Not a trick question: Why is violence bad?

[Borek]

For the "best" point of view to exist you have to define what is "good", such definition will be always arbitrary.

 

[apeiron]

For the "best" point of view to exist you have to define what is "good", such definition will be always arbitrary.

On what grounds are these things claimed to be arbitrary or subjective? It may be a customary response, but I mean where is the actual argument?

I put forward a specific argument, and so that is something concrete to try and knock down. Just stating that there are no general approaches to moral issues is not philosophy. It is faith.

 

[Boy@n]

Using violence to destroy something or someone just to gain more for oneself is bad. Violence for survival and protection (of life, property etc.) violence is not bad.

 

[JoeDawg]

Using violence to destroy something or someone just to gain more for oneself is bad. Violence for survival and protection (of life, property etc.) violence is not bad.

Why?

 

[apeiron]

I understand that there appears to be a 'something' that everything else adheres to in this universe, and we don't know what it is. What are the global constraints in your view? Hidden variables? Underlying reality? Master equation? The Mind of God?

None of the above. Constraints are what emerge at a global scale to limit the degrees of freedom found at the local scale.

So when the magnetic field arises in a cooling bar magnet, the mass action creates an organisation, a global alignment, that then entrains all local dipoles. That is an example of self-organisation via the emergence of global constraint.

A system is a system because it is recognisably organised in this hierarchical fashion.

 

[Borek]

On what grounds are these things claimed to be arbitrary or subjective? It may be a customary response, but I mean where is the actual argument?

I put forward a specific argument, and so that is something concrete to try and knock down. Just stating that there are no general approaches to moral issues is not philosophy. It is faith.

Actually I haven't seen a specific argument in what you have posted, perhaps I have missed something. The closest I was able to find was that

the best point of view is the one that is most general.

But it doesn't say anything about the real situation. From my POV it is good when cows are eaten, from cows POV it is good when I am vegetarian. Obviously there is a conflict here. General point of view will seek some equilibrium between me craving for beef and cow wanting to live. This is kind of an optimization problem - but to find optimum you have to assign some weights/values to both sides. I don't see how these can be done in a systematic, objective and general way - that happens whenever we deal with things that are not well defined and not measurable.

Also note that it was you who have stated it is possible to do these things in a general way, so the burden of the proof is yours.

 

[apeiron]

Actually I haven't seen a specific argument in what you have posted, perhaps I have missed something. The closest I was able to find was that

But it doesn't say anything about the real situation. From my POV it is good when cows are eaten, from cows POV it is good when I am vegetarian. Obviously there is a conflict here. General point of view will seek some equilibrium between me craving for beef and cow wanting to live. This is kind of an optimization problem - but to find optimum you have to assign some weights/values to both sides. I don't see how these can be done in a systematic, objective and general way - that happens whenever we deal with things that are not well defined and not measurable.

Also note that it was you who have stated it is possible to do these things in a general way, so the burden of the proof is yours.

Are we talking about violence or goodness? It matters because I was talking about how to generalise a particular situational judgement so that it made more sense as part of a systems description.

Good is already a generalised concept, and I would agree, fundamentally meaningless. The reason being that it is a simple metaphysical symmetry (good and evil - which is the global and which is the local here?). Systems based approaches require metaphysical asymmetry - something that is the local to complement the something that is the global. You have to be talking about a hierarchy which results from an interaction between bottom-up constructive actions (such as competitive ones) and top-down global constraints (such as cooperative ones).

As to POV, yes you can say there is your point of view, and the cow's point of view. Then the most general would the view which successfully incorporates both of these, equlibrating whatever you take to be the desires represented by the two POV.

You could say the desire is for you both to survive. But this is not sufficiently general (and not even true of the cow). You have to step back to the evolutionary view, and then even the thermodynamic view. Which is as general as we know how to go.

Theoretical biology would frame this in terms of entropy maximisation principles. And then we really are in a position to measure things.

And if you actually look at the kinds of interactions that societies traditionally deem violent, it is not hard to see that they are max ent oriented.

Societies, like ecologies, develop a dissipative equilbrium balance. And they attempt to maintain them. Moral actions are ones that increase the functioning of the system, immoral ones are those that degrade its capacity to produce entropy.

If a farmer kills a cow, he does it as part of an organised system that has achieved some kind of optimal dissipative balance. If I kill a farmer's cow, I am disrupting the functioning of that system and so can expect the system to feel justified in taking corrective action. If I refuse to eat cow because I am vegetarian, than this system will again not be happy at a disruption to its organisation.

So again, the argument goes that societies can be described as a necessary balance of competition and cooperation. The balance is in fact a max ent dissipative balance - we have the theory to measure these things. Violence is then our description when the cooperative aspect has gone missing and the competitive one becomes over-represented. The system is becoming self-destructing (and so less efficient at dissipating).

What would we call the situation where this is reversed - where cooperation dominates to a self-destructive extent? Peaceful? Senile? Homogenous? Bland?

The opposite of violent probably is bland. Peaceful perhaps, but in a bad way, not a good way (heh, heh.)

A last point, competition~cooperation are terms that could of course do with further definition in this discussion. They themselves can be generalised to deeper ideas like differentiation~integration - terms that we can begin to see as measureable.

If something differentiates, it becomes different from what is around it. And vice-versa. So now we are into the realm of boolean networks and other edge of chaos or self organising criticality models. We have generalised all the way to the maths of complex systems.

 

[GeorgCantor]

None of the above. Constraints are what emerge at a global scale to limit the degrees of freedom found at the local scale.

So when the magnetic field arises in a cooling bar magnet, the mass action creates an organisation, a global alignment, that then entrains all local dipoles. That is an example of self-organisation via the emergence of global constraint.

A system is a system because it is recognisably organised in this hierarchical fashion.

But this is just a description of what is happening, not an explanation or understanding thereof.

the mass action creates an organisation, a global alignment, that then entrains all local dipoles...

...sounds exactly like:

Something(X,Y,Z) causes mass action to create an organization, a global alignment, that then entrains all local dipoles.


If you don't have an understanding of what the constraints really are, it will not do to pull out a mere description of your observations and call it an 'explanation'. You could explain anything using such a powerful method. Example:


"So when the magnetic field arises in a cooling bar magnet the mass action creates an AIRPLANE, a global alignment, that then entrains all local dipoles"

Why wouldn't the so-called "global constraints" cause the emergence of an airplane or a werewolf?

We need an understanding of the process involved, not a description and such an understaning lies probably somewhere in the 21th century or later.

 

[apeiron]

But this is just a description of what is happening, not an explanation or understanding thereof.

What is it about symmetry breaking, phase transitions, and the global limiting of local degrees of freedom that you do not understand?

 

[DaveC426913]

I'm going to take this in a slightly different direction.

First, some housekeeping, to clear the way:
1] There is (and can be) no objective good or bad unless there really is a higher power that can judge.
2] In the absence of this higher power (or this higher power exhibiting its will), we are left to decide for ourselves what suits us.

So: good and bad, violence and non-violence are human-rated concepts.

Now:
3] Because it is humans doing the rating, and because it is humans upon which this rating impinges, that makes it a self-organizing system. It is a system that evolves to best maintain its own component parts. That being the case, the "best" plan is that plan which makes the system (society) prosper - whichever plan that is.

4] It would seem that the system that we are evolving is the Prisoner's Dilemma. Everyone being compassionate all the time means we only win a little. Everyone being violent all the time means we destroy.

The system that is working to create the most component parts (more humans) is the classic prisoner's dilemma solution: mostly cooperate, betray occasionally. But rather than each person changing back and forth, what we get is specialization. Most people cooperate most of the time (do good, non-violent, obey laws), and a few people betray most of the time (do bad, violence, flout laws).

This is stable and self-governing (in the steam-engine sense). And that is how we humans are defining "good".

 

[GeorgCantor]

What is it about symmetry breaking, phase transitions, and the global limiting of local degrees of freedom that you do not understand?

That which you do not understand - the physical causes that bring forth the emerging new properties. I have no doubt that you can describe, sort and label them hierarchically.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

How about a real down to Earth example of the ambiguity of "bad" as a social concept?

A woman is forced out of her home of sixty years by sheriff's deputies to enforce a foreclosure. The woman didn't make her payments. You might ask why the woman still has a mortgage after sixty years. Let's just say she refinanced so she could eat and feed her cats.

In this scenario good = +1; neutral = 0; bad = -1

The deputies are just doing their job and enforcing the law.= +1

The bank is simply taking possession of what it now its rightful property = +1

Points for the state; +2

The woman failed to make her payments and is in violation of her contract with the bank.= -1

The woman was notified of the foreclosure, but refused to leave the home. = -1

Points for the woman: -2

Net points for this scenario: 0

In this calculus, the actions of the state exactly cancels the "wrongdoing" of the woman. Hobbs might have been pleased. The state acted with just enough force to maintain the social equilibrium.

But who really thinks this is a neutral, not a bad outcome?

 

[CRGreathouse]

1] There is (and can be) no objective good or bad unless there really is a higher power that can judge.

Not a tenable assumption for this thread, since I'm explicitly trying to discuss ethics. I don't very much care how you come to your ethical decisions, but I *do* want to discuss them and *not* simply what actions lead to a stable society. (For my application, this distinction is important.)

I would actually like to discuss your point about societal norms as game theory, but not on this thread please...

 

[CRGreathouse]

Theoretical biology would frame this in terms of entropy maximisation principles. And then we really are in a position to measure things.

And if you actually look at the kinds of interactions that societies traditionally deem violent, it is not hard to see that they are max ent oriented.

Societies, like ecologies, develop a dissipative equilbrium balance. And they attempt to maintain them. Moral actions are ones that increase the functioning of the system, immoral ones are those that degrade its capacity to produce entropy.

Fascinating. Would you explain in more detail how you would determine, in this system, how to determine if a given action is moral? I'm not sure how to interpret entropy in this context.

For example, how would it resolve moral dilemmas like these?
http://www.friesian.com/valley/dilemmas.htm
(I choose a list from an Internet search rather than hand-picked scenarios to reduce the possibility of unintentionally biasing your result.)

 

[CRGreathouse]

How about a real down to Earth example of the ambiguity of "bad" as a social concept?

Can you explain what that example is bad? I'm curious to see by what standards we (that is, society) decides what is good/bad, permissible/impermissible, legal/illegal, etc.

 

[Boy@n]

First chose a viewpoint then see when violence 'becomes' bad.

It can be, and usually is, a very different level of tolerance based on initial viewpoint, which might rang like this: personal viewpoint, family, friends, coworkers, town, national, continenal, world, galaxy, universal viewpoint.

Simply put, the 'higher' viewpoint of social entity the lesser tolerance for violence, or to better put it, the higher the understanding of life as whole, of existence being one, where all we do affects everyone, the higher the desire to wish and do personal best for everyone (in practical terms) not just for oneself and close ones.

 

[Borek]

You could say the desire is for you both to survive. But this is not sufficiently general (and not even true of the cow). You have to step back to the evolutionary view, and then even the thermodynamic view. Which is as general as we know how to go.

Please elaborate, or at least post links to some resources. I have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[JoeDawg]

Simply put, the 'higher' viewpoint of social entity the lesser tolerance for violence, or to better put it, the higher the understanding of life as whole, of existence being one, where all we do affects everyone, the higher the desire to wish and do personal best for everyone (in practical terms) not just for oneself and close ones.

I'd say this is highly dubious. People often find violence much more acceptable when they think in terms of 'greater good' or society... or the group.

In fact, from a galactic or universe viewpoint, we are so unimportant that any violence humans do to each other is of negligible effect or significance. Even ALL the violence done by every creature that has ever lived on the planet is nothing but an infinitesimal blip to the universe. Entropy increases, no matter what we do.

 

[apeiron]

Please elaborate, or at least post links to some resources. I have no idea what you are talking about.

For instance...

http://www.mso.anu.edu.au/~charley/papers/LineweaverEgan2008v2.pdf

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Can you explain what that example is bad? I'm curious to see by what standards we (that is, society) decides what is good/bad, permissible/impermissible, legal/illegal, etc.

Ref Post 47

The assumption is that the purpose of the democratic state is to protect our "life, liberty and pursuit of happiness" by instituting and enforcing a social order that reflects the will of the people. To that end, we give the state a monopoly on violence to be used only to enforce just laws to maintain a social order that provides greatest benefit to the greatest number of people and guarantees everyone "certain inalienable rights."

The problem then is when the state is seen to abuse this monopoly. The calculus is that the state should use violence/coercion only to the extent that is justified to bring violations of the social order into balance. If someone does something 'bad' by breaking a law they should be punished and the victims compensated only to the extent of rectifying the violation. Too much, and the state becomes abusive. Too little, and society tends toward anarchy.

My example is intended to show that even when the state appears to achieve this goal, our idea of justice may or may not realized. In this example enforcement of contracts and property rights is seen as a social good. I simply ask if you think that when the laws to protect these social "goods" are properly enforced, the result is really compatible with some of idea of justice (which is presumed to be "good"). I didn't say that the outcome was 'bad'. At best it was neutral which is what is it should be. The social balance was restored after it was violated. But are you happy with the outcome? Maybe it's not so simple. Maybe your question doesn't have an obvious answer.

EDIT: I'm departing from a trend in this thread to respond in terms of evolutionary and theoretical biology, as interesting as that might be. Analogies to the complex dynamics of modern human society are not easily found in other mammalian societies. I'm simply accepting as an initial assumption that the laws of a democratic society in 2010 are "good" and breaking those laws is "bad."' It's not hard to find ambiguities. Building the "good" society is a work in progress.

 

[DaveC426913]

1] There is (and can be) no objective good or bad unless there really is a higher power that can judge.

Not a tenable assumption for this thread, since I'm explicitly trying to discuss ethics. I don't very much care how you come to your ethical decisions,

Right. I was simply laying some groundwork to establish that we all pretty much agree that right and wrong are entirely human (subjective) concepts - rated by humans about humans.

but I *do* want to discuss them and *not* simply what actions lead to a stable society. (For my application, this distinction is important.)

Well I'm hypothesizing that cause and effect are reversed.
You: our ethics lead to a stable society
Me: a stable society defines our ethics
We define right and wrong by what works. And that "what works" is directly proportional to how prosperous society is.

 

[poor mystic]

Hi Everybody
I believe that the fundamental 'wrong' in violence is the destruction of happiness.

In attempting to determine right and wrong, I try to visualise an ideally happy human relationship, and from there I go on to wonder what would be the outcome if violence were to come in.
For my example - I believe all will recognise the image of a child content with its mother; all complete human beings will understand the child's distress at violence suddenly introduced, so disturbing a prior, happy relationship.

I am older now, and presumably tough, but I believe the same part of me that might have shrunk in grief and horror at violence as a child is the same part of me that is offended by violence now.

In short, violence is wrong because it hurts people.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Hi Everybody
I believe that the fundamental 'wrong' in violence is the destruction of happiness.

You got it! It's (almost) that simple. Like Jefferson wrote; Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. (That's not the US Constitution though.). However the devil is in the details. Whose happiness? Adolf Hitler's happiness? Jack the Ripper's happiness? How about the convicted corporate outlaws of Enron? That's still pretty easy. They're established bad guys. They don't deserve to be happy; only treated "humanely".

However read my post 47. An elderly woman is forcibly evicted from her home of sixty years because she defaulted on her mortgage. She violated a contract with a private party and broke the law by not obeying a lawful order to vacate. In theory she could be charged criminally and sent to jail. In fact that might be a good thing because she has no place to go.

So her happiness is destroyed. But if we did not enforce contracts and protect property rights, a viable economy could not exist. So what's the answer? (And don't say "providing for the poor and needy" unless you have a detailed plan as to just how you do that. In any case, placing the woman in some kind of facility will not likely restore her happiness.)

 

[GeorgCantor]

If we have no free will as most here seem to assert, violence isn't bad. It's that simple.

 

[poor mystic]

You got it! It's (almost) that simple. Like Jefferson wrote; Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. (That's not the US Constitution though.). However the devil is in the details. Whose happiness? Adolf Hitler's happiness? Jack the Ripper's happiness? How about the convicted corporate outlaws of Enron? That's still pretty easy. They're established bad guys. They don't deserve to be happy; only treated "humanely".

However read my post 47. An elderly woman is forcibly evicted from her home of sixty years because she defaulted on her mortgage. She violated a contract with a private party and broke the law by not obeying a lawful order to vacate. In theory she could be charged criminally and sent to jail. In fact that might be a good thing because she has no place to go.

So her happiness is destroyed. But if we did not enforce contracts and protect property rights, a viable economy could not exist. So what's the answer? (And don't say "providing for the poor and needy" unless you have a detailed plan as to just how you do that. In any case, placing the woman in some kind of facility will not likely restore her happiness.)

If Violence is wrong, then what is right?
In answering the question of what is to be done for the poor woman of post 47, we go well beyond the question of why violence is wrong, and enter the realm of the question "what is right?"
Acknowledging this change of subject, it seems to me that if all the involved parties in the transaction had everybody's happiness as a goal everybody would end up happy.
It is my axiom that it is good to work for others' happiness, the sight of a happy smile excites pleasure in me; I find that happiness is identified with beauty, life and love.

 

[GeorgCantor]

However read my post 47. An elderly woman is forcibly evicted from her home of sixty years because she defaulted on her mortgage. She violated a contract with a private party and broke the law by not obeying a lawful order to vacate. In theory she could be charged criminally and sent to jail. In fact that might be a good thing because she has no place to go.

So her happiness is destroyed. But if we did not enforce contracts and protect property rights, a viable economy could not exist. So what's the answer? (And don't say "providing for the poor and needy" unless you have a detailed plan as to just how you do that. In any case, placing the woman in some kind of facility will not likely restore her happiness.)

Ours doesn't look like a universe of happiness but of survival. All options are fundamentally wrong, unless they pertain to survival. Or so it seems from what looks like facts to us( i am aware that this position is assuming things that i cannot prove).

 

[poor mystic]

Yes, survival is very much part of everyone's self-interest.

However, the practitioner of love gives up his interest in himself that others may become happy; he loses himself in love.
This is the sacrifice of self, the outcome of which is not sorrowful, for the more he loves, the more the lover becomes love, which is hardly a poor experience.

 

[GeorgCantor]

Yes, survival is very much part of everyone's self-interest.

However, the practitioner of love gives up his interest in himself that others may become happy; he loses himself in love.
This is the sacrifice of self, the outcome of which is not sorrowful, for the more he loves, the more the lover becomes love, which is hardly a poor experience.

Yes, (self-)sacrifice cannot be accounted for within the framework of evolution and natural selection, except as an emergent societal property. We don't have a solid theory of anything anyway, that's why i used "from what looks like facts to us" at the end of the sentence. Your remark is appreciated.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

Ours doesn't look like a universe of happiness but of survival. All options are fundamentally wrong, unless they pertain to survival. Or so it seems from what looks like facts to us( i am aware that this position is assuming things that i cannot prove).

I believe GR wanted the modern societal basis of values and the attitudes toward of violence in this context, but I might be mistaken. In an earlier post I did say that "good" and "bad" have no meaning in nature absent humans and human ethical systems. GR indicated that's not what he was looking for.

 

[poor mystic]

As well as having a pretty good ol' time himself, in an ideal society the lover would succeed in his goal of universal happiness, and who would there be to enforce mortgage contracts?
Also, just because someone might keep the goals I have mentioned in high regard doesn't mean he necessarily gives himself up utterly. There's still plenty of human being left to enjoy the sunshine, take pleasure in birdsong or the sight of your lover's eyes...

 

[SW VandeCarr]

If Violence is wrong, then what is right?
In answering the question of what is to be done for the poor woman of post 47, we go well beyond the question of why violence is wrong, and enter the realm of the question "what is right?"

Well I don't think you can disconnect the notions of right/wrong, good/bad although they are not strictly complementary. The issue is the ambiguity that arises in modern societies in trying to decide what is right and what is wrong. The woman suffered violence at the hands of the state under well intended and indeed necessary laws for no great crime other than being poor and just wanting to live out her days in peace and relative happiness.

 

[poor mystic]

Well I don't think you can disconnect the notions of right/wrong, good/bad although they are not strictly complementary. The issue is the ambiguity that arises in modern societies in trying to decide what is right and what is wrong. The women suffered violence at the hands of the state under well intended and indeed necessary laws for no great crime other than being poor and just wanting to live out her days in peace and relative happiness.

I think that the difficulty we have in determining this kind of question arises because we are not all reading from the same page; we do not share a common set of values.

Without a common goal, we can never achieve secure happiness.

 

[SW VandeCarr]

If we have no free will as most here seem to assert, violence isn't bad. It's that simple.

Violence is 'bad; for the sentient being that suffers it, so it's not so simple. The empathy principle (Golden Rule) as well as self interest would dictate that social animals take collective action to minimize, or defend against, threats and to seek comfort and safety. It really doesn't have much to do with free will. Bad actors must be excluded, isolated or killed.

 

[JoeDawg]

Yes, (self-)sacrifice cannot be accounted for within the framework of evolution and natural selection, except as an emergent societal property.

This is incorrect.

Evolution functions on the level of populations, not individuals. Self-sacrificing behavior is common throughout the animal kingdom.

If a creature with a self sacrificing gene has 10 offspring with that gene, some may have the opportuntity to sacrifice themselves, others won't, but the ones that do not, will benefit from the sacrifices of those who do, and then pass on the gene.

There is a similar evolutionary argument for the existense of homosexuality. Homosexuals siblings do not compete for mates, but do contribute to group survival. And even bacteria form communities.

 

[JoeDawg]

Bad actors must be excluded, isolated or killed.

So... we send them to california?