Davies, James Chowning. "Aggression: Some Definition and Some Physiology." Politics and the Life Sciences 6, 1 (August, 1987):27-42.
[Three commentaries and author response, pp. 43-57]
Abstract. Definitions being critical to systematic analysis, aggression is here defined as intentional injury to person or damage to property. The issue of consciousness of intent is considered. No claim is made that either conscious or unconscious aggression is necessarily wrongful, but that it is elicited with respect to the frustration of a variety of organically based physical and mental needs. Physiology has made progress toward understanding the two-way interaction between vertebrates and their environment, so that we have good hunches that aggressive behavior varies as a function of the level of several endocrines and of electrical charge in several parts of the brain. Suggestions are made for improving the utility of some basic political theory to physiological research and vice versa, so that social science can move beyond the speculations of the 18th century philosophers and can use some very relevant physiological findings.