4 20 144 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/cee3998747324ca8cfafd9916c99b05c.pdf 694d7c85ceace8f227cc36d1f9729f33 PDF Text Text �J ��SHORT CONTENTS OF TOWARDS GREEN ANARKISM: EUCRATIC POLITICAL INVESTIGATION? ? 0. PROLOGUE 1. EXPLICATIONS 2. ELABORATIONS 3. ARGUMENTS I 4. ARGUMENTS II 5. VARIETIES AND OPTIONS TAKEN 6. ECONOMIC ELEMENTS: PROPERTY, CAPITAL, MARKETS, TAX 7. POLITICAL ELEMENTS: ORGANISATION, DEMOCRACY, BUREAUCRACY 8. SOCIAL THEORY ELEMENTS: NATURE, CULTURE 8A LEGAL ELEMENTS 9. ECOREGIONAL STRUCTURES, EUTOPIAN MODELLING 10. ROUTES, TRANSITION 11. FURTHER CRITICISMS FOILED 12. PROBLEM RESOLUTION 13. EPILOGUE. BIBLIOGRAPHY (INCLUDING RESOURCES) by a minor marginaZi-s^J p/iiZo-yop/^r writing in 7. ? Richard Sylvan, Za^ At^nri^f/i c^nfary. ��PROLOGUE WHY GREEN ANARKISM? Green anarchism is not merely an intellectually attractive intersection of anarchism with genuine environmentalism; it is also a rational imperative. Modem states are not merely without justification; they are a major force driving and facilitating degradation and destruction of global environments, to points of no return for many natural species and environments, and even seriously threatening future human viability. Anarchism would, with full justification, remove these major problem sources. Green anarchism derives from anarchism coloured by a deeper environmentalism. Anarchism itself is said to be essentially a modem ideology, arising after, and in opposition to, the modem state. Though there may be significant anticipations of anarchism in earlier philosophy, and though there are many worthwhile examples of early anarchistic societies, the main intellectual work begins only in the late eighteenth century (with the eruption of the French Revolution). Since then there have been waves of anarchistic output of varying strength, the most recent initiated in Paris again in 1968^(immediately following a series of academic texts pronouncing that anarchism was dead)L In important respects this received picture, ever so lightly sketched, is misleading. Anarchist ideas were already advanced in those similar ancient ideologies, Taoism and Stoicism,** in opposition to ancient empires. Lao Tzu, shadowy founder of Taoism, was not merely a trenchant critic of the Empire, but advocated a society in which the ruler, the Prince, disappeared into a do-nothing exemplary and merely legendary figure. What Taoism asserted is virtually tantamount to Thoreau's small but crucial anarchist amendment to Jefferson, that the best government is the one that does not govern at all. In a similar vein, "Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, advocated a society without government. Laws should be abolished[!], since virtue and morality would only be achieved in liberty'.2 That common ancient tradition, spanning East and West, though often submerged, has never been lost. The Taoist tradition persisted (if often in degenerate form) in China, and heavily influenced west Asian adaptations of Buddhism. Stoicism survived, as (often degenerate) internal critic, for the duration of the western Roman Empire, and was directly incorporated into early Christianity. Although anti­ authoritarian features were subsequently suppressed in the Stoic-Christian tradition, elements survived even in the increasingly authoritarian climate of that religion, and the positive ideas have resurfaced again and again in religious freer-thinkers. 1 For details see Marshall pxi. Amusingly anarchism in Australia has more recently also been * Taoism and Stoicism can almost be seen as variants upon one another, back to the very names. It is tempting to conjecture that they may have both arisen from a proto-Toi-ism. Lehner, H of I, p.71. On Taoism as anarchist, see Clark, ch7, Marchall, ch4, and UT. 2 �2 The term * anarchism' was however introduced into English in a highly perjorative sense, signifying disorder, chaos, lawlessness and the likeA It is regularly displayed in this negative connotation, in politically unstable times in England, long before much theoretical work on anarchism began (nonetheless there were tracts, like that of Winstanley). As a result, the term 'anarchy' got away to a very bad start in English. It was used, from the early 16th century onwards, to mean confusion, disorder, lawlessness, licence, and absence or nonrecognition of authority. Similarly for most of its cognates 'anarch', 'anarchal', 'anarchial', 'anarchic', 'anarchical', 'anarchially', 'anarchism', 'anarchist' and 'anarchize', (see OED entries). 'Anarchism' itself had also acquired its re/evanf modem sense of 'the principles and practice of anarchy or anarchists', namely 'the Doctrine Position or Art of those that teach anarchy; also the being itself of people without a Prince or Ruler' by 1656 (in Blount GZo^^gr). As a political theory anarchism is standardly said, however, to have emerged much later (and there are stock, 'inconsistent' presentations: a state without a state, government without government, theory without doctrine, order without order, etc.) It is the interaction between popular longer-standing usage and later serious ideological use that helps account for the astonishing folkloric history of the term aKarc/n-yTK. It also reflects one facet of the pervading amateurism of anarchism, its lack of industrious research. Consider what certain encyclopaedias say, beginning with one that is not so much wrong as sloppy. Historically the word "anarchist", which derives from the Greek an arc/io-y, meaning "no government", appears first to have been used pejoratively to indicate one who denies all law and wishes to promote chaos. It was used in this sense against the Levelers during the English Civil War and during the French Revolution by most parties in criticizing those who stood to the left of them along the political spectrum. The first use of the world as an approbatory description of a positive philosophy appears to have been by Pierre Joseph Proudhon when, in his (W%<3/ Af property?, Paris, 1840), he described himself as an anarchist because he believed that political organization based on authority should be replaced by social and economic organisation based on voluntary contractual agreement (Woodcock p. 111). According to a rival encyclopaedia, however, The word "anarchy" describing a stateless society was used[?J for the first time by Louis Armand de Labortan in his voyage Z' (1703), describing the Indians living in a society without state, laws, prisons, priests, private property, in short "in anarchy" (Lehning p.71). A glance at the OED, such as we took above, along with a comparison of the stories, reveals the falsity of many of these interesting contentions. Much historical detail remains to be sorted out satisfactorily. Though there are many histories of anarchism, until very recently a 3 The pejorative sense was not contrived or imposed following some significant political incident, such as the pivotal Chicago events of 1886, which is what Jp^ies 86 implies. No doubt, however, following the Chicago events, stigmatisation and denigration of anarchism, and its automatically assumed association with violence and disorder, were deliberately orchestrated and propagated in USA. Such an outcome contributed further to development of an already established anti-anarchist mythology. �3 reasonably satisfactory one had yet to be written. Fortunately that has now changed (during the drafting of this text). Conveniently we are now absolved from lamenting the absence of such work and likewise from attempting more historical detail.^ For Marshall's massive text, has now appeared, it can be deferred to (by no means always uncritically) on many historical issues and for mad detail, to which it affords fine access. The concentrate on systematic and theoretical matters. Most of the seminal and interesting work on anarchism has come from outside present text can now universities and standard intellectual circles, and often from political amateurs. Academics have contributed histories, surveys and (usually not so sympathetic) criticisms, but, with a very few exceptions, little original thought. $ For typically they are ideologically stuck with the state, be it a pathetically minimal one. Intellectuals are so inured to the state that they are inclined to such pronouncements as that the idea of abolishing the state entirely must strike us as utopian .6 Yes, as eutopian. 'Most political philosophers in the past few generations have been unable to escape what the psychoanalysts might call a "state fixation". Even those those temper and reason caused them to distrust a nationalist philosophy could not deal with the state except as a rigid entity. They wished it large or small, isolated or cosmopolitan, but in any case a rounded unit which had to be taken as it was and maintained as such in any reconstruction of... society'7 It is easy to speculate on reasons for this, connected with academics being part of the expensive state scene. While anarchism has vanished from the mainstream academic scene, it is again becoming visible, if hardly prominent, in alternative (especially green) scenes and in work of disaffected academics associated with them. A surprising amount of the adventurous anarchist literature now appears, like the earlier utopian literature, in fiction, especially science fiction (and so, under prevailing division of labour, tends to become a subject for literary criticism, not political philosophy). But the ideas and plans appear there in quite insufficient detail. There, moreover, it can easily be dismissed as fantasy, as unrealistic, not a serious and proper contribution to political dialectic. The entire range of political discussion concerns whether there should be marginally more government intervention, or marginally less; marginally more public expenditure on welfare services is marginally less. Nobody [much] challenges the whole system, still less the existence of the state itself. The state's own socialisation processes see to that (Luard p.52). While virtually all political discussion undoubtedly traffics in such marginalia, powerful and warranted challenges there certainly have been: It is plain that on general principles of law and reason ... the Constitution is no contract; that it binds nobody, and never did bind anybody; and that all those who pretend to act by its authority, are really acting without any legitimate authority at all: that, on general principles of law and reason, 4 5 6 7 In contrast thus to James 186 who reiterates the familiar lament. Even the very occasional (here deliberately unspecified) exceptions are exceedingly cautious. Miller p.182. Mitrany p.98. �4 they are mere usurpers, and that everyone ... has the right... to treat them as such.s Given the United States is not contractually legitimated, what other state is? None appears to have superior credentials! None is rationally legitimated, so it will be argued in detail. The State in general and in abstract is not justified. So, whether it can be exploited for environmental and social purposes or not, its use is not justified. Environmentalism is still more modem than anarchism. Though it has ancient roots, and though the movement grew substantially in the 19th century, fusing there with an earlier romantic movement, environmentalism is an archetypically 20th century ideology. The more widely diffused green movement is essentially a contemporary phenomena, no doubt the most distinctive new political force of the late 20th century (the feminism movement is older). Green anarchism draws together elements from environmentalism and anarchism. While it can be seen as continuous with environmentally sensitive later 19th century social anarchism (of Morris, Kroprotkin, and others), environmental problems now appear in a new light and take on a new urgency. For we are now confronted by what is not inaccurately referred to as the envzronmenfa/ crAyZy, combining the cumulative efforts of rapid human population growth, rapid concomitant growth of vast industrial and human pollution threatening and undermining biological life support systems, rapid depletion of habitats species and nonrenewable resources, and very extensive and worsening environmental deterioration. In the present parlous environmental predicament those concerned to take some requisite action, active environmentalists, have two opposently diametrically opposed courses open;9 * Supporting, and working through, strengthened states to try to avert the crisis. Central to 'most environmental justifications of [expanded] state power", according to social individualists, is the argument that people will not voluntarily r&yfram themselves from doing those things of which the environmental crisis is the aggregate effect. They will not voluntarily refrain from hunting whales and other species threatened with extinction, from having "too many children"", from discharging untreated wastes into rivers and lakes, and so on (Taylor pp 1-2, quoted in Grofman p.108). As in collective action theory (advanced typically by individualists), it is concluded (invalidly as will be seen) that state power is required to compel restraint and to undertake compulsory rectification. * Working outside states in more direct efforts to avert elements of the crisis. The alternative, that is, is to abandon the state. Here lies the main chance, and the only genuine long term alternative for a deep, as opposed to merely reformist, environmentalism. For under state regimes, more and more of remaining environments are degraded or destroyed, in the march of 8 9 Spooner (M? Treason) pp 27-8. The omitted phrase asserts that everyone has not only the right but is wtoraZZy to treat them thus. But here Spooner goes further than data seems to warrant, converting supererogation to obligation. (The phrase following the quotation echoes Miller p.38). These choices are differently presented and explained in SM, a main intellectual ancestor of the present work. The approaches complement one another. �5 state growth and economic progress. In fact, there are several reasons for the extra-state anti­ state course. There are serious limits to what states can accomplish, especially in international issues in the interstrices of states, but also as regards individual environmentally-hostile action. Moreover, even when it appears that states can a^t, or contribute, there are sharp limits to what they are prepared to do or attempt. States of course explain their tardiness or reluctance to move in various ways: prior higher commitments (e.g. endless economic ones such as creating jobs, containing inflation, etc.), the need for balance (with a constituency after unparaxeded of any environmental crisis, or wanting, like comments operating with anarchist discount rates, to party now), etc. Concerned environmentalists should take both courses: use the state and exploit state power where opportunities offer (without thereby endorsing the state and its standard practices), but also, more important, they should work outside states and against states. For mam co/ifn&Mfmg coarse o/The anJ ov^ra/Z o/?^rafmg fa worsen if. Given this (no doubt jaundiced) sfa^-mfrz'car^ thesis, surely it is hypocritical also to work through them and use them. Not at all; for states acquire and hold, have expropriated to themselves, considerable social wealth, which arguably should be directed to social concerns, including environmental amelioration. However, while states may properly be used so long as they persist, still ultimately halting the new ubiquitous environmental rot, salvaging or conserving some of what remain of viable environments, will involve, if it can be done, dissolution of states. There are powerful environmental reasons for trying to terminate / the present era of states. States are ineluctably committed to economic growth, of almost any sort; indeed they are main proponents of such growth. This commitment, certainly highly conspicuous, is not merely accidental, and is bound to impact negatively on environments. Australia, for example, needs a growth rate (in GDP) of at least 3% just to provide employment for its school-leavers, more to cater for immigrants, more to allow for some politically acceptable redistribution, more to meet rising aspirations. More, more, more .... States cannot step off the growth treadmill. That growth in turn requires, to deliver essential exports, expanded raids on resources and biological capital (if not that held by the state, that of other states). These exercises in tum inevitably mean, given present technologies and cost structures, pollution in many dismaying forms and environmental degradation.^ So growth implies environmental degradation. Therefore, with contemporary states degradation is inevitable. Such states are inevitably environmental vandals, n 10 11 A prominent recent attempt to block this sort of argument features economic growth subject to con train ts of environmental sustainability. While such constrained economic growth is a feasible (and old) idea, contemporary states, given their commitments, cannot and cannot afford to deliver it. A recent example concerns Australian production of greenhouse gases, where Australia cannot, officials now say, meet the costs involved in attaining expected reduction targets. Sustainable development itself is critically examined in r The kind of practical necessity operating here will concern us in later chapters. Logically there could be benign "states"; but these would be far removed from contemporary state arrangements. ( �6 There is exceedingly little evidence that social and environmental prospects will ever improve under the contemporary regime of states; instead much evidence to contrary has accumulated. "... Reliance on the state or a global superstate for change will lead to a continuation of many of the patterns of domination that the state has done so much to develop and reinforce in the past" the anarchist strategy of change "from below" ... [and "from above" is] much more promising'. Indeed the claim is made that The anarchist vision ... of a fusion between a universal confederation and organic societal forms of a communal character lies at the very centre of the on/y hopeful prospect for the future world order'. 12 Some of the pressures to continued exponential growth, and their environmental and social consequences, themselves positively feeding back to fuel demands for more growth, are colourfully observed in the following passage: One of the most widely pursued common goals of recent times has been economic growth, which is generally regarded as the most important ambition of states. These pressures to high rate of growth not only endanger the world's resources but do not even procure the material satisfactions they are intended to provide. For the effect of competition is that high rates of growth can be achieved only by high rates of investment designed to secure higher productivity. This secures equivalent production with more equipment but less labour. Thus more and more people are displaced from their jobs who cannot necessarily find alternative employment in service industries or elsewhere. All over the Western world, in shipbuilding, in steel, in motor manufacture, in textiles, in fishing, in agriculture and other industries, employment rapidly declines. So the total number of those unemployed increases in all industrial countries and remains high even in those where a relatively high rate of growth is being achieved. And the very fact of high unemployment, by reducing total demand, lowers the level of investment and growth for the future. Periods of growth become shorter and those of recession become longer. The relatively simple devices for stimulating growth in earlier times - lower interest rates, budgetary deficits, fiscal expansion and public works — are either not attempted through fear of inflation, or if attempted do not achieve their effect. Despite persistent recession inflation remains strong, partly because of excessive increases in income obtained by those still at work, partly because of the large sections of the economy which are in public hands and are unaffected by antiinflationary measures. Modern industrial societies, therefore, in appearance so advanced, are yet characterised by the bizarre spectacle of large sections of the population being without work, while ever higher levels of investment are undertaken to reduce employment still further in the future, so ensuring that the benefits of high growth are enjoyed by fewer and fewer people (Laurd p.147). A main dynamic involved can be summarised: Both the State and those major corporations which set much of its agenda aim to increase productivity (for reasons of profit, profile, firm or party growth and survival, etc.). But productivity increase characteristically sheds labour. Restoration of employment requires growth. Hence one heavy pressure to growth: sustaining employment. That pressure is, furthermore, one of many. Another derives from internal dynamics of corporations and bureaucracies. Like the state and capitalism, they all must, as Marx argued, 12 Clark, also quoting Falk from 'Anarchism of world order* in FVo/noj, p.160). �7 grow or die. There are many reasons for the growth imperative, both broad ideological and business specific.^ For satisfactory survival, satisfaction of its executives and employees, its stock holders, and so on, a modem corporation has to grow. Cpntr^l here are such matters as laws of profit decline otherwise, and more general principles of organisational aging and decline. If any serious ecological conclusion is to be drawn from Vol I, it is from Marx's compelling demonstration that the very law of life of capitalist competition, of the fully developed market economy, is based on the maxim, "grow or die". Translated into ecological terms, this clearly means that a fully developed market economy must unrelentingly exploit nature to a point ... that is literally regressive geologically and biologically. Capitalism, in effect, is not only polluting the world on a historically unprecedented scale; it is simplifying all the ecosystems of the planet, turning soil into sand, the oceans into lifeless sewers, indeed, threatening the very integrity of our sources of atmospheric oxygen. If one were to follow the logic of this tendency to its very end, capitalist— and hierarchical— society are utterly incompatible with a viable biosphere. What limits the ecological validity of Marx's view is obviously not his revelation of capitalism's "law of life" but rather the "progressive" role he imparts to capitalism's "success" in supposedly achieving the technical domination of nature. This Janus-faced aspect of Marx's writings is what throw them into conflict with an authentic ecological sensibility. Gorz, by contrast, sides-steps exacfZy what we must learn in the contradictory position of Marx, namely, that the very technical achievements of capitalism, fat^ from a-y-MmzZafing "ecological necessities as technical restraints", are governed by a "law of life" that technologically lacks any TES p.293) form of "restraint' Prevailing political arrangements 'no longer offer us a hopeful prospect of resolving the vast social and ecological crises which now confront humanity ... these systems, with their deep commitment to such values as industrialism, high technology, centralism, urbanization and the state, have been instrumental in creating the social atomization and ecological imbalance which are at the core of these crises' (Clark pp. 141-2). Indeed these systems are bound to exacerbate the problems. While these statements should by now be motherhood statements, they are not. Hope springs eternal: more naive environmentalists regularly appeal to a state that sometimes makes appropriate responsive noises and puts out appealing propaganda, but meanwhile is thoroughly committed to economic growth of environmentally damaging forms. The normal dynamic of th^ "advanced" state is extremely environmentally hazardous. Centralised states support environmentally and socially damaging methods of production, in order to benefit from the surplus and exploitable technology thereby produced - which are important for purposes of state, in particular for spending to remain in power (job generation, pork barrelling, subsidization of large business), for positional enrichment of the bureaucracy, and for development of the forces of coercion, propaganda and authority which matter both for internal social objectives and in order to remain militarily competitive in the region and spheres of influence. Details of the dynamic at work have become familiar from socio-environmental studies of state operation. For example, technologies that facilitate centralized authoritarian 13 The broad and ancient ideological reasons are investigated elsewhere, e.g. MSS. �8 control are favoured (such as nuclear power, which also supplies material for nuclear weapons). Such technologies serve the interests of state actors and those who benefit particularly therefrom, namely economically dominant social strata. This dynamic, which does not require any arms race, only kinds of inter-state competition, encourages ever-increasing productivity, entailing high consumption of resources, high output of pollution, substantial environmental degeneration and destru( tion, and so on. Active aware environmentalists have, in the end, little choice but to attempt to ;abotage this dynamic. 14 Opposition to anarchism from gi een directions, and especially from green infiltrators, often derives from the assumption that under anarchism all environmental regulation would lapse, that it would be an open-go, fret -for-all for anti-environmental forces—the very ones that are already running rampant over the Earth, and perhaps others besides. It needs to be stressed that this opposition rests on a misconception of what green anarchism ^is all about. With a caring anarchism there may be a complete of the usually conceived situations of states and stateless societies, as regards environment regulation and social support. It should not have escaped notice that often states are the prime enemies of environmental regulation, improved environment practices, and the like. Even when there is very extensive community support for regulation, the state acts to block it, and aids and abets damaging practices! A central reason for this is that the state typically reflects a rather narrow range of vested interests, increasingJhese days those of dominant business, not community interests except very secondarily. Contrary then to received conceptions, the state is frequently not a means to, but an obstacle to, satisfactory regulation. Satisfactory green regulation can occur, can only occur, without the modern state. It will be argued that not only are there no intellectual or theoretical problems in dispensing with the state, but fuller there are no serious losses in disposing of it. There is no case for the state, and no need for it. But it is worse than that: it is predominantly bad in its impacts. Accordingly, it ought not to be in place. The practical upshot is that that we should endeavour to remove it. Among the incidental practical difficulties arising as a result, are that for complex societies there is a need for some structure to replace the state (not a intractable theoretical problem any longer). As well there is a need for a strategy to displace the state. That is where radical environmentalism enters again. A thoroughgoing environmentalism accordingly forces a significant type of anarchism, a social non-capitalist anarchism. The basic reason it forces anarchism is that the state, a prime anarchist enemy, not only fails to supply or retain environmental goods, but is frequently actively involved in their degradation or removal. The state is a major facilitator and powerful source of environmental degradation and destruction. Genuine greenness further substantially constrains the directions anarchism can take, the variety of admissible anarchisms. It serves to eliminate as a serious option total reliance on 14 This argument is adapted from A. Carter, Towards a green political theory*. While Carter's way out is not endorsed, his elaboration of the dynamic is, more or less. LL �market methods, as proposed for instance under anarcho-capitalism and libertarianism. While excessive reHance upon capitalist markets is rejected, primarily because of heavy externalities, more traditional markets are given a rather free role. The problems with market-capitalism is not so much markets, except as distorted in a capitalist setting, but capitalism.^ Capitalism, both in theory and as normally practised, is a major enemy of environmentalism, and a main source of environmental problems. Capitalism also encourages, what conspicuous capitalists conspicuously exhibit, environmentally unacceptable lifestyles. Greenness also sharply constrains meta-politics. For example, it counts heavily against standard game-theoretic approaches of analytic political philosophy, because these entirely discount environmental effects (except as reflected through human actors' self interests). This work concentrates upon the anarchist components of green anarchism (the green part is attempted in a companion text on green ideology). It is primarily a theoretical work; it concentrates upon what is sometimes usefully called "theoretical anarchism". Because the work does focus on anarchism, little will be said about present green politics (and what thin associated theory there is), because that generally involves politics within conventional state settings. Where this differs from past anarchism is not only its environmental depth, but in the level of detail of arguments, criticism, and organisational structure. The latter especially,jwhere IT- 1 a; thin and threadbare historical anarchism is particularly weak. It is not enough to gesture towards some federation of communities. Details of organisations at each level need to be provided, for a more convincing story. Most of the disappointingly slight contemporary academic literature on anarchism will not be addressed or, if it is, criticised in much detail. Life is too short for that sort of indulgence. However much will have been criticised obliquely or in passing; and enough critical detail is supplied for direct critiques to be produced (as exercises by energetic readers). While there is mMc/z scope for theoretical improvement of anarchism, there is little room for reinventing anarchism. There is a long and distinguished Hne of amateur anarchist thought form virtually every significant idea that will be which contains in seminal (if developed herein. Thus, like most of the academic literature^this text is not particularly original. Unlike much of that literature it does not pretend to be. Virtually everything in this book has been said before, if not in anarchist theory then elsewhere; scarcely anything is original. But it has never been put together quite like this before. Moreover, some of it needed and needs saying again, with a little new information and arguments a bit differently ordered. But no means all is repeated. Where something, perhaps important for the dialectic, is said at least as well I can reiterate it, I simply cross-refer. That has the effect of making the work visibly less contained (self-containment is ^bmething of an illusion), but it saves on labour and materials. For other purposes too, repetition, despite its extravagance, may be important. Significant 15 On the deliberately neglected, or papered over, major differences between marketism and capitalism, �10 ideas and books often get neglected, because for instance they were not published at the right times, in the right places, by the right authors; they did not get duly circulated, and so forth. I judge the time at least is more propitious for green anarchism than it has been, perhaps ever before. As well, there are many things that this book, which is pitched in a theoretical, rationalistic way, does not aim or attempt to do. It does not attempt to supply much background, historical or other information, a lot of which is easily found in better equipped libraries. Relevant background can all be tracked, however, through references in work referred to in this book. 16 It does not attempt a full account of substitutes for important current institutions and arrangements such as those connected with property, markets, law, and so on; nor does it offer, what is warranted, a sustained critique of prevailing arrangements, for which opposite substitutes are sought and indicated. Fortunately again, some of the critique, if not positive detail of substitutes, has been well accomplished in other texts. 17 What is attempted is however a scholarly and systematic work (though, as indicated, a far from exhaustive work), on theoretical anarchism. Accordingly the book is littered with notes, some of which merely cite references, but many of which elaborate points in the text, especially details hat lead off in different directions from the thrust of the text. I should like to thank Frances Redrup for processing reams of inelegant scribble, from which this text grew, and to acknowledge the continuing support the Australian National University gave during slow production. I want to thank Debbie Trew for proofing the typescript (no straightforward business) and organizing a bibliography. I should record my gratitude to Bob Goodin for a continuing supply of background books, and to him and to the publishers and editor of Anarc/iAyf 16 17 for encouraging me to work upon anarkism again. A major recent source, for history of Northern Hemispheric anarchism, is, as observed, Marshall, While Marshall concentrates, no doubt correctly upon Northern hemispheric activity, and within that heavily upon Anglo-American work, there is room for a supplementary production taking due account of anarchism elsewhere, Australia for one example. Although an anarchist club was formed in Melbourne only a century ago (and then upon an American model), an extraordinarily sustained period of "original anarchism" (coupled often with "original (or primitive) affluence") flourished in Australia before European settlement two centuries ago, with more than 500 centuries perhaps more than 10000 centuries, of continuous Aboriginal anarchist arrangements. Much of the story of post-settlement Australian anarchism (which included remarkable Queensland activity and a Paraguayan expedition organised by Lane, as well as extensive Victorian agitation) is recounted by James, in a series of local publication, add Burgmann and by Souter. The story of Australian Aboriginal anarchism has yet to be told. The story for the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, both before and after European conquests and political imposition, remains to be satisfactorily told. Thus, for instance, Carter on property, Bumheim on bureaurcracy, othe^on democracy. A �// 1. EXPLICATIONS OF ANARCHISM CHAPTER and of green subforms G 1. Initial explanation: fud and dilute forms, and corollaries. Anarchism is the theory, principles or practice of anarchy. As practised by engaged anarchists, who are naturally adherents, authors or promotors of anarchy, it includes the assertion of anarchy and rejection of nonanarchy, i.e. rejection of archy. Anarchy itself, in its norma/ political form, applies to societies or communities, territories or countries. It is, according to the dictionaries, the following sort of condition or state: lack of coercive government, absence of a political state, want of authoritarian political heads or leaders, institutions or organisations. Politically there are evidently fhr^ j^racrara/ aa^ar/(y, ca^rciaa, and normally comprehending both, the political .yraf^.i The anchoring notion of anarchy has recently been extended beyond political arrangements to apply to other institutional forms such as the Church, Science, and Law, to mean alternative forms lacking authoritarian structure and coercive methods. Thus appear, under transference, such varieties as epistemological anarchism and philosophical anarchism, instead of po/zfzcn/ anarchism upon which this text focuses. However the far-reaching analogies should not lost sight of; they matter. Anarchism is to political authority, as atheism is to religious authority, and rather as scepticism is to scientific authority. Although the conditions specified for anarchy are normally taken as conjoined, it is possible to construe them disjointly, yielding what could be called anarchisms. One diluted form which has obtained a little exposure is a /zzzzz^J anarchism appropriately opposed to the state but prepared to endorse carefully-controlled coercive authorities.^ A differently diluted form is a anarchism which is opposed to all prevailing states, because of some serious but in principle removable defect or other of each and every one of these states, but is not opposed to the very idea of an ideal state, or to a new wonderful order of states; that is it is, not, so to say, a principled anarchism. It is sometimes difficult to ascertain whether historic anarchists are j?rznczp/^r/ anarchists or merely de facto ones. There are limits to how far definitional dilution should be allowed to proceed: a theory (such as libertarianism) postulating a minimal coercive centralised state presumably exceeds acceptable diluted bounds, as n^key element is retained. Within such bounds, we shall operate both with full and dilute forms, accounting all anarchism (in a bro^d sense, qualifying as need be). Routes to full anarchism may well lead through dilute forms. Indeed these offer main paths towards anarchism proper. -t These three key elements are duly signposted in many, though not all, serious on anarchism. J- �12 It is evident that anarchy, and therewith anarchism, can be better characterised, negatively, through what it rejects, namely to sharpen the characterisation, centralised coercive forms, than in assertive formulation obtained through awkward locutions like 'absence' 'lack' 'want'. The simpler negative formulation (supplying the of anarchy), rejection of archy, makes it immediately evident that much of what vulgarly pass for meaning conditions upon or essential features of anarchism are not. Firstly, a variety of political arrangements and organisation, including of government, are entirely compatible with anarchy. It is enough for these arrangements not to include anarchy-violating features such as authoritarian or coercive elements. For example, a government without such elements, a government nonetheless in the dictionary sense of 'administration of public affairs', satisfies the principle of anarchy, and so is anarchistic. Such an anarchistic government can include normal components of organisation, regulation and control, so long as they conform to the principle. Certainly a territory without government, since therefore lacking an archist government, is anarchistic. But the popular converse fails. An anarchistic system may well, like several societies substantially destroyed by European conquest, have a small smooth-running public administration, free of authoritarian elements. Thus it would have a government, but not an authoritarian government. No doubt it would also be in a predominant modem, but narrow, use of 'government'. The term 'government', which is variably determinable, vacillates in particular between * administration of public affairs (including control, regulation, what it once meant) and its important and now dominant restriction, the enarchistically unacceptable determinate, * authoritative administration of public affairs (i.e. that exercising authority, and characteristically backed by coercion). Much confusion concerning anarchism has resulted through failure to separate the wider and narrower determinates^ It may well be true that, as dictionaries assert, an anarchist would 'oppose all existing systems of government'; but this is not a matter of meaning, it is contingent upon the character of prevailing state systems. Nor therefore are prevailing political forms everywhere so far removed from anarchistic alternatives: they may even overlap them. Make the following kind of thought-experiment concerning the government and operation of some modem freer, less violent, more peaceful society: the coercive and authoritarian elements are blacked out (both operational components and what they typically operate upon). For instance, there is a strike of relevant groups, judges �and accused, police and criminals, prison warders and prisoners, etc. (perhaps because the broad society had reduced the opportunities for crime and accordingly threatened their contra­ operative livelihoods). What may well happen, what we shall imagine happening, is that governmental affairs simply keep running for some time. Things work well enough. Partial examples of just this sort of phenomenon are not uncommon, as when police forces go slow or strike. For example, when traffic police stop work traffic keeps on going, much as before. It may be irrelevantly objected that such anarchistic periods are mere interludes, presupposing surrounding authoritarian structures (somewhat as anarchistic end-states of marxism are premissed on preceding super-productive authoritarian states). Such thought experiments were designed to remove a different intellectual blockage: the common assumption that anarchism is utterly remote from the political practice of complex modem states and impossible to realise at all. As a theory, anarchism tends to advance a stronger theme than the progressive particular claims that anarchistic systems are possible, realisable, and sometimes realised. After all, these arrangements may be realisable—as more than an interlude—only in restricted or anomalous circumstances (e.g. a few people on an isolated tropical island). The stronger theme, linked with the anarchist principle, is that there is no need at all for authoritarian or coercive regulation. So rejection can succeed universally. Universal anarchism encounters many problems which do not trouble less ambitious parfict/Zar anarchisms, such as those to be advanced here. For example, how to rectify especially degenerate or evil societies? An attempt is sometimes made to render all anarchism universal, through the connecting thesis that for anarchism to succeed anywhere it must succeed everywhere (else be destroyed by ruthless, expansionist or greedy states, or similar). Fortunately the fallacious connecting thesis, though popular with critics, is implausible.^ Although anarchism proper does exclude certain kinds of government, coercive and authoritarian forms, it does not automatically include, certainly not as a matter of semantics, specific positive kinds. Anarchism is not necessarily "a theory of government based on the free agreement of individuals rather than on submission to law and authority", despite what dictionaries assert (incompatibly incidentally with their definitions of 'anarchy'). Such positive accounts of anarchism, as offering a certain theory of government, both try to convert a particular variety, individualistic anarchism, into the more general object, and try to import a certain motivation for, or differently explanation of, or justification of, anarchism into the very essence of the object (this is the general fallacy of verificationism in operation). Anarchism, or at least its assertion, may well be regularly motivated by ideals of free arrangements, not imposed by narrow or incompetent authoritarian forces, but motivation is one thing, meaning �14 another, verification a third. Not only is the assumption that anarchism is incompatible with government, wellregulated government, mistaken. So also therefore are the assumptions that anarchism is incompatible with organisation, with regulation, with a positive noncoercive "law", with order. So mistaken therefore are the widespread assumptions that anarchism entails disorganisation, disorder, confusion, lawlessness, chaos. Yet all these negative associations have been incorporated into degenerate popular meanings of anarchism. It is similar with related assumptions that anarchism implies violence, paramilitary activity, or terrorism. A popular picture of the anarchist, encouraged by authors like Conrad and Dostoevsky, is the excitable fictional character with a bomb in his pocket (not a Tolstoy or a Thoreau).5 These too are assumptions and pictures, with little basis either in semantics or in general anarchist theory or practice, promulgated by an unsympathetic opposition generally comfortable in present poor to appalling political systems or unaware of alternatives. With anarchy, as with many other valuable terms, a concerted confusion or destruction effort has been made, part of an extensive terminological vandalism in human intellectual affairs. Rather than reconciling ourselves to sacrifice of the damaged term anorc/ug/n, let us salvage the term explicitly for the pristine notion, and isolate the conventional associations under the term anarchi-pm, shortened, if a single term is sought, to Most fictional anarchists of system-supportative authors are degenarchists; but they are far from representative of anarchists. There are many anarchists who are not terrorists, few who are; there are many who are not dangerous troublemakers bent upon violently upsetting local settled order; increasingly there are many anarchists within environmental and peace movements, many of them anarchists. Gentler anarchisms tend to be all of more pacific, more social and more rational than tougher or hardened anarchisms. 2. Rival, typically defective, definitions, and beyond. Much of what is taken as typical or even characteristic of anarchism, especially popularly and journalistically, consist of optional extras, not even typical of anarchism. They represent, like what gets written into degenarchism, attempts at easy smearing or dismissal of anarchism, for instance as an ideology unworthy of serious consideration. As regards violence, terrorism, disorder, disorganisation, confusion, these sorts of point ought to be well enough known. But they apply also to other more benign features widely taken to characterize anarchism, such as attempts to tie anarchism variously to individualism, capitalism, voluntarism, primitivism, spontaneity, or socialism. Thus such erroneous characterisations of anarchism as those of the selection that follows:- 5 �15 * One utterly appalling characterisation comes from a Russian DzcZzozzrzzy of PAz/o^op/zy. ^ "Azz^zrc/zz^zzz, a petty-bourgeois socio-political trend that is hostile to all authority and the state, and counterposes the interests of petty private ownership and small peasart economy to the progress of society based on large-scale production" * Another dismal, indeed wild, characterisation comes from an American political scientist, who audaciously asserts that "anarchism ... is anti-political—that is, it does not really offer political solutions" (p.l), rather "the primitive core of anarchism is not so very different from Christianity. That is, it rests on the notion that man has a need, not just a preference, to love" While this is wild, there are convergences and congruences between types of anarchism and early Christianity.? * It is "a political doctrine based on the value of individual freedom"? While this is not wild, it does erroneously convert what is a frequent powerful motive, and reason, for anarchism into part of it, confusing motivation and justification with essence. For it is by no means an invariant feature. A socialist or monastic community, placing no great emphasis upon or even discouraging individuality, can be organised anarchistically. * It is "a theory of government based on the free agreement of individuals rather than submission to law and authority" (Concz-y^ Eng/zj/z Dzcfzozzazy). But it also asserts that the same %7z#rc/zz.yAy "... are opposed to all forms of government". That inconsistent information should, as already seen, be discounted. Furthermore, there may be no free agreement; an anarchistic situation can, as already also seen, just happen. More likely, a sustained anarchism may emerge under favourable historical opportunities, again without any sort of contract or general agreement; it is then only zf there were free agreement. Certainly, there would no longer be "submission to authority", but there would likely be systems of rules, which people normally followed. * The very short characterisation of rzzzrzrc/zMzzz (and rendition of zzzMrc/zz?^) as "no government" is defective because of the elasticity, slippiness and determinability, of "government"? For example, to increase documentation, according to one dictionary ((/zzzv^r^zz/ Ezz^/z^/z), gove?7Z7?zenf means "... system of polity in a state; territory ruled by a governor ..." in which case it incompatible with anarchism; but it also means "... control; administration of public affairs" in which case it is certainly no? incompatible. Granted there have been attempts to represent anarchism as if it entailed no organisation or administration at all (state-of-nature arguments regular rely on this fallacy of false dichotomy), but it does not, and if it did there would be a gap for a near-identical relative (a/za&yrz^ for instance) to All. One of the rather better brief characterisations is the following: "a social philosophy that rejects authoritarian 6 7 8 9 Ed I. Frolov, 2nd revised ed, Progress, Moscow, 1989. Apter p.3. HI p.70. For such proposals see e.g. Carter,Websters' Dictionary (?), Marshall p.3. �16 government and maintains that voluntary institutions are best suited to express man's natural social tendencies'/ (Woodcock, Ency Phil, p.lll). While the first negative conjunct, which n governmental' right, might rate a pass (though anarchism is not always a philosophy, it is sometimes a practice), the second positive conjunct calls the whole account into doubt. Many humans naturally thrive in authoritarian settings. Defective definitions of anarchism abound, many regrettably supplied by high profile anarchists or well-regarded commentators (whereupon they assume a certain air of authority, a bogus air). A few examples will be considered, mostly drawn from a large list of similarly defective definitions included in Clark, who is out to show that any definition which attempts to do justice to anarchism through an essentialistic definition deploying one simple idea is bound to fail, abysmally, to does not 'mean literally "without government'" contrary to Carter, for one. It does however imply systems without governments of prevailing sorts, which is what she immediately proceeds to: 'and the lowest common demominator of anarchist thought is the conviction that existing forms of government are productive of wars, internal violence, repression and misery' (p.14). Right on! Kropotkin, for another, defines 'anarchism' in terms of 'society ... without government'. Like most of the brief definitions to be cited, this is neither necessary #)r sufficient. For 'government' has to be narrowed to its coercive and authoritarian determinate, and other archie arrangements also excluded. Many, Runkle for one, maintain that anarchism 'opposes authority in all its forms'; but elsewhere Runkle holds that its essence is individual liberty'. Others, Goodman for one, suggest anarchism is defined in terms of decentralization, still others, Bakunin for one, suggest characterisation in terms of 'organization from below upwards, by means of federation'. Again this is neither necessary nor sufficient. It is not so easy to And an adequate characterisation of anarchism. (I have found none in the literature, despite some searching. That is reason why a certain amount of work has gone into such basics). There is a tendency to leap from the inadequate to the excessive—a tendency exemplified by Clark, who also cites Woodcock approvingly. Anarchism is first contracted to a rather elaborate doctrine, or political theory, thereby excluding practice. Then requirements are sharply inflated: For a political theory to be called "anarchism" it must contain: 1) a view of an ideal, non-coercive, non-authoritarian society; 2) a criticism of existing society and its institutions, based on this anti-authoritarian ideal; 3) a view of human nature that justifies the hope for significant progress towards the ideal; and 4) a strategy for change, involving immediate institution of non-coercive, non­ authoritarian, and decentralist alternatives (p.127). As Clark indicates, this "minimum" "definition" is an elaboration of another account, briefer and 10 See Clark p. 118ff. Clark's attack on essentialistic definitions is in the style of Wittgenstein. �17 better, that Woodcock also offers: 'historically, anarchism is a doctrine which passes a criticism of existing society; a view of a desirable future society; and a means of passing from one to another" (cf. p.120). There is nothing here about human nature, which anarchism need have no particular views about, perhaps rejecting the notion altogether as part of archist propaganda or similar, n There is nothing about the ideal society, or any commitment to one. Anarchists are not seeking societies; that is an illusory, Enlightenment goal, have transformed to get another excessive condition of adequacy for anarchist societies. It would be quite enough to achieve satisfactory societies. 12 Realistic anarchists may even come to appreciate that there are no ideal societies, perhaps just various less unsatifactory and better justified societies than virtually all of the extraordinarily narrow range of modem societies presently exhibited or on offer. However Clark's discussion of "the ideal"" reveals that he does not really intend an ideal, but only one or other of the plurality of societies meeting certain adequacy conditions. It certainly does not intend a unique one, ideal. 'Some adequate" or similar should substitute" for 'an (the) ideal", and the definition should be duly pluralised. Outside explications of anarchism which answer back to dictionary accounts, there are various high redefinitions (e.g. Clark) and some weird redefinitions. One such weird redefinition is that proferred by Taylor, who—rightly enough contrasting anarchism with the presence of the state where there is a concentration of the means of deploying force—defines a as where 'force is perfectly dispersed, not concentrated at all" (82 p.6). But Taylor does advance from pure anarchy, of which there are no examples, to an illuminating discussion of the exercise of concentrated force in societies. In recognisably anarchistic societies there is but limited concentration of force (based on physical inequalities), which 'is /10c in use. There is no standing specialist group or organisation or centralised system of groups...' No doubt a /MZ/er anarchist f/t^ory has to accomplish much of what excessive characterisations of anarchism,^ list, and more. Any reasonably full theory should * include a critique of authoritarian and coercive features of present and past societies and their institutions; 11 12 13 The important matter of such "nature" is discussed later.. Presently we are very far removed from such societies, except for small communities mainly in rich countries. States have done extremely poorly in this regard. There is not one satisfactory state in all of Africa or the Americas. Even small European states that at least have avoided extensive poverty, homelessness, and violence are in doubt because of * virtually entire destruction of their natural environments * reliance for wealth on impoverished Third World countries * justified dissatisfaction of many of their inhabitants. those of Woodcock and Clark p.120, p.126. r �18 * outline features of noncoercive nonauthoritarian societies as alternatives to, and improvements upon present dominant social arrangements, for some regions at least; * suggest strategies for attempting to change from defective forms to improved alternatives. Clarke also tries to insist, what we shall subsequently reject, that for a 'theory to called "anarchism" it justifies the hope for significant progress towards the ideal' (p.127). As well as theory, there is practice. (Clarke also goes astray in excluding anarchism as a , "anarchism without doctrine", and so on.) The pracfice of anarchism, generously construed, naturally includes the state of being in anarchist conditions, of living under anarchism (though perhaps unaware of doing so). There is scope for wfr/toM? Many primitive societies thus qualify as anarchistic; they practice, or practiced, anarchism though unaware (somewhat as wild animals practice hygiene, knowing without knowing ;%af). Further, no doubt now stretching 'practice' beyond its assumed anthropic context, many animal communities practice anarchism, very successfully. Many attracted to anarchism, an anarchism without name even, long for analogous pure practice, many practicing environmentalists for instance. They hope that whatever it is will operate, perhaps even materialize, without any heavy-duty theory, without excess or even any intellectualizing, perhaps without even thought or much effort on their part. In contemporary circumstances they would have to be extraordinary lucky; a paternal state with caring elements, such as safe jobs and spoon-fed indoctrinal education for all citizens, does not relinquish its control voluntarily. While definitions can be defective or otherwise unsatisfactory, in m^y ways, one thing they are not is dogmatic (as suggested by Marshall, none too subtlely trying to evade critical details in delimiting his massive study, p.3). Though insisting upon^themes definitions yield upon substitution can be dogmatic, having or offering definitions is not. Significant criticism of definitions is logically different, belonging to different categories. As well as decking anarchism out with defective definitions, with all the scope for argumental malpractice that affords, there is a coupled practice of boxing anarchism in, by narrow and confining constraints, jf iZZ/czf/y ctrcMWMcri&ing (Whereas definitions characteristically yield necessary and sufficient, conditions, such circumscription concerns necessary, or possibly sufficient conditions). Many of the restrictions imposed are, however, quite inessential, and have rather the effect of excluding viable alternatives. Simple examples concern waAmg, which is sometimes taken as having always to be case by case, and elsewhere is seen as necessarily involving all parties, large assemblies, or even complete social participation. None of this is essential, often the restrictions would prove undesirable. Often the circumscription technique proceeds by presenting features of, or said to be of, �19 historic anarchism, then tacticly assuming that all anarchism must conform to those features.*4 That is one reason why definition and characterisation are important; so anarchism is not set in riged past forms, unable to adapt to new circumstances and ideas. Another example concerns the character of the anarchist revolution, onto which many restrictions are loaded, often resulting in gratuitous puzzles, which are removed with the impositions. For example, it is said that 'the revolution had to be a mass affair" (M p.94). But nothing in anarchism, or its general development, requires this. (As a result the dilemma Miller finds .p.99 ff., simply falls over.) A revolution could be carried out by an elite anarchist band, or, in some states, through a single governor or president. Again, it said that the revolution is bound to be authoritarian (which renders an anarchist revolution contradictory), violent, and so on. This we have on authority from Engels: 'a revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other by means of rifles [etc.] authoritarian means, if such there be at all', to which Miller adds approvingly that to say in power the party must rely on military means and 'terror of arms' (M p.92). None of this is so. A revolution could lag rapid change through mass conversion; for instance, there is a sign or appearance that is widely recognised, a new social movement which spreads like "wild fire", etc. 3. Anarchism and the state. While organisation and government are entirely compatible with anarchism, that most conspicuous modem institution, the state, is not: it is the paradigmatic archist form. Nor are ancient power formations such as the empire and the kingdom really compatible with anarchism. A prime reason is their authoritarian character and their extensive use of coercion and violence, but reasons als<4 includd^hein centralized organisation (such as power and hierarchical structure). Let us focus upon the state, against which a major and often virulent part of anarchistic political critique is directed; indeed such is the opposition to the state and its features that anarchism is sometimes distinguished in that way, in terms of 'hostility to the state ... [which] should be abolished and replaced by a new form of social organisation' (thus Miller p.5). But again these may be consequential, not characterising features of anarchism, which are derived from characterising features together with a standard theoretical characterisation of Under one such standard (though fairly strong^) characterisation, the state is a and 14 15 This is a much favoured tactic with critics of anarchism. For many examples, some only Quoted in the main text, see Miller. Although strong, in certain respects the characterisation is not strong enough. A state must not only be able to c/ai/n all these sorts of power, but sometimes to exercise them. Cf. Taylor's criticism of Weber's definition of the state (p.5). A �body ... it claims complete authority to define the rights of its subjects .... Second, the state is a body, in the sense that everyone bom into a given society is forced to recognise obligations to the state that govern that society. Third, the state is a body: it claims a monopoly of force in its territorial area, allowing no competitor to exist alongside it (Miller p.5). It also normally claims other monopolies, such as on legal tender. It is virtually immediate, powers. So it is that anarchism is often epitomized as directed at the dissolution of, what is widely seen then, that the state is a comprehensive as major political problem, the state. As to why it is such a problem, anarchist critiques of the state, sketched below, will reveal. With anarchism implemented in a place there is then an end there to any institution that is recognisably a state. The subsequent argument for anarchism does not depend upon a strong characterisation of .yfafe, such as that so far offered. Even fairly weak characterisations will serve. But inadequate characterisations, such as the following, will not: 'a collective object with territorial boundaries and political organisation throughout that territory". For that omits essential features of the state, such as sovereignty, authority, coercive control; it describes a possible anarchist society. 16 Arguments/or the state (which anarchism is normally concerned to fault) are however sensitive to characterisation. Mostly these arguments reach little further than, justify no more than, some sort of "minimal state"", very different from anything the Earth has had on offer (e.g. a nice state guaranteeing basic rights rather than removing rights: but anarchism need hardly oppose such arrangements). So it will matter just how ^<2^ is characterized. But this is easier said than done: is a ^k cluster ( muqti-criterial) notion, explications of which are controversial and typically contested.i? In seeking a satisfactory working characterisation, a useful starting point is the following short definition: 'a collective item with territorial boundaries and political organisation exercising sovereign power".is As anarchism can comfortably accommodate the first parts, political organisation within a region, it is the last part, sovereign power (as spelt out, e.g., in Miller's account) that is the problematic distinguishing factor. In a way, the term ruling sui^ipreme, derived from la&Ctptein which reflects the Greek reigning or says it all, why anarchism is bound to oppose a state so empowered. Improved detailing will exhibit a similar division between acceptable and unacceptable. A state, which comprises a 16 A' 17 18 q/ Virtually all the key political terms that we shall encounter have a disconcerting multiplicity of meanings: so it is with state, sovereignty, democracy (422 senses in Naess p.30), ideology, and so on. Fortunately these terms are dealt with^ elsewhere in this work. For a useful attempt at a multi-criterial characterization,and discussion of controversies over characterisations see Dun^eary "The state * (in Goodin & Pettit). Reese, with 'item * substituted for 'entity * to evade reificative issues. �21 interconnected (their level of cohesion justifying a definite description), has domains consisting of a and of who form an associated society. The territory of a state consists of spatial regions, over which it normally exercises control. Subjects are generally those humans who regularly reside in the territory (citizens form a of subjects, singled out by possession of certain duties and rights). The state is not the only authoritarian body to be repudiated. Lesser authoritarian organisation, such as those proposed under terms of functionalism (military barracks, prisons, reform schools, etc.) are to be similarly repudiated. No doubt on occasion the ability to coerce makes an institution more "effective", much as childrens learning of uninviting material is sometimes rendered more effective by coercive means, e.g. heavy cannings, floggings. But the repugnant means, and their common chase outw^eight the gains, if any, in effectiveness achieved. Now, having thus arrived at regular anarchism, reputiating the state, we confess to the evident, to the refinement of the notion of anarchy away from widespread common usage where it functions primarily as a powerful directive away from disapproved anti-statist life. Given that anarchism is thereby rendered (as in many dictionaries which of course reflect usage) a contradictory notion, encompassing both disorder without the state and order alternative to the state, some refinement and some diversion of disorder is no doubt desirable. The trouble with this easy resolution is that the early uses of 'anarchism' in English operated precisely with the corrupt drunk-and-disorderly side of the contradiction—disorder as contrasted with spendid state order. That was what (in defiance of the original Greek meaning) 'anarchy' and 'anarchism' were introduced to mean (see OED citations from 16-17th C). Thus the early usage, which persists, contradicts the refined and now regular usage. In technical presentations this problem is easily sliced through, by coining a term to mean what anarchy as refined means (anaRyri'2 and anacracy are such terms). Here however we shall simply persist with the refinement of the prevailing term, and in the course of giving it etymological justification over the early corrupt uses, further refine. 19 But the justification for refinement is not only 19 Tempting as it may be to switch, alternatively to new, freeing terminology, that temptation has here been largely resisted. Anarchism is a term, and idea, worth retaining. Not that there is anything amiss with new terminology: quite the contrary, provided that it is well-indroduced and pointful. In the course of drafting this book, a variety of new terminology has been toyed with—including such nice terms as (signifying non-domination)—because, as is regularly emphasized, anarchism is now such a turn­ off for most people. No doubt in more pdular versions (written by someone else), anarchism will disappear from headings, displaced by new terminology with a hint of old such as ^ada^waacra^y, or, less scrupulously, its place usurped by ^car-vacuous terms in high popular favour such as d^/nocracy. In this less popular version, anarchism stays; but, in pa^t compensation, some pleasant absolute terms, and senses, have been revised. They offer acceptable alternatives. A more powerful consideration than negative connotations is perhaps this: The present text, though strictly / �22 etymological. Do we need yet another term for lawlessness, or for disorder? Don't we rather need a term to help break the false dichotomy between: the state or political disorder? As if there are no further alternatives, like stateless order of various kinds? Or (as much ill-informed literature suggests), no political theory without the state, merely untheorizable confusion? 4. A refined explication of anarchism. derives from the ancient Greek Etymologically meaning: without a chief or head, or without a top authority. Of course what the form derives from, though often indicative, does not determine what it now means. (Anarchism was not, after an ancient political theory, but is in fact, under familiar classifications, the most recent and novel of major political ideologies.) However it M worth drawing out the etymological meaning, because it is revealing. What it appears to exclude are political arrangements structured with a top element of any of the following authoritarian sorts: a monarch, a prince, a ruler, a leader, a president, a prime minister, and shifting from individual to group form, a party, a clique, a ruling elite, a central power such as a state, etc. There are, analysis reveals, two interacting foci: one, a top or centre, and two, control or dominance flowing from this top by what are adjudged inadmissible means, authoritarian or coercive means in particular. A chief both stands at the top of a power hierarchy and exercises authoritarian control from there. Under this anarchy entails double foci structure or organisation without inadmissible top-down or centralized means. Let us look at the foci in turn, beginning with the more independent one, the top. Topologically, wif/tonf % fop amounts to wzt/zoMt % cenfre, because by topological transformations (roughly&^nJzKg and stretching as what rubber objects will permit) what is a top transforms to a centre, and vice versa. Diagrams illustrate the transformations: top (of tree, semi lattice) o centre o investigating is so far removed from what normally enters under that denomination that different terminology is warranted, terminology which then has the advantage of shaking off all those negative associations of anarchy. The salient differences from run-of-the-mill anarchism will appear when preferred forms are detailed subsequently. �23 Volcano from top from sides * peak * peak Given such transformations, which will be taken for granted, anarchism also excludes arrangements structured with a controlling centre, such as a ruling central government. It implies decentralization in a precise sense. It does not thereby also remove all structure: it leaves intact a rich variety of structure including network arrangements with no centres (or with multiple "centres"), federation structures or similar. Yet another example is afforded by lateral structuring with central "centres" dispersed via function, as ilustrated;^ service "centres" The skeleton or scaffolding of organisation is structure; it is the frame on which organisation is hung, which organisation fills or fleshes out. The sense of explicating the underlying organic image, implies as much. According, for instance, to the Conci-ye Dzcfiofiuiy, 'structure: manner in which a building or organism or other complete whole is constructed, supporting framework or whole of the essential parts of something *. Structure itself is primarily, though not entirely, a matter of of elements and parts, among which order relations figure prominently, though not exclusively. That is, structure involves order, as a critical component. Remarkably, the same sort of <y%n/c%r&y occur in a range of seemingly diverse theoretical areas, not just social and political theory, to be displaced in each case by a similar sort of problem-dissipating structure. To illustrate, consider an order on a type (or set) of items Q given by one order relation R, 20 Insofar as there is a single centre, it is the bottom, the people. Major condinating issues are referred to people, for instance through referenda. So there a will be a referenda organising office, but it will be independent cooperative. �24 on item c in Q, i.e. R = Re- For example, where Q is a system of where R may itself worlds including your world the ordering R of worlds may depend on your world (and my world could supply a different order). Differently, where Qis a system of values or valued items, R may depend upon your values; and so on. As an orJer, R is at least transitive, and perhaps either (if like <) reflexive or (if like <) symmetric, on its ranged The system <Q, R> is a simple ordered structure, or ay%w%^. (The latter is the term now used in modal logic, where such structures are the bases of models for the logic.) A or top t of such a system is an element such that all items of Q bear R to t but which does not itself bear R to any element of Q. (The notion, that of -yMpreyniow, and likewise woxiwMw, may be similarly defined relative to subsets or types within Q.22) 77^oreTH. There are order structures without tops. Examples are provided by systems (often with much more structure) with no supremum. Here is a simple 6 element example drawn from relevant logical theory. +1 +2 „ = {=2,-l,-0, +0, +l,+2} +0 R - — is as shown by arrows. -0 -1 T = {+0, +1, +2} is a frufh component -2 Topologically, several notions of prime political and philosophical cast are tantamount to tops in order structures, including chiefs (top persons in power rankings) hierarchs, grand leaders, centres, absolutes, and objective items. Consider, a pertinent issue, the matter of control or authority, where as in the next diagram all elements to t. trans^ity required of order. 21 There are various cases, depending upon conditions 22 A supremum t of R (in type T) is an (that) element (of T) such that all elements (of T) bear R to t but which does not itself bear R to anything (in T). �Looked at from above t is centre of a network. In the diagram shown, it remains a structure, a flattened hierarchy, when t and relations leading to it are deleted, under so to say. What this shows in a simple fashion is that there can be ordered structures without central control (and ranging further there can be statelessness, absence of central control, anarchy without "anarchy" or chaos, because there is order), structures. afford numerous examples. Order, including good order of a range of sorts, does not require central controls, leaders, absolute rulers or arrangements, or similar. Order does not require hierarchy, such hierarchy. 23 As immediate corollary is that inferences from anarchy (without a top or centre) to absence of order to disorder are fatally flawed. What lacks a top or centre may nonetheless enjy satisfactory order. Structures induced in anarchic arrangements can be far from chaotic (and may be modest and stable equivaien&s8i conditions). It is worth alluding to a much wider philosophical sweep. Related order structural considerations to those that tell against central states, absolute rulers, monarchs, patriarchs, top authorities as required for satisfactory order, also count against <2^x9/%^ of other sorts, such as absolute truth (there need be none, as the first diagram above indicates), absolute order (thus R 23 Part of what seems correct in Bookchin's vendetta against hierarchy can be captured in this way. More on this subsequently. �26 itself is relative to c), and of various sorts, such as objective fact (another supposed absolute), objective value (supplied under an absolute order), and so on. On this broad sweep the following sorts contrast sets emerged centralism elitism statism absolutism realism objectivism in rough contrast respectively with maximizing rationalism decentralism egalitarianism anarchism pluralism nonrealism nonjectivism satisizing rationalism Naturally, these simple structural considerations are only indicative, not decisive. For we might find, as more and more constraints are imposed on structures, as account is taken of actual conditions, that freedom contracts, that structural arrangements are forced towards centralism or absolutism. While such forcing may now look, in the light of a little logic, implausible, it requires further argument that it need not in general eventuate. The to be developed agam-yf takes these lines: that there is ready design of institutional arrangements for decentralised communities which does not lead back to a central state. The state is organisationally otiose. Organisation is delivered anencephaletically. For an added or infiltrated top or the centre to be troublesome, something anarchism need bother removing or shun where it figures, it has to have an role. Politically that presumably means exercising power in some way. That is, the head (the head that is lacking in %7i#rc%(?.y) is an operative head, not a mere figurehead. Anarchism need not exclude princes, monarchs, emperors, or "governors", such as some countries now maintain. If the people really like having such relics, royalty or "aristocracy", as is often said they do, then they can presumably have them if they are prepared to afford them. Indeed this figurehead role is just what is presumed for the prince under more plausible anarchist construals of Taoism.25 The ideal prince is a Taoist who takes no action, a sage who is rarely or never seen, whose existence may merely be known to the populace or even simply rumoured (that is almost to say, though Lao Tzu could not tactfully assert it, the ideal prince is a nonexistent inoperative sage). 24 For a fuller picture see Sylvan 93/4, chapter 10. 25 See Clark 84 p.165. Also UTD. �27 As indicated, the main features adduced are mirrored in logic, which can serve as a structural guide. It is striking, as well as technically advantageous, that logical and political predelictions converge. Mainstream irrelevant logics have algebraic structures with top elements, Boolean algebras in the case of classical logics. By contrast relevant logics, which now challenge the classical logical paradigm, do not. Their corresponding algebras, De Morgan monoids and such like need include no top element. The top element, T, is directly responsible for positive paradoxes, of the basic form A -* T (anything at all implies the True), of mainstream logics, paradoxes infecting much theory which relevant logic avoids.^ The logical structure shows that sub "centres" need not have such damaging effects; a plurality of local "centres", regional nodes, induces no paradox. The figurehead analogy also operates analogically, in logic. It does not matter if a semi­ lattice structure is extended to include a top element, so long as that addition provides only a conservative extension. (If T is added to top a relevant lattice, it has in stronger logics to be kept out of implication relations, else it will induce a non-conservative relevant extension with theses like A -* T.) But otherwise, as an inoperative top-piece it is admissible. Technical comparisons now reach much further than logic alone, as we leam more and more about decentralised structures, about decentralised cerebral organisation, decentralised Al and topless connectionism, and decentralised intelligent structure. Intelligent organisation without top or central elements may abound both in nature, for instance in insect cerebral organisation and in vertebrate brain structure, and in many future artificial intelligence applications. Logic and computing technology demonstrate, what is widely appreciated outside political theory, that topless is feasible.2? There is scope, and need, for twenty-first century anarchism to be highly techno-logically sophisticated. There is more to anarchism than political structure without an operative top, head or centre, than a lateral structuring. That more, the residue of the rejection of archy, is more difficult to characterize in a way non-prejudicial to types of anarchism. It is bound up with the operation of the active top, with the confroZ for example it exercises, the potter it exerts, or the like: non-prejudicially, it cannot operate As to what are unacceptable means, however there are different specifications. These many include—what can be summarized, under a single rubric, as —force, coercion, authoritarianism (and what implies any of those, such as totalitarianism); and, much more controversial, nonvoluntary, nonindividualistic, socialist and communist, means. As in dictionariess entries for "anarchism", only coercive and authoritarian elements will be ruled unacceptable (for 26 See WR. 27 The subsequently preferred variety of anarchism, while not at all opposed to slates losing their heads, is powerfully opposed to people literally loosing their heads (figuratively again, it may be alright). ��34 A Gramsci, 'The intellectuals * and 'The modem prison * in gcZccfzony /row ?7zc Prz'yon M?fc&ooRy (ed. Q. Hoare and G.N. Smith), International Publishers, New York, 1971. D. Mannison and others (eds.), Environment?/ P/zz/oyopAy, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1980; referred to as EP. D. Miller, Aaarc/zzym, J.M. Dent and Sons, London, 1984; referred to as M. D. Mitrany, 7%c Ennctona/ 77zcory o/PoEr/cy, Martm Robertson, London, 1975. A. Naess and associates, Democracy, /Jeo/ogy aaJ D/?/eciiviiy, Oslo University Press, Norway, 1956. R. and V. Routley, 'The irrefutability of anarchism *, &?cza/AZfcrnaEvcy, R. and V. Routley, 'Social theories, self-management and environmental problems *, in EP; referred to as SM. R. Sylvan, and D. Bennett, 'On Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology *, D/ycayyzoa Papery in EavzrozzmczzZaZ P/zz/oypp/zy, #19, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1990. R.P. Wolff, 7a De/ence o/Aaarc/zzym, Harper & Row, New York, 1970. ADDITIONAL SOURCES P. Nursey-Bray, an Aaaa/arcJ EzEZzagrap/zy a/Aaarc/zzym , Greenwood Press, 1992. END NOTES 2 Cf Clark p.ll8ff. The general methodological issue of multiple determinates of key political terms and their archist confinement is taken up in a later chapter. �*J^A /TrT^^<Z7 (y/^cA e.ncrcicj/ ^ A A' '< -' z? y // /yr *-^. C r^O V. J * /X o J* ,<^A<_ . ) *4 C^c/^ / /Xot^z &J> f A-w^ t^i^L to n > etA A jt? cj C rZ-?/T^T <*C Zt , <^<!"// , cx^d /7^/^'Cx �^9 /?. 3* f,. /A^t / TL^i- c— ^^4—UT^-? ^-7y47 /^" <-/ f' z' ^^L-J 7 �1 CHAPTER 2. ELABORATIONS OF ANARCHISMS There are wany anarchist theories. For an anarchist theory is any laterally structured theory which duly conforms to the anarchy principle, of rejecting political authority and coercion. While received anarchist theories restrict anarchism to certain more specific forms (the standard options of considered below), p/ara/ijtic anarchism does not; plural anarchism not only admits the plurality, but takes advantage of it any may revel in it. Not all of this variety, not all anarchisms in the sheaf of systems, are of equal merit. Some forms are decidedly undesirable — like anarchisms expanding on the violent or chaotic varieties of popular imagination — in much the way that the nasty states of modem history, that anarchism opposes, are undesirable. Such undesirability may devolve from external rather than internal political characters. Thus, for instance, regions committed to global power projection to retain their privileged way of life (most unlikely under anarchistic arrangements) or committed to transnational terrorist practices. While standard anarchisms have been located in the more desirable, or even eutopian, end-range of anarchist systems, they by no means exhaust the satisfactory forms or even the most promising forms (as explained in chapter 5). Indeed in important respects the desirable range is significantly open for further elaboration of newer (and greener) forms. As varieties of anarchy may diverge, widely, so correspondingly do motivations and justifications for various divergent forms. The motivations, for instance, range from entirely theoretical (conceding to the warranted force of political scepticism) to practical (changing the local world); from personal and perhaps selfish (getting the state off one's back, or out of one's business and one's till) to other directed (eliminating a state oppressing its people) to environmental (disestablishing another vandalistic state). Common motivations trace back to the common character of anarchism: repulsion by, or opposition to, oppression, perhaps generalised from the state to all analogous political and bureaucratic structures, or expanding on that again, to all gross power relations. Indeed it is appealingly suggested that what anarchy is really all about is gross power relations, their reduction and removal; state coercive and authoritarian power are but paradigmatic of such power and domination relations. But while such opposition to gross power does characterizer gentler anarchism, heavy power methods are acceptable to tougher anarchisms; gentler anarchisms tend, so it will be argued, to be all of more pacific, more liberal and more rational than tougher or hardened anarchism. There are other expansionary liberal democratic motives for anarchism, further varying this theme: a yearning for removal of constraints, and for more extensive freedom; or a desire for more extensive equality, which would of course diminish those inequalities power delivers. Such motivations too have illicitly worked their way into variant characterisations of anarchism. ? �2 While a popular image of anarchists remains that of hardened terrorists, exercising authority over hostages using state-manufactured guns, many anarchists are joined by opposition to all such naked authority or coercion. Indeed 'behind the anarchist attack on the state and other coercive institutions, there has often stood a fundamental critique of the idea of authority itself (M p.15). An important, though certainly not invariant, mofivafmg and r^<?n for anarchism derives from a more sweeping anti-authoritarianism: the theme that no person or organisation can ever rightfully exercise authority of (political cast) over another. Picturesquely it is the theme that no authority is justified, no one, state or other, has a right to push another around. Too briefly it is sloganised to assert, no bosses, no leaders, or similar. Such general opposition to the principle of authority has even been dubbed "philosophical anarchism". It is an unfortunate choice of terminology given Feyerabend's different anarchistic challenge to much in philosophical theory and practice. * But some further classification and labelling undoubtedly helps. A princZp/^J anarchism takes exception on principled, characteristically ethical, grounds to objectionable authority or to coercion, that is to prime target elements undiluted anarchism directly rejects. But irrespective of type of anarchism intricated, much in anarchist theory, including a fuller characterisation, turns upon the twin notions of anf/ion/y and coercion, what these terms mean and cash out to, and why it is considered important to avoid damaging features of this sort? Both authority and coercion fall into the general category of power relations, a category that has rightly featured large not merely in anarchist theory but in social theory more comprehensively. As Aristotelian definitions of 'authority and coercion , by gunus and differentia, will be offered, an essential preliminary consists in pinning down the genus, power. * Power gm/ reZevan? serfs. Defective definitions of power, authority and coercion abound. Despite the importance of the notions for political theory, not just for anarchism, it is rare to encounter satisfactory formulations. A defective formulation from recent relevant anarchist theory defines power as 'the ability to compel compliance, either through the use of force or the threat of force (Wolff p.4), a conspicuously high redefinition. Rather, a power reZofion is a relation where one of the relata, that having the power, can normally get the other relata to do something (down to entertaining a belief, considering an idea). Power is a can-do; it may not be exercised. But there need be no compulsion or compelling compliance; nor need its exercise always succeed. Further its exercise need not involve force or threat thereof; it may be effected by a range of other means. 1 By Wolff, and following him, Miler and others. Feyerabend's philosophical anarchism, his is sometimes better labelled anarc/h-yiH, a type of nihilism. But it stops short, excluding logical methods (irrationally scorned however) from variation^ .In fact without a sharp—unavailable—distinction between logical and other (empirical or pwidivist) methods, this methodological anarchism is incoherent. �3 on the one side, bribery, seduction, blackmail, and so on, and on the other, knowledge, prowess, charisma, and so on. It is no secret that major problems in human social and political affairs devolve upon power, its excessive or evil use, misuse, regulation and control. But by no means all power, not even all political power, is bad. Distangling the undesirable, negative forms is an essential exercise, often neglected. After observing the failure of radical social theory to provide an adequate investigation of power, Clark embarks on a critique of the "classical model"2 According to the received conception, power is depicted as a relation of domination in which the powerful subject the powerless to control in order to exploit the latter. In both classical Marxism and anarchism this exploitation is conceived as being essentially economic. Thus, for Marx, "political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another (p.231). It is evident that what we see here is an attempt to explain power through, and then reduce power to, certain of its determinate forms: domination, then control, exploitation, oppression, and then organised and economic forms of these. These determinates are all, though important, rather special and rather negative, black forms of power. Power may be short-term, just for a day for instance or once only (a creature requires power only for a short period, because of what it is, because it loses power thereafter, because it has access to short-term drugs, magic, hypnosis, contracts, etc.). Domination is a longer-term relation, a disposition, between recognised parties, with a decided bias in favour of one party the power-holder; exploitation and oppression increase that bias, in specifiable ways, control however removes it. Power may, furthermore, be applied for positive and libertary, purposes, to help powerless to achieve something or other, to survive, prosper, and so on. Briefly, the concerning power is not power itself, but certain of its forms, its negative forms, and its excessive use. This last can be assimilated, by taking excess as a negative form. The negative forms are, of course, though they can be independently specified, the bad, or undesirable forms, forms as was earlier said.3 These include, among other forms, closed authority and coercion. They also include such overlapping forms as oppression, exploitation, domination, and so on. Privilege goes with these latter forms; it is held by the power-holders and their circle. It is held moreover exclusively by this circle; others, at the other end of the power relation, the power-less, are excluded from its possession. That is, the domain and range of a given power relation are exclusive: no one is both an exploiter and exploited (though of course someone, a husband day labourer for example, may be both exploited in his labour and domineering over his wife). 2 3 A critique, p.231 ff. too quickly petering out in an inconclusive, discussion of Foucault on power, where power turns into what is not, something mystical and all-pervasive. In these respects, power is like other notions, of green political significance, for one, for another. �4 There are two separable kinds of undesirable power: excessive and malselective or illdirected. The two kinds are more or less replicated in other significant phenomena that have been, like power, too sweepingly condemned: economic growth and material consumption. The problematic concerning human consumption is not consumption itself, some level of which is essential to human societies and indeed survival. The problems derive basically from excessive consumption and from poorly selected consumption. Conspicuous consumption, insofar as it delivers a negative form, derives from these: it is either excessive and wasteful or malselective or a mix of these. But the kinds are distinctive. For example, a poor family that buys expensive junk food may spend its limited income poorly, but its consumption may well not be excessive. Similarly with power: the limited power an individual or group possesses, whether exercisable for evil or not, may be better or worse directed. In term of power and its gross exercise, much in more gentle anarchisms can be / synthesized, namely all that is otherwise packed into the rubric: unacceptable means. What is unacceptable is gross exercise of power, including types of political power exploited by tougher anarchisms, terrorist power, crude fire power from the barrels of guns, and so on. What correspondingly gentler anarchisms oppose are all institutions and arrangements, not just the state and those tied to it, that can exert gross power. The state mightly concentrates, and centralizes, such power/ Even so the state is merely paradigmatic among undesirable and excessive power structures — a power hungry one at that, since it looks for a surplus product in power, along with a monopolistic position. But militia posts, torture shops, and pirate ships are other more localized structures. Coercive and closed authoritarian arrangements (opposition to which helps define anarchism) are distinctive marks of such grossness. Dilute anarchisms tone down opposition certain types of power (typically authority); they admit exercise of power that gentler anarchism would regard as gross. From the problematicness and undesirability of excessive power, main objectives of ( anarchism for ameliorative change flow: decentralisation, division and separation of powers. Centralised powers are to be separated and decentralised; aggregated powers to be broken down into functional components; and so on. Tougher anarchism proposes more, rival power play, resisting and undermining power through power, to break down its excesses and reveal its limitations, fighting fire with fire. One trouble with this tough and morally dubious strategy, which can be spectacular, is that it easily overreaches, producing for instance inadmissible coercion of others. 4 Not all state power is undesirable. Some of state regulation and redistribution, effected through power is certainly desirable. The argument will be that these elements are completely outweighted by the undesirable components of state power, and that they can be independently effected without the state. �5 Gentler anarchism travels in the vanguard of the long retreat from barbarism in human practices and institutions. In more enlightened parts of the world we have witnessed the progressive removal of physical punishment, such as: maiming, blinding, executing, stoning, torturing, transporting, flogging, corporal punishing, starving, chaining, incarcerating, imprisoning, infecting, ...and extensions, such as: serious threats thereof and assistance or encouragement of these practices elsewhere. Such enlightenment has not penetrated many parts of the world to any extent, and has far to reach yet even in the most civilized regions. TTyugh the gentler anarchist theme of curtailment of power, we can tap into several rich connections. The excessive drive to power and strength, the "will to power", is a conspicuous feature of modernity. Interestingly Nietzsche went so far as to claim that the will to power was basic motive in human affairs. Fortunately such a socio-psychological claim, about prevailing human nature and institutions, has little to substantiate it. But undoubtedly power motivates much, much too much, in modernity; otherwise anarchism would lose much of its more sweeping point. It was not always so; the quest for power at all costs, the flaunting of power, was at least highly problematic (as drama revealed); it did not always gain the adulation it now widely commands. It did not win respect from early anarchism, as manifested in Stoicism and Taoism. It would not have won endorsement from Aristotelibnism; for power, of both institutions and individuals, like so many other attributes, is evidently similarly constrained to a While the rough bounds are evident enough for an instrumental object such as a vehicle, which wastes fuel and becomes dangerous when excessively powered, but cannot perform its tasks if underpowered, the bounds, especially ^e lower, may not be so conspicuous elsewhere (e.g. with military hardware, intelligence reserves, etc.). Organisations and institutions, which should be vehicles to serve social ends, enjoy once again a striking analogy with logical systems. Logical systems, when excessively strong in the fashion of modem mainstream systems, ensnarl users in a tangle of paradoxes and other troubles (for detailed discussion see RLR, p.240 ff.). On the other hand, if they are excessively weak they fail to meet reasonable conditions of adequacy, to afford satisfactory vehicles of inference and reasoning. Two species of gross power feature particularly in the definitional elaboration of anarchism: authority and coercion. While undesirable authority is characteristically tied into excessive power, coercion is different, is often once-off, and is malselective power. �6 * Authority, and warranted repugnance of closed forms. Authority is a type of power relation, a relation with the power or influence conferred or supported by other features of one of the relata, the bearer of authority, namely character, station, recognised control of coercive means, or the like. itself is the abstract of the relation : a has authority over or with respect to b. Authority is a proper subrelation of power. For evidently many power relations — those exerted by bullies, bandits, etc — are not authority relations, since the relation is not supported by suitable station. Again the following definition of authority (upon which Wolff founds his philosophical defence of anarchism) is far too narrow: "the right to command, and correlatively, the right to be obeyed" (p.4). Only some who hold authority may be (conventionally) conceded a right to command, or more broadly, to exercise their power. For evidently their power may be exercised in a variety of other ways than through command structures, such as blockages, delays, vetoes, withholdings, and so on, and on the other side, concessions, gifts, rewards, and so on. There are many types of authority relations, many inadmissibly excluded under narrow definitions, not all of which are objectionable, or objected to by anarchists. For an example of an unobjectionable sort, consider the relation of a student to an authority in some field of knowledge, who can in turn back up expert judgements by appeal to a further range of assessible evidence. Such an authority might be called frampar^if (or open), because those with time and some skill can proceed through the authority to assess claims made. Among op%n authorities are contemporary teachers, by contrast with old fashioned disciplinarians, and advanced parents, who can back up their orders with satisfactory reasons. Contrasted with such authorities are op&q%^ (or cZo<y^%f) authorities, who simply stand on their position or station, such authority is objectionable in part because of its dogmatic character.^ Closely allied to op^M^ authorities who can appeal to a conventional rule or procedure (that is how things are done, have been done) without being able to or prepared to opaque authorities are step beyond some rule book. Rule-book authorities are commonplace in bureaucracies, which often encourage such practice in lower level officials. In opaqM^ authorities the justificatory procedure stops a step further out; there is a set of rules, which has been enacted (for reasons not open to, or bearing, examination) by a further substantially opaque authority. Other authority relations are objectionable because of the way in which or the means by which they are backed. Unobjectionable is the authority figure which is exemplary, where what it exemplifies is in its tum satisfactory. Not so relations backed by coercive means, by violence or threats of violence: Big-stick authority relations. Such relations are condemned on moral 5 The impression is widely promoted that science reliably furnishes examples of transparent authorities, in the shape of experts. That impression is astray. Dominant Science frequently functions as a substantially closed authority, rather as the universal Church did, standing on received theory as gospel (for elaboration see DP, chapter 12). �7 grounds, for example by moral pacifists opposed to violence, who do not object to the carrot methods such as sanctions, boycotts, civil disobedience, etc. A diagram will summarise the position so far attained. o/'gMf/tonfy Confine##.? Methods carrot <- stick possibly benign Pacifist Back-up transparent T opposition A opaque Enlightenment Liberal opposition opposition It will be evident that the objections to nonbenign authoritarian relations—to what in clear cases may be presented as to — can be of significantly different sorts. To more opaque authority relations there are objections of enlightenment cast, that reason is lacking for what an authority requires, proposes or asserts, as it was lacking in authoritarian religious and political practice against which the Enlightenment was primarily targeted. (A significant strand of anarchism, more theoretical anarchism, is a descendant: undisclosed reasons of State are not adequate reasons.) To more coercive authority relations there are objections from non-violence devotees. To there may be a kind of liberal opposition, that the party subject to authority is being denied, in one way or another, for unacceptable reasons, a certain freedom, namely ' autonomy. Naturally, movements have been directed at breaking down authoritarian power relations: masters over slaves, humans over animals, men over women, adults over children, etc. States over citizens. A comprehensive civil liberties movement would merge with anarchist movements. Plainly then, these three convergences are linked to three interconnected forms of opposition to authoritarianism: namely * convergence of anarchism with an Enlightenment opposition to opaque authority, which anarchism takes to include state authority. (A response will contend, as religious groups did against Enlightenment charges, that State authority is justified, e.g. it represents the people's will, or some similar fairy tale. But that is what is at issue.) * convergence of anarchism with moral pacifism in opposition to violence and coercion as unmitigated evils which should always be avoided. Of course only some forms of anarchism are �8 involved. Some anarchists are not averse at all to the exercise of heavy power relations, for instance of violence or terror against others (no matter how this violates their free personal space). But observe that such uses of power are not supported by recognised authority but normally directed agnm-sf such authority; so they might be dubbed relations. * convergence of anarchism with forms of liberalism, deriving from solid commitment of normal forms of anarchism, particularly individual varieties to personal liberty. Libertarian ideals have served as a major motivation in historical anarchism. There is a vision of a free society, a 'vision of a society in which social fetters are replaced by social bonds and labour is freely undertaken'.6 ( There are of course other convergences as well, some of them much discussed, such as with marxism. When opposition to authority is broadened to opposition to domination, no doubt there are further convergences, with feminism, with deep environmentalism. A recent convergence, of initial promise, is with ecofeminism, which ought to highly sympathetic to environmentally sensitive anarchism. For both are opposed to domination in all its forms, to downward control lines and power hierarchies. There is an important argument against the state based on its authoritarian character. This argument, to be found is Proudhon and in embryonic form in Rousseau, is developed and given a Kantian tum in Wolff? What Proudhon portrayed as a conflict between the authority of the state and freedom, Wolff represents as 'the conflict between authority and autonomy' (p.18). In this conflict, where the state represents authority, autonomy takes precedence; anarchism is consistent with the supreme virtue of authonomy, but archist doctrines supporting the state are not, because of authoritarian character of the state. Because Wolffs argument has been subject to much criticism which an improved formulation would shed, because too Wolffs formulation leaves something to be desired (it is not sufficiently sharp or tight), the argument will be revamped. A crucial difference is this: whereas Wolff asserts that 'all authority is equally illegitimate', a judgement already rejected, it is now said that all authority is illegitimate, meaning thereby wtoraZ/y illegitimate, not 'having a binding moral force ? 6 7 8 Chomsky, in Guerin p.xii, As to Proudhon see Ritter p.13, pp. 15-16. According to Rousseau such undesirable restrictive features need not pertain for all forms of government; naturally they do not obtain for his favoured arrangements. Wolff tries to repeat this sort of point, less than successfully for unanimous direct democracy. Of course a state may proclaim, even legislate, that its authority is legitimate, and even have other states do the same. But that will not achieve moral, a de jt/re, legitimacy. It is similar when the state endeavours to enforce its authority; /noraf legitimacy is not thereby obtained. Nonetheless these sorts of features go far towards explaining why people acknowledge, rarely questioning, closed authorities like the state. There are other elements which enter into explaining this popular sheepishness, such as: The force of tradition, that is the way things have always been done, the �9 Nor is all closed authority equally objectionable. The unquestionable directives of a benevolent dictator (one whose authoritarian directives and regulations prove inductively to be well directed) can be seen as less objectionable than those of a malevolent dictator. Similarly for a dictatorial group, a junta, or a majority. That the dictator said so, or that the majority said so, does not offer a reason rendering the state less than a closed authority. A core theme, to be embroided and defended, is W1. An autonomous person does not recognise a closed authority as legitimate. But W2. The state is a closed authority, of a certain of course. Hence WC1. An autonomous person does not recognise the state as legitimate. The core theme depends crucially on the notion of aMfonowy, on characterising features of the autonomous person. But before that task is addressed, observe that autonomy can be eliminated. First, the rafiona/ person, or a little less satisfactorily, the person, can carry the argument instead, using for instance W3. A rational person is autonomous. So results Wl' with 'rational' displacing 'autonomous', W1'. A rational person does not recognise a closed authority as legitimate. That premiss at once suggests a direct argument devoid of the circuit through persons (or through agents). For what a rational, still more an enlightened, person does not recognise as legitimate presumably is not, and certainly vice versa. In any case, U1. A closed authority is not legitimate. Hence, by W2, UC1. The state is not legitimate. Since this conclusion is equivalent to UC2. The concept of a legitimate state is null, the result sharpens the tentative conclusion Wolff reaches: 'Hence, the concept of a jure legitimate state would appear to be vacuous', to which he adds, thereby presuming other links already made explicit, 'and philosophical anarchism would seem to be the only reasonable political belief for an enlightened man' (p.19). As observed, not too much hangs upon the notion of moral legitimacy deployed, thus far following Wolffs lead, throughout. Simple variations replace 'morally legitimate' or 'legitimate' by 'morally warranted', 'morally justified', 'justifiable', 'rightful' (the last, though a trifle old-fashioned, captures what is intended well). force of character of leaders; their occupation of official positions, which have heavy bureaucratic backing. �10 These arguments permit of much other interesting variation. Wolff s original argument, for instance, precedes from authority as The defining mark of the state', with authority defectively explicated as 'the right to rule' (p.18). Evidently then the middle term, authority, can drop out, and the argument can be formulated along the following lines: VI. The state has the right to rule (without question, its citizens, more or less as it pleases). V2. An autonomous person rejects any (sweeping) right to rule. Therefore VC1. An automonous person rejects the state. Further variations may be obtained by amending the middle term, "right to rule without question" (which effectively replaced "exercise of close authority") to reflect other features of the state, for instance that it can simply tell its citizens what to do, that is has a right to coerce its citizens, rights to institute state monopolies, and so on. Under some variations "autonomous person" should be correspondingly replaced. For instance, if VI is specialized from a right to command and control to the right to send citizens to war, then V2 may be adjusted to apply to the person of conscience, of peace, or similar. As Wolff seeks a grander conclusion than VC1, which might be merely taken to reveal that there are but few autonomous actors about, he invokes a further premiss V3. Autonomy is a (even the) primary obligation. From there, it is an analytic shuffle to the more impressive conclusion VC2. The state ought to be rejected. The arguments are as vulnerable as their premisses. What gets especially contested in the first argument is Wl, concerning the autonomous person. For all the surface reasonableness and even open-door aspects of a more liberal state, W2 holds; it swings into effect as soon as the going gets tough. As Dahl puts it, To obey the authority of the state ... means doing what the you do it'? While there may be a little scope for light and reson as regards more flexible minor officials, that scope is officials of the state tell you to do simply and soley ( t/z^y small; the wall of closed authority can be quickly encountered, particularly with judges and law enforcement officers. If W2 did not hold the state would risk sliding into a voluntary organisation, out of which citizens could opt. In the end citizens are expected to act in a variety of ways (fill in form, take out licences, pay taxes, etc.) because the state tells them to, just because, or else face punitive action. The argument to Wl depends heavily on the meaning of gMfono/ny. Here is one way it can be presented (following Dahl): An autonomous person is self determining. Such a person is not under the direction or choices of another item. While the person may do what another tells him 9 See p.92..Dahl's reconstruction of Wolff effectively applies W2, using Wolffs definition of HMf%<?r#y, to obtain VI. This produces a more complex, and defective, argument. G �11 or her, she does not she has been told to do it. Thus the autonomous person does not conform to closed authorities, and does not acknowledge them or assign them recognition (more than recognition that is). While autonomy is one thing, responsibility is quite another; still a critical reason for arriving at autonomy intricates responsibility. ... so long as we recognise our responsibility for our actions, and acknowledge the power to reason within us, we must acknowledge as well the continuing obligation to make ourselves authors of such commands as we may obey (Wolff p.17), i.e. to make ourselves autonomous. A primary moral demand, central to the moral condition, is, according to Kant and Wolff, to 'acknowledge responsibility and achieve autonomy whenever and whenever possible" (p.17). Assuming responsibility in a life is by means the only reason for striving for autonomy: achieving a certain personal freedom (within natural bounds) and operating a life rationally are other crifica/ reasons. A main argument to V3 indicated by Wolff does proceed from responsibility. It is simply that in order to take full responsibility (for one's actions, choices, etc.), which one should, one has to be autonomous. So one should be autonomous. At least as important philosophically as the argument from W1 and W2 is that from Wl' and W2. While the argument to Wl' may proceed through autonomy it may short-circuit it. The philosophical argument for Wl' is well-known, having been repeatedly emphasized from Socrates through to Russell: that a rational person does not accept anything for which there are not independent investigatible reasons and evidence. The pronouncements of a closed authority do not fall into this class. By revamping the arguments especially that from autonomy as directed against authority, many objections to Wolffs arguments are fairly autonomically voided. Firstly (contrary to Dahl p.47), the arguments are not (any longer, if they ever were) arguments against 'authority of any kind". Not merely was Wolff concerned with the authority of the state; further as Dahl points out next page, the type of authority concerned is that of 'doing what someone tells you to do fo ^Zo if, that is a closed form. A rational person can of course acknowledge an open authority who can offer reason and evidence for prono^cements. For similar reasons, experts, guides and guardians, of open character, are not excluded. Accordingly the arguments does not cut "too broad a swath""; while it properly cuts out closed authorities like absolute rulers, states and similar, it does not mow down open authorities. In like fashion, much of Miller's parallell criticism of philosophical anarchism is voided. Things go astray (in Miller's chapter 2) from the very outset, from the slack formulation of "the principle of authority"", which is chauvinistically formulated, 'no man can ever rightfully exercise political authority over another, that is have a right to issue directions which the other has an obligation to obey' (p.15), and which is then intended to apply to the relation of a state �12 and its officials to its citizens. The formulation has both to be expanded to include persons and organisations as subjects of the relation, and sharply contracted to delimit the kinds of authority and rights concerned. For the explanatory (that is) clause offered reaches far beyond (closed) political authority; it would wrongly rule out contractual relations such as those of freely arranged employment, parental relations, and so on. The counterexamples Miller designs to Wolffs arguments also depend upon shifting ground from closed authority like the state to more open arrangements, such as contracts an autonomous person may have entered into freely. Plainly there will be a limited range of such contracts that a rational person will enter into; long-term future bondage or slavery will not be among them, and Miller's examples may border on the rationality dubious. In any case, in one, an agent morally concerned to relieve poverty enters into authoritarian arrangements, imagined unavoidable for successful action, in which it becomes obligatory for the agent to act under authoritative instruction (p.28). Firstly, the authorities are not closed, they have to be pursuing means directed to poverty relief, else an autonomous agent will not enter into such ". * arrangements Secondly, while contractual obligations, and therewith certain directives of open authoritarian cast, may constitute reasons for action, the situation with the state is very different. There is no contract, and no reasons of contract (also lacking are spotless reasons justifying entering into such a contract). Examples like Miller's arrangements and contracts can be inflated into stock flawed arguments, from consent to the state. Unremarably, Dahl attempts to patch up again these well- worn arguments, but in two mutually inconsistent ways. Second, he proposes that To opt for a democratic state' is The most responsible way of exercising our moral autonomy', and reasonable and rational as ways of maximizing our autonomy (p.49). Insofar as there are any arguments for such wishful conclusions, they depend upon familiar fantasy-world assumptions about the blackness of nonstate arrangements presumed to impact utterly unfavourably on autonomy and the contrasting whiteness of democratic states. That those states are at best a pretty dirty gray, Dahl's first more honest considerations suggest. There he asks, What is so great about autonomy? 'Why not sacrifice some moral autonomy?' As 'unlimited autonomy is impossible', why not settle for autonomy within reasonable state limits? (cf p.48). Compare: why not sacrifice some resistance to homocide and settle for reasonable killing of humans for reasons of state? The moral importance of autonomy Wolff has already explained nicely (pp 14- 17). Autonomy is a primary oM/ganon of rational persons, a constraint, not what Dahl converts it utilitarian-fashion into, a supreme value, to be questioned then traded off against other values. Because of its importance for rational practice the obligation should not be weakened; nor is there good reason to do so. There appear no grounds for forfeiting autonomy to closed 10 Compare Wolffs discussion (on p.15) of relations with one's doctor. �13 authorities, such as the state. It is doubtful that there are even grounds for what Wolff allows, forfeiture of some autonomy to one s doctor, hopefully no longer a closed authority, rather than retaining autonomy and freely following the doctor's advice. Autonomy is not like freedom in limitations; it can in principle always be exercised by a rational person. Submission to the state is a gross forfeiture of that autonomy. While an autonomous agent may place itself under guidance of leadership of another for limited purposes, and may indeed enter into certain sorts of contracts, it will not surrender its whole future life or extensive parts of it to a directorate that may well proceed in suboptimal, subliminal or even irrational ways. Yet that latter is what expected acceptance of the state implies. Accordingly an autonomous person cannot recognise the state; nor can a fully rational one, as it is irrational to place oneself indefinitely under a closed authority. It may be objected that it is unfair to treat Dahl, Miller and others in the preceding fashion, which changes the dialectical playing field. They were attacking Wolff and his over-extended arguments, not a refinement of Wolff which singles out the philosophical nasty elements in authority, and accordingly destroys their counter-examples which operated at the rational open end of authority relations. But that was not all that they were doing. They were using Wolff as a vehicle to draw quite conclusions about the unviability of principled anarchism (e.g. Dahl p.50, Miller p.29), and accordingly should have taken account of simple revampings of arguments like those of Wolff. Nor is this the only respect in which their practice is methodologically unsound. A principle—like that of closed authority, that such authority is legitimate—does not stand because someone's attack (e.g. Wolff s) against it is unsuccessful. Yet this is Miller's methodological procedure against philosophical anarchism (p.26, p.29). This is Popperian falsificationism gone rampant and badly astray. For Popper at least required sustained and strenuous testing and adequate variation; not a few select and easy examples. But of course a Popperian approach by archists is unsatisfactory; the onus of argument is the other way around. An archist has to establish that political authority, such as that the claims and exercises, is rightful. That Wolff intended to work with something like closed authority should have emerged both from Wolffs emphasis on the place of 'grounds and sources' in legitimate authority (p.9), and his flirtation with unanimous direct democracy. What Wolff is exercised about is not compliance with a authority or obedience where there are good or independent reasons for it, but blind, or closed obedience: doing what you are told because you are told to do it (p.9). (Yours not to reason why, yours but to do ....) While these points exonerate Wolff from some overzealous criticisms, they immerse him in others, namely his attempt to combine authority with autonomy under unanimous direct democracy. A major problem is that this combination, �14 so far as it is workable^, appeals not to the closed authority of the state, but to open autonomous arrangements which do not conform to requirements of the state (as Dahl remarks on p.48, the "authority" here is not the "authority" of his earlier definition'; and as Miller observes on p.27, *it is ... arguable whether this state of affairs [under unaminous direct democracy] involves the recognition of Autonomy and freedom tell not merely against the exercise of opaque authority, but against use of coercion. This connection affords the basis for a parallel argument to that against closed authority, to the desirability of a sharp decline in deployment of coercive methods. But parallels between coercion and closed authority do not proceed very far. * Coercion, an impermissible activity. Coercion is very different from exercise of authority. All four places, 1 to 4, in a cross­ classificatory matrix are regularly occu Died: actions coercive authoritative 1 non-authoritive 2 non 4 coercive 3 Place 1 is well occupied given the State, and is widely exemplified in not only state-citizen relations, but also in authorized domination relations. Place 2 is illustrated in a range of operations which the state often tries to repress such as banditry, piracy, protection rackets, but also in a variety of interpersonal relations. Place 4, that clear indicator of unqualified anarchism, is well exemplified through voluntary cooperation and mutual aid. Place 3, characteristic of many work-place and educational situations, can be easily illustrated through advanced ( education. Coercion, unlike authority, is action. That is why comparisons are with .... of authority; authority may sit, like power, unused, but coercion cannot. Like all action it is a process, a state to state transition, but actively changing or maintaining state. It is a transitive action relation having both a doer, a coercer, and done-tos, coerced, all normally creatures. The transitions include a wide range of more determinate actions such as constraining, restraining, securing, moving, pushing, pulling and so on; and thus coercion (the abstract) includes forcible constraint and compulsion. An essential feature of coercion is that state transitions are effected A/<Z or attempted by coercers through force or genuine threats of force. No such force, no coercion. NY- Defective definitions of coercion are liable particularly to neglect this feature. Thus e.g. Fridman 11 Wolff himself concludes it is not except under highly improbable conditions. Indeed the conditions are more onerous those Wolff allows: required are humans who having consented do not change their minds, etc. _________ /e �/6 L < s _ _ z^<^4^-f ___' / ^ry^- /i, <^___ . �15 p.xviii, according to whom being coerced is 'not being left alone'. Perhaps in one special sense, but a person who chooses to have a constant companion is not being thereby coerced. Pressuring someone to do something without attempts or threats to apply force is not coercion. Similarly persuasion is not coercion; censuring, withholding support, applying peaceable sanctions, are so on, are not. All this proves important in meeting objections to anarchist methods. Coercion is not a success notion; a coercer may well not succeed in obtaining what was sought through coercion. This will prove important in explaining why appeal to the state does not automatically resolve political dilemmas. To coerce is maintain or change states, normally of another creature, by implied force (i.e. force or accepted threat thereof). The state transition or statis includes the full range of relevant actions such as constraining, restraining, securing, moving, pushing, pulling aa so on, and thus coercion (the abstract) includes forcible constraint and compulsion. Coercion, by contrast with * exercise of authority, entails potential use of force, force furthermore which will characteristically tum into violence if resistance is attempted. Therein lies a main reason why coercion is so objectionable; its intrication with force and immediate potential for violence. For violence is generally undesirable.^. It follows therefrom that coercive arrangements are generally undesirable and, devolving therefrom, If social organisation can be achieved without them, usually so much the better, certainly the more ethical. A main onus to show that coercive arrangements, such as the state characteristically incorporates, are inevitable, unavoidable or the like, thereupon falls upon archists. 'Since coercive power is self-defeating' and worse, a general theory of 'non-coercive authority' is presented as a 'pressing problem of this stage of history'.13 Unfortunately, the general theory has obtained but little development. But functionalism, in such forms as demarchy (to be transformed below), has gained some elaboration, by some in the peace movement. 14 Worse, Merrifield arrives at the "pressing problem" on the strength of the need for Rt/M? of solution to the authority problem': thesources, methods, and ends of authority (p.724). This "problem" is presumed by way of the following large (anarchist) assumptions: Authority is a requisite of all social life, since in its absence it is both psychologically and physically impossible to coordinate human behaviours so that the ordinary social processes can continue to operate and flourish (p.729). The main claim is an important part of what is at issue between anarchists and archists and is at best highly dubious. Moreover the reason offered in its support is false and should be rejected (a range of counter models and counter examples have been indicated or will be). Furthermore, Merrifield goes on (on the next page) to adduce information on organisations of a sort which 12 13 14 Sec wp in. Merrifield p.724 alluding to the wording Notably B. Martin A/Z&) -sy-Mezn of political functionalism. �16 serve to cast severe doubt upon his claim and its supporting reason. There are various nongovernmental organisation (NGOs), and some intergovernmental organisation (IGOs), which rely upon voluntary, permissive or non-coercive motivations ... to accomplish their functional purposes. ... They may explain, demonstrate, justify and argue, but they cannot usually coerce. The role of functional NGO's is even more pronounced. Lacking any coercive power, they must rely on the validity and demonstrability (p.725). Some of the organisation rely, or need rely, not at all on closed authority. Like the voluntary support and participation basis, so too the organisational structure is voluntarily maintained. There is no hard authority, and no conspicuous authority problem. Coercion, in this respect authority, is also open to objection on rational grounds. Namely, ways of controlling, governing, or getting rational creatures coercive methods are not to do things. Rationality—not the undesirability and demeanment of force not, or not just, freedom—is the ground of this objection. The analysis of coercion admits of immediate fruitful application to (internal) criticisms of anarchism. In the first place, it has been argued that anarchism does not avoid coercion but incorporates coercive elements—which would render it inconsistent (as normally characterised). Further, because of these coercive elements anarchism is incompatible with liberty, thereby multiplying inconsistency, as liberty constitutes one of its main goals. These alleged problems derive from the reliance of anarchism on public censure, and like methods, to control social behaviour. According to Ritter, for example, who makes much of the second problem^, anarchists have the following goals: an (admirable) commitment to liberty, and a heavy reliance on public censure. But these goals are incompatible. For such a 'social scheme relies so much on coercive public * censure (p.10, also p.l). However, the argument to incompatibility is invalid; it makes an illicit insertion of 'coercive * * 'coercive (as the quote above illustrates; in fact the prejudicial slipping in of and 'coercion * occurs right through Ritter's discussions; see e.g. p.25 top and bottom). The social scheme as described involves only public censure in a free setting; such censure does not imply coercion, as no use of force need be involved or even contemplated. Secondly, connectedly, there is a widely exploited false dichotomy between voluntary and coerced activity, under which it supposed that all activity which is not purely voluntary is coerced. To the contrary, the range of actions is more satisfactorily diagrammed as follows: Voluntary vs coerced activity In a first chapter short-tided 'Liberty and pubiic censure', particularly on a muddled p.2. ,u„ ZL.. �17 hard pressured ! soft pressured ) ! (entirely) free ) influenced encouraged (fully) coerced <Actions -* In most standard arguments for the state only the outer bounds are considered.^ But noncoercive methods can include a wide range of influenced or pressured actions, which are less than entirely free. The interesting argument that Dahl draws from anarchism, directed against the state, turns upon on the undesirability, indeed the intrinsic badness, of coercion. In essence (leaving out support offered for the premiss as) the argument is as follows: Pl. M? one Zs obZZg#R?6? to -report or o&ey a sfafe. P2. A// sfafes ore coercive. P3. Coercion Zs intrin-nca/Zy bnJ. P4. A society wit/iont a state is a yeasi&Ze aitemative to a society with a state. This conclusion derives fiom these premisses ('assumptions' as he calls them) Dahl draws Ave conclusions' (p.41). As these are not the most direct or pointed conclusions, let us sharpen the conclusions: Cl. AZZ states are necessariiy &aJ. ^rom P2 and P3 (equivalently recast as: all coercive items are intrinsically bad items), given that intrinsicaZZy so implies necessariZy so. Dahl prefixes Cl by the conjunct, 'because all states are necessarily coercive'. Not only does Cl not require that support; we do not have it (e.g. in P2). While coercion may be taken as defining of the state, or an essential characteristic of it, as Dahl does, however states are defined it is continently true that all of them are coercive. C2 No one has an o&ZZgahon fo, Zs o&ZZgafed to, to support or obey any state. From Pl and Cl. Again Dahl unnecessarily prefixes his analogue of C2 (as for Cl above). Insofar as political obligation is obligation to the state, C2'. 77iere Zs no poZZtZcaZ obZZgatZon; political obligation lapses. Conclusions Cl and C2 specialize, because democratic states are states, to democratic states (that is effectively Dahl's fourth conclusion, p42). Dahl, like Wolff, senses a democratic escape through unaminity procedures, and reaches towards a fifth conclusion, which we will subvert. P5. Unanimity decision practices (can) escape coercion. 16 See for instance Taylor's presentation of game-theoretic arguments. 2^ �18 P6. Democracy can operate through unanimity procedures. These procedures and democracy are presumed to apply to some society, community or association. C51. prac/zc&y (can) escape -yfafcF. C52. Democracy can operate wif/zoaf any .sfafe. This last conclusion is interesting because Dahl regularly assumes, as against anarchism, that democracy must operate through the state, and that democracy is therefore in compatible with anarchism. As conclusion C52 reveals, these assumptions are astray, on grounds Dahl himself supplies (the inadequacy of these assumptions will be independently investigated subsequently). It is worth noting that, irrespective of the merit of premisses P5 and P6 (e.g. because unanimity wears off, because of the rareness of unanimity), the conclusions do not follow without other lesser presumptions. For C52 the transitivity of opcrafc wifAoMf (doubtfully a universal linkage) is presumed, and perhaps some modal shuffles as well. For derivation of C51 from P5 what is presumed is that what escapes coercion escapes the state, which requires a strengthened P2 (already encountered), that states necessitate coercion (as well as a little of the logic of escapism). Dahl's third conclusion, after detachment of (three) because-clauses, is C3D. A// PMg/tf a? A minimal inference scheme enabling derivation of C3D from previously derived statements is this: P3D. where an item is necessarily bad and there is a feasible (less bad) alternative to that item, the bad item ought to be abolished. Then C3D follow from (strengthened) P3D. These are important arguments, both for principled anarchists and for archists, and Dahl rightly invests detailed study to certain of the premisses, those he imagines he can dispose of, most notably P2 concerning the coerciveness of states. It is not that other premisses and steps are not highly controversial; they are. The very first, Pl, yields at least the stock debate as to whether one is obliged to support or obey a bad law; for a state can be viewed as a structure of laws. Instead of an argument for Pl, Dahl offers a thumbnail history of its status, a genetic '^justification". Other justifications there are, rendered easier if P2 is strengthened (as it may be without upsetting the arguments dependent upon it) by replacing 'bad' by 'evil' or 'immoral'. Then initial support for strengthened Pl is that political obligation, likewise legal obligation, is a type of obligation, justified by considerations of obligation generally, and accordinging triumphed by ethical obligation. The detailed arguments for these themes gets down to fundamentals, to the justification of obligations through values. Briefly, obligations obtain only towards items which normally exhibit a sufficient level of positive value. An item like an evil state that condition. So no obligation obtains towards such a state. �19 To escape such an outcome, archists contend that certain states are not evil, for instance Dahl will claim that 'a democratic state is not an evil state" (p.40). Anarchists will by contrast assemble a great deal of evidence that democratic states, like others, are evil (see next chapter). The immediate issue is, however, whether states are evil in principle, by virtue of their coercive features. Now Dahl does not contest 'so elementary a proposition" as P2, the universal coerciveness of states. 'Like any state, a democratic state would use coercion to enforce democratically enacted laws ..." Accordingly, to make his escape, Dahl is bound to dispute P3, and does; coercion is instrumentally justified as a means 'essential to a good purpose , a democratic state (p.40). * As to supposed (second-rate) justifiability of coercion. A conionplace claim, which Dahl advances, is DI. Even though coercion is intrinsically bad, its use is sometimes (reasonably) justified (p.44). Which times?, on which occasions? will turn out to be a critical issue. As against Dahl, it will be contended that its use is never woraZZy justified. However in moral dilemma situations, where all other feasible alternatives have been exhausted, its use can be given a "secondary"" secondrate justification. Such a secondary justification, in very limited circumstances, gives no succour to the state, which depends upon and makes widespread use of much more coercion. That is, DI itself does not justify the sfaR?'.? use of coercion. The first argument Dahl offers is overtly dilemmatic. There is a 'recalcitrant wrongdoer , ( who simply will not refrain from doing serious harm to others. Despite the best efforts of his associates, neither reason, argument, persuasion, public opinion, nor the final sanction of social octricism dissuades him from doing harm. His associates finally conclude that he will persist in harming others unless he is forcibly restrained or threatened with severe harm (that is, coerced) (p.44). Why should that stop him, threats in particular (it does not deter young alienated men in contemporary states)? With ali due respect^the gentle best efforts cited by no means exhaust nocoercive methods available. But let us grant not merely that there are situations where coercion occurs (plainly it is presently a frequent occurrence), but that there are dilemmatic situations where a person may have no alternative in preventing violence but to resort to coercion, for instance in preventing or limiting assault upon another, in self-defence, and so on. In such circumstances, 'coercion would be employed—either by the wrongdoers or by those who restrained them" (p.44). Granted, it is employed. The issues however are whether it is morally permissible, and who may be justified. Certainly the wrongdoers are not justified, and what they do is impermissible. More controversially, what the restrainers do is also morally impermissible; even so their actions may be justified. Given the fixes they were in, where all alternatives were forbidden, still what �20 they did may be situationally justified, as a satisfactory actions in the dilemmatic circumstances.*7 Such situational justification is not what Dahl and other consequentialists are seeking; they want coercion justified without impermissibility strings attached. There is no reason, or need, to accede to their desires. Such a reasonable, and practiced, approach to moral dilemmas (which Dahl himself subsequently takes in his discussion of whether to always obey laws of a democratic state p.4950) here escapes notice. And Dahl introduces two difficulties he incorrectly presumes fatal to 'alternative position ... [that] violence and coercion are absolutely forbidden" (p.45). Firstly, given that coercion is employed, 'the position in self-contradictory". Wrong. For that coercion occurs, whether perpetrated by wrongdoers or by those trying to prevent wrongdoers, does no? imply that coercion is morally permissible (i.e. p -f Pp). Nor does the impermissibility of incompatibles imply self-contradiction, for the covering deontic functors cannot be deleted (i.e. -Pp & -P-p is no contradiction; of course given, what gets rejected, -Pq -* -q, contradiction would ensure). Also wrong, then, is what Dahl takes to emerge from such self-contradiction, no 'guidance for the most elementary choices", said to be an 'indefensible" position (p.95). For coupled with the story concerning moral dilemmas are suggested procedures for making choices (often far from elementary choices) from within the dilemmas. Secondly, Dahl wrongly supposes that so rendering coercion absolute makes it 'a supreme value that eliminates all other ends" including justice, freedom, etc. It does not. No hierarchy of principles (or values), this or another, is adopted, which is one reason why dilemmas occur. As in ordinary ethical practice, ^he principles stand, they are not simply prima they are not ranked, there are no 'trade-offs". It may have become apparent, what requires only a little between-lines interpretation, that Dahl is playing a rather familiar utilitarian game underneath the surface moral concern. Render 'the objection to coercion as a means ... not absolute but contingent on consequences". So weaken absolutist prohibitions on coercion and violence that generous room can be made for an institution which routinely practices them, and to which we can trade up with consequential advantage. Given that coercion occurs without the state, indeed may be quite widespread in the absence of the state, then there might be gains in installing a coercive imitation 'to restrict [!] and regulate coercion". Moreover, if 'on balance the gains from creating a state are likely to exceed the costs, then from a utilitarian perspective it would be reasonable to opt for a state" (p.45). There are two critical gaps in this utilitarian state-pleading. Firstly, impressive evidence for the conditional antecedent that the gains from the state exceed the costs has never been assembled, but rather evidence points in the opposite direction (as we shall see in the next 17 This controversial story has been told before, that for coercion resembles that already related for violence. The general theory of moral dilemmas (in MD) is applied to the issue of violence, control of pacifism (in WP TV). �21 chapter), so detachment from the antecedent is not warranted. Secondly, the performance even of better states in coercion is utterly unimpressive; these states foo amplify coercive practices, do not regulate basic cases, and so on. The state appears to exacerbate the levels, both in extent and intensity, of coercion, over the low levels genuine moral dilemmas would yield. It is unnecessary to contend, however, as Dahl asserts anarchists contend, "that if states did not exist coercion would soon disappear or decline to a tolerable level' (p.45). That judgement, which is not exactly an 'empirical' one, depends very much on the character of alternative societies. An individualistic society might enjoy high levels of coercion owing to the activities of its public-like protective agencies. By contrast, a well-organised society may be afflicted with comparatively little coercive behaviour, rendering Dahl's uncompleted utilitarian argument extremely difficult to complete, ever. Interlarded with the dulcet utilitarian approach, under which they beneficent, ^states will provide us with all those promised superior values many millions are still awaiting — freedom, justice, equality, and so on — lies a more sinister argument; that to the gangster state. That evil state is not so far removed, some may think, from many states that are presently recognised. Without the strong state, the gangster state looms, so Dahl insinuates. So adopt the state, or worse will eventuate. That sort of decision theory argument (itself unpleasantly coercive and out of the same big stable as utilitarianism) depends on some (derived) principle such as choose a least bad alternative, and accordingly fails unless another independent argument to the state succeeds. For otherwise superior stateless choices remain on offer. Yet nothing more than the po&H&iZi/y that a small gang of wrongdoers may pool resources, andwhat results may evolve into a "gangster state" is floated (similarly for claim 2, p47, that some group wng/tf manage to create a highly oppressive state, which is as true in many a state as in stateless conditions). There is a complex evolutionary path, with many obstacles and hitches, from a small gang, through growing rival gangs and protection rackets, to a single one, and thence to a state. It is moreover a path that is rather easily blocked at early stages in an organised society, as simple counter examples show (one such example, that of the Inuit, Dahl introduces on the very next page). Apart from the inconclusive utilitarian considerations, Dahl offers a further page, under the boldface heading 'On the Need for the State' (a strikingly minimal effort in a book of about 400 pages most of which are premised on the assumption that the state is a needed item). He concedes, what seems to put a large dent in his bold claim, that preliterate societies, like those of the Inuit, have subsisted, over long periods, without the state. But that is past history, the world has advanced, the state is here, there, and everywhere. Granted it is; that does not show it is needed. Many gadgets that are now produced are not needed. Consider Dahl s reasons why a return to societies without states is 'if not impossible, highly undesirable (p.46). First, the world is already too densely populated to provide much space for autonomy (p.46, less than a �22 page after the utilitarian promise of a satisfactory state maximizing 'freedom and justice'; similarly p.51 etc.) But there are many regions where autonomy could undoubtedly be increased by expansionary or imperial states backing off (not merely in East Timor, on the West Bank, etc., but in the lands of the Inuit, the Micronesians, etc.). Further, the denseness of human population, hardly affords a reason. For one thing, the excessive human population is highly concentrated; most parts of the Earth carry, by comparison, sparse populations. For another, autonomy does not depend, so directly, on available space. 'Thirdly, virtually the entire globe is now already occupied by states'. Similar points apply: for instance, such an accomplished fact does not establish a need, or the impossibility of change. While not true 'throughout recorded history', but a very modem phenomenon, it is no doubt recently confingenfZy true that 'small autonomous groups of people have been extraordinarily vulnerable to conquest and absorption by larger states', and that it is presently doubtful that 'states would permit any small, independent group to exist anywhere [much] on earth'. Such present yizcfo political power relations do not demonstrate a need, still less impossibility of alternative, still less undesirability of changes. Consciousness change could come very rapidly, furthermore, with a welcome change in popular attitudes in large democratic states to oppression of minorities elsewhere (in Europe this seems to be happening). These points also serve to destroy Dahl's second reason, that 'a multiplicity of interdependencies cannot be snapped apart without enormous costs that few people would accept.' The break-up of states in Eastern Europe shows that substantial changes can occur very rapidly; the costs involved were much higher than they should have been because of the attitudes of states, not attitudes of their peoples by and large. In sum, then, all Dahl has accumulated is evidence of the repressive grip of the present regime of states, rendering local change pragmatically very difficult. Such evidence does nothing to establish a need for states, nothing at all to establish the undesirability of stateless societies. Accordingly the main assumptions fail with which Dahl claims support his 'conclusion that if woM/J &^ff^r fo fry fo cr^afg a mfz^/acfory jfafe f/ian f/y io ^xAff in a .soci^fy wif%OMf o sfaf^' (p.47). As it happens, the failed assumptions also fail to support such a conclusion—without suppressed material, of the utilitarian cast already criticised. All the assumptions would indicate, werf they granted, is the practical undesirability of trying to set up small stateless associations in a regime of states like mot prevailing today exc^pf that the states are satisfactory. But the assumptions should be scuttled. * Aggfnsf Jowfnaffon Domination is an important type of power relation. It is a comprehensive relation: persistent over a period, not simply once-off or occasional, pervasive, extending over a range of action and behaviour. It offers confro/ in a spread of cases. In such cases, if the dominator exercises control (e.g. adjusts the appropriate controls, pulls requisite levers) then the dominated normally responds. A significant form of control within extended human affairs is that of A �23 command or ability to command. Of course the creature commanded, the servant, the domesticated animal, the subdued or subjugated person, has to be able to understand what is commanded. But domination operates in significant spheres where such conditions for commanding do not obtain: in particular, but not only, in the domination of nature, its parts and elements, such as animals that do not understand commands, biota that do not recognise manipulation, and so on. Domination originated with (what the etymology of the term reflects) lord-subjects and master-servant relations, which remain paradigmatic for this power relation. It was soon and easily extended to cover owner-slave relations, where control was much more extensive, God­ human relations, human-working animal relations, and so on. It has long covered parent­ children and husband-wife relations, as well as certain class relations; and as classes have changed with political restructuring, industralisation and the rise of cities, so have domination relations. Those of higher classes or castes tend to dominate those of lower ranking, similarly for those higher in new hierarchies. Domination of nature and its parts is a relatively recent addition to the varieties of domination, since the acclaimed success of "the war against Nature" (still going on last century) before which technological humans (lacked the considerable level of power they have now acquired over natural systems.^ An aim of softening or removing forms of domination links social and environmental objectiv&with anarchism. These aims are united in green social anarchism. Opposition to all forms of domination, is yet another extension of certain types of anarchism, perhaps incompatible with other types of anarchism (e.g. communal anarchisms which assume that affairs should be organised along strict patriarchal lines, which accordingly not altogether coherently oppose social archy only to retain or even reinforce a tribal or familial archy). There may by now be some confusion concerning the variety of extensions of anarchism encountered. More exactly these "extensions" are subextensions, which isolate the principle of some type or ( key feature of anarchism and generalize it. generalisation of principled subtype with distinguishing principle. 18 Intellectual vandals have been at work on dondnahon also, stretching it from a relation from ensembles of actors, the dominators, to whole structures, systems or institutions (what might be called by partial analogy with the vandalism worked on .sTrHctund domination). Stretched dominators include the capitalist economy, market forces, the economy, the state, and so on. Under the stretching, /to (structural) dondnadon is said to imply, what straightforwardly is right enough, no subordination of the people to market forces, or even, what is impossible to avoid in a sophisticated society, no influences on members through the operation of its economy. A �� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document J SHORT CONTENTS OF TOWARDS GREEN ANARKISM: EUCRATIC POLITICAL INVESTIGATION? ? 0. PROLOGUE 1. EXPLICATIONS 2. ELABORATIONS 3. ARGUMENTS I 4. ARGUMENTS II 5. VARIETIES AND OPTIONS TAKEN 6. ECONOMIC ELEMENTS: PROPERTY, CAPITAL, MARKETS, TAX 7. POLITICAL ELEMENTS: ORGANISATION, DEMOCRACY, BUREAUCRACY 8. SOCIAL THEORY ELEMENTS: NATURE, CULTURE 8A LEGAL ELEMENTS 9. ECOREGIONAL STRUCTURES, EUTOPIAN MODELLING 10. ROUTES, TRANSITION 11. FURTHER CRITICISMS FOILED 12. PROBLEM RESOLUTION 13. EPILOGUE. BIBLIOGRAPHY (INCLUDING RESOURCES) by a minor marginaZi-s^J p/iiZo-yop/^r writing in 7. ? Richard Sylvan, Za^ At^nri^f/i c^nfary. PROLOGUE WHY GREEN ANARKISM? Green anarchism is not merely an intellectually attractive intersection of anarchism with genuine environmentalism; it is also a rational imperative. Modem states are not merely without justification; they are a major force driving and facilitating degradation and destruction of global environments, to points of no return for many natural species and environments, and even seriously threatening future human viability. Anarchism would, with full justification, remove these major problem sources. Green anarchism derives from anarchism coloured by a deeper environmentalism. Anarchism itself is said to be essentially a modem ideology, arising after, and in opposition to, the modem state. Though there may be significant anticipations of anarchism in earlier philosophy, and though there are many worthwhile examples of early anarchistic societies, the main intellectual work begins only in the late eighteenth century (with the eruption of the French Revolution). Since then there have been waves of anarchistic output of varying strength, the most recent initiated in Paris again in 1968^(immediately following a series of academic texts pronouncing that anarchism was dead)L In important respects this received picture, ever so lightly sketched, is misleading. Anarchist ideas were already advanced in those similar ancient ideologies, Taoism and Stoicism,** in opposition to ancient empires. Lao Tzu, shadowy founder of Taoism, was not merely a trenchant critic of the Empire, but advocated a society in which the ruler, the Prince, disappeared into a do-nothing exemplary and merely legendary figure. What Taoism asserted is virtually tantamount to Thoreau's small but crucial anarchist amendment to Jefferson, that the best government is the one that does not govern at all. In a similar vein, "Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, advocated a society without government. Laws should be abolished[!], since virtue and morality would only be achieved in liberty'.2 That common ancient tradition, spanning East and West, though often submerged, has never been lost. The Taoist tradition persisted (if often in degenerate form) in China, and heavily influenced west Asian adaptations of Buddhism. Stoicism survived, as (often degenerate) internal critic, for the duration of the western Roman Empire, and was directly incorporated into early Christianity. Although anti­ authoritarian features were subsequently suppressed in the Stoic-Christian tradition, elements survived even in the increasingly authoritarian climate of that religion, and the positive ideas have resurfaced again and again in religious freer-thinkers. 1 For details see Marshall pxi. Amusingly anarchism in Australia has more recently also been * Taoism and Stoicism can almost be seen as variants upon one another, back to the very names. It is tempting to conjecture that they may have both arisen from a proto-Toi-ism. Lehner, H of I, p.71. On Taoism as anarchist, see Clark, ch7, Marchall, ch4, and UT. 2 2 The term * anarchism' was however introduced into English in a highly perjorative sense, signifying disorder, chaos, lawlessness and the likeA It is regularly displayed in this negative connotation, in politically unstable times in England, long before much theoretical work on anarchism began (nonetheless there were tracts, like that of Winstanley). As a result, the term 'anarchy' got away to a very bad start in English. It was used, from the early 16th century onwards, to mean confusion, disorder, lawlessness, licence, and absence or nonrecognition of authority. Similarly for most of its cognates 'anarch', 'anarchal', 'anarchial', 'anarchic', 'anarchical', 'anarchially', 'anarchism', 'anarchist' and 'anarchize', (see OED entries). 'Anarchism' itself had also acquired its re/evanf modem sense of 'the principles and practice of anarchy or anarchists', namely 'the Doctrine Position or Art of those that teach anarchy; also the being itself of people without a Prince or Ruler' by 1656 (in Blount GZo^^gr). As a political theory anarchism is standardly said, however, to have emerged much later (and there are stock, 'inconsistent' presentations: a state without a state, government without government, theory without doctrine, order without order, etc.) It is the interaction between popular longer-standing usage and later serious ideological use that helps account for the astonishing folkloric history of the term aKarc/n-yTK. It also reflects one facet of the pervading amateurism of anarchism, its lack of industrious research. Consider what certain encyclopaedias say, beginning with one that is not so much wrong as sloppy. Historically the word "anarchist", which derives from the Greek an arc/io-y, meaning "no government", appears first to have been used pejoratively to indicate one who denies all law and wishes to promote chaos. It was used in this sense against the Levelers during the English Civil War and during the French Revolution by most parties in criticizing those who stood to the left of them along the political spectrum. The first use of the world as an approbatory description of a positive philosophy appears to have been by Pierre Joseph Proudhon when, in his (W%<3/ Af property?, Paris, 1840), he described himself as an anarchist because he believed that political organization based on authority should be replaced by social and economic organisation based on voluntary contractual agreement (Woodcock p. 111). According to a rival encyclopaedia, however, The word "anarchy" describing a stateless society was used[?J for the first time by Louis Armand de Labortan in his voyage Z' (1703), describing the Indians living in a society without state, laws, prisons, priests, private property, in short "in anarchy" (Lehning p.71). A glance at the OED, such as we took above, along with a comparison of the stories, reveals the falsity of many of these interesting contentions. Much historical detail remains to be sorted out satisfactorily. Though there are many histories of anarchism, until very recently a 3 The pejorative sense was not contrived or imposed following some significant political incident, such as the pivotal Chicago events of 1886, which is what Jp^ies 86 implies. No doubt, however, following the Chicago events, stigmatisation and denigration of anarchism, and its automatically assumed association with violence and disorder, were deliberately orchestrated and propagated in USA. Such an outcome contributed further to development of an already established anti-anarchist mythology. 3 reasonably satisfactory one had yet to be written. Fortunately that has now changed (during the drafting of this text). Conveniently we are now absolved from lamenting the absence of such work and likewise from attempting more historical detail.^ For Marshall's massive text, has now appeared, it can be deferred to (by no means always uncritically) on many historical issues and for mad detail, to which it affords fine access. The concentrate on systematic and theoretical matters. Most of the seminal and interesting work on anarchism has come from outside present text can now universities and standard intellectual circles, and often from political amateurs. Academics have contributed histories, surveys and (usually not so sympathetic) criticisms, but, with a very few exceptions, little original thought. $ For typically they are ideologically stuck with the state, be it a pathetically minimal one. Intellectuals are so inured to the state that they are inclined to such pronouncements as that the idea of abolishing the state entirely must strike us as utopian .6 Yes, as eutopian. 'Most political philosophers in the past few generations have been unable to escape what the psychoanalysts might call a "state fixation". Even those those temper and reason caused them to distrust a nationalist philosophy could not deal with the state except as a rigid entity. They wished it large or small, isolated or cosmopolitan, but in any case a rounded unit which had to be taken as it was and maintained as such in any reconstruction of... society'7 It is easy to speculate on reasons for this, connected with academics being part of the expensive state scene. While anarchism has vanished from the mainstream academic scene, it is again becoming visible, if hardly prominent, in alternative (especially green) scenes and in work of disaffected academics associated with them. A surprising amount of the adventurous anarchist literature now appears, like the earlier utopian literature, in fiction, especially science fiction (and so, under prevailing division of labour, tends to become a subject for literary criticism, not political philosophy). But the ideas and plans appear there in quite insufficient detail. There, moreover, it can easily be dismissed as fantasy, as unrealistic, not a serious and proper contribution to political dialectic. The entire range of political discussion concerns whether there should be marginally more government intervention, or marginally less; marginally more public expenditure on welfare services is marginally less. Nobody [much] challenges the whole system, still less the existence of the state itself. The state's own socialisation processes see to that (Luard p.52). While virtually all political discussion undoubtedly traffics in such marginalia, powerful and warranted challenges there certainly have been: It is plain that on general principles of law and reason ... the Constitution is no contract; that it binds nobody, and never did bind anybody; and that all those who pretend to act by its authority, are really acting without any legitimate authority at all: that, on general principles of law and reason, 4 5 6 7 In contrast thus to James 186 who reiterates the familiar lament. Even the very occasional (here deliberately unspecified) exceptions are exceedingly cautious. Miller p.182. Mitrany p.98. 4 they are mere usurpers, and that everyone ... has the right... to treat them as such.s Given the United States is not contractually legitimated, what other state is? None appears to have superior credentials! None is rationally legitimated, so it will be argued in detail. The State in general and in abstract is not justified. So, whether it can be exploited for environmental and social purposes or not, its use is not justified. Environmentalism is still more modem than anarchism. Though it has ancient roots, and though the movement grew substantially in the 19th century, fusing there with an earlier romantic movement, environmentalism is an archetypically 20th century ideology. The more widely diffused green movement is essentially a contemporary phenomena, no doubt the most distinctive new political force of the late 20th century (the feminism movement is older). Green anarchism draws together elements from environmentalism and anarchism. While it can be seen as continuous with environmentally sensitive later 19th century social anarchism (of Morris, Kroprotkin, and others), environmental problems now appear in a new light and take on a new urgency. For we are now confronted by what is not inaccurately referred to as the envzronmenfa/ crAyZy, combining the cumulative efforts of rapid human population growth, rapid concomitant growth of vast industrial and human pollution threatening and undermining biological life support systems, rapid depletion of habitats species and nonrenewable resources, and very extensive and worsening environmental deterioration. In the present parlous environmental predicament those concerned to take some requisite action, active environmentalists, have two opposently diametrically opposed courses open;9 * Supporting, and working through, strengthened states to try to avert the crisis. Central to 'most environmental justifications of [expanded] state power", according to social individualists, is the argument that people will not voluntarily r&yfram themselves from doing those things of which the environmental crisis is the aggregate effect. They will not voluntarily refrain from hunting whales and other species threatened with extinction, from having "too many children"", from discharging untreated wastes into rivers and lakes, and so on (Taylor pp 1-2, quoted in Grofman p.108). As in collective action theory (advanced typically by individualists), it is concluded (invalidly as will be seen) that state power is required to compel restraint and to undertake compulsory rectification. * Working outside states in more direct efforts to avert elements of the crisis. The alternative, that is, is to abandon the state. Here lies the main chance, and the only genuine long term alternative for a deep, as opposed to merely reformist, environmentalism. For under state regimes, more and more of remaining environments are degraded or destroyed, in the march of 8 9 Spooner (M? Treason) pp 27-8. The omitted phrase asserts that everyone has not only the right but is wtoraZZy to treat them thus. But here Spooner goes further than data seems to warrant, converting supererogation to obligation. (The phrase following the quotation echoes Miller p.38). These choices are differently presented and explained in SM, a main intellectual ancestor of the present work. The approaches complement one another. 5 state growth and economic progress. In fact, there are several reasons for the extra-state anti­ state course. There are serious limits to what states can accomplish, especially in international issues in the interstrices of states, but also as regards individual environmentally-hostile action. Moreover, even when it appears that states can a^t, or contribute, there are sharp limits to what they are prepared to do or attempt. States of course explain their tardiness or reluctance to move in various ways: prior higher commitments (e.g. endless economic ones such as creating jobs, containing inflation, etc.), the need for balance (with a constituency after unparaxeded of any environmental crisis, or wanting, like comments operating with anarchist discount rates, to party now), etc. Concerned environmentalists should take both courses: use the state and exploit state power where opportunities offer (without thereby endorsing the state and its standard practices), but also, more important, they should work outside states and against states. For mam co/ifn&Mfmg coarse o/The anJ ov^ra/Z o/?^rafmg fa worsen if. Given this (no doubt jaundiced) sfa^-mfrz'car^ thesis, surely it is hypocritical also to work through them and use them. Not at all; for states acquire and hold, have expropriated to themselves, considerable social wealth, which arguably should be directed to social concerns, including environmental amelioration. However, while states may properly be used so long as they persist, still ultimately halting the new ubiquitous environmental rot, salvaging or conserving some of what remain of viable environments, will involve, if it can be done, dissolution of states. There are powerful environmental reasons for trying to terminate / the present era of states. States are ineluctably committed to economic growth, of almost any sort; indeed they are main proponents of such growth. This commitment, certainly highly conspicuous, is not merely accidental, and is bound to impact negatively on environments. Australia, for example, needs a growth rate (in GDP) of at least 3% just to provide employment for its school-leavers, more to cater for immigrants, more to allow for some politically acceptable redistribution, more to meet rising aspirations. More, more, more .... States cannot step off the growth treadmill. That growth in turn requires, to deliver essential exports, expanded raids on resources and biological capital (if not that held by the state, that of other states). These exercises in tum inevitably mean, given present technologies and cost structures, pollution in many dismaying forms and environmental degradation.^ So growth implies environmental degradation. Therefore, with contemporary states degradation is inevitable. Such states are inevitably environmental vandals, n 10 11 A prominent recent attempt to block this sort of argument features economic growth subject to con train ts of environmental sustainability. While such constrained economic growth is a feasible (and old) idea, contemporary states, given their commitments, cannot and cannot afford to deliver it. A recent example concerns Australian production of greenhouse gases, where Australia cannot, officials now say, meet the costs involved in attaining expected reduction targets. Sustainable development itself is critically examined in r The kind of practical necessity operating here will concern us in later chapters. Logically there could be benign "states"; but these would be far removed from contemporary state arrangements. ( 6 There is exceedingly little evidence that social and environmental prospects will ever improve under the contemporary regime of states; instead much evidence to contrary has accumulated. "... Reliance on the state or a global superstate for change will lead to a continuation of many of the patterns of domination that the state has done so much to develop and reinforce in the past" the anarchist strategy of change "from below" ... [and "from above" is] much more promising'. Indeed the claim is made that The anarchist vision ... of a fusion between a universal confederation and organic societal forms of a communal character lies at the very centre of the on/y hopeful prospect for the future world order'. 12 Some of the pressures to continued exponential growth, and their environmental and social consequences, themselves positively feeding back to fuel demands for more growth, are colourfully observed in the following passage: One of the most widely pursued common goals of recent times has been economic growth, which is generally regarded as the most important ambition of states. These pressures to high rate of growth not only endanger the world's resources but do not even procure the material satisfactions they are intended to provide. For the effect of competition is that high rates of growth can be achieved only by high rates of investment designed to secure higher productivity. This secures equivalent production with more equipment but less labour. Thus more and more people are displaced from their jobs who cannot necessarily find alternative employment in service industries or elsewhere. All over the Western world, in shipbuilding, in steel, in motor manufacture, in textiles, in fishing, in agriculture and other industries, employment rapidly declines. So the total number of those unemployed increases in all industrial countries and remains high even in those where a relatively high rate of growth is being achieved. And the very fact of high unemployment, by reducing total demand, lowers the level of investment and growth for the future. Periods of growth become shorter and those of recession become longer. The relatively simple devices for stimulating growth in earlier times - lower interest rates, budgetary deficits, fiscal expansion and public works — are either not attempted through fear of inflation, or if attempted do not achieve their effect. Despite persistent recession inflation remains strong, partly because of excessive increases in income obtained by those still at work, partly because of the large sections of the economy which are in public hands and are unaffected by antiinflationary measures. Modern industrial societies, therefore, in appearance so advanced, are yet characterised by the bizarre spectacle of large sections of the population being without work, while ever higher levels of investment are undertaken to reduce employment still further in the future, so ensuring that the benefits of high growth are enjoyed by fewer and fewer people (Laurd p.147). A main dynamic involved can be summarised: Both the State and those major corporations which set much of its agenda aim to increase productivity (for reasons of profit, profile, firm or party growth and survival, etc.). But productivity increase characteristically sheds labour. Restoration of employment requires growth. Hence one heavy pressure to growth: sustaining employment. That pressure is, furthermore, one of many. Another derives from internal dynamics of corporations and bureaucracies. Like the state and capitalism, they all must, as Marx argued, 12 Clark, also quoting Falk from 'Anarchism of world order* in FVo/noj, p.160). 7 grow or die. There are many reasons for the growth imperative, both broad ideological and business specific.^ For satisfactory survival, satisfaction of its executives and employees, its stock holders, and so on, a modem corporation has to grow. Cpntr^l here are such matters as laws of profit decline otherwise, and more general principles of organisational aging and decline. If any serious ecological conclusion is to be drawn from Vol I, it is from Marx's compelling demonstration that the very law of life of capitalist competition, of the fully developed market economy, is based on the maxim, "grow or die". Translated into ecological terms, this clearly means that a fully developed market economy must unrelentingly exploit nature to a point ... that is literally regressive geologically and biologically. Capitalism, in effect, is not only polluting the world on a historically unprecedented scale; it is simplifying all the ecosystems of the planet, turning soil into sand, the oceans into lifeless sewers, indeed, threatening the very integrity of our sources of atmospheric oxygen. If one were to follow the logic of this tendency to its very end, capitalist— and hierarchical— society are utterly incompatible with a viable biosphere. What limits the ecological validity of Marx's view is obviously not his revelation of capitalism's "law of life" but rather the "progressive" role he imparts to capitalism's "success" in supposedly achieving the technical domination of nature. This Janus-faced aspect of Marx's writings is what throw them into conflict with an authentic ecological sensibility. Gorz, by contrast, sides-steps exacfZy what we must learn in the contradictory position of Marx, namely, that the very technical achievements of capitalism, fat^ from a-y-MmzZafing "ecological necessities as technical restraints", are governed by a "law of life" that technologically lacks any TES p.293) form of "restraint' Prevailing political arrangements 'no longer offer us a hopeful prospect of resolving the vast social and ecological crises which now confront humanity ... these systems, with their deep commitment to such values as industrialism, high technology, centralism, urbanization and the state, have been instrumental in creating the social atomization and ecological imbalance which are at the core of these crises' (Clark pp. 141-2). Indeed these systems are bound to exacerbate the problems. While these statements should by now be motherhood statements, they are not. Hope springs eternal: more naive environmentalists regularly appeal to a state that sometimes makes appropriate responsive noises and puts out appealing propaganda, but meanwhile is thoroughly committed to economic growth of environmentally damaging forms. The normal dynamic of th^ "advanced" state is extremely environmentally hazardous. Centralised states support environmentally and socially damaging methods of production, in order to benefit from the surplus and exploitable technology thereby produced - which are important for purposes of state, in particular for spending to remain in power (job generation, pork barrelling, subsidization of large business), for positional enrichment of the bureaucracy, and for development of the forces of coercion, propaganda and authority which matter both for internal social objectives and in order to remain militarily competitive in the region and spheres of influence. Details of the dynamic at work have become familiar from socio-environmental studies of state operation. For example, technologies that facilitate centralized authoritarian 13 The broad and ancient ideological reasons are investigated elsewhere, e.g. MSS. 8 control are favoured (such as nuclear power, which also supplies material for nuclear weapons). Such technologies serve the interests of state actors and those who benefit particularly therefrom, namely economically dominant social strata. This dynamic, which does not require any arms race, only kinds of inter-state competition, encourages ever-increasing productivity, entailing high consumption of resources, high output of pollution, substantial environmental degeneration and destru( tion, and so on. Active aware environmentalists have, in the end, little choice but to attempt to ;abotage this dynamic. 14 Opposition to anarchism from gi een directions, and especially from green infiltrators, often derives from the assumption that under anarchism all environmental regulation would lapse, that it would be an open-go, fret -for-all for anti-environmental forces—the very ones that are already running rampant over the Earth, and perhaps others besides. It needs to be stressed that this opposition rests on a misconception of what green anarchism ^is all about. With a caring anarchism there may be a complete of the usually conceived situations of states and stateless societies, as regards environment regulation and social support. It should not have escaped notice that often states are the prime enemies of environmental regulation, improved environment practices, and the like. Even when there is very extensive community support for regulation, the state acts to block it, and aids and abets damaging practices! A central reason for this is that the state typically reflects a rather narrow range of vested interests, increasingJhese days those of dominant business, not community interests except very secondarily. Contrary then to received conceptions, the state is frequently not a means to, but an obstacle to, satisfactory regulation. Satisfactory green regulation can occur, can only occur, without the modern state. It will be argued that not only are there no intellectual or theoretical problems in dispensing with the state, but fuller there are no serious losses in disposing of it. There is no case for the state, and no need for it. But it is worse than that: it is predominantly bad in its impacts. Accordingly, it ought not to be in place. The practical upshot is that that we should endeavour to remove it. Among the incidental practical difficulties arising as a result, are that for complex societies there is a need for some structure to replace the state (not a intractable theoretical problem any longer). As well there is a need for a strategy to displace the state. That is where radical environmentalism enters again. A thoroughgoing environmentalism accordingly forces a significant type of anarchism, a social non-capitalist anarchism. The basic reason it forces anarchism is that the state, a prime anarchist enemy, not only fails to supply or retain environmental goods, but is frequently actively involved in their degradation or removal. The state is a major facilitator and powerful source of environmental degradation and destruction. Genuine greenness further substantially constrains the directions anarchism can take, the variety of admissible anarchisms. It serves to eliminate as a serious option total reliance on 14 This argument is adapted from A. Carter, Towards a green political theory*. While Carter's way out is not endorsed, his elaboration of the dynamic is, more or less. LL market methods, as proposed for instance under anarcho-capitalism and libertarianism. While excessive reHance upon capitalist markets is rejected, primarily because of heavy externalities, more traditional markets are given a rather free role. The problems with market-capitalism is not so much markets, except as distorted in a capitalist setting, but capitalism.^ Capitalism, both in theory and as normally practised, is a major enemy of environmentalism, and a main source of environmental problems. Capitalism also encourages, what conspicuous capitalists conspicuously exhibit, environmentally unacceptable lifestyles. Greenness also sharply constrains meta-politics. For example, it counts heavily against standard game-theoretic approaches of analytic political philosophy, because these entirely discount environmental effects (except as reflected through human actors' self interests). This work concentrates upon the anarchist components of green anarchism (the green part is attempted in a companion text on green ideology). It is primarily a theoretical work; it concentrates upon what is sometimes usefully called "theoretical anarchism". Because the work does focus on anarchism, little will be said about present green politics (and what thin associated theory there is), because that generally involves politics within conventional state settings. Where this differs from past anarchism is not only its environmental depth, but in the level of detail of arguments, criticism, and organisational structure. The latter especially,jwhere IT- 1 a; thin and threadbare historical anarchism is particularly weak. It is not enough to gesture towards some federation of communities. Details of organisations at each level need to be provided, for a more convincing story. Most of the disappointingly slight contemporary academic literature on anarchism will not be addressed or, if it is, criticised in much detail. Life is too short for that sort of indulgence. However much will have been criticised obliquely or in passing; and enough critical detail is supplied for direct critiques to be produced (as exercises by energetic readers). While there is mMc/z scope for theoretical improvement of anarchism, there is little room for reinventing anarchism. There is a long and distinguished Hne of amateur anarchist thought form virtually every significant idea that will be which contains in seminal (if developed herein. Thus, like most of the academic literature^this text is not particularly original. Unlike much of that literature it does not pretend to be. Virtually everything in this book has been said before, if not in anarchist theory then elsewhere; scarcely anything is original. But it has never been put together quite like this before. Moreover, some of it needed and needs saying again, with a little new information and arguments a bit differently ordered. But no means all is repeated. Where something, perhaps important for the dialectic, is said at least as well I can reiterate it, I simply cross-refer. That has the effect of making the work visibly less contained (self-containment is ^bmething of an illusion), but it saves on labour and materials. For other purposes too, repetition, despite its extravagance, may be important. Significant 15 On the deliberately neglected, or papered over, major differences between marketism and capitalism, 10 ideas and books often get neglected, because for instance they were not published at the right times, in the right places, by the right authors; they did not get duly circulated, and so forth. I judge the time at least is more propitious for green anarchism than it has been, perhaps ever before. As well, there are many things that this book, which is pitched in a theoretical, rationalistic way, does not aim or attempt to do. It does not attempt to supply much background, historical or other information, a lot of which is easily found in better equipped libraries. Relevant background can all be tracked, however, through references in work referred to in this book. 16 It does not attempt a full account of substitutes for important current institutions and arrangements such as those connected with property, markets, law, and so on; nor does it offer, what is warranted, a sustained critique of prevailing arrangements, for which opposite substitutes are sought and indicated. Fortunately again, some of the critique, if not positive detail of substitutes, has been well accomplished in other texts. 17 What is attempted is however a scholarly and systematic work (though, as indicated, a far from exhaustive work), on theoretical anarchism. Accordingly the book is littered with notes, some of which merely cite references, but many of which elaborate points in the text, especially details hat lead off in different directions from the thrust of the text. I should like to thank Frances Redrup for processing reams of inelegant scribble, from which this text grew, and to acknowledge the continuing support the Australian National University gave during slow production. I want to thank Debbie Trew for proofing the typescript (no straightforward business) and organizing a bibliography. I should record my gratitude to Bob Goodin for a continuing supply of background books, and to him and to the publishers and editor of Anarc/iAyf 16 17 for encouraging me to work upon anarkism again. A major recent source, for history of Northern Hemispheric anarchism, is, as observed, Marshall, While Marshall concentrates, no doubt correctly upon Northern hemispheric activity, and within that heavily upon Anglo-American work, there is room for a supplementary production taking due account of anarchism elsewhere, Australia for one example. Although an anarchist club was formed in Melbourne only a century ago (and then upon an American model), an extraordinarily sustained period of "original anarchism" (coupled often with "original (or primitive) affluence") flourished in Australia before European settlement two centuries ago, with more than 500 centuries perhaps more than 10000 centuries, of continuous Aboriginal anarchist arrangements. Much of the story of post-settlement Australian anarchism (which included remarkable Queensland activity and a Paraguayan expedition organised by Lane, as well as extensive Victorian agitation) is recounted by James, in a series of local publication, add Burgmann and by Souter. The story of Australian Aboriginal anarchism has yet to be told. The story for the rest of the Southern Hemisphere, both before and after European conquests and political imposition, remains to be satisfactorily told. Thus, for instance, Carter on property, Bumheim on bureaurcracy, othe^on democracy. A // 1. EXPLICATIONS OF ANARCHISM CHAPTER and of green subforms G 1. Initial explanation: fud and dilute forms, and corollaries. Anarchism is the theory, principles or practice of anarchy. As practised by engaged anarchists, who are naturally adherents, authors or promotors of anarchy, it includes the assertion of anarchy and rejection of nonanarchy, i.e. rejection of archy. Anarchy itself, in its norma/ political form, applies to societies or communities, territories or countries. It is, according to the dictionaries, the following sort of condition or state: lack of coercive government, absence of a political state, want of authoritarian political heads or leaders, institutions or organisations. Politically there are evidently fhr^ j^racrara/ aa^ar/(y, ca^rciaa, and normally comprehending both, the political .yraf^.i The anchoring notion of anarchy has recently been extended beyond political arrangements to apply to other institutional forms such as the Church, Science, and Law, to mean alternative forms lacking authoritarian structure and coercive methods. Thus appear, under transference, such varieties as epistemological anarchism and philosophical anarchism, instead of po/zfzcn/ anarchism upon which this text focuses. However the far-reaching analogies should not lost sight of; they matter. Anarchism is to political authority, as atheism is to religious authority, and rather as scepticism is to scientific authority. Although the conditions specified for anarchy are normally taken as conjoined, it is possible to construe them disjointly, yielding what could be called anarchisms. One diluted form which has obtained a little exposure is a /zzzzz^J anarchism appropriately opposed to the state but prepared to endorse carefully-controlled coercive authorities.^ A differently diluted form is a anarchism which is opposed to all prevailing states, because of some serious but in principle removable defect or other of each and every one of these states, but is not opposed to the very idea of an ideal state, or to a new wonderful order of states; that is it is, not, so to say, a principled anarchism. It is sometimes difficult to ascertain whether historic anarchists are j?rznczp/^r/ anarchists or merely de facto ones. There are limits to how far definitional dilution should be allowed to proceed: a theory (such as libertarianism) postulating a minimal coercive centralised state presumably exceeds acceptable diluted bounds, as n^key element is retained. Within such bounds, we shall operate both with full and dilute forms, accounting all anarchism (in a bro^d sense, qualifying as need be). Routes to full anarchism may well lead through dilute forms. Indeed these offer main paths towards anarchism proper. -t These three key elements are duly signposted in many, though not all, serious on anarchism. J- 12 It is evident that anarchy, and therewith anarchism, can be better characterised, negatively, through what it rejects, namely to sharpen the characterisation, centralised coercive forms, than in assertive formulation obtained through awkward locutions like 'absence' 'lack' 'want'. The simpler negative formulation (supplying the of anarchy), rejection of archy, makes it immediately evident that much of what vulgarly pass for meaning conditions upon or essential features of anarchism are not. Firstly, a variety of political arrangements and organisation, including of government, are entirely compatible with anarchy. It is enough for these arrangements not to include anarchy-violating features such as authoritarian or coercive elements. For example, a government without such elements, a government nonetheless in the dictionary sense of 'administration of public affairs', satisfies the principle of anarchy, and so is anarchistic. Such an anarchistic government can include normal components of organisation, regulation and control, so long as they conform to the principle. Certainly a territory without government, since therefore lacking an archist government, is anarchistic. But the popular converse fails. An anarchistic system may well, like several societies substantially destroyed by European conquest, have a small smooth-running public administration, free of authoritarian elements. Thus it would have a government, but not an authoritarian government. No doubt it would also be in a predominant modem, but narrow, use of 'government'. The term 'government', which is variably determinable, vacillates in particular between * administration of public affairs (including control, regulation, what it once meant) and its important and now dominant restriction, the enarchistically unacceptable determinate, * authoritative administration of public affairs (i.e. that exercising authority, and characteristically backed by coercion). Much confusion concerning anarchism has resulted through failure to separate the wider and narrower determinates^ It may well be true that, as dictionaries assert, an anarchist would 'oppose all existing systems of government'; but this is not a matter of meaning, it is contingent upon the character of prevailing state systems. Nor therefore are prevailing political forms everywhere so far removed from anarchistic alternatives: they may even overlap them. Make the following kind of thought-experiment concerning the government and operation of some modem freer, less violent, more peaceful society: the coercive and authoritarian elements are blacked out (both operational components and what they typically operate upon). For instance, there is a strike of relevant groups, judges and accused, police and criminals, prison warders and prisoners, etc. (perhaps because the broad society had reduced the opportunities for crime and accordingly threatened their contra­ operative livelihoods). What may well happen, what we shall imagine happening, is that governmental affairs simply keep running for some time. Things work well enough. Partial examples of just this sort of phenomenon are not uncommon, as when police forces go slow or strike. For example, when traffic police stop work traffic keeps on going, much as before. It may be irrelevantly objected that such anarchistic periods are mere interludes, presupposing surrounding authoritarian structures (somewhat as anarchistic end-states of marxism are premissed on preceding super-productive authoritarian states). Such thought experiments were designed to remove a different intellectual blockage: the common assumption that anarchism is utterly remote from the political practice of complex modem states and impossible to realise at all. As a theory, anarchism tends to advance a stronger theme than the progressive particular claims that anarchistic systems are possible, realisable, and sometimes realised. After all, these arrangements may be realisable—as more than an interlude—only in restricted or anomalous circumstances (e.g. a few people on an isolated tropical island). The stronger theme, linked with the anarchist principle, is that there is no need at all for authoritarian or coercive regulation. So rejection can succeed universally. Universal anarchism encounters many problems which do not trouble less ambitious parfict/Zar anarchisms, such as those to be advanced here. For example, how to rectify especially degenerate or evil societies? An attempt is sometimes made to render all anarchism universal, through the connecting thesis that for anarchism to succeed anywhere it must succeed everywhere (else be destroyed by ruthless, expansionist or greedy states, or similar). Fortunately the fallacious connecting thesis, though popular with critics, is implausible.^ Although anarchism proper does exclude certain kinds of government, coercive and authoritarian forms, it does not automatically include, certainly not as a matter of semantics, specific positive kinds. Anarchism is not necessarily "a theory of government based on the free agreement of individuals rather than on submission to law and authority", despite what dictionaries assert (incompatibly incidentally with their definitions of 'anarchy'). Such positive accounts of anarchism, as offering a certain theory of government, both try to convert a particular variety, individualistic anarchism, into the more general object, and try to import a certain motivation for, or differently explanation of, or justification of, anarchism into the very essence of the object (this is the general fallacy of verificationism in operation). Anarchism, or at least its assertion, may well be regularly motivated by ideals of free arrangements, not imposed by narrow or incompetent authoritarian forces, but motivation is one thing, meaning 14 another, verification a third. Not only is the assumption that anarchism is incompatible with government, wellregulated government, mistaken. So also therefore are the assumptions that anarchism is incompatible with organisation, with regulation, with a positive noncoercive "law", with order. So mistaken therefore are the widespread assumptions that anarchism entails disorganisation, disorder, confusion, lawlessness, chaos. Yet all these negative associations have been incorporated into degenerate popular meanings of anarchism. It is similar with related assumptions that anarchism implies violence, paramilitary activity, or terrorism. A popular picture of the anarchist, encouraged by authors like Conrad and Dostoevsky, is the excitable fictional character with a bomb in his pocket (not a Tolstoy or a Thoreau).5 These too are assumptions and pictures, with little basis either in semantics or in general anarchist theory or practice, promulgated by an unsympathetic opposition generally comfortable in present poor to appalling political systems or unaware of alternatives. With anarchy, as with many other valuable terms, a concerted confusion or destruction effort has been made, part of an extensive terminological vandalism in human intellectual affairs. Rather than reconciling ourselves to sacrifice of the damaged term anorc/ug/n, let us salvage the term explicitly for the pristine notion, and isolate the conventional associations under the term anarchi-pm, shortened, if a single term is sought, to Most fictional anarchists of system-supportative authors are degenarchists; but they are far from representative of anarchists. There are many anarchists who are not terrorists, few who are; there are many who are not dangerous troublemakers bent upon violently upsetting local settled order; increasingly there are many anarchists within environmental and peace movements, many of them anarchists. Gentler anarchisms tend to be all of more pacific, more social and more rational than tougher or hardened anarchisms. 2. Rival, typically defective, definitions, and beyond. Much of what is taken as typical or even characteristic of anarchism, especially popularly and journalistically, consist of optional extras, not even typical of anarchism. They represent, like what gets written into degenarchism, attempts at easy smearing or dismissal of anarchism, for instance as an ideology unworthy of serious consideration. As regards violence, terrorism, disorder, disorganisation, confusion, these sorts of point ought to be well enough known. But they apply also to other more benign features widely taken to characterize anarchism, such as attempts to tie anarchism variously to individualism, capitalism, voluntarism, primitivism, spontaneity, or socialism. Thus such erroneous characterisations of anarchism as those of the selection that follows:- 5 15 * One utterly appalling characterisation comes from a Russian DzcZzozzrzzy of PAz/o^op/zy. ^ "Azz^zrc/zz^zzz, a petty-bourgeois socio-political trend that is hostile to all authority and the state, and counterposes the interests of petty private ownership and small peasart economy to the progress of society based on large-scale production" * Another dismal, indeed wild, characterisation comes from an American political scientist, who audaciously asserts that "anarchism ... is anti-political—that is, it does not really offer political solutions" (p.l), rather "the primitive core of anarchism is not so very different from Christianity. That is, it rests on the notion that man has a need, not just a preference, to love" While this is wild, there are convergences and congruences between types of anarchism and early Christianity.? * It is "a political doctrine based on the value of individual freedom"? While this is not wild, it does erroneously convert what is a frequent powerful motive, and reason, for anarchism into part of it, confusing motivation and justification with essence. For it is by no means an invariant feature. A socialist or monastic community, placing no great emphasis upon or even discouraging individuality, can be organised anarchistically. * It is "a theory of government based on the free agreement of individuals rather than submission to law and authority" (Concz-y^ Eng/zj/z Dzcfzozzazy). But it also asserts that the same %7z#rc/zz.yAy "... are opposed to all forms of government". That inconsistent information should, as already seen, be discounted. Furthermore, there may be no free agreement; an anarchistic situation can, as already also seen, just happen. More likely, a sustained anarchism may emerge under favourable historical opportunities, again without any sort of contract or general agreement; it is then only zf there were free agreement. Certainly, there would no longer be "submission to authority", but there would likely be systems of rules, which people normally followed. * The very short characterisation of rzzzrzrc/zMzzz (and rendition of zzzMrc/zz?^) as "no government" is defective because of the elasticity, slippiness and determinability, of "government"? For example, to increase documentation, according to one dictionary ((/zzzv^r^zz/ Ezz^/z^/z), gove?7Z7?zenf means "... system of polity in a state; territory ruled by a governor ..." in which case it incompatible with anarchism; but it also means "... control; administration of public affairs" in which case it is certainly no? incompatible. Granted there have been attempts to represent anarchism as if it entailed no organisation or administration at all (state-of-nature arguments regular rely on this fallacy of false dichotomy), but it does not, and if it did there would be a gap for a near-identical relative (a/za&yrz^ for instance) to All. One of the rather better brief characterisations is the following: "a social philosophy that rejects authoritarian 6 7 8 9 Ed I. Frolov, 2nd revised ed, Progress, Moscow, 1989. Apter p.3. HI p.70. For such proposals see e.g. Carter,Websters' Dictionary (?), Marshall p.3. 16 government and maintains that voluntary institutions are best suited to express man's natural social tendencies'/ (Woodcock, Ency Phil, p.lll). While the first negative conjunct, which n governmental' right, might rate a pass (though anarchism is not always a philosophy, it is sometimes a practice), the second positive conjunct calls the whole account into doubt. Many humans naturally thrive in authoritarian settings. Defective definitions of anarchism abound, many regrettably supplied by high profile anarchists or well-regarded commentators (whereupon they assume a certain air of authority, a bogus air). A few examples will be considered, mostly drawn from a large list of similarly defective definitions included in Clark, who is out to show that any definition which attempts to do justice to anarchism through an essentialistic definition deploying one simple idea is bound to fail, abysmally, to does not 'mean literally "without government'" contrary to Carter, for one. It does however imply systems without governments of prevailing sorts, which is what she immediately proceeds to: 'and the lowest common demominator of anarchist thought is the conviction that existing forms of government are productive of wars, internal violence, repression and misery' (p.14). Right on! Kropotkin, for another, defines 'anarchism' in terms of 'society ... without government'. Like most of the brief definitions to be cited, this is neither necessary #)r sufficient. For 'government' has to be narrowed to its coercive and authoritarian determinate, and other archie arrangements also excluded. Many, Runkle for one, maintain that anarchism 'opposes authority in all its forms'; but elsewhere Runkle holds that its essence is individual liberty'. Others, Goodman for one, suggest anarchism is defined in terms of decentralization, still others, Bakunin for one, suggest characterisation in terms of 'organization from below upwards, by means of federation'. Again this is neither necessary nor sufficient. It is not so easy to And an adequate characterisation of anarchism. (I have found none in the literature, despite some searching. That is reason why a certain amount of work has gone into such basics). There is a tendency to leap from the inadequate to the excessive—a tendency exemplified by Clark, who also cites Woodcock approvingly. Anarchism is first contracted to a rather elaborate doctrine, or political theory, thereby excluding practice. Then requirements are sharply inflated: For a political theory to be called "anarchism" it must contain: 1) a view of an ideal, non-coercive, non-authoritarian society; 2) a criticism of existing society and its institutions, based on this anti-authoritarian ideal; 3) a view of human nature that justifies the hope for significant progress towards the ideal; and 4) a strategy for change, involving immediate institution of non-coercive, non­ authoritarian, and decentralist alternatives (p.127). As Clark indicates, this "minimum" "definition" is an elaboration of another account, briefer and 10 See Clark p. 118ff. Clark's attack on essentialistic definitions is in the style of Wittgenstein. 17 better, that Woodcock also offers: 'historically, anarchism is a doctrine which passes a criticism of existing society; a view of a desirable future society; and a means of passing from one to another" (cf. p.120). There is nothing here about human nature, which anarchism need have no particular views about, perhaps rejecting the notion altogether as part of archist propaganda or similar, n There is nothing about the ideal society, or any commitment to one. Anarchists are not seeking societies; that is an illusory, Enlightenment goal, have transformed to get another excessive condition of adequacy for anarchist societies. It would be quite enough to achieve satisfactory societies. 12 Realistic anarchists may even come to appreciate that there are no ideal societies, perhaps just various less unsatifactory and better justified societies than virtually all of the extraordinarily narrow range of modem societies presently exhibited or on offer. However Clark's discussion of "the ideal"" reveals that he does not really intend an ideal, but only one or other of the plurality of societies meeting certain adequacy conditions. It certainly does not intend a unique one, ideal. 'Some adequate" or similar should substitute" for 'an (the) ideal", and the definition should be duly pluralised. Outside explications of anarchism which answer back to dictionary accounts, there are various high redefinitions (e.g. Clark) and some weird redefinitions. One such weird redefinition is that proferred by Taylor, who—rightly enough contrasting anarchism with the presence of the state where there is a concentration of the means of deploying force—defines a as where 'force is perfectly dispersed, not concentrated at all" (82 p.6). But Taylor does advance from pure anarchy, of which there are no examples, to an illuminating discussion of the exercise of concentrated force in societies. In recognisably anarchistic societies there is but limited concentration of force (based on physical inequalities), which 'is /10c in use. There is no standing specialist group or organisation or centralised system of groups...' No doubt a /MZ/er anarchist f/t^ory has to accomplish much of what excessive characterisations of anarchism,^ list, and more. Any reasonably full theory should * include a critique of authoritarian and coercive features of present and past societies and their institutions; 11 12 13 The important matter of such "nature" is discussed later.. Presently we are very far removed from such societies, except for small communities mainly in rich countries. States have done extremely poorly in this regard. There is not one satisfactory state in all of Africa or the Americas. Even small European states that at least have avoided extensive poverty, homelessness, and violence are in doubt because of * virtually entire destruction of their natural environments * reliance for wealth on impoverished Third World countries * justified dissatisfaction of many of their inhabitants. those of Woodcock and Clark p.120, p.126. r 18 * outline features of noncoercive nonauthoritarian societies as alternatives to, and improvements upon present dominant social arrangements, for some regions at least; * suggest strategies for attempting to change from defective forms to improved alternatives. Clarke also tries to insist, what we shall subsequently reject, that for a 'theory to called "anarchism" it justifies the hope for significant progress towards the ideal' (p.127). As well as theory, there is practice. (Clarke also goes astray in excluding anarchism as a , "anarchism without doctrine", and so on.) The pracfice of anarchism, generously construed, naturally includes the state of being in anarchist conditions, of living under anarchism (though perhaps unaware of doing so). There is scope for wfr/toM? Many primitive societies thus qualify as anarchistic; they practice, or practiced, anarchism though unaware (somewhat as wild animals practice hygiene, knowing without knowing ;%af). Further, no doubt now stretching 'practice' beyond its assumed anthropic context, many animal communities practice anarchism, very successfully. Many attracted to anarchism, an anarchism without name even, long for analogous pure practice, many practicing environmentalists for instance. They hope that whatever it is will operate, perhaps even materialize, without any heavy-duty theory, without excess or even any intellectualizing, perhaps without even thought or much effort on their part. In contemporary circumstances they would have to be extraordinary lucky; a paternal state with caring elements, such as safe jobs and spoon-fed indoctrinal education for all citizens, does not relinquish its control voluntarily. While definitions can be defective or otherwise unsatisfactory, in m^y ways, one thing they are not is dogmatic (as suggested by Marshall, none too subtlely trying to evade critical details in delimiting his massive study, p.3). Though insisting upon^themes definitions yield upon substitution can be dogmatic, having or offering definitions is not. Significant criticism of definitions is logically different, belonging to different categories. As well as decking anarchism out with defective definitions, with all the scope for argumental malpractice that affords, there is a coupled practice of boxing anarchism in, by narrow and confining constraints, jf iZZ/czf/y ctrcMWMcri&ing (Whereas definitions characteristically yield necessary and sufficient, conditions, such circumscription concerns necessary, or possibly sufficient conditions). Many of the restrictions imposed are, however, quite inessential, and have rather the effect of excluding viable alternatives. Simple examples concern waAmg, which is sometimes taken as having always to be case by case, and elsewhere is seen as necessarily involving all parties, large assemblies, or even complete social participation. None of this is essential, often the restrictions would prove undesirable. Often the circumscription technique proceeds by presenting features of, or said to be of, 19 historic anarchism, then tacticly assuming that all anarchism must conform to those features.*4 That is one reason why definition and characterisation are important; so anarchism is not set in riged past forms, unable to adapt to new circumstances and ideas. Another example concerns the character of the anarchist revolution, onto which many restrictions are loaded, often resulting in gratuitous puzzles, which are removed with the impositions. For example, it is said that 'the revolution had to be a mass affair" (M p.94). But nothing in anarchism, or its general development, requires this. (As a result the dilemma Miller finds .p.99 ff., simply falls over.) A revolution could be carried out by an elite anarchist band, or, in some states, through a single governor or president. Again, it said that the revolution is bound to be authoritarian (which renders an anarchist revolution contradictory), violent, and so on. This we have on authority from Engels: 'a revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other by means of rifles [etc.] authoritarian means, if such there be at all', to which Miller adds approvingly that to say in power the party must rely on military means and 'terror of arms' (M p.92). None of this is so. A revolution could lag rapid change through mass conversion; for instance, there is a sign or appearance that is widely recognised, a new social movement which spreads like "wild fire", etc. 3. Anarchism and the state. While organisation and government are entirely compatible with anarchism, that most conspicuous modem institution, the state, is not: it is the paradigmatic archist form. Nor are ancient power formations such as the empire and the kingdom really compatible with anarchism. A prime reason is their authoritarian character and their extensive use of coercion and violence, but reasons als<4 includd^hein centralized organisation (such as power and hierarchical structure). Let us focus upon the state, against which a major and often virulent part of anarchistic political critique is directed; indeed such is the opposition to the state and its features that anarchism is sometimes distinguished in that way, in terms of 'hostility to the state ... [which] should be abolished and replaced by a new form of social organisation' (thus Miller p.5). But again these may be consequential, not characterising features of anarchism, which are derived from characterising features together with a standard theoretical characterisation of Under one such standard (though fairly strong^) characterisation, the state is a and 14 15 This is a much favoured tactic with critics of anarchism. For many examples, some only Quoted in the main text, see Miller. Although strong, in certain respects the characterisation is not strong enough. A state must not only be able to c/ai/n all these sorts of power, but sometimes to exercise them. Cf. Taylor's criticism of Weber's definition of the state (p.5). A body ... it claims complete authority to define the rights of its subjects .... Second, the state is a body, in the sense that everyone bom into a given society is forced to recognise obligations to the state that govern that society. Third, the state is a body: it claims a monopoly of force in its territorial area, allowing no competitor to exist alongside it (Miller p.5). It also normally claims other monopolies, such as on legal tender. It is virtually immediate, powers. So it is that anarchism is often epitomized as directed at the dissolution of, what is widely seen then, that the state is a comprehensive as major political problem, the state. As to why it is such a problem, anarchist critiques of the state, sketched below, will reveal. With anarchism implemented in a place there is then an end there to any institution that is recognisably a state. The subsequent argument for anarchism does not depend upon a strong characterisation of .yfafe, such as that so far offered. Even fairly weak characterisations will serve. But inadequate characterisations, such as the following, will not: 'a collective object with territorial boundaries and political organisation throughout that territory". For that omits essential features of the state, such as sovereignty, authority, coercive control; it describes a possible anarchist society. 16 Arguments/or the state (which anarchism is normally concerned to fault) are however sensitive to characterisation. Mostly these arguments reach little further than, justify no more than, some sort of "minimal state"", very different from anything the Earth has had on offer (e.g. a nice state guaranteeing basic rights rather than removing rights: but anarchism need hardly oppose such arrangements). So it will matter just how ^<2^ is characterized. But this is easier said than done: is a ^k cluster ( muqti-criterial) notion, explications of which are controversial and typically contested.i? In seeking a satisfactory working characterisation, a useful starting point is the following short definition: 'a collective item with territorial boundaries and political organisation exercising sovereign power".is As anarchism can comfortably accommodate the first parts, political organisation within a region, it is the last part, sovereign power (as spelt out, e.g., in Miller's account) that is the problematic distinguishing factor. In a way, the term ruling sui^ipreme, derived from la&Ctptein which reflects the Greek reigning or says it all, why anarchism is bound to oppose a state so empowered. Improved detailing will exhibit a similar division between acceptable and unacceptable. A state, which comprises a 16 A' 17 18 q/ Virtually all the key political terms that we shall encounter have a disconcerting multiplicity of meanings: so it is with state, sovereignty, democracy (422 senses in Naess p.30), ideology, and so on. Fortunately these terms are dealt with^ elsewhere in this work. For a useful attempt at a multi-criterial characterization,and discussion of controversies over characterisations see Dun^eary "The state * (in Goodin & Pettit). Reese, with 'item * substituted for 'entity * to evade reificative issues. 21 interconnected (their level of cohesion justifying a definite description), has domains consisting of a and of who form an associated society. The territory of a state consists of spatial regions, over which it normally exercises control. Subjects are generally those humans who regularly reside in the territory (citizens form a of subjects, singled out by possession of certain duties and rights). The state is not the only authoritarian body to be repudiated. Lesser authoritarian organisation, such as those proposed under terms of functionalism (military barracks, prisons, reform schools, etc.) are to be similarly repudiated. No doubt on occasion the ability to coerce makes an institution more "effective", much as childrens learning of uninviting material is sometimes rendered more effective by coercive means, e.g. heavy cannings, floggings. But the repugnant means, and their common chase outw^eight the gains, if any, in effectiveness achieved. Now, having thus arrived at regular anarchism, reputiating the state, we confess to the evident, to the refinement of the notion of anarchy away from widespread common usage where it functions primarily as a powerful directive away from disapproved anti-statist life. Given that anarchism is thereby rendered (as in many dictionaries which of course reflect usage) a contradictory notion, encompassing both disorder without the state and order alternative to the state, some refinement and some diversion of disorder is no doubt desirable. The trouble with this easy resolution is that the early uses of 'anarchism' in English operated precisely with the corrupt drunk-and-disorderly side of the contradiction—disorder as contrasted with spendid state order. That was what (in defiance of the original Greek meaning) 'anarchy' and 'anarchism' were introduced to mean (see OED citations from 16-17th C). Thus the early usage, which persists, contradicts the refined and now regular usage. In technical presentations this problem is easily sliced through, by coining a term to mean what anarchy as refined means (anaRyri'2 and anacracy are such terms). Here however we shall simply persist with the refinement of the prevailing term, and in the course of giving it etymological justification over the early corrupt uses, further refine. 19 But the justification for refinement is not only 19 Tempting as it may be to switch, alternatively to new, freeing terminology, that temptation has here been largely resisted. Anarchism is a term, and idea, worth retaining. Not that there is anything amiss with new terminology: quite the contrary, provided that it is well-indroduced and pointful. In the course of drafting this book, a variety of new terminology has been toyed with—including such nice terms as (signifying non-domination)—because, as is regularly emphasized, anarchism is now such a turn­ off for most people. No doubt in more pdular versions (written by someone else), anarchism will disappear from headings, displaced by new terminology with a hint of old such as ^ada^waacra^y, or, less scrupulously, its place usurped by ^car-vacuous terms in high popular favour such as d^/nocracy. In this less popular version, anarchism stays; but, in pa^t compensation, some pleasant absolute terms, and senses, have been revised. They offer acceptable alternatives. A more powerful consideration than negative connotations is perhaps this: The present text, though strictly / 22 etymological. Do we need yet another term for lawlessness, or for disorder? Don't we rather need a term to help break the false dichotomy between: the state or political disorder? As if there are no further alternatives, like stateless order of various kinds? Or (as much ill-informed literature suggests), no political theory without the state, merely untheorizable confusion? 4. A refined explication of anarchism. derives from the ancient Greek Etymologically meaning: without a chief or head, or without a top authority. Of course what the form derives from, though often indicative, does not determine what it now means. (Anarchism was not, after an ancient political theory, but is in fact, under familiar classifications, the most recent and novel of major political ideologies.) However it M worth drawing out the etymological meaning, because it is revealing. What it appears to exclude are political arrangements structured with a top element of any of the following authoritarian sorts: a monarch, a prince, a ruler, a leader, a president, a prime minister, and shifting from individual to group form, a party, a clique, a ruling elite, a central power such as a state, etc. There are, analysis reveals, two interacting foci: one, a top or centre, and two, control or dominance flowing from this top by what are adjudged inadmissible means, authoritarian or coercive means in particular. A chief both stands at the top of a power hierarchy and exercises authoritarian control from there. Under this anarchy entails double foci structure or organisation without inadmissible top-down or centralized means. Let us look at the foci in turn, beginning with the more independent one, the top. Topologically, wif/tonf % fop amounts to wzt/zoMt % cenfre, because by topological transformations (roughly&^nJzKg and stretching as what rubber objects will permit) what is a top transforms to a centre, and vice versa. Diagrams illustrate the transformations: top (of tree, semi lattice) o centre o investigating is so far removed from what normally enters under that denomination that different terminology is warranted, terminology which then has the advantage of shaking off all those negative associations of anarchy. The salient differences from run-of-the-mill anarchism will appear when preferred forms are detailed subsequently. 23 Volcano from top from sides * peak * peak Given such transformations, which will be taken for granted, anarchism also excludes arrangements structured with a controlling centre, such as a ruling central government. It implies decentralization in a precise sense. It does not thereby also remove all structure: it leaves intact a rich variety of structure including network arrangements with no centres (or with multiple "centres"), federation structures or similar. Yet another example is afforded by lateral structuring with central "centres" dispersed via function, as ilustrated;^ service "centres" The skeleton or scaffolding of organisation is structure; it is the frame on which organisation is hung, which organisation fills or fleshes out. The sense of explicating the underlying organic image, implies as much. According, for instance, to the Conci-ye Dzcfiofiuiy, 'structure: manner in which a building or organism or other complete whole is constructed, supporting framework or whole of the essential parts of something *. Structure itself is primarily, though not entirely, a matter of of elements and parts, among which order relations figure prominently, though not exclusively. That is, structure involves order, as a critical component. Remarkably, the same sort of <y%n/c%r&y occur in a range of seemingly diverse theoretical areas, not just social and political theory, to be displaced in each case by a similar sort of problem-dissipating structure. To illustrate, consider an order on a type (or set) of items Q given by one order relation R, 20 Insofar as there is a single centre, it is the bottom, the people. Major condinating issues are referred to people, for instance through referenda. So there a will be a referenda organising office, but it will be independent cooperative. 24 on item c in Q, i.e. R = Re- For example, where Q is a system of where R may itself worlds including your world the ordering R of worlds may depend on your world (and my world could supply a different order). Differently, where Qis a system of values or valued items, R may depend upon your values; and so on. As an orJer, R is at least transitive, and perhaps either (if like <) reflexive or (if like <) symmetric, on its ranged The system <Q, R> is a simple ordered structure, or ay%w%^. (The latter is the term now used in modal logic, where such structures are the bases of models for the logic.) A or top t of such a system is an element such that all items of Q bear R to t but which does not itself bear R to any element of Q. (The notion, that of -yMpreyniow, and likewise woxiwMw, may be similarly defined relative to subsets or types within Q.22) 77^oreTH. There are order structures without tops. Examples are provided by systems (often with much more structure) with no supremum. Here is a simple 6 element example drawn from relevant logical theory. +1 +2 „ = {=2,-l,-0, +0, +l,+2} +0 R - — is as shown by arrows. -0 -1 T = {+0, +1, +2} is a frufh component -2 Topologically, several notions of prime political and philosophical cast are tantamount to tops in order structures, including chiefs (top persons in power rankings) hierarchs, grand leaders, centres, absolutes, and objective items. Consider, a pertinent issue, the matter of control or authority, where as in the next diagram all elements to t. trans^ity required of order. 21 There are various cases, depending upon conditions 22 A supremum t of R (in type T) is an (that) element (of T) such that all elements (of T) bear R to t but which does not itself bear R to anything (in T). Looked at from above t is centre of a network. In the diagram shown, it remains a structure, a flattened hierarchy, when t and relations leading to it are deleted, under so to say. What this shows in a simple fashion is that there can be ordered structures without central control (and ranging further there can be statelessness, absence of central control, anarchy without "anarchy" or chaos, because there is order), structures. afford numerous examples. Order, including good order of a range of sorts, does not require central controls, leaders, absolute rulers or arrangements, or similar. Order does not require hierarchy, such hierarchy. 23 As immediate corollary is that inferences from anarchy (without a top or centre) to absence of order to disorder are fatally flawed. What lacks a top or centre may nonetheless enjy satisfactory order. Structures induced in anarchic arrangements can be far from chaotic (and may be modest and stable equivaien&s8i conditions). It is worth alluding to a much wider philosophical sweep. Related order structural considerations to those that tell against central states, absolute rulers, monarchs, patriarchs, top authorities as required for satisfactory order, also count against <2^x9/%^ of other sorts, such as absolute truth (there need be none, as the first diagram above indicates), absolute order (thus R 23 Part of what seems correct in Bookchin's vendetta against hierarchy can be captured in this way. More on this subsequently. 26 itself is relative to c), and of various sorts, such as objective fact (another supposed absolute), objective value (supplied under an absolute order), and so on. On this broad sweep the following sorts contrast sets emerged centralism elitism statism absolutism realism objectivism in rough contrast respectively with maximizing rationalism decentralism egalitarianism anarchism pluralism nonrealism nonjectivism satisizing rationalism Naturally, these simple structural considerations are only indicative, not decisive. For we might find, as more and more constraints are imposed on structures, as account is taken of actual conditions, that freedom contracts, that structural arrangements are forced towards centralism or absolutism. While such forcing may now look, in the light of a little logic, implausible, it requires further argument that it need not in general eventuate. The to be developed agam-yf takes these lines: that there is ready design of institutional arrangements for decentralised communities which does not lead back to a central state. The state is organisationally otiose. Organisation is delivered anencephaletically. For an added or infiltrated top or the centre to be troublesome, something anarchism need bother removing or shun where it figures, it has to have an role. Politically that presumably means exercising power in some way. That is, the head (the head that is lacking in %7i#rc%(?.y) is an operative head, not a mere figurehead. Anarchism need not exclude princes, monarchs, emperors, or "governors", such as some countries now maintain. If the people really like having such relics, royalty or "aristocracy", as is often said they do, then they can presumably have them if they are prepared to afford them. Indeed this figurehead role is just what is presumed for the prince under more plausible anarchist construals of Taoism.25 The ideal prince is a Taoist who takes no action, a sage who is rarely or never seen, whose existence may merely be known to the populace or even simply rumoured (that is almost to say, though Lao Tzu could not tactfully assert it, the ideal prince is a nonexistent inoperative sage). 24 For a fuller picture see Sylvan 93/4, chapter 10. 25 See Clark 84 p.165. Also UTD. 27 As indicated, the main features adduced are mirrored in logic, which can serve as a structural guide. It is striking, as well as technically advantageous, that logical and political predelictions converge. Mainstream irrelevant logics have algebraic structures with top elements, Boolean algebras in the case of classical logics. By contrast relevant logics, which now challenge the classical logical paradigm, do not. Their corresponding algebras, De Morgan monoids and such like need include no top element. The top element, T, is directly responsible for positive paradoxes, of the basic form A -* T (anything at all implies the True), of mainstream logics, paradoxes infecting much theory which relevant logic avoids.^ The logical structure shows that sub "centres" need not have such damaging effects; a plurality of local "centres", regional nodes, induces no paradox. The figurehead analogy also operates analogically, in logic. It does not matter if a semi­ lattice structure is extended to include a top element, so long as that addition provides only a conservative extension. (If T is added to top a relevant lattice, it has in stronger logics to be kept out of implication relations, else it will induce a non-conservative relevant extension with theses like A -* T.) But otherwise, as an inoperative top-piece it is admissible. Technical comparisons now reach much further than logic alone, as we leam more and more about decentralised structures, about decentralised cerebral organisation, decentralised Al and topless connectionism, and decentralised intelligent structure. Intelligent organisation without top or central elements may abound both in nature, for instance in insect cerebral organisation and in vertebrate brain structure, and in many future artificial intelligence applications. Logic and computing technology demonstrate, what is widely appreciated outside political theory, that topless is feasible.2? There is scope, and need, for twenty-first century anarchism to be highly techno-logically sophisticated. There is more to anarchism than political structure without an operative top, head or centre, than a lateral structuring. That more, the residue of the rejection of archy, is more difficult to characterize in a way non-prejudicial to types of anarchism. It is bound up with the operation of the active top, with the confroZ for example it exercises, the potter it exerts, or the like: non-prejudicially, it cannot operate As to what are unacceptable means, however there are different specifications. These many include—what can be summarized, under a single rubric, as —force, coercion, authoritarianism (and what implies any of those, such as totalitarianism); and, much more controversial, nonvoluntary, nonindividualistic, socialist and communist, means. As in dictionariess entries for "anarchism", only coercive and authoritarian elements will be ruled unacceptable (for 26 See WR. 27 The subsequently preferred variety of anarchism, while not at all opposed to slates losing their heads, is powerfully opposed to people literally loosing their heads (figuratively again, it may be alright). 34 A Gramsci, 'The intellectuals * and 'The modem prison * in gcZccfzony /row ?7zc Prz'yon M?fc&ooRy (ed. Q. Hoare and G.N. Smith), International Publishers, New York, 1971. D. Mannison and others (eds.), Environment?/ P/zz/oyopAy, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1980; referred to as EP. D. Miller, Aaarc/zzym, J.M. Dent and Sons, London, 1984; referred to as M. D. Mitrany, 7%c Ennctona/ 77zcory o/PoEr/cy, Martm Robertson, London, 1975. A. Naess and associates, Democracy, /Jeo/ogy aaJ D/?/eciiviiy, Oslo University Press, Norway, 1956. R. and V. Routley, 'The irrefutability of anarchism *, &?cza/AZfcrnaEvcy, R. and V. Routley, 'Social theories, self-management and environmental problems *, in EP; referred to as SM. R. Sylvan, and D. Bennett, 'On Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology *, D/ycayyzoa Papery in EavzrozzmczzZaZ P/zz/oypp/zy, #19, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1990. R.P. Wolff, 7a De/ence o/Aaarc/zzym, Harper & Row, New York, 1970. ADDITIONAL SOURCES P. Nursey-Bray, an Aaaa/arcJ EzEZzagrap/zy a/Aaarc/zzym , Greenwood Press, 1992. END NOTES 2 Cf Clark p.ll8ff. The general methodological issue of multiple determinates of key political terms and their archist confinement is taken up in a later chapter. *J^A /TrT^^<Z7 (y/^cA e.ncrcicj/ ^ A A' '< -' z? y // /yr *-^. C r^O V. J * /X o J* ,<^A<_ . ) *4 C^c/^ / /Xot^z &J> f A-w^ t^i^L to n > etA A jt? cj C rZ-?/T^T <*C Zt , <^<!"// , cx^d /7^/^'Cx ^9 /?. 3* f,. /A^t / TL^i- c— ^^4—UT^-? ^-7y47 /^" <-/ f' z' ^^L-J 7 1 CHAPTER 2. ELABORATIONS OF ANARCHISMS There are wany anarchist theories. For an anarchist theory is any laterally structured theory which duly conforms to the anarchy principle, of rejecting political authority and coercion. While received anarchist theories restrict anarchism to certain more specific forms (the standard options of considered below), p/ara/ijtic anarchism does not; plural anarchism not only admits the plurality, but takes advantage of it any may revel in it. Not all of this variety, not all anarchisms in the sheaf of systems, are of equal merit. Some forms are decidedly undesirable — like anarchisms expanding on the violent or chaotic varieties of popular imagination — in much the way that the nasty states of modem history, that anarchism opposes, are undesirable. Such undesirability may devolve from external rather than internal political characters. Thus, for instance, regions committed to global power projection to retain their privileged way of life (most unlikely under anarchistic arrangements) or committed to transnational terrorist practices. While standard anarchisms have been located in the more desirable, or even eutopian, end-range of anarchist systems, they by no means exhaust the satisfactory forms or even the most promising forms (as explained in chapter 5). Indeed in important respects the desirable range is significantly open for further elaboration of newer (and greener) forms. As varieties of anarchy may diverge, widely, so correspondingly do motivations and justifications for various divergent forms. The motivations, for instance, range from entirely theoretical (conceding to the warranted force of political scepticism) to practical (changing the local world); from personal and perhaps selfish (getting the state off one's back, or out of one's business and one's till) to other directed (eliminating a state oppressing its people) to environmental (disestablishing another vandalistic state). Common motivations trace back to the common character of anarchism: repulsion by, or opposition to, oppression, perhaps generalised from the state to all analogous political and bureaucratic structures, or expanding on that again, to all gross power relations. Indeed it is appealingly suggested that what anarchy is really all about is gross power relations, their reduction and removal; state coercive and authoritarian power are but paradigmatic of such power and domination relations. But while such opposition to gross power does characterizer gentler anarchism, heavy power methods are acceptable to tougher anarchisms; gentler anarchisms tend, so it will be argued, to be all of more pacific, more liberal and more rational than tougher or hardened anarchism. There are other expansionary liberal democratic motives for anarchism, further varying this theme: a yearning for removal of constraints, and for more extensive freedom; or a desire for more extensive equality, which would of course diminish those inequalities power delivers. Such motivations too have illicitly worked their way into variant characterisations of anarchism. ? 2 While a popular image of anarchists remains that of hardened terrorists, exercising authority over hostages using state-manufactured guns, many anarchists are joined by opposition to all such naked authority or coercion. Indeed 'behind the anarchist attack on the state and other coercive institutions, there has often stood a fundamental critique of the idea of authority itself (M p.15). An important, though certainly not invariant, mofivafmg and r^<?n for anarchism derives from a more sweeping anti-authoritarianism: the theme that no person or organisation can ever rightfully exercise authority of (political cast) over another. Picturesquely it is the theme that no authority is justified, no one, state or other, has a right to push another around. Too briefly it is sloganised to assert, no bosses, no leaders, or similar. Such general opposition to the principle of authority has even been dubbed "philosophical anarchism". It is an unfortunate choice of terminology given Feyerabend's different anarchistic challenge to much in philosophical theory and practice. * But some further classification and labelling undoubtedly helps. A princZp/^J anarchism takes exception on principled, characteristically ethical, grounds to objectionable authority or to coercion, that is to prime target elements undiluted anarchism directly rejects. But irrespective of type of anarchism intricated, much in anarchist theory, including a fuller characterisation, turns upon the twin notions of anf/ion/y and coercion, what these terms mean and cash out to, and why it is considered important to avoid damaging features of this sort? Both authority and coercion fall into the general category of power relations, a category that has rightly featured large not merely in anarchist theory but in social theory more comprehensively. As Aristotelian definitions of 'authority and coercion , by gunus and differentia, will be offered, an essential preliminary consists in pinning down the genus, power. * Power gm/ reZevan? serfs. Defective definitions of power, authority and coercion abound. Despite the importance of the notions for political theory, not just for anarchism, it is rare to encounter satisfactory formulations. A defective formulation from recent relevant anarchist theory defines power as 'the ability to compel compliance, either through the use of force or the threat of force (Wolff p.4), a conspicuously high redefinition. Rather, a power reZofion is a relation where one of the relata, that having the power, can normally get the other relata to do something (down to entertaining a belief, considering an idea). Power is a can-do; it may not be exercised. But there need be no compulsion or compelling compliance; nor need its exercise always succeed. Further its exercise need not involve force or threat thereof; it may be effected by a range of other means. 1 By Wolff, and following him, Miler and others. Feyerabend's philosophical anarchism, his is sometimes better labelled anarc/h-yiH, a type of nihilism. But it stops short, excluding logical methods (irrationally scorned however) from variation^ .In fact without a sharp—unavailable—distinction between logical and other (empirical or pwidivist) methods, this methodological anarchism is incoherent. 3 on the one side, bribery, seduction, blackmail, and so on, and on the other, knowledge, prowess, charisma, and so on. It is no secret that major problems in human social and political affairs devolve upon power, its excessive or evil use, misuse, regulation and control. But by no means all power, not even all political power, is bad. Distangling the undesirable, negative forms is an essential exercise, often neglected. After observing the failure of radical social theory to provide an adequate investigation of power, Clark embarks on a critique of the "classical model"2 According to the received conception, power is depicted as a relation of domination in which the powerful subject the powerless to control in order to exploit the latter. In both classical Marxism and anarchism this exploitation is conceived as being essentially economic. Thus, for Marx, "political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another (p.231). It is evident that what we see here is an attempt to explain power through, and then reduce power to, certain of its determinate forms: domination, then control, exploitation, oppression, and then organised and economic forms of these. These determinates are all, though important, rather special and rather negative, black forms of power. Power may be short-term, just for a day for instance or once only (a creature requires power only for a short period, because of what it is, because it loses power thereafter, because it has access to short-term drugs, magic, hypnosis, contracts, etc.). Domination is a longer-term relation, a disposition, between recognised parties, with a decided bias in favour of one party the power-holder; exploitation and oppression increase that bias, in specifiable ways, control however removes it. Power may, furthermore, be applied for positive and libertary, purposes, to help powerless to achieve something or other, to survive, prosper, and so on. Briefly, the concerning power is not power itself, but certain of its forms, its negative forms, and its excessive use. This last can be assimilated, by taking excess as a negative form. The negative forms are, of course, though they can be independently specified, the bad, or undesirable forms, forms as was earlier said.3 These include, among other forms, closed authority and coercion. They also include such overlapping forms as oppression, exploitation, domination, and so on. Privilege goes with these latter forms; it is held by the power-holders and their circle. It is held moreover exclusively by this circle; others, at the other end of the power relation, the power-less, are excluded from its possession. That is, the domain and range of a given power relation are exclusive: no one is both an exploiter and exploited (though of course someone, a husband day labourer for example, may be both exploited in his labour and domineering over his wife). 2 3 A critique, p.231 ff. too quickly petering out in an inconclusive, discussion of Foucault on power, where power turns into what is not, something mystical and all-pervasive. In these respects, power is like other notions, of green political significance, for one, for another. 4 There are two separable kinds of undesirable power: excessive and malselective or illdirected. The two kinds are more or less replicated in other significant phenomena that have been, like power, too sweepingly condemned: economic growth and material consumption. The problematic concerning human consumption is not consumption itself, some level of which is essential to human societies and indeed survival. The problems derive basically from excessive consumption and from poorly selected consumption. Conspicuous consumption, insofar as it delivers a negative form, derives from these: it is either excessive and wasteful or malselective or a mix of these. But the kinds are distinctive. For example, a poor family that buys expensive junk food may spend its limited income poorly, but its consumption may well not be excessive. Similarly with power: the limited power an individual or group possesses, whether exercisable for evil or not, may be better or worse directed. In term of power and its gross exercise, much in more gentle anarchisms can be / synthesized, namely all that is otherwise packed into the rubric: unacceptable means. What is unacceptable is gross exercise of power, including types of political power exploited by tougher anarchisms, terrorist power, crude fire power from the barrels of guns, and so on. What correspondingly gentler anarchisms oppose are all institutions and arrangements, not just the state and those tied to it, that can exert gross power. The state mightly concentrates, and centralizes, such power/ Even so the state is merely paradigmatic among undesirable and excessive power structures — a power hungry one at that, since it looks for a surplus product in power, along with a monopolistic position. But militia posts, torture shops, and pirate ships are other more localized structures. Coercive and closed authoritarian arrangements (opposition to which helps define anarchism) are distinctive marks of such grossness. Dilute anarchisms tone down opposition certain types of power (typically authority); they admit exercise of power that gentler anarchism would regard as gross. From the problematicness and undesirability of excessive power, main objectives of ( anarchism for ameliorative change flow: decentralisation, division and separation of powers. Centralised powers are to be separated and decentralised; aggregated powers to be broken down into functional components; and so on. Tougher anarchism proposes more, rival power play, resisting and undermining power through power, to break down its excesses and reveal its limitations, fighting fire with fire. One trouble with this tough and morally dubious strategy, which can be spectacular, is that it easily overreaches, producing for instance inadmissible coercion of others. 4 Not all state power is undesirable. Some of state regulation and redistribution, effected through power is certainly desirable. The argument will be that these elements are completely outweighted by the undesirable components of state power, and that they can be independently effected without the state. 5 Gentler anarchism travels in the vanguard of the long retreat from barbarism in human practices and institutions. In more enlightened parts of the world we have witnessed the progressive removal of physical punishment, such as: maiming, blinding, executing, stoning, torturing, transporting, flogging, corporal punishing, starving, chaining, incarcerating, imprisoning, infecting, ...and extensions, such as: serious threats thereof and assistance or encouragement of these practices elsewhere. Such enlightenment has not penetrated many parts of the world to any extent, and has far to reach yet even in the most civilized regions. TTyugh the gentler anarchist theme of curtailment of power, we can tap into several rich connections. The excessive drive to power and strength, the "will to power", is a conspicuous feature of modernity. Interestingly Nietzsche went so far as to claim that the will to power was basic motive in human affairs. Fortunately such a socio-psychological claim, about prevailing human nature and institutions, has little to substantiate it. But undoubtedly power motivates much, much too much, in modernity; otherwise anarchism would lose much of its more sweeping point. It was not always so; the quest for power at all costs, the flaunting of power, was at least highly problematic (as drama revealed); it did not always gain the adulation it now widely commands. It did not win respect from early anarchism, as manifested in Stoicism and Taoism. It would not have won endorsement from Aristotelibnism; for power, of both institutions and individuals, like so many other attributes, is evidently similarly constrained to a While the rough bounds are evident enough for an instrumental object such as a vehicle, which wastes fuel and becomes dangerous when excessively powered, but cannot perform its tasks if underpowered, the bounds, especially ^e lower, may not be so conspicuous elsewhere (e.g. with military hardware, intelligence reserves, etc.). Organisations and institutions, which should be vehicles to serve social ends, enjoy once again a striking analogy with logical systems. Logical systems, when excessively strong in the fashion of modem mainstream systems, ensnarl users in a tangle of paradoxes and other troubles (for detailed discussion see RLR, p.240 ff.). On the other hand, if they are excessively weak they fail to meet reasonable conditions of adequacy, to afford satisfactory vehicles of inference and reasoning. Two species of gross power feature particularly in the definitional elaboration of anarchism: authority and coercion. While undesirable authority is characteristically tied into excessive power, coercion is different, is often once-off, and is malselective power. 6 * Authority, and warranted repugnance of closed forms. Authority is a type of power relation, a relation with the power or influence conferred or supported by other features of one of the relata, the bearer of authority, namely character, station, recognised control of coercive means, or the like. itself is the abstract of the relation : a has authority over or with respect to b. Authority is a proper subrelation of power. For evidently many power relations — those exerted by bullies, bandits, etc — are not authority relations, since the relation is not supported by suitable station. Again the following definition of authority (upon which Wolff founds his philosophical defence of anarchism) is far too narrow: "the right to command, and correlatively, the right to be obeyed" (p.4). Only some who hold authority may be (conventionally) conceded a right to command, or more broadly, to exercise their power. For evidently their power may be exercised in a variety of other ways than through command structures, such as blockages, delays, vetoes, withholdings, and so on, and on the other side, concessions, gifts, rewards, and so on. There are many types of authority relations, many inadmissibly excluded under narrow definitions, not all of which are objectionable, or objected to by anarchists. For an example of an unobjectionable sort, consider the relation of a student to an authority in some field of knowledge, who can in turn back up expert judgements by appeal to a further range of assessible evidence. Such an authority might be called frampar^if (or open), because those with time and some skill can proceed through the authority to assess claims made. Among op%n authorities are contemporary teachers, by contrast with old fashioned disciplinarians, and advanced parents, who can back up their orders with satisfactory reasons. Contrasted with such authorities are op&q%^ (or cZo<y^%f) authorities, who simply stand on their position or station, such authority is objectionable in part because of its dogmatic character.^ Closely allied to op^M^ authorities who can appeal to a conventional rule or procedure (that is how things are done, have been done) without being able to or prepared to opaque authorities are step beyond some rule book. Rule-book authorities are commonplace in bureaucracies, which often encourage such practice in lower level officials. In opaqM^ authorities the justificatory procedure stops a step further out; there is a set of rules, which has been enacted (for reasons not open to, or bearing, examination) by a further substantially opaque authority. Other authority relations are objectionable because of the way in which or the means by which they are backed. Unobjectionable is the authority figure which is exemplary, where what it exemplifies is in its tum satisfactory. Not so relations backed by coercive means, by violence or threats of violence: Big-stick authority relations. Such relations are condemned on moral 5 The impression is widely promoted that science reliably furnishes examples of transparent authorities, in the shape of experts. That impression is astray. Dominant Science frequently functions as a substantially closed authority, rather as the universal Church did, standing on received theory as gospel (for elaboration see DP, chapter 12). 7 grounds, for example by moral pacifists opposed to violence, who do not object to the carrot methods such as sanctions, boycotts, civil disobedience, etc. A diagram will summarise the position so far attained. o/'gMf/tonfy Confine##.? Methods carrot <- stick possibly benign Pacifist Back-up transparent T opposition A opaque Enlightenment Liberal opposition opposition It will be evident that the objections to nonbenign authoritarian relations—to what in clear cases may be presented as to — can be of significantly different sorts. To more opaque authority relations there are objections of enlightenment cast, that reason is lacking for what an authority requires, proposes or asserts, as it was lacking in authoritarian religious and political practice against which the Enlightenment was primarily targeted. (A significant strand of anarchism, more theoretical anarchism, is a descendant: undisclosed reasons of State are not adequate reasons.) To more coercive authority relations there are objections from non-violence devotees. To there may be a kind of liberal opposition, that the party subject to authority is being denied, in one way or another, for unacceptable reasons, a certain freedom, namely ' autonomy. Naturally, movements have been directed at breaking down authoritarian power relations: masters over slaves, humans over animals, men over women, adults over children, etc. States over citizens. A comprehensive civil liberties movement would merge with anarchist movements. Plainly then, these three convergences are linked to three interconnected forms of opposition to authoritarianism: namely * convergence of anarchism with an Enlightenment opposition to opaque authority, which anarchism takes to include state authority. (A response will contend, as religious groups did against Enlightenment charges, that State authority is justified, e.g. it represents the people's will, or some similar fairy tale. But that is what is at issue.) * convergence of anarchism with moral pacifism in opposition to violence and coercion as unmitigated evils which should always be avoided. Of course only some forms of anarchism are 8 involved. Some anarchists are not averse at all to the exercise of heavy power relations, for instance of violence or terror against others (no matter how this violates their free personal space). But observe that such uses of power are not supported by recognised authority but normally directed agnm-sf such authority; so they might be dubbed relations. * convergence of anarchism with forms of liberalism, deriving from solid commitment of normal forms of anarchism, particularly individual varieties to personal liberty. Libertarian ideals have served as a major motivation in historical anarchism. There is a vision of a free society, a 'vision of a society in which social fetters are replaced by social bonds and labour is freely undertaken'.6 ( There are of course other convergences as well, some of them much discussed, such as with marxism. When opposition to authority is broadened to opposition to domination, no doubt there are further convergences, with feminism, with deep environmentalism. A recent convergence, of initial promise, is with ecofeminism, which ought to highly sympathetic to environmentally sensitive anarchism. For both are opposed to domination in all its forms, to downward control lines and power hierarchies. There is an important argument against the state based on its authoritarian character. This argument, to be found is Proudhon and in embryonic form in Rousseau, is developed and given a Kantian tum in Wolff? What Proudhon portrayed as a conflict between the authority of the state and freedom, Wolff represents as 'the conflict between authority and autonomy' (p.18). In this conflict, where the state represents authority, autonomy takes precedence; anarchism is consistent with the supreme virtue of authonomy, but archist doctrines supporting the state are not, because of authoritarian character of the state. Because Wolffs argument has been subject to much criticism which an improved formulation would shed, because too Wolffs formulation leaves something to be desired (it is not sufficiently sharp or tight), the argument will be revamped. A crucial difference is this: whereas Wolff asserts that 'all authority is equally illegitimate', a judgement already rejected, it is now said that all authority is illegitimate, meaning thereby wtoraZ/y illegitimate, not 'having a binding moral force ? 6 7 8 Chomsky, in Guerin p.xii, As to Proudhon see Ritter p.13, pp. 15-16. According to Rousseau such undesirable restrictive features need not pertain for all forms of government; naturally they do not obtain for his favoured arrangements. Wolff tries to repeat this sort of point, less than successfully for unanimous direct democracy. Of course a state may proclaim, even legislate, that its authority is legitimate, and even have other states do the same. But that will not achieve moral, a de jt/re, legitimacy. It is similar when the state endeavours to enforce its authority; /noraf legitimacy is not thereby obtained. Nonetheless these sorts of features go far towards explaining why people acknowledge, rarely questioning, closed authorities like the state. There are other elements which enter into explaining this popular sheepishness, such as: The force of tradition, that is the way things have always been done, the 9 Nor is all closed authority equally objectionable. The unquestionable directives of a benevolent dictator (one whose authoritarian directives and regulations prove inductively to be well directed) can be seen as less objectionable than those of a malevolent dictator. Similarly for a dictatorial group, a junta, or a majority. That the dictator said so, or that the majority said so, does not offer a reason rendering the state less than a closed authority. A core theme, to be embroided and defended, is W1. An autonomous person does not recognise a closed authority as legitimate. But W2. The state is a closed authority, of a certain of course. Hence WC1. An autonomous person does not recognise the state as legitimate. The core theme depends crucially on the notion of aMfonowy, on characterising features of the autonomous person. But before that task is addressed, observe that autonomy can be eliminated. First, the rafiona/ person, or a little less satisfactorily, the person, can carry the argument instead, using for instance W3. A rational person is autonomous. So results Wl' with 'rational' displacing 'autonomous', W1'. A rational person does not recognise a closed authority as legitimate. That premiss at once suggests a direct argument devoid of the circuit through persons (or through agents). For what a rational, still more an enlightened, person does not recognise as legitimate presumably is not, and certainly vice versa. In any case, U1. A closed authority is not legitimate. Hence, by W2, UC1. The state is not legitimate. Since this conclusion is equivalent to UC2. The concept of a legitimate state is null, the result sharpens the tentative conclusion Wolff reaches: 'Hence, the concept of a jure legitimate state would appear to be vacuous', to which he adds, thereby presuming other links already made explicit, 'and philosophical anarchism would seem to be the only reasonable political belief for an enlightened man' (p.19). As observed, not too much hangs upon the notion of moral legitimacy deployed, thus far following Wolffs lead, throughout. Simple variations replace 'morally legitimate' or 'legitimate' by 'morally warranted', 'morally justified', 'justifiable', 'rightful' (the last, though a trifle old-fashioned, captures what is intended well). force of character of leaders; their occupation of official positions, which have heavy bureaucratic backing. 10 These arguments permit of much other interesting variation. Wolff s original argument, for instance, precedes from authority as The defining mark of the state', with authority defectively explicated as 'the right to rule' (p.18). Evidently then the middle term, authority, can drop out, and the argument can be formulated along the following lines: VI. The state has the right to rule (without question, its citizens, more or less as it pleases). V2. An autonomous person rejects any (sweeping) right to rule. Therefore VC1. An automonous person rejects the state. Further variations may be obtained by amending the middle term, "right to rule without question" (which effectively replaced "exercise of close authority") to reflect other features of the state, for instance that it can simply tell its citizens what to do, that is has a right to coerce its citizens, rights to institute state monopolies, and so on. Under some variations "autonomous person" should be correspondingly replaced. For instance, if VI is specialized from a right to command and control to the right to send citizens to war, then V2 may be adjusted to apply to the person of conscience, of peace, or similar. As Wolff seeks a grander conclusion than VC1, which might be merely taken to reveal that there are but few autonomous actors about, he invokes a further premiss V3. Autonomy is a (even the) primary obligation. From there, it is an analytic shuffle to the more impressive conclusion VC2. The state ought to be rejected. The arguments are as vulnerable as their premisses. What gets especially contested in the first argument is Wl, concerning the autonomous person. For all the surface reasonableness and even open-door aspects of a more liberal state, W2 holds; it swings into effect as soon as the going gets tough. As Dahl puts it, To obey the authority of the state ... means doing what the you do it'? While there may be a little scope for light and reson as regards more flexible minor officials, that scope is officials of the state tell you to do simply and soley ( t/z^y small; the wall of closed authority can be quickly encountered, particularly with judges and law enforcement officers. If W2 did not hold the state would risk sliding into a voluntary organisation, out of which citizens could opt. In the end citizens are expected to act in a variety of ways (fill in form, take out licences, pay taxes, etc.) because the state tells them to, just because, or else face punitive action. The argument to Wl depends heavily on the meaning of gMfono/ny. Here is one way it can be presented (following Dahl): An autonomous person is self determining. Such a person is not under the direction or choices of another item. While the person may do what another tells him 9 See p.92..Dahl's reconstruction of Wolff effectively applies W2, using Wolffs definition of HMf%<?r#y, to obtain VI. This produces a more complex, and defective, argument. G 11 or her, she does not she has been told to do it. Thus the autonomous person does not conform to closed authorities, and does not acknowledge them or assign them recognition (more than recognition that is). While autonomy is one thing, responsibility is quite another; still a critical reason for arriving at autonomy intricates responsibility. ... so long as we recognise our responsibility for our actions, and acknowledge the power to reason within us, we must acknowledge as well the continuing obligation to make ourselves authors of such commands as we may obey (Wolff p.17), i.e. to make ourselves autonomous. A primary moral demand, central to the moral condition, is, according to Kant and Wolff, to 'acknowledge responsibility and achieve autonomy whenever and whenever possible" (p.17). Assuming responsibility in a life is by means the only reason for striving for autonomy: achieving a certain personal freedom (within natural bounds) and operating a life rationally are other crifica/ reasons. A main argument to V3 indicated by Wolff does proceed from responsibility. It is simply that in order to take full responsibility (for one's actions, choices, etc.), which one should, one has to be autonomous. So one should be autonomous. At least as important philosophically as the argument from W1 and W2 is that from Wl' and W2. While the argument to Wl' may proceed through autonomy it may short-circuit it. The philosophical argument for Wl' is well-known, having been repeatedly emphasized from Socrates through to Russell: that a rational person does not accept anything for which there are not independent investigatible reasons and evidence. The pronouncements of a closed authority do not fall into this class. By revamping the arguments especially that from autonomy as directed against authority, many objections to Wolffs arguments are fairly autonomically voided. Firstly (contrary to Dahl p.47), the arguments are not (any longer, if they ever were) arguments against 'authority of any kind". Not merely was Wolff concerned with the authority of the state; further as Dahl points out next page, the type of authority concerned is that of 'doing what someone tells you to do fo ^Zo if, that is a closed form. A rational person can of course acknowledge an open authority who can offer reason and evidence for prono^cements. For similar reasons, experts, guides and guardians, of open character, are not excluded. Accordingly the arguments does not cut "too broad a swath""; while it properly cuts out closed authorities like absolute rulers, states and similar, it does not mow down open authorities. In like fashion, much of Miller's parallell criticism of philosophical anarchism is voided. Things go astray (in Miller's chapter 2) from the very outset, from the slack formulation of "the principle of authority"", which is chauvinistically formulated, 'no man can ever rightfully exercise political authority over another, that is have a right to issue directions which the other has an obligation to obey' (p.15), and which is then intended to apply to the relation of a state 12 and its officials to its citizens. The formulation has both to be expanded to include persons and organisations as subjects of the relation, and sharply contracted to delimit the kinds of authority and rights concerned. For the explanatory (that is) clause offered reaches far beyond (closed) political authority; it would wrongly rule out contractual relations such as those of freely arranged employment, parental relations, and so on. The counterexamples Miller designs to Wolffs arguments also depend upon shifting ground from closed authority like the state to more open arrangements, such as contracts an autonomous person may have entered into freely. Plainly there will be a limited range of such contracts that a rational person will enter into; long-term future bondage or slavery will not be among them, and Miller's examples may border on the rationality dubious. In any case, in one, an agent morally concerned to relieve poverty enters into authoritarian arrangements, imagined unavoidable for successful action, in which it becomes obligatory for the agent to act under authoritative instruction (p.28). Firstly, the authorities are not closed, they have to be pursuing means directed to poverty relief, else an autonomous agent will not enter into such ". * arrangements Secondly, while contractual obligations, and therewith certain directives of open authoritarian cast, may constitute reasons for action, the situation with the state is very different. There is no contract, and no reasons of contract (also lacking are spotless reasons justifying entering into such a contract). Examples like Miller's arrangements and contracts can be inflated into stock flawed arguments, from consent to the state. Unremarably, Dahl attempts to patch up again these well- worn arguments, but in two mutually inconsistent ways. Second, he proposes that To opt for a democratic state' is The most responsible way of exercising our moral autonomy', and reasonable and rational as ways of maximizing our autonomy (p.49). Insofar as there are any arguments for such wishful conclusions, they depend upon familiar fantasy-world assumptions about the blackness of nonstate arrangements presumed to impact utterly unfavourably on autonomy and the contrasting whiteness of democratic states. That those states are at best a pretty dirty gray, Dahl's first more honest considerations suggest. There he asks, What is so great about autonomy? 'Why not sacrifice some moral autonomy?' As 'unlimited autonomy is impossible', why not settle for autonomy within reasonable state limits? (cf p.48). Compare: why not sacrifice some resistance to homocide and settle for reasonable killing of humans for reasons of state? The moral importance of autonomy Wolff has already explained nicely (pp 14- 17). Autonomy is a primary oM/ganon of rational persons, a constraint, not what Dahl converts it utilitarian-fashion into, a supreme value, to be questioned then traded off against other values. Because of its importance for rational practice the obligation should not be weakened; nor is there good reason to do so. There appear no grounds for forfeiting autonomy to closed 10 Compare Wolffs discussion (on p.15) of relations with one's doctor. 13 authorities, such as the state. It is doubtful that there are even grounds for what Wolff allows, forfeiture of some autonomy to one s doctor, hopefully no longer a closed authority, rather than retaining autonomy and freely following the doctor's advice. Autonomy is not like freedom in limitations; it can in principle always be exercised by a rational person. Submission to the state is a gross forfeiture of that autonomy. While an autonomous agent may place itself under guidance of leadership of another for limited purposes, and may indeed enter into certain sorts of contracts, it will not surrender its whole future life or extensive parts of it to a directorate that may well proceed in suboptimal, subliminal or even irrational ways. Yet that latter is what expected acceptance of the state implies. Accordingly an autonomous person cannot recognise the state; nor can a fully rational one, as it is irrational to place oneself indefinitely under a closed authority. It may be objected that it is unfair to treat Dahl, Miller and others in the preceding fashion, which changes the dialectical playing field. They were attacking Wolff and his over-extended arguments, not a refinement of Wolff which singles out the philosophical nasty elements in authority, and accordingly destroys their counter-examples which operated at the rational open end of authority relations. But that was not all that they were doing. They were using Wolff as a vehicle to draw quite conclusions about the unviability of principled anarchism (e.g. Dahl p.50, Miller p.29), and accordingly should have taken account of simple revampings of arguments like those of Wolff. Nor is this the only respect in which their practice is methodologically unsound. A principle—like that of closed authority, that such authority is legitimate—does not stand because someone's attack (e.g. Wolff s) against it is unsuccessful. Yet this is Miller's methodological procedure against philosophical anarchism (p.26, p.29). This is Popperian falsificationism gone rampant and badly astray. For Popper at least required sustained and strenuous testing and adequate variation; not a few select and easy examples. But of course a Popperian approach by archists is unsatisfactory; the onus of argument is the other way around. An archist has to establish that political authority, such as that the claims and exercises, is rightful. That Wolff intended to work with something like closed authority should have emerged both from Wolffs emphasis on the place of 'grounds and sources' in legitimate authority (p.9), and his flirtation with unanimous direct democracy. What Wolff is exercised about is not compliance with a authority or obedience where there are good or independent reasons for it, but blind, or closed obedience: doing what you are told because you are told to do it (p.9). (Yours not to reason why, yours but to do ....) While these points exonerate Wolff from some overzealous criticisms, they immerse him in others, namely his attempt to combine authority with autonomy under unanimous direct democracy. A major problem is that this combination, 14 so far as it is workable^, appeals not to the closed authority of the state, but to open autonomous arrangements which do not conform to requirements of the state (as Dahl remarks on p.48, the "authority" here is not the "authority" of his earlier definition'; and as Miller observes on p.27, *it is ... arguable whether this state of affairs [under unaminous direct democracy] involves the recognition of Autonomy and freedom tell not merely against the exercise of opaque authority, but against use of coercion. This connection affords the basis for a parallel argument to that against closed authority, to the desirability of a sharp decline in deployment of coercive methods. But parallels between coercion and closed authority do not proceed very far. * Coercion, an impermissible activity. Coercion is very different from exercise of authority. All four places, 1 to 4, in a cross­ classificatory matrix are regularly occu Died: actions coercive authoritative 1 non-authoritive 2 non 4 coercive 3 Place 1 is well occupied given the State, and is widely exemplified in not only state-citizen relations, but also in authorized domination relations. Place 2 is illustrated in a range of operations which the state often tries to repress such as banditry, piracy, protection rackets, but also in a variety of interpersonal relations. Place 4, that clear indicator of unqualified anarchism, is well exemplified through voluntary cooperation and mutual aid. Place 3, characteristic of many work-place and educational situations, can be easily illustrated through advanced ( education. Coercion, unlike authority, is action. That is why comparisons are with .... of authority; authority may sit, like power, unused, but coercion cannot. Like all action it is a process, a state to state transition, but actively changing or maintaining state. It is a transitive action relation having both a doer, a coercer, and done-tos, coerced, all normally creatures. The transitions include a wide range of more determinate actions such as constraining, restraining, securing, moving, pushing, pulling and so on; and thus coercion (the abstract) includes forcible constraint and compulsion. An essential feature of coercion is that state transitions are effected A/<Z or attempted by coercers through force or genuine threats of force. No such force, no coercion. NY- Defective definitions of coercion are liable particularly to neglect this feature. Thus e.g. Fridman 11 Wolff himself concludes it is not except under highly improbable conditions. Indeed the conditions are more onerous those Wolff allows: required are humans who having consented do not change their minds, etc. _________ /e /6 L < s _ _ z^<^4^-f ___' / ^ry^- /i, <^___ . 15 p.xviii, according to whom being coerced is 'not being left alone'. Perhaps in one special sense, but a person who chooses to have a constant companion is not being thereby coerced. Pressuring someone to do something without attempts or threats to apply force is not coercion. Similarly persuasion is not coercion; censuring, withholding support, applying peaceable sanctions, are so on, are not. All this proves important in meeting objections to anarchist methods. Coercion is not a success notion; a coercer may well not succeed in obtaining what was sought through coercion. This will prove important in explaining why appeal to the state does not automatically resolve political dilemmas. To coerce is maintain or change states, normally of another creature, by implied force (i.e. force or accepted threat thereof). The state transition or statis includes the full range of relevant actions such as constraining, restraining, securing, moving, pushing, pulling aa so on, and thus coercion (the abstract) includes forcible constraint and compulsion. Coercion, by contrast with * exercise of authority, entails potential use of force, force furthermore which will characteristically tum into violence if resistance is attempted. Therein lies a main reason why coercion is so objectionable; its intrication with force and immediate potential for violence. For violence is generally undesirable.^. It follows therefrom that coercive arrangements are generally undesirable and, devolving therefrom, If social organisation can be achieved without them, usually so much the better, certainly the more ethical. A main onus to show that coercive arrangements, such as the state characteristically incorporates, are inevitable, unavoidable or the like, thereupon falls upon archists. 'Since coercive power is self-defeating' and worse, a general theory of 'non-coercive authority' is presented as a 'pressing problem of this stage of history'.13 Unfortunately, the general theory has obtained but little development. But functionalism, in such forms as demarchy (to be transformed below), has gained some elaboration, by some in the peace movement. 14 Worse, Merrifield arrives at the "pressing problem" on the strength of the need for Rt/M? of solution to the authority problem': thesources, methods, and ends of authority (p.724). This "problem" is presumed by way of the following large (anarchist) assumptions: Authority is a requisite of all social life, since in its absence it is both psychologically and physically impossible to coordinate human behaviours so that the ordinary social processes can continue to operate and flourish (p.729). The main claim is an important part of what is at issue between anarchists and archists and is at best highly dubious. Moreover the reason offered in its support is false and should be rejected (a range of counter models and counter examples have been indicated or will be). Furthermore, Merrifield goes on (on the next page) to adduce information on organisations of a sort which 12 13 14 Sec wp in. Merrifield p.724 alluding to the wording Notably B. Martin A/Z&) -sy-Mezn of political functionalism. 16 serve to cast severe doubt upon his claim and its supporting reason. There are various nongovernmental organisation (NGOs), and some intergovernmental organisation (IGOs), which rely upon voluntary, permissive or non-coercive motivations ... to accomplish their functional purposes. ... They may explain, demonstrate, justify and argue, but they cannot usually coerce. The role of functional NGO's is even more pronounced. Lacking any coercive power, they must rely on the validity and demonstrability (p.725). Some of the organisation rely, or need rely, not at all on closed authority. Like the voluntary support and participation basis, so too the organisational structure is voluntarily maintained. There is no hard authority, and no conspicuous authority problem. Coercion, in this respect authority, is also open to objection on rational grounds. Namely, ways of controlling, governing, or getting rational creatures coercive methods are not to do things. Rationality—not the undesirability and demeanment of force not, or not just, freedom—is the ground of this objection. The analysis of coercion admits of immediate fruitful application to (internal) criticisms of anarchism. In the first place, it has been argued that anarchism does not avoid coercion but incorporates coercive elements—which would render it inconsistent (as normally characterised). Further, because of these coercive elements anarchism is incompatible with liberty, thereby multiplying inconsistency, as liberty constitutes one of its main goals. These alleged problems derive from the reliance of anarchism on public censure, and like methods, to control social behaviour. According to Ritter, for example, who makes much of the second problem^, anarchists have the following goals: an (admirable) commitment to liberty, and a heavy reliance on public censure. But these goals are incompatible. For such a 'social scheme relies so much on coercive public * censure (p.10, also p.l). However, the argument to incompatibility is invalid; it makes an illicit insertion of 'coercive * * 'coercive (as the quote above illustrates; in fact the prejudicial slipping in of and 'coercion * occurs right through Ritter's discussions; see e.g. p.25 top and bottom). The social scheme as described involves only public censure in a free setting; such censure does not imply coercion, as no use of force need be involved or even contemplated. Secondly, connectedly, there is a widely exploited false dichotomy between voluntary and coerced activity, under which it supposed that all activity which is not purely voluntary is coerced. To the contrary, the range of actions is more satisfactorily diagrammed as follows: Voluntary vs coerced activity In a first chapter short-tided 'Liberty and pubiic censure', particularly on a muddled p.2. ,u„ ZL.. 17 hard pressured ! soft pressured ) ! (entirely) free ) influenced encouraged (fully) coerced <Actions -* In most standard arguments for the state only the outer bounds are considered.^ But noncoercive methods can include a wide range of influenced or pressured actions, which are less than entirely free. The interesting argument that Dahl draws from anarchism, directed against the state, turns upon on the undesirability, indeed the intrinsic badness, of coercion. In essence (leaving out support offered for the premiss as) the argument is as follows: Pl. M? one Zs obZZg#R?6? to -report or o&ey a sfafe. P2. A// sfafes ore coercive. P3. Coercion Zs intrin-nca/Zy bnJ. P4. A society wit/iont a state is a yeasi&Ze aitemative to a society with a state. This conclusion derives fiom these premisses ('assumptions' as he calls them) Dahl draws Ave conclusions' (p.41). As these are not the most direct or pointed conclusions, let us sharpen the conclusions: Cl. AZZ states are necessariiy &aJ. ^rom P2 and P3 (equivalently recast as: all coercive items are intrinsically bad items), given that intrinsicaZZy so implies necessariZy so. Dahl prefixes Cl by the conjunct, 'because all states are necessarily coercive'. Not only does Cl not require that support; we do not have it (e.g. in P2). While coercion may be taken as defining of the state, or an essential characteristic of it, as Dahl does, however states are defined it is continently true that all of them are coercive. C2 No one has an o&ZZgahon fo, Zs o&ZZgafed to, to support or obey any state. From Pl and Cl. Again Dahl unnecessarily prefixes his analogue of C2 (as for Cl above). Insofar as political obligation is obligation to the state, C2'. 77iere Zs no poZZtZcaZ obZZgatZon; political obligation lapses. Conclusions Cl and C2 specialize, because democratic states are states, to democratic states (that is effectively Dahl's fourth conclusion, p42). Dahl, like Wolff, senses a democratic escape through unaminity procedures, and reaches towards a fifth conclusion, which we will subvert. P5. Unanimity decision practices (can) escape coercion. 16 See for instance Taylor's presentation of game-theoretic arguments. 2^ 18 P6. Democracy can operate through unanimity procedures. These procedures and democracy are presumed to apply to some society, community or association. C51. prac/zc&y (can) escape -yfafcF. C52. Democracy can operate wif/zoaf any .sfafe. This last conclusion is interesting because Dahl regularly assumes, as against anarchism, that democracy must operate through the state, and that democracy is therefore in compatible with anarchism. As conclusion C52 reveals, these assumptions are astray, on grounds Dahl himself supplies (the inadequacy of these assumptions will be independently investigated subsequently). It is worth noting that, irrespective of the merit of premisses P5 and P6 (e.g. because unanimity wears off, because of the rareness of unanimity), the conclusions do not follow without other lesser presumptions. For C52 the transitivity of opcrafc wifAoMf (doubtfully a universal linkage) is presumed, and perhaps some modal shuffles as well. For derivation of C51 from P5 what is presumed is that what escapes coercion escapes the state, which requires a strengthened P2 (already encountered), that states necessitate coercion (as well as a little of the logic of escapism). Dahl's third conclusion, after detachment of (three) because-clauses, is C3D. A// PMg/tf a? A minimal inference scheme enabling derivation of C3D from previously derived statements is this: P3D. where an item is necessarily bad and there is a feasible (less bad) alternative to that item, the bad item ought to be abolished. Then C3D follow from (strengthened) P3D. These are important arguments, both for principled anarchists and for archists, and Dahl rightly invests detailed study to certain of the premisses, those he imagines he can dispose of, most notably P2 concerning the coerciveness of states. It is not that other premisses and steps are not highly controversial; they are. The very first, Pl, yields at least the stock debate as to whether one is obliged to support or obey a bad law; for a state can be viewed as a structure of laws. Instead of an argument for Pl, Dahl offers a thumbnail history of its status, a genetic '^justification". Other justifications there are, rendered easier if P2 is strengthened (as it may be without upsetting the arguments dependent upon it) by replacing 'bad' by 'evil' or 'immoral'. Then initial support for strengthened Pl is that political obligation, likewise legal obligation, is a type of obligation, justified by considerations of obligation generally, and accordinging triumphed by ethical obligation. The detailed arguments for these themes gets down to fundamentals, to the justification of obligations through values. Briefly, obligations obtain only towards items which normally exhibit a sufficient level of positive value. An item like an evil state that condition. So no obligation obtains towards such a state. 19 To escape such an outcome, archists contend that certain states are not evil, for instance Dahl will claim that 'a democratic state is not an evil state" (p.40). Anarchists will by contrast assemble a great deal of evidence that democratic states, like others, are evil (see next chapter). The immediate issue is, however, whether states are evil in principle, by virtue of their coercive features. Now Dahl does not contest 'so elementary a proposition" as P2, the universal coerciveness of states. 'Like any state, a democratic state would use coercion to enforce democratically enacted laws ..." Accordingly, to make his escape, Dahl is bound to dispute P3, and does; coercion is instrumentally justified as a means 'essential to a good purpose , a democratic state (p.40). * As to supposed (second-rate) justifiability of coercion. A conionplace claim, which Dahl advances, is DI. Even though coercion is intrinsically bad, its use is sometimes (reasonably) justified (p.44). Which times?, on which occasions? will turn out to be a critical issue. As against Dahl, it will be contended that its use is never woraZZy justified. However in moral dilemma situations, where all other feasible alternatives have been exhausted, its use can be given a "secondary"" secondrate justification. Such a secondary justification, in very limited circumstances, gives no succour to the state, which depends upon and makes widespread use of much more coercion. That is, DI itself does not justify the sfaR?'.? use of coercion. The first argument Dahl offers is overtly dilemmatic. There is a 'recalcitrant wrongdoer , ( who simply will not refrain from doing serious harm to others. Despite the best efforts of his associates, neither reason, argument, persuasion, public opinion, nor the final sanction of social octricism dissuades him from doing harm. His associates finally conclude that he will persist in harming others unless he is forcibly restrained or threatened with severe harm (that is, coerced) (p.44). Why should that stop him, threats in particular (it does not deter young alienated men in contemporary states)? With ali due respect^the gentle best efforts cited by no means exhaust nocoercive methods available. But let us grant not merely that there are situations where coercion occurs (plainly it is presently a frequent occurrence), but that there are dilemmatic situations where a person may have no alternative in preventing violence but to resort to coercion, for instance in preventing or limiting assault upon another, in self-defence, and so on. In such circumstances, 'coercion would be employed—either by the wrongdoers or by those who restrained them" (p.44). Granted, it is employed. The issues however are whether it is morally permissible, and who may be justified. Certainly the wrongdoers are not justified, and what they do is impermissible. More controversially, what the restrainers do is also morally impermissible; even so their actions may be justified. Given the fixes they were in, where all alternatives were forbidden, still what 20 they did may be situationally justified, as a satisfactory actions in the dilemmatic circumstances.*7 Such situational justification is not what Dahl and other consequentialists are seeking; they want coercion justified without impermissibility strings attached. There is no reason, or need, to accede to their desires. Such a reasonable, and practiced, approach to moral dilemmas (which Dahl himself subsequently takes in his discussion of whether to always obey laws of a democratic state p.4950) here escapes notice. And Dahl introduces two difficulties he incorrectly presumes fatal to 'alternative position ... [that] violence and coercion are absolutely forbidden" (p.45). Firstly, given that coercion is employed, 'the position in self-contradictory". Wrong. For that coercion occurs, whether perpetrated by wrongdoers or by those trying to prevent wrongdoers, does no? imply that coercion is morally permissible (i.e. p -f Pp). Nor does the impermissibility of incompatibles imply self-contradiction, for the covering deontic functors cannot be deleted (i.e. -Pp & -P-p is no contradiction; of course given, what gets rejected, -Pq -* -q, contradiction would ensure). Also wrong, then, is what Dahl takes to emerge from such self-contradiction, no 'guidance for the most elementary choices", said to be an 'indefensible" position (p.95). For coupled with the story concerning moral dilemmas are suggested procedures for making choices (often far from elementary choices) from within the dilemmas. Secondly, Dahl wrongly supposes that so rendering coercion absolute makes it 'a supreme value that eliminates all other ends" including justice, freedom, etc. It does not. No hierarchy of principles (or values), this or another, is adopted, which is one reason why dilemmas occur. As in ordinary ethical practice, ^he principles stand, they are not simply prima they are not ranked, there are no 'trade-offs". It may have become apparent, what requires only a little between-lines interpretation, that Dahl is playing a rather familiar utilitarian game underneath the surface moral concern. Render 'the objection to coercion as a means ... not absolute but contingent on consequences". So weaken absolutist prohibitions on coercion and violence that generous room can be made for an institution which routinely practices them, and to which we can trade up with consequential advantage. Given that coercion occurs without the state, indeed may be quite widespread in the absence of the state, then there might be gains in installing a coercive imitation 'to restrict [!] and regulate coercion". Moreover, if 'on balance the gains from creating a state are likely to exceed the costs, then from a utilitarian perspective it would be reasonable to opt for a state" (p.45). There are two critical gaps in this utilitarian state-pleading. Firstly, impressive evidence for the conditional antecedent that the gains from the state exceed the costs has never been assembled, but rather evidence points in the opposite direction (as we shall see in the next 17 This controversial story has been told before, that for coercion resembles that already related for violence. The general theory of moral dilemmas (in MD) is applied to the issue of violence, control of pacifism (in WP TV). 21 chapter), so detachment from the antecedent is not warranted. Secondly, the performance even of better states in coercion is utterly unimpressive; these states foo amplify coercive practices, do not regulate basic cases, and so on. The state appears to exacerbate the levels, both in extent and intensity, of coercion, over the low levels genuine moral dilemmas would yield. It is unnecessary to contend, however, as Dahl asserts anarchists contend, "that if states did not exist coercion would soon disappear or decline to a tolerable level' (p.45). That judgement, which is not exactly an 'empirical' one, depends very much on the character of alternative societies. An individualistic society might enjoy high levels of coercion owing to the activities of its public-like protective agencies. By contrast, a well-organised society may be afflicted with comparatively little coercive behaviour, rendering Dahl's uncompleted utilitarian argument extremely difficult to complete, ever. Interlarded with the dulcet utilitarian approach, under which they beneficent, ^states will provide us with all those promised superior values many millions are still awaiting — freedom, justice, equality, and so on — lies a more sinister argument; that to the gangster state. That evil state is not so far removed, some may think, from many states that are presently recognised. Without the strong state, the gangster state looms, so Dahl insinuates. So adopt the state, or worse will eventuate. That sort of decision theory argument (itself unpleasantly coercive and out of the same big stable as utilitarianism) depends on some (derived) principle such as choose a least bad alternative, and accordingly fails unless another independent argument to the state succeeds. For otherwise superior stateless choices remain on offer. Yet nothing more than the po&H&iZi/y that a small gang of wrongdoers may pool resources, andwhat results may evolve into a "gangster state" is floated (similarly for claim 2, p47, that some group wng/tf manage to create a highly oppressive state, which is as true in many a state as in stateless conditions). There is a complex evolutionary path, with many obstacles and hitches, from a small gang, through growing rival gangs and protection rackets, to a single one, and thence to a state. It is moreover a path that is rather easily blocked at early stages in an organised society, as simple counter examples show (one such example, that of the Inuit, Dahl introduces on the very next page). Apart from the inconclusive utilitarian considerations, Dahl offers a further page, under the boldface heading 'On the Need for the State' (a strikingly minimal effort in a book of about 400 pages most of which are premised on the assumption that the state is a needed item). He concedes, what seems to put a large dent in his bold claim, that preliterate societies, like those of the Inuit, have subsisted, over long periods, without the state. But that is past history, the world has advanced, the state is here, there, and everywhere. Granted it is; that does not show it is needed. Many gadgets that are now produced are not needed. Consider Dahl s reasons why a return to societies without states is 'if not impossible, highly undesirable (p.46). First, the world is already too densely populated to provide much space for autonomy (p.46, less than a 22 page after the utilitarian promise of a satisfactory state maximizing 'freedom and justice'; similarly p.51 etc.) But there are many regions where autonomy could undoubtedly be increased by expansionary or imperial states backing off (not merely in East Timor, on the West Bank, etc., but in the lands of the Inuit, the Micronesians, etc.). Further, the denseness of human population, hardly affords a reason. For one thing, the excessive human population is highly concentrated; most parts of the Earth carry, by comparison, sparse populations. For another, autonomy does not depend, so directly, on available space. 'Thirdly, virtually the entire globe is now already occupied by states'. Similar points apply: for instance, such an accomplished fact does not establish a need, or the impossibility of change. While not true 'throughout recorded history', but a very modem phenomenon, it is no doubt recently confingenfZy true that 'small autonomous groups of people have been extraordinarily vulnerable to conquest and absorption by larger states', and that it is presently doubtful that 'states would permit any small, independent group to exist anywhere [much] on earth'. Such present yizcfo political power relations do not demonstrate a need, still less impossibility of alternative, still less undesirability of changes. Consciousness change could come very rapidly, furthermore, with a welcome change in popular attitudes in large democratic states to oppression of minorities elsewhere (in Europe this seems to be happening). These points also serve to destroy Dahl's second reason, that 'a multiplicity of interdependencies cannot be snapped apart without enormous costs that few people would accept.' The break-up of states in Eastern Europe shows that substantial changes can occur very rapidly; the costs involved were much higher than they should have been because of the attitudes of states, not attitudes of their peoples by and large. In sum, then, all Dahl has accumulated is evidence of the repressive grip of the present regime of states, rendering local change pragmatically very difficult. Such evidence does nothing to establish a need for states, nothing at all to establish the undesirability of stateless societies. Accordingly the main assumptions fail with which Dahl claims support his 'conclusion that if woM/J &^ff^r fo fry fo cr^afg a mfz^/acfory jfafe f/ian f/y io ^xAff in a .soci^fy wif%OMf o sfaf^' (p.47). As it happens, the failed assumptions also fail to support such a conclusion—without suppressed material, of the utilitarian cast already criticised. All the assumptions would indicate, werf they granted, is the practical undesirability of trying to set up small stateless associations in a regime of states like mot prevailing today exc^pf that the states are satisfactory. But the assumptions should be scuttled. * Aggfnsf Jowfnaffon Domination is an important type of power relation. It is a comprehensive relation: persistent over a period, not simply once-off or occasional, pervasive, extending over a range of action and behaviour. It offers confro/ in a spread of cases. In such cases, if the dominator exercises control (e.g. adjusts the appropriate controls, pulls requisite levers) then the dominated normally responds. A significant form of control within extended human affairs is that of A 23 command or ability to command. Of course the creature commanded, the servant, the domesticated animal, the subdued or subjugated person, has to be able to understand what is commanded. But domination operates in significant spheres where such conditions for commanding do not obtain: in particular, but not only, in the domination of nature, its parts and elements, such as animals that do not understand commands, biota that do not recognise manipulation, and so on. Domination originated with (what the etymology of the term reflects) lord-subjects and master-servant relations, which remain paradigmatic for this power relation. It was soon and easily extended to cover owner-slave relations, where control was much more extensive, God­ human relations, human-working animal relations, and so on. It has long covered parent­ children and husband-wife relations, as well as certain class relations; and as classes have changed with political restructuring, industralisation and the rise of cities, so have domination relations. Those of higher classes or castes tend to dominate those of lower ranking, similarly for those higher in new hierarchies. Domination of nature and its parts is a relatively recent addition to the varieties of domination, since the acclaimed success of "the war against Nature" (still going on last century) before which technological humans (lacked the considerable level of power they have now acquired over natural systems.^ An aim of softening or removing forms of domination links social and environmental objectiv&with anarchism. These aims are united in green social anarchism. Opposition to all forms of domination, is yet another extension of certain types of anarchism, perhaps incompatible with other types of anarchism (e.g. communal anarchisms which assume that affairs should be organised along strict patriarchal lines, which accordingly not altogether coherently oppose social archy only to retain or even reinforce a tribal or familial archy). There may by now be some confusion concerning the variety of extensions of anarchism encountered. More exactly these "extensions" are subextensions, which isolate the principle of some type or ( key feature of anarchism and generalize it. generalisation of principled subtype with distinguishing principle. 18 Intellectual vandals have been at work on dondnahon also, stretching it from a relation from ensembles of actors, the dominators, to whole structures, systems or institutions (what might be called by partial analogy with the vandalism worked on .sTrHctund domination). Stretched dominators include the capitalist economy, market forces, the economy, the state, and so on. Under the stretching, /to (structural) dondnadon is said to imply, what straightforwardly is right enough, no subordination of the people to market forces, or even, what is impossible to avoid in a sophisticated society, no influences on members through the operation of its economy. A  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 17, Item 1005: Draft chapters of Towards green anakism: eucratic political investigations Subject The topic of the resource Typescript draft, with handwritten emendations and annotations, and handwritten notes. Description An account of the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 1005 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [61] leaves. 143.55 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:818a421">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:818a421</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Lake George - Floor - Pile 8 Box 17: Green Projects in Progress Lake George House Lake George House > Floor > Pile 8 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/5cb229c3d9affba38077a07c721b6799.pdf 864475d38dc9bafca72f1f6da54ba711 PDF Text Text �������� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 17, Item 1264: Characterizing anarchism Subject The topic of the resource Handwritten on scrap paper. Description An account of the resource Verso of leaves not digitised Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 1264 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [8] leaves. 4.58 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:709ee89">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:709ee89</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Australian National University - Bookcase - 1st on Right - 3rd Shelf Down - First Pile Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Bookcase > 1st on Right > 3rd Shelf Down > First Pile Box 17: Green Projects in Progress https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/55fb7770f181791e005281a8636a1abd.pdf 1ed72ad17f186317bccf30e6630b50d8 PDF Text Text RBSTRRCT The proposed syntheses Ls set Mithin generat object-theorg. tde3 The undertging the sgnthesis ts that the 3tternative Mortds sewantics - arrived 3t tn of pursuit of a tnctudtng senanttes universat ones) retevant and, semantics generat (a as connectedLg, part for of att a Languages, comprehensive object-theorg - be apptted atso tn fundamentat phgstcs, Most importanttg to the natter of the ortgtn, htstorg, 3nd phgstcat features of the cosmos, but as Mett, agatn connectedtg, theorg. etseMhere, Ln particutar Ln the LnterpretatLon of quantum a The unLversat semantics Ls a mang Mortds - theorg. The poLnt of such apptgLng an mang nonexistent Mortds - LnterpretatLon Ln cosmotogg atso Ls exptained bg Mag of examp Les, concernLng the understandLng of the contLngencg of exLstence and of present arrangements. improbabititg the R resotutton of the basLc question, sketched, a as Marm-up exerctse 'Nhg does angthLng at for exLst?' att questions as to Mhg various other the prominent features of the universe are as theg are, notabtg Mhg the constants of phgstcs appear to have. have the fundamentat parttcutar surprtstngtg senstttve vatues theg Chauvinistic ansMers through anthroptc prLnctptes are crLttcattg Ln favour of resotutLon bg Mag of Mortd sgntactLcattg, status quo arguments, MhLch use setection^ and gross rejected, correspondLng features geophgsLcat thLs and neLghbourLng unLverses to exp La Ln the surprLsLng vatues of The character of the Mortd—sgnthests resotutton - reaLLg a resotutton Ls ts of constants. frameMork fLLLed out Ln the course of countering a Mide SMeep of objections, and of exp La LnLng Mhg the resotutton frameMork invotving seLeet ion satisfactorg of the main tgpes LLLustrated in the four-fotd: is the most �IMPROVED CO3MO-LOCICRL 3YMTHE3I3 TOWRRD RH There Logicai is a foundations tradition persistent - impiging simpLe and get undiscovered - for the whoLe of cosmoLogg. The as tradition, which peaked in modern rationaiism, continues strong in cosmoLogicai specuLation. unassaiiabLe Thus, contemporarg for exampLe, recent rationaiistic theories of the universe, ambitiousLg aimed at mathematico-iogicai expression and capture of nature. Thus, of MheeLer: for exampLe, the bottom Line to the mang theoreticaL enterprises LittLe astonishment shouLd there be, therefore, if the description of nature carries one in the end to Logic, the ethereat egrie at the center of mathematics. If, as one beiieves, aLL mathematics reduces to the mathematics of Logic, and aLL phgsics reduces to mathematics, what aLtemative is there but for aLL phgsics to reduce to the mathematics of Log ic ? Logic is the ontg branch of mathematics that can think about itse Lf'. Logic reassumes its ancient roLe 3S the fundamentaL science; the Mord expresses a LogicaL recipe. Even white abandoning some of the it Lus ions of grand reduct ion istic schemes, and undermining the EnLightenment power guest for the LogicaL the theoreticaL capture and can The sgnthesis outiined in setting. contribute what foLLows LiberaLised bg are semantics and to the organisation of a unified fits into this more modest It is achieved bg suitabig reLocating cosmoLogg as a part of semantics (generousig construed, for exampie, to admit contextuaL eLements). then, to controt of the universe, there is much of a more modest character that recent LogicaL theorg, as nonstandard sgstematisation, worid picture. kegs universaL So unified, semantics, re Levant semantics and cosmoLogg, as suggested in a preLiminarg wag in diagram 1. �RCTURL X L ORLD(S) GEOPHYSICRL SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE PHYSICRL SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE RELEVRHT SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE MORLD SPRCE Comment. The subspaces are Marked out by ctosure and other requirements, that of by cLosure of each worLd under deducibiLity (reLevant deriva— systems reLevant biLity), that of physicaL systems by cLosure aLso under physicaL Laws formuLated terMS Ln (suitabLy of condLtLonaLs) and perhaps factuaL constraints as weLL. actuaL (or better t3ctuai) worLd Ls a seLect coMMon worLd the to nested spaces. The underLytng Lde3 of the synthesis is siMpiy this: a subspace of is aLso a suitabLe framework for cosmoLogy, for an interpret— semantics worids neutrai *3 L Lon of the Log iceL theory of the universe as a whoLe. In Less condensed form, the ide3 is that the aLternative worids semantics arrived at in the pursuit of a semantics universaL part connectedLy, as semantics comprehensive (a theory the of aLL of for aLL be objects, Languages) and, aLso appLied physics - most importantiy to the matter of the origin, history and fundamentaL physicaL features of this cosmos, but 3S weLL eLsewhere, in interpretation theory. quantum of particuLar Ln That stripping. ontoLogicai of Load MorLd-ensembLe terms of nonexistent Mortds. Hot surprisingiy, in the recasting the in theory j^s for is, the theory can be recast in existentiaLLy neutraL terms, wcthout the originaL object ionabLe theory, the Rnd in the case of quantum theory there is aLready, most convenientiy, a many-universe or worLd-ensembLe theory, ready neutrai in (e.g. changed unobservabLe the spiitting worLd of the Everett other worids interpretation gives way to future— directed worLd branching). The setting in terms of do which objects not exist, especiaLLy, is essentiaL. For one reason, the idea grew out of investigation (with Griffin for the provisionaL but so far nonexistent book UQ) of what is normaLLy taken to be a phiLosophicaL question, indeed by some such as as the fundamentaL question of metaphysics, nameLy exist? . Reset in worLd terms this becomes a question worLd such Mhy does anything at aLL of seiection the - a contains be to taken exist. For then the oLd circLe is simpiy reentered, expiaining existence in terms of more existents. Here the circLe is metaphysics: 3 much more tractabLe question. But the recasting Loses expLanatory merit shouLd aLL the worids invoived objectionabie of that we find ourseLves in which contains something existent (us as among other existent things) as opposed to an aLternative worLd, which nothing Heidegger cf. JB broken, as it is eLsewhere (particuLarLy in chapter 2), by expiaining what exists by way of what does not. It is the faiLure to duty aLLow for and -2- acknowLedge this pattern of �expLsnatLons, though Lt represents coMMon practLce Ln the theoretLcaL sciences, that has wade Lssues LLke the Lntractab Le. In fact quest Lons Lihg Hetdeggerean the concernLng does angthLng quest Lon onLg Ls exLst? question LLke Lt so ftrst of a LattLce of the the character and nature of the cosMos Ln whLch Me happen to be, that are LLabLe to be asked , questLons ascendLng to (Just) seen Ls? ; questLons Uhg Ls thLs cosMos Mhtch MorLd ModeLLLngs wag fruLtfuLLg be to appLLed, as an Lwportant fLrst step Ln eLLcLtLng sone ansMers. (Bounded) LattLce of questLons. DIRGRRM 2. 7 Uhg does Mhg does angthLng evergthLng at aLL exLst? exLst as Lt Uhg do 7 Hhg do eLectrons Lihg does Lnte L L Lgent ex Lst? (Ln LLf e LLfe forns the nunbers exLst? (Ln the ex Lst? theg do?) forM Lt does?) In the reorLentatLon of MorLds senantLcs fron Languages to cosnoLog Les, f row Language to the MorLd, there are certaLn features that shouLd be kept fLrriLg Ln vLeM - apart fron such notorLous features as that anong the MorLds of the node L L Lngs are a range of bLzarre, absurd, LncoMpLete and MaverLck MorLds, and that each (nonexLstent) MorLd has a LncLudes donaLn of objects though Lt a subdoMatn (perhaps nuLL) of ent Lt Les, tgpLcaLLg contaLns nonexLstent objects, both posstbLe and not, phgsLcaLLg reaLLsabLe and the MhLch, feature of not. In partLcuLar, MorLd seLectLon shouLd not be Lost sLght of. For Lnstance, Ln assessing truth, a factuaL MorLd T Ls seLected - Ln one Mag or' another, but tgpLcaLLg bg a choLce functLon on a cLrcunscrLbed evaLuatLons are Morked out (recursLveLg) at I. cLass NaturaLLg and ho LdLng the assessnent of truth MLLL generaLLg Lead begond MorLd T LtseLf. For (reLevant) <deducLbLLLtg a subsgstew of dertvatLonaLLg cLosed MorLds Ls defLned; for poss Lb L L Ltg a subsgsteM coMprLsLng consLstent MorLds Ls Marked out; for naturaL LaMLLkeness a subsgsteM of phgsLcaL MorLds Ls dLstLnguLshed^; and so on for other cases of subsgstew and group seLectLon. $I- The Mang MorLds approach to the "Uhg does angthLng at aLL exLst?" quest Lon. -3- �There ere Many canvassed answers to thts questton, and stLLL More Mays of trytng to dtsMtss Lt. RLL dtsposat the atteMpts are defective, 3nd Most of the canvassed answers are unsattsfytng (so Grtfftn and I devote a good deat of space tn UQ to showtng). One approach that ts not inadequate — but perMtts however devetopMent tn severat dtfferent dtrecttons - ts the Many wortds approach. It ts true (and argued eLsewhere, e.g. JB) that R) SoMe thtngs extst. Thts truth enjoys a Modat status, that of conttngency tn fact. weaker ctatM sufftees, naMety But, to begtn, a C) It ts conttngentty true that sone thtngs extst. For the extstence that Most thtngs enjoy or regret ts conttngent. The obvious truth of the More controverstat ctatM that nothtng necessartty Left open for the present. extsts, can be NeutraL wortds ModeLLtng of theMe C) yteLds dtreetty a Many wortds picture, wtth soMe wortds, tnctudtng the actuat wortd T, contatntng extstents, and wtth soMe posstbte wortds contatntng no extstents (but perhaps soMe nonextstents). Likened to a dtsp Lay of baLLoons: DIRGRRH 3. Static pteture of a 0 : 0 : 0 Object doMatns contatn 0 ____ _________ extstents 0 0 : 0 0 worLds ModeLLtng for theMe 0). 0 : 0 0 It can be 0 00 DoMatns contatn no 0 extstents posstbte worLds Such a neutraL nodeLLLng begs no sertous onto Log teat questions, invotves no ontoLogtcaL prodtgaLLty. For tt ts not assuMed that any of these Ln worLds extst, any way. (It ts not dtfftcuLt to represent what does not extst.) Nor need Lt prejudtee Matters unduty agatnst necesstty theMes such even were Lt Lf Lnterpretatton MistakenLy Lnststed, as as agatnst God-hypotheses. the For stratghtforward of C), whtch aLLows Lt ts necessartty true (under soMe necesstty deterMtnabLe) that soMe thtngs extst, a retated Many worLds pteture woutd resuLt; the dashed LLne woutd stMpty Move down the diagraM). But Let us st Lek wtth what ts rtght, C. It ts More reveattng to take theMe C) as tensed - after aLL extstence ts existence now (JB chapter 2) - and to tntroduce, what further Lnvesttgatton wLLL require, dynaMtcat ModeLLLngs. Then, wtth soMe evtdent eMbrotdery, the foLLowtng sort of pteture eMerges: -4- �Dgnantc ptcture untverses. DIRGRRfl t*. MorLds of nodeLLLng of thene C), ML th sanpLe t 3 EXI5TEHTS (FULL CONSERVRTION) RLse and faLL of HD ] A Lt SOMET IME EXISTENTS^ R NULL LJORLD f* ExternaL ttne scats (tsLgnLfLes the Locat present) Consents. r-bjch Ls presupposed Ln the wag the pLcture Ls draMn (e.g. that sone Measure of exLstents C3n be obtained, bg Mag of partLcLe nunbers)^ but these presupposLtLons can be nodLfLed or renoved. The such as sane sort nodeLLLng serves aLso to vaLLdate thenes LLnked to C), of D) There mag have been a tLne Mhen nothLng exLsted. ConsLder seLectLon, noM (or done Ln terns of of the cructat wetter of T-seLectLon, L.e. factuat Mortd 6-seLectLon, L.e. referentLaL sub-Mortd seLectLon). ThLs Ls certaLn features these Mortds have, such as contaLnLng entttLes, LncLudLng observers, exhLbLtLng LLfe, nanLfestLng LnteLLLgence or wLnd - to antLcLpate features conLng up and sonetLnes proposed for MorLd seLectLon. Such seLectLon pLcks out thts MorLd fron the ensenbLe of MorLds (our Mortd aLso, as Lt happens). Rnd the Mortd thus seLected LncLudes exLstents. Mhg does angthLng at aLL exLst? Because thts MorLd, T, LncLudes, happens to LncLude, extstent objects. To thts extent Lt Ls -5- a natter of fortune - qood �it night be hazarded, since the worLd exhibits enough that is good 3nd fortune, enough potentiaL for good. Rs a contingent Matter, this worLd contains (in its object donain) '.tens that exist. So T-setection deLivers a worLd n3king it true objectiveLg that sone things exist.^ The answer Mag seeM trite; that but is in Measure Large because the and answer are taken in isoLation, apart froM issues as to the detaiLs question of the process, the how questions, such as H) How does it happen that soMething exists? The issue can be considered in uLtinateLg exists is question terns this of of nass-energg, since evergthing that kind (so it is argued in JB chapter 9). To the H ) How does it happen that sone Mass-energg exists? tMo sorts of answer are possibte. FirstLg, there is the conservative answer: sone atwags existed. There is an end Less ongoing sea of Mass-energg, which sinpLg fLuctuates, Moves, recgcLes, etc. There are pLentg of probLens with this answer; for instance, phgsicaL prob Lens, such as how did the Big Bang of standard cosMOLogg occur, what was happening before it? But there are aLternative MatheMaticai stories now being toLd, for instance, of a Massive singuLaritg Located in space (rather than at phgsic3t tine t = 0 as with the Big Bang), which trg to offer a phgsicaL account of a continuous universe (see e.g. G. ELLis). Rnd the singuLaritg stories offered can be enriched (aiong Lines rather Like what wiLL be ventured in the case of the second answer). RLnost aLL traditionaL phiiosophicai and theoLogicat accounts, aLL v^rtuaLLg honage paging to ontoLogicaL assunptions, shouLd be inciuded aMong the conservative, existence-aiwags answers. But the nonnateriaLLst accounts anong these characteristicaLLg invoLve LeveL shifts^^Thei is back to the existence of God or the (uLtinate) One, who, on a higher LeveL, serves as eternaL sustainer, and perhaps fashioner, of the MateriaL universe. The conceptual and other probtens of such answers are sufficientLg notorious. SecondLg, there is stage nothcng existed. The energg. the Rt More appeaiing and siMpLe radicaL answer: at sone that difficuLtg before tiMe, the that anccent Long-received probLeM orthodox of how prejudice, sonething that nchLi fct, is invariabLg reinforced bg again Bang, there was no for this picture is how Mass-energg ever appeared froM the MacroscopicaLLg tranquiL sea of nothingness. past Big can It is no great feat to get coMe froM nothing. The froM nothing nothing cones, ex nihiLo Mistaken ontoLogicaL assunptions (see JB chapter 2). Yet even when these ontoLogicaL assunptions are set aside, there is the awkward natter of C3usai nechanisn. But an unLikeig storg can be toLd, a ngth retated, expLaining how sonething -6- �a may (suddenly) emerge from nothing, jet of mass-energy the from sea of nothingness. The story borrows from the quantum theory of the vacuum (or rather, ot suitabie vacuums). There is suddeniy an avaianche of energy borrowing , 3nd mass creation of particies in a concentrated area.& This is the beginning of the Big Bang (at internaL time zero). It is unigue (in experience) because such a singuiarity is very improbabte. (Even a SmaLL Bang wouid be rather improbabie.) The net energy "borrowed" is borrowed on a very Long term (at high interest?), with a gradu3i repLayment pLan. This ties concerning the run-down eventuaL eventuaLLy (though perhaps over this of very a with principLes universe. protracted of thermodynamics, On this story, it wiLL time) subside back into From nothing everything existent originaLLy came; into nothingness everything existent wiLL uitimateLy process. nothingness. It is one thing to such devise 3 story, or rather the (or outLine scaffoLding) of a story; it is another to condense it into science. before But scorn is poured on such a story, Let it be noted that the story is Less bizarre, more and informative, than other extant phiiosophicaL stories. For exampLe, it appears more piausibie than the ideaList story of the construction of the physicaL worid from idea, or than the set-theoreticaL myth of the construction of the entire universe from the nuLL set - undoubtedLy a it as earLy encompasses existent individuaLs, construction, insofar of something existent from nothing, not since, despite orthodox cLaims to the contrary, the nuLL set certainty does exist (JB 9.9). There are reasons for much preferring the second styLe of story to the first - though it may appear to some to viotate conservation principLes such that mass-energy: of as in fact it need not. One is that the end Less mass-energy story faits to account for the presence of mass-energy. By contrast, nothingness does not reguire expLanation: it is, so to speak, the rest position. In terms of the range of possibiiities here, existence is what is unusuaL, what is atypicaL, what especiaLLy caLLs for expLanation, not nonexistence.? Hence the expLanatory superiority of the radicaL answer. Rs one might expect in varying such an obvious and ancient story, and as is easity discovered, scientific condensation and assessment has begun, especiaLLy in the Last decade. The idea that the totaL energy of the universe is zero was considered a human generation ago by Mhitrow&, refLecting on Flach s phiLosophy of motion. More recentLy, Tryon has argued the zero totaL energy theme, assuming a cLcsed universe and appeaLing the standard treatment of gravitationai to If the universe contains just enough potentiaL energy as negative energy. mass to cLose it, then the negative energy must more or Less exactLy canceL the energy (mc^) invoLved in the existence of that mass. Hence, the argument runs, even a a cosmos as impressiveLy Large and ancient as this universe couLd exist as deveLopment quantum vacuum through in borrowing fLuctuation on a a zero-energy vacuum, that is, through grand scaLe in a reiativistic setting. Such vacuum fLuctuations can occur by dispensation of the AE.At --h; when the mass-energy AE of a physicaL object -7- uncertainty principLe approaches zero, its �LLfe,tLMe At can becoMe verg targe. OnLg the Merest begLnnLng on reMOvtng certaLn object Lons and to wore scLenttfLc storg MtLL be atteMpted. FLrstLg, there are, LnevLtabLg a such obstacLes Lt seews, onto Log LeaL and verLfteat Lontst object Lons. Hang of these turn hoMever on assuMtng that a vacuuM and ewptg space Must soMehoM exLst, at Least bg Mag of sort of exLstLng contaLner or structure. Such assuMpttons are wtstaken: no (pre-) exLstence need be assuwed. Such objects 3s vacuuws and unoccupLed space sone nonexLstent are and dLstLnctLve Mtth objects assessLbLe MatheMatLcaLLg propertLes. Though theg nag not be access LbLe to observatton, and Ln thLs narroM respect are outsLde the range of experLence, then concernLng tnvesttgattons exactLng for there to LnfornatLon Ls suffLcLent be Made of theLr features. SLnLLar potnts teLL agaLnst the objection that Lt Ls Mrong to Lwpose an externat spatLaL or tewporaL Measure on (Mass-energg) cLosed space-tLMe; for exawpLe, Mhat happened before the BLg Bang, or to ewbed the curved space-ttMe of LnquLre the unLverse Ln a Larger spatLaL or tenporaL settLng. Rs a Matter of fact, cosMOLogLsts wang exh Lb Lt no unease Ln ashLng Mhat happened before the BLg Bang even Mhen assuwLng no Matter before that, though verLftcattonLsM MouLd no doubt such to ruLe guesttons out as weanLngLess or otherMtse out of order. More to the potnt, bounded Metrtcs can atMags be extended (HubbLe ttMe Ls just wtstahe though fruLtfuLLg, soMettnes bounds vertfLcatLontst one are exaMpte), exceeded. and Rnother has been to assuwe that NothLng, stnee nonexLstent, Ls entLreLg Mtthout structure or organLsatton and ungoverned. Indeed tMo dtaMetrtcaLLg opposed poLar v,eMS of Lt have prevented, and even been run together: of NothLng chaottc, as and so excessLveLg rtch, and of Nothing as entLreLg bLank, and so excessLveLg tMpovertshed. Both are Lnadequate. R More tnteresttng ontoLogtcaL objeetton (ratsed bg Rrwstrong) Ls that such an account of the ortgtn of the unLverse takes granted for exLstence the naturaL LaMS, and so does not expLaLn hoM sowethLng ex Latent cane frow objecttons Such confuse truth neo-PLaton Law. LaMS hoLd, but do not vteMs, Mhere LaMS Mtth exLstence, exLst - bg after contrast Mtth nothLng. fashLon the of of neo-PLatonLc reLatLons of unLversaLs, MhLch exLst. On object-theorg are (such as that of JB), hoMever, unLversaLs do not exLst, and so LaMS are not thus extstentLaLLg Loaded. Once truth Ls duLg separated frow exLstence, there Ls of course the further questton of Mhg the LaMS that hoLd or evoLve do hoLd. But thts Ls a separate, and vextng, questton of uLttMate expLanatton.^ SecondLg, are there More technLcaL adwLttedLg shakg phgstcaL account; for quantuM nuwbers of objeettons, instance, that dtrected But Lt the Mtth the the vacuuw MtLL constst equaLLg of Matter and antt-Matter, and qutckLg vantsh agatn, Mhereas features of the unLverse perstst tMbaLance. agaLnst fLuctuattons and suggest noM seeMs that a verg sLLght (and, so Lt Ls satd, deLLcate) tMbaLance earLg Ln the evoLutton of the unLverse after the BLg Bang Ls just Mhat Ls required for present perMLtted features of the unLverse; and such an LMbaLance, on recent (GUT) theorLes, catastrophtc fLuctuatton hardLg excLudes. R thLrd connected obstacLe used to be sertous: Lt -8- has been presupposed that a �state can be assigned to the whoLe universe.^ But that is now aLright; quantuM according for neutraL to of) (adaptation the Everett Many-universe interpretation of quantuM theory, a state function i covers the behaviour of the P worLds phgsicaL I (with P c K), which presuMabig evoLve according to a e reLativised Schrodinger equation of the fom SE(T). To soMe expLain of the recent appeaL of this sort of wortd-ensewbLe interpretation, it is worth turning to the interesting and curious business of the phgsicaL constants. The §2. of constants of phgsics and sone of their neat interreLations. natter The interesting cLaiM is that the setting or adjustMent of certain constants surprisingLg deLicate, and if the constants (and soMe of their constant that ratios) were different bg ontg sMaLL Margins, then the actuaL universe woutd very is be with the resuLt, aMong Mang other things, that we shoutdn't be different, here to observe ang of its LocaL passing show. Now the possibiLity of exp Lanation of the specific vaLues of these the in terMS of phgsicaL theory itseLf is not so far exciuded. Perhaps no constants constants in physics are uLtiMateLy fundaMentai, Various ways eiiMinating of constants though seeMS that unLikeLy. are now faMitiar, e.g. soMe represent new scaie factors and are eiiMinated by re-scaLing or choice of coordinates. Others are reMoved by More radicaL ways of reLooking at things, as in Einstein s treatMent of gravitation. But sone resist eiiMination - so far. in For, phgsicaL any theory, what case, fundaMentai is depends and soMe previousLg fundaMentat constants (such as Rvogadro s nuMber) have turned out to be derivative as theory constants on the given shape of advanced new and (deeper) were introduced. There is the reMote possibiLity, obviousLy cherished that bg soMe scientists, that in the end aLL phgsicaL constants can be reMoved, a constant-free (very grand unified) theorg in which aLL constants can be reMoved wiLL resuLt. This is not obviousLg iMpossibLe in the wag that a coMpLete eiiMination of LogicaL constants froM Log teat theorg is, that a finat triuMphant reMovat of the Scheffer stroke froM cLassicaL propositionaL Logic is iMpossibLe. However, it is too Much to expect that a "deep MatheM3tic3i anaLgsis" aLways do the job. For one thing, exp Lanations of this sort do give is an arguMent for this out. can There froM the backward proceeding character of deductive expLanations to More generaL preMisses (appLging the content-incLusion character of deduction proper). There are no MatheMaticaL anaigses without assuMptions, without a systeM of postutates. The hope (expressed by MatheMaticat Carter and others), that generaLLy deeper underlying theories can be found, wiLL not 3iwags be fuLfiLLed, of necessity. Since transforMations, such as seating, aLter or reMove constants, can transfer the Big Bang back to Minus-infinity, and so on, there is no soLid to expLain, underLying the ELLis, for one, aLLegedLy probLeMatic nuMericaL features (so data B. contends). UhiLe it is true that which constants feature, and what their vaLues are, wiLL depend on initiaL choice of units, whatever that �at Least some of the constants wiLL emerge. Thus there wiLL be features choice, and vatues which require expianation, and exptanation of the however transforming the done. is For S3me broad tgpe, the present, 3nd immediate future at Least, there is no getting rid of the constants, and white theg to continue figure their numericaL vatues and ratios set some trickg prob Lems. There is the probtem, first of aLL, of describing the reLevant phgsicat data neutraL non—prejudiciaL fashion. The facts of the matter are more or Less a Ln as foLLows:- Present phgsicat theories incLude mang (phgsicaL) constants, which occur in the formutation of Laws and principtes. R number of these constants are fundamentsL, in that theg are not derived from other constants (or deduced from deeper phgsicat theorg). Two things have been noticed concerning fundamentat constants of present phgsicat theorg, both of which caLL for expLanation:If 1) the of certain constants Lag outside a rather narrow band (sur­ vatues rounding their perhaps universe wouLd be ascertained vatue), gross features of the geophgsicaL different. this - hopefuttg without CaLL prejudice, since its contra­ position represents the substantiat core of the anthropic poss ib Le principte - the sens i t iv i tg numer teat f eature. va Lues For record, the the geophgsicaL principte resuLting from contraposition takes the foLLowing form: certain gross features of the geophgsicaL universe are onLg possibie in present form if the numericaL vatues of certain constants Lie within a narrow sensitivitg band. Examptes of such gross features are isLand gataxies, Long-Lived stars, ptanets, recognised ittustrate, water, hgdrogen, heavg carbon, metats. RLL the forces, for instance, exhibit the sensitivitg features. To phgsicat the strong nuctear force were marginattg stronger, nuctei coutd if grow much begond the present Limits and att hgdrogen woutd Long have ago been converted to heLium, with the resutt that there wouLd be no Long-Lived stars (of present tgpe) and no water. On the other side, a decrease in the strong force wouLd prevent the formation of nucLei of heavg metaLs. R dozen further and more of simitar phgsics Literature. sensitivitg mag be assembLed from the re Levant easiLg 2) The Pgthagorean feature. Large numbers arrived at in ions famous turn of Eddington s out these to coincide Large reLation, exampLes astronomicaL computat­ (to within order of magnitudes). Perhaps the most number stating coincidences', the universe is the inverse square of the number as theg are mostLg caLLed, of gravitationaL other exampLes are assembLed in Bondi.) -10- particLes coupLing in the constant. is visibLe (Mang �These two nunericaL features sensitivitg features co inc idences. are are (or can be) These nunericaL features are cited LaMs) conservation of inportanttg that in Large exptain to used nunber as evidence Justifging the introduction of various exotic theories (e.g. invoLving phgsicaL Most interconnected, departures exaMpies earLg Mhich froM accepted norMaLLg Mere the "verging G theories of Dirac and Jordan . So Mrites Carter, Mho appeais to soMe differentig exotic principies, anthropic principtes, Mithin features in order froM far opposite the phgsics Bang) thesis: (GeneraL cosMoLogg and Mhich couLd in principLe have been used to unsurprisingLg, the order of the dag in Mag and be great fun. It cosnoLogg. course Of that the is distiLLation specuLation is is Mith the conversion of this stuff to in received MisdoM, or even knoMLedge, that caveats shouLd be Mhen cLaiM froM evidentLg estabLished. But Large cLains on fLinsg foundations are, far fine, i.e. ReLativistic predict theM 3LL in advance of their observation' (p.291) - 3 Large is nuMericat evidence in favour of exotic theories these coincidences being shouLd rather be considered as confirMing "conventionat" Big the noM received cosMoiogicai setting. Mith the heLp of these the anthropic principies he canvasses, as he puts it, that expLain to prejudiciaL, in e.g. that entered, especiaLLg it points to favoured cone Lus ions such as priviLege or design (for huMans) in the universe. Much capitaL has aireadg been Made of the nuMericat features, of Mhat is referred to - gou C3n see the Loading straightaMag - as a cataLogue of extra­ ordinarg phgsicaL coincidence and apparentig accidentsL co-operation' (0 p.110). Here is a tgpicaL beat-up, bg Davies: The structure of the phgsicaL MorLd is deiicsteig dependent on a varietg of apparent nunericaL accidents. hang of the rather basic features of the universe are deternined in essence bg the vaLues that are assigned to the fundanentaL constants of nature, such as G, a, Mp and so on, and these features MouLd be drasticsLLg aLtered if the constants assuned even noderateig different vaLues. ... for nature to produce a cosnos even renoteLg resenbLing our own, Mang apparentLg unconnected branches of phgsics have to co-operate to a renarkabLe degree (D p.lll; sone of the prejudiciaL terninoLogg is under L ined). The part Last is particuiarig Meak: so our ignorance of interconnections is disclosed, ignorance Me Might have forestaLLed froM arguMent theorg integrated resist apparentLg fitting of unreLated phgsics: together. the topics' present if Carter serves is right. RLL the to reveaL is Lack of an theorg is bits and pieces, Mhich Nor do Large nunber coincidences point to ang hidden co-operation, but rather to over Looked connections Mhich can be argued toHards (as bg Dicke, Carter and others) using fairLg conventionaL phgsicaL equations.^ Rs for the hidden purpose terMinotogg, for nature to produce ...', MeLL, the Justificatorg case for its use is not Mereig not evident, but entireLg The sane appLies to other Lacking. terns Mhich Davies and others infiLtrate, such as -11- �* 'conspire' (Dp.Ill), 'fine-tuned', deiicateiy baianced', 3ii of which suggests agents with certain purposes. Re Lated happening not objections te rm ino Logy, be some against Lodged accident , it accidentaL; be shouLd of the improbab Le coincidence , etc. R contingent worLd need is not accidentaL that Griffin Lives in Troy, Ontario, though it is contingent certainty. Rn improbabLe worLd need not be accidentaL either. RccidentaL means, according to the Concise EngLish Dictionary (CED), Occurring by chance, unexpectedLy, not according to the usuaL order of non-essentiaL'. The misp Laced for the actuaL worLd; and adventitious, th ings; generaL thrust of the notion is decidedLy accidentaL universe is a misdescription.^ To be sure, there is some considerabLe sLackness in terms Like accidentaL', wh Lch can come cLose aLso, when appLied as in schoLastic theory, to meaning contingent. The term vac i L La t ion, as its of condition dictionary coinciding; concurrence nicety coincidence' a definition remarkabLe iLLustrates makes instance the The pLain: of we L L-known act, fact or apparentLy fortu itous Large-number The coincidences are of the first type; there is LittLe case for making them out as of the second type. argue, To however, that the actuaL worLd is not mereLy contingent, but improbabLe, Lt is hardLy necessary to go so far afieLd as advanced physics. Some more homeiy exampies have managed ho Les wiLL do, such as the matter of aLL the Lucky goLfers who in one. consider Or foLLowing the from argument contingencies, to the improbabiLity of the actuaL worLd. Take some contingency, e.g. that person 1 in some ordering of the audience <^s wearing a green top. She might have been wearing any other cotour. Say there are 100 shades to choose from in the cLothing coLour cards. Then the probabiLity that she is in green is no more than 1 in 100. eut the same sort of probabiLity hoids for every other person on the earth presentLy wearing 3 top, and these probabiLities are LargeLy independent, say in I(US) bit Lion cases, i.e. 10^ cases. That is, the probabiLity of the present array of tops is no more than 1 in loH. That aLready makes present arrangements exceedingiy unLikeLy, before we go into the coLours of other bits of appareL peopie are customariLy bedecked in, the coLours towards 16 improbabLe. Lead of the NonetheLess, of motor cars and so on. So even surface contingencies books, cone Lus ion that the worLd actuaL is astronomicaLLu the situation with the fundamentaL constants does differ. Rn important difference between these day-to-day improbabilities, such as have the spouses we do, and those the constants induce is things these this:- Even that if aLL (coLours, e.g.) had been different, the worLd wouLd not be a very different pLace. Contrast the constants: their significant variation wouLd the we make worLd a very different pLace. Is there a difference in kind, with 3 radicaL improbabiLity appearing as regards the constants, degree? OnLy in degree, picture wiLL serve for the bridging range exampies of cases, or tend for -12- mereLy a difference in to suggest. The same broad everyday and cosmoLogicaL �contingencg. §3- Back to mang worLds: improbabiLities and the universaL quantum theorg. Mhere that broad - Leads picture so sgnthesis sought the suggests, as does an increasing amount of cosmoLogicaL theorg - is to the mang-worLds of interpretation Quite evidentLg, worLds semantics are not the onLg semantics improbabiLitg. that can be offered for probabiLitg. few But other offer semantics simitar universaLLtg and informativeness, and some of the aLLeged competitors (not to be taken too serioustg as face damaging circuLaritg in this area, e.g. rivaLs) probabiListic semantics, urn semantics. The idea of the modeLLing naturaLLg It is improbabLe that gou have the spouse gou have , is true bg virtue of this: fact the is that in onLg a few worLds of the modeLLing, incLuding the actuaL one, do gou have gour current spouse; mostLg (insofar as gou occur) gou do not. In preciseLg the same improbabiLities, cosmic wag such particuLar as numericaL vaLues for phgsicaL constants, Lead to mang universe modeLLings. is argument to mang-universes from improbabiLities . The description of the the situation phgsicaL coincidence of probabiListic requires remarkabLe constants, notions, features', e.g. etc. extraordinarg semantics But probabiListic notions caLLs for aLternative worLds. (Thus Davies archerg Les Lie s and This goLf exampLe Of course Davies tends to see worLds used for exampLe). probabiLities as a conceptuaL device (D p.128); Everett invariabLg sees them That reaL. is, what we have emerging is repLag then do improbabiLities the as of universaLs issue! But universaLs do not exist, and nor do these expLanatorg worLds (cf. JB onLg of 8.8). Not Lead to a mang-nonexistent-worLds picture; converseLg the muLti-universe theorg expLains the improbabiLities. envisaged modeL contains ref Leet a huge coLLection of certain intervaL of accuracg); thus worLds the range of (naturaL) vaLues of the fundamentaL constants. RLL initiaL arrangements of matter and motion are refLected in worLds is The worLds. the chances of the present smaLL, exceedingig which expLains (at Least within universe a resuLting various improbabiLities. Does it than matter that we can t normaLLg quantifg these improbabiLities? Rng more we can quantifg the (Large) probabiLitg of nucLear war? No; there is something offensive about the repeated demand for quantification.^ Quantum theorg circumscribed affords situations, a the aLternative phgsicaL situations. actuaL worLd - is seLected, simiLar state mang worLds function is On measurement, one apparentLg at random picture. Least Rt for a superposition of severaL particuLar worLd - the (D p.12!*). This approach enab Les immediate resoLution of an important prob Lem in orthodox quantum theorg. R standing probLem with a compLete universe state function is that sgstem we must have some measuring apparatus that is sgstem. ... Mhen the not itseLf to measure a part of the sgstem is the entire universe, the notion of a piece of externaL measuring apparatus is meaningLess (D p.I2t+). So emerges the famiLiar conundrum for quantum theorg presented aLong orthodox (von Neumann) Lines: If there is nothing Left with which to measure [or otherwise interfere with] the -13- �state the of how universe, universe the can transition from a the make superposition of many possibLe worids to one, concrete, actu3t wortd?' (D p.12^) is, There asserts, Davies interpretation many-universes one oniy - which comprehensive however a resoLution 'accept[s] simuitaneous the reaiity of aLL the possibte atternative universes' (D p.I2i+). But, given the route we have come, it is easy to ontccaLLy atternative neutrai this, to direct that see from there an is object-theory. atternative assumes many universes atso, but onty some at any stage are This actuat. It is obvious enough is that the probabilistic spread of quantum states does not require existent states, any more than the range of atternative dress states for someone probabty attired in requires green, the existence of the person in different ctothes. Measurement now shows which wortd/state an object such as etectron or person in. actuatty is an In these terms it does not cotLapse the probabiLity wave packet, or set of worLds, but marks one out. Lihat isn't known measurement is which worLd (or narrower set of worLds) is actuaL (or the before actuat etectron is in). quantum description, Uhen nothing the entire cosmos encompassed is the within Left to coLLapse the wave' (D p,12S). Rather is nothing in the way of externat measurements is avaiLabLe to determine which is the actuaL worLd; however internaL information can be made use of in the usuaL experimentaL ways. To set interpretations many-worids Everett the quantum of theory and in the contrasting neutrai worLds perspective, here (adapting OeLJitt and Graham) are some Leading features: i) R separate cLassicaL sphere externaL to any and every is not required; quantum set-up it makes sense to consider and investigate a state vector for the whoLe universe. ii) The state vector covering the totaL system never universes) (of coLLapses, and so the totatity it describes can be deterministic. iii) LJhat is described through variabLes dynamicaL the jointLy, comprehensive is not aLL equaLLy reaL; vector and the the actuaL worLd but a system comprising many worLds. (On the Everett are state interpretation on the neutraL worLds these interpretation they are not, other worLds than actuaL ones Lacking of any sort of reaLity.) iv) Through chronoLogicaL deveLopment of the dynamicaL the state vector decomposes naturaLLy ref Leeting a progressing branching of the into system orthogonaL universe worLds) into a set of mutuaLLy unobservabLe worLds. variabLes, (and (On account this is described as a continuaL spLitting into vectors system the of Everett equaLLy reaL worLds; but not in neutraL theory which disposes of this reLativism.) v) In each worLd good" measurements yieLd definite resuLts, and in many -14- �worLds, incLuding the actuaL, famiLiar statisticaL quantum Laws hoLd, indeed C3n be derived or approximated. *- -^ince the neutraL version directLg avoids mang of the to theorg, what is the case for the Everett form? In main part it consists Everett simptg of mistaken ontoLogicaL assumptions, as such objections the what that ReaLitg overactive an principte, has phgsicaL properties must exist.The further argument that aLL branches must be equaLLg reaL, is not compeLLing. Thus DeMitt contends: Because there exists neither a mechanism within the framework of the formaiism nor, bg definition, an entitg outside of the universe that can designate which branch of the grand superposition is the reaL worLd, aLL branches must be regarded as equaLLg reaL (p.178). But we can easiLg incLude actuaL worLd seLection (as group worLd seLection) within cone Lus ion does not foLLow. the weLL and framework; other as given difficuLties the Everett specific, there is, Ln the first pLace, reaList theories such Everett's. as permissive regarding such worLds. In reaList-reLativist a demarcation SecondLg, fact, the however, interpretation theorg avoids. To be faced prob Lem not neutraL theorg the of this the intended It has been objected (e.g. bg Lewis) that the neutraL worLd encounters kinds neutraL bg is too theorg is restrictive about worLds; and few or none of worLds of contemporarg reaLists (^uch as Lewis) get into the picture, since aLL such worLds incLude as existents certain universaLs. OnLg neutraLised anaLogues of such worLds appear fn case, the theorg can be as restrictive as is appropriate about ang In 7). aLso (see which worLds are phgsLeaL, or phgsicaLLg possible. Requisite subcLasses such worLds phgsicaL can marked be out conform tig to phgsicaL Laws and through framework requirements (e.g. that the ensembLe forms a HLLbert space). it is an iLLusion that reaLism as Moreover soLves the reLevant demarcation probLem. It simpLg covers it up, in an unsatisfactorg wag. highLight To us varg a in stock of coupLe pertations, some of what is different in a neutraL iLLustrations of reaListic interpretation, the ontic mang-worLds Let inter- the famiLLar two sLit interfer­ wag. Consider first ence affair. On a straightforward the neutraL approach, we appear forced to concLude that each eLectron traverses both sLits in a wave Like form' (Les Lie LI, p.I!+6), is to the dcaLectic interpretation that the eLectron goes through that both sLits. The mang- worLds approach avoids such contradiction^, aLLowing eLectron to traverse just one sLit in the actuaL worLd - onLg in another branching from this, the the worLd, eLectron traverses the other sLit, therebg inducing probabiListic interference with the actuaL-case eLectron. The wave function provides a superposition of two such possibLe cases, not two actuaL cases. In the transition other worLds are not mang-worLds theorg). from phgsicaL (or potentiaL) worLds to the actuaL one, 'destroged' (as LesLie suggests in his criticism of Nor is the interaction of worLds causaL. There are few or -15- �no causaL effects even on the Everett reaLity version; is spiitting thus not not actuaity observed (cf. virtuai worLds, reLations, etc.). Though there seen, are transworLd interreLations on object-theory these do further criticaL point is that physicaL worLds are not probabiListicaLLy The entities. as exist not independent. But that s aLright; since probabiLity is an natter, intensionaL probabiListic interference is unprobLenatic (cf. "possibiLity" interference). scattering exanpLe where an eLectron is Consider next Davies at fired a proton. The probabiLity wave in such scattering represents a set of worLds for the eLectron. 'The quantun wave provides a Measure of the probabiLity of finding the eLectron 3t the Location: where the eLectron is Most LikeLy to be found ation, and disturbance is greatest there the wave (D p.l2i*). Fleasurenent deterMines the Loc­ so aLters the probabiLities, thus on the orthodox view reducing the wave. Recording to the Everett on however, interpretation, neasurenent the universe divides into two, ... one containing a right Moving eLectron ... Each worLd is equaLLy rest inhabiting each since it is not The observer conscious upon that MeasureMent down-right is spiitting so thus, by occurs; the for there certain a is so near­ probabiLities, anending scattering, that, possibie the because of the uncertainties physicaL states of universe, corres­ ponding to the probabiLity wave, are increased. Lihere there was one for the actuaL possibLities). worLd in possibiLity regard, now there are N Many (N Mirroring the this R nany-worids interpretation of physicaL theory provides a naturaL for neutraL a new state function resuits, appearing to coLLapse 'the wave. since RLL that happens wuth worLd branching is guaranteed copy worLds. But onLy one worLd is actuaL, and represents the (reaL) of universe. Heasurenent can deterMine which this is, and one spLits, MisLeading. There is no spiitting; rather in quantuM processes worLd-branching takes pLace, rep Licat ion atso wortd . Even on the Everett interpretation this is inaccurate, it interpretation ... principLes which aMong seLect detinit or wortds, as setting what are caLLed anthropic principLes, and aLso non-chauvinistic reptaceMents for then such as geophysicaL principLes, can serve to do.^ Rnd in this setting expLanations, of a sort and of varying adequacy, The of aLL the nunericaL features can be furnished. under Lying reason is not (siMpty) that there wiLL aLways be sone universes, which are duty seLected, where the nuMbers coMe out right, but that sone and universes conditions (for of the right sort are aLso decent physicaL universes (a Much More difficuLt requirenent to satisfy). sone such coincidences) It is as these, furtherMore, that are observed (by us), contain universes carbon and water LocaLLy, and so forth. It is then no surprise that we perceive a universe to which so Many speciaL conditions pertain, for we have seLected fron the enseMbLe onLy by our very existence' (0 p.126). But it again, taLk of our seLecting is MisLeading (though taLk of seLection, or naturaL seLection, is not). It is rather that, as a contingent natter, we happen to inhabit such universes^. Rnd such taLk negLects the iMportant point that further work is required, for satisfactory expianation - that piausibte argunents, not invoLving us, but connecting gross geophysicaL features with nuMericaL features, have aLso -16- �to be suppLLed. In thts Mag, ustng the MorLd-ensembLe hgpothests ... [but] MLth[out] the Meak anthropLc prLncLpLe, Lt Ls possLbte to discover pLausLbLe arguments to pLn doMn the vaLues of aLmost aLL of the fundamentaL parameters p.129, a centraL part of hLs cLatm). Indeed DavLes hotds out the negatLng but (D prospect of beLng abte to do much more, constraLnLng the dtmensLonaLttg of space and ttme, the number of quarks and Leptons, numbers of fundamentaL forces, That reaLLg MouLd a sgnthesLs of consLderabLe poMer. It Ls a sgnthesLs, gtve moreover, MhLch can be absorbed or sLmuLated MLth Ln a upon mang-MorLds neutraLLsLng prLncLpLes MorLd bg etc. quantum seLectLon theorg prLncLpLes. and cosmo-Log LeaL repLacLng NonetheLess sgnthesLs, the anthropLc DavLes, the LLke maLnstream phgsLcLsts he artLcuLateLg represents, Ls uncomfortabLe MLth ang such that he LndLcates, ang such grand pLcture, and rLghtLg so, as the 3S sgnthesLs anthropLc expLanattons LnvoLved are far from entLreLg satLsfactorg. HostLg he seems to hope Lnstead that contLngencLes MLLL aLL be expLaLned as necessLtLes of (proposLtLons phgsLcs grand a pLcture, necessarg grand at Least Ln foLLoMLng Log LeaLLg from another theorg). But the hope Ls mLspLaced; Ln Large unLfLed measure Lt represents 17thC ratLonaLLsm over agatn. SometLmes, hoMever, he seems to feet desLgn Ln the untverse. - Ls Mhat features: to supposed emerge, and does emerge, from the numerLcaL Mhat anthropLc prLncLpLes vs. MorLd seLectLon prLncLpLes. Uhat Ls supposed to emerge depends upon hoM the matter Ls set up, hoM the pLcture emphasLaed. Ls Mhat presented, For exampLe, DavLes and LesLLe both set thtngs up so onLg tMo optLons are supposed to be open. In hLs Preface to Da^Le^ Ls The RcctdentaL UnLverse, suggests the sgstematLc aLternatLves are eLther reLLgLon or an anthropLc prLncLpLe. R sLmLLar cLaLm appears Ln LesLLe, Mho puts the aLternatLves as (ethtcaL) necessttg or anthropLc assumptLons. Thus hLs concLusLon (to L2, p.81) The cosmotogLcaL evidence can suppLg __ forcefut grounds for vLeMLng at Least one of these thtngs ss true. (1) God Ls reaL, though presumabLg as a creattve ethtcaLrequtrement rather than as a dtvtne person Mho LLteraLLg destgned our LLfe-contaLntng cosmos. [So the unLverse extsts because Lt shouLd.J (2) There extsts a Mortd EnsembLe [so the condtttons LeadLng to Ltfe are bound to occur someMhere (L2, p.55)J - and the attempt to dertve aLL the fundamentaL charactertstLcs of our cosmos from some untfted FLeLd Theorg Ls tn error. DavLes LnsLnuates that the obvtous Lnference from the cat3Logue of numerLcaL features Ls thts: a htdden prLncLpLe seems to be at Mork, organLstng the cosmos Ln a coherent Mag (p.110). Thts runs paraLLeL to argument from desLgn, hardLg an Lmprovement. One of the prLncLpLes htdden Ls hgpothests; but another Mhtch DavLes (unLtke LesLLe) generaLLg anthropLc prLncLpLe, to LncredLbLe accuracg 3nd Ls some sort of God favours Ls the a gutdtng prLncLpLe Mhtch serves to fLne-tune the cosmos for us (humans) - or Ltfe, or Ltfe-supportLng sgstems, or __ ? Or for observers,or LnteLLLgence, or not for angthtng. The chotce offered Ls reaLLg then an oLd famLLLar one, faced bg thtnkers at Least stnee the (so-caLLed) EnLtghtenment: God or Han, or after a recent ftrst correctton and Mtth a different emphasts, Humans -17- or God. In fact burted under �duaLitg, this is aLreadg as (Science) or Hunans or God. However the a nang tenpts favoured which option, Phgsics excLuded, in error . Rnd it is we as seen: have (coMprehensive) phgsics without netaphgsics, no scientific theorg no is Much scientist and phiLosopher, is increasinqLg seen as excLuded, as forbidden fruit or even as there at Least a three-wag choice: Phgsics giinpsed, without Large assunptions - which stands on its own. But further afieLd there is get is which option, another not excLuded: option here canvassed. The ciain to be eLaborated is this: no (deep-ecoLogicaL) principies of a tgpe not aLreadg required for Low LeveL senanticaL purposes worLd seLection principies) are caLLed for in expiaining the nunericaL (naMeig, features at Least as satisfactoriig as nor huMans Neither principies, gods such be upon popuiarig aLreadg foreshadowed, doing. in More in reMoving huMans features god-Like (and, universe. the principLe cones in a varietg of anthropic verg precise (incLuding Barrow's biocentric reforMutations). SoMe exaMptes give the inpression:- The existence as observers seLection bioLogicaL (D to the own used be can existence a as constants' (ibid). This presents severaL for renoving underiging ngsterg is verg different fron nunericat of expLanation, our p.viii); effect, ... to expLain the otherwise Mgsterious nuMericat disentangie; expLat,ning wiLL idea is to reiate basic worLd features to our own vaLues of the fundanentaL phgsicaL issues as such coLourfuL for nainstreaM phgsicists, atMost none of then prettg MostLg the upon hunans, associated inteLLigence) fron a new speciaL pLace Rs succeed options other the are essenti3t. Since gods do not figure in anthropic wiLL focus the incidentaLLg, forMS, object-theoru far-out the features. sorts, various or Rnd nag these turn in have further theg Mag be siMpig contingent, refLecting seLection without specific purpose. Sone phgsicists go so far as to ciain: our existence constrains the structure of the universe, indeed it even it (0 p-112), for to us , quote froM Hawking and CoLLins. connection in this sweeping context h3s been dubbed this j^s Davies the does, have nothing specificaLLg to do inteLLigence, or with Life, etc. The Dicke argunent, for Eddington-Dirac expLain coincidence, is based of principLe : anthropic the show with what work the or hunans, with designed exanpLe, to onig on the presence of heavg eieMents, and so gives but a hint of bioLogg, if that. So reversaL Invoking the huMan forMuLaticn of the principLe (D p.112)! But quite generaLLg the argunents advanced, which do principLe seLects reaLLg there is no spirit of the Copernican revoLution' in this fashion (pace D p.115, barter, and others). The conditionaL principLe estabLished bg the Dicke arguMent is essentiaLLg J) If [because, g^ven] there exist heavg eieMents, then the universe is such that the Eddington-Dirac coincidence ho ids. The fuLL expLanatorg argunent conprises, as weLL as the detaiLed phgsics that goes toward J), the nodus ponens inference: -18- �The Eddington-Dirac coincidence hotds. There exist heavy eLements, J) More generaLiy, the anthropic way gives principie to physicatiy a argued conditionai scheme of the enthymematic form K) if F then T, or its contrapositive K ) if not-F then not-T, where F is a hard factuai ciaim or more commoniy its existentiat reiativety generaiisation , and T is a more theoretic3i ciaim concerning typicaity features of the worLd, such as numericai features. The short form of anthropic exp Lanation, or better status quo expLanation, is then the argument form F, if F then T L) . .T. famiLiar ontoLogicaL proofs, for instance of an externaL worLd from the Moore s fact that exist, hands arguments. such omit typicaLLy proofs phiLosophers just are difference The is that the soLid argumentation that goes into estabLishing the conditionai schemes of status quo expianations; for instance, makes LittLe effort in this direction, and the required entaiLment rather Moore evidentLy faiLs to hoLd (see fn 30). Other formutations of the anthropic principie in the Literature are than better those hardLy 3tready exhibited. LesLie, who at Least (Like Barrow) moves humans a LittLe off centre stage, puts it in this counterfactuaL way: if our universe had been [everywhere] hostiie to Life then nobody wouLd be observing it (L2, p.66). If the consequent simpiy contextuaLLy impiies that something a Live is doing the observing, then the principie is ana Lytic, and scarceLy up to the intended expLanatory tasks (without requisite information that the the universe contains Life, and much eLse being separateLy pumped in). MhiLe if does not require this, it appears fatse; the Latest seeing-eye robot consequent did survive the hoLocaust, or did just happen as a resuLt of the quantum fLuctuation. In such as Dicke's most purported argument. offers faces reLated difficuLties: worLd appLications of the anthropic The other version of the principie LesLie NecessariLy we conscious beings observe a which is Life-containing (LI, p.lt+1). Rs it stands, this is faLse; for we mightn t exist. Nor wiLL appropriate deLetion consciousness retain we' of fix things. the worLd is, Me might but not be observers, aLL being in vats. But repaired the version is pretty use Less. It bears onLy tangentiaLLy (through that vacuum any case the formuiation Lacks sufficient generaLity; it faiLs to connect appropriateLy with scheme, the but contingency, Life its consequent, containing) on what is at issue concerning numericaL features. The materiaL on us, on observers and the Like, is strictLy irreLevant, a hang-over again presumabLy constructions of quantum theory. -1?- from bad ideaList �* The that the Copernican principte has suffered some sort of set-b3ck idea because of the essentiai rote of anthropic principies in explaining Large-number can be traced back through Carter, who heLped popuLarise the rote coincidences, between of anthropic principies and made the (rather obscure) distinction strong weak has been exaggerated subservience to the 'Copernican principte' [which is] that we must and not assume principies. anthropic gratuitoustg that we Recording to Carter, there occupg a priviLeged centraL position in the (C p.231). The regrettabLe tendency, he sags, has been to universe extend the to a most questionable dogma to the effect that our situation cannot principte be priviLeged in ang sense ... (in extreme form ... the 'perfect cosmoLogicaL principLe ...)'. The Latter assumption is certaintg untenabLe (as Dicke pointed because the universe is bg no means spatiaLLg homogeneous on a LocaL scaLe out) and speciaL conditions (of terrestrial temperature, chemicaL environment) do prevaiL on Earth. But its removaL does nothing to undercut Life the Copernican principLe, or to boost the anthropic principLe in the wag thinks Lt For does. is Carter his bracketed comment after his first formuiation of the anthropcc principle is that Lt for requisite aLthough our situation is not necessaritg centraL, inevitabLg priviLeged to some extent' (C p.291). It is doubtfuL that our position is centraL; whether it is so priviLeged depends on the intended contrast, but whatever the privilege is, it hardlg seems inevitabLe. Carter gives severaL non-equivaLent formuLations of the anthropic principLe, the first of which takes the quasi-anaLgtic but ambiguous form, LJhat we C3n expect to observe must be restricted bg the conditions necessarg for our presence as observers' (C p.291; repeated D p.119). This is certs inLg not the same as Davies condensation of it, what he caLLs the weak principLe, that observers construaL, restrict the observed'. On the obvious (but Less charitabLe) this is but rampant verificationism, of a tgpe verg familiar however from interpretations of quantum theorg. Uhat exists is independent of observers; and observers, especiaLLg remote ones, mag have no significant impact on what iL5 observed. The condensation is accordingLg false. So also, for different reasons, is what it condenses. For one thing, our expectations mag run astrag. True, what we observe is restricted bg the conditions for our doing just that, nameLg being as observers. But this tautologg imposes no phgsical constraints, being equaLLg true for Xing as observing; and no such connection is appeaied to in ang of the derivations of coincidences that Carter sketches. Once again aqain the present arguments never have angthing in detail to do with humans, or even "observers 4-c? -20- .2-1 �(and surety animats observe). Fit best the arguments are directed to the presence of water or carbon 12 or some such - things sometimes erroneousiy equated Life, and often, rather dubiousty, said to be necessary for Life.^S The situation is of this sort with Carter's "iiiustration" of the weak better Locat) anthropic principte, which he formutates as foitows: 'we must (or be prepared to take account of the fact that our Location in observers universe is existence as the necessariLy priviLeged to the extent of being compatibLe with our p.233). In order to get to grips with this recondite formuiation (C Let us remove the initiaL intensionaL functors (which my empiricist friends to with assure are me not essentiaL in physics, despite ubiquity, and their physicists procLivities to modaLs). Now our position can hardLy be priviLeged (despite Carter s tru necessariLy since human-types just might be itaLicization), uniformLy distributed through the universe or again might not exist at aLL. LJhat necessity there is enters in a different way. LJhat we are Left de Let ion, with since misLeading, probabiListic arguments suitabLe for Life in the universe (some detaiLs justified is Like more something unique (though principte this need require of Hh3t may be met. In this humans we are Long-Lived stars Rnd stiLL much more than a weak is dragged in. It is enough, for seLeet ion, universe contains Locations, neighbourhood Sag3n). we're working at it); even on Terra much of the rest of the animat kingdom is simitarLy favoured. seLeet ion in priviLege of habitats miLLions suggest are to this: we are favoured in that the physicaL conditions for our existence, as observers, are hardLy due Our Location in the universe is priviLeged to the extent of is then: be',ng compatibLe with our existence as observers'. But this ciaim cs after in where fact heavy Like the earth, in the metaLs occur, and so on (for certain other pureLy geotogicaL features). BoLtzmann s expLanation of the present high degree of which Ls extremety improbabLe cosmic organisation (in a thermodynamicaL setting) is aiso said to appLy a weak anthropic principte ; witness this the onLy reason that we are priviLeged to exceedingLy untikeiy occurrence is that our very existence [etc.J -21- O.2.2.. �* depends upon the condition which atone can be bg estabiished remarkabte that (D p.123). But again onLg gross phgsicaL organisationat principLes fLuctuation are seLected for; and no more than a weak seLection principte is required. beveraL expLained , so Carter and Davies ci3im, be cannot coincidences simpig bg a weak principte (at Least in the muLti-universes). of is made to the strong (or better gLobaL) principte: appeaL these absence The universe ... must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it at some in barter s (p.120). formuLation exist is for manifesttg faLse. So, Cartesian paraphrase Carter gives of the strong different cogito ergo mundus taLis est . The worLd wouLd presumabtg not be principte, verg theg is this appaLLing the necessarg; the universe does. Rnd since observers mag verg easiLg never given have evotved in the universe, reasons, stage R coroLLarg of the strong principte in this heaviLg necessitated guise is that observers are conditionaLLg must For so different were the contingent premiss faLse; and certainLg the premiss mag Least be true but the cone Lus ion faLse. But at Loading, necessitg gets and principte the appropriate conctusion. For, propertg ideaLLg this the inferentiaL form, with the into formuLated, abandons paraphrase scheme the as is before, Law Like conditionaL of basic form, if F then T, where however T is a a genuinetg gLobaL cLaim that the universe is such 3nd such (e.g. the universe now contains more matter than radiation). The scheme, so then, recast is feature distinctive some theoreticaL LocaL strong the that T is hoListic assertion 3bout the universe, incLuding essentiaL reference to it, not, as it mag be on about of the weak principte, of the universe, which can readiLg be features stated or restated without reference to the universe. But the distinction is not particuiarLg important. The robust, troubie is it from 3 worLd-seLection gives Lt a misLeading most LawLike Mag requisite within consequent. For exampLe, there is stiLL no (egocentric) thought matter; to phgsicaLLg without Descartes God to puLL him out. universe the taiLor-made is for framework of idea - in essence it cLaims a wag Living organisms are subsequentig assured of existence. [So it is]... akin mankind to inhabit. products secuLar expLanations. teteoLogicaL R duLg cLaims anthropic worLd for (D p.121). Such erroneous presentations have done much to encourage both a new anthropocentrism and the idea that are unLike habitation, 3nd that both the Laws of to traditionaL retigious expLanation of the worLd: that God made the are from Hard as it is to credit, Carter is phgsics and the initiaL conditions obLigingLg arrange themseLves in such that an procLivitg to ideaiism exceLLed bg Davies, who sags of the strong principte that that in route respectabLe Carter's (exhibited in C2)), he mag weLL get stuck in the argue to bounds to the intended phgsicaL given and of satisfactorg impression antecedents for the scheme, and makes it presentLg impossibLe appropriateLg verg perspective Carter's extravagant Cartesian paraphrase of the strong with that is principte nor on a par reformuLated Davies with, strong and in schema expLanations anthropic competition supports design with, none of the makes regarding the universe. Nor, as wiLL appear, expLanations, when made presentabLe, -22- akin to retigious �features of the worLd. The expLanations take different LogicaL of explanations forms and LnvoLve quite different ingredients. To see what is reaLLy required for the strong schema to operate, it pays to Look at Then appLications. it becomes evident observercentric that considerations are strictLy irreLevant. Once again far stronger, and biocentric more dubious, conditions than are required for the estimates actuaLLy made been For introduced. instance, (BoLtamann) K, is a good exampLe of a prediction based on what strong' anthropic principLe' (C p.23^); (8) is as foLLows: K aLL f < that is 2 " Tl_ 5 have according to Carter, his condition (8), which imposes an order of magnitude upper bound on cosmoLogicaL But and constant may be termed the 3 ' "P , P invoLved in obtaining this bound, retevance, is the of assumption that ' the un iverse is not radiation dominated aLL its [finite] Life (i.e. that the matter contribution ... to the mean mass density ... becomes greater at some stage Insofar this as is than the necessary radiation (C ...)' contribution pp.233-^.). at aLL - since the estimates concern onLy very broad features, and not LocaL variations - it is 3s necessary for Lichen as for Larkspurs. DLL that is required is a sLightLy stronger worLd seLection principLe than mereLy that worLd contain heavier eLements at some stage; but stiLL the onLy a gLobaL geophysicaL principLe. Rnd this is aLL that here. The same set of points amounts to appLies to Carter's further use of the strong principLe, to estimate the Lower bound on K, which appLies the conventionaL that gaLax Les ... are formed by condensation, starting as reLativeLy hypothesis smaLL density fLuctuations in an otherwise homogeneous further The strength tendentious assumption in background (C p.2St+). this appiication is that gaiaxies are necessary for the formation of stars and hence of Life (C p.23!*). NonetheLess there are arguments for the strong anthropic principLe, though faLLacious ones obviousLy. They come firstLy from positivism. It is cLaimed that if the universe exists then it must be observabLe; so there must be observers - a modaL faLLacy. Davies (in his exposition of Barrow and not argues universe which from the faLse premiss that onLy what is observed exists, that a did then others) admit observers is meaningLess' (D p.I21). This is ideaListic garbage. They come secondLy from an aLLeged expianatory rote, in expLaining coincidences. But it is unnecessary for this purpose as initiaL worLd seLection wiLL serve. They come thirdLy from human chauvinism; thus, too human existence is said to be responsibLe for the very speciaL structure of the universe' (D p.121)! The connection is not however causaL; so what is it supposed There is be: teLeoLogicaL? thus a serious probLem as to how this responsibitity, hardLy evident, is exercised. FinaLLy a strong principLe might uniformity to - one principLe to cover be argued for on grounds of aLL cases. But better a weaker correct -23- �principLe than a strong faLse or geophgsicaL principLe wouLd suffice Rnd principLe. dubious doubt no a weaker aLL phgsicaL constants. (Of course, for there reMains the natter of this worLd seLection. This worLd does exhibit Life, incLude hunans, and so on. But these features, Like the present species of does eucaLgpts expLanations, or reLevant, cLasses of worids.)"^ and are RnusingLg, astroLogicaL and More converses hunan affairs; white under gerMane not the to extravagant anthropic principies are to astroLogg, ceiestiaL events infLuence anthropic hunan anaLogue, affairs infLuence CeiestiaL events and processes incLude those of the sun. Moon events ceiestiaL its are abstracted fron in seLecting expLanatorg Recording other. each of wonbats, grazing of whereabouts and and other pLanets (especiaLLg). Rnd these certaintg appear to have an (indirect) weak infLuence, especiaLLg through the soLar atMosphere and pLanetarg Large pLasMas, on terrestriaL phenoMena (Fegerabend, p.93). The anthropic converse, in this forM danagingtg anthropocentric and exhibiting an excess of hubris, is Much further froM the truth. Not just the anthropocentric, but the eMphasis of nuMericat features. Rnd despite the bioLogicaL anaLogies, just Lt,ke explanation seLection without vaLues, so even Rs are there there is seLection without seLectors. More, RLthough seLection is sonetiMes accoMpiished through seLectors, often takes not is naturaL seLection. It is not seLection for, for fitness, survivaL, or whatever. Nor, More iMportant is it seLection bg, bg soMe agent. vaLues MispLaced. is insistence, Life is not essent-iaL in Mang worids Le^Lie Despite biocentric seLection without seLecters, randonig or otherwise - this tiMe as in naturaL pLace seLection, which does not require a personified Nature to do the have evoLutionarg theories as/oid ageneg. In avoiding ageneg, seLection is Like that seLecting, as enphasised. Such expLanation can straightforwardig of Darwinian evoLut- ionarg theorg; and seLection contrasts with direction as incLuded in aLternative evoLutionarg Though accounts (cf. DarLington, p.l^ff). anthropic principies coMe in a varietg of forMs, depending upon how the conditionaL scheMa ^nvoLved is fitted out, none of theM, then, does what is saud, none depends essentiaLLg on the presence of huMans, or of Life. SgntacticaLLg, theg etaborate usuaLLg status quo arguMents, of forM L), with factuaL fir^t preMis^ F concerning the state of the worLd LocaLLg (weak forM) whoLe (strong seLection forM). SenanticaLLg, or as a the factuaL preMisses function as worLd principies; theg serve to Mark out the cLass of phgsicaL wortds or to narrow then down to these or those, e.g. to those where heavier eieMents such as carbon occur, those where Long-Lived stars, such as the sun, appear. It is that carbon is sonetiMes taken to provide an "order-of-Magnitude" approxiMation for Life (that is the nearest Long-Lived star is supposed to to hunans provide that the the "approxinations" get); Life as the arguMents a steadg warMth required for the evoLution of Life (but Long-Lived stars, water, and heavier objects are as to true near need get). But these additionaL, and nore dubious, detaiis are unnecessarg for the Main thrust of status quo arguMents, as distinct -24- �from their anthropic 3nd biocentric augmentations. meet Given that the worids seiected are of this and that cast - in generai geophgsicai gross Less, up the to constraints — other features of them can be derived (more or standards rough accepted in and physics) in expLained, particuLar, how and that it is that certain (fundamentaL) physicaL constants Lie in restricted ranges, narrow and unexpected ranges. These arguments, duty fitted out, do provide exp Lanations, non-causat exp Lanations, of physicaL features of a contingent, mereLy LmprobabLe universe. Much there is, however, in these most ctaims, that has been contested, from the psycho LogicaL such of inadequacy a universe to the worth of such expLanations, if expLanations they are at aLL. objections to the cosmo-LogicaL synthesis; and finding unLikety, an in comfort and with Prob Lems mereLy universe. contingent, Somehow contingent universes have acquired the reputation of being coLd, remote and uncaring - a not habitat for sensitive creatures. But the reputation is undeserved, since fit contingency does not bear on any of these things. Mhat is contingent can be just as weLL as coLd or neither; caring or not, so far as the appLication sense aLL; at and hot makes so on. One can be warm and comfortabLe in bed on a wet and wintry night. One can be at home, comfortabLe in, in tune with, a tiny part of an improbabLe universe, as some tribaL peopLes are. None of these virtues are Ln any way undermined by contingency, matter of a necessary universe. or aLways assured by the quite separate a degree of harmony between us Furthermore, there can be, or have evoLved, and our surroundings , without principLes, as that our worse, that the universe is universe such exaggerated cLaims, on based anthropic are very speciaL and tuned to us' or, surroundings made for us'. Me humans can be in with tune the without having the universe tuned to us, as we can foLLow and ornament a song on the wind or in the woods. But so far, especiaLLy recentLy, we humans coLLectiveLy are not doing too weLL in attuning oursetves to the worLd. Rs this iLLustration begins to metaphysicaL and psychoLogicaL reveaL, predeLiction^ may pLay a not inconsiderabte rote in choice of, and ornamentation of, physicaL theory, especiaLLy of controvers LaL theories such as quantum theory and cosmoLogicaL theory. In the case of such theories there is a certain bag technicaL so to say tricks, tricks, equations and so on, which are de rigeur - a theory-skeLeton - and beyond that both an interpretation and setting for the bag integrating of theM and suppLying of with some sort of meaning, and them usuaLLy aLso some further formaLism connecting the tricks together or to a wider theoreticaL background. For exampLe, even in accounts of too much in the way of interpretation theory where is commonLy frowned upon, extensive correspondence ruLes Linking the formaLism with upon quantum cLassicaL physics are retied heaviLy. Rt Least for everything beyond the theory-skeLeton, which is what is appLied in most concrete day-to-day appLications of the theory, there is much room for rivaL fLeshing out of the skeLeton - Latitude -25- such as there is in �archeological reconstructions of peoples from some scattered bones. Recasting quantum theorg, as in the mang-worlds interpretation, offers not as merelg a basis for fleshing out the theorg non-idealisticallg, but for combining it with general to subject much of the criticism, much of it directed more broadlg at most Happilg as However such recasting, when not reLativitg. largelg ignored (the common fate of nonstandard theories), is criticism. well plural world theories in general, misses the neutral modification. There are firstlg a batch of aesthetic and ontological objections. These commonlg take off from the of unattractiveness duplication or replication of profligate such worLds. LJeLL, tastes and vaLues, Like intuitions, do varg with sub-cuLture. Some of us, who escaped over-exposure to worlds the ReaLitg do PrincipLe, stories illuminating and attractive, indeed verg inviting. So, next, the whole thing is said to be unbelievable: no one can reasonabLg existence believe worLds nonetheless, especiaLLg in explanation. these in (the these unlimited numbers of universes. Granted, we do not believe of) in this either. These other worLds do not exist; but we can make of neutral find heavg Load of objections carrging on about excess use extensive In this wag we avoid a baqgage. ontic also Ue main criticisms based on Occam s razor. (RLL these objections are short-circuit met, in much detail, in JB.) Linked to such Occamist protests are a batch of objections that are pictures worlds effect the to over-engineered, both too complex 3nd including too much baggage. Thus in thermodgnamics a smalt fluctuation producing some order is more LikeLg than one producing Lots of order, one galaxg more LikeLg than Lihg do similarlg we not find ourselves in a one galaxg universe, which is far more LikeLg? The answer is in part: because Less LikeLg contingencies hold. Is the ubiquitg No, (D p.123)? mgsterg instance, the on the commenting of of numbers approaches reasons. in these unwarranted presuppositions. The that the universe was set others Like be explained. For Dicke Thus and Peebles remark, in of the universe for a few conscious individuals, overdesign revealed well one of a thing is itself verg unlikelg. Find just special can, that a single galaxg cosmos might be ruled out bg the can observed galaxies in our universe ... therefore a such evolution further there mag be mang. up Mach's Moreover, principle. questions and remarks are based on various overdesign" for idea, for example, presupposes some individuals; but the worlds picture correctLg avoids thLS assumption. The things in this world that exist happen to be there, probable or not, and often, for reasons we can sometimes explain, not. But there is tittle solid evidence that theg are arranged, for us or others. In its original form the unfocussed "overdesign" objection was mainlg directed at cruder anthropic principles, as were unverifiabilitg and unfalsifiabilitg. a batch of objections The well-worn criticism, that notorious psgchoanalgtic and Marxist principles did too much, being so designed that covered everg protested that case, was redirected from against anthropic principles. it is hard to see how the anthropic principLe can be It used theg was to make testable predictions, because ang theorg inconsistent with our existence is �4 M3nLfestLg Not faLse . such protests been weakened bg avant garde have onLg phLLosophg of science, but, as Carter has poLnted out, anthropLc arguments couLd varLous Ln prLncLpLe have been used to predLct theg Rnd notLced. were faLsLfLcatLon, e.g. where erroneous that unLLkeLg assumptLons prLncLpLes, regards Rs fLrst). under but Ls worLd-sgnthesLs, aLL that worLds the whether Ln wLth cosmoLog Les and of verLfLcatLonLst seLectLon whLch semantLcs, or phgsLcs exLst, LnvoLved of themes objectLons do have some verLfLabLLLtg vLrtue of what Ls meant bg bg bg neutraLLsed ex Lsttng. But the force of these objectLons Ls theorg. as conversLon, object-theorg Granted LnterpretatLon. of Often, Lt (though of weaker forms wouLd be abandoned, other surrendered force agaLnst mang-worLds theories, assume derLved object Lons are LargeLg mLsdLrected, because what are at Lssue are phgsLcaL semantLcs, are coLncLdences premLss factuaL be wouLd verLfLabLLLtg not the anthropLc arguments do admLt of of 3ssumptLons the before coLncLdences numerLcaL neutraL worLds objectLons, the crLtLcLsms of mang-worLd such prLncLpLes anthropLc as geophgsLcaL or prLncLpLes are LntertwLned, and dLsentangLLng the crLtLcLsms Ls enough to partLg So them. def Late aLso wLth the reLated charge th3t the neutraL worLd- Ls Lt sgnthesLs theorg Ls unscLentLfLc or at much turns Least dubLousLg scLentLfLc.PLaLnLg on what Ls admLtted Lnto that esteemed categorg, scLentLfLc. But on most accounts, use of seLectLon prLncLpLes succeeds Ln gettLng LncLuded. Rnd so, pLaLnLg enough, does mang-worLds quantum theorg. Rfter 3LL, Lt has 3pproxLmateLg as the same sorts of predLcatLve and test capabLLLtLes more That fact of narrow empLrLcaL LndLstLnguLshabLLLtg mag be the source of theorg. other compLaLnts, but Lt gtves no ground for the charge worLd Ls seLectLon prLncLpLes excLuded! are It at hand. of scLentLfLc and theorLsLng experLmentLng true that some theoretLcaL and wouLd (per prefer LmpossLbLe) and wantLng to st Lek to a uLtLmate and unLfLed expLanatLons. No doubt such semantLcaL apparatus does faLL fouL of the the substance of the charge, consLder some of the crLterLa often beLng theLr theorg narrower sLmpLg reveaLs further serLous defects Ln such vLews. But to reach that vLews: fuLLer the narrower (hgpothetLco-deducttve) methodoLogg, are uneasg wLth worLds seLectLon, sureLg But phgsLcLsts, and mang phLLosophers, LosLng sLght of what enters Lnto range quantum orthodox scLentLfLc. UnfaLsLfLabLe? SureLg set down for Ln areas where the framework Ls not pLnned down bg phgsLcaL theorg. OvercompLLcated and LnsuffLcLentLg gLven what the worLds theorg Ls Lntended to accompLLsh sLmpLe? Not (e.g. the semantLcaLLg theoretLcaL work Lt Ls aLso put to Ln areas such 3s LLnguLstLcs). Etc., etc. Perhaps the most teLLLng theorLes LLke worLd—sgntheses objectLons whLch agaLnst LncLude status quo arguments, and them, concern theLr expLsnatorg capacLtg. StrangeLg theg have been condemned both as expLaLntng too much - ang thLng at aLL can be brought out Ln some worLd - and as expLaLnLng too LLttLe and beLng trLvLaL. Not both these objectLons are LLkeLg to succeed, as theg tend to undercut one another. IndependentLg, Lt seems cLear that the arguments do provLde expLanatLons, for LnvoLved Lnstance, of the strength of the strong nucLear force. It aLso seems cLear that the expLanatLons afforded are of vargLng -27- depth, �+ depending in part on the depth of the underlying physicaL theory invoLved, this and the pLausibiLity of the further assumptions made in the arguments. Better exempiific3tions of status quo arguments in physics satisfy not oniy more ordinary requirements for expLanation; they aLso meet assembLed conditions considerable time, by HempeL, mainstream the which conditions on position demanding for represented, some what counted as a scientific expLanation. Furthermore, the chief objections to have more the HempeLian the account that emerged have been to the effect that it is too rigorous, not that it faiLs to provide jointLy sufficient conditions for expLanation. To make a prima facie case that better status quo arguments do provide exp Lanations, it is enough then show to expLanation LogicaL HempeL s that conditions on the (p.2t+7ff) have been met. By contrast conditions design with scientific of the arguments, 3re satisfied. The expLanandum T is a LogicaL adequacy of pattern basic consequence of the physicaL argument eLaborating the schemas F, if F then T; the expLanans has empiricaL content, at Least in the shape of expLanans F; which connection if F then T, provides expLanans are true, Uere a foLLows from arguments using physicaL Laws. FinaLLy, the demanding empiricaL condition of adequacy, that the premisses used in the is satisfied in better status quo arguments. the basic pattern aLso necessary for scientific expLanation, it wouLd be an easy coroLLary that many poorer status quo arguments fait to provide expianations (beginning with Carter s and Descartes is there the and contains general, Laws which are actuaLLy used in the derivation. For, in better status quo arguments, the conditionaL schema, Law Like premiss much quo status that such Cogito arguments), and that arguments cannot presentLy expLain decentLy, '^ncLuding such major puzzLes as Life and inteLLigence in the LocaL worLd. It can be independentLy argued, moreover, that poorer status quo arguments, which patentLy (or short meeting HempeLian conditions, fait to generate satisfactory of satisfying) expianations. TriviaL, dogmatic, forms, such as that things 3re the way they are because that is how they are, represent a virtuaLLy worse of sort. this But possibie. weakening to principte, that what The universe is inhabitabie, because we are here, because ask Forrest so is aLso humans inhabit The universe is suited to inteLLigent Life because there are peopLe such questions upon). focusses inferences, is sLightLy embroidered, are arguments with connecting principLes Such, the earth , case better, or more informative, are those arguments scarceLy which appLy the possibility Like faLL (exampies adapted from the sorts of anthropic arguments These short; patentLy faLL arguments, which they LnvoLve offer no aimost immediate further appropriate basic (HempeLian) argumentation making use of generaL Laws. Given that better status quo arguments do afford scientific expianations, and given further that the arguments do serve to remove and not without predictive force, why have they been genuine puzzLement fauLted as expianations, and sometimes criticised 3S not providing expianations are at aLL (e.g. Forrest)? The main reason offered, that back-to-front , these "expianations" are appears to rest on the assumption that aLL genuine expLanation -28- �shouLd be broadLg causaL, and accordingLg exhibit (time-) the direction or controi. Status quo expLanations are certainLg not causaL, and mag causation weLL run counter to causaL direction, expLaining features of the earig the through of distribution present universe of eLements. That is, however, perfectLg in order. For satisfactorg expLanation is not causaLLg restricted either ordinariLg or scientificaLLg. HempeL suppLies severaL different sorts of pattern basic of causaLLg or controL directed (pp.352-3). EspeciaLLg striking in this exampLe opticaL straightforward his of his which are not causaL expLanation or expLanation scientific exampLes regard is a particuLar event...satisfactoriLg of expLained bg reference to subsequent occurrences'; but his exampLe of two-wag where the period of a penduLum serves to expLain the Length of the expLanation, penduLum as weLL as converseLg, is aLso highLg re Levant. For it is too expiaining commonLg assumed numericaL that shouLd coincidences be the presence of water, carbon and the Like in the universe, not vice versa. But there is no iLLuminating reason quo status whg direction shouLd expLanation the instead not in run the as weLL as, vice versa. That of, iLLuminating direction is after aLL from the famiLiar to the much Less famiLiar, and more in need of expLanation. such It is true of course that more simpig means that status quo expLanations ad hominem stgLe of status quo expLanation, for are. Like expLanations, most further unreasonabLg stop deeper expLanation. The expLanation-stopping forms are and form: contraposed inquirers verg for expLanation if it weren t so gou woutdn t be here to ask the question. However such put-downs (in the envisaged persistent Legitimate the those (which Forrest discusses) where the response to a request for the Long. wouLd contexts) not more charge, damaging feature of the universe, Then PF. seLecting worLds where PF hoLds. But the theorg. the then, is that worLd-sgnthesis can expLain too much. The charge is backed up bg the foLLowing sort of consideration. puzzLing deter Theg wouLd be awag in search of further expLanations, such as better status quo arguments mag furnish (at Least for t ime be ing). The not begin in the middLe wag. Nor do theg, except in speciaL, rather theg uLtimate: takes famiLiar, the presence of water and carbon, aLso caLLs for expLanation; but that as quest the charge it Take ang can be expLained simpig bg misrepresents worLd-sgnthesis There is more to it than this. There is a cruciaL argumentative Linkage aLso invoLved, between PF and gross geophgsicaL features of the worLds (near factuaL worLd T) which are seLected. Or, put differentig, the seLection does not take pLace on basis the of PF, but (mereLg) under the constraint of gross geophgsicaL features; accordingLg if the argumentative Linkage from satisfactorg status quo arguments worLd-sgnthesis. is missing, PF is not to be expLained through In short, then, worLd-sgnthesis theorg offers expLanations when bg and then the expLanations mag varg greatLg in quaLitg depending on the depth of the phgsicaL the framework is suitabLg fLeshed out phgsicaL theorg; information invoLved in the argumentative Linkage. EssentiaLLg the same points undermine Forrest's further objection to such -2?- �many-worLds explanation, truths; contingent have we aLL do to coaches easiLy as the pumpkins of turning numericsL coincidences. But there is no such free as seLection of phusicaL worLds - which do not incLude worLds vaLidating magicaL as faiL, can schema connecting arbitrary and practices. Status quo expianations may not be easy transformations at aLL, but physicaLLy comp Lex, they are not atways and they as is to posit suitabLy many and varied (p.9). Thus the theory is aLLeged to expLain worLds into that it "expLains" contingent faLsehoods as easiiy an when assumption invoLved easiLy avaiLabte, and the eLaboration of the in , and the argumentative schema issues in a contingent faiLs faLsehood. For a necessary condition that a status quo expianation be successfuL is that the argument be correct; but then given that the argument form is vaiid, the cone Lus ion cannot be simpiy f aLse. is It that satisfactory expianations, with conforming to such conditions of adequacy as deductive vaiidity in and quo status expianations winning in expianations differ from decisiveLy design which are sometimes seen as on an expianatory LeveL competition with status quo and expianations their piuraL-worLds setting (thus e.g. LesLie), and sometimes even confused with them. Design arguments characteristicaLLy take the deductiveLy invaLid abductive modus toLLens form: Things are (surprisingLy) so and so F If a design hypothesis heLd (e.g. the universe anticipated observers, a design-force operated), things woutd be (unsurprisingLy) so and so. If H then F Therefore, a design hypothesis (probabLy) hoLds. .. H Nor in design arguments is the connecting schema normaLLy eLaborated by appropriate scientific argument; nor, where God is invoked, i§; there any way of suitabLy confining the argument scientificaLLy. Thus support first the LesLie's of Larger cLaims is faLse:- the LiorLd EnsembLe hypothesis rather than the God hypothesis. !^e do not have...strong evidence of an EnsembLe' (LI, p.150). for Science does not their existence No branch of physics in a way commanding wide acceptance (LI, p.S3). The main reason is that the Bod hypothesis is not part of a physicaL theory that many-worLd theory is caLLs in the way of quantum theory (thus, e.g., there is no physics text corresponding to DeLiitt and Graham for the God hypothesis), [^hiie the Last cLaim is true, it does not teLL against the truth of neutraL many-worLds theory. Uhat science supports is science, not the the metaphysics it presupposes. Physics is not however aLL of science by any means, and even science doesn't do everything, onLy a rather narrow seLection of things. Richard SyLvan -30- 11 �RPPENDIX 1. Some Rncient Rntecedents The Non-Limited is the originaL materiaL of existing things; further the source] from which existing things derive their existence is a iso that to which they' return at their destruction, according to necessity [for reparation]... —----- So, in the 6th Century B.C., said Rnaximander, perhaps among the first aLso to set down a story of the evoLution of humankind.Something the same was said in text, though on the favoured taLe a Heideggerean and Taoist touch was Lent, the with Nothingness repLacing the Non-Limited. In the on beginning, there was nothing; and uLtimateLy, too, there wiLL be nothing. have been paid. The p3raLLeL with Rnaximander can be pressed further. In account origins, of of worLd the contemporary charged pairs of particLes are created in the oppositeLy 'the order, wiLL Reparation process of pair formation from the vacuum; white in Rnaximander's story formation story, this opposites the of which are present Ln the one [the Non-Limited], are separated out from it' (but 'the "opposites" are the hot, coLd, the dry the , the moist, and the rest : see Robinson p.25). There is aLso a phenomenon which corresponds to some Limited extent to the Big Bang, nameLy Vortex. the It seems cLear, however, from the materiaL Burnet assembLes, that Rnaximander's position amounted to the first Less satisfactory resoiution, matter or substance aLways. For the BoundLess or Infinite was a materiaL cause, -^*-*dstance (p. 5k<); it is eternaL and ageLess is brought about the origin of the worids. did — Further, according to SimpLicius, not ascribe the origin of things to any aLteration of matter, but said that the oppositions separated encompasses aLL worids substance". RLso there is in it eternaL motion, in which which makes it a queer he and out . If in that the substratum was which a boundLess body, were is right — and it may not be, especiaLLy given Later ontotogicaL infLuences (cf. p.61) - then the matter is cLear. Rnaximander beiieved there were innumerabLe worids (p.58). These worids were concurrent, not successive. coex istent remains uncLear, but Later in the Whether Bound Less" they tradition (biassed) took them exist, making Rnaximander's position a many-existent-wortds theory. The to Law of compensation, under which for borrowing or variation reparation must be made, becomes the Law of repayment aLL were of conservation. The reparation paraLLeLs the borrowed" mass-energy. The more generaL steering of aLL things - overarching order in naturaL processes - becomes the Laws of nature which govern (reguLate) the processes. 'The orderLiness ... is grounded in the nature of things as such . Rnaximander's account represents an immenseLy -31- important stage in the �transition from world-order is myth from science. to first to ... Last 'Hesiod's account of the origin of the anthropomorphic. account Rnaximanders represents, in principLe, a complete break with this mode of thought (Robinson p.27). From this angle the anthropic and idealistic fixes of contemporary science show marked regression. That transition, beyond anthropic creation stories, is also accomplished in the main philosophical essentials of the favoured resolution can where Taoism, be found. Something flowed from nothing, in a seemingly paradoxical way? but not through ang creation or agency. There was a the before time when beginning nothing at aLL existed. The problem of Laws (of nature) was also recognised, and resolved. did Laws not exist (independently at least of things that did) but were exhibited in in things that did exist. So it seems to follow that, stage at restricted property to duty what separated, and was mainly Lacking ascriptions Taoism Such nothing. a and deep in cosmogonic tales, then, from the ^.th C. B.C. until the 20th C., was a plausible explanatory story as to how come from together. of does exist. (Fuller details of Taoist cosmology, under this type of interpretation, are ventured in ecology', written with D. Bennett.) Mhat the which nothing existed, the taws could hold without having 3ny sort of existence, i.e. truth and existence were existence at story a few something could humans are Just beginning to piece NOTES Thi^ passage from Misner, Thorne and Uheeter, p.1212, is given an appropriately grander setting Ln the text. The passage Ls also quoted by DavLes, G p.222, who Lt to Wheeler. In Davies the idea of ascribes foundations for cosmology simple and unassailable Logical is given a different exposure, and is then linked with restrictions, to zero, on God s range of choice of universe to make. 2 Especially by those whose inquisitiveness and sense of blunted or destroyed by the mainstream culture and its wonder h3s educational not been practices, practices much mainstream philosophy reinforces and tries to justify. 3 Indolent philosophers tend to assign those of these questions that they write off (e.g. as semantically defective or as betraying philosophical uonfuslon or hang—upz?) to science. But they are not Just a matter for and scientists tend to come up with philosophically loaded, naive, theories scientists remain, insofar as they address the cannot questions and at often science; enough all. Too many Like too many RustraLian phiLosophers, in the grips of awfuL metaphysics, such as narrow empiricism and/or physicaiism. -32- �^The anaLysis semantical It of naturaL a is Law is that' Law-constrained worLds, naturaL worids. The interpretation ruLe for necessity. Terra, appLy but to Like is It shouLd be noted that geophysicaL features, appLied in seLecting worLds, are not of course confined to systems. in terns of geophysicaL pLanetary other "Rn eLaboration of this type of answer can be further expLoited to heLp why actuaL the standard ot worLd is science expLain comparativeLy so that simpLe, mathematicaLLy tractabLe, etc. HameLy, it is convenientLy so because the actuaL worLd seLection invoLved impLicitLy to render it so, by choice of a serves worLd with the compLexity of richer worLds removed and onLy tractabLe ideaL etements (such as scientific universaLs) adjoined. &RLtern3tiveLy, through quantum and borrowing positive feedback, a massive firebaLL forms. The story admits of much variation. ? The prob Lems, as the questions of the Lattice in diagram 2 indicate, what expLaining phiLosophers does exist, Lie with what does not. In a reLated way, 3LL those not papers on the prob Lems nonexistence of and nonexistents have misjudged the prob Lernatic, and misconceived the onus of proof. For commonLy the probLems concern existents and their behaviour; nonexistents, especiaLLy those functioning in expLanatory rotes as regards existentiai often behaviour, are very weLL behaved by comparison with existents. It has been suggested, by D. Lewis, that the underLying theory of items (of JB) renders everything exists. But it nonexistent, is and makes it 3 reaL probLem, how anything patentiy faLse that the theory of items render everything nonexistent. There are criteria for existence, which are often JB, chapter 9). Every thing nominaLists normaLLy take to satisfied (cf. exist satisfies the to be justified; it cannot (with any pretension to satisfactoriness) just be cLaimed, in the fashion of so many phiLosophers. In any case, Lewis can be simuLated: whatever ind iv idua Ls exist criteria. Beyond that existence has in Lewis worLds wiLL exist in worids-seLection theory. Rnd it is. a genuine phiLosophicaL probLem how anything exists. g in 19t+6; see his cosmoLogicaL text. Llhitrow aLso appLied, more than RpparentLy a quarter of a century ago, PrincipLe , in his what has now been eLevated to the Rnthropic answer to why the dimensions of space are three; nameLy, th3t this atone permits the evoLution of Nan, the formuiator of the probLem'. However 'Uhitrow's reasons concern not mankind but stabLe pLanetary orbits and compLex neurai networks' (LI, p.!^). g Compare the binding energy which keeps etectrons bound to a nucLeus, where correiativeiy energy stored up in overcoming forces of repuLsion is positive. -33- �e a story couLd be totd to bring Laws within the expLanation framework. However It wouid teLLing invoLve Laws first evoLved or happened to hoLd, the how before vacuum fLuctuations. (For some interesting specuLation, from which the ontic and anthropic commitment can be removed without totaL Loss, see Barrow pp. 151-2, where "chaotic gauge theory" is considered.) The issue of uLtimate is expLanation again up taken seLf-justifying postulate as serving refLexive, expLanation. Note that in UQ, to the resoLve the matter the especiaLLy of probLem uLtimate, PostuLate Characterisation a of of object-theory is an initiaLLy promising candidate for such a principte. issue is that, on the story as toLd, quantum phenomena assume Another serious decidedLy they course Of macro-dimensions. may, Schrodinger s cat iLLustrates, but perhaps not in the parabLe the as supposed of catastrophic form. In the absence of any approved quantization of general, reLativity, there onLy are Lax physicaL controis on what is in and what is out in specuLation here. Rnd, of course, the second story couid There are other mechanisms for the sudden be rise in eLaborsted other ways. e.g. white mass-energy, of ho Les in geometrodynamics. In his second paper, Tryon makes a rather casuaL beginning on meeting some of difficuLties the with the vacuum fLuctuation theory the cosmos, and of expLains the advantages of combining the theory with that of a (stiLL probLematic) "infLationary" universe, to boost the fLuctuation. But the theory stiLL awaits aporopriateLy detaiLed deveiopment and modeLLing. 12 There are various other issues concerning the physicaL constants, incLuding the question of the (sLow) evoLution of "constants" over time. LJeLL, do evoLve, the they if same sort of probLems arise for the parameters which repLace them (L.e. at each time t, for c(t)). There are putative arguments to the effect that there can be no very grand unified theory, and no finaL eLimination of constants, because any such theory wouid do too much in determ in ing the worLd (and things). But it is unctear at present how such an argument gets duty eLaborated. R tight argument uneLiminabiLity of some physicaL constants from physicaL principLes for the wouLd be of much interest. 13 Th',s is what is reaLLy accompLLshed in Carter. To some extent we have emerging in this area a contemporary scientific numeroLogy. 1L Convergence arguments, e.g. for such things as the Church-Turing thesis, underLying connections, but not co-operation. l^Even Less, seemingLy, is the universe an accident, 'an event proceeding from an unknown cause; something unexpected; a casuaLty, a mishap, l&If however the worLd reaLLy were necessary, such improbabiLity must be grossLy -34- �reduced. How can that be: how can these contingencies be not what theg seem? 1? How M3ng worLds? ContinuousLg mang worLds? There is no reason whg not. But the answer is: as mang at Least as required. In object-theorg numbers don t short matter though much, so difficuLties technccaL controL Ls advantage. an are There as to measures, e.g. of fewness, in infinite modeLLings. Yet the notions are Ln order, e.g. among the naturaL numbers primes are few. 18 point, ThL^, and the inestimabLLitg specific of probabLLLties Ln (e.g. Ls argued, though in insufficient detaiL, bg TouLmLn among others meteoroLogg) Bg the wag, sureLg a creator wouLd have increased probabLLitLes bg seeing to a unLverse for fit decent habitation; a variation upon the argument from evLL infiltrates itseLf Ln probabiLitg guise here. 13 worked There are in fact mang proposed soLutions, most of them not theg (because far verg out have onLg few proponents), most of them not comprehensive certainLg (but it couLd be argued that this is a faLse ideaL), severaL of them discussed bg Everett, DeMLtt, Lande and others. 20 MheeLer s sequentiaL modeL another, so satisfgLng the theorg (Like certain offers a simitar range of worLds, but one after 'reaLLtg principLe". EarLLer MheeLer had adopted cosmoLogies) Eastern with in muLtLpLLcitg a both sequent La LLg and Lnto the possibLe; but recent Lg he has abandoned dimen^Lon^,, the Latter, partig on erroneous ontoLogLcaL grounds. 21 It Ls of course not the onLg reaLLstLc-stgie LnterpretatLon whLch does thLs: envisage everu Lande s LnterpretatLon is another. 22 From a neutraL viewpoint, Lt ts entLreLg taLse that atom ... as Me must constantLg engaging in this tgpe of scattering sctLvitg, therebg spLLtting the worLd again and again Lnto a stupendous number carbon-copLes of of LtseLf. The unLverse must therefore be LLkened to a tree, whLch branches 3nd (D p.I25). Nor Ls rebranches universe. 23 To anticipate, schemas of what the form, happens "if the tree-structured sgstern of universes the is as foLLows:- The antecedents of "anthropic" there exist so and so [e.g. observers] then ang phgsLcaL worLds must be such and such", are appLLed to phgsLcaL worLds. Rs there certainLg do exist so and so, narrow ctass the phgsLcaL worLds of are restricted to those that are such and such. gL It cs stLLL reasonabLe to 3sk whg - indeed to e.g. whg do we inhabit it?, whence a Long pose' severaL whg questions, evoLutionarg storg. Mhg are the constants those theg are?, then aLternative answers, LncLudLng brute fact, are among the possibiLities. -35- �roundLg defeated Shapiro. 26 bg the sorts considerations advanced bg Feinberg and of Davies aLso suggests that mang-worLds theorg can provide a pLausibLe phgsicaL (as opposed to phiLosophicaL) justification for the strong principte (D p.122 middLe). In fact he never reaLLg shows this satisfactoriig (nor can it be so shown), and in pointing to the power of the m3ng—universe theorg he undermines the strong principte, showing it otiose. 2? arguments are presented in modat form, with the connecting quo status Often scheme set in either necessitated form, if F that) (e.g. T if exist there necessaritg then (it if possibLe modaLities are de dicto and and that invoLved cLaims the It such). if F then T. The modaLitg invoLved is not one of LogicaL contingent nomic of that strength, but can be adequateLg NecessariLg, necessitg, an The error. argument guarantee the concLusion, NecessariLg T, nor does it pretend form these or even in Lowest common denominator form. To attach the (reLative) modaLitg simpig to consequent T wouLd be second is 'it is more than mereLg rather reads that seems represented, as usuaL, through a necessitated connecting schema, one F form, (e.g. what is the case LocaLLg (what observers observe, T etc.) is onLg possibLe if phgsics is such aLwags be and so, then the universe must have, or so conform to, such and such features), or, in quasi-transcendentaL onLg must to do does not so. The is a LittLe more probLematic; but it appears to assert that F is inconsistent with not-T, and so, through obvious connections, the same as the rectified first form. 28 Mhat we have are devices, that fragments of theories, ruLes thumb, of appear to work in a range of cases. and caLcuLating It is these parts that mag generate successfuL technoiogg. The picture is Like engineering. 29 R main charge made bg LesLie against mang-worid cosmoLogies, e.g. LI, p.l^Sff. It is a surprising turn, given the popuLaritg of hgpothetico-deductive methodoLogg, to have it aLso objected that mang-worLd theorg voids induction. Putting chance in controL of inter-worLd differences erodes confidence in our sampLe of ReaLitg, on which our inductions are based' (LI, p.1^.3). this objection gets off the ground (it is transparentLg Insofar cLear as that it does), it depends on assuming the reaLitg of the entire worLd ensembLe. So Lt not Lapses against a neutraL theorg. 30 R reLated phitosophicaLLg important exampLe where the schema does so far is in Moore s proof of an externaL worLd, noted above. The reason is that the existence of arbitrarg materiaL objects, such as hands or does f3it not guarantee that the requirements (order, isoLated unitg, cabbages, coherence, mcnd-cndependence, etc.) for an externaL worLd are satisfied. 31 Rn earLier version of this paper was presented at the RustraLasian Rssociation of PhiLosophg Conference, Rugust 138^. The -36- heLpfuL comments bg David �Rrmstrong, Brian Ellis and David Lewis, unreferenced above, were the discussion. commentaries; Both several made during John Leslie and Jack Smart supplied me with worthwhile their points have been incorporated, but some have of been resisted. The initial Univerity preprint series. version W3S published in an Rustralian National 32^ See Freeman, p.IS. for fuller discussion of need for reparation, see Burnet. Rnaximander's on position; the REFERENCES J.D. Barrow, Rnthropic definitions', Quarterly Journal of Royal the Rstroncmical Society 21^ ( 1983) lt+6-153 H. Bondi, Cosmology, Second edition, Cambridge University Press, I960. R, Brout, F. Englert and F. Gunzig, The creation of the universe as a quantum phenomenon' RnnaIs of Physics 115 (1978) 78-106. J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, Fourth edition, Rdam & Charles Black, London, 1930. B. Carter, Large number coincidence and the anthropcc principle is in Longair, 291-98. B. Carter, The anthropic principle and its implications cosmology', biological for evolution , Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London (1983) St* 7-363. C.B. Collins and S.U. Hawk eng, Uhy is the universe isotrophic?', 19310 Rstrophqsics Journal 180 (1973) 317. C.D. Darlington, Darwin's Place in History, Blackwell, Oxford, 1959. P. Davies, The Rccidental Universe, Cambridge Universitu Press, Cambridge, 1982; referred to as D. P. Davies, God and the New Physics, Dent, London,1983; B.S. DeUitt referred to as G. and N. Graham, The Many-Uorlds Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J., 1973. R.H. Dicke and P.J.E. Peebles, in S.U. Hawking and U. The big bang cosmology - enigmas and nostrums , Israel, eds, Genera 1 relativity: an Einstein centenary survey, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1979, pp. 501^-517. -37- �G.F.R. ELLis, 'is the universe expanding?', GeneraL Reiativitg and Gravitation 9(2) (L973) 87-9L. G. Feinberg and R. Shapiro, Life Beyond Earth, Morrow, New York, 1980. P. Feyerabend, Science Ln a Free Society, New Left Books, London, 1978. 'RnthropLc answers and the existence of P. Forrest, Proceedings God', of the Russet Lan Society, University of Sydney, 7 (1982) 1-13. K. Freeman, RncLLLa to the Pre-Socratic Phitosophers, BLackweLL, Oxford, 1971. N. Griffin and R. SyLvan, Provisionai Rnswers to ULtimate Questions, typescript, Canberra, 1981}.; referred to as UQ. S. Hawking and G.F. ELiis, The Large-Scaie Structure of Space-time, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1973. M. Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, (trans. R. Mannheim), YaLe University Press, New Haven, 1959. C.G. HempeL, Rspects of Scientific Exp LanatLon, Free Press, New York, 1965. Lande, The Laws behLnd the quantum Laws , BrLtLsh JournaL for the PhiLosophu of Science 27 (1976) 27-^3. J. L^sLLe, RnthropLc prLncLpLe, worLd ensembLe, desLgn , RmerLcan PhLLosophLcaL QuarterLy, 19 (1982) l^l-lSl; referred to as LI. J. LesLLe, Cosmo Logy, probabLLity and the need to exp La Ln LLfe', Ln ScLentLfLc ExpLanatLon and UnderstandLng (ed. N. Rescher), UnLversLty Press of RmerLea, MaryLand, M.S. LongaLr 1983, 53-82; referred to as L2. (ed.), Confrontat Lon of Cosmo Log LeaL Theories wLth ObsservatLonaL Data, ReLdeL, Dordrecht, 1971}.. C.U. MLsner, K.S. Thorne and J.R. UheeLer, GravLtatLon, Freeman, San 1973. G.E. Moore, PhLLosophLcaL Papers, RLLen and UnwLn, London, FrancLsco, 1959. R. RobLnson, Essays Ln Greek PhLLosophg, CLarendon Press, Oxford, 1969. R. RoutLey, ExpLorLng MeLnong's JungLe and Beyond, Research SchooL ScLences, RustraLLan NatLonaL UnLversity, 1980; referred to as JB. -38- of SociaL �Sagan Broca's Brain: Ref Leet ions on the Romance of Science, New York, Random House, 1973. S.Tou Lm in, The Return to CosmoLogy: Postmodern Nature, University of CaLifornia Press, BerkeLey Ca., 1982. Is the universe a vacuum fLuctuation?', Nature 2^6 (1973) 396-7 E.P. Tryon, E.P. Tryon, Science and the Theo Logy of *Mhat made the worLd?', New Scientist 101 (198!+) It+00, 1!+-16 FLN. Mhitehead, Process and ReaLity, Cambridge University Press, 1929. 6.H. Uhitrow, The Structure and Evo Lution of the Universe, Harper, New York, 1959. Second edition, � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document RBSTRRCT The proposed syntheses Ls set Mithin generat object-theorg. tde3 The undertging the sgnthesis ts that the 3tternative Mortds sewantics - arrived 3t tn of pursuit of a tnctudtng senanttes universat ones) retevant and, semantics generat (a as connectedLg, part for of att a Languages, comprehensive object-theorg - be apptted atso tn fundamentat phgstcs, Most importanttg to the natter of the ortgtn, htstorg, 3nd phgstcat features of the cosmos, but as Mett, agatn connectedtg, theorg. etseMhere, Ln particutar Ln the LnterpretatLon of quantum a The unLversat semantics Ls a mang Mortds - theorg. The poLnt of such apptgLng an mang nonexistent Mortds - LnterpretatLon Ln cosmotogg atso Ls exptained bg Mag of examp Les, concernLng the understandLng of the contLngencg of exLstence and of present arrangements. improbabititg the R resotutton of the basLc question, sketched, a as Marm-up exerctse 'Nhg does angthLng at for exLst?' att questions as to Mhg various other the prominent features of the universe are as theg are, notabtg Mhg the constants of phgstcs appear to have. have the fundamentat parttcutar surprtstngtg senstttve vatues theg Chauvinistic ansMers through anthroptc prLnctptes are crLttcattg Ln favour of resotutLon bg Mag of Mortd sgntactLcattg, status quo arguments, MhLch use setection^ and gross rejected, correspondLng features geophgsLcat thLs and neLghbourLng unLverses to exp La Ln the surprLsLng vatues of The character of the Mortd—sgnthests resotutton - reaLLg a resotutton Ls ts of constants. frameMork fLLLed out Ln the course of countering a Mide SMeep of objections, and of exp La LnLng Mhg the resotutton frameMork invotving seLeet ion satisfactorg of the main tgpes LLLustrated in the four-fotd: is the most IMPROVED CO3MO-LOCICRL 3YMTHE3I3 TOWRRD RH There Logicai is a foundations tradition persistent - impiging simpLe and get undiscovered - for the whoLe of cosmoLogg. The as tradition, which peaked in modern rationaiism, continues strong in cosmoLogicai specuLation. unassaiiabLe Thus, contemporarg for exampLe, recent rationaiistic theories of the universe, ambitiousLg aimed at mathematico-iogicai expression and capture of nature. Thus, of MheeLer: for exampLe, the bottom Line to the mang theoreticaL enterprises LittLe astonishment shouLd there be, therefore, if the description of nature carries one in the end to Logic, the ethereat egrie at the center of mathematics. If, as one beiieves, aLL mathematics reduces to the mathematics of Logic, and aLL phgsics reduces to mathematics, what aLtemative is there but for aLL phgsics to reduce to the mathematics of Log ic ? Logic is the ontg branch of mathematics that can think about itse Lf'. Logic reassumes its ancient roLe 3S the fundamentaL science; the Mord expresses a LogicaL recipe. Even white abandoning some of the it Lus ions of grand reduct ion istic schemes, and undermining the EnLightenment power guest for the LogicaL the theoreticaL capture and can The sgnthesis outiined in setting. contribute what foLLows LiberaLised bg are semantics and to the organisation of a unified fits into this more modest It is achieved bg suitabig reLocating cosmoLogg as a part of semantics (generousig construed, for exampie, to admit contextuaL eLements). then, to controt of the universe, there is much of a more modest character that recent LogicaL theorg, as nonstandard sgstematisation, worid picture. kegs universaL So unified, semantics, re Levant semantics and cosmoLogg, as suggested in a preLiminarg wag in diagram 1. RCTURL X L ORLD(S) GEOPHYSICRL SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE PHYSICRL SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE RELEVRHT SYSTEMS SUBSPRCE MORLD SPRCE Comment. The subspaces are Marked out by ctosure and other requirements, that of by cLosure of each worLd under deducibiLity (reLevant deriva— systems reLevant biLity), that of physicaL systems by cLosure aLso under physicaL Laws formuLated terMS Ln (suitabLy of condLtLonaLs) and perhaps factuaL constraints as weLL. actuaL (or better t3ctuai) worLd Ls a seLect coMMon worLd the to nested spaces. The underLytng Lde3 of the synthesis is siMpiy this: a subspace of is aLso a suitabLe framework for cosmoLogy, for an interpret— semantics worids neutrai *3 L Lon of the Log iceL theory of the universe as a whoLe. In Less condensed form, the ide3 is that the aLternative worids semantics arrived at in the pursuit of a semantics universaL part connectedLy, as semantics comprehensive (a theory the of aLL of for aLL be objects, Languages) and, aLso appLied physics - most importantiy to the matter of the origin, history and fundamentaL physicaL features of this cosmos, but 3S weLL eLsewhere, in interpretation theory. quantum of particuLar Ln That stripping. ontoLogicai of Load MorLd-ensembLe terms of nonexistent Mortds. Hot surprisingiy, in the recasting the in theory j^s for is, the theory can be recast in existentiaLLy neutraL terms, wcthout the originaL object ionabLe theory, the Rnd in the case of quantum theory there is aLready, most convenientiy, a many-universe or worLd-ensembLe theory, ready neutrai in (e.g. changed unobservabLe the spiitting worLd of the Everett other worids interpretation gives way to future— directed worLd branching). The setting in terms of do which objects not exist, especiaLLy, is essentiaL. For one reason, the idea grew out of investigation (with Griffin for the provisionaL but so far nonexistent book UQ) of what is normaLLy taken to be a phiLosophicaL question, indeed by some such as as the fundamentaL question of metaphysics, nameLy exist? . Reset in worLd terms this becomes a question worLd such Mhy does anything at aLL of seiection the - a contains be to taken exist. For then the oLd circLe is simpiy reentered, expiaining existence in terms of more existents. Here the circLe is metaphysics: 3 much more tractabLe question. But the recasting Loses expLanatory merit shouLd aLL the worids invoived objectionabie of that we find ourseLves in which contains something existent (us as among other existent things) as opposed to an aLternative worLd, which nothing Heidegger cf. JB broken, as it is eLsewhere (particuLarLy in chapter 2), by expiaining what exists by way of what does not. It is the faiLure to duty aLLow for and -2- acknowLedge this pattern of expLsnatLons, though Lt represents coMMon practLce Ln the theoretLcaL sciences, that has wade Lssues LLke the Lntractab Le. In fact quest Lons Lihg Hetdeggerean the concernLng does angthLng quest Lon onLg Ls exLst? question LLke Lt so ftrst of a LattLce of the the character and nature of the cosMos Ln whLch Me happen to be, that are LLabLe to be asked , questLons ascendLng to (Just) seen Ls? ; questLons Uhg Ls thLs cosMos Mhtch MorLd ModeLLLngs wag fruLtfuLLg be to appLLed, as an Lwportant fLrst step Ln eLLcLtLng sone ansMers. (Bounded) LattLce of questLons. DIRGRRM 2. 7 Uhg does Mhg does angthLng evergthLng at aLL exLst? exLst as Lt Uhg do 7 Hhg do eLectrons Lihg does Lnte L L Lgent ex Lst? (Ln LLf e LLfe forns the nunbers exLst? (Ln the ex Lst? theg do?) forM Lt does?) In the reorLentatLon of MorLds senantLcs fron Languages to cosnoLog Les, f row Language to the MorLd, there are certaLn features that shouLd be kept fLrriLg Ln vLeM - apart fron such notorLous features as that anong the MorLds of the node L L Lngs are a range of bLzarre, absurd, LncoMpLete and MaverLck MorLds, and that each (nonexLstent) MorLd has a LncLudes donaLn of objects though Lt a subdoMatn (perhaps nuLL) of ent Lt Les, tgpLcaLLg contaLns nonexLstent objects, both posstbLe and not, phgsLcaLLg reaLLsabLe and the MhLch, feature of not. In partLcuLar, MorLd seLectLon shouLd not be Lost sLght of. For Lnstance, Ln assessing truth, a factuaL MorLd T Ls seLected - Ln one Mag or' another, but tgpLcaLLg bg a choLce functLon on a cLrcunscrLbed evaLuatLons are Morked out (recursLveLg) at I. cLass NaturaLLg and ho LdLng the assessnent of truth MLLL generaLLg Lead begond MorLd T LtseLf. For (reLevant) <deducLbLLLtg a subsgstew of dertvatLonaLLg cLosed MorLds Ls defLned; for poss Lb L L Ltg a subsgsteM coMprLsLng consLstent MorLds Ls Marked out; for naturaL LaMLLkeness a subsgsteM of phgsLcaL MorLds Ls dLstLnguLshed^; and so on for other cases of subsgstew and group seLectLon. $I- The Mang MorLds approach to the "Uhg does angthLng at aLL exLst?" quest Lon. -3- There ere Many canvassed answers to thts questton, and stLLL More Mays of trytng to dtsMtss Lt. RLL dtsposat the atteMpts are defective, 3nd Most of the canvassed answers are unsattsfytng (so Grtfftn and I devote a good deat of space tn UQ to showtng). One approach that ts not inadequate — but perMtts however devetopMent tn severat dtfferent dtrecttons - ts the Many wortds approach. It ts true (and argued eLsewhere, e.g. JB) that R) SoMe thtngs extst. Thts truth enjoys a Modat status, that of conttngency tn fact. weaker ctatM sufftees, naMety But, to begtn, a C) It ts conttngentty true that sone thtngs extst. For the extstence that Most thtngs enjoy or regret ts conttngent. The obvious truth of the More controverstat ctatM that nothtng necessartty Left open for the present. extsts, can be NeutraL wortds ModeLLtng of theMe C) yteLds dtreetty a Many wortds picture, wtth soMe wortds, tnctudtng the actuat wortd T, contatntng extstents, and wtth soMe posstbte wortds contatntng no extstents (but perhaps soMe nonextstents). Likened to a dtsp Lay of baLLoons: DIRGRRH 3. Static pteture of a 0 : 0 : 0 Object doMatns contatn 0 ____ _________ extstents 0 0 : 0 0 worLds ModeLLtng for theMe 0). 0 : 0 0 It can be 0 00 DoMatns contatn no 0 extstents posstbte worLds Such a neutraL nodeLLLng begs no sertous onto Log teat questions, invotves no ontoLogtcaL prodtgaLLty. For tt ts not assuMed that any of these Ln worLds extst, any way. (It ts not dtfftcuLt to represent what does not extst.) Nor need Lt prejudtee Matters unduty agatnst necesstty theMes such even were Lt Lf Lnterpretatton MistakenLy Lnststed, as as agatnst God-hypotheses. the For stratghtforward of C), whtch aLLows Lt ts necessartty true (under soMe necesstty deterMtnabLe) that soMe thtngs extst, a retated Many worLds pteture woutd resuLt; the dashed LLne woutd stMpty Move down the diagraM). But Let us st Lek wtth what ts rtght, C. It ts More reveattng to take theMe C) as tensed - after aLL extstence ts existence now (JB chapter 2) - and to tntroduce, what further Lnvesttgatton wLLL require, dynaMtcat ModeLLLngs. Then, wtth soMe evtdent eMbrotdery, the foLLowtng sort of pteture eMerges: -4- Dgnantc ptcture untverses. DIRGRRfl t*. MorLds of nodeLLLng of thene C), ML th sanpLe t 3 EXI5TEHTS (FULL CONSERVRTION) RLse and faLL of HD ] A Lt SOMET IME EXISTENTS^ R NULL LJORLD f* ExternaL ttne scats (tsLgnLfLes the Locat present) Consents. r-bjch Ls presupposed Ln the wag the pLcture Ls draMn (e.g. that sone Measure of exLstents C3n be obtained, bg Mag of partLcLe nunbers)^ but these presupposLtLons can be nodLfLed or renoved. The such as sane sort nodeLLLng serves aLso to vaLLdate thenes LLnked to C), of D) There mag have been a tLne Mhen nothLng exLsted. ConsLder seLectLon, noM (or done Ln terns of of the cructat wetter of T-seLectLon, L.e. factuat Mortd 6-seLectLon, L.e. referentLaL sub-Mortd seLectLon). ThLs Ls certaLn features these Mortds have, such as contaLnLng entttLes, LncLudLng observers, exhLbLtLng LLfe, nanLfestLng LnteLLLgence or wLnd - to antLcLpate features conLng up and sonetLnes proposed for MorLd seLectLon. Such seLectLon pLcks out thts MorLd fron the ensenbLe of MorLds (our Mortd aLso, as Lt happens). Rnd the Mortd thus seLected LncLudes exLstents. Mhg does angthLng at aLL exLst? Because thts MorLd, T, LncLudes, happens to LncLude, extstent objects. To thts extent Lt Ls -5- a natter of fortune - qood it night be hazarded, since the worLd exhibits enough that is good 3nd fortune, enough potentiaL for good. Rs a contingent Matter, this worLd contains (in its object donain) '.tens that exist. So T-setection deLivers a worLd n3king it true objectiveLg that sone things exist.^ The answer Mag seeM trite; that but is in Measure Large because the and answer are taken in isoLation, apart froM issues as to the detaiLs question of the process, the how questions, such as H) How does it happen that soMething exists? The issue can be considered in uLtinateLg exists is question terns this of of nass-energg, since evergthing that kind (so it is argued in JB chapter 9). To the H ) How does it happen that sone Mass-energg exists? tMo sorts of answer are possibte. FirstLg, there is the conservative answer: sone atwags existed. There is an end Less ongoing sea of Mass-energg, which sinpLg fLuctuates, Moves, recgcLes, etc. There are pLentg of probLens with this answer; for instance, phgsicaL prob Lens, such as how did the Big Bang of standard cosMOLogg occur, what was happening before it? But there are aLternative MatheMaticai stories now being toLd, for instance, of a Massive singuLaritg Located in space (rather than at phgsic3t tine t = 0 as with the Big Bang), which trg to offer a phgsicaL account of a continuous universe (see e.g. G. ELLis). Rnd the singuLaritg stories offered can be enriched (aiong Lines rather Like what wiLL be ventured in the case of the second answer). RLnost aLL traditionaL phiiosophicai and theoLogicat accounts, aLL v^rtuaLLg honage paging to ontoLogicaL assunptions, shouLd be inciuded aMong the conservative, existence-aiwags answers. But the nonnateriaLLst accounts anong these characteristicaLLg invoLve LeveL shifts^^Thei is back to the existence of God or the (uLtinate) One, who, on a higher LeveL, serves as eternaL sustainer, and perhaps fashioner, of the MateriaL universe. The conceptual and other probtens of such answers are sufficientLg notorious. SecondLg, there is stage nothcng existed. The energg. the Rt More appeaiing and siMpLe radicaL answer: at sone that difficuLtg before tiMe, the that anccent Long-received probLeM orthodox of how prejudice, sonething that nchLi fct, is invariabLg reinforced bg again Bang, there was no for this picture is how Mass-energg ever appeared froM the MacroscopicaLLg tranquiL sea of nothingness. past Big can It is no great feat to get coMe froM nothing. The froM nothing nothing cones, ex nihiLo Mistaken ontoLogicaL assunptions (see JB chapter 2). Yet even when these ontoLogicaL assunptions are set aside, there is the awkward natter of C3usai nechanisn. But an unLikeig storg can be toLd, a ngth retated, expLaining how sonething -6- a may (suddenly) emerge from nothing, jet of mass-energy the from sea of nothingness. The story borrows from the quantum theory of the vacuum (or rather, ot suitabie vacuums). There is suddeniy an avaianche of energy borrowing , 3nd mass creation of particies in a concentrated area.& This is the beginning of the Big Bang (at internaL time zero). It is unigue (in experience) because such a singuiarity is very improbabte. (Even a SmaLL Bang wouid be rather improbabie.) The net energy "borrowed" is borrowed on a very Long term (at high interest?), with a gradu3i repLayment pLan. This ties concerning the run-down eventuaL eventuaLLy (though perhaps over this of very a with principLes universe. protracted of thermodynamics, On this story, it wiLL time) subside back into From nothing everything existent originaLLy came; into nothingness everything existent wiLL uitimateLy process. nothingness. It is one thing to such devise 3 story, or rather the (or outLine scaffoLding) of a story; it is another to condense it into science. before But scorn is poured on such a story, Let it be noted that the story is Less bizarre, more and informative, than other extant phiiosophicaL stories. For exampLe, it appears more piausibie than the ideaList story of the construction of the physicaL worid from idea, or than the set-theoreticaL myth of the construction of the entire universe from the nuLL set - undoubtedLy a it as earLy encompasses existent individuaLs, construction, insofar of something existent from nothing, not since, despite orthodox cLaims to the contrary, the nuLL set certainty does exist (JB 9.9). There are reasons for much preferring the second styLe of story to the first - though it may appear to some to viotate conservation principLes such that mass-energy: of as in fact it need not. One is that the end Less mass-energy story faits to account for the presence of mass-energy. By contrast, nothingness does not reguire expLanation: it is, so to speak, the rest position. In terms of the range of possibiiities here, existence is what is unusuaL, what is atypicaL, what especiaLLy caLLs for expLanation, not nonexistence.? Hence the expLanatory superiority of the radicaL answer. Rs one might expect in varying such an obvious and ancient story, and as is easity discovered, scientific condensation and assessment has begun, especiaLLy in the Last decade. The idea that the totaL energy of the universe is zero was considered a human generation ago by Mhitrow&, refLecting on Flach s phiLosophy of motion. More recentLy, Tryon has argued the zero totaL energy theme, assuming a cLcsed universe and appeaLing the standard treatment of gravitationai to If the universe contains just enough potentiaL energy as negative energy. mass to cLose it, then the negative energy must more or Less exactLy canceL the energy (mc^) invoLved in the existence of that mass. Hence, the argument runs, even a a cosmos as impressiveLy Large and ancient as this universe couLd exist as deveLopment quantum vacuum through in borrowing fLuctuation on a a zero-energy vacuum, that is, through grand scaLe in a reiativistic setting. Such vacuum fLuctuations can occur by dispensation of the AE.At --h; when the mass-energy AE of a physicaL object -7- uncertainty principLe approaches zero, its LLfe,tLMe At can becoMe verg targe. OnLg the Merest begLnnLng on reMOvtng certaLn object Lons and to wore scLenttfLc storg MtLL be atteMpted. FLrstLg, there are, LnevLtabLg a such obstacLes Lt seews, onto Log LeaL and verLfteat Lontst object Lons. Hang of these turn hoMever on assuMtng that a vacuuM and ewptg space Must soMehoM exLst, at Least bg Mag of sort of exLstLng contaLner or structure. Such assuMpttons are wtstaken: no (pre-) exLstence need be assuwed. Such objects 3s vacuuws and unoccupLed space sone nonexLstent are and dLstLnctLve Mtth objects assessLbLe MatheMatLcaLLg propertLes. Though theg nag not be access LbLe to observatton, and Ln thLs narroM respect are outsLde the range of experLence, then concernLng tnvesttgattons exactLng for there to LnfornatLon Ls suffLcLent be Made of theLr features. SLnLLar potnts teLL agaLnst the objection that Lt Ls Mrong to Lwpose an externat spatLaL or tewporaL Measure on (Mass-energg) cLosed space-tLMe; for exawpLe, Mhat happened before the BLg Bang, or to ewbed the curved space-ttMe of LnquLre the unLverse Ln a Larger spatLaL or tenporaL settLng. Rs a Matter of fact, cosMOLogLsts wang exh Lb Lt no unease Ln ashLng Mhat happened before the BLg Bang even Mhen assuwLng no Matter before that, though verLftcattonLsM MouLd no doubt such to ruLe guesttons out as weanLngLess or otherMtse out of order. More to the potnt, bounded Metrtcs can atMags be extended (HubbLe ttMe Ls just wtstahe though fruLtfuLLg, soMettnes bounds vertfLcatLontst one are exaMpte), exceeded. and Rnother has been to assuwe that NothLng, stnee nonexLstent, Ls entLreLg Mtthout structure or organLsatton and ungoverned. Indeed tMo dtaMetrtcaLLg opposed poLar v,eMS of Lt have prevented, and even been run together: of NothLng chaottc, as and so excessLveLg rtch, and of Nothing as entLreLg bLank, and so excessLveLg tMpovertshed. Both are Lnadequate. R More tnteresttng ontoLogtcaL objeetton (ratsed bg Rrwstrong) Ls that such an account of the ortgtn of the unLverse takes granted for exLstence the naturaL LaMS, and so does not expLaLn hoM sowethLng ex Latent cane frow objecttons Such confuse truth neo-PLaton Law. LaMS hoLd, but do not vteMs, Mhere LaMS Mtth exLstence, exLst - bg after contrast Mtth nothLng. fashLon the of of neo-PLatonLc reLatLons of unLversaLs, MhLch exLst. On object-theorg are (such as that of JB), hoMever, unLversaLs do not exLst, and so LaMS are not thus extstentLaLLg Loaded. Once truth Ls duLg separated frow exLstence, there Ls of course the further questton of Mhg the LaMS that hoLd or evoLve do hoLd. But thts Ls a separate, and vextng, questton of uLttMate expLanatton.^ SecondLg, are there More technLcaL adwLttedLg shakg phgstcaL account; for quantuM nuwbers of objeettons, instance, that dtrected But Lt the Mtth the the vacuuw MtLL constst equaLLg of Matter and antt-Matter, and qutckLg vantsh agatn, Mhereas features of the unLverse perstst tMbaLance. agaLnst fLuctuattons and suggest noM seeMs that a verg sLLght (and, so Lt Ls satd, deLLcate) tMbaLance earLg Ln the evoLutton of the unLverse after the BLg Bang Ls just Mhat Ls required for present perMLtted features of the unLverse; and such an LMbaLance, on recent (GUT) theorLes, catastrophtc fLuctuatton hardLg excLudes. R thLrd connected obstacLe used to be sertous: Lt -8- has been presupposed that a state can be assigned to the whoLe universe.^ But that is now aLright; quantuM according for neutraL to of) (adaptation the Everett Many-universe interpretation of quantuM theory, a state function i covers the behaviour of the P worLds phgsicaL I (with P c K), which presuMabig evoLve according to a e reLativised Schrodinger equation of the fom SE(T). To soMe expLain of the recent appeaL of this sort of wortd-ensewbLe interpretation, it is worth turning to the interesting and curious business of the phgsicaL constants. The §2. of constants of phgsics and sone of their neat interreLations. natter The interesting cLaiM is that the setting or adjustMent of certain constants surprisingLg deLicate, and if the constants (and soMe of their constant that ratios) were different bg ontg sMaLL Margins, then the actuaL universe woutd very is be with the resuLt, aMong Mang other things, that we shoutdn't be different, here to observe ang of its LocaL passing show. Now the possibiLity of exp Lanation of the specific vaLues of these the in terMS of phgsicaL theory itseLf is not so far exciuded. Perhaps no constants constants in physics are uLtiMateLy fundaMentai, Various ways eiiMinating of constants though seeMS that unLikeLy. are now faMitiar, e.g. soMe represent new scaie factors and are eiiMinated by re-scaLing or choice of coordinates. Others are reMoved by More radicaL ways of reLooking at things, as in Einstein s treatMent of gravitation. But sone resist eiiMination - so far. in For, phgsicaL any theory, what case, fundaMentai is depends and soMe previousLg fundaMentat constants (such as Rvogadro s nuMber) have turned out to be derivative as theory constants on the given shape of advanced new and (deeper) were introduced. There is the reMote possibiLity, obviousLy cherished that bg soMe scientists, that in the end aLL phgsicaL constants can be reMoved, a constant-free (very grand unified) theorg in which aLL constants can be reMoved wiLL resuLt. This is not obviousLg iMpossibLe in the wag that a coMpLete eiiMination of LogicaL constants froM Log teat theorg is, that a finat triuMphant reMovat of the Scheffer stroke froM cLassicaL propositionaL Logic is iMpossibLe. However, it is too Much to expect that a "deep MatheM3tic3i anaLgsis" aLways do the job. For one thing, exp Lanations of this sort do give is an arguMent for this out. can There froM the backward proceeding character of deductive expLanations to More generaL preMisses (appLging the content-incLusion character of deduction proper). There are no MatheMaticaL anaigses without assuMptions, without a systeM of postutates. The hope (expressed by MatheMaticat Carter and others), that generaLLy deeper underlying theories can be found, wiLL not 3iwags be fuLfiLLed, of necessity. Since transforMations, such as seating, aLter or reMove constants, can transfer the Big Bang back to Minus-infinity, and so on, there is no soLid to expLain, underLying the ELLis, for one, aLLegedLy probLeMatic nuMericaL features (so data B. contends). UhiLe it is true that which constants feature, and what their vaLues are, wiLL depend on initiaL choice of units, whatever that at Least some of the constants wiLL emerge. Thus there wiLL be features choice, and vatues which require expianation, and exptanation of the however transforming the done. is For S3me broad tgpe, the present, 3nd immediate future at Least, there is no getting rid of the constants, and white theg to continue figure their numericaL vatues and ratios set some trickg prob Lems. There is the probtem, first of aLL, of describing the reLevant phgsicat data neutraL non—prejudiciaL fashion. The facts of the matter are more or Less a Ln as foLLows:- Present phgsicat theories incLude mang (phgsicaL) constants, which occur in the formutation of Laws and principtes. R number of these constants are fundamentsL, in that theg are not derived from other constants (or deduced from deeper phgsicat theorg). Two things have been noticed concerning fundamentat constants of present phgsicat theorg, both of which caLL for expLanation:If 1) the of certain constants Lag outside a rather narrow band (sur­ vatues rounding their perhaps universe wouLd be ascertained vatue), gross features of the geophgsicaL different. this - hopefuttg without CaLL prejudice, since its contra­ position represents the substantiat core of the anthropic poss ib Le principte - the sens i t iv i tg numer teat f eature. va Lues For record, the the geophgsicaL principte resuLting from contraposition takes the foLLowing form: certain gross features of the geophgsicaL universe are onLg possibie in present form if the numericaL vatues of certain constants Lie within a narrow sensitivitg band. Examptes of such gross features are isLand gataxies, Long-Lived stars, ptanets, recognised ittustrate, water, hgdrogen, heavg carbon, metats. RLL the forces, for instance, exhibit the sensitivitg features. To phgsicat the strong nuctear force were marginattg stronger, nuctei coutd if grow much begond the present Limits and att hgdrogen woutd Long have ago been converted to heLium, with the resutt that there wouLd be no Long-Lived stars (of present tgpe) and no water. On the other side, a decrease in the strong force wouLd prevent the formation of nucLei of heavg metaLs. R dozen further and more of simitar phgsics Literature. sensitivitg mag be assembLed from the re Levant easiLg 2) The Pgthagorean feature. Large numbers arrived at in ions famous turn of Eddington s out these to coincide Large reLation, exampLes astronomicaL computat­ (to within order of magnitudes). Perhaps the most number stating coincidences', the universe is the inverse square of the number as theg are mostLg caLLed, of gravitationaL other exampLes are assembLed in Bondi.) -10- particLes coupLing in the constant. is visibLe (Mang These two nunericaL features sensitivitg features co inc idences. are are (or can be) These nunericaL features are cited LaMs) conservation of inportanttg that in Large exptain to used nunber as evidence Justifging the introduction of various exotic theories (e.g. invoLving phgsicaL Most interconnected, departures exaMpies earLg Mhich froM accepted norMaLLg Mere the "verging G theories of Dirac and Jordan . So Mrites Carter, Mho appeais to soMe differentig exotic principies, anthropic principtes, Mithin features in order froM far opposite the phgsics Bang) thesis: (GeneraL cosMoLogg and Mhich couLd in principLe have been used to unsurprisingLg, the order of the dag in Mag and be great fun. It cosnoLogg. course Of that the is distiLLation specuLation is is Mith the conversion of this stuff to in received MisdoM, or even knoMLedge, that caveats shouLd be Mhen cLaiM froM evidentLg estabLished. But Large cLains on fLinsg foundations are, far fine, i.e. ReLativistic predict theM 3LL in advance of their observation' (p.291) - 3 Large is nuMericat evidence in favour of exotic theories these coincidences being shouLd rather be considered as confirMing "conventionat" Big the noM received cosMoiogicai setting. Mith the heLp of these the anthropic principies he canvasses, as he puts it, that expLain to prejudiciaL, in e.g. that entered, especiaLLg it points to favoured cone Lus ions such as priviLege or design (for huMans) in the universe. Much capitaL has aireadg been Made of the nuMericat features, of Mhat is referred to - gou C3n see the Loading straightaMag - as a cataLogue of extra­ ordinarg phgsicaL coincidence and apparentig accidentsL co-operation' (0 p.110). Here is a tgpicaL beat-up, bg Davies: The structure of the phgsicaL MorLd is deiicsteig dependent on a varietg of apparent nunericaL accidents. hang of the rather basic features of the universe are deternined in essence bg the vaLues that are assigned to the fundanentaL constants of nature, such as G, a, Mp and so on, and these features MouLd be drasticsLLg aLtered if the constants assuned even noderateig different vaLues. ... for nature to produce a cosnos even renoteLg resenbLing our own, Mang apparentLg unconnected branches of phgsics have to co-operate to a renarkabLe degree (D p.lll; sone of the prejudiciaL terninoLogg is under L ined). The part Last is particuiarig Meak: so our ignorance of interconnections is disclosed, ignorance Me Might have forestaLLed froM arguMent theorg integrated resist apparentLg fitting of unreLated phgsics: together. the topics' present if Carter serves is right. RLL the to reveaL is Lack of an theorg is bits and pieces, Mhich Nor do Large nunber coincidences point to ang hidden co-operation, but rather to over Looked connections Mhich can be argued toHards (as bg Dicke, Carter and others) using fairLg conventionaL phgsicaL equations.^ Rs for the hidden purpose terMinotogg, for nature to produce ...', MeLL, the Justificatorg case for its use is not Mereig not evident, but entireLg The sane appLies to other Lacking. terns Mhich Davies and others infiLtrate, such as -11- * 'conspire' (Dp.Ill), 'fine-tuned', deiicateiy baianced', 3ii of which suggests agents with certain purposes. Re Lated happening not objections te rm ino Logy, be some against Lodged accident , it accidentaL; be shouLd of the improbab Le coincidence , etc. R contingent worLd need is not accidentaL that Griffin Lives in Troy, Ontario, though it is contingent certainty. Rn improbabLe worLd need not be accidentaL either. RccidentaL means, according to the Concise EngLish Dictionary (CED), Occurring by chance, unexpectedLy, not according to the usuaL order of non-essentiaL'. The misp Laced for the actuaL worLd; and adventitious, th ings; generaL thrust of the notion is decidedLy accidentaL universe is a misdescription.^ To be sure, there is some considerabLe sLackness in terms Like accidentaL', wh Lch can come cLose aLso, when appLied as in schoLastic theory, to meaning contingent. The term vac i L La t ion, as its of condition dictionary coinciding; concurrence nicety coincidence' a definition remarkabLe iLLustrates makes instance the The pLain: of we L L-known act, fact or apparentLy fortu itous Large-number The coincidences are of the first type; there is LittLe case for making them out as of the second type. argue, To however, that the actuaL worLd is not mereLy contingent, but improbabLe, Lt is hardLy necessary to go so far afieLd as advanced physics. Some more homeiy exampies have managed ho Les wiLL do, such as the matter of aLL the Lucky goLfers who in one. consider Or foLLowing the from argument contingencies, to the improbabiLity of the actuaL worLd. Take some contingency, e.g. that person 1 in some ordering of the audience <^s wearing a green top. She might have been wearing any other cotour. Say there are 100 shades to choose from in the cLothing coLour cards. Then the probabiLity that she is in green is no more than 1 in 100. eut the same sort of probabiLity hoids for every other person on the earth presentLy wearing 3 top, and these probabiLities are LargeLy independent, say in I(US) bit Lion cases, i.e. 10^ cases. That is, the probabiLity of the present array of tops is no more than 1 in loH. That aLready makes present arrangements exceedingiy unLikeLy, before we go into the coLours of other bits of appareL peopie are customariLy bedecked in, the coLours towards 16 improbabLe. Lead of the NonetheLess, of motor cars and so on. So even surface contingencies books, cone Lus ion that the worLd actuaL is astronomicaLLu the situation with the fundamentaL constants does differ. Rn important difference between these day-to-day improbabilities, such as have the spouses we do, and those the constants induce is things these this:- Even that if aLL (coLours, e.g.) had been different, the worLd wouLd not be a very different pLace. Contrast the constants: their significant variation wouLd the we make worLd a very different pLace. Is there a difference in kind, with 3 radicaL improbabiLity appearing as regards the constants, degree? OnLy in degree, picture wiLL serve for the bridging range exampies of cases, or tend for -12- mereLy a difference in to suggest. The same broad everyday and cosmoLogicaL contingencg. §3- Back to mang worLds: improbabiLities and the universaL quantum theorg. Mhere that broad - Leads picture so sgnthesis sought the suggests, as does an increasing amount of cosmoLogicaL theorg - is to the mang-worLds of interpretation Quite evidentLg, worLds semantics are not the onLg semantics improbabiLitg. that can be offered for probabiLitg. few But other offer semantics simitar universaLLtg and informativeness, and some of the aLLeged competitors (not to be taken too serioustg as face damaging circuLaritg in this area, e.g. rivaLs) probabiListic semantics, urn semantics. The idea of the modeLLing naturaLLg It is improbabLe that gou have the spouse gou have , is true bg virtue of this: fact the is that in onLg a few worLds of the modeLLing, incLuding the actuaL one, do gou have gour current spouse; mostLg (insofar as gou occur) gou do not. In preciseLg the same improbabiLities, cosmic wag such particuLar as numericaL vaLues for phgsicaL constants, Lead to mang universe modeLLings. is argument to mang-universes from improbabiLities . The description of the the situation phgsicaL coincidence of probabiListic requires remarkabLe constants, notions, features', e.g. etc. extraordinarg semantics But probabiListic notions caLLs for aLternative worLds. (Thus Davies archerg Les Lie s and This goLf exampLe Of course Davies tends to see worLds used for exampLe). probabiLities as a conceptuaL device (D p.128); Everett invariabLg sees them That reaL. is, what we have emerging is repLag then do improbabiLities the as of universaLs issue! But universaLs do not exist, and nor do these expLanatorg worLds (cf. JB onLg of 8.8). Not Lead to a mang-nonexistent-worLds picture; converseLg the muLti-universe theorg expLains the improbabiLities. envisaged modeL contains ref Leet a huge coLLection of certain intervaL of accuracg); thus worLds the range of (naturaL) vaLues of the fundamentaL constants. RLL initiaL arrangements of matter and motion are refLected in worLds is The worLds. the chances of the present smaLL, exceedingig which expLains (at Least within universe a resuLting various improbabiLities. Does it than matter that we can t normaLLg quantifg these improbabiLities? Rng more we can quantifg the (Large) probabiLitg of nucLear war? No; there is something offensive about the repeated demand for quantification.^ Quantum theorg circumscribed affords situations, a the aLternative phgsicaL situations. actuaL worLd - is seLected, simiLar state mang worLds function is On measurement, one apparentLg at random picture. Least Rt for a superposition of severaL particuLar worLd - the (D p.12!*). This approach enab Les immediate resoLution of an important prob Lem in orthodox quantum theorg. R standing probLem with a compLete universe state function is that sgstem we must have some measuring apparatus that is sgstem. ... Mhen the not itseLf to measure a part of the sgstem is the entire universe, the notion of a piece of externaL measuring apparatus is meaningLess (D p.I2t+). So emerges the famiLiar conundrum for quantum theorg presented aLong orthodox (von Neumann) Lines: If there is nothing Left with which to measure [or otherwise interfere with] the -13- state the of how universe, universe the can transition from a the make superposition of many possibLe worids to one, concrete, actu3t wortd?' (D p.12^) is, There asserts, Davies interpretation many-universes one oniy - which comprehensive however a resoLution 'accept[s] simuitaneous the reaiity of aLL the possibte atternative universes' (D p.I2i+). But, given the route we have come, it is easy to ontccaLLy atternative neutrai this, to direct that see from there an is object-theory. atternative assumes many universes atso, but onty some at any stage are This actuat. It is obvious enough is that the probabilistic spread of quantum states does not require existent states, any more than the range of atternative dress states for someone probabty attired in requires green, the existence of the person in different ctothes. Measurement now shows which wortd/state an object such as etectron or person in. actuatty is an In these terms it does not cotLapse the probabiLity wave packet, or set of worLds, but marks one out. Lihat isn't known measurement is which worLd (or narrower set of worLds) is actuaL (or the before actuat etectron is in). quantum description, Uhen nothing the entire cosmos encompassed is the within Left to coLLapse the wave' (D p,12S). Rather is nothing in the way of externat measurements is avaiLabLe to determine which is the actuaL worLd; however internaL information can be made use of in the usuaL experimentaL ways. To set interpretations many-worids Everett the quantum of theory and in the contrasting neutrai worLds perspective, here (adapting OeLJitt and Graham) are some Leading features: i) R separate cLassicaL sphere externaL to any and every is not required; quantum set-up it makes sense to consider and investigate a state vector for the whoLe universe. ii) The state vector covering the totaL system never universes) (of coLLapses, and so the totatity it describes can be deterministic. iii) LJhat is described through variabLes dynamicaL the jointLy, comprehensive is not aLL equaLLy reaL; vector and the the actuaL worLd but a system comprising many worLds. (On the Everett are state interpretation on the neutraL worLds these interpretation they are not, other worLds than actuaL ones Lacking of any sort of reaLity.) iv) Through chronoLogicaL deveLopment of the dynamicaL the state vector decomposes naturaLLy ref Leeting a progressing branching of the into system orthogonaL universe worLds) into a set of mutuaLLy unobservabLe worLds. variabLes, (and (On account this is described as a continuaL spLitting into vectors system the of Everett equaLLy reaL worLds; but not in neutraL theory which disposes of this reLativism.) v) In each worLd good" measurements yieLd definite resuLts, and in many -14- worLds, incLuding the actuaL, famiLiar statisticaL quantum Laws hoLd, indeed C3n be derived or approximated. *- -^ince the neutraL version directLg avoids mang of the to theorg, what is the case for the Everett form? In main part it consists Everett simptg of mistaken ontoLogicaL assumptions, as such objections the what that ReaLitg overactive an principte, has phgsicaL properties must exist.The further argument that aLL branches must be equaLLg reaL, is not compeLLing. Thus DeMitt contends: Because there exists neither a mechanism within the framework of the formaiism nor, bg definition, an entitg outside of the universe that can designate which branch of the grand superposition is the reaL worLd, aLL branches must be regarded as equaLLg reaL (p.178). But we can easiLg incLude actuaL worLd seLection (as group worLd seLection) within cone Lus ion does not foLLow. the weLL and framework; other as given difficuLties the Everett specific, there is, Ln the first pLace, reaList theories such Everett's. as permissive regarding such worLds. In reaList-reLativist a demarcation SecondLg, fact, the however, interpretation theorg avoids. To be faced prob Lem not neutraL theorg the of this the intended It has been objected (e.g. bg Lewis) that the neutraL worLd encounters kinds neutraL bg is too theorg is restrictive about worLds; and few or none of worLds of contemporarg reaLists (^uch as Lewis) get into the picture, since aLL such worLds incLude as existents certain universaLs. OnLg neutraLised anaLogues of such worLds appear fn case, the theorg can be as restrictive as is appropriate about ang In 7). aLso (see which worLds are phgsLeaL, or phgsicaLLg possible. Requisite subcLasses such worLds phgsicaL can marked be out conform tig to phgsicaL Laws and through framework requirements (e.g. that the ensembLe forms a HLLbert space). it is an iLLusion that reaLism as Moreover soLves the reLevant demarcation probLem. It simpLg covers it up, in an unsatisfactorg wag. highLight To us varg a in stock of coupLe pertations, some of what is different in a neutraL iLLustrations of reaListic interpretation, the ontic mang-worLds Let inter- the famiLLar two sLit interfer­ wag. Consider first ence affair. On a straightforward the neutraL approach, we appear forced to concLude that each eLectron traverses both sLits in a wave Like form' (Les Lie LI, p.I!+6), is to the dcaLectic interpretation that the eLectron goes through that both sLits. The mang- worLds approach avoids such contradiction^, aLLowing eLectron to traverse just one sLit in the actuaL worLd - onLg in another branching from this, the the worLd, eLectron traverses the other sLit, therebg inducing probabiListic interference with the actuaL-case eLectron. The wave function provides a superposition of two such possibLe cases, not two actuaL cases. In the transition other worLds are not mang-worLds theorg). from phgsicaL (or potentiaL) worLds to the actuaL one, 'destroged' (as LesLie suggests in his criticism of Nor is the interaction of worLds causaL. There are few or -15- no causaL effects even on the Everett reaLity version; is spiitting thus not not actuaity observed (cf. virtuai worLds, reLations, etc.). Though there seen, are transworLd interreLations on object-theory these do further criticaL point is that physicaL worLds are not probabiListicaLLy The entities. as exist not independent. But that s aLright; since probabiLity is an natter, intensionaL probabiListic interference is unprobLenatic (cf. "possibiLity" interference). scattering exanpLe where an eLectron is Consider next Davies at fired a proton. The probabiLity wave in such scattering represents a set of worLds for the eLectron. 'The quantun wave provides a Measure of the probabiLity of finding the eLectron 3t the Location: where the eLectron is Most LikeLy to be found ation, and disturbance is greatest there the wave (D p.l2i*). Fleasurenent deterMines the Loc­ so aLters the probabiLities, thus on the orthodox view reducing the wave. Recording to the Everett on however, interpretation, neasurenent the universe divides into two, ... one containing a right Moving eLectron ... Each worLd is equaLLy rest inhabiting each since it is not The observer conscious upon that MeasureMent down-right is spiitting so thus, by occurs; the for there certain a is so near­ probabiLities, anending scattering, that, possibie the because of the uncertainties physicaL states of universe, corres­ ponding to the probabiLity wave, are increased. Lihere there was one for the actuaL possibLities). worLd in possibiLity regard, now there are N Many (N Mirroring the this R nany-worids interpretation of physicaL theory provides a naturaL for neutraL a new state function resuits, appearing to coLLapse 'the wave. since RLL that happens wuth worLd branching is guaranteed copy worLds. But onLy one worLd is actuaL, and represents the (reaL) of universe. Heasurenent can deterMine which this is, and one spLits, MisLeading. There is no spiitting; rather in quantuM processes worLd-branching takes pLace, rep Licat ion atso wortd . Even on the Everett interpretation this is inaccurate, it interpretation ... principLes which aMong seLect detinit or wortds, as setting what are caLLed anthropic principLes, and aLso non-chauvinistic reptaceMents for then such as geophysicaL principLes, can serve to do.^ Rnd in this setting expLanations, of a sort and of varying adequacy, The of aLL the nunericaL features can be furnished. under Lying reason is not (siMpty) that there wiLL aLways be sone universes, which are duty seLected, where the nuMbers coMe out right, but that sone and universes conditions (for of the right sort are aLso decent physicaL universes (a Much More difficuLt requirenent to satisfy). sone such coincidences) It is as these, furtherMore, that are observed (by us), contain universes carbon and water LocaLLy, and so forth. It is then no surprise that we perceive a universe to which so Many speciaL conditions pertain, for we have seLected fron the enseMbLe onLy by our very existence' (0 p.126). But it again, taLk of our seLecting is MisLeading (though taLk of seLection, or naturaL seLection, is not). It is rather that, as a contingent natter, we happen to inhabit such universes^. Rnd such taLk negLects the iMportant point that further work is required, for satisfactory expianation - that piausibte argunents, not invoLving us, but connecting gross geophysicaL features with nuMericaL features, have aLso -16- to be suppLLed. In thts Mag, ustng the MorLd-ensembLe hgpothests ... [but] MLth[out] the Meak anthropLc prLncLpLe, Lt Ls possLbte to discover pLausLbLe arguments to pLn doMn the vaLues of aLmost aLL of the fundamentaL parameters p.129, a centraL part of hLs cLatm). Indeed DavLes hotds out the negatLng but (D prospect of beLng abte to do much more, constraLnLng the dtmensLonaLttg of space and ttme, the number of quarks and Leptons, numbers of fundamentaL forces, That reaLLg MouLd a sgnthesLs of consLderabLe poMer. It Ls a sgnthesLs, gtve moreover, MhLch can be absorbed or sLmuLated MLth Ln a upon mang-MorLds neutraLLsLng prLncLpLes MorLd bg etc. quantum seLectLon theorg prLncLpLes. and cosmo-Log LeaL repLacLng NonetheLess sgnthesLs, the anthropLc DavLes, the LLke maLnstream phgsLcLsts he artLcuLateLg represents, Ls uncomfortabLe MLth ang such that he LndLcates, ang such grand pLcture, and rLghtLg so, as the 3S sgnthesLs anthropLc expLanattons LnvoLved are far from entLreLg satLsfactorg. HostLg he seems to hope Lnstead that contLngencLes MLLL aLL be expLaLned as necessLtLes of (proposLtLons phgsLcs grand a pLcture, necessarg grand at Least Ln foLLoMLng Log LeaLLg from another theorg). But the hope Ls mLspLaced; Ln Large unLfLed measure Lt represents 17thC ratLonaLLsm over agatn. SometLmes, hoMever, he seems to feet desLgn Ln the untverse. - Ls Mhat features: to supposed emerge, and does emerge, from the numerLcaL Mhat anthropLc prLncLpLes vs. MorLd seLectLon prLncLpLes. Uhat Ls supposed to emerge depends upon hoM the matter Ls set up, hoM the pLcture emphasLaed. Ls Mhat presented, For exampLe, DavLes and LesLLe both set thtngs up so onLg tMo optLons are supposed to be open. In hLs Preface to Da^Le^ Ls The RcctdentaL UnLverse, suggests the sgstematLc aLternatLves are eLther reLLgLon or an anthropLc prLncLpLe. R sLmLLar cLaLm appears Ln LesLLe, Mho puts the aLternatLves as (ethtcaL) necessttg or anthropLc assumptLons. Thus hLs concLusLon (to L2, p.81) The cosmotogLcaL evidence can suppLg __ forcefut grounds for vLeMLng at Least one of these thtngs ss true. (1) God Ls reaL, though presumabLg as a creattve ethtcaLrequtrement rather than as a dtvtne person Mho LLteraLLg destgned our LLfe-contaLntng cosmos. [So the unLverse extsts because Lt shouLd.J (2) There extsts a Mortd EnsembLe [so the condtttons LeadLng to Ltfe are bound to occur someMhere (L2, p.55)J - and the attempt to dertve aLL the fundamentaL charactertstLcs of our cosmos from some untfted FLeLd Theorg Ls tn error. DavLes LnsLnuates that the obvtous Lnference from the cat3Logue of numerLcaL features Ls thts: a htdden prLncLpLe seems to be at Mork, organLstng the cosmos Ln a coherent Mag (p.110). Thts runs paraLLeL to argument from desLgn, hardLg an Lmprovement. One of the prLncLpLes htdden Ls hgpothests; but another Mhtch DavLes (unLtke LesLLe) generaLLg anthropLc prLncLpLe, to LncredLbLe accuracg 3nd Ls some sort of God favours Ls the a gutdtng prLncLpLe Mhtch serves to fLne-tune the cosmos for us (humans) - or Ltfe, or Ltfe-supportLng sgstems, or __ ? Or for observers,or LnteLLLgence, or not for angthtng. The chotce offered Ls reaLLg then an oLd famLLLar one, faced bg thtnkers at Least stnee the (so-caLLed) EnLtghtenment: God or Han, or after a recent ftrst correctton and Mtth a different emphasts, Humans -17- or God. In fact burted under duaLitg, this is aLreadg as (Science) or Hunans or God. However the a nang tenpts favoured which option, Phgsics excLuded, in error . Rnd it is we as seen: have (coMprehensive) phgsics without netaphgsics, no scientific theorg no is Much scientist and phiLosopher, is increasinqLg seen as excLuded, as forbidden fruit or even as there at Least a three-wag choice: Phgsics giinpsed, without Large assunptions - which stands on its own. But further afieLd there is get is which option, another not excLuded: option here canvassed. The ciain to be eLaborated is this: no (deep-ecoLogicaL) principies of a tgpe not aLreadg required for Low LeveL senanticaL purposes worLd seLection principies) are caLLed for in expiaining the nunericaL (naMeig, features at Least as satisfactoriig as nor huMans Neither principies, gods such be upon popuiarig aLreadg foreshadowed, doing. in More in reMoving huMans features god-Like (and, universe. the principLe cones in a varietg of anthropic verg precise (incLuding Barrow's biocentric reforMutations). SoMe exaMptes give the inpression:- The existence as observers seLection bioLogicaL (D to the own used be can existence a as constants' (ibid). This presents severaL for renoving underiging ngsterg is verg different fron nunericat of expLanation, our p.viii); effect, ... to expLain the otherwise Mgsterious nuMericat disentangie; expLat,ning wiLL idea is to reiate basic worLd features to our own vaLues of the fundanentaL phgsicaL issues as such coLourfuL for nainstreaM phgsicists, atMost none of then prettg MostLg the upon hunans, associated inteLLigence) fron a new speciaL pLace Rs succeed options other the are essenti3t. Since gods do not figure in anthropic wiLL focus the incidentaLLg, forMS, object-theoru far-out the features. sorts, various or Rnd nag these turn in have further theg Mag be siMpig contingent, refLecting seLection without specific purpose. Sone phgsicists go so far as to ciain: our existence constrains the structure of the universe, indeed it even it (0 p-112), for to us , quote froM Hawking and CoLLins. connection in this sweeping context h3s been dubbed this j^s Davies the does, have nothing specificaLLg to do inteLLigence, or with Life, etc. The Dicke argunent, for Eddington-Dirac expLain coincidence, is based of principLe : anthropic the show with what work the or hunans, with designed exanpLe, to onig on the presence of heavg eieMents, and so gives but a hint of bioLogg, if that. So reversaL Invoking the huMan forMuLaticn of the principLe (D p.112)! But quite generaLLg the argunents advanced, which do principLe seLects reaLLg there is no spirit of the Copernican revoLution' in this fashion (pace D p.115, barter, and others). The conditionaL principLe estabLished bg the Dicke arguMent is essentiaLLg J) If [because, g^ven] there exist heavg eieMents, then the universe is such that the Eddington-Dirac coincidence ho ids. The fuLL expLanatorg argunent conprises, as weLL as the detaiLed phgsics that goes toward J), the nodus ponens inference: -18- The Eddington-Dirac coincidence hotds. There exist heavy eLements, J) More generaLiy, the anthropic way gives principie to physicatiy a argued conditionai scheme of the enthymematic form K) if F then T, or its contrapositive K ) if not-F then not-T, where F is a hard factuai ciaim or more commoniy its existentiat reiativety generaiisation , and T is a more theoretic3i ciaim concerning typicaity features of the worLd, such as numericai features. The short form of anthropic exp Lanation, or better status quo expLanation, is then the argument form F, if F then T L) . .T. famiLiar ontoLogicaL proofs, for instance of an externaL worLd from the Moore s fact that exist, hands arguments. such omit typicaLLy proofs phiLosophers just are difference The is that the soLid argumentation that goes into estabLishing the conditionai schemes of status quo expianations; for instance, makes LittLe effort in this direction, and the required entaiLment rather Moore evidentLy faiLs to hoLd (see fn 30). Other formutations of the anthropic principie in the Literature are than better those hardLy 3tready exhibited. LesLie, who at Least (Like Barrow) moves humans a LittLe off centre stage, puts it in this counterfactuaL way: if our universe had been [everywhere] hostiie to Life then nobody wouLd be observing it (L2, p.66). If the consequent simpiy contextuaLLy impiies that something a Live is doing the observing, then the principie is ana Lytic, and scarceLy up to the intended expLanatory tasks (without requisite information that the the universe contains Life, and much eLse being separateLy pumped in). MhiLe if does not require this, it appears fatse; the Latest seeing-eye robot consequent did survive the hoLocaust, or did just happen as a resuLt of the quantum fLuctuation. In such as Dicke's most purported argument. offers faces reLated difficuLties: worLd appLications of the anthropic The other version of the principie LesLie NecessariLy we conscious beings observe a which is Life-containing (LI, p.lt+1). Rs it stands, this is faLse; for we mightn t exist. Nor wiLL appropriate deLetion consciousness retain we' of fix things. the worLd is, Me might but not be observers, aLL being in vats. But repaired the version is pretty use Less. It bears onLy tangentiaLLy (through that vacuum any case the formuiation Lacks sufficient generaLity; it faiLs to connect appropriateLy with scheme, the but contingency, Life its consequent, containing) on what is at issue concerning numericaL features. The materiaL on us, on observers and the Like, is strictLy irreLevant, a hang-over again presumabLy constructions of quantum theory. -1?- from bad ideaList * The that the Copernican principte has suffered some sort of set-b3ck idea because of the essentiai rote of anthropic principies in explaining Large-number can be traced back through Carter, who heLped popuLarise the rote coincidences, between of anthropic principies and made the (rather obscure) distinction strong weak has been exaggerated subservience to the 'Copernican principte' [which is] that we must and not assume principies. anthropic gratuitoustg that we Recording to Carter, there occupg a priviLeged centraL position in the (C p.231). The regrettabLe tendency, he sags, has been to universe extend the to a most questionable dogma to the effect that our situation cannot principte be priviLeged in ang sense ... (in extreme form ... the 'perfect cosmoLogicaL principLe ...)'. The Latter assumption is certaintg untenabLe (as Dicke pointed because the universe is bg no means spatiaLLg homogeneous on a LocaL scaLe out) and speciaL conditions (of terrestrial temperature, chemicaL environment) do prevaiL on Earth. But its removaL does nothing to undercut Life the Copernican principLe, or to boost the anthropic principLe in the wag thinks Lt For does. is Carter his bracketed comment after his first formuiation of the anthropcc principle is that Lt for requisite aLthough our situation is not necessaritg centraL, inevitabLg priviLeged to some extent' (C p.291). It is doubtfuL that our position is centraL; whether it is so priviLeged depends on the intended contrast, but whatever the privilege is, it hardlg seems inevitabLe. Carter gives severaL non-equivaLent formuLations of the anthropic principLe, the first of which takes the quasi-anaLgtic but ambiguous form, LJhat we C3n expect to observe must be restricted bg the conditions necessarg for our presence as observers' (C p.291; repeated D p.119). This is certs inLg not the same as Davies condensation of it, what he caLLs the weak principLe, that observers construaL, restrict the observed'. On the obvious (but Less charitabLe) this is but rampant verificationism, of a tgpe verg familiar however from interpretations of quantum theorg. Uhat exists is independent of observers; and observers, especiaLLg remote ones, mag have no significant impact on what iL5 observed. The condensation is accordingLg false. So also, for different reasons, is what it condenses. For one thing, our expectations mag run astrag. True, what we observe is restricted bg the conditions for our doing just that, nameLg being as observers. But this tautologg imposes no phgsical constraints, being equaLLg true for Xing as observing; and no such connection is appeaied to in ang of the derivations of coincidences that Carter sketches. Once again aqain the present arguments never have angthing in detail to do with humans, or even "observers 4-c? -20- .2-1 (and surety animats observe). Fit best the arguments are directed to the presence of water or carbon 12 or some such - things sometimes erroneousiy equated Life, and often, rather dubiousty, said to be necessary for Life.^S The situation is of this sort with Carter's "iiiustration" of the weak better Locat) anthropic principte, which he formutates as foitows: 'we must (or be prepared to take account of the fact that our Location in observers universe is existence as the necessariLy priviLeged to the extent of being compatibLe with our p.233). In order to get to grips with this recondite formuiation (C Let us remove the initiaL intensionaL functors (which my empiricist friends to with assure are me not essentiaL in physics, despite ubiquity, and their physicists procLivities to modaLs). Now our position can hardLy be priviLeged (despite Carter s tru necessariLy since human-types just might be itaLicization), uniformLy distributed through the universe or again might not exist at aLL. LJhat necessity there is enters in a different way. LJhat we are Left de Let ion, with since misLeading, probabiListic arguments suitabLe for Life in the universe (some detaiLs justified is Like more something unique (though principte this need require of Hh3t may be met. In this humans we are Long-Lived stars Rnd stiLL much more than a weak is dragged in. It is enough, for seLeet ion, universe contains Locations, neighbourhood Sag3n). we're working at it); even on Terra much of the rest of the animat kingdom is simitarLy favoured. seLeet ion in priviLege of habitats miLLions suggest are to this: we are favoured in that the physicaL conditions for our existence, as observers, are hardLy due Our Location in the universe is priviLeged to the extent of is then: be',ng compatibLe with our existence as observers'. But this ciaim cs after in where fact heavy Like the earth, in the metaLs occur, and so on (for certain other pureLy geotogicaL features). BoLtzmann s expLanation of the present high degree of which Ls extremety improbabLe cosmic organisation (in a thermodynamicaL setting) is aiso said to appLy a weak anthropic principte ; witness this the onLy reason that we are priviLeged to exceedingLy untikeiy occurrence is that our very existence [etc.J -21- O.2.2.. * depends upon the condition which atone can be bg estabiished remarkabte that (D p.123). But again onLg gross phgsicaL organisationat principLes fLuctuation are seLected for; and no more than a weak seLection principte is required. beveraL expLained , so Carter and Davies ci3im, be cannot coincidences simpig bg a weak principte (at Least in the muLti-universes). of is made to the strong (or better gLobaL) principte: appeaL these absence The universe ... must be such as to admit the creation of observers within it at some in barter s (p.120). formuLation exist is for manifesttg faLse. So, Cartesian paraphrase Carter gives of the strong different cogito ergo mundus taLis est . The worLd wouLd presumabtg not be principte, verg theg is this appaLLing the necessarg; the universe does. Rnd since observers mag verg easiLg never given have evotved in the universe, reasons, stage R coroLLarg of the strong principte in this heaviLg necessitated guise is that observers are conditionaLLg must For so different were the contingent premiss faLse; and certainLg the premiss mag Least be true but the cone Lus ion faLse. But at Loading, necessitg gets and principte the appropriate conctusion. For, propertg ideaLLg this the inferentiaL form, with the into formuLated, abandons paraphrase scheme the as is before, Law Like conditionaL of basic form, if F then T, where however T is a a genuinetg gLobaL cLaim that the universe is such 3nd such (e.g. the universe now contains more matter than radiation). The scheme, so then, recast is feature distinctive some theoreticaL LocaL strong the that T is hoListic assertion 3bout the universe, incLuding essentiaL reference to it, not, as it mag be on about of the weak principte, of the universe, which can readiLg be features stated or restated without reference to the universe. But the distinction is not particuiarLg important. The robust, troubie is it from 3 worLd-seLection gives Lt a misLeading most LawLike Mag requisite within consequent. For exampLe, there is stiLL no (egocentric) thought matter; to phgsicaLLg without Descartes God to puLL him out. universe the taiLor-made is for framework of idea - in essence it cLaims a wag Living organisms are subsequentig assured of existence. [So it is]... akin mankind to inhabit. products secuLar expLanations. teteoLogicaL R duLg cLaims anthropic worLd for (D p.121). Such erroneous presentations have done much to encourage both a new anthropocentrism and the idea that are unLike habitation, 3nd that both the Laws of to traditionaL retigious expLanation of the worLd: that God made the are from Hard as it is to credit, Carter is phgsics and the initiaL conditions obLigingLg arrange themseLves in such that an procLivitg to ideaiism exceLLed bg Davies, who sags of the strong principte that that in route respectabLe Carter's (exhibited in C2)), he mag weLL get stuck in the argue to bounds to the intended phgsicaL given and of satisfactorg impression antecedents for the scheme, and makes it presentLg impossibLe appropriateLg verg perspective Carter's extravagant Cartesian paraphrase of the strong with that is principte nor on a par reformuLated Davies with, strong and in schema expLanations anthropic competition supports design with, none of the makes regarding the universe. Nor, as wiLL appear, expLanations, when made presentabLe, -22- akin to retigious features of the worLd. The expLanations take different LogicaL of explanations forms and LnvoLve quite different ingredients. To see what is reaLLy required for the strong schema to operate, it pays to Look at Then appLications. it becomes evident observercentric that considerations are strictLy irreLevant. Once again far stronger, and biocentric more dubious, conditions than are required for the estimates actuaLLy made been For introduced. instance, (BoLtamann) K, is a good exampLe of a prediction based on what strong' anthropic principLe' (C p.23^); (8) is as foLLows: K aLL f < that is 2 " Tl_ 5 have according to Carter, his condition (8), which imposes an order of magnitude upper bound on cosmoLogicaL But and constant may be termed the 3 ' "P , P invoLved in obtaining this bound, retevance, is the of assumption that ' the un iverse is not radiation dominated aLL its [finite] Life (i.e. that the matter contribution ... to the mean mass density ... becomes greater at some stage Insofar this as is than the necessary radiation (C ...)' contribution pp.233-^.). at aLL - since the estimates concern onLy very broad features, and not LocaL variations - it is 3s necessary for Lichen as for Larkspurs. DLL that is required is a sLightLy stronger worLd seLection principLe than mereLy that worLd contain heavier eLements at some stage; but stiLL the onLy a gLobaL geophysicaL principLe. Rnd this is aLL that here. The same set of points amounts to appLies to Carter's further use of the strong principLe, to estimate the Lower bound on K, which appLies the conventionaL that gaLax Les ... are formed by condensation, starting as reLativeLy hypothesis smaLL density fLuctuations in an otherwise homogeneous further The strength tendentious assumption in background (C p.2St+). this appiication is that gaiaxies are necessary for the formation of stars and hence of Life (C p.23!*). NonetheLess there are arguments for the strong anthropic principLe, though faLLacious ones obviousLy. They come firstLy from positivism. It is cLaimed that if the universe exists then it must be observabLe; so there must be observers - a modaL faLLacy. Davies (in his exposition of Barrow and not argues universe which from the faLse premiss that onLy what is observed exists, that a did then others) admit observers is meaningLess' (D p.I21). This is ideaListic garbage. They come secondLy from an aLLeged expianatory rote, in expLaining coincidences. But it is unnecessary for this purpose as initiaL worLd seLection wiLL serve. They come thirdLy from human chauvinism; thus, too human existence is said to be responsibLe for the very speciaL structure of the universe' (D p.121)! The connection is not however causaL; so what is it supposed There is be: teLeoLogicaL? thus a serious probLem as to how this responsibitity, hardLy evident, is exercised. FinaLLy a strong principLe might uniformity to - one principLe to cover be argued for on grounds of aLL cases. But better a weaker correct -23- principLe than a strong faLse or geophgsicaL principLe wouLd suffice Rnd principLe. dubious doubt no a weaker aLL phgsicaL constants. (Of course, for there reMains the natter of this worLd seLection. This worLd does exhibit Life, incLude hunans, and so on. But these features, Like the present species of does eucaLgpts expLanations, or reLevant, cLasses of worids.)"^ and are RnusingLg, astroLogicaL and More converses hunan affairs; white under gerMane not the to extravagant anthropic principies are to astroLogg, ceiestiaL events infLuence anthropic hunan anaLogue, affairs infLuence CeiestiaL events and processes incLude those of the sun. Moon events ceiestiaL its are abstracted fron in seLecting expLanatorg Recording other. each of wonbats, grazing of whereabouts and and other pLanets (especiaLLg). Rnd these certaintg appear to have an (indirect) weak infLuence, especiaLLg through the soLar atMosphere and pLanetarg Large pLasMas, on terrestriaL phenoMena (Fegerabend, p.93). The anthropic converse, in this forM danagingtg anthropocentric and exhibiting an excess of hubris, is Much further froM the truth. Not just the anthropocentric, but the eMphasis of nuMericat features. Rnd despite the bioLogicaL anaLogies, just Lt,ke explanation seLection without vaLues, so even Rs are there there is seLection without seLectors. More, RLthough seLection is sonetiMes accoMpiished through seLectors, often takes not is naturaL seLection. It is not seLection for, for fitness, survivaL, or whatever. Nor, More iMportant is it seLection bg, bg soMe agent. vaLues MispLaced. is insistence, Life is not essent-iaL in Mang worids Le^Lie Despite biocentric seLection without seLecters, randonig or otherwise - this tiMe as in naturaL pLace seLection, which does not require a personified Nature to do the have evoLutionarg theories as/oid ageneg. In avoiding ageneg, seLection is Like that seLecting, as enphasised. Such expLanation can straightforwardig of Darwinian evoLut- ionarg theorg; and seLection contrasts with direction as incLuded in aLternative evoLutionarg Though accounts (cf. DarLington, p.l^ff). anthropic principies coMe in a varietg of forMs, depending upon how the conditionaL scheMa ^nvoLved is fitted out, none of theM, then, does what is saud, none depends essentiaLLg on the presence of huMans, or of Life. SgntacticaLLg, theg etaborate usuaLLg status quo arguMents, of forM L), with factuaL fir^t preMis^ F concerning the state of the worLd LocaLLg (weak forM) whoLe (strong seLection forM). SenanticaLLg, or as a the factuaL preMisses function as worLd principies; theg serve to Mark out the cLass of phgsicaL wortds or to narrow then down to these or those, e.g. to those where heavier eieMents such as carbon occur, those where Long-Lived stars, such as the sun, appear. It is that carbon is sonetiMes taken to provide an "order-of-Magnitude" approxiMation for Life (that is the nearest Long-Lived star is supposed to to hunans provide that the the "approxinations" get); Life as the arguMents a steadg warMth required for the evoLution of Life (but Long-Lived stars, water, and heavier objects are as to true near need get). But these additionaL, and nore dubious, detaiis are unnecessarg for the Main thrust of status quo arguMents, as distinct -24- from their anthropic 3nd biocentric augmentations. meet Given that the worids seiected are of this and that cast - in generai geophgsicai gross Less, up the to constraints — other features of them can be derived (more or standards rough accepted in and physics) in expLained, particuLar, how and that it is that certain (fundamentaL) physicaL constants Lie in restricted ranges, narrow and unexpected ranges. These arguments, duty fitted out, do provide exp Lanations, non-causat exp Lanations, of physicaL features of a contingent, mereLy LmprobabLe universe. Much there is, however, in these most ctaims, that has been contested, from the psycho LogicaL such of inadequacy a universe to the worth of such expLanations, if expLanations they are at aLL. objections to the cosmo-LogicaL synthesis; and finding unLikety, an in comfort and with Prob Lems mereLy universe. contingent, Somehow contingent universes have acquired the reputation of being coLd, remote and uncaring - a not habitat for sensitive creatures. But the reputation is undeserved, since fit contingency does not bear on any of these things. Mhat is contingent can be just as weLL as coLd or neither; caring or not, so far as the appLication sense aLL; at and hot makes so on. One can be warm and comfortabLe in bed on a wet and wintry night. One can be at home, comfortabLe in, in tune with, a tiny part of an improbabLe universe, as some tribaL peopLes are. None of these virtues are Ln any way undermined by contingency, matter of a necessary universe. or aLways assured by the quite separate a degree of harmony between us Furthermore, there can be, or have evoLved, and our surroundings , without principLes, as that our worse, that the universe is universe such exaggerated cLaims, on based anthropic are very speciaL and tuned to us' or, surroundings made for us'. Me humans can be in with tune the without having the universe tuned to us, as we can foLLow and ornament a song on the wind or in the woods. But so far, especiaLLy recentLy, we humans coLLectiveLy are not doing too weLL in attuning oursetves to the worLd. Rs this iLLustration begins to metaphysicaL and psychoLogicaL reveaL, predeLiction^ may pLay a not inconsiderabte rote in choice of, and ornamentation of, physicaL theory, especiaLLy of controvers LaL theories such as quantum theory and cosmoLogicaL theory. In the case of such theories there is a certain bag technicaL so to say tricks, tricks, equations and so on, which are de rigeur - a theory-skeLeton - and beyond that both an interpretation and setting for the bag integrating of theM and suppLying of with some sort of meaning, and them usuaLLy aLso some further formaLism connecting the tricks together or to a wider theoreticaL background. For exampLe, even in accounts of too much in the way of interpretation theory where is commonLy frowned upon, extensive correspondence ruLes Linking the formaLism with upon quantum cLassicaL physics are retied heaviLy. Rt Least for everything beyond the theory-skeLeton, which is what is appLied in most concrete day-to-day appLications of the theory, there is much room for rivaL fLeshing out of the skeLeton - Latitude -25- such as there is in archeological reconstructions of peoples from some scattered bones. Recasting quantum theorg, as in the mang-worlds interpretation, offers not as merelg a basis for fleshing out the theorg non-idealisticallg, but for combining it with general to subject much of the criticism, much of it directed more broadlg at most Happilg as However such recasting, when not reLativitg. largelg ignored (the common fate of nonstandard theories), is criticism. well plural world theories in general, misses the neutral modification. There are firstlg a batch of aesthetic and ontological objections. These commonlg take off from the of unattractiveness duplication or replication of profligate such worLds. LJeLL, tastes and vaLues, Like intuitions, do varg with sub-cuLture. Some of us, who escaped over-exposure to worlds the ReaLitg do PrincipLe, stories illuminating and attractive, indeed verg inviting. So, next, the whole thing is said to be unbelievable: no one can reasonabLg existence believe worLds nonetheless, especiaLLg in explanation. these in (the these unlimited numbers of universes. Granted, we do not believe of) in this either. These other worLds do not exist; but we can make of neutral find heavg Load of objections carrging on about excess use extensive In this wag we avoid a baqgage. ontic also Ue main criticisms based on Occam s razor. (RLL these objections are short-circuit met, in much detail, in JB.) Linked to such Occamist protests are a batch of objections that are pictures worlds effect the to over-engineered, both too complex 3nd including too much baggage. Thus in thermodgnamics a smalt fluctuation producing some order is more LikeLg than one producing Lots of order, one galaxg more LikeLg than Lihg do similarlg we not find ourselves in a one galaxg universe, which is far more LikeLg? The answer is in part: because Less LikeLg contingencies hold. Is the ubiquitg No, (D p.123)? mgsterg instance, the on the commenting of of numbers approaches reasons. in these unwarranted presuppositions. The that the universe was set others Like be explained. For Dicke Thus and Peebles remark, in of the universe for a few conscious individuals, overdesign revealed well one of a thing is itself verg unlikelg. Find just special can, that a single galaxg cosmos might be ruled out bg the can observed galaxies in our universe ... therefore a such evolution further there mag be mang. up Mach's Moreover, principle. questions and remarks are based on various overdesign" for idea, for example, presupposes some individuals; but the worlds picture correctLg avoids thLS assumption. The things in this world that exist happen to be there, probable or not, and often, for reasons we can sometimes explain, not. But there is tittle solid evidence that theg are arranged, for us or others. In its original form the unfocussed "overdesign" objection was mainlg directed at cruder anthropic principles, as were unverifiabilitg and unfalsifiabilitg. a batch of objections The well-worn criticism, that notorious psgchoanalgtic and Marxist principles did too much, being so designed that covered everg protested that case, was redirected from against anthropic principles. it is hard to see how the anthropic principLe can be It used theg was to make testable predictions, because ang theorg inconsistent with our existence is 4 M3nLfestLg Not faLse . such protests been weakened bg avant garde have onLg phLLosophg of science, but, as Carter has poLnted out, anthropLc arguments couLd varLous Ln prLncLpLe have been used to predLct theg Rnd notLced. were faLsLfLcatLon, e.g. where erroneous that unLLkeLg assumptLons prLncLpLes, regards Rs fLrst). under but Ls worLd-sgnthesLs, aLL that worLds the whether Ln wLth cosmoLog Les and of verLfLcatLonLst seLectLon whLch semantLcs, or phgsLcs exLst, LnvoLved of themes objectLons do have some verLfLabLLLtg vLrtue of what Ls meant bg bg bg neutraLLsed ex Lsttng. But the force of these objectLons Ls theorg. as conversLon, object-theorg Granted LnterpretatLon. of Often, Lt (though of weaker forms wouLd be abandoned, other surrendered force agaLnst mang-worLds theories, assume derLved object Lons are LargeLg mLsdLrected, because what are at Lssue are phgsLcaL semantLcs, are coLncLdences premLss factuaL be wouLd verLfLabLLLtg not the anthropLc arguments do admLt of of 3ssumptLons the before coLncLdences numerLcaL neutraL worLds objectLons, the crLtLcLsms of mang-worLd such prLncLpLes anthropLc as geophgsLcaL or prLncLpLes are LntertwLned, and dLsentangLLng the crLtLcLsms Ls enough to partLg So them. def Late aLso wLth the reLated charge th3t the neutraL worLd- Ls Lt sgnthesLs theorg Ls unscLentLfLc or at much turns Least dubLousLg scLentLfLc.PLaLnLg on what Ls admLtted Lnto that esteemed categorg, scLentLfLc. But on most accounts, use of seLectLon prLncLpLes succeeds Ln gettLng LncLuded. Rnd so, pLaLnLg enough, does mang-worLds quantum theorg. Rfter 3LL, Lt has 3pproxLmateLg as the same sorts of predLcatLve and test capabLLLtLes more That fact of narrow empLrLcaL LndLstLnguLshabLLLtg mag be the source of theorg. other compLaLnts, but Lt gtves no ground for the charge worLd Ls seLectLon prLncLpLes excLuded! are It at hand. of scLentLfLc and theorLsLng experLmentLng true that some theoretLcaL and wouLd (per prefer LmpossLbLe) and wantLng to st Lek to a uLtLmate and unLfLed expLanatLons. No doubt such semantLcaL apparatus does faLL fouL of the the substance of the charge, consLder some of the crLterLa often beLng theLr theorg narrower sLmpLg reveaLs further serLous defects Ln such vLews. But to reach that vLews: fuLLer the narrower (hgpothetLco-deducttve) methodoLogg, are uneasg wLth worLds seLectLon, sureLg But phgsLcLsts, and mang phLLosophers, LosLng sLght of what enters Lnto range quantum orthodox scLentLfLc. UnfaLsLfLabLe? SureLg set down for Ln areas where the framework Ls not pLnned down bg phgsLcaL theorg. OvercompLLcated and LnsuffLcLentLg gLven what the worLds theorg Ls Lntended to accompLLsh sLmpLe? Not (e.g. the semantLcaLLg theoretLcaL work Lt Ls aLso put to Ln areas such 3s LLnguLstLcs). Etc., etc. Perhaps the most teLLLng theorLes LLke worLd—sgntheses objectLons whLch agaLnst LncLude status quo arguments, and them, concern theLr expLsnatorg capacLtg. StrangeLg theg have been condemned both as expLaLntng too much - ang thLng at aLL can be brought out Ln some worLd - and as expLaLnLng too LLttLe and beLng trLvLaL. Not both these objectLons are LLkeLg to succeed, as theg tend to undercut one another. IndependentLg, Lt seems cLear that the arguments do provLde expLanatLons, for LnvoLved Lnstance, of the strength of the strong nucLear force. It aLso seems cLear that the expLanatLons afforded are of vargLng -27- depth, + depending in part on the depth of the underlying physicaL theory invoLved, this and the pLausibiLity of the further assumptions made in the arguments. Better exempiific3tions of status quo arguments in physics satisfy not oniy more ordinary requirements for expLanation; they aLso meet assembLed conditions considerable time, by HempeL, mainstream the which conditions on position demanding for represented, some what counted as a scientific expLanation. Furthermore, the chief objections to have more the HempeLian the account that emerged have been to the effect that it is too rigorous, not that it faiLs to provide jointLy sufficient conditions for expLanation. To make a prima facie case that better status quo arguments do provide exp Lanations, it is enough then show to expLanation LogicaL HempeL s that conditions on the (p.2t+7ff) have been met. By contrast conditions design with scientific of the arguments, 3re satisfied. The expLanandum T is a LogicaL adequacy of pattern basic consequence of the physicaL argument eLaborating the schemas F, if F then T; the expLanans has empiricaL content, at Least in the shape of expLanans F; which connection if F then T, provides expLanans are true, Uere a foLLows from arguments using physicaL Laws. FinaLLy, the demanding empiricaL condition of adequacy, that the premisses used in the is satisfied in better status quo arguments. the basic pattern aLso necessary for scientific expLanation, it wouLd be an easy coroLLary that many poorer status quo arguments fait to provide expianations (beginning with Carter s and Descartes is there the and contains general, Laws which are actuaLLy used in the derivation. For, in better status quo arguments, the conditionaL schema, Law Like premiss much quo status that such Cogito arguments), and that arguments cannot presentLy expLain decentLy, '^ncLuding such major puzzLes as Life and inteLLigence in the LocaL worLd. It can be independentLy argued, moreover, that poorer status quo arguments, which patentLy (or short meeting HempeLian conditions, fait to generate satisfactory of satisfying) expianations. TriviaL, dogmatic, forms, such as that things 3re the way they are because that is how they are, represent a virtuaLLy worse of sort. this But possibie. weakening to principte, that what The universe is inhabitabie, because we are here, because ask Forrest so is aLso humans inhabit The universe is suited to inteLLigent Life because there are peopLe such questions upon). focusses inferences, is sLightLy embroidered, are arguments with connecting principLes Such, the earth , case better, or more informative, are those arguments scarceLy which appLy the possibility Like faLL (exampies adapted from the sorts of anthropic arguments These short; patentLy faLL arguments, which they LnvoLve offer no aimost immediate further appropriate basic (HempeLian) argumentation making use of generaL Laws. Given that better status quo arguments do afford scientific expianations, and given further that the arguments do serve to remove and not without predictive force, why have they been genuine puzzLement fauLted as expianations, and sometimes criticised 3S not providing expianations are at aLL (e.g. Forrest)? The main reason offered, that back-to-front , these "expianations" are appears to rest on the assumption that aLL genuine expLanation -28- shouLd be broadLg causaL, and accordingLg exhibit (time-) the direction or controi. Status quo expLanations are certainLg not causaL, and mag causation weLL run counter to causaL direction, expLaining features of the earig the through of distribution present universe of eLements. That is, however, perfectLg in order. For satisfactorg expLanation is not causaLLg restricted either ordinariLg or scientificaLLg. HempeL suppLies severaL different sorts of pattern basic of causaLLg or controL directed (pp.352-3). EspeciaLLg striking in this exampLe opticaL straightforward his of his which are not causaL expLanation or expLanation scientific exampLes regard is a particuLar event...satisfactoriLg of expLained bg reference to subsequent occurrences'; but his exampLe of two-wag where the period of a penduLum serves to expLain the Length of the expLanation, penduLum as weLL as converseLg, is aLso highLg re Levant. For it is too expiaining commonLg assumed numericaL that shouLd coincidences be the presence of water, carbon and the Like in the universe, not vice versa. But there is no iLLuminating reason quo status whg direction shouLd expLanation the instead not in run the as weLL as, vice versa. That of, iLLuminating direction is after aLL from the famiLiar to the much Less famiLiar, and more in need of expLanation. such It is true of course that more simpig means that status quo expLanations ad hominem stgLe of status quo expLanation, for are. Like expLanations, most further unreasonabLg stop deeper expLanation. The expLanation-stopping forms are and form: contraposed inquirers verg for expLanation if it weren t so gou woutdn t be here to ask the question. However such put-downs (in the envisaged persistent Legitimate the those (which Forrest discusses) where the response to a request for the Long. wouLd contexts) not more charge, damaging feature of the universe, Then PF. seLecting worLds where PF hoLds. But the theorg. the then, is that worLd-sgnthesis can expLain too much. The charge is backed up bg the foLLowing sort of consideration. puzzLing deter Theg wouLd be awag in search of further expLanations, such as better status quo arguments mag furnish (at Least for t ime be ing). The not begin in the middLe wag. Nor do theg, except in speciaL, rather theg uLtimate: takes famiLiar, the presence of water and carbon, aLso caLLs for expLanation; but that as quest the charge it Take ang can be expLained simpig bg misrepresents worLd-sgnthesis There is more to it than this. There is a cruciaL argumentative Linkage aLso invoLved, between PF and gross geophgsicaL features of the worLds (near factuaL worLd T) which are seLected. Or, put differentig, the seLection does not take pLace on basis the of PF, but (mereLg) under the constraint of gross geophgsicaL features; accordingLg if the argumentative Linkage from satisfactorg status quo arguments worLd-sgnthesis. is missing, PF is not to be expLained through In short, then, worLd-sgnthesis theorg offers expLanations when bg and then the expLanations mag varg greatLg in quaLitg depending on the depth of the phgsicaL the framework is suitabLg fLeshed out phgsicaL theorg; information invoLved in the argumentative Linkage. EssentiaLLg the same points undermine Forrest's further objection to such -2?- many-worLds explanation, truths; contingent have we aLL do to coaches easiLy as the pumpkins of turning numericsL coincidences. But there is no such free as seLection of phusicaL worLds - which do not incLude worLds vaLidating magicaL as faiL, can schema connecting arbitrary and practices. Status quo expianations may not be easy transformations at aLL, but physicaLLy comp Lex, they are not atways and they as is to posit suitabLy many and varied (p.9). Thus the theory is aLLeged to expLain worLds into that it "expLains" contingent faLsehoods as easiiy an when assumption invoLved easiLy avaiLabte, and the eLaboration of the in , and the argumentative schema issues in a contingent faiLs faLsehood. For a necessary condition that a status quo expianation be successfuL is that the argument be correct; but then given that the argument form is vaiid, the cone Lus ion cannot be simpiy f aLse. is It that satisfactory expianations, with conforming to such conditions of adequacy as deductive vaiidity in and quo status expianations winning in expianations differ from decisiveLy design which are sometimes seen as on an expianatory LeveL competition with status quo and expianations their piuraL-worLds setting (thus e.g. LesLie), and sometimes even confused with them. Design arguments characteristicaLLy take the deductiveLy invaLid abductive modus toLLens form: Things are (surprisingLy) so and so F If a design hypothesis heLd (e.g. the universe anticipated observers, a design-force operated), things woutd be (unsurprisingLy) so and so. If H then F Therefore, a design hypothesis (probabLy) hoLds. .. H Nor in design arguments is the connecting schema normaLLy eLaborated by appropriate scientific argument; nor, where God is invoked, i§; there any way of suitabLy confining the argument scientificaLLy. Thus support first the LesLie's of Larger cLaims is faLse:- the LiorLd EnsembLe hypothesis rather than the God hypothesis. !^e do not have...strong evidence of an EnsembLe' (LI, p.150). for Science does not their existence No branch of physics in a way commanding wide acceptance (LI, p.S3). The main reason is that the Bod hypothesis is not part of a physicaL theory that many-worLd theory is caLLs in the way of quantum theory (thus, e.g., there is no physics text corresponding to DeLiitt and Graham for the God hypothesis), [^hiie the Last cLaim is true, it does not teLL against the truth of neutraL many-worLds theory. Uhat science supports is science, not the the metaphysics it presupposes. Physics is not however aLL of science by any means, and even science doesn't do everything, onLy a rather narrow seLection of things. Richard SyLvan -30- 11 RPPENDIX 1. Some Rncient Rntecedents The Non-Limited is the originaL materiaL of existing things; further the source] from which existing things derive their existence is a iso that to which they' return at their destruction, according to necessity [for reparation]... —----- So, in the 6th Century B.C., said Rnaximander, perhaps among the first aLso to set down a story of the evoLution of humankind.Something the same was said in text, though on the favoured taLe a Heideggerean and Taoist touch was Lent, the with Nothingness repLacing the Non-Limited. In the on beginning, there was nothing; and uLtimateLy, too, there wiLL be nothing. have been paid. The p3raLLeL with Rnaximander can be pressed further. In account origins, of of worLd the contemporary charged pairs of particLes are created in the oppositeLy 'the order, wiLL Reparation process of pair formation from the vacuum; white in Rnaximander's story formation story, this opposites the of which are present Ln the one [the Non-Limited], are separated out from it' (but 'the "opposites" are the hot, coLd, the dry the , the moist, and the rest : see Robinson p.25). There is aLso a phenomenon which corresponds to some Limited extent to the Big Bang, nameLy Vortex. the It seems cLear, however, from the materiaL Burnet assembLes, that Rnaximander's position amounted to the first Less satisfactory resoiution, matter or substance aLways. For the BoundLess or Infinite was a materiaL cause, -^*-*dstance (p. 5k<); it is eternaL and ageLess is brought about the origin of the worids. did — Further, according to SimpLicius, not ascribe the origin of things to any aLteration of matter, but said that the oppositions separated encompasses aLL worids substance". RLso there is in it eternaL motion, in which which makes it a queer he and out . If in that the substratum was which a boundLess body, were is right — and it may not be, especiaLLy given Later ontotogicaL infLuences (cf. p.61) - then the matter is cLear. Rnaximander beiieved there were innumerabLe worids (p.58). These worids were concurrent, not successive. coex istent remains uncLear, but Later in the Whether Bound Less" they tradition (biassed) took them exist, making Rnaximander's position a many-existent-wortds theory. The to Law of compensation, under which for borrowing or variation reparation must be made, becomes the Law of repayment aLL were of conservation. The reparation paraLLeLs the borrowed" mass-energy. The more generaL steering of aLL things - overarching order in naturaL processes - becomes the Laws of nature which govern (reguLate) the processes. 'The orderLiness ... is grounded in the nature of things as such . Rnaximander's account represents an immenseLy -31- important stage in the transition from world-order is myth from science. to first to ... Last 'Hesiod's account of the origin of the anthropomorphic. account Rnaximanders represents, in principLe, a complete break with this mode of thought (Robinson p.27). From this angle the anthropic and idealistic fixes of contemporary science show marked regression. That transition, beyond anthropic creation stories, is also accomplished in the main philosophical essentials of the favoured resolution can where Taoism, be found. Something flowed from nothing, in a seemingly paradoxical way? but not through ang creation or agency. There was a the before time when beginning nothing at aLL existed. The problem of Laws (of nature) was also recognised, and resolved. did Laws not exist (independently at least of things that did) but were exhibited in in things that did exist. So it seems to follow that, stage at restricted property to duty what separated, and was mainly Lacking ascriptions Taoism Such nothing. a and deep in cosmogonic tales, then, from the ^.th C. B.C. until the 20th C., was a plausible explanatory story as to how come from together. of does exist. (Fuller details of Taoist cosmology, under this type of interpretation, are ventured in ecology', written with D. Bennett.) Mhat the which nothing existed, the taws could hold without having 3ny sort of existence, i.e. truth and existence were existence at story a few something could humans are Just beginning to piece NOTES Thi^ passage from Misner, Thorne and Uheeter, p.1212, is given an appropriately grander setting Ln the text. The passage Ls also quoted by DavLes, G p.222, who Lt to Wheeler. In Davies the idea of ascribes foundations for cosmology simple and unassailable Logical is given a different exposure, and is then linked with restrictions, to zero, on God s range of choice of universe to make. 2 Especially by those whose inquisitiveness and sense of blunted or destroyed by the mainstream culture and its wonder h3s educational not been practices, practices much mainstream philosophy reinforces and tries to justify. 3 Indolent philosophers tend to assign those of these questions that they write off (e.g. as semantically defective or as betraying philosophical uonfuslon or hang—upz?) to science. But they are not Just a matter for and scientists tend to come up with philosophically loaded, naive, theories scientists remain, insofar as they address the cannot questions and at often science; enough all. Too many Like too many RustraLian phiLosophers, in the grips of awfuL metaphysics, such as narrow empiricism and/or physicaiism. -32- ^The anaLysis semantical It of naturaL a is Law is that' Law-constrained worLds, naturaL worids. The interpretation ruLe for necessity. Terra, appLy but to Like is It shouLd be noted that geophysicaL features, appLied in seLecting worLds, are not of course confined to systems. in terns of geophysicaL pLanetary other "Rn eLaboration of this type of answer can be further expLoited to heLp why actuaL the standard ot worLd is science expLain comparativeLy so that simpLe, mathematicaLLy tractabLe, etc. HameLy, it is convenientLy so because the actuaL worLd seLection invoLved impLicitLy to render it so, by choice of a serves worLd with the compLexity of richer worLds removed and onLy tractabLe ideaL etements (such as scientific universaLs) adjoined. &RLtern3tiveLy, through quantum and borrowing positive feedback, a massive firebaLL forms. The story admits of much variation. ? The prob Lems, as the questions of the Lattice in diagram 2 indicate, what expLaining phiLosophers does exist, Lie with what does not. In a reLated way, 3LL those not papers on the prob Lems nonexistence of and nonexistents have misjudged the prob Lernatic, and misconceived the onus of proof. For commonLy the probLems concern existents and their behaviour; nonexistents, especiaLLy those functioning in expLanatory rotes as regards existentiai often behaviour, are very weLL behaved by comparison with existents. It has been suggested, by D. Lewis, that the underLying theory of items (of JB) renders everything exists. But it nonexistent, is and makes it 3 reaL probLem, how anything patentiy faLse that the theory of items render everything nonexistent. There are criteria for existence, which are often JB, chapter 9). Every thing nominaLists normaLLy take to satisfied (cf. exist satisfies the to be justified; it cannot (with any pretension to satisfactoriness) just be cLaimed, in the fashion of so many phiLosophers. In any case, Lewis can be simuLated: whatever ind iv idua Ls exist criteria. Beyond that existence has in Lewis worLds wiLL exist in worids-seLection theory. Rnd it is. a genuine phiLosophicaL probLem how anything exists. g in 19t+6; see his cosmoLogicaL text. Llhitrow aLso appLied, more than RpparentLy a quarter of a century ago, PrincipLe , in his what has now been eLevated to the Rnthropic answer to why the dimensions of space are three; nameLy, th3t this atone permits the evoLution of Nan, the formuiator of the probLem'. However 'Uhitrow's reasons concern not mankind but stabLe pLanetary orbits and compLex neurai networks' (LI, p.!^). g Compare the binding energy which keeps etectrons bound to a nucLeus, where correiativeiy energy stored up in overcoming forces of repuLsion is positive. -33- e a story couLd be totd to bring Laws within the expLanation framework. However It wouid teLLing invoLve Laws first evoLved or happened to hoLd, the how before vacuum fLuctuations. (For some interesting specuLation, from which the ontic and anthropic commitment can be removed without totaL Loss, see Barrow pp. 151-2, where "chaotic gauge theory" is considered.) The issue of uLtimate is expLanation again up taken seLf-justifying postulate as serving refLexive, expLanation. Note that in UQ, to the resoLve the matter the especiaLLy of probLem uLtimate, PostuLate Characterisation a of of object-theory is an initiaLLy promising candidate for such a principte. issue is that, on the story as toLd, quantum phenomena assume Another serious decidedLy they course Of macro-dimensions. may, Schrodinger s cat iLLustrates, but perhaps not in the parabLe the as supposed of catastrophic form. In the absence of any approved quantization of general, reLativity, there onLy are Lax physicaL controis on what is in and what is out in specuLation here. Rnd, of course, the second story couid There are other mechanisms for the sudden be rise in eLaborsted other ways. e.g. white mass-energy, of ho Les in geometrodynamics. In his second paper, Tryon makes a rather casuaL beginning on meeting some of difficuLties the with the vacuum fLuctuation theory the cosmos, and of expLains the advantages of combining the theory with that of a (stiLL probLematic) "infLationary" universe, to boost the fLuctuation. But the theory stiLL awaits aporopriateLy detaiLed deveiopment and modeLLing. 12 There are various other issues concerning the physicaL constants, incLuding the question of the (sLow) evoLution of "constants" over time. LJeLL, do evoLve, the they if same sort of probLems arise for the parameters which repLace them (L.e. at each time t, for c(t)). There are putative arguments to the effect that there can be no very grand unified theory, and no finaL eLimination of constants, because any such theory wouid do too much in determ in ing the worLd (and things). But it is unctear at present how such an argument gets duty eLaborated. R tight argument uneLiminabiLity of some physicaL constants from physicaL principLes for the wouLd be of much interest. 13 Th',s is what is reaLLy accompLLshed in Carter. To some extent we have emerging in this area a contemporary scientific numeroLogy. 1L Convergence arguments, e.g. for such things as the Church-Turing thesis, underLying connections, but not co-operation. l^Even Less, seemingLy, is the universe an accident, 'an event proceeding from an unknown cause; something unexpected; a casuaLty, a mishap, l&If however the worLd reaLLy were necessary, such improbabiLity must be grossLy -34- reduced. How can that be: how can these contingencies be not what theg seem? 1? How M3ng worLds? ContinuousLg mang worLds? There is no reason whg not. But the answer is: as mang at Least as required. In object-theorg numbers don t short matter though much, so difficuLties technccaL controL Ls advantage. an are There as to measures, e.g. of fewness, in infinite modeLLings. Yet the notions are Ln order, e.g. among the naturaL numbers primes are few. 18 point, ThL^, and the inestimabLLitg specific of probabLLLties Ln (e.g. Ls argued, though in insufficient detaiL, bg TouLmLn among others meteoroLogg) Bg the wag, sureLg a creator wouLd have increased probabLLitLes bg seeing to a unLverse for fit decent habitation; a variation upon the argument from evLL infiltrates itseLf Ln probabiLitg guise here. 13 worked There are in fact mang proposed soLutions, most of them not theg (because far verg out have onLg few proponents), most of them not comprehensive certainLg (but it couLd be argued that this is a faLse ideaL), severaL of them discussed bg Everett, DeMLtt, Lande and others. 20 MheeLer s sequentiaL modeL another, so satisfgLng the theorg (Like certain offers a simitar range of worLds, but one after 'reaLLtg principLe". EarLLer MheeLer had adopted cosmoLogies) Eastern with in muLtLpLLcitg a both sequent La LLg and Lnto the possibLe; but recent Lg he has abandoned dimen^Lon^,, the Latter, partig on erroneous ontoLogLcaL grounds. 21 It Ls of course not the onLg reaLLstLc-stgie LnterpretatLon whLch does thLs: envisage everu Lande s LnterpretatLon is another. 22 From a neutraL viewpoint, Lt ts entLreLg taLse that atom ... as Me must constantLg engaging in this tgpe of scattering sctLvitg, therebg spLLtting the worLd again and again Lnto a stupendous number carbon-copLes of of LtseLf. The unLverse must therefore be LLkened to a tree, whLch branches 3nd (D p.I25). Nor Ls rebranches universe. 23 To anticipate, schemas of what the form, happens "if the tree-structured sgstern of universes the is as foLLows:- The antecedents of "anthropic" there exist so and so [e.g. observers] then ang phgsLcaL worLds must be such and such", are appLLed to phgsLcaL worLds. Rs there certainLg do exist so and so, narrow ctass the phgsLcaL worLds of are restricted to those that are such and such. gL It cs stLLL reasonabLe to 3sk whg - indeed to e.g. whg do we inhabit it?, whence a Long pose' severaL whg questions, evoLutionarg storg. Mhg are the constants those theg are?, then aLternative answers, LncLudLng brute fact, are among the possibiLities. -35- roundLg defeated Shapiro. 26 bg the sorts considerations advanced bg Feinberg and of Davies aLso suggests that mang-worLds theorg can provide a pLausibLe phgsicaL (as opposed to phiLosophicaL) justification for the strong principte (D p.122 middLe). In fact he never reaLLg shows this satisfactoriig (nor can it be so shown), and in pointing to the power of the m3ng—universe theorg he undermines the strong principte, showing it otiose. 2? arguments are presented in modat form, with the connecting quo status Often scheme set in either necessitated form, if F that) (e.g. T if exist there necessaritg then (it if possibLe modaLities are de dicto and and that invoLved cLaims the It such). if F then T. The modaLitg invoLved is not one of LogicaL contingent nomic of that strength, but can be adequateLg NecessariLg, necessitg, an The error. argument guarantee the concLusion, NecessariLg T, nor does it pretend form these or even in Lowest common denominator form. To attach the (reLative) modaLitg simpig to consequent T wouLd be second is 'it is more than mereLg rather reads that seems represented, as usuaL, through a necessitated connecting schema, one F form, (e.g. what is the case LocaLLg (what observers observe, T etc.) is onLg possibLe if phgsics is such aLwags be and so, then the universe must have, or so conform to, such and such features), or, in quasi-transcendentaL onLg must to do does not so. The is a LittLe more probLematic; but it appears to assert that F is inconsistent with not-T, and so, through obvious connections, the same as the rectified first form. 28 Mhat we have are devices, that fragments of theories, ruLes thumb, of appear to work in a range of cases. and caLcuLating It is these parts that mag generate successfuL technoiogg. The picture is Like engineering. 29 R main charge made bg LesLie against mang-worid cosmoLogies, e.g. LI, p.l^Sff. It is a surprising turn, given the popuLaritg of hgpothetico-deductive methodoLogg, to have it aLso objected that mang-worLd theorg voids induction. Putting chance in controL of inter-worLd differences erodes confidence in our sampLe of ReaLitg, on which our inductions are based' (LI, p.1^.3). this objection gets off the ground (it is transparentLg Insofar cLear as that it does), it depends on assuming the reaLitg of the entire worLd ensembLe. So Lt not Lapses against a neutraL theorg. 30 R reLated phitosophicaLLg important exampLe where the schema does so far is in Moore s proof of an externaL worLd, noted above. The reason is that the existence of arbitrarg materiaL objects, such as hands or does f3it not guarantee that the requirements (order, isoLated unitg, cabbages, coherence, mcnd-cndependence, etc.) for an externaL worLd are satisfied. 31 Rn earLier version of this paper was presented at the RustraLasian Rssociation of PhiLosophg Conference, Rugust 138^. The -36- heLpfuL comments bg David Rrmstrong, Brian Ellis and David Lewis, unreferenced above, were the discussion. commentaries; Both several made during John Leslie and Jack Smart supplied me with worthwhile their points have been incorporated, but some have of been resisted. The initial Univerity preprint series. version W3S published in an Rustralian National 32^ See Freeman, p.IS. for fuller discussion of need for reparation, see Burnet. Rnaximander's on position; the REFERENCES J.D. Barrow, Rnthropic definitions', Quarterly Journal of Royal the Rstroncmical Society 21^ ( 1983) lt+6-153 H. Bondi, Cosmology, Second edition, Cambridge University Press, I960. R, Brout, F. Englert and F. Gunzig, The creation of the universe as a quantum phenomenon' RnnaIs of Physics 115 (1978) 78-106. J. Burnet, Early Greek Philosophy, Fourth edition, Rdam & Charles Black, London, 1930. B. Carter, Large number coincidence and the anthropcc principle is in Longair, 291-98. B. 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Shapiro, Life Beyond Earth, Morrow, New York, 1980. P. Feyerabend, Science Ln a Free Society, New Left Books, London, 1978. 'RnthropLc answers and the existence of P. Forrest, Proceedings God', of the Russet Lan Society, University of Sydney, 7 (1982) 1-13. K. Freeman, RncLLLa to the Pre-Socratic Phitosophers, BLackweLL, Oxford, 1971. N. Griffin and R. SyLvan, Provisionai Rnswers to ULtimate Questions, typescript, Canberra, 1981}.; referred to as UQ. S. Hawking and G.F. ELiis, The Large-Scaie Structure of Space-time, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1973. M. Heidegger, Introduction to Metaphysics, (trans. R. Mannheim), YaLe University Press, New Haven, 1959. C.G. HempeL, Rspects of Scientific Exp LanatLon, Free Press, New York, 1965. Lande, The Laws behLnd the quantum Laws , BrLtLsh JournaL for the PhiLosophu of Science 27 (1976) 27-^3. J. L^sLLe, RnthropLc prLncLpLe, worLd ensembLe, desLgn , RmerLcan PhLLosophLcaL QuarterLy, 19 (1982) l^l-lSl; referred to as LI. J. LesLLe, Cosmo Logy, probabLLity and the need to exp La Ln LLfe', Ln ScLentLfLc ExpLanatLon and UnderstandLng (ed. N. Rescher), UnLversLty Press of RmerLea, MaryLand, M.S. LongaLr 1983, 53-82; referred to as L2. (ed.), Confrontat Lon of Cosmo Log LeaL Theories wLth ObsservatLonaL Data, ReLdeL, Dordrecht, 1971}.. C.U. MLsner, K.S. Thorne and J.R. UheeLer, GravLtatLon, Freeman, San 1973. G.E. Moore, PhLLosophLcaL Papers, RLLen and UnwLn, London, FrancLsco, 1959. R. RobLnson, Essays Ln Greek PhLLosophg, CLarendon Press, Oxford, 1969. R. RoutLey, ExpLorLng MeLnong's JungLe and Beyond, Research SchooL ScLences, RustraLLan NatLonaL UnLversity, 1980; referred to as JB. -38- of SociaL Sagan Broca's Brain: Ref Leet ions on the Romance of Science, New York, Random House, 1973. S.Tou Lm in, The Return to CosmoLogy: Postmodern Nature, University of CaLifornia Press, BerkeLey Ca., 1982. Is the universe a vacuum fLuctuation?', Nature 2^6 (1973) 396-7 E.P. Tryon, E.P. Tryon, Science and the Theo Logy of *Mhat made the worLd?', New Scientist 101 (198!+) It+00, 1!+-16 FLN. Mhitehead, Process and ReaLity, Cambridge University Press, 1929. 6.H. Uhitrow, The Structure and Evo Lution of the Universe, Harper, New York, 1959. Second edition,  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 57, Item 2: Draft of Toward an improved cosmo-logical synthesis Subject The topic of the resource Typescript draft, correction version. Paper published, Sylvan R (1985) 'Toward an improved cosmo-logical synthesis', Grazer philosophische Studien, 25:135-179. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Routley</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 57, Item 2 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. 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Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:991d123">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:991d123</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1983 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant n/a - location not listed in manuscript finding aid Box 57: Miscellaneous Logic https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/46d18761af348ef21c37dca2628582a9.pdf 49ee38d32c731ad154d8fa5f39e25dea PDF Text Text /*/^/ R. SYLVAN (ng Routley) In the background for much of the year has been a sustained treatise on But the recent foreground has been dominated by bits and pieces on anarchism. science and environmental matters. PUBLICATIONS 2 and ROUTLEY, R., guest editors, Studia Logica, vol. 43, special PRIEST, G. double issue on paraconsistent logic. 2 and ROUTLEY, R., "Introduction", PRIEST, G. Studia Logica, vol. 43, pp. 1-14. 2 PRIEST, G. and ROUTLEY, R., On Paraconsistency, Research Series in Logic and Metaphysics, No. 1, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 235 pp. ROUTLEY, R., "The American plan completed: alternative classical style semantics, without stars, for relevant and paraconsistent logics", Studia Logica, vol. 43, pp. 129-156. ROUTLEY, R., "Metaphysical fall-out from the nuclear predicament", Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol. 10, numbers 3-4, pp. ROUTLEY, R., "Relevantism and the problem as to when Material Detachment and the Disjunctive Syllogism Argument can be correctly used", Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 14, pp. 167-188. ROUTLEY, R., guest editor, Logique et Analyse, nos 103-104, (1983), special issue on non-classical logic. ROUTLEY, R., Maximising, Satisficing, Satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival paradigms, Discussion Papers in Environmental 1 �Philosophy, No. 10, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 27 pp. ROUTLEY, R., "On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity, and fanaticism of pacifism", Inquiry, vol. 27, pp. 117-148. ROUTLEY, R., "Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action", in R. Elliot and A. Gare, editors, Environmental Philosophy: collection of readings, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, pp. 260-293. ROUTLEY, R. "People vs the land: the ethics of the population case", in R. Birrell and others, editors, Populate and Perish?, Fontana, Sydney, pp. 325-351. ROUTLEY, R., MEYER, R.K., BRADY, R.T. z 1 and PLUMWOOD, V. , Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, I, Ridgeview Publishing Company, Atascadero, Calif­ ornia, 460 pp. ROUTLEY, R. and PLUMWOOD, V.^, Moral Dilemmas and the Logic of Deontic Notions, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 6, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 42 pp. SYLVAN, R., Windows on Science. beyond the Actual, and 2. 1. How Science and Myth and Fiction Step Science on Science, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 1, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 53 pp. SYLVAN, R., Windows on Science. 3. A Cosmo-Logical Synthesis, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 2, Philosophy Department, RSSS. ANU, 40 pp. 2 a �SYLVAN, R., Philosophy and Pluralism, Relevant Models and Arguments, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 3, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 35 pp. SYLVAN, R., A Critique of Deep Ecology, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 12, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 59 pp. SYLVAN, R. and PLUMWOOD, V.^, An Expensive Repair Kit for Utilitarianism, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 7, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 36 pp. 3 . �ANNUAL REVIEW OF PERFORMANCE OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF TENURED ACADEMIC STAFF INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES Report by R. SYLVAN ( Department of Philosophy, RSSS) for the period 1981-4 inclusive 1. Research conducted and future plans for research My research has ranged over a wide area in philosophy — metaphysics, logic, philosophy of science, ethics, social and political theory, extending to environmental concerns. My work overlaps the three areas upon which research in the Philosophy Department, RSSS, concentrates: logic; metaphysics and epistemo­ logy; and social and political theory. The work extends into other disciplines as well, in an examination of their fundamental assumptions. For example, my current work includes the metaphysical principles in cosmology, realism and relativism in science, and the philosophical assumptions of economics. This philosophical investigation of the foundations of other disciplines is a research trend which is likely to increase. Uy research over the next few years will also include certain large projects, already underway. These include a treatise on anarchism, which will likely be several years in preparation, and an in-depth work on process theory and nondeductive logics with particular emphasis on nonmonotonic logics relevant to computing and information processing. 2. Publications during 1981-4 BOOKS, MONOGRAPHS AND JOURNAL, written and edited Environmental Philosophy, Department of Philosophy Monograph Series #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, (edited with D. Mannison and M. McRobbie). Reprint, with minor correction, 1982, 394 pages. Relevant Logics and Their Rivals I. The basic semantical theory (with R.K. Meyer, V\ Plumwood, and R.T.Brady), Ridgeview,California, 1983, 460 pages. Nonclassical Logic, (guest editor), special double issue of Logique et Analyse 103-4, 1983, devoted to nonclassical logic in Canada. On Paraconsistency (with G. Priest), Research Papers in Logic #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 321 pages; reprinted with minor revision in Research Series in Logic and Metaphysics #1 1984, 235 pages; to appear in Paraconsistent Logic (ed. with G. Priest and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1986. Paraconsistent Logics (edited with G. Priest as guest editor), with contributed introduction, Studia Logica 43 (1984), 220 pages. .../2 �-2- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) ARTICLES: 'Necessary limits to Knowledge: Unknowable truths', Essays in Scientific Philosophy (ed. E. Morscher and others), Comes-Verlag, 1981, pp. 97-118. 'An alternative angle on the humanities', Cooperative Education Newsletter, University of Victoria (Fall 1981), pp. 2-3* 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future' (with V. Routley), Responsibilities to Future Generations: Environmental Ethics, (ed^ E. Partridge), Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1981, pp. 277-301. 'Alleged problems in attributing beliefs and intentionality to animals', Inquiry 24 (1981 ), pp. 387-417. 'The inadequacy of the actual and the real: beyond empiricism, idealism and mysticism', Language and Ontology (ed. W. Leinfeller and others), Verlag Holder-Pitcher-Tempsky, 1982, pp. 49-67. 'An impressionistic survey of paraconsistent positions and theories', Collected Papers of the 1982 Foundations of Logic Conference, University of Waterloo. 'On the philosophical basis of relevant logic semantics' (with V. Plumwood, R.K. Meyer and E.P. Martin), Journal of Non-Classical Logic 1 (1982), pp. 71 -105. 'Negation and contradiction in Wittgenstein', Language and Ontology (ed. W. Leinfeller and others), Verlag Holder-Pitcher-Tempsky, 1982, pp. 471-4. 'World rainforest destruction - the social factors' The Ecologist 12 (1982), pp. 4-22. (with V. Routley), 'Disjunctive Syllogism seen as a fallacy of relevance', Bulletin of the Section of Logic, Polish Academy of Sciences (1982). 'Nuclear power - ethical and social dimensions' (with V. Routley), And Justice for All (ed. D. Van der Veer and T. Regan), Rowman and Littlefield, 1982 'In defense of cannibalism I. Types of admissible and inadmissible cannibalism' Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982, 47 pages. 'The irrefutability of anarchism' (with V. Plumwood), Social Alternatives 2(3) (1982), pp.23-8. 'Unravelling the meanings of life?' (with N. Griffin), Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy j^3. Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982, 49 pages; to appear in Studies in Analytic Philosophy: a comparative Approach (ed. B. Matita1 and J. Shaw), Reid el, Dordrecht, 1984; rescheduled. 'On what there is pp. 151-77. not', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 43 (1982), .../3 �-3- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) 'Lessons from Pseudo-Scotus', Philosophical Studies 42 (1982), pp. 189-99. 'Algebra^analyses of relevant affixing logics, and other Polish connections' (with R.T. Brady, R.K. Meyer and C. Mortensen), Research Papers in Logic #16, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 56 pages; to appear in Relevant Logics and their Rivals II, 1986. 'Research in logic in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania: its brief history and its present state', Research Papers in Logic #14, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983; condensed version to appear in Ruch Filozoficzny. 'Semantical foundations of value theory' pp. 441-56. (with V. Routley), Nous 17 (1983), 'Nihilisms and nihilist logics', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #4, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 53 pages; shortened version to appear in American Philosophical Quarterly, 1986. 'Relevant logics and their semantics remain viable and undamaged by Lewis's equivocation charge' (with R.K. Meyer), Topoi 2 (1983), pp. 205-1 5. 'Moral dilemmas, and the logic of deontic notions' (with V. Plumwood), Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #6, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 42 pages; to appear in Paraconsistent Logic, (ed. with G. Priest, and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1985. 'On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #9, 1983, 31 pages; also in Inquiry 27 (1984), pp. 11 7-28. 'The role and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action', Environmental Philosophy. A Collection of Readings (ed. R. Elliott and Al Gare), University of Queensland Press,1983,pp. 260-93. 'Relevantism and the problem as to when material detachment and the disjunctive syllogism can be correctly used', Research Papers in Logic #12, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 24 pages; revised version in Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1984), pp. 167-88. 'The American plan completed: alternative classical-style semantics without stars, for relevant and paraconsistent logics', Studia Logica 43 (1984), pp. 125-56. 'How science and myth and fiction step beyond the actual and sometimes beyond the possible', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #1, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 33 pages; appear in revised German translation, 1986. .../4 �-4- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) 'Science and science: relocating Stove and the modern irrationalists', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #1, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 20 pages; to appear in Critical Philosophy, 1985* 'Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival paradigms', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #10, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 27 pages. 'War and Peace I: On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear deterrence, and the political fall-out', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #5, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 80 pages. 'People vs the Land: the ethics of the population case', Population Growth and Resources in Australia: The Intensifying Conflict (ed. R. Birrell, D. Hill, and J. Neville), Fontana, Sydney, 1984, pp- 325-57. Manucripts accepted or prepared (those accepted for publication are starred) BOOKS *Paraconsistent Logic (contributing editor, with G. Priest and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1984, 540 pages; several articles appear in this text. ^Directions in Relevant Logic (contributing editor, with J. Norman), Reason and Argument series, Nijhoff, Holland,1986, 350 pages; several articles appear in this book. *Soil Degradation in Australia: The Future of our Land (contributing editor), Croom Helm Australia, Sydney, 1986. j *The Philosophy of J.C.C Smart (edited with^J. Norman), Blackwell, 1986. ARTICLES 'A non-triviality proof for dialethic set theory', typescript 1981. 'Nuclear energy - ethical, social and political dimensions', typescript 1981, 50 pages. 'More general da Costa and dual-intuitionistic logics', typescript 1982, 14 pages. .../5 �-5- 3. Manuscripts accepted or prepared (cont) -those manuscripts accepted for publication are starred 'Starred semi-lattice semantics for full Urquhart systems', typescript 1982. 'Conditional probability as the probability of a conditional', typescript 1982, 26 pages; read at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, 1982. 'The irrefutability of anarchism - enlarged', typescript 1982, 45 pages. 'Simple probabilistic sanantics for non-normal modal logics', typescript 1982; presented at Logic Workshop, University of Victoria, Canada, 1983. 'Non-classical probability theories', typescript 1983. 'A neglected goal of philosophy - wisdom', typescript 1983, 36 pages; read to the Philosophy Department, The Faculties. 'World order, cultural convergence and regional culture', typescript 1983, 6 pages. 'Culture and the roots of political divergence: The Australia/American contrast', typescript 1983, 32 pages; expanded to 121 pages 1984. 'On non-deductive reasoning I. Non-monotonic logics', typescript 1984. 'Myths concerning rationality', typescript 1984, 11 pages; read at University of Queensland, 1984. 'Nature JLs closed to mind: typescript 1984. Whitehead, deep ecology, and the theory of objects', *'Towards a cosmo-logical synthesis', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1985, 42 pages; to appear in Grazer philosophische Studien, special anniversary issue, 1985. ^'Introducing polylogue theory', to appear in Philosophia, 1985, 21 pages. ^'Negation and contradiction' (with V. Routley), to appear in Proceedings of the Third Latin-American Logic Symposium, Columbian Society of Mathematicians, Bogata, 1985. *'Metaphysical fall-out from the nuclear predicament', to appear in Philosophy and Social Criticism, February 1985. 'Moral Issues in Nuclear War' (with L. Sylvan), typescript, 1984; read at ANU Summer Studies Workshop on Peace, Disarmament and Development. �The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy [1983?] research output report (8 pages) Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy 1985 research output report (8 pages) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document /*/^/ R. SYLVAN (ng Routley) In the background for much of the year has been a sustained treatise on But the recent foreground has been dominated by bits and pieces on anarchism. science and environmental matters. PUBLICATIONS 2 and ROUTLEY, R., guest editors, Studia Logica, vol. 43, special PRIEST, G. double issue on paraconsistent logic. 2 and ROUTLEY, R., "Introduction", PRIEST, G. Studia Logica, vol. 43, pp. 1-14. 2 PRIEST, G. and ROUTLEY, R., On Paraconsistency, Research Series in Logic and Metaphysics, No. 1, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 235 pp. ROUTLEY, R., "The American plan completed: alternative classical style semantics, without stars, for relevant and paraconsistent logics", Studia Logica, vol. 43, pp. 129-156. ROUTLEY, R., "Metaphysical fall-out from the nuclear predicament", Philosophy and Social Criticism, vol. 10, numbers 3-4, pp. ROUTLEY, R., "Relevantism and the problem as to when Material Detachment and the Disjunctive Syllogism Argument can be correctly used", Canadian Journal of Philosophy, vol. 14, pp. 167-188. ROUTLEY, R., guest editor, Logique et Analyse, nos 103-104, (1983), special issue on non-classical logic. ROUTLEY, R., Maximising, Satisficing, Satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival paradigms, Discussion Papers in Environmental 1 Philosophy, No. 10, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 27 pp. ROUTLEY, R., "On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity, and fanaticism of pacifism", Inquiry, vol. 27, pp. 117-148. ROUTLEY, R., "Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action", in R. Elliot and A. Gare, editors, Environmental Philosophy: collection of readings, University of Queensland Press, St. Lucia, pp. 260-293. ROUTLEY, R. "People vs the land: the ethics of the population case", in R. Birrell and others, editors, Populate and Perish?, Fontana, Sydney, pp. 325-351. ROUTLEY, R., MEYER, R.K., BRADY, R.T. z 1 and PLUMWOOD, V. , Relevant Logics and Their Rivals, I, Ridgeview Publishing Company, Atascadero, Calif­ ornia, 460 pp. ROUTLEY, R. and PLUMWOOD, V.^, Moral Dilemmas and the Logic of Deontic Notions, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 6, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 42 pp. SYLVAN, R., Windows on Science. beyond the Actual, and 2. 1. How Science and Myth and Fiction Step Science on Science, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 1, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 53 pp. SYLVAN, R., Windows on Science. 3. A Cosmo-Logical Synthesis, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 2, Philosophy Department, RSSS. ANU, 40 pp. 2 a SYLVAN, R., Philosophy and Pluralism, Relevant Models and Arguments, Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy, No. 3, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 35 pp. SYLVAN, R., A Critique of Deep Ecology, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 12, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 59 pp. SYLVAN, R. and PLUMWOOD, V.^, An Expensive Repair Kit for Utilitarianism, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy, No. 7, Philosophy Department, RSSS, ANU, 36 pp. 3 . ANNUAL REVIEW OF PERFORMANCE OF INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS OF TENURED ACADEMIC STAFF INSTITUTE OF ADVANCED STUDIES Report by R. SYLVAN ( Department of Philosophy, RSSS) for the period 1981-4 inclusive 1. Research conducted and future plans for research My research has ranged over a wide area in philosophy — metaphysics, logic, philosophy of science, ethics, social and political theory, extending to environmental concerns. My work overlaps the three areas upon which research in the Philosophy Department, RSSS, concentrates: logic; metaphysics and epistemo­ logy; and social and political theory. The work extends into other disciplines as well, in an examination of their fundamental assumptions. For example, my current work includes the metaphysical principles in cosmology, realism and relativism in science, and the philosophical assumptions of economics. This philosophical investigation of the foundations of other disciplines is a research trend which is likely to increase. Uy research over the next few years will also include certain large projects, already underway. These include a treatise on anarchism, which will likely be several years in preparation, and an in-depth work on process theory and nondeductive logics with particular emphasis on nonmonotonic logics relevant to computing and information processing. 2. Publications during 1981-4 BOOKS, MONOGRAPHS AND JOURNAL, written and edited Environmental Philosophy, Department of Philosophy Monograph Series #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, (edited with D. Mannison and M. McRobbie). Reprint, with minor correction, 1982, 394 pages. Relevant Logics and Their Rivals I. The basic semantical theory (with R.K. Meyer, V\ Plumwood, and R.T.Brady), Ridgeview,California, 1983, 460 pages. Nonclassical Logic, (guest editor), special double issue of Logique et Analyse 103-4, 1983, devoted to nonclassical logic in Canada. On Paraconsistency (with G. Priest), Research Papers in Logic #13, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 321 pages; reprinted with minor revision in Research Series in Logic and Metaphysics #1 1984, 235 pages; to appear in Paraconsistent Logic (ed. with G. Priest and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1986. Paraconsistent Logics (edited with G. Priest as guest editor), with contributed introduction, Studia Logica 43 (1984), 220 pages. .../2 -2- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) ARTICLES: 'Necessary limits to Knowledge: Unknowable truths', Essays in Scientific Philosophy (ed. E. Morscher and others), Comes-Verlag, 1981, pp. 97-118. 'An alternative angle on the humanities', Cooperative Education Newsletter, University of Victoria (Fall 1981), pp. 2-3* 'Nuclear energy and obligations to the future' (with V. Routley), Responsibilities to Future Generations: Environmental Ethics, (ed^ E. Partridge), Prometheus Books, Buffalo, 1981, pp. 277-301. 'Alleged problems in attributing beliefs and intentionality to animals', Inquiry 24 (1981 ), pp. 387-417. 'The inadequacy of the actual and the real: beyond empiricism, idealism and mysticism', Language and Ontology (ed. W. Leinfeller and others), Verlag Holder-Pitcher-Tempsky, 1982, pp. 49-67. 'An impressionistic survey of paraconsistent positions and theories', Collected Papers of the 1982 Foundations of Logic Conference, University of Waterloo. 'On the philosophical basis of relevant logic semantics' (with V. Plumwood, R.K. Meyer and E.P. Martin), Journal of Non-Classical Logic 1 (1982), pp. 71 -105. 'Negation and contradiction in Wittgenstein', Language and Ontology (ed. W. Leinfeller and others), Verlag Holder-Pitcher-Tempsky, 1982, pp. 471-4. 'World rainforest destruction - the social factors' The Ecologist 12 (1982), pp. 4-22. (with V. Routley), 'Disjunctive Syllogism seen as a fallacy of relevance', Bulletin of the Section of Logic, Polish Academy of Sciences (1982). 'Nuclear power - ethical and social dimensions' (with V. Routley), And Justice for All (ed. D. Van der Veer and T. Regan), Rowman and Littlefield, 1982 'In defense of cannibalism I. Types of admissible and inadmissible cannibalism' Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982, 47 pages. 'The irrefutability of anarchism' (with V. Plumwood), Social Alternatives 2(3) (1982), pp.23-8. 'Unravelling the meanings of life?' (with N. Griffin), Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy j^3. Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1982, 49 pages; to appear in Studies in Analytic Philosophy: a comparative Approach (ed. B. Matita1 and J. Shaw), Reid el, Dordrecht, 1984; rescheduled. 'On what there is pp. 151-77. not', Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 43 (1982), .../3 -3- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) 'Lessons from Pseudo-Scotus', Philosophical Studies 42 (1982), pp. 189-99. 'Algebra^analyses of relevant affixing logics, and other Polish connections' (with R.T. Brady, R.K. Meyer and C. Mortensen), Research Papers in Logic #16, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 56 pages; to appear in Relevant Logics and their Rivals II, 1986. 'Research in logic in Australia, New Zealand and Oceania: its brief history and its present state', Research Papers in Logic #14, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983; condensed version to appear in Ruch Filozoficzny. 'Semantical foundations of value theory' pp. 441-56. (with V. Routley), Nous 17 (1983), 'Nihilisms and nihilist logics', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #4, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 53 pages; shortened version to appear in American Philosophical Quarterly, 1986. 'Relevant logics and their semantics remain viable and undamaged by Lewis's equivocation charge' (with R.K. Meyer), Topoi 2 (1983), pp. 205-1 5. 'Moral dilemmas, and the logic of deontic notions' (with V. Plumwood), Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #6, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 42 pages; to appear in Paraconsistent Logic, (ed. with G. Priest, and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1985. 'On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #9, 1983, 31 pages; also in Inquiry 27 (1984), pp. 11 7-28. 'The role and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action', Environmental Philosophy. A Collection of Readings (ed. R. Elliott and Al Gare), University of Queensland Press,1983,pp. 260-93. 'Relevantism and the problem as to when material detachment and the disjunctive syllogism can be correctly used', Research Papers in Logic #12, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1983, 24 pages; revised version in Canadian Journal of Philosophy 14 (1984), pp. 167-88. 'The American plan completed: alternative classical-style semantics without stars, for relevant and paraconsistent logics', Studia Logica 43 (1984), pp. 125-56. 'How science and myth and fiction step beyond the actual and sometimes beyond the possible', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #1, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 33 pages; appear in revised German translation, 1986. .../4 -4- 2. Publications during 1981-4 (cont) 'Science and science: relocating Stove and the modern irrationalists', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #1, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 20 pages; to appear in Critical Philosophy, 1985* 'Maximizing, satisficing, satisizing: the difference in real and rational behaviour under rival paradigms', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #10, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 27 pages. 'War and Peace I: On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear deterrence, and the political fall-out', Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #5, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984, 80 pages. 'People vs the Land: the ethics of the population case', Population Growth and Resources in Australia: The Intensifying Conflict (ed. R. Birrell, D. Hill, and J. Neville), Fontana, Sydney, 1984, pp- 325-57. Manucripts accepted or prepared (those accepted for publication are starred) BOOKS *Paraconsistent Logic (contributing editor, with G. Priest and J. Norman), Philosophia Verlag, Munich, 1984, 540 pages; several articles appear in this text. ^Directions in Relevant Logic (contributing editor, with J. Norman), Reason and Argument series, Nijhoff, Holland,1986, 350 pages; several articles appear in this book. *Soil Degradation in Australia: The Future of our Land (contributing editor), Croom Helm Australia, Sydney, 1986. j *The Philosophy of J.C.C Smart (edited with^J. Norman), Blackwell, 1986. ARTICLES 'A non-triviality proof for dialethic set theory', typescript 1981. 'Nuclear energy - ethical, social and political dimensions', typescript 1981, 50 pages. 'More general da Costa and dual-intuitionistic logics', typescript 1982, 14 pages. .../5 -5- 3. Manuscripts accepted or prepared (cont) -those manuscripts accepted for publication are starred 'Starred semi-lattice semantics for full Urquhart systems', typescript 1982. 'Conditional probability as the probability of a conditional', typescript 1982, 26 pages; read at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, 1982. 'The irrefutability of anarchism - enlarged', typescript 1982, 45 pages. 'Simple probabilistic sanantics for non-normal modal logics', typescript 1982; presented at Logic Workshop, University of Victoria, Canada, 1983. 'Non-classical probability theories', typescript 1983. 'A neglected goal of philosophy - wisdom', typescript 1983, 36 pages; read to the Philosophy Department, The Faculties. 'World order, cultural convergence and regional culture', typescript 1983, 6 pages. 'Culture and the roots of political divergence: The Australia/American contrast', typescript 1983, 32 pages; expanded to 121 pages 1984. 'On non-deductive reasoning I. Non-monotonic logics', typescript 1984. 'Myths concerning rationality', typescript 1984, 11 pages; read at University of Queensland, 1984. 'Nature JLs closed to mind: typescript 1984. Whitehead, deep ecology, and the theory of objects', *'Towards a cosmo-logical synthesis', Research Series in Unfashionable Philosophy #2, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1985, 42 pages; to appear in Grazer philosophische Studien, special anniversary issue, 1985. ^'Introducing polylogue theory', to appear in Philosophia, 1985, 21 pages. ^'Negation and contradiction' (with V. Routley), to appear in Proceedings of the Third Latin-American Logic Symposium, Columbian Society of Mathematicians, Bogata, 1985. *'Metaphysical fall-out from the nuclear predicament', to appear in Philosophy and Social Criticism, February 1985. 'Moral Issues in Nuclear War' (with L. Sylvan), typescript, 1984; read at ANU Summer Studies Workshop on Peace, Disarmament and Development. The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy [1983?] research output report (8 pages) Australian National University Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy 1985 research output report (8 pages)  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. 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Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:13116c5">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:13116c5</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant n/a - unlisted in manuscript finding aid Box 72: Unlisted and Untitled Boxes https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/5e8415bb76024d67ded6d6e3977f7eb3.pdf 96f3e6a4de450fe22ae29f31689e350e PDF Text Text ON EXTIRPATING WAR: TAO AND DEEP-GREEN PACIFISM Taoism and deep-green environmental theory, although closely aligned on very many issues, diverge over war. For Taoism, by contrast for instance with Buddhism, is not a pacific doctrine, but is committed to skilful defensive militarism. While it does not espouse a fortress mentality, Taoism certainly condones limited defensive military operations for specific purposes, a sort of guerilla warfare. By contrast, deep-green theory, while acknowledging the role of organised social defence, stands opposed to professional militarism, and thereby to military defence, and is committed to a principled pacifism. Conveniently a route through Taoism, philosophically fascinating in its own right, will lead us to problems of pacifism and towards deep-green theory. 1. Features of a Taoist critique of war and militarism. War did not receive a favourable press in ancient Chinese philosophy. Generally aggression and war were to be avoided. Even Confucius imposed very demanding conditions: for example, ‘when good men have instructed the people [in morals, agriculture, military tactics] for seven years, they may be allowed to bear arms,’ ‘If a ruler ... does not set himself right, even his commands will not be obeyed’ ( SB p.41, italics added). Mo Tzu went much further than Confucius, roundly condemning war – on utilitarian grounds, that war yields no net benefit at any level ( SB p.227). What is more, he backed his heavy condemnation practically (unlike some conspicuous contemporary theoretical utilitarians); ‘he did not hesitate to walk for ten days and ten nights in an effort to dissuade a ruler from making war’ ( SB p.212). But none, it is said, went as far, in a detailed and sophisticated criticism of war, as Lao Tzu; ‘none has condemned war more strongly than Lao Tzu’. ‘[T]he opposition of Taoism to the use of force is well-known, and the most bitter attack on militarism if found in the Lao Tzu’ (Chan, p.154, p.17.) But, after that splendid build-up, the text is slightly disappointing. Lao Tzu does not assert outright that war is an abomination, or even roundly condemn it. His critique of war, militarism, and military technology, is subtle and oblique, and, on the surface, far distanced from pacifism. For he does not recommend an end to war - in that genuine Taoists, those who possess Tao, will never participate in them – but expects wars to continue as unavoidable evils. Worse, he even goes so far as to outline proper attitudes to war and conduct in war, and indeed to suggest military techniques and strategies, some of which look decidedly devious. Among the classical works of Taoism, we focus on the Lao Tzu because, by contrast with other works, a remarkable component of that book is devoted to war and militarism. The apparent deviousness of the tactics Lao Tzu allocates serves to highlight what has been seen as ‘the most troublesome element’ in his philosophy (Chan p.17) – not so much however because they concern military operations, but because they are taken �to apply much more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p.17). But why should military activity obtain some special �dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done. • Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the militarypractices paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p.17) and to the possession and use of smart military weapons and technology – implying that war is far from all right – and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful) conduct in war, and so on – implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns the conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle paradox. Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position is taken, especially on war and militarism. One key pasage runs: Fine weapons are instruments of evil They are hated by creatures Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them. ... Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler. When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best principle Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy, For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men. He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ... For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies (LT p.154). Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil. They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes unavoidable (also p.152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse, obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through �deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death. �Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories, underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses), an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects. Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking: It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p.17). ‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties. These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps overlapping, set of reasons). A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is the fashion in which it manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show: �Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are “resolved”. �Deep-green chart: dilemma input Arguments to incompatible prescriptions § Processing of dilemma, directive situational procedures output Corresponding Taoist chart: Black directive Box output input It is evident that Taoism can be extended; information can be put into the Black Box rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deepgreen theory, i.e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to deep ecological theory (see UT). We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality (or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account, see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued. So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil (typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided, through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained, through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs. Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other types of war. But, more generally, try this:Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of �action. Therefore, �every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable. Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor, an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions. The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a onesided perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even if that should be so sometimes, when there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may be unavoidable if unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided. Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is “unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within range by modern technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes. State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example, be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith which depicts all humans as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine be unavoidable? 1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate. Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically 1 Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter; coherence requires relativization to ‘just war for party d’.) �unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e. excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical costs. Then if it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is also justifiable, on pacific grounds. Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition. The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized: Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow. Great wars are always followed by famines (p.152). And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition of the widely-observed socioenvironmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not however developed in Taoism. 2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a military objective, with environmental security. The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters. But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”). 2 But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for what there is so far, see Naess p.160). On neoDaoism, see UT. �2. On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism. Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about how they – those of the theoretical residue – are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep-green theory begins to diverge from Taoism. In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game – in the generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on – carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the contestants, (warring) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set-up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object, construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities. Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life-style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns. An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures, races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or, perhaps by extension, between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and virtually all the worst wars. While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial contests. But in modern times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us distinguish such wars as techno-powered wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the �technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure (indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted – misdirected – in one way or another to this effort). Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An offensive war is one which ventures off a given party's territory or recognised pad, “invading” that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded. Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor, which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory, e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken ( LT p.152).3 The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.) Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinitional strategems, such as redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence” of a third party or place (whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy) democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive. Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is represented as a war of liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones, such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market 3 There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation: I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive: I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222). These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting. �capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion. The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of politicaleconomy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu: When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to fertilize When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses (the thrive in fields ...). the suburbs. There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. ( LT p.181). But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessary, for cessation of such practices. The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15 years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth, the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years (the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite targets. Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism. A main distinction is between • conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals, and • social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4 4 Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin. �It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether. Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism. For example, Taoism is opposed to domination ( LT p.152), whereas military operations frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep-green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has no project for ending the era of wars; deepgreen theory does. That project involves an elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference. A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include • elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and • force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in • contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in • elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation. Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust facts. �Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war – finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars – though no longer in ascendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars – the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military – the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs; likewise conquest. Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modern wars cannot be fully just wars. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just defensive war, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features introduced by modern technological wars and the character of modern civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf �Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, of what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity and cruelty. 3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence ‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’ strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism? Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does not oppose certain uses of force (only really ill-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling. The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include • seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222) �• surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics: marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’ (p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced ( LT p.194). • advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will overcome strength ( LT p.164, p.233). • coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices the charge of deviousness looks feeble. The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general, unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the legalist tactic, ‘In order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving ‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, ‘In order to contract, it is necessary first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and weakness turned hardness and strength. The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted (p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ ( LT p.238). Much technology, military and other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices �paradox).5 The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence. To force the growth of life means ill omen. For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence (LT p.197). One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wu-wei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony. To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non-interference that are excluded. However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite 5 Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible. A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of war, above all from irresponsible state power. As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why merely indifferent technology is out; there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness, itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size, such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off: reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs. �right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates, profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the machines of war industry stop. Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. ˚ But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished. 6 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far. For this paradox does not involve selfreferential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the 6 Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it – designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative, thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following inconsistent triad: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetical to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing capitalism. �second premiss. 4. Standard and moral pacifism. Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace – and accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position – it is not (nowhere in the central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons:- • It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart defensive wars. • It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance through the watershed thesis P2. It is morally wrong to use violence. By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles. Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism, notably European forms. Is deep green? There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use. As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly. They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix). Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery can be thwarted in this way. Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component is, in Arnauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation, arbitration, ... – and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts – sanctions, substitutions (e.g. of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures), ... . In brief standard pacifism is opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means. �Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military (using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g. turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident, then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item: ‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non-violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest. Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries, of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions. They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which P2 holds, stretched pacifism.7 While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism (unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim. Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”, “fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous investigations (see esp. AI, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism 7 In AI this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism: overcomprehensive might have been better. �could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and many ordinary women, but much more extensively. The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist shoots one of them (it is elaborated in AI p.13). Interestingly, another stock example from the literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details of both see MD p.10). Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation. This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes pacifism’ (p.153 twice). The rehabilitation trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the commonsense position which most people hold – yet ... pacifism after all was supposed to be radical moral doctrine ... (p.153 rearranged).8 Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized – JWS “activism” is hardly trivial – as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and 8 JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his criticism, I don't know. �accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle, pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a radical doctrine. As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism is, as previous explained (e.g. AI p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it. A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (AI p.13), not ‘one acts in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS p.152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted ( MD p.38). Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism, sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed. A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to “second best” consequentialist considerations, ... already explicitly condemned’ (p.154). What was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p.152), so undercutting other deontic principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray. After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find ... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p.152) �There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes. There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p.153). This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than populatization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts, providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p.153). Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to prevent herself from being raped’ (p.153 italics added). In the example so far described there is no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence. What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p.153). Since she may thereby inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is ‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the threat’ (p.150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The ‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons are appropriate in response to what attacks, p.150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper bound on level of force. As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far hardly conclusive (as AI tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced, hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed. To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non-violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world. Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage �routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and beyond human capacities – even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly. More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended, be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus, for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the “natural order” is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not separate humans out from the natural order ) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route: The natural order is not an immoral order The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence. Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral – in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral (neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far). The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was alrady indicated in AI ). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable, ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to �peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably modified P2 results: MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence. 9 To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modern humans; it sets too high a moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively: Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced. Richard Sylvan10* Appendix I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. The optly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even – in what was effectively a declaration of war – reiteration of the modern quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it – through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now 9 The generalization of P2, suggested in AI, to cover also the parallel situation of environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use vandolence. 10 * Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in JWS) �supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one, enforcable law, is achieved, unless backed by the the other, is not explained (Medlin's paradox hits back). Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that ‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has shifted; practice has scarcely changed at all. REFERENCES W.-T. Chan, A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1963; referred to as ST. W.-T. Chan (ed.), The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1963; referred to as LT. B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984. A. Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1989. R.A. Rapaport, Pigs for the Ancestors : ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea People, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace II. On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #9, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1983 (also in Inquiry ); referred to as AI. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #6, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984 (also in Paraconsistent Logic); referred to as MD. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear-deterrence and the political fall-out’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy, #5, Research School Of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984. G. Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1980. J.W. Smith, The Worms at the Heart of Things , Public Relations Unit, Flinders University, 1989. R. Sylvan, ‘War and Peace III, Australia's defence philosophy’, Social Philosophy, for Nuclear Conference, University of Queensland, 1985. R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #19, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1990; referred to as UT. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document ON EXTIRPATING WAR: TAO AND DEEP-GREEN PACIFISM Taoism and deep-green environmental theory, although closely aligned on very many issues, diverge over war. For Taoism, by contrast for instance with Buddhism, is not a pacific doctrine, but is committed to skilful defensive militarism. While it does not espouse a fortress mentality, Taoism certainly condones limited defensive military operations for specific purposes, a sort of guerilla warfare. By contrast, deep-green theory, while acknowledging the role of organised social defence, stands opposed to professional militarism, and thereby to military defence, and is committed to a principled pacifism. Conveniently a route through Taoism, philosophically fascinating in its own right, will lead us to problems of pacifism and towards deep-green theory. 1. Features of a Taoist critique of war and militarism. War did not receive a favourable press in ancient Chinese philosophy. Generally aggression and war were to be avoided. Even Confucius imposed very demanding conditions: for example, ‘when good men have instructed the people [in morals, agriculture, military tactics] for seven years, they may be allowed to bear arms,’ ‘If a ruler ... does not set himself right, even his commands will not be obeyed’ ( SB p.41, italics added). Mo Tzu went much further than Confucius, roundly condemning war – on utilitarian grounds, that war yields no net benefit at any level ( SB p.227). What is more, he backed his heavy condemnation practically (unlike some conspicuous contemporary theoretical utilitarians); ‘he did not hesitate to walk for ten days and ten nights in an effort to dissuade a ruler from making war’ ( SB p.212). But none, it is said, went as far, in a detailed and sophisticated criticism of war, as Lao Tzu; ‘none has condemned war more strongly than Lao Tzu’. ‘[T]he opposition of Taoism to the use of force is well-known, and the most bitter attack on militarism if found in the Lao Tzu’ (Chan, p.154, p.17.) But, after that splendid build-up, the text is slightly disappointing. Lao Tzu does not assert outright that war is an abomination, or even roundly condemn it. His critique of war, militarism, and military technology, is subtle and oblique, and, on the surface, far distanced from pacifism. For he does not recommend an end to war - in that genuine Taoists, those who possess Tao, will never participate in them – but expects wars to continue as unavoidable evils. Worse, he even goes so far as to outline proper attitudes to war and conduct in war, and indeed to suggest military techniques and strategies, some of which look decidedly devious. Among the classical works of Taoism, we focus on the Lao Tzu because, by contrast with other works, a remarkable component of that book is devoted to war and militarism. The apparent deviousness of the tactics Lao Tzu allocates serves to highlight what has been seen as ‘the most troublesome element’ in his philosophy (Chan p.17) – not so much however because they concern military operations, but because they are taken to apply much more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p.17). But why should military activity obtain some special dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done. • Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the militarypractices paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p.17) and to the possession and use of smart military weapons and technology – implying that war is far from all right – and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful) conduct in war, and so on – implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns the conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle paradox. Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position is taken, especially on war and militarism. One key pasage runs: Fine weapons are instruments of evil They are hated by creatures Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them. ... Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler. When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best principle Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy, For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men. He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ... For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies (LT p.154). Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil. They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes unavoidable (also p.152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse, obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death. Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories, underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses), an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects. Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking: It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p.17). ‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties. These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps overlapping, set of reasons). A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is the fashion in which it manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show: Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are “resolved”. Deep-green chart: dilemma input Arguments to incompatible prescriptions § Processing of dilemma, directive situational procedures output Corresponding Taoist chart: Black directive Box output input It is evident that Taoism can be extended; information can be put into the Black Box rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deepgreen theory, i.e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to deep ecological theory (see UT). We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality (or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account, see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued. So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil (typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided, through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained, through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs. Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other types of war. But, more generally, try this:Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of action. Therefore, every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable. Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor, an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions. The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a onesided perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even if that should be so sometimes, when there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may be unavoidable if unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided. Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is “unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within range by modern technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes. State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example, be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith which depicts all humans as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine be unavoidable? 1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate. Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically 1 Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter; coherence requires relativization to ‘just war for party d’.) unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e. excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical costs. Then if it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is also justifiable, on pacific grounds. Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition. The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized: Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow. Great wars are always followed by famines (p.152). And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition of the widely-observed socioenvironmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not however developed in Taoism. 2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a military objective, with environmental security. The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters. But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”). 2 But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for what there is so far, see Naess p.160). On neoDaoism, see UT. 2. On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism. Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about how they – those of the theoretical residue – are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep-green theory begins to diverge from Taoism. In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game – in the generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on – carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the contestants, (warring) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set-up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object, construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities. Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life-style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns. An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures, races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or, perhaps by extension, between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and virtually all the worst wars. While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial contests. But in modern times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us distinguish such wars as techno-powered wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure (indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted – misdirected – in one way or another to this effort). Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An offensive war is one which ventures off a given party's territory or recognised pad, “invading” that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded. Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor, which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory, e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken ( LT p.152).3 The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.) Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinitional strategems, such as redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence” of a third party or place (whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy) democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive. Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is represented as a war of liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones, such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market 3 There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation: I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive: I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222). These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting. capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion. The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of politicaleconomy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu: When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to fertilize When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses (the thrive in fields ...). the suburbs. There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. ( LT p.181). But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessary, for cessation of such practices. The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15 years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth, the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years (the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite targets. Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism. A main distinction is between • conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals, and • social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4 4 Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin. It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether. Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism. For example, Taoism is opposed to domination ( LT p.152), whereas military operations frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep-green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has no project for ending the era of wars; deepgreen theory does. That project involves an elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference. A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include • elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and • force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in • contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in • elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation. Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust facts. Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war – finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars – though no longer in ascendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars – the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military – the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs; likewise conquest. Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modern wars cannot be fully just wars. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just defensive war, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features introduced by modern technological wars and the character of modern civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, of what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity and cruelty. 3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence ‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’ strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism? Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does not oppose certain uses of force (only really ill-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling. The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include • seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222) • surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics: marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’ (p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced ( LT p.194). • advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will overcome strength ( LT p.164, p.233). • coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices the charge of deviousness looks feeble. The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general, unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the legalist tactic, ‘In order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving ‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, ‘In order to contract, it is necessary first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and weakness turned hardness and strength. The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted (p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ ( LT p.238). Much technology, military and other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices paradox).5 The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence. To force the growth of life means ill omen. For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence (LT p.197). One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wu-wei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony. To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non-interference that are excluded. However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite 5 Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible. A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of war, above all from irresponsible state power. As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why merely indifferent technology is out; there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness, itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size, such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off: reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs. right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates, profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the machines of war industry stop. Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. ˚ But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished. 6 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far. For this paradox does not involve selfreferential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the 6 Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it – designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative, thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following inconsistent triad: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetical to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing capitalism. second premiss. 4. Standard and moral pacifism. Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace – and accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position – it is not (nowhere in the central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons:- • It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart defensive wars. • It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance through the watershed thesis P2. It is morally wrong to use violence. By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles. Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism, notably European forms. Is deep green? There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use. As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly. They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix). Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery can be thwarted in this way. Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component is, in Arnauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation, arbitration, ... – and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts – sanctions, substitutions (e.g. of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures), ... . In brief standard pacifism is opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means. Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military (using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g. turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident, then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item: ‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non-violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest. Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries, of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions. They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which P2 holds, stretched pacifism.7 While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism (unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim. Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”, “fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous investigations (see esp. AI, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism 7 In AI this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism: overcomprehensive might have been better. could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and many ordinary women, but much more extensively. The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist shoots one of them (it is elaborated in AI p.13). Interestingly, another stock example from the literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details of both see MD p.10). Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation. This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes pacifism’ (p.153 twice). The rehabilitation trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the commonsense position which most people hold – yet ... pacifism after all was supposed to be radical moral doctrine ... (p.153 rearranged).8 Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized – JWS “activism” is hardly trivial – as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and 8 JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his criticism, I don't know. accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle, pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a radical doctrine. As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism is, as previous explained (e.g. AI p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it. A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (AI p.13), not ‘one acts in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS p.152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted ( MD p.38). Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism, sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed. A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to “second best” consequentialist considerations, ... already explicitly condemned’ (p.154). What was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p.152), so undercutting other deontic principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray. After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find ... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p.152) There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes. There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p.153). This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than populatization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts, providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p.153). Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to prevent herself from being raped’ (p.153 italics added). In the example so far described there is no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence. What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p.153). Since she may thereby inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is ‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the threat’ (p.150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The ‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons are appropriate in response to what attacks, p.150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper bound on level of force. As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far hardly conclusive (as AI tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced, hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed. To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non-violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world. Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and beyond human capacities – even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly. More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended, be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus, for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the “natural order” is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not separate humans out from the natural order ) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route: The natural order is not an immoral order The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence. Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral – in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral (neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far). The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was alrady indicated in AI ). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable, ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably modified P2 results: MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence. 9 To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modern humans; it sets too high a moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively: Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced. Richard Sylvan10* Appendix I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. The optly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even – in what was effectively a declaration of war – reiteration of the modern quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it – through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now 9 The generalization of P2, suggested in AI, to cover also the parallel situation of environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use vandolence. 10 * Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in JWS) supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one, enforcable law, is achieved, unless backed by the the other, is not explained (Medlin's paradox hits back). Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that ‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has shifted; practice has scarcely changed at all. REFERENCES W.-T. Chan, A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1963; referred to as ST. W.-T. Chan (ed.), The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1963; referred to as LT. B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984. A. Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1989. R.A. Rapaport, Pigs for the Ancestors : ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea People, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace II. On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #9, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1983 (also in Inquiry ); referred to as AI. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #6, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984 (also in Paraconsistent Logic); referred to as MD. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear-deterrence and the political fall-out’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy, #5, Research School Of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984. G. Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1980. J.W. Smith, The Worms at the Heart of Things , Public Relations Unit, Flinders University, 1989. R. Sylvan, ‘War and Peace III, Australia's defence philosophy’, Social Philosophy, for Nuclear Conference, University of Queensland, 1985. R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #19, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1990; referred to as UT.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 77, Item 1: Draft of On extirpating war: Tao and deep-green pacifism Subject The topic of the resource Previous title of paper: War and peace IV: Tao and deep-green. Description An account of the resource Paper from floppy disk containing 21 files. Directory and file name: war and peace I V\on extirpating war tao & depgre.pdf. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 77, Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [27] leaves. 201.77 KB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:3c66dd9">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:3c66dd9</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant n/a - not listed in manuscript finding aid Box 77: Untitled and Unlisted Boxes https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/8b7e8d66d0e9ea5ede0b0b74abc38bfe.pdf 437b0835703278585d832d8eec97184e PDF Text Text PACIFISM P.4 Those who would abolish war, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much subrational abuse but with plenty of criticism and some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs and enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Do so cannot be uncomplished without violence, i.e. in effect given the types of violence involved without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. ˚ But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished.1 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not continue far. This paradox does not involve self-referented features, and is easily broken. For let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitar. However, while the outcome is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the second premiss. Outlining the deep-green case against war. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimerous: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. As there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily. But there was always a rival positive perspective in wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against nature (but the short-term accesses are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsucessful war against poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as 1 Brian Mullin who forcefully prpounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it – designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially atternative, though. An other puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following immitent trivial: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetrial to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty to the repressive but liberating solvation overthrowing capitalism. �the supreme testing ground of men. These picture of war, finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars, though no larger in assendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars – the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military – the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Deep-green theory accepts the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out inmoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modern wars cannot be fully just wars. There should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemperary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a jsut defensive war, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this stretch wider than the new features introduced by modern technological wars and the character of modern civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth. Two troubles are really intentioned here: conceptual difficulaties with too narrow a nation of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, environments were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a do-trines of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly deeloped doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literaly different from modern wars, that is contemporary technicological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened Military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound. There should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the informative accumulating on what ward do to �natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments on what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied to mechanism of a technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bull dozers from tanks, etc. There is little Tao linking war and ecology. (But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made using neo-Duoism, an updating Taoism in conformity with deep ecology, which however also includes but little on war: see UT.) APPENDIX I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. Prime Minister hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the0 war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even – in what was effectively a declaration of war – riteration of the modern quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it – through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may have have yielded, and thought it may now have to followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one, enforcable law, is achieved unless backed by the the other is not explained. Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that ‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has changed. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document PACIFISM P.4 Those who would abolish war, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much subrational abuse but with plenty of criticism and some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs and enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Do so cannot be uncomplished without violence, i.e. in effect given the types of violence involved without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. ˚ But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished.1 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not continue far. This paradox does not involve self-referented features, and is easily broken. For let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitar. However, while the outcome is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the second premiss. Outlining the deep-green case against war. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimerous: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. As there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily. But there was always a rival positive perspective in wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against nature (but the short-term accesses are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsucessful war against poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as 1 Brian Mullin who forcefully prpounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it – designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially atternative, though. An other puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following immitent trivial: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetrial to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty to the repressive but liberating solvation overthrowing capitalism. the supreme testing ground of men. These picture of war, finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars, though no larger in assendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars – the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military – the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Deep-green theory accepts the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out inmoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modern wars cannot be fully just wars. There should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemperary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a jsut defensive war, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this stretch wider than the new features introduced by modern technological wars and the character of modern civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth. Two troubles are really intentioned here: conceptual difficulaties with too narrow a nation of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, environments were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a do-trines of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly deeloped doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literaly different from modern wars, that is contemporary technicological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened Military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound. There should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the informative accumulating on what ward do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments on what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied to mechanism of a technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bull dozers from tanks, etc. There is little Tao linking war and ecology. (But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made using neo-Duoism, an updating Taoism in conformity with deep ecology, which however also includes but little on war: see UT.) APPENDIX I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. Prime Minister hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the0 war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even – in what was effectively a declaration of war – riteration of the modern quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it – through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may have have yielded, and thought it may now have to followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one, enforcable law, is achieved unless backed by the the other is not explained. Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that ‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has changed.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 77, Item 2: Pacifism p.4 Description An account of the resource Paper from floppy disk containing 21 files. Directory and file name: war and peace I V\pacifism.pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 77, Item 2 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a><span>.</span> Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [3] leaves. 99.11 KB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:68b7b8f">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:68b7b8f</a> Box 77: Untitled and Unlisted Boxes https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/9d2cb1366bf43e4d6fa3297d8399ddd8.pdf 2826984189904e731ada17347bd52c28 PDF Text Text WAR AND PEACE IV: TAO AND DEEP-GREEN Taoism and deep-green environmental theory, although closely aligned on very many issues, diverge over war. For Taoism, by contrast for instance with Buddhism, is not a pacific doctrine, but is committed to skilful defensive militarism. While it does not espouse a fortress mentality, Taoism certainly condones limited defensive military operations for specific purposes, a sort of guerilla warfare. By contrast, deep-green theory, while acknowledging the role of organised social defence, stands opposed to professional militarism, and thereby to military defence, and is committed to a principled pacifism. Conveniently a route through Taoism, philosophically fascinating in its own right, will lead us to problems of pacifism and towards deep-green theory. 1. Features of a Taoist critique of war and militarism. War did not receive a favourable press in ancient Chinese philosophy. Generally aggression and war were to be avoided. Even Confucius imposed very demanding conditions: for example, ‘when good men have instructed the people [in morals, agriculture, military tactics] for seven years, they may be allowed to bear arms,’ ‘If a ruler ... does not set himself right, even his commands will not be obeyed’ ( SB p.41, italics added). Mo Tzu went much further than Confucius, roundly condemning war – on utilitarian grounds, that war yields no net benefit at any level ( SB p.227). What is more, he backed his heavy condemnation practically (unlike some conspicuous contemporary theoretical utilitarians); ‘he did not hesitate to walk for ten days and ten nights in an effort to dissuade a ruler from making war’ ( SB p.212). But none, it is said, went as far, in a detailed and sophisticated criticism of war, as Lao Tzu; ‘none has condemned war more strongly than Lao Tzu’. ‘[T]he opposition of Taoism to the use of force is well-known, and the most bitter attack on militarism if found in the Lao Tzu’ (Chan, p.154, p.17.) But, after that splendid build-up, the text is slightly disappointing. Lao Tzu does not assert outright that war is an abomination, or even roundly condemn it. His critique of war, militarism, and military technology, is subtle and oblique, and, on the surface, far distanced from pacifism. For he does not recommend an end to war - in that genuine Taoists, those who possess Tao, will never participate in them – but expects wars to continue as unavoidable evils. Worse, he even goes so far as to outline proper attitudes to war and conduct in war, and indeed to suggest military techniques and strategies, some of which look decidedly devious. Among the classical works of Taoism, we focus on the Lao Tzu because, by contrast with other works, a remarkable component of that book is devoted to war and militarism. The apparent deviousness of the tactics Lao Tzu allocates serves to highlight what has been seen as ‘the most troublesome element’ in his philosophy (Chan p.17) – not so much however because they concern military operations, but because they are taken �to apply much more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p.17). But why should military activity obtain some special �dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done. • Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the militarypractices paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p.17) and to the possession and use of smart military weapons and technology – implying that war is far from all right – and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful) conduct in war, and so on – implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns the conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle paradox. Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position is taken, especially on war and militarism. One key pasage runs: Fine weapons are instruments of evil They are hated by creatures Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them. ... Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler. When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best principle Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy, For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men. He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ... For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies (LT p.154). Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil. They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes unavoidable (also p.152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse, obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through �deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death. �Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories, underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses), an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects. Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking: It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p.17). ‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties. These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps overlapping, set of reasons). A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is the fashion in which it manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show: �Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are “resolved”. �Deep-green chart: dilemma input Arguments to incompatible prescriptions § Processing of dilemma, directive situational procedures output Corresponding Taoist chart: Black directive Box output input It is evident that Taoism can be extended; information can be put into the Black Box rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deepgreen theory, i.e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to deep ecological theory (see UT). We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality (or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account, see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued. So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil (typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided, through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained, through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs. Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other types of war. But, more generally, try this:Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of �action. Therefore, �every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable. Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor, an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions. The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a onesided perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even if that should be so sometimes, when there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may be unavoidable if unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided. Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is “unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within range by modern technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes. State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example, be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith which depicts all humans as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine be unavoidable? 1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate. Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e. 1 Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter; coherence requires relativization to ‘just war for party d’.) �excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical costs. Then if it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is also justifiable, on pacific grounds. Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition. The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized: Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow. Great wars are always followed by famines (p.152). And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition of the widely-observed socioenvironmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not however developed in Taoism. 2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a military objective, with environmental security. The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters. But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”). 2. On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism. Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though 2 But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for what there is so far, see Naess p.160). On neoDaoism, see UT. �generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about how they – those of the theoretical residue – are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep-green theory begins to diverge from Taoism. In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game – in the generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on – carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the contestants, (warring) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set-up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object, construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities. Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life-style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns. An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures, races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or, perhaps by extension, between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and virtually all the worst wars. While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial contests. But in modern times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us distinguish such wars as techno-powered wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure (indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted – misdirected – in one way or another to �this effort). Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An offensive war is one which ventures off a given party's territory or recognised pad, “invading” that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded. Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor, which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory, e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken ( LT p.152).3 The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.) Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinitional strategems, such as redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence” of a third party or place (whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy) democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive. Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is represented as a war of liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones, such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion. The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the 3 There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation: I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive: I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222). These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting. �advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of political-economy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu: When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to fertilize When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses (the thrive in fields ...). the suburbs. There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. ( LT p.181). But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessary, for cessation of such practices. The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15 years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth, the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years (the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite targets. Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism. A main distinction is between • conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals, and • social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4 It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No 4 Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin. �doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether. Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism. For example, Taoism is opposed to domination ( LT p.152), whereas military operations frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep-green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has no project for ending the era of wars; deepgreen theory does. That project involves an elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference. A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include • elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and • force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in • contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in • elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation. Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust facts. Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also �facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war – finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars – though no longer in ascendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars – the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military – the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs; likewise conquest. Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modern wars cannot be fully just wars. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just defensive war, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features introduced by modern technological wars and the character of modern civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of �value, of what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity and cruelty. 3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence ‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’ strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism? Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does not oppose certain uses of force (only really ill-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling. The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include • seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222) • surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics: marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting �enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’ (p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced (LT p.194). • advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will overcome strength ( LT p.164, p.233). • coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices the charge of deviousness looks feeble. The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general, unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the legalist tactic, ‘In order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving ‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, ‘In order to contract, it is necessary first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and weakness turned hardness and strength. The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted (p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ ( LT p.238). Much technology, military and other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices paradox). 5 5 Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible. A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of war, above all from irresponsible state power. As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why �The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence. To force the growth of life means ill omen. For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence (LT p.197). One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wu-wei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony. To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non-interference that are excluded. However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates, merely indifferent technology is out; there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness, itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size, such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off: reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs. �profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the machines of war industry stop. Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. ˚ But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished. 6 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far. For this paradox does not involve selfreferential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the second premiss. 4. Standard and moral pacifism. 6 Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it – designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative, thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following inconsistent triad: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetical to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing capitalism. �Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace – and accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position – it is not (nowhere in the central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons:- • It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart defensive wars. • It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance through the watershed thesis P2. It is morally wrong to use violence. By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles. Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism, notably European forms. Is deep green? There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use. As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly. They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix). Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery can be thwarted in this way. Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component is, in Arnauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation, arbitration, ... – and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts – sanctions, substitutions (e.g. of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures), ... . In brief standard pacifism is opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means. Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military (using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent �demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g. turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident, then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item: ‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non-violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest. Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries, of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions. They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which P2 holds, stretched pacifism.7 While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism (unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim. Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”, “fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous investigations (see esp. AI, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and many ordinary women, but much more extensively. 7 In AI this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism: overcomprehensive might have been better. �The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist shoots one of them (it is elaborated in AI p.13). Interestingly, another stock example from the literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details of both see MD p.10). Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation. This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes pacifism’ (p.153 twice). The rehabilitation trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the commonsense position which most people hold – yet ... pacifism after all was supposed to be radical moral doctrine ... (p.153 rearranged).8 Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized – JWS “activism” is hardly trivial – as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle, pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a radical doctrine. As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism 8 JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his criticism, I don't know. �is, as previous explained (e.g. AI p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it. A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (AI p.13), not ‘one acts in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS p.152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted ( MD p.38). Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism, sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed. A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to “second best” consequentialist considerations, ... already explicitly condemned’ (p.154). What was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p.152), so undercutting other deontic principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray. After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find ... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p.152) There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes. There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p.153). This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than �populatization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts, providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p.153). Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to prevent herself from being raped’ (p.153 italics added). In the example so far described there is no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence. What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p.153). Since she may thereby inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is ‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the threat’ (p.150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The ‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons are appropriate in response to what attacks, p.150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper bound on level of force. As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far hardly conclusive (as AI tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced, hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed. To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non-violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world. Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and beyond human capacities – even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be �somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly. More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended, be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus, for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the “natural order” is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not separate humans out from the natural order ) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route: The natural order is not an immoral order The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence. Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral – in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral (neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far). The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was alrady indicated in AI ). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable, ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably modified P2 results: MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence. 9 9 The generalization of P2, suggested in AI, to cover also the parallel situation of environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use vandolence. �To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modern humans; it sets too high a moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively: Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced. Richard Sylvan10* Appendix I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. The aptly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even – in what was effectively a declaration of war – reiteration of the modern quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it – through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one, enforcable law, is achieved, unless backed by the the other, is not explained (Medlin's paradox hits back). Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that 10 * Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in JWS) �‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has shifted; practice has scarcely changed at all. REFERENCES W.-T. Chan, A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1963; referred to as ST. W.-T. Chan (ed.), The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1963; referred to as LT. B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984. A. Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1989. R.A. Rapaport, Pigs for the Ancestors : ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea People, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace II. On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #9, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1983 (also in Inquiry ); referred to as AI. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #6, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984 (also in Paraconsistent Logic); referred to as MD. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear-deterrence and the political fall-out’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy, #5, Research School Of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984. G. Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1980. J.W. Smith, The Worms at the Heart of Things , Public Relations Unit, Flinders University, 1989. R. Sylvan, ‘War and Peace III, Australia's defence philosophy’, Social Philosophy, for Nuclear Conference, University of Queensland, 1985. R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #19, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1990; referred to as UT. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document WAR AND PEACE IV: TAO AND DEEP-GREEN Taoism and deep-green environmental theory, although closely aligned on very many issues, diverge over war. For Taoism, by contrast for instance with Buddhism, is not a pacific doctrine, but is committed to skilful defensive militarism. While it does not espouse a fortress mentality, Taoism certainly condones limited defensive military operations for specific purposes, a sort of guerilla warfare. By contrast, deep-green theory, while acknowledging the role of organised social defence, stands opposed to professional militarism, and thereby to military defence, and is committed to a principled pacifism. Conveniently a route through Taoism, philosophically fascinating in its own right, will lead us to problems of pacifism and towards deep-green theory. 1. Features of a Taoist critique of war and militarism. War did not receive a favourable press in ancient Chinese philosophy. Generally aggression and war were to be avoided. Even Confucius imposed very demanding conditions: for example, ‘when good men have instructed the people [in morals, agriculture, military tactics] for seven years, they may be allowed to bear arms,’ ‘If a ruler ... does not set himself right, even his commands will not be obeyed’ ( SB p.41, italics added). Mo Tzu went much further than Confucius, roundly condemning war – on utilitarian grounds, that war yields no net benefit at any level ( SB p.227). What is more, he backed his heavy condemnation practically (unlike some conspicuous contemporary theoretical utilitarians); ‘he did not hesitate to walk for ten days and ten nights in an effort to dissuade a ruler from making war’ ( SB p.212). But none, it is said, went as far, in a detailed and sophisticated criticism of war, as Lao Tzu; ‘none has condemned war more strongly than Lao Tzu’. ‘[T]he opposition of Taoism to the use of force is well-known, and the most bitter attack on militarism if found in the Lao Tzu’ (Chan, p.154, p.17.) But, after that splendid build-up, the text is slightly disappointing. Lao Tzu does not assert outright that war is an abomination, or even roundly condemn it. His critique of war, militarism, and military technology, is subtle and oblique, and, on the surface, far distanced from pacifism. For he does not recommend an end to war - in that genuine Taoists, those who possess Tao, will never participate in them – but expects wars to continue as unavoidable evils. Worse, he even goes so far as to outline proper attitudes to war and conduct in war, and indeed to suggest military techniques and strategies, some of which look decidedly devious. Among the classical works of Taoism, we focus on the Lao Tzu because, by contrast with other works, a remarkable component of that book is devoted to war and militarism. The apparent deviousness of the tactics Lao Tzu allocates serves to highlight what has been seen as ‘the most troublesome element’ in his philosophy (Chan p.17) – not so much however because they concern military operations, but because they are taken to apply much more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p.17). But why should military activity obtain some special dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done. • Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the militarypractices paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p.17) and to the possession and use of smart military weapons and technology – implying that war is far from all right – and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful) conduct in war, and so on – implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns the conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle paradox. Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position is taken, especially on war and militarism. One key pasage runs: Fine weapons are instruments of evil They are hated by creatures Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them. ... Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler. When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best principle Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy, For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men. He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ... For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies (LT p.154). Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil. They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes unavoidable (also p.152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse, obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death. Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories, underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses), an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects. Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking: It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p.17). ‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties. These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps overlapping, set of reasons). A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is the fashion in which it manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show: Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are “resolved”. Deep-green chart: dilemma input Arguments to incompatible prescriptions § Processing of dilemma, directive situational procedures output Corresponding Taoist chart: Black directive Box output input It is evident that Taoism can be extended; information can be put into the Black Box rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deepgreen theory, i.e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to deep ecological theory (see UT). We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality (or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account, see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued. So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil (typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided, through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained, through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs. Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other types of war. But, more generally, try this:Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of action. Therefore, every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable. Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor, an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions. The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a onesided perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even if that should be so sometimes, when there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may be unavoidable if unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided. Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is “unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within range by modern technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes. State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example, be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith which depicts all humans as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine be unavoidable? 1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate. Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e. 1 Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter; coherence requires relativization to ‘just war for party d’.) excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical costs. Then if it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is also justifiable, on pacific grounds. Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition. The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized: Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow. Great wars are always followed by famines (p.152). And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition of the widely-observed socioenvironmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not however developed in Taoism. 2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a military objective, with environmental security. The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters. But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”). 2. On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism. Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though 2 But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for what there is so far, see Naess p.160). On neoDaoism, see UT. generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about how they – those of the theoretical residue – are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep-green theory begins to diverge from Taoism. In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game – in the generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on – carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the contestants, (warring) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set-up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object, construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities. Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life-style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns. An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures, races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or, perhaps by extension, between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and virtually all the worst wars. While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial contests. But in modern times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us distinguish such wars as techno-powered wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure (indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted – misdirected – in one way or another to this effort). Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An offensive war is one which ventures off a given party's territory or recognised pad, “invading” that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded. Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor, which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory, e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken ( LT p.152).3 The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.) Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinitional strategems, such as redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence” of a third party or place (whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy) democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive. Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is represented as a war of liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones, such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion. The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the 3 There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation: I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive: I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222). These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting. advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of political-economy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu: When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to fertilize When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses (the thrive in fields ...). the suburbs. There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. ( LT p.181). But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessary, for cessation of such practices. The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15 years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth, the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years (the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite targets. Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism. A main distinction is between • conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals, and • social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4 It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No 4 Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin. doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether. Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism. For example, Taoism is opposed to domination ( LT p.152), whereas military operations frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep-green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has no project for ending the era of wars; deepgreen theory does. That project involves an elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference. A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include • elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and • force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in • contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in • elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation. Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust facts. Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war – finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars – though no longer in ascendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars – the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military – the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs; likewise conquest. Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modern wars cannot be fully just wars. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just defensive war, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features introduced by modern technological wars and the character of modern civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, of what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity and cruelty. 3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence ‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’ strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism? Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does not oppose certain uses of force (only really ill-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling. The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include • seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222) • surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics: marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’ (p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced (LT p.194). • advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will overcome strength ( LT p.164, p.233). • coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices the charge of deviousness looks feeble. The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general, unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the legalist tactic, ‘In order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving ‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, ‘In order to contract, it is necessary first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and weakness turned hardness and strength. The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted (p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ ( LT p.238). Much technology, military and other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices paradox). 5 5 Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible. A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of war, above all from irresponsible state power. As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence. To force the growth of life means ill omen. For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence (LT p.197). One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wu-wei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony. To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non-interference that are excluded. However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates, merely indifferent technology is out; there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness, itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size, such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off: reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs. profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the machines of war industry stop. Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. ˚ But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished. 6 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far. For this paradox does not involve selfreferential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the second premiss. 4. Standard and moral pacifism. 6 Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it – designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative, thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following inconsistent triad: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetical to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing capitalism. Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace – and accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position – it is not (nowhere in the central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons:- • It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart defensive wars. • It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance through the watershed thesis P2. It is morally wrong to use violence. By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles. Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism, notably European forms. Is deep green? There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use. As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly. They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix). Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery can be thwarted in this way. Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component is, in Arnauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation, arbitration, ... – and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts – sanctions, substitutions (e.g. of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures), ... . In brief standard pacifism is opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means. Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military (using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g. turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident, then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item: ‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non-violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest. Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries, of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions. They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which P2 holds, stretched pacifism.7 While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism (unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim. Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”, “fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous investigations (see esp. AI, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and many ordinary women, but much more extensively. 7 In AI this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism: overcomprehensive might have been better. The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist shoots one of them (it is elaborated in AI p.13). Interestingly, another stock example from the literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details of both see MD p.10). Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation. This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes pacifism’ (p.153 twice). The rehabilitation trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the commonsense position which most people hold – yet ... pacifism after all was supposed to be radical moral doctrine ... (p.153 rearranged).8 Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized – JWS “activism” is hardly trivial – as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle, pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a radical doctrine. As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism 8 JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his criticism, I don't know. is, as previous explained (e.g. AI p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it. A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (AI p.13), not ‘one acts in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS p.152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted ( MD p.38). Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism, sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed. A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to “second best” consequentialist considerations, ... already explicitly condemned’ (p.154). What was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p.152), so undercutting other deontic principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray. After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find ... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p.152) There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes. There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p.153). This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than populatization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts, providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p.153). Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to prevent herself from being raped’ (p.153 italics added). In the example so far described there is no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence. What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p.153). Since she may thereby inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is ‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the threat’ (p.150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The ‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons are appropriate in response to what attacks, p.150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper bound on level of force. As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far hardly conclusive (as AI tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced, hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed. To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non-violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world. Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and beyond human capacities – even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly. More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended, be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus, for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the “natural order” is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not separate humans out from the natural order ) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route: The natural order is not an immoral order The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence. Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral – in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral (neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far). The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was alrady indicated in AI ). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable, ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably modified P2 results: MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence. 9 9 The generalization of P2, suggested in AI, to cover also the parallel situation of environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use vandolence. To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modern humans; it sets too high a moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively: Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced. Richard Sylvan10* Appendix I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. The aptly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even – in what was effectively a declaration of war – reiteration of the modern quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it – through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one, enforcable law, is achieved, unless backed by the the other, is not explained (Medlin's paradox hits back). Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that 10 * Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in JWS) ‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has shifted; practice has scarcely changed at all. REFERENCES W.-T. Chan, A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1963; referred to as ST. W.-T. Chan (ed.), The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1963; referred to as LT. B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984. A. Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1989. R.A. Rapaport, Pigs for the Ancestors : ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea People, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace II. On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #9, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1983 (also in Inquiry ); referred to as AI. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #6, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984 (also in Paraconsistent Logic); referred to as MD. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear-deterrence and the political fall-out’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy, #5, Research School Of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984. G. Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1980. J.W. Smith, The Worms at the Heart of Things , Public Relations Unit, Flinders University, 1989. R. Sylvan, ‘War and Peace III, Australia's defence philosophy’, Social Philosophy, for Nuclear Conference, University of Queensland, 1985. R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #19, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1990; referred to as UT.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 77, Item 3: Draft of War and peace IV: Tao and deep-green Subject The topic of the resource Later title: On extirpating war: Tao and deep-green pacifism. Description An account of the resource Paper from floppy disk containing 21 files. Directory and file name: war and peace I V\War and Peace IV.pdf Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 77, Item 3 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource <span>This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, </span><a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. 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Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:e39d951">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:e39d951</a> Box 77: Untitled and Unlisted Boxes https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/bc6906f973b58155fcdff1d8fbf5c13e.pdf cdee1d9f8cd9703c694e69ab3507018e PDF Text Text IS The UNIVERSE THE argument design HRTERHUTP existence of a designer, a planner, a God, the for RN (LIKE) regularly deploys the model of the universe as an artefact, A noteworthy part of plants from universe, the planets on through naturally evolved systems, If the whole arrangement Is an artefact, contrasts with artefacts. 'artefact' has been and Its contexts, etc., and to lose both Its normal contrasts, place, much stretched, e.g. of then, firstly tools applied by external living external creatures, and secondly, the relevant features are extremely well hidden. In the face of elaboration of these points the artefact claim Is eroded or weakened to-, the universe like an artefact. Is like In having a maker. Is usually meant, 'like' some are There It s as If It were an artefact, etc. And by features curious about Wilkinson s argument In his universe Is artefact'. The usual moves to the artefact model the Intelligibility universe the of e.g. (thus premissed are Heynell). But concentrates on the limits to human knowledge and the apparent extent the universe product on Wilkinson which to not Intelligible to us and may never be. Wilkinson however Is Is Idealism: not arguing for design In the universe, but for a kind of the The nature as of the human mind! The traditional case for design In the universe Is strangely subverted Into an argument for Idealism. God's. Everything Intended by It Is our not artefact, tells against this: but redefinition Is artefact one order of the day In philosophical argument. 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Value ImposItIon, has to be', lie know that whether or [whether 'should be', quarks No, (p.98): Is here like Leslie? not we This Is how It get can good' feel at quarks we shall continue to talk about them and discuss their exist] (p.97). Nature Is going to be what the mind anatomy and domestic economy It me this makes the same makes of [our] theory with the thing confusion theorised that pervades Idealistic approaches. Wilkinson also to wants (as above and especially from orthodox proceed quantum theory) to reject any theme of the closure of nature to mind. He contends (p.80) that objectivity - looking at nature from outside - dissolves to be replaced by something Involving man essentially. The natural world depends on man for Its definition: hence the universe as an artefact. But this Is In no way established. The argument depends on the fallacy of of theory nature again, find nature equating with the It makes the erroneous assumption that the only criteria for theory selection are at bottom those of value or feeling. R question Wilkinson suggests, but sets aside (In the too-hard basket) Is: How It Is that we manage to understand the universe, or It s e.g. the much of It? mostly good luck. Historically rather different answers were favoured, universe Intelligible, Is natural, the world Is Intelligible. It's Since sufficiently Intelligent creatures can come to understand It. The Intelligibility theme Is not lacking for exponents. Here, In summary. Is Heynell argues for and applies It: R. If the It would not be that we can In world were not Intelligible, principle come to know. But the world Is that which we can In principle come to know. Therefore the world Is Intelligible. B. If Very like: We don't; or, So far as we different repsonses quickly suggest themselves, do so there were not something analogous to human Intelligence In the constitution of the world? the world would not be Intelligible. Therefore there Is something analogous to human Intelligence In constitution of the world (68). -2- the how �The preMiss first of B is flat out false, but present concern is with fl. The Minor preMiss of fl is false, by virtue of llMltatlon arguments such as those Wilkinson and elsewhere take an analytical shape is suffIclently (e.g. a of Routley). find the Major preMiss, though it can distortion. For Instance, the world May be intelligible for us to come to understand what we do of It without being completely intelligible. -3- �f~. i— i— i— r—i f— k i r^. ez. r- ez. r*--. ez. i -i H. fl e g n e 11, London, The Intelligible Universe r— «~- ez. - -=• A cosMologlcal arguwent , flacwll I an, 1982. D.H. Ullklnson, The universe as an artefact Models and Han, Clarendon, Oxford, In H. 1976, 88-98. -4- Harris (ed. ) Sc tent itto �Lj / 1 -\ L/ A C'T'Zf^ £ X J -/■■».*> -K f. / (/ W7 e (/ 7^77 sy J e 4^-?'')'? ] '^7' 4~r>l*'< > & '' ( //// O ' a � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document IS The UNIVERSE THE argument design HRTERHUTP existence of a designer, a planner, a God, the for RN (LIKE) regularly deploys the model of the universe as an artefact, A noteworthy part of plants from universe, the planets on through naturally evolved systems, If the whole arrangement Is an artefact, contrasts with artefacts. 'artefact' has been and Its contexts, etc., and to lose both Its normal contrasts, place, much stretched, e.g. of then, firstly tools applied by external living external creatures, and secondly, the relevant features are extremely well hidden. In the face of elaboration of these points the artefact claim Is eroded or weakened to-, the universe like an artefact. Is like In having a maker. Is usually meant, 'like' some are There It s as If It were an artefact, etc. And by features curious about Wilkinson s argument In his universe Is artefact'. The usual moves to the artefact model the Intelligibility universe the of e.g. (thus premissed are Heynell). But concentrates on the limits to human knowledge and the apparent extent the universe product on Wilkinson which to not Intelligible to us and may never be. Wilkinson however Is Is Idealism: not arguing for design In the universe, but for a kind of the The nature as of the human mind! The traditional case for design In the universe Is strangely subverted Into an argument for Idealism. God's. Everything Intended by It Is our not artefact, tells against this: but redefinition Is artefact one order of the day In philosophical argument. Consider first Mrs. four arguments, none decvscve, but all with to limits to knowledge, human limits severe practical limits to etc. equipment, ascertaining larger And that limits 1. Levels of detail. There are Is. very the also, appeal, such Size small. as and spaceship cost earth, of men s lifetimes, etc. (One experiment-careers). 2. forces? Variety The (and number) of forces. How many (1) Ignorance lead us Into l> super-weak , «« super-strong ” Issue of completeness Is serious here (as with Kant s philosophy). As with forces, so with objects, NB. It major laws, etc. of an (undiscovered) moderating or compensating force could about error features world, of e.g. Into postulating granularity of space and time. (2) Classlf Icatlon of forces In sort of periodic table, and then deeper explanation. 3. Limits to human conception? Macro-objects of our dimensions can have no conceptions of very small (micro seconds) Involves a slide from or very no real personal experience large. to No?? The argument no Imagination of to no conception of . Argues for limits to conception In both tIme and space. Goes on to suggest limits to description using everyday -1- household language, but the argument Is bad: It depends on standard (Copenhagen) quantum theory. Ideas that limits of' conception tied to limits of language. 4-. Human nature and Its essential prejudice-, limits to what we are prepared to accept or understand. Set of prejudices, etc., e.g. prejudices In of favour numbers (In a fuaay world). Our constitution prevents understanding of world. Wilkinson's further argument Is that In view of limits we humans cannot but value to resort 'in reaching his judgements as to how the natural world Is - constructed, man cannot ultimately do more than say this Is how It has to be (p.96). Value ImposItIon, has to be', lie know that whether or [whether 'should be', quarks No, (p.98): Is here like Leslie? not we This Is how It get can good' feel at quarks we shall continue to talk about them and discuss their exist] (p.97). Nature Is going to be what the mind anatomy and domestic economy It me this makes the same makes of [our] theory with the thing confusion theorised that pervades Idealistic approaches. Wilkinson also to wants (as above and especially from orthodox proceed quantum theory) to reject any theme of the closure of nature to mind. He contends (p.80) that objectivity - looking at nature from outside - dissolves to be replaced by something Involving man essentially. The natural world depends on man for Its definition: hence the universe as an artefact. But this Is In no way established. The argument depends on the fallacy of of theory nature again, find nature equating with the It makes the erroneous assumption that the only criteria for theory selection are at bottom those of value or feeling. R question Wilkinson suggests, but sets aside (In the too-hard basket) Is: How It Is that we manage to understand the universe, or It s e.g. the much of It? mostly good luck. Historically rather different answers were favoured, universe Intelligible, Is natural, the world Is Intelligible. It's Since sufficiently Intelligent creatures can come to understand It. The Intelligibility theme Is not lacking for exponents. Here, In summary. Is Heynell argues for and applies It: R. If the It would not be that we can In world were not Intelligible, principle come to know. But the world Is that which we can In principle come to know. Therefore the world Is Intelligible. B. If Very like: We don't; or, So far as we different repsonses quickly suggest themselves, do so there were not something analogous to human Intelligence In the constitution of the world? the world would not be Intelligible. Therefore there Is something analogous to human Intelligence In constitution of the world (68). -2- the how The preMiss first of B is flat out false, but present concern is with fl. The Minor preMiss of fl is false, by virtue of llMltatlon arguments such as those Wilkinson and elsewhere take an analytical shape is suffIclently (e.g. a of Routley). find the Major preMiss, though it can distortion. For Instance, the world May be intelligible for us to come to understand what we do of It without being completely intelligible. -3- f~. i— i— i— r—i f— k i r^. ez. r- ez. r*--. ez. i -i H. fl e g n e 11, London, The Intelligible Universe r— «~- ez. - -=• A cosMologlcal arguwent , flacwll I an, 1982. D.H. Ullklnson, The universe as an artefact Models and Han, Clarendon, Oxford, In H. 1976, 88-98. -4- Harris (ed. ) Sc tent itto Lj / 1 -\ L/ A C'T'Zf^ £ X J -/■■».*> -K f. / (/ W7 e (/ 7^77 sy J e 4^-?'')'? ] '^7' 4~r>l*'< > & '' ( //// O ' a  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 7, Item 792: Is the universe (like) an artefact? Subject The topic of the resource Computer printout with handwritten amendments, and handwritten notes on scrap paper. Description An account of the resource Note, one item digitised from item 792. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Routley</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 7, Item 792 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [4] leaves + [1] leaf. 2.68 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:acc747a">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:acc747a</a> Australian National University Office Box 7: Environmental Ethics Como House > Shelves > Bottom > Pile 3 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/b87130a29f9b52af42c4cef275532629.pdf b0bf742ca1521f0e62f99c840366ccf4 PDF Text Text I I 1 / I PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY CENTRE FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION 23 May 1983 Professor Peter Karmel, Vice-Chancellor. Dear Professor Karmel, Publi .. Affairs Conference: The consequences of nuclear war. I have to advise you that I have serious concerns about several aspects of this conference, which takes place next Monday-Tuesday 30-31 May. Despit the unusual amount of time that it has taken in an attempt to establish and agree upon the programme, and an unprecedented level of involvement_ of the Assistant Vice-Chancellor in an attempt to enlist more senior authority to hold the programme to what is agreed, it has not proved possible for the Centre for Continuing Education effectively to be responsible for the programme, or indeed even to be sure what the programme is. I respect and personally happen to be in agreement with Dr Denborough in his commitment to the cause of peace and prevention of nuclear war. The large enrolment of the conference (well in excess of 300) is due to his very considerable efforts in publicising it as well as to its intrinsic contemporary interest and importance. His commitment however is such as to override all normal conventions of cooperative behaviour, and it leaves me unable to give assurances that the conference will be ah activity proper and appropriate to the University. The programme as it now appears to be is the result of a succession of compromises extracted through pressures of various kinds. Those involved in the Centre are by no means happy with the result, and fear that it has now become over-crowded, as we have been nbliged to honour agreements entered into, as I believe, illegitimately on behalf of the University. The likely high level of interest and energy among those taking part, and the frustration of a crowded programme and little opportunity till late on for floor contribution, may well make for an explosive situation. Much of this I have accepted, as I believe has the Assistant Vice-Chancellor, reluctantly and finding the alternatives still less attractive. As the programme now reads, my most serious concern is that Dr Denborough is to chair the final session. I believe that he is too dedicated to a point of view, and too embedded in the whole emotional side of the subject, the planning and the conference, to be able to take this part satisfactorily. I am also concerned that Dr Millar is apparently being limited in his participation to chairing the session at which Dr Ball is to speak. I consider that a strong chairperson and a well balanced panel are very important for the final session to be satisfactory from a University point of view. The various kinds of moral and other blackmail that have been employed may make this impossible, but in this and some other respects the conference remains, for all the efforts of CCE to retain balance and authoritative presentations, highly volatile. One reason for writing is to alert you to this, as even now it may not be too late to enhance the quality of what at any rate is certain to be a high profile event. The other is to anticipate and if possible avert a consequence of any embarrassment which might be caused by the conference: a natural reaction away from attempting any other important but controversial theme in public affairs and extension conferences. The cornmi ttee which was developing thi_s conference came to be replaced by one man, and the attempt of Mr Plowman and myself, with CCE colleagues, to fill the vacant place naturally proved less than satisfactory. The lesson should be not again to allow any member of the University with a particular personal commitment of this kind to capture � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document I I 1 / I PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL THE AUSTRALIAN NATIONAL UNIVERSITY CENTRE FOR CONTINUING EDUCATION 23 May 1983 Professor Peter Karmel, Vice-Chancellor. Dear Professor Karmel, Publi .. Affairs Conference: The consequences of nuclear war. I have to advise you that I have serious concerns about several aspects of this conference, which takes place next Monday-Tuesday 30-31 May. Despit the unusual amount of time that it has taken in an attempt to establish and agree upon the programme, and an unprecedented level of involvement_ of the Assistant Vice-Chancellor in an attempt to enlist more senior authority to hold the programme to what is agreed, it has not proved possible for the Centre for Continuing Education effectively to be responsible for the programme, or indeed even to be sure what the programme is. I respect and personally happen to be in agreement with Dr Denborough in his commitment to the cause of peace and prevention of nuclear war. The large enrolment of the conference (well in excess of 300) is due to his very considerable efforts in publicising it as well as to its intrinsic contemporary interest and importance. His commitment however is such as to override all normal conventions of cooperative behaviour, and it leaves me unable to give assurances that the conference will be ah activity proper and appropriate to the University. The programme as it now appears to be is the result of a succession of compromises extracted through pressures of various kinds. Those involved in the Centre are by no means happy with the result, and fear that it has now become over-crowded, as we have been nbliged to honour agreements entered into, as I believe, illegitimately on behalf of the University. The likely high level of interest and energy among those taking part, and the frustration of a crowded programme and little opportunity till late on for floor contribution, may well make for an explosive situation. Much of this I have accepted, as I believe has the Assistant Vice-Chancellor, reluctantly and finding the alternatives still less attractive. As the programme now reads, my most serious concern is that Dr Denborough is to chair the final session. I believe that he is too dedicated to a point of view, and too embedded in the whole emotional side of the subject, the planning and the conference, to be able to take this part satisfactorily. I am also concerned that Dr Millar is apparently being limited in his participation to chairing the session at which Dr Ball is to speak. I consider that a strong chairperson and a well balanced panel are very important for the final session to be satisfactory from a University point of view. The various kinds of moral and other blackmail that have been employed may make this impossible, but in this and some other respects the conference remains, for all the efforts of CCE to retain balance and authoritative presentations, highly volatile. One reason for writing is to alert you to this, as even now it may not be too late to enhance the quality of what at any rate is certain to be a high profile event. The other is to anticipate and if possible avert a consequence of any embarrassment which might be caused by the conference: a natural reaction away from attempting any other important but controversial theme in public affairs and extension conferences. The cornmi ttee which was developing thi_s conference came to be replaced by one man, and the attempt of Mr Plowman and myself, with CCE colleagues, to fill the vacant place naturally proved less than satisfactory. The lesson should be not again to allow any member of the University with a particular personal commitment of this kind to capture  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 17, Item 1: Richard Routley? to Professor Peter Karmel, Vice-Chancellor, Australian National University, 23 May 1983 Subject The topic of the resource Letter missing pages. Possibly written by Richard Routley (later Sylvan). Routley writes to Professor Peter Karmel, Vice-Chancellor of ANU, about his concerns of the university's involvement in the Public Affairs Conference (30-31 May), in relation to the consequences of nuclear war and Dr Denborough, the conference chair. Typescript letter, written on Australian National University (ANU) Centre for Continuing Education letter head. Marked private and confidential. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered manuscript from collection, item number assigned by library staff. The rightsholder for this work cannot be identified, or is identifiable but cannot be found, after a reasonable good faith search. If you believe you have a valid claim to the rights in this work, please contact us by email copyright@library.uq.edu.au Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 17, Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource May 23, 1993 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Richard Sylvan Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Letter, 1 leaf [962.77 KB] Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondences Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:7af99ef">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:7af99ef</a> https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/e697a58c0c0eb658f0859e812161a780.pdf 6e6025285db216731a09bd2dbbf3c02f PDF Text Text ���� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 139, Item 1: Richard Sylvan to Tom Cahill, Editor, Anarchist Studies, 5 Jan 1993 and peer review of paper Subject The topic of the resource Handwritten letter with peer view by Sylvan. Paper titled Research on 'creating cooperative autonomy', author not identified. Description An account of the resource Unnumbered paper from collection, item number assigned by library staff Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 139, Item 1 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource January 5, 1991 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Letter, [4] leaves. [2.34 MB] Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondences Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:a892974">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:a892974</a> Box 139: Anarchy https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/16947195a878ecb196bb09099f17f712.pdf 3db2c0baa2c3c95fd45969180538a40b PDF Text Text ���� Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 120, Item 102: Richard Sylvan to John, c1983 to ? Subject The topic of the resource Handwritten letter to John from Richard Sylvan, letter isn't signed. Sylvan writes about a UNESCO Asia-Pacific meeting held in 1983 and discusses John's report on philosophy in New Zealand. The meeting is possibly the UNESCO Asia-Pacific Teaching and research in philosophy in Asia and the Pacific held in Bangkok, 21-25 February 1983. The letter is also possibly addressed to John Patterson who attended the UNESCO Asia-Pacific meeting and presented a paper on philosophy in New Zealand. (Information from UNESCO (1984) Teaching and Research in Philosophy: Asia and the Pacific, UNESCO). Description An account of the resource Note, one of two papers digitised from item 102. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 120, Item 102 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Letter, [4] leaves. [12.73 MB] For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondences Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:d21b575">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:d21b575</a> Box 120: Philosophy Wisdom to Wowserism Como House Como House > Green Table > Pile 5 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/a712372fc5eb6f4fbc060ed2fdbafa53.pdf 201a8b138801518733d5f3bcd3bc60e3 PDF Text Text The Research Schoot oi Sociai Sciences Post Office Box 4 Canberra ACT 2600 Telegrams & cables NATUNiv Canberra Telex AA 62694 sopAC Telephone 062-49 5111 Department of Philosophy reference 10 February 1981. The Editor, A.N.U. Reporter Dear Editor, In the eyes of many the A.N.U. had already abandoned any semblance of neutrality on the issue of nuclear power and uranium mining ^me time ago, especially by the use of official university resources for the promotion of Professor Ringwood and his pro-nuclear position. Now we have the news that the A.N.U. has even more thoroughly compromised its neutrality on the issue through the purchase of /2(^0,00^ -weath'TKf shares in uranium mining. In view of the university's use of its funds and other resources to sponsor nuclear development, the initials A.N.U. could perhaps be better taken to stand for Australian Nuclear University. This suggests some possible ways in which the many people within the university who object to uranium mining and nuclear development could protest and express their awareness of and distaste for its pronuclear character, for example: * Sign published work with the home address to avoid the embarrassment of being associated with this thoroughly compromised institution, adding a note to explain why. * Sign published work 'Australian Nuclear University', appending a footnote to explain why this name is more appropriate. * Substitute 'Australian Nuclear University' on letterheads, envelopes, in letters to colleagues, and in other appropriate places, so that the character of the university and its political commitments become more widely known. No doubt others will be able to think of many appropriate variations on the theme, Yours, Richard Routley. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document The Research Schoot oi Sociai Sciences Post Office Box 4 Canberra ACT 2600 Telegrams & cables NATUNiv Canberra Telex AA 62694 sopAC Telephone 062-49 5111 Department of Philosophy reference 10 February 1981. The Editor, A.N.U. Reporter Dear Editor, In the eyes of many the A.N.U. had already abandoned any semblance of neutrality on the issue of nuclear power and uranium mining ^me time ago, especially by the use of official university resources for the promotion of Professor Ringwood and his pro-nuclear position. Now we have the news that the A.N.U. has even more thoroughly compromised its neutrality on the issue through the purchase of /2(^0,00^ -weath'TKf shares in uranium mining. In view of the university's use of its funds and other resources to sponsor nuclear development, the initials A.N.U. could perhaps be better taken to stand for Australian Nuclear University. This suggests some possible ways in which the many people within the university who object to uranium mining and nuclear development could protest and express their awareness of and distaste for its pronuclear character, for example: * Sign published work with the home address to avoid the embarrassment of being associated with this thoroughly compromised institution, adding a note to explain why. * Sign published work 'Australian Nuclear University', appending a footnote to explain why this name is more appropriate. * Substitute 'Australian Nuclear University' on letterheads, envelopes, in letters to colleagues, and in other appropriate places, so that the character of the university and its political commitments become more widely known. No doubt others will be able to think of many appropriate variations on the theme, Yours, Richard Routley.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 98, Item 1865: Richard Routley to The Editor, ANU Reporter, 10 Feb 1981 Subject The topic of the resource Typescript letter, with emendations. Letter on a Australian National University letter head. Richard Routley (later Sylvan) writes about ANU’s "…abandoned any semblance of neutrality on the issue of nuclear and uranium mining…", through the promotion of Professor Ringwood and "his pro-nuclear position", and the purchase of shares in uranium mining. Sylvan suggests some possible ways staff could protest. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Routley</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 98, Item 1865 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 10, 1981 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Letter, [1] leaf. 2.12 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondences Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:2e5219e">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:2e5219e</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Australian National University - Far Bookcase - Second Bay - Second Shelf - Pile 1 Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Far Bookcase > Second Bay > Second Shelf > Pile 1 Box 98: Richard's Professional Work-refereeing - examining - reports etc and Philosophy of Language https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/8a962b5798d431ed7a49e3c965d3293d.pdf 3793cc17bc61a17cc2d746104329864a PDF Text Text '"T__ / <'Y J /x X<X X I z / //. / c f-vX' ‘'t Xr" Y ( <lr~ / <■ Ye t e tZ<? Z C z4 /X/ Xi /z- a / r /XX «) - YY/XX e X X'X xC <?— C" Z j>ctYe^_Z^Z l -■ X-^—y X—- I X .X i/x /l t tC c X * /7Z’’' <j Y^X ft J X<>-^ XX Y C'U1 Y c^ 7 XYy / // Y X n ?-/ ^i/'^ /q /’*■ XX 3 2- /< Y'1^ Xr^x 6 ,’ 'A/' C ■"' z// '- 7/XxY . 1 ��:) 2. 2 f.y; �The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Computer printout, draft paper with emendations and annotations, Intrinsic value, quantum theory, and environmental ethics by J. Baird Callicott. Includes annotation addressed to Professor Routley from J. Baird Callicott. (37 pages) Paper published, Callicott J B (1985) ‘Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics’, Environmental Ethics, 7(3): 257275. https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics19857334 � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document '"T__ / <'Y J /x X<X X I z / //. / c f-vX' ‘'t Xr" Y ( <lr~ / <■ Ye t e tZ<? Z C z4 /X/ Xi /z- a / r /XX «) - YY/XX e X X'X xC <?— C" Z j>ctYe^_Z^Z l -■ X-^—y X—- I X .X i/x /l t tC c X * /7Z’’' <j Y^X ft J X<>-^ XX Y C'U1 Y c^ 7 XYy / // Y X n ?-/ ^i/'^ /q /’*■ XX 3 2- /< Y'1^ Xr^x 6 ,’ 'A/' C ■"' z// '- 7/XxY . 1 :) 2. 2 f.y; The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Computer printout, draft paper with emendations and annotations, Intrinsic value, quantum theory, and environmental ethics by J. Baird Callicott. Includes annotation addressed to Professor Routley from J. Baird Callicott. (37 pages) Paper published, Callicott J B (1985) ‘Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics’, Environmental Ethics, 7(3): 257275. https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics19857334  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 14, Item 1765: Letter, Richard Sylvan to J. Baird Callicott, 25 Oct c1985 ; Draft of Intrinsic value, quantum theory, and environmental ethics by J. Baird Callicott Subject The topic of the resource Computer printout of draft paper with emendations and annotations. Includes annotation on title page, addressed to Professor Routley from J. Baird Callicott. Paper published, Callicott J B (1985) 'Intrinsic Value, Quantum Theory, and Environmental Ethics', Environmental Ethics, 7(3): 257-275, https://doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics19857334. Description An account of the resource Note, one of two papers digitised from item 1765. Paper by J. Baird Callicott redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 14, Item 1765 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource October 25 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [40] leaves. 1.73 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondences Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:f77bd00">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:f77bd00</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Australian National University - Second Shelf - Bottom Shelf Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Second Shelf > Bottom Shelf Box 14: Green Projects in Progress https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/74c5918ce1775b9771b6ab241d1cfda9.pdf d64b9b726171c91b2c89e43f71832e29 PDF Text Text ✓ f / / Z ) The Australian National University ■The Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy reference Post Office Box 4 Canberra ACT 2600 Telegrams & cables natuniv Canberra Telex aa 62694 sopac 'telephone 062-49 $111 22 July 1983 John Martin 10 Alamein Avenue WARRACKNABEAL VIC 3393 Dear John, Thank you for the July 83 copy of The Deep Ecologist. I certainly think that such a network newsletter is a fine idea (and my sub. follows under separate cover). I should confess, however, that I was alarmed by the extent to which shallow ecology - which already has an excellent press had crept into the issue. In particular, the centerpiece article, purportedly on wilderness (signed P. Conroy) contained themes directly antithetical to deeper ecology, some of which I shall note. I really hope the article was intended as some sort of test or as a spoof; but I fear it wasn't. 1. 'The wonders of creation exist in the minds of humans'. The three step argument to this, from the granted 'Nature is wondrous, ...' is quite fallacious. For one thing, it smuggles in the assumption of a creation. Deep ecologists don't have to buy into creation, or (what Conroy goes on to, in a version of the argument from design I suppose) God(s). More important, the wonders of nature are not confined to, and do not require, the minds of humans. A core theme of deep ecology is that some natural things are intrinsically valuable, worthwhile in themselves, independently of any creatures, including humans. An alpine gentian does not owe its value, its importance to humans. For similar reasons the deep ecologist, who may embrace some one of the more orthodox religions but need not, rejects both parts of Conroy's supporting comparison: 'As light needs our eyes to give it reality, so [nature] around us needs our constant assent', human affirmation. There was light, as an element of nature, before humans evolved; there will be light, and still some wonders of nature, when humans are gone, for instance after nuclear annihilation. It is the same on the genesis account as it is on deep ecological assumptions: nature and light were real, and also good, before man appeared on the scene (on the seventh day). 2. Admittedly some deeper ecological themes are picked up by Conroy, for example 'the importance of relationships', especially those of ecosystems. Unfortunately Conroy almost at once tries to 2/... �2. undermine this theme (a theme that runs counter to a main thrust of Western philosophy, concerning the eliminability or secondary character of relations) and in a human chauvinist way: 'Let us not delude ourselves as to the basis for this'. Relations too are alleged to answer back to humans, and owe their importance to them: again shallow, and surely mistaken, anthrocentricism. But Conroy wants us to proceed to a strong form of this‘shallow doctrine: 'To recognise the importance of our environment is to recognise the importance of ourselves'. No; and certainly not on deeper thinking. Environments free of humans, such as pure wilderness, can be important; worlds devoid of humans beautiful, or ugly. 3. 'Humans do hold dominion over the earth'; 'recognise your kingship of the earth'. The dominion position, with which Conroy gets quite carried away, is only one of various positions that the shallow ecologist can adopt; others (delineated by Passmore) are the stewardship and the perfectionist positions. It is however the position most antithetical to the concerns of deep ecology. 4. Conroy repudiates the theme of biological (or biospheric) egalitarianism, often taken to be an ingredient of deep ecology, in a decidedly arrogant way: 'To pretend we can treat ourselves as equals with other organisms in our cohabitation of this planet is to show an ignorance of the inevitable forces that continue to shape human destinies everywhere' (it reminds me of the worst reaches of German Ubermensch philosophy, Nietzsche to Hitler). An egalitarian theme was tendered by Naess in his introduction of deep ecology, and has certainly been built into the West Coast understanding of the notion. And as Singer's work on "equality of consideration", and other nonutilitarian work on respect has made plain, the theme can be given relatively palatable construals. It remains however something of an open question whether the theme is an essential ingredient of deep ecology. My view is also that it is not; but I should not want to have anything much to do with Conroy's human chauvinist (and sometimes human fascist) case for ditching the theme. Regrettably Naess's more recent account of deep ecology, in terms of asking 'deeper and deeper questions', has further muddied what started out by being d valuable and sufficiently clear notion. Now a nuclear engineer who asks deeper questions, or any shallow ecologist who 'probes the deepness of the human psyche', stands a fair chance of passing perself off as a deep ecologist. I hope however that Ths Deep Ecologist can maintain a deep relationship with deep ecology. Best wishes, Richard �The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Letter, John Martin to Richard Sylvan, 30 July 1983 re Martin replies to Sylvan's letter and comments on an article published in The Deep Ecologist. (1 leaf) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Notes, Correspondences and Marginalia Description An account of the resource In one obituary, Sylvan's handwriting was said to have "looked like the oscilloscope for a patient in intensive care", and thus "not for the timid". Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document ✓ f / / Z ) The Australian National University ■The Research School of Social Sciences Department of Philosophy reference Post Office Box 4 Canberra ACT 2600 Telegrams & cables natuniv Canberra Telex aa 62694 sopac 'telephone 062-49 $111 22 July 1983 John Martin 10 Alamein Avenue WARRACKNABEAL VIC 3393 Dear John, Thank you for the July 83 copy of The Deep Ecologist. I certainly think that such a network newsletter is a fine idea (and my sub. follows under separate cover). I should confess, however, that I was alarmed by the extent to which shallow ecology - which already has an excellent press had crept into the issue. In particular, the centerpiece article, purportedly on wilderness (signed P. Conroy) contained themes directly antithetical to deeper ecology, some of which I shall note. I really hope the article was intended as some sort of test or as a spoof; but I fear it wasn't. 1. 'The wonders of creation exist in the minds of humans'. The three step argument to this, from the granted 'Nature is wondrous, ...' is quite fallacious. For one thing, it smuggles in the assumption of a creation. Deep ecologists don't have to buy into creation, or (what Conroy goes on to, in a version of the argument from design I suppose) God(s). More important, the wonders of nature are not confined to, and do not require, the minds of humans. A core theme of deep ecology is that some natural things are intrinsically valuable, worthwhile in themselves, independently of any creatures, including humans. An alpine gentian does not owe its value, its importance to humans. For similar reasons the deep ecologist, who may embrace some one of the more orthodox religions but need not, rejects both parts of Conroy's supporting comparison: 'As light needs our eyes to give it reality, so [nature] around us needs our constant assent', human affirmation. There was light, as an element of nature, before humans evolved; there will be light, and still some wonders of nature, when humans are gone, for instance after nuclear annihilation. It is the same on the genesis account as it is on deep ecological assumptions: nature and light were real, and also good, before man appeared on the scene (on the seventh day). 2. Admittedly some deeper ecological themes are picked up by Conroy, for example 'the importance of relationships', especially those of ecosystems. Unfortunately Conroy almost at once tries to 2/... 2. undermine this theme (a theme that runs counter to a main thrust of Western philosophy, concerning the eliminability or secondary character of relations) and in a human chauvinist way: 'Let us not delude ourselves as to the basis for this'. Relations too are alleged to answer back to humans, and owe their importance to them: again shallow, and surely mistaken, anthrocentricism. But Conroy wants us to proceed to a strong form of this‘shallow doctrine: 'To recognise the importance of our environment is to recognise the importance of ourselves'. No; and certainly not on deeper thinking. Environments free of humans, such as pure wilderness, can be important; worlds devoid of humans beautiful, or ugly. 3. 'Humans do hold dominion over the earth'; 'recognise your kingship of the earth'. The dominion position, with which Conroy gets quite carried away, is only one of various positions that the shallow ecologist can adopt; others (delineated by Passmore) are the stewardship and the perfectionist positions. It is however the position most antithetical to the concerns of deep ecology. 4. Conroy repudiates the theme of biological (or biospheric) egalitarianism, often taken to be an ingredient of deep ecology, in a decidedly arrogant way: 'To pretend we can treat ourselves as equals with other organisms in our cohabitation of this planet is to show an ignorance of the inevitable forces that continue to shape human destinies everywhere' (it reminds me of the worst reaches of German Ubermensch philosophy, Nietzsche to Hitler). An egalitarian theme was tendered by Naess in his introduction of deep ecology, and has certainly been built into the West Coast understanding of the notion. And as Singer's work on "equality of consideration", and other nonutilitarian work on respect has made plain, the theme can be given relatively palatable construals. It remains however something of an open question whether the theme is an essential ingredient of deep ecology. My view is also that it is not; but I should not want to have anything much to do with Conroy's human chauvinist (and sometimes human fascist) case for ditching the theme. Regrettably Naess's more recent account of deep ecology, in terms of asking 'deeper and deeper questions', has further muddied what started out by being d valuable and sufficiently clear notion. Now a nuclear engineer who asks deeper questions, or any shallow ecologist who 'probes the deepness of the human psyche', stands a fair chance of passing perself off as a deep ecologist. I hope however that Ths Deep Ecologist can maintain a deep relationship with deep ecology. Best wishes, Richard The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Letter, John Martin to Richard Sylvan, 30 July 1983 re Martin replies to Sylvan's letter and comments on an article published in The Deep Ecologist. (1 leaf)  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 14, Item 1765: Correspondence between Richard Sylvan and John Martin, 2 letters, Jul 1983 Subject The topic of the resource Letter 1: Typescript on a Australian National University letter head. Letter dated 22 July 1983 to John Martin, Warracknabeal, VIC 3393. From Richard Sylvan, The Research School of Social Sciences, Department of Philosophy, The Australian National University. Sylvan sends feedback to Martin about an article published in The Deep Ecologist (July 183). John Martin was the founding editor of the Australian based newsletter, The Deep Ecologist. One of three copies of letter held in collection, two copies with annotations: Deep ecology notes ; Fred, please return newsletter [?]. Thanks for your comments, [?] things. [Richard?]. Letter 2: Handwritten letter dated 30 Jul 1983 to Richard Sylvan. From John Martin, Warracknabeal, VIC 3393. Martin replies to Sylvan's letter and comments on an article published in The Deep Ecologist. Description An account of the resource Note, one of two papers digitised from item 1765. Letter from John Martin redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 14, Item 1765 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource July 23, 1983 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [7] leaves. 1.43 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Correspondences Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:4660a51">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:4660a51</a> Australian National University Office Australian National University Office > Second Shelf > Bottom Shelf Box 14: Green Projects in Progress https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/8d68b6d2b8fc13d2658f8bcec5033f90.pdf 133736fbbf882cc36899905ee9ec3212 PDF Text Text ON EXTIRPATING WAR: TAO AND DEEP-GREEN PACIFISM Taoism and deep-green environmental theory, although closely aligned on very many issues, diverge over war. For Taoism, by contrast for instance with Buddhism, is not a pacific doctrine, but is committed to skilful defensive militarism. While it does not espouse a fortress mentality, Taoism certainly condones limited defensive military operations for specific purposes, a sort of guerilla warfare. By contrast, deep-green theory, while acknowledging the role of organised social defence, stands opposed to professional militarism, and thereby to military defence, and is committed to a principled pacifism. Conveniently a route through Taoism, philosophically fascinating in its own right, will lead us to problems of pacifism and towards deep-green theory. 1. Features of a Taoist critique of war and militarism. War did not receive a favourable press in ancient Chinese philosophy. Generally aggression and war were to be avoided. Even Confucius imposed very demanding conditions: for example, ‘when good men have instructed the people [in morals, agriculture, military tactics] for seven years, they may be allowed to bear arms,’ ‘If a ruler ... does not set himself right, even his commands will not be obeyed’ (SB p.41, italics added). Mo Tzu went much further than Confucius, roundly condemning war - on utilitarian grounds, that war yields no net benefit at any level (SB p.227). What is more, he backed his heavy condemnation practically (unlike some conspicuous contemporary theoretical utilitarians); ‘he did not hesitate to walk for ten days and ten nights in an effort to dissuade a ruler from making war’ (SB p.212). But none, it is said, went as far, in a detailed and sophisticated criticism of war, as Lao Tzu; ‘none has condemned war more strongly than Lao Tzu’. ‘[T]he opposition of Taoism to the use of force is well-known, and the most bitter attack on militarism if found in the Lao Tzu’ (Chan, p.154, p.17.) But, after that splendid build-up, the text is slightly disappointing. Lao Tzu does not assert outright that war is an abomination, or even roundly condemn it. His critique of war, militarism, and military technology, is subtle and oblique, and, on the surface, far distanced from pacifism. For he does not recommend an end to war - in that genuine Taoists, those who possess Tao, will never participate in them - but expects wars to continue as unavoidable evils. Worse, he even goes so far as to outline proper attitudes to war and conduct in war, and indeed to suggest military techniques and strategies, some of which look decidedly devious. Among the classical works of Taoism, we focus on the Lao Tzu because, by contrast with other works, a remarkable component of that book is devoted to war and militarism. The apparent deviousness of the tactics Lao Tzu allocates serves to highlight what has been seen as ‘the most troublesome element’ in his philosophy (Chan p.17) — not so much however because they concern military operations, but because they are taken to apply much more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p.17). But why should military activity obtain some special �2 more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p. 17). But why should military activity obtain some special dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done. • Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the military-practices paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p. 17) and to the possession and use of smart military weapons and technology - implying that war is far from all right - and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful) conduct in war, and so on - implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns thfc conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle paradox. Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position is taken, especially on war and militarism. One key pasage runs: Fine weapons are instruments of evil They are hated by creatures Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them. ... Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler. When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best principle Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy, For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men. He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ... For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies (LT p.154). Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil. They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes unavoidable (also p.152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse, obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao �3 does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death. Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories, underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses), an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects. Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking: It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p. 17). ‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties. These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps overlapping, set of reasons). A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is the fashion in which it manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show: �4 Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are “resolved”. Deep-green chart: Processing of dilemma, Arguments to dilemma incompatible input prescriptions situational procedures -» > directive output ■ X. Corresponding Taoist chart: Black directive Box output It is evident that Taoism can be extended', information can be put into the Black Bok rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deep-green theory, i.e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to deep ecological theory (see UT). We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality (or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account, see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued. So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil (typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided, through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained, through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs. Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other types of war. But, more generally, try this:- �5 Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of action. Therefore, every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable. Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor, an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions. The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a one-sided perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even if that should be so sometimes, when there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may b£ unavoidable z/ unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided. Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is “unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within range by modem technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes. State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example, be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith which depicts all humans as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine be unavoidable?1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate. Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically 1 Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter; coherence requires relativization to ‘just wxfor party d’.) �6 unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e. excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical costs. Then if it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is also justifiable, on pacific grounds. Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition. The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized: Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow. Great wars are always followed by famines (p. 152). And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition of the widely-observed socio-environmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not however developed in Taoism.2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a military objective, with environmental security. The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters. But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”). But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for what there is so far, see Naess p.160). On neo-Daoism, see UT. �7 2. On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism. Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about how they - those of the theoretical residue - are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep­ green theory begins to diverge from Taoism. In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game - in the generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the contestants, (warring) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set­ up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object, construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities. Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life­ style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns. An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures, races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or, perhaps by extension, between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and virtually all the worst wars. While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial contests. But in modem times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us distinguish such wars as techno-powered wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the �8 technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure (indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted - misdirected - in one way or another to this effort). Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An offensive war is one which ventures off a given party's territory or recognised pad, “invading" that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded. Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor, which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory, e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken (LTp.152).3 The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.) Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinitional strategems, such as redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence" of a third party or place (whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy) democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive. Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is represented as a war of liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones, such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market 3 There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation: I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive: I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222). These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting. �9 capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion. The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of political-economy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu: When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to fertilize (the fields ...),. When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses thrive in the suburbs. There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. (LT p.181). But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessary, for cessation of such practices. The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15 years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth, the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years (the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite targets. Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism. A main distinction is between • conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals, and • social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4 4 Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin. �10 It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether. Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism. For example, Taoism is opposed to domination (LT p.152), whereas military operations frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep­ green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has no project for ending the era of wars; deep-green theory does. That project involves an elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference. A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include • elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and • force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in • contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in • elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation. Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust facts. �11 Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war - finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars - though no longer in ascendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars - the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military - the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs; likewise conquest. Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modem wars cannot be fully just wars. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just defensive vjsi, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features introduced by modem technological wars and the character of modem civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf �Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, of what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity and cruelty. 3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence ‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’ strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism? Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does not oppose certain uses of force (only really ///-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling. The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include • seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222) �13 • surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics: marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’ (p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced (LT p. 194). • advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will overcome strength (LT p.164, p.233). • coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices the charge of deviousness looks feeble. The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general, unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the legalist tactic, Tn order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving ‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, Tn order to contract, it is necessary first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and weakness turned hardness and strength. The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted (p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ (LT p.238). Much technology, military and other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices �14 paradox).5 The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence. To force the growth of life means ill omen. For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence (LT p. 197). One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wu- wei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony. To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non­ interference that are excluded. However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible. A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of war, above all from irresponsible state power. As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why merely indifferent technology is out; there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness, itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size, such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off: reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs. �15 right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates, profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the machines of war industry stop. Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. ° But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished.6 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far. For this paradox does not involve self-referential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the 6 Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it - designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative, thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following inconsistent triad: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetical to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing capitalism. �16 second premiss. 4. Standard and moral pacifism. Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace - and accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position - it is not (nowhere in the central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons: • It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart defensive wars. • It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance through the watershed thesis P2. It is morally wrong to use violence. By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles. Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism, notably European forms. Is deep green? There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use. As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly. They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix). Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery can be thwarted in this way. Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component is, in Amauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation, arbitration, ... - and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts - sanctions, substitutions (e.g. of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures), ... . In brief standard pacifism is opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means. �17 Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military (using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g. turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident, then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item: ‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non­ violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest. Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries, of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions. They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which P2 holds, stretched pacifism? While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism (unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim. Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”, “fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous investigations (see esp. Al, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism 7 In Al this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism: overcomprehensive might have been better. �18 could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and many ordinary women, but much more extensively. The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist shoots one of them (it is elaborated in Al p. 13). Interestingly, another stock example from the literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details of both see MD p. 10). Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation. This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes pacifism’ (p. 153 twice). The rehabilitation trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the commonsense position which most people hold - yet - pacifism after all was supposed to be radical moral doctrine - (p.153 rearranged).8 Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized - JWS “activism” is hardly trivial - as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and 8 JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his criticism, I don't know. �19 accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle, pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a radical doctrine. As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism is, as previous explained (e.g. Al p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it. A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (Al p.13), not ‘one acts in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS p.152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted (MD p.38). Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism, sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed. A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to “second best” consequentialist considerations,... already explicitly condemned’ (p. 154). What was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p. 152), so undercutting other deontic principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray. After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find ... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p. 152) �20 There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes. There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p. 153). This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than populatization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts, providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p. 153). Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to prevent herself from being raped’ (p. 153 italics added). In the example so far described there is no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence. What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p. 153). Since she may thereby inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is ‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the threat’ (p. 150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The ‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons are appropriate in response to what attacks, p. 150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper bound on level of force. As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far hardly conclusive (as Al tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced, hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed. To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non­ violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world. Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage �21 routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and beyond human capacities - even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly. More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended, be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus, for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the natural order is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not separate humans out from the natural order) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route: The natural order is not an immoral order The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence. Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral - in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral (neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far). The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was alrady indicated in Al). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable, ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to �22 peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably modified P2 results: MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence.9 To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modern humans; it sets too high a moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively: Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced. Richard Sylvan* Appendix I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. The optly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even - in what was effectively a declaration of war - reiteration of the modern quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it - through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to 9 The generalization of P2, suggested in Al, to cover also the parallel situation of environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use vandolence. Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in JWS) �I 23 followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one, enforcable law, is achieved, unless backed by the the other, is not explained (Medlin's paradox hits back). Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that ‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has shifted; practice has scarcely changed at all. REFERENCES W.-T. Chan, A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1963; referred to as ST. W.-T. Chan (ed.), The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1963; referred to as LT. B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984. A. Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1989. R.A. Rapaport, Pigs for the Ancestors : ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea People, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace II. On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #9, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1983 (also in Inquiry ); referred to as Al. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #6, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984 (also in Paraconsistent Logic)’, referred to as MD. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear-deterrence and the political fall-out’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy, #5, Research School Of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984. G. Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1980. J.W. Smith, The Worms at the Heart of Things , Public Relations Unit, Flinders University, 1989. R. Sylvan, ‘War and Peace III, Australia's defence philosophy’, Social Philosophy, for Nuclear Conference, University of Queensland, 1985. R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #19, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1990; referred to as UT. ��2 more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p. 17). But why should military activity obtain some special dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done. • Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the military-practices paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p.17) and to the possession and use of smart military weapons and technology - implying that war is far from all right - and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful) conduct in war, and so on - implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns the conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle paradox. Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position is taken, especially on war and militarism. One key pasage runs: Fine weapons are instruments of evil They are hated by creatures Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them.... Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler. When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best principle Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy, For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men. He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ... For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies (LT p.154). Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil. They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes unavoidable (also p.152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse, obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao �3 does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death. Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories, underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses), an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects. Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking: It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p. 17). ‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties. These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps overlapping, set of reasons). A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is the fashion in which it manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show: �4 Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are “resolved”. Deep-green chart: Arguments to Processing of dilemma, directive dilemma incompatible situational procedures output input prescriptions Corresponding Taoist chart: Black directive Box output It is evident that Taoism can be extended', information can be put into the Black Box rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deep-green theory, i.e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to deep ecological theory (see UT). We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality (or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account, see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued. So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil (typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided, through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained, through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs. Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other types of war. But, more generally, try this:- �5 Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of action. Therefore, every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable. Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor, an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions. The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a one-sided perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even z/that should be so sometimes, when there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may be unavoidable if unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided. Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is “unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within range by modem technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes. State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example, be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith which depicts all humans as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine be unavoidable?1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate. Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically 1 Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter; coherence requires relativization to ‘just vwcfor party d’.) �6 unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e. excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical costs. Then if it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is also justifiable, on pacific grounds. Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition. The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized: Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow. Great wars are always followed by famines (p. 152). And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition of the widely-observed socio-environmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not however developed in Taoism.2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a military objective, with environmental security. The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters. But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”). 2 But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for what there is so far, see Naess p.160). On neo-Daoism, see UT. �7 2. On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism. Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about how they — those of the theoretical residue — are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep­ green theory begins to diverge from Taoism. In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game - in the generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the contestants, (warring) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set­ up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object, construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities. Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life­ style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns. An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures, races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or, perhaps by extension, between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and virtually all the worst wars. While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial contests. But in modem times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us distinguish such wars as techno-powered wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the �8 technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure (indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted - misdirected - in one way or another to this effort). Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An offensive war is one which ventures off a given party's territory or recognised pad, “invading” that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded. Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor, which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory, e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken (LT p.152).3 The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.) Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinition al strategems, such as redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence” of a third party or place (whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy) democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive. Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is represented as a war of liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones, such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation: I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive: I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222). These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting. �9 capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion. The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of political-economy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu: When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to fertilize (the fields ...). When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses thrive in the suburbs. There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. (LT p. 181). But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessaTy, for cessation of such practices. The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15 years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth, the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years (the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite targets. Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism. A main distinction is between • conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals, and • social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4 4 Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin. �10 It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether. Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism. For example, Taoism is opposed to domination (LT p.152), whereas military operations frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep­ green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has no project for ending the era of wars; deep-green theory does. That project involves an elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference. A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include • elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and • force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in • contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in • elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation. Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust facts. �11 Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war - finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars — though no longer in ascendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars - the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military - the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs; likewise conquest. Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modem wars cannot be fully just wars. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just defensive war, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features introduced by modem technological wars and the character of modern civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf �12 Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, of what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity and cruelty. 3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence ‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’ strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism? Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does not oppose certain uses of force (only really ///-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling. The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include • seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222) �13 • surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics: marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’ (p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced (LT p.194). • advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will overcome strength (LT p.164, p.233). • coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices the charge of deviousness looks feeble. The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general, unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the legalist tactic, Tn order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving ‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, Tn order to contract, it is necessary first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and weakness turned hardness and strength. The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted (p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ (LT p.238). Much technology, military and other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices �14 paradox).5 The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence. To force the growth of life means ill omen. For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence (LT p. 197). One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wu- wei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony. To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non­ interference that are excluded. However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite 5 Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible. A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of war, above all from irresponsible state power. As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why merely indifferent technology is out; there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness, itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size, such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off: reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs. �15 right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates, profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the machines of war industry stop. Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. ° But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished.6 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far. For this paradox does not involve self-referential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the 6 Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it - designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative, thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following inconsistent triad: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetical to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing capitalism. �16 second premiss. 4. Standard and moral pacifism. Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace - and accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position - it is not (nowhere in the central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons:• It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart defensive wars. • It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance through the watershed thesis P2. It is morally wrong to use violence. By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles. Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism, notably European forms. Is deep green? There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use. As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly. They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix). Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery can be thwarted in this way. Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component is, in Amauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation, arbitration,... - and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts - sanctions, substitutions (e.g. of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures),... . In brief standard pacifism is opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means. �17 Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military (using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g. turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident, then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item: ‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non­ violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest. Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries, of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions. They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which P2 holds, stretched pacifism.^ While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism (unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim. Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”, “fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous investigations (see esp. Al, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism 7 In Al this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism: overcomprehensive might have been better. �18 could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and many ordinary women, but much more extensively. The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist shoots one of them (it is elaborated in Al p.13). Interestingly, another stock example from the literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details of both see MD p.10). Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation. This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes pacifism’ (p. 153 twice). The rehabilitation trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the commonsense position which most people hold - yet - pacifism after all was supposed to be radical moral doctrine - (p.153 rearranged).8 Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized - JWS “activism” is hardly trivial - as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and 8 JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his criticism, I don't know. �19 accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle, pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a radical doctrine. As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism is, as previous explained (e.g. Al p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it. A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (Al p.13), not ‘one acts in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS P-152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted (MD p.38). Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism, sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed. A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to “second best” consequentialist considerations,... already explicitly condemned’ (p.154). What was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p.152), so undercutting other deontic principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray. After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find ... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p.152) �20 There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes. There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p. 153). This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than populatization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts, providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p.153). Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to prevent herself from being raped’ (p.153 italics added). In the example so far described there is no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence. What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p. 153). Since she may thereby inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is ‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the threat’ (p.150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The ‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons are appropriate in response to what attacks, p.150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper bound on level of force. As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far hardly conclusive (as Al tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced, hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed. To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non­ violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world. Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage �21 routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and beyond human capacities - even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly. More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended, be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus, for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the “natural order” is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not separate humans out from the natural order) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route: The natural order is not an immoral order The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence. Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral (neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far). The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was alrady indicated in Al). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable, ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to �22 peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably modified P2 results: MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence.9 To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modern humans; it sets too high a moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively: Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced. Richard Sylvan* Appendix I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. The optly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even - in what was effectively a declaration of war - reiteration of the modern quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it - through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to The generalization of P2, suggested in Al, to cover also the parallel situation of environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use vandolence. Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in JWS) �23 followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one, enforcable law, is achieved, unless backed by the the other, is not explained (Medlin's paradox hits back). Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that ‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has shifted; practice has scarcely changed at all. REFERENCES W.-T. Chan, A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1963; referred to as ST. W.-T. Chan (ed.), The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1963; referred to as LT. B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984. A. Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1989. R.A. Rapaport, Pigs for the Ancestors : ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea People, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace II. On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #9, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1983 (also in Inquiry ); referred to as Al. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #6, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984 (also in Paraconsistent Logic)', referred to as MD. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear-deterrence and the political fall-out’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy, #5, Research School Of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984. G. Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1980. J.W. Smith, The Worms at the Heart of Things , Public Relations Unit, Flinders University, 1989. R. Sylvan, ‘War and Peace III, Australia's defence philosophy’, SoczaZ Philosophy, for Nuclear Conference, University of Queensland, 1985. R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #19, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1990; referred to as UT. � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document ON EXTIRPATING WAR: TAO AND DEEP-GREEN PACIFISM Taoism and deep-green environmental theory, although closely aligned on very many issues, diverge over war. For Taoism, by contrast for instance with Buddhism, is not a pacific doctrine, but is committed to skilful defensive militarism. While it does not espouse a fortress mentality, Taoism certainly condones limited defensive military operations for specific purposes, a sort of guerilla warfare. By contrast, deep-green theory, while acknowledging the role of organised social defence, stands opposed to professional militarism, and thereby to military defence, and is committed to a principled pacifism. Conveniently a route through Taoism, philosophically fascinating in its own right, will lead us to problems of pacifism and towards deep-green theory. 1. Features of a Taoist critique of war and militarism. War did not receive a favourable press in ancient Chinese philosophy. Generally aggression and war were to be avoided. Even Confucius imposed very demanding conditions: for example, ‘when good men have instructed the people [in morals, agriculture, military tactics] for seven years, they may be allowed to bear arms,’ ‘If a ruler ... does not set himself right, even his commands will not be obeyed’ (SB p.41, italics added). Mo Tzu went much further than Confucius, roundly condemning war - on utilitarian grounds, that war yields no net benefit at any level (SB p.227). What is more, he backed his heavy condemnation practically (unlike some conspicuous contemporary theoretical utilitarians); ‘he did not hesitate to walk for ten days and ten nights in an effort to dissuade a ruler from making war’ (SB p.212). But none, it is said, went as far, in a detailed and sophisticated criticism of war, as Lao Tzu; ‘none has condemned war more strongly than Lao Tzu’. ‘[T]he opposition of Taoism to the use of force is well-known, and the most bitter attack on militarism if found in the Lao Tzu’ (Chan, p.154, p.17.) But, after that splendid build-up, the text is slightly disappointing. Lao Tzu does not assert outright that war is an abomination, or even roundly condemn it. His critique of war, militarism, and military technology, is subtle and oblique, and, on the surface, far distanced from pacifism. For he does not recommend an end to war - in that genuine Taoists, those who possess Tao, will never participate in them - but expects wars to continue as unavoidable evils. Worse, he even goes so far as to outline proper attitudes to war and conduct in war, and indeed to suggest military techniques and strategies, some of which look decidedly devious. Among the classical works of Taoism, we focus on the Lao Tzu because, by contrast with other works, a remarkable component of that book is devoted to war and militarism. The apparent deviousness of the tactics Lao Tzu allocates serves to highlight what has been seen as ‘the most troublesome element’ in his philosophy (Chan p.17) — not so much however because they concern military operations, but because they are taken to apply much more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p.17). But why should military activity obtain some special 2 more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p. 17). But why should military activity obtain some special dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done. • Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the military-practices paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p. 17) and to the possession and use of smart military weapons and technology - implying that war is far from all right - and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful) conduct in war, and so on - implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns thfc conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle paradox. Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position is taken, especially on war and militarism. One key pasage runs: Fine weapons are instruments of evil They are hated by creatures Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them. ... Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler. When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best principle Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy, For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men. He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ... For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies (LT p.154). Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil. They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes unavoidable (also p.152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse, obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao 3 does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death. Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories, underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses), an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects. Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking: It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p. 17). ‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties. These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps overlapping, set of reasons). A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is the fashion in which it manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show: 4 Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are “resolved”. Deep-green chart: Processing of dilemma, Arguments to dilemma incompatible input prescriptions situational procedures -» > directive output ■ X. Corresponding Taoist chart: Black directive Box output It is evident that Taoism can be extended', information can be put into the Black Bok rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deep-green theory, i.e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to deep ecological theory (see UT). We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality (or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account, see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued. So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil (typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided, through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained, through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs. Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other types of war. But, more generally, try this:- 5 Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of action. Therefore, every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable. Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor, an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions. The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a one-sided perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even if that should be so sometimes, when there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may b£ unavoidable z/ unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided. Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is “unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within range by modem technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes. State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example, be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith which depicts all humans as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine be unavoidable?1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate. Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically 1 Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter; coherence requires relativization to ‘just wxfor party d’.) 6 unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e. excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical costs. Then if it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is also justifiable, on pacific grounds. Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition. The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized: Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow. Great wars are always followed by famines (p. 152). And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition of the widely-observed socio-environmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not however developed in Taoism.2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a military objective, with environmental security. The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters. But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”). But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for what there is so far, see Naess p.160). On neo-Daoism, see UT. 7 2. On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism. Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about how they - those of the theoretical residue - are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep­ green theory begins to diverge from Taoism. In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game - in the generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the contestants, (warring) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set­ up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object, construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities. Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life­ style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns. An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures, races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or, perhaps by extension, between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and virtually all the worst wars. While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial contests. But in modem times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us distinguish such wars as techno-powered wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the 8 technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure (indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted - misdirected - in one way or another to this effort). Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An offensive war is one which ventures off a given party's territory or recognised pad, “invading" that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded. Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor, which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory, e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken (LTp.152).3 The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.) Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinitional strategems, such as redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence" of a third party or place (whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy) democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive. Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is represented as a war of liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones, such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market 3 There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation: I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive: I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222). These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting. 9 capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion. The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of political-economy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu: When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to fertilize (the fields ...),. When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses thrive in the suburbs. There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. (LT p.181). But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessary, for cessation of such practices. The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15 years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth, the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years (the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite targets. Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism. A main distinction is between • conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals, and • social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4 4 Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin. 10 It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether. Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism. For example, Taoism is opposed to domination (LT p.152), whereas military operations frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep­ green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has no project for ending the era of wars; deep-green theory does. That project involves an elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference. A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include • elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and • force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in • contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in • elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation. Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust facts. 11 Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war - finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars - though no longer in ascendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars - the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military - the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs; likewise conquest. Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modem wars cannot be fully just wars. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just defensive vjsi, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features introduced by modem technological wars and the character of modem civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, of what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity and cruelty. 3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence ‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’ strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism? Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does not oppose certain uses of force (only really ///-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling. The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include • seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222) 13 • surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics: marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’ (p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced (LT p. 194). • advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will overcome strength (LT p.164, p.233). • coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices the charge of deviousness looks feeble. The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general, unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the legalist tactic, Tn order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving ‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, Tn order to contract, it is necessary first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and weakness turned hardness and strength. The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted (p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ (LT p.238). Much technology, military and other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices 14 paradox).5 The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence. To force the growth of life means ill omen. For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence (LT p. 197). One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wu- wei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony. To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non­ interference that are excluded. However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible. A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of war, above all from irresponsible state power. As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why merely indifferent technology is out; there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness, itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size, such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off: reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs. 15 right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates, profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the machines of war industry stop. Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. ° But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished.6 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far. For this paradox does not involve self-referential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the 6 Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it - designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative, thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following inconsistent triad: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetical to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing capitalism. 16 second premiss. 4. Standard and moral pacifism. Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace - and accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position - it is not (nowhere in the central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons: • It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart defensive wars. • It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance through the watershed thesis P2. It is morally wrong to use violence. By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles. Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism, notably European forms. Is deep green? There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use. As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly. They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix). Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery can be thwarted in this way. Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component is, in Amauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation, arbitration, ... - and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts - sanctions, substitutions (e.g. of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures), ... . In brief standard pacifism is opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means. 17 Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military (using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g. turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident, then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item: ‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non­ violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest. Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries, of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions. They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which P2 holds, stretched pacifism? While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism (unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim. Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”, “fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous investigations (see esp. Al, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism 7 In Al this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism: overcomprehensive might have been better. 18 could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and many ordinary women, but much more extensively. The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist shoots one of them (it is elaborated in Al p. 13). Interestingly, another stock example from the literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details of both see MD p. 10). Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation. This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes pacifism’ (p. 153 twice). The rehabilitation trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the commonsense position which most people hold - yet - pacifism after all was supposed to be radical moral doctrine - (p.153 rearranged).8 Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized - JWS “activism” is hardly trivial - as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and 8 JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his criticism, I don't know. 19 accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle, pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a radical doctrine. As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism is, as previous explained (e.g. Al p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it. A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (Al p.13), not ‘one acts in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS p.152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted (MD p.38). Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism, sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed. A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to “second best” consequentialist considerations,... already explicitly condemned’ (p. 154). What was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p. 152), so undercutting other deontic principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray. After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find ... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p. 152) 20 There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes. There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p. 153). This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than populatization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts, providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p. 153). Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to prevent herself from being raped’ (p. 153 italics added). In the example so far described there is no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence. What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p. 153). Since she may thereby inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is ‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the threat’ (p. 150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The ‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons are appropriate in response to what attacks, p. 150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper bound on level of force. As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far hardly conclusive (as Al tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced, hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed. To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non­ violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world. Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage 21 routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and beyond human capacities - even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly. More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended, be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus, for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the natural order is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not separate humans out from the natural order) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route: The natural order is not an immoral order The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence. Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral - in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral (neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far). The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was alrady indicated in Al). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable, ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to 22 peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably modified P2 results: MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence.9 To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modern humans; it sets too high a moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively: Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced. Richard Sylvan* Appendix I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. The optly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even - in what was effectively a declaration of war - reiteration of the modern quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it - through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to 9 The generalization of P2, suggested in Al, to cover also the parallel situation of environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use vandolence. Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in JWS) I 23 followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one, enforcable law, is achieved, unless backed by the the other, is not explained (Medlin's paradox hits back). Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that ‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has shifted; practice has scarcely changed at all. REFERENCES W.-T. Chan, A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1963; referred to as ST. W.-T. Chan (ed.), The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1963; referred to as LT. B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984. A. Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1989. R.A. Rapaport, Pigs for the Ancestors : ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea People, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace II. On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #9, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1983 (also in Inquiry ); referred to as Al. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #6, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984 (also in Paraconsistent Logic)’, referred to as MD. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear-deterrence and the political fall-out’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy, #5, Research School Of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984. G. Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1980. J.W. Smith, The Worms at the Heart of Things , Public Relations Unit, Flinders University, 1989. R. Sylvan, ‘War and Peace III, Australia's defence philosophy’, Social Philosophy, for Nuclear Conference, University of Queensland, 1985. R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #19, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1990; referred to as UT. 2 more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p. 17). But why should military activity obtain some special dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done. • Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the military-practices paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p.17) and to the possession and use of smart military weapons and technology - implying that war is far from all right - and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful) conduct in war, and so on - implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns the conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle paradox. Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position is taken, especially on war and militarism. One key pasage runs: Fine weapons are instruments of evil They are hated by creatures Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them.... Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler. When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best principle Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy, For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men. He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ... For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies (LT p.154). Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil. They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes unavoidable (also p.152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse, obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao 3 does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death. Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories, underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses), an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects. Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking: It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p. 17). ‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties. These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps overlapping, set of reasons). A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is the fashion in which it manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show: 4 Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are “resolved”. Deep-green chart: Arguments to Processing of dilemma, directive dilemma incompatible situational procedures output input prescriptions Corresponding Taoist chart: Black directive Box output It is evident that Taoism can be extended', information can be put into the Black Box rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deep-green theory, i.e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to deep ecological theory (see UT). We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality (or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account, see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued. So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil (typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided, through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained, through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs. Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other types of war. But, more generally, try this:- 5 Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of action. Therefore, every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable. Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor, an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions. The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a one-sided perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even z/that should be so sometimes, when there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may be unavoidable if unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided. Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is “unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within range by modem technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes. State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example, be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith which depicts all humans as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine be unavoidable?1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate. Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically 1 Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter; coherence requires relativization to ‘just vwcfor party d’.) 6 unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e. excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical costs. Then if it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is also justifiable, on pacific grounds. Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition. The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized: Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow. Great wars are always followed by famines (p. 152). And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition of the widely-observed socio-environmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not however developed in Taoism.2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a military objective, with environmental security. The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters. But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”). 2 But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for what there is so far, see Naess p.160). On neo-Daoism, see UT. 7 2. On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism. Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about how they — those of the theoretical residue — are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep­ green theory begins to diverge from Taoism. In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game - in the generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the contestants, (warring) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set­ up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object, construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities. Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life­ style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns. An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures, races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or, perhaps by extension, between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and virtually all the worst wars. While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial contests. But in modem times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us distinguish such wars as techno-powered wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the 8 technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure (indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted - misdirected - in one way or another to this effort). Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An offensive war is one which ventures off a given party's territory or recognised pad, “invading” that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded. Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor, which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory, e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken (LT p.152).3 The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.) Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinition al strategems, such as redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence” of a third party or place (whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy) democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive. Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is represented as a war of liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones, such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation: I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive: I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222). These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting. 9 capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion. The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of political-economy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu: When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to fertilize (the fields ...). When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses thrive in the suburbs. There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. (LT p. 181). But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessaTy, for cessation of such practices. The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15 years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth, the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years (the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite targets. Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism. A main distinction is between • conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals, and • social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4 4 Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin. 10 It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether. Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism. For example, Taoism is opposed to domination (LT p.152), whereas military operations frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep­ green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has no project for ending the era of wars; deep-green theory does. That project involves an elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference. A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include • elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and • force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in • contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in • elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation. Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust facts. 11 Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war - finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars — though no longer in ascendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars - the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military - the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs; likewise conquest. Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modem wars cannot be fully just wars. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just defensive war, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features introduced by modem technological wars and the character of modern civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf 12 Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, of what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modern wars cannot be environmentally sound. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the technology for, modern environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity and cruelty. 3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence ‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’ strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism? Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does not oppose certain uses of force (only really ///-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling. The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include • seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222) 13 • surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics: marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’ (p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced (LT p.194). • advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will overcome strength (LT p.164, p.233). • coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices the charge of deviousness looks feeble. The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general, unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the legalist tactic, Tn order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving ‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, Tn order to contract, it is necessary first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and weakness turned hardness and strength. The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted (p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ (LT p.238). Much technology, military and other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices 14 paradox).5 The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence. To force the growth of life means ill omen. For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence (LT p. 197). One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wu- wei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony. To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non­ interference that are excluded. However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite 5 Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible. A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of war, above all from irresponsible state power. As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why merely indifferent technology is out; there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness, itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size, such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off: reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs. 15 right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates, profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the machines of war industry stop. Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. ° But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished.6 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far. For this paradox does not involve self-referential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the 6 Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it - designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative, thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following inconsistent triad: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetical to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing capitalism. 16 second premiss. 4. Standard and moral pacifism. Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace - and accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position - it is not (nowhere in the central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons:• It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart defensive wars. • It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance through the watershed thesis P2. It is morally wrong to use violence. By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles. Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism, notably European forms. Is deep green? There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use. As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly. They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix). Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery can be thwarted in this way. Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component is, in Amauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation, arbitration,... - and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts - sanctions, substitutions (e.g. of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures),... . In brief standard pacifism is opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means. 17 Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military (using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g. turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident, then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item: ‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non­ violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest. Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries, of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions. They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which P2 holds, stretched pacifism.^ While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism (unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim. Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”, “fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous investigations (see esp. Al, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism 7 In Al this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism: overcomprehensive might have been better. 18 could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and many ordinary women, but much more extensively. The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist shoots one of them (it is elaborated in Al p.13). Interestingly, another stock example from the literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details of both see MD p.10). Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation. This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes pacifism’ (p. 153 twice). The rehabilitation trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the commonsense position which most people hold - yet - pacifism after all was supposed to be radical moral doctrine - (p.153 rearranged).8 Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized - JWS “activism” is hardly trivial - as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and 8 JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his criticism, I don't know. 19 accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle, pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a radical doctrine. As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism is, as previous explained (e.g. Al p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it. A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (Al p.13), not ‘one acts in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS P-152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted (MD p.38). Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism, sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed. A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to “second best” consequentialist considerations,... already explicitly condemned’ (p.154). What was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p.152), so undercutting other deontic principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray. After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find ... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p.152) 20 There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes. There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p. 153). This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than populatization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts, providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p.153). Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to prevent herself from being raped’ (p.153 italics added). In the example so far described there is no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence. What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p. 153). Since she may thereby inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is ‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the threat’ (p.150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The ‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons are appropriate in response to what attacks, p.150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper bound on level of force. As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far hardly conclusive (as Al tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced, hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed. To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non­ violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world. Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage 21 routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and beyond human capacities - even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly. More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended, be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus, for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the “natural order” is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not separate humans out from the natural order) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route: The natural order is not an immoral order The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence. Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral (neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far). The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was alrady indicated in Al). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable, ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to 22 peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably modified P2 results: MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence.9 To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modern humans; it sets too high a moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively: Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced. Richard Sylvan* Appendix I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. The optly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even - in what was effectively a declaration of war - reiteration of the modern quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it - through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to The generalization of P2, suggested in Al, to cover also the parallel situation of environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use vandolence. Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in JWS) 23 followed with another invasion. Nor have we ever managed to glimpse much of what is now supposed, when we are no longer engaged, to come ‘out of the horror of war’: a ‘new world order ... which governs the conflict of nations’; a ‘rule of law’, not war. How the one, enforcable law, is achieved, unless backed by the the other, is not explained (Medlin's paradox hits back). Similarly what we now hear from many militarists, as they rush to war, is that ‘peace is a great good, war a great evil’. But, for the most part, only the rhetoric has shifted; practice has scarcely changed at all. REFERENCES W.-T. Chan, A Source Book on Chinese Philosophy, Princeton University Press, 1963; referred to as ST. W.-T. Chan (ed.), The Way of Lao Tzu (Tao-te Ching), Bobbs-Merrill, New York, 1963; referred to as LT. B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984. A. Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge UK, 1989. R.A. Rapaport, Pigs for the Ancestors : ritual in the ecology of a New Guinea People, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1967. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace II. On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #9, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1983 (also in Inquiry ); referred to as Al. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #6, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984 (also in Paraconsistent Logic)', referred to as MD. R. Routley, ‘War and Peace I. On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear-deterrence and the political fall-out’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy, #5, Research School Of Social Science, Australian National University, 1984. G. Sharp, Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent, Boston, 1980. J.W. Smith, The Worms at the Heart of Things , Public Relations Unit, Flinders University, 1989. R. Sylvan, ‘War and Peace III, Australia's defence philosophy’, SoczaZ Philosophy, for Nuclear Conference, University of Queensland, 1985. R. Sylvan and D. Bennett, ‘Of Utopias, Tao and Deep Ecology’, Discussion papers in environmental philosophy #19, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, 1990; referred to as UT.  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 59, Item 680: Two drafts of On extirpating on war: Tao and deep-green pacifism Subject The topic of the resource Two computer printouts of draft paper. Second copy, first page is missing and reference page has handwritten annotation. Previous title: War and peace IV: Tao and deep-green. 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Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:c8da24a">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:c8da24a</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Como - Cupboard - Pile 3 Box 59: Nuclear Como House Como House > Cupboard > Pile 3 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/df8ea475ec2b745964d399c943fb6566.pdf e7cd3be667c873fe9f41ed27b4a5ce46 PDF Text Text WAR AND PEACE IV: TAO AND DEEP-GREEN Taoism and deep-green environmental theory, although closely aligned on very many issues, diverge over war. For Taoism, by contrast for instance with Buddhism, is not a pacific doctrine, but is committed to skilful defensive militarism. While it does not espouse a fortress mentality, Taoism certainly condones limited defensive military operations for specific purposes, a sort of guerilla warfare. By contrast, deep-green theory, while acknowledging the role of organised social defence, stands opposed to professional militarism, and thereby to military defence, and is committed to a principled pacifism. Conveniently a route through Taoism, philosophically fascinating in its own right, will lead us to problems of pacifism and towards deep-green theory. 1. Features of a Taoist critique of war and militarism. War did not receive a favourable press in ancient Chinese philosophy. Generally aggression and war were to be avoided. Even Confucius imposed very demanding conditions: for example, ‘when good men have instructed the people [in morals, agriculture, military tactics] for seven years, they may be allowed to bear arms,’ ‘If a ruler ... does not set himself right, even his commands will not be obeyed’ (SB p.41, italics added). Mo Tzu went much further than Confucius, roundly condemning war - on utilitarian grounds, that war yields no net benefit at any level (SB p.227). What is more, he backed his heavy condemnation practically (unlike some conspicuous contemporary theoretical utilitarians); ‘he did not hesitate to walk for ten days and ten nights in an effort to dissuade a ruler from making war’ (SB P-212). But none, it is said, went as far, in a detailed and sophisticated criticism of war, as Lao Tzu; ‘none has condemned war more strongly than Lao Tzu’. ‘[T]he opposition of Taoism to the use of force is well-known, and the most bitter attack on militarism if found in the Lao Tzu' (Chan, p.154, p.17.) But, after that splendid build-up, the text is slightly disappointing. Lao Tzu does not assert outright that war is an abomination, or even roundly condemn it. His critique of war, militarism, and military technology, is subtle and oblique, and, on the surface, far distanced from pacifism. For he does not recommend an end to war - in that genuine Taoists, those who possess Tao, will never participate in them - but expects wars to continue as unavoidable evils. Worse, he even goes so far as to outline proper attitudes to war and conduct in war, and indeed to suggest military techniques and strategies, some of which look decidedly devious. Among the classical works of Taoism, we focus on the Lao Tzu because, by contrast with other works, a remarkable component of that book is devoted to war and militarism. The apparent deviousness of the tactics Lao Tzu allocates serves to highlight what has been seen as ‘the most troublesome element’ in his philosophy (Chan p.17) - not so much however because they concern military operations, but because they are taken to apply much �2 more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p. 17). But why should military activity obtain some special dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done. • Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the military-practices paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p. 17) and to the possession and use of smart military weapons and technology - implying that war is far from all right - and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful) conduct in war, and so on - implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns the conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle paradox. Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position is taken, especially on war and militarism. One key pasage runs: Fine weapons are instruments of evil They are hated by creatures Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them. ... Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler. When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best principle Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy, For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men. He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ... For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies (LT p.154). Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil. They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes unavoidable (also p.152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse, obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao �3 does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death. Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories, underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses), an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects. Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking: It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p.17). ‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties. These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps overlapping, set of reasons). A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is the fashion in which ij manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show: �4 Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are “resolved,”. Deep-green chart: Arguments to Processing of dilemma, directive dilemma incompatible situational procedures output input prescriptions Corresponding Taoist chart: Black directive Box output It is evident that Taoism can be extended; information can be put into the Black Box rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deep-green theory, e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is i. indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to deep ecological theory (see UT). We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality (or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account, see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued. So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil (typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided, through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained, through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs. Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other types of war. But, more generally, try this:- �5 Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of action. Therefore, every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable. Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor, an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions. The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a one-sided perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even if that should be so sometimes, when there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may be unavoidable if unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided. Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is “unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within range by modem technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes. State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example, be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith which depicts all hunqpns as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine be unavoidable?1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate. Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically* 1 Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter; coherence requires relativization to ‘just wax for party d’.) �6 unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e. excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical costs. Then z/it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is also justifiable, on pacific grounds. Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition. The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized: Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow. Great wars are always followed by famines (p. 152). And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition of the widely-observed socio-environmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not however developed in Taoism.2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a military objective, with environmental security. The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters. But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”). 2 But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for what there is so far, see Naess p.160). On neo-Daoism, see UT. �7 2. On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism. Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about how they - those of the theoretical residue - are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep­ green theory begins to diverge from Taoism. In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game — in the generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the contestants, (warnng) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set­ up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object, construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities. Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life­ style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns. An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures, races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or, perhaps by extension,.between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and virtually all the worst wars. While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial contests. But in modem times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us distinguish such wars as techno-powered wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the �8 technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure (indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted - misdirected - in one way or another to this effort). Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An offensive war is one which ventures off a given party’s territory or recognised pad, “invading” that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded. Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor, which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory, e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken (LT p.152).3 The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.) Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinitional strategems, such as redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence” of a third party or place (whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy) democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive. Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is represented as a war qf liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones, such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market 3 There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation: I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive: I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222). These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting. �9 capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion. The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of political-economy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu: When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to fertilize (the fields ...). When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses thrive in the suburbs. There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. (LT p.181). But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessary, for cessation of such practices. The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15 years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth, the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years (the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite targets. Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism. A main distinction is between • conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals, and • social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4 4 Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin. �10 It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether. Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism. For example, Taoism is opposed to domination (LT p.152), whereas military operations frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep­ green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has no project for ending the era of wars; deep-green theory does. That project involves an elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference. A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include • elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and • force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in • contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in • elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation. Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust facts. �11 Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war - finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars - though no longer in ascendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars - the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military - the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs; likewise conquest. Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modem wars cannot be fully just wars. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just defensive war, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features introduced by modem technological wars and the character of modem civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf �12 Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, of what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modem wars cannot be environmentally sound. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the technology for, modem environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity and cruelty. 3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence ‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’ strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism? Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does not oppose certain uses of force (only really ///-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling. The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include • seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222) �13 • surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics: marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’ (p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced (LT p. 194). • advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will overcome strength (LT p.164, p.233). • coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices the charge of deviousness looks feeble. The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general, unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the legalist tactic, Tn order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving ‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, Tn order to contract, it is necessary first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and weakness turned hardness and strength. The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted (p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ (LT p.238). Much technology, military and other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices �14 paradox).5 The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence. To force the growth of life means ill omen. For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence (LT p. 197). One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wwwei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony. To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non­ interference that are excluded. However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite 5 Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible. A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of war, above all from irresponsible state power. As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why merely indifferent technology is out; there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness, itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size, such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off: reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs. �15 right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates, profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the machines of war industry stop. Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. 0 But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished.6 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far. For this paradox does not involve self-referential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the 6 Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it - designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative, thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following inconsistent triad: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetical to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing capitalism. �i 16 second premiss. 4. Standard and moral pacifism. Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace - and accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position - it is not (nowhere in the central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons:• It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart defensive wars. • It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance through the watershed thesis P2. It is morally wrong to use violence. By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles. Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism, notably European forms. Is deep green? There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use. As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly. They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix). Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery can be thwarted in this way. Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component is, in Amauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation, arbitration, ... - and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts - sanctions, substitutions (e.g. of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures),.... In brief standard pacifism is opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means. �17 Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military (using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g. turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident, then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item: ‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non­ violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest. Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries, of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions. They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which P2 holds, stretched pacifism? While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism (unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim. Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”, “fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous investigations (see esp. Al, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism 7 In Al this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism: overcomprehensive might have been better. �18 could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and many ordinary women, but much more extensively. The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist shoots one of them (it is elaborated in Al p.13). Interestingly, another stock example from the literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details of both see MD p. 10). Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation. This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes pacifism’ (p. 153 twice). The rehabilitation trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the commonsense position which most people hold - yet - pacifism after all was supposed to be radical moral doctrine - (p.153 rearranged).8 Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized - JWS “activism” is hardly trivial - as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and 8 JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his criticism, I don't know. �19 accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle, pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a radical doctrine. As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism is, as previous explained (e.g. Al p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it. A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (Al p.13), not ‘one acts in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS p.152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted (MD p.38). Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism, sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed. A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to “second best” consequentialist considerations,... already explicitly condemned’ (p. 154). What was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p. 152), so undercutting other deontic principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray. After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find ... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p.152) �There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes. There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p. 153). This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than populatization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts, providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p. 153). Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to prevent herself from being raped’ (p. 153 italics added). In the example so far described there is no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence. What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p. 153). Since she may thereby inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is ‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the threat’ (p. 150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The ‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons are appropriate in response to what attacks, p. 150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper bound on level of force. As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far hardly conclusive (as Al tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced, hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed. To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non­ violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world. Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage �21 routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and beyond human capacities - even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly. More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended, be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus, for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the “natural order” is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not separate humans out from the natural order) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route: The natural order is not an immoral order The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence. Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral (neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far). The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was alrady indicated in Al). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable, ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to �i 22 peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably modified P2 results: MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence.9 To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modem humans; it sets too high a moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively: Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced. Richard Sylvan* Appendix I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. The optly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even - in what was effectively a declaration of war - reiteration of the modem quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it - through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to 9 The generalization of P2, suggested in Al, to cover also the parallel situation of environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use vandolence. Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in JWS) � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document WAR AND PEACE IV: TAO AND DEEP-GREEN Taoism and deep-green environmental theory, although closely aligned on very many issues, diverge over war. For Taoism, by contrast for instance with Buddhism, is not a pacific doctrine, but is committed to skilful defensive militarism. While it does not espouse a fortress mentality, Taoism certainly condones limited defensive military operations for specific purposes, a sort of guerilla warfare. By contrast, deep-green theory, while acknowledging the role of organised social defence, stands opposed to professional militarism, and thereby to military defence, and is committed to a principled pacifism. Conveniently a route through Taoism, philosophically fascinating in its own right, will lead us to problems of pacifism and towards deep-green theory. 1. Features of a Taoist critique of war and militarism. War did not receive a favourable press in ancient Chinese philosophy. Generally aggression and war were to be avoided. Even Confucius imposed very demanding conditions: for example, ‘when good men have instructed the people [in morals, agriculture, military tactics] for seven years, they may be allowed to bear arms,’ ‘If a ruler ... does not set himself right, even his commands will not be obeyed’ (SB p.41, italics added). Mo Tzu went much further than Confucius, roundly condemning war - on utilitarian grounds, that war yields no net benefit at any level (SB p.227). What is more, he backed his heavy condemnation practically (unlike some conspicuous contemporary theoretical utilitarians); ‘he did not hesitate to walk for ten days and ten nights in an effort to dissuade a ruler from making war’ (SB P-212). But none, it is said, went as far, in a detailed and sophisticated criticism of war, as Lao Tzu; ‘none has condemned war more strongly than Lao Tzu’. ‘[T]he opposition of Taoism to the use of force is well-known, and the most bitter attack on militarism if found in the Lao Tzu' (Chan, p.154, p.17.) But, after that splendid build-up, the text is slightly disappointing. Lao Tzu does not assert outright that war is an abomination, or even roundly condemn it. His critique of war, militarism, and military technology, is subtle and oblique, and, on the surface, far distanced from pacifism. For he does not recommend an end to war - in that genuine Taoists, those who possess Tao, will never participate in them - but expects wars to continue as unavoidable evils. Worse, he even goes so far as to outline proper attitudes to war and conduct in war, and indeed to suggest military techniques and strategies, some of which look decidedly devious. Among the classical works of Taoism, we focus on the Lao Tzu because, by contrast with other works, a remarkable component of that book is devoted to war and militarism. The apparent deviousness of the tactics Lao Tzu allocates serves to highlight what has been seen as ‘the most troublesome element’ in his philosophy (Chan p.17) - not so much however because they concern military operations, but because they are taken to apply much 2 more widely, ‘to life in general’ (p. 17). But why should military activity obtain some special dispensation? Why should what is not tolerated more generally be exonerated there? But given that Taoism has here the virtue of consistency (i.e. uniformity on principles) and of universalizability, that simply leaves more explaining to be done. • Puzzles for Taoism, and wars as unavoidable evils There are two puzzles here in Taoism rather than one. There is the military-practices paradox, and, varying and generalising on that, there are life-practices paradoxes. The special paradox is generated by the following incompatible elements: on the one side, ‘the most bitter attack on militarism’, the well-known opposition of Taoism to the use of force (p. 17) and to the possession and use of smart military weapons and technology - implying that war is far from all right - and on the other, advocacy of certain (devious) military tactics, outlines of (deceitful) conduct in war, and so on - implying that war is all right after all. A straightforward generalisation of this paradox would look at other morally-sensitive parts of life, where some practice was strongly condemned yet engaged in (for many examples, see the dilemmas assembled in MD). But the variation of concern to Chan and the neo-Confucians concerns the conjunction of upright with devious practices in life, in particular in the life of the sage. For a Taoist sage is presumed to lead an upright straightforward life, yet appears to engage in devious and even deceitful practices incompatible with such a life-style. Call this the Taoist-lifestyle paradox. Evidently a good deal of explaining is required, as to how Taoism can coherently take the positions it appears to presume, both on war and peace, and on life more generally. A desirable preliminary would seem to be a little investigation of what position is taken, especially on war and militarism. One key pasage runs: Fine weapons are instruments of evil They are hated by creatures Therefore those who possess the Tao turn away from them. ... Weapons are instruments of evil, not the instruments of a good ruler. When he uses them unavoidably, he regards calm restraint as the best principle Even when he is victorious, he does not regard it as praiseworthy, For to praise victory is to delight in the slaughter of men. He who delights in the slaughter of men will not succeed in the empire. ... For a victory, let us observe the occasion with funeral-ceremonies (LT p.154). Wars, which involve the use of weapons, instruments of evil, are accordingly themselves evil. They are also evil because they involve the slaughter of men. But they are also sometimes unavoidable (also p.152). Therefore such wars are unavoidable evils. Such discourse, obtained by almost immediate inference from the passage, is within the standard orbit of dilemma talk. But Taoism lacks, through deliberately eschewing deontic talk, the discourse which enables direct expression of such dilemmas, or even direct condemnation of wars or of clever weapons. Instead the points are made by circumlocution, what the possesser of Tao 3 does, how the good ruler conducts himself, or by analogy, of victory in war with death. Unavoidable evils are the very stuff of deontic dilemmas (though many theories, underpinned by shonky logic, lack the resources for representing this stuff properly). Where something is unavoidably evil, it is both bad, because evil, and also not bad, doing it is excusable, because it is unavoidable. So, given such an argument (which has its weaknesses), an unavoidable evil is a genuinely dilemmatic object with inconsistent features. Certain wars have looked, since ancient times, like such dilemmatic objects. Revealingly, Chan tries to explain that ‘most troublesome element’ in Taoism, the military-practice paradox, through the following exercise in lateral thinking: It can ... be argued that Lao Tzu uses warfare to illustrate his principles of taking no action and weakness because warfare is among the most dynamic and critical of human experiences, just as the Indian classic, the Bhagavadgita chooses fighting as the theme on which to discuss the terrible dilemma whether one should fulfil his duty, as in the case of a soldier, and kill, or should fail in his duty and refrain from killing (p.17). ‘Just as’? The Indian classic prevents a classic moral dilemma, a dilemma represented in contemporary philosophy (following its rediscovery by Sartre), where there are incompatible duties: the duty to kill, because of one's role as a soldier, and the duty not to kill, because of one's human condition, and the supervenient dilemma of failing in and fulfilling one's duties. These dilemmas for an individual (male, as it then was) are replicated in dilemmas regarding war for group institutions: at bottom, the obligation to engage in war (for one set of compelling reasons) as contraposed with the obligation not to engage in war (for another, perhaps overlapping, set of reasons). A theory of moral dilemmas (as worked out for example in MD) is crucial for an adequate treatment of major issues in war and peace, especially (as will become evident) for a viable strong pacifism. But Taoism, eschewing deontic discourse, lacks the apparatus to state or develop moral dilemmas. Hence it is logically excluded from giving a full or adequate account of what is going on conceptually. One of the philosophically fascinating feature of Taoism is the fashion in which ij manages to avoid deontic discourse, and to substitute for direct deontic discourse or improvise circumlocutions when deontic discourse would otherwise appear inevitable (cf. UT for examples). But there are costs. One is inability to display the mechanism of deontic dilemmas, or to show what reasons and argument lie behind Taoist prounouncements and conclusions (the shortage of Taoism on argument is another philosophically conspicious feature, also observed in UT). As conceptual apparatus for analysizing moral dilemmas is missing, most of the machinery involved has to be passed over. Only the outcomes, as Taoism sees them, are presented, as if from a black box. Taoism blacks out the story on deontic dilemmas that deep-green theory can tell, as the following diagram tries to show: 4 Diagrams . Charting the processing of deontic dilemmas that are “resolved,”. Deep-green chart: Arguments to Processing of dilemma, directive dilemma incompatible situational procedures output input prescriptions Corresponding Taoist chart: Black directive Box output It is evident that Taoism can be extended; information can be put into the Black Box rendering it less opaque. That extension can be made so as to conform to deep-green theory, e. so that the extended Taoist chart, a neo-Daoist chart, looks like the deep-green one. That is i. indeed essentially how neo-Daoism get characterised, in terms of conformity of the extension to deep ecological theory (see UT). We are now placed to explain how to dissolve, or at least neutralize, the paradoxes deriving from repudiation of militarism, an awkwardly qualified repudiation in the case of Taoism. In a significant sense there is no resolving of genuine deontic dilemmas. The principles delineating the fix may stand, incompatible, signalling the persisting suboptimality (or better, sublimenality) of the dilemmatic situation. Where there is a dilemma, involved parties should try to do well enough in the sublimenal circumstances (for a much fuller account, see MD). Thus where there is a war, itself a non-Taoist process, engaged or caught up Taoists will not abandon Taoism. Taoist methods will be applied, Taoist strategies pursued. So much for theoretical representation and (non-)resolution of life-practices and other dilemmas, details of which are readily elaborated in deep-green extensions of Taoism. A prior substantive issue is whether dilemmas always are generated: not whether wars are evil (typically they are, an issue we shall come to), but whether wars are unavoidable. Analysis of wars does not bear that familiar claim out decisively. Many wars could have been avoided, through conciliation, negotiation, restraint, etc., and no worse results apparently obtained, through sanctions, exchange, trade, etc. Through a typology of wars (coming up) that conjecture can be given some substance. Consider, for instance, what would be walk-overs. Then there is little point in making a military response. So war can be avoided. Certainly an occupation, to be met in a different way, may still occur. And so on, perhaps, for various other types of war. But, more generally, try this:- 5 Every war involves an aggressor, who makes an aggressive move. Such an aggressor could always avoid that move, taking a different (or a do-nothing) course of action. Therefore, every war can be avoided. No war is entirely unavoidable. Setting aside determinism (which renders all actual wars along with all other events unavoidable), it could be argued that a war sometimes simply boils up, without an aggressor, an intensification of a conflagatory situation. There are grounds for scepticism regarding such examples; for such intensification can only occur if provocative military moves are made, for instance troops are stationed in provocative or risky positions. The presumption that certain wars are unavoidable typically derives from a one-sided perspective on war, a defender's perspective. A defender has no option, so it is routinely averred, but to respond to a determined aggressor. Even if that should be so sometimes, when there is no running away or going underground, it does not establish that such a war is unavoidable; for it neglects the role of the aggressor. By a smarter formulation, relevant features of unavoidability can be captured. Although wars may not be unavoidable, defensive action in wars that have been initiated may be unavoidable. At least such action may be unavoidable if unacceptably high costs (death, enslavement, etc.) are not to be avoided. Thereupon another highly relevant feature emerges: the linkage of avoidability to costs. For whether an action is unavoidable then depends upon what costs a party is prepared to incur before and when insisting on action: but this appears entirely unacceptable. How can what is “unavoidable” cease to be so when some further costs are absorbed? However with basics like survival, a certain liberty, and so on, we do reach such bounds. An important type of unavoidability. We also reach scenarios, unavailable to Lao Tzu but kindly brought within range by modem technology, which may appear to justify aggressive strikes. State Z, while not an aggressor, is carrying out practices which will impose unacceptably high costs upon peoples of other states and implacably refuses to desist. It could, for example, be poisoning air or water flowing to other states. But ,to make the case vivid, let us suppose that state Z is constructing, for reasons Zeders find convincing (they are committed to a faith which depicts all hunqpns as incorrigible sinners and unworthy of life), an effective doomsday machine. Would an (aggressive) preemptory strike designed to disable or destroy the machine be unavoidable?1 In a sense, No; in another Yes. For different modalities can operate. Physically outsiders need to do nothing, but watch Zeders go about their zealous work. But deontically they are under heavy moral pressure, because of the costs of standing by idly: if the human race is worth anything very substantial, then they are obliged to act, action is deontically* 1 Whether it would be justifiable, or just, are separate issues. But it is evident enought that such scenarios further damage the obsolescent idea of just war. For, according to received doctrine, a just war is defensive. (How such a war can be fought at all is another matter; coherence requires relativization to ‘just wax for party d’.) 6 unavoidable. Here is a situation where a proposed reduction of deontic logic proves illuminating. Obligation is explicated through not implying, or necessitating, the sanction, i.e. excessive ethical costs such as extermination. Let us explain deontic unavoidability analogously: an action is so unavoidable if not undertaking it would result in excessive ethical costs. Then z/it can be established that there is no other way than a military strike, an act of war, to ensure that the Zeders desist (and certainly we can envisage scenarios like that), then that is deontically unavoidable. It is also dilemmatic for those committed to, or inclined towards pacifism; and it is, for them at least, but paradoxically justifiable, as the negation is also justifiable, on pacific grounds. Scenarios like that sketched, that appear to render certain wars deontically unavoidable require but little or no elaboration to render them evil. Evil indeed is such a standard feature of standard wars that at least its great presence call for little supporting evidence. But it has taken to vast stretch of human history to reach this general point of recognition. The manifold evils of war Lao Tzu very early recognised and emphasized: Wherever armies are stationed, briars and thorns grow. Great wars are always followed by famines (p. 152). And nowadays followed by great tides of refugees. This passage includes not only recognition of the widely-observed socio-environmental consequences of war, but, more striking, very early recognition of the severe environmental impact of military forces. That critique is not however developed in Taoism.2 Only recently has it been pushed substantially further. And only recently could a new, most significant twist occur, the merging of resource security, long a military objective, with environmental security. The appalling idea has recently been floated that the military, in need of new work and roles with the apparent warming of West-East relations and cooling of the Cold War, should exchange usual military idleness for meddling in environmental matters: regulation and policing of environmental resources, ensurance of environmental security of powerful states, and similar. This is a bit like reassigning those imprisoned for child abuse to managing kindergartens; for consider the impressive military record of environmental vandalism. What the military is alleged to offer is a structure appropriate and available for handling such matters. But, to the contrary, it is precisely the sort of hierarchical, authoritarian expensive structure that should be wound down and up as soon as the opportunity appears, as (briefly) now, rather than being retained and shockingly reoriented (as a state-serving “Greenwar”). 2 But a bridge to deep-green theory can be made through neo-Daoism, an updating of Taoism in confirmity with deep ecology (which however is somewhat thin and threadbare on war; for what there is so far, see Naess p.160). On neo-Daoism, see UT. 7 2. On the divergence of deep-green from Taoism. Having arrived, by better or worse arguments, at the conclusion that wars, though generally evil, may be sometimes unavoidable, it is evidently important to say something about how they - those of the theoretical residue - are to be conducted. By appropriate conduct the damage they do may be reduced; also the conduct should be appropriate to the funereal nature of wars (to exceed Taoist resources for stating this sort of point). It is at this stage that deep­ green theory begins to diverge from Taoism. In further explaining the Taoist and deep-green critiques of war, and diverting objections to them, a rough and preliminary typology of wars is important. It is also of passing interest in its own philosophical right. War, according to English Dictionaries, is a ‘contest carried on by force of arms, typically between nations or states’. More exactly, war is a game — in the generous technical sense of game-theory, with players, rules, goals, strategies, and so on carried on in significant part by military means, normally between states or substates. Call the contestants, (warnng) parties. They typically represent of course larger populations. The set­ up between parties resembles the arrangements of players in game theory. There are several analogical extensions of the term war to cover games where one of the parties is an object, construed as hostile (an enemy of the state), such as Crime, Drugs, Poverty or Nature. These we can set aside as analogical wars. Of course wars form only a part of military activities. Military interests and objectives have always stretched significantly further than war, to include surveillence and security, easily extended to resource security, environmental security and life­ style security, and beyond that to political stability and other political matters. Evidently military ambitions have far over-extended themselves in bagging such democratic concerns. An anarchist solution to the whole problem of war, which some have seen Taoism as reaching towards, is immediate: eliminate the source of war, states. Unfortunately it is not quite that simple (and that's not simple). For wars can also occur between nations, cultures, races or tribes (which are not such artifices as states, and not always so readily or desirably abolished), between inhabited regions, and between factions within states (thus civil wars) or, perhaps by extension,.between factions within other social structures (thus, for instance, gang wars). But undoubtedly eliminating states and aspiring states would abolish most wars and virtually all the worst wars. While “nonviolent wars” are excluded by definition, by virtue of ‘force of arms’, token wars, limited wars, and so on, are not: for instance, wars fought by small armed teams representing competing sides (cf. medieval and science fiction war games). As wars are hemmed in by conventions and agreed rules, there is no reason in principle why they should not be reduced to two person contests, fought under strict rules like boxing or gladiatorial contests. But in modem times wars have never taken such sensible forms, but have been much larger affairs, making heavy (though fortunately restricted) use of latest technology. Let us distinguish such wars as techno-powered wars. They have, directly or indirectly (for the 8 technology may be bought or bartered), a heavy research and development support structure (indeed the bulk of contemporary science is devoted - misdirected - in one way or another to this effort). Among wars, an important distinction is that between offensive and defensive wars. An offensive war is one which ventures off a given party’s territory or recognised pad, “invading” that of another party or parties; correlatively defensive parties, if they have not also invaded. Force projection typifies offensive practice. Plainly, offensiveness and defensiveness are not strictly features of a war, but of parties to a war. In a two-party war, while both parties can easily act offensively, the possibility of both parties proceeding defensively is excluded, unless they share territory. (Even then issues may arise as to which party, if any, was the aggressor, which started it, was responsible for starting it, and so on.) Thus mutually defensive wars between contemporary states are impossible (but would be possible if states shared territory, e.g. if Eire and Britain shared the territory of Northern Ireland). Tao-accredited wars were defensive wars, never wars aiming at domination: last-resort wars, in which no pride was taken (LT p.152).3 The pretence that offensive wars are defensive is widespread, and reflected in the subterfuge that departments or ministries of war are those of defence, security or whatever. (If they really were what they purport to be, we should be well on the way to an end to war.) Offensive practices are rendered defensive ones by shabby redefinitional strategems, such as redefining ‘defensive’ to include defence of ideals like democracy or liberty, infringed (or allegedly infringed) on territories abroad, or to include “defence” of a third party or place (whence every offensive war is “defensive”). In the present war in which part of Arabia is engulfed (February 1991), one party claims to be defending what really was (or should be) part of its territory, namely Kuwait, another party to be defending (what Kuwait did not enjoy) democracy. It is a doubly offensive war presented in this guise as jointly defensive. Aggressive wars are waged for a variety of reasons, but usually for resources or access to resources or markets, a matter often disguised by appeal to ideology (thus a war for oil is represented as a war qf liberation). But there are other reasons than narrowly economic ones, such as religion (as with crusades), power and aggrandisement (as in building an empire), and so on. Nor are those reasons necessarily far separated; ideologies like Marxism and market 3 There is one line in LT that may suggest that attack was sometimes justifiable, namely ‘For deep love helps one to win in the case of attack’ (p.219). But how can compassion be appropriate unless this attack is within a defensive setting, a larger context of unavoidability or such like. A passage shortly below confirms this interpretation: I dare not take the offensive but I take the defensive: I dare not advance an inch but I retreat a foot (p.222). These are advances and attacks within a defensive setting. 9 capitalism, for example, exhibit many of the features of religion. The economic reasons for war appear to have become much more complex with the advent of an integrated world economy. At the same time many of the independent reasons for economic wars are now obsolete. For to powerful states accrue the advantages of war without war. At least most of the former economic advantages of war can be obtained without expensive wars, through trade, institution of economic dependence, etc. Small medieval wars were sometimes instituted for the collection of neighbouring riches and booty, a kind of piracy meeting conditions of war. “Small” contemporary wars can be waged for a remarkable mix of political-economy ends: to establish a regime favourable to economic penetration and profit repatriation, to subjugate markets and to remove competition, to boost a sagging weapons economy by using up old stocks and also testing new equipment, to restart a depressed economy, and so on. Such wars, along with the economic aims which motivate them, are in effect heavily castigated by Lao Tzu: When Tao prevails in the world, galloping horses are turned back to fertilize (the fields ...). When Tao does not prevail in the world, war horses thrive in the suburbs. There is no calamity greater than lavish desires. (LT p.181). But it does exceed evidential warrant to claim that Tao is not only sufficient, but necessary, for cessation of such practices. The practice of regularly stimulating complex military-saturated economies through war is reminiscent of older, much ridiculed practices in simpler societies. They now ridicule the Tsembaga, who proceeded to destroy much of their surplus product by going to war every 5-15 years (cf Rapaport). But they do not similarly ridicule the most powerful nation on the Earth, the USA, which proceeds to write off a colossal amount of surplus in war every 10-20 years (the Gulf war liquidated some $1.7 billion per day). Taoists would. For ridicule was a favoured method, an important rhetorical strategem, and war and its idiocy were favourite targets. Some classification of defensive wars is also important, for various reasons: reducing and abolishing wars, their costs and damage, restructuring societies away from war and military practices, and, not least, for appreciating Taoism. A main distinction is between • conventional defence, maintained by armies of armed soldiers, many of them professionals, and • social defence, where there are no such armies or but fragments of them, and defence is carried out through social networks of a significant part of society.4 4 Details of social defence are presented in Sharp and in Martin. 10 It is here that Taoism and deep-green theory part company. Under Taoism, the state will have a standing army, but a defensive army operating by strange, surprise tactics (p.201). No doubt defensive wars are to remain last resort action. Nonetheless the state will operate in secrecy, in a way incompatible with decentralised social defence; people will be kept in the dark about smart weapons of the state; and they too will be surprised, along with presumed enemies of the state. By contrast, under deep-green theory, there should be no hidden smart weapons of state; information would flow more freely and not be hidden from the people (who should retain influence in informed decision making). Under deep-green, standing armies, and more generally military organisation, will be wound down altogether. Taoism should have pushed its searching criticism further. For military objectives, easily acquired by standing armies with time on their hands, are frequently incompatible with Taoism. For example, Taoism is opposed to domination (LT p.152), whereas military operations frequently seek or involve domination; and military structure is invariably hierarchical and authoritarian. Taoism aims for self-regulation, wherever feasible (cf. p.201); so does deep­ green theory, which is one reasons why it aims to dispose of standing armies, as an important preliminary to the withering away of states themselves (military forces being major props of state control and power, and often maintained primarily for internal state security). Taoism has no project for ending the era of wars; deep-green theory does. That project involves an elimination of standing armies, too often poised for fighting or political interference. A recommended route to end war consists in progressive scaling down: reduction of the means and manpower. The initial stages are well-known, and include • elimination of nuclear, biological and chemical weaponry, and • force reduction. It can hardly be pretended that the Earth's states have managed to proceed very far on even this complex of stages. The next stage consists in • contraction to defensive capacities only, and the final stage consists in • elimination of remaining military defensive forces, and adoption, so far as required, of social defence practices. The complete route thus involves complete demilitarisation. Reasons why deep-green aims to proceed the full distance are readily grasped by considering the environmental shallowness of an otherwise cogent traditional case for the sharp curtailment of wars and militarism. The traditional Western case against wars has been primarily along two dimensions: social and moral. Wars are highly disruptive of the social fabric; wars may be unjust. From these joint features, it was argued that wars should be a matter of last resort, to be fought to ensure peace. It was argued further that only just wars should be fought. Just wars were rare objects. But as there was little evidence of the decline and fall of wars, much effort was expended, more practically and unsuccessfully, upon endeavouring to improve the calibre of wars, and more theoretically, upon trying to characterize just war satisfactorily, or rather to bend the notion in an effort to approximate the gory unjust facts. 11 Progress was long hindered, furthermore, because there was always a rival positive perspective on wars, which encouraged the exaltation of wars and military feats. It also facilitated the transfer of the favourable image of war to other problem areas, whence the long and apparently successful war against Nature (but the short-term successes are turning into long-term problems), the short and unsuccessful war against Poverty, and so on. Behind all this is the complex idea of war as rejuvenating, even cleansing, like fire; of war as heroic, and glorious, of war as the supreme testing ground of men. These pictures of war - finally shattered by the first World War (where even the poets began to tell of horrors and atrocities) and subsequent technological wars - though no longer in ascendency, have by no means vanished. The notion of war as rejuvenating a flagging economy persists, along with the practice of keeping capitalism running smoothly by integrating substantial military components into the industrial engine. With the development of highly technological wars - the celebrated development of the dirty industrial age is substantially military - the traditional negative case has grown in strength. Wars have become much more damaging, with the potential for much more that is significantly worse, and the possibility of a just war has correspondingly contracted, virtually to zero. The opposition to war has likewise grown, but more than correspondingly with the rise of women in social and political influence. Wars have almost always and everywhere been Men's affairs; likewise conquest. Deep-green theory accepts much of the traditional negative case, but would further strengthen it. For example, the stricture against unjust wars, as out and out immoral, can be strengthened, through the following syllogism: All wars should be fully just wars. Modem wars cannot be fully just wars. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. A fully just war is not merely a just war, but a war those just character can be reliably forecast in advance. A modern war is of course a war that deploys modern technology, at least that available this century. The evidential basis for the second premiss derives from much information that collateral damage, damage to innocent bystanders and involved citizens is always likely and cannot be excluded. Such wars are always liable to violate uncontroversial requirements for a just war, even if they are purely “conventional” wars, not throwing radiation or chemical or biological weapons around. From a contemporary viewpoint the traditional doctrine of a just war, really of a just defensive war, is seriously out of date. The reasons for this reach wider than the new features introduced by modem technological wars and the character of modem civilization, with its giant cities littered with dangerous and vulnerable military targets. They have also to do with the chauvinism of the justice proposed, which is shallow human justice, not natural or environmental justice. There is no consideration of justice to other creatures or to the Earth (cf 12 Naess p.160). Two troubles are really intertwined here: conceptual difficulties with too narrow a notion of justice, and ideological difficulties with too narrow a vision of what is an object of value, of what counts. The deep-green case against war adds to the traditional case a further dimension, neglected until very recently: the environmental dimension. It has suddenly been seen that wars are typically environmental atrocities. Earlier, of course, “environments” were simply backgrounds, backdrops in paintings and plays, to the real drama. Contemporary technological wars tend to be not merely social tragedies but environmental ones as well. There is a doctrine of just war, but it is a human chauvinistic affair. There is no similarly developed doctrine of an ecologically sound war, a deep ecological war. Unless any such war were literally different from modern wars, that is from contemporary technological wars, it would overstep permitted bounds. For such wars are characteristically ecological disasters. Hardened military people, desensitized by a rigorous unethical training, feel even less compunction about degrading or destroying environments or members of other species than they do of maiming or killing civilians through “collateral” activity. Matching the no-just-war syllogism is a no-sound-war syllogism: All wars should be environmentally sound wars. Modem wars cannot be environmentally sound. Therefore, there should be no modern wars. The argument for the second premiss has of course to be different. It looks to the information accumulating on what wars do to natural and built environments. The Vietnam and Gulf wars both inflicted immense damage on natural environments or what was left of them. The environmental effects of war are not confined to direct and collateral damage. There are indirect effects also. Thus, for instance, war also supplied the mechanism of, and the technology for, modem environmental destruction: explosives, bulldozers from tanks, etc. As well, training for war and engagement in war have much fostered, along with attitudes that make for social callousness or ruthlessness, those that contribute to environmental insensitivity and cruelty. 3. Puzzles about Taoist strategy and its critiques of technology and violence ‘It is surprising how much of the Lao Tzu is devoted to military strategy’. Which strategies? Surprise, above all. But why such strategies? ‘Do they not contradict the Taoists’ strong opposition to the use of force’ (Chan p.222), the implied commitment to quietism? Briefly, Taoism is not committed to quietism, and while certainly antagonistic to violence, does not oppose certain uses of force (only really ///-forcing, as will be explained). Even so, the emphasis on military strategy remains puzzling. The strategies, many of them relevant to social defence, include • seriousness, not ‘making light of the enemy’ (p.222) 13 • surprise, and nonvisibility (p.201). The defensive strategy involves guerilla tactics: marching without formation, holding weapons without seeming to have them, confronting enemies without seeming to meet them (p.222). But even in times of peace, ‘smart weapons of the state should not be displayed to the people’ (p.164). Such recommendations helped to fuel the charge of deviousness lodged against Lao Tzu. But look at part of the reason for concealing smart weapons: ‘The more smart weapons the people have, the more troubled the state will be’ (p.201). Smart weapons are carried in corrupt states, where the rich engage in conspicuous consumption and the people are suppressed, not where Tao is practiced (LT p. 194). • advance from weakness, flexibility but firmness. Weakness is the principle of life and will overcome strength (LT p.164, p.233). • coolness and non-competition (LT p.233, p.164). Like these, most of the general strategies are standard Taoist practices simply applied to military conduct. For these standard practices the charge of deviousness looks feeble. The response applies more generally to other allegedly devious political strategies. For the strategies are but application of Taoist principles and techniques to warfare, politics and elsewhere. Nothing excludes application of these techniques to what are accounted, in general, unnecessary evils (which must sometimes, on other Taoist grounds, be countered). Nor, to meet the main criticism, need any deceit or deviousness be involved; nor is it. In particular, the legalist tactic, Tn order to grasp, it is necessary first to give’ (LT p.164), is cited as involving ‘an element of deceit’ ‘undeniably’, and ‘worse’ it is ‘morally questionable’ (Chan p.17). But in order for me to grasp your hand in a normal handshake, it is necessary first for me to give my hand. There is no deceit here, nothing morally questionable. All the tactics permit of benign construals, of a Taoist kind. Consider, for instance, Tn order to contract, it is necessary first to expand’ (LT p.164). In order to bend a copper pipe to the intended angle, it is better to bend it first a little further than required. The transformation of water to ice (both favoured natural items for symbolic purposes: natural processes which may look devious!) neatly illustrates the Taoist principle (which is however hardly necessary), and shows softness and weakness turned hardness and strength. The Taoist critique of militarism is as much a critique of technology as of war. Sharp weapons, ‘smart weapons’ as we might now say, come in for much critical attention, as we have already noticed. Only in corrupt and degenerate states are they displayed or flaunted (p.194, p.164); in deep-green regions smart weapons of state’ would not be retained unexhibited. The people will not have them for they mean trouble (p.201); for similar reasons deep-green regions will be free of them. So, it seems, will ideal Taoist regions: ‘Even if there are arrows and weapons, none will display them’ (LT p.238). Much technology, military and other, is excluded under the Taoist edict against violence (a further facet of the military-practices 14 paradox).5 The powerful critique of militarism in the Tao-te Ching is coupled with strong opposition to violence. Some of the linkage is evident enough. Militarism as practised represents an ultimate form of state (or party) violence. A basic theme is that violent practices will come to an unnatural end, and accordingly to a non-Taoist end (generalising LT p.176). While force may occur in spectacular, but satisfactory, natural forms, force is duly distinguished from violence. To force the growth of life means ill omen. For the mind to employ the vital force without restraint means violence (LT p. 197). One who follows Tao does not apply dominating force, which usually has had results bringing requital (p.152). Dominating force, like power, is in general castigated, under doctrine of wwwei, no forced actions, no violence. To force natural growth is deviant, destroying harmony. To stop natural growth is deviant. But there is a significant difference between force and violence. To intentionally employ destructive force is to do violence. To so force things is condemned. To remain in harmony with things one does not so force things or practice violence. There is a non-interference principle at work, which also indicates types of non­ interference that are excluded. However Taoism does not always get the distinction between force and violence quite 5 Under contemporary technology and technological arrangements, such as the storage of quantities of oil and nuclear and chemical materials in great cities, wars have assumed new and very destructive dimensions, to the point of being utterly irresponsible. A different approach to technology, as to war, is now mandatory. These are no longer things that can in principle be nicely confined and need not touch parties outside the fray. An important part of ending wars, “winning the war against wars”, is removing the technology of war, above all from irresponsible state power. As for which technology to try to jettison and which to try to retain or improve, it is not so difficult to indicate, provided evaluative terminology is not outlawed. What is wanted is technology that is good in its place, what should be excluded is technology that is indifferent or bad or potentially so. Technology to be justified has to do something worthwhile, it has to address identifiable respectable needs. That is why merely indifferent technology is out; there is no virtue in technology for technology's sake, as it is a mere means technique. It is because of the crucial evaluative component in choice of technology that appropriateness, itself evaluative, comes closer to encapsulating the criterion than other recent efforts. Size, such as smallness, or intermediateness, are not what matter, though modest and not excessive technologies are likely to fare better in satisfying appropriateness. In simpler societies, small technology is of course more appropriate; for that is what is good there. From known criteria for what is good these other features for locally appropriate technology can be read off: reliability, esp. in maintenance, functioning well and safely under the expected range of operating conditions (which may be difficult), ease of repair, capital cheapness and repair inexpensiveness, environmental benignness, and meeting sound social needs. 15 right. ‘Vital force without restraint’, intentionally excessive force, is only part of what counts as violence, which is more generally force which violates, i.e. transgresses, descrecrates, profanes, injures, outrages, etc. It is thus a negatively connoted force, an evil force in some specified intentional respect. There is a tendency for Taoist commentators, not Taoists, to regard Taoism as condemning all uses, or even occurrences, of force, but this is not so. Rather intentional ill-forcing is what is castigated, what is deviant. Thus Taoism does not exclude a range of defensive practices, which make satisfactory use of natural forces, like letting the machines of war industry stop. Those who would abolish war and its machinery, substituting for it nonwarlike and ideally nonviolent methods, technology, and strategies, have been confronted not merely with much sub-rational abuse but with plenty of criticism and even some paradoxes. Here is a recent paradox concerning war and nonviolence: • War must be abolished. One reason is simply economic. We can no longer afford it, and the opportunity costs are enormous. Along with other extraordinarily wasteful activities, it is an anachronism. • Doing so cannot be accomplished without violence, i.e. in effect, given the types of violence involved, without what amounts to war. According to a fuller version of this premiss, the process of abolishing a war would only be achieved through a revolution so profound that it could not succeed without extensive and extreme violence, amounting to (civil) war. 0 But then war cannot be abolished without war. Therefore, war which must be abolished cannot be abolished.6 This “paradox” has been compared with the Liar paradox, but the parallel does not persist far. For this paradox does not involve self-referential features, and is easily broken, as follows. Let the “last war” be not the last standard war but the revolution abolishing war. Then, given that the revolution is successful, war will be abolished therewith, i.e. with that last war. There need be no regress, given again a successful outcome. All the premisses stand intact, but the conclusion, following the ‘therefore’ is a nonsequitur. However, while the dissolution of the argument is accordingly logically fine, the route is repugnant. Standard pacifism challenges the 6 Brian Medlin, who forcefully propounded this puzzle, set other analogous puzzles alongside it - designed to reveal deep difficulties in contemporary political, and especially alternative, thought. Another puzzle, concerning liberty and repression in the context of capitalism, revolved around the following inconsistent triad: • capitalism must be removed, but liberty retained. • capitalism cannot be removed without repression. • repression is antithetical to liberty. The puzzle is resolved as with the analogous puzzle of abolishing. Let the “last capitalist” action before the days of liberty be the repressive but liberating revolution overthrowing capitalism. i 16 second premiss. 4. Standard and moral pacifism. Although Taoism is strongly opposed to war, and much in favour of peace - and accordingly by prevailing standards a substantially pacific position - it is not (nowhere in the central texts) committed to pacifism in usual senses, for two different reasons:• It is not, by contrast with pacifism, opposed to all types of warfare, for example smart defensive wars. • It eschews deontology in terms of which moral pacifism is commonly stated, for instance through the watershed thesis P2. It is morally wrong to use violence. By contrast with Taoism, deep environmentalism does not avoid deontic claims, and is committed in principle to nonviolent technologies and ways and to pacifistic principles. Moreover, certain forms of deep environmentalism are completely committed to pacifism, notably European forms. Is deep green? There is heavy contemporary opposition to pacifism, as there also was to Taoism in the warring times when Taoism was first being promulgated. Many of the central institutions of contemporary life are intricated in coercion, violence and war. The most prominent contemporary institutions, states, are premissed on these elements of damaging force; they claim entitlement to use them widely, and even claim a certain territorial monopoly on their use. As a result they are having constantly to engage in them in attempt to maintain that monopoly. They are certainly the main perpetrators of wars, and of violence. They are indeed inured to wars, are in constant preparation for wars, yet propound dialectial (and normally dishonest and cynical) doctrines of peace through war (for a recent example see the appendix). Unremarkably then, the extensive propagandistic machinery of state has invested heavily in “justificatory” exercises in favour of controlled use, its own use, of destructive force, and continues to inveigh against pacifism. Because a routine trick in this sophistical repetoire consists in conflating pacifism with extreme, naive and inplausible, forms, an inevitable and important early task commits in unscrambling senses of ‘pacifism’. Semantical skulduggery can be thwarted in this way. Pacifism, as explained by English dictionaries, invariably concerns wars and warfare, and contains two components, negative and, elaborating on that, positive:- The negative component is, in Amauld's word, anti-War-ism, opposition (in ways to be further specified) to all forms of warfare (see OED). The positive component supplies alternative ways of settling disputes (what it is supposed that wars with some semblance of justification involve), such as negotiation, arbitration, ... - and, adding to too narrow dictionary accounts - sanctions, substitutions (e.g. of sporting events, operatic contests, cooperative ventures),.... In brief standard pacifism is opposition to all warfare and resolution of potential wars by other nonmilitary means. 17 Plainly the opposition to warfare, like the sanctions and so on, cannot itself be military (using soldiers and other devices of war), on pain of some incoherence. But otherwise the ways of opposition can be many and various: they can certainly be active, as with nonviolent demonstrations, resistance movements, and so forth, and they may also be devious (e.g. turning the forces of war upon themselves so they are neutralised). It quickly becomes evident, then, that some of the dictionaries offer but loaded definitions which, by restricting the negative components, reduce the initial appeal and plausibility of pacifism. Consider the Concise English definition of the negative component: ‘the doctrine of non-resistance to hostilities and of total non-co-operation with any form of warfare’. Thereby excluded are forms of pacifism which offer active and plausible alternatives to warfare such as social defence. The Concise English tends to force pacifism into what the Oxford English Dictionary lists as its final item: ‘often, with depreciatory implication, the advocacy of peace at any price’, ‘in any circumstance’. Pacifism can easily resist being forced into these sorts of circumstances: it has many resources, as an extensive series of texts on alternatives to war, such as negotiation, non­ violent action and social defence, from Taoism to contemporary environmentalism attest. Academic philosophers have much advanced the semantical strategy of some dictionaries, of rendering pacifism more difficult from the very outset by narrow and biassed definitions. They have stretched the term from its restricted setting of warfare, confined to state and organised gang violence, to cover all forms of violence, from state and interstate to, what is very different, personal and interpersonal violence. Call the resulting considerably stretched notion of pacifism, according to which it is morally wrong to use violence, according to which P2 holds, stretched pacifism? While stretched pacifism certainly includes standard pacifism (unless the notions of war and warfare are tampered with), the converse is very far from being the case. A pacifist is in no way committed to stretched pacifism, which is a much more problematic and difficult position than standard pacifism. There are several, substantially different reasons for this, which will be picked up seriatim. Stretched pacifism, also misleadingly called moral pacifism, has looked a very easy critical target to moral philosophers. Many the effusive philosopher who, upon sighting such a target, has charged, whooping such rhetoric as “incoherent”, “inconsistent”, “insensitive”, “fanatical”. However, with improved logical technology now available for accommodating and treating moral dilemmas, it is no great feat to resist such attacks, in the fashion of previous investigations (see esp. Al, also MD). A main aim was to demonstrate that stretched pacifism was not so stupid as it was made out to be or appeared to be to these inured to present dominant violent ways. So far from being stupid, it is viable. In future gentler times stretched pacifism 7 In Al this notion was contrasted with standard pacifism as comprehensive pacifism: overcomprehensive might have been better. 18 could even be realised for whole communities of creatures (as some genuinely Christian sects envisaged); whence it will finally be seen to be feasible not merely for sages and supermen, and many ordinary women, but much more extensively. The method of philosophical accommodation was through moral dilemmas. The sort of moral dilemma that stretched pacifism can induce derives as follows. On the one side stands the theme P2, Wv, in convenient symbols, for Wrong V-ing, violencing. Now this implies to WB, where B presents a case of of violence. On the other side, particular circumstances develop which lead to W ~B, because ~B would produce in the circumstances considerable wrong, for instance extensive violence, mass murder, etc. One stock example from the literature concerns calling off the firing squad about to shoot several captives if the pacifist shoots one of them (it is elaborated in Al p.13). Interestingly, another stock example from the literature concerns standard pacifism (it can also be presented in terms of patriotism; for details of both see MD p. 10). Resolution of intractable moral dilemmas is, where it is required, situational. The agent decides in the situation, within the fix, what to do. There are many ways in which such decision making can proceed, less rational, such as those applying chance or involving bad faith, or more rational, such as those applying consequentialist decision theory (for details see MD, pp.32-9). A decision theory taking account of all that should be included will not however be purely consequential. It would also take account of relevant motivation. This defence and rehabilitation of moral pacifism has been challenged, in particular by Smith (hereafter JWS). JWS claims the defence offered is a ‘failure because it trivializes pacifism’ (p. 153 twice). The rehabilitation trivializes pacifism because it entails that pacifism doesn't substantially differ from a form of activism which holds that while violence is always wrong one is sometimes justified on consequentialist grounds for preferring violent acts, if these acts are lesser evils than any other real alternatives. This is the commonsense position which most people hold - yet - pacifism after all was supposed to be radical moral doctrine - (p.153 rearranged).8 Part of the criticism is, then, not so much that pacifism is trivialized - JWS “activism” is hardly trivial - as that pacifism is popularised, deflated from a radical position to the commonsense position most people hold (p.154 also). Yet not a shred of evidence is adduced that JWS activism is such a populist position. Available evidence, for example from peace movements and oppositional opinion polls, suggests the very opposite: that, for instance, most people support state-justified conventional wars with the military violence they incur, and 8 JWS now informs me that he has changed his position. Whether the move effects his criticism, I don't know. 19 accordingly do not hold that violence is always wrong. From such a commonsense angle, pacifism with its condemnation of conventional wars and the violence they involve remains a radical doctrine. As regards wars and other violence-incurring social authorities, contemporary pacificism is, as previous explained (e.g. Al p.3), a form of activism. Pacifism does not imply utter pacifity, but may actively involve social defence, resistance and so on. However a certain level of misrepresentation enters into the JWS challenge in the details of what forms of activism pacifism may include. That misrepresentation begins in the second clause concerning what is said to be sometimes justified. For the situational procedure where dilemmas arise will not generally be consequential applying a principle of lesser evil. In dilemmatic situations such principles are suspended, and such a principle is in any case unacceptable to moral pacifists. A small amount of violence may be less bad in its consequences than verbal offence, but a principled pacifist will choose the slightly greater evil where other obligations do not exclude it. A more serious distortion occurs in JWS's effort to force procedures in dilemma situations into purely consequentialist form. In fact consequential decision theory was deployed as a model only for how to proceed rationally in a situational setting where deontic procedures were suspended (see MD p.38). What was said, still misleadingly retrospective vision reveals, was this: ‘what is done is a very consequentialist thing’ (Al p.13), not ‘one acts in a consequentialist fashion to do the sufficiently good thing in the circumstances’ (JWS p.152). Situationally other procedures than those resembling orthodox rational decision making (modified from maximizing to satisizing objectives) may be adopted (MD p.38). Further the orthodox consequentialist theory is inadequate because it leaves out, or tries to reduce to consequences, nonconsequential elements, notably motives. It is not difficult, in principle (in advance of attempted consequentialization of motives), to design situations where motives, such as integrity or maintaining faith, enter to yield outcomes upsetting consequential calculations. More elaborate decision making procedures than those of consequentialism, sometimes at variance with consequentialism, are thus presupposed. A further part of JWS's criticism accordingly goes by the board, the alleged appeal ‘to “second best” consequentialist considerations,... already explicitly condemned’ (p. 154). What was condemned was stock universal consequentialism, ‘that only consequentialist considerations carry argumentative weight’ (quoted on p. 152), so undercutting other deontic principles, such as those of pacifism. It was not claimed, what is utterly different, that consequentialist considerations can nowhere enter into deliberation and decision making. The conclusion JWS arrives at is therefore substantially astray. After criticising modern moral philosophy for its reliance upon consequentialist modes of thought, it is surprising, and inconsistent, to find ... [reliance] upon such modes of thought to escape logical difficulties raised by moral dilemmas facing ... pacifis[m] (p.152) There is no inconsistency. JWS has confused universal with particular. As well he has wrongly contracted all situational decision making to consequentialist modes. There is a third part to the criticism, that the defence is too easy; the ‘strategy will allow too much violence to be (perpetrated and) justified to suit the tastes of any real pacifist’ (p. 153). This another part of the so-called trivialization, this time however dilution rather than populatization, weakening the moral stand against violence. This third contention is premissed on a mistake: that one can ‘justify on consequentialist grounds any number of violent acts, providing that such acts are lesser evils than other real alternatives facing social agents’ (p. 153). Moral pacifism offers no such licence; allowing such consequentialism to take over was never part of the position. The slide to such consequentialism is made on the strength of a similarly erroneous example. The potential victim of an aspiring rapist ‘is supposed to flee or wriggle free if possible. But it is easy to consequentially justify the use of violence by the woman to prevent herself from being raped’ (p. 153 italics added). In the example so far described there is no dilemma, and no such easy resort to consequentially ‘justified’ violence. What allows too much violence is the lesser evil JWS assumes is easily consequentially justified; for example that the woman is entitled to inflict, and escalate, violence so long as it remains ‘a lesser evil than the violence of attempted rape’ (p. 153). Since she may thereby inflict quite unreasonable damage (esp. if she is a Kung Fu expert), the result is inconsistent with ‘the basic principle of self-defence’ which JWS earlier adduced according to which what is ‘appropriate, in response is only that level of force necessary to defend oneself against the threat’ (p. 150). There is evidence in JWS's work of some enthusiasm for levels of violence which exceed his ‘basic principle’, his appeal to ‘lesser evil’ generates some instances. The ‘basic principle’, itself fraught with difficulties (cf. the contorted discussion of what weapons are appropriate in response to what attacks, p. 150), still exceeds what stretched pacifism would enjoin; for instance, it may not be appropriate to respond with force. But in a technical sense stretched pacifism is compatible with the ‘basic principle’, since it only imposes the upper bound on level of force. As for easiness, moral pacifism is not an easy position to live by, or to justify. Removing objections to pacifism is one thing; solidifying a positive case for it is quite another, and so far hardly conclusive (as Al tried to explain, pp 29-31). Stretched pacifism was advanced, hypothesized to put it more precisely, as a still viable option. It was not presented as a morally compulsory position, or, for that matter, as one that this defender adhered to or affirmed. To reiterate, while a cumulative case can be made for stetched pacifism as principled non­ violence, that case was not conclusive, and is hard to improve. For, further, some serious difficulties standing in the way of stretched pacifism were assembled, the most important of which derives from the extent of violence apparent in transactions within the natural world. Simply consider the practices of carnivores, essential to their natural way of life. In order to meet their life needs for sustenance, these creatures do, and are often obliged to, engage 21 routinely in violent activity. While it can no doubt be argued, as some vegetarians may do, that the natural order is an immoral order, and that remaining carnivores should be converted to vegetarianism as rapidly as proves possible (in the way domestic dogs are converted to dog biscuits), the difficulties with such proposals are immense. The task envisaged is gigantic, and beyond human capacities - even if it were desirable. For there are millions of species to be somehow converted to proper vegetarianism. Then there are millions of other species to be converted to proper and well regulated contraceptive practices, else their numbers will get out of hand (uncontrollably) with predation removed. Given humans lack of success in limiting their own excessive numbers, such regulation appears entirely remote. Aside however from the practical difficulties, is such a fully vegetarian order, with evolution further derailed, a desirable improvement on the natural order? Is it morally obligatory? It is certainly not obligatory, as alternative systems of morality in harmony with the prevailing natural order are feasible. Nor is it desirable, for (to appeal to such alternative value systems) the natural order is more or less in order as it is. Full vegetarianization would only reduce its value, vastly. More generally, a defensible ethical framework should not, it would be rightly contended, be right out of step with the natural order of other creatures, decently depicted. Decent depiction is important, for some features of the natural order, such as competition, combat and predation, so far from escaping attention, have been grossly exaggerated and exploited. Thus, for instance, the ludicrous picture of nature red in truth and claw, so beloved of descendents of orthodox Victorians and of orthodox economists. However, even under decent depiction, the “natural order” is often not benign. That appears to be enough to induce a supervenient moral dilemma for any stretched pacifism which is coupled to a deep ethic (e.g. which does not separate humans out from the natural order) and which eschews the desperate vegetarian route: The natural order is not an immoral order The natural order contains (regular) instances of violence. Therefore, instances of violence are not immoral in apparent defiance of P2 Moreover, there are too many instances of violence, too regularly occurring, for them all to be plausibly shunted into the moral dilemma category (and predatory carnivores face no dilemmas). Raptors that practice violence every week are not immoral (neither are they clearly moral; the category of morality only significantly extends so far). The main trouble lies however with P2 (which needs some finer adjustment, as was alrady indicated in Al). While P2 is alright in context, within a particular, perfectly viable, ethical framework, designed for the usual human round, the conventional setting for ethical theories, it stands in need of modification outside that setting. It is time to suggest the sort of modification envisaged. Evidently P2 was addressed to moral agents. Which agents? Not to carnivores that supply their own livelihood, nor really to morally degenerate humans, but to i 22 peace-sensitive agents. With that semi-technical form, yet to be characterised, a suitably modified P2 results: MP2. It is morally wrong, for a peace-sensitive agent, to use violence.9 To recover what amounts, in the previous discussive context, to P2, it suffices to add the proposition that every human agent ought to be peace-sensitive. Much as that proposition has to recommend it, it appears too ethically advanced for many modem humans; it sets too high a moral standard to be taken as a serious guide to practice. It seems wise to settle presently for something less demanding, such as that every advanced moral agent ought to be peace sensitive. To put essentially the same proposition alternatively: Stretched pacifism (as modified) is supererogatory. While it is perhaps too late to hope for much moral progress in humans, it is pleasant to contemplate alternative futures where what is supererogatory became obligatory, and widely practiced. Richard Sylvan* Appendix I began drafting this essay at the time (January 17, midday Australian time) of the American attacks upon Iraq. The optly named Prime Minister Hawke of Australia had just made a statement to the nation-state, announcing (the) war. In this statement there was much talk of peace. There was even - in what was effectively a declaration of war - reiteration of the modem quest for ‘a new world order of peace’. Peace through war; so it rings out again and again, through the centuries. ‘War must be for the sake of peace’ (Aristotle p.220). More than two thousand years later, we have fought those wars to end all wars. But it is no use, Hawke solemely pronounced, just talking about peace, and thinking about peace; we must work for peace, fight for it - through war. Impeccable logic? President Bush, supreme commander, convinced us with similar logic, speaking too with many tongues. Of how he ‘preferred to think of peace, not war’. But now ‘only force will prevail’, as ‘all reasonable efforts to reach a peaceful solution are exhausted’. ‘What must be done’ must be done, or will be anyway. With God on side with the US offensive (as well as on the other side), it will go well. As it was said to have, though it achieved comparatively little that other efforts may not have yielded more satisfactorily, and thought it may now have to 9 The generalization of P2, suggested in Al, to cover also the parallel situation of environmental vandalism, can be similarly modified. The anti-vandolence principle becomes MP2°. It is morally wrong, for a peace- and environmentally-sensitive agent, to use vandolence. Thank to David Bennett for joint contributions (from UT) and to JWS for opposition (in JWS)  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 59, Item 680: Draft of War and peace IV: Tao and deep-green Subject The topic of the resource Computer printout. Later title: On extirpating war: Tao and deep-green pacifism. Description An account of the resource Note, one of four papers digitised from item 680. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 59, Item 680 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [22] leaves. 14.62 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:16694a5">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:16694a5</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Como - Cupboard - Pile 3 Box 59: Nuclear Como House Como House > Cupboard > Pile 3 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/ccd54bbcfae9fe07cf40299850560203.pdf fe931fcce3b13680c46d5ca17790a70d PDF Text Text AUSTRALIA’S DEFENCE PHILOSOPHY: Further investigations of the nonexistent. ‘The opinions of philosophers, with regard to the conditions of the possibility of a public peace, shall be taken into consideration by states armed for war’ (Kant, ‘A [the only!] secret article for perpetual peace’, p.158 - a surprising article, flattering no doubt to philosophers, but neglecting their dominant bellicose tradition). A defence philosophy is much more than a defence policy, just as a philosophy of technology comprises much more than a technology policy. A policy can be given merely by a list of directives as to what do in various circumstances; even at its best it need only involve practical wisdom. By contrast, a philosophy goes deeper and requires theoretical wisdom, integration of the policy into a theoretical setting, which looks, among other things, at the central arguments and key concepts involved: here, security, stability, control, protection, defence, interests, national interests, intelligence, war, etc. Defence philosophy is thus a branch of political and social philosophy, and has long been treated as such, though under such more familiar and honest headings as “of war” and “of peace”. Like most parts of philosophy, it can be applied, for instance in shaping policies, in regional ways among others. A defence philosophy should integrate appropriate defence arrangements and approaches to war and peace, not merely or superficially into “foreign policy” or assumed “international relations”, but into the way and intended way of life of a country, both into on-going culture and into the intended or planned cultural arrangements. A defence policy typically takes prevailing socio-political arrangements and power structures for granted; a defence philosophy again penetrates deeper, questioning or rejecting features of these structures, enquiring as to the merits of things and institutions of which defence is planned, asking what sort of society should be defended by what sort of appropriate methods and at what lengths. What, for instance, is Australia, what are Australians, defending, concerned to defend, aiming to defend? Here in Australia? In the region? Abroad? How much of what others have, or what we have, is worth defending, preserving? Does Randwick Racecourse, or Pine Gap, merit defending? Would anyone stage a last stand for Oaks Estate, one of Canberra’s dreariest suburbs? If the Indonesians made a lightning strike in Australia just to remove Bjelke-Petersen,1 should we resist? Few of the necessary prerequisites have been adequately thought about in Australia, where unplanned muddling through from immediate problem to immediate problem - reactive contingency “planning”, if you want to be generous - is the main style of political life , and, along with the traditional political game of “follow the leader”, of defence planning. Australia �2 does not yet have a defence philosophy. Some of its critical philosophers could help to supply it with the rudiments of one or more, and to inject some depth into broader defence theorizing. What follows is intended as a modest beginning: much of what is attempted, unearthing arguments and assumptions, followed by analysis and criticism, and some elaboration of alternative principles, falls squarely within the domains both of applied philosophy and traditional philosophical practice. 1. Australia’s inappropriate. defence “policy”: incoherent, obsolescent Australia seems to lack even a clear and coherent defence policy. American, This is a commonplace charge (made even by friends of Defence, interested in obtaining extra public funding for defence and elements of C3I).^ The reasons concern not merely the major unsolved issues of exactly what is being defended, what things and objects and what interests, and whose, what freedoms and values, and what role American defence facilities in Australia are supposed to have in this. They concern the status of present treaty arrangements, such as the “cornerstone”/“millstone” ANZUS treaty, signed between Australia, New Zealand and the US, now in disarray (still ’‘maintained” by New Zealand, whom the US has unilaterally announced expelled), and of subsequent associated memoranda of understanding (some secret, involving the local storage of US nuclear weapons, entry of American personnel, etc.). They also concern a range of more detailed lucunae such as: lack of clearly-defined priorities on what needs defending and how it is to be accomplished; doubtful capacity of present defence forces to handle low-level contingencies in and to the north of Australia and in maritime zones; and unsatisfactory (or no) arrangements and planning for “defence-in-depth”, for civil defence and use of civil infrastructure, mobilisation, wartime administration, protection of key facilities and areas, and post-nuclear organization. And, equally damaging, if its policy makers do have a coherent policy it is nowhere satisfactorily revealed to the peoples of Australia.It is left to journalists and newspaper­ watching academics to winkle out what local defence installations may be for and to make various conjectures as to what the policy may be. Of course there are many administrators and policy makers who think that is the way it should be; the public should not be informed, but kept satisfied with some “generalised” statements.As to coherence, Australian policy makers have only recently found out that Australia has a (purely) regional defence role, not a global one. This they were told by the Americans in Washington in talks allegedly designed to clarify commitments under treaty arrangements with the USA. It thus begins to look as if Australia’s defence policy, such as it is, is still as much determined abroad, by US policy makers, as it is locally in Australia. �3 Much circumstantial evidence can be assembled to confirm the claim that Australia’s vague defence policy can now be stamped Made in USA, as it used, before the last World War (and British abandonment), to be stamped Made in UK. For one thing, Australia has had a bipartisan defence policy, so it is claimed. That “policy” has however been essentially shaped by the Liberal party, which has governed most of the time (as senior partner in a coalition). But the Liberal party simply took over US arrangements for Australia (as planned in Washington for ANZUS) and still does. For instance, the latest package® from the Liberal Party “Defence and Foreign Policy Unit” consists largely of US Defence Department material packaged under a local cover. The Strategic Basis Papers, endorsed by the Labor Government, give virtually unqualified support to US military practices and to the American view of the global strategic situation, and commit Australia to supporting, without any due reservation, American positions in world forums.' The same dependent-policy conclusion can be reached by more devious arguments. regional defence role? When, for example, did Australia find out it had a After the Americans had found that they could no longer afford to police the world on their own and would have to delegate some of that role and offload some of the heavy associated costs, on reliable dogs-bodies; and also after Labor took some faltering steps towards developing a broader foreign more independent policy with some indigenous elements (Australian Minister Hayden was promptly flattened by US heavies such as Schultz). Australian defence and foreign policy copies American policy in main respects, but lags it. The Australian defence policy presented by the Labor government, to the extend that it is visible, is conservative; it coincides with older American defence policy, and diverges from the new (post-Reagan) American war policy. For Australian Labor defence policy supports what the American administration supposedly used to support, namely DI. Multilateral nuclear disarmament (within the framework of series of treaties and agreements), and D2. Deterrence in the interim, deterrence through mutual assured destruction (i.e. MAD). The presence of American military facilities in Australia is supposed to be justified in the framework of these assumptions. For they are to assist in making deterrence under D2 effective, and to provide verification for the arms reduction arrangements under DI (both stabilizing functions). There is much evidence indicating however that American policy makers have now abandoned both Dl and D2 and any serious attempts at nuclear arms control8. Certainly they have moved on to the following highly destabilizing doctrines: Nuclear war-fighting, Limited nuclear wars, and Star-Wars (i.e. Strategic Defense Initiative). While this American war policy may well be accepted by the next Liberal coalition government, all of these military doctrines are explicitly rejected by the 1985 Labor government. Since the American “joint” facilities in Australia also facilitate the rejected �4 objectives, the problems concerning these dubious facilities are much aggravated. The Government’s approach concerning them - withholding information concerning the full range of their functions, and particularly their war-fighting roles from parliament and the public - is certainly unsatisfactory, as several of its members realise; and as a result the Government appear in not atypical disarray, further grist for the incoherence theme. If there is perhaps a coherent Australian global defence approach somewhere away from public exposure, it is most likely then an old abandoned American policy.9 But in that case it certainly lacks - what it in any case appears to lack - justification. For Australia, in supporting US defence policy and activity, for instance in world forums, is supporting present offensive American policy, not what it reputedly adheres to, deterrence (through MAD). The point holds good whether or not American global policy still includes such deterrence as a proper part10; for it certainly involves other very different and dubious strategies. The commonplace, but increasingly feeble, justification given for Australian’s tagging along after America is that Australian interests are the same as American11. American interests by no means coincide with Australian . However Consider, for instance, such matters as enriching Americans, making conditions favourable for American business, promoting Americans and things American. Consider, differently, American practices in Latin America, from undercutting Allende’s government in Chile to its practices against Nicaragua, to its extensive export of arms and violent methods, there and elsewhere in the world. Thus America, like Russia, is busy meddling in Africa, but ‘Australian security interests are not directly involved’ (SB, p.24). Consider, differently again, escalation of the nuclear arms race. Or consider American strategic planning, and all the game- and decision- theoretic models which concern just USA and its adversary USSR, perhaps occasionally adding Europe as part of the monolithic West, but rarely or never considering the Southern Hemisphere - so that either Australia is part of America as Poland may be of Russia or it is nothing. Or consider American interests not merely in Soviet and communist containment, but in containing socialism such as might (under more auspicious conditions) flourish in Australia. An American policy answering to American interests is accordingly inappropriate for Australia, inappropriate for Antipodean socialism. Australians should do their own defence thinking and work out a policy appropriate for Australia. (That applies also to Australian political representatives, who should stop parroting implausible American views and begin developing some genuinely local and original ones.) Should Australia be tagging along after the Americans in support of installation of their style of free-enterprise capitalism everywhere feasible (i.e. that the state socialists don’t already heavily control)? What they quite seriously call ‘keeping the free world free’? Of �5 course freedom has, in this sort of context, multiple meanings and associations (as well as multiple inconsistencies, appearing information” and the like). overtly in subsidized “free trade”, selective “free Significant parts of what mainstream American culture admits under the freedom umbrella, mainstream Australian culture would exclude: for instance, active opposition to and undermining of social and socialist programs and governments, bullying of small countries that impose barriers to US business or military practices (all part of “free enterprise”), etc. What of those intangible freedoms the cultures supposedly agree about, civil liberties, freedom to information, to live and work where one chooses, to travel, and so on? These are certainly important freedoms, better upheld in some parts of the unaligned West (e.g. Sweden, Switzerland) than in most parts of the Eastern Block. But such freedoms, which run counter to dependent policies, hardly require defence subservience. influenced state practices are fast reducing freedom. Moreover, military- Many of the older freedoms have vanished this century, such as freedom to travel, to work and live abroad, etc.; now one requires permits, licences, passports, ... . And many more former freedoms are being or have been eroded; soon it will be identity documents, restricted zones, ID cards, as already in parts of the “free West”. Now nuclearism in Europe ‘is devouring the very freedom it is said to protect: [the Greens] point to the new laws proposed in 1983 designed to keep citizens from assembling to protest deployment of the Pershing II and cruise missiles’ (Capra and Spretnak, pp.58-9). Further structural changes required for the security of the state, imcompatible with democratic freedoms, include ‘secrecy, lack of commentability, permanent emergency, concentration of authority, peacetime militarism, extensive apparatus of state intelligence and police’ (Falk, in Feith p.24). Nuclearism is not a smart strategy to preserve remaining freedoms. 2. Inherited other-reliance, and the populist and elitist cases for patronage and subservience. Australia’s defence policy, such as it is, is furthermore inherited rather than regularly (re)thought through. But that procedure - essentially the legal method of precedence, whatever its very limited satisfactoriness in legalistic decision making - is defective when applied in politics or to defence, especially where immediate independent action is required. For precedence methods are extraordinarily slow, as well as characteristically conservative, and as in defence exclude significant and rather urgent alternatives. The unsatisfactory decision-making practices to be revealed in the case of defence are by no means restricted to defence but are typical of the kind of advanced age capitalism Australia operates under, or rather labours under, down under. In setting down those �4. 6 features of aged capitalism (‘of the Corporate State') that the New Left and Alternative Australia movements were reacting against, Cock neatly summed up these practices: Decisions were made from the top and on the basis of vested political interests, rather than by rational goals and means that served public interests. The people were rarely consulted effectively before a decision and often only partially informed afterwards. Planning was based on a mere extension of the present. ... activists felt they were given little opportunity to choose how they lived or worked. The availability of space, time, trees and air was also determined by others ... (p.18 italics added).14 As it was and is with one’s defence, military and civil, so it is with the matter of whether one lives in a nuclear target zone or not, and so on (though immigration policy, uranium and woodchip export policies, etc.) In these areas planning remains top-down, with at best consultative elements. No real choices are offered to people. A major inherited assumption is that of other reliance, that Australia’s defence depends on other more powerful allies. That ally was firstly Britain, and since World War II America; but in any event the assumption is that to be safe Australia needs a powerful patron, a protector. A corollary is that Australia adopts a suitably submissive relation to its patron, making expected concessions. And for the most part it has; however such a defence insurance policy does not come cheap.15 It costs not only money and resources, but quality of life, freedom and independence. The assumption of other-reliance is however unsound, for several reasons. Most important, it characteristically depends upon the following themes, all of which lack solid foundation: 1. Australia is threatened - or at least 1A. Australia is likely to be threatened in the near future. 2. Australia cannot defend itself. 3. Australia can however depend upon its patron (or ally), i.e. upon the USA. These three themes in fact make up what has been called the populist case for the ANZUS alliance.16 It is very different from the elitist case for ANZUS, said to hold sway with the Australian government, which, while insisting upon premiss 3, essentially rejects 1 and 2 and claims instead 4. Australian has a vital interest in global stability. 5. Global stability is under threat (constantly) by an expansionist Soviet Union. 6. Only USA can contain the Soviet threat and hold the global balance. Some of techniques the US deploys for holding global balance operate through dependent states and a network of alliances like ANZUS. But obviously further premisses are required to reach the intended conclusions that Australia should be participating in any such �alliance, and what is more, hosting US defence facilities and exercises. A first such premise is the no-shirking theme, that Australia should be contributing its part to “holding the balance’’ (cf. Bell). Even this first further step is pretty shaky; as we shall see, one shaky step in a rather ramshackle case, since premisses 5 and 6 are decidedly dubious (and 4 may involve equivocation). For it can be plausibly argued that Australia’s vital interests are not guaranteed by US techniques, which threaten to upset the whole applecart, and can be obtained by alternative more satisfactory means outside of such soft alliances as ANZUS. In any case, it is unclear that local contributions enhance global (nuclear) stability (see e.g. Mack and Davidson). But first, there is more pernicious regionalist version of the elitist position to be considered, what might be called the offshore elitist position. This position grants 2A*. Australia can defend itself against regional threats, and can look after itself regionally. But it does not (as indeed other qualified elitist positions may not) grant 1A. What the offshore position insists upon is 1AI*. Australia’s interests could be threatened in the near future. Since these interests - perhaps concerned with trade, Australian companies or Australians abroad, or whatever - may have little or nothing to do with internal Australian security, this premiss represents an extremely important shift (a shift not unrelated to the inverse bureaucratic shift from war to defence). It goes further than what has been called forward defence. In extended form the offshore position does call for some sort of global policeman or police force ready to intervene whenever a “free port” anywhere looks like closing its doors. Part of the difficulty in getting to grips with the elitist position is that it tends to slide through to the offshore position (by way of now evident immediate positions). The arguments against both the populist and elitist cases, and indeed against virtually all of themes 1 through 7 are sufficiently familiar to justify but a fairly brief outline of some of the main points involved. Of course just a couple of defections from themes 1 through 7 would serve logically defeat both cases, but there have been some interesting repair attempts, designed to float the arguments on diminished premisses. 3. The brief against the popular populist case; the need for new directions. Contra 1 and 1A. While Australia is not at present under notice of threat, veiled threat or harassment from abroad, a majority of its population appears to believe that it is. As the popular view is not the informed, administrative, or parliamentary view, it is worth inquiring �8 why the popular view persists, as the opinion polls reveal it has. The populace has been deliberately kept in the dark (or even misinformed), because this suits bipartisan government purposes. Although both main Australian political parties are well enough aware that the main assumptions underlying the populist case are false, the reasons for which they support the American alliance (e.g. those of the elitist case) are much more difficult to sell to the public. Accordingly the parties and Government have no political interest in undermining the unsound populist case. In particular they have gone out of their way not to cast doubt upon the connected assumption that US is a reliable guarantor against all threats. Thus long-standing Australian psychological insecurity about security has been allowed to stand, and has not been assuaged by any requisite informational and educational effort. In particular, older attitudes to Asia persist not far below the surface of popular Australia: fear, mistrust and xenophobia, patched over by a pragmatic attachment to trade and tourism. This misplaced insecurity is fuelled by popular misconceptions of Australia and its place in the world: metaphorically, that Australia is a luscious plum ripe for Eastern picking, instead of the Asians view that Australia, so far as they are aware of it at all, is a remote desiccated uncouth place perhaps good for some trade and investment. Or, to get towards more concrete assumptions, Australians apparently tend to their view country as affluent but underpopulated, resource rich but largely defenceless; yet not far to the north are Asian hordes who are impoverished, resource poor, and so on . Such a view is seriously out of touch with reality. Parts of Asia are now at least as affluent (on conventional economic indicators) as Australia. They do not see themselves as overpopulated, in a way that calls for mass exodus; and in those areas which are as overpopulated as Europe, such as Java, bribes and force are required to move people on transmigration programs to relatively unoccupied parts of the Indonesian empire. So far as they require them, they can purchase Australian resources - which are not unique - much more easily and cheaply (because they even carry significant local subsidies) than they could obtain • them by seizure. 1s For these sorts of reasons, and because Australia itself poses no threat, no other state has a genuine interest in attempting to invade Australia. As it is for interests, so it is for capabilities. No regional power has the capacity to launch a successful invasion of Australia, or is likely to have such a capacity in the near future. As the joint Parliamentary Committee concluded, Currently only the United States would have the physical capacity to launch a full scale invasion of Australia, and it clearly lacks any motive to do so (TAS, p.94). �9 As the report also stated, quoting Synnot (former Chief of Defence Staff), ... to raise the sort of force which would be required for a mass invasion of Australia could not possibly be done in under five years by other than the superpowers (TAS). But neither superpower is at all likely to expend effort or resources to such an end. An obvious naive question which at once arises is: Why bother then with much defence? (A later question to entertain is: why not be a free-rider on collectively provided global security, such as it is?) Why not proceed forthwith to unilateral disarmament? Mack for one, having reassembled the now-standard telling case that Australia is not threatened ‘now or for the foreseeable future’, and so having broken the populist argument, is confronted by the awkward option of unilateral disarmament for Australia. He stages a hasty retreat, points to the dependence of premisses 1 and 1A on premiss 2, and proceeds to claim that ‘the populist case for ANZUS is sustained’ even without premisses 1 and 1A. It is however a decidedly problematic retreat. While it is true that the arguments against 1 and 1A may sometimes take it for granted that Australia can look after itself to some extend, put up some resistance, it is far from clear that they depend essentially on assumptions approximating premiss 2. Consider the no­ interests argument, which appears decisive given the (estimated) very limited invasion capabilities of potential invaders. The main consideration adduced appears to depend in no essential way, indeed in no obvious way at all, on Australia’s dynamic fighting forces. Australian mineral resources, to repeat one of the more sensitive examples involved, can be obtained more readily and cheaply by trade methods than military ones. What all this seems to show is that a rather minimal streamlined force, if any, would presently meet Australia’s military requirements. It is not as if Australia is ‘entirely defenceless’ without a conventional military force, like a babe-in-arms. The whole apparatus of nonmilitary defence is available on a continent well suited to its use, though lacking a population trained in its techniques. But even without requisite popular training in defence methods, Australia would be a difficult place to govern, Australians a difficult lot to subjugate. It was such features of the Australian character that deterred the Japanese on a previous occasion “If the invasion is attempted, the Australians, in view of their national character, would resist to the end. Also, because the geographical conditions of Australia present numerous difficulties in a military sense, it is apparent that a military venture in that country would be a difficult one” (TAS, p.62). The points still hold good, and could be strengthened. There are several parts to any such �10 program of nonmilitary defence: making it happen, and putting it abroad (ideally with dinkum Australian exaggeration) that it has happened. To the issue of alternative defence we are bound to return. For now, when Australia is not threatened, is a good occasion to reconsider, and begin to adapt, defence arrangements. For example, it looks very much as if enormous sums, which could be valuably directed elsewhere, are being spent, largely to make many Australians feel secure.But a much more effective and inexpensive way to such results would be through requisite popular education and psychological therapy - with, if it were well done, much more satisfactory results, a more secure and better informed people. Contra 2. As a result of post-War developments in weapons systems and C3I capabilities, the military defence of Australia has become much easier. It comes down to enhancing, through new robust and reliable systems, the enormous strategic advantages Australia enjoys by virtue of geographical isolation. In principle, any maritime invading force can now be detected well in advance of arrival, through modern radar warning systems, and destroyed by precision guided munitions. And any invaders that did manage to gain a foothold on Australian soil would face severe logistic problems, and be subject to disproportionate responses from local defence. Standard discussions (as in Dibb, Mack) proceed to introduce a great deal of “Boys’ Own War Games” stuff concerning contemporary weapon and C3I systems; the essential point is that these could serve to turn Australia into a pretty unvulnerable armed fortress, and into an extremely difficult territory were the oceanic moat crossed and the fortress entered (see especially D. Martin). Under such armed neutrality and (differently) fortified Australia defence scenarios, even invasion from outside the region by an inimical world power could be resisted with reasonable prospect of success. There is no power at all likely to mount such an invasion; there is apparently (as noted above) only one power that could, that good ally the USA (reckoned however a likely invader by 6-7% of the Australian population!). Nonetheless the threat of a Soviet invasion is taken seriously not only by the larger populace but by committees of their elected representatives. But the Soviet military has never undertaken such a long-range massive force projection, is ill-equipped to do so, and lacks any plausible reason to try such a stunt (for details see, e.g., D. Martin; also SS, ST). The only credible Soviet threat to Australia is in the context of a superpower war, when American facilities in Australia and perhaps Australian cities, would be struck at by intercontinental missiles. While this would be bad enough, it is highly unlikely that it would be followed or accompanied by an invasion. Soviet forces are once again not sufficient, and not thought sufficient by the Soviets for that sort of diversion; they would be required elsewhere in a superpower war; and they would be devastated, unless USA is militarily even more incompetent than sometimes depicted. �i. 11 Contra 3. What will be argued is not the negation of 3, that the Americans cannot be relied upon, but rather that 3 is dubious, and that it would be rash to place excess reliance on American protection. That being so, and other patrons being even less promising, Australia should look more to its own resources, as the American administration is kindly advising. Especially since the American “Vietnam debacle” and the fall of Saigon, things have changed in important ways which cast doubt on the reliability of American patronage. First, the relative economic and military strength of the USA has declined significantly. It no longer has such a large share of world product(ivity); as a connected matter of policy, US world warfighting aspirations have been reduced. Its ability to act as, and afford to be, global policeman has also markedly declined/ Secondly, the willingness of Americans to engage in remote foreign wars has correspondingly tumbled. Although the American administration includes more than enough hawks, to be sure, the people and Congress are not longer in a mood for gratuitous foreign adventures, especially when the fun may not appear to be in American interests. Since Vietnam, US opinion polls regularly show strong popular opposition to overseas military involvement. This “Vietnam syndrome” has served as a major constraint on US military policy and foreign involvement. An important manifestation of these changes is the Guam Doctrine, calling upon US regional allies to take primary responsibility for their own defence in regional conflicts. Another important outcome is Defense statements to the pointed effect that before US troops are committed abroad there must be reasonable assurance of Congressional and popular support (Weinberger, reported in PC p.14). As Mack comments, ‘such assurance is impossible to guarantee - especially for remote countries where no US vital national interests are at stake’. Certainly no more is assured under the ANZUS treaty which provides only that each signatory ‘act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes’ (article 4). All the treaty strictly requires is consultation; there is no undertaking or commitment. Isn’t the treaty backed up by informal verbal reassurances? None that are not undermined by others, in American administrative multiple-speak. Even the elite view is that Australia has to ‘work ... to maximize the prospect of US support’ and that the Americans cannot be counted upon. For ‘the threshold of direct US combat involvement could be quite high, and circumstances at the time could significantly limit US willingness or ability to help Australia in other ways?. ‘... we cannot rely upon US support in a defence emergency arising within our own neighbourhood’ (SB, pp.29-30). However a special case has been made for American reliability in Australia’s case - as �12 opposed to examples of American abandonment of earlier military undertakings (in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran) - on the basis of permanent friendship, common interests, and shared values and democratic traditions. There are two difficulties with this type of special pleading: first, as to the basis, and, second, as to the adequacy of such a basis in by-passing Congress, the American people, and slow constitutional processes. Historical evidence hardly sustains the adequacy of the basis in analogous cases. And here, as already indicated, the basis is shaky. For there is not a common culture shared by Australia and America: rather values diverge significantly on quite crucial issues. Even less are interests always common, as the matter of subsidised agricultural produce reveals, and as missile testing and nuclear ships issues in the South Pacific have recently confirmed. Interests diverged, for instance, when Australia toyed with opposing Indonesia’s claim to West Papua. So it is dubious at least that American interests would coincide with Australian in disputes or confrontation with Asian nations to the North, e.g. with Indonesia or Japan. Of course if the special case argument did hold water, Australia and America really were mates, then the treaty would be otiose. There was in fact no treaty in operation in 1942; but by then American interests in countering the Japanese were independently aroused. 4. Other-reliance and regional self-reliance A major problem with other-reliance for defence is then that it cannot be deemed entirely reliable, yet precisely here unreliability can hardly be tolerated. When the Indonesians are rolling into Brisbane it won’t do for Defense to call up with a message like that from local Services, "We can’t get there till tomorrow’’, or “until after Congress meets”, or “Sorry, Mate!”. More seriously, handing defence over to others means handing control of our lives over to others; and given nuclear defence, which too many Antipodean administrations have opted for, it quite likely means literally handing our lives over for many of us. Another problem of other-reliance is thus its adequacy. A further problem is its cost. In principle, if a State hires out its defence it would no doubt look, other things being equal, for the cheaper bidder - if, that is, defence is a commodity of a sort, like national shipping, meterological services, etc. The trouble with global defence is that the market is monopolistic, with currently only one supplier of the right complexion22, who accordingly can exact a very high price, and has - making the whole country a nuclear target and demanding substantial subservience. Similar points make part of the case, well-enough appreciated, for not trying to press defence, plainly a collective good, into a marketable commodity. When a country can supply its own defence, it therefore makes very good sense for it to do so, since it normally has a stronger interest in its own proper defence than most other parties. Should it also be cheaper in costs that matter, then self-reliance not just makes good sense but pays; other-reliance does not. But in that event, it surely does not need nuclear �13 patrons, or to farm out some of its defence. Such self-reliance undermines an important part of the older case based on other-reliance for alliances such as ANZUS. However newer bipartisan approaches to defence try to combine them (thus e.g. Australian minister Beazley as reported by Davidson) - approaches which thus begin to empty ANZUS of what little content it had, and remove much of the apparent point of such older alliances. Since the ANZUS arrangements contain no clear commitments beyond consultation but are merely vague articles of understanding, a simple course is of course to allow them to be emptied of content, so that the alliance, an expensive and outdated “insurance” policy, dies a natural death. It may however be death by seizure or convulsion should American defence facilities be closed or internationalised and passage of American nuclear equipped or powered transport be excluded from Australia. That would no doubt sacrifice the deterrence and other advantages the treaty supposedly affords , while making way for the greater advantages of friendly nonalignment, of no longer being a nuclear target, or so on. But self-reliance pure and simple is insufficient. The world does not consist of separable isolated pieces, as becomes increasingly evident. Most dramatically, Australia will not escape the effects of nuclear winter. The picture is much the same as for other dynamic subjects, such as plants which are not internally self-sufficient but depend crucially on their environment - and indeed as for States themselves. The question then is what form the additional holistic component of policy should take? Put this way, it is almost obvious that the appropriate move is not taking sides (as in a kids’ war game or tug-of-war game that is already set up) and doing one’s bit for confrontation. For that will not contribute to stability, to a proper holistic approach, but rather to sectionalism and fragmentation, and to bringing nuclear winter closer. Other-reliance and self-reliance typically present a false contrast, and certainly do with pure self-reliance - a false contrast like that of holism and partism (EE, p.223), and of dependence versus isolationism. In between lie a range of positions, one of which - favoured by a long line of peacefully-disposed philosophers from Rousseau and Kant onwards - might be called integrated reliance or federated reliance. The elitist case, insofar as it were to call for such reliance (e.g. in assumption 4), could hardly be faulted. But it doesn’t; and is satisfied with much less. Integration may reach only certain inadequate levels, the level of modern alliances and alignment, which are essentially coupled with opposition to an other side, e.g. the monolithic East (or West). It is into just this trap that elitist arguments fall. �14 5. The decline and fall of elitist arguments. Premisses 4 and 5 of the elitist argument turn around the crucial notion of stability, as related arguments revolve around that of security. But stability and security are value-laden terms, which are not cultural invariants. What stability comprehends in American administrative perception is very different from what highland villages take it to include. In each case a system is stable if it returns to a given stationary state under perturbations of sufficiently small magnitude. But both the relevant states and the stationary among them are relative to given frames of reference; for instance, what is stable at a macrolevel may well not be at a microlevel. As Trudeau has said of the superpowers, ‘they share a global perception according to which even remote events can threaten their interests or their associates’ (p.10) and disturb stability. But lesser states or regional people, not counting remote business or military interests as relevant, report no instability. Bureaucrats invariably view bombs as necessary to stability, and the nuclear fix as stability; by contrast, gentle people increasingly see bombs as tools of terrorism and as characteristically antithetical to peace. ad 4: Of course Australia has a vital interest in global stability and security: what sizeable nation does not? But the determinable motherhood interpretation (of italicised terms), while no doubt diplomatically convenient, conceals crucial differences, highly material to the argument. For one global stability means something different in USA from what it means in Costa Rica and likely what it intends in Australia. Certainly vital interests are different. America is interested in containing socialism (in Australia as elsewhere), and it tends, in more popular rhetoric at least, to equate containing socialism with containing communism and both with Soviet containment. A continental swing to socialism (or Non-Soviet communism) in Latin America, or in Africa, would upset global stability, on American perception, and would indeed have significant effects on US business or investment; but it would not on its own upset or affect most Australians or directly threaten Antipodean stability, and it certainly need not affect nuclear stability. Australians generally are not opposed in principle to socialism or notably interested in containing its spread (indeed perhaps the opposite). Australia is not interested in (and oughtn’t to be charmed by the idea of) defence of the (American) “free enterprise” system, or in the defence of uglier forms of capitalism wherever they are presently initiated or opposed (cf. Chomsky and Herman). Contra 5. It can be conceded, without granting the main thrust of the premiss, that the Soviets are expansionistic, at least in that they are interested in extending their influence where they can. So also are most empires, including American and Indonesian (so for that matter are many academics and most sales-people). But the Soviets have an ideological �15 message to spread, Marxism-Leninism, an ideology they used to anticipate being installed everywhere. But the Americans also have a message, a capitalist message, Free Enterprise Inc, which they are working to sell pretty much everywhere accessible to them. And they need to be expansionistic to have it adopted, whereas the Russians and Chinese need simply wait for history to take its allegedly determined course (though a little assistance - reflecting legitimate doubt about this determinism? - would surely spread their disconcertingly different forms of “progress” without interfering). But surely the Russian message is pernicious? All these messages are pernicious (for familiar reasons: see e.g. Erlich). The proper question is whether on its own Soviet international activity threatens, in some damaging way, global stability. Undoubtedly Soviet-American confrontation, as in the Cuban missile affair, does threaten global stability; though not in a way that has any bearing on Australian defence. In fact no Russian expansionary tendency, military or otherwise, has an untoward direct effect on Australia, little of significance reaches into the Antipodes (see Dibb SS). So what is the local excitement about? In large measure the excitement has been drummed up by the political right, East European expatriates, and pork-barrelling politicians. The effect of Soviet expansionism is much exaggerated and overexploited (Mack ST). Viewed from the Antipodes it is hardly a problem, unless the Soviets should get locked into military confrontation with USA - a real problem to be addressed. With that problem however, the Antipodes can better assist as part of a third nonaligned group which helps to referee and to prize apart the heavies, not by seconding and inciting the USA. But confrontation apart, Soviet internationalism, hardly a great success story, does not seriously disturb global stability, as seen from Australia. For a proper assessment of Soviet internationalism, types of expansion should be distinguished - military, potential military, influence with military access, and mere influence. In actual military expansion and involvement since W’orld War II, the Russian record is hardly striking by comparison with the USA or several other states. The one conspicuous case involving control of new territory, that of Afghanistan, has actually had little effect on global stability. The usual Western apprehension concerns not anything the Soviets have accomplished, but what they might attempt militarily, especially in Europe. But the idea of Soviet military adventure in Europe is a Western invention and bogey, lacking in plausibility. The Soviet military lacks the force ratio needed to be assured of military success in Europe, both by their own standards of what is required and by Western strategic standards. And the Soviets have no good reasons or interests in undertaking such an exercise which would draw them into nuclear war. They already face enough economic difficulties and troubles with East European client states which they cannot control satisfactorily. �16 The extension of Soviet influence has largely been in the Third world. But it has hardly been successful, with as many failures and losses to record as Soviet “gains” - gains which add to the imperial burden since they involve countries wracked with problems, such as Vietnam. The Third World exercises are marred by Soviet inaptitude and limited by the state of their own economy. They scarcely displace the global structure enough to test its stability; and they produce no shock waves or even significant ripples in the Antipodes. Contra 6. The main current threat to world stability appears to come not from one of the dancers in the East-West dance of death, but from the escalating confrontation, easily ignited, between the lead dancers. With this US policies and practices have at least as much to do as USSR ones. Recent US practices are more destabilizing than Soviet ones, and indeed highly destabilising, because of new weapons and weapons systems, because of rejection of arms control and Soviet proposals, and because of “star wars” preparation which both accelerates the arms race on earth and begins a new one in space. A vast increase in tension and suspicion accompanies the “arms race” which is in large measure due to US intransigence and US war-fighting doctrines, new weapons systems, with built-in incentives for pre-emption, and deliberate abandonment of arms control (see PR). Such considerations, duly assembled, demolish the received (but nonetheless crazy) theme that an alliance or alignment with USA helps increase stability. American practices are to be resisted as much as Soviet. 6. The East-West balance argument: American alignment versus friendly independence The need for Australian alignment with the USA is supposed to be shown by the East-West This politically-important balance argument, which shares key premisses nr with the related elitist argument, runs as follows : balance argument. 7. Global stability is the key to world peace. 8. Stability of the international order is a matter of maintaining a global balance. But 5. The global balance is constantly threatened by an expansionist USSR. 6A. The threat is [only] checked by the USA, which (6A.1) guarantees an open and pluralistic international order. 9. Australia’s primary security concern, indeed most vital interest, is this stability. Hence 10. Australia’s role is to help America maintain the balance. The rest of Australia’s intervolvement with American military arrangements is then taken to follow. But there are many reasons for halting the argument before it reaches this stage of practical (and allegedly moral) detail. The balance argument assumes much that has already been rebutted, for instance that the Soviet threat thesis is correct (i.e. 5) and that US �17 policy is stabilizing (part of 6A). It also takes for granted, what now is at least in serious doubt, that American policy is directed at balance and deterrence, rather than what the American administration appears to be aiming at, superiority. But in that event, Australia is not really engaged in some longer term balancing feat, so much as in helping USA prevail in nuclear race, contradicting the goal of world peace of premiss 7. Contra 10. and its derivation. The derivation is inadequate: it does not follow that Australia’s role is such a lackey’s one. If the balance of strength is leaning in America’s direction, as most less-biassed evidence indicates, then Australia should surely be throwing its slight weight in with the Eastern team (that is what such images as the balanced tug-of-war would suggest). Presumably premiss 6A.1 is designed to exclude this deplorable thought, of Australia teaming up with totalitarians. Nevertheless Australia should be putting its slight weight where it is effective, given its own broader objectives, interests, principles and supposedly pluralistic ideals. There are several different roles Australia could fulfil which would enable it to make a more satisfactory, less passive, contribution to world peace, among them de-escalation through active nonalignment, appropriate aid, and so forth. Thus 10 is hardly well-supported or evident. A more direct approach would be better than throwing Australian weight unreflectively on one side of the balance. As a little reflection attests, the balance image and argument point not in the direction intended, but towards nonalignment. Contra 6A (and 6). The theme that US maintains the balance, and hence preserves the peace, is of course false. For again, it takes two to tango. While it can be granted that the USA is interlocked with and checks the USSR in this munitions dance, the history of the dance reveals that the pace-escalation has flowed from the interaction of the one partner with the other. That is, but for the USA, the USA would not be required to check the USSR (the interaction is two-way as with Hegel’s famous master-slave relation). In any case, it looks as if, on a different historical trajectory, the main states of Western Europe could match the Soviet Union militarily (for they have comparable combined GNP, technological resources, etc.; cf. note 20) Thus it is doubtful that the current Soviet build-up, produced in interaction with the USA, could only be, or have been, checked by the US. ad 6A.1. As the premiss is only of marginal relevance to the argument, it is enough to observe that the international order the USA helps maintain leaves very much to be desired. In its intervention, militarily, economically and indirectly, USA has assisted substantially in reducing plurality and openness, is well as in establishing or propping up rotten regimes, etc. The negative side of American imperialism as well-enough documented, if not widely enough read or known by Americans themselves (cf. again Chomsky and Herman). Only under scandalously low redefinitions of ‘open’ and ‘pluralistic’ is the present “free” world order �18 either open or pluralistic. ad 8, and the damaging equivocation on ‘the balance’. While balance is one way of maintaining stability in the world arrangements that have presently come to pass, the balance structure can only carry so much loading. Add too much weight (of arms tension, and so forth) to both sides and the precarious structure will fail, probably catastrophically. increasing probability of catastrophic breakdown, for a variety of reasons The (accident, miscalculation, computer error, human interference, etc.), has been argued elsewhere (e.g. WPI). While a certain neither overloaded nor overstressed balance may serve for stability, the present increasingly stressed balance will probably not. The balance argument, however, neglects this dynamical situation, illegitimately switching from a (certain post) balance in premiss 8 to the (on-going) balance in subsequent premisses. The balance argument itself breaks down through equivocation. What the dynamic picture also indicates is the importance of removing some weight from the balance, most obviously by arms limitation and tension reduction. It points too to a different role for Australasia, to a less aligned position genuinely directed at stability. It is to the emerging case for a different role for Australia, and to action for achieving this different role, that the positive argument will now begin to swing. The inadequate East-West balance argument is typically combined with attacks upon proposals for a different role for Australia than American alliance and. service. effect of these additions is to generate extra confusion and dust. The main For the additions are inessential to the argument, and do not serve to repair it or reinforce it. For example, against nonalignment or neutralism is set the alleged pervasiveness of nuclear winter. We might as well be aligned (it’s good for trade and other economic perquisites), so it is sometimes argued from up top, because if the central balance fails we are all dead. This is a conspicuous nonsequitur^, worse than ex nihilo quodlibet (because it also suggests that balance is a prerequisite for stability). But, in the main, the attack is irrelevant, because the point of nonalignment is to help remove overload and to break down confrontation and its escalation to war; it is a thing to do now, be fore winter descends, to delay or halt its descent, and most important, to reduce its extent and severity. Australia’s weight may be slight, another irrelevant addition goes, but psychologically it is important for the West. Any further spread of the “Kiwi disease” (from New Zealand) would show the weakening of Western resolve, and give the green light for Soviet expansionism. Bell, a leading exponent of the balance argument, virtually gives the impression that if Australia dropped out of American alignment, the Russians would be on the �road down through the isles to Australia tomorrow/ Much of this sort of rhetoric is reminiscent of the baseless fear-mongering of an earlier pre-Vietnam time. The Russians have no such military interests, or present capabilities. And if they were to gear up and set out, they would be met by substantial resistance along most of the route, resistance obtaining Western assistance. For America, for one, has major interests, different from Australia’s, in both Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as elsewhere in East Asia. The addition, so far from strengthening the argument, depends, in its “green light for expansion” comparison, on the previously faulted premiss 5 of Soviet expansionism. In fact most of the further case for American alignment of one sort or another - when it is argued-, often nonalignment and neutrality are simply denounced in good old-fashioned authoritarian style - turns upon already-faulted assumptions. Catley, for example, another exponent of “central balance”, presents the following ‘consideration’: ... whatever the Swedes or Swiss may think about the matter, Australia is locked by considerations of culture, economics, and political philosophy into the defence of the Western world. It has both an obligation and a duty to contribute its share to that defence if necessary by hosting facilities which cannot easily be located elsewhere (p.15). The premiss is false for reasons essentially indicated: and the premiss in no way sustains the conclusion, the argument involving among other things, the prescriptive (is-ought) fallacy. Consider the premiss. Australia is not, unless Catley has information withheld from most of the rest of us, locked into Western nuclear defence, but in principle independent and free to reconsider and rethink its options. (American use of the “facilities” is not irrevocable, and shortly comes up, in principle at least, for reconsideration.) How do culture, economics and political philosophy provide locks and chains for Australia but not for nonaligned Western European states? They do not: Australia is not a part of USA or altogether a client state; and the cultures, interests, economic frameworks and political philosophies of the two nations are significantly different (for details, see CPD). But even if the ideological frameworks were much more similar than they are, that would not entail similar defence practices (as, e.g., ANZUS in all its weakness shows), nor any such defence obligations. Most of the arguments against nonalignment are of Catley calibre - or worse. Fortunately, then, such arguments are examined in detail elsewhere, notably by D. Martin in his examination of counter-arguments to Australian armed neutrality, the legally-recognised non-belligerent form of nonalignment he favours. Virtually none of Martin’s counter-case depends for its success on features of neutrality, which is not advocated here. Virtually all of Martin’s argument is moreover couched in negative form; his positive brief is very brief. It �20 reduces to this: alignment or alliance with the USA 'cannot make us secure against such dangers as we may one day have to meet, while it needlessless exposes to other dangers, including nuclear war (p.l, italics added). While the message is correct enough, and in need of wide propagation, it does little on its own to support neutrality, and it by no means exhausts the positive case for weakening alignment. In particular, there are more positive arguments of much theoretical interest, to be drawn from systems theory and from the burgeoning theory of collective goods and action. 7. Contributions towards stability: free-riding, enlarging group size, and increasing variety. The strategic world situation we now confront can be viewed as a game with more than 100 players, counting in nation-states and leaving out (for convenience) major organisations such as the largest 100 transnational companies. These organisational players align themselves around two large poles, East and West, as indicated: NON-ALIGNED N N WEST EAST India NATO States Japan, Israel Sweden* Switzerland* NZUS: Australi I Ireland1* ^Most Latin ' American States I Tanzania Costa Rica** State capitalist Key: N: *: **: State communist Nuclear weapons states Neutral states Nonmilitary states There are various - a great many - games these state players are playing, some of which are practically important for peace and for stability. Some of these games, such as World Empire and Chicken (already played under one representation), are played essentially between the East-West superplayers. There are several problems about East-West games: for instance, what representation they have, the repeatability of the games (clearly some nuclear games �21 may, like Russian roulette, end after one round, as they will with the Big One), and the negative sum characters of some games. And the monolithic East/monolithic West dichotomy is misleading, and, as will appear, discards crucial detail (in the way simplifications may). So game-theoretical modelling will be approached differently and more obliquely. World Security, like regional and local security, is a collective good (technically, an item, quality unspecified, in joint supply and precluding exclusion). That is not of course to say that there are not conditions under which security may leave much to be desired, for instance where security is guaranteed by a narrow and intolerant despotism; but then, so it can be argued, the trouble lies with the provisioning, not the particular product. collective good G for the collection of N nation-states. It is a It is, furthermore, a collective good which permits the possibility of free-riding by nation-states. Looked at from this perspective the recent American complaint about its allies, Japan for example, and their insufficient expenditure on defence, is a complaint about their free-riding. Within the balance of power framework the conditions for free-riding are satisfied, for instance by unaligned and unilaterally disarming states. For 1. G is available to all N members of the collective if it is available to any, and the achievement (or maintenance) of G by any will make every member better off. 2. G is achieved iff some number m (no larger than that of group K) contribute towards its provision, where under the balance of power assumption Il C K C N and II = {USA, USSR}. 3. The expected value of contributing to G or its maintenance is less than the expected value of not doing so, i.e. likely costs of contribution exceed likely benefits - except perhaps for members of II given that G is largely provided by II. There is what can be called a pegged (or asymmetric) free-rider problem, pegged by members of II for whom the free-rider option is not open - within the confines of the balance of power assumption - and for whom condition 3 is only satisfied under certain ways of looking at the matter (e.g. there will be a war 10 years down the road so the expected costs each year exceed the expected benefits). For most members of N, by contrast, the benefits of G are available even should they reduce their contributions. There is a straightforward case (in narrow game-theoretical terms) for recommending Australian, and regional, free-riding on the balance of power provision of G. Some arguments, beyond or adding to those already in effect presented, are these:- Either stability breaks down catastrophically and there is a large-scale war or it does not. If it does then the region is �22 better off than it would be if (strongly) aligned because it is unlikely to be (so heavily) targetted. (Here the dreadful new argument that nuclear winter means that the Antipodes might as well be involved gets challenged and rejected: as to how see e.g. MF and B. Martin). If, alternatively, stability doesn’t break down then the region has the benefits in any case, without the costs. For there is no clear evidence that our alignment and cooperation with the USA enhances global stability, etc.; indeed, as remarked and will be further argued, the evidence points to the contrary. As regards Australasian regional weight in the Western block, do we seriously believe it is significant? That the Australian voice, though useful for propaganda purposes, makes much real difference in the halls of Northern power? We shouldn’t: and if we do we’re living in a delusional framework. Australia has been left out of the picture in virtually all major strategic planning exercises, most difference-making peace initiatives, etc.,etc. Now Eastern block countries would hardly object to Antipodean free-riding, rather than no offering support (however trifling), comfort and incitement to their opposition/ Furthermore free-riding is how the Americans, on their theoretical principles, would expect Australia to act, the rational self-interested procedure (see CPD). It is how lesser nations should act. For it is economically rational; contributing is not. But won’t the US make things economically dear for Australia? In threats and theory, yes; but in practice, no more than it has already done with subsidized wheat deals to the Soviets, no more than it threatened to do already in the case of New Zealand over the nuclear-ships issue. For except for short term aberrations, America will never give up trade or business arrangements: one gets the impressions that America would trade with the Devil Himself, if doing so would open some new markets in Hell. Despite its political stigma, free-riding need be no problem, or in any way immoral or irregular. Perhaps the buses are free; perhaps there is a voluntary payment system, to which only some need contribute, etc. With the nuclear fix, free-riding is indeed the moral course; contributing is not.29 Free-riding, though often protrayed as a problem, is only a problem in certain cases of collective provisioning, where the good involved is sufficiently desirable and will not be provided because of too many free- riders. This is not the situation with global security, which will be provided, in the curious and precarious way that it is, whether or not Australia stays on the escalating treadmill or gets off and rides free. Australia's free-riding may be a problem for America; it is not for Australia. Interests diverge again. What is more, judicious free-riding can increase stability. In pictorial terms, the stability of a structure is typically increased up to a certain point by securing it more �23 adequately; for example, if it is a wind tower or similar building, by increasing its rigid ties or supports to the ground. Then a tripod (or better still a quadrapod) tower is much less likely to topple than a bipedal one, and requires less guying to stay up. Increasing the diversity, or variety, of supports increases stability. The theme that diversity correlates with stability has been sharpened and confirmed in ecology, for instance in the theory of “spreading the risks” (see EW). The related theme, that a certain variety increases stability, has been elaborated in cybernetics. The core eco-systemic idea to be developed is that Australia’s free-riding in defence, and consequent nonalignment, could help to enhance diversity and variety, and accordingly to increase stability (especially if done in concert with other client and suppliant states). Two interlocked supports in tension, East and West, well dug in but hardly well guyed, are inadequate for the long-term stability of the precarious structure of world peace. What makes engineering sense is not however adding weight to the structure, or even strengthening the supports that are there, helping the East when the balance is disturbed by the more powerful West’s surging ahead and likely overburdening the structure. What makes more sense is increasing the variety of supports, enlarging and diversifying group size, as significant independent grouping could do. The monolithic East/monolithic West picture is much more than a convenient simplification, for instance for strategic thinking. It may force damaging mistakes in conceptualisation, mzsconceptualisation perhaps convenient for some larger players. One main reason for mistakes concerns group size. Whereas 11+ = {West, East} is a small group, the number N of nation-states is not, but is considerably larger. But the collective behaviour of large groups differs in theory from that of small groups; group size is a highly significant factor (though its precise import remains contentious). The group N of nation-states is a large group, of essentially self-interested parties, indeed of substantially economic actors. collective action applies: So we may expect that the American theory of that the groups will behave in a counterintuitive way. Though expected to act in the common interest, to obtain security in particular, the collection will not. On this account (that elaborated by Olson), the common interest can only be guaranteed by outside influence or imposition (coercion in Olson’s rapid thinking). But with the collective of nations, there is, as experience has shown, no outside mediator or influence of sufficient authority to ensure attainment of the collective good. The prognosis looks very gloomy: this most important (though far from unique) collective good will not be provided. Fortunately the reasoning, like much of the “logic” of collective action, has been too �21 swift. The group, though large, is highly privileged, in containing several actors for whom costs of war exceed benefits (note the shift in perspective from the earlier free-riding condition 3). Indeed an important economic effect of the knowledge of an ominous nuclear winter is that virtually all actors involved should now be in that position; for (subjectively) expected costs of nuclear war have become very high. To go back to basics, Olson's grand theory is based on the accountants’ tautology (defining ‘net’) net agent benefit = gross agent benefits - gross agent costs, i.e. in symbols, for each agent or o actor i (in collective N), A- = V-Cj. A group is privileged if Aj is positive for some i in N. It needs little argument to show that for vulnerable European nation-states the net benefits of global security are decidedly positive (e.g. with a nuclear war their respective future GDPs would expectedly fall to near zero). The fact that the group of nation-states is privileged does not however imply that the collective good involved, security, will be supplied, particularly in the longer term. The simple logic is not dynamic; it takes no account of mistake, error, or the like, or of stability achieved through superiority or intermediate instability. An improved modelling - which can take some account of group size and of the dynamics, through iterated games - is gained by returning to game-theoretic grounds. A free rider “problem” is tantamount to a dilemma of some sort; according to the conventional wisdom, it is a prisoners’ dilemma (cf. Pettit, but contrast Taylor and Ward). The argument can go this way:- a free rider problem or issue is defined in terms of the provisioning of a collective good; but the theory of collective goods is equivalent to that of a .QI, generalised prisoners’ dilemma. Certainly the global nuclear situation appears to present a dilemma; as much is a commonplace claim. Elsewhere (e.g. WPI) it is argued in detail that it does indeed present a moral dilemma. Here the argument - which can proceed through the theoretical route just sketched above or in the more piecemeal way to be indicated - is that it is also a prudential dilemma (for many members of N).°2 Consider first, since these have obtained some investigation (e.g. Hardin), the range of apparent two party games being played by the US and Soviet Union administration (labelled US and SU respectively) in 1985 as regards the moves of further nuclear armament, A, or nuclear disarmament, N. (It is supposed, naturally, that the game is set in some background context, e.g. nuclear disarmament is not considered in isolation from on-going French and Chinese nuclear armament). It is important here, as other places, to distinguish the administration - which for the most part calls the shots - from the society and the people. It is administrations or governments that generally take people into war; etc. The American people seem rather more inclined towards nuclear de-escalation than their administration; the German people were clearly opposed to the new nuclear missiles their administration proceeded to install. The strategy games involved are then administration games, which we �25 can suppose to be played over successive time intervals, e.g. years; so there is interaction and feedback as the games go on - until the Big Ones explode. Within this simplistic setting, the apparent games being played by US and SU are those diagrammed next: New Initial game Prisoners’ Dilemma Game SU SU D US A Revised Game D 2,2 A 4,1 1,4 3,3 D US A SU D 3,2 A 4,1 1,4 2,3 D US A D 3,3 A 4,1 1,4 2,2 According to Hardin, ‘giving evidence of [his] deformation professionelle’, the Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD) ‘represents the preference ordering of virtually all the articulate policy analysts in the United States and presumably also in the Soviet Union’ (p.248). While PD may have represented US policy, there is considerable evidence (as already indicated) that it no longer does, that the US administration has shifted to a more aggressive, war-fighting, phase. That is, the US has interchanged its rankings of (D,D) and (A,A), presumably some time between 1978 and 1984 games. The Soviets, who have been much more consistent (and no doubt better censored) in their policy pronouncements, appear not to have changed their game, but have stuck with their form of deterrence and no-first-strike. However they are bound to try to keep up with the Americans, and so are presumably pushed towards the Revised Game shown, which pleasantly restores symmetry. Stable or equilibrium outcomes for each game are circled. An outcome is said to be stable if neither player has incentive to switch strategies unilaterally on the strength of the game, i.e. to alter the outcome except by influencing the other player also to alter strategies. All these games provide dilemmas, in a broad sense, that equilibrium is achieved in an undesirable and dangerous outcome. In all the apparent games, arming is the dominant strategy for each player; yet in the PD game that is even Pareto-suboptimal, whence the economic fascination. But as the other games deliver results which are socially suboptimal (and below a satisfying threshold), all these games are dilemmas. And the same applies to suggested alternative games that might plausibly be taken to represent the superpower situation, and such as Chicken. A recognisably suboptimal outcome is guaranteed by the independent ‘‘stable” strategies. What is worse, iteration of games does not help (as it may in other political circumstances). For there are substantial political and military incentives for the superpower players not to adjust their preferences substantially in socially superior directions after repeated games, but to do what the US at least appears to have done, to make the situation worse. �26 It is important then to attempt to modify or curtail these self-interested superpower games. There are various connected ways of going about this. One is for other parties to combine to limit or discourage these games. Another alternative is for them to try to alter the games. Thus much socially preferable would be a switch to a coordination game of some sort; for instance, to the game which neutrals tend to play (and which Lackey, in contrast to other more bellicose utilitarians, sees utilitarian superpowers playing; hence Hardin’s provocative label for this game, ‘Lackey’s game’). In the coordination game diagrammed, WN represents a western-inclined neutral and EN an Eastern inclined neutral (e.g. Yugoslavia): EN WN D D 1,1 A 3,2 A 2,3 4,4 [Other coordination games, with (D,D) assigned (1,1)] Now the dilemmatic and coordination games are not played in isolation; they come together in international settings such as United Nations’ committees (and elsewhere, since coordination games are frequently peoples’ games as well). Superimposing the games, with coordination games of the first sort applied to previously given US and SU games, leads to the following augmented East (E) and West (W) games: New Game, Augmented Prisoners’ Dilemma Augmented E E A D Revised Game, Augmented A 4,1 2,2 : *4,1' \ : 3^2 ’ D 1 : W ......... 1,4: A 2/3: 2/3; D ; 1 w ........ : 1,4 3,3 ; a 4 ; E D 2/3 • • — •- : 3-3’**: D ; 1 W I 2,3 ; . • 2.3 A D 2/3 2,2 a 4 ■ 4,1* ! . ; : 2/3 J 4 Key: rh represents a sequence of ms, i.e. m, m, m ... for each coordination player; 2/3 a sequence of 2s and 3s in some order. As augmenting games reveals, to play with a superpower is to help reinforce a stable deadlock. But playing an independent coordination game increases variety and can help in breaking the deadlock, in fact in several ways. For one, enough significant players playing a coordination game can alter the overall dominant strategy towards disarmament. For another, much more pressure can be brought to bear on the superpowers. For example, with less support, unilateral action by the US administration on Star-Wars and arms build-up can be exposed. Superpower militarism and power excursions would stand naked and �27 unsupported. Australia’s impact, in particular, would be rather greater as a nonaligned free-rider pressing seriously for disarmament and regional nuclear-freedom (instead of, as at present, white-wash polemics and token ambassadors, undermined by a none-too-tacit policy of US support). The strategy suggested by game-theoretic modelling converges then with that suggested by other approaches, notably regional and ecological approaches. The strategy is that of limitation, of disengagement from escalating US/USSR war games, and progressive alteration of their likely outcomes by defusing coordination moves. In more practical terms, the approaches mean trying to limit and modify superpower games by restricting their games and supporting regional or local coordination of players, in forms of organisations both of nations and of people. Such organisations would work, as many have already been doing, to contract the regions and spheres of influence and access of US and USSR military administrations, and to diminish support for their war-fighting objectives. For example, Antipodean groups could, and should, coordinate to ease the American military out of the South Pacific region, meanwhile resisting any intrusion of Russian military. Then, while the Europeans are doing their coordinated de-escalating, denuclearising things right across Europe, the Russian and American war games are progressively excluded from the entire Southern Hemisphere. An eventual aim geographically is, to send their weapons of war back home, to restrict their (and French and other) global military enterprises to their “own” backyards, where they would not always be so enthusiastically received. Fortunately such an ambitious and optimistic project, so unlikely to come to pass given present nation-state arrangments, can be accomplished piecemeal, from small and significant beginnings, already to be seen. As a result of recent movements in the region, a South Pacific nuclear-free region is now a politically-achievable option. A first token step has already been taken. But next steps, towards genuine nuclear-freedom, require above all cooperation of a less aligned Australia, joining other disengaging “free-riders” in the region. That in turn requires, as a practical component, closure of American bases in Australia as their leases terminate, cessation of American nuclear ship visits and aircraft staging, and an end to uranium mining and sales. As Australia is the only country in the region supplying uranium, and the main location of US bases, such steps would be most significant. Even so, the Pacific regional effect would remain unduly limited, so long as France and the US are based within the region, and transit of nuclear ships is internationally sanctioned everywhere on the shrinking high seas. Plainly there are further more difficult steps on the way to southern Pacific nuclear-freedom and independence, i.e. even for one of the easier oceanic regions. But there is no good reason to �28 expect that removing the nuclear scourge, any more than eliminating other major politico­ social evils, will be easy. Permanent removal and a less dubious “peace” than we presently enjoy is not something that will be achieved by more of what we have witnessed, or even through clever diplomacy and smart technological tricks, such as new defensive weapons; it will take difficult structural and radical design change. 8. On the need for, possibility of, and prospect of appropriate structural change. There is little doubt that certain sorts of structural political change would be highly conducive to peace (e.g. democratic reorganisation of the superpowers), and that certain fundamental changes may even be sufficient for permanent peace. With that in view they have long been advocated - at least from Rousseau and Kant onwards. But it has also been supposed that some such changes are necessary for lasting peace; ‘it is also necessary to transform the structures that lead to war’ (B. Martin, p.12). To render this theme immune to obvious criticisms - for example, that straightforward authoritarian extension of certain established structures could bring an end to war - further desiderata, typically presupposed, are invoked, for instance that certain freedoms, modest material standards of life, and so on, are duly guaranteed, and also the type of necessity involved is wound back to some lower technical level (not excluded however by present practicalities). These adjustments make the necessity theme more difficult to assess, but also more difficult to sustain. There are two parts to its assessment and defence, a negative and critical part, demolishing a range of arguments from determinism, human nature, and the like, to the effect that arrangements have to be more or less the way they are, and a positive part, comprising direct arguments for the theme. The large negative part of this enterprise will simply be illustrated.34 According to deterministic and mechanistic approaches, such as that of (marxist) technological determinism, nuclear weapons, like megamachines generally, are no aberration. They are an integral part of the business of industrial and ecological conquest, a further stage in human intervention which has already involved substantial disruption through pesticides, wastes, etc. The argument tends to the fatalistic. The megamachines of conquest are made, and once made they will be used. No change in political arrangement, which would make any difference, is possible. Sometimes technological enthusiasts push their position and luck, even further, that a weapon or device once invented by humans will be used: there is no stopping progress. But in doing so they overextend themselves. While there is, sadly a fair induction from the manufacture of weapons (of any given type, for many batches are never deployed) to their use, inductions from invention of machines or the like to their manufacture are �c 29 unreliable and subject to many counterexamples (and many machines that do eventually get made have been reinvented or independently rediscovered). But even the good inductions do not show that weapons of various sorts must be used, that a change in background political organisation would not frustrate the inductions. The broader deterministic position is of course that such background changes are not possible either; political arrangements too, like the rest of social life, are technologically or economically determined. But (nonanalytical) determinism, technological and other, is false, so it is argued elsewhere (JB, CPD). Different political arrangements, which alleviate problems, are technically possible, and arrangements would be different in differently evolved worlds. Things did not and do not have to be the way they are, or the social and political sort of way they are. Many routes, none of deductive strength, lead to the conclusion that the dominant political structures of our time, fashioned (with much input from schemes of past philosophers) from feudal institutions, require extensive structural alteration. In particular, they need to be superseded by alternative structures less intricately tied to war, which do not promote or lead so readily to war. Such a theme has been argued directly from the nuclear fix itself (as e.g. WP1, p.47ff.). But suppose, improbable as it may seem, that nuclear weapons all vanished, thereby removing the current nuclear fix; for instance, they turned out to be quietly self-destructing, or a disarmament actually took place. massive thermodynamic miracle occurred, or nuclear The problem of war would not be thereby removed, and even that of nuclear war would only be given some respite. For the structural arrangements for war would remain intact.04 Conventional weapons would remain, along with weapons perhaps as dangerous as nuclear weapons, such as chemical and biological ones. Nuclear weapons, insofar as they were removed (for small caches are easily hidden away), could soon be replaced, especially if nuclear power plants remained intact; and nothing would prevent the development of (Star-Wars) weapons more diabolical than nuclear ones. War cannot be eliminated while leaving the rest of society as it is - by freezing the status quo. ... The structural conditions for war need to be removed - not reinforced as appeals to elites may do - and superseded by alternative structures which do not lead to war (B. Martin, p.12: Martin goes on to indicate the types of structures, and how to reach them). Structural adjustments can provide conditions for lasting satisfactory peace. An initial, somewhat simplistic, Kantian argument for the proposition that peace is possible (presented by Latta, introducing Permanent Peace), runs as follows:- Peace, perpetual peace, is an ideal, not merely of a speculative kind but a practical idea, a moral principle. Hence this ideal ought to be realised, i.e. there ought (morally) to be peace. But ought entails can; therefore peace is possible. �30 From Heracleit.us through Hegel there buzzes an impressive swarm of philosophers"*6 who have rejected the second premiss. Some are even captivated by such extravagant counter-claims as that with peace everything would stop, that competition, with war as one limit, is essential to motion and progress! would now be With the recent shift in philosophical fashions, the second premiss more widely conceded, though often not on Kantian grounds, but consequentialist. Such grounds to support the theme that peace is desirable and ought to be realised, but are more discriminating in that they help indicate what sort of peace. Unfortunately, however it is done, the second premiss does not sustain the conclusion, ought does not entail can, as many moral dilemmas reveal (see MD, WP1). So fortunately, there is a more satisfactory and revealing route to the conclusion that peace is possible, and indeed is feasible. That is the more elaborate method of (semantical) modelling: present in detail scenarios of societies where peace persists (for the sceptical it may be necessary to recall n-human models, with n small). This sort of thing is of course already done, in more pleasing fashion than logicians could hope to emulate, if rather less precisely, by OQ novelists and science-fiction writers, and by activists like the different Martins. What all these scenarios point to, however, are societies considerably different from our own - though not in the people involved, who have their weaknesses, their power drives, and so forth, but because of significant structural alterations in the societies depicted. By way of such modellings we can not merely argue to the feasibility of lasting peace, but push ahead with the argument, that societies of these restructured sorts are desirable alternatives to contemporary military- industrial arrangements. For those of us then who want to move towards such pacific alternatives, the practical inference, from feasibility and desirability is clear: we should begin on the real work of structural change. Peace is possible and desirable, but the prospects are poor (as Heilbroner has said of the human prospect). Present arrangements, though contingent and fashioned in large measure from the schemes of past intellectuals, are thoroughly entrenched, and enforced, both ideologically and by much physical power, often as if along with natural law they were God­ given, though they are no longer appropriate. Even small nonstructural changes look difficult to achieve in present political climates. Through climates have not changed that much, major social improvements have been gained, not instantanously, but in longer-term struggles with government. Such short-term difficulties did not deter social theorists such as Kant, who like Rousseau before him and many after him, were concerned with obtaining lasting peace. The world has changed enormously since the time of Kant’s proposals for peace (of 1795), and even since the time of Veblen’s more cynical additions (in 1917). Hard science and �31 destructive power have grown enormously; and even theoretical knowledge of collective behaviour, especially that admitting of game-theoretic treatment, though still slight, has advanced. But political arrangements and what can be accomplished politically have, in important respects, changed very little, since Rousseau complained (around 1761) that governments were probably too short-sighted to appreciate the merits of his project for perpetual peace. Governments have long been, and been seen as, main obstacles to peace. Thus Veblen rightly maintained that ‘... if the peace is to be kept it will have to come about irrespective of governmental management, - in spite of the State rather than by its good offices’ (p.7).^^ So it has been with most major social changes; for they have involved structural political change disturbing to governmental conservatism. In his search for the indispensible conditions for lasting peace, Kant claimed, as others have claimed since, that peace is not possible under present structural arrangements of an unregulated competing nation-state kind. As times have changed, so, to a limited extent, have state structural arrangements, since Kant compiled his conditions. In particular, there is now, in the shape of the United Nations, a very weak reflection of what Kant looks for, a world (or European!) federation of nations. But crucial ingredients in Kant’s resolution are still lacking:- namely, at the upper level, what is required for a standard resolution of Prisoners Dilemma type situations - some surrender of national sovereignty, especially as regards war, and, at the lower level, “republican” states. Major blockages to adequate arrangements for peace remain at two critical levels of organisation, that concentrated upon of the organisation of collectives of states and, in part by devolution, that of the internal organisation of individual states themselves. Much evidence has now accumulated that more far-reaching changes than Kant, Rousseau and Veblen envisaged are required at both international and nation-state levels if genuine peace is to be secured. Indeed significant changes are wanted even in republician states for peace movements to get their mixed message through already fixed channels to state control systems. For this sort of reason, movements on a single front, such as peace, are unlikely to succeed on their own, but should be linked into a broader plurality of movements, which seek to widen informational and democratic channels, and to alter the character and membership of state systems, and thereby render them much more controllable and accountable.40 Many longer-haul structural changes depend upon diverting nuclear war in the meantime. Thus arguing for more far-reaching changes, for an altered nonaligned Australia, �32 for a nuclear-free South Pacific, for regional structural changes, certainly does not exclude arguing and working for obvious measures for reducing risks of nuclear war. These include: a serious commitment to arms control by the superpowers (whose practices threaten our futures, though most of us lack representation in either); a move away from war-fighting strategies and associated destabilising weapons-systems; moderation of confrontational rhetoric and other tensions-inducing practices by superpower administrations, and improved efforts at mutual understanding (as well some appreciation of the elements of political pluralism); and then, remote though it may appear, significant steps towards nuclear disarmament. Richard Sylvan 41 Bungendore NSW �33 NOTES 1. Queensland premier, with destructive deep-South policies. 2. The point, which has become controversial, is argued in effect in Gilbert. 3. See especially Dibb, as reported in the ANU Reporter, and for a more guarded elaboration, his IAD (e.g. p.163 ‘At present, planning for the defence of Australia lack coherence because there is no clear definition, in priority order, of what needs defending’); see also Sharp, p.l48ff and differently Langtry and Ball, p.575ff., p.6O5ff. The much-heralded Dibb Review of mid-1986 would, if (as already seems unlikely) it were adopted, remove some of the lesser incoherence in Australian policy, that involving details of regional defensive defence (as would also Langtry and Ball, if followed through). While Dibb appears to have demolished what he refers to scathingly as the ‘largely mythical “core force” concept’, a new controversy has sprung up over whether Australia’s more self-reliant defence should be purely defensive defence, Dibb’s ill-named ‘strategy of denial’, or whether it should include an offensive component. Dibb himself has rather rapidly shifted ground on this important issue. In late 1983 he was contending that ‘Australia should have in the force-in-being significant deterrent capabilities, based on present air and naval strike assets, which can mount defensive and offensive operations against attacking forces, their staging bases and lines of resupply’ (IAP, p.166). But in the otherwise conservative Review of 1986 such offensive defence is abandoned; no such forces and equipment for offensive off-shore operations are recommended. Instead ‘the review proposes a layered strategy of defence within our area of direct military interest. Our most important defence planning concern is to ensure that an enemy would have substantial difficulty in crossing the sea and air gap’. The new offensive/defensive defence controversy puts the Review’s adoption in increasing doubt - in which event the local incoherence in strategic planning processes and militational difficulties Dibb alludes to early in his statement will presumably persist. The Review not merely fails to address significant regional issues, as to defence priorities, and as to multiple purpose roles for Australian armed forces given that they will be involved in virtually no military activity other than maintenance and a certain “preparedness” (for on Dibb’s overstatement of the prevailing view of Australia’s very favourable regional security prospects, ‘there is no conceivable prospect of any power contemplating invasion of our continent and subjugation of our population’). But further, the Review is itself vague to incoherent, concerning wider defence issues, vague as to the post-ANZUS situation, and incoherent about Australia’s role in US global “defence” activity. According the Dibb (CT, p.16), ‘there is no requirement for Australia to become involved in United States contingency planning for global war. The presence of the joint facilities, together with the access that we provide to visits by United States warships and the staging through of Australia of B-52 bombers, are a sufficient tangible contribution to the Alliance.’ These contributions are not involvement? That is not how the USSR views the matter: they are the reported sole �34 basis of USSR nuclear targetting of Australia (see Dibb. SS p.13). global stance is left essentially to the USA. And Australia's Amazingly, in the Strategic Basis Papers (SB), Australia criticizes New Zealand because ‘it has still developed no policy for national defence and tends to look to ... the US as its primary source of defence guidance’ (p.29). Note that C3I abbreviates the mouthful, Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence. 4. See Sharp, p.l46ff. An Australian policy should moreover fit with the genuine needs and shared aspirations of local people - to the extent, presumably, that these are commendable; again the presupposed value framework is critical. 5. Thus e.g. Gray (p.17) on the Reagan Administration’s ‘foolhardy brief willingness to talk publicly about nuclear strategy’, and his distain for public involvement or input. There is some concern, especially among neo-conservatives, about US defence strategies being ‘undermined by well-meaning persons who believe they are helping the cause of peace’ (Bell p.10; similarly Gray). Even those not so far right support partial information releases which maintain public confidence; e.g. Dibb on ‘the release of a generalised statement about ;the] functions of the US bases in Australia ... to give Australians more confidence about their crucial contribution to the Allied cause’ (ISA, p.166). ‘Our defence policy-making process is probably more “closed” than that of any other advanced Western democracy’ according to Langtry and Ball (p.608), who contend that ‘the public needs to be involved much more in our defence planning and operations'. For a justified critique of public exclusion and leave-it-to-the-experts approaches, see B. Martin; also Sharp. 6. The paper was drafted in mid-1985. 7. For those amassing evidence that Australia falls into the inexact class of client states, the following Australian contribution is noteworthy: ‘The US prefers to act as a member of a group, and a contribution by Australia can also assist in demonstrating to Congressional and public opinion that the objectives sought are significant enough to attract allied support’ (SB, p.28) 8. As to DI and arms control, see, e.g. Mack PR and Gray. As to D2, ‘USA has now an announced first-strike nuclear targeting policy’ technologically reinforced, Hayes, p.4; and see also Mack AC, p.111. The goal of the Reagan administration is superiority (a conveniently ambiguous term). Thus e.g. Gray (p.32): ‘it is of course essential that the United States modernize its offensive forces so as to render the Soviet Union genuinely offensive-counterforce incompetent.’ 9. On the major changes in American policy, see e.g. Gray p.118 ff. Though America is now said to have a ‘new national security concept of which SDI is the centerpiece’ it may still lack an ‘arms control policy’ (Gray, p.25,pll). Not only arms control, but American commitment to the security of allies, remain at least decidedly cloudy matters. Thus it is of little avail to contend that Australia does have a coherent secondorder global policy, namely the (discreditable) one of following prevailing American policy. For the US lacks a first-order policy which is sufficiently clear in relevant respects. The American direction of Australian policy had better be away from too much public exposure because Australians, no more than New Zealanders, mostly do not like being pushed around, even by Americans. �35 10. Thus we can avoid the important debate as to whether, and to what extent, deterrence remains part of US global “defence” policy (though it certainly remains part of the policy sold to the American public). As to the philosophical significance of the debate, see Gay, p.l29ff. and Benn. 11. The common-interest theme is often traced to (partly self-interested) American action in the Pacific in World War II. Curiously Australia’s interests are are now said also to converge with those of Japan, but to be diametrically opposed to those of the USSR (despite increasing trade). 12. Nor, though this is a longer story, does Australian culture by any means coincide with American: see CPD. Thus a uniform treatment is entirely inappropriate. Similarly, a single overarching treatment for a monolithic West is thoroughly inadequate: see further below in the text. 13. Australian planning should be looking at strategic models (game-theoretic and other) which include Australia. For, as argued below, abandoning the uniformity assumption of the monolithic West, of the West as one parish, makes significant differences to the results yielded. 14. As Cock goes on: ‘These basic issues increasingly become lost in the array of consumer choices’. 15. ‘The serf societies - more or less willingly - accept the status of “allies”, i.e. protection with rights and duties as in feudal societies. They become client countries’ (Galtung, p.169). 16. So-called by Mack PC. But the formulation presented follows G. Davidson’s more satisfactory account in Canberra Times, Wednesday, May 8, 1985, p.2. Mack considers that what amounts to the elitist case is the ‘altogether more sophisticated argument [which] holds sway ... in government’ (p.l, italics added)! 17. The “Asian hordes” derive from one of the less spoken about successors to the Yellow Peril, from the immediate past days of the Asian communist threat, the Domino theory, and White Australia. 18. As Stephenson argued, less fortunately, 20 years ago. Even when around World War II Japan, did have interest in access to strategic raw materials, the Japanese High Command decided against invading Australia because of the difficulty of dealing with the people - a point of much importance. 19. Of course, such military expenditure is also encouraged by economic forces, e.g. like much Third World hard currency expenditure it helps the American economy along a bit. 20. Heilbroner has traced some of the economic components and consequences of what, with excess exaggeration and insufficient irony, he calls ‘the rise and subsequent fall of the American imperium’ (p.52): it hasn’t fallen that far yet. ‘Empires have always been expensive and the American empire was no exception. ... The sheer military cost ... for the United States alone ... is roughly ten percent of ... GNP for the last 25 years ($2 x 10) in 1972 dollars)’. American imperial spending supplemented by other capitalist countries fueled inflation, enhanced poverty, etc., and was complements by, what it was represented as required by, counterexpenditure and efforts by the USSR. �36 ‘The establishment of an American hegemony [consisted and: resulted not just in very large military expenditures, but in the rapid build-up of American capital investments abroad. Between 1950 and 1970, the value of American-owned plant and equipment abroad leaped from $12 billion to $78 billion’ (p.54). A result of the expenditure abroad was a serious balance of payments problem (negative “capital flows” and balances), and a growing accumulation of IOUs. On this sort of basis, Heilbroner speculates that ‘the mere operations of the American imperium by itself - deemed of such critical importance to preserve the peace and security of the capitalist world - was in all likelihood a sufficient condition for the globalisation of the inflationary phenomena’ (p.57 with insert from p.56). According to Heilbroner, ‘Long before the Vietnam debacle, it was clear that American arms could not prevent the rise of revolutionary governments in the under-developed world’ (p.57). But really very little evidence of collapse is presented by Heilbroner; and seemingly there is little. What there is more substantial evidence for is the marked decline of the American imperium in the period (1973-8) concerned. One piece of evidence is the sharp decline in America’s share of World GDP, shown in the following table of select leading national economies: SHARE OF WORLD GDP (%) POPULATION SHARE COUNTRY RANK 1968 1975 1984 (1984 est) USA 1 35.0 24.3 25.0 5.2 USSR 2 11.1 11.0 13.8 6.2 JAPAN 3 5.2 8.0 9.5 2.7 GERMANY FDR 4 5.1 6.7 5.7 1.5 FRANCE 5 4.6 5.4 CHINA 6 2.9 4.8 4.3 22.6 UK 8 2.8 2.8 2.3 1.3 4.4 1.3 INDIA 12 1.3 1.5 1.1 15.1 AUSTRALIA 15 1.1 1.4 1.0 0.3 �37 The table should also make it clear that if the USA cannot sustain a grand empire, nor can the USSR. A totalitarian Pax Sovietica is even less likely than a capitalistic Pax American was. 21. Although, so the documents continue, ‘neighbourhood contingencies .... are at present assessed as impossible’! The theme that the USA affords no sure guarantee of Australian defence is reiterated in Langtry and Bell, e.g. p.608. They go on there to outline the major points that reliance upon the US has distorted Australian arrangements (with forces better equipped to fight alongside the Americans in Asia than on their own in defending Australia) and has led to neglect of the regional priorities, ‘to defence planning which at least would recently paid little attention to the direct defence of our continent and the protection of our remote communities’ (p.608). 22. The French, who operate a global network second only to the Americans and more extensive than the Russians, with many forces in the Pacific region, have never been seriously considered. Yet in certain significant respects French social and cultural arrangements are closer to Antipodean ones than American arrangements are. In these days of technological warfare, the post-Waterloo loss record of the French should not be given too much weight; we don’t after all look very hard at the American record of defeats and incompetence. Etc. 23. If Australia is not likely to be threatened there is no real deterrence advantage because nothing to deter. Other advantages of the ANZUS alliance such as access to high-level intelligence are not only dubious (see PC, D. Martin), but not always guaranteed by the alliance as the blackout of New Zealand shows. 24. Soviet activity is undoubtedly perceived rather differently by American administrations than Antipodean ones. ‘An agressive, treacherous, ruthlessly self-interested, expansionist increasingly powerful, and hence increasingly threatening state - that is the image of the Soviet Union in America. It is the image which has legitimised the strategic modernation and Star Wars programs’ (to adopt Mack ST, pl). To see that this is indeed the intellectually shoddy route by which these grand and dangerous programs are justified, it is enough to work through fundamentalist sources, such as Gray. It is almost as if Americans had projected some of their own occasionally-manifested worst features into the giant enemy. 25. After some considerable reconstruction, that is. For the argument, curiously referred as that of “central balance” in newspaper-level publications of academics (e.g. Catley, Bell), is never presented in requisite detail - which is one reason why it has proved hard to criticise and refute. 26. As well both the premiss and its usual substitutes are false (see MF). The type of argument exhibited is a good example of prevalent Australian consequentialist thinking. A parallel argument, enjoying unwarranted popularity, runs: We might as well sell uranium (e.g. to France), because if we don’t someone else will - as if motives counted morally for nothing. 27. See also the discussion of Bell’s claims in D. Martin and in Mack PC. 28. Since the New Zealand restrictions on nuclear ships, ‘the Soviet media has been full of gloating references to the prospect of the collapse of the ANZUS treaty’ according to Dibb (SS, p.14). Given the unimportance of the Antipodes to Soviet interests (as Dibb �38 himself explains), Dibb is surely exaggerating, at least, when he later claims that ‘the prospect of the breakup of the AN ZUS treaty would be of enormous benefit to the USSR’s world-wide interests’ (SS p.31). Soviet support for Antipodean independence and for ‘a real nuclear weapon-free zones' in the South Pacific has its disconcerting elements (‘with friends like that ...’); but luckily the quality of ideas does not depend essentially on their sources and supporters. 29. As WPI serves to show. In a different context, Bell objects to Australian free-loading ‘on other people’s risks and burdens. That has certainly not been our tradition, and I hope it will not become so, since it is morally quite indefensible’ (p.7). Not so: bludging, for instance, is a well-established, if disapproved of, part of the tradition; and in some cases it is morally in order. However, free-riding is not being proposed merely for self interested reasons, e.g. to remove the present risks of nuclear targetting; it is being proposed with a view to altering the two great alliance structures that at present dominate international politics. Bell’s objection to such a course is that it ‘would on the one hand tend to increase the tendency of the superpowers to unilateralism, and on the other hand tend to induce many of the minor powers in question (including Australia) to consider acquiring nuclear capacity’ (p.7). The second alternative neglects the non­ proliferation treaty, to which Australia is a signatory; the first appears to assume erroneously that friendly relations with America are foregone; both are pretty minor considerations (and both can be dealt with in other negotiated ways) compared with the major problem of nuclear war. 30. The less than perspicuous symbolism is that used in Hardin (CA, p.20, p.39), but with agents’ costs or contributions, C, duly agent relativized. Hardin misleadingly treats C as a fixed parameter, thus strictly falsifying the tautology. 31. Thus Hardin who (in CA) claims to ‘demonstrate the equivalence of the logic of collective action and the Prisoners’ Dilemma’ (p.4) The demonstration is given on p.25ff. 32. But of course the two types of dilemma interconnect. 33. Even so, significant change in USA looks unlikely. Present arrangements suit not only the American corporate-administrative power elite, which can direct public opinion through its control of the main communications media, but many other fat-cat Americans, rather well. The polarisation of the world into two camps increases US control of the larger and far wealthier camp, yet scarcely reduces US trade or markets. While it does limit the global coverage of US business and multinationals, and somewhat restricts the transfer of other regions’ surplus value to the USA, it ensures the much greater advantage of being able to maintain the US domestic political economy on a military basis. The US and the USSR not only dance together; they were made for each other. Abroad US hegemony is maintained through a series of alliances and economic control strategies. Particularly ominous for the South Pacific are the Trilateral and Pacific Rim arrangements (which, with much local assistance, are helping to send Australia on its present economic trajectory). When advice or persuasion directed at allies and client states fail, economic measures can be resorted to (capital outflows, for instance, being a highly effective mechanism, “aid” a lesser device). For the most part, the imperial war machine can remain in the background. At home updated and improved imperial measures also work well. The mass consumerist society affords a rich and diverting selection of bread (much of it again imported) for a majority of Americans; television �39 and its entertainment variants offer a constant diet of circuses. For passive middle mainstream America, the vast police and security network remains a largely background and even unnoticed phenomenon; what is seen is even welcomed as a necessary shield from that other, dangerous, minority America. American social, educational and media management of opinion is obviously successful. Of present relevance, most Americans have been convinced that unilateral disarmament would be unAmerican. Thus the American administration, being hedged in by opinion they have helped to generate, cannot move in any such directions. For, given popular opinion, it would of course be politically disastrous, as well as undemojl’cratic! In the USSR, where political control is exercised to a much greater extent through overt power, present change of substance appears even less likely. 34. More of the negative enterprise is attempted elsewhere, e.g. a critique of the supposed strait-jacket of human nature is begun in CPD. From Plato through Hegel and into contemporary times it has been erroneously supposed that war, like aggression, is part of human nature, that war is a permanent (and perhaps even desirable) condition of human and social existence. For a refutation, see e.g. Trainer and Waite. 35. As observed by B. Martin, who uses this important form of argument for institutional change to get this thick book started (pp.12-13). 36. The swarm includes some anomalies, such as that somewhat tarnished hero of deep ecology, Spinoza: see e.g. Northedge. 37. Perhaps Kant had some such scenario in view in his theme that peace is empirically possible, which he coupled with his striking claim that peace is morally and rationally imperative. The latter claim, running in direct opposition to the long line of bellicose philosophers, really relies on the correct, but controversial, assumption that states are subject to the same moral relations as individual persons. Both then have an obligation to seek peace derived from forms of the categorial morality, notably from rational autonomy, the universality of maxims, and the ultimate value of persons (or, yet more chauvinistically, of humanity). 38. Veblen argued against the State on the basis that ‘governmental establishments and ... powers ... are derived from feudal establishments of the Middle Ages; which in turn, are of a predatory origin and of an irresponsible character’ (p.9), however the Christianfeudal origin of the State provided only one - and a coersive - evolutionary pattern of organisation (pp. 12-13), a pattern much influenced moreover by schemes of intellectuals. Other patterns remain feasible. 39. There are now theoretical arguments for Kant’s claim, as well as practical arguments of an inductive sort. 40. Such is also the new message from America: for the peace movement to get through to the administration, American democracy must be overhauled and revitalised, capitalist democracy superseded by true democracy or “republicanism” (see especially Cohen and Rogers, and earlier Chomsky). But the message, like the US peace movements’ very limited demands for peace, leaves the State, as the bringer of wars, and main source of violence essentially intact; the structural changes suggested, which will be slow to achieve, are much too narrowly conceived. 41. My thanks for information to Andrew Mack and David Bennett, and for comments to �Grover Foley and Russell Hardin. �REFERENCES G. H. Andrewartha and L.C. Birch, The Ecological Web, University of Chicago Press, 1984. W.R. Ashby, Design for a Brain, Second edition, Wiley, New York, 1960. S.Beer, Designing Freedom, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Toronto, 1974. C. Bell, ‘The case against neutrality’, Current Affairs Bulletin 61(4) (1984) 4-10. S.I. Benn, ‘Deterrence or appeasement? or, On trying to be rational about nuclear war’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 1(1984) 5-19. F. Capra and C. Spretnak, Green Politics, Hutchinson, London, 1984. R. Catley, ‘Along with the Bomb ...’ (Review of D. Martin), The Weekend Australian Magazine, 7-8 April, 1984. N. Chomsky and E.S. Herman, The Political Economy of Human Rights, Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1979. P. Cock, Alternative Australia, Quartet Books, Melbourne, 1979. J. Cohen and J. Rogers, On Democracy, Penguin, New York, 1984. P. Dibb (as reported) ‘Defence Planning “lacks coherence” - researcher’, ANU Reporter, 1983. P. Dibb, ‘Issues in Australian defence’, Australian Outlook 37 (1983) 160-166; referred to as IAD. P. Dibb, ‘Soviet strategy towards Australia, New Zealand and Oceania’ paper prepared for Soviet Strategy Against Asia converence, Tokyo, November 1984; referred to as SS. P. Dibb, Review of Australia's Defence Capabilities, Report to the Minister of Defence, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1986; edited text also published in The Canberra Times, 4 June 1986, pp.16-18; referred to as the Dibb Review. P. and A. Erlich, Population, Resources, Environment, Second edition, Freeman, San Francisco, 1976. H. Feith,‘Richard Falk, World order radical’, Peace Studies 24 (1985) 24-5. J. Galtung, There are Alternatives, Spokesman, Nottingham, 1984. W.C. Gay, ‘Myths about nuclear war: misconceptions in public beliefs and governmental plans’, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 9(1982) 117-144. A. Gilbert, ‘The state and nature in Australia’, Australian Cultural History 1981 (ed. S. Goldberg and F.B. Smith), Canberra, 1982, pp.9-28. �42 C.S. Gray, ‘The Reagan administration and arms control’, paper presented at The Future of Arms Control Conference, Canberra. August 1985. R. Hardin, Collective Action, Resources for the Future, Washington, 1982; referred to as CA. R. Hardin, ‘Unilateral versus mutual disarmament’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 12(1983) 236-254. M.D. Hayes, ‘Defending the sunburnt country’, Chain Reaction 33(August-September 1983) 11-17. R.L. Heilbroner, Beyond Boom and Bust, Norton, New York, 1978. I. Kant, Perpetual Peace (trans, and introd. M. Campbell Smith), Swan Sonnerschein, London, 1903 (first published 1795). J. O. Langtry and D Ball (eds), A Vunerable Country, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1986. A. Mack, ‘Farewell to Arms Controls’, Peace Research 9(1984) 9ff.; referred to as PR. A. Mack, ‘The pros and cons of ANZUS’, Fabian ANZUS Conference, Lome, 4-5 May 1985; referred to as PC. A. Mack, ‘Arms control, disarmament and the concept of defensive defence’, Disarmament 8(3)(1984) 109-119; referred to as AC. A. Mack, ‘The Soviet threat thesis: perceptions, capabilities and interests’ typescript, Canberra, May 1985; referred to as ST. B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984. B. Martin, Armed Neutrality for Australia, Drummond Books, Melbourne, 1984. F.S. Northedge, ‘Peace, war and philosophy’, in Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ed P. Edwards), Volume 6, Macmillan, New York, 1967, 63-67. M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1965. P. Pettit, ‘Free riding and foul dealing’, Journal of Philosophy, to appear, J.J. Rousseau, A Project for Perpetual Peace (trans. E.M. Nuttal), London, 1927 (first Published 1761). R. Routley, ‘On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear deterrence, and the political fall out’, Discussion papers in Environmental philosophy #5, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984. R. Routley, ‘Metaphysical fall-out from the nuclear predicament’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 3/4(1984) 19-34; referred to as MF. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #6, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984; referred to as MD. �43 R. Sharp (ed.), Apocalypse No. Pluto Press, Sydney, 1984. P.R. Stephenson, The Foundations of Culture, W.J. Miles, Sydney, 1936. R. Sylvan, ‘Culture and the roots of political divergence’, typescript, Canberra, 1985; referred to as CPD. M. Taylor and H. Ward, "Chickens, whales, and bumpy goods: alternative models of public­ goods provision’, Political Studies 30(1982) 350-370. T. Trainer and H. Waite, ‘Culture and the production of aggression’, in Sharp, ep.cit, 205-226. The Strategic Basis of Australian Defence Policy, leaked extracts published in the National Times, March 30-April 5, 1984, 23-30; referred to as SB. Threats to Australian Security, Parliamentary Joint Committee for Foreign Affairs and Defence, Australian Government Printer, Canberra; referred to as TAS. T. Veblen, An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of its Perpetuation, Viking Press, New York, 1945 (first published 1917). � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document AUSTRALIA’S DEFENCE PHILOSOPHY: Further investigations of the nonexistent. ‘The opinions of philosophers, with regard to the conditions of the possibility of a public peace, shall be taken into consideration by states armed for war’ (Kant, ‘A [the only!] secret article for perpetual peace’, p.158 - a surprising article, flattering no doubt to philosophers, but neglecting their dominant bellicose tradition). A defence philosophy is much more than a defence policy, just as a philosophy of technology comprises much more than a technology policy. A policy can be given merely by a list of directives as to what do in various circumstances; even at its best it need only involve practical wisdom. By contrast, a philosophy goes deeper and requires theoretical wisdom, integration of the policy into a theoretical setting, which looks, among other things, at the central arguments and key concepts involved: here, security, stability, control, protection, defence, interests, national interests, intelligence, war, etc. Defence philosophy is thus a branch of political and social philosophy, and has long been treated as such, though under such more familiar and honest headings as “of war” and “of peace”. Like most parts of philosophy, it can be applied, for instance in shaping policies, in regional ways among others. A defence philosophy should integrate appropriate defence arrangements and approaches to war and peace, not merely or superficially into “foreign policy” or assumed “international relations”, but into the way and intended way of life of a country, both into on-going culture and into the intended or planned cultural arrangements. A defence policy typically takes prevailing socio-political arrangements and power structures for granted; a defence philosophy again penetrates deeper, questioning or rejecting features of these structures, enquiring as to the merits of things and institutions of which defence is planned, asking what sort of society should be defended by what sort of appropriate methods and at what lengths. What, for instance, is Australia, what are Australians, defending, concerned to defend, aiming to defend? Here in Australia? In the region? Abroad? How much of what others have, or what we have, is worth defending, preserving? Does Randwick Racecourse, or Pine Gap, merit defending? Would anyone stage a last stand for Oaks Estate, one of Canberra’s dreariest suburbs? If the Indonesians made a lightning strike in Australia just to remove Bjelke-Petersen,1 should we resist? Few of the necessary prerequisites have been adequately thought about in Australia, where unplanned muddling through from immediate problem to immediate problem - reactive contingency “planning”, if you want to be generous - is the main style of political life , and, along with the traditional political game of “follow the leader”, of defence planning. Australia 2 does not yet have a defence philosophy. Some of its critical philosophers could help to supply it with the rudiments of one or more, and to inject some depth into broader defence theorizing. What follows is intended as a modest beginning: much of what is attempted, unearthing arguments and assumptions, followed by analysis and criticism, and some elaboration of alternative principles, falls squarely within the domains both of applied philosophy and traditional philosophical practice. 1. Australia’s inappropriate. defence “policy”: incoherent, obsolescent Australia seems to lack even a clear and coherent defence policy. American, This is a commonplace charge (made even by friends of Defence, interested in obtaining extra public funding for defence and elements of C3I).^ The reasons concern not merely the major unsolved issues of exactly what is being defended, what things and objects and what interests, and whose, what freedoms and values, and what role American defence facilities in Australia are supposed to have in this. They concern the status of present treaty arrangements, such as the “cornerstone”/“millstone” ANZUS treaty, signed between Australia, New Zealand and the US, now in disarray (still ’‘maintained” by New Zealand, whom the US has unilaterally announced expelled), and of subsequent associated memoranda of understanding (some secret, involving the local storage of US nuclear weapons, entry of American personnel, etc.). They also concern a range of more detailed lucunae such as: lack of clearly-defined priorities on what needs defending and how it is to be accomplished; doubtful capacity of present defence forces to handle low-level contingencies in and to the north of Australia and in maritime zones; and unsatisfactory (or no) arrangements and planning for “defence-in-depth”, for civil defence and use of civil infrastructure, mobilisation, wartime administration, protection of key facilities and areas, and post-nuclear organization. And, equally damaging, if its policy makers do have a coherent policy it is nowhere satisfactorily revealed to the peoples of Australia.It is left to journalists and newspaper­ watching academics to winkle out what local defence installations may be for and to make various conjectures as to what the policy may be. Of course there are many administrators and policy makers who think that is the way it should be; the public should not be informed, but kept satisfied with some “generalised” statements.As to coherence, Australian policy makers have only recently found out that Australia has a (purely) regional defence role, not a global one. This they were told by the Americans in Washington in talks allegedly designed to clarify commitments under treaty arrangements with the USA. It thus begins to look as if Australia’s defence policy, such as it is, is still as much determined abroad, by US policy makers, as it is locally in Australia. 3 Much circumstantial evidence can be assembled to confirm the claim that Australia’s vague defence policy can now be stamped Made in USA, as it used, before the last World War (and British abandonment), to be stamped Made in UK. For one thing, Australia has had a bipartisan defence policy, so it is claimed. That “policy” has however been essentially shaped by the Liberal party, which has governed most of the time (as senior partner in a coalition). But the Liberal party simply took over US arrangements for Australia (as planned in Washington for ANZUS) and still does. For instance, the latest package® from the Liberal Party “Defence and Foreign Policy Unit” consists largely of US Defence Department material packaged under a local cover. The Strategic Basis Papers, endorsed by the Labor Government, give virtually unqualified support to US military practices and to the American view of the global strategic situation, and commit Australia to supporting, without any due reservation, American positions in world forums.' The same dependent-policy conclusion can be reached by more devious arguments. regional defence role? When, for example, did Australia find out it had a After the Americans had found that they could no longer afford to police the world on their own and would have to delegate some of that role and offload some of the heavy associated costs, on reliable dogs-bodies; and also after Labor took some faltering steps towards developing a broader foreign more independent policy with some indigenous elements (Australian Minister Hayden was promptly flattened by US heavies such as Schultz). Australian defence and foreign policy copies American policy in main respects, but lags it. The Australian defence policy presented by the Labor government, to the extend that it is visible, is conservative; it coincides with older American defence policy, and diverges from the new (post-Reagan) American war policy. For Australian Labor defence policy supports what the American administration supposedly used to support, namely DI. Multilateral nuclear disarmament (within the framework of series of treaties and agreements), and D2. Deterrence in the interim, deterrence through mutual assured destruction (i.e. MAD). The presence of American military facilities in Australia is supposed to be justified in the framework of these assumptions. For they are to assist in making deterrence under D2 effective, and to provide verification for the arms reduction arrangements under DI (both stabilizing functions). There is much evidence indicating however that American policy makers have now abandoned both Dl and D2 and any serious attempts at nuclear arms control8. Certainly they have moved on to the following highly destabilizing doctrines: Nuclear war-fighting, Limited nuclear wars, and Star-Wars (i.e. Strategic Defense Initiative). While this American war policy may well be accepted by the next Liberal coalition government, all of these military doctrines are explicitly rejected by the 1985 Labor government. Since the American “joint” facilities in Australia also facilitate the rejected 4 objectives, the problems concerning these dubious facilities are much aggravated. The Government’s approach concerning them - withholding information concerning the full range of their functions, and particularly their war-fighting roles from parliament and the public - is certainly unsatisfactory, as several of its members realise; and as a result the Government appear in not atypical disarray, further grist for the incoherence theme. If there is perhaps a coherent Australian global defence approach somewhere away from public exposure, it is most likely then an old abandoned American policy.9 But in that case it certainly lacks - what it in any case appears to lack - justification. For Australia, in supporting US defence policy and activity, for instance in world forums, is supporting present offensive American policy, not what it reputedly adheres to, deterrence (through MAD). The point holds good whether or not American global policy still includes such deterrence as a proper part10; for it certainly involves other very different and dubious strategies. The commonplace, but increasingly feeble, justification given for Australian’s tagging along after America is that Australian interests are the same as American11. American interests by no means coincide with Australian . However Consider, for instance, such matters as enriching Americans, making conditions favourable for American business, promoting Americans and things American. Consider, differently, American practices in Latin America, from undercutting Allende’s government in Chile to its practices against Nicaragua, to its extensive export of arms and violent methods, there and elsewhere in the world. Thus America, like Russia, is busy meddling in Africa, but ‘Australian security interests are not directly involved’ (SB, p.24). Consider, differently again, escalation of the nuclear arms race. Or consider American strategic planning, and all the game- and decision- theoretic models which concern just USA and its adversary USSR, perhaps occasionally adding Europe as part of the monolithic West, but rarely or never considering the Southern Hemisphere - so that either Australia is part of America as Poland may be of Russia or it is nothing. Or consider American interests not merely in Soviet and communist containment, but in containing socialism such as might (under more auspicious conditions) flourish in Australia. An American policy answering to American interests is accordingly inappropriate for Australia, inappropriate for Antipodean socialism. Australians should do their own defence thinking and work out a policy appropriate for Australia. (That applies also to Australian political representatives, who should stop parroting implausible American views and begin developing some genuinely local and original ones.) Should Australia be tagging along after the Americans in support of installation of their style of free-enterprise capitalism everywhere feasible (i.e. that the state socialists don’t already heavily control)? What they quite seriously call ‘keeping the free world free’? Of 5 course freedom has, in this sort of context, multiple meanings and associations (as well as multiple inconsistencies, appearing information” and the like). overtly in subsidized “free trade”, selective “free Significant parts of what mainstream American culture admits under the freedom umbrella, mainstream Australian culture would exclude: for instance, active opposition to and undermining of social and socialist programs and governments, bullying of small countries that impose barriers to US business or military practices (all part of “free enterprise”), etc. What of those intangible freedoms the cultures supposedly agree about, civil liberties, freedom to information, to live and work where one chooses, to travel, and so on? These are certainly important freedoms, better upheld in some parts of the unaligned West (e.g. Sweden, Switzerland) than in most parts of the Eastern Block. But such freedoms, which run counter to dependent policies, hardly require defence subservience. influenced state practices are fast reducing freedom. Moreover, military- Many of the older freedoms have vanished this century, such as freedom to travel, to work and live abroad, etc.; now one requires permits, licences, passports, ... . And many more former freedoms are being or have been eroded; soon it will be identity documents, restricted zones, ID cards, as already in parts of the “free West”. Now nuclearism in Europe ‘is devouring the very freedom it is said to protect: [the Greens] point to the new laws proposed in 1983 designed to keep citizens from assembling to protest deployment of the Pershing II and cruise missiles’ (Capra and Spretnak, pp.58-9). Further structural changes required for the security of the state, imcompatible with democratic freedoms, include ‘secrecy, lack of commentability, permanent emergency, concentration of authority, peacetime militarism, extensive apparatus of state intelligence and police’ (Falk, in Feith p.24). Nuclearism is not a smart strategy to preserve remaining freedoms. 2. Inherited other-reliance, and the populist and elitist cases for patronage and subservience. Australia’s defence policy, such as it is, is furthermore inherited rather than regularly (re)thought through. But that procedure - essentially the legal method of precedence, whatever its very limited satisfactoriness in legalistic decision making - is defective when applied in politics or to defence, especially where immediate independent action is required. For precedence methods are extraordinarily slow, as well as characteristically conservative, and as in defence exclude significant and rather urgent alternatives. The unsatisfactory decision-making practices to be revealed in the case of defence are by no means restricted to defence but are typical of the kind of advanced age capitalism Australia operates under, or rather labours under, down under. In setting down those 4. 6 features of aged capitalism (‘of the Corporate State') that the New Left and Alternative Australia movements were reacting against, Cock neatly summed up these practices: Decisions were made from the top and on the basis of vested political interests, rather than by rational goals and means that served public interests. The people were rarely consulted effectively before a decision and often only partially informed afterwards. Planning was based on a mere extension of the present. ... activists felt they were given little opportunity to choose how they lived or worked. The availability of space, time, trees and air was also determined by others ... (p.18 italics added).14 As it was and is with one’s defence, military and civil, so it is with the matter of whether one lives in a nuclear target zone or not, and so on (though immigration policy, uranium and woodchip export policies, etc.) In these areas planning remains top-down, with at best consultative elements. No real choices are offered to people. A major inherited assumption is that of other reliance, that Australia’s defence depends on other more powerful allies. That ally was firstly Britain, and since World War II America; but in any event the assumption is that to be safe Australia needs a powerful patron, a protector. A corollary is that Australia adopts a suitably submissive relation to its patron, making expected concessions. And for the most part it has; however such a defence insurance policy does not come cheap.15 It costs not only money and resources, but quality of life, freedom and independence. The assumption of other-reliance is however unsound, for several reasons. Most important, it characteristically depends upon the following themes, all of which lack solid foundation: 1. Australia is threatened - or at least 1A. Australia is likely to be threatened in the near future. 2. Australia cannot defend itself. 3. Australia can however depend upon its patron (or ally), i.e. upon the USA. These three themes in fact make up what has been called the populist case for the ANZUS alliance.16 It is very different from the elitist case for ANZUS, said to hold sway with the Australian government, which, while insisting upon premiss 3, essentially rejects 1 and 2 and claims instead 4. Australian has a vital interest in global stability. 5. Global stability is under threat (constantly) by an expansionist Soviet Union. 6. Only USA can contain the Soviet threat and hold the global balance. Some of techniques the US deploys for holding global balance operate through dependent states and a network of alliances like ANZUS. But obviously further premisses are required to reach the intended conclusions that Australia should be participating in any such alliance, and what is more, hosting US defence facilities and exercises. A first such premise is the no-shirking theme, that Australia should be contributing its part to “holding the balance’’ (cf. Bell). Even this first further step is pretty shaky; as we shall see, one shaky step in a rather ramshackle case, since premisses 5 and 6 are decidedly dubious (and 4 may involve equivocation). For it can be plausibly argued that Australia’s vital interests are not guaranteed by US techniques, which threaten to upset the whole applecart, and can be obtained by alternative more satisfactory means outside of such soft alliances as ANZUS. In any case, it is unclear that local contributions enhance global (nuclear) stability (see e.g. Mack and Davidson). But first, there is more pernicious regionalist version of the elitist position to be considered, what might be called the offshore elitist position. This position grants 2A*. Australia can defend itself against regional threats, and can look after itself regionally. But it does not (as indeed other qualified elitist positions may not) grant 1A. What the offshore position insists upon is 1AI*. Australia’s interests could be threatened in the near future. Since these interests - perhaps concerned with trade, Australian companies or Australians abroad, or whatever - may have little or nothing to do with internal Australian security, this premiss represents an extremely important shift (a shift not unrelated to the inverse bureaucratic shift from war to defence). It goes further than what has been called forward defence. In extended form the offshore position does call for some sort of global policeman or police force ready to intervene whenever a “free port” anywhere looks like closing its doors. Part of the difficulty in getting to grips with the elitist position is that it tends to slide through to the offshore position (by way of now evident immediate positions). The arguments against both the populist and elitist cases, and indeed against virtually all of themes 1 through 7 are sufficiently familiar to justify but a fairly brief outline of some of the main points involved. Of course just a couple of defections from themes 1 through 7 would serve logically defeat both cases, but there have been some interesting repair attempts, designed to float the arguments on diminished premisses. 3. The brief against the popular populist case; the need for new directions. Contra 1 and 1A. While Australia is not at present under notice of threat, veiled threat or harassment from abroad, a majority of its population appears to believe that it is. As the popular view is not the informed, administrative, or parliamentary view, it is worth inquiring 8 why the popular view persists, as the opinion polls reveal it has. The populace has been deliberately kept in the dark (or even misinformed), because this suits bipartisan government purposes. Although both main Australian political parties are well enough aware that the main assumptions underlying the populist case are false, the reasons for which they support the American alliance (e.g. those of the elitist case) are much more difficult to sell to the public. Accordingly the parties and Government have no political interest in undermining the unsound populist case. In particular they have gone out of their way not to cast doubt upon the connected assumption that US is a reliable guarantor against all threats. Thus long-standing Australian psychological insecurity about security has been allowed to stand, and has not been assuaged by any requisite informational and educational effort. In particular, older attitudes to Asia persist not far below the surface of popular Australia: fear, mistrust and xenophobia, patched over by a pragmatic attachment to trade and tourism. This misplaced insecurity is fuelled by popular misconceptions of Australia and its place in the world: metaphorically, that Australia is a luscious plum ripe for Eastern picking, instead of the Asians view that Australia, so far as they are aware of it at all, is a remote desiccated uncouth place perhaps good for some trade and investment. Or, to get towards more concrete assumptions, Australians apparently tend to their view country as affluent but underpopulated, resource rich but largely defenceless; yet not far to the north are Asian hordes who are impoverished, resource poor, and so on . Such a view is seriously out of touch with reality. Parts of Asia are now at least as affluent (on conventional economic indicators) as Australia. They do not see themselves as overpopulated, in a way that calls for mass exodus; and in those areas which are as overpopulated as Europe, such as Java, bribes and force are required to move people on transmigration programs to relatively unoccupied parts of the Indonesian empire. So far as they require them, they can purchase Australian resources - which are not unique - much more easily and cheaply (because they even carry significant local subsidies) than they could obtain • them by seizure. 1s For these sorts of reasons, and because Australia itself poses no threat, no other state has a genuine interest in attempting to invade Australia. As it is for interests, so it is for capabilities. No regional power has the capacity to launch a successful invasion of Australia, or is likely to have such a capacity in the near future. As the joint Parliamentary Committee concluded, Currently only the United States would have the physical capacity to launch a full scale invasion of Australia, and it clearly lacks any motive to do so (TAS, p.94). 9 As the report also stated, quoting Synnot (former Chief of Defence Staff), ... to raise the sort of force which would be required for a mass invasion of Australia could not possibly be done in under five years by other than the superpowers (TAS). But neither superpower is at all likely to expend effort or resources to such an end. An obvious naive question which at once arises is: Why bother then with much defence? (A later question to entertain is: why not be a free-rider on collectively provided global security, such as it is?) Why not proceed forthwith to unilateral disarmament? Mack for one, having reassembled the now-standard telling case that Australia is not threatened ‘now or for the foreseeable future’, and so having broken the populist argument, is confronted by the awkward option of unilateral disarmament for Australia. He stages a hasty retreat, points to the dependence of premisses 1 and 1A on premiss 2, and proceeds to claim that ‘the populist case for ANZUS is sustained’ even without premisses 1 and 1A. It is however a decidedly problematic retreat. While it is true that the arguments against 1 and 1A may sometimes take it for granted that Australia can look after itself to some extend, put up some resistance, it is far from clear that they depend essentially on assumptions approximating premiss 2. Consider the no­ interests argument, which appears decisive given the (estimated) very limited invasion capabilities of potential invaders. The main consideration adduced appears to depend in no essential way, indeed in no obvious way at all, on Australia’s dynamic fighting forces. Australian mineral resources, to repeat one of the more sensitive examples involved, can be obtained more readily and cheaply by trade methods than military ones. What all this seems to show is that a rather minimal streamlined force, if any, would presently meet Australia’s military requirements. It is not as if Australia is ‘entirely defenceless’ without a conventional military force, like a babe-in-arms. The whole apparatus of nonmilitary defence is available on a continent well suited to its use, though lacking a population trained in its techniques. But even without requisite popular training in defence methods, Australia would be a difficult place to govern, Australians a difficult lot to subjugate. It was such features of the Australian character that deterred the Japanese on a previous occasion “If the invasion is attempted, the Australians, in view of their national character, would resist to the end. Also, because the geographical conditions of Australia present numerous difficulties in a military sense, it is apparent that a military venture in that country would be a difficult one” (TAS, p.62). The points still hold good, and could be strengthened. There are several parts to any such 10 program of nonmilitary defence: making it happen, and putting it abroad (ideally with dinkum Australian exaggeration) that it has happened. To the issue of alternative defence we are bound to return. For now, when Australia is not threatened, is a good occasion to reconsider, and begin to adapt, defence arrangements. For example, it looks very much as if enormous sums, which could be valuably directed elsewhere, are being spent, largely to make many Australians feel secure.But a much more effective and inexpensive way to such results would be through requisite popular education and psychological therapy - with, if it were well done, much more satisfactory results, a more secure and better informed people. Contra 2. As a result of post-War developments in weapons systems and C3I capabilities, the military defence of Australia has become much easier. It comes down to enhancing, through new robust and reliable systems, the enormous strategic advantages Australia enjoys by virtue of geographical isolation. In principle, any maritime invading force can now be detected well in advance of arrival, through modern radar warning systems, and destroyed by precision guided munitions. And any invaders that did manage to gain a foothold on Australian soil would face severe logistic problems, and be subject to disproportionate responses from local defence. Standard discussions (as in Dibb, Mack) proceed to introduce a great deal of “Boys’ Own War Games” stuff concerning contemporary weapon and C3I systems; the essential point is that these could serve to turn Australia into a pretty unvulnerable armed fortress, and into an extremely difficult territory were the oceanic moat crossed and the fortress entered (see especially D. Martin). Under such armed neutrality and (differently) fortified Australia defence scenarios, even invasion from outside the region by an inimical world power could be resisted with reasonable prospect of success. There is no power at all likely to mount such an invasion; there is apparently (as noted above) only one power that could, that good ally the USA (reckoned however a likely invader by 6-7% of the Australian population!). Nonetheless the threat of a Soviet invasion is taken seriously not only by the larger populace but by committees of their elected representatives. But the Soviet military has never undertaken such a long-range massive force projection, is ill-equipped to do so, and lacks any plausible reason to try such a stunt (for details see, e.g., D. Martin; also SS, ST). The only credible Soviet threat to Australia is in the context of a superpower war, when American facilities in Australia and perhaps Australian cities, would be struck at by intercontinental missiles. While this would be bad enough, it is highly unlikely that it would be followed or accompanied by an invasion. Soviet forces are once again not sufficient, and not thought sufficient by the Soviets for that sort of diversion; they would be required elsewhere in a superpower war; and they would be devastated, unless USA is militarily even more incompetent than sometimes depicted. i. 11 Contra 3. What will be argued is not the negation of 3, that the Americans cannot be relied upon, but rather that 3 is dubious, and that it would be rash to place excess reliance on American protection. That being so, and other patrons being even less promising, Australia should look more to its own resources, as the American administration is kindly advising. Especially since the American “Vietnam debacle” and the fall of Saigon, things have changed in important ways which cast doubt on the reliability of American patronage. First, the relative economic and military strength of the USA has declined significantly. It no longer has such a large share of world product(ivity); as a connected matter of policy, US world warfighting aspirations have been reduced. Its ability to act as, and afford to be, global policeman has also markedly declined/ Secondly, the willingness of Americans to engage in remote foreign wars has correspondingly tumbled. Although the American administration includes more than enough hawks, to be sure, the people and Congress are not longer in a mood for gratuitous foreign adventures, especially when the fun may not appear to be in American interests. Since Vietnam, US opinion polls regularly show strong popular opposition to overseas military involvement. This “Vietnam syndrome” has served as a major constraint on US military policy and foreign involvement. An important manifestation of these changes is the Guam Doctrine, calling upon US regional allies to take primary responsibility for their own defence in regional conflicts. Another important outcome is Defense statements to the pointed effect that before US troops are committed abroad there must be reasonable assurance of Congressional and popular support (Weinberger, reported in PC p.14). As Mack comments, ‘such assurance is impossible to guarantee - especially for remote countries where no US vital national interests are at stake’. Certainly no more is assured under the ANZUS treaty which provides only that each signatory ‘act to meet the common danger in accordance with its constitutional processes’ (article 4). All the treaty strictly requires is consultation; there is no undertaking or commitment. Isn’t the treaty backed up by informal verbal reassurances? None that are not undermined by others, in American administrative multiple-speak. Even the elite view is that Australia has to ‘work ... to maximize the prospect of US support’ and that the Americans cannot be counted upon. For ‘the threshold of direct US combat involvement could be quite high, and circumstances at the time could significantly limit US willingness or ability to help Australia in other ways?. ‘... we cannot rely upon US support in a defence emergency arising within our own neighbourhood’ (SB, pp.29-30). However a special case has been made for American reliability in Australia’s case - as 12 opposed to examples of American abandonment of earlier military undertakings (in Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran) - on the basis of permanent friendship, common interests, and shared values and democratic traditions. There are two difficulties with this type of special pleading: first, as to the basis, and, second, as to the adequacy of such a basis in by-passing Congress, the American people, and slow constitutional processes. Historical evidence hardly sustains the adequacy of the basis in analogous cases. And here, as already indicated, the basis is shaky. For there is not a common culture shared by Australia and America: rather values diverge significantly on quite crucial issues. Even less are interests always common, as the matter of subsidised agricultural produce reveals, and as missile testing and nuclear ships issues in the South Pacific have recently confirmed. Interests diverged, for instance, when Australia toyed with opposing Indonesia’s claim to West Papua. So it is dubious at least that American interests would coincide with Australian in disputes or confrontation with Asian nations to the North, e.g. with Indonesia or Japan. Of course if the special case argument did hold water, Australia and America really were mates, then the treaty would be otiose. There was in fact no treaty in operation in 1942; but by then American interests in countering the Japanese were independently aroused. 4. Other-reliance and regional self-reliance A major problem with other-reliance for defence is then that it cannot be deemed entirely reliable, yet precisely here unreliability can hardly be tolerated. When the Indonesians are rolling into Brisbane it won’t do for Defense to call up with a message like that from local Services, "We can’t get there till tomorrow’’, or “until after Congress meets”, or “Sorry, Mate!”. More seriously, handing defence over to others means handing control of our lives over to others; and given nuclear defence, which too many Antipodean administrations have opted for, it quite likely means literally handing our lives over for many of us. Another problem of other-reliance is thus its adequacy. A further problem is its cost. In principle, if a State hires out its defence it would no doubt look, other things being equal, for the cheaper bidder - if, that is, defence is a commodity of a sort, like national shipping, meterological services, etc. The trouble with global defence is that the market is monopolistic, with currently only one supplier of the right complexion22, who accordingly can exact a very high price, and has - making the whole country a nuclear target and demanding substantial subservience. Similar points make part of the case, well-enough appreciated, for not trying to press defence, plainly a collective good, into a marketable commodity. When a country can supply its own defence, it therefore makes very good sense for it to do so, since it normally has a stronger interest in its own proper defence than most other parties. Should it also be cheaper in costs that matter, then self-reliance not just makes good sense but pays; other-reliance does not. But in that event, it surely does not need nuclear 13 patrons, or to farm out some of its defence. Such self-reliance undermines an important part of the older case based on other-reliance for alliances such as ANZUS. However newer bipartisan approaches to defence try to combine them (thus e.g. Australian minister Beazley as reported by Davidson) - approaches which thus begin to empty ANZUS of what little content it had, and remove much of the apparent point of such older alliances. Since the ANZUS arrangements contain no clear commitments beyond consultation but are merely vague articles of understanding, a simple course is of course to allow them to be emptied of content, so that the alliance, an expensive and outdated “insurance” policy, dies a natural death. It may however be death by seizure or convulsion should American defence facilities be closed or internationalised and passage of American nuclear equipped or powered transport be excluded from Australia. That would no doubt sacrifice the deterrence and other advantages the treaty supposedly affords , while making way for the greater advantages of friendly nonalignment, of no longer being a nuclear target, or so on. But self-reliance pure and simple is insufficient. The world does not consist of separable isolated pieces, as becomes increasingly evident. Most dramatically, Australia will not escape the effects of nuclear winter. The picture is much the same as for other dynamic subjects, such as plants which are not internally self-sufficient but depend crucially on their environment - and indeed as for States themselves. The question then is what form the additional holistic component of policy should take? Put this way, it is almost obvious that the appropriate move is not taking sides (as in a kids’ war game or tug-of-war game that is already set up) and doing one’s bit for confrontation. For that will not contribute to stability, to a proper holistic approach, but rather to sectionalism and fragmentation, and to bringing nuclear winter closer. Other-reliance and self-reliance typically present a false contrast, and certainly do with pure self-reliance - a false contrast like that of holism and partism (EE, p.223), and of dependence versus isolationism. In between lie a range of positions, one of which - favoured by a long line of peacefully-disposed philosophers from Rousseau and Kant onwards - might be called integrated reliance or federated reliance. The elitist case, insofar as it were to call for such reliance (e.g. in assumption 4), could hardly be faulted. But it doesn’t; and is satisfied with much less. Integration may reach only certain inadequate levels, the level of modern alliances and alignment, which are essentially coupled with opposition to an other side, e.g. the monolithic East (or West). It is into just this trap that elitist arguments fall. 14 5. The decline and fall of elitist arguments. Premisses 4 and 5 of the elitist argument turn around the crucial notion of stability, as related arguments revolve around that of security. But stability and security are value-laden terms, which are not cultural invariants. What stability comprehends in American administrative perception is very different from what highland villages take it to include. In each case a system is stable if it returns to a given stationary state under perturbations of sufficiently small magnitude. But both the relevant states and the stationary among them are relative to given frames of reference; for instance, what is stable at a macrolevel may well not be at a microlevel. As Trudeau has said of the superpowers, ‘they share a global perception according to which even remote events can threaten their interests or their associates’ (p.10) and disturb stability. But lesser states or regional people, not counting remote business or military interests as relevant, report no instability. Bureaucrats invariably view bombs as necessary to stability, and the nuclear fix as stability; by contrast, gentle people increasingly see bombs as tools of terrorism and as characteristically antithetical to peace. ad 4: Of course Australia has a vital interest in global stability and security: what sizeable nation does not? But the determinable motherhood interpretation (of italicised terms), while no doubt diplomatically convenient, conceals crucial differences, highly material to the argument. For one global stability means something different in USA from what it means in Costa Rica and likely what it intends in Australia. Certainly vital interests are different. America is interested in containing socialism (in Australia as elsewhere), and it tends, in more popular rhetoric at least, to equate containing socialism with containing communism and both with Soviet containment. A continental swing to socialism (or Non-Soviet communism) in Latin America, or in Africa, would upset global stability, on American perception, and would indeed have significant effects on US business or investment; but it would not on its own upset or affect most Australians or directly threaten Antipodean stability, and it certainly need not affect nuclear stability. Australians generally are not opposed in principle to socialism or notably interested in containing its spread (indeed perhaps the opposite). Australia is not interested in (and oughtn’t to be charmed by the idea of) defence of the (American) “free enterprise” system, or in the defence of uglier forms of capitalism wherever they are presently initiated or opposed (cf. Chomsky and Herman). Contra 5. It can be conceded, without granting the main thrust of the premiss, that the Soviets are expansionistic, at least in that they are interested in extending their influence where they can. So also are most empires, including American and Indonesian (so for that matter are many academics and most sales-people). But the Soviets have an ideological 15 message to spread, Marxism-Leninism, an ideology they used to anticipate being installed everywhere. But the Americans also have a message, a capitalist message, Free Enterprise Inc, which they are working to sell pretty much everywhere accessible to them. And they need to be expansionistic to have it adopted, whereas the Russians and Chinese need simply wait for history to take its allegedly determined course (though a little assistance - reflecting legitimate doubt about this determinism? - would surely spread their disconcertingly different forms of “progress” without interfering). But surely the Russian message is pernicious? All these messages are pernicious (for familiar reasons: see e.g. Erlich). The proper question is whether on its own Soviet international activity threatens, in some damaging way, global stability. Undoubtedly Soviet-American confrontation, as in the Cuban missile affair, does threaten global stability; though not in a way that has any bearing on Australian defence. In fact no Russian expansionary tendency, military or otherwise, has an untoward direct effect on Australia, little of significance reaches into the Antipodes (see Dibb SS). So what is the local excitement about? In large measure the excitement has been drummed up by the political right, East European expatriates, and pork-barrelling politicians. The effect of Soviet expansionism is much exaggerated and overexploited (Mack ST). Viewed from the Antipodes it is hardly a problem, unless the Soviets should get locked into military confrontation with USA - a real problem to be addressed. With that problem however, the Antipodes can better assist as part of a third nonaligned group which helps to referee and to prize apart the heavies, not by seconding and inciting the USA. But confrontation apart, Soviet internationalism, hardly a great success story, does not seriously disturb global stability, as seen from Australia. For a proper assessment of Soviet internationalism, types of expansion should be distinguished - military, potential military, influence with military access, and mere influence. In actual military expansion and involvement since W’orld War II, the Russian record is hardly striking by comparison with the USA or several other states. The one conspicuous case involving control of new territory, that of Afghanistan, has actually had little effect on global stability. The usual Western apprehension concerns not anything the Soviets have accomplished, but what they might attempt militarily, especially in Europe. But the idea of Soviet military adventure in Europe is a Western invention and bogey, lacking in plausibility. The Soviet military lacks the force ratio needed to be assured of military success in Europe, both by their own standards of what is required and by Western strategic standards. And the Soviets have no good reasons or interests in undertaking such an exercise which would draw them into nuclear war. They already face enough economic difficulties and troubles with East European client states which they cannot control satisfactorily. 16 The extension of Soviet influence has largely been in the Third world. But it has hardly been successful, with as many failures and losses to record as Soviet “gains” - gains which add to the imperial burden since they involve countries wracked with problems, such as Vietnam. The Third World exercises are marred by Soviet inaptitude and limited by the state of their own economy. They scarcely displace the global structure enough to test its stability; and they produce no shock waves or even significant ripples in the Antipodes. Contra 6. The main current threat to world stability appears to come not from one of the dancers in the East-West dance of death, but from the escalating confrontation, easily ignited, between the lead dancers. With this US policies and practices have at least as much to do as USSR ones. Recent US practices are more destabilizing than Soviet ones, and indeed highly destabilising, because of new weapons and weapons systems, because of rejection of arms control and Soviet proposals, and because of “star wars” preparation which both accelerates the arms race on earth and begins a new one in space. A vast increase in tension and suspicion accompanies the “arms race” which is in large measure due to US intransigence and US war-fighting doctrines, new weapons systems, with built-in incentives for pre-emption, and deliberate abandonment of arms control (see PR). Such considerations, duly assembled, demolish the received (but nonetheless crazy) theme that an alliance or alignment with USA helps increase stability. American practices are to be resisted as much as Soviet. 6. The East-West balance argument: American alignment versus friendly independence The need for Australian alignment with the USA is supposed to be shown by the East-West This politically-important balance argument, which shares key premisses nr with the related elitist argument, runs as follows : balance argument. 7. Global stability is the key to world peace. 8. Stability of the international order is a matter of maintaining a global balance. But 5. The global balance is constantly threatened by an expansionist USSR. 6A. The threat is [only] checked by the USA, which (6A.1) guarantees an open and pluralistic international order. 9. Australia’s primary security concern, indeed most vital interest, is this stability. Hence 10. Australia’s role is to help America maintain the balance. The rest of Australia’s intervolvement with American military arrangements is then taken to follow. But there are many reasons for halting the argument before it reaches this stage of practical (and allegedly moral) detail. The balance argument assumes much that has already been rebutted, for instance that the Soviet threat thesis is correct (i.e. 5) and that US 17 policy is stabilizing (part of 6A). It also takes for granted, what now is at least in serious doubt, that American policy is directed at balance and deterrence, rather than what the American administration appears to be aiming at, superiority. But in that event, Australia is not really engaged in some longer term balancing feat, so much as in helping USA prevail in nuclear race, contradicting the goal of world peace of premiss 7. Contra 10. and its derivation. The derivation is inadequate: it does not follow that Australia’s role is such a lackey’s one. If the balance of strength is leaning in America’s direction, as most less-biassed evidence indicates, then Australia should surely be throwing its slight weight in with the Eastern team (that is what such images as the balanced tug-of-war would suggest). Presumably premiss 6A.1 is designed to exclude this deplorable thought, of Australia teaming up with totalitarians. Nevertheless Australia should be putting its slight weight where it is effective, given its own broader objectives, interests, principles and supposedly pluralistic ideals. There are several different roles Australia could fulfil which would enable it to make a more satisfactory, less passive, contribution to world peace, among them de-escalation through active nonalignment, appropriate aid, and so forth. Thus 10 is hardly well-supported or evident. A more direct approach would be better than throwing Australian weight unreflectively on one side of the balance. As a little reflection attests, the balance image and argument point not in the direction intended, but towards nonalignment. Contra 6A (and 6). The theme that US maintains the balance, and hence preserves the peace, is of course false. For again, it takes two to tango. While it can be granted that the USA is interlocked with and checks the USSR in this munitions dance, the history of the dance reveals that the pace-escalation has flowed from the interaction of the one partner with the other. That is, but for the USA, the USA would not be required to check the USSR (the interaction is two-way as with Hegel’s famous master-slave relation). In any case, it looks as if, on a different historical trajectory, the main states of Western Europe could match the Soviet Union militarily (for they have comparable combined GNP, technological resources, etc.; cf. note 20) Thus it is doubtful that the current Soviet build-up, produced in interaction with the USA, could only be, or have been, checked by the US. ad 6A.1. As the premiss is only of marginal relevance to the argument, it is enough to observe that the international order the USA helps maintain leaves very much to be desired. In its intervention, militarily, economically and indirectly, USA has assisted substantially in reducing plurality and openness, is well as in establishing or propping up rotten regimes, etc. The negative side of American imperialism as well-enough documented, if not widely enough read or known by Americans themselves (cf. again Chomsky and Herman). Only under scandalously low redefinitions of ‘open’ and ‘pluralistic’ is the present “free” world order 18 either open or pluralistic. ad 8, and the damaging equivocation on ‘the balance’. While balance is one way of maintaining stability in the world arrangements that have presently come to pass, the balance structure can only carry so much loading. Add too much weight (of arms tension, and so forth) to both sides and the precarious structure will fail, probably catastrophically. increasing probability of catastrophic breakdown, for a variety of reasons The (accident, miscalculation, computer error, human interference, etc.), has been argued elsewhere (e.g. WPI). While a certain neither overloaded nor overstressed balance may serve for stability, the present increasingly stressed balance will probably not. The balance argument, however, neglects this dynamical situation, illegitimately switching from a (certain post) balance in premiss 8 to the (on-going) balance in subsequent premisses. The balance argument itself breaks down through equivocation. What the dynamic picture also indicates is the importance of removing some weight from the balance, most obviously by arms limitation and tension reduction. It points too to a different role for Australasia, to a less aligned position genuinely directed at stability. It is to the emerging case for a different role for Australia, and to action for achieving this different role, that the positive argument will now begin to swing. The inadequate East-West balance argument is typically combined with attacks upon proposals for a different role for Australia than American alliance and. service. effect of these additions is to generate extra confusion and dust. The main For the additions are inessential to the argument, and do not serve to repair it or reinforce it. For example, against nonalignment or neutralism is set the alleged pervasiveness of nuclear winter. We might as well be aligned (it’s good for trade and other economic perquisites), so it is sometimes argued from up top, because if the central balance fails we are all dead. This is a conspicuous nonsequitur^, worse than ex nihilo quodlibet (because it also suggests that balance is a prerequisite for stability). But, in the main, the attack is irrelevant, because the point of nonalignment is to help remove overload and to break down confrontation and its escalation to war; it is a thing to do now, be fore winter descends, to delay or halt its descent, and most important, to reduce its extent and severity. Australia’s weight may be slight, another irrelevant addition goes, but psychologically it is important for the West. Any further spread of the “Kiwi disease” (from New Zealand) would show the weakening of Western resolve, and give the green light for Soviet expansionism. Bell, a leading exponent of the balance argument, virtually gives the impression that if Australia dropped out of American alignment, the Russians would be on the road down through the isles to Australia tomorrow/ Much of this sort of rhetoric is reminiscent of the baseless fear-mongering of an earlier pre-Vietnam time. The Russians have no such military interests, or present capabilities. And if they were to gear up and set out, they would be met by substantial resistance along most of the route, resistance obtaining Western assistance. For America, for one, has major interests, different from Australia’s, in both Indonesia and the Philippines, as well as elsewhere in East Asia. The addition, so far from strengthening the argument, depends, in its “green light for expansion” comparison, on the previously faulted premiss 5 of Soviet expansionism. In fact most of the further case for American alignment of one sort or another - when it is argued-, often nonalignment and neutrality are simply denounced in good old-fashioned authoritarian style - turns upon already-faulted assumptions. Catley, for example, another exponent of “central balance”, presents the following ‘consideration’: ... whatever the Swedes or Swiss may think about the matter, Australia is locked by considerations of culture, economics, and political philosophy into the defence of the Western world. It has both an obligation and a duty to contribute its share to that defence if necessary by hosting facilities which cannot easily be located elsewhere (p.15). The premiss is false for reasons essentially indicated: and the premiss in no way sustains the conclusion, the argument involving among other things, the prescriptive (is-ought) fallacy. Consider the premiss. Australia is not, unless Catley has information withheld from most of the rest of us, locked into Western nuclear defence, but in principle independent and free to reconsider and rethink its options. (American use of the “facilities” is not irrevocable, and shortly comes up, in principle at least, for reconsideration.) How do culture, economics and political philosophy provide locks and chains for Australia but not for nonaligned Western European states? They do not: Australia is not a part of USA or altogether a client state; and the cultures, interests, economic frameworks and political philosophies of the two nations are significantly different (for details, see CPD). But even if the ideological frameworks were much more similar than they are, that would not entail similar defence practices (as, e.g., ANZUS in all its weakness shows), nor any such defence obligations. Most of the arguments against nonalignment are of Catley calibre - or worse. Fortunately, then, such arguments are examined in detail elsewhere, notably by D. Martin in his examination of counter-arguments to Australian armed neutrality, the legally-recognised non-belligerent form of nonalignment he favours. Virtually none of Martin’s counter-case depends for its success on features of neutrality, which is not advocated here. Virtually all of Martin’s argument is moreover couched in negative form; his positive brief is very brief. It 20 reduces to this: alignment or alliance with the USA 'cannot make us secure against such dangers as we may one day have to meet, while it needlessless exposes to other dangers, including nuclear war (p.l, italics added). While the message is correct enough, and in need of wide propagation, it does little on its own to support neutrality, and it by no means exhausts the positive case for weakening alignment. In particular, there are more positive arguments of much theoretical interest, to be drawn from systems theory and from the burgeoning theory of collective goods and action. 7. Contributions towards stability: free-riding, enlarging group size, and increasing variety. The strategic world situation we now confront can be viewed as a game with more than 100 players, counting in nation-states and leaving out (for convenience) major organisations such as the largest 100 transnational companies. These organisational players align themselves around two large poles, East and West, as indicated: NON-ALIGNED N N WEST EAST India NATO States Japan, Israel Sweden* Switzerland* NZUS: Australi I Ireland1* ^Most Latin ' American States I Tanzania Costa Rica** State capitalist Key: N: *: **: State communist Nuclear weapons states Neutral states Nonmilitary states There are various - a great many - games these state players are playing, some of which are practically important for peace and for stability. Some of these games, such as World Empire and Chicken (already played under one representation), are played essentially between the East-West superplayers. There are several problems about East-West games: for instance, what representation they have, the repeatability of the games (clearly some nuclear games 21 may, like Russian roulette, end after one round, as they will with the Big One), and the negative sum characters of some games. And the monolithic East/monolithic West dichotomy is misleading, and, as will appear, discards crucial detail (in the way simplifications may). So game-theoretical modelling will be approached differently and more obliquely. World Security, like regional and local security, is a collective good (technically, an item, quality unspecified, in joint supply and precluding exclusion). That is not of course to say that there are not conditions under which security may leave much to be desired, for instance where security is guaranteed by a narrow and intolerant despotism; but then, so it can be argued, the trouble lies with the provisioning, not the particular product. collective good G for the collection of N nation-states. It is a It is, furthermore, a collective good which permits the possibility of free-riding by nation-states. Looked at from this perspective the recent American complaint about its allies, Japan for example, and their insufficient expenditure on defence, is a complaint about their free-riding. Within the balance of power framework the conditions for free-riding are satisfied, for instance by unaligned and unilaterally disarming states. For 1. G is available to all N members of the collective if it is available to any, and the achievement (or maintenance) of G by any will make every member better off. 2. G is achieved iff some number m (no larger than that of group K) contribute towards its provision, where under the balance of power assumption Il C K C N and II = {USA, USSR}. 3. The expected value of contributing to G or its maintenance is less than the expected value of not doing so, i.e. likely costs of contribution exceed likely benefits - except perhaps for members of II given that G is largely provided by II. There is what can be called a pegged (or asymmetric) free-rider problem, pegged by members of II for whom the free-rider option is not open - within the confines of the balance of power assumption - and for whom condition 3 is only satisfied under certain ways of looking at the matter (e.g. there will be a war 10 years down the road so the expected costs each year exceed the expected benefits). For most members of N, by contrast, the benefits of G are available even should they reduce their contributions. There is a straightforward case (in narrow game-theoretical terms) for recommending Australian, and regional, free-riding on the balance of power provision of G. Some arguments, beyond or adding to those already in effect presented, are these:- Either stability breaks down catastrophically and there is a large-scale war or it does not. If it does then the region is 22 better off than it would be if (strongly) aligned because it is unlikely to be (so heavily) targetted. (Here the dreadful new argument that nuclear winter means that the Antipodes might as well be involved gets challenged and rejected: as to how see e.g. MF and B. Martin). If, alternatively, stability doesn’t break down then the region has the benefits in any case, without the costs. For there is no clear evidence that our alignment and cooperation with the USA enhances global stability, etc.; indeed, as remarked and will be further argued, the evidence points to the contrary. As regards Australasian regional weight in the Western block, do we seriously believe it is significant? That the Australian voice, though useful for propaganda purposes, makes much real difference in the halls of Northern power? We shouldn’t: and if we do we’re living in a delusional framework. Australia has been left out of the picture in virtually all major strategic planning exercises, most difference-making peace initiatives, etc.,etc. Now Eastern block countries would hardly object to Antipodean free-riding, rather than no offering support (however trifling), comfort and incitement to their opposition/ Furthermore free-riding is how the Americans, on their theoretical principles, would expect Australia to act, the rational self-interested procedure (see CPD). It is how lesser nations should act. For it is economically rational; contributing is not. But won’t the US make things economically dear for Australia? In threats and theory, yes; but in practice, no more than it has already done with subsidized wheat deals to the Soviets, no more than it threatened to do already in the case of New Zealand over the nuclear-ships issue. For except for short term aberrations, America will never give up trade or business arrangements: one gets the impressions that America would trade with the Devil Himself, if doing so would open some new markets in Hell. Despite its political stigma, free-riding need be no problem, or in any way immoral or irregular. Perhaps the buses are free; perhaps there is a voluntary payment system, to which only some need contribute, etc. With the nuclear fix, free-riding is indeed the moral course; contributing is not.29 Free-riding, though often protrayed as a problem, is only a problem in certain cases of collective provisioning, where the good involved is sufficiently desirable and will not be provided because of too many free- riders. This is not the situation with global security, which will be provided, in the curious and precarious way that it is, whether or not Australia stays on the escalating treadmill or gets off and rides free. Australia's free-riding may be a problem for America; it is not for Australia. Interests diverge again. What is more, judicious free-riding can increase stability. In pictorial terms, the stability of a structure is typically increased up to a certain point by securing it more 23 adequately; for example, if it is a wind tower or similar building, by increasing its rigid ties or supports to the ground. Then a tripod (or better still a quadrapod) tower is much less likely to topple than a bipedal one, and requires less guying to stay up. Increasing the diversity, or variety, of supports increases stability. The theme that diversity correlates with stability has been sharpened and confirmed in ecology, for instance in the theory of “spreading the risks” (see EW). The related theme, that a certain variety increases stability, has been elaborated in cybernetics. The core eco-systemic idea to be developed is that Australia’s free-riding in defence, and consequent nonalignment, could help to enhance diversity and variety, and accordingly to increase stability (especially if done in concert with other client and suppliant states). Two interlocked supports in tension, East and West, well dug in but hardly well guyed, are inadequate for the long-term stability of the precarious structure of world peace. What makes engineering sense is not however adding weight to the structure, or even strengthening the supports that are there, helping the East when the balance is disturbed by the more powerful West’s surging ahead and likely overburdening the structure. What makes more sense is increasing the variety of supports, enlarging and diversifying group size, as significant independent grouping could do. The monolithic East/monolithic West picture is much more than a convenient simplification, for instance for strategic thinking. It may force damaging mistakes in conceptualisation, mzsconceptualisation perhaps convenient for some larger players. One main reason for mistakes concerns group size. Whereas 11+ = {West, East} is a small group, the number N of nation-states is not, but is considerably larger. But the collective behaviour of large groups differs in theory from that of small groups; group size is a highly significant factor (though its precise import remains contentious). The group N of nation-states is a large group, of essentially self-interested parties, indeed of substantially economic actors. collective action applies: So we may expect that the American theory of that the groups will behave in a counterintuitive way. Though expected to act in the common interest, to obtain security in particular, the collection will not. On this account (that elaborated by Olson), the common interest can only be guaranteed by outside influence or imposition (coercion in Olson’s rapid thinking). But with the collective of nations, there is, as experience has shown, no outside mediator or influence of sufficient authority to ensure attainment of the collective good. The prognosis looks very gloomy: this most important (though far from unique) collective good will not be provided. Fortunately the reasoning, like much of the “logic” of collective action, has been too 21 swift. The group, though large, is highly privileged, in containing several actors for whom costs of war exceed benefits (note the shift in perspective from the earlier free-riding condition 3). Indeed an important economic effect of the knowledge of an ominous nuclear winter is that virtually all actors involved should now be in that position; for (subjectively) expected costs of nuclear war have become very high. To go back to basics, Olson's grand theory is based on the accountants’ tautology (defining ‘net’) net agent benefit = gross agent benefits - gross agent costs, i.e. in symbols, for each agent or o actor i (in collective N), A- = V-Cj. A group is privileged if Aj is positive for some i in N. It needs little argument to show that for vulnerable European nation-states the net benefits of global security are decidedly positive (e.g. with a nuclear war their respective future GDPs would expectedly fall to near zero). The fact that the group of nation-states is privileged does not however imply that the collective good involved, security, will be supplied, particularly in the longer term. The simple logic is not dynamic; it takes no account of mistake, error, or the like, or of stability achieved through superiority or intermediate instability. An improved modelling - which can take some account of group size and of the dynamics, through iterated games - is gained by returning to game-theoretic grounds. A free rider “problem” is tantamount to a dilemma of some sort; according to the conventional wisdom, it is a prisoners’ dilemma (cf. Pettit, but contrast Taylor and Ward). The argument can go this way:- a free rider problem or issue is defined in terms of the provisioning of a collective good; but the theory of collective goods is equivalent to that of a .QI, generalised prisoners’ dilemma. Certainly the global nuclear situation appears to present a dilemma; as much is a commonplace claim. Elsewhere (e.g. WPI) it is argued in detail that it does indeed present a moral dilemma. Here the argument - which can proceed through the theoretical route just sketched above or in the more piecemeal way to be indicated - is that it is also a prudential dilemma (for many members of N).°2 Consider first, since these have obtained some investigation (e.g. Hardin), the range of apparent two party games being played by the US and Soviet Union administration (labelled US and SU respectively) in 1985 as regards the moves of further nuclear armament, A, or nuclear disarmament, N. (It is supposed, naturally, that the game is set in some background context, e.g. nuclear disarmament is not considered in isolation from on-going French and Chinese nuclear armament). It is important here, as other places, to distinguish the administration - which for the most part calls the shots - from the society and the people. It is administrations or governments that generally take people into war; etc. The American people seem rather more inclined towards nuclear de-escalation than their administration; the German people were clearly opposed to the new nuclear missiles their administration proceeded to install. The strategy games involved are then administration games, which we 25 can suppose to be played over successive time intervals, e.g. years; so there is interaction and feedback as the games go on - until the Big Ones explode. Within this simplistic setting, the apparent games being played by US and SU are those diagrammed next: New Initial game Prisoners’ Dilemma Game SU SU D US A Revised Game D 2,2 A 4,1 1,4 3,3 D US A SU D 3,2 A 4,1 1,4 2,3 D US A D 3,3 A 4,1 1,4 2,2 According to Hardin, ‘giving evidence of [his] deformation professionelle’, the Prisoners’ Dilemma (PD) ‘represents the preference ordering of virtually all the articulate policy analysts in the United States and presumably also in the Soviet Union’ (p.248). While PD may have represented US policy, there is considerable evidence (as already indicated) that it no longer does, that the US administration has shifted to a more aggressive, war-fighting, phase. That is, the US has interchanged its rankings of (D,D) and (A,A), presumably some time between 1978 and 1984 games. The Soviets, who have been much more consistent (and no doubt better censored) in their policy pronouncements, appear not to have changed their game, but have stuck with their form of deterrence and no-first-strike. However they are bound to try to keep up with the Americans, and so are presumably pushed towards the Revised Game shown, which pleasantly restores symmetry. Stable or equilibrium outcomes for each game are circled. An outcome is said to be stable if neither player has incentive to switch strategies unilaterally on the strength of the game, i.e. to alter the outcome except by influencing the other player also to alter strategies. All these games provide dilemmas, in a broad sense, that equilibrium is achieved in an undesirable and dangerous outcome. In all the apparent games, arming is the dominant strategy for each player; yet in the PD game that is even Pareto-suboptimal, whence the economic fascination. But as the other games deliver results which are socially suboptimal (and below a satisfying threshold), all these games are dilemmas. And the same applies to suggested alternative games that might plausibly be taken to represent the superpower situation, and such as Chicken. A recognisably suboptimal outcome is guaranteed by the independent ‘‘stable” strategies. What is worse, iteration of games does not help (as it may in other political circumstances). For there are substantial political and military incentives for the superpower players not to adjust their preferences substantially in socially superior directions after repeated games, but to do what the US at least appears to have done, to make the situation worse. 26 It is important then to attempt to modify or curtail these self-interested superpower games. There are various connected ways of going about this. One is for other parties to combine to limit or discourage these games. Another alternative is for them to try to alter the games. Thus much socially preferable would be a switch to a coordination game of some sort; for instance, to the game which neutrals tend to play (and which Lackey, in contrast to other more bellicose utilitarians, sees utilitarian superpowers playing; hence Hardin’s provocative label for this game, ‘Lackey’s game’). In the coordination game diagrammed, WN represents a western-inclined neutral and EN an Eastern inclined neutral (e.g. Yugoslavia): EN WN D D 1,1 A 3,2 A 2,3 4,4 [Other coordination games, with (D,D) assigned (1,1)] Now the dilemmatic and coordination games are not played in isolation; they come together in international settings such as United Nations’ committees (and elsewhere, since coordination games are frequently peoples’ games as well). Superimposing the games, with coordination games of the first sort applied to previously given US and SU games, leads to the following augmented East (E) and West (W) games: New Game, Augmented Prisoners’ Dilemma Augmented E E A D Revised Game, Augmented A 4,1 2,2 : *4,1' \ : 3^2 ’ D 1 : W ......... 1,4: A 2/3: 2/3; D ; 1 w ........ : 1,4 3,3 ; a 4 ; E D 2/3 • • — •- : 3-3’**: D ; 1 W I 2,3 ; . • 2.3 A D 2/3 2,2 a 4 ■ 4,1* ! . ; : 2/3 J 4 Key: rh represents a sequence of ms, i.e. m, m, m ... for each coordination player; 2/3 a sequence of 2s and 3s in some order. As augmenting games reveals, to play with a superpower is to help reinforce a stable deadlock. But playing an independent coordination game increases variety and can help in breaking the deadlock, in fact in several ways. For one, enough significant players playing a coordination game can alter the overall dominant strategy towards disarmament. For another, much more pressure can be brought to bear on the superpowers. For example, with less support, unilateral action by the US administration on Star-Wars and arms build-up can be exposed. Superpower militarism and power excursions would stand naked and 27 unsupported. Australia’s impact, in particular, would be rather greater as a nonaligned free-rider pressing seriously for disarmament and regional nuclear-freedom (instead of, as at present, white-wash polemics and token ambassadors, undermined by a none-too-tacit policy of US support). The strategy suggested by game-theoretic modelling converges then with that suggested by other approaches, notably regional and ecological approaches. The strategy is that of limitation, of disengagement from escalating US/USSR war games, and progressive alteration of their likely outcomes by defusing coordination moves. In more practical terms, the approaches mean trying to limit and modify superpower games by restricting their games and supporting regional or local coordination of players, in forms of organisations both of nations and of people. Such organisations would work, as many have already been doing, to contract the regions and spheres of influence and access of US and USSR military administrations, and to diminish support for their war-fighting objectives. For example, Antipodean groups could, and should, coordinate to ease the American military out of the South Pacific region, meanwhile resisting any intrusion of Russian military. Then, while the Europeans are doing their coordinated de-escalating, denuclearising things right across Europe, the Russian and American war games are progressively excluded from the entire Southern Hemisphere. An eventual aim geographically is, to send their weapons of war back home, to restrict their (and French and other) global military enterprises to their “own” backyards, where they would not always be so enthusiastically received. Fortunately such an ambitious and optimistic project, so unlikely to come to pass given present nation-state arrangments, can be accomplished piecemeal, from small and significant beginnings, already to be seen. As a result of recent movements in the region, a South Pacific nuclear-free region is now a politically-achievable option. A first token step has already been taken. But next steps, towards genuine nuclear-freedom, require above all cooperation of a less aligned Australia, joining other disengaging “free-riders” in the region. That in turn requires, as a practical component, closure of American bases in Australia as their leases terminate, cessation of American nuclear ship visits and aircraft staging, and an end to uranium mining and sales. As Australia is the only country in the region supplying uranium, and the main location of US bases, such steps would be most significant. Even so, the Pacific regional effect would remain unduly limited, so long as France and the US are based within the region, and transit of nuclear ships is internationally sanctioned everywhere on the shrinking high seas. Plainly there are further more difficult steps on the way to southern Pacific nuclear-freedom and independence, i.e. even for one of the easier oceanic regions. But there is no good reason to 28 expect that removing the nuclear scourge, any more than eliminating other major politico­ social evils, will be easy. Permanent removal and a less dubious “peace” than we presently enjoy is not something that will be achieved by more of what we have witnessed, or even through clever diplomacy and smart technological tricks, such as new defensive weapons; it will take difficult structural and radical design change. 8. On the need for, possibility of, and prospect of appropriate structural change. There is little doubt that certain sorts of structural political change would be highly conducive to peace (e.g. democratic reorganisation of the superpowers), and that certain fundamental changes may even be sufficient for permanent peace. With that in view they have long been advocated - at least from Rousseau and Kant onwards. But it has also been supposed that some such changes are necessary for lasting peace; ‘it is also necessary to transform the structures that lead to war’ (B. Martin, p.12). To render this theme immune to obvious criticisms - for example, that straightforward authoritarian extension of certain established structures could bring an end to war - further desiderata, typically presupposed, are invoked, for instance that certain freedoms, modest material standards of life, and so on, are duly guaranteed, and also the type of necessity involved is wound back to some lower technical level (not excluded however by present practicalities). These adjustments make the necessity theme more difficult to assess, but also more difficult to sustain. There are two parts to its assessment and defence, a negative and critical part, demolishing a range of arguments from determinism, human nature, and the like, to the effect that arrangements have to be more or less the way they are, and a positive part, comprising direct arguments for the theme. The large negative part of this enterprise will simply be illustrated.34 According to deterministic and mechanistic approaches, such as that of (marxist) technological determinism, nuclear weapons, like megamachines generally, are no aberration. They are an integral part of the business of industrial and ecological conquest, a further stage in human intervention which has already involved substantial disruption through pesticides, wastes, etc. The argument tends to the fatalistic. The megamachines of conquest are made, and once made they will be used. No change in political arrangement, which would make any difference, is possible. Sometimes technological enthusiasts push their position and luck, even further, that a weapon or device once invented by humans will be used: there is no stopping progress. But in doing so they overextend themselves. While there is, sadly a fair induction from the manufacture of weapons (of any given type, for many batches are never deployed) to their use, inductions from invention of machines or the like to their manufacture are c 29 unreliable and subject to many counterexamples (and many machines that do eventually get made have been reinvented or independently rediscovered). But even the good inductions do not show that weapons of various sorts must be used, that a change in background political organisation would not frustrate the inductions. The broader deterministic position is of course that such background changes are not possible either; political arrangements too, like the rest of social life, are technologically or economically determined. But (nonanalytical) determinism, technological and other, is false, so it is argued elsewhere (JB, CPD). Different political arrangements, which alleviate problems, are technically possible, and arrangements would be different in differently evolved worlds. Things did not and do not have to be the way they are, or the social and political sort of way they are. Many routes, none of deductive strength, lead to the conclusion that the dominant political structures of our time, fashioned (with much input from schemes of past philosophers) from feudal institutions, require extensive structural alteration. In particular, they need to be superseded by alternative structures less intricately tied to war, which do not promote or lead so readily to war. Such a theme has been argued directly from the nuclear fix itself (as e.g. WP1, p.47ff.). But suppose, improbable as it may seem, that nuclear weapons all vanished, thereby removing the current nuclear fix; for instance, they turned out to be quietly self-destructing, or a disarmament actually took place. massive thermodynamic miracle occurred, or nuclear The problem of war would not be thereby removed, and even that of nuclear war would only be given some respite. For the structural arrangements for war would remain intact.04 Conventional weapons would remain, along with weapons perhaps as dangerous as nuclear weapons, such as chemical and biological ones. Nuclear weapons, insofar as they were removed (for small caches are easily hidden away), could soon be replaced, especially if nuclear power plants remained intact; and nothing would prevent the development of (Star-Wars) weapons more diabolical than nuclear ones. War cannot be eliminated while leaving the rest of society as it is - by freezing the status quo. ... The structural conditions for war need to be removed - not reinforced as appeals to elites may do - and superseded by alternative structures which do not lead to war (B. Martin, p.12: Martin goes on to indicate the types of structures, and how to reach them). Structural adjustments can provide conditions for lasting satisfactory peace. An initial, somewhat simplistic, Kantian argument for the proposition that peace is possible (presented by Latta, introducing Permanent Peace), runs as follows:- Peace, perpetual peace, is an ideal, not merely of a speculative kind but a practical idea, a moral principle. Hence this ideal ought to be realised, i.e. there ought (morally) to be peace. But ought entails can; therefore peace is possible. 30 From Heracleit.us through Hegel there buzzes an impressive swarm of philosophers"*6 who have rejected the second premiss. Some are even captivated by such extravagant counter-claims as that with peace everything would stop, that competition, with war as one limit, is essential to motion and progress! would now be With the recent shift in philosophical fashions, the second premiss more widely conceded, though often not on Kantian grounds, but consequentialist. Such grounds to support the theme that peace is desirable and ought to be realised, but are more discriminating in that they help indicate what sort of peace. Unfortunately, however it is done, the second premiss does not sustain the conclusion, ought does not entail can, as many moral dilemmas reveal (see MD, WP1). So fortunately, there is a more satisfactory and revealing route to the conclusion that peace is possible, and indeed is feasible. That is the more elaborate method of (semantical) modelling: present in detail scenarios of societies where peace persists (for the sceptical it may be necessary to recall n-human models, with n small). This sort of thing is of course already done, in more pleasing fashion than logicians could hope to emulate, if rather less precisely, by OQ novelists and science-fiction writers, and by activists like the different Martins. What all these scenarios point to, however, are societies considerably different from our own - though not in the people involved, who have their weaknesses, their power drives, and so forth, but because of significant structural alterations in the societies depicted. By way of such modellings we can not merely argue to the feasibility of lasting peace, but push ahead with the argument, that societies of these restructured sorts are desirable alternatives to contemporary military- industrial arrangements. For those of us then who want to move towards such pacific alternatives, the practical inference, from feasibility and desirability is clear: we should begin on the real work of structural change. Peace is possible and desirable, but the prospects are poor (as Heilbroner has said of the human prospect). Present arrangements, though contingent and fashioned in large measure from the schemes of past intellectuals, are thoroughly entrenched, and enforced, both ideologically and by much physical power, often as if along with natural law they were God­ given, though they are no longer appropriate. Even small nonstructural changes look difficult to achieve in present political climates. Through climates have not changed that much, major social improvements have been gained, not instantanously, but in longer-term struggles with government. Such short-term difficulties did not deter social theorists such as Kant, who like Rousseau before him and many after him, were concerned with obtaining lasting peace. The world has changed enormously since the time of Kant’s proposals for peace (of 1795), and even since the time of Veblen’s more cynical additions (in 1917). Hard science and 31 destructive power have grown enormously; and even theoretical knowledge of collective behaviour, especially that admitting of game-theoretic treatment, though still slight, has advanced. But political arrangements and what can be accomplished politically have, in important respects, changed very little, since Rousseau complained (around 1761) that governments were probably too short-sighted to appreciate the merits of his project for perpetual peace. Governments have long been, and been seen as, main obstacles to peace. Thus Veblen rightly maintained that ‘... if the peace is to be kept it will have to come about irrespective of governmental management, - in spite of the State rather than by its good offices’ (p.7).^^ So it has been with most major social changes; for they have involved structural political change disturbing to governmental conservatism. In his search for the indispensible conditions for lasting peace, Kant claimed, as others have claimed since, that peace is not possible under present structural arrangements of an unregulated competing nation-state kind. As times have changed, so, to a limited extent, have state structural arrangements, since Kant compiled his conditions. In particular, there is now, in the shape of the United Nations, a very weak reflection of what Kant looks for, a world (or European!) federation of nations. But crucial ingredients in Kant’s resolution are still lacking:- namely, at the upper level, what is required for a standard resolution of Prisoners Dilemma type situations - some surrender of national sovereignty, especially as regards war, and, at the lower level, “republican” states. Major blockages to adequate arrangements for peace remain at two critical levels of organisation, that concentrated upon of the organisation of collectives of states and, in part by devolution, that of the internal organisation of individual states themselves. Much evidence has now accumulated that more far-reaching changes than Kant, Rousseau and Veblen envisaged are required at both international and nation-state levels if genuine peace is to be secured. Indeed significant changes are wanted even in republician states for peace movements to get their mixed message through already fixed channels to state control systems. For this sort of reason, movements on a single front, such as peace, are unlikely to succeed on their own, but should be linked into a broader plurality of movements, which seek to widen informational and democratic channels, and to alter the character and membership of state systems, and thereby render them much more controllable and accountable.40 Many longer-haul structural changes depend upon diverting nuclear war in the meantime. Thus arguing for more far-reaching changes, for an altered nonaligned Australia, 32 for a nuclear-free South Pacific, for regional structural changes, certainly does not exclude arguing and working for obvious measures for reducing risks of nuclear war. These include: a serious commitment to arms control by the superpowers (whose practices threaten our futures, though most of us lack representation in either); a move away from war-fighting strategies and associated destabilising weapons-systems; moderation of confrontational rhetoric and other tensions-inducing practices by superpower administrations, and improved efforts at mutual understanding (as well some appreciation of the elements of political pluralism); and then, remote though it may appear, significant steps towards nuclear disarmament. Richard Sylvan 41 Bungendore NSW 33 NOTES 1. Queensland premier, with destructive deep-South policies. 2. The point, which has become controversial, is argued in effect in Gilbert. 3. See especially Dibb, as reported in the ANU Reporter, and for a more guarded elaboration, his IAD (e.g. p.163 ‘At present, planning for the defence of Australia lack coherence because there is no clear definition, in priority order, of what needs defending’); see also Sharp, p.l48ff and differently Langtry and Ball, p.575ff., p.6O5ff. The much-heralded Dibb Review of mid-1986 would, if (as already seems unlikely) it were adopted, remove some of the lesser incoherence in Australian policy, that involving details of regional defensive defence (as would also Langtry and Ball, if followed through). While Dibb appears to have demolished what he refers to scathingly as the ‘largely mythical “core force” concept’, a new controversy has sprung up over whether Australia’s more self-reliant defence should be purely defensive defence, Dibb’s ill-named ‘strategy of denial’, or whether it should include an offensive component. Dibb himself has rather rapidly shifted ground on this important issue. In late 1983 he was contending that ‘Australia should have in the force-in-being significant deterrent capabilities, based on present air and naval strike assets, which can mount defensive and offensive operations against attacking forces, their staging bases and lines of resupply’ (IAP, p.166). But in the otherwise conservative Review of 1986 such offensive defence is abandoned; no such forces and equipment for offensive off-shore operations are recommended. Instead ‘the review proposes a layered strategy of defence within our area of direct military interest. Our most important defence planning concern is to ensure that an enemy would have substantial difficulty in crossing the sea and air gap’. The new offensive/defensive defence controversy puts the Review’s adoption in increasing doubt - in which event the local incoherence in strategic planning processes and militational difficulties Dibb alludes to early in his statement will presumably persist. The Review not merely fails to address significant regional issues, as to defence priorities, and as to multiple purpose roles for Australian armed forces given that they will be involved in virtually no military activity other than maintenance and a certain “preparedness” (for on Dibb’s overstatement of the prevailing view of Australia’s very favourable regional security prospects, ‘there is no conceivable prospect of any power contemplating invasion of our continent and subjugation of our population’). But further, the Review is itself vague to incoherent, concerning wider defence issues, vague as to the post-ANZUS situation, and incoherent about Australia’s role in US global “defence” activity. According the Dibb (CT, p.16), ‘there is no requirement for Australia to become involved in United States contingency planning for global war. The presence of the joint facilities, together with the access that we provide to visits by United States warships and the staging through of Australia of B-52 bombers, are a sufficient tangible contribution to the Alliance.’ These contributions are not involvement? That is not how the USSR views the matter: they are the reported sole 34 basis of USSR nuclear targetting of Australia (see Dibb. SS p.13). global stance is left essentially to the USA. And Australia's Amazingly, in the Strategic Basis Papers (SB), Australia criticizes New Zealand because ‘it has still developed no policy for national defence and tends to look to ... the US as its primary source of defence guidance’ (p.29). Note that C3I abbreviates the mouthful, Command, Control, Communications and Intelligence. 4. See Sharp, p.l46ff. An Australian policy should moreover fit with the genuine needs and shared aspirations of local people - to the extent, presumably, that these are commendable; again the presupposed value framework is critical. 5. Thus e.g. Gray (p.17) on the Reagan Administration’s ‘foolhardy brief willingness to talk publicly about nuclear strategy’, and his distain for public involvement or input. There is some concern, especially among neo-conservatives, about US defence strategies being ‘undermined by well-meaning persons who believe they are helping the cause of peace’ (Bell p.10; similarly Gray). Even those not so far right support partial information releases which maintain public confidence; e.g. Dibb on ‘the release of a generalised statement about ;the] functions of the US bases in Australia ... to give Australians more confidence about their crucial contribution to the Allied cause’ (ISA, p.166). ‘Our defence policy-making process is probably more “closed” than that of any other advanced Western democracy’ according to Langtry and Ball (p.608), who contend that ‘the public needs to be involved much more in our defence planning and operations'. For a justified critique of public exclusion and leave-it-to-the-experts approaches, see B. Martin; also Sharp. 6. The paper was drafted in mid-1985. 7. For those amassing evidence that Australia falls into the inexact class of client states, the following Australian contribution is noteworthy: ‘The US prefers to act as a member of a group, and a contribution by Australia can also assist in demonstrating to Congressional and public opinion that the objectives sought are significant enough to attract allied support’ (SB, p.28) 8. As to DI and arms control, see, e.g. Mack PR and Gray. As to D2, ‘USA has now an announced first-strike nuclear targeting policy’ technologically reinforced, Hayes, p.4; and see also Mack AC, p.111. The goal of the Reagan administration is superiority (a conveniently ambiguous term). Thus e.g. Gray (p.32): ‘it is of course essential that the United States modernize its offensive forces so as to render the Soviet Union genuinely offensive-counterforce incompetent.’ 9. On the major changes in American policy, see e.g. Gray p.118 ff. Though America is now said to have a ‘new national security concept of which SDI is the centerpiece’ it may still lack an ‘arms control policy’ (Gray, p.25,pll). Not only arms control, but American commitment to the security of allies, remain at least decidedly cloudy matters. Thus it is of little avail to contend that Australia does have a coherent secondorder global policy, namely the (discreditable) one of following prevailing American policy. For the US lacks a first-order policy which is sufficiently clear in relevant respects. The American direction of Australian policy had better be away from too much public exposure because Australians, no more than New Zealanders, mostly do not like being pushed around, even by Americans. 35 10. Thus we can avoid the important debate as to whether, and to what extent, deterrence remains part of US global “defence” policy (though it certainly remains part of the policy sold to the American public). As to the philosophical significance of the debate, see Gay, p.l29ff. and Benn. 11. The common-interest theme is often traced to (partly self-interested) American action in the Pacific in World War II. Curiously Australia’s interests are are now said also to converge with those of Japan, but to be diametrically opposed to those of the USSR (despite increasing trade). 12. Nor, though this is a longer story, does Australian culture by any means coincide with American: see CPD. Thus a uniform treatment is entirely inappropriate. Similarly, a single overarching treatment for a monolithic West is thoroughly inadequate: see further below in the text. 13. Australian planning should be looking at strategic models (game-theoretic and other) which include Australia. For, as argued below, abandoning the uniformity assumption of the monolithic West, of the West as one parish, makes significant differences to the results yielded. 14. As Cock goes on: ‘These basic issues increasingly become lost in the array of consumer choices’. 15. ‘The serf societies - more or less willingly - accept the status of “allies”, i.e. protection with rights and duties as in feudal societies. They become client countries’ (Galtung, p.169). 16. So-called by Mack PC. But the formulation presented follows G. Davidson’s more satisfactory account in Canberra Times, Wednesday, May 8, 1985, p.2. Mack considers that what amounts to the elitist case is the ‘altogether more sophisticated argument [which] holds sway ... in government’ (p.l, italics added)! 17. The “Asian hordes” derive from one of the less spoken about successors to the Yellow Peril, from the immediate past days of the Asian communist threat, the Domino theory, and White Australia. 18. As Stephenson argued, less fortunately, 20 years ago. Even when around World War II Japan, did have interest in access to strategic raw materials, the Japanese High Command decided against invading Australia because of the difficulty of dealing with the people - a point of much importance. 19. Of course, such military expenditure is also encouraged by economic forces, e.g. like much Third World hard currency expenditure it helps the American economy along a bit. 20. Heilbroner has traced some of the economic components and consequences of what, with excess exaggeration and insufficient irony, he calls ‘the rise and subsequent fall of the American imperium’ (p.52): it hasn’t fallen that far yet. ‘Empires have always been expensive and the American empire was no exception. ... The sheer military cost ... for the United States alone ... is roughly ten percent of ... GNP for the last 25 years ($2 x 10) in 1972 dollars)’. American imperial spending supplemented by other capitalist countries fueled inflation, enhanced poverty, etc., and was complements by, what it was represented as required by, counterexpenditure and efforts by the USSR. 36 ‘The establishment of an American hegemony [consisted and: resulted not just in very large military expenditures, but in the rapid build-up of American capital investments abroad. Between 1950 and 1970, the value of American-owned plant and equipment abroad leaped from $12 billion to $78 billion’ (p.54). A result of the expenditure abroad was a serious balance of payments problem (negative “capital flows” and balances), and a growing accumulation of IOUs. On this sort of basis, Heilbroner speculates that ‘the mere operations of the American imperium by itself - deemed of such critical importance to preserve the peace and security of the capitalist world - was in all likelihood a sufficient condition for the globalisation of the inflationary phenomena’ (p.57 with insert from p.56). According to Heilbroner, ‘Long before the Vietnam debacle, it was clear that American arms could not prevent the rise of revolutionary governments in the under-developed world’ (p.57). But really very little evidence of collapse is presented by Heilbroner; and seemingly there is little. What there is more substantial evidence for is the marked decline of the American imperium in the period (1973-8) concerned. One piece of evidence is the sharp decline in America’s share of World GDP, shown in the following table of select leading national economies: SHARE OF WORLD GDP (%) POPULATION SHARE COUNTRY RANK 1968 1975 1984 (1984 est) USA 1 35.0 24.3 25.0 5.2 USSR 2 11.1 11.0 13.8 6.2 JAPAN 3 5.2 8.0 9.5 2.7 GERMANY FDR 4 5.1 6.7 5.7 1.5 FRANCE 5 4.6 5.4 CHINA 6 2.9 4.8 4.3 22.6 UK 8 2.8 2.8 2.3 1.3 4.4 1.3 INDIA 12 1.3 1.5 1.1 15.1 AUSTRALIA 15 1.1 1.4 1.0 0.3 37 The table should also make it clear that if the USA cannot sustain a grand empire, nor can the USSR. A totalitarian Pax Sovietica is even less likely than a capitalistic Pax American was. 21. Although, so the documents continue, ‘neighbourhood contingencies .... are at present assessed as impossible’! The theme that the USA affords no sure guarantee of Australian defence is reiterated in Langtry and Bell, e.g. p.608. They go on there to outline the major points that reliance upon the US has distorted Australian arrangements (with forces better equipped to fight alongside the Americans in Asia than on their own in defending Australia) and has led to neglect of the regional priorities, ‘to defence planning which at least would recently paid little attention to the direct defence of our continent and the protection of our remote communities’ (p.608). 22. The French, who operate a global network second only to the Americans and more extensive than the Russians, with many forces in the Pacific region, have never been seriously considered. Yet in certain significant respects French social and cultural arrangements are closer to Antipodean ones than American arrangements are. In these days of technological warfare, the post-Waterloo loss record of the French should not be given too much weight; we don’t after all look very hard at the American record of defeats and incompetence. Etc. 23. If Australia is not likely to be threatened there is no real deterrence advantage because nothing to deter. Other advantages of the ANZUS alliance such as access to high-level intelligence are not only dubious (see PC, D. Martin), but not always guaranteed by the alliance as the blackout of New Zealand shows. 24. Soviet activity is undoubtedly perceived rather differently by American administrations than Antipodean ones. ‘An agressive, treacherous, ruthlessly self-interested, expansionist increasingly powerful, and hence increasingly threatening state - that is the image of the Soviet Union in America. It is the image which has legitimised the strategic modernation and Star Wars programs’ (to adopt Mack ST, pl). To see that this is indeed the intellectually shoddy route by which these grand and dangerous programs are justified, it is enough to work through fundamentalist sources, such as Gray. It is almost as if Americans had projected some of their own occasionally-manifested worst features into the giant enemy. 25. After some considerable reconstruction, that is. For the argument, curiously referred as that of “central balance” in newspaper-level publications of academics (e.g. Catley, Bell), is never presented in requisite detail - which is one reason why it has proved hard to criticise and refute. 26. As well both the premiss and its usual substitutes are false (see MF). The type of argument exhibited is a good example of prevalent Australian consequentialist thinking. A parallel argument, enjoying unwarranted popularity, runs: We might as well sell uranium (e.g. to France), because if we don’t someone else will - as if motives counted morally for nothing. 27. See also the discussion of Bell’s claims in D. Martin and in Mack PC. 28. Since the New Zealand restrictions on nuclear ships, ‘the Soviet media has been full of gloating references to the prospect of the collapse of the ANZUS treaty’ according to Dibb (SS, p.14). Given the unimportance of the Antipodes to Soviet interests (as Dibb 38 himself explains), Dibb is surely exaggerating, at least, when he later claims that ‘the prospect of the breakup of the AN ZUS treaty would be of enormous benefit to the USSR’s world-wide interests’ (SS p.31). Soviet support for Antipodean independence and for ‘a real nuclear weapon-free zones' in the South Pacific has its disconcerting elements (‘with friends like that ...’); but luckily the quality of ideas does not depend essentially on their sources and supporters. 29. As WPI serves to show. In a different context, Bell objects to Australian free-loading ‘on other people’s risks and burdens. That has certainly not been our tradition, and I hope it will not become so, since it is morally quite indefensible’ (p.7). Not so: bludging, for instance, is a well-established, if disapproved of, part of the tradition; and in some cases it is morally in order. However, free-riding is not being proposed merely for self interested reasons, e.g. to remove the present risks of nuclear targetting; it is being proposed with a view to altering the two great alliance structures that at present dominate international politics. Bell’s objection to such a course is that it ‘would on the one hand tend to increase the tendency of the superpowers to unilateralism, and on the other hand tend to induce many of the minor powers in question (including Australia) to consider acquiring nuclear capacity’ (p.7). The second alternative neglects the non­ proliferation treaty, to which Australia is a signatory; the first appears to assume erroneously that friendly relations with America are foregone; both are pretty minor considerations (and both can be dealt with in other negotiated ways) compared with the major problem of nuclear war. 30. The less than perspicuous symbolism is that used in Hardin (CA, p.20, p.39), but with agents’ costs or contributions, C, duly agent relativized. Hardin misleadingly treats C as a fixed parameter, thus strictly falsifying the tautology. 31. Thus Hardin who (in CA) claims to ‘demonstrate the equivalence of the logic of collective action and the Prisoners’ Dilemma’ (p.4) The demonstration is given on p.25ff. 32. But of course the two types of dilemma interconnect. 33. Even so, significant change in USA looks unlikely. Present arrangements suit not only the American corporate-administrative power elite, which can direct public opinion through its control of the main communications media, but many other fat-cat Americans, rather well. The polarisation of the world into two camps increases US control of the larger and far wealthier camp, yet scarcely reduces US trade or markets. While it does limit the global coverage of US business and multinationals, and somewhat restricts the transfer of other regions’ surplus value to the USA, it ensures the much greater advantage of being able to maintain the US domestic political economy on a military basis. The US and the USSR not only dance together; they were made for each other. Abroad US hegemony is maintained through a series of alliances and economic control strategies. Particularly ominous for the South Pacific are the Trilateral and Pacific Rim arrangements (which, with much local assistance, are helping to send Australia on its present economic trajectory). When advice or persuasion directed at allies and client states fail, economic measures can be resorted to (capital outflows, for instance, being a highly effective mechanism, “aid” a lesser device). For the most part, the imperial war machine can remain in the background. At home updated and improved imperial measures also work well. The mass consumerist society affords a rich and diverting selection of bread (much of it again imported) for a majority of Americans; television 39 and its entertainment variants offer a constant diet of circuses. For passive middle mainstream America, the vast police and security network remains a largely background and even unnoticed phenomenon; what is seen is even welcomed as a necessary shield from that other, dangerous, minority America. American social, educational and media management of opinion is obviously successful. Of present relevance, most Americans have been convinced that unilateral disarmament would be unAmerican. Thus the American administration, being hedged in by opinion they have helped to generate, cannot move in any such directions. For, given popular opinion, it would of course be politically disastrous, as well as undemojl’cratic! In the USSR, where political control is exercised to a much greater extent through overt power, present change of substance appears even less likely. 34. More of the negative enterprise is attempted elsewhere, e.g. a critique of the supposed strait-jacket of human nature is begun in CPD. From Plato through Hegel and into contemporary times it has been erroneously supposed that war, like aggression, is part of human nature, that war is a permanent (and perhaps even desirable) condition of human and social existence. For a refutation, see e.g. Trainer and Waite. 35. As observed by B. Martin, who uses this important form of argument for institutional change to get this thick book started (pp.12-13). 36. The swarm includes some anomalies, such as that somewhat tarnished hero of deep ecology, Spinoza: see e.g. Northedge. 37. Perhaps Kant had some such scenario in view in his theme that peace is empirically possible, which he coupled with his striking claim that peace is morally and rationally imperative. The latter claim, running in direct opposition to the long line of bellicose philosophers, really relies on the correct, but controversial, assumption that states are subject to the same moral relations as individual persons. Both then have an obligation to seek peace derived from forms of the categorial morality, notably from rational autonomy, the universality of maxims, and the ultimate value of persons (or, yet more chauvinistically, of humanity). 38. Veblen argued against the State on the basis that ‘governmental establishments and ... powers ... are derived from feudal establishments of the Middle Ages; which in turn, are of a predatory origin and of an irresponsible character’ (p.9), however the Christianfeudal origin of the State provided only one - and a coersive - evolutionary pattern of organisation (pp. 12-13), a pattern much influenced moreover by schemes of intellectuals. Other patterns remain feasible. 39. There are now theoretical arguments for Kant’s claim, as well as practical arguments of an inductive sort. 40. Such is also the new message from America: for the peace movement to get through to the administration, American democracy must be overhauled and revitalised, capitalist democracy superseded by true democracy or “republicanism” (see especially Cohen and Rogers, and earlier Chomsky). But the message, like the US peace movements’ very limited demands for peace, leaves the State, as the bringer of wars, and main source of violence essentially intact; the structural changes suggested, which will be slow to achieve, are much too narrowly conceived. 41. My thanks for information to Andrew Mack and David Bennett, and for comments to Grover Foley and Russell Hardin. REFERENCES G. H. Andrewartha and L.C. Birch, The Ecological Web, University of Chicago Press, 1984. W.R. Ashby, Design for a Brain, Second edition, Wiley, New York, 1960. S.Beer, Designing Freedom, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Toronto, 1974. C. Bell, ‘The case against neutrality’, Current Affairs Bulletin 61(4) (1984) 4-10. S.I. Benn, ‘Deterrence or appeasement? or, On trying to be rational about nuclear war’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 1(1984) 5-19. F. Capra and C. Spretnak, Green Politics, Hutchinson, London, 1984. R. Catley, ‘Along with the Bomb ...’ (Review of D. Martin), The Weekend Australian Magazine, 7-8 April, 1984. N. Chomsky and E.S. Herman, The Political Economy of Human Rights, Black Rose Books, Montreal, 1979. P. Cock, Alternative Australia, Quartet Books, Melbourne, 1979. J. Cohen and J. Rogers, On Democracy, Penguin, New York, 1984. P. Dibb (as reported) ‘Defence Planning “lacks coherence” - researcher’, ANU Reporter, 1983. P. Dibb, ‘Issues in Australian defence’, Australian Outlook 37 (1983) 160-166; referred to as IAD. P. Dibb, ‘Soviet strategy towards Australia, New Zealand and Oceania’ paper prepared for Soviet Strategy Against Asia converence, Tokyo, November 1984; referred to as SS. P. Dibb, Review of Australia's Defence Capabilities, Report to the Minister of Defence, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1986; edited text also published in The Canberra Times, 4 June 1986, pp.16-18; referred to as the Dibb Review. P. and A. Erlich, Population, Resources, Environment, Second edition, Freeman, San Francisco, 1976. H. Feith,‘Richard Falk, World order radical’, Peace Studies 24 (1985) 24-5. J. Galtung, There are Alternatives, Spokesman, Nottingham, 1984. W.C. Gay, ‘Myths about nuclear war: misconceptions in public beliefs and governmental plans’, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 9(1982) 117-144. A. Gilbert, ‘The state and nature in Australia’, Australian Cultural History 1981 (ed. S. Goldberg and F.B. Smith), Canberra, 1982, pp.9-28. 42 C.S. Gray, ‘The Reagan administration and arms control’, paper presented at The Future of Arms Control Conference, Canberra. August 1985. R. Hardin, Collective Action, Resources for the Future, Washington, 1982; referred to as CA. R. Hardin, ‘Unilateral versus mutual disarmament’, Philosophy and Public Affairs 12(1983) 236-254. M.D. Hayes, ‘Defending the sunburnt country’, Chain Reaction 33(August-September 1983) 11-17. R.L. Heilbroner, Beyond Boom and Bust, Norton, New York, 1978. I. Kant, Perpetual Peace (trans, and introd. M. Campbell Smith), Swan Sonnerschein, London, 1903 (first published 1795). J. O. Langtry and D Ball (eds), A Vunerable Country, Australian National University Press, Canberra, 1986. A. Mack, ‘Farewell to Arms Controls’, Peace Research 9(1984) 9ff.; referred to as PR. A. Mack, ‘The pros and cons of ANZUS’, Fabian ANZUS Conference, Lome, 4-5 May 1985; referred to as PC. A. Mack, ‘Arms control, disarmament and the concept of defensive defence’, Disarmament 8(3)(1984) 109-119; referred to as AC. A. Mack, ‘The Soviet threat thesis: perceptions, capabilities and interests’ typescript, Canberra, May 1985; referred to as ST. B. Martin, Uprooting War, Freedom Press, London, 1984. B. Martin, Armed Neutrality for Australia, Drummond Books, Melbourne, 1984. F.S. Northedge, ‘Peace, war and philosophy’, in Encyclopedia of Philosophy (ed P. Edwards), Volume 6, Macmillan, New York, 1967, 63-67. M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1965. P. Pettit, ‘Free riding and foul dealing’, Journal of Philosophy, to appear, J.J. Rousseau, A Project for Perpetual Peace (trans. E.M. Nuttal), London, 1927 (first Published 1761). R. Routley, ‘On the ethics of large-scale nuclear war and nuclear deterrence, and the political fall out’, Discussion papers in Environmental philosophy #5, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984. R. Routley, ‘Metaphysical fall-out from the nuclear predicament’, Philosophy and Social Criticism 3/4(1984) 19-34; referred to as MF. R. Routley and V. Plumwood, ‘Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’, Discussion Papers in Environmental Philosophy #6, Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1984; referred to as MD. 43 R. Sharp (ed.), Apocalypse No. Pluto Press, Sydney, 1984. P.R. Stephenson, The Foundations of Culture, W.J. Miles, Sydney, 1936. R. Sylvan, ‘Culture and the roots of political divergence’, typescript, Canberra, 1985; referred to as CPD. M. Taylor and H. Ward, "Chickens, whales, and bumpy goods: alternative models of public­ goods provision’, Political Studies 30(1982) 350-370. T. Trainer and H. Waite, ‘Culture and the production of aggression’, in Sharp, ep.cit, 205-226. The Strategic Basis of Australian Defence Policy, leaked extracts published in the National Times, March 30-April 5, 1984, 23-30; referred to as SB. Threats to Australian Security, Parliamentary Joint Committee for Foreign Affairs and Defence, Australian Government Printer, Canberra; referred to as TAS. T. Veblen, An Inquiry into the Nature of Peace and the Terms of its Perpetuation, Viking Press, New York, 1945 (first published 1917).  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 59, Item 680: Draft of Australia's defence philosophy: further investigation of the nonexistent Subject The topic of the resource Computer printout. Handwritten annotation on page 1: War & Peace III. Description An account of the resource Note, one of four papers digitised from item 680. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 59, Item 680 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. 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Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:23d96cf">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:23d96cf</a> Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant Como - Cupboard - Pile 3 Box 59: Nuclear Como House Como House > Cupboard > Pile 3 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/581b87e4d67a33473f084886196c0964.pdf 9c80f2dae98c9b0e7076149ee0387602 PDF Text Text ON THE ALLEGED INCONSISTENCY AND MORAL INSENSITIVITY OF PACIFISM Pacifism , despite its.revival lit the nonviolent action movement A respectable philooophieg-1 press. another, the within tradition Catholic church , It is commonly portrayed characteristically as as inconsistent. as a continues to have a bad incoherent in one way or Even philosophical defences of pacifism are liable to be extremely defensive, conceding only that consistent, and pacifism is but insisting otherwise that^is as false as a moral position can be 2 and morally insensitive . What follows challenges the prevailing wisdom put out in the philosophical press, but using its approved analytic methods. §1. Slide arguments to inconsistency;and arguments from irresponsibili ty and from rights. In an influential and widely disseminated series of articles attacking . pacficism3 , Narveson says that the pacifist's position is not only that [Tl] violence is evil but also that [T2] it is morally wrong to use force [violence] to resist, punish, or prevent violence. This further step makes pacifism a radical moral doctrine. What I shall try to establish below is that it is in fact, more than merely radical - it is actually incoherent because self-contradictory (p.408, italics added). Subsequently (p.414) he characterises pacifism by way of T2, though it would better characterised by P2. be A It is morally wrong to use violence. However T2 captures the cases that orthodox opposition. The separate comprehensive pacifism from the main form of pacifism under investigation is called 'comprehensive' to distinguish it from standard pacifism, in the usual 1 narrower �sense which is restricted to certain theses concerning (state) order, notably opposition to (violence in) war, and does not rule necessarily out violence elsewhere. Narveson's location of incoherence in pacifism depends on several connected slides, all of which the pacifist should resist - without force. The initial slide is from the theme T2 italicised above to what results by deletion the of crucial phase 'to use force', or as it should be 'to use violence', namely R2. It is morally wrong to resist, punish, or prevent violence - and similarly from special and related cases of T2 to special and related of R2 (e.g. from T2S, It is forbidden to use force to resist violence, to R2S, forbidden It is cases to violence). resist The slide is illegitimate because commitment to T2 does not entail commitment to the rejected proposition R2; for one thing there are many ways of confronting, reducing and controlling violence, worked out by pacifists and others, which do not involve use of violence (or perhaps force). The initial slide is however that assault on pacifism (after clearing Narveson several exploits confusions, explain the popularity of pacifism, out of the way). irresponsibility of pacifism, in This his first main which he takes to argument, from the does not actually lead to contradiction, but it does suggest that there is a serious tension between pacifism and any method maintaining social order, so serious that pacifism is socially irresponsible: ... to hold the pacifist position as a genuine full-blooded moral principle is to hold nobody has a right to fight back when attacked ... It means that we are all mistaken in supposing that we have the right of self-protection ... It appears to mean, for instance, that we have no right to punish criminals, that all our machinery of criminal justice is, in fact, unjust. Robbers, murderers, rapists, and miscellaneous delinquents ought, on 2 of �this [irresponsible] theory, to be let loose (pp.415-6). Since one can protect oneself and avoid and resist aggression back violence), (with pacifism unless a slide is made. (tentatively) by Nor does T1 and theses does without fighting not mean what Narveson claims it means, comprehensive .pacifism, T2 , imply that we as characterised have no right to punish criminals, but simply that such punishment will not apply violent methods. Nor does it imply that all the conventional machinery of criminal justice therefore is unjust, but only that some - perhaps a good deal - of that machinery is. One hardly needs to be a comprehensive pacifist to coherently think the latter. All this provides some confirmation for the key point, which is that far at there is, so least, no inconsistency evident in maintaining that those who hold that violent methods are morally legitimate are mistaken. The next slide is closely connected with, and really generalises upon, initial slide. The stunt is to imbue a range of more neutral terms with the connotation of -------------------------------------violence, or at least of -----------------------force which Narveson proceeds to with violence. Thus from among admissible pacifist methods. of force is taken to by implied in R2. resist cannot excluded be Hence the conflation of T2 and R2; Hence too Narveson’s assumption Hence (p.415). also Narveson’s that against attack' (pp.417-8). use a unwarranted "recharacterisation" of pacifism as the position that 'no one ought ever defended equate such activities as resisting, punishing, preventing, and defending are taken to imply (use of) force or violence, and so to pacifist the to be If the stunt were got away with, it would deprive pacifism of, for instance, the general methods of nonviolent action and defensible position. But resistance, and so render pacifism a much less positions can be defended, as in this paper or on the field, 3 without violence. �Things be can resisted, even things like arrest, without violence (e.g. sliding out of handcuffs and running away). by Force can be applied, as in opening Violence implies force, but not vice versa; and it is violence, not all applications of force, that.comprehensive pacifists are a jam jar, without violence. bound to exclude. The attempt nonviolent castrate to depriving It enjoys some popularity even any case indefensible. and by it of among those of advocating expansion of nonviolent methods, who no doubt want: to distance themselves from older standard pacifism, whose methods they see as confined to mediation, negotiation, and including the granting of concessions . compromise, But nothing in standard, range the is not confined to those who (want to) think pacifism in practices, development pacifism, so the characterisation its limits of pacifism, admissible methods: whether comprehensive or nothing exclude^ uncompromising methods and imposition of sanctions which offer no concessions. ? It is simply that standard pacifism has not yet developed its fuller potential, especially in conflict resolution. Subsequent slides in the elaboration of the argument against just variations qualifier. in those pacifism are given, writing violence-involving in as an internal Thus the measure of a person’s opposition to something in terms of ’the amount of effort he is willing to put forth against it’ is taken - somewhat perversely - to be violence-involving effort or opposition in the pacifist’s ’opposition to violence'. If this slide were pacifist would be caught in an elementary inconsistency since in case of the permissible any being opposed to violence, by definition, he is prepared to use violence and so is not opposed �Even Narveson ’cannot make too much* of this inconsistency, though to violence. it not so far removed from the alleged inconsistencies he does want to make is much of in his main inconsistency argument. A similar slide, together with a further slide, Is made in the argument based inconsistency the on to notion of rights, especially as it figures in the pacifist’s thesis as transformed to the claim that no one has a right to indulge in violence (p.418). Narveson violence in the notion of right. tries to incorporate the right to indulge in The initial move is to work in assumptions of defence from breaches of a right and of preventative action against infringement Because ’a right just is a status of it. preventative action ... does follow logically is that one has a right to whatever may be necessary what to justifying prevent necessary’ infringements of right' his (p.419). That 'whatever may be out to include force, now very generously construed - here is turns the further slide - to incorporate such things as social pressure. Moreover ’it is a logical truth, not merely a contingent one, that what might be necessary is force’ (p.421). of preventative For the presupposed logical transformations to work, the notion action must have the notion of violence built into it. argument accordingly begs the question against pacifism. it enough is for preventative To block the The argument action associated with rights to be, or to be limited to, nonviolent action. How the argument from rights leads to inconsistency is summed up thus (p.421): SAI. ’If we have any rights at all then we have a right to use force to prevent the deprivation of the thing to which we are said to have a right’. �SA2. We have, according to the pacifist ’the right not to have violence done to us’, as have the a consequence of the obligation to avoid violence. right self-contradictory, to use both violence, granting so the pacifist’s position Narveson is that 'our standard concept of rights' yields SAI (cf. right can be sustained by right-supporting or right-defending require that that action is violent. is and not granting the right to use violence. The argument fails because SAI is readily rejected. claiming But, therefore, we mistaken p.423). action in That a does not Pacifists can provide an adequate analysis of rights - essentially the usual one - without letting themselves in for SAI by 6 simply rejecting the Narveson slide . What appears in place of SAI is something like SAI#. If we have any rights at all then we have a right to uphold them. But the right to uphold them, defend them, protect them, etc., give facto, an entitlement to the use of violence. no dilemma for the pacifist. does not, ipso Without the slide there is The "pacifist's dilemma" and Narveson’s slide are two aspects of the one thing. The arguments from lesser §2. argument violence and evil. lesser In outline the - which is independent of the notion of rights - is that the pacifists must admit, in terms of their own principles, that there are cases where the use of violence those where Inconsistency would be morally permissible and morally justified. some is use of immediate violence by T2. would prevent evil, some greater violence. More explicitly, and in Narveson’s terms which also import the notion of evil, pacifists have lesser much The cases are to admit both that the use of evil, is admissible, in preventing greater evil, and that it is not admissible, because it involves violence. 6 Narveson summarizes an �argument like this as follows It seems to me logically true, in any moral theory whatever, that [LI] the lesser evil must be preferred to the greater. If the use of force by me, now, is necessary to avoid the use of more physical force (by others, perhaps) later, then to say that physical force is the supreme (kind of) evil is precisely to say that under these circumstances I am committed to the use of physical force'7. Now there are several somewhat different arguments snarled up in these sketches, p It is important to get them unsnagged , especially if a clearer view of the ethical role pacifism can assume is to result. lesser The basic argument, from violence, goes as follows Cl. There are cases where use of violence would prevent greater violence. C2. One ought to minimize violence. Therefore C3. There are cases where one ought to use violence, since in this way, in any arbitrary one of the cases indicated, violence is minimized. Therefore ~P2. It is not (always) morally wrong to use violence, contradicting the pacifist principle, P2, according which to it is morally wrong, always, to resort to violence. All the ingredients premisses, can be of argument, this together with pulled together from Narveson’s work. support for He not only expouses C2, but suggests two distinct arguments for it, the first of which connects argument with the lesser evil argument El. (Use of) violence is an evil. E2. Evil should be minimized. 9 The second argument to C2 is simply from the pacifist premiss, varying P2, 7 the the �E3. One ought not to undertake violence - period; that the is, level of violence ought to be zero. Neither argument is decisive; of that reference both in fact begin easing.pacifists into a should they resist, where moral absolutes are warped into moral relatives, where obligations give, way to obligations all, and says nothing about minimizing it when one compatible being does it. into got has E3 is directives quite different from minimization where violence is with involved, e.g. E3 things other In any event E3 only directs one not to get involved in violence at equal, etc. Thus frame rooting it out which may involve strategies. non-minimization not entail E2, and commitment to E3 does not commit pacifists to C2. Nor do El and E2 entail C2; so neither does commitment, by to El and E2 oblige them to accept C2. instance, 10 , e.g. evil-perpetrating but argument Narveson's well-known Such nonviolent fails for similar some as cases hypothetical dictators. for For in particular violence is not the only evil and (so) evil may sometimes be reduced by violence pacifists Regan’s increases in slaying of the reconstruction of Regan argues from premisses reasons. concerning the ranking of evil and a premiss like E2, specifically 3. 4. The use of force is a substantive evil. Therefore, a lesser quuantity of force must great quantity of force (Rp.79). The argument is invalid: ordering of an ordering of evils force, even though force is an evil. increasing force may still reduce evil, and so, on be preferrable \ 8 does be preferred not induce to a a similar It is enough to observe that Regan-Narveson assumptions, �Resort to the theme that Elt, Violence is an irredeemable evil in (proposed by Regan by investigated his Narveson, Np.118) irredeemable evil is figuratively (lesser or evils) whites pacifism, of "defence" promises so black Rp.80, and subsequently a way around the difficulty. that no combination (goods) will lighten its hue; with An grays it always dominates. Elt together with E2 will yield C2, but now the problem with Che argument shifts to What are the grounds for that? Elt. not widely acceptable, most people being amount of As Narveson points out (Np.119), it is prepared to countenance violence in exchange for considerable goods. some (But then, not so long ago, most people were tolerant of cruelty to animals so long as it was gross.) small /not too Moreover, so Narveson implies, appeal to Elt does not get. pacifists out of the argument from lesser violence; underwriting C2. indeed it seems to get them in deeper, by for it removes Cl and, more importantly, It does not however; the corresponding premiss of the more difficult argument from lesser evil, which starts from DI. There are cases where the use of violence would avoid greater evil. For given, by Elt, that use of greater evil than that cases such as DI requires. Rp.80ff.), which however violence is irredeemably with violence; tainted evil, there is no and there are accordingly no This is the core of Regan's defence in pacifism (see he sees as converting pacifism into a 'bizarre and vaguely ludicrous’ position (Rp.86), extreme pacifism, some of the 12 which he outlines 9 features of �The approach through violence as an irredeemable evil is mistaken a (utilitarian inspired) attempt to get at moral absolutes, which is what pacifism is, like other deontological positions, grounded upon. But such absolutes expressed in such commandments as, One ought not to commit violence, adequately meaning thereby, as it says, ought not, not just for the time being, or so as reasons prima are facie, otherwise don’t arise, or other things being equal, or acting for ought but long come not what may, period. old-fashioned Such deontological, moral absolutist positions such as pacifism is at bottom, collide head-on with utilitarianism both that pacifism'. For the moral ’utilitarianism 'that utility will be ... who is incompatible brought out by doing some violence may be greater than that produced by any alternative' he like positions and Regan (at the time) were working from. Narveson The reason for collision is simply that with malleable highly fashionable, more (Np.121) 13 . So acccording to the utilitarian-commandment to maximize utility may acts sometimes commit violence, contravening pacifist principles. On its own inconsistency with a false doctrine such as utilitarianism shows little: position every suffers inconsistency with very many false doctrines. Narveson does have another (small) argument to the effect that pacifism is at odds with contractarianism. correct, if other the the ethical positions he presents, libertarianism and But this argument would only carry weight, were it. positions were suitably exhaustive; including no deeper ecological position for instance. is more also otherwise however they are not, What has happened which insidious, however, is that utilitarian thinking has permeated much of the rest of ethical thought, thus helping to establish a climate unfavourable to incompatible ethical positions such as pacifism. 10 There are two more specific �features. damaging consequentalist Firstly, as more approaches have we of consequentialist Secondly, facie prima principles positions out utilitarianism, of This is entirely mistaken. The is a theory-saving device, designed to get difficulties such dilemmas. moral as consequentialist positions tend to suggest that only consequentialist reasons carry argumentative weight, and so try to ease rival positions, such pacifism, and generally, have made it seem as if no deontic principle were firm, but all are provisional. theory seen, into as sometimes incongruous consequential support for their offering themes. Narveson takes such procedures a assumptions upon violence is that it These (p.425). thus pacifists: produces stage further, and foists utilitarian says that the pacifist's 'objection to he suffering, unwanted pain, in the recipients' incongrous utilitarian grounds are something of a travesty of pacifists' reasons for objecting to violence, which concern rather the action involved and what it does, not astonishing such of only or always at all in the way of suffering, to the perpetrators as well as those in whom it is more type inflicted. Even utilitarian-style considerations are supposed to commit the pacifist to the follow three statements, one of which however he must deny (!): [N]l. To will the end (as mostly good) is to will the means to it (at least pjotTce prima facie). [N]2. Other things being equal, the lesser evil is to be preferred to the greater. [N]3. There are no "privileged" moral persons ... (p.425^ ' . 'These three principles' which appear in Narveson's 'sum up [of] the problem', 11 pacifist's �among them imply, as far as I can see, both the commitment to force when it is necessary to prevent more violence and also the conception of a right as an entitlement to defense. And they therefore leave pacifism, as a moral doctrine, in a logically untenable position (p.425). consequences out of the substantive terms such as implicans; otherwise but logic, It would take not merely statements ’violence’ the deal good a of magic, coax to given. For implications to hold the , /''I <</<<-</ ,■/" < F^ and ’right’ must also figure , in the just fail implications on formal grounds. intended argument to the "commitment to force” conclusion appears however to some for e.g. The be of variant, on the lesser violence argument, with N2 replacing, as it sort may C2. such (N3 and N1 then have oblique roles, N3 to stop exceptions being made oneself, N1 to ensure that violence adopted as a means has its full import, in as reflected in Cl, construction work the ethical an end). But, without need not worry pacifists; arguments much further they hardly leave pacifism as untenable. Much more threatening is the argument from lesser evil, which has yet to be This countered. is argument from DI (cases of violence to avoid greater the evil) and N2 or E2 (minimization of evil) to C3 (admissibility of violence) inconsistency in comprehensive stock examples concern murder, What are these cases^? pacifism. one of them being the Narveson’s situation where (Narveson in fact) must kill the (potential) mass-murderer B (Np.119). is the moral situation here? Narveson ought to prevent but mass-murder, that of a paradigmatic moral In fact the example is dilemma, that of very similar also The to Pedro and Jim, where Pedro volunteers to call off his firing squad about to shoot several captives 12 one But what Narveson ought not to kill B, because that is murder and involves violence. situation is that of a moral dilemma. and if Jim �one shoots Now almost everything turns on what account is given of What a comprehensive pacifist does moral dilemmas. trouble, coherence . of them is to take do, not inadequate utilitarian line of trying to the explain moral dilemmas away, as if they didn’t ever, occur an than initial intuitive negotiable, etc., etc. is as level), wants he unless if (at at least other all obligations were prime facie, The conflicting obligations stand. What is to done be however a very consequentialist thing, to try to determine the best thing to do in the circumstances. action In trying to determine what circumstances is a satisfied. violent sense this the best e.g. Narveson had better a fix. Narveson dilemma, but no B. shoot (not a deontic one) evil should be minimized; not ought circumstances, he had better do so moral of 17 . to the in course Granted, it is preferable to minimize follow that Narveson ought to resort to violence. remains course best that Suppose one, inconsistency in pacifism follows. in the principles like N2 and its mate, N2M, that it is preferrable to minimize evil, will presumably be and is evil, it does not On the contrary the situation shoot B, but in the appalling There is the real-life complication of inconsistency No a through arguments like that from lesser evil. Narveson’s jackpot question, entangled in his discussion from rights, can now be met. of the argument The question presents a dilemma: If force is the only way to prevent violence in a given case, use justified in that case? (p.420) is its Narveson is thinking of cases where one is about to be murdered, Regan where one is to be raped. qualified No: Given that force again entails violence, the pacifist answer is No, it is not deontically 13 justified 18 . It is certainly not �morally it is not justified in the sense of ’justified* which and obligatory, reflects its deontic origin in ’making right*. may and because just some might force in solution, a making to amount dilemma be out But justification is The response is qualified then a case. consequentially situation. ambiguous, as justified, a second-best Narveson, proposes on the contrary, that enough violence for the given occasion is morally justified - it can go at least as as killing another person - but he presents no back-up argument, taking far his proposal as evident. jackpot the question As it is not - the pacifist can simply does not dispute it to a decisive a^rument against pacifism lead (though Narveson gives the impression that it does, e.g. , p.423). What it can lead to is the argument from lesser evil over again. The charge of moral insensitivity. §3. This is less argument an than a damaging charge: A person committed to an extreme pacifism, though he need make no logical mistake, yet lacks a fully developed moral sensitivity to the vagaries and complexities of human existence (Rp.86). The smear is not without basis. is applied avert to greater Regan is envisaging situations evil; where violence and he points to what he takes to be the evident moral permissibility of a woman's using ’what physical power she has free herself from an Interestingly, Regan has not aspiring rapist* (Rp.86). described the situation in a way which is incompatible with there is violence, which implies What is at issue the intentional, non-negligible damage, including pain, injury or (cf. a pacifist stand: nothing in that to prevent a woman wriggling free (even in a way that involves some force) and fleeing. using to is (or death, the permissibility of infliction of wilful) by forceful means / Np.110), that is, which involves much more than mere use of physical force �And it is by no means so or power. violence inflict upon evident A rapist. aspiring the the that woman is entitled to can hardly now be pacifist accused, in a way that can be made to stick, of crass moral insensitivity. More generally, arguments pacifism, the on like Regan’s the to insensitivity moral of basis of pacifists' not taking obvious steps to prevent evil I occurrences, depend upon a confusion of passivity and pacifity. Narveson p.425) (e.g. Both Regan and assume that pacifism is a passive do-nothing position. 20 This is far from true, as the variety of nonviolent action methods groups has made plain. comprehend the real possibilities of considered or adopted by Neither Regan nor Narveson correctly nonviolent action. Otherwise, Narveson would hardly be able to assert, in the automatic (but carping) way he does, that the pacifist is Narveson's standing negative later 'not by doing assessment does not change the situation: anything about’ violence (p.425). of what he calls 'poslLlve nonviolence' for this positive approach is simply nonviolence practised in an exemplary way, as by Christ, in the hope that others will follow suit, and fails to recognise the potential of nonviolent training and the and effectiveness when assembled 21 , of nonviolent practices. much reduce the impact scope Fuller details of these practices, of the argument from social irresponsiblity, which is part of what lies behind the change of insensitivity. Pacifism, however, like most positions, has them 22 its weaknesses, one of undoubtedly derives from the fact that violence is a quantitative matter and there is no sharp cut-off point at the bottom end of the amounts and of violence greater than zero. Yet scale with minute (non-foot-in-the-door ) amounts do not seem to matter all that much morally, at least compared with 15 small the �that evils gross us confront on most sides when we look. Morally sensitive pacifists will not focus or fixate on small quantities of violence to the of exclusion larger moral They problems. give certainly will understood that by ’violence' in principles such as. P2 mean they it undue to be 'non-trivial violence'. §4. and The argument from radical political corollaries The corollaries. out war by definition. so clear. Although War situations? normally would Standard war always would be what excluded, be morally counted brought progressively then second dilemma the impermissible, best but in thing to closer to Comprehensive pacifism can of course extreme principles emphasizing the evil of violence. weighing of Comprehensive pacifism thus does not include standard A strange pacifism! pacifism, in contrast to extreme pacifism. be pacifism But the position of comprehensive pacifism is not exceptional extenuating circumstances it might be the (second-) do. awkward of extreme pacifism would certainly eliminate war. practice For war involves violence, typically on an extensive scale. takes other from best choices will pacifism, in practice, through If evil is given a suitably yield the large same results as extreme A pacifism does (deontically), and entirely exclude war. Now it can hardly be cogently argued that it tells against pacifism that it would eliminate wars, since wars are exchanges that should certainly be avoided at all reasonable costs; nor therefore can an argument Wz/Acuf desirability fHur/l of war as an institution against pacifism,! mounted from the or Cldc. However wars are by no be means the only social arrangements or institutions which dispense^ or rely u violence extensively. The state and many of its institutions, most obviously �police inadmissibility of characteriscally are contraposition do. also forces, coercive 23 institutions and hence ; pacifism Comprehensive it as such implies police anarchism provides no refutation of pacifism.. the implies 24 moral forces and states But once again For anarchism itself is (to 25 stick with a bold claim) irrefutable Pacifism as an ideal brought not is .down by its political corollaries. Pacifism yields not only a qualified anarchism but qualified vegetarianism. While does it not eating of meat, it does morally forbid violence to forbid animals. At least it does this so long as what normally counts as violence, animals, continues to rank as valence, and is not removed from the category by restriction of the application of violence to humans little good for however basis corollaries naturally spread suicide, capt^al euthenasia, (or such a chauvinistic restriction. several into punishment, controversial indeed There persons). is The radical moral, wherever to e.g. areas, violence plays a significant role in many cases'1. The sheer moral power of pacifism is one reason /7j Qc4> for giving it some pause. And there are others. / One is that, like vegetarianism, it runs counter to "natural" behaviour of creatures to which the principles are supposed to apply. Aggression is a fairly S' X common feature of animal and human behavioZur, and it sometimes (though by no means so often is as made out) involves violence. /Ze /cVXC o/1 //>£ Ao'jje.tjw enable ct/ony Ac /Aggression is assumed to be an evolutionary adaption /ZeSG- creatures offspring) in their artificial h to be better natural environments fitted environment. substantially 17 developed to for survival (of themselves and their most humans removed from now live situations in for rather which �there is no way they are evolution gradually adapted their features: adapt in time to absorb massive doses of radiation for instance. have substantially living their adjusted adjust environment, along so with ^oing to Much as humans should they it their social practices - including aggressive and violent practices, now ill-adapted to their situation and mostly counter productive. There is a residual problem, practices of living creatures like in that confronting natural (relatively) vegetarianism. conditions, such as predators and tribal people, to be condemned as morally wrong when they Sometimes, violence? involve when the violence grossly exceeds what is required yes, Though a way can be beaten around the given the end to be attained; but always? edge of this problem Are 26 it is an unsatisfactory way. What this suggests is that <u t be^t nonviolence is not an absolute but^an ideal. The arguments for nonviolence which are mostly violence and do not strictly suggest a to apply since it in creatures natural surroundings opens door the a approaches would categorically exclude. chink to other options The further suggestion that emerges is that moral thinking and associated principles in this area are pretty primitive aimed, among principles state; other than P2. and what - But the suggestion is a dangerous one, sort of conclusion. similar practically at least, nonviolent arguments which do not exclude occasional uses of practical is things, at sharper, This is to in a called for is much more investigation more concede an sensitive, attentuated and less charge insensitivity against comprehensive pacifism so long as P2 remains blanket of moral unqualified. There is no reason however why a genuine pacifism (making for real peace) should not be built on a modified version of P2 which permits such natural phenomena as predation. Nothing logically rules 18 out such a genuine and more sensitive �pacifism 27 There are other requiriments the position to be worked out should meet. in should, particular, be integrated into a Larger framework of nondestructive practices, which are involve violence, e.g. a of a practices metaphorically, damaging wild nonviolent* practices. are practices But, except destructive to the environment, for instance, do not such river, with piece things dumping vandalism. wastes toxic But mining strip as extended sense, which gets beyond the confines these It of in a valley, fertile in streams and oceans. the property In an picture, all even metaphorically, vandalism does not such cover violence against persons (and certainly not nonphysical violence as I "psychological violence"). What is sought /is an appropriate synthesis of these notions covering destructive practices - and better than 'vandolence'. an Then P2 is superseded accompanying synthetic term, 4/Z2°. It is morally wrong to use vandolence./ It remains to characterise the cluster of destructive practices (/V that count as vandolence and to try to justify the principle - no easy tasks. FOOTNOTES 1. ’a valid Christian According to the US Catholic Bishops, pacifism is to Christ and the early long tradition going back position’, with a lifestyle: see Origins Christians who were committed to a nonviolent pp.310-311. 2. Thus, in particular, T. Regan ’A defence of pacifism', Canadian Journal of Philosophy 11 (1972) 73-86. Page references to this article are prefixed by _ 3. J. Narveson 'Pacifism: a philosophical analysis’, Ethics 75 (1968) and ’Is pacifism consistent’, Ethics 78 (1868). The first article is reprinted in War and Morality (ed. R. Wasserstrom) Wadsworth, Belmont, California, T97O7 pp.63-77. The first article is also rewritten and combined with part of the second in 'Pacifism: a philosophical analysis’, Moral Problems (ed. 19 77ju / /A ZAC A IZ(M2 �J. Rachels), Third Edition, Harper .Row, New York, 1979, pp.408-425. Page references without further citation are to this latter article. Narveson's theme that pacifism is incoherent is headlined and further elaborated in his ’Violence and war’, Matters of Life and Death (ed. T. Regan), Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1980, pp.109-147. Page references prefixed by 'N' are to this article. 4. Pacifism, as involving the active use of defensive methods, can be traced back as far as the Mohist philosophers of ancient China. On modern methods see especially G. Sharp, Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives, Boston, 1971. As will emerge, it is important to distinguish fas Narveson does not in his earlier work) force from violence; they not equivalent. /\ 5. Thus, e.g., G. Sharp in several works: see for instance the unduly narrow definition of pacifism given in Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent Publishers, Boston, 1980, p.198. 6. Narveson, in responding to a suggestion of Armour (pp.423-4) sees nothing between (0) defence of rights, with the slide to violence in, and (1) nothing really answering to rights at all, where words like 'rights’ occur without stuffing. This shows a serious blindspot. What lies in between are a range of notions which do not guarantee the slide to violence. An account of rights which will serve is that given in R. and V. Routley ’Human chauvinism and environment ethics' in Environmental Philosophy (ed. D. Mannison and others) Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1980; see especially p. Narveson 'Is pacifism inconsistent' Ethics 78 (1968) p.148. 7. J. 8. Without getting into the level of complication, not to say epicycling, that Regan lands himself in: he is obliged to distinguish three mirage-like senses of 'lesser evil': quantitative, qualitative, and resultant (Rp.78). 9. See Np.127 where it is asserted that violence as a source of evil should be minimized, and Np.119> where the point is put in terms of absolute evil. That way of putting it already starts to give the game away, since Narveson is all too evidently interested in negotiable evil which can be traded off against other evils. 10. An argument like the argument from lesser violence itself would appear to undercut the argument for El and E2 to premiss 02 for the argument for lesser violence. 11. That is by no means the onlyelement in Regan's torturous reformulation of Narveson's argument that can be faulted. Consider, for example, premiss '5. If any given action, A, is necessary to bring about a lesser rather than a greater quantity of qualitatively equivalent evil, then one's obligation is to do A.' While the premiss has considerable appeal as a principle of supererogation, there is little reason to accept it as one supplying obligations. 20 �12. Extreme pacifism can be seen as taking the rule that one ought never to use violence as having priority over all other moral rules - which Is indeed an extreme position even if a consistent one. Such a priority rule is an unsatisfactory way to deal with moral dilemmas. 13. To show what Narveson goes on to claim that people are sometimes justified in using force rather more is required, as Regan points out, Rp 85, n.18. It has also to be shown that there are cases of these types (as in Cl) and that agents can know that use of force will increase utility, reduce evil, etc. A pacifist, rightly sceptical of utilitarian tracing of consequences, and fond of noting that violence begets violence, could, with a small dose of scepticism also, dig in at this point and claim that because no one can be sure that use of force will reduce evil, so no one is justified in using force. This is sceptically-based pacifism. 14. Narveson also wants to contend that ’all of these may be defended on purely logical or "meta-ethical" grounds’. This is likely false, especially the claim as to logical status, since some of the principles are rejected in substantive ethical theories. 15. A surprising feature of Narveson’s argument, also Regan’s "reconstruction", is that these cases are nowhere in sight, as if again one got to conclusions logically out of the air, without any of the hard work the cases involve. 16. The example was first discussed in B. 17. This terminology matches the account of moral dilemma, given in much more technical detail in R. Routley and V. Plumwood ’Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’ in Paraconsistent Logic (ed. G. Priest and others) 1983, to appear. 18. An extreme pacifist would answer with an unqualified No. 19. Directed against other creatures and more generally against ecological systems such as ecosystems which can be hurt. There is a difference here between live(go al-direct ed")~systerns and property, and comprehensive pacifism does not necessarily exclude wilful damage to property. Thus eco-pacifists may destroy, or at least disable, bulldozers but not harm those who use bulldozers to destroy habitat. However sensitive eco-pacifists will not condone "violent" destruction of property either: disab^ling of equipment is different. 20. The methods also include anticipatory action, e.g., the policemen going off to enact violence find their vehicles won’t start, e.g. because components have been removed 21 the peace movement should be preparing for B. Martin ’How See e.g of Peace Proposals 13 (1982) 149-159, and references Bulletin war ’ nuclear cited therein pp.152-3. Williams, //.( Zc (V, /, ( 1 J n l »' /? o C-, / / /' /\ <. ? / < / / i ’'i *7 z* //4 ’Conflict: of values’. �22. Another comes from the necessary circumscription of permissible nonviolent action, to ensure that it does not include actions worse than nontrivial violent action. 23. These organisations may be ruled out directly as violence-dispensing or else because they have individuals, delegates, who effect violence on their behalf. 24. In the sufficiently comprehensive form that the coercive state is without moral basis or legitimacy. Of course the "state" may have nonviolent methods available to it; it may not be a purely voluntary arrangement. 25. See R. Routley and V. Alternatives, (1982). 26. As Singer has in the analogous case of vegetarianism. 27. The position has been called 'pacificism*. Plumwood 'The irrefutability of 22 anarchism’, Social �On the alleged impracticality of pacifism in the real world. Appendix §5. Even if it is conceded that pacifism is a viable moral ideal, that it does not fall down as incoherent or ludicrous, still the feasibility of pacifism as a sensible practice to live by will bo contested - despite, or perhaps because of, major examples such as Christ and Gandhi. And it has to be admitted that the real world, with all its horror and squalor, does put pacifism to severe tests. Nowhere is the practice of nonviolence than in replacing war \ succeed usually been given a dress rehearsal. defence of a region can vary convention observed is or less likely to Yet nonviolent defence methods, to replace the 2 detail , usual violent methods, have been described in some never thought though they have The prospects for success of nonviolent significantly, depending upon whether the war If the convention Is observed then pacifism not. stands reasonable prospects of success. The difficult cases are where the war convention unleashed, perhaps broken, is in massive ways, on noncombatants. his superficially sympathetic sketch and assessment of resistance, 'success ... may all sorts of this: According to Walzer, in nonviolent defence and This is presumably false. that The invaders may give up and depart reasons, some of them irrelevant, e.g., they needed a quick decisive victory, they got homesick. like is attained - there is never any guarantee of it, without or with be war - even if some conventions are flouted. for violence is possible only if the invaders are committed to the 3 war convention - and they won’t always be’ (Wp.331~). Success and sufficiently What Walzer no doubt ruthless invaders sufficient time and sufficient support lines, etc. 23 means is something in sufficient numbers with can eventually succeed. But �sort of thing is also true even if the defending side resorts to violence. that The difference lies in the pattern of events; is more difficult and costly for if the defence is invaders the to well-armed it with and easier start afterwards than with well-prepared civil resistance-. Walzer is thinking, however, like many who jump to the that conclusion nonviolent defence cannot succeed when the war convention is abandoned, in terms of inappropriate examples. command, total in the He is thinking of an extreme totalitarian state, way the Nazis were in Germany, the Jews of Germany The providing the model of the enslaved population, the ’‘resistance". is highly misleading. picture The Nazis, who never invaded Germany, were in control of all the infrastructure and had the cooperation (at least) of the bulk of the For Walzer‘s comparison to work, there would have to be an enormous population. occupying army which took over and managed all key infrastructure. island With such as Australia it is not even so clear that this is logistically territories feasible against a largely united and actively resisting of impression in the acquiscence (e.g. resistance Walzer's population. fragmenting and the populace moving into dulled Wp.332) might have got things the wrong way around, the test with 4 disbelieving and frustrated soldiers ready to leave . Nonviolent resistance is however unlikely to be put adequate way in present state-determined prepared to risk training its populace (civil defence the police: is different). in to any No state would be circumstances. full in action nonviolent techniques It would then be. all to easy for them to "rout" civil obedience, for example, could no longer customary violent means. 24 be ensured by the �FOOTNOTES The replacement of the state is considered op.cit. For example, in Sharp, op.cit. given there. See also in Routley Martin, All page references prefixed by ’W’ are to M. Allen Lane, London, 1977. and op.cit., Plumwood, and 82, references Walzer, Just and Unjust: Wars, The argument suggested in Walzer (e.g. p.333) that nonviolent methods would increase evil, or at least its distribution, is weak. It is countered by Sharp’s observation that the suffering likely to be induced is less than in comparable wars. �§6. On the positive case for pacifism. defensive, meeting itself is revealing. deviations enough: a The argument thus far has been largely That in of objections to comprehensive pacifism. range Pacifism is the rest position from it are what require explanation. and state) (inertial -The reason for this is simple violence is, on most ethical systems, at least a prima facie evil, so use of it has to be justified. Positive arguments for pacifdism position and merely try supposed to be justified. violent opponent: to can advantage take of privileged dispose of "exceptional cases" where violence is The favourite exception is self-defence against a the case is curious in that the defender (person or nation) is already in a morally-excluded situation, since the attacker moral bounds. its has overstepped Still the defender is not normally committed to violence whatever he does - as in a dilemma situation. And since it is at least facie prima wrong, and he does not have to use it, he should not resort to it. An elementary syllogistic argument, given by Narveson (Np.117), can be adapted to give a similar result:Violence is (intrinsically) wrong Violence in any excepted cases (e.g. self-defence) is still violence Violence in any excepted cases is still (intrinsically) wrong. Naturally those opposed to pacifism will challenge the first premiss, and a dialectic already glimpsed will begin. None of the arguments are arguments for pacifism are conclusive, since even where deductively tight assumptions can be challenged (as above). are all the arguments for pacificism particularly good ones. 26 One of the Nor poorer �positive arguments for pacifism, for example, makes similar assumptions to those of the classic theory of war, namely that once war is embarked upon it cannot be limited, the e.g. that hope or nuclear selectively and restrictively is an illusion, (moral) limits in Although the chances overstated. war - of whatever they eXcalation are exchanges Limited escalation are be used inevitable. The weapons chemical is will - are bound to be overstepped. often real enough, and confrontation are possible. more social arrangements and much more conventional than the the case is Wars are much theory classical Wars can, for example, be started and stopped in midstream should more allows. important things intervene (e.g. pollution a crisis affecting other neighbouring states). The main reasons for pacifism are, inevitably, those for nonviolence. They include (as support for the first premiss above) a range of consequentialist and practical reasons, e.g. suffering of modern industrial societies, the broader popular avoidance and anguish of support base obtained None of these well-known types are separately decisive, but their cumulative effect is considerable. ' Cz/ // Z'1 1 Is Ct' i L> ) s' *4 / / 27 — > A by of violence, the desirable social consequences of nonviolence such as a more open, less furtive, society. ) violent futility and counterproductiveness of violence within the setting the methods, the cost in pain, ? . z.. z . of reason � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document ON THE ALLEGED INCONSISTENCY AND MORAL INSENSITIVITY OF PACIFISM Pacifism , despite its.revival lit the nonviolent action movement A respectable philooophieg-1 press. another, the within tradition Catholic church , It is commonly portrayed characteristically as as inconsistent. as a continues to have a bad incoherent in one way or Even philosophical defences of pacifism are liable to be extremely defensive, conceding only that consistent, and pacifism is but insisting otherwise that^is as false as a moral position can be 2 and morally insensitive . What follows challenges the prevailing wisdom put out in the philosophical press, but using its approved analytic methods. §1. Slide arguments to inconsistency;and arguments from irresponsibili ty and from rights. In an influential and widely disseminated series of articles attacking . pacficism3 , Narveson says that the pacifist's position is not only that [Tl] violence is evil but also that [T2] it is morally wrong to use force [violence] to resist, punish, or prevent violence. This further step makes pacifism a radical moral doctrine. What I shall try to establish below is that it is in fact, more than merely radical - it is actually incoherent because self-contradictory (p.408, italics added). Subsequently (p.414) he characterises pacifism by way of T2, though it would better characterised by P2. be A It is morally wrong to use violence. However T2 captures the cases that orthodox opposition. The separate comprehensive pacifism from the main form of pacifism under investigation is called 'comprehensive' to distinguish it from standard pacifism, in the usual 1 narrower sense which is restricted to certain theses concerning (state) order, notably opposition to (violence in) war, and does not rule necessarily out violence elsewhere. Narveson's location of incoherence in pacifism depends on several connected slides, all of which the pacifist should resist - without force. The initial slide is from the theme T2 italicised above to what results by deletion the of crucial phase 'to use force', or as it should be 'to use violence', namely R2. It is morally wrong to resist, punish, or prevent violence - and similarly from special and related cases of T2 to special and related of R2 (e.g. from T2S, It is forbidden to use force to resist violence, to R2S, forbidden It is cases to violence). resist The slide is illegitimate because commitment to T2 does not entail commitment to the rejected proposition R2; for one thing there are many ways of confronting, reducing and controlling violence, worked out by pacifists and others, which do not involve use of violence (or perhaps force). The initial slide is however that assault on pacifism (after clearing Narveson several exploits confusions, explain the popularity of pacifism, out of the way). irresponsibility of pacifism, in This his first main which he takes to argument, from the does not actually lead to contradiction, but it does suggest that there is a serious tension between pacifism and any method maintaining social order, so serious that pacifism is socially irresponsible: ... to hold the pacifist position as a genuine full-blooded moral principle is to hold nobody has a right to fight back when attacked ... It means that we are all mistaken in supposing that we have the right of self-protection ... It appears to mean, for instance, that we have no right to punish criminals, that all our machinery of criminal justice is, in fact, unjust. Robbers, murderers, rapists, and miscellaneous delinquents ought, on 2 of this [irresponsible] theory, to be let loose (pp.415-6). Since one can protect oneself and avoid and resist aggression back violence), (with pacifism unless a slide is made. (tentatively) by Nor does T1 and theses does without fighting not mean what Narveson claims it means, comprehensive .pacifism, T2 , imply that we as characterised have no right to punish criminals, but simply that such punishment will not apply violent methods. Nor does it imply that all the conventional machinery of criminal justice therefore is unjust, but only that some - perhaps a good deal - of that machinery is. One hardly needs to be a comprehensive pacifist to coherently think the latter. All this provides some confirmation for the key point, which is that far at there is, so least, no inconsistency evident in maintaining that those who hold that violent methods are morally legitimate are mistaken. The next slide is closely connected with, and really generalises upon, initial slide. The stunt is to imbue a range of more neutral terms with the connotation of -------------------------------------violence, or at least of -----------------------force which Narveson proceeds to with violence. Thus from among admissible pacifist methods. of force is taken to by implied in R2. resist cannot excluded be Hence the conflation of T2 and R2; Hence too Narveson’s assumption Hence (p.415). also Narveson’s that against attack' (pp.417-8). use a unwarranted "recharacterisation" of pacifism as the position that 'no one ought ever defended equate such activities as resisting, punishing, preventing, and defending are taken to imply (use of) force or violence, and so to pacifist the to be If the stunt were got away with, it would deprive pacifism of, for instance, the general methods of nonviolent action and defensible position. But resistance, and so render pacifism a much less positions can be defended, as in this paper or on the field, 3 without violence. Things be can resisted, even things like arrest, without violence (e.g. sliding out of handcuffs and running away). by Force can be applied, as in opening Violence implies force, but not vice versa; and it is violence, not all applications of force, that.comprehensive pacifists are a jam jar, without violence. bound to exclude. The attempt nonviolent castrate to depriving It enjoys some popularity even any case indefensible. and by it of among those of advocating expansion of nonviolent methods, who no doubt want: to distance themselves from older standard pacifism, whose methods they see as confined to mediation, negotiation, and including the granting of concessions . compromise, But nothing in standard, range the is not confined to those who (want to) think pacifism in practices, development pacifism, so the characterisation its limits of pacifism, admissible methods: whether comprehensive or nothing exclude^ uncompromising methods and imposition of sanctions which offer no concessions. ? It is simply that standard pacifism has not yet developed its fuller potential, especially in conflict resolution. Subsequent slides in the elaboration of the argument against just variations qualifier. in those pacifism are given, writing violence-involving in as an internal Thus the measure of a person’s opposition to something in terms of ’the amount of effort he is willing to put forth against it’ is taken - somewhat perversely - to be violence-involving effort or opposition in the pacifist’s ’opposition to violence'. If this slide were pacifist would be caught in an elementary inconsistency since in case of the permissible any being opposed to violence, by definition, he is prepared to use violence and so is not opposed Even Narveson ’cannot make too much* of this inconsistency, though to violence. it not so far removed from the alleged inconsistencies he does want to make is much of in his main inconsistency argument. A similar slide, together with a further slide, Is made in the argument based inconsistency the on to notion of rights, especially as it figures in the pacifist’s thesis as transformed to the claim that no one has a right to indulge in violence (p.418). Narveson violence in the notion of right. tries to incorporate the right to indulge in The initial move is to work in assumptions of defence from breaches of a right and of preventative action against infringement Because ’a right just is a status of it. preventative action ... does follow logically is that one has a right to whatever may be necessary what to justifying prevent necessary’ infringements of right' his (p.419). That 'whatever may be out to include force, now very generously construed - here is turns the further slide - to incorporate such things as social pressure. Moreover ’it is a logical truth, not merely a contingent one, that what might be necessary is force’ (p.421). of preventative For the presupposed logical transformations to work, the notion action must have the notion of violence built into it. argument accordingly begs the question against pacifism. it enough is for preventative To block the The argument action associated with rights to be, or to be limited to, nonviolent action. How the argument from rights leads to inconsistency is summed up thus (p.421): SAI. ’If we have any rights at all then we have a right to use force to prevent the deprivation of the thing to which we are said to have a right’. SA2. We have, according to the pacifist ’the right not to have violence done to us’, as have the a consequence of the obligation to avoid violence. right self-contradictory, to use both violence, granting so the pacifist’s position Narveson is that 'our standard concept of rights' yields SAI (cf. right can be sustained by right-supporting or right-defending require that that action is violent. is and not granting the right to use violence. The argument fails because SAI is readily rejected. claiming But, therefore, we mistaken p.423). action in That a does not Pacifists can provide an adequate analysis of rights - essentially the usual one - without letting themselves in for SAI by 6 simply rejecting the Narveson slide . What appears in place of SAI is something like SAI#. If we have any rights at all then we have a right to uphold them. But the right to uphold them, defend them, protect them, etc., give facto, an entitlement to the use of violence. no dilemma for the pacifist. does not, ipso Without the slide there is The "pacifist's dilemma" and Narveson’s slide are two aspects of the one thing. The arguments from lesser §2. argument violence and evil. lesser In outline the - which is independent of the notion of rights - is that the pacifists must admit, in terms of their own principles, that there are cases where the use of violence those where Inconsistency would be morally permissible and morally justified. some is use of immediate violence by T2. would prevent evil, some greater violence. More explicitly, and in Narveson’s terms which also import the notion of evil, pacifists have lesser much The cases are to admit both that the use of evil, is admissible, in preventing greater evil, and that it is not admissible, because it involves violence. 6 Narveson summarizes an argument like this as follows It seems to me logically true, in any moral theory whatever, that [LI] the lesser evil must be preferred to the greater. If the use of force by me, now, is necessary to avoid the use of more physical force (by others, perhaps) later, then to say that physical force is the supreme (kind of) evil is precisely to say that under these circumstances I am committed to the use of physical force'7. Now there are several somewhat different arguments snarled up in these sketches, p It is important to get them unsnagged , especially if a clearer view of the ethical role pacifism can assume is to result. lesser The basic argument, from violence, goes as follows Cl. There are cases where use of violence would prevent greater violence. C2. One ought to minimize violence. Therefore C3. There are cases where one ought to use violence, since in this way, in any arbitrary one of the cases indicated, violence is minimized. Therefore ~P2. It is not (always) morally wrong to use violence, contradicting the pacifist principle, P2, according which to it is morally wrong, always, to resort to violence. All the ingredients premisses, can be of argument, this together with pulled together from Narveson’s work. support for He not only expouses C2, but suggests two distinct arguments for it, the first of which connects argument with the lesser evil argument El. (Use of) violence is an evil. E2. Evil should be minimized. 9 The second argument to C2 is simply from the pacifist premiss, varying P2, 7 the the E3. One ought not to undertake violence - period; that the is, level of violence ought to be zero. Neither argument is decisive; of that reference both in fact begin easing.pacifists into a should they resist, where moral absolutes are warped into moral relatives, where obligations give, way to obligations all, and says nothing about minimizing it when one compatible being does it. into got has E3 is directives quite different from minimization where violence is with involved, e.g. E3 things other In any event E3 only directs one not to get involved in violence at equal, etc. Thus frame rooting it out which may involve strategies. non-minimization not entail E2, and commitment to E3 does not commit pacifists to C2. Nor do El and E2 entail C2; so neither does commitment, by to El and E2 oblige them to accept C2. instance, 10 , e.g. evil-perpetrating but argument Narveson's well-known Such nonviolent fails for similar some as cases hypothetical dictators. for For in particular violence is not the only evil and (so) evil may sometimes be reduced by violence pacifists Regan’s increases in slaying of the reconstruction of Regan argues from premisses reasons. concerning the ranking of evil and a premiss like E2, specifically 3. 4. The use of force is a substantive evil. Therefore, a lesser quuantity of force must great quantity of force (Rp.79). The argument is invalid: ordering of an ordering of evils force, even though force is an evil. increasing force may still reduce evil, and so, on be preferrable \ 8 does be preferred not induce to a a similar It is enough to observe that Regan-Narveson assumptions, Resort to the theme that Elt, Violence is an irredeemable evil in (proposed by Regan by investigated his Narveson, Np.118) irredeemable evil is figuratively (lesser or evils) whites pacifism, of "defence" promises so black Rp.80, and subsequently a way around the difficulty. that no combination (goods) will lighten its hue; with An grays it always dominates. Elt together with E2 will yield C2, but now the problem with Che argument shifts to What are the grounds for that? Elt. not widely acceptable, most people being amount of As Narveson points out (Np.119), it is prepared to countenance violence in exchange for considerable goods. some (But then, not so long ago, most people were tolerant of cruelty to animals so long as it was gross.) small /not too Moreover, so Narveson implies, appeal to Elt does not get. pacifists out of the argument from lesser violence; underwriting C2. indeed it seems to get them in deeper, by for it removes Cl and, more importantly, It does not however; the corresponding premiss of the more difficult argument from lesser evil, which starts from DI. There are cases where the use of violence would avoid greater evil. For given, by Elt, that use of greater evil than that cases such as DI requires. Rp.80ff.), which however violence is irredeemably with violence; tainted evil, there is no and there are accordingly no This is the core of Regan's defence in pacifism (see he sees as converting pacifism into a 'bizarre and vaguely ludicrous’ position (Rp.86), extreme pacifism, some of the 12 which he outlines 9 features of The approach through violence as an irredeemable evil is mistaken a (utilitarian inspired) attempt to get at moral absolutes, which is what pacifism is, like other deontological positions, grounded upon. But such absolutes expressed in such commandments as, One ought not to commit violence, adequately meaning thereby, as it says, ought not, not just for the time being, or so as reasons prima are facie, otherwise don’t arise, or other things being equal, or acting for ought but long come not what may, period. old-fashioned Such deontological, moral absolutist positions such as pacifism is at bottom, collide head-on with utilitarianism both that pacifism'. For the moral ’utilitarianism 'that utility will be ... who is incompatible brought out by doing some violence may be greater than that produced by any alternative' he like positions and Regan (at the time) were working from. Narveson The reason for collision is simply that with malleable highly fashionable, more (Np.121) 13 . So acccording to the utilitarian-commandment to maximize utility may acts sometimes commit violence, contravening pacifist principles. On its own inconsistency with a false doctrine such as utilitarianism shows little: position every suffers inconsistency with very many false doctrines. Narveson does have another (small) argument to the effect that pacifism is at odds with contractarianism. correct, if other the the ethical positions he presents, libertarianism and But this argument would only carry weight, were it. positions were suitably exhaustive; including no deeper ecological position for instance. is more also otherwise however they are not, What has happened which insidious, however, is that utilitarian thinking has permeated much of the rest of ethical thought, thus helping to establish a climate unfavourable to incompatible ethical positions such as pacifism. 10 There are two more specific features. damaging consequentalist Firstly, as more approaches have we of consequentialist Secondly, facie prima principles positions out utilitarianism, of This is entirely mistaken. The is a theory-saving device, designed to get difficulties such dilemmas. moral as consequentialist positions tend to suggest that only consequentialist reasons carry argumentative weight, and so try to ease rival positions, such pacifism, and generally, have made it seem as if no deontic principle were firm, but all are provisional. theory seen, into as sometimes incongruous consequential support for their offering themes. Narveson takes such procedures a assumptions upon violence is that it These (p.425). thus pacifists: produces stage further, and foists utilitarian says that the pacifist's 'objection to he suffering, unwanted pain, in the recipients' incongrous utilitarian grounds are something of a travesty of pacifists' reasons for objecting to violence, which concern rather the action involved and what it does, not astonishing such of only or always at all in the way of suffering, to the perpetrators as well as those in whom it is more type inflicted. Even utilitarian-style considerations are supposed to commit the pacifist to the follow three statements, one of which however he must deny (!): [N]l. To will the end (as mostly good) is to will the means to it (at least pjotTce prima facie). [N]2. Other things being equal, the lesser evil is to be preferred to the greater. [N]3. There are no "privileged" moral persons ... (p.425^ ' . 'These three principles' which appear in Narveson's 'sum up [of] the problem', 11 pacifist's among them imply, as far as I can see, both the commitment to force when it is necessary to prevent more violence and also the conception of a right as an entitlement to defense. And they therefore leave pacifism, as a moral doctrine, in a logically untenable position (p.425). consequences out of the substantive terms such as implicans; otherwise but logic, It would take not merely statements ’violence’ the deal good a of magic, coax to given. For implications to hold the , /''I <</<<-</ ,■/" < F^ and ’right’ must also figure , in the just fail implications on formal grounds. intended argument to the "commitment to force” conclusion appears however to some for e.g. The be of variant, on the lesser violence argument, with N2 replacing, as it sort may C2. such (N3 and N1 then have oblique roles, N3 to stop exceptions being made oneself, N1 to ensure that violence adopted as a means has its full import, in as reflected in Cl, construction work the ethical an end). But, without need not worry pacifists; arguments much further they hardly leave pacifism as untenable. Much more threatening is the argument from lesser evil, which has yet to be This countered. is argument from DI (cases of violence to avoid greater the evil) and N2 or E2 (minimization of evil) to C3 (admissibility of violence) inconsistency in comprehensive stock examples concern murder, What are these cases^? pacifism. one of them being the Narveson’s situation where (Narveson in fact) must kill the (potential) mass-murderer B (Np.119). is the moral situation here? Narveson ought to prevent but mass-murder, that of a paradigmatic moral In fact the example is dilemma, that of very similar also The to Pedro and Jim, where Pedro volunteers to call off his firing squad about to shoot several captives 12 one But what Narveson ought not to kill B, because that is murder and involves violence. situation is that of a moral dilemma. and if Jim one shoots Now almost everything turns on what account is given of What a comprehensive pacifist does moral dilemmas. trouble, coherence . of them is to take do, not inadequate utilitarian line of trying to the explain moral dilemmas away, as if they didn’t ever, occur an than initial intuitive negotiable, etc., etc. is as level), wants he unless if (at at least other all obligations were prime facie, The conflicting obligations stand. What is to done be however a very consequentialist thing, to try to determine the best thing to do in the circumstances. action In trying to determine what circumstances is a satisfied. violent sense this the best e.g. Narveson had better a fix. Narveson dilemma, but no B. shoot (not a deontic one) evil should be minimized; not ought circumstances, he had better do so moral of 17 . to the in course Granted, it is preferable to minimize follow that Narveson ought to resort to violence. remains course best that Suppose one, inconsistency in pacifism follows. in the principles like N2 and its mate, N2M, that it is preferrable to minimize evil, will presumably be and is evil, it does not On the contrary the situation shoot B, but in the appalling There is the real-life complication of inconsistency No a through arguments like that from lesser evil. Narveson’s jackpot question, entangled in his discussion from rights, can now be met. of the argument The question presents a dilemma: If force is the only way to prevent violence in a given case, use justified in that case? (p.420) is its Narveson is thinking of cases where one is about to be murdered, Regan where one is to be raped. qualified No: Given that force again entails violence, the pacifist answer is No, it is not deontically 13 justified 18 . It is certainly not morally it is not justified in the sense of ’justified* which and obligatory, reflects its deontic origin in ’making right*. may and because just some might force in solution, a making to amount dilemma be out But justification is The response is qualified then a case. consequentially situation. ambiguous, as justified, a second-best Narveson, proposes on the contrary, that enough violence for the given occasion is morally justified - it can go at least as as killing another person - but he presents no back-up argument, taking far his proposal as evident. jackpot the question As it is not - the pacifist can simply does not dispute it to a decisive a^rument against pacifism lead (though Narveson gives the impression that it does, e.g. , p.423). What it can lead to is the argument from lesser evil over again. The charge of moral insensitivity. §3. This is less argument an than a damaging charge: A person committed to an extreme pacifism, though he need make no logical mistake, yet lacks a fully developed moral sensitivity to the vagaries and complexities of human existence (Rp.86). The smear is not without basis. is applied avert to greater Regan is envisaging situations evil; where violence and he points to what he takes to be the evident moral permissibility of a woman's using ’what physical power she has free herself from an Interestingly, Regan has not aspiring rapist* (Rp.86). described the situation in a way which is incompatible with there is violence, which implies What is at issue the intentional, non-negligible damage, including pain, injury or (cf. a pacifist stand: nothing in that to prevent a woman wriggling free (even in a way that involves some force) and fleeing. using to is (or death, the permissibility of infliction of wilful) by forceful means / Np.110), that is, which involves much more than mere use of physical force And it is by no means so or power. violence inflict upon evident A rapist. aspiring the the that woman is entitled to can hardly now be pacifist accused, in a way that can be made to stick, of crass moral insensitivity. More generally, arguments pacifism, the on like Regan’s the to insensitivity moral of basis of pacifists' not taking obvious steps to prevent evil I occurrences, depend upon a confusion of passivity and pacifity. Narveson p.425) (e.g. Both Regan and assume that pacifism is a passive do-nothing position. 20 This is far from true, as the variety of nonviolent action methods groups has made plain. comprehend the real possibilities of considered or adopted by Neither Regan nor Narveson correctly nonviolent action. Otherwise, Narveson would hardly be able to assert, in the automatic (but carping) way he does, that the pacifist is Narveson's standing negative later 'not by doing assessment does not change the situation: anything about’ violence (p.425). of what he calls 'poslLlve nonviolence' for this positive approach is simply nonviolence practised in an exemplary way, as by Christ, in the hope that others will follow suit, and fails to recognise the potential of nonviolent training and the and effectiveness when assembled 21 , of nonviolent practices. much reduce the impact scope Fuller details of these practices, of the argument from social irresponsiblity, which is part of what lies behind the change of insensitivity. Pacifism, however, like most positions, has them 22 its weaknesses, one of undoubtedly derives from the fact that violence is a quantitative matter and there is no sharp cut-off point at the bottom end of the amounts and of violence greater than zero. Yet scale with minute (non-foot-in-the-door ) amounts do not seem to matter all that much morally, at least compared with 15 small the that evils gross us confront on most sides when we look. Morally sensitive pacifists will not focus or fixate on small quantities of violence to the of exclusion larger moral They problems. give certainly will understood that by ’violence' in principles such as. P2 mean they it undue to be 'non-trivial violence'. §4. and The argument from radical political corollaries The corollaries. out war by definition. so clear. Although War situations? normally would Standard war always would be what excluded, be morally counted brought progressively then second dilemma the impermissible, best but in thing to closer to Comprehensive pacifism can of course extreme principles emphasizing the evil of violence. weighing of Comprehensive pacifism thus does not include standard A strange pacifism! pacifism, in contrast to extreme pacifism. be pacifism But the position of comprehensive pacifism is not exceptional extenuating circumstances it might be the (second-) do. awkward of extreme pacifism would certainly eliminate war. practice For war involves violence, typically on an extensive scale. takes other from best choices will pacifism, in practice, through If evil is given a suitably yield the large same results as extreme A pacifism does (deontically), and entirely exclude war. Now it can hardly be cogently argued that it tells against pacifism that it would eliminate wars, since wars are exchanges that should certainly be avoided at all reasonable costs; nor therefore can an argument Wz/Acuf desirability fHur/l of war as an institution against pacifism,! mounted from the or Cldc. However wars are by no be means the only social arrangements or institutions which dispense^ or rely u violence extensively. The state and many of its institutions, most obviously police inadmissibility of characteriscally are contraposition do. also forces, coercive 23 institutions and hence ; pacifism Comprehensive it as such implies police anarchism provides no refutation of pacifism.. the implies 24 moral forces and states But once again For anarchism itself is (to 25 stick with a bold claim) irrefutable Pacifism as an ideal brought not is .down by its political corollaries. Pacifism yields not only a qualified anarchism but qualified vegetarianism. While does it not eating of meat, it does morally forbid violence to forbid animals. At least it does this so long as what normally counts as violence, animals, continues to rank as valence, and is not removed from the category by restriction of the application of violence to humans little good for however basis corollaries naturally spread suicide, capt^al euthenasia, (or such a chauvinistic restriction. several into punishment, controversial indeed There persons). is The radical moral, wherever to e.g. areas, violence plays a significant role in many cases'1. The sheer moral power of pacifism is one reason /7j Qc4> for giving it some pause. And there are others. / One is that, like vegetarianism, it runs counter to "natural" behaviour of creatures to which the principles are supposed to apply. Aggression is a fairly S' X common feature of animal and human behavioZur, and it sometimes (though by no means so often is as made out) involves violence. /Ze /cVXC o/1 //>£ Ao'jje.tjw enable ct/ony Ac /Aggression is assumed to be an evolutionary adaption /ZeSG- creatures offspring) in their artificial h to be better natural environments fitted environment. substantially 17 developed to for survival (of themselves and their most humans removed from now live situations in for rather which there is no way they are evolution gradually adapted their features: adapt in time to absorb massive doses of radiation for instance. have substantially living their adjusted adjust environment, along so with ^oing to Much as humans should they it their social practices - including aggressive and violent practices, now ill-adapted to their situation and mostly counter productive. There is a residual problem, practices of living creatures like in that confronting natural (relatively) vegetarianism. conditions, such as predators and tribal people, to be condemned as morally wrong when they Sometimes, violence? involve when the violence grossly exceeds what is required yes, Though a way can be beaten around the given the end to be attained; but always? edge of this problem Are 26 it is an unsatisfactory way. What this suggests is that <u t be^t nonviolence is not an absolute but^an ideal. The arguments for nonviolence which are mostly violence and do not strictly suggest a to apply since it in creatures natural surroundings opens door the a approaches would categorically exclude. chink to other options The further suggestion that emerges is that moral thinking and associated principles in this area are pretty primitive aimed, among principles state; other than P2. and what - But the suggestion is a dangerous one, sort of conclusion. similar practically at least, nonviolent arguments which do not exclude occasional uses of practical is things, at sharper, This is to in a called for is much more investigation more concede an sensitive, attentuated and less charge insensitivity against comprehensive pacifism so long as P2 remains blanket of moral unqualified. There is no reason however why a genuine pacifism (making for real peace) should not be built on a modified version of P2 which permits such natural phenomena as predation. Nothing logically rules 18 out such a genuine and more sensitive pacifism 27 There are other requiriments the position to be worked out should meet. in should, particular, be integrated into a Larger framework of nondestructive practices, which are involve violence, e.g. a of a practices metaphorically, damaging wild nonviolent* practices. are practices But, except destructive to the environment, for instance, do not such river, with piece things dumping vandalism. wastes toxic But mining strip as extended sense, which gets beyond the confines these It of in a valley, fertile in streams and oceans. the property In an picture, all even metaphorically, vandalism does not such cover violence against persons (and certainly not nonphysical violence as I "psychological violence"). What is sought /is an appropriate synthesis of these notions covering destructive practices - and better than 'vandolence'. an Then P2 is superseded accompanying synthetic term, 4/Z2°. It is morally wrong to use vandolence./ It remains to characterise the cluster of destructive practices (/V that count as vandolence and to try to justify the principle - no easy tasks. FOOTNOTES 1. ’a valid Christian According to the US Catholic Bishops, pacifism is to Christ and the early long tradition going back position’, with a lifestyle: see Origins Christians who were committed to a nonviolent pp.310-311. 2. Thus, in particular, T. Regan ’A defence of pacifism', Canadian Journal of Philosophy 11 (1972) 73-86. Page references to this article are prefixed by _ 3. J. Narveson 'Pacifism: a philosophical analysis’, Ethics 75 (1968) and ’Is pacifism consistent’, Ethics 78 (1868). The first article is reprinted in War and Morality (ed. R. Wasserstrom) Wadsworth, Belmont, California, T97O7 pp.63-77. The first article is also rewritten and combined with part of the second in 'Pacifism: a philosophical analysis’, Moral Problems (ed. 19 77ju / /A ZAC A IZ(M2 J. Rachels), Third Edition, Harper .Row, New York, 1979, pp.408-425. Page references without further citation are to this latter article. Narveson's theme that pacifism is incoherent is headlined and further elaborated in his ’Violence and war’, Matters of Life and Death (ed. T. Regan), Temple University Press, Philadelphia, 1980, pp.109-147. Page references prefixed by 'N' are to this article. 4. Pacifism, as involving the active use of defensive methods, can be traced back as far as the Mohist philosophers of ancient China. On modern methods see especially G. Sharp, Exploring Nonviolent Alternatives, Boston, 1971. As will emerge, it is important to distinguish fas Narveson does not in his earlier work) force from violence; they not equivalent. /\ 5. Thus, e.g., G. Sharp in several works: see for instance the unduly narrow definition of pacifism given in Social Power and Political Freedom, Porter Sargent Publishers, Boston, 1980, p.198. 6. Narveson, in responding to a suggestion of Armour (pp.423-4) sees nothing between (0) defence of rights, with the slide to violence in, and (1) nothing really answering to rights at all, where words like 'rights’ occur without stuffing. This shows a serious blindspot. What lies in between are a range of notions which do not guarantee the slide to violence. An account of rights which will serve is that given in R. and V. Routley ’Human chauvinism and environment ethics' in Environmental Philosophy (ed. D. Mannison and others) Research School of Social Sciences, Australian National University, 1980; see especially p. Narveson 'Is pacifism inconsistent' Ethics 78 (1968) p.148. 7. J. 8. Without getting into the level of complication, not to say epicycling, that Regan lands himself in: he is obliged to distinguish three mirage-like senses of 'lesser evil': quantitative, qualitative, and resultant (Rp.78). 9. See Np.127 where it is asserted that violence as a source of evil should be minimized, and Np.119> where the point is put in terms of absolute evil. That way of putting it already starts to give the game away, since Narveson is all too evidently interested in negotiable evil which can be traded off against other evils. 10. An argument like the argument from lesser violence itself would appear to undercut the argument for El and E2 to premiss 02 for the argument for lesser violence. 11. That is by no means the onlyelement in Regan's torturous reformulation of Narveson's argument that can be faulted. Consider, for example, premiss '5. If any given action, A, is necessary to bring about a lesser rather than a greater quantity of qualitatively equivalent evil, then one's obligation is to do A.' While the premiss has considerable appeal as a principle of supererogation, there is little reason to accept it as one supplying obligations. 20 12. Extreme pacifism can be seen as taking the rule that one ought never to use violence as having priority over all other moral rules - which Is indeed an extreme position even if a consistent one. Such a priority rule is an unsatisfactory way to deal with moral dilemmas. 13. To show what Narveson goes on to claim that people are sometimes justified in using force rather more is required, as Regan points out, Rp 85, n.18. It has also to be shown that there are cases of these types (as in Cl) and that agents can know that use of force will increase utility, reduce evil, etc. A pacifist, rightly sceptical of utilitarian tracing of consequences, and fond of noting that violence begets violence, could, with a small dose of scepticism also, dig in at this point and claim that because no one can be sure that use of force will reduce evil, so no one is justified in using force. This is sceptically-based pacifism. 14. Narveson also wants to contend that ’all of these may be defended on purely logical or "meta-ethical" grounds’. This is likely false, especially the claim as to logical status, since some of the principles are rejected in substantive ethical theories. 15. A surprising feature of Narveson’s argument, also Regan’s "reconstruction", is that these cases are nowhere in sight, as if again one got to conclusions logically out of the air, without any of the hard work the cases involve. 16. The example was first discussed in B. 17. This terminology matches the account of moral dilemma, given in much more technical detail in R. Routley and V. Plumwood ’Moral dilemmas and the logic of deontic notions’ in Paraconsistent Logic (ed. G. Priest and others) 1983, to appear. 18. An extreme pacifist would answer with an unqualified No. 19. Directed against other creatures and more generally against ecological systems such as ecosystems which can be hurt. There is a difference here between live(go al-direct ed")~systerns and property, and comprehensive pacifism does not necessarily exclude wilful damage to property. Thus eco-pacifists may destroy, or at least disable, bulldozers but not harm those who use bulldozers to destroy habitat. However sensitive eco-pacifists will not condone "violent" destruction of property either: disab^ling of equipment is different. 20. The methods also include anticipatory action, e.g., the policemen going off to enact violence find their vehicles won’t start, e.g. because components have been removed 21 the peace movement should be preparing for B. Martin ’How See e.g of Peace Proposals 13 (1982) 149-159, and references Bulletin war ’ nuclear cited therein pp.152-3. Williams, //.( Zc (V, /, ( 1 J n l »' /? o C-, / / /' /\ <. ? / < / / i ’'i *7 z* //4 ’Conflict: of values’. 22. Another comes from the necessary circumscription of permissible nonviolent action, to ensure that it does not include actions worse than nontrivial violent action. 23. These organisations may be ruled out directly as violence-dispensing or else because they have individuals, delegates, who effect violence on their behalf. 24. In the sufficiently comprehensive form that the coercive state is without moral basis or legitimacy. Of course the "state" may have nonviolent methods available to it; it may not be a purely voluntary arrangement. 25. See R. Routley and V. Alternatives, (1982). 26. As Singer has in the analogous case of vegetarianism. 27. The position has been called 'pacificism*. Plumwood 'The irrefutability of 22 anarchism’, Social On the alleged impracticality of pacifism in the real world. Appendix §5. Even if it is conceded that pacifism is a viable moral ideal, that it does not fall down as incoherent or ludicrous, still the feasibility of pacifism as a sensible practice to live by will bo contested - despite, or perhaps because of, major examples such as Christ and Gandhi. And it has to be admitted that the real world, with all its horror and squalor, does put pacifism to severe tests. Nowhere is the practice of nonviolence than in replacing war \ succeed usually been given a dress rehearsal. defence of a region can vary convention observed is or less likely to Yet nonviolent defence methods, to replace the 2 detail , usual violent methods, have been described in some never thought though they have The prospects for success of nonviolent significantly, depending upon whether the war If the convention Is observed then pacifism not. stands reasonable prospects of success. The difficult cases are where the war convention unleashed, perhaps broken, is in massive ways, on noncombatants. his superficially sympathetic sketch and assessment of resistance, 'success ... may all sorts of this: According to Walzer, in nonviolent defence and This is presumably false. that The invaders may give up and depart reasons, some of them irrelevant, e.g., they needed a quick decisive victory, they got homesick. like is attained - there is never any guarantee of it, without or with be war - even if some conventions are flouted. for violence is possible only if the invaders are committed to the 3 war convention - and they won’t always be’ (Wp.331~). Success and sufficiently What Walzer no doubt ruthless invaders sufficient time and sufficient support lines, etc. 23 means is something in sufficient numbers with can eventually succeed. But sort of thing is also true even if the defending side resorts to violence. that The difference lies in the pattern of events; is more difficult and costly for if the defence is invaders the to well-armed it with and easier start afterwards than with well-prepared civil resistance-. Walzer is thinking, however, like many who jump to the that conclusion nonviolent defence cannot succeed when the war convention is abandoned, in terms of inappropriate examples. command, total in the He is thinking of an extreme totalitarian state, way the Nazis were in Germany, the Jews of Germany The providing the model of the enslaved population, the ’‘resistance". is highly misleading. picture The Nazis, who never invaded Germany, were in control of all the infrastructure and had the cooperation (at least) of the bulk of the For Walzer‘s comparison to work, there would have to be an enormous population. occupying army which took over and managed all key infrastructure. island With such as Australia it is not even so clear that this is logistically territories feasible against a largely united and actively resisting of impression in the acquiscence (e.g. resistance Walzer's population. fragmenting and the populace moving into dulled Wp.332) might have got things the wrong way around, the test with 4 disbelieving and frustrated soldiers ready to leave . Nonviolent resistance is however unlikely to be put adequate way in present state-determined prepared to risk training its populace (civil defence the police: is different). in to any No state would be circumstances. full in action nonviolent techniques It would then be. all to easy for them to "rout" civil obedience, for example, could no longer customary violent means. 24 be ensured by the FOOTNOTES The replacement of the state is considered op.cit. For example, in Sharp, op.cit. given there. See also in Routley Martin, All page references prefixed by ’W’ are to M. Allen Lane, London, 1977. and op.cit., Plumwood, and 82, references Walzer, Just and Unjust: Wars, The argument suggested in Walzer (e.g. p.333) that nonviolent methods would increase evil, or at least its distribution, is weak. It is countered by Sharp’s observation that the suffering likely to be induced is less than in comparable wars. §6. On the positive case for pacifism. defensive, meeting itself is revealing. deviations enough: a The argument thus far has been largely That in of objections to comprehensive pacifism. range Pacifism is the rest position from it are what require explanation. and state) (inertial -The reason for this is simple violence is, on most ethical systems, at least a prima facie evil, so use of it has to be justified. Positive arguments for pacifdism position and merely try supposed to be justified. violent opponent: to can advantage take of privileged dispose of "exceptional cases" where violence is The favourite exception is self-defence against a the case is curious in that the defender (person or nation) is already in a morally-excluded situation, since the attacker moral bounds. its has overstepped Still the defender is not normally committed to violence whatever he does - as in a dilemma situation. And since it is at least facie prima wrong, and he does not have to use it, he should not resort to it. An elementary syllogistic argument, given by Narveson (Np.117), can be adapted to give a similar result:Violence is (intrinsically) wrong Violence in any excepted cases (e.g. self-defence) is still violence Violence in any excepted cases is still (intrinsically) wrong. Naturally those opposed to pacifism will challenge the first premiss, and a dialectic already glimpsed will begin. None of the arguments are arguments for pacifism are conclusive, since even where deductively tight assumptions can be challenged (as above). are all the arguments for pacificism particularly good ones. 26 One of the Nor poorer positive arguments for pacifism, for example, makes similar assumptions to those of the classic theory of war, namely that once war is embarked upon it cannot be limited, the e.g. that hope or nuclear selectively and restrictively is an illusion, (moral) limits in Although the chances overstated. war - of whatever they eXcalation are exchanges Limited escalation are be used inevitable. The weapons chemical is will - are bound to be overstepped. often real enough, and confrontation are possible. more social arrangements and much more conventional than the the case is Wars are much theory classical Wars can, for example, be started and stopped in midstream should more allows. important things intervene (e.g. pollution a crisis affecting other neighbouring states). The main reasons for pacifism are, inevitably, those for nonviolence. They include (as support for the first premiss above) a range of consequentialist and practical reasons, e.g. suffering of modern industrial societies, the broader popular avoidance and anguish of support base obtained None of these well-known types are separately decisive, but their cumulative effect is considerable. ' Cz/ // Z'1 1 Is Ct' i L> ) s' *4 / / 27 — > A by of violence, the desirable social consequences of nonviolence such as a more open, less furtive, society. ) violent futility and counterproductiveness of violence within the setting the methods, the cost in pain, ? . z.. z . of reason  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 59, Item 680: Draft of On the alleged inconsistency and moral insensitivity of pacifism Subject The topic of the resource Computer printout (photocopy), with emendations and annotations. Paper published, Routley R (1984) 'On the alleged inconsistency, moral insensitivity and fanaticism of pacifism', Inquiry (Oslo), 27(1): 117-136. https://doi.org/10.1080/00201748408602030. Description An account of the resource Note, one of four papers digitised from item 680. 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TYPES OF ADMISSIBLE AND INADMISSIBLE CANNIBALISM Richard Routley Philosophy Department Research School of Social Sciences Australian National University and Environmental Studies University of Victoria Canada �IN DEFENCE OF CANNIBALISM~ It is a commonplace of mainstream Western thought that cannibalism - the eating of human flesh by humans, and, more generally, the feeding of animals on members of their own species is, at least in the human case, morally outrageous. © Ri chard Routley, 1982 This repugnan cy thesis appears to be a legacy especially (but not only) of Christianity, probably derived from Jewish teaching, which went much further and excluded the eating of pig, for instance, as well as "long pig". Also in this series: It is a thesis reinforced by the substitution of Man for God of the World rainforest destruction - the social factors "Enlightenment" and consequent elevation and separation of humans Semantical foundations for value theory from other creatures. Unravelling the meanings of life substantially undermined, have for the most part been observed to Nihilisms and nihilist logics rest on a tangle of false views and prejudices about the world, its Nuclear power - ethical, social and political dimensions origin, evolution and purposes , and about the creatures that inl~bit Now that all these positions have been it, their separateness, and their order (in an a lleged chain of be in g ) Disappearing species and vanishing rainforests: wrong directions and the philosophical roots of the problem with humans at the apex, it is past time that major moral theses that these positions have sustained are re-examined and reassessed. The irrefutability of anarchism, enlarged Up for re-examination are, in particular, all theses that Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action depend essentially on the common but mistaken assumption that there is something morally very special or distinctive about simply being a human, that Homo sapiens as a species deserves special treatment. On the contrary, there is no morally relevant distinction between humans and all other creatures. Of course there are various morally relevant distinctions between things, but none concerns the biological species Homo sapiens. What holds rather is an annular 1 model which can be depicted schematically as follows:- �3 instance in removing the idea that the wrongness of such practices 2 as cannibalism is not even open to question 3 . Diagram 1: High in a list of inherited moral assumptions that are ripe ANNULAR PICTURE OF MORAL RINGS IN OBJECT SPACE (and the position of humans). of sapiens for reassessment are those concerning the almost universal ~oral prohibition of and repugnance to cannibalism, a practice that used to be extremely widespread, but that has now been almost e;.tirely extirpated 4 with the very successful cultural conquest of the world by Western thought. But instead of the re-examination that should follow the intellectual erosion of mainstream Western social thought, the growing recognition of its theoretical inadequacy, not to say ~:Notional labels for the interiors of such morally relevant rings (or ellipses), from outer to inner: Objects of value, objects of moral concern Objects having well-being Preference havers, choice makers Rights holders Obligation holders, responsibility bearers Contractual obligation makers poverty, what has followed is the often shoddy defence of many of its leading moral theses, mostly on anthropocentric grounds, but sometimes on other grounds, some of them drawn from contemporary philosophy (e.g. the conventionalistic rejection of cannibalism of Diamond, considered below). Many of the defences preferred of total prohibition of There are also more comprehensive philosophical reasons cannibalism are ludicrously weak, and withstand little examination. for the periodic intellectual review of deeper assumptions (and Consider, to illustrate, the main argument in (what was until very prejudices), reasons furnished by dialectics in combination with recently one of the few books in English on cannibalism) Hogg, the theory of objects. namely 'the innate repugnance of contemporary man to touch human According to the theory of objects there is no assumption that has to be held,that cannot be disbelieved, flesh' (p . 188, also earlier) . while according to dialectics proper every assumption is open to represented as a matter of fact, it does not appear to hold generally, questioning and reconsideration by its methods , and assumptions in and may be largely a matter of background and conditioning. order to be rationally maintained should withstand such critical scrutiny. imply 2 Naturally these (methodological) considerations do not that assumptions under examination do not (frequently) withstand critical discussion, or that there are not (or never could be) good reasons for adhering to them. But the considerations are important in opening larger moral assumptions to due reconsideration, for Insofar as the repugnance is There is no evidence that - what seems unlikely given the former prevalence of cannibalism - it is innate; and insofar as it is a matter of fact it does not support moral prohibition of eating human flesh, any more than the apparently very widespread repugnance of urban Americans �5 4 as observed, it has recently been argued, successfully, that this to eating raw snake underwrites a moral prohibition on consumption of raw snake meat. distinction will not carry very much of the moral weight that has been imposed upon it. 7 On the other hand, if the repugnance in With the breakdown of this sharp moral distinction question is (intended to be) warranted moral repugnance, then the argument is trivially circular, the premiss assuming the point at between humans and other species.orthod ox anthropocentr ic options, which sanction human consumption of animals other than humans but issue. never humans, collapse. One reason why the proferred defences look weak is that it has not been thought necessary to provide any defence; for 'Directly daylight falls on the habit it withers away' 5 - the "daylight" is that of contemporary Western civilization. appears in Langton (initial page): A similar theme cannibalism is 'a custom that of civilization' - or, one might say, before the triumph of human (pure) vegeta!ian options and on the other, cannibal(istic ) options (mixes of these options which allow some human flesh eating will it will be seen that by no means all forms of cannibalism are morally inadmissable. present exercise. Showing as much is the main object of the Though the results arrived at are part of the process of elaborating a non-chauvinis tic ethics, and accordingly have implications for policy, no policy conclusions are drawn in what no recommendatio ns for the implementation , or institution- The vegetarian options face, it certainly seems, insuperable difficulties, especially concerning such issues as animal predation (which is an important, immensely frequent, and often _<!~~rab.!!'_, What will be argued is that, on the contrary, when some daylight does penetrate to the issues concerning cannibalism, follows: (at least as regards "higher" creatures) are, on the one side fall under the latter head). must soon become extinct all over the world before the great march chauvinism. Among the important options left open ecological fact), and concerning the reduction in numbers of animals, especially introduced animals, which build up to "pest proportions" (some reduction is often required for vegetable growing to operate successfully) . But it is unnecessary to elaborate these and connected points here because there are cases where consumption of human flesh is perfectly admissible. The main argument advanced is modelled upon simple inductive arguments: a base case is argued, and this base is expanded step by step to cover other cases. alisation, of cannibalistic practices are made 6. Hardly necessary to say, better defences of the mainstream anti-cannibal istic tradition can be devised or pieced together from the literature than those so far alluded to. for example, on the assumption of sanctity Such defences - based, of all human life, on the theme that cannibalism is a brutalising experience, which puts humans in the same category as the brutes - characteristic ally rely on a sharp distinction between humans and other creatures. But, §1. The Base Cases: Eating the Dead. In setting out the first of these cases it is taken for granted that the practice in some American states and Canadian provinces of allowing accident victims (e.g. those of automobile casualties) to consent to the use of parts of their bodies for organ transplants and also for other medical purposes is admissible, and that the use itself in such cases is �Restricted forms of cannibalism in the interests of 6 survival are now quite widely accepted as admissible. admissible 8. Then, is there any good reason why persons should So there is really nothing extravagant at all in contending that sometimes not similarly consent to the use of their bodies for food upon cannibalism is perfectly alright: their death? fact that the admissible cases lead, naturally and coherently, once For food transfusions, instead of blood or transfuslons · or transplants. plasma And if they do, or so bequeath their bodies, why should their bodies not be eaten? What differences human chauvinism is properly cases. any extravagance is due to the left behind, to much more controversial There are several examples of human cannibalism undertaken there are in the types of cases can be minimized, and those that for survival, which have won establishment approval, from remain seem not to make much - or any relevant - moral difference. or church hierarchies. For example, in order for human parts to be intially taken and used, of members of a Uruguayan rugby party who survived an airplane crash the bodies have to be more or less butchered; in the high Andes (dramatised by Read). but then they may be in much less pretty shape after a serious accident. Again, in each typ e of case, the parts may - or may not - be supplied to people who are in genuine need; etc. Nor does internal ingestion appear to differ, in any way that matters morally, from internal connection, from organ transplantation. It could be objected that with an organ transplant a specific organ is required, whereas with a starving or undernourished person alternative sources of food are - or ought legal A striking recent example is the cannibalism Their eating of dead companions, evidently necessary for survival, was condoned by the Catholic Church of Uruguay and by other prominent Catholic thinkers. Interestingly, Rubio, Auxiliary Bishop of Montevideo, justified such cannibalism, necessary for survival, through a medical transplant comparison 10 .•• Eating someone who has died in order to survive is incorporating their substance, and it is quite possible to compare this with a graft. Flesh survives when assimilated by someone in extreme need, to be - available. But where the parts are used for nonspecific just as it does when an eye or heart of a dead man is grafted onto a living man ••. (as quoted in Read, p. 308). medical testing, e.g. cell culture, or just disposed of (e.g. by But the Bishop tactfully rejected, except 'as a source of inspiration', incineration) without any other use, the specific need consideration the equivalence, appealed to by some members of the team, between does not work. Anyway what would it show? eating the flesh of their friends and participating in communion, as The claim staked is accordingly this:_ where the human initiated by Christ at the Last Supper, where he (figuratively) shared eaten is dead, and certain other conditions are satisfied, cannibalism his flesh and blood with his apostles (Read, p.309; is admissr e. also p. 299). The other conditions~ comprise such things as Exactly why this correlation, which undoubtedly helped the survivors, the following: that the whole thing is done decently (in ways, gets discounted, remains tantalisingly obscure. that is . LO be spelled out specifically); that the person eaten consented (or, differently, would consent) to being eaten, perhaps by the parties concerned, or more strongly that the person directed tha t he or .;he be eaten (or otherwise used); or differently again, tha t the ~onsumption was necessary for survival or well-being. etc. seems worth pursuing further. The correlation For though survival was not a problem �9 Suc h d es pi cable motives as those of the ge t-even s yndrome ("we'll 8 fix the ba s t a rd, we'll eat him") are pointl ess (as well as stup id l y for the apostles at the Last Supper (so destroying a strict correlation), survival is not the only basis justifying the eating of human flesh. As with blood, the gift relation is another v i ndi c tiv e ) wh e re the part y is already dead. It can be argued that eating certain pieces of human flesh out of respect is an exceptional case (like eating a fellow creature to avoid starvation), and that a general principle of respect for important basis. A consent or bequeathal clause 11 is important in under- the dead overrides any consent that may be given. The short cutting various objections to the consumption of dead humans, for answe r to this is, firstly, that grantin g of exceptional cases alr eady in s tance, that it is an affront to human dignity, that it is a mark allows that some cases of cannibalism are admissible, and secondly , of total d isr espec t, that the 'sanctity of the human being' is that no general principle applies in a decisive way to exclude the compl e tely disregarded (Hp. 186), that it is impious (Dp. 467). exampl es alr ea dy considered. Fo r if the person consents it can hardly be an affront to that general principles can always be thwarted, it is instructive to consider per s on's dignity, or violate that person's sanctity (as seen from one po int of view). Nor is it an affront to the dignity of creatures of an irreligious cast, for whom a dead body whether of a human or an animal is a d ead body - though perhaps a dead body of a fellow creature o r of a friend. So it is an affront only to those of particular ( religious) groups, perhaps the same groups for whom dead human bodies are sacred and their disfigurement by humans (whether for medical or 5 other purposes) impious . Just as it is legitimate for one to discount the often illfounded views of such groups - insofar as the views are int ended to have universal applicability - as regards medical use of (forme rly ) consenting humans, as regards sexual relations, abortion, e uthanasia, and so forth, so it is legitimate to discount them in the case at hand. Dev ine ' s argument against cannibalism, namely as a paradigmatic applica tion of his overflow principle. On the contrary, the eating of certain parts of the bodies of dead humans was, amon g certain tribes who used to practice cannibalism, for it was thought that in that way the eaters could acquire or participate in some of the (former) virtues o f the dead , e. g . wisdom, strength, hunting skills, etc. still be, that eating is not disrespectful: So it can what is sometimes dis- respectful is raising for food nnd killing, e.g. in order to ent. The overflow principle~ formed -chiefly to cope with the treatment of animals, is this: Act towaPds that which, while not itself a pePson, is clos ely associated with pePsonhood in a way cohePent with an attitude of Pespect fop pePsons (Vp . 503) . Instead of arguing directly for the principle, Devine suggests firstl y that it may be argued for in rule-cons equ e ntial fashion, secondly tha t it may be made plausible as part of a way of life having respect for persons at its centre, and thirdly that th e prin ciple is well ensconced in the moral consciousness of the plain man. Each of these suggestions can be faulted both in general and as regards the relevant application. For instance, plain men mostly do not object to the bulldozing of old cemeteries to make way for a development. Nor need the eating of a dead human be a mark of disrespect. an act of consider a ble res pect; To illustrate how application of suc h On the other hand, the principle can be rendered analytic by taking up the slack in "associated with" and "coherent with" appropriately - only then it won't yield the relevant substantive application. In application of the principle Devine makes two alternative moves. First, �11 It is by no means obvious, however, that a cons~n 10 is required. similarly if it is going to be incinerated and the ashes s pread, it might better be carefully composted. The point ma de does not exclude organ transplants, eating, and so ecological alternatives to burial or cremation. The most the overflow principle The suggestion that the already dead can, at least in s e ems to show, under this move, is - what does not exclude consumption, certain circumstances, be eaten without moral qualm, innocuous though and what one may well concur with - that the dead (and not merely the human dead) ought to be eaten respectfully; it is, is liable to spark off a series of protests. and even this much some ugly scenes could result i f "long pig" caught on; is not shown if the tense change, the transformation from alive to dead, destroys the requisite closeness of association. outback Australia) competing to pick up "accident" victims. ambulances or tow trucks, are readily enough avoided (by suitable body, which forms the visible aspect of the bulk of persons with whom we are acquainted, and which persists when the person ceases to exist in death. (Vp. 593) organization), and more respectful practices adopted. would, if the objection is to have force - lead to what is normally a~sumcs, overflow to the subsequently dead body (which is no longer inadmissible, for example, to a perverse lust for human flesh, and And again respectful eating be marketable commodities, if there was commerce not just in human flesh. but in bags, shoes, and belts made from human hides, decorations from human bones and teeth, glue and fertilizer from other parts and so on 12 in the way that there is commerce in animal parts? Perhaps, disre sp ec t wo uld be an outcome, but perhaps for the wrong re aso ns. What s ee ms clear is that giving human flesh to the ne edful, s ~y , i s one thing, a llowing commerce in human parts is another. More serious is the objection that such "admissible cannibalism" could - or rather ov e rflow to thl' llvlng body docs not however guarantee, what Devine Wouldn't disrespect be inevitable if human parts become But these types of scenes, which can already occur with competing ... respect for persons overflows to the human to dead bodies. e.g. the the way that refrigerated trucks follow the kangaroo shooters in some heavy assumptions as to features of persons, reveals: could, it appears, be coherent with the alleged overflow of respect It is true that spectacle of the refrigerated vans patrolling the highways (in much Devine assumes it does not, as his second move which begins to buy into the "visible aspect" of a person). so in nci cher case is value diminished, it seems, by (respectful) cannibalism or ordinary garbage (in the literal sense) is not eaten (except in desperation, etc.). A dead body does nee have the value of the person whose body it is in life; Garbage is commonly thrown away, things in these end uses are mostly not; For i f a body is going to be buried and "eat,~" by bacteria, or various carnivores, it might as well be eaten; although a dead body is not a person, still the fact that it (so to speak) was a person means that it ought not to be treated like ordinary garbage (Vp. 503). forth. clause perhaps, thereby to the deliberate killing of humans for food. Hogg makes much of the first of these points, the (unintended) impression he gives being that human flesh is so delicious that it is highly addictive. Whether this is so or not (it would seem unlikely with a preponderance of older stringier humans, though the number of "battery humans" is increasing).it appears not to matter, unless it does lead to what would be more disconcerting, e.g. the establishment of a black market or the like in human flesh, with inputs from killer or Mafia syndicates. But the problem is not substantially different �13 12 of our unwillingness to kill people for food or other purposes, from problems that already arise with the treatment of animals (e.g. traffic in rare species), and over the distribution of dangerous drugs to humans, and can be met in similar ways, i.e. through a similar range of political or organizationa l options. The usual utilitarian defence of vegetarianism based on suffering, pain, and the like caused in raising and killing creatures for food, co llapses. 13 For no direct suff~ring, pain or the like occurs, with the creatures eaten already dead; and any sorts of suffering that might be marshalled among some of the still living who are pained by the consumption can be more than compensated for by th e alleviation of suffering of the meat consumers, for a suitable and secondly not a (direct) consequence of our unwillingness to cause distress to people - not that it always would (contrary to Diamond's assumption) - but rather 'what conditions our attitude to not dining on ourselves is the view that a person is not something The argument turns however on a slide on the mi.ddl.e term 'something to eat' which is ambiguous between (i) something that may be eaten and (ii) something that is eaten; In the second sense the justification given of the fact dead people are not eaten, namely people are not eaten, while in a sense "logically adequate" is trivial, and proves no requisite grounding, and the "justification " does not imply that dead people may not be eaten. In the first sense, a nontrivial justification is offered, that it is impermissible choice of consumers. to eat people,but in this case we cend to repeat the initial question; Some vegetarians however (rightly) reject utilitarian defenses; Diamond, in particular, tries to argue that they involve 'fundamental confusions about the moral relations between people and people and between people and animals ' (Dp. 465), and introduces instead convent ionalist arguments - unfortunately of wide philosophical appea l - against eating people. Some of the reasons for not eating people, she subsequently argues, extend to grounds for not eating animals either. Diamond's argument begins from certain quite central facts ... We do not eat our dead, even when they have died in auto- mobile accidents or been struck by lightning • .. (Dp. 467) An immediate objection is that this is little more than a local fact, Why is it? Diamond has a surprising answer: in effect that it is analytic on, or at least a consequence of, our notion of what a person or human being is. ••• it is not respect for our interests which is involved in our not eating each other . These are all things which go to determine what sort of concept 'human being' is it is one of those things which go to build our notion of human beings (Opp. 469-70). But such a thing as not eating other people is certainly not part of the concept 'human being', indeed it is not merely ~ot analytic or normic (near-analytic ) of human beings,it is not even true of them - good for certain ' we ' but by no means generally, as the history of given that, on well-authentic ated evidence, cannibalism was formerly canniba lism shows. widespread, and that it still persists in isolated place s today. It is equally a fact in the context of quite extensive groups, that .EE~L2o not eat l'i~.· So either the central fact has to be morally grounded or has to have moral consequences. The second option would involve a prescriptive fallacy (deduction of an ought from an is); followin g fashion:- in any case, Diamond tries the first, in the The fact is, firstly, not a (direct) consequence The answer is, in short, radically unsatisfactory . That this is �15 Tt may s eem ... I should find myself havin g t o jus tify slav e ry. For do we not learn - if 14 we liv e in a slav e soci e ty - what slaves ar e the answer Diamond is offering is however at once confirmed by how she goes on (writing in speciesist assumptions 15 in the same revolting fashion): and what masters are through the structure of a life in which we are here and do this, and they are there and do that? Do we not learn the difference between a master and a slave that way? (Dp. 470) Diamond does not manage to escape these difficulties, though sh e And so too - very much so - [built into the notion] the idea of the difference between human beings and animals. We learn what a human being is in - among other things sitting at a table where WE eat THEM. We 16 are around the table and they are on it (Dp. 470) . While we may learn something about what some human beings - not makes various attempts (p. 470 and especially pp. 476-7): the notion of a slave or an enemy or an outlaw assumes a background of response to persons, and recognition that what happens in these cases is that we have something which ;;;;-;;,::-e not treating as what it - in a way - is ( Dp. 476). vegetarians - are like in this way, in the way we can learn what But this is to assume a background of norms, of how things morally some other human beings are like from cannibal feasts where 11 we" are, that a person is not something to enslave, etc. (and to attempt are on the table as well as around it, we learn little of the once more to build a presupposed morality into conv entional facts). notion of human being in this way. Nor does what correct information Furthermore, as this reveals, the same ploy could be worked in the we acquire in this way provide a firm basis for moral judgements case of animals, namely that in hunting them, killing them, serving about the possibility of eating humans, though Diamond appears to them up for dinner, we are ~ treating them as what - in a way think that it does; for she later says that the source of moral they are (or, more accurately, as they mora lly deserve treating). life derives from ways in which we mark what human life is (Dp. 418), Such comparisons make it evident then what Diamond is about, and that another move which involves a prescriptive fallacy, as well as he r conventionalistic approach fails. obvious anthropoce ntri cit y . However, to remove objections to eating the already dead, Indeed many of the sorts of conventional patterns of response under specified conditions, is simply to avoid, rather than face up a nd conventional facts that Diamond alludes to are a fairly direct to, the real opposition to even qualified cannibalism. For an o utcome of human chauvinism, e.g. that drivers mostly stop for important part of the real opposition to qualified canniba lism relies injured humans, not for injured animals, that humans are commonly upon illicit assimilation of cases of eating already dead people given funerals, animals mostly not. Diamond needs to say, and with killing humans for food, and, differently again, rearing some proceeds to say, that these sorts of differences are appropriate, but that is to slide to a value judgement which concedes to he rself part of what is at issue. Diamond's approach encounters serious difficulties when applied to such matters as slavery, the treatment of outlaws and enemies of them, e.g. certain infants, for food . and in an obvious sense ! .!1.~~~., Thus Devine's ambiguous, �17 what is entire l y different, permitting the killin g of humans for 16 food, or to, what is different again, the deliberate raisin g of human s for food. claim that 'a meat diet requires that animals be killed' (Vp. 483). And thus Diamond again, the cases are entirely different. involved both rearing and slaughtering Swift's "proposal" of children for food. Nor is the base position so far reached a new one, but an ancient proposition. it i s one thin g morally to eat an already dead deer, another to let a deer die and then eat it, another again to shoo t What we should be going against in adopting Swift 's "Modest proposal" is something one should be going against in salvaging the dead, more generally useful organs for transplantation, and the rest for supper or the compost heap. (Dp. 469) 17 Not a t all: animals: The differences are already clea r as rega rds For instance, Chrysippus, the Stoic, in his or otherwise kill it and then (perhaps) eat it, and yet another to eat a deer raised (in one or another of very different ways) for food. Within each of these different categories, it is important to distinguish cases. For while eating a dead human, even after it has been allowed to die (by omission), may be admissible, killing humans for food is often not, and raising a human for food (and other goods) is, it is now generally assumed by humans, certainly not. treatise On Justice, 'permitt ed eating of the corpses of the dead• 18 There are several separate issues here, in particular the So also apparently did Diogenes in his Republic, Zeno in his Republic, ~~ban~ or raising for food issue, on which much literature on and Cleanthes, all of whom may have authorised cannibalism on a the moral basis of vegetarianism has in fact focussed, and the broader scale. general l?I~'!_ati~ issue, which includes matters of killing and letting die. Limited extensions of cannibalism beyond the base cases, where humans are allowed to die or are killed . eat ing of (certain of) their parts . Eating dead humans involves But if eating such parts is (often) The issues are separate because creatures may be killed for food, e.g . in hunting, though they are not raised for food, and conversely creatures may be raised for food (or treated as slaves) without, for one reason or another, being killed. Cases of humans admiss ibl e , then so also presumably is consumption of such parts when raising humans for food have apparently never occurred, though humans they are (irrevocably or freely) severed from a living human, e.g. have sometimes been fed up for the pot (e.g. in the Aztec empire and in Fiji). ea ting the amputated limb of a friend or enemy or drinking the blood Humans are the only creatures we in fact know who might (having l ost consider- donated by another, able touch with the natural world) just adopt such a practice: These rather special cases, involving (what is no other ca lled, for s h o r t ) ~ human parts, provide a first set of extensions animals ever raise creatures for food, not did cannibalistic cu ltures of the base cases. ever apparently raise humans for food. These extensions include some bizarre cases, in particular where the part concerned is one's own. However, allowing the eating of dead humans and nonlive hum~ n parts under certai n conditions offers no slippery slide to, It is a serious and difficult question (to which moral philosophers have not sufficiently addressed themselves) why it is that if humans are not under !!.!!i'. conditions entitled to raise other humans for food, they are entitled under many �19 18 th e gene ral i ss ue as to wh e n, or wh e n prec i se l y , killin g f o r food i s jus tifiable can be largely skirt ed. For it is justifiable , it is conditions - indeed, it is often assumed, under a sweeping ra~ th e n claimed, whe n and only when killing itself i s justified, whe ne ve r of factory conditions - to raise other animals for food? that is. They can only be justified in so doing if there are significant and While one half of the italicised equivalence is uncontrover s ial - relevant differences between humans and other creatures raised, if killing for food (or for purpose P) is permissible, so is what it or that might be raised, for human or animal food. involves, killing - the converse is not. Yet there are, For consider some circum- it has already been pointed out, no such appropriate species-wide stances (assuming you can find them) where killing of person x is differences. justifie d, e.g. in war, in retribution, in self-defence, in r e ducin g g reat A fresh start can be made on the issue from a cannibalistic perspective. evil. Since it is not eating human f l e s h ~ that is Th e n killing x for these reasons is not killing for food, even if x is in fact subsequently eaten. There is an important intensional wrong, what is it that is wrong, if anything, with raising humans difference, so that being justified in killing x for some crime say , or other creatures for food? does not justify killing him for food, much as thinking of killing him or is it both? both. Is it the raising, or is it the killing, The answer is, of course, that trouble lies with for the one reason is very different from thinking of killing him for Raising of creatures frequently has one or both of two dama ging features accompanying it: first, the other purpose. deprivation of the What can be argued given the permissibility of- eating dead rai s ed creatures, and secondly, treatment of the raised animal humans, is that where killing of z is permissible, cannibalism of z merely as a means (not as an end). is also IN FACT permissible. The second, attitudinal, difference may have little or no impact beyond the first. For example, if infanticide i s alri ght under certain conditions (as Tooley contends, and others have hinted), And the first may be avoided, e.g. whe re the creatures stay by choice but then in fact cannibalism of infants is alright also under the given could depart if they wished. conditions (but the issues as regards the raising of infants for fo od Kept geese, for instance, may be in that position; they are seemingly not deprived, but may live in rather are, of course, not thereby resolved). natural conditions (except that migration and much that goes with it is permissible can, to this limited extent, be bypassed. II has been lost). Thus the issue of when killing It is worth elaborating these points, since important Killing involves something different again: extensions - not the only extensions - of cannibalism beyond the base all that goes with removing of a life, the termination of projects, purposes, cases depend upon them, and since - very differently - they furnish associations of value, etc. (and also the definitive end of con- clear cases of inadmissible cannibalism. sciousness, etc.). of situations to distinguish:- With the predation issue also, a central issue ls as to when killing an animal for food is permissible. It may be thought indeed that the killing for food issue just is, or is t a ntamount to, the general issue of killing, and that accordingly • There are several clas se s �21 survive themselves, the survivors of an aircrash in a remote area, 20 people on a life raft, etc. Such examples, where defensible, as they sometimes are, provide a further class of examples of admissible la. Killing , causing to die, is impermissible. cannibalism - what might be called exceptional cannibalism, since the lb. Letting die (passive killing, as it is sometimes misleadingly , but conveniently , called) is circumstances are, at present anyway, among higher mammals, rather impermissible . exceptional . Then, in either case , killing or letting die for eating or followed by An important and often times questionable practice, which eating is also impermissible, by preceding principles (essentially can in principle at any rate, deliver exceptional examples 20 , is ~Pp ➔ ~P (p & q)), hunting (in the intransitive form, which involves capture or killing So in particular it is where the creature is of the same species. That is, cannibalism is in these cases inadmissible . But some of these cases are clear; for instance, where creature (or if the object sought is duly located). Men continue to hunt in the French fields, and sometimes still their own species 21 , not at present human) x is leading a worthwhile nonaggressive independent and pro- in the shape of enemy soldiers , but those cast as outlaws (manhunts) . ductive life in a peaceful countryside. (Intransitive) Hunting divides into several types, according to its 2a. Killing is permissible. 2b. Letting die is permissible. end purpose, for sport , for food, for extermination, for capture. Hunting humans for sport (hunting for "sport " , so called, typically In common reckoning there are many examples of both second classes, involves killing) is a practice that has persisted well into this "passive" infanticide, suicide and gambling with life, euthanasia, century, in Australia for example . killing or allowing to die to maximise community values where there though it can be given philosophical support by chauvinistic theories are large numbers of people or choices between them, execution and such as a limited and racially prejudiced group-utilitarianism or by assassination, self-defence , killing in war (the list follows roughly appeal to the "ideal" of pure subspecies (the stud ideal). t he later chapter headings in Glover, where these well-known types such hunting is impermissible, so, for the same sorts of reasons, is of examp les are set out in some detail). the hunting of many animals for sport . In all these types of cases, It has nothing to recommend it, But if Hunting otherwise, except for death can be followed by eating, provided the base class conditions capture, is a restricted form of killing, and to what extent it is are satisfied . permissible turns on when that sort of killing is permissible . In such cases, henceforth called de facto extensions, cannibalism is also in fact admissible . The position arrived at thus far is pulled together in rhe Almost always the killing or letting die in 2a and 2b is not spec ifically for eating. conjoined: Eating the resulting dead is simply th e source of food is adventitious. Sometimes, however, in unusual circumstances some members of a party of the one species kill certain members of the party or allow them to die in order to fo ll owing diagram, which subsequent sections (and parts) endeavol1r to fil l out and render more precise:- �23 §3. 22 Unavoidable detours: when is killing a creature wrong, and when is letting a creature die wrong? It is not necessary, nor is it easy or desirable, to avoid entirely the issues of when killing Diagram 2: TYPES OF ADMISSIBLE AND INADMISSIBLE CANNIBALISM is wrong and when killing for food is wrong, and when such kinds of l( ,- killing are not wrong . Type 1 cases (exemplified e.g. in hunting for sport) - - -- ___ _] Base case I ,< conditions fail I X other than rather weak or circular principles. had seemed to be clear turn out on further reflection to be much l ess ,< obvious. \ ESSENTIAL / ,-...__ _ _ _ _ _'-! \ PREDATION..,, For example, it had seemed evident that the onus of jus tification (where this makes sense) characteristically lay with the WATERSHED J(. XCEPTIONAL EXTENSIONS Worse, things chat INADMISSIBLE ADMISSIBLE BASE CASES But it is not so easy to elicit or to defend action-taking party; \t 'I,( that it is the killing or removal of life that muse be justified, not the letting live. Some things, however, are clearer . 'J{ NONLIVE EXTENSIONS First and foremost, a satisfacto ry (nonchauvinistic) a c count K -J KILLING BOUNDARY of when and why killing a creature is wrong won't make exceptions for REARING FOR SLAUGHTER BOUNDARY humans and, more generally, won't contain the term 'human' or logical So far, in considering examples of killing, issue has not equivalents. This important requirement disposes of much of the been taken with enlightened conventional wisdom, with the result chat philosophical literature. a serious , and perhaps unwarranted, discrepancy between the treatment (9p. 135-9), which refer to the (contractual) conditions for human dished out to animals and that accorded humans is beginning to emerge. social life (the mixed account given should be faulted on several other So the judgements made tend to follow conventional practice: grounds as well). killing It wipes out, for example, Ewin's attempts Similarly it removes the main condition eventually humans for food is admitted but happens only in exceptional circumstances, achieved in Glover (a whole text devoted to moral issues concerning killing killing, which fails to present, or seriously address, the matter of animals for food is a pervasive practice. More generally, killing animals for food is considered permissible in a wide range of circumstances where killing humans is not , yet on what solid grounds? . As regards killing, even enlightened conventional moral wisdom returns us to the heartlands of human chauvinism. necessary and sufficient conditions for when killing is wrong) . The first main condition Glover arrives at is that ' taking human life is normally directly wrong: that most acts of killing people would be J/ To avoid it, the matter of wrong in the absence of harmful side-effects' (Gp . 42), i.e . so long killing and letting die will have (like most moral issues) to be as 'the best total outcome' does not involve killing (cf. p . 286), to reconsidered, nonchauvinistically. set down the underlying utilitarian recipe . Other conditions Glover outlines - similarly unacceptable even to their author when 'animal' replaces 'human' - are likewise faulted as damagingly cha,·vinistic, �25 24 for instance that it is wrong to kill a human whose life is worth l iv i ng (Gp . 53) , whenever that is. e . g. burning a collection of seeds (er seedlings) is one thing, burning Secondly , unremarkably, most of the recipes suggested in the a forest is another, slicing up or eating a raw egg is one thing, slicing literature are defective, first among them utili t arian proposals , which, as is well-known can sanction unjust killing. 22 up or eating an eagle is another, etc. Other (non- utilitarian) potential ys me rit the same consideration as ys, as if th ey we r e ys. recipes are also problematic, as a proposal by Young, wh i ch will he l p Call the r.esult of making the required deletio n, th e us on our way, serves to indicate: modified proposal . . . . what makes killing another person [more genera lly a considered . realisation either of the victim's life purposes or of such life- purposes as the victim may reasonably have been narrower utilitarian frameworks and induces a decided circularity, The proposa l requires some brief explanation. The term ' unjust ' , which takes the proposal outside is qualified in the final proposal (p.519) by 'maximally' , the point expected to resume or to come to have (Yp.518; repeated p.519 with 'maximally ' included). of which (though it is not fully explained) is to permit killing or The qualifying term sacrificing of one person in order to save others . 'irrevocable' is inserted to separate killing from life imprisonment I It is the modified proposal that will be chiefly creature] wrong on occasions is its characte r as an irrevocable, [maximally] unjust preventing of their I It is a popular fallacy that which may, as a matter of fact , defeat the prisoner ' s purposes . The long some members of a group (on a lifeboat or from a remote airplane crash) final disjunction is designed to delegitimize killing of sometime comatose are sacrificed for, or by, others of the group . persons (it also would include people undergoing reform programs) - -,hat is ac counled [maximally] unjust. an additional clause is required - and killing of potential future in way, and almost (but not) captial punishment. debatable judgements , such as that in the common case (on Young ' s ified' (p . 528) , ified. 23 from which it follows that abortion is commonly unjust- The disjunct should, it certainly seems, be deleted - especially since what justifies the main part of Young ' s proposal, considerations of what has value, does not justify the final disjunct, because merely potential persons do not appear to have requisite value, though they might (or might not) come to have such. Generally, potential ys do not have the same range of features (including acquired value, etc.) ll Similarly what one is entitled t o do , or feels like doing with r espect to them may differ; If , however, there are no just wars then most killing in war is wrong; and if punishment by death is sometimes just , capital punishment is sometimes not wr.ong. If, for instance, a person's life purposes are sufficiently evil~ e.g. they include genocide, then their fulfilment is certainly pro1, ~ rJ y , justly, thwarted. 0 1· Thus some proviso as to the chara c t e r or qua lit y of life purposes , such as the term 'unjustly ' obliquely supplies , is essential (but often omitted in ethical discussions) . It is not evident however that killing such a person (as distinct, e.g. from imprisonment , re-education, etc.) is permissible, exc ept perhaps in worst cases. ~ • what they become if their potential is realised . For example, Young claims (Ypp.520-1) that the proposal lets through various types of killing persons such as infants and foetl1ses - thereby writing in some very has only 'morally trivial or no moral support abortion will be unjust- But generally what the proposal permits and what it excludes depends critically upon cases already apparently covered, so that it is not obvious that such construal of 'moral') where the expressed wish of the pregnant woman The qualification makes way for certain cases of cannibalism, for instance those where �I 26 Ther e is no good r eason to restrict the proposal to persons , and Young does not intend to. 27 Many killings of animals constitute , he t ells us (Yp.526), maximally unjust prevention of their realisation of life purposes, and accordingl y are wrong. ' Killing such animals for food is only justifiable when no adequate of other crea tures). acts are avoided. food supply is available and food i s needful' (Yp . 526), in which event, presumably, justice prevails. A characteris tic remnant of Further it is simply assumed - though it could no doubt be argued (rather as below) - that requisite unjust Young's proposal as applied has bite; human chauvinism also intrudes , with Young a ppealing to the ' greater eschewing killing of creatures for food. 25 range of life-purpose s normally human beings have' (Yp.527, italics that the modified proposal has bite: amended) ; 24 and thereby smuggling in a greater value assumptio n as regards humans. Here, as elsewl1ere also , the account of when killin g is wrong is progressive ly l oaded , almost manipulated , to yield the sought r esults : in particular , what is unjust - including which killings are unjust and which class of life-purpos es are more valuable relevant to det e rmining maximal injustice - are bot h open to rigging. These points help to bring out too how back of Young's accoun t and application s of his proposal lie more basic consideratio ns of justice and value (and it is to such considera tions that we should no doubt eventually turn). Consider, for instance, the route to the permissibil ity of systematic cullings of a herd. Wants , now substituting for li fe -purpose s , are simply supposed to be summed up utilitarian- fashion, except th at (somewhat as with Mill ' s utilitariani sm) a weighting is imposed to reflect the respective values of different wants (those of humans, e . g ., as opposed to those It is an illusion however the bite all turns on Young's cunning application , since the modified proposal itself reduces to near tautologous ness. purposes occur? taken. For when does irrevocable prevention of a life's When, and only when (since it is irrevocable) that life is So the modified proposal reduces effectively to AP. Killing x is wrong iff taking x's life is maximally unjust. But killing x is, according to OED, causing the death of x, which is tantamount, in terms of sense, to taking the life of x. And what is wrong is, according to OED again, what is unjust, and would be, if the OED were sharpened 1,1p a little, what is maximally unjust. Whence the adjusted proposal, AP. The proposal does not rule out killings which have the effect overall of fostering th e wants of the largest subset of some group like a wild herd where otherwise the wants of an even larger subset will be thwarted. Systematic cullings in the absence of feasible alternative s, therefore, may be morally pe rmissible. (Yp.527) for example, it would oblige most of us to adopt a largely vegetarian life-style We have come round a circle, but much was glimpsed on the way, so the circuitous route was not without its rewards. By working through other l ess chauvinistic accounts of the wrongness of killing (e.g. the nonchauvin istic base of Ewin's account) we can come a similar circular way and arrive at the same fairly stable result. Moveover, in the adjusted proposal we do have an account, not yet a hi ghly usable account, since circular, but an account nonetheless . In terms of this account clear cases where cannibalism is morally inadmissable can be distinguishe d, for example as follows: Cannibalism of x is wrong wherever it involves maximally unjust taking of x's life. Conversely, there are many cases where �28 the killing of one creature by another creature is, because not maximally unjust, quite permissible; 29 e.g. certain instances of killing in self-defenc e, exceptional cannibalism , abortion, etc . But if the creature is killed, then it is dead, so by the earli er Now let x and y be of the same species, say Homo Sapiens: argument it is permissible to eat it (under certain conditions) . CAP provides exact conditions for when cannibalism is wrong, in So there are many cases where killing a creature and then eating it, cases where cannibalism involves killing. or its then being eaten, are permissible . conditions are satisfied; If some of the many cases of permissible killing are, as they seem to be, cases of killing a then Sometimes these often they are not. Sorting out when they are, and when they are not, will occupy many a controversi al creature of the same species, then active cannibalism involving killing is, in such cases, permissible . The argument needs of course filling out in crucial respects, especially by some enumeration of types of cases where killing is permissible , and a sub-listing of cases where these are intra-specie s killings. Would this suffice? However, it of the) distinction between killing and letting die, by blurring or rejecting the distinction on which it is based~ that betweem omission and One question is whether the account determines (even in its circular way) the precise conditions under which killing for food can permissibly occur. Letting die is not the same as (active) killing . has recently become fashionable to try to remove the (moral significance The question reduces commission (or else it is pretended that it is frightfully difficl1lt to make this distinction s out, etc.). Rejection of the omission/ commission distinction appears to rest on a mix of fallacious moves:- to the logical issue of whether AP as a strong logical equivalence FMl. A some to all argument, warrants intersubsti tutivity in more highly intensional frames such FM2. A confusion of the thesis that the distinction is morally as those declaring purposes. Though I've tended to vacillate on this issue, my feeling increasingly is that substitutiv ity is warranted, important with the quite different thesis that only commi.ssions can be morally blameworthy and that omissions are morally guiltless (the the reason being that the equivalence of AP is of virtually synonymity position reportedly held by some religious groups in the past). strength, which legitimates replacement in all but quotational (type) FM3. An extensional approach to nonextensio nal differences . sentence contexts. But purpose sentence contexts, such as' ... for eating' are not quotational . FAP. Hence it follows using AP that Killing x for food purposes is wrong iff taking x's life for food is maximally unjust, heavily upon the fact that there are some cases where it is morally difficult to distinguish between certain commissions and certain and that CAP. These points are considered briefly in turn:- ad FMl. Those attempting to discredit the distinction usually rely y's killing x for (and followed by) eating is wrong iff y's taking x's life for eating is maximally unjust. omissions, e.g. that in appropriate circumstanc es exposing the baby may be little different morally from directly smothering it. (The Greeks believed it wasn't but that was because exposure gave the gods a chance to intervene and save from death those who were fated to perform especially important tasks). �r JO But the fact that there a r c ~ cases where the JI distinctio n is not of great moral significan ce does not show that it is dispensabl e. In order to show that lt is dispensabl e it is extension ality assumption which removes scope. The principle necessa ry to show that there are no cases where it is needed, that appears to be that failing to provide a condition which would have for all cases failing to provide a condition which would prevent been causally responsibl e for preventing x is morally equivalent to ~x is (morally) equivalent to providing a condition for x. providing a condition which is causally responsibl e for x . But Moral it is easy to produce some cases where the distinctio n seems to be equivalenc e requires interchang eability witin deonitic contexts, essential if we are to account for what we wish intuitivel y to say. indeed it could be characteri sed in terms of such substituti bility . For example, to take a case those who wish to abolish the distinctio n The equivalenc e yielded is of the form -F-x are fnnd nf appealing to, we may wish to say that the people who did commonly falls, especially where Fis not extensiona l. not attempt to help in the Kitty Genovese case were morally culpable, moveover that the causal responsib ility functor is not extension al, perhaps to a high degree, but few of us would wish to say that their and that such a principle fails for it. moral culpabilit y was exactly the same or of exactly the same kind as that of the murderer, and that they should equally be brought to trial on murder ch~rges. Or, to take another case, placing poison in your husband ' s tea is not the moral equivalent of failing to give him the antidote when he has placed it in himself. In order to say +-> Fx. But such a principle It is clear Though letting die differs significan tly, then, from killing, conditions upon when it is wrong may be reached in similar ways. How the condition for letting die correspond ing to AP should go becomes rather more obvious if the righthand side of AP is expanded to: taking (the) action which terminates x's life is maximally unjust. what is evident in such cases, some equivalent of the omission/c ommission The parallel passive condition can th en presumably be formulated distinctio n is needed . thus:- ad FM2. But the thesis that the distinctio n is needed and is morally DP. significan t in many, or at l e a s t ~ , cases must be clearly dis- which continues x ' s life is maximally unjust. 26 tinguished from the very much stronger thesis that all omissions are blameless, and that any commission s are morally open ~o blame - or praisewort hy. This thesis is, rather plainly, indefensib le, yet has been responsibl e for much of the bad light in which appeal to distinctio n appears . ad FMJ. Then in turn, substituti on principles again yield clauses EDP and CDP, correspond ing to EAP and CAP, special cases of which yield conditions under which cannibalism is wrong where it involves letting die. Principle CDP which supplies this condition, where x and y are of the same species, runs as follows:- The principle of moral symmetry between omissions and commission s is in fact refutable. Letting x die is wrong iff refraining from taking (the) action It appears to be based on an CDP. y ' s letting x die for eating purposes is wrong iff y's refraining from taking (the) action which continues x's life, for purposes of eating x, is maximally unjust. Since letting die is, for the most �32 part, less heinous than killing, cannibalism involving letting die 33 i s more widely permissible than cannibalism involving killing . 27 §4 . The matter of predation, and important cases of l egit imat e killing and letting die for food. One tempting model that underlies the conflict picture of Paradigmatic examples of legitimate predation, of predation as basically undesirable but an unavoidable killing are provided by predation, where bis prey of a and a depen ds fact, a model that leads to human vegetarianism, is the following (essentially) for its livelihood, indeed for its survival, on eating kind of atomistic axiological theory (or utilitarianism):- bs.28 Such predat ion i s a n essential part of any su ffici e ntl y rich ecosystem . Essential pr eda tio n i s pre dation which is essent i a l to according to the initial positive value thesis, every living creature (every sentient creature , every higher animal , etc .) has an initial positive the nor,~11 livelihood of tl1e predat or , and where the prcd alor takes non-instrumental value which it retains unless it does something to for itself no more than it requires for it s livelihood. forf eit that value. carn.ivores , such as the big cats , but some humans, such traditional Eskimos, are essential predators. Not only ilS some (On the even simpler position of biospheric egalitarianism, discussed below, all living things have equal worth, The fact that humans ar e part of the natural predatory food chains should not be lost s i g ht o[ . Observe that the argument to permissibility of essential pre- in some nontrivial sense.) These positive values just sum ; and maximisation of value (or suitably averaged value) is, of course , the (or an) ethical objective . Then killing is generally undesirable , dation does ~ take the invalid form: such predation is a fact (a fact because it results in a reduction in net value, and survival is generally of life), therefore it is permissible. That arguments of this type , desirable. 29 The exceptions occur when a creature has forfeited its selectively relied upon by Diamond and (earlier) Hegel, are inval id is value, e . g . it per sists in value-reducing behaviour, so that killing well-enough known (they commit a prescriptive fallacy), and is evident it would prevent a further decline in net value or lead to increase in from such fallacious arguments as the diplomacists' argument, e.g. it is total value . a fact of life that Indonesia has occupied (absorbed) East Timar; when it leads to an overall reduction in value . the re- The underlying theme is that killing is unjustifiable The onus of proof, fore it is pe rfectly alright that Indonesia occupied (absorbed) East Timar. when it can be assigned, lies with those who make the exceptions, who Naturally it would be decidedly awkward if the fact of essential predation do or license the killing . turned out to be impermissible: since, with one item of value consuming another item of value, it trouble. the whole natural order would be in moral This brings us to another defect of the argument from· "facts", Predation now appears as an awkward fact , leads to an overall reduction in value. Since inessential preda tion that it suggests that essential predation is really, at base, something is inessential, it is ruled out as inadmissible. pretty undesirable, but nonetheless something we have to live with - in (nonindigenous) humans for whom predation is, it is plausibl~ argu ed , Thus in particular, contrast with predation, in its associated meaning, as plunder, which we iness en tial, are not entitled to kill for f ood : do n't, or rather oughtn 't to, have to live with morally, and which is usual rai si ng of animals for food, etc . are all excluded in one st r oke , commonly reprehensible. and a l eading feature of vegetarianism imposed . therewith hunting, �34 35 Essential predation is not so satisfactorily dispos ed o f, but introduces conflict. For either one creature, the prey, is sacrificed or another creature, the predator, is: value de c lines . Similar objections apply against biological egalitarianism, either way tot 8 1 In the interim, while vegetarian scientists work even when it is qualified as in Drengson and Naess by an in principle 30 on new diets and new lifestyles for predators, there is an obvious clause. recipe to be applied, which while not eliminating conflict, minimises that predation is rather suboptimal: its effe c t: is strictly ruled out as a general practice. just as steam gives way to sail, so the less valuable gives way to t h e ~ valuable. Thus if humans are reckoned to be It is not (or not only) that it is taken for granted the trouble is that predation Since each lion and each antelope is assigned one unit of whatever is assigned equally, mo re valuable than polar bears - the usual human evaluation - then there is no way of justifying the lifestyle of a lion that consumes polar bea rs are not going to be entitled to prey on humans, in the sens e several antelopes. at least that their predation is not justified. Any equalitarian approach that is E££ atomistic is liable Application of the recip e 31 presupposes a value ranking on creatures under which some are more valuabl e to further incoherence, as Drengson's holism reveals. than others: some living system of living things, e.g . the Earth as on the Gaia otherwise if all are equal, predation is never admissible, and Lets be essential predators just die out - at least that is the simple ethical pic t - hypothesis (p. 233). ure. least of the living things that comprise it, has the same value as This points up one of the many problems for biological egaltarianism. But the picture presented so far is too simple, and tl1e recipes suggested dubious. Then s, which should(?) have the value at each of them (in effect 1 = n, for n>l). Some of t~e ecological consequences of implementing the For if the matter is properly considered not at a given time, but over a time interval, dynamically and not suggested recipes, and reform of essential predators, can now be just statically, it is not so simple, and a rather different result gauged. emerges . the chains of predation are long and complex; One predator takes, over a typical lifetime, rather a lot of prey . Unless the predator ranks very much more highly than Massive environmental interference would be required, since distortions especially in lower-level prey would occur, with resulting the prey, the value of the sum of the prey will exceed that of the ecological instability and often catastrophe. predator. that is, are ecologically highly undesirable. These considerations, in combination with a positive and gross population The consequences, What this and the value thesis, suggest a very different result, that predators should summation problems begin to reveal is that the initial atomistic be allowed to, or encouraged to, die out - unless they are somehow, value distribution picture is inadequate because it leaves out systems what seems improbable for predators that remain wild, converted to and systemic connections such as a more ecological approach would vegetarianism, include, The dynamic picture resorted to is still too simple in one important respect, that over a time interval, prey, which would often exceed natural (and sometimes reasonable) population levels without predation, are replaced. Where population of a preyed-upon species of creature is at an ecological limit, and minor culling of the sort �36 natural predation induces does not, owing to replacement, reduce 37 population levels significantly below that limit, predation has no significant effect on total value, So results yet another, different, recipe, one which is a little nearer the ecologica l mark. 32 farm animals (all of them) can be appropriately filled out, to Some utilitarians, Singer in particular, have recognised exclude replacement of animals with unusual or special properties, the role of replacement a·,1d made some allowance for it (at a serious cost to Singer ' s vegetarianism , it should be added), e.g. those carrying valuable genes, and to allow slaughter, without Singer now allows for killing and replacement of nonselfconscious life, but advances a nonreplaceabllity thesis for self-conscious life. Furthermore, even if a replacement thesis for free-range shorter-term replacement, of those carrying damaging diseases or genes - as it no doubt can, in a modified replacement thesis - still For the basic division Singer appeals to 'Tooley 's distinction' between a nonreplacement thesis fails to allow even for essential predation of selfconscious creatures, and accordingly should be scrapped, beings that are merely conscious and ••• those that Since this pronouncement is likely to be disputed, at least are also self -conscious, in the sense of being able to conceive of themselves as distinct entities, existing by some vegetarians, it is worth trying to indicate why essential over time with a past and a future (Sp.151), At the same time it can be In fact most of the sorts of free-range farmyard animals that Singer predation is perfectly admissible, seems to be envisaging as nonselfconscious, and accordingly replaceable, explained what is still wrong with the tempting dynamic picture and creatures, for instance geese and hens, appear to satisfy Tooley's the initial positive value thesis. tests for selfconsciousness. what is put in as what is left out, Geese are certainly aware of themselves they value members of their own community ; trees, and inanimate such as rocks and buildings,~ have initial and they remember value, but that complexes and wholes, in particular ecosystems, may elements of their past and, in things like nest building (practice), anticipate the future. More important, what has selfconsciousness (reflex- ive consciousness), or consciousness to do with the moral dimension? Until well have initial value, The reduction assumptions underlying value decomposition thereof, itself, because by no means all consciousness of conscious life is _ 32 a to atoms fail , Singer's theses lack foundation and look, while perhaps convenient for that it cannot be duly explained; There are grounds for anticipating for instance, being too valuable to be Such wholes may have value furthermore which is not dissolvable into values of component parts, or atoms this is duly explained - it is not satisfactorily explained as valuable in some traditional farmers, rather ad hoe, What is left out is not just that objects other than living creatures, both animate such as plants and as distinct entities, and of geese as distinct from (and superior to) hens; What is wrong is not So much In terms of the value of wholes such as ecosystems, one of the arguments for essential predation is disarmingly elementary . It takes the form: (sufficiently) rich (natural) ecosystems are Predation is an essential part of these systems . simply replaced, in the sense of having irreplaceable experiences, worth- very valuable, while projects, etc., does not have the requisite linkage with self- What is an essential part of what is very valuable is admissible. consc iousness. Therefore, predation is admissible. Such predation, which may be argued for in other ways , admits of extension by the following principle : �38 EP. If something is entitled to kill for food under certain 39 conditions, e.g. respectfully and when in need, then so are others under the same conditions. §5. The argument for EP is of the same type as that for other Postscript . The paper is very incomplete . It fails to address several issues intimately connected with cannibalism, such as hunting similar indifference, or interchangeability, principles in ethics. of humans and other animals, in particular for food, and as raising It follows from EP and essential predation that, since a tiger may humans and other animals, especially defective infants, for food. when in need kill a cow to eat, then so may humans in need. If Worse, it is evasive on some fundamental issues, and it fails to penetrate very taking the cow's life is not maximally unjust in the one case, nor deeply into some of the issues it does begin to consider, such as is it in the other, since the circumstances are similar. predation, or as the necessary and/or sufficient conditions for admiss- The results reached may be alternatively argued for using principle CP. 33 Perhaps Singer is also on the right track, though he has latched onto the wrong distinction. Perhaps there is a (descriptive) condition q (or a condition qs for each sorts of agent), appropriately ible killing. position. It is little consolation that others are in the same Hopefully some of these deficiencies will be compensated for in subsequent parts. At the same time several themes will be developed that may tied with causing to die, such that while killing creatures without q not have been evident so far, e.g. that in under suitable conditions is permissible, killing creatures with q is far too much killing taken much too lightly, but far too little is not, except under special conditions . 34 general experience of killing and death when it does occur, that is Given that q is 11 modern 11 societies there appropriately morally connected such a procedure would fit into the except usually among small groups mostly of inured professionals, annular picture (given earlier: q would mark out the interior of the which "shield" most humans from the phenomena involved. dotted elipse). Nor need the distinction be chauvinistic, because it cuts across species in a morally defensible way. anything, is q? located? made good? But, what, if Can a suitable morally-unloaded category-based distinction And how disconcerting would it be if some such distinction could no Wait for the next exciting episode . 35 �' 40 FOOTNOTES 41 It was singularly appropriate that this paper should have otained its first (and only) public presentation at the Alfred E. Packer Memorial Center, University of Colorado. I am indepted to several members of the audience for comments and references, and in particular for the first extension of the base case . It is noticeable how people who have never been cannibals despise the horrible thing; and how quickly it disappears when a cannibal tribe comes into contact with a wider world than that Directly merely of their own bush village. daylight falls on the habit, it Withers away . This is remarkable when we remember the sanctity The cannibal of it in primitive man's eyes . is not necessarily a hopelessly degraded brute, but-;-man who has not yet lived out of the dark obscurity of bush tribalism, and so had bli~dly_ followed a practice deep-rooted in the sacrificial These themes are defended, and the annular model explained, in The themes are also defended in HC, p. 103ff., and in AHC. other recent work, e.g. by Tooley and Singer. As the schematic diagram shows, humans do not occupy a central ring. Thus adoption of the model does not imply, what Pickering assumes (p. 374), that 'humans are more~ntral ' or, for that matter, that 'humans are owed more extensive moral consideration Nothing in the model itself depends on humans . than plants'. The model is not species based, or biologically based, but category basect";-and designed to reflect the different sorts of things there are, e . g. things capable of entering into contracts conferring obligations, and things not so capable, things that can have preferences and make choices as opposed to things that cannot (truly, or significantly), things, including systems and Nor, therefore, organisations, with a telos and things without. does the model write in a new type of chauvinism, or confer privilege or moral advantage on things in more central rings. Indeed, things in central rings will have obligations and commitments, and be subject to limitations on what they do, in ways that things further out cannot be; so there will be some As this moral disadvantages in occupying a more central place. indicates, the categories selected are intended to have moral And different sorts of behaviour are morally linkages . appropriate with respect to the different categories of objects. 2. 3. 4. The popular view that dialectics and adoption fraction of assumption themes are dangerous is partly based on a modal fallacy, For the fallacy e.g. that what can be believed is believed . in operation in more intellectually respectable quarters see WW. the Epilogue of Harris Some dialectics are accordingly recommended for anyone convinced that cannibalism must be wrong. The investigations undertaken in this paper alwshare other features with (classic) dialectics: there are many loose ends, and in several crucial areas firm conclusions are not reached. Later parts of the paper will take care of some of these things. Thus Hogg (p. 188), Cannibalism . .. can hardly be said to exist in There may be isolated the world of today. pockets of survival in the heart of New Guinea and among some of the tribes in the remotest corner of South America or African jungles; but they will be no more than the rarest of phenomena. 5. Hopkins, given the last word by Hogg, p. 192. quote from Hopkins is of passing interest: The whole ideas common to man the world over from his earliest days. 6. Some of the advantages of institutionalisation of certain cannibalistic practices are evident, e.g. a_much enh~nced Various disadvantages if not evident should supply of protein. become so in the course of the text. 7. See again in HC and similar. Although the human/nonhuman distinction is not, so it is argued, one of moral significance, not all Other distinctions of moral importance distinctions vanish. - those of the annular model - naturally remain. 8. Of coures, this practice is (still) controversial, and But a offensive to various religious and other groups. great advantage of a pluralistic society is t~at it can acconnnodate (better than alternatives) such differences Issues such as human_ . over the morality of practices . burial and restricted cannibalism, however, make the limits of present pluralism evident . 9. Or else did not incur official establishment disapproval, though the acts strictly appeared to infringe the Every s~~ond_ra~onteur has prevailing law of the land. examples of cannibals not brought to Justice . 10. . This clearly anticipates an initial argument of this My thanks to W. Berryman for drawing my attention paper. to the attitude of the Catholic Church, as presented in Read. 11. Consent in principle will carry the requisited load, and for this it is normally enough that the person would consent. This indicates one logical route to the liberalisation, and removal, of the consent clause. 12. There would (so far) be no trophies, e.g. Z's head ~n the hall, Y's skull on a stand, because trophies involve hunting and killing (for which see below). 13. As some vegetarians would freely admit; other 11 vegetar i ans II f rther and regard the killing of certain (nonself) an1•mals for food as admissible provided no suffering u, go i conscious is incurred and that the animals are replaced. . But it s true that usually 'vegeta;ians do not touch the issue of our attitudes to the dead (D., p.9) . �42 14. 15. In a like vein it is suggested that Singer and Regan do not see that 'a cow is not something to eat; (for them) it is only that one must not help the process along' (D., p. 468). The latter incidentally would not exclude the use of dead creatures for food, leather goods, etc.; things that animal liberationists like Singer definitely exclude. 43 21. Diamond recognizes this objection, p. 471, but does not meet Pace K. Bell, according to whom, Men have always hunted in the fields around Potigny and Falaise . They still do, but no longer their it. own species. 16. 17. 18. In similar ways we are said to gain the concept of an animal; s~~ p. 476. -Diamond introduces this piece of serious confusion in the course of emphasizing why the 'assumption that we all agree that it is morally wrong to raise people for meat ... is not, or not merely, ... too weak' (D.• p . 469). Diogenes Laertius, vol. 11, p. 297. Some of the complex issues concerning hunting will be considered in subsequent parts, others elsewhere. 22. See, e.g., Henson, and also Ewin and RKU . 23. A notable piece of male chauvinism also slides through, in the suggestion that, in Lhe absence of more weighty moral backing, the expressed wish of a pregnant woman is morally trivial. And Sayre reports (p. 25), Cannibalism (uv0pwno~ayCa) is alleged to have been a practice of the Cynics by Philodemus and by Theophilus Antiochenus; but, if so, it must have been confined to their early history, for they had a number of critics during the Christian era who would have mentioned it if they had known of it. Both Philodemus and Theophilus were biassed and we must remember that similar stories were told of the early Christians. However, cannibalism is said to have been authorized by the Republic and Thyestes (or Atreus) attributed to Diogenes and also by the Republic of Zeno and by Cleanthes and Chrysippus (Philodemus, On the Stoics; Theophilus Antiochenus, Ad. Autolycum 3, 5; D.L. 6, 73; Ibid. 7, 188; cf. 28th Letter of Diogenes; Dio Chrysostom 8, 14). As Diogenes Laertius goes on to explain, that 'Chrysippus did countenance the eating of dead humans was one of the points brought against him by those who 'ran him down as having written much in a tone that was gross and indecent'. As regards such attitudes to the dead, times have not changed that much. The (idea of) eating "the dead" (dead humans, of course), under ~ circumstances, is still widely regarded as scandalous, and highly newsworthy (see Read, p . 296 ff). 19. Cannibalism which involves explicit killing for food is a kind of reflexive predation, but generally (cases of) cannibalism and predation only properly overlap. 20. An example would be where some of the survivors of a crash or wreck hunt other "survivors" in order to survive; cf. W. Golding, Lord of the Flies. 24. But one's life-purposes are diminished lhow can this be on Young's picture?) if they jeopDrdise those of others. Hence Young's preparedness to let Amin be killed by the stampeding horses, Yp. 527. 25 . Indeed it leads, as Young interprets it, to a more sensible vegetarianism than Singer's initial position (in Animal Liberation, not as significantly modified in Sp.153). neither culling nor predation are simply ruled out. 26. For Action and taking action should be construed in a wide, but common enough fashion, e.g. the action taken may amount to doing nothing or getting-the-hell-out-of-it. 27. It is tempting to try to prove this on the basis of a proper inclusion assumption, that where letting die is wrong so is killing, but not conversely. The assumption may, however, need qualification; e . g. killing may sometimes be preferable to letting died in a lingering way . 28. 'Predation" is a singularly unfortunate word to be stuck with to describe this universal phenomenon. It is unfortunate both because of its etymology, and because of its other meaning . At to the first, ' predation' derives from praedari, 'to plunder', which derives in turn from praedo, 'booty', As to the second, 'predation' also means a 'practice or addiction to plunder or robbery'. Both carry strong negative connotations. There is a similar damaging duality in the expressions 'prey' and 'prey upon'. 29. These defective considerations also lead to a maximisati~n of population of creatures of the base class assigned values, up to the limit - if any (on frontier philosophers there are none) where declining returns set in . Where, further, humans are typically, but erroneously, assigned greater value than other creatures, the considerations support the rapid biassing of terrestial fauna! population in favour of humans that we are witnessing. The second point does not apply, in that form, . against biol0gical egalitarianism, and the first objection fails where total value is replaced, as under some utilitarianisms (with what justification is less clear, since surely we want to maximise value so far as constraints permit: see RKU), by average value, average value per (base class) life lived, etc. �44 The argument in the text is not affected materially by switching from value analogues of total utilitarianism to analogues of some form of average utilitarianism. On some of the serious problems with these utilitarianisms, see Jamieson. 30. Drengson, following Naess and others, espouses 'biospheric egalitarianism and the intrinsic value of all life' (p. 222). According to the theory, each (living) being has intrinsic value (pp.233-4), and hence each presumably has equal worth (and is entitled, in Singer's terms, to equal consideration , if not equal treatment). In Naess and Drengson this biospheric egalitarianism is qualified by an in principle clause. According to Naess, 'The 'in principle' clause is inserted because any realistic praxis necessitates some killing, exploitation and suppression' (p.95), and according to Drengson, 'This qualification is made with the simple recognition that we cannot live without affecting the world to some degree' (the latter claim is inadequate, because it is not just 'we' who are involved). 31. Axiological approaches that are atomistic have other problems, some reminiscent of those Wittgenstein discusses for logical atomism. In particular, how do we locate the atoms to which value is supposed to adhere fundamentally. A first bad feature of this approach is invariance failure: it matters for final summations how the atoms are chosen, for different choices will assign complexes quite different values. Secondly (Wittgenstein's question), why are some things said to be atoms not complexes, and vice versa. A third group of problems, brought out in HC, concerns the choice of a base class. 32. An environmental ethic s:1oul.:l. also be an ccologic:1 I et!dc, sense of an ecologically realistic ethic. facts are certainly relevant. 32a. A detailed case for this claim 33. j:1 t lH· In this resepct too the appears in Routley and Griffin. Thus rp can be made to yield a good deal more than Young's application of his proposal (for which he offers no proper justification): A creature is entitled to kill another creature of lesser value when its life (and so all its functions, prospects, etc.) depends on it and when it does not kill more creatures than it needs for these purposes. And the dubious business of imposing such order rankings on creatures can be bypassed. 34. The qualifications are necessary. If the latter exceptional conditions clause were not adjoined, the prospe ct of finding a condition q would be wiped out by such cases of essential predation as exceptional human cannibalism. The qualifications, although they enhance the prospects of locating such a q, do not appear to make it analytic or near analytic that such a descriptive q can be found. 45 35. Not only are there many proposals for q to sift through - most of which however seem to fail for reasons already indicated in the text - but also there are apparent options to finding such a distinction, such as resetting the problem, in a less individualistic way, in the framework of (ecological) communities. �REFERENCES K. Bell, Not in Vain, University of Toronto Press, 1973, REFERENCES CONTINUED P.E, Devine, 'The moral basis of vegetarianism ', Philosophy 53 (1978) · 481-505 . (all references prefixed with 'V' are to this article) , C. Diamond, ' Eating meat and eating people', Philosophy (references hereto are prefixed by 'D'). 53 (1978) 465-77, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers (edited, with English translation, by R. D. Hicks), Heinemann , London, 1925, A.R . Drengson, ' Shifting paradigms: from the Technocratic to the PersonPlanetary', Environmental Ethics 2 (1980) 221-40, R. E. Ewin, ' What is wrong with killing people? ' Philosophical Quarterly tl..<. (197;t) 126-39. M, Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches, Fontana, London , 1977 (hereafter prefixed by 'W.W.'). M, Harris, Cannibals and Kings , Collins , London, 1978 (hereafter prefixed by ' CK '), R. Henson, ' Utilitarianism and the wrongness of killing', Philosophical Review 80 (1971) :1.u,- n7. D. Jamieson,'Utilitarianis m and the value of life', typescript, University of Colorado, 1981. J, Glover, Causing Death and Saving Lives, Penguin, Middlesex, England, 1977 . L.P. Pickering, Review of ' Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century ', Environmental£.£,.~-~ 2 (1980) 373-78 . G. Hogg , Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice, Robert Hale, London, 1958. (references hereto are prefixed by 'H'), R. and V. Routley, 'Against the inevitability of human chauvinism ' in Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century, eds , K, E. Goodpaster and K. M. Sayre, University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, (Hereafter prefixed by ' AHC') . J. Langton, Cannibal Feast, Herbert Joseph, London, 1937. L, Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Blackwell, Oxford, 1953. A. Naess, 'Self-realisation in a mixed community of humans ·, bears, sheep and wolves', Inquiry 22 (1971) 231-41 , A. Naess, ' The shallow and the deep . long-range ecology movement. Inquiry A s11mmr1ry'~ 16 (1':173) 95-100. P.P, Read, Alive, Avon, New York, 1974. R. and V. Routley, 'An expensive repair kit for utilitarianism', typescript 1976 (hereafter referred to as ' RKU ' ). R. and V, Routley, ' Human chauvinism and environmental ethics' in Environmental Philos~ (ed. D. Mannison, M. McRobbie and R. Routley), RSSS , Australian National University , 1980 (the article is referred to as ' HC' , the book as ' EP ' ), F. Sayre, Diogenes of Sinope , A study of Greek Cynicism, Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, 1938. P. Singer, 'Killing humans and killing animals', Inquiry 22 (1979) 146- 56, (references hereto are prefixed by ' S '). R. Tannahill, Flesh and Blood. A History of the Cannibal Complex , Hamilton , London, 1975 . Hamish M. Tooley , Abortion and Infanticide, typescript, Australian National University, 1980, R. Young, ' What is so wrong with killing people?' Philosophy 5¥ (1979) (all references prefixed with ' Y' are to this article) , 515-528 R. Routley and N. Griffin, 'Unravelling the meanings of life', available in this series , 1982. �) /.o,..,.,,,, l. ~ / , . ~ tA-- ~ <'"'1 ---- 3/ }o/t/v/~}~4--( ~~ ·~~O·\o ~ --..., \0~'203.l\. <;c..c.tt.,. ~ ~ a.I) . ~~ ~✓:. ,;,,tf �~ .r. ..... ---,(7> o-,.J /' ,,,((; 11 / c, ~ I ( _ ///,;.,/ /c/ (',.,./// 1' ,. ~ L: 1 -=y' 1/ ,/L ~ -=~ t<..,(' •.r<-- <-r-? ,r"'t, 7 ; /4... I ~,. �/J/4/,JJ ( 0 -/4, -;IL l r~ rk . rr_!j, ~lb f f.o fvr-~ ~tf?>J ;_/.. « ~ YL r1.M- ~~ J'fM~J Cif ~✓ ,/.~ ) . <=<- ,,._., wh ~ 1 ~ ~ ~ ?/;1 ~ ~~ rry~t ~ ,t(!__ 16;=,·~--f:; ~ h ~ ¥,-I- ..<-D /4 ~ :f f/-L -. J,¥i~~ f 9~ (3/-~~) (I ~~ 1- h,c>_~ x /~~ -/2-(;:L r J,?-- l ~re:- )( 07A~ c/4;t-~ ,4,,.~ 7' ~rrvf j e1~,k 'U"- 0 ~ vl'f.. /411-1 ~~ 1 ,...~,._£.~ I~ 7"Y-'? ,• or ' 7 ,/.tL~ =- #--~✓ " -,/ ~~ "'~ e.~.,__,,., ..l<A--C- , 7 l'/4~ (k/v( ~ A-Ld , c-£-{,~.,.,. t-/~r;;,;-,,.:__ , C, - ~1 < "'t: ~ 4- 7,1; ,..~~ I �/Jo N T T,,f'/c,- y•1 1//;rE r,vt{l. /2 <",I!.,.. '::.. {-,A/ j,._~ __:_ /,._,_ 'd / ~~-;. ,, 11 o,r ;i'a '7 .~/2 ?,(_ C/ I /;,(if'-:J;J__(;1:,-· J',(J; JJ;<~'r;b,f'/ ... Y ,1,f; ;,;--,ftlfr -~, £' .r.::._/, /•;· /''"/.' f.// / /, (cf,,,_;..,<-f (,_) :y;-._7 ,//<--"f .j•,/7 • C ~ • ~.:!__,,_ •-v, f//dl#l£ , < ~, r/ • 1,-e.--., t. ~ �#J tq- 7' : ~ , ,.':_ J/'C4(. ~ &nJltJ[e "71fLt..H "1/'~ c~ "4 C/1 .. 't ,.,. ... ~;: .. t.t..4 r~ c~ /~J I~ ~~ ,H" ._ ~t/ ~l-d_ I (' rt-lrC , I ,,I, /.,_,.. .,.,.____ /4-..- C- ,,,,_ ~ , /4,L._ '-- . ,.__,_ te(A~ / 4 ~ , , fc. ~,;,,d~ t;, ~~7Y24~ h /c r n.., ,W·r ht<I I t!l"--vv-t_. t : - ;{ c.--<- u....., ( , It ~'-? I 1 ,JKc} ~ ~-✓f ;,z.. M~ / tkl-· .:I- / 1 t.~ ,.,e1 ;,-,:. ~ ~"7 f cjrl; ~ I_;.,_ 1 L,,3:-:r;-,1 •-v->-1- • 4, pS,.,(£-.,-. . ftr~ J/4. /red-,~ , _;, ~·~/~<l ' /""= cd/7 ;/ ~<¥<- J,r 7""° 1,/,,:,A -z/1.,/h/7 /,(~ • t:i.C.1 / /d'tr 7 ;:. rJ- ~:,,1 "l j 1 ( ,"'p> '(. f (,~ 0 11/'- 1 t<~ ~ ~ 4-7/J t /2-c. ) 7 /~ ?'~J 1/)):-/. ( / ~r,,.,,__,, ~,:,,..,,...,~ . l)';•.:Z:~-e-M-;I /fa ! ") ;; ,' ~ ~~ L ' A-7~ J~j 1/ ~ ~£" v:_._i eye- ,c. y),6 7 ) \ d,; ~ 1 a,___ r/ d't .ru), Cl»,~ ' ~L �The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting, Scholfield B (17 August 1988) 'A human role for the pig', The Weekly Times, 14. (1 leaf) �- / / / . -7 / <et ? -·- -·-- C:; /~ ~, u / f l ~ Jc,._ '? ~ (,, ?0_/~ c c:i--l 7 ,5'<.. / 17 -~ ,..-tt'!' . : . - - - ---- ·-- - · · - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- ~oc-. r-c- a., r..,_,/- t .)I~ , ) / ~ ?! / . / c..rc.v ~~ //._ J �OAJ 77/c /~/?t:J/f??pvc~ c:>~ 77rr" , I /}(,ifth('i/l'J7lt>p)( ;T//VC/73 ,v - cJ,,,C ~E ./,PH/6:-J ,,f/t;I~ I �The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • Typescript, with handwritten emendations and annotation. Two reference reports on Cannibalism I. (2 leaves) Cutting (photocopy) of 'Necessity as a common law doctrine? [6.40] R v Dudley and Systems', The system of criminal law: cases and materials, 544-551. (4 leaves) ��The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • • Cutting (photocopy) of 20 pages from unidentified publication on Pioneers-Donner Party-The Mormons, 526-545. (10 leaves) Letter, Bill to Richard, 7 Oct 1981 re feedback on Richard Sylvan's paper on cannibalism. (2 leaves) Letter, Robert to Richard, 7 Oct 1981 re feedback on Richard Sylvan’s paper on cannibalism. (2 leaves) �I I - I :/.,, f. - - - -- ----------------- - - - - - ----- ---- ----- ___________, --------- ----------·------------- - - ----- - - -- - - -- - - - - - - - -- ------ - - - - - - - - --- $ ~ /~ .2Z- - - - --- - _ _L __ /4 r<./ ...---a~ l 2, ck?- _.:., t';_.~ ~ o_ _s_ ,,. .,/:,_ ~ , {- ~ M7-e;:__ /4?-l, _:., /.: ~ / ; ~ / /--/ ,a-~~ ,4d - - ~ c 1 /dLC4'--=·- - C4--~ _,t:?~7 ,-4,-,/4._ / - /2.; ~<"F' �§5 . Raising humans and other animals for food. Humans have lit tle compuncti on, for the most part, in rearing other animals for food . Since healthy animals that are raised for food often excell humans, especially humans that are "defective " in one way or another , little , except considera tions of species , seems to stand in the way of raising such humans for food . We are in the region of Swift ' s modest proposal again . What distinguis hes creatures humans (and other creatures capable of animal husbandry) are entitled to raise for food from creatures that they are not? It is not difficult to state some constrain ts on t he solution of this problem, which also rule out usual solutions . First , the distinctio n should be independe nt of reference to particula r species , especially of reference to the human species , and also indirect reference thereto, by way of phrases such as ' standard ... ' , ' normal ... . ' 'potential ... ' . Secondly - and this furnishes the ground of the first requireme nt the basis of the distinctio n should be morally relevant i n the way that mere zoologica l distinctio ns are not: otherwise chauvinism is not avoided . ' The replaceme nt principle Singer adopts for benign farmyard husbandry fails on this score , among others (the others being that many farmyard animals seem to satisfy the requireme nts for being selfconsci ous beings) . Not being selfconsc ious , which is supposed to justify replaceme nt, under ideal farming condition s , lacks requisite moral linkage . Singer ' s move does however emphasi ze �' 31. two important things . First , the familiar objections to animal husbandry, e.g. on grounds of cruelty or deprivation to animals, are remove.e\ by considering only (ideal) free-range individualised farmyard husbandry . Secondly, some distinction (fit to take its place in the annular picture) with requisite moral linkage is what is sought . Any distinction that is going to work will have to involve the capacities of the creatures concerned , in such a way that the capacities tie with moral features . The capacities concerned are, obviously, capacities connected with being aware of being raised for food . But this is not sufficiently general, being raised for killing or for cartage or for skin or fur or feathers would be similar, and similarly bad or whatever; lacks moral connection . and it still What all the cases have in common which is general, one which has (as already noted) moral connections , is being used as a means . The sought distinction is accordingly made in terms of creatures that are capable of being aware of their case primarily as means for other, for their food , etc. U-creatures, say, as opposed to A-creatures . 21 no means all, are A-creatures: infants are not . Many humans, but Why this distinction? 21 There are probably other requir e ments as we ll: e . g. that not in midst of present worthwhile projects; e.g. Mrs. Goose is not raising young, etc. �The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • • • • Photocopy of Young R (1979) 'What is so wrong with killing people?', Philosophy, 54(21):515-528, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031819100063531. (8 leaves) Cutting, Ewin R (1972) 'What is so wrong with killing people?', The Philosophical Quarterly, 22(87): 126-139, https://doi.org/10.2307/2217540. (14 leaves) Typescript (carbon copy) of untitled paper attached to Ewin cutting. (18 leaves) Photocopy of Singer P (1979) 'Killing humans and killing animals', Inquiry, 22:1-4, 145156, https://doi.org/10.1080/00201747908601869. (6 leaves) Photocopy of one page (157) from Lockwood M (1979) 'Singer on killing and the preference for Life', Inquiry, 22:1-4, 157-170, https://doi.org/10.1080/00201747908601870. (1 leaf) �t . • �~ /,o.R-,4-.. ~t ~,, ,,_,;L ~ C~"'1 /C'.tt---? ,.... ,._._ ~ e.-;- __ jf1~ ~ rur 6 ""efc7'/ ~ ,,,<e,,,.,;z,r4? ~ c,,__,,,- .1 ------~ ,,-v-9"' ~ "'-<- r = c:e/4 /4--,- ~/~~-~ P.f.?4 ,..,.,,PE' r e ~ 7~~ y?f /2 ~c;k__/"7'/~ 7 ~ / 7~ / /,..,;,, ~ ,?£ / ~J" r-tr= / t:t_ ~7, /9-7 r~ o-/4-~ ,.ve- / _,/~,/ ;:7'/ /re-v -~ (~ ,,{~9 C'l<-,r /4 ~vr,, 1~ /c{. rL r ,' ~ ,~ 7-£ ~ - - ~ ~ . , , ~; / " ' - - /c~V-- ~ ~ -~ ~ L <r7J\ _0 / ~ ~~ 0 - ~ 7L 7 C-£-..,/,4c,.~~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ /.? ~ ~ =,/---6-- ~ . ~(' ~ ~ cv;·n! ' To -J~ > /~&:, -6-,e> ~ ~ ~7f 7~ ~ /~~ ~,,,_7 ,;,_~ 4/ ~/ C ~~ o/· //4- ~ / ~ /~ 7~ �~ ?¼_ 11 ~ M,- '--+-€- /~1) / ~ ,~ --/?~/ 4:- ..,,.,,,, ,,./" &-"'7/<" c, /4 Ye-/ U.:.... ~ ;/ / 7'~L. . ~ ~,, i 7,2 ~ ~ .,/4 /< ; e-.,, ' ~ ;,I'£ .Y CJ/-?!' , ,_, ·/,,.r.,.-........-,. , ,,__ s « ~ ?< 0~ /~L,, ,4_._ / Cb- i,_,.__1 c-.r r~ /2 re:_ ~ h'L 7 '---71J r-"-"- 3-.. d..-. ~~:; d:....-../ ~ ~_/~ �The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • • • • • Photocopy of Diamond C (1978). 'Eating meat and eating people', Philosophy, 53(206): 465-479, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3749876. (8 leaves) Photocopy from The Encyclopedia Americana (1978) 'Cannibalism', The Encyclopedia Americana, 2: 543-544. (2 leaves) Photocopy from Britannica Encyclopedia (1969) 'Cannibalism', Britannica Encyclopedia, 4: 785. (1 leaf) Photocopy from Chambers's Encyclopaedia (1966) 'Cannibalism', Chambers's Encyclopaedia, 3: 50. (1 leaf) Photocopy of Naess A (1979) 'Self‐realization in mixed communities of humans, bears, Sheep, and Wolves', Inquiry, 22:1-4, 231-241, https://doi.org/10.1080/00201747908601874. (6 leaves). Photocopy of one page (2273) from unidentified dictionary, Pre-collection to Predecree. (1 leaf) �r)I':, t; 1 ·-et I r o-f 6 ?\/ih'i I Jet ~t·.?t'cc If33 •• 11t1;,.,_4,, ;; w ; ~ ) ~,,c._! / //,,,,.---: J:~w ~ J/4 ~"~t New- f'-w1r- > ~:/~4-;-, L 1/75 /I ~-~erY �/, • ,I J �Lcz ~ ' d cc c e::es ,f c::::e.. ~ �.. . -1~ ~~ ;/w,;.,L;:;,',,,._ ,;/ a,~}:z;:__ dL-0~ " 7 1 f,t} 0 ~ ~ A. ~~ - 7'~ - . ' -f ~i,t;i,:___ ~✓~ ~~ . - - /z;j/M?!, ,<4 n/41"? r - / ·~ ·7 - Jo - ~ C:~~ - ~..,;t,J;j,,. - ... c.-C~1/~ - 7"1(~ /'<d~ ..£.... ,;:_~ 74::,,,'~ /k,,. ~~ ~ -4- . ~/17 '_ ~ �1IIE !1i l/lL/7? . ··• .,. Men have always hunted in the fields around They still do, but no • longer their own species. (K. Bell, Not in Vain, University of ~oronto Press, 1973) .,, Petigny and Falaise . � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Draft Papers Description An account of the resource Sylvan's literary executor encountered an archive in which “all his projects were current", since manuscripts were undated and unattributed. Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Text Any textual data included in the document - • 00681 ' ' {; /) f¼i:<:LL I f ~sif0l J IN DEFENCE OF CANNIBALISM I. TYPES OF ADMISSIBLE AND INADMISSIBLE CANNIBALISM Richard Routley Philosophy Department Research School of Social Sciences Australian National University and Environmental Studies University of Victoria Canada IN DEFENCE OF CANNIBALISM~ It is a commonplace of mainstream Western thought that cannibalism - the eating of human flesh by humans, and, more generally, the feeding of animals on members of their own species is, at least in the human case, morally outrageous. © Ri chard Routley, 1982 This repugnan cy thesis appears to be a legacy especially (but not only) of Christianity, probably derived from Jewish teaching, which went much further and excluded the eating of pig, for instance, as well as "long pig". Also in this series: It is a thesis reinforced by the substitution of Man for God of the World rainforest destruction - the social factors "Enlightenment" and consequent elevation and separation of humans Semantical foundations for value theory from other creatures. Unravelling the meanings of life substantially undermined, have for the most part been observed to Nihilisms and nihilist logics rest on a tangle of false views and prejudices about the world, its Nuclear power - ethical, social and political dimensions origin, evolution and purposes , and about the creatures that inl~bit Now that all these positions have been it, their separateness, and their order (in an a lleged chain of be in g ) Disappearing species and vanishing rainforests: wrong directions and the philosophical roots of the problem with humans at the apex, it is past time that major moral theses that these positions have sustained are re-examined and reassessed. The irrefutability of anarchism, enlarged Up for re-examination are, in particular, all theses that Roles and limits of paradigms in environmental thought and action depend essentially on the common but mistaken assumption that there is something morally very special or distinctive about simply being a human, that Homo sapiens as a species deserves special treatment. On the contrary, there is no morally relevant distinction between humans and all other creatures. Of course there are various morally relevant distinctions between things, but none concerns the biological species Homo sapiens. What holds rather is an annular 1 model which can be depicted schematically as follows:- 3 instance in removing the idea that the wrongness of such practices 2 as cannibalism is not even open to question 3 . Diagram 1: High in a list of inherited moral assumptions that are ripe ANNULAR PICTURE OF MORAL RINGS IN OBJECT SPACE (and the position of humans). of sapiens for reassessment are those concerning the almost universal ~oral prohibition of and repugnance to cannibalism, a practice that used to be extremely widespread, but that has now been almost e;.tirely extirpated 4 with the very successful cultural conquest of the world by Western thought. But instead of the re-examination that should follow the intellectual erosion of mainstream Western social thought, the growing recognition of its theoretical inadequacy, not to say ~:Notional labels for the interiors of such morally relevant rings (or ellipses), from outer to inner: Objects of value, objects of moral concern Objects having well-being Preference havers, choice makers Rights holders Obligation holders, responsibility bearers Contractual obligation makers poverty, what has followed is the often shoddy defence of many of its leading moral theses, mostly on anthropocentric grounds, but sometimes on other grounds, some of them drawn from contemporary philosophy (e.g. the conventionalistic rejection of cannibalism of Diamond, considered below). Many of the defences preferred of total prohibition of There are also more comprehensive philosophical reasons cannibalism are ludicrously weak, and withstand little examination. for the periodic intellectual review of deeper assumptions (and Consider, to illustrate, the main argument in (what was until very prejudices), reasons furnished by dialectics in combination with recently one of the few books in English on cannibalism) Hogg, the theory of objects. namely 'the innate repugnance of contemporary man to touch human According to the theory of objects there is no assumption that has to be held,that cannot be disbelieved, flesh' (p . 188, also earlier) . while according to dialectics proper every assumption is open to represented as a matter of fact, it does not appear to hold generally, questioning and reconsideration by its methods , and assumptions in and may be largely a matter of background and conditioning. order to be rationally maintained should withstand such critical scrutiny. imply 2 Naturally these (methodological) considerations do not that assumptions under examination do not (frequently) withstand critical discussion, or that there are not (or never could be) good reasons for adhering to them. But the considerations are important in opening larger moral assumptions to due reconsideration, for Insofar as the repugnance is There is no evidence that - what seems unlikely given the former prevalence of cannibalism - it is innate; and insofar as it is a matter of fact it does not support moral prohibition of eating human flesh, any more than the apparently very widespread repugnance of urban Americans 5 4 as observed, it has recently been argued, successfully, that this to eating raw snake underwrites a moral prohibition on consumption of raw snake meat. distinction will not carry very much of the moral weight that has been imposed upon it. 7 On the other hand, if the repugnance in With the breakdown of this sharp moral distinction question is (intended to be) warranted moral repugnance, then the argument is trivially circular, the premiss assuming the point at between humans and other species.orthod ox anthropocentr ic options, which sanction human consumption of animals other than humans but issue. never humans, collapse. One reason why the proferred defences look weak is that it has not been thought necessary to provide any defence; for 'Directly daylight falls on the habit it withers away' 5 - the "daylight" is that of contemporary Western civilization. appears in Langton (initial page): A similar theme cannibalism is 'a custom that of civilization' - or, one might say, before the triumph of human (pure) vegeta!ian options and on the other, cannibal(istic ) options (mixes of these options which allow some human flesh eating will it will be seen that by no means all forms of cannibalism are morally inadmissable. present exercise. Showing as much is the main object of the Though the results arrived at are part of the process of elaborating a non-chauvinis tic ethics, and accordingly have implications for policy, no policy conclusions are drawn in what no recommendatio ns for the implementation , or institution- The vegetarian options face, it certainly seems, insuperable difficulties, especially concerning such issues as animal predation (which is an important, immensely frequent, and often _<!~~rab.!!'_, What will be argued is that, on the contrary, when some daylight does penetrate to the issues concerning cannibalism, follows: (at least as regards "higher" creatures) are, on the one side fall under the latter head). must soon become extinct all over the world before the great march chauvinism. Among the important options left open ecological fact), and concerning the reduction in numbers of animals, especially introduced animals, which build up to "pest proportions" (some reduction is often required for vegetable growing to operate successfully) . But it is unnecessary to elaborate these and connected points here because there are cases where consumption of human flesh is perfectly admissible. The main argument advanced is modelled upon simple inductive arguments: a base case is argued, and this base is expanded step by step to cover other cases. alisation, of cannibalistic practices are made 6. Hardly necessary to say, better defences of the mainstream anti-cannibal istic tradition can be devised or pieced together from the literature than those so far alluded to. for example, on the assumption of sanctity Such defences - based, of all human life, on the theme that cannibalism is a brutalising experience, which puts humans in the same category as the brutes - characteristic ally rely on a sharp distinction between humans and other creatures. But, §1. The Base Cases: Eating the Dead. In setting out the first of these cases it is taken for granted that the practice in some American states and Canadian provinces of allowing accident victims (e.g. those of automobile casualties) to consent to the use of parts of their bodies for organ transplants and also for other medical purposes is admissible, and that the use itself in such cases is Restricted forms of cannibalism in the interests of 6 survival are now quite widely accepted as admissible. admissible 8. Then, is there any good reason why persons should So there is really nothing extravagant at all in contending that sometimes not similarly consent to the use of their bodies for food upon cannibalism is perfectly alright: their death? fact that the admissible cases lead, naturally and coherently, once For food transfusions, instead of blood or transfuslons · or transplants. plasma And if they do, or so bequeath their bodies, why should their bodies not be eaten? What differences human chauvinism is properly cases. any extravagance is due to the left behind, to much more controversial There are several examples of human cannibalism undertaken there are in the types of cases can be minimized, and those that for survival, which have won establishment approval, from remain seem not to make much - or any relevant - moral difference. or church hierarchies. For example, in order for human parts to be intially taken and used, of members of a Uruguayan rugby party who survived an airplane crash the bodies have to be more or less butchered; in the high Andes (dramatised by Read). but then they may be in much less pretty shape after a serious accident. Again, in each typ e of case, the parts may - or may not - be supplied to people who are in genuine need; etc. Nor does internal ingestion appear to differ, in any way that matters morally, from internal connection, from organ transplantation. It could be objected that with an organ transplant a specific organ is required, whereas with a starving or undernourished person alternative sources of food are - or ought legal A striking recent example is the cannibalism Their eating of dead companions, evidently necessary for survival, was condoned by the Catholic Church of Uruguay and by other prominent Catholic thinkers. Interestingly, Rubio, Auxiliary Bishop of Montevideo, justified such cannibalism, necessary for survival, through a medical transplant comparison 10 .•• Eating someone who has died in order to survive is incorporating their substance, and it is quite possible to compare this with a graft. Flesh survives when assimilated by someone in extreme need, to be - available. But where the parts are used for nonspecific just as it does when an eye or heart of a dead man is grafted onto a living man ••. (as quoted in Read, p. 308). medical testing, e.g. cell culture, or just disposed of (e.g. by But the Bishop tactfully rejected, except 'as a source of inspiration', incineration) without any other use, the specific need consideration the equivalence, appealed to by some members of the team, between does not work. Anyway what would it show? eating the flesh of their friends and participating in communion, as The claim staked is accordingly this:_ where the human initiated by Christ at the Last Supper, where he (figuratively) shared eaten is dead, and certain other conditions are satisfied, cannibalism his flesh and blood with his apostles (Read, p.309; is admissr e. also p. 299). The other conditions~ comprise such things as Exactly why this correlation, which undoubtedly helped the survivors, the following: that the whole thing is done decently (in ways, gets discounted, remains tantalisingly obscure. that is . LO be spelled out specifically); that the person eaten consented (or, differently, would consent) to being eaten, perhaps by the parties concerned, or more strongly that the person directed tha t he or .;he be eaten (or otherwise used); or differently again, tha t the ~onsumption was necessary for survival or well-being. etc. seems worth pursuing further. The correlation For though survival was not a problem 9 Suc h d es pi cable motives as those of the ge t-even s yndrome ("we'll 8 fix the ba s t a rd, we'll eat him") are pointl ess (as well as stup id l y for the apostles at the Last Supper (so destroying a strict correlation), survival is not the only basis justifying the eating of human flesh. As with blood, the gift relation is another v i ndi c tiv e ) wh e re the part y is already dead. It can be argued that eating certain pieces of human flesh out of respect is an exceptional case (like eating a fellow creature to avoid starvation), and that a general principle of respect for important basis. A consent or bequeathal clause 11 is important in under- the dead overrides any consent that may be given. The short cutting various objections to the consumption of dead humans, for answe r to this is, firstly, that grantin g of exceptional cases alr eady in s tance, that it is an affront to human dignity, that it is a mark allows that some cases of cannibalism are admissible, and secondly , of total d isr espec t, that the 'sanctity of the human being' is that no general principle applies in a decisive way to exclude the compl e tely disregarded (Hp. 186), that it is impious (Dp. 467). exampl es alr ea dy considered. Fo r if the person consents it can hardly be an affront to that general principles can always be thwarted, it is instructive to consider per s on's dignity, or violate that person's sanctity (as seen from one po int of view). Nor is it an affront to the dignity of creatures of an irreligious cast, for whom a dead body whether of a human or an animal is a d ead body - though perhaps a dead body of a fellow creature o r of a friend. So it is an affront only to those of particular ( religious) groups, perhaps the same groups for whom dead human bodies are sacred and their disfigurement by humans (whether for medical or 5 other purposes) impious . Just as it is legitimate for one to discount the often illfounded views of such groups - insofar as the views are int ended to have universal applicability - as regards medical use of (forme rly ) consenting humans, as regards sexual relations, abortion, e uthanasia, and so forth, so it is legitimate to discount them in the case at hand. Dev ine ' s argument against cannibalism, namely as a paradigmatic applica tion of his overflow principle. On the contrary, the eating of certain parts of the bodies of dead humans was, amon g certain tribes who used to practice cannibalism, for it was thought that in that way the eaters could acquire or participate in some of the (former) virtues o f the dead , e. g . wisdom, strength, hunting skills, etc. still be, that eating is not disrespectful: So it can what is sometimes dis- respectful is raising for food nnd killing, e.g. in order to ent. The overflow principle~ formed -chiefly to cope with the treatment of animals, is this: Act towaPds that which, while not itself a pePson, is clos ely associated with pePsonhood in a way cohePent with an attitude of Pespect fop pePsons (Vp . 503) . Instead of arguing directly for the principle, Devine suggests firstl y that it may be argued for in rule-cons equ e ntial fashion, secondly tha t it may be made plausible as part of a way of life having respect for persons at its centre, and thirdly that th e prin ciple is well ensconced in the moral consciousness of the plain man. Each of these suggestions can be faulted both in general and as regards the relevant application. For instance, plain men mostly do not object to the bulldozing of old cemeteries to make way for a development. Nor need the eating of a dead human be a mark of disrespect. an act of consider a ble res pect; To illustrate how application of suc h On the other hand, the principle can be rendered analytic by taking up the slack in "associated with" and "coherent with" appropriately - only then it won't yield the relevant substantive application. In application of the principle Devine makes two alternative moves. First, 11 It is by no means obvious, however, that a cons~n 10 is required. similarly if it is going to be incinerated and the ashes s pread, it might better be carefully composted. The point ma de does not exclude organ transplants, eating, and so ecological alternatives to burial or cremation. The most the overflow principle The suggestion that the already dead can, at least in s e ems to show, under this move, is - what does not exclude consumption, certain circumstances, be eaten without moral qualm, innocuous though and what one may well concur with - that the dead (and not merely the human dead) ought to be eaten respectfully; it is, is liable to spark off a series of protests. and even this much some ugly scenes could result i f "long pig" caught on; is not shown if the tense change, the transformation from alive to dead, destroys the requisite closeness of association. outback Australia) competing to pick up "accident" victims. ambulances or tow trucks, are readily enough avoided (by suitable body, which forms the visible aspect of the bulk of persons with whom we are acquainted, and which persists when the person ceases to exist in death. (Vp. 593) organization), and more respectful practices adopted. would, if the objection is to have force - lead to what is normally a~sumcs, overflow to the subsequently dead body (which is no longer inadmissible, for example, to a perverse lust for human flesh, and And again respectful eating be marketable commodities, if there was commerce not just in human flesh. but in bags, shoes, and belts made from human hides, decorations from human bones and teeth, glue and fertilizer from other parts and so on 12 in the way that there is commerce in animal parts? Perhaps, disre sp ec t wo uld be an outcome, but perhaps for the wrong re aso ns. What s ee ms clear is that giving human flesh to the ne edful, s ~y , i s one thing, a llowing commerce in human parts is another. More serious is the objection that such "admissible cannibalism" could - or rather ov e rflow to thl' llvlng body docs not however guarantee, what Devine Wouldn't disrespect be inevitable if human parts become But these types of scenes, which can already occur with competing ... respect for persons overflows to the human to dead bodies. e.g. the the way that refrigerated trucks follow the kangaroo shooters in some heavy assumptions as to features of persons, reveals: could, it appears, be coherent with the alleged overflow of respect It is true that spectacle of the refrigerated vans patrolling the highways (in much Devine assumes it does not, as his second move which begins to buy into the "visible aspect" of a person). so in nci cher case is value diminished, it seems, by (respectful) cannibalism or ordinary garbage (in the literal sense) is not eaten (except in desperation, etc.). A dead body does nee have the value of the person whose body it is in life; Garbage is commonly thrown away, things in these end uses are mostly not; For i f a body is going to be buried and "eat,~" by bacteria, or various carnivores, it might as well be eaten; although a dead body is not a person, still the fact that it (so to speak) was a person means that it ought not to be treated like ordinary garbage (Vp. 503). forth. clause perhaps, thereby to the deliberate killing of humans for food. Hogg makes much of the first of these points, the (unintended) impression he gives being that human flesh is so delicious that it is highly addictive. Whether this is so or not (it would seem unlikely with a preponderance of older stringier humans, though the number of "battery humans" is increasing).it appears not to matter, unless it does lead to what would be more disconcerting, e.g. the establishment of a black market or the like in human flesh, with inputs from killer or Mafia syndicates. But the problem is not substantially different 13 12 of our unwillingness to kill people for food or other purposes, from problems that already arise with the treatment of animals (e.g. traffic in rare species), and over the distribution of dangerous drugs to humans, and can be met in similar ways, i.e. through a similar range of political or organizationa l options. The usual utilitarian defence of vegetarianism based on suffering, pain, and the like caused in raising and killing creatures for food, co llapses. 13 For no direct suff~ring, pain or the like occurs, with the creatures eaten already dead; and any sorts of suffering that might be marshalled among some of the still living who are pained by the consumption can be more than compensated for by th e alleviation of suffering of the meat consumers, for a suitable and secondly not a (direct) consequence of our unwillingness to cause distress to people - not that it always would (contrary to Diamond's assumption) - but rather 'what conditions our attitude to not dining on ourselves is the view that a person is not something The argument turns however on a slide on the mi.ddl.e term 'something to eat' which is ambiguous between (i) something that may be eaten and (ii) something that is eaten; In the second sense the justification given of the fact dead people are not eaten, namely people are not eaten, while in a sense "logically adequate" is trivial, and proves no requisite grounding, and the "justification " does not imply that dead people may not be eaten. In the first sense, a nontrivial justification is offered, that it is impermissible choice of consumers. to eat people,but in this case we cend to repeat the initial question; Some vegetarians however (rightly) reject utilitarian defenses; Diamond, in particular, tries to argue that they involve 'fundamental confusions about the moral relations between people and people and between people and animals ' (Dp. 465), and introduces instead convent ionalist arguments - unfortunately of wide philosophical appea l - against eating people. Some of the reasons for not eating people, she subsequently argues, extend to grounds for not eating animals either. Diamond's argument begins from certain quite central facts ... We do not eat our dead, even when they have died in auto- mobile accidents or been struck by lightning • .. (Dp. 467) An immediate objection is that this is little more than a local fact, Why is it? Diamond has a surprising answer: in effect that it is analytic on, or at least a consequence of, our notion of what a person or human being is. ••• it is not respect for our interests which is involved in our not eating each other . These are all things which go to determine what sort of concept 'human being' is it is one of those things which go to build our notion of human beings (Opp. 469-70). But such a thing as not eating other people is certainly not part of the concept 'human being', indeed it is not merely ~ot analytic or normic (near-analytic ) of human beings,it is not even true of them - good for certain ' we ' but by no means generally, as the history of given that, on well-authentic ated evidence, cannibalism was formerly canniba lism shows. widespread, and that it still persists in isolated place s today. It is equally a fact in the context of quite extensive groups, that .EE~L2o not eat l'i~.· So either the central fact has to be morally grounded or has to have moral consequences. The second option would involve a prescriptive fallacy (deduction of an ought from an is); followin g fashion:- in any case, Diamond tries the first, in the The fact is, firstly, not a (direct) consequence The answer is, in short, radically unsatisfactory . That this is 15 Tt may s eem ... I should find myself havin g t o jus tify slav e ry. For do we not learn - if 14 we liv e in a slav e soci e ty - what slaves ar e the answer Diamond is offering is however at once confirmed by how she goes on (writing in speciesist assumptions 15 in the same revolting fashion): and what masters are through the structure of a life in which we are here and do this, and they are there and do that? Do we not learn the difference between a master and a slave that way? (Dp. 470) Diamond does not manage to escape these difficulties, though sh e And so too - very much so - [built into the notion] the idea of the difference between human beings and animals. We learn what a human being is in - among other things sitting at a table where WE eat THEM. We 16 are around the table and they are on it (Dp. 470) . While we may learn something about what some human beings - not makes various attempts (p. 470 and especially pp. 476-7): the notion of a slave or an enemy or an outlaw assumes a background of response to persons, and recognition that what happens in these cases is that we have something which ;;;;-;;,::-e not treating as what it - in a way - is ( Dp. 476). vegetarians - are like in this way, in the way we can learn what But this is to assume a background of norms, of how things morally some other human beings are like from cannibal feasts where 11 we" are, that a person is not something to enslave, etc. (and to attempt are on the table as well as around it, we learn little of the once more to build a presupposed morality into conv entional facts). notion of human being in this way. Nor does what correct information Furthermore, as this reveals, the same ploy could be worked in the we acquire in this way provide a firm basis for moral judgements case of animals, namely that in hunting them, killing them, serving about the possibility of eating humans, though Diamond appears to them up for dinner, we are ~ treating them as what - in a way think that it does; for she later says that the source of moral they are (or, more accurately, as they mora lly deserve treating). life derives from ways in which we mark what human life is (Dp. 418), Such comparisons make it evident then what Diamond is about, and that another move which involves a prescriptive fallacy, as well as he r conventionalistic approach fails. obvious anthropoce ntri cit y . However, to remove objections to eating the already dead, Indeed many of the sorts of conventional patterns of response under specified conditions, is simply to avoid, rather than face up a nd conventional facts that Diamond alludes to are a fairly direct to, the real opposition to even qualified cannibalism. For an o utcome of human chauvinism, e.g. that drivers mostly stop for important part of the real opposition to qualified canniba lism relies injured humans, not for injured animals, that humans are commonly upon illicit assimilation of cases of eating already dead people given funerals, animals mostly not. Diamond needs to say, and with killing humans for food, and, differently again, rearing some proceeds to say, that these sorts of differences are appropriate, but that is to slide to a value judgement which concedes to he rself part of what is at issue. Diamond's approach encounters serious difficulties when applied to such matters as slavery, the treatment of outlaws and enemies of them, e.g. certain infants, for food . and in an obvious sense ! .!1.~~~., Thus Devine's ambiguous, 17 what is entire l y different, permitting the killin g of humans for 16 food, or to, what is different again, the deliberate raisin g of human s for food. claim that 'a meat diet requires that animals be killed' (Vp. 483). And thus Diamond again, the cases are entirely different. involved both rearing and slaughtering Swift's "proposal" of children for food. Nor is the base position so far reached a new one, but an ancient proposition. it i s one thin g morally to eat an already dead deer, another to let a deer die and then eat it, another again to shoo t What we should be going against in adopting Swift 's "Modest proposal" is something one should be going against in salvaging the dead, more generally useful organs for transplantation, and the rest for supper or the compost heap. (Dp. 469) 17 Not a t all: animals: The differences are already clea r as rega rds For instance, Chrysippus, the Stoic, in his or otherwise kill it and then (perhaps) eat it, and yet another to eat a deer raised (in one or another of very different ways) for food. Within each of these different categories, it is important to distinguish cases. For while eating a dead human, even after it has been allowed to die (by omission), may be admissible, killing humans for food is often not, and raising a human for food (and other goods) is, it is now generally assumed by humans, certainly not. treatise On Justice, 'permitt ed eating of the corpses of the dead• 18 There are several separate issues here, in particular the So also apparently did Diogenes in his Republic, Zeno in his Republic, ~~ban~ or raising for food issue, on which much literature on and Cleanthes, all of whom may have authorised cannibalism on a the moral basis of vegetarianism has in fact focussed, and the broader scale. general l?I~'!_ati~ issue, which includes matters of killing and letting die. Limited extensions of cannibalism beyond the base cases, where humans are allowed to die or are killed . eat ing of (certain of) their parts . Eating dead humans involves But if eating such parts is (often) The issues are separate because creatures may be killed for food, e.g . in hunting, though they are not raised for food, and conversely creatures may be raised for food (or treated as slaves) without, for one reason or another, being killed. Cases of humans admiss ibl e , then so also presumably is consumption of such parts when raising humans for food have apparently never occurred, though humans they are (irrevocably or freely) severed from a living human, e.g. have sometimes been fed up for the pot (e.g. in the Aztec empire and in Fiji). ea ting the amputated limb of a friend or enemy or drinking the blood Humans are the only creatures we in fact know who might (having l ost consider- donated by another, able touch with the natural world) just adopt such a practice: These rather special cases, involving (what is no other ca lled, for s h o r t ) ~ human parts, provide a first set of extensions animals ever raise creatures for food, not did cannibalistic cu ltures of the base cases. ever apparently raise humans for food. These extensions include some bizarre cases, in particular where the part concerned is one's own. However, allowing the eating of dead humans and nonlive hum~ n parts under certai n conditions offers no slippery slide to, It is a serious and difficult question (to which moral philosophers have not sufficiently addressed themselves) why it is that if humans are not under !!.!!i'. conditions entitled to raise other humans for food, they are entitled under many 19 18 th e gene ral i ss ue as to wh e n, or wh e n prec i se l y , killin g f o r food i s jus tifiable can be largely skirt ed. For it is justifiable , it is conditions - indeed, it is often assumed, under a sweeping ra~ th e n claimed, whe n and only when killing itself i s justified, whe ne ve r of factory conditions - to raise other animals for food? that is. They can only be justified in so doing if there are significant and While one half of the italicised equivalence is uncontrover s ial - relevant differences between humans and other creatures raised, if killing for food (or for purpose P) is permissible, so is what it or that might be raised, for human or animal food. involves, killing - the converse is not. Yet there are, For consider some circum- it has already been pointed out, no such appropriate species-wide stances (assuming you can find them) where killing of person x is differences. justifie d, e.g. in war, in retribution, in self-defence, in r e ducin g g reat A fresh start can be made on the issue from a cannibalistic perspective. evil. Since it is not eating human f l e s h ~ that is Th e n killing x for these reasons is not killing for food, even if x is in fact subsequently eaten. There is an important intensional wrong, what is it that is wrong, if anything, with raising humans difference, so that being justified in killing x for some crime say , or other creatures for food? does not justify killing him for food, much as thinking of killing him or is it both? both. Is it the raising, or is it the killing, The answer is, of course, that trouble lies with for the one reason is very different from thinking of killing him for Raising of creatures frequently has one or both of two dama ging features accompanying it: first, the other purpose. deprivation of the What can be argued given the permissibility of- eating dead rai s ed creatures, and secondly, treatment of the raised animal humans, is that where killing of z is permissible, cannibalism of z merely as a means (not as an end). is also IN FACT permissible. The second, attitudinal, difference may have little or no impact beyond the first. For example, if infanticide i s alri ght under certain conditions (as Tooley contends, and others have hinted), And the first may be avoided, e.g. whe re the creatures stay by choice but then in fact cannibalism of infants is alright also under the given could depart if they wished. conditions (but the issues as regards the raising of infants for fo od Kept geese, for instance, may be in that position; they are seemingly not deprived, but may live in rather are, of course, not thereby resolved). natural conditions (except that migration and much that goes with it is permissible can, to this limited extent, be bypassed. II has been lost). Thus the issue of when killing It is worth elaborating these points, since important Killing involves something different again: extensions - not the only extensions - of cannibalism beyond the base all that goes with removing of a life, the termination of projects, purposes, cases depend upon them, and since - very differently - they furnish associations of value, etc. (and also the definitive end of con- clear cases of inadmissible cannibalism. sciousness, etc.). of situations to distinguish:- With the predation issue also, a central issue ls as to when killing an animal for food is permissible. It may be thought indeed that the killing for food issue just is, or is t a ntamount to, the general issue of killing, and that accordingly • There are several clas se s 21 survive themselves, the survivors of an aircrash in a remote area, 20 people on a life raft, etc. Such examples, where defensible, as they sometimes are, provide a further class of examples of admissible la. Killing , causing to die, is impermissible. cannibalism - what might be called exceptional cannibalism, since the lb. Letting die (passive killing, as it is sometimes misleadingly , but conveniently , called) is circumstances are, at present anyway, among higher mammals, rather impermissible . exceptional . Then, in either case , killing or letting die for eating or followed by An important and often times questionable practice, which eating is also impermissible, by preceding principles (essentially can in principle at any rate, deliver exceptional examples 20 , is ~Pp ➔ ~P (p & q)), hunting (in the intransitive form, which involves capture or killing So in particular it is where the creature is of the same species. That is, cannibalism is in these cases inadmissible . But some of these cases are clear; for instance, where creature (or if the object sought is duly located). Men continue to hunt in the French fields, and sometimes still their own species 21 , not at present human) x is leading a worthwhile nonaggressive independent and pro- in the shape of enemy soldiers , but those cast as outlaws (manhunts) . ductive life in a peaceful countryside. (Intransitive) Hunting divides into several types, according to its 2a. Killing is permissible. 2b. Letting die is permissible. end purpose, for sport , for food, for extermination, for capture. Hunting humans for sport (hunting for "sport " , so called, typically In common reckoning there are many examples of both second classes, involves killing) is a practice that has persisted well into this "passive" infanticide, suicide and gambling with life, euthanasia, century, in Australia for example . killing or allowing to die to maximise community values where there though it can be given philosophical support by chauvinistic theories are large numbers of people or choices between them, execution and such as a limited and racially prejudiced group-utilitarianism or by assassination, self-defence , killing in war (the list follows roughly appeal to the "ideal" of pure subspecies (the stud ideal). t he later chapter headings in Glover, where these well-known types such hunting is impermissible, so, for the same sorts of reasons, is of examp les are set out in some detail). the hunting of many animals for sport . In all these types of cases, It has nothing to recommend it, But if Hunting otherwise, except for death can be followed by eating, provided the base class conditions capture, is a restricted form of killing, and to what extent it is are satisfied . permissible turns on when that sort of killing is permissible . In such cases, henceforth called de facto extensions, cannibalism is also in fact admissible . The position arrived at thus far is pulled together in rhe Almost always the killing or letting die in 2a and 2b is not spec ifically for eating. conjoined: Eating the resulting dead is simply th e source of food is adventitious. Sometimes, however, in unusual circumstances some members of a party of the one species kill certain members of the party or allow them to die in order to fo ll owing diagram, which subsequent sections (and parts) endeavol1r to fil l out and render more precise:- 23 §3. 22 Unavoidable detours: when is killing a creature wrong, and when is letting a creature die wrong? It is not necessary, nor is it easy or desirable, to avoid entirely the issues of when killing Diagram 2: TYPES OF ADMISSIBLE AND INADMISSIBLE CANNIBALISM is wrong and when killing for food is wrong, and when such kinds of l( ,- killing are not wrong . Type 1 cases (exemplified e.g. in hunting for sport) - - -- ___ _] Base case I ,< conditions fail I X other than rather weak or circular principles. had seemed to be clear turn out on further reflection to be much l ess ,< obvious. \ ESSENTIAL / ,-...__ _ _ _ _ _'-! \ PREDATION..,, For example, it had seemed evident that the onus of jus tification (where this makes sense) characteristically lay with the WATERSHED J(. XCEPTIONAL EXTENSIONS Worse, things chat INADMISSIBLE ADMISSIBLE BASE CASES But it is not so easy to elicit or to defend action-taking party; \t 'I,( that it is the killing or removal of life that muse be justified, not the letting live. Some things, however, are clearer . 'J{ NONLIVE EXTENSIONS First and foremost, a satisfacto ry (nonchauvinistic) a c count K -J KILLING BOUNDARY of when and why killing a creature is wrong won't make exceptions for REARING FOR SLAUGHTER BOUNDARY humans and, more generally, won't contain the term 'human' or logical So far, in considering examples of killing, issue has not equivalents. This important requirement disposes of much of the been taken with enlightened conventional wisdom, with the result chat philosophical literature. a serious , and perhaps unwarranted, discrepancy between the treatment (9p. 135-9), which refer to the (contractual) conditions for human dished out to animals and that accorded humans is beginning to emerge. social life (the mixed account given should be faulted on several other So the judgements made tend to follow conventional practice: grounds as well). killing It wipes out, for example, Ewin's attempts Similarly it removes the main condition eventually humans for food is admitted but happens only in exceptional circumstances, achieved in Glover (a whole text devoted to moral issues concerning killing killing, which fails to present, or seriously address, the matter of animals for food is a pervasive practice. More generally, killing animals for food is considered permissible in a wide range of circumstances where killing humans is not , yet on what solid grounds? . As regards killing, even enlightened conventional moral wisdom returns us to the heartlands of human chauvinism. necessary and sufficient conditions for when killing is wrong) . The first main condition Glover arrives at is that ' taking human life is normally directly wrong: that most acts of killing people would be J/ To avoid it, the matter of wrong in the absence of harmful side-effects' (Gp . 42), i.e . so long killing and letting die will have (like most moral issues) to be as 'the best total outcome' does not involve killing (cf. p . 286), to reconsidered, nonchauvinistically. set down the underlying utilitarian recipe . Other conditions Glover outlines - similarly unacceptable even to their author when 'animal' replaces 'human' - are likewise faulted as damagingly cha,·vinistic, 25 24 for instance that it is wrong to kill a human whose life is worth l iv i ng (Gp . 53) , whenever that is. e . g. burning a collection of seeds (er seedlings) is one thing, burning Secondly , unremarkably, most of the recipes suggested in the a forest is another, slicing up or eating a raw egg is one thing, slicing literature are defective, first among them utili t arian proposals , which, as is well-known can sanction unjust killing. 22 up or eating an eagle is another, etc. Other (non- utilitarian) potential ys me rit the same consideration as ys, as if th ey we r e ys. recipes are also problematic, as a proposal by Young, wh i ch will he l p Call the r.esult of making the required deletio n, th e us on our way, serves to indicate: modified proposal . . . . what makes killing another person [more genera lly a considered . realisation either of the victim's life purposes or of such life- purposes as the victim may reasonably have been narrower utilitarian frameworks and induces a decided circularity, The proposa l requires some brief explanation. The term ' unjust ' , which takes the proposal outside is qualified in the final proposal (p.519) by 'maximally' , the point expected to resume or to come to have (Yp.518; repeated p.519 with 'maximally ' included). of which (though it is not fully explained) is to permit killing or The qualifying term sacrificing of one person in order to save others . 'irrevocable' is inserted to separate killing from life imprisonment I It is the modified proposal that will be chiefly creature] wrong on occasions is its characte r as an irrevocable, [maximally] unjust preventing of their I It is a popular fallacy that which may, as a matter of fact , defeat the prisoner ' s purposes . The long some members of a group (on a lifeboat or from a remote airplane crash) final disjunction is designed to delegitimize killing of sometime comatose are sacrificed for, or by, others of the group . persons (it also would include people undergoing reform programs) - -,hat is ac counled [maximally] unjust. an additional clause is required - and killing of potential future in way, and almost (but not) captial punishment. debatable judgements , such as that in the common case (on Young ' s ified' (p . 528) , ified. 23 from which it follows that abortion is commonly unjust- The disjunct should, it certainly seems, be deleted - especially since what justifies the main part of Young ' s proposal, considerations of what has value, does not justify the final disjunct, because merely potential persons do not appear to have requisite value, though they might (or might not) come to have such. Generally, potential ys do not have the same range of features (including acquired value, etc.) ll Similarly what one is entitled t o do , or feels like doing with r espect to them may differ; If , however, there are no just wars then most killing in war is wrong; and if punishment by death is sometimes just , capital punishment is sometimes not wr.ong. If, for instance, a person's life purposes are sufficiently evil~ e.g. they include genocide, then their fulfilment is certainly pro1, ~ rJ y , justly, thwarted. 0 1· Thus some proviso as to the chara c t e r or qua lit y of life purposes , such as the term 'unjustly ' obliquely supplies , is essential (but often omitted in ethical discussions) . It is not evident however that killing such a person (as distinct, e.g. from imprisonment , re-education, etc.) is permissible, exc ept perhaps in worst cases. ~ • what they become if their potential is realised . For example, Young claims (Ypp.520-1) that the proposal lets through various types of killing persons such as infants and foetl1ses - thereby writing in some very has only 'morally trivial or no moral support abortion will be unjust- But generally what the proposal permits and what it excludes depends critically upon cases already apparently covered, so that it is not obvious that such construal of 'moral') where the expressed wish of the pregnant woman The qualification makes way for certain cases of cannibalism, for instance those where I 26 Ther e is no good r eason to restrict the proposal to persons , and Young does not intend to. 27 Many killings of animals constitute , he t ells us (Yp.526), maximally unjust prevention of their realisation of life purposes, and accordingl y are wrong. ' Killing such animals for food is only justifiable when no adequate of other crea tures). acts are avoided. food supply is available and food i s needful' (Yp . 526), in which event, presumably, justice prevails. A characteris tic remnant of Further it is simply assumed - though it could no doubt be argued (rather as below) - that requisite unjust Young's proposal as applied has bite; human chauvinism also intrudes , with Young a ppealing to the ' greater eschewing killing of creatures for food. 25 range of life-purpose s normally human beings have' (Yp.527, italics that the modified proposal has bite: amended) ; 24 and thereby smuggling in a greater value assumptio n as regards humans. Here, as elsewl1ere also , the account of when killin g is wrong is progressive ly l oaded , almost manipulated , to yield the sought r esults : in particular , what is unjust - including which killings are unjust and which class of life-purpos es are more valuable relevant to det e rmining maximal injustice - are bot h open to rigging. These points help to bring out too how back of Young's accoun t and application s of his proposal lie more basic consideratio ns of justice and value (and it is to such considera tions that we should no doubt eventually turn). Consider, for instance, the route to the permissibil ity of systematic cullings of a herd. Wants , now substituting for li fe -purpose s , are simply supposed to be summed up utilitarian- fashion, except th at (somewhat as with Mill ' s utilitariani sm) a weighting is imposed to reflect the respective values of different wants (those of humans, e . g ., as opposed to those It is an illusion however the bite all turns on Young's cunning application , since the modified proposal itself reduces to near tautologous ness. purposes occur? taken. For when does irrevocable prevention of a life's When, and only when (since it is irrevocable) that life is So the modified proposal reduces effectively to AP. Killing x is wrong iff taking x's life is maximally unjust. But killing x is, according to OED, causing the death of x, which is tantamount, in terms of sense, to taking the life of x. And what is wrong is, according to OED again, what is unjust, and would be, if the OED were sharpened 1,1p a little, what is maximally unjust. Whence the adjusted proposal, AP. The proposal does not rule out killings which have the effect overall of fostering th e wants of the largest subset of some group like a wild herd where otherwise the wants of an even larger subset will be thwarted. Systematic cullings in the absence of feasible alternative s, therefore, may be morally pe rmissible. (Yp.527) for example, it would oblige most of us to adopt a largely vegetarian life-style We have come round a circle, but much was glimpsed on the way, so the circuitous route was not without its rewards. By working through other l ess chauvinistic accounts of the wrongness of killing (e.g. the nonchauvin istic base of Ewin's account) we can come a similar circular way and arrive at the same fairly stable result. Moveover, in the adjusted proposal we do have an account, not yet a hi ghly usable account, since circular, but an account nonetheless . In terms of this account clear cases where cannibalism is morally inadmissable can be distinguishe d, for example as follows: Cannibalism of x is wrong wherever it involves maximally unjust taking of x's life. Conversely, there are many cases where 28 the killing of one creature by another creature is, because not maximally unjust, quite permissible; 29 e.g. certain instances of killing in self-defenc e, exceptional cannibalism , abortion, etc . But if the creature is killed, then it is dead, so by the earli er Now let x and y be of the same species, say Homo Sapiens: argument it is permissible to eat it (under certain conditions) . CAP provides exact conditions for when cannibalism is wrong, in So there are many cases where killing a creature and then eating it, cases where cannibalism involves killing. or its then being eaten, are permissible . conditions are satisfied; If some of the many cases of permissible killing are, as they seem to be, cases of killing a then Sometimes these often they are not. Sorting out when they are, and when they are not, will occupy many a controversi al creature of the same species, then active cannibalism involving killing is, in such cases, permissible . The argument needs of course filling out in crucial respects, especially by some enumeration of types of cases where killing is permissible , and a sub-listing of cases where these are intra-specie s killings. Would this suffice? However, it of the) distinction between killing and letting die, by blurring or rejecting the distinction on which it is based~ that betweem omission and One question is whether the account determines (even in its circular way) the precise conditions under which killing for food can permissibly occur. Letting die is not the same as (active) killing . has recently become fashionable to try to remove the (moral significance The question reduces commission (or else it is pretended that it is frightfully difficl1lt to make this distinction s out, etc.). Rejection of the omission/ commission distinction appears to rest on a mix of fallacious moves:- to the logical issue of whether AP as a strong logical equivalence FMl. A some to all argument, warrants intersubsti tutivity in more highly intensional frames such FM2. A confusion of the thesis that the distinction is morally as those declaring purposes. Though I've tended to vacillate on this issue, my feeling increasingly is that substitutiv ity is warranted, important with the quite different thesis that only commi.ssions can be morally blameworthy and that omissions are morally guiltless (the the reason being that the equivalence of AP is of virtually synonymity position reportedly held by some religious groups in the past). strength, which legitimates replacement in all but quotational (type) FM3. An extensional approach to nonextensio nal differences . sentence contexts. But purpose sentence contexts, such as' ... for eating' are not quotational . FAP. Hence it follows using AP that Killing x for food purposes is wrong iff taking x's life for food is maximally unjust, heavily upon the fact that there are some cases where it is morally difficult to distinguish between certain commissions and certain and that CAP. These points are considered briefly in turn:- ad FMl. Those attempting to discredit the distinction usually rely y's killing x for (and followed by) eating is wrong iff y's taking x's life for eating is maximally unjust. omissions, e.g. that in appropriate circumstanc es exposing the baby may be little different morally from directly smothering it. (The Greeks believed it wasn't but that was because exposure gave the gods a chance to intervene and save from death those who were fated to perform especially important tasks). r JO But the fact that there a r c ~ cases where the JI distinctio n is not of great moral significan ce does not show that it is dispensabl e. In order to show that lt is dispensabl e it is extension ality assumption which removes scope. The principle necessa ry to show that there are no cases where it is needed, that appears to be that failing to provide a condition which would have for all cases failing to provide a condition which would prevent been causally responsibl e for preventing x is morally equivalent to ~x is (morally) equivalent to providing a condition for x. providing a condition which is causally responsibl e for x . But Moral it is easy to produce some cases where the distinctio n seems to be equivalenc e requires interchang eability witin deonitic contexts, essential if we are to account for what we wish intuitivel y to say. indeed it could be characteri sed in terms of such substituti bility . For example, to take a case those who wish to abolish the distinctio n The equivalenc e yielded is of the form -F-x are fnnd nf appealing to, we may wish to say that the people who did commonly falls, especially where Fis not extensiona l. not attempt to help in the Kitty Genovese case were morally culpable, moveover that the causal responsib ility functor is not extension al, perhaps to a high degree, but few of us would wish to say that their and that such a principle fails for it. moral culpabilit y was exactly the same or of exactly the same kind as that of the murderer, and that they should equally be brought to trial on murder ch~rges. Or, to take another case, placing poison in your husband ' s tea is not the moral equivalent of failing to give him the antidote when he has placed it in himself. In order to say +-> Fx. But such a principle It is clear Though letting die differs significan tly, then, from killing, conditions upon when it is wrong may be reached in similar ways. How the condition for letting die correspond ing to AP should go becomes rather more obvious if the righthand side of AP is expanded to: taking (the) action which terminates x's life is maximally unjust. what is evident in such cases, some equivalent of the omission/c ommission The parallel passive condition can th en presumably be formulated distinctio n is needed . thus:- ad FM2. But the thesis that the distinctio n is needed and is morally DP. significan t in many, or at l e a s t ~ , cases must be clearly dis- which continues x ' s life is maximally unjust. 26 tinguished from the very much stronger thesis that all omissions are blameless, and that any commission s are morally open ~o blame - or praisewort hy. This thesis is, rather plainly, indefensib le, yet has been responsibl e for much of the bad light in which appeal to distinctio n appears . ad FMJ. Then in turn, substituti on principles again yield clauses EDP and CDP, correspond ing to EAP and CAP, special cases of which yield conditions under which cannibalism is wrong where it involves letting die. Principle CDP which supplies this condition, where x and y are of the same species, runs as follows:- The principle of moral symmetry between omissions and commission s is in fact refutable. Letting x die is wrong iff refraining from taking (the) action It appears to be based on an CDP. y ' s letting x die for eating purposes is wrong iff y's refraining from taking (the) action which continues x's life, for purposes of eating x, is maximally unjust. Since letting die is, for the most 32 part, less heinous than killing, cannibalism involving letting die 33 i s more widely permissible than cannibalism involving killing . 27 §4 . The matter of predation, and important cases of l egit imat e killing and letting die for food. One tempting model that underlies the conflict picture of Paradigmatic examples of legitimate predation, of predation as basically undesirable but an unavoidable killing are provided by predation, where bis prey of a and a depen ds fact, a model that leads to human vegetarianism, is the following (essentially) for its livelihood, indeed for its survival, on eating kind of atomistic axiological theory (or utilitarianism):- bs.28 Such predat ion i s a n essential part of any su ffici e ntl y rich ecosystem . Essential pr eda tio n i s pre dation which is essent i a l to according to the initial positive value thesis, every living creature (every sentient creature , every higher animal , etc .) has an initial positive the nor,~11 livelihood of tl1e predat or , and where the prcd alor takes non-instrumental value which it retains unless it does something to for itself no more than it requires for it s livelihood. forf eit that value. carn.ivores , such as the big cats , but some humans, such traditional Eskimos, are essential predators. Not only ilS some (On the even simpler position of biospheric egalitarianism, discussed below, all living things have equal worth, The fact that humans ar e part of the natural predatory food chains should not be lost s i g ht o[ . Observe that the argument to permissibility of essential pre- in some nontrivial sense.) These positive values just sum ; and maximisation of value (or suitably averaged value) is, of course , the (or an) ethical objective . Then killing is generally undesirable , dation does ~ take the invalid form: such predation is a fact (a fact because it results in a reduction in net value, and survival is generally of life), therefore it is permissible. That arguments of this type , desirable. 29 The exceptions occur when a creature has forfeited its selectively relied upon by Diamond and (earlier) Hegel, are inval id is value, e . g . it per sists in value-reducing behaviour, so that killing well-enough known (they commit a prescriptive fallacy), and is evident it would prevent a further decline in net value or lead to increase in from such fallacious arguments as the diplomacists' argument, e.g. it is total value . a fact of life that Indonesia has occupied (absorbed) East Timar; when it leads to an overall reduction in value . the re- The underlying theme is that killing is unjustifiable The onus of proof, fore it is pe rfectly alright that Indonesia occupied (absorbed) East Timar. when it can be assigned, lies with those who make the exceptions, who Naturally it would be decidedly awkward if the fact of essential predation do or license the killing . turned out to be impermissible: since, with one item of value consuming another item of value, it trouble. the whole natural order would be in moral This brings us to another defect of the argument from· "facts", Predation now appears as an awkward fact , leads to an overall reduction in value. Since inessential preda tion that it suggests that essential predation is really, at base, something is inessential, it is ruled out as inadmissible. pretty undesirable, but nonetheless something we have to live with - in (nonindigenous) humans for whom predation is, it is plausibl~ argu ed , Thus in particular, contrast with predation, in its associated meaning, as plunder, which we iness en tial, are not entitled to kill for f ood : do n't, or rather oughtn 't to, have to live with morally, and which is usual rai si ng of animals for food, etc . are all excluded in one st r oke , commonly reprehensible. and a l eading feature of vegetarianism imposed . therewith hunting, 34 35 Essential predation is not so satisfactorily dispos ed o f, but introduces conflict. For either one creature, the prey, is sacrificed or another creature, the predator, is: value de c lines . Similar objections apply against biological egalitarianism, either way tot 8 1 In the interim, while vegetarian scientists work even when it is qualified as in Drengson and Naess by an in principle 30 on new diets and new lifestyles for predators, there is an obvious clause. recipe to be applied, which while not eliminating conflict, minimises that predation is rather suboptimal: its effe c t: is strictly ruled out as a general practice. just as steam gives way to sail, so the less valuable gives way to t h e ~ valuable. Thus if humans are reckoned to be It is not (or not only) that it is taken for granted the trouble is that predation Since each lion and each antelope is assigned one unit of whatever is assigned equally, mo re valuable than polar bears - the usual human evaluation - then there is no way of justifying the lifestyle of a lion that consumes polar bea rs are not going to be entitled to prey on humans, in the sens e several antelopes. at least that their predation is not justified. Any equalitarian approach that is E££ atomistic is liable Application of the recip e 31 presupposes a value ranking on creatures under which some are more valuabl e to further incoherence, as Drengson's holism reveals. than others: some living system of living things, e.g . the Earth as on the Gaia otherwise if all are equal, predation is never admissible, and Lets be essential predators just die out - at least that is the simple ethical pic t - hypothesis (p. 233). ure. least of the living things that comprise it, has the same value as This points up one of the many problems for biological egaltarianism. But the picture presented so far is too simple, and tl1e recipes suggested dubious. Then s, which should(?) have the value at each of them (in effect 1 = n, for n>l). Some of t~e ecological consequences of implementing the For if the matter is properly considered not at a given time, but over a time interval, dynamically and not suggested recipes, and reform of essential predators, can now be just statically, it is not so simple, and a rather different result gauged. emerges . the chains of predation are long and complex; One predator takes, over a typical lifetime, rather a lot of prey . Unless the predator ranks very much more highly than Massive environmental interference would be required, since distortions especially in lower-level prey would occur, with resulting the prey, the value of the sum of the prey will exceed that of the ecological instability and often catastrophe. predator. that is, are ecologically highly undesirable. These considerations, in combination with a positive and gross population The consequences, What this and the value thesis, suggest a very different result, that predators should summation problems begin to reveal is that the initial atomistic be allowed to, or encouraged to, die out - unless they are somehow, value distribution picture is inadequate because it leaves out systems what seems improbable for predators that remain wild, converted to and systemic connections such as a more ecological approach would vegetarianism, include, The dynamic picture resorted to is still too simple in one important respect, that over a time interval, prey, which would often exceed natural (and sometimes reasonable) population levels without predation, are replaced. Where population of a preyed-upon species of creature is at an ecological limit, and minor culling of the sort 36 natural predation induces does not, owing to replacement, reduce 37 population levels significantly below that limit, predation has no significant effect on total value, So results yet another, different, recipe, one which is a little nearer the ecologica l mark. 32 farm animals (all of them) can be appropriately filled out, to Some utilitarians, Singer in particular, have recognised exclude replacement of animals with unusual or special properties, the role of replacement a·,1d made some allowance for it (at a serious cost to Singer ' s vegetarianism , it should be added), e.g. those carrying valuable genes, and to allow slaughter, without Singer now allows for killing and replacement of nonselfconscious life, but advances a nonreplaceabllity thesis for self-conscious life. Furthermore, even if a replacement thesis for free-range shorter-term replacement, of those carrying damaging diseases or genes - as it no doubt can, in a modified replacement thesis - still For the basic division Singer appeals to 'Tooley 's distinction' between a nonreplacement thesis fails to allow even for essential predation of selfconscious creatures, and accordingly should be scrapped, beings that are merely conscious and ••• those that Since this pronouncement is likely to be disputed, at least are also self -conscious, in the sense of being able to conceive of themselves as distinct entities, existing by some vegetarians, it is worth trying to indicate why essential over time with a past and a future (Sp.151), At the same time it can be In fact most of the sorts of free-range farmyard animals that Singer predation is perfectly admissible, seems to be envisaging as nonselfconscious, and accordingly replaceable, explained what is still wrong with the tempting dynamic picture and creatures, for instance geese and hens, appear to satisfy Tooley's the initial positive value thesis. tests for selfconsciousness. what is put in as what is left out, Geese are certainly aware of themselves they value members of their own community ; trees, and inanimate such as rocks and buildings,~ have initial and they remember value, but that complexes and wholes, in particular ecosystems, may elements of their past and, in things like nest building (practice), anticipate the future. More important, what has selfconsciousness (reflex- ive consciousness), or consciousness to do with the moral dimension? Until well have initial value, The reduction assumptions underlying value decomposition thereof, itself, because by no means all consciousness of conscious life is _ 32 a to atoms fail , Singer's theses lack foundation and look, while perhaps convenient for that it cannot be duly explained; There are grounds for anticipating for instance, being too valuable to be Such wholes may have value furthermore which is not dissolvable into values of component parts, or atoms this is duly explained - it is not satisfactorily explained as valuable in some traditional farmers, rather ad hoe, What is left out is not just that objects other than living creatures, both animate such as plants and as distinct entities, and of geese as distinct from (and superior to) hens; What is wrong is not So much In terms of the value of wholes such as ecosystems, one of the arguments for essential predation is disarmingly elementary . It takes the form: (sufficiently) rich (natural) ecosystems are Predation is an essential part of these systems . simply replaced, in the sense of having irreplaceable experiences, worth- very valuable, while projects, etc., does not have the requisite linkage with self- What is an essential part of what is very valuable is admissible. consc iousness. Therefore, predation is admissible. Such predation, which may be argued for in other ways , admits of extension by the following principle : 38 EP. If something is entitled to kill for food under certain 39 conditions, e.g. respectfully and when in need, then so are others under the same conditions. §5. The argument for EP is of the same type as that for other Postscript . The paper is very incomplete . It fails to address several issues intimately connected with cannibalism, such as hunting similar indifference, or interchangeability, principles in ethics. of humans and other animals, in particular for food, and as raising It follows from EP and essential predation that, since a tiger may humans and other animals, especially defective infants, for food. when in need kill a cow to eat, then so may humans in need. If Worse, it is evasive on some fundamental issues, and it fails to penetrate very taking the cow's life is not maximally unjust in the one case, nor deeply into some of the issues it does begin to consider, such as is it in the other, since the circumstances are similar. predation, or as the necessary and/or sufficient conditions for admiss- The results reached may be alternatively argued for using principle CP. 33 Perhaps Singer is also on the right track, though he has latched onto the wrong distinction. Perhaps there is a (descriptive) condition q (or a condition qs for each sorts of agent), appropriately ible killing. position. It is little consolation that others are in the same Hopefully some of these deficiencies will be compensated for in subsequent parts. At the same time several themes will be developed that may tied with causing to die, such that while killing creatures without q not have been evident so far, e.g. that in under suitable conditions is permissible, killing creatures with q is far too much killing taken much too lightly, but far too little is not, except under special conditions . 34 general experience of killing and death when it does occur, that is Given that q is 11 modern 11 societies there appropriately morally connected such a procedure would fit into the except usually among small groups mostly of inured professionals, annular picture (given earlier: q would mark out the interior of the which "shield" most humans from the phenomena involved. dotted elipse). Nor need the distinction be chauvinistic, because it cuts across species in a morally defensible way. anything, is q? located? made good? But, what, if Can a suitable morally-unloaded category-based distinction And how disconcerting would it be if some such distinction could no Wait for the next exciting episode . 35 ' 40 FOOTNOTES 41 It was singularly appropriate that this paper should have otained its first (and only) public presentation at the Alfred E. Packer Memorial Center, University of Colorado. I am indepted to several members of the audience for comments and references, and in particular for the first extension of the base case . It is noticeable how people who have never been cannibals despise the horrible thing; and how quickly it disappears when a cannibal tribe comes into contact with a wider world than that Directly merely of their own bush village. daylight falls on the habit, it Withers away . This is remarkable when we remember the sanctity The cannibal of it in primitive man's eyes . is not necessarily a hopelessly degraded brute, but-;-man who has not yet lived out of the dark obscurity of bush tribalism, and so had bli~dly_ followed a practice deep-rooted in the sacrificial These themes are defended, and the annular model explained, in The themes are also defended in HC, p. 103ff., and in AHC. other recent work, e.g. by Tooley and Singer. As the schematic diagram shows, humans do not occupy a central ring. Thus adoption of the model does not imply, what Pickering assumes (p. 374), that 'humans are more~ntral ' or, for that matter, that 'humans are owed more extensive moral consideration Nothing in the model itself depends on humans . than plants'. The model is not species based, or biologically based, but category basect";-and designed to reflect the different sorts of things there are, e . g. things capable of entering into contracts conferring obligations, and things not so capable, things that can have preferences and make choices as opposed to things that cannot (truly, or significantly), things, including systems and Nor, therefore, organisations, with a telos and things without. does the model write in a new type of chauvinism, or confer privilege or moral advantage on things in more central rings. Indeed, things in central rings will have obligations and commitments, and be subject to limitations on what they do, in ways that things further out cannot be; so there will be some As this moral disadvantages in occupying a more central place. indicates, the categories selected are intended to have moral And different sorts of behaviour are morally linkages . appropriate with respect to the different categories of objects. 2. 3. 4. The popular view that dialectics and adoption fraction of assumption themes are dangerous is partly based on a modal fallacy, For the fallacy e.g. that what can be believed is believed . in operation in more intellectually respectable quarters see WW. the Epilogue of Harris Some dialectics are accordingly recommended for anyone convinced that cannibalism must be wrong. The investigations undertaken in this paper alwshare other features with (classic) dialectics: there are many loose ends, and in several crucial areas firm conclusions are not reached. Later parts of the paper will take care of some of these things. Thus Hogg (p. 188), Cannibalism . .. can hardly be said to exist in There may be isolated the world of today. pockets of survival in the heart of New Guinea and among some of the tribes in the remotest corner of South America or African jungles; but they will be no more than the rarest of phenomena. 5. Hopkins, given the last word by Hogg, p. 192. quote from Hopkins is of passing interest: The whole ideas common to man the world over from his earliest days. 6. Some of the advantages of institutionalisation of certain cannibalistic practices are evident, e.g. a_much enh~nced Various disadvantages if not evident should supply of protein. become so in the course of the text. 7. See again in HC and similar. Although the human/nonhuman distinction is not, so it is argued, one of moral significance, not all Other distinctions of moral importance distinctions vanish. - those of the annular model - naturally remain. 8. Of coures, this practice is (still) controversial, and But a offensive to various religious and other groups. great advantage of a pluralistic society is t~at it can acconnnodate (better than alternatives) such differences Issues such as human_ . over the morality of practices . burial and restricted cannibalism, however, make the limits of present pluralism evident . 9. Or else did not incur official establishment disapproval, though the acts strictly appeared to infringe the Every s~~ond_ra~onteur has prevailing law of the land. examples of cannibals not brought to Justice . 10. . This clearly anticipates an initial argument of this My thanks to W. Berryman for drawing my attention paper. to the attitude of the Catholic Church, as presented in Read. 11. Consent in principle will carry the requisited load, and for this it is normally enough that the person would consent. This indicates one logical route to the liberalisation, and removal, of the consent clause. 12. There would (so far) be no trophies, e.g. Z's head ~n the hall, Y's skull on a stand, because trophies involve hunting and killing (for which see below). 13. As some vegetarians would freely admit; other 11 vegetar i ans II f rther and regard the killing of certain (nonself) an1•mals for food as admissible provided no suffering u, go i conscious is incurred and that the animals are replaced. . But it s true that usually 'vegeta;ians do not touch the issue of our attitudes to the dead (D., p.9) . 42 14. 15. In a like vein it is suggested that Singer and Regan do not see that 'a cow is not something to eat; (for them) it is only that one must not help the process along' (D., p. 468). The latter incidentally would not exclude the use of dead creatures for food, leather goods, etc.; things that animal liberationists like Singer definitely exclude. 43 21. Diamond recognizes this objection, p. 471, but does not meet Pace K. Bell, according to whom, Men have always hunted in the fields around Potigny and Falaise . They still do, but no longer their it. own species. 16. 17. 18. In similar ways we are said to gain the concept of an animal; s~~ p. 476. -Diamond introduces this piece of serious confusion in the course of emphasizing why the 'assumption that we all agree that it is morally wrong to raise people for meat ... is not, or not merely, ... too weak' (D.• p . 469). Diogenes Laertius, vol. 11, p. 297. Some of the complex issues concerning hunting will be considered in subsequent parts, others elsewhere. 22. See, e.g., Henson, and also Ewin and RKU . 23. A notable piece of male chauvinism also slides through, in the suggestion that, in Lhe absence of more weighty moral backing, the expressed wish of a pregnant woman is morally trivial. And Sayre reports (p. 25), Cannibalism (uv0pwno~ayCa) is alleged to have been a practice of the Cynics by Philodemus and by Theophilus Antiochenus; but, if so, it must have been confined to their early history, for they had a number of critics during the Christian era who would have mentioned it if they had known of it. Both Philodemus and Theophilus were biassed and we must remember that similar stories were told of the early Christians. However, cannibalism is said to have been authorized by the Republic and Thyestes (or Atreus) attributed to Diogenes and also by the Republic of Zeno and by Cleanthes and Chrysippus (Philodemus, On the Stoics; Theophilus Antiochenus, Ad. Autolycum 3, 5; D.L. 6, 73; Ibid. 7, 188; cf. 28th Letter of Diogenes; Dio Chrysostom 8, 14). As Diogenes Laertius goes on to explain, that 'Chrysippus did countenance the eating of dead humans was one of the points brought against him by those who 'ran him down as having written much in a tone that was gross and indecent'. As regards such attitudes to the dead, times have not changed that much. The (idea of) eating "the dead" (dead humans, of course), under ~ circumstances, is still widely regarded as scandalous, and highly newsworthy (see Read, p . 296 ff). 19. Cannibalism which involves explicit killing for food is a kind of reflexive predation, but generally (cases of) cannibalism and predation only properly overlap. 20. An example would be where some of the survivors of a crash or wreck hunt other "survivors" in order to survive; cf. W. Golding, Lord of the Flies. 24. But one's life-purposes are diminished lhow can this be on Young's picture?) if they jeopDrdise those of others. Hence Young's preparedness to let Amin be killed by the stampeding horses, Yp. 527. 25 . Indeed it leads, as Young interprets it, to a more sensible vegetarianism than Singer's initial position (in Animal Liberation, not as significantly modified in Sp.153). neither culling nor predation are simply ruled out. 26. For Action and taking action should be construed in a wide, but common enough fashion, e.g. the action taken may amount to doing nothing or getting-the-hell-out-of-it. 27. It is tempting to try to prove this on the basis of a proper inclusion assumption, that where letting die is wrong so is killing, but not conversely. The assumption may, however, need qualification; e . g. killing may sometimes be preferable to letting died in a lingering way . 28. 'Predation" is a singularly unfortunate word to be stuck with to describe this universal phenomenon. It is unfortunate both because of its etymology, and because of its other meaning . At to the first, ' predation' derives from praedari, 'to plunder', which derives in turn from praedo, 'booty', As to the second, 'predation' also means a 'practice or addiction to plunder or robbery'. Both carry strong negative connotations. There is a similar damaging duality in the expressions 'prey' and 'prey upon'. 29. These defective considerations also lead to a maximisati~n of population of creatures of the base class assigned values, up to the limit - if any (on frontier philosophers there are none) where declining returns set in . Where, further, humans are typically, but erroneously, assigned greater value than other creatures, the considerations support the rapid biassing of terrestial fauna! population in favour of humans that we are witnessing. The second point does not apply, in that form, . against biol0gical egalitarianism, and the first objection fails where total value is replaced, as under some utilitarianisms (with what justification is less clear, since surely we want to maximise value so far as constraints permit: see RKU), by average value, average value per (base class) life lived, etc. 44 The argument in the text is not affected materially by switching from value analogues of total utilitarianism to analogues of some form of average utilitarianism. On some of the serious problems with these utilitarianisms, see Jamieson. 30. Drengson, following Naess and others, espouses 'biospheric egalitarianism and the intrinsic value of all life' (p. 222). According to the theory, each (living) being has intrinsic value (pp.233-4), and hence each presumably has equal worth (and is entitled, in Singer's terms, to equal consideration , if not equal treatment). In Naess and Drengson this biospheric egalitarianism is qualified by an in principle clause. According to Naess, 'The 'in principle' clause is inserted because any realistic praxis necessitates some killing, exploitation and suppression' (p.95), and according to Drengson, 'This qualification is made with the simple recognition that we cannot live without affecting the world to some degree' (the latter claim is inadequate, because it is not just 'we' who are involved). 31. Axiological approaches that are atomistic have other problems, some reminiscent of those Wittgenstein discusses for logical atomism. In particular, how do we locate the atoms to which value is supposed to adhere fundamentally. A first bad feature of this approach is invariance failure: it matters for final summations how the atoms are chosen, for different choices will assign complexes quite different values. Secondly (Wittgenstein's question), why are some things said to be atoms not complexes, and vice versa. A third group of problems, brought out in HC, concerns the choice of a base class. 32. An environmental ethic s:1oul.:l. also be an ccologic:1 I et!dc, sense of an ecologically realistic ethic. facts are certainly relevant. 32a. A detailed case for this claim 33. j:1 t lH· In this resepct too the appears in Routley and Griffin. Thus rp can be made to yield a good deal more than Young's application of his proposal (for which he offers no proper justification): A creature is entitled to kill another creature of lesser value when its life (and so all its functions, prospects, etc.) depends on it and when it does not kill more creatures than it needs for these purposes. And the dubious business of imposing such order rankings on creatures can be bypassed. 34. The qualifications are necessary. If the latter exceptional conditions clause were not adjoined, the prospe ct of finding a condition q would be wiped out by such cases of essential predation as exceptional human cannibalism. The qualifications, although they enhance the prospects of locating such a q, do not appear to make it analytic or near analytic that such a descriptive q can be found. 45 35. Not only are there many proposals for q to sift through - most of which however seem to fail for reasons already indicated in the text - but also there are apparent options to finding such a distinction, such as resetting the problem, in a less individualistic way, in the framework of (ecological) communities. REFERENCES K. Bell, Not in Vain, University of Toronto Press, 1973, REFERENCES CONTINUED P.E, Devine, 'The moral basis of vegetarianism ', Philosophy 53 (1978) · 481-505 . (all references prefixed with 'V' are to this article) , C. Diamond, ' Eating meat and eating people', Philosophy (references hereto are prefixed by 'D'). 53 (1978) 465-77, Diogenes Laertius, Lives of Eminent Philosophers (edited, with English translation, by R. D. Hicks), Heinemann , London, 1925, A.R . Drengson, ' Shifting paradigms: from the Technocratic to the PersonPlanetary', Environmental Ethics 2 (1980) 221-40, R. E. Ewin, ' What is wrong with killing people? ' Philosophical Quarterly tl..<. (197;t) 126-39. M, Harris, Cows, Pigs, Wars and Witches, Fontana, London , 1977 (hereafter prefixed by 'W.W.'). M, Harris, Cannibals and Kings , Collins , London, 1978 (hereafter prefixed by ' CK '), R. Henson, ' Utilitarianism and the wrongness of killing', Philosophical Review 80 (1971) :1.u,- n7. D. Jamieson,'Utilitarianis m and the value of life', typescript, University of Colorado, 1981. J, Glover, Causing Death and Saving Lives, Penguin, Middlesex, England, 1977 . L.P. Pickering, Review of ' Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century ', Environmental£.£,.~-~ 2 (1980) 373-78 . G. Hogg , Cannibalism and Human Sacrifice, Robert Hale, London, 1958. (references hereto are prefixed by 'H'), R. and V. Routley, 'Against the inevitability of human chauvinism ' in Ethics and Problems of the 21st Century, eds , K, E. Goodpaster and K. M. Sayre, University of Notre Dame Press, 1979, (Hereafter prefixed by ' AHC') . J. Langton, Cannibal Feast, Herbert Joseph, London, 1937. L, Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, Blackwell, Oxford, 1953. A. Naess, 'Self-realisation in a mixed community of humans ·, bears, sheep and wolves', Inquiry 22 (1971) 231-41 , A. Naess, ' The shallow and the deep . long-range ecology movement. Inquiry A s11mmr1ry'~ 16 (1':173) 95-100. P.P, Read, Alive, Avon, New York, 1974. R. and V. Routley, 'An expensive repair kit for utilitarianism', typescript 1976 (hereafter referred to as ' RKU ' ). R. and V, Routley, ' Human chauvinism and environmental ethics' in Environmental Philos~ (ed. D. Mannison, M. McRobbie and R. Routley), RSSS , Australian National University , 1980 (the article is referred to as ' HC' , the book as ' EP ' ), F. Sayre, Diogenes of Sinope , A study of Greek Cynicism, Johns Hopkins University , Baltimore, 1938. P. Singer, 'Killing humans and killing animals', Inquiry 22 (1979) 146- 56, (references hereto are prefixed by ' S '). R. Tannahill, Flesh and Blood. A History of the Cannibal Complex , Hamilton , London, 1975 . Hamish M. Tooley , Abortion and Infanticide, typescript, Australian National University, 1980, R. Young, ' What is so wrong with killing people?' Philosophy 5¥ (1979) (all references prefixed with ' Y' are to this article) , 515-528 R. Routley and N. Griffin, 'Unravelling the meanings of life', available in this series , 1982. ) /.o,..,.,,,, l. ~ / , . ~ tA-- ~ <'"'1 ---- 3/ }o/t/v/~}~4--( ~~ ·~~O·\o ~ --..., \0~'203.l\. <;c..c.tt.,. ~ ~ a.I) . ~~ ~✓:. ,;,,tf ~ .r. ..... ---,(7> o-,.J /' ,,,((; 11 / c, ~ I ( _ ///,;.,/ /c/ (',.,./// 1' ,. ~ L: 1 -=y' 1/ ,/L ~ -=~ t<..,(' •.r<-- <-r-? ,r"'t, 7 ; /4... 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't ,.,. ... ~;: .. t.t..4 r~ c~ /~J I~ ~~ ,H" ._ ~t/ ~l-d_ I (' rt-lrC , I ,,I, /.,_,.. .,.,.____ /4-..- C- ,,,,_ ~ , /4,L._ '-- . ,.__,_ te(A~ / 4 ~ , , fc. ~,;,,d~ t;, ~~7Y24~ h /c r n.., ,W·r ht<I I t!l"--vv-t_. t : - ;{ c.--<- u....., ( , It ~'-? I 1 ,JKc} ~ ~-✓f ;,z.. M~ / tkl-· .:I- / 1 t.~ ,.,e1 ;,-,:. ~ ~"7 f cjrl; ~ I_;.,_ 1 L,,3:-:r;-,1 •-v->-1- • 4, pS,.,(£-.,-. . ftr~ J/4. /red-,~ , _;, ~·~/~<l ' /""= cd/7 ;/ ~<¥<- J,r 7""° 1,/,,:,A -z/1.,/h/7 /,(~ • t:i.C.1 / /d'tr 7 ;:. rJ- ~:,,1 "l j 1 ( ,"'p> '(. f (,~ 0 11/'- 1 t<~ ~ ~ 4-7/J t /2-c. ) 7 /~ ?'~J 1/)):-/. ( / ~r,,.,,__,, ~,:,,..,,...,~ . l)';•.:Z:~-e-M-;I /fa ! ") ;; ,' ~ ~~ L ' A-7~ J~j 1/ ~ ~£" v:_._i eye- ,c. y),6 7 ) \ d,; ~ 1 a,___ r/ d't .ru), Cl»,~ ' ~L The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Cutting, Scholfield B (17 August 1988) 'A human role for the pig', The Weekly Times, 14. (1 leaf) - / / / . -7 / <et ? -·- -·-- C:; /~ ~, u / f l ~ Jc,._ '? ~ (,, ?0_/~ c c:i--l 7 ,5'<.. / 17 -~ ,..-tt'!' . : . - - - ---- ·-- - · · - - - - - - - - - - - - - -- ~oc-. r-c- a., r..,_,/- t .)I~ , ) / ~ ?! / . / c..rc.v ~~ //._ J OAJ 77/c /~/?t:J/f??pvc~ c:>~ 77rr" , I /}(,ifth('i/l'J7lt>p)( ;T//VC/73 ,v - cJ,,,C ~E ./,PH/6:-J ,,f/t;I~ I The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • Typescript, with handwritten emendations and annotation. Two reference reports on Cannibalism I. (2 leaves) Cutting (photocopy) of 'Necessity as a common law doctrine? [6.40] R v Dudley and Systems', The system of criminal law: cases and materials, 544-551. (4 leaves) The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • • Cutting (photocopy) of 20 pages from unidentified publication on Pioneers-Donner Party-The Mormons, 526-545. (10 leaves) Letter, Bill to Richard, 7 Oct 1981 re feedback on Richard Sylvan's paper on cannibalism. (2 leaves) Letter, Robert to Richard, 7 Oct 1981 re feedback on Richard Sylvan’s paper on cannibalism. (2 leaves) I I - I :/.,, f. - - - -- ----------------- - - - - - ----- ---- ----- ___________, --------- ----------·------------- - - ----- - - -- - - -- - - - - - - - -- ------ - - - - - - - - --- $ ~ /~ .2Z- - - - --- - _ _L __ /4 r<./ ...---a~ l 2, ck?- _.:., t';_.~ ~ o_ _s_ ,,. .,/:,_ ~ , {- ~ M7-e;:__ /4?-l, _:., /.: ~ / ; ~ / /--/ ,a-~~ ,4d - - ~ c 1 /dLC4'--=·- - C4--~ _,t:?~7 ,-4,-,/4._ / - /2.; ~<"F' §5 . Raising humans and other animals for food. Humans have lit tle compuncti on, for the most part, in rearing other animals for food . Since healthy animals that are raised for food often excell humans, especially humans that are "defective " in one way or another , little , except considera tions of species , seems to stand in the way of raising such humans for food . We are in the region of Swift ' s modest proposal again . What distinguis hes creatures humans (and other creatures capable of animal husbandry) are entitled to raise for food from creatures that they are not? It is not difficult to state some constrain ts on t he solution of this problem, which also rule out usual solutions . First , the distinctio n should be independe nt of reference to particula r species , especially of reference to the human species , and also indirect reference thereto, by way of phrases such as ' standard ... ' , ' normal ... . ' 'potential ... ' . Secondly - and this furnishes the ground of the first requireme nt the basis of the distinctio n should be morally relevant i n the way that mere zoologica l distinctio ns are not: otherwise chauvinism is not avoided . ' The replaceme nt principle Singer adopts for benign farmyard husbandry fails on this score , among others (the others being that many farmyard animals seem to satisfy the requireme nts for being selfconsci ous beings) . Not being selfconsc ious , which is supposed to justify replaceme nt, under ideal farming condition s , lacks requisite moral linkage . Singer ' s move does however emphasi ze ' 31. two important things . First , the familiar objections to animal husbandry, e.g. on grounds of cruelty or deprivation to animals, are remove.e\ by considering only (ideal) free-range individualised farmyard husbandry . Secondly, some distinction (fit to take its place in the annular picture) with requisite moral linkage is what is sought . Any distinction that is going to work will have to involve the capacities of the creatures concerned , in such a way that the capacities tie with moral features . The capacities concerned are, obviously, capacities connected with being aware of being raised for food . But this is not sufficiently general, being raised for killing or for cartage or for skin or fur or feathers would be similar, and similarly bad or whatever; lacks moral connection . and it still What all the cases have in common which is general, one which has (as already noted) moral connections , is being used as a means . The sought distinction is accordingly made in terms of creatures that are capable of being aware of their case primarily as means for other, for their food , etc. U-creatures, say, as opposed to A-creatures . 21 no means all, are A-creatures: infants are not . Many humans, but Why this distinction? 21 There are probably other requir e ments as we ll: e . g. that not in midst of present worthwhile projects; e.g. Mrs. Goose is not raising young, etc. The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • • • • Photocopy of Young R (1979) 'What is so wrong with killing people?', Philosophy, 54(21):515-528, https://doi.org/10.1017/S0031819100063531. (8 leaves) Cutting, Ewin R (1972) 'What is so wrong with killing people?', The Philosophical Quarterly, 22(87): 126-139, https://doi.org/10.2307/2217540. (14 leaves) Typescript (carbon copy) of untitled paper attached to Ewin cutting. (18 leaves) Photocopy of Singer P (1979) 'Killing humans and killing animals', Inquiry, 22:1-4, 145156, https://doi.org/10.1080/00201747908601869. (6 leaves) Photocopy of one page (157) from Lockwood M (1979) 'Singer on killing and the preference for Life', Inquiry, 22:1-4, 157-170, https://doi.org/10.1080/00201747908601870. (1 leaf) t . • ~ /,o.R-,4-.. ~t ~,, ,,_,;L ~ C~"'1 /C'.tt---? ,.... ,._._ ~ e.-;- __ jf1~ ~ rur 6 ""efc7'/ ~ ,,,<e,,,.,;z,r4? ~ c,,__,,,- .1 ------~ ,,-v-9"' ~ "'-<- r = c:e/4 /4--,- ~/~~-~ P.f.?4 ,..,.,,PE' r e ~ 7~~ y?f /2 ~c;k__/"7'/~ 7 ~ / 7~ / /,..,;,, ~ ,?£ / ~J" r-tr= / t:t_ ~7, /9-7 r~ o-/4-~ ,.ve- / _,/~,/ ;:7'/ /re-v -~ (~ ,,{~9 C'l<-,r /4 ~vr,, 1~ /c{. rL r ,' ~ ,~ 7-£ ~ - - ~ ~ . , , ~; / " ' - - /c~V-- ~ ~ -~ ~ L <r7J\ _0 / ~ ~~ 0 - ~ 7L 7 C-£-..,/,4c,.~~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ /.? ~ ~ =,/---6-- ~ . ~(' ~ ~ cv;·n! ' To -J~ > /~&:, -6-,e> ~ ~ ~7f 7~ ~ /~~ ~,,,_7 ,;,_~ 4/ ~/ C ~~ o/· //4- ~ / ~ /~ 7~ ~ ?¼_ 11 ~ M,- '--+-€- /~1) / ~ ,~ --/?~/ 4:- ..,,.,,,, ,,./" &-"'7/<" c, /4 Ye-/ U.:.... ~ ;/ / 7'~L. . ~ ~,, i 7,2 ~ ~ .,/4 /< ; e-.,, ' ~ ;,I'£ .Y CJ/-?!' , ,_, ·/,,.r.,.-........-,. , ,,__ s « ~ ?< 0~ /~L,, ,4_._ / Cb- i,_,.__1 c-.r r~ /2 re:_ ~ h'L 7 '---71J r-"-"- 3-.. d..-. ~~:; d:....-../ ~ ~_/~ The following have been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. • • • • • • Photocopy of Diamond C (1978). 'Eating meat and eating people', Philosophy, 53(206): 465-479, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3749876. (8 leaves) Photocopy from The Encyclopedia Americana (1978) 'Cannibalism', The Encyclopedia Americana, 2: 543-544. (2 leaves) Photocopy from Britannica Encyclopedia (1969) 'Cannibalism', Britannica Encyclopedia, 4: 785. (1 leaf) Photocopy from Chambers's Encyclopaedia (1966) 'Cannibalism', Chambers's Encyclopaedia, 3: 50. (1 leaf) Photocopy of Naess A (1979) 'Self‐realization in mixed communities of humans, bears, Sheep, and Wolves', Inquiry, 22:1-4, 231-241, https://doi.org/10.1080/00201747908601874. (6 leaves). Photocopy of one page (2273) from unidentified dictionary, Pre-collection to Predecree. (1 leaf) r)I':, t; 1 ·-et I r o-f 6 ?\/ih'i I Jet ~t·.?t'cc If33 •• 11t1;,.,_4,, ;; w ; ~ ) ~,,c._! / //,,,,.---: J:~w ~ J/4 ~"~t New- f'-w1r- > ~:/~4-;-, L 1/75 /I ~-~erY /, • ,I J Lcz ~ ' d cc c e::es ,f c::::e.. ~ .. . -1~ ~~ ;/w,;.,L;:;,',,,._ ,;/ a,~}:z;:__ dL-0~ " 7 1 f,t} 0 ~ ~ A. ~~ - 7'~ - . ' -f ~i,t;i,:___ ~✓~ ~~ . - - /z;j/M?!, ,<4 n/41"? r - / ·~ ·7 - Jo - ~ C:~~ - ~..,;t,J;j,,. - ... c.-C~1/~ - 7"1(~ /'<d~ ..£.... ,;:_~ 74::,,,'~ /k,,. ~~ ~ -4- . ~/17 '_ ~ 1IIE !1i l/lL/7? . ··• .,. Men have always hunted in the fields around They still do, but no • longer their own species. (K. Bell, Not in Vain, University of ~oronto Press, 1973) .,, Petigny and Falaise .  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 59, Item 681: Notes and cuttings on predation (for Cannibalism II) Subject The topic of the resource Typescripts and handwritten notes. Includes copies of published works by other authors and letters. Description An account of the resource Published works and letters redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Routley&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Routley</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 59, Item 681 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. 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Type The nature or genre of the resource Notes and cuttings Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:de64185">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:de64185</a> Box 59: Nuclear Como House Como House > Cupboard > Pile 3 https://www.antipodean-antinuclearism.org/files/original/751b703fda71fa9f2929cc0337db77cb.pdf 1419dad761d2e92700a8b87ce6cff449 PDF Text Text ff/(E~,r/f# . - c" : { ~7 / ~~c;.- l1fC~ / · 00682 1 �-- - t - ,...,, ..,, ? ., .. ..,,, ~ rr r,~ "4• -~11,1fL ~ • r~~ .u"1 .5 . ,...,,-,.,~ r;•_ eJry- 1V'lit .. rI .--, -.Hl,_ °",' .::_-.,"tt/,,,,- r-.:'1 ~llA~ f'r°' Iy,-~ - ~ ~•,'f _,., Y-"'" - ';,--~~J - w,f - /4- ~ r~ r --"""""""le - - ~vn,)'l - ',1 . - -,,y ""r,tiVJ~ra-n() -r- ·i 1tr'-lll#-J -- ,r ---,vv,7n - I -'- ---- -- ----~ ~- "',J,"0 --""11- - . , f ~ f' __ ,_ ,.,.,,,..,an, -; . . .-, -,,,,..,..,,,,~JKT- r,,..if,~A'F-:. - ..,·....,or--7 - = u<-1..,)"'<'1 . -r --f -- - ~ - - - ··- ~ - =-- ,...__,_...,,, "1 --- ~ CJ - r.• - C...0,7 0""1?' 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M0 t~V7...:.7L1-.L..: . ~< VG~1/~~~ ;//;;_~ ~ ' Jf/C-?.-.Y- o/.J tiof is 1e of e- e S- e is of is 's 's 's s, re d at to re to et of is er of re id n d e in If r. / The correctness of loving and hating, like that of truly, or correctly, then the hypothetical judgment bejudging, is objective in that it' is impossible for anyone to comes: "He apodictically rejects judgers who are both correctly what anyone else hat.es correctly or to love love disjuncThe correct A-acceptors and correct B-rejectors." what anyone else hates incorrectly. incorrectly there or A's are there either that judges "He tive judgment Ethics must make use of the comparative concept bet• are B's" could then become "He apodictically . rejects ~ ;11r\ ter than, for which there is no analogue in the theory of judgers who are both correct A-rejectors and correct B1 . ~ ) knowledge. "A is better than B," according to Brentano, rej:.!ctors." h..1 ,- • means that it is correct to prefer A, as an end, to B. The philosophical consequences of this nonpropositionEvidence and truth. Brentano's views on evidence and ~___,.al theory of judgment are far-reaching. One consequence is · truth may be found in the posthumously published ~ an interpretation of Kant's dictum that "existence" is not a Wahrheit und Evidenz (Oskar Kraus, ed., Leipzig, W30). ( predicate. According to Brentano, when we say that A The distinction between judging on the basis of evidence 'exist: of attribute an exists, "it is not the conjunction of and judging "blindly" is not to be described in terms of ence' with 'A,' but 'A' itself which we affirm." The word instinct, feelings, degree of convictio.n, or impulse to be"exists" is a synsemantic tern1 that is used to express the lieve. We arrive at the general concept of being evident, act of judgment. according to Brentano, in the same way we arrive at the All of the doctrines set forth above fall within the provconcept of a correct emotion: by contemplating actual Unpsychology. ince of what Brentano called descriptive instances of the concept, in this case actual instances of and genetic ng psychology-includi experimental like evident judgments and of blind judgments. physiological psychology-descrip tive psychology, accordEvery evident judgment is either directly or indirectly ing to Brentano, is an exact science, capable of arriving at if a judgment is indirectly evident, tts evidence is evident; laws that hold true universally and not merely . "for the ultimately, by judgments that are directly eviconferred, even is and philosophy all for basis most part." It is the dent. Directly evident judgments are of two kinds. First, capable of providing a characteristica universalis of the there are the judgments of "inner perception," such as the sort that Leibniz had conceived. J)escriptive psychology is that I am now judging in a certain way, that I judgments closely related to what Husser! was to call phenomenolsuch-and-such, that I think I remember so-andsee to seem from Vienna in ogy. Husser! had studied with Brentano so. Second, there are judgments of reason or insights (Ei111884 to 1886, when Brentano used the expression besichten), such as the judgments that two things are more schreibende Phiinomenologie ("descriptive phenomenolthan one thing; that that which is red is, as such, other than ogy") as an alternative name for descriptive psychology. that ·which is green; that there cannot be a triangle with of doctrine Brentano's (Husser! later wrote that without four sides; or that a whole cannot exist if its parts do not intentionality, "phenomenology could not have come into exist. being at all.") Brentano's conception of psychology has led Every judgment that is evident is true, but not every some of his critics to accuse him of what Frege and Husthat is true is evident. Most judgments of "outer judgment does serl called psychologism. However, this accusation (of the external world), Brentano believed, are perception" his and evidence of theory Brentano's account not take into true, but all of them are "blind"; they are not evident. He moral philosophy, both of which he took to be branches of argued, howeve r, that the hypoth esis of a three-dimendescriptive psychology. sional external world , with its familiar details concerning Moral philosophy. Brentano's ethical views are set forth physical bodies, has an "infinitely greater probability" ed., 3d 1889; (Leipzig, Erkenntnis in Ursprung sittlicher than any of its alternative s. Judgments based on memory, Oskar Kraus, ed., 1934), translated by Cecil Hague as The too, are "blind"; but many of them confirm each other, and Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong (London, they are worthy of our confide nce. 1902), and in Grundlegung und Aujbau der Ethik ("The In WahrheU und Evidenz Brentano characterized truth ed., Mayer-Hillebrand, . Basis and Structure of Ethics," F reference to evidence: "Truth pertains to the judgment by assumpthe upon ethics his based Bern, 1952). Brentano of the person who judges correctly ... hence it pertains tion that the members o( the third class of mental pheto the judgment of one who asserts what the person who nomena, loving and hating, may be said to be correct or judges with evid e nce would as sert" (p. 130). In addition, incorrect, just as judgments may be said to be correct or into say that A exists is to say that anyone who judged about correct. To say that something,_!\, is good is to say that it ') lrl' with evidence would accept A, and to say that A does not A ~~I , apodictiis it is, that is impossible to love A incorrectly; exist is to say that anyone who judged about A with evi / ~ .> cally to reject incorrect lovers of A Analogously, to say that dence would reject A The "measure of all things," then, is rect haters of A A is bad is apodictically to ga· the man who judges with evidence. The only way to grasp the concept of correct emotion, However, these statements, relating truth to evidence, emoof cases actual according to Brentano, is to contrast not give us the whole of Brentano's theory of truth . do emotions of cases with correct" as "qualified are tions that "Evident" is said to be predicate in the strict sense of the that are not. This is analogous to the way in which we term, but "true" and "exists" are not, being only synseunderstand, for example, what it is to be red and what it is mantic. This brings us to Brentano's theory of categories. · to be colored. Thus we learn that knowledge is good, joy Theory of categories. The basic theses of Brentano's enrichment every bad), is what in is good (unless it is joy theory of categories may be stated as (I) there is nothing within the realm of ideas is good, love of the ood is ood, IJJI other than concrete particular things, and (2) every judglove of the a is bad and the ri ht end in life is to choose prr I ..1 l __,,,..._...._4 ..-........ _...._.... .•.Jl &.t. ! .._... t...l ...... ---- _____ .i~ :hP f'C lliO.t..!l.nCP n. thP u>iP •tinn of. c;_on1P �The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Photocopy of title page and two pages from McAlister L L (ed) (1976) The philosophy of Brentano, Duckwort, 36-37. 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"'~ .,, ·u -- ~ » 7, ✓t:C,//,d , y ... ?..,., 1 7, r •- 'f/,, J'(_) Brentano could hardly have reMaLned LndLscrLMi,nate apptaudLng u~ LlLtarLanLsM (such as of pte.3sures BenthaM's); Lntellectually or "posi,tLve" coMfortabLe E>nJc, Hon wLth of stLl,I, 1,ess coutd /4e ever ctLMb down to a MaterLal,LstLc eMpLrLcLsM whLch reMoved entLreLy the LdeaLLsM of CathoLLcLsM. though a strong eMpLrLcLst pas Lt Lon one. of C~ ~~ i..c eMp_i..: i..c LsM i,s .3n uns t.3b Le one_ Bren t.3no ach i,eved so Me teMporary stabi..LLty by spLrLtual So drLve Ls at work Ln Brentano, whLch Ls ManLfested especLaLLy Ln hLs exLstentLaL reductLon prograM, Lt Ls a heavLLy qualLfLed The the reaLM, where a two God world dLstLnctLon, between theoretLcaL or was the greatest good, and a practLcaL or secular reaLM, where utLLLtarLanLsM prevaLLed. 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M0 t~V7...:.7L1-.L..: . ~< VG~1/~~~ ;//;;_~ ~ ' Jf/C-?.-.Y- o/.J tiof is 1e of e- e S- e is of is 's 's 's s, re d at to re to et of is er of re id n d e in If r. / The correctness of loving and hating, like that of truly, or correctly, then the hypothetical judgment bejudging, is objective in that it' is impossible for anyone to comes: "He apodictically rejects judgers who are both correctly what anyone else hat.es correctly or to love love disjuncThe correct A-acceptors and correct B-rejectors." what anyone else hates incorrectly. incorrectly there or A's are there either that judges "He tive judgment Ethics must make use of the comparative concept bet• are B's" could then become "He apodictically . rejects ~ ;11r\ ter than, for which there is no analogue in the theory of judgers who are both correct A-rejectors and correct B1 . ~ ) knowledge. "A is better than B," according to Brentano, rej:.!ctors." h..1 ,- • means that it is correct to prefer A, as an end, to B. The philosophical consequences of this nonpropositionEvidence and truth. Brentano's views on evidence and ~___,.al theory of judgment are far-reaching. One consequence is · truth may be found in the posthumously published ~ an interpretation of Kant's dictum that "existence" is not a Wahrheit und Evidenz (Oskar Kraus, ed., Leipzig, W30). ( predicate. According to Brentano, when we say that A The distinction between judging on the basis of evidence 'exist: of attribute an exists, "it is not the conjunction of and judging "blindly" is not to be described in terms of ence' with 'A,' but 'A' itself which we affirm." The word instinct, feelings, degree of convictio.n, or impulse to be"exists" is a synsemantic tern1 that is used to express the lieve. We arrive at the general concept of being evident, act of judgment. according to Brentano, in the same way we arrive at the All of the doctrines set forth above fall within the provconcept of a correct emotion: by contemplating actual Unpsychology. ince of what Brentano called descriptive instances of the concept, in this case actual instances of and genetic ng psychology-includi experimental like evident judgments and of blind judgments. physiological psychology-descrip tive psychology, accordEvery evident judgment is either directly or indirectly ing to Brentano, is an exact science, capable of arriving at if a judgment is indirectly evident, tts evidence is evident; laws that hold true universally and not merely . "for the ultimately, by judgments that are directly eviconferred, even is and philosophy all for basis most part." It is the dent. Directly evident judgments are of two kinds. First, capable of providing a characteristica universalis of the there are the judgments of "inner perception," such as the sort that Leibniz had conceived. J)escriptive psychology is that I am now judging in a certain way, that I judgments closely related to what Husser! was to call phenomenolsuch-and-such, that I think I remember so-andsee to seem from Vienna in ogy. Husser! had studied with Brentano so. Second, there are judgments of reason or insights (Ei111884 to 1886, when Brentano used the expression besichten), such as the judgments that two things are more schreibende Phiinomenologie ("descriptive phenomenolthan one thing; that that which is red is, as such, other than ogy") as an alternative name for descriptive psychology. that ·which is green; that there cannot be a triangle with of doctrine Brentano's (Husser! later wrote that without four sides; or that a whole cannot exist if its parts do not intentionality, "phenomenology could not have come into exist. being at all.") Brentano's conception of psychology has led Every judgment that is evident is true, but not every some of his critics to accuse him of what Frege and Husthat is true is evident. Most judgments of "outer judgment does serl called psychologism. However, this accusation (of the external world), Brentano believed, are perception" his and evidence of theory Brentano's account not take into true, but all of them are "blind"; they are not evident. He moral philosophy, both of which he took to be branches of argued, howeve r, that the hypoth esis of a three-dimendescriptive psychology. sional external world , with its familiar details concerning Moral philosophy. Brentano's ethical views are set forth physical bodies, has an "infinitely greater probability" ed., 3d 1889; (Leipzig, Erkenntnis in Ursprung sittlicher than any of its alternative s. Judgments based on memory, Oskar Kraus, ed., 1934), translated by Cecil Hague as The too, are "blind"; but many of them confirm each other, and Origin of Our Knowledge of Right and Wrong (London, they are worthy of our confide nce. 1902), and in Grundlegung und Aujbau der Ethik ("The In WahrheU und Evidenz Brentano characterized truth ed., Mayer-Hillebrand, . Basis and Structure of Ethics," F reference to evidence: "Truth pertains to the judgment by assumpthe upon ethics his based Bern, 1952). Brentano of the person who judges correctly ... hence it pertains tion that the members o( the third class of mental pheto the judgment of one who asserts what the person who nomena, loving and hating, may be said to be correct or judges with evid e nce would as sert" (p. 130). In addition, incorrect, just as judgments may be said to be correct or into say that A exists is to say that anyone who judged about correct. To say that something,_!\, is good is to say that it ') lrl' with evidence would accept A, and to say that A does not A ~~I , apodictiis it is, that is impossible to love A incorrectly; exist is to say that anyone who judged about A with evi / ~ .> cally to reject incorrect lovers of A Analogously, to say that dence would reject A The "measure of all things," then, is rect haters of A A is bad is apodictically to ga· the man who judges with evidence. The only way to grasp the concept of correct emotion, However, these statements, relating truth to evidence, emoof cases actual according to Brentano, is to contrast not give us the whole of Brentano's theory of truth . do emotions of cases with correct" as "qualified are tions that "Evident" is said to be predicate in the strict sense of the that are not. This is analogous to the way in which we term, but "true" and "exists" are not, being only synseunderstand, for example, what it is to be red and what it is mantic. This brings us to Brentano's theory of categories. · to be colored. Thus we learn that knowledge is good, joy Theory of categories. The basic theses of Brentano's enrichment every bad), is what in is good (unless it is joy theory of categories may be stated as (I) there is nothing within the realm of ideas is good, love of the ood is ood, IJJI other than concrete particular things, and (2) every judglove of the a is bad and the ri ht end in life is to choose prr I ..1 l __,,,..._...._4 ..-........ _...._.... .•.Jl &.t. ! .._... t...l ...... ---- _____ .i~ :hP f'C lliO.t..!l.nCP n. thP u>iP •tinn of. c;_on1P The following has been redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Photocopy of title page and two pages from McAlister L L (ed) (1976) The philosophy of Brentano, Duckwort, 36-37. (2 leaves) .P .f'? t__ ·-1c /'~'i.- -- 1 Z, /-,,v / Ca-e... t it(_,; ; ~ • // ce~ ,-.- fc/YYC. /; ~~ /«., /~ ~- / ~ / d ,of ✓ ~ 1 J {,:, ~ -:: ;}7 ~ - ~ 7?"/ c //p / ,,,--,-- c £.;,7 .,, u;,-< ✓c. ~ "&~ / r /2 ~ ~ / l 7~ t"~~ ,' •• •• ;Jo ;ft<J1 o -;::: 1/4 ~/~ _:; ~.✓- ~ ~2:. __., -, ft ~~; ~ ~ ~ ~ "',,,: :~ / C ~ .-/ ~ ,G;_:__ ~ ~ ~ ?~--..__ ~4/ I ?~/ -~_ _'_~  Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Box 59, Item 682: Notes and cuttings on Franz Brentano Subject The topic of the resource Handwritten and typescript notes. Includes copies of published works by other authors Description An account of the resource Published works redacted from access file (PDF) due to copyright restrictions. Title in collection finding aid: Manilla Folder - Brentano - Better, = Correct Pref. RS: many v. misc ms notes on Brentano (but also other topics: including Broad on Sidgwick). Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org/items/browse?search=Richard+Sylvan&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bjoiner%5D=and&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Belement_id%5D=39&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Btype%5D=&amp;advanced%5B0%5D%5Bterms%5D=&amp;range=&amp;collection=&amp;type=&amp;user=&amp;tags=&amp;public=&amp;featured=&amp;exhibit=&amp;geolocation-mapped=&amp;geolocation-address=&amp;geolocation-latitude=&amp;geolocation-longitude=&amp;geolocation-radius=10&amp;submit_search=Search+for+items">Richard Sylvan</a> Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <span class="MuiTypography-root-125 MuiTypography-body2-126">The University of Queensland's <a data-testid="rek-series" href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/records/search?page=1&amp;pageSize=20&amp;sortBy=score&amp;sortDirection=Desc&amp;searchQueryParams%5Brek_series%5D%5Bvalue%5D=Richard+Sylvan+Papers%2C+UQFL291&amp;searchMode=advanced">Richard Sylvan Papers UQFL291</a></span>, Box 59, Item 682 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available <a href="https://antipodean-antinuclearism.org">Antipodean Antinuclearism: (Re)constructing Richard Routley/Sylvan's Nuclear Philosophy</a> Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource This item was identified for digitisation at the request of The University of Queensland's 2020 Fryer Library Fellow, <a href="https://najtaylor.com" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. N.A.J. Taylor</a>. Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource For all enquiries about this work, please contact the Fryer Library, The University of Queensland Library. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource [37] leaves. 14.09 MB. Type The nature or genre of the resource Manuscript Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context <a href="https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:00cae17">https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:00cae17</a> Box 59: Nuclear Como House Como House > Cupboard > Pile 3