ABSTRACT
"Pacifism" is a family resemblance term that can include a variety of commitments: from opposition to war to opposition to all violence, even harms that are done to animals. Arguments against pacifism such as this have been reiterated in a number of places by a variety of authors who argue that pacifism is immoral, self-contradictory, pathological, and evil. This chapter discusses absolute pacifism because it is in absolute pacifism that one can find the broadest and deepest claim that war is evil. Tolstoy's writings had a direct influence on Mohandas K. Gandhi, who transformed nonresistant pacifism into active nonviolent civil protest against evil. Defenders of pacifism maintain that Gandhian satyagraha was effective as a form of resistance in India; and that King's nonviolent movement was successful in the United States. Absolute pacifism makes best sense within a religious worldview that both establishes absolute commandments against war and the promises a hopeful eschatological resolution to the problem of evil.
