(no subject)

[sorrowmonkey]

Is there a moral difference between violent conflicts between individuals and violent conflicts between nations?

Comments

Not really...

[nrawling.livejournal.com]

I rarely ask questions that I have good answers for. In this case, I was just thinking about it, since one of my professors had indulged in a rabid pacifist rant.

The two issues that I see with your answer (which I largely agree with) are the definitions of "innocent" and "those not involved". These terms seem to lead to the most vexation about what is and is not an appropriate act. Are the Iraqi people innocent? The Palestinians? The Isrealis?

How can you decide "innocence" in an objective way? Many people have chosen to identify "civilian" as a subset of "innocents", but I can no longer do so. Should not the citizens be held responsible for the government they choose for themselves?

Re: Not really...

[ferriludant.livejournal.com]

I'll take the easier one first. For "those not involved", I was basically thinking of bystanders: people not involved in the conflict as participants, encouragers, even peacekeepers. For individual conflicts, that might be someone in the house next door. For war, that could be the citizens of neighboring nations, or tourists. In wars, it's easier for those people to be hurt, because the weapons are more effective, longer ranged, and more profligately deployed.

Whch brings us to the innocent. I agree - it's hard, perhaps impossible, to define it in an objective way. I can't imagine a set of words which would correctly characterize the notion, and I assert that even if I could:

A) It wouldn't necessarily be the same set of words you'd use;
B) It wouldn't really be an objective definition. It would necessarily be based on some subjective concepts, or references which themselves were based on subjective concepts.

And yet, despite the lack of an objective definition, it seems clear to me that the concept "innocence" has validity and worth. It's just one of those fundamental concepts with demand careful use. Among the criteria for innocence must certainly be ignorance or powerlessness: those who don't know that evil is being done cannot be held responsible (unless they stray into the territory of wilfull blindness), nor I believe can we blame those who lack power to effect change.

I agree with you, incidentally, in that I would also not say that all civilians are innocent, nor are all of the innocent civilians. But in honesty we can't limit that to just, for example, Iraq. If our own government does reprehensible things, aren't we also culpable? I'd say yes. I'd actually make the assertion that we're more culpable than citizens of slave states like the former Iraq, or current China or North Korea: we have more opportunity to affect the conduct of our government.

But I can't take that argument all the way down the road to feeling that violence against civilians is no worse than violence against military targets. I just think we perhaps need to rethink what "civilian" means. Not wearing a uniform does not make someone uninvolved with the military.