The Meaning and Moral Significance of Domestic Violence

Rape, as a kind of violence, has received a great deal of philosophical attention. In addition to challenging popular and legal conceptions of what rape means and who can be raped, feminist scholars have asked what, if anything, makes rape distinctively wrong or harmful. By contrast, domestic violence has received relatively little philosophical treatment. To give victims the hermeneutical resources to make sense of their own experiences and to clarify our social understanding, I offer an account of the meaning and moral significance of domestic violence. I argue that unlike in many other kinds of violence, perpetrators of domestic violence characteristically undermine the freedom of victims, alienate victims from what gives their lives meaning and purpose, and cause victims to do things that jeopardize their character and violate their consciences. It is important to recognize these distinctive features of domestic violence, both in order to give victims hermeneutical resources and to best inform policy and practice. For example, I argue that we ought not erase the struggle victims face even after they escape from their abusers by merely celebrating victims as survivors. Instead, we should make space as friends and witnesses for victims who physically survive to share the legacy of harms from which they continue to suffer.