Justified Violence

Justified Violence Violence has become accepted as a common means to achieve an end. Whether it is for power, subduing another country during interstate conflict, or an attempt to gain legitimacy, violence has become a distinctive force in contemporary society. The more important question that needs to be addressed is when this use of violence is justified, if ever. The purpose of the government, according to Locke, is the preservation of natural rights. When these freedoms are not protected in civil society, oftentimes violence is the means resorted to. Violence is often used to sustain power, where it has been lost or diminished. However, as depicted by Arendt, violence can never create legitimate power. Therefore, violence is a misconstrued idea that fails to address the underlying problem at hand, which is the loss of power and instead attempts to achieve short-term goals. In this paper I will use Arendt’s means-end relationship, Locke’s idea of an ideal civil society, the concept of rebellion and Martin Luther King’s campaign for nonviolent direct action to prove that violence is never justified. The use of force and violence in present-day society is often justified in order to abuse human rights, store and militarize weapons of mass destruction and to use self-defense through pre-emption during interstate conflict. The rationale that violent measures must be taken has accrued due to the underlying loss of power. Instead of creating or regaining power, this violence ultimately destroys it. According to Hannah Arendt, violence stands in need of implements (Arendt, 4). These implements increase strength but are dictated by this means-end logic, where violence becomes a means to justify some end such as: security, liberty or self-defense. The problem with this logic is that the amount of violence at the disposal of a country, as depicted with weapons of mass destruction, cannot be a reliable indication or guarantee against destruction from another country or