On conscientious objection

Pacifism and transactional forgiveness

Image: in wartime, it has been known for critics of conscientious objectors to buttonhole them with white feathers, intended as a symbol of cowardice.

The Guardian recently published an article about conscientious objection, noting what some say is a rise in applications to leave the US military on such grounds, and what the US military itself (or one part of it) says is more or less a normal rate for such applications. It is here.

I suppose that a pacifist who serves in the armed forces still carries a weapon, and I suppose also that, if the need to use it arose, they would be placed in front of a moral quandary. Perhaps they have reached an understanding with their commander in chief, or with his relevant representatives. Maybe it’s even set down in writing.

Let me draw you a crass parallel: my housemate has a well researched and quite particular diet—he eats only meat products. He believes that carbohydrates and sugars and the like are anathema to the human condition. Now, if he were to be placed in a situation in which he was offered meat to eat and also legumes, he would, I think I can say with certainty, decline the legumes and eat only the meat, because the legumes, for our purposes, contradict his fundamental belief in nutrition. However, if he were not offered the legumes, but ordered to eat them (by someone with the means to enforce the order), his decision would likely be to eat them. His belief in the primacy of meat is founded on a life method—a method he chooses in order to improve his life. Therefore, if not complying with the order would be deleterious to his life to any given extent, eating the legumes would become less deleterious than the consequences of the order being enforced using violent means. But, a situation is also possible in which, if he didn’t eat the legumes, he would starve. In that case, he is not ordered to eat them, but reasons with himself that survival on legumes is better than death on meat. Dietary choice therefore has a fundamental bedrock on which it is constructed: survival of the body and mind in optimum condition for performing in life. Veganism and vegetarianism can also be founded on such a bedrock, but they can also incorporate a moral element: the idea that it is wrong to kill animals for our food. Whilst carnivorism as a dietary choice may lack any overarching moral element, it does offer a parallel to the conscientious objector insofar as it is based upon a truly held belief.