Old title - Tolerance - Is violence ever justified?

For reference - https://lemmings.world/post/19791264 and all comments below the post about tolerance and non-tolerance

is it too naive for me to believe any and every lives matter? I do understand if someone is coming for my life, and i stop him by retaliating back, most nation’s laws would deem me innocent, maybe even most people will - but was it right?

It has not happened with me yet, and this is post is not politics related, a general discussion about tolerance, but I dont know how will I respond to such a situation, Is there a correct approach?

I know in a imaginary utopia - we can have a society where everyone thinks any violence, or for that matter, any evil deed is evil. And I know real world is far from being a utopia, but i believe most people can differentiate between good and bad. In my opinion, most people who do such acts are not really doing it because they enjoy it, some do because they have to, some think they have to, and they have been brain washed.

I also think if we ask a binary (yes/no) question to everyone - Is violence justified" - most people will vote no. I know there would be some exceptions (even in perfect utopia’s like N. Korea, lords only get like 99% majority)(/s).

Now if we change question - “Is violence ever justified” - many will now vote yes, and start listing out situations where they think it is valid.

This question was also brought up in Avatar. For people who don’t know - should Aang (a person with firm opinions, and more importantly a child - 12(112) years old) kill Lord Ozai (for now, consider him embodiment of evil for simplicity, but still a human). Many shows get away from asking, by basically having monsters (non human) as the opponent, so it is does not feel morally wrong. But here the question was asked. His past lives (in this world reincarnation exists, and aang is the Avatar - person who can control all elements) also suggested he should kill him, and he is tethered to this world, and this is no utopia … In the show they got away with basically a divine intervention.

Maybe here is my real question - Is it correct to have your morals be flexible?

Now for my answer, I have almost never felt correct labeling people good or bad, I have almost always treated people depending on what the situation expects me to (maybe how I feel I should be treating). In some sense I have a very flexible stance, and in some others, I dont. For example - I never cheat on exams or assignments - I can’t justify cheating, If I am getting poor marks, then I should prepare well. But If someone else asks me to help them cheat (lets say give assignment solutions) - I dont refuse either, as I have understood, even though judging people by a few numbers is bad, world still does that - mostly to simplify things, and in that sense, a higher grade for anyone is better for them.

I dont even know what can be a answer. I dont know if it exists, or it can exist, I am not really trying to find it either, consider this just a rant at clouds.

edit - I am not asking a binary question - you are not expected to answer a yes or no, see the line just above this edit. It is not even really about violence - it is about morality

edit 2 - Changed title, old 1 is still here for full context. I dont know why I chose that title. I am not blaming anyone who answered on the basis of title, It was my bad to have some title, and ask a “not really orthogonal but generalised question” in the middle, hoping people answer that, some one did, I thank them. Many people have written (or in similar vein) - violence should be be avoided, but not when it the last thing. I understand this general sentiment - but according to me - having a excuse to ever do violence allows you to have loop hole, just blame the circumstances.

Someone gave a situation where they would do violence - someone trying to assault a kid - and I agree I would too (If I would be in such a situation).

I had a small back and forth with someone about morals - my stance is morals are frameworks to choose if a action is moral/immoral. And then the question is really how rigid should your moral framework be, and should it depend on background of people in consideration?

  • TheBananaKing@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 days ago

    I think you’ve drawn the wrong borders around concepts, and are getting tangled as a result.

    Regardless of how we’d like things to be, morality is just plausibly-generalised threat perception.

    If people habitually went around doing that kind of thing, would you feel threatened by that?

    If so, then you will feel the emotion of outrage, and you will consider the act to be Wrong.

    Killing people and taking their stuff? But I’m a people, and I like stuff - I don’t want that to happen! That’s Bad and Wrong!

    And that’s the reason dehumanising the outgroup (or drawing a hard distinction of kind) is the first tactic used by oppressors: Oh goodness no, we aren’t killing people and taking their stuff; that would be awful! Nonono, we’re killing :demographic: and taking their stuff; that’s completely different and can never come back to bite you or yours, so relax, it’s fine.

    And of course, sometimes all your choices suck, thus the whole concept of trolley problems. Which threat makes my world less safe: a cold-blooded one-guy killer, or a useless five-guy allower-to-die standing there with his hands in his pockets? Are me-and-mine more likely to be in the big group of victims or the little one?

    The choice you consider ‘best’ depends on these kinds of questions.

    Threat perception is the engine that drives your moral framework. You can go and try to build a system out of words that will predict its moves, but that system is always going to be a crude imitation of the real thing, and there will always be edge-cases that throw up conflicts.

    Framing things in terms of how it affects categories-you’re-in can be a bit unflattering, so most people try to bury it in their system of words.

    When you do get that cognitive-dissonance feeling where your gut and your brain disagree on what’s right, it’s generally because your words are too specific, narrowing in on little details instead of the bigger picture.

    It’s definitely good to pause at this point, unpick the conflict and try to derive a wider principle that gives better answers - though you could fairly argue that this isn’t really moral flexibility, just getting better at describing the morals you do have.

    Real moral flexibility would be reassessing threats in their various contexts, and examining which categories of threat go where in the likelihood/severity matrix, and letting that inform your emotional responses. And yes, that’s a very good thing.