Understanding Violence : The Intertwining of Morality, Religion, Capitalism and Violence: A Philosophical Stance

This book offers a philosophical account of violence, engaged with both empirical and theoretical debates in disciplines such as cognitive science, sociology, psychiatry, anthropology, political theory, evolutionary biology, and theology. The primary thesis is that violence is intertwined with morality and typically enacted for “moral” reasons. To show this, the book compellingly demonstrates how morality operates to trigger and justify violence and how people, in their violent behaviors, can engage and disengage with discrete moralities. The author’s fundamental account of language, and in particular its normative aspects, is particularly insightful as regards extending the range of what is to be understood as violence beyond the domain of physical harm. By employing concepts such as “coalition enforcement”, “moral bubbles”, “cognitive niches”, “overmoralization”, and “military intelligence”, the book aims to spell out how perpetrators and victims of violence systematically disagree about the very nature of violence. The author’s original claim is that disagreement can be understood naturalistically, described by an account of morality informed by evolutionary perspectives as well. This book helps us come to terms with the fact that we are intrinsically “violent beings”. To acknowledge this condition, and our stupefying capacity to inflict harm, is a responsibility we must face up to: such understanding could ultimately be of help in order to achieve a safer ownership of our destinies, by individuating and reinforcing those cognitive firewalls that would prevent violence from always escalating and overflowing. This second edition is thoroughly revised and integrated with two new chapters to cover new aspects of violence and its understanding, such as the role of looting finance in facilitating violent outcomes and the attack to scientific cognition and human creativity. Preface to the Second Edition Contents 1 ``Military Intelligence'' 1.1 Philosophy: the Luxurious Supplement of Violence 1.1.1 Individual and Structural Violence 1.1.2 Psychiatrization and Dehistoricization of Violence 1.1.3 Victims and Media 1.1.4 Philosophy and Violence 1.2 Defining Violence: Violence Is Distributed and Always ``Perceived'' as Such 1.2.1 Decent Violent People 1.2.2 Honor and Institutional Cultures 1.2.3 Defining Violence 1.2.4 Various Kinds of Violence 1.3 Coalition Enforcement: Morality and Violence 1.3.1 Abduction, Respecting People as Things, and Animals as Moral Mediators 1.3.2 Coalition Enforcement Hypothesis 1.3.3 The Origin of Moral/Social Norms, Social Dominance Hierarchies and Violence 1.3.4 Cooperation, Altruism, and Punishment: an Epistemological Note References 2 The Violent Nature of Language 2.1 The Violent Nature of Language: Abduction, Pregnances, Affordances 2.1.1 Saliences and Pregnances 2.1.2 Pregnances as Eco-Cognitive Forms: the Naturalness of Proto-Morality and Violence 2.1.3 Mental and Mindless Semiosis and the Formation of Language, Habits, and Violent Conflicts 2.1.4 Violence: ``Vocal and Written Language Is a Tool Exactly Like a Knife'' 2.1.5 The Role of Abduction in the Moral/Violent Nature of Language 2.2 The Awesome and Perverse Academic Face of the Relationships ... 2.2.1 Perversion, Violence, and Narcissism 2.2.2 Ad Ignorantiam Fallacy as a Semantic Attack References 3 Moral Bubbles: Legitimizing and Dissimulating Violence Distributing Violence through Fallacies 3.1 Violence, Language, and ``Writing'' 3.2 Fallacies as Distributed ``Military'' Intelligence 3.2.1 Epistemic Bubbles and the Distribution of Aggressive Fallacies 3.2.2 Morality and Moral Bubbles: Legitimizing and Dissimulating Violence 3.2.3 Gossip, Morality, and Violence 3.2.4 Judging Violence: Abductive Fallacy Evaluation and Assessment 3.3 The Semiotic Emergence of Violence through Deception 3.3.1 Fireflies and Luminescent ``Femmes Fatales'' 3.3.2 Moral Hazard as the Violent Perverting of Cooperation 3.4 The Violent Force of Law and of Morality 3.4.1 Lawmaking and Law-Preserving Violence 3.5 Ochlocracy: Violently Perverting Democracy and Its Values 3.5.1 Wisdom of the Crowd or Violent Tyranny of the Crowd? 3.5.2 Ochlocracy as the Perverting of Sympathy 3.6 Beyond 9/11. Democrats, Speak Out! Would You Like ... 3.6.1 The Widespread Violence Against Rechtsstaat and Democracy 3.6.2 What Westerners Want (When They Do Not Like Constitutional Democracies Anymore) 3.6.3 The ``Paradox of the Insider Enemy'' 3.7 Bad News from Evolutionary Game Theory References 4 Moral and Violent Mediators 4.1 Cognitive Niches as Moral Niches 4.1.1 Human Beings as Chance Seekers 4.1.2 Cognitive Niches as Carriers of Aggressiveness 4.1.3 Cognitive Niches as Moral Niches 4.2 ``A Sense of Purposefulness'' in Evolution: Copying with Maladaptive ... 4.3 Distributing Morality and Violence through Cognitive Niche Construction 4.4 Moral Mediators as Conflict Makers and Triggers for Structural Violence 4.5 Moral Mediators 4.6 Are Moral Mediators Able to Act as Violent Mediators? The Two-Faced ... 4.6.1 Internet and Social Networks as Violent Mediators 4.6.2 Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a Violent Mediator 4.6.3 Moral Mediators and ``Knowledge as Duty'' 4.7 Moral Mediators and Structural Violence 4.8 Collective Axiologies as Moral Niches, and the Derived Violent Conflicts 4.8.1 Nonviolent Moral Axiologies, Pacifism, and Violence 4.8.2 What Does the Micro-Sociological Theory of Violence Teach Us? 4.9 Building Violent Niches through Bullshit Mediators 4.9.1 Degrading Truth: Bullshit as a Violent Mediator 4.9.2 Deception through Confabulating about Truth 4.10 Violence and the Right and the Duty to Information and Knowledge 4.10.1 Why Epistemology Matters to Violence? 4.11 Constructing Morality through Psychic Energy Mediators 4.11.1 Moralizing Nature, Moralizing Minds 4.11.2 Cognitive/Affective/Moral Delegations to Artifacts and Subsequent Reinternalization 4.11.3 Artifacts as Memory, Moral, and Violent Mediators 4.11.4 Maximizing Abducibility of Morality through Symbols 4.11.5 Cultured Unconscious and Sacrifices References 5 Multiple Individual Moralities May Trigger Violence 5.1 ``Multiple Individual'' Moralities: Is ``Moral Disengagement'' in the Perpetration ... 5.1.1 Reengagement of Another Morality 5.1.2 Kant and the ``Inverted Stoicism'' 5.2 Pure Evil? 5.2.1 Criminal Psychopaths' Morality and Ethicocentrism 5.2.2 Mental Incapacity and the Fear of Decriminalization 5.2.3 Gene/Cognitive Niche Co-Evolution and Moral Decriminalization 5.2.4 Can We Freely Decide to Kill Our Free Will? What Is Crime Commodification? 5.3 Fascist Morality and Happy Violence: ``The Fascist State of the Mind'' 5.3.1 Ideology as a Disguised Violent Ethos 5.3.2 The Fascist ``Infinite Morality'' as a Violent Moral Void 5.3.3 Intellectual Genocide: Killing Opponents' Cognitive Niches 5.3.4 Culture of Hatred and Inculcation, and the Moral ``Banality of Evil'' 5.3.5 Evil and Trauma 5.4 The Fascist Arguer and His Fallacious Dimensions 5.4.1 Negating the Truth 5.4.2 Negating the Opponent and Moral Niche Impoverishment 5.5 The Perversity of ``Respecting People as Things'' in Wars and the Role of Bad Faith References 6 Religion, Morality, and Violence 6.1 Is Religion Violent? Faith and Its Pervertibility 6.1.1 Theological Violent Argumentations 6.2 Religion as a Natural Phenomenon 6.2.1 Religious Moral Carriers, Religious Violent Carriers 6.2.2 Rendering Human Behavior Predictable through Religion and Morality 6.2.3 Religion Is Easy, Religion Is Violent 6.3 From Magical Thinking to Religion: Bubbles and Cognitive Firewalls 6.4 Sacred and Sacrifice: the Violent Boundaries of Magic 6.5 Overmorality and Wisdom. Morality or Indifference? 6.5.1 Escaping Overmorality? 6.5.2 The Ostrich Effect: the Limits of Docility 6.6 How Can Forgiveness Be Violent? The Ideal of Mercy and Its Discontents 6.6.1 Forgiveness is Multidimensional 6.6.2 Moral Viscosity and the Ultimate Paradox of Forgiveness References 7 Violently Mimicking the Primitive Accumulation 7.1 Morality and Violence in the Role of Enclosures in Capitalistic Primitive Accumulation 7.2 ``Enclosures'' and the Related ``Moral Bubble'' Based on Edifying ... 7.2.1 ``Moral Bubbles'' Based on Edifying Economic Narratives 7.2.2 The Amazing List of Violent Effects Provoked by Enclosures 7.2.3 The Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation 7.3 Violence as the Most Productive Force: Women Reduced to Reproducers 7.3.1 Women's Exploitation and Capitalistic Primitive Accumulation: Women Become Machines for the Production of New Workers and the Recent ``New'' Enclosures 7.3.2 The Violent Destruction of the Control that Women Exercised Over the Reproductive Function 7.3.3 Women Thrown Out of the Commons 7.3.4 When Common Lands are Destroyed by the Enclosures Women Become the New Communal Good: the New ``Patriarchy of the Wage'' 7.4 The Violent Aspects of Primitive Accumulation as the Main ... 7.4.1 The ``New Enclosures'' Candidly Operated by the Officers of the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and Coronavirus Lockdowns 7.4.2 Coronavirus Lockdowns Favor the ``New Enclosures'' 7.4.3 The Paradox of the Interplay between Green Era and Ukraine and Israel-Hamas Wars and Global Food and Energy Crisis 7.4.4 The Moral Bubbles Generated by the ``New Enclosures'': both Offenders and Offended Dissimulate Violence 7.5 The ``Terminal Enclosure'': Aggressing the Ultimate Common Good 7.5.1 Water as a Commodity: Violence against Poor People? 7.5.2 The ``Special'' Violation to Women's Access to Water References 8 Doing Violence to the Production of Scientific Knowledge 8.1 ``Knowledge in Motion'' Defended: Favoring Scientific ... 8.1.1 Marketing Technoscientific Results 8.2 Jeopardizing Human Abduction through Impoverished Epistemic Niches 8.2.1 Epistemic Irresponsibility I: Expensive Drugs Now and the Undisciplined Commodification of Abduction in Science 8.2.2 Epistemic Irresponsibility II: How to Avoid the Eco-Cognitive Shutdown of Creative Abduction 8.2.3 Epistemic Irresponsibility III: Neoliberalism Assaults to Epistemic Integrity of Biopharmaceutical Research 8.3 Optimizing the Eco-Cognitive Situatedness: Human Creative ... 8.3.1 ``The Symbiotic Model of Innovation'' and the Precompetitive Collaborations 8.4 Computational Invasive ``Subcultures'' Jeopardize Human Creative Abduction ... 8.5 Science Impoverished: Encouraging Epistemic Irresponsibility through Ignorance References Appendix Conclusion Lexicon References Index