Moral Culpability and Institutional Violence

I got to thinking after talking to my friend David. We were discussing LeGarrette Blount, the Oregon running back who punched a Boise State player after a game Oregon lost--specifically, whether he should be suspended for the entire season, as was initially stated by Oregon, or if he should be reinstated after a few games, as Ducks coach Chip Kelly is now saying he'll do if Blount meets certain conditions.

David was arguing that "you have to admit that there is a hypocrisy in kicking him off the team and essentially ruining his professional football career (which he would certainly have had) because he punched somebody--that we allow these kids to knock each other around for 3 hours, then tell them they have to be peaceful little angels as soon as the game is over seems silly to me." In the context of Blount, I think David's right. The infraction was relatively minor and Blount should be allowed to play after a mandatory suspension and meeting the conditions his coach sets--no need to suspend his entire season and destroy his chances of playing pro ball.

But the broader question implied by David's argument is whether, if an institution encourages certain kinds of violent behavior, does this reduce the culpability of an individual who then commits an unrelated violent act?

One way to analyze this might be along the level of violence, including both intrinsic and institutional violence. Intrinsic violence refers to the level of violence in the act itself, for example murder or rape as opposed to a relatively minor crime/tort like assault and battery. Institutional violence means the violence in the institution an individual is participating, such as military unit or a football team. Comparing low and high institutional and intrinsic violence levels yields four scenarios (fig. 1).

Institutional violence
Intrinsic | Low/High "B" | High/High "D" |
Violence | Low/Low "A" | High/Low "C" |

The example David and I were talking about--one person punching another (relatively low intrinsic violence), when they are both football players (relatively low institutional violence), falls into the lower left hand quadrant, Scenario A.

Scenario B would be like a soldier who gets in a fight at a bar.

Scenario C would be a football player committing a major crime--such as murder or rape.

Scenario D would be a soldier committing a major crime.



I think this actually opens up quite a few questions. What do you guys think?

• To what extent should football players and/or soldiers be held to a different standard, as a result of their institutional training, which teaches them to be violent? Should the standard be one of reduced or increased culpability?



• It's clear that a soldier murdering another person, totally unrelated to his military service, should be classified in D. But how would you classify a soldier killing an enemy combatant? Is it low intrinsic violence, because killing an enemy combatant isn't "wrong" in some important sense? Low institutional violence, because it is expressly condoned, even encouraged by the institution? Or is it simply another Scenario D--the fact that the person being killed is classified as enemy having no bearing on the culpability of the killer?



• When comparing Scenarios A and B, who has less culpability--the football player or the soldier? Does the solider have less, because the institution is more violent and so it is more "expected" to cause ancillary violence? Or should the soldier be held up to a higher standard, because his violent institution also emphasizes discipline--that because he is trained to use a great deal of violence and force, it is even more important that he only use it in a proper way?



• Does anyone think there might be a different model to analyze this than the four scenariosI laid out?

I know this is pretty long-winded and abstract, but thanks for reading if you got this far. Let me know what you think!