THE NATURE AND LIMITS OF VIOLENCE

I take advantage of a point made by H. J. Gert, in ''Rights and Rights Violators: A New Approach to the Nature of Rights'' (The Journal of P hilosophy 1990;87(12):688-694) to provide the following definition of violence. ''Violence is an intentional or knowing attempt by a moral a gent to directly cause harm, i.e., death, pain, disability, loss of fr eedom or pleasure, to someone who is protected by morality without the consent of that person.'' I show how this definition applies to viole nce in hospitals and discuss some of the ethical problems created by v iolent patients.