Violence
This theme runs through several big questions. Here are the ones where it plays out.
The questions that illuminate it
Are human beings fundamentally good or inclined toward evil?
To believe humans good is to be able to trust them, loosen the rules, bet on freedom; to believe them prone to evil is to deem laws, controls, and safeguards necessary to hold common life together. To take a position is to say how far to trust others, and how many constraints a society needs.
Why punish: to repay the wrong, to deter, or to rehabilitate?
Punishing to make the guilty pay can be mere vengeance dressed as justice; punishing only to deter or for efficiency can sacrifice the offender to the common good. Depending on the answer, the penalty looks toward a past to settle or a future to protect. To take a position is to say what we are really doing when we punish.
Can violence be legitimate?
In the face of aggression, injustice, and oppression, resort to force always ends up presenting itself, as a temptation or a necessity. Refusing all violence on principle, admitting it as a last resort under strict rules, treating it as the ordinary instrument of politics, or seeing in it the oppressed's path to liberation: each answer commits a conception of morality, power, and history.
Is a political authority that commands and coerces necessary, or should we free ourselves from it?
It all turns on what we expect of human beings left to themselves: able to order their own affairs, or bound for disorder without a power to settle disputes. To take a position is to set how far the duty to obey extends, and where the right to refuse begins.