UC Irvine

Philosophical discussions about violence tend to lack conceptual clarity, which makes them confused and often unhelpful. The dissertation aims at bringing about such clarity by analyzing the meaning and scope of the concept of violence. I examine three kinds of views about the ontology of violence (the physicalist, the structural, and the maximalist view) and defend a version of the maximalist view that incorporates elements from the notion of structural violence. In the last chapter, I explore the ethical implications of my view and defend an ecological approach to ethics in order to best deal with such implications.