The difference between physical force and violence

[The white Rhino]

What is the difference between violence and physical force? Can someone use violence in an attempt to prevent a crime from being committed? For example, would a person be justified (morally, ect) if that person knew about another person's plan to cause harm to another person? Where are the boundaries between violence and physical force? Also where would this fit in with natural law? Please educate me.

[shirgall]

Violence is actions that cause you harm, take your stuff, or damage your property. The credible threat of violence is a form of physical force even if it is not some physical manifestation of hurting you or taking something that's yours. Check out a form of crime known as "strongarm robbery" sometime.

[DavitosanX]

Well, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines violence as:

 

1.- The use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy.

2.- Injury by or as if by distortion, infringement, or profanation.

 

Full definition: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/violence

 

Intention, and more so the result of injury, appears to be key here. Also, the second definition incudes non-physical modes of violence. It would be safe to say that not all physical force can be classified as violence, and that whether or not injury results from its application is the indicator from which the classification is made.

 

I think it's difficult to justify anything morally, just because different sets of morals exist. I suggest the following analysis:

 

- What are the ramifications of the crime being commited?

- What are the ramifications of using violence to stop it?

- What is the minimum amount of violence required to solve the problem?

 

Finding a balance between those three would be my solution. Of course, finding the balance (i.e. correctly deducing and judging ramifications) is the real question, and that would have to be resolved on a case by case basis.

[Mole]

What is the difference between violence and physical force? Can someone use violence in an attempt to prevent a crime from being committed? For example, would a person be justified (morally, ect) if that person knew about another person's plan to cause harm to another person? Where are the boundaries between violence and physical force? Also where would this fit in with natural law? Please educate me.

With regards to violence, for me, this is just a matter of semantics. The initiation of force is immoral. If this means violence, then so be it. Violence could also be defined within the context of self-defence. It totally depends on your definition of violence. A better word to describe immoral behaviour would be aggression. Aggression being the initiation of force. This fits in with the non-aggression principle. A person acting in self-defence is not necessarily being aggressive.

 

As for physical force, this is not necessarily aggression. It isn't necessarily the initiation of force. It could be in self-defence. In your example, the person you would be stopping is the aggressor. You are not an aggressor because you are acting as third party self-defence. As third party self-defence, you have made the judgement that without your intervention, vis-a-vis physical force, the initiation of force would have occurred. Therefore, you are not the initiator, i.e., the aggressor.

 

We can deduce to aggression, or rather, the non-aggression principle as a natural law. To see how this is done, consider argumentation ethics or universally preferable behaviour.

[Rventurelli]

Well, an act of force in self-defense is a violent act, even though it is justified and therefore not immoral.

But since the original question is what is the difference between physical force and violence... I would say that if you are for example at the gymnasium using physical force to lift weights or to punch a punching bag, that is not violent, although you are still using force.