Abstract

The article comprehensively examines the social sources of armed violence, as one of the important phenomena in the development of humanity. Based on the analysis of works by leading Ukrainian and foreign scientists, the author considers the essence of the phenomenon of armed violence in the context of the development of social violence. In particular, a significant number of scientific papers have been analyzed, in which certain aspects of the topic chosen for research are disclosed, the main approaches and concepts that have developed in the process of studying this issue are identified and characterized. The complex characteristic of the basic concepts that studied in the article is presented. The term "social violence" the author understands as the application by one class or another of a social group of various forms of coercion, up to armed influence, against other classes and social groups in order to obtain or maintain economic and political dominance, to gain these or those rights or privileges. Accordingly, armed violence is interpreted as a way to achieve the goals using weapons. The author agrees with the opinion of a significant number of scientists regarding the definition of armed violence as a radical form of the use of social violence. As a result of the research, the author has come to the conclusion that violence has been characteristic of the human environment since its occurrence. As most scholars have noted, since the emergence of social relations, violence, including armed violence, has been one of the most important ways to achieve the goals of controlling and asserting dominance in other members of social communities. Armed violence is the most radical form of achievement of the aforementioned goal. As a form of social interaction, as noted by psychologists, armed violence is the result of the transformation of animal instincts that, in the course of social evolution, have evolved into one of the specific forms of struggle for domination within complex human communities. This is the main scientific value of the articles analyzed in the article. At the same time, as the analysis of the researched works has shown, the further classification of the types of armed violence according to the spheres of its application in social life and its varieties, according to the tasks, which are realized in the process of its use, needs further consideration. The article assumes that the most important criterion for the classification of violence is the use of weapons in this process. It is noted that no one can doubt that armed violence is violence. It is suggested to consider the main goal of most unarmed forms of social violence − the prevention of armed forms of confrontation. These aspects will be addressed in future scientific publications.