  Pacifism, as it is understood in ordinary discourse today, includes a variety of commitments on a continuum from an absolute adherence to nonviolence in all actions to a more focused or minimal sort of anti-warism. In contrast to the just war tradition, pacifism rejects war as an acceptable means for obtaining peace. Pacifists will often refuse to serve in the military. And some refuse to support political and social systems that promote war by, for example, withholding their taxes. Pacifists have been associated with quietistic withdrawal from political life and even outright anarchism. But pacifists need not be “passive”: many committed pacifists have been actively involved in nonviolent social protest. Pacifism can be used to describe a commitment to nonviolence in one’s personal life that might include the attempt to cultivate pacific virtues such as tolerance, patience, mercy, forgiveness, and love. It might also be extended to include nonviolence toward all sentient beings and thus result in a commitment to vegetarianism and what Albert Schweitzer (1967) called, “reverence for life.” Pacifism can be connected to a larger project of spiritual transformation, as in Gandhi’s commitment to ahimsa or nonviolence. And as the author of the present entry has argued, pacifism can be understood as offering a comprehensive normative framework (Fiala 2018).