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Comment by dnautics | Hacker News Reader

What is the opposing hypothesis here? That violence happens in a morally neutral setting? How would you define morally neutral? Could you make a claim, for example, that a bank robber is motivated by morality (the bank robber believes that robbing the bank is the morally correct thing to do - to redistribute wealth to himself?) Under what circumstances would that NOT be the case? Would the bank robber have to say, "well I know this is wrong, but..." (and how would we characterize that "but..." as not just another dimension of morality)?

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I'm also not sure what sort of violence the author would classify as not motivated by morality. From the article:

> ISIL members believe they are morally justified and obligated to commit acts of terror, while US soldiers accept some loss of civilian lives to achieve the deaths of those terrorists. In all of these scenarios, the violent act is perceived by the perpetrator as virtuous.

In the case of ISIS, the author is correct. They really do believe their actions are an unqualified good. But I seriously doubt that drone pilots in US military feel the same way. They may know where a terrorist leader is, but not be able to isolate him from innocents. In other words, if they had more accurate weaponry and better information, they would harm fewer innocent people. Sadly, current bombs and armies are crude tools. In contrast, lack of ability is the only thing stopping ISIS from killing more innocent people.

I think the author is confused because the term "morality" covers everything from self-defense to religious fanaticism. There's practically nothing it can't explain.

Well, pure self-interest would probably fall outside of morality, but one could make an argument that many conscriped ISIS fighters, US soldiers, and perhaps US leaders are acting out of self-interest.

I think things could get a bit ambiguous when you consider something like the Stalinist purges. Those would seem to be an intersection of self-interest and self-righteousness. Although their morality was not theistic, they clearly believed that they must prevail over those who had wronged them.

Self-interest is not a well defined concept. The notion of self is not somehow objective or immutable. Describing someone's self-interest is just another framework for describing the same underlying system that morality and all that is trying to describe. There is a bit of circularity when one tries to make self-interest an essential feature of brains:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism#Circulari...

In cases like extreme nationalism, the zealot has essentialized the nation-state into their identity and is thus acting in their 'self-interest'. If one defines self-interest as interest in the health and reproduction of the body, then humans are emphatically not drive solely by self-interest.

Why was this down-voted? The parent makes an excellent point that self-interest relies on a moral judgement about who the "self" is.

> but not able to isolate uim from innocents

I often wonder what's the internal thinking of professional- and military-trained people. It could be closer to "I don't know whether they are guilty, but this is just my job" or "Precision destruction is a notch better than bombing a whole city like UK did in 1944 to win the war". Or "There isn't a right or wrong, but I'm on the US side, which has determined that this is "our" truth".

> In other words, if they had more accurate weaponry and better information, they would harm fewer innocent people.

That already exists. You could send someone to assassinate that single person. So yeah, some soldier would have to risk their life (kinda what the profession is about), but the innocent civilians won't have to pay with their lives.

Also, using the same logic, if a few serial killers are hiding somewhere in an apartment complex, why doesn't the government bomb the neighborhood?

That when you commit a "wrong" act, your conscience is screaming "no!" but loses the battle for the drivers' seat to some other element of your consciousness, such as anger ("crime of passion" murder of a cheating spouse) or desperation to meet physical needs (stealing to feed a meth habit).

The idea of sometimes-opposing parts of your consciousness vying for control is an ancient and quite popular idea. It is, for example, the basis of justice in the Republic (that the balance of power among the parts of your soul is correct).

>Would the bank robber have to say, "well I know this is wrong, but..."

Yes! The end of that sentence is "I needed the money" and that kind of thing happens all the time.

The thesis of the article is that this kind of violence is in fact very small-scale compared to violence committed with complete faith in its own justice. Which is pretty plausible: state military action, non-state terrorism, the criminal justice system, "legitimate" administrators of corporeal punishment, etc. operate on a much larger scale than wives killing their husbands for the life insurance money. The latter is the primary focus of the enormously popular television genre of police procedurals and obviously pretty far forward in people's minds, where international relations and the ethics of spanking may not be.

It's also possible that in a study where you ask people "why you did it?" they don't tell the real reason.

Significant part of violence could be motivated by emotion and then rationalized as the just thing to do. Either before or after the act.

Opposing hypotheses: that violence is a choice driven by self interest; that violence happens when someone is angry enough they don't think things through; that violence is an expression of some primal instinct.

I think all of these are somewhat defensible: the bank robber motivated by self interest; assaults driven by personal arguments; drunken street-fights. But I think the article is very interesting and possibly has a very valid point, especially regarding potentially different approaches.

One thing I would like to see teased out, though, is just how much the 'moral motivation' involved in various violent acts boils down to an assailant retaliating for some non-violent but supposed outrage of their personal dignity. I think a lot of fights could be described that way but that doesn't make it a valid moral motivation.

What about the scenario in which a person sees a child being sexually assaulted and intervenes? This is certainly not self-interest on the part of the rescuer, other than satisfying a deeply-held moral conviction. It may also be well thought-out. For example, my children have never been raped but I know I would use lethal force if necessary to prevent it.

Even violence based on self-interest is ultimately grounded in morality. For example, if one has a right to life, self-defense is morally justified and murder is wrong. Both are motivated by self-interest (one licit, the other illicit).

If violence does not contain some moral component, then we're stuck with very bizarre consequences (e.g., genocide and violently stopping genocide are on equally amoral footing).

The original author never mentions the word "valid" in regards to moral motivations. Trying to define what would make a moral motivation "valid" seems quite difficult.

Violence could take place in a moral vacuum. Killers just do what they feel like, take what they want, kill randomly or whoever gets in their way. Or, the morality of the situation might be of some concern, but the killing would be motivated by something else, like emotions or practical considerations.

If that's the case then isn't most of the violence in the world not motivated by morals (ie in a vacuum), but also mostly committed by things like spiders, bacteria, cows (or do you ignore the plight of grass?), etc.

The article mentions several categories: We analyzed records of all kinds of violence, ranging from war to torture to genocide to homicide. That other stuff seems out of scope.

Why does it seem out of scope? In terms of biomass humans seem kind of insignificant. Some ants make slaves [1]. Some wasps torture cockroaches [2]. I don't know enough about them, but I imagine that bacteriophages would happily commit genocide [3].

I believe that humans are special because we're made in the image of God, but I mentioned the spiders et al because it felt like this whole thing was sliding into a philosophical realm where no one was defining their terms. Personally, I think if you're going to talk about morality and violence without indicating why you think humans are so important you should have a good reason why we aren't concerned about grass being oppressed because otherwise it's just opinions without consistency.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slave-making_ant [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerald_cockroach_wasp [3] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteriophage

Because the scope of the study was limited to human against human violence.

Well, that sometimes happens. There was a case in the UK recently where some gang was just beating up random people on the street for amusement. There are always a few who who just have zero empathy for anyone and find violence 'amusing'.

But thankfully, that's rare.

I think opposing hypothesis is that violence is in some form a more primitive behavior driven by our emotions or instincts (by ego and id, if you will), and only our moral sense (our rational superego) keeps it in check.

I recently submitted this article which makes this distinction: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22830471-000-syndrome...

"Most violence in the world is defended by expressing moral sentiments"

Why can't the bank robber say "sure, robbing a bank is immoral, but I want money, so I don't care enough to not do it"?

I think eating animals is immoral. I still eat animals. I like the taste more than I dislike the immorality.

I'd guess that the opposing hypothesis would be that violence is economically /politically/religiously motivated. Maybe thought of as extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation?

I have to laugh when I read your post because you use "redistribute wealth" to refer to bank robbery. I have to imagine you have likely referred to taxation as "theft" at least once.

I'm gonna guess that PhDs working on non-profit public domain cancer research probably don't overlap all that much with the taxation-is-theft crowd.

Which part is supposed to convince me otherwise? The PhD? Non-profit public domain cancer research? There's nothing inherent in either of those personal qualities to suggest such.

I have never heard anyone refer to theft as "redistributing wealth" without corresponding usages of "taxation = theft."

I can see theft being excused as redistributing wealth and I don't necessarily think taxation is theft.

But I also say I can see a situation where redistributing wealth is not theft and in some cases I can think that taxation is, in fact, theft.

It all depends on context.

I just meant that working in the non-profit sector and working on public domain research generally coincide with wanting to benefit society at the expense of your own bank account, whereas the taxes are theft people would usually preserve their own bank account at the expense of society.

You should check your assumptions. There are plenty of people who are opposed to public (as in state-sponsored) good works that think it should be done publically (as in out in the open) through private funding.

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”

-Frederic Bastiat, ca. 1850

The non-profit is presumably tax-exempt, which doesn't help your point.

Honestly though, non-profit public domain cancer research should be tax-supported.

why should it be? I'm okay with not being tax-supported.

I guess I'm just feeling that non-profit public domain cancer research done to benefit mankind could use some additional money from the society :).

Surprise! I am in that camp (sort of; I think individual income taxes are bad, but not corporate taxes, or tariffs - as long as they are indiscriminate and not used as a tool for social engineering). I'm not that dogmatic about it, there are far worse things that states do.

Mea culpa. While my general experience doesn't show much overlap between the groups, my making assumptions about you was just as wrong as the other guy making assumptions about you.

Carry on with your interesting research, whatever your opinions on taxation.

He isn't using the term to refer to bank robbery, his hypothetical bank robber is. Just like right now you did not refer to taxation as "theft", even though that phrase is in your comment.

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