Selective Objection to War
Kaufman, Arnold S.
THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIENTIOUS OB JECTION to particular wars agitates thoughtful Americans as never before. In its report to the President, the National Advisory Commission on Selective...
...ARNOLD S. KAUFMAN ences...
...But the fact that so many of our most intelligent, patriotic, and conscientious young men refuse to serve in the Vietnam War is itself a tribute to the integrity of that democracy...
...But in these circumstances the mere fact that someone is an absolute pacifist does not give him rights the selective conscientious objector lacks...
...Certainly, many of the Nuremberg trials or the Eichmann trial would have seemed ludicrous had the Germans who were tried been charged with failing to reject Nazi orders to pay their income taxes...
...While conscientiousness has much to do with thoughtfulness, sincerity, and authenticity, it has nothing to do with objectivity...
...A society may be so bad that its destruction would restore, not destroy values...
...Given these assumptions, the strongest kind of obligation to avoid killing others, the strongest kind of case against forcing anyone to kill against his will, can be made...
...2. THE MAJORITY ARGUES THAT: • . . so-called selective pacifism is essentially a political question of support or nonsupport of a war and cannot be judged in terms of special moral imperatives...
...and to allocate penalties accordingly...
...For in the name of greater realism and responsibility the pseudo-realists actually abandon their deeply serious responsibility to assess the morality of political acts and policies...
...First, there is no reason at all to suppose that a selective conscientious objector is unable to base his conviction on moral imperatives that are "outside" and objective...
...This is the "Nervous Nellie" problem, or, more recently, the "Quisling" problem, that so preoccupies our President...
...As between the two forms of absolute pacifism, no moral basis for drawing a legal distinction exists—a position the Supreme Court acknowledged when, in the Seeger case, it held that absolute pacifists need only have a belief "that is sincere and meaningful (and) occupies a place in the life of its possessor parallel to that filled by the orthodox belief in God of one who clearly qualifies for exemption...
...But it does not follow from the fact that someone may or should express opposition through political channels, that one may not also claim exemption on grounds of conscientious objection...
...The simpleminded formula, "If we don't fight them in Southeast Asia, we will have to fight them in Honolulu and San Francisco," is accepted only by the most mindless elements in the populace...
...There must be a very high probability of national destruction...
...Assume that one arrives, by some route or other, at the conviction that human life is specially sacred...
...The majority's earlier contention that "Political opposition to a particular war should be expressed through recognized democratic processes" is simply betrayed by their subsequent qualification (author's emphasis...
...It may be right for the government to circumscribe the dissenter's sphere of action so that he does not collide with established public policy...
...While the meaning of this is not entirely clear, the operative expression seems to be "moral imperative outside of himself...
...For how can a highly integrated portion of the population be made the target of the necessary manipulations without also making many others the targets of the same manipulations...
...This is not to deny that those who pay taxes they know will be used to facilitate killing are normally implicated in the resulting deaths...
...His problem is intensified if he is draft eligible...
...According to certain servicemen who retain a capacity for autonomy, this is precisely what does happen...
...The idea that the government has an obligation to decide for anyone which wars are just, which unjust, comes as a revelation to anyone who supposes that our system is predicated on the conviction that every citizen has the right and the obligation to make reasoned judgments about most matters of public policy, and certainly about all fateful public issues—such as issues affecting war and peace...
...For each requires judgments about what ought to be done, to which principles of morality are relevant...
...For there is no doubt at all that individuals can have religiously based objection to fighting in particular wars—wars they believe, on religious grounds, to be unjust...
...But just the reverse seems generally to be true...
...A determination of the justness or unjustness of any war could only be made within the context of that war itself...
...And few Americans are cowards...
...Let us suppose, for purposes of argument, that a generally accepted theory of selective disobedience does emerge and is widely accepted as a result of legal recognition of selective pacifism...
...Only those who have no understanding of these young men will regard such a claim as even plausible...
...32-43...
...Assume also that this right is accorded high priority in the moral scheme of things...
...During time of war fundamental tension is produced by the potential conflict between the requirements of a successful war effort and the imperatives of a free society...
...In any event, the general opinion of Vietnam veterans who today oppose the war is that orce one is in the battle area, he performs the tasks he is required to perform...
...For the probabilities of such a consequence are minuscule...
...Forcing upon the individual the necessity of making that distinction—which would be the practical effect of taking away the government's obligation of making it for him—would put a burden heretofore unknown on the man In uniform and even on the brink of 1 In my book, The Radical Liberal: New Man in Americon Politics (New York: Atherton, 1968), Chapter 3, pp...
...For if the majority must accept the interpretation of doctrine proposed by a conscientious objector, then it should recommend that the exemption for absolute pacifists be rescinded...
...It is bad enough when they, like me, volunteer to be brainwashed.2 Ultimately, the majority's stand on the issue of military indoctrination is downright undemocratic...
...At least, the majority offers no reason to suppose that it does...
...But one of the fundamental achievements of human civilization is the development of criteria which enable us to grade the blameworthiness of 3 The Structure of Freedom (Stanford University, 1958), p. 110...
...There is no rational basis for supposing that only absolute pacifists can appeal to objectively establishable principles...
...For it is almost impossible that someone would refuse to kill in any and all conceivable circumstances—for example, if the annihilation of those he loves best is threatened by a marauder...
...It is certainly not education which implies a free flow of ideas...
...Second, there is no justification for restricting the exemption of absolute pacifists to those who believe that their views are objectively valid...
...the style of those whom I elsewhere call "pseudorealists...
...But under these conditions there is no moral reason why legal distinction should be made between absolute and selective conscientious objectors...
...When he is compelled to pay taxes, he is not put in that position...
...In any event, given a genuine threat to national security, it is unlikely that selective conscientious objectors would become a practical problem...
...They say that "the question of `classical Christian doctrine' on the subject of just and unjust wars is one which would be interpreted in different ways by different Christian denominations and therefore not a matter upon which the Commission could pass judgment...
...The manual 145-145 used now at the University of Georgia still refers to the danger of the "Sino-Soviet conspiracy...
...Second, they believe that if people are, perforce, compelled to decide for themselves, or even encouraged to do so, the results could prove militarily disastrous...
...The most plausible interpretation of the majority's intention is that it tries to distinguish between principles that, because they are outside, could be objective, and those that can only be subjective...
...What is worse, the narrowness of the military approach to world problems is forced upon the college student in ROTC...
...As far as the first argument goes, the majority ought to have joined the minority in recommending legal recognition of selective conscientious objectors...
...The majority's third fallacy of logic is a reductio ad absurdum...
...Only principles, it is suggested, whose validity can be established by appeal to external authority or evidence can be objectively known...
...Christian Bay states the underlying moral issue, and the principle of difference, cogently: In general, a democratic government may be entitled to obedience, but there are limits to its justifiable demands on citizens...
...But this is not my main concern...
...Though an absolute pacifist may affirm his position with perfect sincerity, there is psychological basis for suspecting that he deceives himself—by contrast to the selective conscientious objector...
...I can think of no plausible defense of one that does not support the other: no plausible attack on one that does not throw doubt on the other...
...Even in a proclaimed national emergency the individual's right not to kill or die for a cause he considers unjust should be respected by the government...
...Yet the majority favors granting those who are conscientiously opposed to fighting in all wars exemption from fighting in any war...
...Men armed with even minimal intelligence and a small number of facts can force the lid firmly down again...
...Alarms about the danger of anarchy often conceal the moral indifference that is principally responsible for whatever threat may actually exist...
...Some absolute pacifists are conscientiously committed because they think their moral principle can be objectively established...
...Absolute pacifists may, for example, have received the kind of upbringing which makes them unfit to fight...
...The full case for exemption of conscientious objectors, absolute and selective, deserves separate and more extended treatment...
...Many believe in God on the basis of faith and reject the idea that their belief is objectively provable...
...To argue that the government has the right to forestall such conflict by making sure that draft eligibles and men in service do not question the justice of the war is profoundly subversive of democracy as most Americans should understand it...
...There is nothing in what he writes about his military life in Vietnam to suggest that his effectiveness was impaired...
...But the sphere they chose for their muddled thinking was not a classroom...
...My aim is to show that neither in logic nor morality is there a basis for this judgment...
...In its report to the President, the National Advisory Commission on Selective Service unanimously sustained the present system of granting exemptions to absolute pacifists, but by majority vote overruled proposals to exempt selective conscientious objectors...
...Yet something is gained if those already convinced that absolute pacifists ought to be legally recognized will admit that there is no longer a reasoned basis for refusing the same status to selective conscientious objectors...
...Though I disagree with people who insist that the conscientious objector's beliefs must have a religious basis, or be shaped by religious training or its equivalent, they are wrong if they suppose that this conviction enables them to make the distinction between absolute and selective conscientious objection...
...Moreover, their remarks also seem to suggest that if an absolute pacifist does not appeal to "a moral imperative outside of himself," he ought not to be granted exemption from military service...
...4. THE MAJORITY HOLDS THAT: legal recognition of selective pacifism could open the doors to a general theory of selective disobedience to law, which could quickly tear down the fabric of government...
...But they are important here only because they are premises that are widely accepted, and on the basis of which legal exemption of absolute pacifists can plausibly be defended...
...When a man is compulsorily inducted into the army he is put in a position where he can be ordered to kill another human being...
...even those who are ineffective for reasons other than their having had a pacifist upbringing...
...The University must not force propaganda down the students' throats...
...It is propaganda, indoctrination, brainwashing...
...From the claim that legal recognition of selective conscientious objection could open the doors to a general theory of selective disobedience to law (which can be accepted as a logical possibility), it does not follow that it has any tendency to do so at all...
...Assuming this interpretation is correct— and no other makes much sense–then the majority seems to believe that only those who are opposed to all killing, absolute pacifists, can base their conviction on such principles...
...3 The distinction between killing and paying does not seem dim to Bay, nor, I warrant, to any morally sensitive human being who reflects carefully on what he is saying...
...First, they simply assume that the government is obligated to decide for at least certain individuals, those in military service or eligible for military service, which wars are just, which unjust...
...In a college logic class they would have been given E's, and dismissed with an admonition to try to do better...
...And, indeed, no plausible general theory is even suggested—as careful analysis of the majority's own analogy quickly makes clear...
...Once someone has made the reflective judgment that a particular war is unjust, then, provided the government has acted in a constitutionally legitimate way, that citizen has a problem...
...In both cases the test is the conscientiousness of the objection...
...Perhaps, however, the majority's distinction between the moral and the political is simply designed to call attention to the appropriateness of political opposition to the war—to its being permissible, even obligatory, to express opposition "through recognized democratic processes...
...The argument that everyone is equally obligated to fight in wars that protect common social values has a hollow ring, given the inequities and injustice of our present military system...
...It is a practical impossibility —as, perhaps, officials of government are discovering...
...it was the arena in which issues of war and peace, life, and death, are debated and decided...
...I have described my own deep convictions...
...Moreover, even when decent societies are threatened with destruction, it may be possible to afford exemptions...
...A society composed entirely of principled civil disobedients like Henry Thoreau would be the most stable imaginable, provided the laws and institutions were perceived as just...
...The training at the M.P...
...Cowards would find some way of shirking even just wars...
...For example, Paul W. McBride, a former army officer and Vietnam war veteran, summarizes his "educational" experience in the Army in the following terms: I came to realize that one of the reasons for the stultification and even danger of the military mind is the closed system in which it is molded...
...SELECTIVE OBJECTION TO WAR The majority's suggestion does indeed conjure an even more sinister possibility...
...From this admission it does not follow that the fabric of government would quickly, or even slowly, be torn down...
...Donald Duncan, one of the heroes of the Green Berets, and a militant critic of the war, has written extensively about his war experi 2 From the Red and Black (University of Georgia student newspaper), October 24, 1967...
...All ineffective killers ought to be kept away from where the killing is going on...
...Nor are these mere conjectures...
...Belief in the sacredness of life would quite naturally be expressed as commitment to the right to life...
...Political opposition to a particular war should be expressed through recognized democratic processes and should claim no special right of exemption from democratic decisions...
...suppose he also sincerely believes that an objective and absolute moral prohibition against fighting in unjust wars exists...
...But in their discussion of selective conscientious objection, the Commission's majority seemed to become tools of higher political powers...
...Those who spend energies worrying about the threat of anarchy would normally be better advised to spend their time remedying injustice...
...For sound judgment in any of these cases requires appeal to "special moral imperatives...
...combat, with results that could well be disastrous to him, to his unit, and to the entire military tradition...
...The threat must be more than a mere possibility, or even a probability...
...For the majority quite plainly does not agree with, say, the Christian absolute pacifist's interpretation of scriptural text—for example, "turn the other - cheek...
...Let us assume that the majority had not only Christian doctrine in mind, but any comparable doctrine— Muslim, Jewish, humanist, etc...
...Each of these political issues is plainly also a moral one...
...Forcing conscientious objectors to fight and kill may be justified if there is a clear and present danger to the survival of all national values...
...The Commission Majority's Arguments THE COMMISSION'S MAJORITY offers four basic arguments against legal exemption of selective conscientious objectors: 1. THE MAJORITY SAYS: It is one thing to deal in law with a person who believes he is responding to a moral imperative outside of himself when he opposes all killing...
...In any case, the cogency of their argument escapes me...
...Their argument rests on the validity of two central claims...
...If we accept the majority's claim that the distinction between these is "dim," then it seems to follow that the distinction between conscientious objection to all wars and conscientious objection to all taxes is not less dim...
...SELECTIVE OBJECTION TO WAR individuals implicated in transgression...
...In any event, once again there is no basis for legal distinction between absolute and selective objectors...
...For example, suppose a selective conscientious objector sincerely believes that a class of wars—unjust wars—can be objectively established to be unjust by an appeal to objectively valid moral imperatives...
...The two, political action and the claim of special right of exemption as a conscientious objector, simply do not preclude one aonther...
...most of the reasoning is sound...
...they commit three textbook fallacies of logic...
...The majority does make one comment that may be intended as a counter to the position defended above...
...But in a good society, government will never compel someone to become a killer unless a catastrophic threat to all values exists...
...ARNOLD S. KAUFMAN If these assumptions are effectively challenged, the case for legal recognition of absolute pacifists cannot help but be weakened...
...But the conclusion is absurd...
...I row want to show that there is no basis for legal distinction...
...It is in this argument that the majority manages to hit their stride...
...Many parts of the Commission's report are excellent...
...But surely the case for denying civil liberties in favor of efficient war-making is no stronger than the extent of real danger to national security...
...The appropriate test is the conscientiousness of their belief...
...Nevertheless, this objection can be met by giving conscientious objectors the legal right to discharge their obligation in alternative ways...
...A partial solution to the problem, but only a partial one, is to isolate those inducted into military service and attempt to brainwash them...
...The majority, in their desperation to find persuasive arguments, try to force open the Pandora's Box of anarchism...
...If a democratic system is one in which those most affected by a given policy have at least some opportunity to participate reflectively in the making of that policy, then it is abhorrent to suggest that the very men who are compelled to lay their lives on the line should be systematically excluded from intelligent participation in the process...
...nor even that such an outcome is likely...
...Yet there may be practical grounds for treating absolute pacifists differently than selective conscientious objectors...
...It begins to appear that yesterday's mood of political despair is lifting...
...On the face of it, the objection is implausible—as anyone familiar with the arbitrariness of the present system knows...
...This conclusion will not satisfy those who, like myself, believe that all conscientious objectors ought to be exempted...
...Though I suggest a general defense of this position, I do not develop the argument in this essay...
...Killing may be justified...
...For given the changing technology of war, together with population growth, a modern industrial society does not rely as heavily on total manpower as used to be the case...
...Indeed, it can safely be claimed that all important political questions are also moral questions...
...3. THE MAJORITY FEELS THAT a legal recognition of selective pacifism could be disruptive to the morale and effectiveness of the Armed Forces...
...Either legal exemption ought to be widened to embrace all who conscientiously oppose killing in a given war, or the legal right ought to be abolished altogether...
...If it orders citizens to kill or die, it comes close to the limits that even Hobbes put down around the authority of the Leviathan...
...I suppose it is equally true that the following questions are political: support of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic party at the last Democratic National Convention, of World War II, of fair housing ordinances, famine aid to India, urban renewal, the use of a nuclear deterrent, and of the War on Poverty...
...Underlying much resistance to this basic conclusion is the suspicion that absolute pacifists are more credible and authentic than selective pacifists...
...This sharp distinction between moral and political questions, though frequently made, is baffling...
...The claim that selective pacifists ought (morally) to be exempted from military service cannot coherently be dismissed on the grounds that support of a particular war is (merely) a political question...
...The point is, however agonizing the tension described might be in other wars, in this war there is little basis for alarm...
...On the basis of these criticisms of the majority's arguments it seems fair to conclude that the majority abandoned almost all of reason and retained precious little of morality...
...or at least I can think of no convincing argument why absolute pacifists should receive special consideration in a national emergency...
...Consider carefully the relationship between conscientious objection to a particular war and conscientious objection to a particular tax...
...Those who argue that it is more difficult to establish working criteria for selective conscientious objectors than for absolute pacifists must prove that this is so...
...conscientious men would not...
...Others believe with equal conscientiousness that, though objectivity in moral matters is not possible, still, all killing is wrong...
...Moreover, as all who favor legal recognition of conscientious objection should acknowledge, the strongest possible basis for exempting an individual from military service is that he regards killing, or direct involvement in killing, as morally repugnant...
...It is another to accord a special status to a person who believes there is a moral imperative which tells him he can kill under some circumstances and not kill under others...
...Certainly none of the SELECTIVE OBJECTION TO WAR young men who conscientiously seek to escape service in a war they believe to be unjust do so because they are afraid to fight...
...The majority's reasoning is, to put it mildly, extraordinary...
...The films on geo-politics and communism shown today in the Army training system anachronistically stresses the existence of a Sino-Soviet conspiracy to dominate the world...
...No such problem arises for the conscientious objector, even in uniform, who bases his moral stand on killing in all forms, simply because he is never trained for nor assigned to combat duty...
...I am describing the sincerely held beliefs of tens of thousands of young Americans who today actively oppose the Vietnam War...
...but as morally sovereign human beings they also claim a special right of exemption as well...
...As American citizens, absolute pacifists quite properly express political opposition to the Vietnam War...
...But it is really inconceivable that the case for or against conscientious objection, either absolute or selective, should be made to rest on the vagaries of exegesis performed by members of a Presidential Advisory Committee...
...Nothing would be more likely to "tear down the fabric of government" than to follow the majority in all the vagaries of its reasoning on the subject of selective conscientious objection...
...But these views are indefensible...
...THE PROBLEM OF CONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION to particular wars agitates thoughtful Americans as never before...
...If they are sustained, the case for extending recognition to selective conscientious objectors cannot help but be strengthened...
...school for officers and troops alike is hardly training at all...
...that the American political system is more effectively demonstrating the viability of democracy than all our armies and all our wealth...
...Even a clear and present danger to national security may not be sufficient...
...In this country, belief that the President is contemptuous of full and fair democratic process undermines morale...
...I said only that grounds may exist for forcing conscientious objectors to fight and kill...
...Perhaps, however, the majority's views do raise a deep constitutional issue that ought to be considered—for the problems involved deserve much more extensive treatment...
...Hence, they should favor granting those who are conscientiously opposed to paying all taxes exemption from paying any taxes...
...But then the decision to keep them away from the battlefield is a technical decision that ought to be made by military men...
...Perhaps it is not too much to hope, in this season of dramatic political developments, that the government will have the wisdom and courage to enact legislation which will give selective conscientious objectors the status in law that they already possess in morality...
...The majority's second claim, that legal recognition of selective pacifism could prove militarily disastrous, is either harmless or absurd...
...But there is no reason at all to suppose that selective conscientious objectors need be less sincere than absolute pacifists when they express such repugnance during a particular war...
...In the course of my discussion, I shall appeal to principles which provide a basis on which exemption of all conscientious objectors can be defended...
...the distinction is dim between a person conscientiously opposed to participation in a particular war and one conscientiously opposed to payment of a particular tax...
...In general, anarchical tendencies are the result of perceived injustice...
...It is, however, universally agreed that defeat in the Vietnam War poses no short-term threat to national security, and the nation is deeply divided about whether defeat would result in a long-term threat...
...Certainly, at the level of theory it is just as easy to state criteria for selective conscientious objection as it is for absolute pacifism...
...And in their irresponsible flight from moral issues, they sabotage realistic efforts to achieve values to which they give lip service on Sundays and on ceremonial occasions...
...Military morale is most effectively maintained by creating an equitable system for recruiting men, and committing them to battle in just wars that have been adequately debated before they are begun...
...Belief that the country is committed to an unjust war undermines morale...
...The Case for Legal Recognition of Selective Conscientious Objection I HAVE SHOWN ONLY that the Commission's majority failed to make even the beginning of a case for differential treatment of absolute and selective conscientious objectors...
...and I can think of none that would help their argument...
...It is pardonable to be wrong, but when error is forced upon the civilian college system, and when the military instructors are forbidden to vary from doctrine, then the situation is intolerable in the educational context...
...Nazi Germany was a fairly clear case...
...Finally, assume that conscientious thought and conduct are among the central values of civilized society...
...Belief that the selective service system operates inequitably undermines morale...
...The tendency to ignore the moral dimen ARNOLD S. KAUFMAN sions of political questions is one of the most repugnant aspects of one of the most characteristic American political styles...
...If demonstrable failure in all these respects has not already destroyed the spirit of our troops in Vietnam, exempting selective conscientious objectors is most unlikely to do so...
...And perceived injustice is normally the result of actual injustice...
...But the point at issue in this discussion is precisely whether the government has a right to interfere with an individual's sincere determination to refuse service in a particular war...
...The disanalogies between paying taxes and fighting in wars is so great that the majority's suggestion cannot stand a moment's critical examination...
...How can the government effectively discourage draft eligibles from exploring the issues of war and peace without going some way toward destroying the general right of dissent...
Vol. 15 • July 1968 • No. 4
