ABSTRACT
War pervades human history; except for disease, there is nothing so closely associated with human suffering. The motivations for war must therefore be so powerful as to galvanise people in ways that go against their natural temperament, intuition or common sense. Common human motivations although all capable of generating intense human feeling are unlikely to be shared by all members of the society in such a way that they would start a war. War is a conflict among political groups involving hostilities of considerable duration and magnitude. Modern warfare utilises much technology and this can mask the fact that war is about killing. The rights of individuals involved in conflicts have been incorporated into various formal codes. There must be just cause: that is, there must be fault on the other side that justifies taking action. Pacifism rejects war in its entirety as morally obscene and something brutish that belongs to a more primitive age.
