I think that we can only make moral judgements on violence in hindsight. Violence is only moral if it is preventing something even worse, but we cannot know for certain how things will work out until the future comes.

Although I suppose the intended purpose of the violence should be factored it, as well. So, maybe violence can be moral as long as the person committing it is doing it with the intention of preventing something worse, even if they fail.

I don't believe in objective morality, though, which is why I don't have a hard position on this.

A riot is unplanned, usually, and is ignited by unpredictable actions. A riot may become violent and also be quite unproductive because rioters are generally venting the rage of the times and the moment, and those who bear the cost of damage are usually not the responsible parties.

It takes discipline and planning to organize a useful and productive attack on the corporation and the state. Naturally, states keep a vigilant watch and intervene anything anything resembling disciplined and planned violence, because that could lead to revolution.

If you want to avoid violence, plan ahead and plan how to head off violence before it gets out of hand. (There's no magic about doing this; it takes assertive strong voices and maybe some muscle to keep a crowd from boiling over and start rioting. Maybe a well planned and guided demonstration and march will till result in rioting, but one can try to avoid that outcome (unless rioting is intended. In a revolutionary situation, it may be.)

As JSG says, violence is justified in hindsight, which is why I'm no utilitarian. To my mind one has to ask oneself whether the act is an example of a virtuous person. One simple way of doing this which I use when teaching ethics is to ask if we would make a film where such a person was the hero. This question used to make a lot more sense many years ago before filmmakers decided that everything had to be 'gritty', but it still works for most people. Would the hero of our film smash up shops owned by people who had nothing to do with the regime they're fighting against?

I think that we can only make moral judgements on violence in hindsight. Violence is only moral if it is preventing something even worse, but we cannot know for certain how things will work out until the future comes. — JustSomeGuy

Where you ever on Online Debate Network?

As far as your argument goes, I would take a step further and say that even hindsight can never tell if the benefits of an action outweigh its consequences because it is always possible that an action could have unexpected consequences in the future. The only time we can be sure an act won't have any unexpected consequences on the future is when there is no more future for the violent act to have consequences on. But of course, if there's no more future, there's no more us, so we can never be sure.

With that said, I think probability comes into play here. The probability that some violent acts will prevent something worse is so high in some instances that we can make a moral judgment before the act and feel confident the benefits will outweigh the consequences. If a psycho is about to set off a bomb in a maternity ward --- killing everyone, including the newborns --- and the only way to stop him is by shooting him in the head, then the probability that shooting him will prevent a much worse result is so high that I don't need to wait for the effects of shooting him to feel relatively sure that shooting him is (by utilitarian standards, at least) the morally correct thing to do. Sure, one of those babies could grow up to be the next Hitler and kill far more people than the psycho did, but considering the number of genocidal maniacs the world has produced versus the number of people it has produced, that would be unlikely.

Then again, there are certainly violent acts with consequences that aren't so likely.

political unrest has recently upheaved due to an alleged electoral fraud — rickyk95

Do you think there was electoral fraud?

Without any concrete evidence, people have went out to the streets to protest — rickyk95

Are the people using this event as a definitive bracket to protest any or all other conditions present? Is the election a stand-in for other socio-economic and political problems? What would, in your and others you know, be "concrete" in terms of evidence?

people...are destroying local businesses that have absolutely nothing to do with the public political debacle. — rickyk95

These people seem ripe for leadership to cement them into a focused or directed expression to better express and facilitate change. In the state you described it appears as though emotion has overcome the rational responses and there is no leadership there to redirect into more effective and focused violence. In short - a mob.

Whether or not their grievances are legitimate, I cant help but to intuit that what they are doing is morally wrong. — rickyk95

It does not seem effective to address the actual grievances of corruption and it hurts the innocent for no other reason than a release of strong emotion. In the end, that behaviour is self defeating. You say "morally wrong". An individual with strong emotions that can't be dissipated will, often enough, turn to behaviours which will harm themselves (or others) in order to dissipate the psychological pressure. That is a natural reaction and with the crowd that process gains a life of its own, greater than the sum of the individuals.

where do you draw the line between legitimate protesting and immoral violence? — rickyk95

I think you have already drawn the line, for yourself by stating it is wrong to punish or harm the innocent for stifled expression of grievances against alleged corruption. In the case of violence changing the social structure for the better - that is focused and directed violence with specific goals and rules of engagement, not the emotional and indiscriminate violence of an angry mob.

So, with this said, where do you draw the line between legitimate protesting and immoral violence? — rickyk95

Try Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Jefferson, Gandhi, Martin Luther King. The collective message is that freedom is worth the effort, and non-violence is the right way. To be sure, though, underlying non-violence is - was - the possibility and promise of more violence than the oppressors were willing to face.

So, with this said, where do you draw the line between legitimate protesting and immoral violence? — rickyk95

This doesn't really answer your question, but I think it sets a baseline for evaluating political violence. It's from the US's Declaration of Independence with a couple of minor changes.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among People, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it...

where do you draw the line between legitimate protesting and immoral violence?

I think there must be a relationship between the violence that is experienced in unjust rule and the violence used against such a system, in an effort to resist it, to rectify it. The greater the injustice, the less responsive the ruling force is to the needs of people, thereby creating unbearable lives for its citizenry, the greater the response by its citizens must be. This is not a warrant for gratuitous violence, but it recognizes that one ought not have to suffer such violence without struggling against it with whatever tools are available.

In the USA:

The Civil Rights Bill of 1964 is inseparable from the threat of riots. The housing bill of 1968—the most proactive civil-rights legislation on the books—is a direct response to the riots that swept American cities after King was killed. Violence, lingering on the outside, often backed nonviolence during the civil-rights movement. "We could go into meetings and say, 'Well, either deal with us or you will have Malcolm X coming into here,'" said SNCC organizer Gloria Richardson. "They would get just hysterical. The police chief would say, 'Oh no!'"

Ta-Nehisi Coates

So, with this said, where do you draw the line between legitimate protesting and immoral violence? — rickyk95

In Law school I was taught that the Criminal Justice system has 3 main purposes : the defense of a social state in which the Law is respected, the pursuit of greater social stability and equity, and the vindication of victims, so as to prevent extra-judicial retaliation.

If that last part is added, it is because it is absolutely justifiable, where there is no hope for any institutional justice to be served, for individuals to take actions in their own hand. Anything else are some romantic delusions about what Justice is supposed to be.

I am currently living in a poor third world country, in which political unrest has recently upheaved due to an alleged electoral fraud. — rickyk95

If it is in central america, we are probable in the same place. If you are somewhere else I cannot really say much about the situation.

You say that you are currently living there, is it a recent move? If you have not been there for long or maybe HERE for the last nine years you might not understand the history behind the troubles. Usually protest have some sort of beginning that goes back some time, unless you are a department store that uses the wrong photo in a commercial and your stores get turn to pieces the next day.

Riots come from the protestors anger or fear overflowing and snowball sometimes to tremendous sizes. Some of the participants here that I have talked to said the riots started when the police tried to stop the criminals from sacking the stores by attacking anyone nearby even if they were doing nothing so they fought back. There are videos to prove some of the cases.

Without any concrete evidence, people have went out to the streets to protest against this, and are destroying local businesses that have absolutely nothing to do with the public political debacle. — rickyk95

Unfortunately people emotions do not need evidence to the same degree as in court. If they believe that they have been wronged it is usually enough for them to protest about.

Whether or not their grievances are legitimate, I cant help but to intuit that what they are doing is morally wrong. — rickyk95

It is morally wrong, but the problem is that most of the damage done here was not directly done by the people protesting about the elections. As I said it is believed that most of it was done by criminals taking advantage of the situation. As far as I know there have been no arrests of political protestors for looting, and that is something that the government would love to be able to prove.

Although, conversely, at the same time, violence has historically been one of the most pivotal means through which political and social change has been achieved. — rickyk95

It has been boiling here for a long time now. The government has known this and planned well. They even built up a special military police force that they use against the protestors now because the civil force refused to be used against the population. But the force was put together a few years ago under the disguise of safety in the streets, which it never accomplished.

So, with this said, where do you draw the line between legitimate protesting and immoral violence? — rickyk95

I think that violence should only be used when there is no alternative, many nasty dictators could only be removed by force. But any violence should be directed at the oppressors, not at honest people and their property. One of the problems here was that some of the businesses burned belonged to people that are in favor of the way the government was going because it would have made them wealthier. As always though the little guy sometimes gets in the middle.

to protest against this, and are destroying local businesses that have absolutely nothing to do with the public political debacle. — rickyk95

When orderly protests become riots, property damage will often result and the damage is not always completely misdirected.

For instance, in various American inner city situations where protest turned to riot and mayhem, local businesses were torched. Quite often the business have been small retail operations. How could these small businessmen have anything to do with racial injustice? Isn't that government's failure?

Maybe. But it's also possible that the local rioters know the local businessmen had been ripping them off for years, selling shoddy goods for prices higher than respectable goods in better neighborhoods. Or perhaps the local businessmen never employed locals in their businesses. Or perhaps the local businesses were rude and insulting to their 'captive clientele.

Even if locals know that the businessmen are hostile, destroying the businesses still might not be sensible. There are numerous empty lots in cities where riots occurred, sometimes 40 or 50 years ago, and businesses were burnt down, never to be rebuilt. A shabby area can become Desolation Row after a riot, and it might take decades for investors of any kind to consider the area safe again.

The truth.

hmmm interesting.

I don't see how one can say the "reign of terror" in the French Revolution was justified even if it did lead to the overthrow of a corrupt monarchial system.

I don't see how "random violence" against persons and property is justified. Non violent resistance or civil disobedience seem justifiable. Attacks against corrupt government institutions or officials might be justified but to place a bomb in the public marketplace to protest the actions of government officials or the agents of government would seem the hall mark of terrorism and the road to anarchy.

Having said that; riots and mob violence have often been the agents of change and sometimes that change could be said to be beneficial but the murder of innocents in those riots and the random destruction of homes and the work of lifetimes would seem hard to justify in any meaningful rational ethical or moral system.