AN ETHICS OF VIOLENCE

VIOLENCE AS INJUSTICE: TOWARDS AN ETHICS OF VIOLENCE
By Mathieu Ndomba Ngoma
Email: matndomba@gmail.com

0.- Introduction

It looks odd to view violence in terms of injustice. We seem to overlook the intersection between violence and injustice. People generally look at violence from an exclusively physical perspective. Such view puts violence at odd with justice or injustice. However, a comprehensive understanding of both violence and justice draws striking similarities.

The Latin phrase suum cuique, which captures the traditional understanding of justice, means to each his own. Can the failure to attribute to each his/her own be regarded not only as an injustice but also as an act of violence? The argument of this reflection gives an affirmative answer to this question. Thus this argument carries a fundamental assumption that the following lines will clarify. It assumes that the content of the word “own” in the phrase to each his own constitutes a crucial ground for a comprehensive understanding of the notion of violence, the relation between violence and injustice, and for the construction of an ethics of violence.

i. – A sketch of the panorama of violence

How do we determine the content of the word own in the phrase suum cuique (to each his/her own) leading to a comprehensive understanding of both injustice and violence? A fair answer to this question must address the distinction between contingencies and necessities. A comprehensive understanding of violence would methodologically exclude contingencies. For instance the particular pair of pants I am wearing today belongs to me. It is part of the word “own” in relation to me today. Yet this aspect of the content of “own” constitutes the contingent aspect my “own.” The “own” in the phrase suum cuique certainly goes beyond contingencies to encompass necessities and ontological assets and attributes. The question therefore concerns the determination of such ontological assets and attributes.

From a Christian perspective, the theology of creation can provide fundamental hints in the determination of such ontological attributes. The theology of creation teaches us that God made human beings in God’s image and likeness. As such, they share with God, freedom or free will, dignity, and well-being as their ontological assets. Freedom, dignity, and well-being express therefore God’s image and likeness in human beings, and represent God’s violence free and just order of creation.

From a theology of creation perspective, freedom, dignity and well-being constitute the content of the “own” in the phrase “to each his own.” Accordingly injustice translates a failure to attribute, in certain circumstances, to a person his/her freedom, dignity, and well-being.

If we assume that violence translates any violation of the person, concretely speaking, such violation can only happen through the “own” or attributes of that person. It comes down to the same definition as that of injustice. Injustice translates the failure to respect or to give back the “own” of a person while violence translates any violation of the “own” of a person.

Such content of the word “own” also provide a criterion to discern violence. Thus a comprehensive understanding of violence looks at all aspect of the failure to respect people’s freedom, dignity, and well-being.

The definition of violence in relation to the theology of creation thus includes all violations of freedoms, dignity, and well-being. As such it goes beyond the issue of aggression which usually characterizes violence. Aggression implies taking action, going forward or approaching others in unfriendly ways. Yet, violence does not only translate a negative use of aggressiveness. Withholding an action, for example, can also be, in some circumstances, an expression of violence.

The understanding of violence at stake here encompasses a wide range of situations. Violence can be overt or covert, direct or indirect, intentional or unintentional, known or unknown, individual or systemic or social… An overt violence refers to objective and visible unfriendly attitude against others’ freedom, dignity, and well-being. Overt violence relates to the use of physical and/or mechanical force, strong words, threatening expressions, etc. Covert violence, on the contrary, refers to emotional abuse.

An intentional or known violence concerns deliberate unfriendly attitudes. An intentional violence comes from deliberate unfriendly choices. On the contrary, unintentional violence relates to harm inflicted out of deliberation. Unintentional violence may be known or unknown. For instance an unintentional pollution of the environment is an unintentional violence. It is known when, for instance, a person knowingly throws harmful chemicals without any recycling work like it was down in Abidjan in Ivory Coast or Pointe-Noire in Congo-Brazzaville. It is unknown when the person involved in the process ignores the harmful consequences of his/her polluting actions.

Violence may be individual or social. Individual violence is related to individual or personal unfriendly attitudes. Social violence, on the contrary, proceeds from culturally unfriendly accepted attitudes, institutions, and social patterns. Racism for instance is at the same time individual and social violence.

The common element of these different types of violence is the fact that there is always an unfriendly and a disrespect of freedom, dignity, or well-being for the victim. Freedom, dignity and well-being are rights and duties to be observed in any relation between people.

ii. – Towards an ethics of violence

Viewing violence as an injustice helps to build an ethics of violence on the category of justice. In fact, as an unfriendly attitude towards other people’s freedom, dignity, and well-being, violence is obviously an ethical subject related to justice. In fact, violence refers to human conducts which harm freedom, dignity, or well-being of other people. In most of the cases, violence springs from a choice to be unfriendly to others. As such, violence, just like justice, is a relational issue. The ethics of violence therefore deals with relation based on the respect of other people’s freedom, dignity and well-being. The ethics of violence deals with fairness and just relations between people. Basically therefore, the ethics of violence deals with justice.

Justice is primarily about fairness in relationships. It is about fairness in giving “to each his own.” Yet an ethics of violence goes beyond the understanding of justice exclusively and singly based on fairness. Understanding violence in terms of unfriendly attitudes brings the notion of friendship in an ethics of violence based on justice. Yet the introduction of friendship in the definition of justice is not new. Aristotle actually foresaw the necessity to include friendship in the understanding of justice. In his Nicomachean Ethics, he contends: “Friendship seems also to hold cities together, and lawgivers to care more about it than about justice; for concord seems to be something like friendship, and this is what they aim at most of all, while taking special pains to eliminate civil conflict as something hostile. And when people are friends, they have no need of justice, while when they are just, they need friendship as well; and the highest form of justice seems to be a matter of friendship.”[1]

The principle of justice most likely works where there is a psychological or spiritual binding element between people. Friends form a bond because they like and support each other. Thus, friendship defines an sort of unharming relationships between people. A comprehensive ethics of violence therefore includes not only fairness but also "friendship" understood as a psychological or spiritual binding element helping to build altruistic and even supererogatory interactions which exclude violence. This type of altruism and supererogation including friendship can have different expressions. What is crucial here is that fairness is not enough for an ethics of violence. There must be other psychological and spiritual dispositions and attitudes making violence irrelevant. We designate those psychological and spiritual dispositions and attitudes as friendship simply because there does not seem to be a better word. Only such friendship or only such psychological and spiritual dispositions and attitudes can stop all forms of violence.

iii.- Conclusion

This reflection shows that theology of creation can help the understanding of the intersection between a comprehensive understanding of violence and that of injustice. The notions of freedom, dignity, and well-being define fundamental and ontological assets or attributes of every human being. Anything that disregards these assets is considered as violent and unjust at the same time. An ethics of violence is therefore based on the promotion and respect of freedom, dignity and well-being of all people through fairness and friendly attitudes and dispositions.

However since violence seems to be an intrinsic part of human experience, it raises the question of the effectiveness of any ethics of violence. Human finitude seems to always open to the possibility of evil and violence. Yet an optimistic reading of reality encourages looking at peace and justice as a possibility rather than an impossibility just as experience shows that the positive evolution wins over the negative evolution of the world.

[1] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Trans. and Ed. Roger Crisp (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), p. 144.