this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2023

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At what point is violence on a large scale justified? (lemm.ee)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

52 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I know this is a really vague question, but it’s been on my mind A LOT lately. I’m specifically asking about people fighting on behalf of a group that is subject to oppression of some kind. 3 years ago, with all of the protests in America that included violence majorly against property and minorly against people but were about police brutality, I couldn’t help but question the seemingly popular notion that the violence wasn’t justified. Why wasn’t it justified? Because the police had not officially declared war on black people and other minority groups, but instead continue as an authority figure to protect and uplift their own members who do punch down on people belonging to minority groups? Because the protesters had yet to exhaust their non-violent routes? Were these protests in 2020 a retaliation or a first strike? Even if they were a first strike, was it justified?

What about Hamas? Palestine has suffered from genocide in all but name for over 70 years so does that make Hamas the aggressor or are they the ones acting in self-defense?

What about the issues with income inequality that have previously around the world led to uprisings and revolutions like in France and Russia? Were they justified even though the poor were not being constantly physically oppressed?

What about the issues with representation in government that led to the American revolution? Did those justify violence? Was the American revolution justified simply because of violent moments like the Boston massacre?

Is there a line that a group in power crosses that justifies violent revolt, or is it never justified?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You seem to think necessary !-> justified.

However, if something is necessary, it is justified.

While you may quibble, "it's necessary to defend myself in life or death situations, but it isn't justified", this part "it's necessary to defend myself in life or death situations" IS the justification of the action. It's justified definitionally.

As such, your argument crumbles.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

If you want a diamond necklace that you can't afford, it is necessary to steal it in order to have it.

It is not justified to steal it simply because it was necessary to meet your goals.

You are implicitly assuming that the necessity of self-preservation equates justification on the premise that self-preservation is a just result.

I don't agree.

If two soldiers are fighting for their lives against each other, it may be necessary for each to survive to kill the other.

But the family of the one that dies may not see their loved one's death as justified even if the family of the one that survived sees it that way.

Your self-preservation is worthless to me, and thus justifies nothing. My own self-preservation is literally worth everything to me - and yet if still does not justify my taking everything from you, even if I deem it necessary to achieve my own desires and goals, any more than my desire for a necklace I cannot afford justifies its theft.

There is a distinction between things like stealing bread to save a life where a necessary action is justified by the good that comes out of it and stealing bread to throw away in order to achieve a thrill. Both are necessary to their goals, but one has a goal that justifies the necessary action while the other does not.

I'm saying that there is no goal or good in existence that justifies the inherit evil of mass violence, even if there are a myriad of ways in which mass violence might be necessary to one's goals, with those ranging from ethnic cleansing to fighting tyranny.

[+] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

[removed by mod]

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Ok, let's stay within the confines of individual self-preservation.

If it is necessary for you to have a new organ to survive, but not enough are available through organ donation programs, does the fact that it is necessary to your survival mean that acquiring an organ from an unwilling donor (directly or though black market proxy) is a justified action?

How about a murderer that killed someone and left witnesses? If they are caught, it would mean they are sentenced to death. So it is necessary for their continued self-preservation to minimize the chances of being caught. Does that make their murder of the witnesses of their earlier crime justified?

Your pithy take on necessity = justification is BS at even a cursory examination.

I'm not saying that we shouldn't have freed the slaves. Just that neither the Union nor the Confederate killing of each other was justified. I'm not saying that the US shouldn't have fought in WW2. Just that bombing Hiroshima wasn't justified.

You are the one conflating necessity with justification. And as such you seem to not be able to wrap your head around that while I'm saying mass violence is never justified, that doesn't mean I'm saying the relative necessity for admirable goals means it was in the best interest of the US to have had a show of overwhelming force at the end of the WW2 conflict in mind of Stalin's USSR post-war or that Sherman was wise to burn crops as he marched through the South to reduce supplies for Confederate opposition.

Edit: Also, thank you for making my point about how the notion of justified violence is a slippery slope that can easily end up justifying atrocities by relativist moralizing there with the whole "by any means necessary."