Violence, Ethics and Politics

Abstract

The article is a comment on Johan Galtung's 'On the Meaning of Nonviolence' and 'Vio lence, Peace and Peace Research', in which Galtung has tried to clarify and extend the con cept of violence. The present paper claims that there are various omissions and confusions behind Galtung's analysis. The first theme is ethics. Any exhaustive analysis of a concept has to differentiate between the denotation and the connotation of the concept. Connotation of the concept of violence is very much dependent, through its condemnatory nature, on values, norms and interests of the user of the concept. So, any definition must take these factors into consideration. Galtung has instead tried to neutralize the concept of violence, thus neglecting ethical nature. His analysis of the dimensions of violence also seems vague. Behind his way of defining violence and behind the differences between the two definitions we detect a general shift from one ethical system (deontological) to another (rule ethics). Galtung seems not to have noticed this, nor the implicit political character of the dimensions. His definitions of violence are thus models of definitions, their contents dependent on users' political (and ethical) atti tudes. The second theme concerns Galtung's typology of describing and explaining behaviour. When using the concept of structural violence Galtung has to define social structure, and seems in his definitions and examples to be a holist. So the old controversy between metho dological individualism and holism is relevant in this context. Galtung's definition of struc tural violence as a (violent) influence relation with no (direct) subject cannot be accepted, because of the confusion in his concept of the structure. The same kind of confusion under lies his considerations on the relations of the two kinds of violence. In conclusion, on the basis of the critique above a short comment is made on violence as a theoretical concept in the social sciences. It is claimed that violence is not a useful theo retical concept although an important ethical concept. Thus, it is claimed, the problem of the definition of the concept of violence can be seen in the light of the changing problems of peace research.