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Proper violence or force (bia) may be deemed a relatively straightforward phenomenon, and consequently one that is not worth twenty or more pages of serious philosophical examination. Indeed, with the sole exception of Aristotle, no philosopher or scholar seems to have paid so much serious attention to this condition of violence (violentum, force majeure). When one is pushed off a cliff or carried away from the battle field by one’s horse, one’s agency plays no part in the ensuing motion, and that seems to be the end of the matter. In the hands of Aristotle, however, violence becomes an interesting topic, and one that is beset with difficulties. This is most evident in the Eudemian discussion of violence (1225a9-1225a2), which will be the main focus of this chapter.1 This discussion is particularly interesting because it shows how Aristotle arrived at his final definition of violence.

1

Aristotle sometimes uses the term „anagkê‟ („necessity‟) besides „bia‟ („violence‟) in the context of his discussion of violence. At 1224a13 the necessary (to anagkaion) and necessity (anagkê) make their first appearance along with the violent (to biaion) and violence (bia). In the context of this discussion, however, Aristotle shows no sign that he means „anagkê‟ to be applied to different phenomena than „bia‟, and so I will

simply assume that „anagkaion‟ and „biaion‟ are here being used interchangeably, and simply talk about

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Since action is a kind of process (kinêsis, EE 1222b29-30), it is plausible to start by treating violence in relation to processes in general. This general metaphysical picture is what seems to account for the Eudemian ‘natural’ approach to violence, which starts by treating violence as a property of motion and rest in general. In particular, Aristotle employs the word ‘bia’ in the dative (bia[i]) which I will translate as ‘through violence’, to characterize primarily the manner in which motion or rest (and later, action or inaction) occur in the subject of motion,2 namely, ‘against the subject’s natural tendency’. The following definition captures Aristotle’s initial proposal:

V1: X’s motion or rest is through violence (bia[i]) iff it is against X’s natural tendency (hormê).

V1 applies primarily to inanimate objects: “we say that a stone travels upwards and fire downwards through violence (bia[i]) and by necessity (anagkazomena), whereas when they travel according to their natural and intrinsic impulse we say that they do not move through violence” (1224a16-19).3 We know from Aristotle’s works on Natural Philosophy4 that according to his natural system, material entities – or rather, the simple bodies of which they are constituted – have natural places and accordingly move naturally towards them unless something prevents them from doing so. And we also know that Aristotle thinks it is appropriate to apply the concept of violence (bia) whenever objects are thus prevented or move from their natural places (e.g. Phys. 205b5, 253b34, 255a3). The MM

discussion of violence makes these points explicit: “For each inanimate thing there is a natural place (oikeios topos) assigned to them – to fire the upper region and to earth the lower. It is possible, however, to force a stone to go up and fire to go down.” (1188b1-4)

2 _{Aristotle is well aware that in such cases it is not clear whether we should speak of the „agent‟ (prattôn) of}

motion or the „patient‟ (paschòn) of motion (EN 1110a2; EE 1224a22). In order to preserve this ambiguity I will use the expression „subject of change‟ or „subject‟ to refer to the substance in which the enforced change occurs.

3 _{I am conscious that a limitation of the term „violence‟ is that it is odd to say that inanimate objects are}

subject to „violence‟. Another limitation is that there is no verb associated with it, as there is in the case of „force‟.

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It is clear that V1 is the original definition of violence: in the words just quoted from the EE (1224a16-19)Aristotle says nothing about the requirement that the unnatural motion of the stone or the fire be externally caused, as he will do subsequently in discussing animal behaviour. He makes it clear that the requirement for an external origin of motion is an addition (proskeimenon) to the original definition (1224b6), and this is why he describes V1 as the ‘general’ (katholou) application of the term ‘violence’ (1224a15).5 But why is the requirement of an external origin unnecessary in the case of violent elemental motion? One natural (but false) suggestion is that it is unnecessary (i.e. superfluous), because inanimate objects as such do not have an internal origin of motion, in the sense that the efficient cause6 of an element’s natural motion towards its natural place is not internal to the element itself. This suggestion is wrong, however. The efficient cause of an element’s (E) natural motion is clearly not external (at least not in the same sense in which the cause of E’s moving contrary to its nature - para phusin - is ‘external’). The only external causes of E’s natural motion identified by Aristotle in Phys. VIII 4 are (i) the entity responsible for the generation of E and (ii) the one removing whatever may hinder E’s natural motion. The entity responsible for the generation of E is the ‘external’ cause of E’s natural motion to its natural place, but only in a very remote way, namely, in the way my French teacher is the cause of my now exercising the ability to speak French acquired thanks to her. And the removal of hindrances is only an ‘accidental’ cause of E’s natural motion (Phys. 255a24-8). The truth is that, despite Aristotle’s apparent efforts to show the contrary, E’s natural motion seems to be fully internal to it, once E has been generated and there are no obstacles on its way.7

The requirement of an external origin does not figure in the case of forced

elemental motion, not because all elemental motion is externally caused, but rather

5 _{Against Kenny, who believes that V2 (see below) applies indiscriminately to all cases of violent motion}

(Kenny (1979), p. 38)

6 _{As distinct from the formal cause (i.e. the nature of the element), which is internal to the element (as is clear}

from Phys. VIII 4). These two senses of „origin‟ (archê) as formal and efficient explain why Aristotle can say that all natural substances (a category that includes the elementary bodies) “have within themselves (en heautois) a principle of movement and rest” (Phys. 192b13-14) – namely, their nature (phusis) – and at the same time deny that the elementary bodies are self-movers as he argues in Phys. VIII 4, where self-motion is said to be the prerogative of animate beings (255a6-7).

7 _{As I. M. Bodnár says: “As soon as the elements are generated, and provided they are not hindered, they do}

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because – I submit – it is rendered irrelevant by a very important assumption, namely, that there is no room for ‘internal’ force or violence in the case of the elements (and derivatively, the inanimate entities composed of these). That is to say, there is no such thing as an internal conflict having a (prima facie) claim to internal violence in these simple entities. This is because the sheer simplicity and the continuity of their parts (Phys.

255a12-18)8 prevent them from suffering any sort of internal discord or disagreement. Since there is no room for internal violence in these inanimate entities, there is no room for an internal contrariety to impulse, and thus it is truistic to characterize the violence exerted on elemental motion as ‘external’. Note also that, because of the absence of an externality condition in V1, this definition has the consequence that if I throw a stone downwards the motion of the stone is ‘natural’ – as opposed to ‘violent’ – just as much as if I let the stone fall.

Now, when Aristotle moves on to discuss the forced movement of animals,9 he

seems to add a second clause, the clause about the external origin:

V2: X’s motion or rest is through violence iff (1) its source is in something external to X and (2) is against X’s natural tendency (hormê).

The example given is the one of an animal that “is moved from the outside, contrary to its internal impulse” (1224a23), an instance of this latter being the case of a horse which is galloping straight ahead (ep’ orthon), and is seized and diverted from its course (MM

1188b5-7). Later on Aristotle gives an explicit formulation of V2: “We speak of a thing being <moved> through violence (bia[i]) when it is moved or kept at rest by something external against the natural tendency (hormê) in the thing itself” (1224b7-9). But what is the point of adding this first clause about an external origin? Again, one may think that in the case of animals (as distinct from inanimate objects as such), the source of their

8 _{See also Pol. 1254a24-b16.}

9 _{Aristotle begins this discussion by referring to animate things and animals (epi empsuchôn kai epi tôn}

zô[i]ôn, 1224a21), but I take it that the kai here is epexegetic. Empsucha is a category that includes not only animals and human beings, but also plants. Plants, however, are incapable of locomotion, which is the sort of motion Aristotle is most interested in these contexts.

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voluntary motion is not external - for animals are self-movers - and consequently that externality becomes a feature peculiar to the violent motion of self-movers. Nonetheless, it is not at all clear – as we have seen – that the natural motion of inanimate objects (which are not self-movers) is not internally generated in the relevant way.10 It seems wiser to think that the externality condition comes now to the fore in the case of animate beings, not because only their ‘natural’ motions are internally generated, but rather because only animals are subject to the possibility of internal conflict. This interpretation is strongly supported by the fact that the chief question Aristotle had in mind in the EE

discussion of violence was the question about the voluntary status of the continent’s and the incontinent’s behaviour (1224a23-1225a2) - both of them exhibiting discord in their motivational set. Aristotle clearly thought he could solve this question by introducing the externality condition in the definition of violence (1224b11-12).

As a matter of fact, Aristotle introduces this question about the voluntariness of incontinent and continent behaviour by noticing that “in inanimate things the source <of motion> is simple, but in animate beings it is multiple: for desire and reason (logos) are not always in harmony” (1224a23-5). Clearly non-human animals do not have logos, but the general reference to ‘animate beings’ (empsucha) in line a24 can be explained, I think, by the fact that some internal conflict between impulses can be found in non-rational creatures. Just think about the dog that craves for the juicy steak on the table but does not dare to grab it for fear of being punished. Moreover, reason (in the shape of rational wish or choice) is not the only aspect of the soul that can enter into conflict with appetite (epithumia), the non-rational aspect par excellence. Thumos (anger) can also enter into conflict with appetite – recall the example of Leontius in Republic 439e-440a – and

thumos, even though it was usually represented by Plato and Aristotle as being the ally of reason, and as being grounded on its evaluative judgements, is not itself an intrinsically rational impulse, and animals can also be moved by it (EN 1116b34; cf. Republic 441b). Conflict between anger and appetite, therefore, is also possible in animals.

10 _{For discussion on this aporia about the source of the motion of the simple bodies, see Cooper, S. M. (1994)}

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We have seen that on Aristotle’s view, in inanimate things the source of motion is simple, “but amongst animate beings it is multiple (pleonazei) - for desire (orexis) and reason (logos) are not always in harmony” (EE 1224a23-25). Aristotle goes on:

So that in the case of the other animals what is violent is simple (haploun to biaion) – as it is in the case of inanimate things – for animals do not possess reason nor <therefore> desire that is opposed to it, but live by desire alone. But in the case of human beings both <reason and desire> are present, that is at a certain age, to which we attribute conduct (to prattein) – for we do not say that a child ‘conducts himself’, or a beast either; but <say this only of> someone who is already such as to act through reasoning. 1224a25-30 This passage must be adequately understood, if the thought that non-human animals have multiple impulses that can enter into conflict with one another is to be compatible with the present claim that, after all, the notion of violence appropriate to non-human animals is V1 (i.e. ‘simple’ violence). There are in fact multiple, and potentially conflicting, sources of behaviour in non-human animals, and Aristotle should not be taken as denying this obvious truth, but rather as denying – I contend – that this conflict has a prima facie

legitimate claim to the title of ‘internal violence.’ We see (horômen, a21) that the externality condition is a separate condition of violence in the case of animals, because animals have internally conflicting impulses; the truth is that the externality condition is also irrelevant to these cases because such internal conflict does not have a prima facie

claim to be regarded as internal violence. The question is why. What is it that renders the internal conflict between reason and non-rational desire as exemplified by the continent’s and the incontinent’s actions, a prima facie source of internal violence (i.e. one that looks as internal violence, even if this appearance is latter shown to be ungrounded), but not my dog’s internal conflict between fear and appetite?

I think the MM example of the horse that is seized and diverted from its direct course (MM 1188b5-6) suggests an answer. What I have translated (following G. Stock) as ‘straight ahead´ (ep’ orthon) can also be translated as ´in the right or correct direction’. Aristotle’s idea is clearly that what forces S off a given path is ‘violent’ in so far as it makes sense to describe such path as the orthos track, but ‘orthos’ has two different

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connotations, one geometrical (orthos1) and the other one normative (orthos2). Applied to

humans, the idea – I suggest – is that what forces a human being off a given path is ‘violent’ because it overcomes reason, or forces him off the right or correct (orthos2)track

dictated by reason. It is not clear, however, that for my dog, the right course is to avoid the punishment, nor is it clear that the ‘straight’ or ‘direct’ (orthos1) course followed by

the horse can be described as ‘right’ or ‘correct’ (orthos2) – from a non-anthropocentric

perspective, that is. The fact that there are animals whose motions can be described as ‘straight’ or ‘direct’ (orthos1) explains why Aristotle seems to think that V2 applies to

animals as well. But there are cogent reasons to think that, strictly speaking, V2 applies only to reason-responsive agents, i.e. agents who are capable of following the right or

correct (orthos2) path. Furthermore, there is now reason to think that it is not the mere

possibility of any internal conflict between reason and desire, but rather the possibility of conflict as we find it in the incontinent, that really has a claim to be considered violence; for only the incontinent agent (as distinct from the continent) is such as to be diverted from the right track dictated by reason. I will return to these considerations in Section E. Let us first notice another important feature of Aristotle’s notion of violence.