Violence, Justification, and Pain-Sensing Dandelions

Greetings,

Tonight's Philosophy Society meeting will cover the "Philosophy of Violence", and pose questions about possible justifications for acts of violence, including war. This post will touch on an element of the topic: why does violence need justification?

Princeton University's Wordnet offers three definitions for violence:

1. An act of aggression.
2. The property of being wild or turbulent.
3. A turbulent state resulting in injuries and destruction etc.

If we assume that violence can potentially need ethical justification, I think we should reject the second definition's utility to our discussion, as properties necessarily do not require ethical justification (feel free to disagree with this, or call for an argument, in the comments). We might, therefore, consolidate the definition into the following:

"An act or state of aggression that results in injuries and/or destruction".

Per this definition, we can expound a bit on the nature of violence:

1. Violence requires an aggressor-- there cannot be aggression without an aggressor. Thus, it is incorrect to speak of violence where there is no aggressor to be found.

2. An act is not violent unless it has certain consequences (injuries and/or destruction). Thus, it is incorrect to describe an entity as violent (video games, movies, et cetera) as violent, unless they themselves actually cause (rather than merely depict violence.

So, working from this definition, let's talk about justification. When we say that an action needs ethical justification, we implicitly argue that it should be taken to be ethically improper unless a sufficient argument can be made to the contrary. It's not enough to say that ethical justification is required for potentially (ethically) bad actions. Moriarty need give no justification for mowing his lawn, even though it is a potentially (ethically) bad action-- if, for instance, he were cutting his lawn to cause pain to the Pain-Sensing Dandelions that he believe live in it. If, however, you knew for a fact that Moriarty's goal was to cause pain to the Pain-Sensing Dandelions (a great evil, indeed; poor dandelions!), he would most certainly need an ethical justification to mow he lawn.

So, then: if violence needs (ethical) justification, it must be supposed to be by default an ethically bad action or state. Why, however, need violence be considered as such? Consider: if Moriarty were to spray a nerve-numbing concoction upon the Pain-Sensing Dandelions that prevented them from feeling pain, it would still (by definition) be an act of violence to chop them into tiny bits and pieces. The action would still be performed by an aggressor (Moriarty still hates and desires the genocide of Pain-Sensing Dandelions), and it would cause injury or destruction. However, is it unethical?

I don't think we would say so-- but then, this is an absurd example. You may find it outlandish. Let me resort to one that's a bit more easy to follow.

Let's say that you discover an army of ants living outside your home. It is not harming you, and they aren't violating any laws I am aware of, but you nevertheless wish them exterminated. You commit an act of violence by killing as many of them as possible with insecticides. Would this act of violence require ethical justification? I anticipate you would say, absolutely not!

This should be sufficient, I believe, to show that violence in and of itself is not an ethically inappropriate state or action. To say that Moriarty performed an act of violence is not sufficient to say that Moriarty must justify his action.

Therefore, I challenge those who attach ethical judgments to claims about violence: what is sufficient to make an act of violence one that requires ethical justification? Violence in and of itself is clearly not sufficient; therefore, there must be an external element that makes it need justification. If that is the case, why should this external element not be evaluated for its own sake, not with regard to its relation to violence?

On Communication and Definitions

In the comments of the post called, "Philosophy of Religion" and "Theology": What's the Difference?, r.j.marvin and I have been having an interesting conversation on communication. A concern was expressed: when individuals engage in dialogue, can they rationally discuss topics where the definitions of major points of contention are unclear? For example, assume that an atheist, a Calvinist, and a Muslim were engaged in a dialogue about God. The atheist remarks that the idea of God is internally contradictory, due to the nature of omnipotence and omni-benevolence. The Calvinist remarks that God has mysteries that cannot be explained, such as the nature of the trinity, but is not internally contradictory. The Muslim remarks that the idea of God is not internally contradictory and, while mysterious, has no apparent contradictions. It seems like all three of these discussants have different definitions of God. Can they, thus, rationally discuss the topic?

First, I will argue why they can. Second, I will defend against reasons why they allegedly could not by addressing the initial quandary.

If it were true that individuals can maintain distinct definitions of words without the possibility of harmonization, definitions would be meaningless and devoid of substance, because they would not have any references. Imagine if I defined "Quarorglewoggle" as "Gltheltic-giborglewoggle". If you asked me to define "Gltheltic-jiborglejiggle", I would continue using nonsense words with no real-world references, and would eventually come back to "Quarorglewoggle". We would thus not be able to have any legitimate knowledge of what is being communicated. In other words, if the skeptical concern is legitimate, we would not have legitimate understanding of the references of others' words. Since we do have legitimate understanding of the references of others' words (given that you are reading this), it is not the case that the skeptical concern is true (and, thus, the skeptical concern is false), at least about some words.

"Some words", however, is very different from "all words" (there's a puzzle for you). Could there exist a word that, through the method I outlined above, can be circularly defined in nonsensical terms? Yes-- consider "quarorglewoggle". Here's my question: we have the word "quarorglewoggle". Is there actually a reference of the word? In other words, we can imagine "quarorglewoggle" (the word); can the speaker imagine quarorglewoggle (the reference of the word)? If not, they are either deceiving their fellow discussant (but we're assuming that they're acting in good faith, so this isn't an issue), or there is actually something that the word refers to. There exist many properties that, as we have already established, are not nonsensical (in that they can be meaningfully defined). Each of these properties either do or do not relate to the definition of the word. For example, if I defined the "best flavor of icecream" as "that particular taste of ice cream that is most pleasing to the taster", the property of being "Cherry-Vanilla" does not relate to the definition of the word-- merely the instantiation (the carrying-out) of the definition.

Back to our initial quandary. If a Calvinist claims that the definition of God, via the Trinity, is mysterious but not contradictory, we should tell him/her that they are mistaken. The Trinity is no more a part of the definition of God than Cherry-Vanilla is part of the definition of the best flavor of ice-cream; it's part of the instantiation. The Muslim's claim is coherent. The Atheist's claim, that the definition of God entails a contradiction (omni-benevolence and omnipotence) sets us up for a great topic that could be discussed, but makes the same mistake as a Calvinist. The Greek gods were certainly not omnibenevolent, nor were they omnipotent, and yet they are still referred to as gods. The Atheist concern is with a specific instantiation of the definition of God, not with the definition of God itself.

In conclusion, we must be careful when we distinguish between definitions and instantiations of definitions. There are no true contradictions in reality (assertion on my part, feel free to challenge it), and thus no definition will be contradictory. Instantiations of definitions, however, may be. The definition of "contradiction" is not contradictory, but all instantiations of "contradictions" are, necessarily, contradictory.

Make sense? Share your thoughts, comments, and arguments below. I look forward to your feedback!

Obscenity as Abstraction

In Jacobellis v. Ohio, US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart claimed that, while he could not concretely define "obscenity", stating, "I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description [obscenity]; and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it..."

[Source: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=378&invol=184]

I'm going to argue that this is, in fact, a wise move, although I shall warn you up front that my argument is weak and not the result of much in-depth research and whatnot. Consider, if I stated that an item is necessarily obscene if and only if it has Property P-- or, alternatively, an item is necessarily not obscene if and only if it lacks Property P-- it would be likely that, given the rapid development in communication technology, ways could be found to avoid a work's clear possession of Property P. To concretely define what Property P is, one would be concretely defining obscenity; however, while examples of obscenity might be concrete, new forms might arise, and Property P might prove insufficient to capture a future definition of obscenity. In fact, I believe that an understanding of obscenity necessarily requires a context-- it is subjective, and obscenity cannot be sufficiently understood outside the context it is portrayed in-- thus entailing that obscenity be understood subjectively rather than objectively.

One might object that this makes obscenity relative; after all, two individuals might disagree on whether a work is obscene. However, while contradiction is necessarily a valid attack on arguments in the sphere of objectivity, I argue that such is not the case in the sphere of subjectivity. If I said, "Jeremy Soule's orchestration of Terra is the most beautiful", I might be subjectively right; you might favor Nobuo Uematsu's rendition, and it would be a lie for you to claim any other work as the greatest. Such beliefs are not relative-- they are held by absolute standards; the standards are internal to the individual, however,-- subjective-- as opposed to corresponding with an external law or principle, objectivity. Obscenity is similar.

Thoughts?