An Assessment of Gandhi’s Misconception on the Origin of Violent Human Nature ; Metaphysical Justifications for the Inevitability of Human violence

Abstract

In his project of Ahimsa (Ethics of Non-Violence), Gandhi believed that men are naturally non-violent. He argued that violent human behavior has originated merely from a social environment or human’s culture. Thus, he advocated the possibility of eliminating human violent behavior through effectively practising the principles of Ethics of Non-Violence in our daily life. Although it is true that social environment (human’s culture) has its own influence by aggravating or discouraging an aggressive behavior of men, scientific studies proved that this behavior has significant biological/genetic, evolutionary, psycho-spiritual and dialectical origins. Accordingly, violence is proved to be a part of human nature that universally describes man-kind irrespective of their culture, time and other circumstances. Therefore, the advocacy of principles of Ethics of Non-Violence that are required to eliminate violence is unrealistic. By highlighting the roles of science in the study of conflict, peace and security; this article can be helpful to serve as a ground-work for other researchers that want to conduct deep researches with regard to the naturalness of human violence. I employed critical approach to show gaps of Gandhi’s project of Ahimsa and to illustrate the naturalness of human violence.