Most nonviolent resistance is a species of collective political action and therefore a form of collective power. In many cases, the use of power in nonviolent action is best characterized as a kind of intelligently used coercion. How then should ethicists think about the norms that govern the use of coercion in nonviolent actions? This essay critically examines the answers provided by the early Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey. Both analyzed nonviolent resistance in similar ways: they distinguis…
Read moreMost nonviolent resistance is a species of collective political action and therefore a form of collective power. In many cases, the use of power in nonviolent action is best characterized as a kind of intelligently used coercion. How then should ethicists think about the norms that govern the use of coercion in nonviolent actions? This essay critically examines the answers provided by the early Reinhold Niebuhr and Paul Ramsey. Both analyzed nonviolent resistance in similar ways: they distinguished nonviolent action from pacifism, noticed its coercive element demands justification, and sought to develop ethical norms to understand these forms of political action. Taken together, this essay suggests that Niebuhr and Ramsey can be interpreted as members of a non-pacifist tradition of theorizing nonviolence that suggests an unlikely convergence between theorists of nonviolent action and theorists sympathetic to just war thought.
