V

Vegetarianism

LYNETTE E. SIEGER

Gallatin School, New York University,

New York, NY, USA

Vegetarianism is the abstention from eating meat and fish.

The risks to human health posed by eating meat, the

environmental degradation and resource depletion that

is consequent of factory farming of animals for meat

production, commercial fishing, cruelty to animals, and

the moral reasoning behind vegetarianism give vegetari-

anism worldwide significance.

Consumption of meat, common in affluent countries,

poses a direct risk to public health. High levels of fat and

protein in meat are linked to cardiovascular disease, obe-

sity, cancer in colon, breast, and prostate, and type II

diabetes in meat eaters (Horrigan et al. 2002). Addition-

ally, the globalized production and consumption of meat

increases the risk and spread of disease and death from

food-borne pathogens (not exclusive to but most com-

monly associated with meat) such as Listeria, Salmonella,

Escherichia coli, Bovine Spongisorm Encephalopathy,

Toxoplasma, and new emerging food-borne pathogens

(WHO 2002). Water-borne disease such as cholera has

been transmitted via fish and seafood into previously

unaffected regions such as South America in 1991. In

China, in 1988, the consumption of contaminated clams

resulted in an outbreak of hepatitis A (WHO 2007). Con-

tagious disease is a global concern because it does not

respect state borders. Increased accessibility to travel in

decreased amount of time, coupled with the globalization

of meat and seafood industries, further complicates the

possibility of containing outbreaks. The recent cases of

bird flu epidemics in Asia and the so-called mad cow

disease in Great Britain brought the world close to the

specter of global pandemics. Under a vegetarian ethic,

improved world health is a primary reason for abstaining

from meat and seafood consumption.

In addition to globally shared health risks from non-

vegetarian diets, the environmental impact of factory

Deen K. Chatterjee (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Justice, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4# Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011

farming of non-human animals for meat consumption

has been devastating. Industrialized non-human animal

farming was introduced to meet high demands in affluent

countries for meat, with regard for economic profitability

over and at the expense of non-human animal, human,

and environmental well-being. Factory farming requires

mass consumption of non-renewable fossil fuel, water,

and topsoil erosion. High levels of concentrated non-

human animal waste are produced at a faster rate than

the environment can absorb leading to air and water

pollution. The US Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) estimates that animal waste coupled with farming

chemicals accounts for 70% of the pollution in US rivers

and streams (1998). Pollution threatens health and eco-

systems in a way that is porous and impacts world climate

change and weather patterns. The global poor, with few

resources and weak infrastructure, are negatively impacted

by environmental degradation in far greater proportion

than are the affluent consumers of meat. Perhaps the most

perverse consequence of meat-based diets for the affluent

is that it requires diverting grain, land, and water resources

away from human to non-human animals who are fed

with the aim of fattening to later kill for the meat. The

World Resources Institute (2000) estimates that 37% of

the world’s grain (66% of US grain) is fed to non-human

animals. Diverting grain from direct human consumption

depletes energy and land resources in an unsustainable

pattern and deprives the global poor access to much

needed nutrients.

Prior to health and environmental concerns, vegetar-

ianism is embedded in a long history of moral traditions

both religious and non-religious. Perhaps the most popu-

lar contemporary vegetarian theorist, Peter Singer, follows

the utilitarian tradition of vegetarianism, promoted by

Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill. Working from the

utilitarian ethic that on the whole, pain should be mini-

mized and pleasure maximized, Singer concludes that our

moral judgments ought to include calculations of non-

human animal pain because they are sentient beings.

Given that human beings can subsist on a vegetarian diet

without sacrificing their health, Singer argues that any

pleasure derived from eating meat could not outweigh

the pain inflicted on the meat source. Vegetarianism

020-9160-5,

1124 V Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties

would further benefit the human population because an

end to factory farming of non-human animals for meat

would release grain, soy and other plant foods, water, and

land for human use. Though Singer concedes that painless

killing of animals for meat, after they have lived a life free

from pain and the unbearable conditions associated with

factory farming, could be justified, he argues that as long

as eating meat continues there is the risk of mass produc-

tion as the logical consequence and ill treatment of ani-

mals. As such, vegetarianism is morally preferable.

In the rights tradition, Tom Regan promotes vegetar-

ianism on the principle that pain is inherently bad.

Irrespective of whether it occurs in a human being with

full rational capacity, or a human being without rational

faculties, we recognize that causing pain is wrong. Unless

some amount of pain is necessary to avoid a greater pain

or the harm of death in the future, such as in the case of

performing a medical surgery, then there is a prima facie

case against causing pain. Non-human sentient beings

experience pleasure and pain in varying degrees, and as

living beings with the capacity to have these experiences,

they are entitled to the right to be free from harm and pain

unless there is some overriding moral value at stake.

Capability ethicist Martha Nussbaum argues that non-

human animals are entitled to a dignified existence and to

flourish as they may without undue interference or

experiencing cruelty and harm. Like Regan, Nussbaum

rejects the contractarian premise that only rational and

roughly equal people are entitled as subjects of justice,

because it excludes too many human and non-human

beings that are part of the social world. Rather, using

a capabilities ethic, Nussbaum argues that justice applies

across the species barrier.

Vegetarianism is an ideal with great practical conse-

quences. Our shared ecosystem, global interactions that

increase the risk of shared diseases, and scarce land, water,

and food resources depend on creating a cooperative

scheme that benefit the world’s poor and the affluent.

Vegetarianism is one way to meet these challenges. Mor-

ally, causing harm or pain to others requires special justi-

fication. The sentience of non-human animals and their

relation to our social and ecological world demands

greater respect for their rights, or else we must provide

moral justification that plausibly explains their exclusion.

Related Topics▶Animal Rights

▶Climate Change

▶Deforestation

▶ Ecofeminism

▶ Environmental Protection

▶ Environmental Sustainability

▶ Food

▶Global Warming

▶ Justice and Religion: Buddhism

▶ Justice and Religion: Hinduism

▶Owning Life

▶Poverty

▶ Singer, Peter

▶ Sustainable Development

▶Utilitarianism

ReferencesCook M (1998) Reducing water pollution from animal feeding opera-

tions. Testimony before Subcommittee on Forestry, Resource Con-

servation, and Research of the Committee on Agriculture, U.S.

House of Representatives. http://www.epa.gov/ocirpage/hearings/

testimony/051398.htm. Accessed 13 May 1998

Horrigan L, Lawrence R,Walker P (2002) How sustainable agriculture can

address the environmental and human health harms of industrial

agriculture. Environ Health Perspect 110:445–456

Nussbaum M (2007) Frontiers of justice: disability, nationality, species

membership. Belknap Press, Cambridge

Regan T (1975) The moral basis of vegetarianism. Can J Philos

5(2):181–214

Regan T (1985) The case for animal rights. University of California Press,

Berkley

Singer P (1975) Animal liberation. Random House, New York

Singer P (1980) Utilitarianism and vegetarianism. Philos Public Aff

9(4):325–337

Spencer C (1995) The heretic’s feast: a history of vegetarianism. University

Press of New England, Hanover

World Health Organization (2002) Foodborne diseases, emerging. Fact

sheet. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs124/en/

World Health Organization (2007) Food safety and foodborne illness, fact

sheet. http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs237/en/

World Resources (2000–2001) People and ecosystems: the fraying web of

life. World Resources Institute, Washington, DC

Vienna Convention on the Lawof Treaties

JAMES R. MAXEINER

School of Law, Center for International and Comparative

Law, University of Baltimore, Baltimore, MD, USA

The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties governs

how states make treaties among themselves. It is “lawyers’

law,” that is, it is not concerned with the substance of

obligations among states, but with how states enter

into those obligations. It applies only among states.

The Convention puts in treaty form rules previously

Vienna Declaration on Human Rights V 1125

V

observed by customary international law. It enhances legal

certainty in a world that increasingly looks to written

treaties to govern international relations. As such, it pro-

vides an important foundation for the promotion and

enforcement of global justice.

The Convention is concerned principally with issues of

treaty formation and interpretation. It governs such mat-

ters as who may represent a state, how a state consents to

be bound, treaty “reservations,” entry into force, applica-

tion of treaties in time and in geographic space, third party

states, treaty modification, state succession invalidity, ter-

mination, and procedures for the foregoing.

Two technical subjects governed by the Convention

that are of particular political importance are treaty reser-

vations and treaty interpretation. Reservations are state-

ments that states make when they accede to treaties in

order to limit their obligations. Articles 19–23 regulate

and limit use of reservations. Treaty interpretation deter-

mines what treaties mean. Articles 31–33 guide treaty

interpretation. Article 31(1) provides: “A treaty shall be

interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary

meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their

context and in the light of its object and purpose.”

Notwithstanding its technical nature, the Convention

gives treaty form to two central elements of international

law. Article 26 states that “Every treaty in force is binding

upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in

good faith” (known as pacta sunt servanda). Article 27

provides that a state may not rely on its internal law to

refuse to comply with treaty obligations.

The United States has signed the Convention but has

not ratified it. It considers many of its provisions binding

as customary international law.

Related Topics▶Global Democracy

▶Global Justice

▶Globalization

▶ International Criminal Court (ICC)

▶ International Criminal Justice

▶ International Law

▶ International Organizations

ReferencesBederman D (2001) Classical canons rhetoric, classicism and treat inter-

pretation. Ashgate, Aldershot

Gardiner R (2008) Treaty interpretation. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Linderfalk U (2007) On the interpretation of treaties: the modern inter-

national law as expressed in the 1969 Vienna convention on the law of

treaties. Springer, Dordrecht

Nijhoff M (2010) Treaty interpretation and the Vienna convention on the

law of treaties: 30 years on. Leiden, The Netherlands

Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, Done at Vienna on 23 May

1969. Entered into force on 27 January 1980 United Nations, Treaty

Series, vol 1155, p 331

Vienna Declaration on HumanRights

COURTLAND LEWIS

Department of Philosophy, University of Tennessee,

Pellissippi State Technical Community College, Knoxville,

TN, USA

The World Conference on Human Rights adopted the

“Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action” (VDPA)

on 25 June 1993 with a consensus vote of all participants.

Between June 14 and 25, 1993, 7,000 participants com-

prised of 171 delegations from United Nations’ member

states and several international governmental and

nongovernmental groups debated the role of human

rights in contemporary international relations and

designed a document that called for a more thorough

understanding of human rights and presented specific

prescriptions for protecting them.

The VDPA is comprised of a statement of adoption

from the World Conference on Human Rights and two

separate parts (Part I: The Vienna Declaration and Part II:

The Programme of Action) that contain a total of 139

paragraphs. The Vienna Declaration reaffirms the Charter

of the United Nations that assumes all people are inher-

ently worthy and suggests ways of strengthening the

United Nations’ ability to ensure that the rights of every

person are respected. More specifically, it provides

a general discussion of the rights and obligations that all

States have to protect and foster human rights, which

include the rights of individuals to develop in their own

ways along whatever political, economic, social, or cul-

tural system they ascribe to. Themost important feature of

the Vienna Declaration is its focus on the rights of women,

children, and indigenouspeople, and its stance on combating

severe poverty, environmental degradation, gender-based

violence, the mistreatment of minorities and immigrants,

and other impediments to equal human rights for all.

The Programme of Action provides a series of mea-

sures for increasing theUnitedNations’ international coor-

dination on human rights among member states, fostering

a more in-depth discussion of the United Nations’ role in

insuring the cessation of gender-discrimination and pro-

viding equal access to healthcare, and suggesting the

1126 V Violence

creation of Treaty Monitoring bodies to account for the

status of women around the world. What is more, it spells

specific guidelines for protecting the rights of children,

indigenous people, migrant workers, and disabled persons

that include protecting such groups both from torture and

exploitation and securing adequate education for all.

The most notable impact on global justice from the

VDPA is the international recognition of mass rape as

a war crime. In 1993 and 1994, the International Criminal

Tribunals of the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda recog-

nized rape as an independent war crime and, in 2001, the

international war-crimes tribunal, The Hague, sentenced

perpetrators of mass rape as war criminals. Such rulings

illustrate an increased international focus on women’s

rights and the prosecution of such rights violations.

Other impacts include the increased cooperation between

international organizations and national agencies with the

goal of protecting the human rights of women, children,

indigenous people, and any other group whose rights have

been violated. For instance, the VDPA’s call for the speedy

and comprehensive elimination of all forms of racism,

racial discrimination, xenophobia, and related intolerance

served as one of the fundamental components of the South

African World Conference Against Racism (2001), which

has further refined the human rights discussion.

Related Topics▶Armed Conflict: Effect on Women

▶ Ethical Globalization Initiative (EGI)

▶ Feminist Ethics

▶Gender Justice

▶Human Right to Democracy

▶Human Rights

▶Human Rights: African Perspectives

▶ International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)

▶ International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugo-

slavia (ICTY)

▶Poverty

▶Rights

▶Universal Declaration of Human Rights

▶Violence

▶War Crimes

ReferencesDunne T, Wheeler NJ (eds) (1999) Human rights in global politics.

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Salomon ME (2008) Global responsibility for human rights. Oxford

University Press, Oxford (with a foreword by Stephen P. Marks)

United Nations Human Rights: Office of the High Commissioner

for Human Rights (1995) World conference on human rights,

14–25 June 1993, Vienna Austria. Excerpted from: DPI/1394/Rev.1/

HR-95-93241, April. http://www.ohchr.org/EN/AboutUs/Pages/

ViennaWC.aspx. Accessed 27 Apr 2010

United Nations Human Rights: Office of the United Nations High

Commissioner for Human Rights (1993) Vienna declaration and

programme of action. http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/vienna.

htm. Accessed 10 Apr 2010

Wronka J (1992) Human rights and social policy in the 21st century: a

history of the idea of human rights and comparison of the

United Nation’s universal declaration of human rights with the

United States’ federal and state constitutions. University Press

of America, Lanham/New York/London (with a foreword by

David Gil)

Violence

ROBERT PAUL CHURCHILL

Department of Philosophy, Columbian College of Arts &

Sciences, George Washington University, Washington,

DC, USA

Violence is among the most politically contested of all

concepts. For this reason understanding violence must

begin with careful conceptual analysis and attention to

definitions of “violence” in contrast to proposals for

extending or contracting usage of the term. The notion

of “institutional,” or “structural,” violence as well as the

notion of “nonviolent coercion” can be assessed in terms

of the reasons for extending or contracting a more basic

concept of violence. However it is defined, violence is

universally conceded to be inherently bad, and therefore,

only instrumentally justifiable. In this connection discus-

sions of violence have critically important implications for

global justice. First, discussions of violence often involve

two perennial but dubious assumptions, specifically – the

belief that violence is a manifestation of power and, addi-

tionally, the belief that violence or preparations for vio-

lence are valuable in developing the character, strength, or

spirit of individuals or peoples. As will be shown, neither

of these beliefs bears up well under scrutiny. As

a consequence, violence is of far more limited utility

than often recognized, and justifiable in very limiting

circumstances, as in cases of self-defense, for example,

and only as a last resort. Secondly, given that war and

mass atrocities cannot occur without violence on a large

scale and that violence is often involved in individuals’

human rights violations, it is important to weigh the

prospects of employing knowledge of individual and

group violence in creating a future in which increasing

numbers of persons can live with dignity and free from

suffering caused by violence.

Violence V 1127

Defining ViolenceWhile definitions usually purport to report usage of

a term, definitions of violence invariably involve infer-

ences about the injury inflicted, the presence or absence

of intentionality, or the responsibility of agents involved.

Hence, despite allegedly being neutral and descriptive,

these definitions convey value judgments and prescrip-

tions about the way one should think about violence.

This element of judgment can be seen to be implicit even

in the Latin roots for “violence” as the term derives not

just from violentus and vis which refer to the exercise of

force against someone or something, but also violare

which connotes a violation, as in an injury or harm to

the normal state or constitution of something. Moreover,

“injury” is derived from the Latin in (“against”) and jure

(“law”) implying the commission of a moral or legal

wrong.

For the sake of clarity and consistency, however, it is

important to make reasonable efforts to distinguish

between issues of identification and justification.

A helpful procedure, therefore, is to delineate a “core

concept,” or “baseline definition,” that captures much of

common usage. From that point we can proceed by devel-

oping a “definition by limiting conditions” (Churchill

1986) by reflecting on the reasons for adding certain

features to the core concept or extending the core defini-

tion in one way or another. At its core violence consists of

the direct or indirect infliction of harm or injury on

someone or something by some agent, where “injury”

refers to a continuum of harm, damage, or hurt inflicted

against the will or contrary to the recipient’s values or

interests, ranging from what is immediately life-

threatening through different degrees of suffering, debili-

tation, and deprivation (e.g., Christensen 2010). This core

concept of violence is consistent with the way “violence” is

generally understood in discussions of war, crimes against

humanity, and crimes of war, genocide, and humanitarian

intervention.

V

Limiting ConditionsMost commentators agree that it is reasonable that as

“violence” is ordinarily used, and especially in connection

with persons, groups, and global justice, a number of addi-

tional conditions can be added to the core conception. Each

of these represents rough boundaries between reasonable

extensions and limits on the use of the concept or term:

● An agent’s injurious actions can be characterized as

intentional (e.g., with knowledge, foresight, and by

design) or non-intentional (e.g., by accident or mis-

take), and either voluntary (i.e., with control over

one’s actions) or nonvoluntarily (i.e., against one’s

will or by usurping one’s abilities).

● An agent can act violently either directly, as in firing

a gun or a missile, or indirectly, as when civilian

leaders order military personnel into combat.

● Violence can be overt (e.g., a public execution) or

covert (e.g., a secret assassination).

● Threats of force or coercion such as deterrence, black-

mail, or terrorism are included within the concept

when the target of such threats has reasonable appre-

hension that noncompliance will result in injury to the

agent, his interests, or values.

● Violence can be of different types, including psycho-

logical as well as physical. Examples of psychological

violence include constant verbal abuse, systemic

humiliation, betrayal and deception, and terrorism.

● The dynamics of violence can occur at various levels or

spheres of activity including the interpersonal, intra-

group, inter-group, intra-state, and international

levels.

● Whatever the kind or degree of harm, damage, or hurt

inflicted, it is also plausibly an injury in the sense of

a wrong; that is, the harm is received nonvoluntarily,

without consent, or in opposition to one’s interests.

We do not speak of a surgeon’s cutting a patient as

violence, for example, or of knocking a child out of the

path of an onrushing vehicle.

● Violence involves a causal relationship between perpe-

trators to whom some responsibility can be assigned

for the violence inflicting harm or intending to inflict

harm on persons or entities that can be injured, that is,

on beings ordinarily accorded some degree of consid-

eration. For instance, persons, groups, animals, eco-

logical systems, and species can be the objects of

violence, but when speaking of the violence of

a hurricane, earthquake, or tsunami, for example, we

employ an analogy, and references to doing violence to

the language, or to a confidence, for instance, should

be treated as metaphorical.

Controversial UsageAmong controversial restrictions of the concept there have

been attempts to limit application of the term “violence”

either to illegitimate or unauthorized uses of force, or to

antisocial action and attacks on the status quo. An early

edition of the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences

(1951) defines violence as illegitimate or unauthorized

uses of force to effect decisions against the will or desires

of others, and in his study of revolutionary change,

Chalmers Johnson (1966) defines violence as antisocial

action and as behaviors deliberately intended to thwart

1128 V Violence

public order and stable expectations. On balance, these

restrictions seem unreasonable as they tend to bias issues

properly raised in connection with arguments to justify

violence. Thus, for instance, persons who believe some

wars are just, or that capital punishment or corporeal

punishment are sometimes justifiable, should be encour-

aged to give their justifications rather than be led to believe

that injurious force exercised by the state is not violence.

Likewise, those who study rebellions or revolutions should

not be encouraged to believe that those who use force to

bring an end to stable expectations are acting violently,

while those using force to maintain those expectations

(whether benevolent, benign, or malevolent such as dis-

crimination) are not acting violently.

Such controversial usages do violence, metaphorically

speaking, to reasonable efforts to disentangle justificatory

discourse from descriptive discourse. In this connection, it

should be emphasized that stipulative usages are permis-

sible when the purposes of the proposed extensions for

“violence” have been stated. Johan Galtung (1999) has

shown, for instance, that expressions such as “cultural

violence,” “symbolic violence,” and even “linguistic vio-

lence” are useful in emphasizing the ways aspects of cul-

tures and the symbolic spheres of human existence – in

religion, ideology, language, art, and science – can be used

to justify or legitimize violence.

Institutional, or Structural, ViolenceThere has been considerable debate in recent decades over

institutional, or structural, violence as a type of violence.

Advocates of extending the concept to include this type

believe “institutional violence” illuminates the ways in

which certain groups of people are more vulnerable to,

and more often victims of, physical and psychological

harm because of their location within a stratified or hier-

archically structured society (e.g., Christensen 2010). By

contrast, some decry such “inflationary” uses of language

as ideological, or as confusing violence with such well

established concepts as discrimination, exploitation, dom-

ination, oppression, and injustice. On balance, however,

the extension of the term to include structural, or institu-

tional, violence is reasonable if judiciously employed.

Hence three additional conditions are recommended for

proper application of “institutional violence.” First, the

ordinary or everyday activities of agents within an institu-

tion or undertaken to advance the interests of those served

by the institution do cause, directly or indirectly, harms

suffered by others outside the institution. Second, injured

persons are not randomly situated within a general popu-

lation but are disproportionately from vulnerable or mar-

ginalized or even targeted demographics. In other words, it

makes sense to speak of groups intentionally selected to

bear the harms produced intentionally or unintentionally

by the operations of institutions, as with black Africans in

South Africa under former policies, or as significantly less

able to avoid or resist harmful effects, as with the poor in

Haiti, or women in eastern Congo. Third, responsible

parties within these institutions know about, or could

easily be aware of, the injuries caused. Studies of the for-

mation of systems of structural violence by anthropolo-

gists Philip Bourgois and Nancy Scheper-Hughes (2004)

satisfy these additional conditions.

Nonviolent CoercionCertain difficulties also confront efforts to explicate the

concept of nonviolent coercion which initially appears

oxymoronic. Largely developed during the 1950s and

1960s Civil Rights movement in the United States the

concept was used to apply to resistance activities such as

lunch-counter sit-ins, boycotts, picket-lines, and strikes.

The notion arose partly because of the similarities between

these activities and other instances of nonviolent activism

(such as a peaceful parade without a permit) and in part

because of a certain loose play among the concepts of

coercion, nonviolence, and violence. Coercion is generally

understood as any form of behavior that requires persons

to pursue courses of action they do not desire or wish to

pursue. Coercion may involve very minimal uses of force,

however; and it is debatable that such coercive activities

involve harm as injury characteristic of violence. For

instance, when store owners are allowed to pursue other

options (e.g., to serve blacks sitting at the lunch counter)

or when the options they favor are illegitimate (e.g., exclu-

sive service for whites), then either there is no real harm or

no resulting injury, or wrong. These are helpful consider-

ations but they invite us to conceptualize the probable

outcome as a non-harm or noninjury based on what the

activists regard as their legitimate objectives. For instance,

those who react favorably to the use of nonviolent coercion

to end discrimination based on race or gender might react

quite differently to the nonviolent use of coercion by pro-

lifers who seek to block the entry to a health clinic where

abortion is available. For these reason “nonviolent coer-

cion” should be recognized as a neologism that should be

used only when accompanied by efforts to provide

a justification for the intended effects of the coercive

nonviolent activism.We should continue to avoid blurring

the distinctions between description and justification.

Violence and Global JusticeAmong beliefs about violence that have some historical

precedence, two in particular have led some to believe that

Violence V 1129

V

violence often has considerable instrumental value. Both of

these beliefs are highly dubious, however. Since at least

Clausewitz’s famous dictum that war is politics by other

means, violence has been thought to be a manifestation of

power, such that the greater a state or individual’s reliance on

or access to violence, the greater its power. The actual rela-

tionship between violence and power is complex and uncer-

tain, however. As Hannah Arendt (1969) has argued, power

and violence are often opposites and resorts to violence, at

least on intra-group levels, may reflect the absence of

effective power. A group is empowered to the extent that

the formation of will is relatively harmonious and access

to the resources for acting or implementing policy is

uninhibited. Studies of torture (Scarry 1985) likewise sug-

gest that groups or regimes least confident about their

power are most likely to rely on torture as a form, in Elaine

Scarry’s view, of a kind of compensatory drama.

Certainly very powerful and very effective social and

political movements have been largely nonviolent. These

include the nonviolent campaigns led by Mahatma Gandhi

in South Africa and India, and Martin Luther King, Jr. and

his followers’ activities in the Civil Rights Movement; the

“velvet revolutions” in former communist states in East

Europe, such as former Czechoslovakia; the revolution of

the carnations in Portugal; and the “rose revolution” in

Georgia, to name just a few. The interconnections between

nonviolence and power, as well as the success of nonviolent

strategies and tactics, have been the subject of extensive

study, notably by Gene Sharp (1973); Peter Ackerman and

Jack DuVall (2001), and Roberts and Ash (2009).

A further false belief but of some historical vintage is

the notion that violence has some significant positive

effect on individuals or society, in the formation of char-

acter, for instance, or in the purification of culture, or the

testing of the “national character” of a people. Ideologies

of violence were advanced for various purposes by

thinkers such as Charles Sumner and the “social Darwin-

ians,” Friedrich Nietzsche and Giovanni Gentile, and per-

haps most famously by Frantz Fanon in The Wretched

of the Earth. As William James argued in “The Moral

Equivalent of War,” however, it is possible to develop the

so-called martial virtues, including dedication, loyalty,

courage, perseverance, and selfless service, without prep-

arations for war. Moreover, as Barbara Deming (1971) has

argued, it is open to serious question whether violence can

accomplish any positive benefit on the formation of char-

acter or group belief that cannot be attained, and at much

less cost, through disciplined Satyagraha or nonviolent

activism practiced by Gandhi and many others.

Given the “shrinking” of the globe, universal human

rights and duties to aid distant others, increasing attention

is being given to the underlying causes of violent and

destructive behavior, especially in the empirical behavioral

and social sciences. The long-standing controversy over

“nature or nurture,” or the relative causal roles of genetic

factors and environmental factors, has given way to a new

explanatory paradigm. There is growing scientific agreement

that, in general, interpersonal and social behavior involves

the interplay between our biological heritage and environ-

mental conditions that may elicit or inhibit behavioral

responses. Thus variable environmental stimuli may

“trigger” relatively invariant genetic predispositions,

leading to different but predictable specific behaviors.

Edward O. Wilson (1998) was among the first to apply

natural selection to cultural development proposing a dual

inheritance theory, also known as gene-culture coevolution.

As Peter Richerson and Robert Boyd (2004) argue, human

genetic evolution and cultural evolution are inseparably

linked. Althoughwe are ultimately products of our genetic

heritage, cultural and social phenomena provide environ-

mental dimensions to which genetic predispositions are

more or less sensitive.

Although the extreme violence of genocide, mass

atrocity, and terrorism seem inexplicable, these horrors

almost always consist of very many discrete acts each

involving decision points for agents capable of reasoning

and accepting responsibly. Very few crimes and atrocities

are the result of pathology or irrational behavior. While

very much research lies ahead, significant strides already

have been made in two areas critically important for

decreasing the worst types of global injustice. First, signif-

icant strides have been made in efforts to understand both

underlying predispositions and the interpersonal, social,

and cultural factors that may trigger violent behavior in

ordinary people. Stanley Milgram’s pioneering study

of obedience to authority and Philip Zimbardo’s

“prison” experiment, as well as many other studies, have

demonstrated how easy it is to induce people to harm

others, as well as how difficult it may be to separate

hard-wired behavioral components from environmental

triggers.

Second, muchwork also has been done on the nexus of

causal processes and interpersonal and social actions and

expectations that must occur before an evil catastrophe

such as a massacre or genocide. Among such studies are

those on the “continuum of destruction” by Ervin Staub,

on crimes of obedience by V. Lee Hamilton and Herbert

Kelman, on indifference and complicity by Christopher

Browning, on moral disengagement and the role of ideol-

ogy in justifying violence, on the stages through which

a genocide develops by Helen Fein, as well as dozens of

others that are of enormous importance. Excellent

1130 V Virtue Ethics

summaries of these research results are available in Neil

Kressel (2002), Ervin Staub (2010), and Philip Zimbardo

(2008).

If enough is known about these causal processes, then

one or more of the following responses might be possible:

wemight be able to prevent violence or defuse a dangerous

situation by removing necessary conditions, we might be

able to predict the relative probability of group or mass

violence, or individuals who must play critical roles

might be taught how to resist the influences of situational

triggers.

Related Topics▶Aggression

▶Arendt, Hannah

▶Coercion

▶Crimes Against Humanity

▶Crimes Against Peace

▶Gandhi, Mahatma

▶Genocide

▶Human Rights: African Perspectives

▶King, Martin Luther, Jr.

▶War Crimes

ReferencesAckerman P, Duval J (2001) A force more powerful: a century of non-

violent conflict. Palgrave Macmillan, New York

Arendt H (1969) On violence. Harcourt, Brace, New York

Bourgois P (2004) US inner city apartheid: the contours of structural and

interpersonal violence. In: Scheper-Hughes N, Bourgois P (eds)

Violence in war and peace: an anthology. Blackwell, Malden,

pp 301–308

Christensen KR (2010) Nonviolence, peace, and justice: a philosophical

introduction. Broadview Press, Peterborough

Churchill RP (1986) Becoming logical: an introduction to logic. St. Mar-

tin’s Press, New York

Deming B (1971) Revolution and equilibrium. Grossman, New York

Galtung J (1999) Cultural violence. In: Steger MB, Lind NS (eds) Violence

and its alternatives: an interdisciplinary reader. St. Martin’s Press,

New York, pp 39–53

Johnson C (1966) Revolutionary change. Little, Brown, Boston

Kressel NJ (2002) Mass hate: the global rise of genocide and terror,

Rev edn. Westview Press, Boulder

Richerson PJ, Boyd R (2004) Not by genes alone: how culture transformed

human evolution. University of Chicago Press, Chicago

Roberts A, Ash TG (2009) Civil resistance and power politics: the experience

of non-violent action from Gandhi to the present. Oxford University

Press, Oxford

Scarry E (1985) The body in pain: the making and unmaking of the world.

Oxford University Press, New York

Scheper-Hughes N (2004) Two feet under and a cardboard coffin: the

making of indifference in a Brazilian village. In: Scheper-Hughes N,

Bourgois P (eds) Violence in war and peace: an anthology. Blackwell,

Malden

Sharp G (1973) The politics of nonviolent action. Porter Sargent Publish-

ing, Boston

Staub E (1992) The roots of evil: the origins of genocide and other group

violence. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

Staub E (2010) Overcoming evil: genocide, violent conflict, and terrorism.

Oxford University Press, New York

Wilson EO (1998) Consilience: the unity of knowledge. Alfred A. Knopf,

New York

Zimbardo P (2008) The Lucifer effect: understanding how good people

turn evil. Random House Press, New York

Virtue Ethics

BONGRAE SEOK

Department of Humanities/Philosophy,

Alvernia University, Reading, PA, USA

Virtue ethics is a theory of the human moral conduct and

personal character that focuses on the carefully developed,

stable, long-term inner dispositions of a moral agent as the

foundation of the agent’s moral excellence and good life.

In virtue ethics, an action is evaluated from the perspective

of the virtues (the character traits) of a person, not from

the perspective of its moral qualities (such as intention,

consequence, and duty-fulfilling features of an action).

There are three general characteristics of virtue ethics.

First, in virtue ethics, the moral value of an action

derives from the fully developed inner state (such as

wisdom, courage, temperance, or justice) of an agent.

The goals or consequences of an action, or the duties it

fulfills are only secondary moral values. For this reason,

the discussion of the development and the function of

virtues in morally fulfilling life is at the center of virtue

ethics. Specifically, the formative process of becoming

a well-rounded human person is regarded as an essential

feature of moral agency, where an agent not only does

things ethically but also becomes ethical and responsible.

It is controversial whether the virtuous inner dispositions

(i.e., stable and causally effective character traits) exist

in the human psychology and affect our actions and

decisions as virtue ethicists believe. Some psychologists

today report that most of our actions, even after serious

reflection and training, are greatly influenced by the

spontaneous decisions generated by contingencies of

decision-making processes and situational conditions of

the environment. However, the conviction of virtue

ethicists is that there exists a firm, stable, and consistent

inner tendency that reflects the fully developed and

matured character of the human person. Both ancient

Virtue Ethics V 1131

V

Greek and ancient Chinese virtue ethicists believe that by

carefully studying how this stable state of the mind is

shaped and functions, the questions of the human nature,

happiness, and moral values can be answered.

Second, virtue ethics takes a particularistic stance.

Instead of formulating general rules or principles of

morality, virtue ethics focuses on the particular personal

and social conditions of individuals. What separates

the questions of ethics, good life, and good decision

from the questions of the eternal principles of the universe

is this variable nature of the challenges that human beings

face in their diverse and variable conditions of life. Many

ancient philosophers, most notably Plato (in his later

dialogues) and Aristotle (in his Nichomachean Ethics),

believe that fully formalized and specified principles or

universal truths are not necessarily solutions to the chal-

lenges of good life and prosperous society because every

challenge and problem is individually unique and com-

plex with its open-ended interpretations and implications.

As the difference between sophia (the intellectual ability

for the universal and eternal truth) and phronesis

(the intellectual ability to handle practical issues)

illustrates, being flexible to and considerate of situational

variables is the key to find the appropriate and sensible, if

not the accurate and guaranteed, solutions to the ethical

challenges of life. The consideration of particular condi-

tions of life, therefore, is the second characteristic of virtue

ethics.

Third, a virtue is shaped by an appropriate develop-

mental process. Avirtuous inner disposition or a character

trait is not a fixed state of the mind, an innately given and

naturally grown mental ability. It is a carefully developed

ability of what, when, and how to do for oneself and others

in varying circumstances. As Aristotle suggests, the whole

process of character building is not a natural process, i.e.,

not the process of forming a disposition through repeated

routines, but a deliberate and intentional process

with the clear understanding of what is good and right.

Additionally, this process of development is not the

process of mastering and applying general rules or

principles to particular situations but of building a stable

habit of making good practical decisions by guiding the

mind to prioritize, deliberate, and focus on what matters

most in a given situation. As expected, philosophers of

virtue tradition recommend the type of developmental

processes where a person learns from good examples,

rolemodels, and life experiences without blindly following

external guidelines and rules. The goal of this formative

process is not just adding new information to or enforcing

rules of conduct upon the mind but transforming the

mind to develop stable but flexible moral abilities.

Other than the classical theories of Plato and Aristotle,

several virtue traditions had been developed in the East

and the West. Socratic view of virtue, discussed in early

Platonic dialogues such as Euthyphro, Apology, and Crito,

is different from that of Aristotle in its emphasis on the

rational soul and its full authority on one’s long-term

dispositions and well-being. Stoic ethics is another form

of virtue ethics where the single-handed dedication to

personal integrity and the fully charged moral imperative

to follow the path of logos (the universal and all

encompassing principle of the universe) are emphasized.

To this, Confucian moral philosophy adds another version

of virtue ethics. Philosophers such as Confucius, Mencius,

and Xunzi, like ancient Greek philosophers, discussed how

the stable inner dispositions shape the character, themoral

excellence, and the virtuous life of a person.

In virtue ethics, justice is regarded as an individual

virtue, a personal character trait that refers to the personal

excellence in interpersonal relations and transactions such

as the fair distribution of goods among individuals and the

respect for property ownership. This approach of justice is

contrasted with other approaches of justice that regard

justice primarily as a moral quality of social institutions,

not of an inner disposition of the mind. According to

Plato, in his Republic, virtuous individuals maintain the

balance and harmony of the soul driven by the rational

mind, and this harmony should be the blueprint of the

ideally just society. From this perspective, justice is closely

linked to the inner dispositions of a virtuous person rather

than to her external environment (social institutions or

social norms) or to the consequences of her action. For

this reason, the compliance to social rules makes sense

only if a society achieves the balance following the har-

mony of the soul.

Against the background of Platonic discussion of jus-

tice in the human soul, Aristotle develops his discussion of

social virtue: A virtuous person, due to her virtue, is the

one who is predisposed to promote social arrangements

that are fair and balanced. According to him, a virtuous

state of the mind is the mean between the two extreme

points, and this middle point (not the arithmetic average

but the optimally balancing point among diverse con-

straints) can be regarded as the standard of the fair share

of distributed goods. For example, a society where the

individuals receive their benefits according to their merits

is fair and balanced, even though some individuals receive

more benefits than others. The failure to achieve the mean,

however, is primarily an individual vice (greed, i.e., getting

more than what one can virtuously ask, or injustice, i.e.,

taking others’ share) that could ultimately become an

infringement of social justice.

1132 V Vitoria, Francisco de

In a similar context, Confucian moral philosophy

approaches social justice from the perspective of the

person and the human heart (ren, the central Confucian

virtue of benevolence), not from the perspective of the

(contractually formed and bound) system and the law

(specifically, its impersonal enforcement). Like

a virtuous person, social institutions should be formed

and sustained by developing and maintaining their

virtuous characters with firm integrity. An ideal

Confucian society is governed by the personal moral

quality of a leader and the moral integrity of its

institutions, not by the arbitrary arrangements among

people or the system of law. In terms of distributive

justice, Confucius always emphasizes the virtue of shu,

sympathetic understanding, sympathetic perspective

taking, or the balanced reciprocity among individuals.

With this virtue, a person balances her interest and that

of others’ in a sympathetic manner by taking others’

perspectives. In terms of corrective justice, Confucius

recommends the rule by good examples (exemplary

personal moral qualities), not by the law and punishment.

He believes that, with a law, people tend to avoid

punishment but do not learn to become responsible and

virtuous citizens.

In the contemporary discussions of justice, virtue

ethics emphasizes the often neglected values of the moral

excellence of personal character and the well-rounded

human life. In the context of distributive justice,

distribution of social resources based on the need for

self-development and the right to live and pursue well-

rounded human life, and in the context of corrective

justice (in addition to its traditional retributive and cor-

rective measures), the emphasis on the reconciliation pro-

cess among individuals and communities who are

involved in a transgression, reflect the philosophy of

moral excellence and the value of good human relations

with the strong appeal to human virtue, character, and the

well-rounded human life. Globally, virtue ethics provides

a framework for international relations. Countries

throughout the globe form international relations by con-

tracts, international treaties, and mutual agreements, but

these are not the only ways to form stable relationships

and promote peaceful cooperation. In fact, international

laws and treaties are often ignored or intentionally vio-

lated for various political and military reasons. Instead of

these formal means, virtue ethics recommends the model

of personal character and interpersonal relationship in the

promotion of stable and peaceful international relations.

Like interpersonal relations, countries develop interna-

tional relations with each other based on their national

integrity and the sense of responsibility. The expectation

of virtue ethics is that virtuous character, national integ-

rity, and good reputation work to promote international

cooperation and peace. It is not through the formalized

positive law, but through the person with good character

and the sense of community, virtue ethics promotes the

order and stability of social systems whether they are

personal, social, or international.

Related Topics▶ Justice and Religion: Confucianism

▶Xunzi

ReferencesAmes R, Rosemont H Jr (1998) The analects of Confucius: a philosophical

translation. Ballantine Books, New York

Annas J (1993) The morality of happiness. Oxford University Press,

New York

Cooper JM (1997) Plato complete works. Hackett Publishing,

Indianapolis

Doris J (2002) Lack of character: personality and moral behavior.

Cambridge University Press, New York

Hurka T (2001) Virtue vice and value. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Hursthouse R (2001) On virtue ethics. Oxford University Press, Oxford

Irwin T (1985) Artistotle’s Nicomachean ethics. Hackett Publishing,

Indianapolis

MacIntyre A (1985) After virtue. Duckworth, London

Swanton C (2003) Virtue ethics: a pluralistic view. Oxford University

Press, Oxford

Vitoria, Francisco de

GARY M. SIMPSON

Department of Theology, Luther Seminary, St. Paul,

MN, USA

Francisco deVitoria (1483–1546C.E.) was aRomanCatholic

Dominican theologian at theUniversity of Salamanca, Spain,

and the founder of the “Salamanca School,” also known as

“the second scholasticism,” which revived and promoted the

thinking of Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274 C.E.). He

influenced subsequentprominentmembers of theSalamanca

School including Domingo de Soto (1494–1560 C.E.),

Luis de Molina (1535–1600 C.E.), and Francisco Suarez

(1548–1617 C.E.). Some regard Vitoria as the “father of

international law,” though others regard this as an anachro-

nism since international law does not take hold for another

century.

Vitoria addressed questions of global justice within the

context of the Western European “age of discovery of the

Vitoria, Francisco de V 1133

V

New World” and the emerging questions about imperial

expansion that arose in that context. He also addressed

these questions from within the tradition of just war

reasoning. He drew heavily from Aquinas but expanded

on his thought in three significant ways: first, regarding

the scope, significance, and status of the law of nations (ius

gentium); second, regarding the existence of subjective

natural rights, which Aquinas did not acknowledge; and

finally, regarding a point of procedural justice related to

the just war criterion of legitimate authority. His books

include: On Civil Power, On the Evangelization of Unbe-

lievers, On the Power of the Church, On Law, On the

American Indians, and On the Law of War, the latter two

were built on his previous writings and became his most

influential.

Following Aquinas, Vitoria considered questions of

justice by identifying four forms of law: eternal law (lex

aeterna), natural law (lex naturalis), human law (lex

humana), and divine law (lex divina). Eternal law was

God’s determination of the final end state of all created

reality; natural law comprised that portion of the eternal

law recognizable by universal human reason that norma-

tively guides the natural world, including human reality;

human law is to base itself upon natural law though

tailored to the conditions of a particular association of

human beings resulting in the positive law of an existing

nation (ius positivum); and divine law is God’s law as

expressed in the Holy Scriptures of the Christian faith

and is to supplement the natural law in the making of

positive law. Positive law is comprised of two kinds: the

civil law (ius civilis) that pertains to a particular common-

wealth, and the law of nations (ius gentium) that pertains

commonly across the breadth of many or all particular

commonwealths.

Vitoria expanded the scope of questions that could be

considered according to the law of nations beyond

Aquinas’s focus on the law of nations with reference to

questions of just war. Vitoria borrowed an insight pro-

moted by Cicero, that “universal consent is the voice of

nature” (Tusculan Disputations I, 15, 35), and thus devel-

oped the law of nations as an epistemological intermediary

between natural law and civil law. That many nations, and

also those beyond Christendom, find a consensus about

a moral precept is a persuasive reason to enact positive law

in accord with that precept both within and among par-

ticular civil realms.

Three times between 1539 and 1541 Holy Roman

Emperor Charles V, also a Spaniard, sought Vitoria’s opin-

ion about the “NewWorld.” First, what property rights do

the Indians in the New World have relative to the Spanish

conquistadors? Second, what rights do Spanish rulers have

over the Indians regarding civil law? And third, what rights

do Spanish rulers and the Church have relative to the

Indians’ spiritual and religious life?

Vitoria noted that while the common law of nations

recognizes that land that has no owner belongs to the one

who discovers it – right of discovery – the “new world”

lands claimed by Queen Isabella, Charles V’s mother, and

King Ferdinand were already “under a master [the

Indians], and therefore do not come under the head[ing]

of discovery.” He rejected the argument that the Indians

were heretics or pagans and thus did not possess the

subjective right to hold property, since property rights

were granted by nature and not by Christian grace and

the Church. He also rejected the argument that the Indians

were born natural slaves and thereby lacked a fully rational

nature, which is the condition for the subjective right to

own land. In this way he started down a path toward

subjective rights that would later become a hallmark of

“modern” rights theory. However, he did think that it was

possible that the Indians possessed reason only in the way

that free-born children did, that is, in potentiality. If so,

then like free-born children they would need a tutor who

would hold their property in trust until they become

mature and able to exercise their right to possession.

While Vitoria thought this was only a possibility, others

seized on this argument and promoted it vigorously.

Vitoria also rejected the notion that the emperor was

the lord of the whole world and thus its owner. He rejected

the argument that imperial expansion and civilizing the

Indians was a just cause for waging war on them thereby

reasserting and clarifying what Cicero had long ago argued

relative to the imperial expansion of Rome. On the other

hand, Vitoria also affirmed the right of all peoples to

communicate with all other peoples and thereby to travel

to other territories and to trade freely with others. If the

Indians, for instance, refused transit to the Spaniards, then

the Spaniards had the right of “self-defense” and could

remain in the land and even take possession of it as spoils

of war, a position that subsequent just war reasoning

rightly rejected.

Vitoria also rejected the proposition that the pope has

temporal political authority and thus could use the sword

to convert Indians. He emphatically rejected waging war

as punishment for either unbelief or blasphemy or threat-

ening to wage war as an inducement to convert to Chris-

tianity. The first would be a monstrous sacrilege and the

second, in addition to being sacrilege, could only produce

feigned, hypocritical Christians. In the face of a history of

Western Christian Crusade and Holy War he boldly

asserted and argued that difference of religion is not

a cause of just war and cited Aquinas to support his

1134 V Vitoria, Francisco de

conclusion, though Aquinas had also made claims that

lent support to a crusader ethos.

In On the Law of War, Vitoria offered an original

understanding of procedural justice from within the con-

text of just war tradition. One key criterion for waging

a justifiable war is that a legitimate authority must declare

it, remembering also that just war tradition had always

recognized a variety of legitimate forms of government

(monarchy, aristocracy, republic). The criterion of legiti-

mate authority proscribed private vengeance by way of

militia as well as grassroots rebellion and revolution.

Even though Vitoria favored monarchy as the best form

of rule, he did not think that it was sufficient for the prince

himself to believe that he has a just cause because princes

“nearly always think theirs is a just cause.” While the

prince has the legitimate duty to declare war, he is not

the only one with the legitimate duty to discern whether

the prince ought to declare war. Vitoria argued that other

people of wisdom should be involved in the discernment.

In this way he introduced the need for a system of checks

and balances into just war reasoning, checks and balances

that would eventually lead toward more constitutional,

consensual, and eventually even more democratic forms

of procedural justice.

Related Topics▶Cicero

▶ Empire

▶ Indigenous Rights to Land

▶ International Law

▶ Jus Gentium

▶ Just War Theory: Invasion of Iraq

▶Natural Rights

▶War, Just and Unjust

ReferencesCovell C (2009) The law of nations in political thought. Palgrave

McMillan, New York

Simpson G (2007) War, peace and god. Fortress, Minneapolis

Skinner Q (1978) The foundations of modern political thought, vol II.

Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK

Tierney B (1997) The idea of natural rights. Scholars, Atlanta

Vitoria F (1991) Political writings. Cambridge University Press,

Cambridge, UK