JUST WAR AND NONVIOLENCE: A MORAL CHOICE
Stephen Krupa, S.J. /
Pre-Notes
There are two moral options available to Catholics
and to other Christians overall today on the matter of war and the use of lethal
force, the just war ethic and some
form of nonviolence and/or pacifism.
Both the just war theory and pacifism begin with a presumption against war and the use of
force based on the following shared principles: (1) the sacredness of all human life, (2) the utter gravity of
taking another life, (3) the moral restrictions on war and every use of force.
The Just War
(1) the
Just War doctrine: the theory
or approach that claims that war, despite its destructive
and often deadly
character, is morally justifiable in certain circumstances and under limited
conditions.
(2) Since
the taking of human life is so obviously opposed to the life of Jesus and the
ideals of the gospel, the presumption
against war and the use of force can be overridden only as a last resort to
protect the common good. The purpose of
the just war doctrine is not to rationalize violence, therefore, but to set
standards for its use and to limit its scope and methods once the decision for
war has been made.
(3) The theory of
the just war is largely a product of Christian thought and history, with
philosophical antecedents in the work of Aristotle (d. 322 BCE) and
(4) Conditions
for a “just war” – As already stated, the just war theory
begins with
a presumption against
violence and then works to make the conduct of war a moral enterprise. This is reflected in the “just war criteria”:
the jus ad bellum (“right to [go to]
war”; criteria which state the conditions that
must be met before going to war) and the jus
in
·
just
cause -- force
may be used only to correct a grave evil and to confront a “real and certain
danger,” i.e., to defend innocent life, to preserve the conditions necessary to
maintain a basically decent human life, and to secure basic human rights where
those rights have been violated.
·
competent
authority -- only someone with responsibility for the
public order and the common good (not private individuals or groups) may use
force or wage war.
·
comparative
justice -- although there are rights and wrongs on all
sides of a conflict, this norm attempts to determine which side is sufficiently
“right” in a dispute and whether or not the rights at stake are critical enough
to justify the extreme of war. The
injustice suffered by one party must sufficiently outweigh that suffered by the
other.
·
right
intention -- (in terms of jus ad bellum) related to “just cause”; force can be used only in a
just cause and solely for that purpose.
·
last
resort -- all peaceful alternatives to war must have
been seriously tried and exhausted.
·
probability
of success -- the irrational use of force may not be
employed as when disproportionate measures must be used to achieve success or
when the cause is futile.
·
proportionality -- (in terms of jus ad bellum) that the damage to be inflicted and the costs
incurred by war must be proportionate to (i.e., must be outweighed by) the good
to be achieved by taking up arms. The
use of arms must not produce disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated.
·
proportionality -- (in terms of jus in bello) that efforts must be made
to attain military objectives with no more force than is militarily necessary,
and that any means used to execute a war must be in proportion not just to the
military advantages that will be achieved by using these means, but also to the
harms expected to follow from using them (i.e., harm to human life, certainly,
but also to property and to social and economic infrastructure).
·
discrimination -- (“non-combatant immunity”) attacks on
non-combatants and non-military targets are prohibited.
·
right intention -- (in
terms of jus in bello)
during a conflict, right intention means the serious pursuit of peace and
reconciliation, the avoidance of unnecessarily destructive acts like acts of
vengeance and indiscriminate violence,
or the imposition of unreasonable conditions (e.g. unconditional
surrender).
(5) Some
Points on War from the Catechism of
the Catholic Church (1994, 1997)
·
the duty to avoid war (2307-08)
·
the right to self-defense (2308) -- hence, the need for criteria of a “just”
defense
·
the right of proper authorities to impose
obligations for the national defense (2310)
·
the obligation of governments to provide
for conscientious objectors to war (2311)
·
the obligation of soldiers to resist unjust
orders during war (2313)
·
the right of protection and safety of
non-combatants (2313-14)
·
the Church’s opposition to the arms race
(2315-16)
·
the causes of war: injustice, excessive
economic or social inequalities, envy, distrust and pride; these must be
overcome if we are ever to “beat our swords into plowshares” (2317)
Nonviolence and Pacifism
(1) pacifism (absolute): the theory or approach to war
which denies that war is ever morally
justifiable. Note: pacifism means “anti-warism” as such – that is, it is opposition to that
particular form of physical violence we call war. Not all pacifists are opposed to the use of
force, even potentially deadly force, in all situations (e.g. to contain a
violent person about to attack innocent people, or the necessary requirements
of police work, etc.). Moreover, there
is a distinction between absolute
pacifism that opposes all war on principle and selective pacifism and
tactical pacifism. Selective pacifism is the opposition to a
particular war that is judged immoral. Tactical pacifism is less concerned with
the morality of war than with an instance of opposing war as a means to a
valued end (e.g. when socialist and communist workers worldwide united in opposition to World War I
to frustrate capitalist interests and powers).
(2) nonviolence:
the theory or approach to conflicts and war which denies that any use of
physical force is ever morally justifiable.
Thus, nonviolence is a more
inclusive term than pacifism. Nonviolence includes pacifism while pacifism
does not always include nonviolence.
Nonviolence excludes all forms of violent coercion and use of force.
(3) advocates
who hold a principled position on nonviolence and pacifism include both
religious
and nonreligious
persons.
Examples of those committed to absolute nonviolence and pacifism
based on religious principles are members of the “peace churches,” i.e., the
Anabaptist Protestants like the Hutterites and
Mennonites (origin: 16th c.), the Amish (a strict 17th c. sect of Mennonites),
the Quakers (origin: 17th c., English Protestants), and the Dunkards
(origin: 18th c., German Protestants).
Among Roman Catholics, historically nonviolence and pacifism was
maintained in the monasteries and among the monastic orders of men and women,
especially the Franciscans (note: all Catholic priests are forbidden by canon
law from fighting and killing in war).
In modern times, important religious figures and theologians committed
to a principled form of nonviolence include Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day and the
Catholic Worker Movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Thomas Merton, John
Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, Gordon Zahn, and Philip and Daniel Berrigan.
(4) men and women committed to Christian nonviolence, in particular, base their principled stand
on the life of and teachings of Christ.
In their view Jesus suffered violence, he did not sponsor it, and he
backed up the “hard sayings” of the Sermon on the Mount (Mt. 5) with the
example of his own life and death.
Jesus did not use violent means to bring about the kingdom of God and
explicitly rejected such means (e.g. his “unbelting”
of Peter in Gethsemani, his own suffering and death
as a victim of state violence, he did not seek a military solution to Roman
occupation or join the Zealot movement, but brought a Zealot into his circle of
disciples along with a tax collector, he blessed the peacemakers and preached
non-retaliation to aggression in Matt.
5:9, 38-44).
(5) Some
Christians and others who are committed to absolute nonviolence and pacifism
are
also committed to
absolute nonresistance (based
on a literal interpretation of Mt.
These tactics include the strike, the picket, the boycott, the public protest, the hunger strike, the publication of advocacy literature, education of the public, and acts of civil disobedience (like non-cooperation with authorities, the refusal to move at a public protest, trespassing on government or private property, conscientious objection to war, the refusal even to register for the draft, the nonpayment of taxes that go to war, and going to jail as an act of political or moral witness). For the latter persons and groups “pacifism” certainly does not mean “passive-ism.”
(6) Also,
nonviolence is typically considered by its advocates as a way of life. For people
like
Gandhi and Dorothy Day, for example, nonviolence
meant a life lived in voluntary poverty
so as not to contribute to the greed and materialism which so often motivate
war. Dorothy Day and many Catholic
Workers, in particular, also lived each day with “hands-on” care of the poorest
members of society. (Day: “The works of
mercy are the opposite of the works of war.”).
Typically those committed to nonviolence and pacifism see violence and
conflict as symptoms of much deeper systemic social issues and injustice which
they hope to remedy (note: this is not to say that those committed to the moral
framework of the just war do not make a similar analysis; cf. U. S. Conference
of Catholic Bishops. A Pastoral
Message: Living With Faith and Hope After September 11,
(7) The
Church was generally pacifist in the first three centuries of its existence,
although
there is evidence of a
number of Christians in the army from the 2nd c. on. From the time of the Roman emperor
Pre-Constantinian
theologians who supported pacifism include: Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Origen, Tertullian, Hippolytus, St. Cyprian of Carthage, Clement of Alexandria,
Arnobius, and Lactantius.
Post-Constantinian
theologians who supported pacifism include: Eusebius of Caesarea, St. Basil of
Caesarea, St. Ambrose of Milan, Sulpicius Servus, Paulinus of Nola, and Prudentius as well as the Council of Nicea.
By the time of Pius XII (d. 1958) the just war
doctrine was firmly in place in the Church.
But even Pope Pius moved the Church in the direction of
nonviolence. Already in 1944, before
Hiroshima, Pius asserted that “the theory of war as an apt and proportionate
means of solving international conflicts is now out of date” (Christmas Message,
1944). In 1959 and 1960 John XXIII
called for nuclear disarmament, and in his encyclical Pacem in Terris (1963, n. 127) removed
any justification for modern warfare, thereby calling into question the
just-war teaching itself. The Second
Vatican Council, in the Pastoral
Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (1965; see especially nn. 79-82), moved the Church further in a pacifist
direction with its condemnation of nuclear war, denunciation of the arms race,
and the right of Catholics to conscientious objection to war. In the Pastoral Letter on War and Peace from
the U. S. Catholic Bishops, (The
Challenge of Peace, National Conference of Catholic Bishops, 1983), a
section is devoted to “The Value of Nonviolence” (nn.
111-121) and Mahatma Gandhi, Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King are cited for
“their profound impact upon the life of the Church in the United States” (n.
117).
While Pius XII opposed both pacifism and
conscientious objection to war (Christmas Message, 1956), the Second Vatican
Council and subsequent Church doctrine have affirmed the right of Catholics to
both, including the right to selective
conscientious objection to war (see Human
Life in Our Day, 1968, and The
Challenge of Peace, 1986, n. 118, National Conference of Catholic
Bishops on selective conscientious objection).
When discussing nonviolence and pacifism in the
Roman Catholic tradition it is important, finally, to stress that the moral
positions of absolute and selective pacifism are choices for the individual Catholic. Based on the rights of conscience, nonviolence
is an option that individual Catholics may choose in response to a moral call
to oppose the use of force. Such a call
is not a duty imposed upon all Catholics.
Church teaching affirms the legitimate claims of the
state for self-defense and preservation, as well as the right of a nation to
defend the common good by protecting innocent lives from destruction. Thus, at present, absolute nonviolence and pacifism is precluded as an option for the
Catholic Church as an institution.
Consistent with the norms of the just war, however, selective pacifism is not precluded as an option for the Catholic
Church as an institution.
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