Why does taoism tend towards pacifism

Taoism, unlike Confucianism, rejects rank and class. Taoists shun aggression, competition, and ambition. Taoists stress the importance of harmonizing with nature by balancing yin and yang, and developing chi through meditation and disengagement. The human body is regarded as a source of chi-derived energy, which some people have the power to concentrate and congeal into an essence.

In classic Taoist cosmology, matter and energy are thought to be governed by five basic movements. The strength and influence of these movements wax and wane over the course of a year; with wood peaking during spring, fire during summer, metal in autumn and water in winter.

The remaining movement, earth, asserts its presence most powerfully during the periods before the start of each season. It incorporates the belief that human interference is damaging. Tao is invisible, unnameable, impalpable, unknowable and imitable. Taoists believe that nothing exists before something, inaction exists before action and rest exists before motion.

Thus nothingness is the fundamental state and qualities inherent to this state include tranquility, silence and humility and associations with femanine yin rather than masculine yang. Tao invariably does nothing, yet there is nothing Tao can not be perceived with the five senses, thoughts or imagination and it can not be expressed in words.

It can only perceived though mystical insight. Tao is the power behind nature and the force that creates order. An early use of the word denoted the prestige of a patrician whose wealth and accomplishments had created in others a sense of awe or genuine debt, such that they served him willingly. Confucians used the term to denote the sort of inner moral virtue that they believed spontaneously attracted people and led them towards ethical improvement.

In certain religious contexts, de referred to mysterious powers that individuals might possess, and various types of self-cultivation schools referred to accomplishments engendered by their training regimens as de.

The Taoist canon is huge. Even in its reduced form it contains 1, volumes. This short book was the inspiration for a primarily philosophical form of Taoism. Two other important Tao texts are the Tao The King a series of wise sayings and the Writings of Zhuangzi a discourse written by the Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi , which appeared a few centuries after Lao-tze's reported death. These two texts are more mystical and religious in nature. Zhuangzi voiced ideas that later were made fashionable in the West by philosophers like Descartes and Sartre.

In the forth century B. I enjoyed my freedom as a butterfly, not knowing that I was Chou. Suddenly I awoke and was surprised to be myself again. Now, how can I tell whether I was man who dreamt that he was a butterfly, or whether I am a butterfly who dreams that he is a man? This is called the interfusion of things. The oldest version of the Taoist canon, the Laozi, and a group of early Confucian texts, were found in a year-old tomb in Guodian, Jingmen, Hubei Province.

Copied onto chop-stick-like bamboo slips in the 4th century B. Some of the texts were found by archaeologists after graverobbers were discovered looting the tomb. Others were found in antique shops around Hollywood Road in Hong Kong. Over the course of its development, Taoism has produced and accumulated a great amount of philosophy, literature, art, medicine, chemistry, astronomy, and geography. Taoism also formed a unique religious cultural system, which has contributed to Chinese civilization and influenced ethnic groups such as the Yao, Achang, Bai, Maonan, Gelao, Tujia, Zhuang, Buyi.

This short book was divided into eighty-one chapters in the traditional edition ad was the inspiration for a primarily philosophical form of Taoism. It is very different from the Confucian Analects. There is no evidence that such a person existed at all.

As best as we can tell, the text was written by several authors over a period of time roughly around the third century B.

The Daodejing has been tremendously popular. It exists in several different versions and became one of the bases of both the philosophy of Daoism and the related but distinct Daoist religion. Like the Confucian Analects, the Mencius, the Han Feizi, and others, the Daodejing is the product of that period in Chinese history when the kings of the Zhou dynasty had lost all real authority and their kingdom had disintegrated into a coterie of feudal states that squabbled and fought with one another in evershifting arrangements of alliances and enmities.

Instead, the power of the book itself has attracted a collection of legends which coalesced into the image of the Old Master, an elusive and transcendent sage of the greatest mystery. The essence of this force cannot be captured in words; in fact, human language, with its narrow definitions, hides rather than reveals the Truth of the universe.. Among the most reliable is D.

Hong Kong: It is an abyss, like the ancestor of all things. Blunt the point, Undo the tangle, Soften the glare, Join the dust. Dim, it seems almost to exist. I know not whose child it may be.

It seems the forerunner of the Lord. Silent, solitary, alone and unchanging. It revolves everywhere and is never in danger. It can be the mother of all under heaven. Within the realm there are four great ones, and the king sits as one among them. Men emulate earth; earth emulates heaven; heaven emulates the Dao; the Dao emulates spontaneity.

The relation between man and Nature, or man and spontaneity, is a central issue for Daoism. If a lord or king can preserve this the things of the world will of themselves be transformed. Transformed, should desire arise, I will press it down with the uncarved block of namelessness. The uncarved block of namelessness — surely then they shall be without desire. Without desire and thus still, so will all under heaven be spontaneously settled. Weakness is the method of the Dao.

The things of the world are born from being, and being is born of nothing. The Dao of Heaven is like the stretching of a bow: the high is brought down and the low is raised up; it takes from what has abundance and supplies what is wanting. The Dao of Heaven takes from what has abundance and supplies what is wanting, but the Dao of man is not thus.

It takes from what is wanting in order to supply what has abundance. Who can serve Heaven by means of abundance? Only one who possesses the Dao. Hence the sage acts but relies on nothing. His task accomplished, he does not take the credit: he does not wish to manifest his worth. The ten thousand things bear Yin on their backs and embrace the Yang. They exhaust their qi in harmony.

People detest being orphaned or widowed or unemployed, yet these are the terms kings and lords use to refer to themselves. One may detract from a thing and it is enhanced thereby, or enhance it and so detract from it. According to the Taoist creation theory which is similar to the Chinese Creation Theory : "In the beginning of the universe there was only material-force consisting of yin and yang. This force moved and circulated, turning this way and that. As this movement gained speed, a mass of sediment was pushed together and, since there was no outlet for this, it consolidated to form the earth in the center of the universe How was the first man created?

When the essence of yin and yang and the five agents are united, man's corporeal form is established. This is what the Buddhist call production by transformation. There are many such productions today, such as lice. According to the Taoist text Tso Chuan, written in the early Han era: "Heaven and earth gave rise to yin and yang, wind and rain and dark and light, and from these are born the Five Elements [Metal, Wood, Water, Fire and Earth].

Out of man's use comes the Five Flavors [sour, salty, acrid, bitter, sweet], the Five Colors [green, yellow, scarlet, white, black] and the Five Modes [in music]. But when these are indulged to excess, confusion arises and in the end man loses sight of his original nature.

The key to keeping the universe going was harmony. Therefore in ruling, if one violates this order, there will be chaos, but if one follows it, all will be well governed.

Many of the key concepts of Taoism are incorporated into the Taoist Creation Theory. One of the most important is summed up in the following passage: "The creator of things is not among things. If we examine the Great Beginning of antiquity we find that man was born out of nonbeing to assume form in being. However, recent work Davenport, Melander, and Regan, in the field of peace studies has argued that positive peace is both too broad and too vague to be of use for empirical work in peace studies.

The worry is that the notion of positive peace includes a broad range of social and political concerns equality, economic justice, environmental sustainability, and so on that stray far from the core idea of peace as the absence of direct violence.

Despite this criticism, the notion of positive peace remains in use. The positive ideal of peace can point beyond the merely political realm and aim toward spiritual transformation. In Christian contexts this is related to the peace of God that surpasses all understanding as in Philippians 4. This is closely related to the ideal of social stability; but the Dalai Lama also connects it to the deeper process of personal transformation.

Positive peace can be best understood from the tradition of virtue ethics, where peacefulness is understood as a virtue that is connected to other virtues such as modesty, tolerance, and mercy. It is important to note that peace is not mere quietism and the passivity of meditation or contemplation.

Pacifism includes a wide variety of ideas and commitments. Pacifism has typically been understood as a critical or negative argument against war or violence , even though the author of the present entry has argued that pacifism could be understood as a comprehensive normative theory that postulates peace as the highest good Fiala Pacifism in its broadest sense can be distinguished from application of pacifist critique to particular issues such as: domestic violence Hall Fitzgibbon , environmental issues Woods , the death penalty Steffen , nonhuman animals Chapple , and so on.

This article will not focus on those applications. Rather, it organizes the variety of pacifisms in several ways according to interrelated conceptual distinctions: absolute and contingent pacifism; maximal and minimal pacifism; universal vs. These distinctions overlap, as we shall see here. This distinction organizes different answers to the question of how obligated we are to reject violence and war.

Absolute pacifism is understood as a maximal and universal rejection of violence and war. Absolutism in ethics or moral absolutism holds that moral principles are eternal and unchanging and that they admit no exceptions. So, absolute pacifism holds that war and violence are always wrong. One recent proponent of a version of absolute pacifism is Michael Allen Fox. Fox argues that war is inconsistent with morality and with human well-being. Fox explains that pacifism results in a difficult dilemma that is reminiscent of the question of whether two wrongs can make a right.

Non-absolute pacifism may be called contingent pacifism. While absolute pacifism admits no exceptions to the rejection of war and violence, contingent pacifism is usually understood as a principled rejection of a particular war. A different version of contingent pacifism can also be understood to hold that pacifism is only an obligation for a particular group of individuals and not for everyone.

Contingent pacifism can also be a principled rejection of a particular military system or set of military policies. Contingent pacifists may accept the permissibility or even necessity of war in some circumstances and reject it in others, while absolute pacifists will always and everywhere reject war and violence. Absolute pacifism is often connected with a religious standpoint in which nonviolence is seen as a religious commandment.

In Indian traditions, it is grounded in the commitment to ahimsa or nonviolence that is derived from a larger metaphysical picture which emphasizes karmic interdependence, ascetic self-abnegation, and compassion. The religious foundation of absolute pacifism is often tied to the idea that there is merit in suffering violence without retaliating. As Martin Luther King Jr. Absolute pacifism is an ideal. Some versions of absolute pacifism go so far as to abjure the idea of personal self-defense.

Other absolute pacifists may allow for personal self-defense while rejecting the impersonal and political violence of war. Almost every defender of absolute pacifism recognizes the difficulty of attaining to the absolute idea.

The absolute ideal is nearly impossible to achieve because we must harm other beings in order to survive: we must kill in order to eat. Absolute pacifists may hold that it is better to be killed than to kill. But such a choice may be impossible for many of us to make. But when presented with such a stark choice, absolute pacifism may require self-sacrifice.

Contingent or conditional pacifism qualifies such an uncompromising condemnation of violence and warfare. Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell, for example, were both supporters of the war against Nazi Germany, despite the fact that each considered himself to be a pacifist. Such an idea is clearly related to just war theory. Indeed, some authors such as Larry May have derived contingent pacifism from just war thinking.

There are several varieties of contingent pacifism. First, pacifism may not be required of all moral agents. Thus pacifism may only be required for members of particular professions. Pacifism is often thought to be a professional obligation of certain religious vocations. But such a vocation may be thought of as a choice of conscience that is not universally required.

In this version of contingent pacifism, the prohibition against violence only applies to those who take a vow or make a pledge to renounce violence and war. Within this two-tiered approach, the vow of peacefulness might be considered as a sort of supererogatory ideal that is not required of others. But it is also possible for the two-tier approach to contain an implicit condemnation of those who do not take up the higher calling of pacifism.

A second sort of contingent pacifism holds that if a particular war or military policy is prudentially unwise it should be resisted. Such prudential pacifism is based upon cost-benefit analyses focused on the facts of particular conflicts.

A more principled sort of prudential pacifism can be based upon the general claim that war usually causes more harm than good. A third sort of contingent pacifism will appeal to the just war theory and claim that a given war is unjust according to this theory. Such a claim may result in a nearly absolute proscription against war under present circumstances. And it may contain an absolute prohibition against certain sorts of war, such as nuclear war. With the just war theory in mind, contingent pacifism may focus either on the basis for war as in the just war idea of jus ad bellum , on the way that the war is being fought as in the just war idea of jus in bello , or on the expected outcome of the war as in the idea of jus post bellum.

With regard to jus ad bellum , contingent pacifists may reject the legitimacy of the authority who is fighting, they may claim that war is not being fought as a last resort, or they may deny that the war is being fought for a just cause.

With regard to jus in bello , contingent pacifist may worry that innocent noncombatants are being harmed or that soldiers are employing means mala in se such as rape or torture. Finally, with regard to jus post bellum , contingent pacifists may object to wars that will undermine long-term peace, justice, and stability.

Political pacifists need not have an absolute commitment to nonviolence; nor need they have a principled commitment to the ideas of the just war theory.

Rather, they can reject militaristic policies for strategic political purposes that have to do with budget priorities or other issues.

Political pacifism may seem to be merely opportunistic; but opposition parties who offer critical perspectives on militarism are an important component of adversarial democracy.

Moreover, political pacifists can end up forming useful coalitions with other more principled pacifists and absolute pacifists. Thus those who are committed to liberal values should not support war. The sort of pacifism that is derived from this claim is contingent upon the fact that modern warfare involves a hierarchically organized military system and mass conscription. It is possible that war could be fought without conscription or without military hierarchy; but Holmes argues that this is unlikely in the modern world.

Moreover, this sort of pacifism is contingent upon our social and political commitments. Those who are committed to other social and political ideologies may find that war and the war system are morally and politically acceptable. Contingent pacifism is often based upon empirical and historical judgments about the way wars are fought. Such judgments will vary depending upon changing circumstances. And these judgments are also contingent upon the availability of information about why and how wars are fought.

It is possible, then, that contingent pacifists can admit that there may be conflicting judgments about the justice of a particular war. Unlike contingent pacifism, absolute pacifism rejects war in an a priori fashion: one of the first principles of absolute pacifism is that war or violence more generally is always wrong. Thus absolute pacifism will claim that any judgment that leads to the justification of war is wrong.

The difference between maximal or broad and minimal or narrow pacifism has to do with the extent of the commitment to nonviolence.

This difference can be explained with reference to the questions of what sorts of violence are rejected, and who is the recipient or beneficiary of nonviolent concern. Pacifists reject violence and war. But there is an open question about how war and violence are defined and thus about what sorts of actions are rejected by pacifists. There is, of course, a continuum between maximal and minimal pacifism, with maximal pacifism rejecting all forms of war and violence.

Minimal versions of pacifism fall away from this in various directions. Maximal pacifism is closely related to absolute and universal formulations of pacifism; minimal pacifism has more in common with contingent and particular versions of pacifism. Most pacifists will reject nuclear war and full-fledged inter-state conflict. But there are differences about whether, for example, civil war or humanitarian intervention can be justified. For example, some who could be described as pacifists supported the use of military force during the American Civil War William Lloyd Garrison, for example, compromised his pacifist beliefs to support the cause of emancipating the slaves.

At issue in thinking about these differences are questions about the importance of key values such as sovereignty and human rights, as well as the question of how best to create stability in the face of social unrest. One difficult issue for some pacifists is the question of using violence in defense of human rights or in opposition to tyranny. Maximal pacifists will reject all use of military force, even in defense against dictators or in response to human rights violations.

Maximal versions of pacifism will condemn all taking of life. Pacifists may also extend their rejection of violence to include a rejection of the death penalty, meat-eating, and abortion. More narrow versions of pacifism may take into account the distinction between the innocent and the guilty, holding only that the innocent may not be harmed. This distinction is important for thinking about the question of noncombatant immunity in war, with many pacifists arguing that war is wrong because it puts the innocent at risk.

Some opponents of the death penalty will make a similar argument about the death penalty and the risk of executing the innocent. And opponents of abortion will also claim that it harms the innocent. Such a view has been defended most famously by Pope John Paul II, who rejected or was skeptical toward all sorts of violence including war, the death penalty, suicide, euthanasia, and abortion.

Pacifists may also extend moral concern to include concern for all sentient beings; and thus pacifists may also condemn meat-eating and animal cruelty. Gandhi, for example, extended ahimsa maximally to include avoiding harm to sentient beings. This distinction has to do with the issue of whether everyone is required to be a pacifist or whether pacifism can be a moral choice of some particular individuals. This is related to the question of whether pacifism is a duty for all or whether it supererogatory.

While the distinction between universal and particular pacifism is related to the distinction between absolute and contingent pacifism, it is primarily focused on the question of who is obligated by pacifism.

Universalism in thinking about pacifism will hold that if war is wrong, it is wrong for everyone and thus that soldiers who fight are wrong, as are those who support the war system that encourages them to fight. Particular pacifists articulate their position as merely personal and do not condemn the war system or soldiers who choose to fight.

Universal pacifism is closely connected with absolute and maximal versions of pacifism; particular pacifism is related to contingent and minimal pacifisms. One way that this distinction between universal and particular pacifism has been enacted in history is through the idea of vocational pacifism discussed above Vocational pacifism holds that pacifism is a special obligation of a particular vocational service; but that it is not required of all.

In this sense, pacifism is a supererogatory obligation. Religious clerics may thus be required to renounce violence, while ordinary members of their congregations may not be so obliged. This distinction can be understood by considering whether pacifism is morally necessary or whether it is merely morally permitted.

The universalist answer to this question is: if war and violence are wrong, then pacifism is morally necessary and those who fight are wrong. But some pacifist appear to hold that it is not wrong to fight or that some persons are permitted to fight , even though the pacifists herself may choose or is obliged by some vocational commitment not to fight.

A conscientious objector may thus choose not to fight while not condemning those who do. Conscientious refusal may be articulated as a personal belief about pacifism that does not apply to others. This is one way pacifists who refuse to fight may avoid the charge that they are traitors who are opposed to their compatriots who fight: they may deny that their refusal has any universal moral significance or application.

One way of understanding this is to connect it with the idea of tolerance. A personal pacifist may believe that pacifism is the right choice; but she may choose to tolerate others who do not make the same choice. A personal pacifist may also espouse a sort of relativism that holds that a commitment to pacifism is merely a personal commitment that cannot be used to condemn others who make different commitments.

This idea of particular pacifism is a subtle one. And critics will argue that it is incoherent, especially if it is understood as a sort of relativism. Those who claim that conscientious objectors are traitors may argue that pacifism cannot be a particular or personal choice.

Critics of pacifism will argue that pacifism is morally wrong because they think that patriotism or justice requires fighting or at least supporting the war effort. This objection would hold that if a war is justified, then conscientious objectors are wrong to reject it. Particularists may reply by claiming that their rejection of war is a personal choice without universal significance. Arguments in defense of pacifism are usually based on assertions about the immorality of violence and war.

Thus pacifism is usually derived by negation. Pacifism, primarily, tells us what not to do. One of the skeptical problems that Ryan addresses is the problem that occurs in killing in self-defense. When a Victim kills an Aggressor in self-defense, this killing occurs before the Aggressor has actualized his malicious intention.

In this case, killing in self-defense is out of proportion to the harm done, since the Victim who kills in self-defense was not himself killed. A skeptical version of pacifism can thus develop from the worry that when we choose to kill in self-defense, we never know whether this killing is in fact justifiable.

Skeptical pacifists wonder how we would know that we ever reach the stage of last resort, when violence becomes necessary. One way that pacifists articulate this concern is to focus on the variety of nonviolent measures that could be employed before it becomes necessary to resort to force.

Indeed, it may be argued that to resort to violence is to admit to a failure of imagination and to give up hope that more humane forms of problem solving and conflict resolution can be effective. Moreover, pacifists will note that it is not sufficient to try nonviolent methods once and then disregard them. Rather, one must engage in a variety of nonviolent actions; and one must try these nonviolent alternatives more than once.

A somewhat different version of skeptical pacifism can be found in critiques of militarism and the ideology and propaganda that lead people to support war. This skeptical stance has been defended by the author of the present entry Fiala and In this approach, skepticism produces a practical political pacifism that is based upon the fact that citizens have no good reason to trust that their governments are telling them the truth about war and its justification.

This skepticism is derived from historical judgments about the tendency of governments to manipulate information in order to provoke the citizenry toward war. In light of such skepticism, the burden of proof for the justification of war is placed upon the government, who must prove that the dangerous and presumptively immoral activity of war can in fact be justified.

Prima facie pacifism presumes that war is wrong but allows for exceptions. Prima facie pacifism places the burden of proof upon the proponent of war: it is up to the proponent of war to prove, in a given circumstance, that war is in fact morally necessary. Transformational pacifism is understood as aiming at a transformation of psychological, cultural, social, and moral sensibility away from acceptance of violence and war. Transformational pacifism articulates a broad framework of cultural criticism and includes an effort to reform educational and cultural practices that tend to support violence and war.

The goal of transformational pacifism is a world in which war and violence appear to be archaic remnants of less civilized past. One traditional version of transformational pacifism can be found in pacifist religious traditions.

Transformational pacifism is often connected to a progressive interpretation of history that points toward a pacifist goal for human evolution. Transformational pacifism has been described by Joseph J.

Transformational pacifism can also be linked to feminism and feminist critiques of the masculine values found in warrior cultures and the war system see Poe Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams is a prominent figure here. Addams connected her pragmatic hope for peace to democracy and the empowerment of women and the oppressed masses, who had in the past silently suffered from the horrors of war. More recently authors such as Sara Ruddick and Nel Noddings have connected feminist criticism with pacifism and the ethics of care.

Nonetheless, Noddings argues that care ethics and feminism are concerned with a general critique of the militaristic and violent assumptions of male-dominant culture. Her solution is to re-create culture and education in such as way as to devalue aggression and provide support for love, nurturance, solidarity, and care. Deontological prohibitions against war are usually absolute, while consequentialist prohibitions against war are for the most part contingent.

Consequentialist pacifism is usually grounded in some sort of rule-utilitarianism. A utilitarian pacifist may argue that a rule against war or other sorts of violence will tend to promote the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

Utilitarian pacifists must appeal to empirical and historical data to support this rule. A utilitarian argument for pacifism could be grounded in the claim that history shows us that wars tend to produce more harm than good.

Utilitarian defenders of the just war theory will argue that some wars help alleviate suffering, as for example, in the case of humanitarian wars in defense of human rights. Utilitarian pacifists may articulate a rule-based argument that holds that a general rule against war will, in the long run, produce more happiness. A utilitarian might support such an argument by also arguing that economic and other resources that are spent on war and preparation for war could produce more happiness if spent on peaceful goods such as education, hunger relief, and so on.

And a rule-utilitarian might argue that a rule against humanitarian intervention would produce more happiness in the long run by protecting international stability and preserving important values like national sovereignty. It is important to note that, unlike deontological pacifism, consequentialist pacifism is not opposed to killing per se. It is difficult to see how absolute pacifism can develop from act-utilitarianism that is devoid of side-constraints against killing.

The rule-utilitarian approach can, however, allow for general rules that allow killing in certain circumstances, say in self-defense. The idea of proportionality in just war theory is an example of such a rule: killing in war is justifiable if it promotes general long-term happiness.

The claim that war produces more harm than good is disputable; at least, it requires empirical research to decide if it is true. Empirical research into the consequences of war provides mixed results depending upon contexts and circumstances in which wars are fought and the range of consequences considered whether short-term or long-term. Some authors Pinker and Goldstein suggest that the use of judicious military power during the last several decades has produced good results.

But other authors reach different conclusions. Given the difficulty of assessing the empirical data, consequentialist pacifism will usually be a sort of contingent pacifism. But this is not always true, since absolute pacifism might be justifiable on consequentialist grounds as a rule that will in the long run produce good consequences. There may be variable judgments among consequentialists about whether some wars produce more harm than good.

Thus pacifists such as Einstein and Russell could agree that the First World War was wrong, while admitting that the Second World War could be justified. The Second World War is in fact often used as an example of a war that can be justified in consequentialist terms: the good produced by the war—the defeat of Nazism in Europe, for example—is thought to outweigh its negative consequences, especially the massive numbers of persons killed in the war.

In response, consequentialist pacifists might emphasize the negative utility of the deaths caused by the war while also arguing that the Second World War produced long-term negative consequences with the introduction of nuclear weapons, the partition of Europe, and the madness of the Cold War. Consequentialist defenders of pacifism will also argue that creative and coordinated nonviolent action can produce good consequences that are at least as good as the consequences of war. One of the issues that consequentialists must consider is the temporal and spatial scope of our concern for consequences.

It is possible that wars may produce short-term benefits for some and long-term disadvantages for others. Judgments about benefits and harms are thus complex and we must clarify our understanding of what matters in thinking about consequences. Often consequentialist arguments for pacifism emphasize the short-term damage of war. It is obviously true that wars kill people. But the further question to be asked from the standpoint of consequentialism is whether the harms that occur in the near-term are outweighed by the long-term benefits of the war.

Just war theorists believe that some wars do have positive long-term consequences. Pacifists do not think that long-term benefits outweigh such near-term harms. Consequentialist pacifists often also consider the broad and long-term negative effects of war on the economy, on culture, on political life, and on the environment. Moreover, pacifists worry that war contributes to long-term international instability.

When thinking about the negative consequences of war it is important to recognize that we are engaged in comparative cost-benefit analysis.

Critics of consequentialist pacifism often skew the results of such cost-benefit analysis by comparing war to passivity or inaction.

But most forms of pacifism do not advocate complete passivity. It is a mistake to compare the consequences of going to war to the consequences of doing nothing. Rather, the cost-benefit analysis must compare the costs and benefits of going to war against those of creative, organized, and sustained nonviolent action.

A further consequentialist argument claims that cultures and states that fight wars tend to become militaristic and expansionist. This argument focuses on the long-term negative consequences of a social and political system that is committed to militarism.

A negative consequence of militarism is the tendency of militarist states to become centralized, secretive, and imperial. This critique of military expansionism can be connected to a general critique of the potential negative consequences of imperial power.

One such negative consequence is found in the illiberal tendencies of military power. And other negative consequences include the danger of an arms races and the wasted money and energy that are spent on preparing for war. Judgment about these empirical facts will likely vary in accord with historical, geographical, and political differences, as well as in light of which consequences we chose to emphasize.

Thus while pacifists argue that resources are squandered in war and environmentalists will point out the military is one of the largest polluters on the planet, proponents of war argue that war and the military produces goods and technologies, such as airplanes, satellites, and so on, that are useful for civilians Ruttan One significant worry of just war pacifism is that modern wars fought with weapons of mass destruction can never be justified.

There are deontological concerns behind this sort of pacifism—with regard to concern for noncombatants. But there are also consequentialist reasons to be skeptical of wars fought with weapons of mass destruction, most notably the problem of escalation. Nuclear deterrent strategy relies upon the threat of escalation to keep antagonists in check. The idea of deterrent strategy is to make the negative consequences of war for the enemy so horrifying that war will not occur.

Even more limited conflicts that occur among states that possess weapons of mass destruction could produce horrible consequences. Nuclear proliferation remains a concern along with the general threat of terrorists in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Just war pacifists generally claim that the negative consequences of modern war make war unjustifiable.

Just war pacifism might be more narrowly focused on the immorality of nuclear war and nuclear deterrence strategy. Taoism emphasises characteristics that are usually thought of as feminine such as softness and yielding, modesty and non-aggression. It teaches that the weak will overcome the strong.

Taoist texts suggest that the ideal way for a leader to run their country is by example and with minimal intervention:. I take no action and the people are of themselves transformed.

I love tranquillity and the people are of themselves rectified. I do not engage in affairs and the people of themselves become rich. I have no desires and the people of themselves become simple. So a good leader is one that the people respect and whose instructions are willingly followed.

The good leader achieves this by living virtuously in private, and living publicly so as to influence his people for the good. Taoism requires human beings to be humble and recognise that not only are they not obliged to make the world a better place, they are actually so ignorant of what is really happening that they are likely to make things worse if they do take action. A fuller treatment of Taoist ethics can be found in Responsible non-action in a natural world , by Russell Kirkland.

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