Peace Vs Pacifism Essay

The words peace, pacifism and just war are frequently talked about in today’s society. Many people throw around these words without really knowing how they all relate. There are some similarities as well as some differences regarding peace and pacifism. The idea of just war also relates to, and helps to describe pacifism.
Peace and pacifism are two separate concepts. The two concepts due however relate to each other. It is important to know the definitions of peace and pacifism before attempting to compare them. Peace is a process of creating a successful, fair, and safe society. There can be two different kinds of peaceful societies. If a society has negative peace, there is an absence of war. The term positive peace can be used to describe the state of a just society where everything runs smoothly. Pacifism on the other hand is political beliefs and policies put in place to prevent wars. Just like peace, there are two kinds of pacifism. Absolute pacifists believe war is bad in any situation. They believe there is …show more content…
Just war places moral conditions on war. If a war does not meet all the conditions, then it should not be fought. For example, the just war doctrine might say it is ok to fight a war for self defence if there are specific targets and the war has been properly approved. The just war doctrine does however say that war must be used as a last resort only. The concept of just war does however have some issues. Just war is subjective. An absolute pacifist and a conditional pacifist would look at the conditions differently. A conditional pacifist might consider targets specific, but an absolute pacifist could say the targets were not specific enough. Because of this, the just war theory is one of many things that should be taken into account when determining whether or not to fight a

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