On Violence

[Belacqua]

The word violence is not the word I would use. Yes, it is justified to use force in this scenario. However, at least in the American system, you are not justified in killing him or maming him. I would assume the law allows you to use only enough force to stop the act. (Of course, the jury may be completely fine with you killing him.) So I would consider the unjust act of force to be examples of violence.

This isn't an arbitrary distinction. The word violence, even though it refers to force, still carries a negative sense. No one hears the word violence and infers a neutral or positive use of force. The force used when teams play sports, for example, is not the same as the violence used when teams start physically fighting.

We seem to have moved from violence being morally "verboten", to it being morally relative, but then that's true of morality generally, as it seems to be both subjective and relative. We are part of nature, and nature "uses" violence as part of evolution. That we have evolved brains capable of self awareness, and thanks to agricultural and industrial revolutions, have the time to examine moral choices, and if we choose, be appalled by that violence, is another matter.

It is natural that people are born without language. But it is natural that by a certain age people acquire language. Language requires symbols, concepts, abstractions. So it is natural for people to use abstractions and many other things that they aren't born with.

It is natural that someone who is fearful or uncomfortable will try to improve his conditions. The gradual increase in technological solutions means that this natural tendency becomes more effective over time.

Drawing a line between natural and unnatural in human affairs is arbitrary. It is natural that we fly in airplanes, because that is the kind of thing that people do -- not when they're born, not in the 13th century, but, given time, when they can.

It is also natural for us to reflect on our actions and ponder what is good and what is bad. It may be that some natural urges we have we also, due to our nature, seek to suppress. 

Unfortunately this leaves human beings with an unsolvable paradox, in that it is natural for us to have virtually unlimited desires, yet also natural for us to hope for a peaceful and secure society which demands the suppression of many desires.