Violence has been said by many to be justified in the name of doing good. "The Iraq war is bringing democracy and peace in the middle east" for instance is a common justification. The trouble I have with saying violence can be used for good is the notion of good.
When you commit violence, you absolutely know you are causing harm, otherwise it would not be violence by definition. With violence, there is a guaranteed "bad" effect in the form of harm you are inflicting. For instance, the Iraq war has caused hundreds of thousands civilian deaths as a result of the violence our troops and Iraqi troops are involved in.
However, how can you "know" of any good created from violence? The good becomes this ethereal ,mental, if not subjective entity.
Often times good is realized in the absence of bad. This black and white polar view of the world is troublesome. However, even with this view it is easy to see one truth related to war.
If Good is realized in the absence of bad, and bad is caused by violence, then good is done by peace.
You cannot do Good by doing Bad.
A good rebuttal might be the argument that the future good created by our violence will out-weigh the bad being done.
However, I think it is foolish to determine the lives of so many people by some hopeful gamble of something so far removed from reality as the concept of "good".
