The Unavoidable Evils of Violence and War - Anscombe

In this essay, I will disagree with Anscombe's arguments around war and murder and provide arguments favouring a more pacifistic stance. I will begin by explaining Anscombe's position concerning war and murder, touching upon her stance on the necessity of violence and the dangers of pacifism. Next, I will provide a rebuttal to Anscombe's stance on pacifism. Then I will argue that Anscombe fails to consider the harms done to innocents effectively. Ultimately I will conclude my paper by arguing that it is not only wrong to strike first but to strike at all, regardless of who is in the right.
Anscombe begins her argument by separating the two possible attitudes towards the use of violence; the first one which she disagrees with is the notion that the use of coercive power through violence is an embodiment of the 'absolute jungle' that is society. She agrees with the opposite claim, which states that the exercise of coercive violence creates a society that is much less of a jungle than it would be without ( Anscombe, 45). Anscombe begins her argument favouring this ideology with a statement that many of us readers will agree that society is an essential requirement for humans to reach their full potential. She asserts that this kind of society is impossible to create or maintain without rulers and laws whose power is maintained by coercive violence. Anscombe holds that violence is necessary to defend the nation from external threats such as attacks on their borders from other countries and groups whose activity directly harms the nation but is outside the reach of the law ( Anscombe, 47). She also sees a need to use coercive power to protect the country from internal attacks, such as when citizens attempt to overthrow the government.
While it may seem at first glance that Anscombe is promoting the wide use of coercive violence, her argument is much more nuanced than that. She still believes that violence used without proper motives and justifications is wrong and understands that a large portion of wars was wrong due to their greedy, malicious, and hate-fueled justifications. However, Anscombe does not see this as proof that violence is necessarily evil; instead, she argues that violence is only wicked when used by somebody pursuing an objectively wrong end. Anscombe further specifies this portion of her argument by claiming that even though the right to inflict death upon another deliberately is reserved for rulers, this does not give them free rein to wage wars and commit violence wantonly( Anscombe, 50). Instead, their use of violence is only justified when pursuing an objectively right goal, such as fighting to end slavery, not a goal that they consider right ( Anscombe, 47). When a ruler is engaging in an objectively right campaign, Anscombe believes that they are justified in engaging in mortal struggles up to and including making the first act of war. However, Anscombe draws the line at targeting innocents regardless of how objectively right the rulers' cause is.
Anscombe also has something to say regarding the use of the principle of double effect to justify murder. She claims that we have incorrectly turned the principle of the double effect into a way to justify almost anything ( Anscombe, 57). For example, incorrect use of this principle would be attempting to justify the civilians killed in bombing a city because the 'intention' of the bombing was to destroy some terrorist cell and the civilians killed was just an accident. Anscombe instead believes that there is no difference in the evil committed whether the act was an intended effect or just a foreseen effect. Instead, she sees this principle to mean that if the evil act that occurred was neither the intended effect nor the chosen means of achieving your ends, you are morally innocent of that act.
As one may conclude by reading Anscomes's argument in favour of war and coercive violence, Anscombe was not a follower of the doctrine of pacifism. She claims that the profound belief that the exercise of coercive power is never warranted can land you in a more violent place than if you never engaged in pacifism. Anscombe claims that the most potent ingredient in the creation of pacifism is Christianity, although the image of Christianity that it is based upon is wrong ( Anscombe, 52). Pacifists take the Christian commandment of 'turning the other cheek' and turn it into an ideal that is so unreachable that they are essentially setting themselves up to fail. She maintains that pacifist values are so unattainably high, when its practitioners are presented with a challenge to their ideals, they will have no choice but to completely go the other way and lead to some atrocious acts ( Anscombe, 53). She claims that pacifism teaches its followers that there is no difference between the killing of innocents and any human, which convinces them that numerous actions are evil when they are not. Anscombe sees this inability to see a way to avoid committing evil leads pacifists to remove all limits from their actions which is the cause of the aforementioned atrocious acts that Anscombe claims to be the logical end to pacifism ( Anscombe, 56).
This argument around the dangers of attempting to practice pacifism and its supposed logical conclusion is where the most glaring fissures appear in Anscombe's arguments. In claiming that the logical conclusion of pacifism is committing monstrous acts, she makes a rather hasty conclusion and, in my opinion, does not back it up with enough evidence or compelling arguments. In claiming that anyone practicing pacifism is basing it either purposefully or inadvertently on Christian ideals, she fails to consider the myriad of reasons people disdain violence. People can become pacifists simply because they believe hurting another is wrong because they have seen how ineffective violence is at attaining virtuous ends. Perhaps they have been on the receiving end of violence and thus commit themselves to making as few people suffer the way that they did as they can. However, this is not even the most contested point in Anscombe's discussion about pacifism; rather, her claim that the logical end to pacifism is monstrous violence is laughably invalid. Pacifists are not simply virtue signalling and eagerly waiting for an excuse to become violent monsters. When someone is genuinely a pacifist, they desire not to harm anybody regardless of their innocence, so the logical conclusion would be doing no harm, not committing atrocious acts. What Anscombe claims to be the catalyst that pushes pacifists to become monsters and meet her quite simply makes no sense. Pacifists already understand that pacifism dictates one avoid violence regardless of who is made to suffer it. So the claim that the knowledge that pacifism forces them to avoid all violence no matter who it is against will drive them to forgo their morals entirely is a false conclusion. It is akin to claiming that the logical conclusion to an animal product-free diet and then being informed that products from chickens are considered an animal product is to become a carnivore who hunts and butchers their meat.
Anscombe also creates a contradiction in her augment when she asserts that it is unacceptable to kill innocent parties, even if they are engaged non-violent in work that helps the enemy, such as farming( Anscombe, 49). Claiming that the killing of innocents is wrong regardless of if you are fighting for some objectively right reason or not. However, she fails to consider this statement's broader implications or properly dictate what she believes constitutes innocence. Is somebody forced into the military under duress innocent? Is the patriot who knows little of politics aside from the fact that their nation is invaded and fellow citizens are being slaughtered deserving of death? Does she consider those caught in the crossfire, the countless orphans created by killing soldiers, or the abuse inflicted upon children by those suffering from PTSD? These innocents subjected to deaths and suffering are not the intent of those waging war with an objectively right goal. However, anyone with modest intellect would be able to foresee these events. While one may say that it is acceptable because it was not the intent of the attack, Anscombe's own argument on the principle of double effect states that there is no difference between intent and foreseen effects. Thus by stating that war is moral and necessary, Anscombe states that the deaths of innocents are also moral and acceptable, contradicting herself.
This damage that war has on innocents is the primary rationale behind my argument that it is always wrong to strike a country and wage war. Obviously, if you are being invaded it is moral to fight back with lethal force; however, it should remain a defensive last resort. There are many alternatives to waging a war that one can use to attempt to get their way and even if you are objectively right, you should not hastily turn to violence. This is for two reasons, the first of which was touched upon above, and it is the unavoidable innocent casualties that will occur when war is waged. The second is simply the fact that violence breeds violence. For example, a terrorist group has formed so a decision is made to attack their base in an effort to eliminate the threat. First of all, this does nothing to change the minds of those who created and joined the terrorist organization. Often, these terrorist cells are built upon a political goal, so in attacking the organization, especially if you are making the first strike, you are not abolishing the doctrine that created the organization; instead, you are creating martyrs and further justifying their cause. Moreover, these attacks can lead to more people siding with the terrorists creating more recruits and sympathizers than there would have been otherwise. This compounds the violence, death and destruction of wars by giving the newly numerous organization a tragedy to rally around, increasing their numbers, ferocity, and can lead them to use more brutal ways of fighting, justified under the guise of avoiding another attack.
Society is inarguably integral for humans to reach their potential, yet the question remains. Do we want to continue upholding a society that necessitates mass death and war? Furthermore, is a society that necessitates war and mass murder truly the greatest society that humans can achievable? I believe that a society that does not require violence to remain stable would indicate a more advanced human society and lead to unlocking higher human potential. Imagine the pharmaceutical, technological and academic innovations we could achieve if our governments were not spending hundreds of billions of dollars every year on warfare. Regardless of the reality of life and politics that often leads to seemingly necessary warfare, it is difficult to make an effective argument in which you both promote the moral righteousness of waging war while at the same time preaching that innocents are not to be harmed. Especially considering Ancsombe's arguments around the moral identicality of intending and foreseeing consequences, she does not, in my opinion, effectively prove the moral righteousness of murder and war.