Just War and Pacifism Essay

Betrayal, one of the most horrible things you could do to anyone your family, a friend anyone. To me it’s one of my all time most hated things a person could do and it’s almost unforgivable. In this book A Separate Peace by John Knowles two boys Phineas and Gene who are best friends at a boarding school in New Hampshire experience some of the worst kinds of Betrayal you could think of. Gene commits a very bad betrayal when he jousts the tree limb they are both standing on ending up with Finny falling and badly breaking his leg. This was no accident because Gene can’t stand the guilt.

“For war, as a grave act of killing, needs to be justified.” These words were written by Murray N. Rothbard, dean of the Austrian School and founder of modern libertarianism, who spent much of his academic career trying to determine what, exactly, defined a “just war”. In fact, for as long as humans have been fighting wars, there have been quotations referring to the justification and moralities of wars and how warfare can be considered fair and acceptable to each society’s individual standards. While the time and place of each war differs, the reality of the devastation of battle may be found warranted by those fighting using these just war standards to vindicate their actions.

As Carl Jung once stated, “Man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious”. To reach a peaceful reconciliation, one must learn to embrace two distinct elements of their personality, the "Persona" and "Shadow." Likewise, in the bildungsroman, A Separate Peace, author John Knowles depicts the common rivalry between young adolescents, and how they struggle to accept their identity and the relationship between their unconscious self. Gene, a Devon High student, becomes best friends with Finny and grows jealous of his ostensibly flawless friend, causing him to make a life-changing decision. His struggles to reach an inner balance between his “Persona” and “Shadow” lead to the ultimate death of Finny. Gene’s transformation involves the changes of his mask and “Shadow”—from guilt and jealousy to pride and tolerance—which results in the later acceptance of the light and dark parts of himself, allowing him to truly reach adulthood and a state of peace.

One important theory within International Relations shows a moral aspect on how to conduct war. This theory is called Just War Theory. Just War Theory is a doctrine of military ethics from a philosophical and Catholic viewpoint. This theory consists of two parts: Jus ad bellum (the right to go to war) and Jus in bello (right conduct within war).

"Your surroundings may change but your essence and your personality pretty much stay the same" (Dewan). The setting of the novel A Separate Peace is at an all boys school located in New Hampshire. The characters and plot are finely woven into the fabric of this institution. However, would events in this novel turn out differently if the story was set in a public high school, with a diverse environment? The characters and plot of A Separate Peace are not solely driven by their surroundings because the boys would still break the rules, Gene would have internal conflicts, and the war would affect the students.

Many people tend to think war is a part of life that mankind will never be able to rid itself of. This comes from the assumption that war is one of the basic needs of mankind. However, Margaret Mead does not make this assumption. In fact, she denies its credibility in her essay “Warfare is Only an Invention – Not a Biological Necessity.” In this essay, Margaret Mead combines a great deal of logos and ethos with limited pathos to support her pacifist claim that warfare is merely an invention of man, and not a need found in the very nature of man. While Mead’s claim does not agree with the most common beliefs about warfare, its mixture of logos and ethos is as strong as the bricks and mortar of a

The legitimate defense of a nation and the responsibility of the Security Council to take actions in the course of maintaining peace within its areas of influence. With the establishment of United Nations and the modernization of war and its materials; the theories and doctrines of the past also needed to evolve. The modern Just war theory in composed of two principles: jus ad bellum, the right to conduct war, and jus in bello, the correct conduct within war. Each principle also has its own set of criteria to follow. Jus ad bellum contains six: Just cause, right intention, proper authority and public declaration, last resort, probability of success, and proportionality. (Orend, 2006)

St. Augustine provided comments on morality of war from the Christian point of view (railing against the love of violence that war can engender) as did several critics in the intellectual flourishing from the 9th to 12th centuries. Just war theorists remind warriors and politicians alike that the principles of justice following war should be universalizable and morally ordered and that winning should not provide a license for imposing unduly harsh or punitive measures or that state or commercial interests should not dictate the form of new peace. “The attraction for jus post bellum thinkers is to return to the initial justice of the war”. This means that war is considered as self-defense.

One of the components of war that make it justful is that the cause of the war must be just. In other words, the attacking country must inflict lasting, grave, and certain damage for it to qualify as just to fight back. Also if basic human rights are being violated by a group of people then it is just for another entity to decide to go to war to free the victims of the inhumane aggressors and their torments upon the innocent human beings.

Pacifism is the belief that violence is not the way to resolve differences. They believe that war can be avoided and that there are better and longer lasting solutions to disputes.

According to traditional just war theory, a just cause must serve peace and not simply protect an unjust status quo. War must be used as a last resort and all pacifistic approaches must be

If the President planned to start a new war against ISIS for the attacks on American embassies in Iraq, Egypt, Jordan, and Libya, that war would be justifiable on moral grounds. Using Just War Theory, jus ad bellum, jus in bello, and jus post bellum, I can show that this war would be just in that it is for the defense of American citizens, the main goal is to rid Iraq of terrorist and to end the civil war in Syria, and after the war to prevent these nations from becoming terrorist sanctuaries in the future. Some perspectives such as pacifism would disagree with this view though. From lecture 12.2 War and Just War we know that the pacifism perspective denies that war is ever right morally, while the realism and idealism perspective argue that you shouldn’t think about the moral justifications of war and that war is morally just in some cases. From lecture 12.2 and from lecture slides 12, jus ad bellum is the justification for the issuing of a war.

“War may sometimes be a necessary evil. But no matter how necessary, it is always an evil, never a good. We will not learn how to live together in peace by killing each other’s children. This famous quote is from James Earl “Jimmy” Carter, Jr., who served as the 39th President of the United States. It implies that war can be justified under strict circumstances where it can be necessary, but it is still abhorrent. War is defined as a state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country. Justification refers to the action of showing something to be right or reasonable. War brings many negative and catastrophic impacts not just to the country, but to the people living in the country as well, which this paper

The Just War Theory is a doctrine founded by Saint Augustine which has helped bring much discussion and debate to wars and the morality to fight in them. Wars and fights between people have gone on forever and are not perceived to stop anytime soon so it is important that some people thought about when and why they should ever fight. For many years Christians never part toke in this fighting due to teachings of the Bible and Jesus' teaching on 'turning the other cheek' and 'live by the sword, die by the sword'. Saint Augustine would be one of the first to talk about how a Christian could be a soldier and serve God at the same time. Through this thought we would receive the Just War Theory which gave a set of requirements for someone to partake

The state of nature must abide by three important principles: no government, complete freedom, and perfect equality. While the guarantee of these three truths may be bumpier than they sound, a state of nature is when all of these should theoretically exist. First, the government would be absolutely absent, as it is “what state all men are naturally in” (Chapter 2, Section 4). Locke is clear about the need for this as a beginning. We do not begin with a premade government, we begin with the state of nature. This