Description
In its essence, war is typically conceived as the reciprocity of hostile intentions between groups which results in fighting/mortal contest (Cf. Clausewitz’ definition). Though concise, this conception is existentially superficial insofar as it presupposes an understanding of the notion of “hostile intentionality” (i.e., “enmity”) at its core. In response, this paper proposes a phenomenological-existentialist conception of the essence of war as Being-against – a term which inverts Martin Heidegger’s notion of Being-with to understand the mutually constitutive nature of enmity/enemies. Through this notion, I contextualize the horror of war in relation to the existential gratification which Being-against potentially—and tragically—facilitates; thereby, I offer a broad explanation for the historical tendency towards war. Moreover, I show that Being-against is an inalienable possibility for a being such as we are; any pacifism, as such, must take this possibility/gratifying tendency seriously if it is to achieve its ends. To conclude, I outline one major contribution of this approach, namely, its ability to contextualize the existential significance of rapidly evolving technologies; specifically, I outline the terms for asking whether robots, guided by artificial intelligence, could ever be-against in our—or some other—fashion.
