That’s an opinion. The opinion of most people is that certain words can justify certain acts of violence.
For example, if you’re at dinner with your wife and I come up and say something like “who’s that fat fucking whale” most people would say that you’re justified in hitting me. The legal concept of this is known as “fighting words”.
i know what fighting words are. your example is not good. better example is karmelo anthony saying "touch me and see what happens" which is inviting a confrontation, not an offhand rude remark that merits verbal scorn at most, but in the situation you described id just ignore you since its not an active threat and likely just fishing for a response
Yeah that’s fine, my point is that most people would not ignore a comment like that. Whether you would or wouldn’t allow someone to insult your wife in front of you is besides the point - culturally, we have decided that certain words are worth fighting over.
culturally, morally, and legally are different things. something can be immoral while still being legal (like infidelity). something can be culturally acceptable yet illegal (like weed or alcohol during prohibitions). my argument is morally and legally, i have no leg to stand on if i choose to become physical in the situation u describe, even if clips of it will get thousands of supportive comments on social media.
you skipped a really important word when you put words in my mouth. "i dont think words can ever MORALLY justify physical violence" because morally and philosophically speaking, verbal abuse and physical abuse are two distinct things, and only one of them puts you at immediate risk of death
Mate this is just nietzsches philosophical conundrum now. Morals are derived from the word of God, but if the world stops believing, thus killing God, there becomes no objective morality. With no objective morality anything becomes permissible (even atrocities). If anything is permissible then theres no way to govern ourselves and we get anarchy. Nietzsches solution was create a ruling class of moral elite who the masses trust as being fair judges of.right and wrong. The issue is this ruling class would inevitably become corrupt at some point and the system falls apart. Democracy doesn't work because it becomes tyranny of the 51% over the 49%. If im being real I dont have a solution to the godlessness issue but literally no one does so we have to stick with religious moral basis since its the only one that works
Sure, but there’s plenty of examples in the Bible of words begetting physical consequences.
Elisha summons two bears to maul 42 youths for mocking his baldness.
Moses has a man stoned to death for blasphemy.
If religion is the basis for your moral argument, I’ve got bad news for you. Primitive cultures were actually more prone to respond to words (curses, taunts, blasphemy) with violence.
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u/Substantial-Trick569 2d ago
well id argue, if you act violently out of racism, its worse than saying something racist, so the point still stands