  In addition to killing human persons, war violates the moral status of persons when, for example, soldiers are viewed as interchangeable cogs in the war machine. One might then criticize the apparent “herd mentality” of militarism, as Albert Einstein did when he called the militaristic patriotism of the masses a sort of “loathsome nonsense” (Einstein 1954, 8)  The idea of conscription seems to run counter to the idea of respect for persons. And pacifists may argue that it is somehow disrespectful to require soldiers to conform to military virtues such as obedience to authority. Arguments against militarism along these lines were made famous by Thoreau who claimed that in military service “the mass of men serve the State thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies” (Thoreau 2000, 669)