The ontology and ethics of violence

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The aim of this chapter is to start laying the foundation for a comprehensive account of violence.

In order to build such an account, I will start by examining the most minimal definition of

violence, which I call the "physicalist account,"1 and test it against some problematic or

ambiguous cases to see if it is solid enough to account for them. The following discussion will

show that, if we aim for a coherent theory of violence, we need to broaden the scope of, and

complicate, our explanation of the nature of violence.