Abstract
Political violence in its various forms seems to have been with us throughout much of human history. In recent times, however, it has become a primary mode of political address in an increasing number of global contexts. Whether it is the two World Wars, the assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler, or numerous assassination attempts made on the life of Cuban president Fidel Castro by the United States Central Intelligence Agency, the assassinations of former U.S. president John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., former U.S. presidential candidate Robert Kennedy, the terrorism of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, the 1983 suicide car bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beruit, the 1983 suicide car bombing on the headquarters of the U.S. military in Lebanon, the 1984 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Bogata, Colombia, the 1985 hijacking of a TWA jet in the Mediterranean, the 1985 car bombing of a U.S. military base in Frankfurt, Germany, the 1985 hijacking of the “Achille Lauro,” the 1985 attacks on the U.S. and Isreali check-in desks at the airports in Rome and Vienna, the 1986 bombing of a TWA jet landing in Athens, Greece, the 1986 bombing of a disco in West Berlin, the 1988 bombing of a Pan American jet over Lockerbie, Scotland, the 1993 bombing of the U.S. World Trade Center, the 1995 truck bombing of the U.S. Federal Building in Oklahoma City, the 1996 fuel truck bombing of U.S. Military in Khobar, Saudi, Arabia, the 1997 taking of hostages at the Japanese embassy in Lima, Peru, by the Tupac Amuru Revolutionary Movement, the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania, or the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the U.S. Pentagon building, one thing is clear. Political violence varies in motive and method.
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Notes
C. A. J. Coady, “The Idea of Violence,” Journal of Applied Philosophy, 3 (1986), p. 3.
Cited in Coady, “The Idea of Violence,” p. 4.
Cited in Coady, “The Idea of Violence,” p. 4.
Coady, “The Idea of Violence,” p. 4.
Coady, “The Idea of Violence,” p. 10.
For an alternative philosophical analysis of the concept of violence, see R. K. Gupta, “Defining Violent and Non-Violent Acts,” Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 9 (1992), pp. 157–61; “Defining Violent and Non-Violent Acts: A Supplement,” Journal of the Indian Council of Philosophical Research, 10(1993), pp. 109–11.
John Stuart Mill, “The Contest in America,” in John M. Robson, Editor, Essays on Equality,Law, and Education (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1984), pp. xxi, 137.
Geraint Williams, “J. S. Mill and Political Violence,” Utilitas, 1 (1989), p. 103.
John Stuart Mill, “The French Law Against the Press,” John M. Robson, Editor, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill Volume 25 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), p. 1238.
That Karl Marx advocates revolutionary violence is well-known. But that he even pre-dates Mill’s writings on freedom of expression is perhaps less known. In 1842, Marx argued that As soon as one facet of freedom is repudiated, freedom itself is repudiated, and it can lead only a mere semblance of life, since afterwards it is pure chance which object unfreedom takes over as the dominant power. Unfreedom is the rule and freedom the exception of chance and caprice [Karl Marx, On Freedom of the Press and Censorship, Saul K. Padover, Editor and Translator (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1974), p. 46]. Of freedom of the press in particular, Marx writes: “The essence of a free press is the characterful, reasonable, ethical essence of freedom. The character of a censored press is the characterless ogre of unfreedom; it is a civilized monster, a perfumed abortion” (Marx, On Freedom of the Press and Censorship, p. 26). Not only, then, does Marx express his unambiguous support of freedom of expression in publication, he condemns any attempt of a government to suppress it or to limit it in any way. And Marx’s words are not the rantings of an opinionist with merely emotive content. For as a philosopher, he wants to consider rationally the putative justifications for censorship: “we must above all examine whether censorship is in its essence a good means” (Marx, On Freedom of the Press and Censorship, p. 28). His conclusion is that censorship of the press is but a police measure that does not even achieve what it wants to achieve: “The censorship is thus no law but a police measure, but it is itself a bad police measure, because it does not achieve what it wants and it does not want what it achieves” (Marx, On Freedom of the Press and Censorship, p. 31). This is because “censorship is a constant attack on the rights of private persons and even more so on ideas” (Marx, On Freedom of the Press and Censorship, p. 34). Marx derives this inference from the premise that freedom in general is a good thing, and a good thing to protect: “If freedom in general is justified, it goes without saying that a facet of freedom is the more justified the greater the splendor and the development of essence that freedom has won in it” (Marx, On Freedom of the Press and Censorship, p. 39). Although Mill’s defense of freedom of expression differs from Marx’s in certain respects, it would be incorrect to suppose that it is Mill who first argued in favor of the right to freedom of expression.
John Stuart Mill, “Radical Party in Canada,” John M. Robson, Editor, Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume 6 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), p. 414.
For a philosophical discussion of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, see Haig Khatchadourian, The Quest for Peace Between Israel and the Palestinians (New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 2000).
Barbara Herman, “Murder and Mayhem: Violence and Kantian Casuistry,” The Monist, 72 (1989), p. 422.
Herman, “Murder and Mayhem: Violence and Kantian Casuistry,” p. 423.
Herman, “Murder and Mayhem: Violence and Kantian Casuistry,” p. 422.
Herman, “Murder and Mayhem: Violence and Kantian Casuistry,” p. 422.
Herman, “Murder and Mayhem: Violence and Kantian Casuistry,” p. 423.
Herman, “Murder and Mayhem: Violence and Kantian Casuistry,” p. 426. Perhaps this is what Martin Luther King, Jr. faced when he argued incessantly that violence was never morally justified. Even when questioned about cases of self-defense, he never admitted that violence was morally right. He was in this sense a Kantian: he believed that all humans possessed dignity and intrinsic worth and are to always be treated as such. See Chapter 2 wherein the concept of non-violent direct action is discussed. See also, James M. Washington, Editor, A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Harper and Row, 1986).
Herman, “Murder and Mayhem: Violence and Kantian Casuistry,” p. 426.
Herman, “Murder and Mayhem: Violence and Kantian Casuistry,” p. 427.
Herman, “Murder and Mayhem: Violence and Kantian Casuistry,” p. 427.
Immanuel Kant, Metaphysical Elements of Justice, John Ladd, Translator (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965), p. 101.
Herman, “Murder and Mayhem: Violence and Kantian Casuistry,” pp. 427–28.
Thomas Hill, Jr., “A Kantian Perspective on Political Violence,” The Journal of Ethics, 1 (1997), p. 105.
Hill, “A Kantian Perspective on Political Violence,” p. 106.
Hill, “A Kantian Perspective on Political Violence,” p. 108.
Hill, “A Kantian Perspective on Political Violence,” p. 109.
Hill, “A Kantian Perspective on Political Violence,” p. 137–39.
J. Angelo Corlett, Responsibility and Punishment (Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), pp. 30, 60.
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971), p. 373.
Hill, “A Kantian Perspective on Political Violence,” p. 115.
Hill, “A Kantian Perspective on Political Violence,” p. 112.
Adam Schaff, “Marxist Theory on Revolution and Violence,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 34 (1973), p. 264.
John Harris, “The Marxist Conception of Violence,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 3 (1974), pp. 192–93.
Harris, “The Marxist Conception of Violence,” p. 193.
Frederick Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, Henderson and Chaloner, Translators and Editors (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1958), p. 108.
Harris, “The Marxist Conception of Violence,” p. 194.
Harris, “The Marxist Conception of Violence,” p. 195.
Quoted in Harris, “The Marxist Conception of Violence,” p. 197.
For discussions of collective responsibility, see J. Angelo Corlett, Responsibility and Punishment (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2001), Chapter 7; Joel Feinberg, Doing and Deserving (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), Chapter 8; Larry May, The Morality of Groups (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1987); Larry May and Stacey Hoffman, Editors, Collective Responsibility (Savage: Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 1991); Burleigh Wilkins, Terrorism and Collective Responsibility (London: Routledge, 1992); The Journal of Ethics (special issue on collective responsibility), 6 (2002), pp. 111–98.
Harris, “The Marxist Conception of Violence,” p. 198.
Harris, “The Marxist Conception of Violence,” p. 205.
For discussions of bad Samaritan laws, see Joel Feinberg, “The Moral and Legal Responsibility of the Bad Samaritan,” in Joel Feinberg, Freedom and Fulfillment (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), pp. 175–96; John Kleinig, “Good Samaritanism,” in Joel Feinberg and Hyman Gross, Editors, Philosophy of Law, Fifth Edition (Belmont: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1995), pp. 529–32.
For excellent discussions of the concepts of harm and responsibility, see Joel Feinberg, Harm to Others (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1984); Harm to Self (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986).
Harris, “The Marxist Conception of Violence,” p. 211.
Robert Audi, “On the Meaning and Justification of Violence,” in Jerome Schaffer, Editor, Violence (New York: McKay, 1971), p. 75.
Audi, “On the Meaning and Justification of Violence,” p. 75.
Audi, “On the Meaning and Justification of Violence,” p. 80.
Audi, “On the Meaning and Justification of Violence,” p. 87.
Audi, “On the Meaning and Justification of Violence,” pp. 88–9.
Audi, “On the Meaning and Justification of Violence,” pp. 88–9.
Audi, “On the Meaning and Justification of Violence,” p. 89.
Audi, “On the Meaning and Justification of Violence,” p. 90.
Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 60; Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993, pp. 5–6).
Kai Nielsen, “On Justifying Violence,” Inquiry, 24 (1981), p. 27.
Nielsen, “On Justifying Violence,” p. 35.
Nielsen, “On Justifying Violence,” p. 36.
Nielsen also cites the following words from Herbert Marcuse: “…these revolutions attained progress in the sense defined, namely, a demonstrable enlargement of the range of human freedom; they thus established, in spite of the terrible sacrifices exacted by them, an ethical right over and above all political justification” ( Nielsen, “On Justifying Violence,” p. 37).
Nielsen, “On Justifying Violence,” p. 36–7.
Nielsen, “On Justifying Violence,” p. 39.
Nielsen, “On Justifying Violence,” p. 40.
Nielsen, “On Justifying Violence,” p. 42.
Nielsen, “On Justifying Violence,” p. 43.
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Corlett, J.A. (2003). Political Violence. In: Terrorism. Philosophical Studies Series, vol 101. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0039-0_4
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