A good war, or bad peace? (Franklin)
May 26th, 2007 | Published in Morality, War, Quotes | 3 Comments
After much occasion to consider the folly and mischiefs of a state of warfare, and the little or no advantage obtained even by those nations who have conducted it with the most success, I have been apt to think that there has never been, nor ever will be, any such thing as a good war, or a bad peace.
–Benjamin Franklin, as quoted in H.W. Brands, The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin (2000), p. 620
May 26th, 2007 at 10:46 pm (#)
What do we say then about wars like WWII, fought against a clearly bad force? Would it have been a “good peace” if America had remained at peace rather than entering the fight against Hitler? Perhaps Franklin could not have foreseen, or at least did not forsee, this kind of war; or else what would he say?
May 29th, 2007 at 10:22 am (#)
Andrew,
Good question. Franklin wasn’t completely against war — he supported the American Revolution, for instance. But he still thought war was horrible (which it is). So my guess is if war was the only way that could stop Hitler, then he would have supported it.
Josh
September 20th, 2007 at 5:03 pm (#)
I think the sense of Franklin’s statement is that war always entails death, destruction, and a multitude of occurrences that would be considered terrible and, usually unlawful in almost any other circumstances, so war must always be considered a failure of reason, law, morality, etc., even if ones argues that a particular war was somehow necessary or unavoidable. Incidentally, people sometimes point to the elimination of Hitler, or American slavery, or any of a host of other things that are represented to be due to “good” war, but the fact that something occurred in a particular manner in history does not mean that it was the best or even the only way in which this end could have been achieved. A conflict of interests or values does not automatically justify the horrible means of war: we just get too lazy or impatient or frightened or greedy to pursue better alternatives. Almost every culture at least gives lip service to the “Golden Rule,” yet in war we routinely and self-righteously do unto others what we should never want done to us or our loved ones.