Reason, violence and explanations in social sciences

Abstract

Following Hobbes concerning the absence of right reason by nature, I argue that a social and institutional arrangement is necessary for reason to gain the objectivity which permits it to function as an alternative to the violent resolution of conflicts. Construed subjectively as maximizing one’s utility function reason fails to constitute a norm of action that distinguishes it from violence. I further inquire into the differences between moral rules, laws and rational prescriptions. A common characteristic of all three is that unlike laws of nature or coded instructions, they should be obeyed, but they can and commonly are transgressed. However, moral rules and laws I argue are less subjective than rational prescriptions because conceptually they necessarily involve relation to others and cannot be reduced to either the subject’s relation to the world or to him or herself and analyse how rational and violent solutions to conflicts differ.