Thinking clearly about violence

Philosophical Studies

Volumn 117, Issue 1-2, 2004, Pages 219-230

  Bäck, Allan ^a  

^a KUTZTOWN UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 55449133062     PISSN: 00318116     EISSN: 15730883     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/b:phil.0000014534.75890.da     Document Type: Review

References (53)

1. Science, Vol. 23 (June, 1972), pp. 1300-1303, as cited in the O.E.D.
2. On recent material in the social sciences, cf. James Silverberg and J. Patrick Gray, "Violence and Peacefulness as Behavioral Potentialities of Primates", in J. Silverberg and J. Gray (eds.), Aggression and Peacefulness in Humans and Other Primates, (Oxford, 1992), pp. 3ff.
3. On the lack of recent material in philosophy, cf. Steven Lee, "Is Poverty Violence?", in D. Curtin and R. Litke (eds.), Institutional Violence (Amsterdam, 1999), p. 11, n. 1.
4. Indeed, another irony lies in the lack of discussions on the conception of violence in political theory at that time. Cf. Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York, 1970), pp. 8, 40, who bewails the lack of discussion in political science on 'violence', 'strength', 'authority', 'power', 'violence'.
5. Kai Nielson, "On Justifying Violence", Inquiry 24 (1981), p. 24, claims, in opposition to the O.E.D., that 'violence' has a negative connotation so that when it is used it "becomes [prima facie?] immoral by definition."
6. Robert Paul Wolff, "On Violence", Journal of Philosophy 66 (1969), p. 606: "Strictly speaking, violence is the illegitimate or unauthorized use of force to effect decisions against the will of others." Inter alia, the O.E.D. gives the following definitions: "'violence' is the exercise of physical force so as to inflict damage or injury to persons or property," and 'to force' is "to exert physical or psychological power or coercion upon one to act in some determinate way."
7. Rubin Gotesky, "Social Force, Social Power, and Social Violence", in S. Stanage (ed.), Reason and Violence (Totowa, N.J., 1974), p. 146;
8. he calls this "violence". Cf. Richard Feynman, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Vol. 1 (Reading, MA, 1961), §§12.1 and 13.1.
9. This conception amounts to what Sherman Stanage, "Violatives: Modes and Themes of Violence", in S. Stanage (ed.), Reason and Violence (Totowa, N.J., 1974), p. 225,
10. calls 'power'. Cf. Hannah Arendt, On Violence (New York, 1970), p. 40;
11. R.G. Collingwood, The New Leviathan (Oxford, 1942), pp. 141-142.
12. The butterfly effect in chaos theory.
13. Ronald P. Miller, "Violence, Force, and Coercion", in J. Shaffer (ed.), Violence (New York, 1971), pp. 31-32.
14. Some however take forcefulness to be determined by the intrinsic character of the act, like its effort or quantity of energy, and not by its effects. E.g., Robert Audi, "On the Meaning and Justification of Violence", in J. Shaffer (ed.), Violence (New York, 1971), p. 66, says that discrimination and exclusion are not violent since they are "peacefully maintained". Miller (p. 20), says that neglect is not violent "since neglecting cannot be done with great force".
15. 'Is directed towards' should be understood in the middle voice, and not (necessarily) in the passive voice. That is, I am leaving it open whether or not an act of aggression must be committed by a moral agent, I shall claim that it must be committed by an agent having intentions, in a weak sense of 'intention', according to which all animals have them.
16. Janes Silverberg and J. Patrick Gray, "Violence and Peacefulness as Behavioral Potentialities of Primates", p. 5.
17. Cf. G. Siann, Accounting for Aggression (Boston, 1985), p. 12.
18. Cf. Miller, "Violence, Force, and Coercion", p. 23;
19. Audi, "On the Meaning and Justification of Violence", pp. 59, 88.
20. Cf. S. Howell and R. Willis, Societies at Peace: Anthropological Perspectives (London, 1989), who favor the etic over the emic.
21. E.O. Wilson, Sociobiology (Cambridge, MA, 1975), p. 577; cf. pp. 242-244.
22. Also cf. Konrad Lorenz, On Aggression (New York, 1966), p. ix, who defines 'aggression' as "the fighting instinct in beast and man which is directed against members of the same species." At p. 18, however, he does use 'aggression' in describing behavior towards another species. (In a section omitted from this version of the paper, I discuss and reject weakening Wilson's definition to '... that reduces the freedom and genetic fitness of another'.)
23. E.O. Wilson, Sociobiology, p. 585.
24. Cf. Jonathan Glover, Causing Death and Saving Lives (Reading, England, 1977), pp. 94-97.
25. James Silverberg and J. Patrick Gray, "Violence and Peacefulness as Behavioral Potentialities of Primates", p. 4.
26. Franz De Waal, "Aggression as a Well-Integrated Part of Primate Social Relationships: A Critique of the SSSV", in J. Silverberg and J. Gray (eds.), Aggression and Peacefulness in Humans and Other Primates (Oxford, 1992), p. 39, describes violence as one of many tactics to pursue social goals, but one having high costs. So too in philosophy.
27. Cf. Sherman Stanage, "Violatives: Modes and Themes of Violence", in S. Stanage (ed.), Reason and Violence (Totowa, N.J., 1974), pp. 215-219.
28. James Silverberg and J. Patrick Gray, "Violence and Peacefulness as Behavioral Potentialities of Primates", p. 3, likewise define 'aggression' as "the assertiveness (or forcefulness) indicated by one actor's initiating toward some other(s) of an act that is higher on the violence scale than the previous act in a given interaction sequence." This agrees with my account if by 'violence' they mean what I have called 'forcefulness'.
29. Still, it would be better not to restrain the young if the same benefits could be gained otherwise. Indeed, this is a common Japanese criticism of American child-rearing practices! I discuss below why such practices are prima facie wrong.
30. For instance, Carol Lauer, "Variability in the Patterns of Agonistic Behavior in Pre-School Children", in J. Silverberg and J. Gray (eds.), Aggression and Peacefulness in Humans and Other Primates (Oxford, 1992), p. 172, complains that aggression is difficult to observe because of its intentional element and because even of the difficulty to deciding when freedom is restrained. Hence, she suggests, we should use 'agonistic activity', which she defines as: "An agonistic act is any behavior relating to conflict situations, whether assertive or submissive." Well, first we would have to define 'conflict' which seems intentional. For example, one animal bumping into another clumsily has not started a "conflict" although the one being bumped might react as if the bumping were a conflict. And it would react thus because typically such acts have been goal-directed and intentional.
31. How then to judge what constitutes a "conflict"? Again, via considering intent and common practice. Moreover, it does sound strange to call completely submissive behavior "agonistic" just because it occurs in a "conflict situation". Cf. though E.O. Wilson, Sociobiology (Cambridge, MA, 1975), p. 578, who defines 'agonistic' as any activity related to fighting.
32. I.e., first-order intentionality, and not second-order intentions about intentions. Cf. Harry Frankfurt, "Freedom of the Will and the Concept of a Person", in the Importance of What We Care About (Cambridge, 1988), pp. 12-19.
33. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics X.4.
34. E.g., Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics III.2;
35. Immanuel Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals II, pp. 416-417.
36. Cf. Robert Simon, Sports and Social Values (Englewood Cliffs, 1985), p. 38: "Typically or paradigmatically ... cases of violence involve the intentional use of physical force designed to harm a person or property."
37. This distinction amount to what Audi calls "doing violence to" a person, versus 'violating' a person, where only the latter is "wrong by definition". Robert Audi, "Violence, Legal Sanctions, and Law Enforcement", in S. Stanage (ed.), Reason and Violence (Totowa, N.J., 1974), p. 32.
38. The pejorative sense takes the violation of persons as the most important feature of 'violence', as Newton Garver, "What Violence Is", in T. Rose (ed.), Violence in America (New York, 1969) (= The Nation, 24 June 1968, p. 819), pp. 6-7,
39. wants: "What is fundamental about violence is that a person is violated ... violence in human affairs amounts to violating persons." This definition agrees also with Ted Honderich, Political Violence (Ithaca, 1976), p. 98: a violent act is "a use of a considerable or destroying force against people or things, a use of force which offends against a norm."
40. Also cf. Harry Girvetz, "An Anatomy of Violence,', in S. Stanage (ed.), Reason and Violence (Totowa, N.J., 1974), p. 184, who defines 'force or violence' as "harm perpetrated on persons or property ranging, in the case of persons, from restraining their freedom of movement to torture and death, and, in the case of property, from simple fine or damage to complete expropriation or total destruction."
41. Robert Audi, "Violence, Legal Sanctions, and Law Enforcement", p. 38;
42. "On the Meaning and Justification of Violence", pp. 52, 54.
43. Robert Nozick, Philosophical Explanations (Cambridge, MA, 1981), pp. 4-6.
44. So too Andrew Norman, "Epistemological Violence", in D. Curtin and R. Litke (eds.), Institutional Violence (Amsterdam, 1999), p. 252.
45. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics II.4;
46. Kant, Foundations of the Metaphysics of Morals I, pp. 393-394.
47. This distinction can be made also in terms of the distinction between an antecedent versus a consequent will.
48. Judith Jarvis Thomson, "Self-Defense", Philosophy and Public Affairs 20.4 (1991), pp. 294, 303.
49. Cf. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics III.3 on what is up to us
50. It also prevents a person from having the casuist excuse of appeal to the doctrine of double effect, sc., of willing only one of the consequences when she knows full well that the other consequence will follow. Cf. Alison MacIntyre, "Doing away with Double Effect", Ethics 11.2 (2001), pp. 222-225; 225, n. 12.
51. To be violent, such acts would also have to be forceful in the sense described above. Still instances that were successful would tend to be forceful, as they would have great consequences. Cf. John Lewis, The Case Against Pacifism (London, 1939), pp. 109-110.
52. Quoted in Thomas Merton (ed.), Gandhi on Non-Violence (New York, 1965), p. 75.
53. To be violent, such acts would also have to be forceful in the sense described above. Cf. John Lewis, The Case Against Pacifism (London, 1939), pp. 109-110.