The latest Rationally Speaking episode was a discussion/debate with Tage Rai, who argued that most (or at least far more than people think) violence is morally motivated. It was a fantastic discussion that I very much recommend.
I was surprised that Julia seemed to set a pretty low prior probability to the hypothesis, but it might just have been her trying to critically examine the hypothesis from many angles, and either way the discussion benefited for it. Tage's arguing was a bit "pre-rationalist" (or "public-intellectualist"), for lack of a better term, in that he was more focused on making a point than updating probabilities, and could be occassionally strategically slippery on what his point was for the sake of argument, but he was still a very clear speaker and thinker who could put things in concrete analyzable terms.
One of the main points, which I understand to be well supported in the literature, is that what people call "dehumanization" in the context of violence is usually nothing of the sort and involves a deep recognition of the target as a human moral agent who is evil or wrong. Rhetorical dehumanization is more about trying to humiliate targets than literal truth.
But another point Tage had, which seems trivially true but which isn't widely internalized, is that even self-serving violence is on a proximate level motivated by moral outrage. He mentioned intimate partner violence and rape as examples, and my understanding is that his point is supported. Research has shown that rapists feel either entitled to sex or submission, or believe they are rectifying a disruption of the moral order on the part of their victim. And I realize that this is a specific example of a general pattern I see elsewhere.
When people feel entitled to something, whether money, power, sex, or Supreme Court seats, they are indeed being selfish, but they also believe that they belong at a certain position in a hierarchy and that the structure and existence of that hierarchy is morally just. Once again, a fairly basic point, but one that could use more explicit reiteration. I don't know what, if any, specific implications that framing has, but I don't usually think of specific cases of elite or privileged entitlement on this abstract level, so I feel like I should pay more attention to it. If only to understand how thoroughly twisted and corrupt conservative and reactionary ideology is.
