Military Abolitionism: A Critical Typology

Pacifism in its purest form condemns all war without exception. Military abolitionism, by contrast, is the view that it is morally impermissible for states to create and maintain war-making institutions. One might assume that any moral objection to the existence of war-making institutions must, in the final analysis, be based on some moral objection to war itself. Against this, I show that that there are in fact several distinct types of military abolitionism. One of them—which I label pacifistic abolitionism—does indeed derive the wrongness of war preparation from a logically prior generalization that states are morally prohibited from everwaging war. All of the other types, however, are either silent on whether war can ever be justified, or they concede that it can be. I separate out five distinct types of non-pacifistic military abolitionism—procedural, prudential, liberal, progressive, and economic—before considering objections and devising replies.