Bitarch’s Column
In discussions with subscribers, I occasionally encounter the opinions of “moral monsters” who believe that morality does not exist, that it is all “talk for the poor,” and that only a fool would forgo such an effective tool as physical violence. Such people, of course, deserve the harshest condemnation and ostracism, following the example of how anti-racism and anti-homophobia activists do it in the USA. But to convince the general public, it is still necessary to outline utilitarian arguments regarding the inadmissibility of aggressive violence in society. After all, deontological morality does not appear “out of thin air”; it is the product of repeated interactions between subjects in society.
To begin, let us note that a morality of non-aggression exists even in many animal species. As proven by the famous biologist Konrad Lorenz, an innate, inherited morality of non-aggression toward members of one’s own species is present in all animals with “innate armament” (for example, hedgehogs, porcupines, echidnas, venomous snakes). It became fixed in their DNA through natural selection, as individuals prone to aggression died in clashes without leaving offspring.
When do you think a moral prohibition on a certain behavior emerges in society? I assume the answer is obvious—when such behavior causes inconvenience, reduces the quality of life, or creates excessive risks for the majority of society members. In economic terms, the behavior of one subject creates enormous negative externalities for all members of society, even though such behavior may be very profitable for that specific subject.
We can find plenty of examples of such negative externalities if we look at world history. Here are some examples of such externalities:
1) Various environmental challenges (the ban on leaded gasoline, the insecticide DDT, freons in refrigeration units, and in recent years—internal combustion engines in some countries).
2) Problems of socially unacceptable risk (the closure of nuclear power plants in many countries after the Chernobyl and Fukushima accidents, the limitation of carbon dioxide emissions to reduce the risk of global warming).
3) Child abuse (the ban on the use of violence against children has already been introduced in most countries of the world). It has been proven that this leads to an increase in cases of drug addiction, alcoholism, and suicide, reduces their chances of success in life, and also leads to an increase in the average level of violence throughout society.
4) Animal cruelty—leads to an increase in the average level of violence throughout society.
As we can see, in all these cases, there is a conflict between the individual, for whom selfish dangerous behavior is profitable, and the entire society, which will bear the costs of that behavior. For example, for negligent parents, spanking a child is much easier than explaining in words why they should behave in a certain way, but the consequences of this act will be spread across society as a whole. The same applies to the use of a diesel car—it is cheap and convenient for the owner, but for other city residents, it means poor air and various diseases. Such externalities only begin to be seriously discussed when the harm from them becomes noticeable to a significant part of society.
The use of aggressive violence as a tool for achieving any goals (usually coercion and punishment) carries the greatest externalities that exist on Earth. Far, far greater than even the use of Chernobyl-type reactors or a coal-fired power plant without any filtration systems in a city. Here are just a few utilitarian arguments as to why aggressive violence is bad:
1) The average level of violence in society increases. If a stationary bandit (the state) uses cruel methods of coercion against its “serfs,” they quickly become hardened and no longer consider it shameful to beat a wife and child or take money and a phone from the weak. Constant shootouts and police chases lead to frequent injuries of accidental (unrelated) persons. The stress level of many people increases, leading to an increase in mental illness, suicides, drug use, a decrease in creative abilities, and a slowing of economic growth. For these reasons, in Scandinavian countries, the state now sends people to prison only for intentional murder, and the prisons themselves are more like health resorts.
2) The risk of a man-made global catastrophe or even the self-destruction of humanity. With the development of technology, the total harm that one person can inflict is constantly growing. If aggressive violence in society is the norm (especially state violence, as it is the hardest to escape), then sooner or later a person driven to despair will decide to use some dangerous technology as a doomsday weapon (DDW)—threatening to blow up a nuclear reactor or release a deadly virus. When a stationary bandit threatens to lock you in prison forever, there will be no talk of humanity; any means are good to be left alone, even the threat of causing a global pandemic. For society, even an infinitesimally small probability of such an event is unacceptable, as the potential damage would be simply catastrophic and could even lead to the extinction of humans as a species.
3) The productive development of the economy and quality of life stops because violence becomes the “objective function” of societal development. Instead of developing technologies and producing goods and services that benefit the majority of the population, society’s resources are spent on creating tools of violence. There is a common misconception that the “arms race” drives scientific and technical progress. This is true, but only over a very short period of time. The potential for violence can be viewed as an analogue to the concept of an “objective function” in mathematics. It strives toward a very specific value that practically does not change over time (or rather, is constantly decreasing)—inflicting unacceptable damage on the opponent (tolerance for violence has a constant tendency to decrease; accordingly, the threshold of unacceptable damage also decreases). This distinguishes violence from all other areas of human activity, in which the goal is the improvement of human life. Human needs constantly grow, and this provides a stimulus for scientific and technical progress, the emergence of new niches in the economy, and the growth of quality of life. However, a society that develops through an “arms race” comes to collapse, as already happened with the USSR. When the ability to inflict unacceptable damage on each other became available to all developed states, technological development slowed down sharply.
4) The formation of a military hegemon, a hierarchy of dominance, and, as a result—the collapse of the birth rate and the extinction of humanity. In Jack Hirshleifer’s research, a proven assertion is presented that the disruption of the uniform distribution of the balance of violence potential (BVP) in society leads to the emergence of a hierarchy of dominance (the state in human society is one example of this), and if the unevenness of BVP continues to increase—a global “military hegemon.” The danger of the long-term existence of a rigid hierarchy of dominance was identified in various animal experiments, such as “Universe 25.” The population simply died out due to a decrease in the birth rate. You will probably say now that “the conditions are different,” “a human is not a rat,” “an analogy is not an argument,” but look the truth in the eye and at the statistics of the total fertility rate in various countries of the world: in most countries, it is already below the replacement level (averaging 2.1 children per woman). There is also a certain dependence between the birth rate and the actual degree of state interference in a person’s life. In Africa and India, there may formally be many regulations in various spheres of life and high taxes, but in reality, the state is physically unable to reach every resident. But in Singapore, with exit visas and caning for dissent, the population for some reason is in no hurry to reproduce, despite even a high level of income. As in South Korea, where the level of personal freedoms, if viewed impartially, is not much higher than in the North.
Conclusions. As we can see, the morality of the inadmissibility of aggressive violence is not just someone’s “wish,” but a banal condition for the survival of civilization and even humans as a biological species. The rejection of this morality essentially means exactly one thing: “I am the boss here and I don’t care if all of humanity dies.” All normal people should have a corresponding attitude toward such a person—as toward the worst scoundrel, a new Hitler or Pol Pot.
