What Would Gandhi Do?

I have to say that Dave’s entry was after my own, I too support a value system where pain, suffering and death do not hold as much sway as what is truly valuable. It’s counter-the common view to think that suffering is not sufficient for evil, and I’m almost alone in my Problem of Evil class when I stand up for a different theory of the good AND of the bad. I think, it is a necessary condition of a complete theory of the good, to include a notion of the bad. Unfortunately, however, most of philosophy has been dominated by the hedonistic idea of the bad: pain and suffering. I think, that having room for multiple theories of the good while maintaining a single theory of the bad is shortsighted on philosophy’s part.
I sort of jumped over it in class, because I had a different movie case I was interested in...but I’m really interested in the “what would Gandhi do?” question. Having read a lot of Gandhi, I thought I’d flesh out his view on the case. Gandhi has long been one of my role-model type of people (although, like with my high regard for Aristotle, I don’t want this affinity to entail I eat up all of their views because I think they are golden. Rather, I hold them up to the same skeptical standard I hold all views, and I am oft to disagree in one area or another. However, these are two people who I find myself doing a lot more nodding towards than head shaking.) At any rate, with the Nazi example from class, I think Gandhi would most certainly not kill the three men. It’s interesting to think about how he could handle the situation non-violently. But, I think, his views entail that he would make a stand by his people. Say, you can kill these three, you can kill me, you can kill us all. But you will never knock down what we stand for. It would be better for Gandhi to die without taking a gun in his hands, than to commit a violent act with the idea that it would prevent something more horrible.
Now, Gandhi is careful to skirt around some occasions where it’s permissible for a country to go to war...and he doesn’t want to be a pure pacifist. If the only way to peace is through war itself, then war must happen. But I still don’t think he would condone killing the three, because that would in no way promote his more supreme value of peace. Killing the three might save the village (if the Nazi’s keep their word) but that will not solve the problem that the Nazis are in power, and the symbolism behind the Nazi’s having the freedom fighters killed is a message of turmoil and oppression he could not condone. Gandhi was not a man for “do just enough to get people to leave you alone” kind of guy. He was a fight with peaceful actions until things are RIGHT. Gandhi was a doer of peace. And killing the three does not make peace or unity, it just makes fear and submission to power.
I think Gandhi would agree with me as well on the issue of suffering not being a true evil in life. He himself often used it as a tool to get great goods to come to pass. By showing people how much he voluntarily suffered for a cause, he could move people to compassion and just action. There is no intrinsic evil in suffering, it is undesirable yes. But just because we have hedonistic distaste for something doesn’t mean it is evil. Unless of course you take the hedonist theory of the good, then of course you would have to accept suffering as the true source of evil. But I think there are many plausible theories of the good which deny hedonism, or at least diminish it in it’s importance. Among these theories greater evils can come into play than merely pain and suffering.
The sacrifice of the entire village would be a great good if it was a symbolic gesture against the evil that was causing it. It makes the Nazis all the more evil for all that blood on their hands. Other villages could be inspired by this stand, and not commit acts of evil in fear of the Nazi power themselves. If the mayor had stood up to the proposition from the start, and stood by a value of freedom and peace...I think we would hold him in much higher regard then the actual case. He is very pitiful for having tried to kill the three, and then being un able to, losing the town non the less. Even if he had killed the three and saved the town, the demoralization would leave a town not worth saving. Or at the very least, it would leave his life in that town not worth living. He may have saved their lives, but he never stood up to the evil that threatened them peacefully or no. He merely complied so they would get off his back.