Intraspecific violence is often credited with the role of a mechanism important for maintaining the life of individual populations and even entire species. For example, violence is a tool for establishing a dominance hierarchy, excluding weak individuals from competition, allocating limited resources in favor of the strongest and most adapted members of the population, etc. To a certain extent, these statements are true, but what is definitely incorrect is to look at the phenomenon of violence in isolation from other factors—an error often made when presenting violence as a mechanism that works the same way in all cases.
Factors such as the innate armament of population members and the possibility of avoiding violence through flight play an important role in intraspecific violence. In cases where the armament of individuals is quite weak, the population is not limited by a strict habitat (it has room to expand), and individuals generally possess a good ability to flee, then certain benefits can indeed be derived from intraspecific violence without encountering an unacceptable level of negative externalities created by it. In short, in such cases, the benefits outweigh the losses.
But everything changes with an increase in the armament of individuals, with the limitation of their habitat, and if their ability to flee is less developed. The more pronounced these factors are, the more negative externalities the population will experience—violence will begin to threaten its survival. This was noted in ethological research by Konrad Lorenz, who also did not deny the positive aspects of violence, but at the same time took into account factors capable of turning this phenomenon into a catastrophe. He also described the concept of a mechanism that inhibits (restrains) intraspecific violence. I will provide an excerpt from his book “Aggression, or the So-called Evil”:
“A raven can knock out another raven’s eye with a single blow of its beak; a wolf can rip open another wolf’s jugular vein with a single bite. If reliable prohibitions did not prevent this, neither ravens nor wolves would have existed for a long time. A pigeon, a hare, and even a chimpanzee are unable to kill one of their own kind with a single blow or bite. Moreover, such poorly armed creatures possess an ability to flee that allows them to escape even from ‘professional’ predators, who are far more skilled in pursuit, capture, and killing than any superior fellow of their own species. Therefore, in the wild, it is usually impossible for such an animal to harm its own kind. Consequently, there is no selective pressure creating a prohibition against killing.”
From all this, a simple conclusion can be drawn: intraspecific violence can be useful, but only as long as factors such as armament and the inability to flee from violence do not become so pronounced as to create too many negative externalities. And the more pronounced these factors are, the greater the harm will be, which will ultimately lead to selective pressure toward stronger inhibitors of aggressive behavior among population representatives.
Now let us briefly consider the case of humans. Their innate armament is quite weak, and they have not yet fully adapted to the artificial armament that emerged during the development of civilization and scientific and technical progress. But this armament, along with the current lack of possibility for significant expansion of living space (humans have already spread across almost all habitable territory on the planet), creates a great threat to the survival of humanity. Intraspecific violence may have been useful for the distant ancestors of humans, but since they began using artificial weaponry, the situation has changed fundamentally. It is also worth adding that when discussing violence, the characteristics of humans and human society that distinguish them from animals and the animal world are often overlooked. Violence has an extremely negative effect on human psyche and behavior. Violence also disrupts economic relationships. This creates even more negative externalities.
