violence, (1) the use of force to cause physical harm, death, or destruction (physical violence); (2) the causing of severe mental or emotional harm, as through humiliation, deprivation, or brainwashing, whether using force or not (psychological violence); (3) more broadly, profaning, desecrating, defiling, or showing disrespect for (i.e., ‘doing violence’ to) something valued, sacred, or cherished; (4) extreme physical force in the natural world, as in tornados, hurricanes, and earthquakes.
Physical violence may be directed against persons, animals, or property. In the first two cases, harm, pain, suffering, and death figure prominently; in the third, illegality or illegitimacy (the forceful destruction of property is typically considered violence when it lacks authorization). Psychological violence applies principally to persons. It may be understood as the violation of beings worthy of respect. But it can apply to higher animals as well (as in the damaging mental effects of some experimentation, e.g., involving isolation and deprivation). Environmentalists sometimes speak of violence against the environment, implying both destruction and disrespect for the natural world. Sometimes the concept of violence is used to characterize acts or practices of which one morally disapproves. To this extent it has a normative force. But this prejudges whether violence is wrong. One may, on the other hand, regard inflicting harm or death as only prima facie wrong (i.e., wrong all other things being equal). This gives violence a normative character, establishing its prima facie wrongness. But it leaves open the ultimate moral justifiability of its use. Established practices of physical or psychological violence – e.g., war, capital punishment – constitute institutionalized violence. So do illegal or extralegal practices like vigilantism, torture, and state terrorism (e.g., death squads). Anarchists sometimes regard the courts, prisons, and police essential to maintaining the state as violence. Racism and sexism may be considered institutional violence owing to their associated psychological as well as physical violence. See also NONVIOLENC. R.L.H.
