Review Of ' The Better Angels Of Our Nature ' By Steven Pinker

Carl von Clausewitz once said: “No one starts a war—or rather, no one in his senses ought to do so—without first being clear in is mind what he intends to achieve by that war and how he intends to conduct it.” One hundred and forty years later Dr. Fred Charles Iklé, a noted sociologist and expert defense strategist, authored Every War Must End where he shares his insights on the difficult process which wars have been brought to a “close” and how those lessons learned from the past failures to duly end a war have influenced the strategies of the future war efforts. In Dr. Iklé’s book, he states: “fighting often continues long past the point where a ‘rational’ calculation would indicate that the war should be ended—ended, perhaps, even at the

What is morality? Where does our sense of morality come from and why is it important for us to know? The cognitive scientist, psychologist, linguist, and scholar, Steven Pinker discusses this in his essay, “The Moral Instinct”. In this essay, Pinker claims that our morality sense is innate, it constantly changes, and it is universal among each culture. Pinker also explains that moral sense shapes our judgement as it is something that we value and seek in other people. The science of the moral sense is important since it shows how morality impacts our actions and it explains why we act in certain ways.

War has always been an unfortunate part of our society and civilization. War will sadly and undoubtedly be with us as long as we exist. However, the portrayal of war for many centuries gave a sense of patriotism and romanticism. Then the invention of the camera changed how humanity perceived war in the late to mid 19th century. And all of a sudden, images of war became of shear violence and destruction. The violence in these images would play a significant part in the social and political standpoints of war in our nation.

The term ‘war’ as defined by the Oxford Dictionary is explained as “a state of armed conflict between different countries or different groups within a country” (Oxforddictionaries.com, 2016). The concept of war has created contrasting views on the relationship between war and genocide as well as the effect that war has on genocide. The term ‘genocide’ literally means ‘the killing of a race’ and is arguably the most atrocious crime conceivable (Gunter, 2011). It is a specific term that refers to crimes that are committed against groups with intent to destroy their existence (Ushmm.org, 2016). There are various motives and numerous reasons as to why genocides may occur, however this paper will seek to address the extent to how, if at all, the concept of war being a necessary condition for the occurrence of genocide, as well as looking at correlations between war and genocide using specific examples to determine whether war is a necessary condition or not.

War is a human endeavor. Humanity continually pursues solutions to counter evolving threats with the end of preserving power while also enabling peace. Civilizations resort to war to maintain their perception of this equilibrium. Defined threats and adversaries have changed throughout history, however, the essence of human nature and the base concept of conflict itself have not. Carl von Clausewitz’s theories on warfare capture the relationship between humanity and its application of war, remaining relevant in today’s era through their pensive explanations of timeless philosophical principles regarding the concept of war. These theories regarding war in politics, the key factors affecting war, and the extent that war is applied are inherently interconnected, providing insight on the relationships between humanity and its application of war.

Throughout much of the history of civilizations, states have declared war for land, valuables, and resources. In the course of the mid-20th century and the 21st century, ascendant super powers have invaded foreign lands for resources such as oil, and weapons companies have profited from the ongoing cycle of war these super powers promote. The populations of these states have been fed lies vis-à-vis the media; propagandizing these “rogue nations” and promoting an ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality, to garner support for these armed conflicts. War is our primordial instinct, as humans are territorial and aggressive. That is our nature, and by looking at events in our history, one may see that war appears to be timeless and inevitable.

In The Moral Instinct, Steven Pinker cites Haidt’s “primary colors” of the moral sense (329). Pinker believes that all moral decisions can be categorized with these primary colors and, though everyone can see these colors, they are prioritized differently by different people. Haidt identifies five primaries—harm, fairness, community, authority, and purity—all of which make up the moral spectrum. These recurring moral themes can be found everywhere from cultural norms to the decisions and beliefs of individuals. Though the themes can be identified in works regarding ethics and morality, they—if applied correctly—can also give insight into the way the author prioritizes the moral colors.

Secondly, the motivation for war in pursuit of honor was alleviated through the formalization of international diplomacy and the evolution of beliefs about human rights. Lastly, we reviewed how the pursuit of self-interests, specifically security and resources, continues to serve a motivator for conflict, but primarily between those states operating outside of the current international order. So what are the implications of this argument for the future? The way in which we choose to manage the self-interests of states is of utmost importance. There is either the potential to reduce self-interests as a motivator for war, or the potential to erode the previous reduction of fear as a motivator. The current international order has prevented great-power war for over 70 years. There have been conflicts motivated by self-interests, but they pale in comparison to the death and destruction of the world wars. As threats to security arise and resources are restrained, states have the option to work within the system to meet them or pursue them by other

This author mentions that technology, such as drones, night vision and the internet, are allowing conflicts to increase in intensity while physical human involvement in these actions has decreased (Ferguson 1: 37). Ehrenreich agrees with the previous two authors on some of these points, however Ehrenreich also brings up others. Once again, Ehrenreich brings up the recent shift of humans from prey to predator, and suggests that conflicts are growing more intense because of this recent shift (Ehrenreich 3: 9). Ehrenreich also has the view that major violent conflicts have grown more intense and complex, as humans are banding together in groups that are larger than ever before (Ehrenreich 1: 6). In addition to this, more resources than ever before are being put into supporting these conflicts. Ehrenreich uses the United States as an examples of large amounts of resources being put into fighting wars (Ehrenreich 2: 1). Ehrenreich also makes the point that the twentieth century has been marked by ever present conflicts. This conflicts are growing in intensity with the increased use of technology to fight in the place of humans (Ehrenreich 2:

Political Violence has been affiliated with governments and nations since the beginning of political history and plays a huge role in the causes of Wars around the world. What causes leaders to declare war? Many philosophers have based their studies and theories on this question; many have different perspectives. One philosopher, John Stoessinger, has expressed his theories on the causes of war through what he calls his “misperception framework.” Stoessinger shows great interests in the personalities of world leaders; he is less impressed with the roles of abstract forces such as nationalism, militarism, economic factors, or alliance systems as the causes of

Wars are expensive (in money and other resources), destructive (of capital and human capital), and disruptive (of trade, resource availability, labor management). Large wars make up severe shocks to the economies of participating countries. Despite some positive aspects of short-term stimulation and long-term destruction and rebuilding, war generally impedes economic

War was once fought with rocks, and other debris. This progressed to swords, axes, bows and arrows… Then we had guns. The revolution of weaponry far beyond the expectations of what anyone expected. Finally, war is now fought with robots, drones, and the human body is no longer required, but only the mind. The physical challenge that a soldier has to undergo nowadays is incomparable to the endless demands during the First and Second World War. Modern Warfare is the new War metaphorically and literally, and seems to be a fashion that will persist. Then again did all these transitions in the mode of warfare have any positive outcome? The lingering conflicts on both that scale as well as on a domestic one, are still prevalent then and now. So what can subsequently terminate all of the above? This develops into further questions as to whether the use or even the threat of force pose as the most effective means of resolving global, let alone national violence or are there other ‘peaceful’ alternatives?

In order to test this hypothesis properly, multiple steps and measures needed to be taken to ensure that the data procured was not only accurate but also pertinent to the study. The first of these steps was to establish a standardized definition of what actually determines what is and what is not an intrastate war. As a result of many differing definitions of what constitutes a civil war, information was gathered from the Correlates of War organization. The organizations defines an intrastate conflict which, “must meet same definitional requirements of all wars in that the war must involve sustained combat, involving organized armed forces, resulting in a minimum of 1,000 battle-related combatant fatalities within a twelve month period,” (Sarkees). The researchers for the Correlates of War went further in their definition by providing the requirements that both sides must be organized and provide “resistance” to one another (Sarkees). This attempts to differentiate civil wars from other violent acts such as massacres, genocides, or coup d’états.

Throughout the years, scholars have attempted to solve the complex puzzle of why states make and refrain from making war (Sjoberg, 2012, p. 1). Kenneth Waltz uniquely approaches the puzzle through three levels of analysis, or as Waltz calls them, images: “within man, within the structure of separate states, within the state system” (Waltz, 1959, p. 12). To describe how each image approaches the causes of war, Waltz pulls from the work of prominent scholars, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of each argument and image. Ultimately, Waltz contends that the third image, or the international system, is the most cogent explanation of the recurrence of war but that the three images are interrelated and all hold significance for advancing knowledge of the causes of war.

​History is filled with wars. Wars are one among the foremost attention grabbing, nevertheless the scariest, aspects of history. If there have been no wars, the globe would be terribly totally different. One will agree that we have a tendency to learn our mistakes from wars. However, history is understood for continuation itself. There for, there are continuously new problems and conflicts that result in wars. It’s a part of attribute to disagree most things for numerous reasons. After all, everyone seems to be totally different and have distinctive points of read some wars run off over land, whereas others occur to safeguard a nation’s respect and honor. Twentieth century is replete of the many major wars. However, one among the war that