Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

There is no agreed, or noncontroversial, definition of violence. The term is far too potent for that to be possible. Nevertheless, a commonsense understanding of the term is, roughly, that violence categorizes any physical assault on human beings carried out with the intention of causing them harm, pain or suffering. Similar assaults on other living beings are often also regarded as acts of violence. And it is common to speak also of violence against a certain category of things, namely private property.The commonsense conception is by no means unproblematic. Consider, first, the question of intention. The stress on intention is important, since surgery and dentistry can both cause pain, and may involve the loss of bodily parts; but the sole proper purpose of these inflictions is the wellbeing of the patient. Torture, on the other hand, is a form of violence, since the suffering which is deliberately inflicted is at best for the benefit of someone or something other than the victim. But it would be wrong to make intention crucial to the definition; while vehicle drivers rarely intend to kill or maim, a traffic accident might well be described as an act, or at least an incident, of violence, especially if caused by culpable negligence or irresponsibility. More centrally, those responsible for both the planting and the dropping of bombs are apt to claim that their intention, or purpose, ... log in or subscribe to read full text