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Nonkilling refers to the absence of killing, threats to kill, and conditions conducive to killing in human society. It traces its origin from the broader concept of ahimsa or nonviolence, one of the central tenets of Indian religions, namely, Jainism, Hinduism, and Buddhism, where it includes all sentient life forms. This is also the case for the traditional use of the term "nonkilling" (or "non-killing") as part of Buddhist ethics, as expressed in the first precept of the Pancasila,Stewart McFarlane in Peter Harvey, ed., Buddhism. Continuum, 2001, page 187. Buddhist Scriptures in Pali language have explicit reference to nonviolence and nonkilling: monks should not only themselves abstain from killing but should also refrain from encouraging other people to kill themselves (Vinayapitaka III: .71-74) and in similar terms throughout world spiritual traditions (see Nonkilling studies). While it is typically extended to include the animal killing and other forms of life, the use of the term in political and academic contexts refers mostly to the Manslaughter. (2025). 9780982298312, Center for Global Nonkilling. ISBN 9780982298312 The term was popularised as a modern political concept in the 2002 book Nonkilling Global Political Science by Glenn D. Paige. Significantly, "nonkilling" was used in the "Charter for a World without Violence" approved by the 8th World Summit of Nobel Peace Laureates."To address all forms of violence we encourage scientific research in the fields of human interaction and dialogue and we invite participation from the academic, scientific and religious communities to aid us in the transition to nonviolent, and nonkilling societies".
Historically, several early Indian and Greek philosophers advocated for and preached ahimsa and non-killing. Parsvanatha, the twenty-third tirthankara of Jainism, was one of the earliest person to preach the concept of ahimsa and non-killing around the 8th century BCE. Mahavira, the twenty-fourth and last tirthankara, then further strengthened the idea in the 6th century BCE. The earliest Greek philosophers who advocated for ahimsa and non-killing is Pythagoras. The Indian philosopher Valluvar has written exclusive chapters on ahimsa and non-killing as fundamental virtues for an individual in his work of the Tirukkural.
In relation to psychological aggression, physical assault, and torture intended to terrorize by manifest or latent threat to life, nonkilling implies removal of their psychosocial causes. In relation to killing of humans by socioeconomic structural conditions that are the product of direct lethal reinforcement as well as the result of diversion of resources for purposes of killing, nonkilling implies removal of lethality-linked deprivations. In relation to threats to the viability of the biosphere, nonkilling implies absence of direct attacks upon life-sustaining resources as well as cessation of indirect degradation associated with lethality. In relation to forms of accidental killing, nonkilling implies creation of social and technological conditions conducive to their elimination.
Nonkilling does not set any predetermined path for the achievement of a killing-free society in the same way as some ideologies and spiritual traditions that foster the restraint from the taking of life do. As an open-ended approach, it appeals to infinite human creativity and variability, encouraging continuous explorations in the fields of education, research, social action and policy making, by developing a broad range of scientific, institutional, educational, political, economic and spiritual alternatives to human killing. Also, in spite of its specific focus, nonkilling also tackles broader social issues.
A considerable literature on nonkilling describes various theoretical and conceptual approaches to nonkilling and codifies a set of potentially useful conceptual lenses. Nonkilling Global Political Science (NKGPS) advocates a threefold paradigmatic shift in human society to the absence of killing, of threats to kill, and of conditions conducive to killing. Paige's stance is to create a society free from killing, thereby reversing the existing deleterious effects of killing, and instead employ the public monies saved from producing and using weapons to create a benevolent, wealthier and overall more socially just society. Since Paige introduced his framework, a body of associated scholarship, guided by the Center for Global Nonkilling, a Honolulu-based NGO with Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council, has developed across a variety of disciplines. (2025). 9780982298343, Center for Global Nonkilling. ISBN 9780982298343 Through academic work sponsored by the center, it has both associated NKGPS with previous nonviolent or peace-building scholarship from different religious frameworks, including Buddhism, (1991). 9780982298305, Center for Global Nonviolence Planning Project, Spark M. Matsunaga Institute for Peace, University of Hawaii. ISBN 9780982298305 Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. and expanded on these traditions, providing it a broad functional and moral inheritance. (2025). 9780982298350, Center for Global Nonkilling. ISBN 9780982298350 Within the NKGPS approach, preventing violence and encouraging peacebuilding involves applying NKGPS as a global political science through advocacy work in favour of a paradigmatic shift from killing to nonkilling, utilizing various conceptual lenses. Paige's own work focused on the Korean peninsular, but scholars have applied NKGPS to a wide variety of regional and national conflicts, for example the Balkans (2025). 9780983986270, University of Sarajevo, Faculty of Philosophy. ISBN 9780983986270 and the Philippines. (2025). 9780982298305, Aurora Aragon Quezon Peace Foundation & Kalayaan College at Riverbanks, Marikina. ISBN 9780982298305
The nonkilling approach emphasizes that a global nonkilling society is not free of conflict, but that the overall structure of society and processes do not originate in or rely on killing. Paige introduced a wide array of concepts to support nonkilling. For instance, Paige advocated the societal adoption of three main concepts of peace, namely the absence of war and of conditions that might lead to war; nonviolence, at the psychological, physical, or structural levels; and ahimsa, that is, noninjury in thought, word and deed, whether from religious or secular traditions. Paige also advocated a taxonomy for assessing individuals and societies::76
Another concept introduced by Paige is the 'funnel of killing'. In this five-fold lens for viewing society, people kill in a 'killing zone' which can range from a single location to theatres of war and which is the actual place where the killing occurs; learn to kill in a 'socialisation zone', such as a military base; are educated to accept killing as necessary and valid in a 'cultural conditioning zone'; inhabit a 'structural reinforcement zone', where socioeconomic influences, organisations and institutions, together with material means, prompt and sustain a killing discourse; and experience a 'neurobiochemical capability zone', that is, immediate neurological and physical factors that lead to killing behaviours, such as genes for psychopathic behaviour. Paige advocated an 'unfolding fan' of nonkilling alternatives (Figure 1), which involves deliberate efforts in each zone to minimize killing.:76 In this alternative construction, killing zone interventions can take spiritual forms, for example faith-based mediation, or nonlethal technology interventions, for example stun guns or teargas. Transformations in socialization zone domains involve nonkilling socialization education, while interventions in the cultural conditioning zone occur via the arts and the media. In the structural reinforcement zone, socioeconomic conditions (such as a dependence on fossil fuels) are effected with the aim of avoiding any potential justification for lethality. Finally, in the killing zone, interventions along clinical, pharmacological, physical, or spiritual/meditative lines are designed to free people, for example the traumatised or psychopaths, from any tendencies to kill.
- Prokilling—consider killing positively beneficial for self or civilisation;
- Killing-prone—inclined to kill or to support killing when advantageous;
- Ambikilling—equally inclined to kill or not to kill, and to support or oppose it;
- Killing-avoiding—predisposed not to kill or to support it but prepared to do so;
- Nonkilling—committed not to kill and to change conditions conducive to lethality.
Various theoretical elaborations on nonkilling exist. For instance, Motlagh introduced a fundamental objective hierarchy of steps to transform the social institutions that can contribute to nonkilling. Motlagh emphasizes that societal transformation towards nonkilling needs social institutions to adopt inspiring symbols of perpetual peace and concepts such as weapon-free zones, as well as actions like eliminating economic structures that support lethality, protecting the environment, and defending human rights.
In a broad conception, nonkilling opposes aggression, animal cruelty, animal euthanasia, animal killing and animal slaughter, animal testing, assassination, autogenocide, blood sport, contract killing, corporate manslaughter, culling, cultural genocide, capital punishment, democide, domestic killings, ethnic cleansing, ethnocide, femicide, feticide, fishing, gendercide, genocide, honor killing, hunting, infanticide, language death, live food, manslaughter, mass murder, meat eating, murder–suicide, Human extinction, policide, politicide, regicide, Human sacrifice, ritual slaughter, , structural violence, suicide, terrorism, thrill killing, tyrannicide, ventilation shutdown, violence, vivisection, war, and other forms of killing, direct, indirect or structural.
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