"Morally' violent?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Sure, but there's no absolute morality, as you'd like there to be, to say that shooting someone who breaks into your home is absolutely wrong.

There are very few things that are absolutely wrong. Justin Bieber and Aubergines are the only two that spring to mind...

Karl Marx, Adolph Hitler, Josef Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot spring to my mind.

I'm pretty sure they have taken up permanent residence there...

[Xamonas Chegwé]

As I see it, any use of violence can be justified by it preventing similar or greater violence to oneself or to another. If an adult is hitting your child with a baseball bat, you are quite justified in using pretty much any means necessary to stop him doing it. Once he has been stopped though, and is unable or unwilling to continue, any further violence on your part becomes excessive and ceases to be morally justifiable. If, on the other hand, they merely slap your kid for being cheeky, then attacking them with a crowbar would be going a tad too far - especially if the perpetrator was a 90 year-old woman.

The grey areas come where the violence being prevented is not physical - ie. no like-for-like comparison can be made to decide if the force used is excessive. For example: How much violence is reasonable to offset the pain caused by losing your property? Is it justifiable to use more violence if that property is not insured? Is it ok to break a limb of someone trying to steal your car but only to bruise someone trying to steal your roller skates? Or is property property? Can any means be used to prevent any theft? The answers are a lot less obvious.

Less obvious still, are cases where the hurt being prevented is purely psychological. How much violence can be justified if someone calls your pint a poofter? Or defiles the temple of the Great White Elk (Blessed be her Antlers.) Or fails to correctly use an apostrophe!

Sure, almost everyone that uses violence thinks they are justified at the time - except for psychopaths - they know it's not justified but hey-ho! What I don't agree with is that there is any absolute morality or absolutely justifiable course of action in any circumstance. We either buy in to society and take a consensus view on what goes and what doesn't, or we plough our own furrow and risk censure if we overstep the line (or regular beatings if we understep it!) Most of us fall somewhere between the two, in my experience.

To me the limit is clearly a threat of physical violence. Under no circumstances do I consider verbal (or written) provocation to be justification for the use of any force whatsoever. When it comes to insults and name-calling, it's the duty of every person to simply ignore such provocations and/or walk away. Anger generated by an insult that results in violence is not a justification for a use of force because adults are expected to control their anger and not initiate physical violence because of something said to them or written about them.

Insult is never justification for violence, only physical attack provides moral justification for retaliation in self-defense or the defense of others.

I'm pretty much in agreement there. However, the laws of most countries take a different view (assuming that one considers the forceful restriction of liberty to be a form of violence - and, even if one does not, then the "reasonable force" used by its officers to enact an arrest certainly is.) So, is it correct that society as a whole, in its guise of "The Law", is entitled to react violently to such things as libel, hate-speech, blasphemy, inciting violence, etc., while an individual member of that society is required to turn the other cheek?

I don't really take a side on this question - rather, I think that each case should be taken on its own merits. I just found the disconnect between an individual's right to retaliate, immediately, in the heat of the moment and society's to retaliate, after the fact, in cold blood, interesting.

[Hermit]

There is no objective nor universal morality. So the 'moral' message you are trying to reach from the article is bogus.

Why the "but"? Blind groper acknowledges that.

The thesis is that most violence is done for "moral" reasons, with "moral" being entirely from the viewpoint of the perpetrator. That form of "morality" is twisted, dangerous, often insane, and never rational.

[pErvinalia]

Yes, as the second quote you show says - (paraphrasing) "relative morality is wrong". My point is, no, it's not wrong, even if it could be. For it to be 'wrong' would require the concept of objective morality. Hence why BG is off the mark.

[pErvinalia]

I agree more or less what XC says. Would it be morally wrong to kill Hitler to put a stop to the extermination of the Jews? Of course not.

[pErvinalia]

What I like about the US constitution, despite obvious implementation problems across the whole document particularly in light of the violent corporatist society that is the US now, is that it makes it explicitly potentially moral to depose a 'tyrannical' government. Implementation/judgement of that is always going to be a problem, but it allows for the moral right to exist in some form. Honestly, I'd like to openly advocate for the violent removal of the current Australian government (not least the whole broken corrupt system), but I'm not sure that I am within my legal right to do so.

[Xamonas Chegwé]

I agree more or less what XC says. Would it be morally wrong to kill Hitler to put a stop to the extermination of the Jews? Of course not.

"Of course not." Isn't that assuming an absolute morality?

Do you know the full consequences of killing Hitler? Might not someone else have made an equally brutal but far less erratic job of leading Germany? One that took a lot more beating and cost far more lives? Wouldn't going back in time and giving the young Hitler CBT make more sense? Or switching him at birth with a Jewish family?

Unless you have an omniscient view of all consequences, there is no "Of course" when it comes to morality. Only lots of "What if?"s.

[cronus]

The German people killed the Jews. If you know your history and its up to date you'll realise the masterminds of the Holocaust were not the big guys at the top, Hitler didn't invent European anti-semitism. And it was a variety of reasons...not least the quest for more living space that motivated the mass slaughter of the 'enemy within' rather than some high ideal or moral purpose.

[pErvinalia]

I agree more or less what XC says. Would it be morally wrong to kill Hitler to put a stop to the extermination of the Jews? Of course not.

"Of course not." Isn't that assuming an absolute morality?

Of course not! No, seriously, it isn't. It's saying that you can't definitely say it is "wrong". I.e. there is no objective morality. I'm a bit surprised that you and Hermit are getting confused on this topic.

Do you know the full consequences of killing Hitler? Might not someone else have made an equally brutal but far less erratic job of leading Germany? One that took a lot more beating and cost far more lives? Wouldn't going back in time and giving the young Hitler CBT make more sense? Or switching him at birth with a Jewish family?

Unless you have an omniscient view of all consequences, there is no "Of course" when it comes to morality. Only lots of "What if?"s.

Philosophically that is true. But what I am saying is for argument's sake equivalent to a (social) scientific theory. I.e. scientific theories are considered "truth" (until something better possibly comes along). But it's probably as close to a truth as one could get in social science. That is, killing Hitler (and potentially killing any successors like him) would most likely result in less Jews and other minorities being killed.

[pErvinalia]

The German people killed the Jews. If you know your history and its up to date you'll realise the masterminds of the Holocaust were not the big guys at the top, Hitler didn't invent European anti-semitism. And it was a variety of reasons...not least the quest for more living space that motivated the mass slaughter of the 'enemy within' rather than some high ideal or moral purpose.

All movements rely on charismatic leaders for fuel.

[Blind groper]

It has been said that humans are not rational animals, but rather, rationalising animals.

The act of violence must be a case in point. If you perpetrate violence, is your stated reason a reason or a rationalisation?

The people who warble on about self defense are a case in point. Is their willingness to engage in violence and murder a result of the need for self defense, or is that simply an excuse for their desire to commit terrible acts?

[cronus]

The German people killed the Jews. If you know your history and its up to date you'll realise the masterminds of the Holocaust were not the big guys at the top, Hitler didn't invent European anti-semitism. And it was a variety of reasons...not least the quest for more living space that motivated the mass slaughter of the 'enemy within' rather than some high ideal or moral purpose.

All movements rely on charismatic leaders for fuel.

Charisma like Hitler was ten a penny in those days. He had no special qualities. Even his oration skills are myth, and a reflection on widely advancing acoustic technologies of the time he took advantage of.

[Blind groper]

On morality

Morality is a social construct. In that, it is the same as with human rights. There are no absolutes in human rights or morality. Both are created by society.

However, that does not make them irrelevant or unimportant. Quite the contrary, arbitrary though they may be, they are vitally important. I have the legal right to talk to who I wish, and to verbally abuse any politician I wish. These rights did not always exist, but they exist now, and I value them.

However, there is a big difference between the rights and morality that society has constructed, and the rights and morality that an individual may decide are appropriate for himself.

If a drug pusher murders another person because that other person is a competitor, the murderer may justify the killing as 'moral' because the other person needed to be punished. But society will not accept that as 'moral'.

There is no absolute morality. But the laws and customs of society as a whole are designed to exist above individual wishes and provide a standard that everyone must adhere to.

Of course, that which society dictates may also be wrong. When that happens, it is up to everyone to oppose. But not to oppose by violence.

[cronus]

Morality is internally inconsistent and externally negated by the facts and the evidence. A third of babies are products of the milkman. Not quite accurate. That's the reality folks.

[mistermack]

The violence on burglars should be the very last resort, as far as I'm concerned.
Why? For the same reason that I'm against the death penalty. Purely on the grounds that innocent people get hurt.
At least, when someone gets executed, they get a trial. Home justice doesn't even give you that.

But of course, it's a murky business. When does justifiable self-defence become citizen justice?
You shouldn't have the right to keep guns, purely because it's far too easy to claim self-defence, when you are really just dying to shoot someone.
Just like what happened when that innocent school kid got shot by the murdering asshole.

How can an innocent person be breaking into your house? It happens.
And in any case, lots of people get killed in the margins, knocking on the door, or walking into an open garage to ask for a light, or direction etc.

It's true, these morons think they have a right to kill, they think at the time they are "blowing away a punk" which they dream of after watching dirty harry.

You have to frame your laws to take account of these morons. We all pay a price for the fact that humans are less than perfect. In this case, the price should be to be denied guns.
Like I say in my signature.