On Normative Violence
The social contract (no matter its type: contractarian – John Rawls, of capability – Martha Nussbaum, or of resilience – Robert Nozick) was born precisely to eliminate or avoid the private violence or, at least, to guarantee protection against it, with the state as protector. The social arrangement against private violence is very sophisticated and, generally, functional enough to provide freedom and democracy – first of all, based on Constitution as the basic structure of the society. The problem is: what about public violence? Public violence can take the following three forms: a) violence between states (either economic, diplomatic or military); b) the violence of a dictatorial state against its own people; c) the violence of a democratic state against its own people. Since the first two forms are outside any problematization, I shall discuss more analytically the third one. More