Online research in philosophy

Introduction: Reflections on violence -- Schmitt's challenge (Clausewitz, Schmitt) -- On violence (Arendt, Sartre) -- On the line (Junger, Heidegger) -- Violence and responsibility (Patoka) -- Conclusion: Six problems of violence.

Modern education has invested in exiling or normalizing violences.Its discourse seeks to implement economies, which may exerciseonly the necessary kinds of violence and avoid as much violence as possible. Postmodern education implies a new constellation in thediscourse of violence and responsibility. An ethics of violencemight have to be retraced. Education would have to implementa new array of sensitivities and violences.

The following essay is the main chapter of a book manuscript entitled “The Virtue of Non-Violence: from Gautama to Gandhi.” The book attempts to accomplish two principal goals: (1) to conceive of nonviolence from the standpoint of virtue ethics; and (2) to give Gandhi’s philosophy a Buddhist interpretation. My intent is not to foreclose on the possibility of a Hindu or Jain reading of Gandhi’s work; rather, I argue that there are some distinct advantages in thinking of Gandhi as a Buddhist.

This paper challenges the view that justice leads to or generates peace. Islamic, Hindu, Buddhist, Confucian, Daoist and Chinese military philosophical perspectives on violence and peace are reviewed. Based on insights derived from these Asian traditions concerning the relationship between violence and peace, the author argues that the quest for world peace is not attainable. The author proposes that people need to direct their attention, energy and action to support personal and community peace, and to support justice, which entails legitimate and sanctioned acts of violence, and just war.

The question of the imperatives induced by the Gandhian concept of non-violence towards animals is an issue that has been neglected by specialists on the thinking of the Mahatma. The aim of this article is to highlight the systematic – and significant – character of this particular aspect of his views on non-violence. The first part introduces the theoretical foundations of the duty of non-violence towards animals in general. Gandhi's critical interpretation of cow-protection, advocated by Hinduism, leads to a general reflection on the duty of non-violence towards animals, the cow being transformed into the representative of all dumb creation. The approach adopted by Gandhi to solving the problem of cow-protection focuses on its practical dimensions and is based primarily on reforming animal husbandry. What limits should be imposed on the exploitation of farm animals within the framework of non-violence? Gandhi devoted nearly 30 years to elaborating an animal husbandry system that would be both economically viable and in conformity with the universal ethical principles he drew from religions (especially Hinduism). The interdiction to kill is absolute, since Gandhi not only rejects the breeding of farm animals for the purposes of butchery but also the slaughtering of animals that are no longer capable of providing the services required of them. He therefore concentrated his efforts on drawing up a scheme to reorganize this activity on a national scale while taking into consideration these constraints, which are less contradictory than they may seem to be at first sight. Reviewing the age-old activity of animal husbandry in the light of non-violence is clearly based on the specific nature of Hindu traditions. However, it goes far beyond cultural or religious relativism, since it is also founded on universal ethical principles.

In this book, first published by OUP USA in 1973, Professor Iyer elucidates the central concepts in the moral and political thought of Mahatma Gandhi, bringing out the subtlety, potency, and universal importance of his concepts of truth and non-violence, freedom and obligation, and his view of the relation between means and ends in politics.

In today's world the need for cultivating non-violence is becoming more pronounced. Gandhi extrapolated an ideal society based on truth and nonviolence. The Bombay Chronicle in its issue of 5th April, 1930, reported "...For the first time a nation is asked by its leader to win freedom by itself accepting all the suffering and sacrifice involved. Mahatma Gandhi's success does not, therefore, merely mean the freedom of India. It will also constitute the most important contribution that any country yet made towards the elimination of force as an arbiter between one nation and another..." For him, two cardinal principles of life, non-violence and truth, were the essence of sociopolitical good. "Satyagraha" was Gandhi's gift to the world. The word was coined by him in South Africa. In the West it was known as passive resistance. Satyagraha signified pure soul-force. Truth or Love is the very substance of the soul. To quote Gandhi in this context: "Non-violence as supreme dharma is the proof of this power of Love. Nonviolence is a dormant state. In the working state, it is Love, ruled by Love, the world goes on.... we are alive solely because of Love....we are all ourselves the proof of this..." In a centrifugal world, Gandhi's views expressed on non-violence and love are guidance to the world today more than at any other time.