All humans need to solve problems; no matter what. Now you could argue that violence actually does solve some problems -- such as conflicting ideas. Therefore, it is 'good' some of the time. But does this really follow? You should be able to figure this one out for yourself. But if you can't, I'll lay out the argument for you.
I find your tone here uncharacteristic of the one you usually employ. :confused1
id I say anything in my previous message to upset you? I decided to revive this thread because the discussion interested me and I thought we might be able to push it further by bringing in new perspectives. My intention is never to be right – it is to gain a richer perspective through productive exchanges.
Keep in mind that these questions have been discussed by philosophers and others for centuries. We will most likely be rehearsing debates already held hundreds of times. To my knowledge, nobody has ever produced the conclusive proof that ‘violence is always bad’. Maybe I agree with this, maybe I don’t. What I know for sure is that I am interested in a productive debate to become more enlightened on the matter. But my feeling is that, instead of engaging with what I said in my post, you only chose to screen what did and what did not fit your own argument. What about the ethical valuation of good and bad, and the assumptions that we necessarily make when we decide to call something good and its opposite bad? What about the categorical imperative as an attempt to bypass the fact that judgements of value are necessarily synthetic judgements? What about utilitarianism? Can you provide a definition of 'good' without begging the question?
Although I greatly enjoy your ideas and insights, sometimes you sound very affirmative in a way that I don't find warranted. « Violence is bad because it prevents us from solving problems. » Even this, once we look at it with intensity, is actually not obvious to me. What about the feminist struggle? What about the struggle for the rights of African Americans? In some Swiss cantons, women obtained the right to vote in the 1970s. Do you think they obtained that right only via reasonable arguments? I don't think so. They had to fight for them. Algeria did not get its independence from France by relying exclusively on sound reasoning. Structural inequality in the world will probably be not be solved by relying entirely on sound reasoning. Unfortunately, violence or the threat thereof will have to be used as a means to push these agendas. Because humans are not pure reasoning machines: sometimes they will have self-interest against an argument; sometimes they will candidly not understand the best argument.
Even your example about global warming is telling. Trump pulled out of the Paris accords – we will both agree that this is disastrous. But don’t you think he could do this because he is at the helm of a country, the USA, that has the geopolitical leverage to do this without suffering too many consequences in terms of sanctions (i.e. violence) from other countries for having done so? It’s quite likely that, had the USA not been able to meet the possible violence ensuing from pulling out, they wouldn’t have pulled out, and the agenda for global warming would have progressed faster. Maybe we can see here how
reason - the logical argument aiming at the truth of the solution to global warming - and
violence - the political means to bring this argument to fruition in the real world - do not collide into cancelling each other, but actually may support each other to push change.
Of course, you might say that in all these instances, we are only talking about the situation in which “A is assaulting me, therefore me using violence to defend myself is necessary.” But if structural inequality is endemic to the world, the said situation is no longer an exception. It is how the world works, and how it has worked since the beginning of human society, it seems to me, looking at the historical record. And if it is no longer an exception, then maybe our valuation of reason as 'good' (once we have defined 'good') will not necessarily entail the symmetrical valuation of violence as 'bad'. Once you arrive at truth via reasoning, how do you implement that truth for human society? It may even be argued that any kind of decision-making features a degree of violence, insofar as one way or another, the decision will have to be imposed on others.
I think there are other possible issues with your argument above (in particular, a vagueness in the definition of the words
violence and
problem that may confuse our exchange; also the distinction between means and ends) but my tertiary Ti is exhausted so I may have to think about how to show why over the weekend! Again – I’m only trying to bring in new perspectives here. I do not care in the least for being right or wrong.