if they call the cops? Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

[QUOTE]originally posted by Martin:
Pacifist Christians are hypocrites if they call the cops?

Absolutely!

From this thread.

So when crime is being committed in front of me, public disorder, common assault, actual to grievous bodily harm, I should just squeeze in between the protagonists and chant Hare Krishna? And not film it?

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

Who among us always lives up to their own ideals? That person can call the rest of us hypocrites.

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

I'm taking an unusual "early warning" step here.

I'll give this thread a pass for now, since there is certainly scope for discussing the relationship between pacifism and the forces of law and order.

But please keep the discussion away from C4 and C3 boundaries. This is not an opportunity for re-opening personal hostilities already the subject of a ruling in the other thread.

Any sign of that will attract a formal warning.

Barnabas62
Purgatory Host

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

That may be nice social behaviour, RuthW, but sidesteps the interesting question whether calling the police is hypocritical with regards to ideals of pacifism. After all, people do attempt to live up to those ideals, so it is important to know what is compatible with them. Whether one fails is a different matter.

Posted by Snags (# 15351) on :

To some extent I guess it depends upon the propensity for your police force to use violence in the execution of their duties.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard:

quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:

[QUOTE]originally posted by Martin:
Pacifist Christians are hypocrites if they call the cops?

Absolutely!

From this thread.

So when crime is being committed in front of me, public disorder, common assault, actual to grievous bodily harm, I should just squeeze in between the protagonists and chant Hare Krishna? And not film it?

ISTM that BA doesn't know what the police force is there to do, so let me (patronisingly) explain.

The social contract society at large has with the police force is this: we will not take the law into our own hands, you will come when you are called.

That's it. The police are there, ought to be there, to minimise violence, both on the part of offenders, and the offended public. Therefore, pacifists calling the police is exactly the thing they should be doing and there's nothing hypocritical about it whatsoever. It increases the peace, not degrades it, and society is more peaceful and less violent because of it.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

There are degrees of pacifism. It's not the same as complete non-violence. There is a difference between an unwillingness to use proportionate violence against an individual or group of individuals who are currently presenting an immediate and direct threat to someone, and an unwillingness to take part in war, which often goes a long way further than this.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

Now there's an armor piercing question!

If pacifism's their personal creed only, then no, they're not. If they think everyone ought to share in it, then yes, they are, as they're committing violence by proxy.

Police everywhere enforce the law, with the emphasis squarely on force. If sufficiently threatened, even unarmed cops will get dispatch to send over a SWAT team, who're prepared to kill if necessary.

That so many pacifists call the cops (and, when SHTF, so many advocates of gun control slam 911 and pray for more guns to hit the scene) ought surely to call that philosophy into question.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Now there's an armor piercing question!

That's funny. It's looks more like a false dilemma to me.

There's a whole range of options between "doing nothing because I'm a hanky-wringing pacifist" and "say hello to my little friend". Including calling the cops, who probably don't really like shooting people most of the time.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Now there's an armor piercing question!
That's funny. It's looks more like a false dilemma to me.

There's a whole range of options between "doing nothing because I'm a hanky-wringing pacifist" and "say hello to my little friend". Including calling the cops, who probably don't really like shooting people most of the time.

Of course cops don't like shooting people, as they're not, by and large, psychos, but decent folk doing a tough job. Their scruples are, however, irrelevant to the pacifist's dilemma. However reluctantly, cops are willing and able to use violence, up to and including deadly force.

Like I said, if the pacifist doesn't believe their philosophy should be universal, they're not a hypocrite. But if they do want to universalize their beliefs, what other word is there for someone who says one thing, but does another?

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

This would appear to be another pond difference. In the UK, calling 999 will not automatically result in a shoot-out because British police are not usually armed.

It *might* if you tell them that the criminals have guns, because we do have armed response units who occasionally shoot people. But officers responding to a routine call will be armed with nothing more than a big stick (aka truncheon) and their handcuffs.

There may be pacifists who object to violent criminals being handcuffed and hauled off to jail, but I've never actually met one IRL.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Like I said, if the pacifist doesn't believe their philosophy should be universal, they're not a hypocrite. But if they do want to universalize their beliefs, what other word is there for someone who says one thing, but does another?

I think we're now moving seamlessly to the "No True Pacifist" fallacy.

The obvious thing to do is to a) find some pacifists, b) listen to what they have to say, and c) try not to tell them what they believe.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

Ah, the technical pacifist (I should really be paying TV Tropes commission for this thread [Biased]

).

Pacifism, as satyagraha crystallized, is premised on the idea that violence should not be met in kind, but should be met with passive resistance, to trigger the aggressor's better nature. It's a position of extraordinary courage, and sometimes, it can work. Oft times, it doesn't.

Saying, "Oh, it's fine for a police cruiser to screech onto the scene, and for officers to jump out and beat/tase/gas the aggressor into submission, just so long as they don't kill him," goes against everything pacifism stands for.

If such technicalities must be resorted to in order to escape the consequences of a belief, why hold the belief at all?

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I think we're now moving seamlessly to the "No True Pacifist" fallacy.

The obvious thing to do is to a) find some pacifists, b) listen to what they have to say, and c) try not to tell them what they believe.

Floor's open!

How d'you reconcile pacifism with violence?

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

Again, you're telling pacifists what they believe.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

I'm not a pacifist.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
That's it. The police are there, ought to be there, to minimise violence, both on the part of offenders, and the offended public. Therefore, pacifists calling the police is exactly the thing they should be doing and there's nothing hypocritical about it whatsoever. It increases the peace, not degrades it, and society is more peaceful and less violent because of it.

By the same argument, we could say that a UN sanctioned military invasion of a warmongering country is a "pacifist" action, since it arguably increases the overall peace of the world - if likely at the price of a sizeable (civilian and military) body count and large scale destruction of the country's infrastructure. I'm not saying that it is impossible to "make more peace by some war", I'm saying that we do not call people who support such utilitarian wars "pacifists". That's just not what that word means in common usage. Consequently, the above analysis is just plain invalid.

The point of asking about the police is of course simply to project the ideals of pacifism from the national to the personal sphere, and secondarily to question whether delegated violence is more licit than committed violence.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

Well no, some pacifists tell us that's what they believe. I listen, and relay. Don't go shooting the messenger. [Devil]

Same word can cover many things, so like I asked, how d'you fit violence into a pacifist worldview?

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'm not a pacifist.

Well that makes two of us, then. [Big Grin]

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
That's it. The police are there, ought to be there, to minimise violence, both on the part of offenders, and the offended public. Therefore, pacifists calling the police is exactly the thing they should be doing and there's nothing hypocritical about it whatsoever. It increases the peace, not degrades it, and society is more peaceful and less violent because of it.
By the same argument, we could say that a UN sanctioned military invasion of a warmongering country is a "pacifist" action, since it arguably increases the overall peace of the world - if likely at the price of a sizeable (civilian and military) body count and large scale destruction of the country's infrastructure. I'm not saying that it is impossible to "make more peace by some war", I'm saying that we do not call people who support such utilitarian wars "pacifists". That's just not what that word means in common usage. Consequently, the above analysis is just plain invalid.

The point of asking about the police is of course simply to project the ideals of pacifism from the national to the personal sphere, and secondarily to question whether delegated violence is more licit than committed violence.

Yup, if the word "pacifist" is serve any purpose, it must signify a belief system that takes a distinctive view of violence. If it just means "proportionate violence in a just cause," it's pointless.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'm not a pacifist.
Well that makes two of us, then.

I'm not, however, against pacifism.

But the false dilemma is "no use of force under any circumstances" against... what? Are you suggesting that if you're not a pacifist, then perhaps it's "kill them all, God will know His own" (ah, Catholic theology at its finest).

Pacifism is a sliding scale, and how people self-identify as pacifists is a matter for them. For all I know, I may be more pacifistic than some pacifists. But to say pacifists are hypocrites for calling the police is as bizarre as saying non-pacifists are hypocrites for calling the police - non-pacifists should of course be sorting out their problems with bottles, bricks and bats like decent, God-fearing men ought.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

I was at a very large, family, church - de jure pacifist - conference and a heckler stood up 10 yards from me with a knife. I moved toward him but my wife objected. The ushers all moved in very fast, surrounded him and disarmed him without inappropriate force. Excellent job. Should they have just surrounded him to be true pacifists? Were they hypocrites?

Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :

This reminds me of Lenin's adage that the modern nation state consists of 'special bodies of armed men'. Ultimately, as Byron is saying, the state has a monopoly of violence, which is a good thing, as it ensures (for the most part), civil peace. In other words, in London we don't have different militias competing with each other (ignoring various gangs, of course).

Calling the cops is to have recourse to the state, really, and this monopoly. Not only will the cops, in extremis, use violence, they might carry you off to the cells, by brute force.

But it depends on the kind of pacifist you are; I suppose a lot of them are like those vegetarians who eat fish.

Posted by Erik (# 11406) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Saying, "Oh, it's fine for a police cruiser to screech onto the scene, and for officers to jump out and beat/tase/gas the aggressor into submission, just so long as they don't kill him," goes against everything pacifism stands for.

Is this, in your opinion, a typical police response? I would have thought that in most cases a police officer would try to use as little force as nessesary to stop whatever crime is happening and apprehend the criminal. The police are supposed to be charged with 'keeping the peace' after all.

Posted by Tortuf (# 3784) on :

Interesting question. I suppose a lot of the debate has to do with how pacifism is defined and what the goal of that pacifism might be.

If the goal is to be a pure as the new fallen snow calling the cops is a fall from the high throne upon which you can sit if you are that pure. On the other hand, such a stance has some - a tiny bit - problematic consequences. The absolute pure pacifism can be an excuse for sitting upon a high throne of righteousness and judging others as inferior for not being as pacifist as one's self.

Such a form of pacifism seems to be a problem in and unto itself.

Another pacifist response might be to try to prevent violence by aiding the escape of the intended victim. No harm to others and the kind of service to others that allows people to get beyond themselves and be present to the world the way it is, rather than the way we think it must be to make us happy.

Still, a pure pacifist might respond that the only person the pacifist can control is themself and their example is the best gift they can give to a violent world.

Calling in the police means that violence might happen. (Vilifying police seems to be a popular sport practiced by people who do not face the issues a police officer faces on a regular basis.) It does not mean violence will happen because of the police. And there are some situations where it is certain violence will happen if the police are not called.

Is it worth compromising your principals to save others from violence? How certain of the goodness of your principles are you if you are willing to set others suffer for your principles?

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Tortuf:
Is it worth compromising your principals to save others from violence? How certain of the goodness of your principles are you if you are willing to set others suffer for your principles?

If your principals encompass such actions, how are you compromising them?

Posted by Jade Constable (# 17175) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
This would appear to be another pond difference. In the UK, calling 999 will not automatically result in a shoot-out because British police are not usually armed.

It *might* if you tell them that the criminals have guns, because we do have armed response units who occasionally shoot people. But officers responding to a routine call will be armed with nothing more than a big stick (aka truncheon) and their handcuffs.

There may be pacifists who object to violent criminals being handcuffed and hauled off to jail, but I've never actually met one IRL.

Quite. I know many pacifists and I don't think any would hesitate in calling the police if a crime was being committed. I think they may hesitate in the US, depending on the situation but not in the UK unless they knew an armed response unit would definitely come.

Posted by Gildas (# 525) on :

Last time I called the police it was because I spotted someone climbing into the downstairs window of the flat opposite. Most likely the householder had locked himself out but I am sure that he would much rather have had a couple of police officers politely asking for ID than come home and find the TV and the stereo gone.

I'm not, myself, a pacifist but most of the pacifists I know tend to have a principled objection to the use of tanks, dive bombers and automatic weaponry in the settlement of international affairs. Not to the prevention of burglary. So if I found out that the chairman of the Peace Pledge Union had been in the area and made a similar phone call I wouldn't, on those grounds, think that he was guilty of bad faith.

If you had a scenario where, say, hostages had been taken and SO19 had been called in that might constitute more of a philosophical problem if one's pacifism was based on an absolute prohibition on the taking of human life but it is possible to identify a number of demerits to the use of warfare to rectify an injustice which don't exist when it comes to a police sniper taking out a criminal or terrorist in, say, a hostage situation (the death of conscripts and civilians springs immediately to mind). It is hardly difficult to frame a pacifist position which is hostile to organised warfare and yet allows the police to use deadly force as an option of last resort.

So this non-pacifist says that accusations of hypocrisy leveled at pacifists are basically nonsense. It's intellectually lazy (to put it politely) to assume that because you disagree with someone that they must be terminally stupid.

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

What he said.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

The OP is silly. Unless you have an 'us versus them' situation. We don't. My last encounter with the police was at the climate march on the weekend. We compared bicycles. They have really nice bikes. Which I envy.

We call them peace officers. In fact, those who don't call the police when these public servants are needed are the hypocrites.

Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :

quote:
originally posted by Gildas:
If you had a scenario where, say, hostages had been taken and SO19 had been called in that might constitute more of a philosophical problem if one's pacifism was based on an absolute prohibition on the taking of human life but it is possible to identify a number of demerits to the use of warfare to rectify an injustice which don't exist when it comes to a police sniper taking out a criminal or terrorist in, say, a hostage situation (the death of conscripts and civilians springs immediately to mind). It is hardly difficult to frame a pacifist position which is hostile to organised warfare and yet allows the police to use deadly force as an option of last resort.

Nonsense

All the pacifist is saying is that violence up to the taking of lives to protect my life and property and the lives and property of those around me is justified. However, the protection of the lives of people in foreign lands if it means the taking of the lives of those trying to kill them is immoral. Yeah, I call that a load of self righteous hypocrisy.

That some of the soldiers might be conscripts is irrelevant. What happens when that same army of transcripts march into your country and starts killing people? If you are willing to allow a police sniper to kill people, do you expect me to believe that you wouldn't want the military to shoot all those conscripts to keep them from killing you and yours? If the answer is no, the army of transcripts must be protected at all costs then why allow the police to shoot anybody? Maybe the person killing people is doing so under duress.

My ethics professor in seminary claimed to be a 2/3 pacifist. You can use violence only when the tanks are on your street. Well, that's not a belief in nonviolence at all. He was willing to use violence to protect himself, his family, and his neighbors but nobody else. At best, he was selfish. More than likely, he was a coward. It is easy to sit in a nation that is a super power and say stupid stuff like that. No doubt he would condemn the use of violence as the US military killed the theoretical enemy in tanks long before they got anywhere close to his street. But...he wouldn't have to worry about what to do when they got to his street, now would he? Besides, if you are willing to use violence at any point, then waiting until it's truly self defense is rather stupid.

Not all police in the UK carry firearms? So what? Even the ones who don't carry firearms are willing to use violence. Push comes to shove and the UK police will shoot people just like any other police force. Push them further and the Royal Marines come to back them up. Just ask the IRA. Take over an embassy and the SAS shows up. I'm sorry if that's a pacifist approach then pacifism has no meaning at all.

Now, it is a perfectly rational foreign policy to avoid entanglement in foreign wars and to not go abroad seeking monsters to destroy. I'm all for going back to it. However, foreign policy realism is as selfish as it gets.

I sure as heck wouldn't attribute it to Jesus. Pacifism lite isn't scriptural either. Turn the other cheek means turn the other cheek. If a person hits you, don't hit that person back. Where does Jesus tell you to call somebody else to come and use violence to stop the other person from hitting you?

Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
That's it. The police are there, ought to be there, to minimise violence, both on the part of offenders, and the offended public. Therefore, pacifists calling the police is exactly the thing they should be doing and there's nothing hypocritical about it whatsoever. It increases the peace, not degrades it, and society is more peaceful and less violent because of it.
By the same argument, we could say that a UN sanctioned military invasion of a warmongering country is a "pacifist" action, since it arguably increases the overall peace of the world - if likely at the price of a sizeable (civilian and military) body count and large scale destruction of the country's infrastructure. I'm not saying that it is impossible to "make more peace by some war", I'm saying that we do not call people who support such utilitarian wars "pacifists". That's just not what that word means in common usage. Consequently, the above analysis is just plain invalid.

The point of asking about the police is of course simply to project the ideals of pacifism from the national to the personal sphere, and secondarily to question whether delegated violence is more licit than committed violence.

This

Posted by seekingsister (# 17707) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gildas:
Last time I called the police it was because I spotted someone climbing into the downstairs window of the flat opposite. Most likely the householder had locked himself out but I am sure that he would much rather have had a couple of police officers politely asking for ID than come home and find the TV and the stereo gone.

Except for Professor Henry Louis Gates at Harvard. When his neighbor did the same after he'd locked himself out of his home, he was arrested.

CNN - Charges dropped against Harvard professor

Posted by HCH (# 14313) on :

I think the original post is imprecise. What does this hypothetical situation involve? Do we have

--- a stolen car?
--- a missing wallet?
--- a cat stuck up a tree?
--- a landlord-tenant dispute?
--- sounds of a violent struggle next door?
--- a random bullet that came in through a window?
--- discovery of a deceased heart attack victim?
--- an enraged employee who has just been fired?

I think the list could easily be much longer.

We don't call the police only because of violence but also for many other reasons. They are part of our society's conflict-resolution mechanism. There are other services also available. Our taxes pay for them; why shouldn't we use them?

Of course, in many situations, we are legally required to report various events to authorities of one sort or another. Must the extreme pacifist necessarily be a lawbreaker?

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Jade Constable:

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
This would appear to be another pond difference. In the UK, calling 999 will not automatically result in a shoot-out because British police are not usually armed.

It *might* if you tell them that the criminals have guns, because we do have armed response units who occasionally shoot people. But officers responding to a routine call will be armed with nothing more than a big stick (aka truncheon) and their handcuffs.

There may be pacifists who object to violent criminals being handcuffed and hauled off to jail, but I've never actually met one IRL.
Quite. I know many pacifists and I don't think any would hesitate in calling the police if a crime was being committed. I think they may hesitate in the US, depending on the situation but not in the UK unless they knew an armed response unit would definitely come.

And what would the pacifist's moral position be if they failed to call the police because they felt the police would kill the criminal, and the criminal went on to kill an innocent bystander?

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

Surely that would be a tactical error not a moral error.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Surely that would be a tactical error not a moral error.

I disagree. If someone fails to call the police when they can see someone is potentially a danger to others then they are partially responsible.

I understand the sentiment of a pacifist not wanting to call the police in parts of the US if for example a black person was acting in a threatening manner, in case the police did exactly what the pacifist was afraid of and shoot them.

But the pacifist must recognise that the black person - in this example, it could be anybody though - was a threat and to protect the wider community the pacifist must call the police regardless of the police's potential response.

I think the above holds even if the pacifist believes they are the only one being threatened. If the violent person is allowed to go on without the police being called, surely they will still represent a danger later on if they meet someone else.

The pacifist may be safe in their home when the violent person meets someone innocent who becomes their victim. It the pacifist had called the police that innocent may not have become a victim.

[ 24. September 2014, 17:38: Message edited by: deano ]

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what would the pacifist's moral position be if they failed to call the police because they felt the police would kill the criminal, and the criminal went on to kill an innocent bystander?

And what would the non-pacifist's moral position be if they called the police because they felt the criminal had a gun, and the police went on to kill an innocent man? Which, let's face it, has actually happened, rather then some weird-arse hypothetical.

I've been thinking about this on and off all day. My tentative conclusion is that we are afraid of pacifism, afraid that our faith calls us to pacifism, afraid that we are being asked to give violence up as a solution, and because we are so wedded to 'good' violence we can't stand the thought of being seen as weak or cowardly. Hence the strong, almost visceral hatred of pacifism and pacifists.

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what would the pacifist's moral position be if they failed to call the police because they felt the police would kill the criminal, and the criminal went on to kill an innocent bystander?
And what would the non-pacifist's moral position be if they called the police because they felt the criminal had a gun, and the police went on to kill an innocent man? Which, let's face it, has actually happened, rather then some weird-arse hypothetical.

I don't think it is a "weird-arse" hypothetical situation. If you turn a blind eye so someone acting in a violent way then you are responsible if they go on to hurt someone.

If my post is hypothetical, then it's only because the OP is equally hypothetical.

In your example, are you suggesting we shouldn't call the police if we suspect someone has a gun?

I think that would certainly be an act of omission that would make you culpable - Pacifist or not!

Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
And what would the pacifist's moral position be if they failed to call the police because they felt the police would kill the criminal, and the criminal went on to kill an innocent bystander?
And what would the non-pacifist's moral position be if they called the police because they felt the criminal had a gun, and the police went on to kill an innocent man? Which, let's face it, has actually happened, rather then some weird-arse hypothetical.

I've been thinking about this on and off all day. My tentative conclusion is that we are afraid of pacifism, afraid that our faith calls us to pacifism, afraid that we are being asked to give violence up as a solution, and because we are so wedded to 'good' violence we can't stand the thought of being seen as weak or cowardly. Hence the strong, almost visceral hatred of pacifism and pacifists.

I don't feel my faith calls me to be a pacifist. I've explained why several dozen times. On the thread that spawned the OP, Martin even admitted that neither scripture, tradition, nor reason taken as a whole teach pacifism. To me, that's game, set, and match.

Hate pacifists? I don't hate pacifists. Smug, self righteous hypocrites do annoy me but I don't hate them.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
I don't think it is a "weird-arse" hypothetical situation. If you turn a blind eye so someone acting in a violent way then you are responsible if they go on to hurt someone.

If my post is hypothetical, then it's only because the OP is equally hypothetical.

In your example, are you suggesting we shouldn't call the police if we suspect someone has a gun?

I think that would certainly be an act of omission that would make you culpable - Pacifist or not!

In what way are you responsible if someone violent hurts someone else? If you were with that person, and they inflicted violence on a third party, you might be tried on a 'joint enterprise' charge. In UK law, we don't have a "Duty to Rescue" clause.

So if the law doesn't recognise that we're responsible, where do you get the idea from?

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Smug, self righteous hypocrites do annoy me but I don't hate them.

Trust me, smug, self righteous hypocrites annoy everyone...

Posted by Gwai (# 11076) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:

quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
Surely that would be a tactical error not a moral error.
I disagree. If someone fails to call the police when they can see someone is potentially a danger to others then they are partially responsible.

As you imply, either way once has seen such a situation, one has some moral responsibility. Presuming that one is truly trying to reduce the amount of violence and wrong-doing in our society, I'd say that what tactics one takes does not change one's moral qualities. If one does or doesn't call the police for the wrong reasons--say one would have called the police if it were one's house being burgled, but decides on pacifism because it's only the neighbor's--then one is morally responsible. Actually trying counts. And before you disagree about trying, think of a scenario where say a child of yours tried to do something but failed because of insufficient knowledge that they could not have had. If you wouldn't blame the child in that circumstance, how can you logically blame a person who truly believed that they were minimizing violence? Mind one can hold them responsible for any ill they do, including legally, and should. (For that reason, I have little sympathy for protesters who try to escape arrest. People who want to break the law as a protest should not try to escape punishment because that's part of the point--to show society what its bad laws are doing!)

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
I don't think it is a "weird-arse" hypothetical situation. If you turn a blind eye so someone acting in a violent way then you are responsible if they go on to hurt someone.

If my post is hypothetical, then it's only because the OP is equally hypothetical.

In your example, are you suggesting we shouldn't call the police if we suspect someone has a gun?

I think that would certainly be an act of omission that would make you culpable - Pacifist or not!
In what way are you responsible if someone violent hurts someone else? If you were with that person, and they inflicted violence on a third party, you might be tried on a 'joint enterprise' charge. In UK law, we don't have a "Duty to Rescue" clause.

So if the law doesn't recognise that we're responsible, where do you get the idea from?

I'm not talking about the law.

I am saying that if you suspect someone has a gun and you don't call the police, then you are morally at fault if they really do have a gun and go on to kill someone.

JC said she wouldn't call the police in certain parts of the US in case. I wanted to make the point that if you suspect someone has a gun and they actually do, and you do nothing, then you are - pacifist or not - morally guilty of faiclitating any subsequent acts of violence.

As a non-pacifist I would be morally culpable, and would no doubt feel bad.

But I am asking what would a pacifist feel if they had avoided calling the police because they didn't want to bring violence upon a fellow human being, and that fellow human being took advantage of that pacific response by killing someone else.

Posted by Gildas (# 525) on :

Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:

quote:
All the pacifist is saying is that violence up to the taking of lives to protect my life and property and the lives and property of those around me is justified. However, the protection of the lives of people in foreign lands if it means the taking of the lives of those trying to kill them is immoral. Yeah, I call that a load of self righteous hypocrisy.

That some of the soldiers might be conscripts is irrelevant. What happens when that same army of transcripts march into your country and starts killing people? If you are willing to allow a police sniper to kill people, do you expect me to believe that you wouldn't want the military to shoot all those conscripts to keep them from killing you and yours? If the answer is no, the army of transcripts must be protected at all costs then why allow the police to shoot anybody? Maybe the person killing people is doing so under duress.

My ethics professor in seminary claimed to be a 2/3 pacifist. You can use violence only when the tanks are on your street. Well, that's not a belief in nonviolence at all. He was willing to use violence to protect himself, his family, and his neighbors but nobody else. At best, he was selfish. More than likely, he was a coward. It is easy to sit in a nation that is a super power and say stupid stuff like that. No doubt he would condemn the use of violence as the US military killed the theoretical enemy in tanks long before they got anywhere close to his street. But...he wouldn't have to worry about what to do when they got to his street, now would he? Besides, if you are willing to use violence at any point, then waiting until it's truly self defense is rather stupid.

Not all police in the UK carry firearms? So what? Even the ones who don't carry firearms are willing to use violence. Push comes to shove and the UK police will shoot people just like any other police force. Push them further and the Royal Marines come to back them up. Just ask the IRA. Take over an embassy and the SAS shows up. I'm sorry if that's a pacifist approach then pacifism has no meaning at all.

As I said, I am not a pacifist. However that doesn't alter the fact that there are number of problems with your argument.

Firstly, the United Kingdom has been in danger of invasion on approximately 3 occasions in the last five hundred or so years - the Armada in 1588, the Napoleonic Wars in the early 1800s if memory serves and 1940. I don't think the US has been in much danger since we torched the White House in 1812. Certainly some wars engaged in by the UK or the US have involved what one might describe as the 'right to protect' but one would hardly describe the entire activity of the British and American Military during this period as falling under that particular heading. So it's simply not the case that pacifists spend all their time objecting to sending the military to defend the innocent or endeavouring to prevent Nazi tanks from rolling up Whitehall or parking on the White House lawn. I'm not sure what a pacifist would advocate in those particular situations but they are hardly typical. I realise in these situations one is addressing a time warp in which it is invariably 1939 and one's interlocutor is Winston Churchill. But trust me, dear heart, it ain't and you aren't.

Secondly, I'm not sure what the exact name is for the logical fallacy you are committing but I'm pretty sure that it is a logical fallacy to suggest that if you think that it's all right to call the police when a couple of local hoodlums are spraying racist insults on the wall of Mr Patel's 7/11 Newsagent one is thereby committed to supporting the Falklands War any more than being committed to supporting the Falklands War (as I did) commits one to supporting the invasion of Iraq or supporting the invasion of Iraq commits one to supporting the nuking of Mecca to teach the Muslims a lesson. If you imagine the use of force as a continuum with a nursery assistant preventing Tarquin from bashing Guinevere over the head with a toy train at one end and the nuking of Mecca at another the question becomes where one draws the line. If it isn't self-evidently absurd to draw the line where you would draw it or where I would draw it, how is it self-evidently absurd to draw it at a point before.

Thirdly, the use of force by the police involves collateral damage much more rarely than when it is used in warfare. Given that there are very few virgins in armed response units that ought to give one pause. And even if one holds that it is legitimate to kill conscripts in the course of a just war (as I do) it is still the case that it is effectively a choice of evils. It's a somewhat excessive use of the slippery slope argument, by the way, to suggest that calling out the fuzz is the thin end of the wedge leading to the involvement of the Special Air Service.

Finally, accusations of cowardice are rarely admirable and are somewhat risible coming from members of the clergy who, in the event of a 'Red Dawn' scenario coming into play would be a protected occcupation anyway. Let's face it, none of us is likely to be engaged in a glorious but futile rearguard action any time soon so we can all cut out the faux heroics.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
I am saying that if you suspect someone has a gun and you don't call the police, then you are morally at fault if they really do have a gun and go on to kill someone.

Morally at fault of what? The person who kills is at fault. What if the person doesn't have a gun and is killed (as has actually happened)? Are you morally at fault there? If so, of what? If not, then why not? Most of the police defences in shooting unarmed members of the public wearily revolve around "I thought he was reaching for a gun", which subsequently never existed.

quote:
But I am asking what would a pacifist feel if they had avoided calling the police because they didn't want to bring violence upon a fellow human being, and that fellow human being took advantage of that pacific response by killing someone else.

I imagine they would see it as a great loss, brought about by violence. Which would be true. But you'd have to find a pacifist to ask. You, on the other hand, are here.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

I'm a near-pacifist, I guess you could call me a last-resortist. In the Netherlands, I wouldn't hesitate the call the police because I trust from experience that they have a last-resortist approach too. So, no contradiction there.

Here in Brazil I would be more hesitant to call the police on some occasions.

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Would Jesus have ridden a tank through Baghdad? Where, on the hawkish side of Christainity, is the line drawn?

Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :

quote:
originally posted by Gildas:
So it's simply not the case that pacifists spend all their time objecting to sending the military to defend the innocent or endeavouring to prevent Nazi tanks from rolling up Whitehall or parking on the White House lawn. I'm not sure what a pacifist would advocate in those particular situations but they are hardly typical.

Doesn't matter if its typical or not. It is simply inconsistent to argue that violence on your behalf is justified but violence on behalf of others is not. Doing so is hypocritical. Scripture doesn't provide an ounce of justification for making such a distinction either.

quote:
originally posted by Gildas:
Secondly, I'm not sure what the exact name is for the logical fallacy you are committing but I'm pretty sure that it is a logical fallacy to suggest that if you think that it's all right to call the police when a couple of local hoodlums are spraying racist insults on the wall of Mr Patel's 7/11 Newsagent one is thereby committed to supporting the Falklands War any more than being committed to supporting the Falklands War (as I did) commits one to supporting the invasion of Iraq or supporting the invasion of Iraq commits one to supporting the nuking of Mecca to teach the Muslims a lesson.

It would be a non sequitur if that's what I'm saying. I'm not saying that. On the contrary, if opposing the War in Iraq makes one a pacifist, then I'm a pacifist. Pacifism as it is being defined on this thread is not functionally different from Just War.

quote:
originally posted by Gildas:
If you imagine the use of force as a continuum with a nursery assistant preventing Tarquin from bashing Guinevere over the head with a toy train at one end and the nuking of Mecca at another the question becomes where one draws the line. If it isn't self-evidently absurd to draw the line where you would draw it or where I would draw it, how is it self-evidently absurd to draw it at a point before.

Where you draw the moral line must have some justification. Jesus said turn the other cheek. How can that text be used as justification for using violence to defend oneself but not others when the passage is clearly talking about violence against oneself and not others? You can't make such an absurd argument without doing violence to the text.

quote:
originally posted by Gildas:
It's a somewhat excessive use of the slippery slope argument, by the way, to suggest that calling out the fuzz is the thin end of the wedge leading to the involvement of the Special Air Service.

Not really. A comparison was being made between US and UK police departments. Both the US and UK police departments will use violence to enforce the law. The UK in recent memory even used the Royal Marines and SAS to do so.

quote:
originally posted by Gildas:
Finally, accusations of cowardice are rarely admirable and are somewhat risible coming from members of the clergy who, in the event of a 'Red Dawn' scenario coming into play would be a protected occcupation anyway. Let's face it, none of us is likely to be engaged in a glorious but futile rearguard action any time soon so we can all cut out the faux heroics.

No, I don't imagine myself leading a rearguard action either but then I don't morally object to my government using violence to prevent the need for a rearguard action in the first place. I suspect my ethics prof. knew the tanks would never make it to his block. And that's the point. Besides, cowardice was only one of the options I gave. Stupid was also an option. Brave and stupid aren't mutually exclusive.

Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:

JC said she wouldn't call the police in certain parts of the US in case. I wanted to make the point that if you suspect someone has a gun and they actually do, and you do nothing, then you are - pacifist or not - morally guilty of faiclitating any subsequent acts of violence.

As a non-pacifist I would be morally culpable, and would no doubt feel bad.

But I am asking what would a pacifist feel if they had avoided calling the police because they didn't want to bring violence upon a fellow human being, and that fellow human being took advantage of that pacific response by killing someone else.

What if you call the police and they kill an innocent man?

John Crawford

What about "open carry" people ?
Open carry

Is that a good way to be "non-pacifist"?

I still remember attending a pro immigration rally in Arizona a couple of years ago. The people exercising their "second amendment right" to intimidate people did not make many friends there but police did not mind.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Beeswax Altar:

quote:
The UK in recent memory even used the Royal Marines and SAS to do so.

...against terrorists who were murdering the civilian population. Ask someone who lived in Ireland during the Troubles. There are several on the Ship. And eventually they came to the conclusion that the use of the military in Northern Ireland was making things worse and pulled out. Or are you talking about the Iranian embassy siege?

And this, I think, is where most people would distinguish between acceptable and unacceptable use of deadly force. Most modern wars involve a lot of so-called 'collateral damage' - or in plain English, civilian casualties. This is especially likely if your war strategy involves dropping bombs on The Enemy, because you can't be sure that all the bombs will hit the target or that the target is where you think it is.

Calling an armed response unit to shoot one of the neighbours who has gone beserk with a shotgun and is killing everyone in sight is not the same type of scenario at all.

Oh, and I'm not a pacifist either, but I still don't accept your 'No True Pacifist' definition. And I didn't support the war in Iraq, because I didn't think it would make things any better (and I really wish I'd been proved wrong).

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

I am not a pacifist. I do call Police when I think it is appropriate and that the Police would do more good than harm. It also saddles me with responsibility for what the Police do. Hiring someone else to be potentially violent on your behalf doesn't leave you free of responsibility.

While that action may be appropriate response, it's not a pacifist response. I don't think the United States renaming the Department of War to be called the Department of Defense made that a pacifist organization.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I've been thinking about this on and off all day. My tentative conclusion is that we are afraid of pacifism, afraid that our faith calls us to pacifism, afraid that we are being asked to give violence up as a solution, and because we are so wedded to 'good' violence we can't stand the thought of being seen as weak or cowardly. Hence the strong, almost visceral hatred of pacifism and pacifists.

Keep thinking Doc, that's what you're good at.

And Gildas, bliss.

And deano. Not bad mate, not bad.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

The police are not the military.

End of discussion as far as I'm concerned.

Posted by Palimpsest (# 16772) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The police are not the military.

End of discussion as far as I'm concerned.

Not yet, but in the United States they're working on it buying the Pentagon's surplus weapons.

Posted by no prophet (# 15560) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
The police are not the military.

End of discussion as far as I'm concerned.

Correct, absolutely correct. They are not a separate group, they are not a "them". They are members of the same community. Only in insane countries does it work differently as the general rule. Military is completely different. Except in insane countries.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
I'm not, however, against pacifism.

But the false dilemma is "no use of force under any circumstances" against... what? Are you suggesting that if you're not a pacifist, then perhaps it's "kill them all, God will know His own" (ah, Catholic theology at its finest).

Pacifism is a sliding scale, and how people self-identify as pacifists is a matter for them. For all I know, I may be more pacifistic than some pacifists. But to say pacifists are hypocrites for calling the police is as bizarre as saying non-pacifists are hypocrites for calling the police - non-pacifists should of course be sorting out their problems with bottles, bricks and bats like decent, God-fearing men ought.

As others have said, crucial is how we define pacifism. Without getting into a war-by-dictionary, it's generally taken to mean a philosophy that opposes the use of violence.

That's why your analogy breaks down. A non-pacifist has no moral objection to violence, and therefore, no objection to violence-by-proxy in all circumstances.

quote:
Originally posted by Erik:
Is this, in your opinion, a typical police response? I would have thought that in most cases a police officer would try to use as little force as nessesary to stop whatever crime is happening and apprehend the criminal. The police are supposed to be charged with 'keeping the peace' after all.

Depends on the situation. If you call the cops to move on a trespasser, then no, I hope its atypical. If you call 'em to subdue a violent criminal, then you can foresee that they're likely to use force.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

On the "no true pacifist" objection, it misapplies the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

The fallacy lies in excluding awkward evidence from consideration. As pacifism's an ideology, evidence may inform it, but can't decide it, since evidence is categorically incapable of deciding questions of value.

So while it'd be a fallacy to assert that no true Scotsman compliments their kilt with shorts bearing St George's Cross, it's perfectly legitimate to argue that a Scotsman who does so, while being welcomed by kilt-hiring companies who must clean the things, is acting in a way that's incompatible with Scottish values.

[ 25. September 2014, 04:01: Message edited by: Byron ]

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

The reason I call the cops when it kicks off on a Friday night at the soup kitchen, is because I, by myself, can't stop the violence. Not because I'm a limp wristed, hanky squeezing, bleeding heart wuss (which I am), but because I don't have the skills to stop it. I've defused it, pre-empted it, raised my voice (it's impressive believe me), interposed my person, grabbed hold of the violent and had them ejected by appropriate force when the manpower was there. I've been poleaxed to the ground for it. But when it's all gone to hell, when I fail, I call the cops. There have been nasty situations, very nasty, in which all I could do was watch in the meantime. The shame burns to this day. Always will. If I'd have had the skills, I would have stopped it. Period.

So am I a pacifist or not?

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
That's why your analogy breaks down. A non-pacifist has no moral objection to violence, and therefore, no objection to violence-by-proxy in all circumstances.

And that's where your counter-argument breaks down.

Seriously, re-read it. no objection to violence-by-proxy in all circumstances. Really? You might be content to give the authorities a blank cheque on their behaviour 'on our behalf', but most people I know have a "steady on, old chap, that's going a bit far" line somewhere in the sand.

So the non-pacifist consents to violence-by-proxy in limited circumstances to a limited extent - unless they're psychopaths, of course, in which case I'd suggest they're poor examples to take moral lessons from.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

We can of course play are all sorts of definition games here. Perhaps you want to have a "threshold pacifist" who only worries about wars from a certain scale on, or an "anti-military pacifist" who doesn't care about police violence, and so on.

But in general usage, a pacifist is defined as follows (OED, Mac):

Pacifist - a person who believes that war and violence are unjustifiable: she was a committed pacifist all her life.

It denotes a person who has strict principles that make both war and violence unjustifiable.

So in practice all these justifications you advance for war and violence in these definition games simply remove some violence or some war from the principled pacifism of that person.

At what percentage of remaining pacifism you find it still valid to call someone a pacifist is perhaps a matter of taste. Personally, I think if you are consciously giving up on principles you also should give up the label that comes with them. Most people would like to see as little violence and war as possible, but that does not make them pacifist, just decent.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
And that's where your counter-argument breaks down.

Seriously, re-read it. no objection to violence-by-proxy in all circumstances. Really? You might be content to give the authorities a blank cheque on their behaviour 'on our behalf', but most people I know have a "steady on, old chap, that's going a bit far" line somewhere in the sand.

So the non-pacifist consents to violence-by-proxy in limited circumstances to a limited extent - unless they're psychopaths, of course, in which case I'd suggest they're poor examples to take moral lessons from.

By "no objection to violence-by-proxy in all circumstances" I meant "supports force in some circumstances," not "gives a blank check to thugs." A non-pacifist doesn't have a blanket opposition to violence.

Nor, it seems, does a pacifist. OK, fine, but in which case, what is the substantive difference between a pacifist and a non-pacifist? Like IngoB and other folks have said, most all of us (myself certainly included) want to see a minimum of violence. If pacifism is different in kind to that position, how?

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

There is an online Wiki article on Christian pacifism which might help clarify some of the definition discussions on this thread.

My reading of the history and some of the quotes by from Early Church Fathers is that the arguments were not about civil order but about membership of the military.

So I'm not clear where calling the cops comes into this. If the argument is that pacifists must believe that the use of force to restore civil order cannot be justified on principle, that does not seem to be what was at the historical heart of Christian pacifism.

Yes, of course I can see that there are boundaries. If some application of force is regarded as acceptable for the maintenance of civil order, why should it not be justified in restoring order between nations? If I believe that the law needs to be policed, why should I not be a police officer. And if I believe that some degree of force is justified in policing, why should I rule out force in the wider areas of conflict known as wars?

It looks to me that the cross over point is concerned with killing, not the use of force to maintain law and order. Lesser force is not ideal, but may be necessary. The decision not to kill, to refuse any role under which you may be ordered to kill, is the root of conscientious objection for religious reasons (the classic stance of Quakers, Mennonites, Amish, Jehovah's Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists). Those who believe that is the line they will not cross, those who have believed that historically, do not seem to me to have shown any consistent opposition to, or any particular consistent view about, the use of lesser force as a "law and order" necessity. "Less than ideal" is not the same an "never justified".

Now is it inconsistent to draw that sort of line? Or is it a distinctive form of Christian witness and example? If the prophetic ideal is a world in which "swords get beaten into ploughshares" how is that hope to be advanced? How are cycles of violence to be broken?

I don't think it's particularly helpful to characterise as hypocrites folks who struggle with these issues and come to different conclusions than we do. Christian pacifism is not a universal understanding, but it is one which has been taken by many honourable people.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

That's very useful, B62. The police (by and large: SO19, I'm looking at you) are trained to use non-lethal methods to uphold the law and keep the civic peace. Soldiers are trained to kill.

If your dividing line is "Do not kill", then there are clear ethical grounds for supporting the police and not supporting the military. Furthermore, there are clear ethical grounds for not (routinely) arming the police, and promoting non-lethal ways of disarming/disabling violent offenders.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

Yep, thanks for that breakdown, Barnabas62.

Drawing the line at military service might work, but only if a good case can be made that it's different in kind to law enforcement, and that pacifism is the only solution. It's not necessary to be a pacifist to criticize militarism: the phrase "military-industrial complex" was, after all, popularized by Eisenhower's farewell address.

Opposing deadly force is another useful dividing line, but brings plenty issues. What constitutes "deadly force"? Tasers, plastic bullets, nightsticks, all can lead to death. They're properly called "less-lethal weapons" for good reason.

Beyond that, the core issue: why is it more moral to let yourself or others die than to kill? If a spree murderer is busy slaughtering innocents, and a police officer or armed citizen can stop him with deadly force, why shouldn't they?

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
If a spree murderer is busy slaughtering innocents, and a police officer or armed citizen can stop him with deadly force, why shouldn't they?

Because of something that you already acknowledge in the first part of your sentence: killing people is wrong.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Because of something that you already acknowledge in the first part of your sentence: killing people is wrong.

Murder is wrong. Not all killing is murder, only intentional and unjustifiable homicide.

Is it your position that all killing is wrong, regardless of the circumstance, even if staying our hand leads to innocent deaths? If so, why?

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Because of something that you already acknowledge in the first part of your sentence: killing people is wrong.
Murder is wrong. Not all killing is murder, only intentional and unjustifiable homicide.

Is it your position that all killing is wrong, regardless of the circumstance, even if staying our hand leads to innocent deaths? If so, why?

Firstly, it's you who needs to justify your position. It's much clearer to state that the taking of a human life is wrong, in all circumstances.

Secondly, there are vanishingly few civil situations where non-lethal force which incapacitates is less appropriate than shooting to kill. I don't have to make that argument as it's pretty much self-evident.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
Firstly, it's you who needs to justify your position. It's much clearer to state that the taking of a human life is wrong, in all circumstances.

Secondly, there are vanishingly few civil situations where non-lethal force which incapacitates is less appropriate than shooting to kill. I don't have to make that argument as it's pretty much self-evident.

My position's simply that, as deadly force is sometimes necessary to save innocent life, less harm is done by using it on the perpetrator than is done by inaction.

It's not a choice between violence and non-violence, as you'll have violence regardless. Instead, it's a question of how much violence, and on whom it's inflicted.

As for your claim about non-lethal force, d'you have evidence for that, beyond your belief that it's self-evidence? Bullets fired at center-mass are a fast and effective means of stopping a threat. What less-lethal alternatives d'you propose?

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
My position's simply that, as deadly force is sometimes necessary to save innocent life, less harm is done by using it on the perpetrator than is done by inaction.

That's not justifying your position, that's simply restating it.

There is a world of possibilities between shooting someone dead and inaction. You seem to be ignoring that. And since we generally hold that killing people is wrong, can you acknowledge that the police are in a unique position to kill someone and justify their actions as 'good' afterwards?

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
My position's simply that, as deadly force is sometimes necessary to save innocent life, less harm is done by using it on the perpetrator than is done by inaction.
That's not justifying your position, that's simply restating it.

I'll phrase it like this, then: harm is undesirable, therefore we should seek to minimize it. If deadly force causes the minimum of harm, it's justifiable on those grounds.

quote:
There is a world of possibilities between shooting someone dead and inaction. You seem to be ignoring that. And since we generally hold that killing people is wrong, can you acknowledge that the police are in a unique position to kill someone and justify their actions as 'good' afterwards?

Which possibilities, specifically, are as effective at stopping an active shooter as bullets fired at their torso? If you haven't got a less-lethal alternative, do you support deadly force in that situation?

Police (or someone with a CCW) is in a unique position, true, but that doesn't have any bearing on the ethics of violence.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Which possibilities, specifically, are as effective at stopping an active shooter as bullets fired at their torso? If you haven't got a less-lethal alternative, do you support deadly force in that situation?

You always have a less-lethal alternative. The idea that you don't is amplified in your next sentence.

quote:
Police (or someone with a CCW) is in a unique position, true, but that doesn't have any bearing on the ethics of violence.

If you genuinely believe that, then I have a bridge to sell you.

Compare and contrast

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

The ethics of violence is a good concept to use here.

What a killing in war, or in pursuit of civil order, does of course is remove in this life any possibility of reconciliation, of changes of mind and heart from the future of the one killed. What it may do is remove from others the dangers to life and limb from the one killed. What it does not do is to control the knock on consequences, the possibility of stirring up revenge, the callousing of the heart and mind of the killer, whether or not the killers actions have been legitimised by law and specific orders.

Multiply that en masse, take into account the baleful effects of "collateral damage", and we have the complexities associated with just war doctrines and the conduct of those whose freedom to do violence has in some way been legitimised.

That's another reason why I feel uncomfortable about the uses of terms like hypocrisy. There are severe ethical issues associated with legitimised violence as well. Good people wrestle with this stuff.

I would rather say that I doubt if a single one of us is free from inconsistency in the ways we weigh the ethics of violence in personal conduct, maintenance of order and the conduct of armed conflict. We do our best to make sense of conflicting causes and effects. The waters are muddy. The best I can see is that we accept, with varying degrees of reluctance, the concept of "the least bad" but disagree about what it might be in specific circumstances.

[ 25. September 2014, 11:12: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]

Posted by deano (# 12063) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:
You always have a less-lethal alternative. The idea that you don't is amplified in your next sentence.

This is coming very close to the "shoot the gun from their hand" scenario as made popular by Hollywood.

When confronted with someone who has a gun or other lethat weapon in their posession, Police marksmen and women are trained to aim for the largest mass, the torso, as it it the most effective way of ensuring the gunman is disabled.

To aim for the hand risks missing and giving the gunman the opportunity to hide and get off shots of their own, which turns a bad situation into a horrendous one especially if their are hostages to consider.

If you think we can fire a dart into them to render them unconscious, then again, only in Hollywood. You risk giving them too much, thus killing them, or too little in which case they will have the opportunity to use their weapon. Also these things take time to work, so again they have an opportunity.

Of course there is always the possibility of a negotiated surrender, which is the best option all round. Short of that though options are limited and when you get to the point where a police officer has to pull the trigger, it must be with a real bullet aimed at the largest part of the target.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by deano:
This is coming very close to the "shoot the gun from their hand" scenario as made popular by Hollywood.

This is coming very close to "teaching your grandma to suck eggs"... This, I know.

However, let's just take May 2014 as an example.

I'll save your eyes from quoting examples, but few of them actually involved guns held by members of the public. The pattern is repeated in every month. So - the argument that the police need to be able to use deadly force against the clear and present danger of someone with a gun threatening the officers or the public is, pretty much, by the by. Hard cases make bad law.

The fact remains is that, as the UK's single 2014 death-at-the-hands-of-police-marksmen starkly shows, there are less than lethal ways of dealing with violent criminals. It's whether you choose to use them.

[ 25. September 2014, 12:19: Message edited by: Doc Tor ]

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

It's not that simple, Doc Tor.

Far fewer British criminals use guns. Officers who attempt to tackle knife-wielding suspects can suffer horrific injuries, and unarmed officers get shot and killed by an armed suspect without being able to defend themselves.

So yes, there are alternatives to deadly force, but they're not equivalent, and have major drawbacks.

There will always be some situations in which deadly force is the only way to stop a violent criminal. On those occasions, do you support its use? If you don't, OK, but your position carries a cost, just like mine does.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
It's not that simple, Doc Tor.

Far fewer British criminals use guns. Officers who attempt to tackle knife-wielding suspects can suffer horrific injuries, and unarmed officers get shot and killed by an armed suspect without being able to defend themselves.

So yes, there are alternatives to deadly force, but they're not equivalent, and have major drawbacks.

There will always be some situations in which deadly force is the only way to stop a violent criminal. On those occasions, do you support its use? If you don't, OK, but your position carries a cost, just like mine does.

What is this? The 'Teach Grandma To Suck Eggs Convention'?

Of course it's not that simple. Again, the fact that you're (possibly wilfully) ignoring is that in the vast majority of police/public interactions where violence occurs (and here in the UK, that's one in 2014, and the next is in 2012) there is no need at all to use deadly force. (In the 2014 case, the suspect had a knife: in the case in 2012, the suspect was unarmed, so there was no need whatsoever there).

So, to conclude. Members of the public are more likely to get shot by the police because the police fuck up, than a suspect is who is presenting a clear and present danger to either the police or members of the public. Armed response units are, in general, a bit of dick-waving by the Chief Constable that causes more deaths than they save lives. A simple pragmatic argument follows - the use of deadly force by UK police forces should be ended.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
I'll phrase it like this, then: harm is undesirable, therefore we should seek to minimize it. If deadly force causes the minimum of harm, it's justifiable on those grounds.

Does that apply to all deadly force, or only to deadly force used on the perpetrator? If the perpetrator has a hostage are you allowed to shoot the hostage in order to scare the perpetrator into surrender?

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

OK Doc Tor, so you oppose the use of firearms by law enforcement in all circumstances? Just as arming officers leads to tragic and fatal mistakes, disarming LEOs will lead, inevitably, to murders that could've been prevented, as Australian officers did the other day. As I said, neither side has it clean.

Getting back to pacifism, what's its ethical foundation?

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
I'll phrase it like this, then: harm is undesirable, therefore we should seek to minimize it. If deadly force causes the minimum of harm, it's justifiable on those grounds.
Does that apply to all deadly force, or only to deadly force used on the perpetrator? If the perpetrator has a hostage are you allowed to shoot the hostage in order to scare the perpetrator into surrender?

Of course you're not allowed to shoot the hostage! Deadly force is justified to save innocent lives, not take them. I assume you're trying to make some point about cops being judge, jury and executioner? If so, it's misplaced: justifiable homicide isn't a punishment, but a hard case of necessity, the necessity being the end of the threat.

Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :

quote:
originally posted by JaneR:
Oh, and I'm not a pacifist either, but I still don't accept your 'No True Pacifist' definition. And I didn't support the war in Iraq, because I didn't think it would make things any better (and I really wish I'd been proved wrong).

Well, if Pacifism means that war is only acceptable when war makes things better then once again I'm a pacifist. Opposition to the War in Iraq alone doesn't make one a pacifist. Once you start judging wars by their effects, you've wondered into just war territory not pacifism.

quote:
originally posted by no prophet:
Correct, absolutely correct. They are not a separate group, they are not a "them". They are members of the same community. Only in insane countries does it work differently as the general rule. Military is completely different. Except in insane countries.

You mean insane countries like France? Both the police and the military use violence to protect the society they serve. As a Canadian, you don't even get to use the "but our police force doesn't carry firearms" excuse.

quote:
originally posted by Martin:
So am I a pacifist or not?

I'd say you aren't. You call the police to use violence to remove the violence from a soup kitchen. However, you would give groups willing to use extreme violence on a national and international scale but refuse the victims of the violence the same option you reserve for yourself. This you justify by saying the ones you called to use violence are "police" but the ones others call to use violence are "military."

Sounds like hypocrisy to me.

quote:
originally posted by Barnabas62:
My reading of the history and some of the quotes by from Early Church Fathers is that the arguments were not about civil order but about membership of the military.

So I'm not clear where calling the cops comes into this. If the argument is that pacifists must believe that the use of force to restore civil order cannot be justified on principle, that does not seem to be what was at the historical heart of Christian pacifism.

The article mentions that Christian pacifism was a minority position as the article points out the number of Christians serving in the military. Also, the Roman Empire didn't have a police force distinct from the military. Police as distinct from the military is a fairly modern innovation.

quote:
originally poste by Doc Tor:
If your dividing line is "Do not kill", then there are clear ethical grounds for supporting the police and not supporting the military. Furthermore, there are clear ethical grounds for not (routinely) arming the police, and promoting non-lethal ways of disarming/disabling violent offenders.

So, unable to justify calling the police for their own protection from violence by resorting to Jesus admonition to turn the other cheek, some pacifists try to make "thou shalt not kill" the line of demarcation. Once again, I don't do theology and ethics based on proof texting. In context, the commandment does not mean what pacifists need it to mean to justify pacifism. The pacifist interpretation receives little support from scripture, tradition, and reason. Indeed, virtually every human society ever has distinguished between justifiable killing and murder.

Posted by orfeo (# 13878) on :

One of the headline stories in Australia right now is that police killed an 18-year-old supporter of ISIS after he attacked and seriously stabbed 2 police officers.

Police do kill sometimes. But their purpose in doing so is still fundamentally different to the purposes for which members of the military kill. Police only kill for the purpose of self-defence or defence of others, to prevent further loss of life. It is in fact perfectly legal for ordinary civilians to kill for that same reason.

Military kill for purposes of strategic advantage.

I suppose there might be some pacifists out there that argue that even killing in self-defence is unjustifiable, but they'd be a pretty rare breed.

[ 25. September 2014, 13:46: Message edited by: orfeo ]

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

The Geneva conventions now forbid the deliberate targeting of civilians, so militaries can only target combatants, regardless of the strategic advantage.

This does, admittedly, allow collateral killing, but self-defense laws typically give a pass to a person who reasonably believed their life was in imminent danger, even if that belief turns out to have been mistaken.

The heroic pacifists who endured prisons and mock executions rather than provide any material assistance to war would, I suspect, take issue with the idea that pacifism was compatible with killing!

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
I'll phrase it like this, then: harm is undesirable, therefore we should seek to minimize it. If deadly force causes the minimum of harm, it's justifiable on those grounds.
Does that apply to all deadly force, or only to deadly force used on the perpetrator? If the perpetrator has a hostage are you allowed to shoot the hostage in order to scare the perpetrator into surrender?
Of course you're not allowed to shoot the hostage! Deadly force is justified to save innocent lives, not take them. I assume you're trying to make some point about cops being judge, jury and executioner? If so, it's misplaced: justifiable homicide isn't a punishment, but a hard case of necessity, the necessity being the end of the threat.

So you're not a consistent utilitarian. You just have an arbitrary line: it's ok to kill 'guilty' people to prevent harm but not to kill innocent people, even if killing the innocent people will prevent more harm.

So the question of 'we should minimise harm' takes second place to the claim that we should not kill 'innocent' people. But why is the distinction between 'innocent' people and 'not innocent' people so morally important?
And where exactly is the line between 'guilty' people and 'innocent' people drawn? That's something of an ethical morass right there.

The 'don't use lethal force' has its grey areas, but it's definitely less arbitrary than 'don't use lethal force against innocent people'.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
So you're not a consistent utilitarian. You just have an arbitrary line: it's ok to kill 'guilty' people to prevent harm but not to kill innocent people, even if killing the innocent people will prevent more harm.

So the question of 'we should minimise harm' takes second place to the claim that we should not kill 'innocent' people. But why is the distinction between 'innocent' people and 'not innocent' people so morally important?
And where exactly is the line between 'guilty' people and 'innocent' people drawn? That's something of an ethical morass right there.

The 'don't use lethal force' has its grey areas, but it's definitely less arbitrary than 'don't use lethal force against innocent people'.

If you strip out guilt and innocence (hardly an arbitrary distinction, since it's framed by law) then in your hostage scenario, killing the hostage isn't justified, as it doesn't end the threat. Just the opposite, it may well increase it, by spooking hostage-taker so much they panic and start shooting wildly.

Sure, we can conjure fantastical scenarios in which shooting a hostage might be justified: say, so the bullet can go through the hostage to incapacitate a suicide bomber before they can detonate their vest and kill a bunch of people. Such better resemble a thought experiment than the day-to-day concerns of law enforcement.

Regardless, the principles are clear: deadly force is justified to prevent the death of yourself or a third party. Likewise, pacifism isn't arbitrary in its respect for life; I just disagree with it.

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
So, unable to justify calling the police for their own protection from violence by resorting to Jesus admonition to turn the other cheek, some pacifists try to make "thou shalt not kill" the line of demarcation. Once again, I don't do theology and ethics based on proof texting.

We all draw the line somewhere. This side of killing is a good, justifiable demarcation, while you're making a very poor case of anything approaching situational ethics.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Beeswax Altar:

quote:
Opposition to the War in Iraq alone doesn't make one a pacifist.

As I said I am not a pacifist (in the part of my earlier post that you quoted, even) I am at a loss to understand this remark.

Posted by Ikkyu (# 15207) on :

I love some versions of Christianity. Killing and war agree with the Bible but marrying the "wrong" kind of person does not.
Lots of attention to sexual morality issues in my local Catholic radio station but a lot less attention given to preventing violence.
Have you heard a lot of preaching recently in the US against the militarization of police? And if not why not?

Posted by Doc Tor (# 9748) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:
Regardless, the principles are clear: deadly force is justified to prevent the death of yourself or a third party. Likewise, pacifism isn't arbitrary in its respect for life; I just disagree with it.

WWJD?

Posted by RuthW (# 13) on :

quote:
Originally posted by orfeo:
I suppose there might be some pacifists out there that argue that even killing in self-defence is unjustifiable, but they'd be a pretty rare breed.

That's what Mennonites believe, actually. From the Mennonite Church USA website:

quote:
We believe that it is possible to follow Jesus as a peacemaker. We believe that we can practice the way of Jesus’ reconciling love in human conflicts and warfare, without having to strike out in fear to defend ourselves.

Further discussion here, along the lines that Jesus freely laid down his life, and we are to follow his example.

It might seem rare to you, but this is what my grandparents believed, especially my father's parents. My parents were less adamant about it, in part because we didn't attend a Mennonite church (there not being one in the town we settled in) and in part because my father did 8 years of military service as a non-combatant, which he later regretted. But they were very clear on the idea that culturally we were Mennonites, and that Mennonites reject violence, even in self-defense.

So I was raised with this idea, and I don't find it unusual or strange.

Last year there were 32 homicides in the city where I live. Additionally, police officers shot 15 people, 6 of them fatally. The city pays out several million dollars every year in damages because they lose or settle lawsuits involving such shootings. So the question of whether to call the police is to me a real one. The one time it was a live issue for me, when someone had assaulted me in the street, someone else called the police while I was still doing my best not to get slugged a second time.

Most of the time, though, when you call the police, even in a place where they are armed and willing to shoot to kill, you are not calling in people to be violent on your behalf. You are calling upon the authority of the state to enforce the law. The people who respond may resort to violence, but most of the time they don't. It's not hypocrisy but a compromise, I would argue, for a pacifist to call the police -- a compromise arising from the fact that virtually no one else around here is a pacifist, the fact that it's damn hard to be different, and the realization that is sometimes not a ditch worth dying in. Insisting on pacifism and not calling the cops when someone is waving a gun around at the local convenience store is principled, but also a bit pointless unless one is prepared to die for that principle.

I think one of the main difficulties in discussing how pacifists should live, what we should do, is that pacifism is so very absolute, so very ideal, at least the pacifism that I was taught. But we live in a world that is very far from that ideal, and it won't suddenly change. If we advance toward pacifism, it will happen incrementally. This is the only way in which I can agree that there are "degrees of pacifism," as Karl said. I think war is wrong, always wrong, even in self-defense, even if we are attacked or invaded, but the US is not going to unilaterally disarm by tomorrow morning. So in that arena, pacifists do well to argue and work for a better US foreign policy, one that relies more on diplomacy and just being decent to other nations than on military might.

On a more local level, the pacifist who says, as Byron put it, "Oh, it's fine for a police cruiser to screech onto the scene, and for officers to jump out and beat/tase/gas the aggressor into submission, just so long as they don't kill him," does not "go against everything pacifism stands for." I once watched police officers subdue someone who was trying to commit suicide by cop by shooting him with rubber bullets. Was it violent? Yes. But it was less violent than it might have been if someone hadn't called the police. There really aren't degrees of pacifism, but there are degrees of violence, and the realistic pacifist will take a lower level of violence over a higher one and hope and work for less violence in the future.

Thorough-going pacifism to my mind is completely true to the gospel of Jesus Christ. I fail to live up to that gospel in many, many ways -- being a less than perfect pacifist is one of them.

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
There really aren't degrees of pacifism, but there are degrees of violence, and the realistic pacifist will take a lower level of violence over a higher one and hope and work for less violence in the future.

That however is, as you acknowledge, not pacifism, which considers war and violence unjustifiable. It is good pragmatism.

quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
Thorough-going pacifism to my mind is completely true to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I disagree strongly. Thorough-going pacifism in this world is secularly a neglect of one's duties to the common good, and religiously commits sin by failing to prevent evil. It appears defensible only as an untested armchair philosophy, but in actual action subverts the gospel while maintaining its outer trappings. It is halted by the arousal of the law written on our hearts in righteous anger against injustice. How can one consider it morally superior to leave the evildoers to doing their evil? What makes violence and war Christian in this world are one's motives and conduct in carrying it out.

Yes, indeed, if we all followed Christ perfectly, then there would be no violence and no war. He is the Prince of Peace and when His rule is comprehensively established then the kingdom of heaven will reign. It does however not follow that optimal Christian behaviour here and now is to pretend that the kingdom of heaven has already come and to behave as if that is the case. If I pretend that the girl I love has already declared her love to me, and attempt to kiss her, then that is sexual harassment and not a superior expression of my love.

On a more scriptural level, this is one more instance of pitting the NT against the OT, as if Christ had said that He had come to repudiate salvation history so far. But Christ neither declared all the many wars of the Israelites unsavoury, nor did he tell the soldiers whom he interacted with to simply drop their weapons. Yes, He talked of turning the other cheek, but this is far from a blanket declaration of non-violence. It is stated as a modifier of the "eye for an eye" law of Exodus, and on strength of that alone one can argue that the intention is actually to break cycles of revenge (cf. Romans 12:19) rather than to outlaw self-defence. Furthermore, the actual examples given (being slapped, having your cloak stolen, having to accompany someone) are in fact not at the level of fighting for your health or life. Even a slap is more injurious to one's pride than to one's physical well-being. This hence can be understood simply as an instruction to keep de-escalating in charity where a fighting response is already justifiable (as per Exodus), without thereby simply declaring all fighting back unjust or imprudent.

[ 26. September 2014, 09:43: Message edited by: IngoB ]

Posted by JFH (# 14794) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Furthermore, the actual examples given (being slapped, having your cloak stolen, having to accompany someone) are in fact not at the level of fighting for your health or life. Even a slap is more injurious to one's pride than to one's physical well-being. This hence can be understood simply as an instruction to keep de-escalating in charity where a fighting response is already justifiable (as per Exodus), without thereby simply declaring all fighting back unjust or imprudent.

Very interesting post, Ingo, but I've also been taught that the examples given carry very strong cultural connotations. The slap was according to my teachers supposed to carry a very strong sentiment of complete dishonour to the one being struck - somewhat similar to challenging someone to a duel. The honour would in that case be regained solely by slapping in return.

As for the cloak, it was (supposedly) for many groups, such as shepherds during that time not just their most valuable possession but the only thing that kept them warm at night. Sleeping without a cloak would mean a very strong risk of freezing to death during the colder months of the year.

As for the accompaniment, it's supposed to relate to the one most loathed everyday condition of the Roman occupation: that a Roman soldier could order a local individual to carry his pack and equipment for him, but due to the anger it spurred in the populace limited by law to one mile.

I have very little historical evidence for this, but having studied a fair bit of history, it sounds reasonable. I definitely think Christ's sentiment stretches further than the actual words used in the examples, at the very least.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

And what is thorough-going pacifism? Doing absolutely nothing in the face of violence?

Is passive resistance thorough-going pacifism?

Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Doc Tor:

quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
So, unable to justify calling the police for their own protection from violence by resorting to Jesus admonition to turn the other cheek, some pacifists try to make "thou shalt not kill" the line of demarcation. Once again, I don't do theology and ethics based on proof texting.
We all draw the line somewhere. This side of killing is a good, justifiable demarcation, while you're making a very poor case of anything approaching situational ethics.

Not sure what you mean by "making a very poor case of anything approaching situational ethics." The OP is about Christian pacifism. I've said numerous times that I don't see a Christian case for pacifism. Nobody has attempted to offer a Christian case for pacifism. Rather, they just assume it's self evident which it isn't. As a matter of fact, nobody on this thread has defined Christian Pacifism in a way that is functionally different from Just War Theory.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Surely it's able?

Posted by goperryrevs (# 13504) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
On a more scriptural level, this is one more instance of pitting the NT against the OT, as if Christ had said that He had come to repudiate salvation history so far. But Christ neither declared all the many wars of the Israelites unsavoury, nor did he tell the soldiers whom he interacted with to simply drop their weapons.

Nor did he condemn the polygamy of David and Solomon, or the visits Samson made to prostitutes. Nor did he tell slave owners to free their slaves. Nor did he tell one soldier / slave owner to stop having sex with his favourite boy love slave. (In fact, he healed the slave and commended the centurion's faith - Luke 7). So, by the logic that says that war is AOK with Jesus (because he didn't explicitly condemn the Hebrew wars) so is slavery, prostitution, polygamy and gay sex. Happy with that?

I'd rather shape my morality on what Jesus did say, rather than trying to extract principles from his silence. "Turn the other cheek" is pretty clear, as is "love your enemy" & "love your neighbour". As is the good Samaritan. But then, so is "I came not to bring peace, but a sword", and "sell your coat, buy a sword".

Oh, why couldn't he have just been clearer about this stuff?

Notably, however, though Jesus frequently quotes from various places in the law and prophets (as you'd expect), he doesn't quote from Joshua or Judges. If he wanted to advocate violence as a useful way of solving problems, Joshua's the place to go. Instead, it doesn't seem to appear on Jesus' radar (despite his being named after the guy).

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Funny how our Master didn't quench a smoking reed; has the greatest moral authority of all whilst leaving all evil doers outside His personal space to do their evil.

Posted by Moo (# 107) on :

quote:
Originally posted by goperryrevs
Nor did he tell one soldier / slave owner to stop having sex with his favourite boy love slave.

That is one possible interpretation of the centurion's relation to the one who needed healing. However, there are others.

Moo

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

quote:
Originally posted by RuthW:
[...] On a more local level, the pacifist who says, as Byron put it, "Oh, it's fine for a police cruiser to screech onto the scene, and for officers to jump out and beat/tase/gas the aggressor into submission, just so long as they don't kill him," does not "go against everything pacifism stands for." I once watched police officers subdue someone who was trying to commit suicide by cop by shooting him with rubber bullets. Was it violent? Yes. But it was less violent than it might have been if someone hadn't called the police. There really aren't degrees of pacifism, but there are degrees of violence, and the realistic pacifist will take a lower level of violence over a higher one and hope and work for less violence in the future. [...]

Just to clarify that, I'm sure that the overwhelming majority of pacifists would be horrified by such a blasé attitude to force. I used the example precisely because it's absurd.

Like others here, I'm trying to thrash out how pacifism is different in kind to Just War theory. [Smile]

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
As a matter of fact, nobody on this thread has defined Christian Pacifism in a way that is functionally different from Just War Theory.

I thought the Wikipedia article, which I linked earlier, did that. Here is the quote from the top of the article.

quote:
Christian pacifism is the theological and ethical position that any form of violence is incompatible with the Christian faith.

I also thought that RuthW's link to the Mennonite position did that.

Here's that link.

And here is a clear quotation from it.

quote:
As followers of Jesus, we participate in his ministry of peace and justice. He has called us to find our blessing in making peace and seeking justice. We do so in a spirit of gentleness, willing to be persecuted for righteousness’ sake. As disciples of Christ, we do not prepare for war, or participate in war or military service. The same Spirit that empowered Jesus also empowers us to love enemies, to forgive rather than to seek revenge, to practice right relationships, to rely on the community of faith to settle disputes, and to resist evil without violence.

What you have been arguing, along the lines of the OP, is that it is hypocritical to adopt a Christian pacifist position re wars and violence and call the cops in to use force on your behalf. It is clear that you are not a Christian pacifist.

My reading of the distinction between Christian pacifism and the Just War Theory is that the former argues that violence is incompatible with Christianity, the Just War theory argues that "war, while very terrible, is not always the worst option. There may be responsibilities so important, atrocities which can be prevented or outcomes so undesirable they justify war."

I think the phrases "degrees of pacifism" and "ethics of violence" show that people differ, perfectly reasonably, about the circumstances in which some use of force, violent or otherwise, may be the best bad thing. Using the language of degree, the Mennonite position, which is, to coin a phrase "extremely peaceful", gives the standard "to resist evil without violence". But RuthW's comments struck me as right on the button about the circummstances under which police might be called in.

quote:
It's not hypocrisy but a compromise, I would argue, for a pacifist to call the police -- a compromise arising from the fact that virtually no one else around here is a pacifist, the fact that it's damn hard to be different, and the realization that is sometimes not a ditch worth dying in.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

RuthW nicely summarized what I take to be the central issue: "I think one of the main difficulties in discussing how pacifists should live, what we should do, is that pacifism is so very absolute, so very ideal, at least the pacifism that I was taught."

But if a position isn't defended in practice, in what meaningful sense is it held?

I hold some absolute beliefs, such as free speech. That means I'll force myself to defend the speech rights of assorted Nazis, televangelists, and cold callers.

If I couldn't bring myself to do that, I wouldn't say that I believed in free speech. Many others who like the idea of free speech, but can't tolerate its consequences, adopt the refrain, "I believe in free speech, but ..." (here's why speech I don't like should be censored).

Likewise, pacifism frequently appears to be "pacifism but ..." If a belief doesn't hold up in practice, surely it ought to be reexamined?

Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :

I think there are two key distinctions here. First, between principles and ideals. A principle is supposed to be foundational to one's thought and behaviour, to govern what one actually does. An ideal is instead what one wishes one's thought and behaviour to be like, it is a goal for what one does. Second, between compromising and failing. In compromising, one intentionally gives something up to achieve something else. In failing, one does not achieve what one attempts to do, against one's will.

Pacifism is a matter of principles, not of ideals. One would hope that all Christians, and indeed most people, have peace and non-violence as their ideal. What is distinctive about a pacifist is that they elevate this to a governing principle.

However, one can fail and compromise ideals, but one can only fail principles. One cannot compromise principles. The reason is simply that compromise is deliberate, and that in giving up one thing for another, one assigns greater value to something else. Therefore, a deliberately broken principle becomes second tier to something else - some other more foundational concern - and therefore cease to be a principle - for a principle just is first tier in the value system. Generally, a compromised principle becomes an ideal.

This is different from failing, which is not intended. One can fail one's principles all the time. That does not mean that one does not hold them, it just means that one has a hard time living up to them. Of course, if one fails principles all the time, questions can be raised how appropriate and sensible it is to have such apparently unachievable principles. Yet this is still is not the same thing as compromising principles. The difference is in the deliberation.

Somebody who fails their ideals or principles may be in a sad state. Likewise somebody who compromises their ideals. None of these people is however typically a hypocrite (in the true meaning of that word). However, somebody who compromises their principles, and nevertheless claims to hold them really is a hypocrite. For a compromise does abandon principle and it is hence a lie to claim to have principles and at the same time compromise them.

After this detour it is clear that a pacifist, somebody who hold peace and non-violence as principle, cannot compromise this stance. If they do, then these principles become mere ideals and they cease being a pacifist. And if they continue to claim pacifist status, then that is hypocritical.

For the case in the OP, the only remaining question is whether it is licit to have principles of peace and non-violence, but to delegate violence and war to someone else. The answer is of course, no. Murder does not become licit just because I contract it out to a professional killer. Delegation does not generally remove culpability, unless one is unaware of what the person one has hired is going to do. Thus to the extent that a pacifist knows what violence the police may apply, they are virtually doing that violence themselves. Unless a pacifist is horribly naive (say a child), they will know that a certain degree of violence is to be expected in policing - in particular for cases where one feels the urgent need to call them in!

So, no, I do not think that a pacifist can call the cops without becoming a hypocrite. I also think that there is really only one way in which to live as a pacifist in this world, and that is to withdraw from the world. Become a monk in Clairvaux, and you can have a fair shot at it...

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Again, the only reason why I call the cops is when there isn't enough of me to stop the violence.

So perhaps I'm not a pacifist. Except in my armchair.

Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Byron:

quote:

The 'don't use lethal force' has its grey areas, but it's definitely less arbitrary than 'don't use lethal force against innocent people'.
If you strip out guilt and innocence (hardly an arbitrary distinction, since it's framed by law) then in your hostage scenario, killing the hostage isn't justified, as it doesn't end the threat. Just the opposite, it may well increase it, by spooking hostage-taker so much they panic and start shooting wildly.

Firstly, the idea that guilt and innocence is enshrined in law seems to me problematic. Firstly, I doubt you think that whether it's acceptable to shoot someone to prevent death varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.
Secondly, the question is what kind of guilt is sufficient to allow us to kill someone in order to save a third party? Murder? Manslaughter? Hiring a hitman? Theft? Littering? (Ok - the last one is facetious.)

Trying to shoot the hostage taker might well provoke the hostage taker into starting firing as well - rather the point of taking hostages I believe. It's not consistent to talk as if we know for sure that not shooting the hostage taker will result in more loss of life than shooting him or her will; but to argue that we can't be sure of the results of shooting the hostage.

If we rephrase: suppose the shooter is using a hostage as a human shield, and we know that if the shooter isn't stopped he or she will kill three people (or otherwise some situation in which on your view killing two guilty people would be the right thing to do).

quote:
Such better resemble a thought experiment than the day-to-day concerns of law enforcement.

If you're engaged in the day-to-day concerns of law enforcement right now, stop wasting the taxpayers' time and money and get on with your job.
What we are doing here is discussing what principles should underlie policy.

quote:
Regardless, the principles are clear: deadly force is justified to prevent the death of yourself or a third party.

Except that you've already said that deadly force is not justified if the person you're killing is 'innocent'. So it's not so clear.

[ 27. September 2014, 13:14: Message edited by: Dafyd ]

Posted by Barnabas62 (# 9110) on :

quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:

Pacifism is a matter of principles, not of ideals. One would hope that all Christians, and indeed most people, have peace and non-violence as their ideal. What is distinctive about a pacifist is that they elevate this to a governing principle.

I think that is why I am not a pacifist. I agree that it cannot be elevated to a governing principle in terms of earthly governments.

But I wonder if pacifists really elevate the ideal to a governing principle. I wonder if it is as clear cut as that in practice?

Is the governing principle one which they seek to apply amongst themselves (e.g. Mennonites) as an example of Kingdom ideals at work? Do they advance it as a principle which should inform the actions of all governments? I don't know enough about the practices of self-declared pacifist communities.

IngoB, you may be right in identifying it as a ideal turned into a principle (or a community rule) in enclosed or separated communities. That may indeed be so with the Amish, for example.

Posted by Byron (# 15532) on :

Dafyd, what point, exactly, are you trying to make?

We (well, you) could spend all day thinking up weird scenarios in which innocents have to be sacrificed for the greater good. If they ever happen, which is unlikely, they'll be tested on a case-by-case basis by the courts.

I've given my view on when deadly force is justified: while the details may vary slightly, most jurisdictions fix on an imminent threat to life and limb.

What's your position?

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
I think that is why I am not a pacifist. I agree that it cannot be elevated to a governing principle in terms of earthly governments.

But I wonder if pacifists really elevate the ideal to a governing principle. I wonder if it is as clear cut as that in practice?

Is the governing principle one which they seek to apply amongst themselves (e.g. Mennonites) as an example of Kingdom ideals at work? Do they advance it as a principle which should inform the actions of all governments? ...

Indeed, things always get much more complicated if believers in anything don't isolate or withdraw. It may be hypocritical for a pacifist to e.g. call the cops to help her/himself, but I think the neighbours would still hope and expect her/him to call the cops to help THEM. I don't have an answer, and the question isn't just about pacifism. Let's say I believe (insert favourite Dead Horse) is immoral. So I personally don't do it. How imperative is it for me to stop anyone else who tries to do it?

Perhaps, rather than expecting pacifism to work as an absolute principle, it should be considered a goal or a method, the first resort in any situation. Can we at least try it out once in a while rather than just give up and claim it never works? The best reason to make an effort to resolve conflicts peacefully, to raggedly paraphrase Ghandi, is that that when violence is used to resolve a conflict, the solution is usually temporary, but the damage is always permanent.

Posted by Martin PC not & Ship's Biohazard (# 368) on :

Don't worry, I will ALWAYS hypocritically call the cops when it kicks off at Triangle beyond my ability to stop it with appropriate force.

Excellent second para there Big Sister.

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