Morality, moral order, and language conflict and aggression

Abstract

In this position paper, we provide an overview of what we regard as the most important features of the relationship between the moral order and morality in the context of language conflict and aggression. While in previous pragmatic research the concepts of morality and moral order have been rarely brought together, we illustrate that they are inseparable, in particular in the context of conflict and aggression. We propose an analytic model – with replicability in mind – which captures the dynamic relationship between these phenomena: the model is centred on the idea that perceived (a) violations of the moral order, (b) breaches of moral norms, principles and ideologies, (c) conflict and (d) aggression constitute a cluster. The explanatory power of this dynamics resides in the fact that it can account for a variety of seemingly unrelated scenarios, such as conflicts triggered by the violation of interactional norms vs. rites of moral aggression. Along with detailing the model, we explore the relationship between various methodologies through which one can examine morality and the moral order in the context of language conflict and aggression.