William James's Moral Equivalent to War is Incorrect

https://brocku.ca/MeadProject/James/James_1911_11.html Text in PDF form.

William James was an American philosopher and psychologist who lived between 1842 and 1910. Originally in a lecture given at Stanford in 1906, James proposed a "moral equivalent to war. 

The main idea of James’s proposal is that human beings have a for conflict, which according to James, has traditionally been met by war which provides a sense of purpose, meaning, and excitement that is difficult to find in normal everyday life. James, however, was a pacifist, and believed that war was abhorrent, and thus sets out to find an alternative way to satisfy these needs. James would ultimately propose what he called a "moral equivalent" to war, something that would provide the same sense of struggle and purpose that was provided by war without the violence and destruction brought upon by it. James believed that this moral equivalent could be achieved through shifting mankind's aggression towards nature. More specifically towards injustices that exist in nature.

The way he sees his idea being achieved is by nations conscribing youth to a so-called army to combat nature. "To coal and iron mines, to freight trains, to fishing fleets in December, to dishwashing, clothes washing, and window washing, to roadbuilding and tunnel-making, and to the frames of skyscrapers, would our gilded youths be drafted off to get the childishness knocked out of them, and to come back into society with healthier sympathies and soberer ideas. They would have paid their blood-tax, done their own part in the immemorial human warfare against nature; they would tread the earth more proudly, the women would value them more highly, they would be better fathers and teachers of the following generation." he writes in the essay. 

This, however, is flawed, in my opinion. What William James proposes is both partly irresponsible and unfulfilling. It is first of all irresponsible to call for a war on nature. Calling it a war on nature is open ended enough that it can be up for interpretation.  A war on nature can be seen as simple subduing nature’s more dangerous aspects, like the elimination of certain diseases. However, it can also be seen as a call for the destruction of nature. Mankind is hardwired for destruction, and calling it a war can, and ultimately would lead to, in my opinion, a person or a group of people destroying nature as we know it, all in the name of satisfying mankind’s needs.

William James’s idea of a moral equivalent is unfulfilling. Who is to say that people of higher social status would not use that status to get out of their duty, similar to Civil War draft dodgers. Along with that, war is romanticized in ways most other activities are not. It is seen as brave for one to selflessly fight for ones nation. This goes for those who do and do not fight in it. When World War One broke out, many young men lined up to join the army in the United Kingdom. During the war, those who could not, or chose not to fight were harassed. It hard to see this same fervor fallowing a war on nature.