Violence is a fairly common phenomenon in nature. This is especially observable in interspecies relationships. Representatives of different species are in a constant struggle for territory and resources; additionally, some become food for others. However, the situation changes when shifting to the consideration of intraspecies relationships. Of course, these are also frequently violent in nature, but this is far from always true. Under certain circumstances, a population will begin to develop inhibitors of intraspecies aggression. We will call this the violence inhibition mechanism, or more simply, the violence inhibitor.
The analysis of intraspecies aggression should begin with a look at its positive aspects, which will later allow us to avoid certain misunderstandings. Aggression, including that of a violent nature (i.e., inflicting physical harm, killing), allows stronger and healthier individuals in a population to prevent weaker and unhealthy ones from reproducing. Furthermore, it is simply beneficial for a specific individual capable of using it for their own survival and the transmission of their genes. It also serves as a tool in creating and maintaining a dominance hierarchy that coordinates the actions of individuals. Finally, since aggressive behavior prevents different individuals or groups of individuals from remaining close for too long, it leads to their uniform dispersal throughout the available living territory, and thus to a uniform distribution of limited resources.
One might get the impression that committing violence against fellow clan members is not just useful, but vital for the survival of specific individuals (and the genes they carry), as well as for populations as a whole. But one should not make the mistake of viewing violence in isolation from environmental circumstances. In this case, two of the most important factors are the presence of strong innate weaponry among population representatives and their inability to escape from violence. The stronger these two factors are, the higher the risks of violence. At a certain point, they become too high for the benefits derived from violence to compensate for them. Violence ceases to be an evolutionarily optimal model of behavior. And these risks can grow to the point where individuals simply exterminate each other in violent clashes, and the population comes to an end.
As an example of such a scenario, one can cite the well-known Universe 25 experiment, in which a mouse population raised in supposedly paradise-like conditions went extinct in less than 5 years. The experiment was poorly executed; the conditions were far from paradise. But the main error was the design of the enclosure, which allowed the 65 largest males to use force to block all others’ access to females and food. This triggered a chain of events that led to the extinction of a population limited in space and extremely violent in its order. In more intelligently designed enclosures, where it is impossible to establish such a violent dominance hierarchy, mouse populations can live for decades [1].
As we can see, weaponry and the lack of an opportunity to escape violence prove to be a problem for the survival of the population. However, it is precisely this that creates evolutionary pressure to develop inhibitors of intraspecies aggression among its representatives, which solves this problem. If population representatives possess strong innate weaponry, then the individuals most inclined toward violence who initiate attacks will encounter the weaponry of their fellow members, and this can often lead to their death. Resistance from an armed victim who has nowhere else to run can also be fatal for the aggressor. Even several victories in such a situation do not guarantee success for the aggressor, since there is still a high probability that one of the attacks will end in a lethal outcome for them. Meanwhile, less violent individuals will perish less frequently, as they do not initiate attacks themselves but only defend against them. They will encounter the risk of dying from violence less often than their aggressive counterparts, and thus will more frequently produce offspring.
As a result, natural selection will move toward the development of strong inhibitors that prevent the infliction of physical harm and the killing of fellow members, as individuals lacking such inhibitors will be removed from the population and unable to pass on their genes. The mechanism responsible for such inhibitors is the violence inhibitor. Overall, we obtain an evolutionary model of non-violence, according to which violence is eradicated as a phenomenon of intraspecies relationships in the course of biological evolution.
This conclusion is supported by observations of animal behavior. The concept of the violence inhibitor was first formulated by ethologist Konrad Lorenz. According to his theory, this mechanism is most developed in species whose representatives are capable of easily killing an individual of approximately their own size. Describing his observations of wolves, he showed how the violence inhibitor is activated when one wolf demonstrates gestures of submission to another—exposing vulnerable areas such as the neck or belly. As a result, the stunned aggressor cannot continue the attack. Similarly, observations of crows confirmed that they do not peck out each other’s eyes, even during clashes [2][3]. Indeed, the sharp teeth of a wolf and the beak of a crow are powerful weapons; a single bite or strike to a vulnerable spot is enough to seriously injure, or even immediately kill, another individual. The presence of such weaponry led representatives of these species to develop corresponding inhibitors during biological evolution.
A large number of such observations from various researchers were listed by ethologist Ireneus Eibl-Eibesfeldt. Many animals exhibit ritualization of intraspecies battles, which prevents the use of strong weaponry. This is true even for arthropods, such as fiddler crabs, which do not open their claws wide enough to injure their opponent during clashes. Similar restraint of aggression is characteristic of many species of fish, lizards, and mammals. A notable example is the oryx antelope, which handles its sharp horns carefully in clashes with conspecifics but uses them to their full extent when defending against lions. It is also worth mentioning poisonous snakes, many of which writhe, exaggerate their size, and push each other during clashes, but do not bite and do not even display their weapon [4][5].
At the same time, violence is inhibited to a lesser extent in poorly armed species. Compared to crows, doves with less sharp beaks are not restrained in their aggression and are even capable of killing a conspecific if the latter is deprived of the opportunity to escape, for example, if placed in a cage [2]. Animals that lead a solitary lifestyle are also quite aggressive. Consider hamsters, which generally will fight to the death if several individuals are placed in one cage. In nature, however, they scatter after only a few mutual bites [4]. If we examine the case of a solitary lifestyle in more detail, in its evolutionary influence, it can be equated to escape. Thus, violence does not threaten the survival of bears, who outside the mating season encounter each other too rarely for the occasional clashes to affect the population as a whole.
Based on observations of animal behavior, neurobiologist James Blair suggested that humans possess a similar mechanism that inhibits aggressive behavior. He subsequently developed a model of the violence inhibition mechanism (English: Violence Inhibition Mechanism, or abbreviated VIM). In its development, his goal was to explain the emergence of psychopathy as a result of the malfunction of this mechanism [6][7].
According to the VIM model, the violence inhibitor is activated when a person observes distress signals from other people, such as a sad facial expression or crying. As a result, the person begins to experience aversion and ceases aggressive actions. The violence inhibitor is also a prerequisite for the development of moral emotions in humans (i.e., sympathy, guilt, remorse, and empathy) and the ability to identify moral transgressions in actions consisting of causing harm to people.
As can be understood from the evolutionary model of non-violence we are considering, the development of a fairly strong version of the violence inhibitor could not have bypassed modern humans, as their ancestors began inventing artificial weaponry. Furthermore, population density has increased significantly over history, and the human population has already occupied the entire available habitat on the planet. However, due to rapid social and scientific-technological progress, the violence inhibitor has not had enough time to fully adapt to new circumstances, which creates the problem of violence in human society. But this issue, as well as the general issue of violence inhibition in humans, will be examined in detail in the following topics of the cycle.
Right now, it is important to understand that violence in human society is not an evolutionarily optimal model of behavior. It cannot be so for any highly armed beings limited in their habitat, since the risks of violence increase as weaponry increases, while there is nowhere to run from it. These risks become especially catastrophic in the case of a high-tech civilization due to the possibility of creating weapons of mass destruction. And humanity is exactly such a civilization. All this creates the prerequisites for the necessity of eradicating violence and achieving a non-violent society in which there is no place for forced forms of relationships, as the most evolutionarily optimal model of social organization.
Sources:
1. Khokhlovsky, P. (2020). “Universe 25: crushing criticism of myths and new conclusions”: https://tjournal.ru/analysis/212316-vselennaya-25-razgromnaya-kritika-mifov-i-novye-vyvody;
2. Lorenz, K. (1949). Er redete mit dem Vieh, den Vögeln und den Fischen (King Solomon’s Ring);
3. Lorenz, K. (1963). Das sogenannte Böse. Zur Naturgeschichte der Aggression (Aggression: the so-called “evil”);
4. Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. (1970). Ethology: The Biology of Behavior, pp. 314—325;
5. Dolnik, V. R. (1993). Ethological excursions through the forbidden gardens of the humanities;
6. Blair, R. J. R. (1992). The Development of Morality. Department of Psychology, University College, London;
7. Blair, R. J. R. (1995). A cognitive developmental approach to morality: investigating the psychopath. Cognition 57, 1—29. doi:10.1016/0010-0277(95)00676-P.