Ethics & Bioethics (in Central Europe), 2023, 13 (1–2), 72–82 DOI:10.

2478/ebce-2023-0008

War and peace as consequences of human nature?

Lukáš Švaňa1

For most thinkers since the Greek philosophers, it was self-evident that there is something called
human nature, something that constitutes the essence of man. There were various views about
what constitutes it, but there was agreement that such an essence exists – that is to say, that there
is something by virtue of which man is man.
(Fromm, 2007, p. 219)

Abstract
The issue of human nature is very complex and elusive, and mankind has been trying to unveil its elements since
the beginnings of any philosophical reasoning. Whether they were questions of ontology, gnoseology, or ethics, it
has been an uneasy task to uncover the complexity of the term. This article concentrates on finding ideas that
support the existence of human nature and consequently searches for its possible ethical implications. I focused
on the traditional issues of good vs evil, especially in terms of dichotomy between committing violent acts and
waging wars in contradiction to creation of conditions for peaceful and just societies. In the article, I compare
various ideas on human nature and analyse their potential in unveiling its ethical implications. I also comment on
the possibility of war and peace being consequences of human nature and its connection to our disposition of being
moral subjects.

Keywords: human nature, war peace, just peace

Constitutioning human nature

The intense debate over the nature of man has been a part of philosophical reasoning and
reflections for ages. The beginnings of such debate are interrelated with the very beginnings of
philosophy. There were multiple attempts to define human nature and/or describe its various
aspects. In philosophical terms, among the mainly discussed issues there have been the
probability of its existence (ontological issues), possibilities of its cognizability and
interpretations (epistemological issues) and its possible relation to human behaviour and actions
(ethical issues). I argue that these three problem areas are highly interconnected as the answers
on one level directly, as well as indirectly, influence answers on the other level and raise even
more intriguing questions. By trying to describe the nature of man, we simultaneously admit its
existence as we tend to believe that there has to be something with an impact on our behaviour
in ethical terms, i.e., we tend to think that there is a shadowy set of traits and elements that can
be attributed to all men. Together they are capable of creating distinguishable characteristics
that are of evolutionary origin and that should also cover our morality as one of its basic
elements. In most cases, there is a conformity among anthropologists that the notion is
overused, misleading, and impractical. For example, the Slovak anthropologist Martin
Kanovský is critical against the usage of the term in empirical sciences but does not exclude it
from further philosophical research (Kanovský, 2004, p. 43).2 I suggest that we might approach
the term in a philosophical as well as ethical sense because unveiling its meaning is mainly a
theoretical issue. It definitely has further practical implications, but they are studied by other
empirical disciplines.
Before any discussion about ethical implications of human nature, there is a necessity to
have at least an appropriate and uncontroversial definition of it which directly presupposes the

1
University of Prešov (Slovakia); [email protected]; ORCID: 0000-0002-0906-2879
2
Some authors are even more critical, for example Marshall Sahlins criticizes the usage of the term human nature
in his book The western illusion of human nature (2008) and claims that it is a product of the West and as such
has not been useful for other civilizations (Sahlins, 2008).

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acceptance of its existence at least on the theoretical (mainly philosophical and ethical) level.3
As our reflections are mainly theoretical, there are no limits in what we choose to accept as
existing and/or non-existing on this level of human cognition. Surely from the ethical
perspective, it is not possible to provide any empirical proof that human nature really exists,
but it is possible to accept its existence on the level of ethical theory and thus further elaborate
on the issue. Moreover, the concept of human nature is mainly theoretical and thus very often
unclear and abstract. According to Emil Višňovský, human nature can be characterized as “a
tendency (inclination) to behave in a certain manner” (Šulavíková & Višňovský, 2006, p. 23).
This is usually described as nomological approach to human nature which describes it as a sum
of attributes, which people tend to have, and it is also a natural outcome of the evolution of
mankind. I tend to focus on this approach to human nature that stands in opposition to the
essentialist approach that connects human nature with an essential set of attributes of mankind
that differentiate it from other entities. Such an approach raises even more questions as it stands
for the idea that every human being is defined by human nature and that is the main reason for
its criticism.4
In this article, my research is based on the assumption that human nature does exist and that
it is a dynamic set of attributes which are subject to evolutionary changes. Erich Fromm argues
that “the main argument in favour of the assumption of the existence of a human nature is that
we can define the essence of Homo sapiens in morphological, anatomical, physiological and
neurological terms (Fromm, 1974, p. 220). Not all traits of man are elements of human nature
neither are all elements of human nature to be found in every individual. Nevertheless, it might
be a mistake not to relate the existence of human nature with evolutionary processes. Evolution
is therefore not only a matter of progress to more complex social and political structures, but
also the development of human nature, adaptation, and moral abilities. These changes are a
lengthy process connected to physiological changes but are mostly influenced by socio-cultural
processes. I am aware of the fact that the issue of human nature is a complex phenomenon, that
its manifestations are highly variable and that it consists of many sub-problems like the relation
of mind and body, biological and social, natural and cultural, individual and social, etc. The
issue of the ethical dimensions of human nature is a particular problem but brings us many
issues that we have to deal with in order to better understand their overall validity in the
complex set of facts and theories about humans and their evolving existence. We might ask
whether there are any unconditional patterns of human behaviour throughout history. If the
whole history of mankind is a manifestation of his nature, can we deduce any specific traits,
some of which have been a part of it for millennia and some being very recent?
It is my opinion that human existence and thus human nature is not an absolute. It is rather
a slow, ever-changing phenomenon and in ethical terms of good and evil we are not equipped
with the definitive set of attributes and patterns of behaviour. The importance lies in the
interdisciplinary approach with scientific disciplines and their counter-philosophical ideas.
Moreover, as philosophy and/or ethics are not sciences in its original meaning, it could be
helpful if they could cooperate and search for mutual conjunctions rather than disagreements
about the constitution of human nature. Making ethical statements out of the out-world facts
would not only be inappropriate and misleading, but clearly a naturalistic fallacy. Thus,
describing human nature can be based on collecting empirical facts accompanied by the
following enriching philosophical and ethical discussions and interpretations. According to
František Mihina, revealing human nature is a metaphysical ambition and as such is a

3
There are at least two possible approaches to the notion of human nature. The first one is concentrated around
the idea that human nature does not exist, that it is an inappropriate theoretical construct and the notion itself is
inaccurate and misleading. The other approach accepts the existence of human nature and develops its various
interpretations (Kafka, 2005, p. 81).
4
David Hull claims that such existence of human nature is temporary, random and rare at best (Hull, 1989, p. 3).

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phenomenon impalpable to our senses. We have a feeling that human nature is behind
everything that is a part of our behaviour, we sense that it is hidden, underlying everything
(Mihina, 2019, pp. 326–327). It is a mistake to rely on present day empirical sciences and
anticipate that they can, and they will provide solid answers. Philosophical and ethical reflection
must not be excluded as I agree with what Noam Chomsky wrote in his book On language, that
there are many questions which we would like to be answered and understood, human nature
included, that are out of reach for modern sciences (Chomsky, 2007, pp. 58–62). Answering
and understanding them is therefore a matter of concurrent abilities of science and humanities
(philosophy and ethics eventually).
If we concentrate on the ethical dimension of human nature, we usually describe human
behaviour in terms of good and evil. “All human choices are related to the world of values,
there are no axiologically indifferent activities” (Wojewoda, 2018, p. 222). Human choices are
therefore products of his nature. At this point, for the purposes of this article, it is irrelevant to
search for or decide whether a man has free will or not. Whether our choices are really ours or
not does not affect that being a moral agent (i.e. acting in terms of morality) is a part of our
nature. We usually concentrate on human capability of being a cooperative, empathic, social,
and moral being as well as on its tendencies towards acting in contradiction to these traits and
behaving aggressively, violently, and egoistically. This assumption has very concrete ethical
implications as it tells us that doing good and evil are in fact just two different manifestations
of one nature. It also means that our morality merges both of these tendencies and all possible
consequences they might cause.
Despite the arguments supporting the inevitable need for interdisciplinarity, there are
scientific positions and examinations that can be helpful in determining the environment of
such debates. The outcome of scientific research are data in the form of various statistics,
diagrams, charts, etc. that, if taken alone, have marginal informative value when it comes to
human behaviour. The problem with science is that it is always a product of epochal thinking
and that such thinking creates many problems (some of which might have global character) that
can only be solved by constantly changing the scientific paradigm. This has to be accompanied
by dynamic ethical reflection of the world around us for which we need a proper understanding
of human nature and its aspects.
The very data can easily become an unreliable source of information about the world around
us when it comes to purely a scientifical approach to human nature. If we talk about aggression
and wars as one of its eventual components5, we can come to the conclusion that wars which
caused less damage and during which fewer people were killed were better, and vice versa. It’s
the humanities that can reveal the sense and values hidden in data. Therefore, with their
assistance, we are able to determine that wars with more damage and casualties might not be
necessarily worse in terms of social injustice, inequality, suffering, poverty, adherence to moral
values, etc. On the other hand, ethics cannot ignore scientific data and the scientific progress of
mankind in all respects. The clue to have a prosperous (global) society lies in a synergic
relationship between sciences and humanities because their mutual enrichment is the source for
saving lives by preventing violence, wars and suffering, helping people in need through
education and medical assistance, and many other beneficial activities. There is also an ever-
present menace that the combination of scientific data and their fallacious interpretations can
lead to more violence, wars, suffering and atrocities. “Violence has the full force of immediacy.
Because it affects the body directly, it breaks all the rules that usually hold humanity in check”
(Sofsky, 2002, pp. 9–10).

5
Especially evolutionary psychologists and anthropologists tend to claim that humans possess measures of
aggression as it is one of the preconditions for our survival as species. On the other hand, there are many others
who prefer the idea of our non-violent human nature and evolution-relative aversion to violence and aggression
(Greene, 2013).

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 But we simply cannot discard aggression as something that does not belong to our nature.
Aggression is a part of it, but it cannot be applied universally – as a matter of fact, no
behavioural element of human nature can possibly be applied universally.

Thus, aggression is a trait which may be fostered by some cultures and played down by
others, but this could not be so unless a capacity to respond aggressively to some kinds
of situations were a natural feature of human beings (Norman, 1995, p. 20).

If human nature can be described as a set of possibilities that can all come into life in various
life situations, then we must include every aspect of human nature into its specification. It seems
that multi-layered (at least dual) character of human nature predetermines our lives to be
possibly filled with cooperation, justice, tolerance as well as competition, aggression,
intolerance, violence, and war. As a consequentialist, I think that war and peace are just two of
many possible consequences that our human nature can “produce”. Throughout history and its
philosophical reflection, we mostly focused on violence and war as prevalent “products” of our
nature, thus neglecting the possibility of achieving justice, and peace which are equally likely
to occur. Further on, I will analyse these contradictory standpoints and their consequences for
the possibilities of adherence to the value of justice as one of the central ethical values and
principles in social and political ethics.

Violence and war

“In short, war was rare to non-existent under the conditions in which our species evolved but
obviously prevalent in more recent times that are dramatically different ecological and cultural
circumstances” (Fry, 2013, p. 543). However, for the last decades and centuries, we have been
listening to many statements and assumptions, occasionally supported by scientific
(psychological, anthropological, biological) data that war (together with inclination towards
violence and aggression) is an inherent part of human nature. For as long as people have talked
about war, they have talked about it in terms of right and wrong, good, and evil. War is mostly
perceived as hell, i.e., a place and time when people easily become violent and are capable of
monstrosities and as such war should be excluded from any ethical evaluation or philosophical
criticism. This has been an argument of (political) realism which directly stands for the idea of
devilish aspects of our nature strongly affected by his strive for power. War undoubtedly has a
strong potential to awaken the worst traits in humans, but it also happens to bring opportunities
for humans to bear suffering, to rise, to cooperate and eventually become modern-day heroes.6
Our strong aversion to killing others is presented by many anthropologists and David Grossman
concludes that this aversion grows stronger with the shortening of the distance between people
(soldiers) (Grossman, 1995). A newly raised issue is that scientific research and technological
development provided us with vast possibilities to kill remotely. “Most of the time, wartime
killing is something you do from far away. Over the course of history, weaponry has got ever
better at overcoming the central problem of all warfare: our fundamental aversion to violence”
(Bregman, 2020, pp. 220–221). In such cases, our aversion to killing another person is not
strong enough as it is not supported by any moral restraints to our behaviour and actions. Robert
Sapolsky adds statistics to this claim as he compares the amount of weapons being fired during

6
Philip Zimbardo and Zeno Franco not only described the process of committing evil deeds and the power of the
social situation, but they also analysed the banality of committing good and even heroic deeds in their article The
banality of heroism in which they presented the opposite idea of humans being only bystanders to evil in certain
situations, but rather concentrated on our capabilities of becoming heroes in our everyday life (Franco & Zimbardo,
2008).

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various conflicts and wars7 and he expresses his concerns about future types of wars because
of technological advancements entering the stage, e.g., drones, automated systems, and the
extension of the distance between attackers and their victims. The ability to kill remotely is not
biologically regulated as killing in close combat is (Sapolsky, 2020, pp. 658–661). We are also
bearers of biologically developed restraints for killing another human being, which is supported
by our expanding sense of morality. With the increasing distance of our weapons and arms, we
are retreating from mechanisms that prevented us from committing appalling actions (Lorenz,
2002, pp. 233–234).
However, the dominant position of mankind is not proof of his violent and aggressive side,
but rather the contradictory tendencies of his ability to cooperate that outmatches this potential
in other beings (Harari, 2016, pp. 123–124). The common story we share as a human
civilization has been under the strong influence of working on our common project which is
carried out by changing from passive observers of the world around us into active and rational
beings making their own choices. Despite purposeful organization of our social coexistence
with others in a world intertwined with moral standards and values, there are many instances
when people kill each other, wage wars and cause enormous pain and suffering to other people.
Society played a double role in determining our nature. Firstly, society is the product of human
nature as without any motives for cooperation there would be no society at all. Secondly, there
is (mainly scientific) proof that society has been undergoing constant and overall progress in
terms of morality and application of ethical values into practice and thus contributed to slow
changes in human nature. The change itself is an essential part of human nature. The ability to
change and adapt is crucial in understanding the complexity of the phenomenon. People begin
to understand that cooperation and peace are much more beneficial than waging wars and
conflicts. Killing others has become unacceptable and when compared to past, there are many
demonstrations of it.
As stated above, war is a dualistic phenomenon. In war, we find ourselves in a situation so
specific that acting within the rules of our inner morality is problematic, if not impossible. This
duality is natural to mankind and those situations created by warfare are very special and the
imminence of evil is more frequent. War is very specific and exceptional in terms of man’s
experience, and it poses an imminent threat to his conventional and exerted ways of thinking,
decision-making, and behaviour. War can easily become a part of his temporary character,
which is influenced by his abilities to commit evil and wrongdoings, but it can never be a
determinate state of affairs. Fromm stated that:

Those who explain the frequency and intensity of human aggression as being due to an
innate trait of human nature often force their opponents, who have refused to relinquish
the hope for a peaceful world, to minimize the degree of man’s destructiveness and
cruelty. Thus the defenders of hope have often been driven into taking a defensive and
overoptimistic view of man. The distinction between defensive and malignant
aggression makes this unnecessary. It only implies that the malignant part of man’s
aggression is not innate, and hence not ineradicable, but it admits that malignant
aggression is a human potential and more than a learned pattern of behaviour that readily
disappears when new patterns are introduced (Fromm, 1974, p. 187).

War creates situations and environments for moral progression as well as its decline. “Good”
people can become perpetrators of horrendous acts and “evil” people can do heroic deeds and
so prevent evil actions from occurring. Such unpredictability of human nature is mostly seen in

7
While during WWII, only 15 to 20% of the weapons were actually fired, with the invention and appearance of
more effective remotely controlled weapons, these numbers grow enormously – 55% in the Korean war and up to
90% in the Vietnam war.

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specific situations, wars included. There are authors who claim that war is a zone of evil
(Tripodi, 2012). Erazim Kohák wrote that “in war, man is deprived of his restraints and his
most darkest instincts explode. The collapse of (moral) restraints is following a war and not the
other way round, i.e. this collapse is not a causality of war, but rather its consequence” (Kohák,
1993, p. 214). Our historical research on the phenomenon of war has often described it as
necessity of our humanity, i.e., our human nature – as we haven’t been able to fully eliminate
the influence of our instincts, passions, and biological predisposition for aggression. War is a
demonstration of our nature in all its ambiguity and duality.
The question of killing another human being has been an issue throughout the history of man
mainly among philosophers, ethicists, anthropologist and other thinkers as well as among
natural scientists. Our history shows that the enumeration of situations as well defining the
possible targets of our aggression has been declining. It is a fact that absolute number of war
deaths has declined since 1945 because the number of wars waged has declined and more
people perceive war as an obsolete form of solving conflicts. “For the first time in history,
governments, companies and persons do not take wars into account…. And so it is no wonder
that the meaning of peace has changed. It does not mean, as before, an absence of war, but its
absolute unacceptability” (Harari, 2016, p. 21). Despite the optimism, we still witness violent
deaths during wars and wars are still part of some of our societies and nations, but the overall
trend is supposedly straightforward.
The continuous occurrence of wars indicates that we surely need a dynamic and flexible
theory of human nature and that such questions are very actual especially in times of rapid and
unstoppable development in every sphere of our mutual interactions (social, political,
economic, etc.). There have been attempts to call for a revisioning of optimism claimed by those
who reveal trends in human behaviour. Since the beginning of the 21st century, there have been
a slight increase in war conflicts. According to critics of optimistic approaches to these topics,
there are several reasons for it. One is mentioned by Martin Shaw as he claims that we are
witnessing a re-legitimization of war that is based on the perception of WWII as “good” (Shaw,
2002, pp. 243–244). The other reason behind the increase is that wars are being waged by non-
state actors. According to data from the Peace Research Institute in Oslo, the number of
conflicts between states has dropped from 53 in 2016 to 49 in 2017, but the number of conflicts
between non-state actors has risen from 62 in 2017 to 82 in 2018) (Dupuy & Rustad, 2018).
Yet, the overall trend is not at risk and even more, the death toll in wars is rapidly declining.
The number of deaths in wars when converted to 100 000 citizens declined from 201 in 1942
to 1 in 2016 (Rosling, 2018, p. 47). Those favourable statistics are also proof of one essential
change. Modern wars are often fought on different “battlegrounds” than before. The increased
frequency of hybrid wars confirms these statistics, but it simultaneously creates new problems
and issues. While changes in warfare are very fast, changes in human nature are not subject to
a rapid transformation. It creates dissonance which is partly approached by humanities as they
can mitigate its impacts on the world we live in and create.
The existence of armed conflict is still an issue, and such statistics prove that things are
getting better and that still fewer people die from warfare. If fewer people die from warfare, it
could mean that fewer ethical values and principles are violated. These statistics could imply
that our nature becomes less violent and there are several reasons for it. We are less likely to
believe or think that other human beings are different. In order to mitigate the horrors of war,
we have created ethical theories that are concentrated around values and when it comes to
warfare it is usually the value of justice which is of high importance. The very existence of the
‘just war’ theory indicates that justice is an inherent part of our nature (though one of many)
and that the proportion of good and evil in our nature is dynamic and variable. Then we can
approach the value of justice as a result of evolutionary processes, which aims at solving
problems in our social and political life. Based on the assumption that justice is a part of human

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nature which has the capability to improve over time, we can conclude that there is a high
probability of the evolution of justice on the macro-social level. Furthermore, it is possible to
expect that any engagement of men in wars will decrease over time.
The ‘just war’ theory is one of the safety measures as it also has very strong practical
imperatives manifested in international law through the retributive justice it implies. The
principles and their application are not only expanding, but there is a tendency to come up with
a new set of principles that no longer relate to war directly – its justified declaration and/or
waging – but aims at promoting effective peace in its most pure and just sense.8 This set of
principles is jus post bellum and it concentrates on defining criteria for the creation of just and
fair post-war peace and restoration of the society. This relatively new set of principles is an
outcome of man’s efforts to apply ethical criteria to war. To a certain extent, it is based on the
assumption that human nature has always had the capability to create peaceful societies with
just conditions for living and sharing common values. The next part of the article analyses these
possibilities and capabilities to apply the value of justice onto human society, hence gradually
eradicating injustice as a very common source of wars.

Peaceful nature of man?

As mentioned above, war has become a part of our world, but if we try to find evidence and
date its origins, we often find ourselves in a position of false argumentation and
misunderstandings. There is no evidence that every society that has ever existed had to reach
the point when war was the only solution to their problems. There is a growing number of
evidence in archaeology, primatology, anthropology, ethnology, evolution theory, etc., that
support more peaceful and optimistic claims about man and his nature. There have been many
concepts of man in the history of philosophy, ethics, politics, anthropology, etc., and some of
these concepts were more influential than others.9 Many of these systems were based on the
assumption that peace is the original position of a man and that war is a deviation, an
exceptional condition.
These reflections were mostly supported by the idea of social cooperation as a case of non-
zero-sum game that produces a mutually beneficial outcome. According to the latest (primarily
ethnographical) research, cooperation is a trait and innate predisposition for all men. Long-term
research results based on archaeological evidence provided by Douglas Fry offer one, among
many, conclusions about proto-human societies: “Contrary to the assumptions of pervasive
hostile intergroup relations and recurring warfare over scarce resources, the typical pattern is
for groups to get along rather well, relying on resources within their own areas and respecting
the resources of their neighbours” (Fry, 2007, p. 199) Furthermore, it is proved that this
behavioural pattern is repeated throughout history and that is was very common before the first
men started to settle down. Douglas Fry concludes that nomadic hunter-gatherers were avoiding
violence. The historian Rutger Bregman writes that anthropologists long assumed that this can
be true only because prehistoric social networks were small and did not involve many
individuals.

8
Some authors can view these efforts - to create separate and distinctive set of conditions and principles within
the classic just war tradition - as unnecessary. David Fisher in his book Morality and war (2011) claims that “in
a strict sense, there is no need for separate jus post bellum condition, since ensuring that there is a just settlement,
once victory is secured, is implicit in the other conditions” (Fisher, 2011, p. 79).
9
Among the most influential concepts are Hobbes’ and Rousseau’s views on the natural state of man. Both
positions are often perceived as extreme opposite standpoints. If Hobbes primarily ascribes man his vices that
preordain his actions to committing evil and waging wars, then Rousseau sees the natural state of man full of
harmony, love, and in unison with nature. According to Yves Charles Zarka, Hobbes’ theory is maximalist,
indifferent to time and space, and there is no place for the historicity of man, while Rousseau’s minimalistic view
on human nature demands a historical approach to man and claims that liberty and the ability to improve are its
inherent parts (Zarka, 2018, pp. 780–781).

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According to his findings: “Civilization has become synonymous with peace and progress, and
wilderness with war and decline. In reality, for most of human existence, it was the other way
around” (Bregman, 2020, pp. 121–122). This is not an absolute and it does not mean that
civilization is all bad. It just declares that because of a major change in the way of life of man,
for many centuries human life was miserable, full of poverty, wars, violence, and suffering until
it started to change again in the last two centuries.
Fry, along with his colleague Graham Kemp, undertook a mission to describe and analyse
the potential of mankind to live in a peaceful society. In their book, Keeping the peace (2005)
they presented societies that have never waged wars. They tried to identify cultural mechanisms
and techniques of how to deal with disagreements and conflicts in a calm manner and possibly
develop and apply these mechanisms. They conclude:

Peaceful societies are not utopias. They consist of real people facing the same kinds of
problems that confront people everywhere: domestic disagreements and other
interpersonal disputes internal, political, economic, and social conflicts and threats of
violence and exploitation from outside the society. Yet they have created peaceful
cultures, identifying means by which humans can manage their conflicts without
resorting to violent behaviour. They have identified forms of socialization that promote
peaceful interaction, developed beliefs that favour nonviolence over aggression, and
fostered attitudes and perceptions about violence that prevent its establishment as a
social norm (Kemp & Fry, 2005, p. ix).

It is undeniable that, for thousands of years, mankind as species has been capable of enormous
cooperation and sharing of knowledge, attitudes, and values. With the world becoming globally
connected in multiple spheres, these elements are shared more rapidly and to more areas. Wars
have been more or less a part of our history and so has been peace. Human societies are dynamic
groups and thus the actual state of peace does say something about the nature of the particular
society but does not uncover it all. The main criterion of peacefulness should be dynamic in its
nature and should be described as constant orientation towards peace. There are multiple groups
and societies that followed the path of non-violence as a moral standard/norm throughout their
history. This endurance to stay on this path is a sort of commitment as we should rightfully
assume that they would not need any assistance in staying non-violent. However, what about
societies that became violent and accepted violence and wars as rightful measures for solving
conflicts among their members and/or with other groups, societies, or nations?
The globalized world creates more contacts and relations between individuals and social,
ethnic, political, cultural, and religious groups that they belong to. Over time, the circle of
subjects, objects, and entities given moral consideration on which we apply ethical criteria and
argumentation, expands. This is a central idea of ethicist Peter Singer in his The expanding
circle (2011) in which he argues that over the course of history, mankind has expanded the
circle of these entities. The world needs a new paradigm for reflections on man, wars, and
peace. Fry calls it a new global cooperative paradigm, which is based on three ideas: to have
vision that conflicts can be solved without war, to recognize the role of global interdependence
as a key to promoting global cooperation, and to focus on creating multiple identities ranging
from the local community to the global community (Fry, 2013, p. 546). I add that it is time to
elevate the value of peace to another level, i.e., by peace we should not only describe a state
with no wars or conflicts. The other option is to reflect upon peace in a positive manner, i.e.,
not only the absence of war, but long-lasting conditions for the prosperity of mankind in all
imaginable spheres, also characterized by social and economic justice, effective combating, and
elimination of poverty, political stability, respect for human rights and, last but least, the overall
orientation towards non-violence in human society. The existence of the just war theory is still
relevant especially for those societies and communities that did not develop cultural or ethical

79
mechanisms of how to deal with disagreements and conflicts. Within such groups, peace is still
an attainable consequence of their efforts. Moreover, theoreticians started to focus on the jus
post bellum category of principles that focus on achieving long-lasting peace i.e. no war should
be waged without reflecting on its possible outcomes and consequences for future possibilities
of establishing peace and justice.
The absence of war might be a good starting point, but without these ambitions it remains as
an unfinished project. The Dalai Lama once said:

Peace, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of
hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of
conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused
by senseless deforestation in a neighbouring country. Peace can only last where human
rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are
free (Abrams, 2000, s. 13).

The right for peace is one of the third generation’s human rights. If there were societies that
promoted peaceful behaviour as a norm and throughout time, they would find out that such
orientation best suits their need and is the most effective measure, it means that any society can
do the same. Jeppe von Platz thinks that the value of peace does not have a privileged position
when compared to other values, but at the same time he does not put the value of peace on the
same level. According to him, peace is essential for promoting other values like happiness,
liberty, knowledge, etc., and, as such, peace cannot be a central value for the ‘just war’ theory
(Platz, 2015, p. 37). That’s just another argument supporting the need for a theory with peace
as a central value, or at least a value that enables the existence of many other values and they
reciprocally support the existence of peaceful society. As such, peace cannot be a temporary
solution for war and conflicts, but global society needs a long-lasting peace through which a
unique global justice can be achieved.
With some unquestionable proof at hand, peace is not only an attainable goal in human
society, but also one of many consequences of our societal coexistence. With that in mind, we
acknowledge that human beings are not solely doomed to aggression or violence. Justice may
only be served under the conditions of generally appreciated consensus on peace and as Robert
Myers claimed; peace is not hostile to various conceptions of justice, while war is (Myers, 1996,
p. 129).

Conclusion
We believe that the concept of human nature is true, i.e. that it exists and can be described and
reflected upon from various types of positions, teachings, and sciences. For centuries, we
thought it is unsolvable problem beyond our reach. However, with growing possibilities of
natural sciences and expanding possibilities of our philosophical and ethical evaluations, we
not only conclude that the essence of man exists, but we become confident that we can unveil
it. What we know for sure is that all kinds of human behaviour are parts of human nature –
whether good, evil, right, wrong, or even the so called unnatural one. One might say that the
deficient nature of human beings is a basic precondition for the existence of evil and without it,
we would not be able to recognize and judge good. In this context, by deficiency I mean
cognitive imperfection i.e. often taking irrational decisions and actions, often emotionally and
instinctively conditioned to do.
If war was unnatural for man, we would not witness any of its manifestations throughout the
last centuries. If man was not capable of creating and living in a peaceful society with others,
we would have never seen any evidence of such groups of people - in the past or in the present.
We should approach the concept of human nature as a reservoir of multiple potentialities in
terms of human behaviour. I suggest not to approach the term in the way of deciding whether

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it has one quality and misses the other. Trying to be distinctive and considering certain human
qualities to be exclusive hasn’t been helpful at all. It is these contradictions of various qualities
that create the whole concept of human nature, and their rise or fall is determined by many other
relevant factors (historical, geographical, sociological, biological, evolutional, etc.). Fry
believes that living without war is possible and concludes that “beyond a shadow of a doubt,
with archaeological data, it all demonstrates that warfare is not ancient” (Fry, 2013, p. 545). It
has been a part of our most recent history, but it was rarely observed in our ancient history. It
proves that both constitute a part of man’s nature, but they do not determine whether his nature
is good or evil. We’ve been just so tempted to focus on the evil implications of human nature,
that we have been overlooking the opposite. We have to rivet our attention to the good side of
human nature rather than the evil one, to peace rather than war and especially to just peace
rather than just war. According to all data and evidence that we have from vast number of
research in empirical and natural sciences, together with all kinds of reflections and studies in
humanities, we may easily come to the conclusion that it is an achievable possibility.
In the meantime, the human race has always found the means to survive and still remain
human in terms of its virtues, vices, the consequences their actions cause, and the values that
their actions and behaviour represent. These values (humanity, human dignity, justice,
tolerance, liberty, etc.) stem from a conception that human beings are not a perfect product of
nature. Our nature is the source of all our actions which may lead us on the path of violence,
injustice and wars as well as it can take us to non-violence, justice, and peace. Having said that,
these pathways are not ultimate and often bring various shortcuts and crossroads which serve
as tests of our nature and especially its moral aspects.

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