This article examines some arguments in favor of taking peace as a political obligation that can be found in one of the most important founders of the pacifist movement, Jane Addams. The main focus is on her 1907 book Newer Ideals of Peace, which has often been read as idealistic and outdated, and above all, as more of an activist’s manifesto than a serious contribution to either political philosophy or political theory. I point out that this owes much to an (...) ambiguity of Addams’ criticisms of the traditional and Kantian cosmopolitan defense of peace as a political ideal, the ambiguity between practical-political and conceptual problems. However, Addam’s succeeds in identifying one profound problem for traditional, even enlightended institution-centered ideals of peace, the collapse of the very ideal in cases of breaches of explicit peace-agreements among nations, because breaches of agreements are tantamount to the loss of all commitment to the other nation’s rights. It reveals that the conditions imposed by such ideals are at most necessary, but not sufficient for peace, and hence that the concept based on them is not a complete concept of lasting peaceful conditions among humans. Once it is seen as dedicated to resolving the problems entailed by this fundamental problem, Addams’ work, and in particular her focus on resources of solidarity and right-granting practices beyond and outside explicit agreements between governments can be understood as the development of a more adequate, coherent and comprehensive, while also a more actionable conception of peace. In the course of this development, Addams can also be observed to make use of crucial epistemological and more technical philosophical tools that are most closely associated with classical pragmatism, but which partly appear (albeit largely obliquely in the course of their application to a particular case) for the first time Addams’ treatise. Addams’ work is therefore of more than merely political activist interest for philosophers. Nonetheless, the article also explains her status as an important contributor to proper conceptions of world peace and the understanding of certain phenomena in the organization of public will formation precisely by pointing out that without some of her future-oriented proposals, like the inseparability of peace-policies and development, or the need to institutionally protect and foster spontaneous solidary action, the best contemporary work on peace would not have been possible. (shrink)

There appear to be striking contradictions between different strands of anarchist thought with respect to violence – anarchism can justify it, or condemn it, can be associated with both violent action and pacifism. The anarchist thinkers studied here saw themselves as facing up to the realities of violence in politics – the violence of state power, and the destructiveness of instrumental uses of physical power as a revolutionary political weapon. Bakunin, Tolstoy and Kropotkin all express ambivalence about violence in relation (...) to political power. Instead of reading this ambivalence as a mark of inconsistency, or of abdication of responsible judgement, we argue that it signals a profound recognition of the dynamics of violence in both repressive and resistant politics. Kropotkin and Bakunin seek a cooperative collective political effort which is negated by individual acts of violence although it cannot be committed to non-violence as such. Tolstoy by contrast in his recognition of the organised violence of political power, turns from politics to morality, from organisation to individual renunciation. Tolstoyan non-violence is the opposite of Kropotkin’s mutual aid, and paradoxically Tolstoyan renunciation has effects only when it is underpinned by violence. Tolstoy leaves violence in its place, in his renunciation of it; and Bakunin and Kropotkin leave violence in its place in their plans for its undoing. (shrink)

There appear to be striking contradictions between different strands of anarchist thought with respect to violence – anarchism can justify it, or condemn it, can be associated with both violent action and pacifism. The anarchist thinkers studied here saw themselves as facing up to the realities of violence in politics – the violence of state power, and the destructiveness of instrumental uses of physical power as a revolutionary political weapon. Bakunin, Tolstoy and Kropotkin all express ambivalence about violence in relation (...) to political power. Instead of reading this ambivalence as a mark of inconsistency, or of abdication of responsible judgement, we argue that it signals a profound recognition of the dynamics of violence in both repressive and resistant politics. Kropotkin and Bakunin seek a cooperative collective political effort which is negated by individual acts of violence although it cannot be committed to non-violence as such. Tolstoy by contrast in his recognition of the organised violence of... (shrink)