State violence: Moral in their own trap

Abstract

When asked, why do we obey the institutions, the State and the law? The moral answer indicates that we do so because we value something in those institutions. The Chilean philosopher Jorge Millas will say that what we value is freedom, and it is in this sense that he defends the Kantian moral principle that the human being is an end and never a means. In this scheme, violence operates as the opposite of freedom and said principle, therefore, it would be the opposite of institutions, the State, law and morality. But, this work will try to show how that same right and that same morality can mask and justify state and institutional violence. Thus, it will try to explain the complex process in which law and morality end up being emptied of meaning, ending up being instruments of violence. Also, as a way of reinforcing the Kantian principle, an attempt will be made to vindicate Judith Butler's modulation of the Kantian principle, which resignifies it in the principle of mourning for lost lives; Criterion that allows to give a concrete sense to the idea that the human being is an end and not a means.