Violence is Wrong

Outline To begin my second round I will first comment on the nature of my argument; although my points might seem to be abstract and to lack emotional weight, what I am attempting to do is to create a fundamental, almost semantical tie between violence and immorality; this argument subsuming the 'life is violence' position and precluding all of the common arguments which attempt to divorce violence from immorality. In this round, through my rebuttals, I hope the links between my arguments, and the overall idea I am communicating, will become more clear. To reiterate, the pillars of my argument are: 1. Violence refers only to harm caused. 2. Violence is a facet of an action, and as such there are degrees of violence. 3. All other variables being the same, we should prefer the least violent course of action. 4. Since morality refers to 'good and bad actions' for humans, referring to humans in general as an abstraction, and violence refers specifically to a bad thing caused to a human, it is directly tied to immorality. "Rational Self-Interest" A brief word on the 'rational self-interest' position: Although self-interest philosophy generally states that one should work with others only because it benefits itself, in order to work with moral philosophy sensibly (due to the abstract nature of it, applying to all living beings,) it's argument, for consistency, must work in reverse in the moral context; it is in your interest to do what is in your rational self-interest, but it is morally preferable for society to do so because it is best for everyone. It would not be morally preferable for society if it only helped one specific person. The trolley dilemma To make clear what's going on here, let's reduce this example to it's essential components. We have situation where, presumably for the sake of argument, we have two possible courses of action (cop outs like stopping anyone from dying, etc, are out of the question.) - Action A causes harm to five people. - Action B causes harm to one person. Con has said that Action B is innately, in itself the preferable choice. Why? Not because of any rational self-interest, that hasn't come into it at all. Simply because the lesser amount of harm is caused. The way Con tried to get around this was by calling Action A "inaction", but this inaccurate. The only being capable of "inaction" is a dead person. Otherwise, any course of action is a choice. What the person who chooses Action A is doing is knowingly, purposefully choosing the course of action which causes more harm. By calling Action B the more moral, Con has accepted the very paradigm he purports to debunk. The underground facility Once again, we find a situation where Con states that the preferable solution is the one where all beings cause the least harm possible to each other, this time in the form of stopping breathing, because using the air is causing harm to the other researchers. Note also, that this seems almost diametrically opposed to the rational self-interest idea, because the best course of action would presumably be for some of the researchers to voluntarily give up their lives. In that case, they are causing harm to themselves, but only in order to minimize the overall amount of harm caused. The lifeboat example falls by exactly the same principles. Further responses "What drives people to such violent acts? As we can see, in a utilitarian calculus, it's for the greater good." Con calls it a ultilitarian calculus, but really in this context it is a calculus of least harm caused by beings to other beings. This 'greater good' idea also seems to contradict the rational self-interest moral standard Con supposedly subscribes to. "Similarly, you amputate a limb infected with gangrene in order to save the patient." Does this cause harm to the patient? Perhaps in some ways, but nowhere near the amount caused by refusing to do it altogether. "I have demonstrated cases where violence is right." In all examples presented, the violence was wrong, but was simply less wrong that other possible courses of action. In order for an example to prove Con's point, it must be a case where violence is preferable solely because it is harmful. To propose we choose a violent action only because it's less violent than the alternative, undermines Con's own argument in itself. Thanks for reading my round 2.