Absolute vs. Conditional Pacifism: A Misconceived Opposition?

Pacifist contributions to current ethics of war are often stated as alternatives to absolute pacifism. In this article, I discuss two version of this approach: “contingent pacifism” and “conditional pacifism”. I first give an account of how they might be understood, and ways in which they might be distinct from each other. My main issue, however, is with the alleged rejection of absolutism. I will argue that confusion reigns here and that this is mostly due to a conflation of, respectively, the scope and the strength of moral prohibitions. I aim to provide a better understanding of what absolutism, e.g. absolute pacifism, really entails.