Moral Persuasion v. Aggression

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31784, 14 September 1968, Page 4

Moral Persuasion v. Aggression

Non-Violence and Aggression. A study of Gandhi’s moral equivalent of war. Oxford University Press. 199 pp. Index.

“As long ago as the 18th eentury St Alfonsus Ligouri said: War brings such evils that ... in practice it is hardly ever justifiable. Nevertheless, we hesitate to condemn war unequivocally because we doubt whether we have an answer to the question that has perplexed tnen of goodwill in a civilised community; how in the end are tyranny and injustice to be resisted save by a resort to physical force?" This is the dilemma poised by Dr Horsburgh, Senior Lecturer in Moral Philosophy at Glasgow University, at the start of his book on “NonViolence and Aggression.” As he points out, in the nuclear age both the costs of armed defence and of capitulation to aggression have escalated sharply. “The result is that at the present time many of us are driven back and forth between the horns of an apparently inescapable dilemma; either we must renounce war and place ourselves at the mercy of those who care nothing for the violence we cherish, or we must prepare for a struggle that might destroy our civilisation and even annihilate our species.” Dr Horsburgh’s purpose then is to inquire if Gandhian techniques <rf non-violence or “satyagraha” may not provide a morally preferable and comparable efficient method of achieving the ends to be obtained by warfare. He first tackles the problem whether the inquiry is worth

pursuing, recognising that the initial danger which faces his undertaking is that it should be dismissed as hopelessly unrealistic and impracticable on the ground that there is no prospect whatever of inducing any government to rely on non-violent methods of resistance in circumstances in which it might be expected to resort to armed force. He counters this objection by pointing out that human beings are so adaptable and so apt to see developments as inevitable, once they have occurred, that it is only by reviewing past expectations in some detail that we can appreciate bow many unrealistic policies have come to fruition in the past Dr Horsburgh is eloquent on the disadvantages of war as an instrument of policy. It is, as he points out, irrational, morally erosive and a violation of the principles of respect for human beings. Reliance on the nuclear deterrent he suggests, is even more irrational than usual, since the psychological, sociological and material damage that would result from nuclear conflict would make democratic goals completely irrelevant to the shattered society that would emerge from the conflict It is far from dear that a policy of nuclear deterrents can continue to ensure the survival of the human race. As Dr Horsburgh points out the most that its advocates have ever claimed for capital punishment is that it deters some potential murderers some of the time. The policy of nuclear deterrence, if it is to make any claim to sanity, must aspire to deter all who have nuclear weapons, to deter them in all circumstances and to deter them throughout the foreseeable future. Meanwhile there is a moral price to be paid even when the deterrent is not brought into play. “A civilisation that can contemplate (nuclear conflict) as an imminent possibility never knowing the day or the hour that it may feel called upon to rain destruction on mankind is a civilisation that cannot be expected to show much indignation when napalm bombs descend on peasant villages in Vietnam or wherever else the gospel of force is currently being propagated.” All these points are no doubt well made and well taken. Dr Horsburgh shows, however, a notable reluctance to tackle the basic dilemma with which he has faced us at the start of his enquiry. Only in the second section of the fifth chapter (out of six) does he finally bring himself to tackle the basic question, whether “satyagraha” has any prospect of being effective as an alternative means of selfdefence. His caution is justified, for it cannot be said that this section of the book is very convincing. He points out, for example, that while the effectiveness of violence

usually depends on the achievement of victory, “the use of non-violence sometimes brings about a situation in which the victorydefeat dichotomy is forgotten, and a generous settlement becomes at least a possibility.” He suggests that “it is hard for any opponent to ignore the moral appeals which lie at the heart of ‘satyagraha’ because they result in, or are accompanied by, economic and other pressures of a potentially powerful kind.” These arguments may have some validity in situations such as existed in British India, where an “aggressor” is open to moral appeals, and has no vital moral or material interests in continuing his aggression. It seems to this reviewer at any rate that they greatly under-estimate the potential ruthlessness and imperviousness to moral appeals of aggressors in the nuclear age, and over-estimate the potential of moral persuasion in sueh situations. Dr Horsburgh indeed states many of the objections to his argu-

ment: unfortunately his statement of the objections is usually more convincing than the argument itself. In the end, Dr Horsburgh himself appears to become rather depressed ait the weight of the objections to his argument, and bis conclusions certainly offer no easy optimism. “When one considers the wars and other serious conflicts that threaten world peace at the present time, or the sums that are now being spent on armaments by rich and poor nations alike, or the unprecedented concentration of scientific and technical skills upon the development of still more lethal devices, it is very hard to believe that our civilisation can long continue. But we have no right to be sure. The faith of those who believe that man is sufficiently rational to survive may still turn out to be justified. . . It is certainly to be hoped that they are. For as Gandhi once said, man either progresses towards “ahimsa” (reverence for life) or rushes to his doom.”