John Locke says that a victim is permitted to kill a Conditional Threat in self-defense. Yet, David Rodin argues that killing is disproportionate to the harm averted and is therefore impermissible. But Rodin mischaracterizes the situation faced by a Conditional Threat victim as analyzed by Locke. In this article, I aim to provide a more satisfactory reading of Locke on self-defense against Conditional Threats, particularly of the thesis that killing involves a proportionate response to the harm averted. In addition to (...) this, I also aim to further elaborate and defend Locke's view. First, I show that a Conditional Threat deprives his victim of her freedom to act as she thinks fit, without having to depend on the Conditional Threat's arbitrary will. Second, I argue that an interest in not being deprived of one's freedom to act as one thinks fit, without having to depend on another person's arbitrary will, by a conditional threat of deadly harm, is of sufficient value to make killing a proportionate act, especially if the person is highly morally culpable. If killing also meets the necessity condition of justified self-defense (admittedly, a big “if”), it follows that Locke, not Rodin, holds the correct view. (shrink)

The individualist nature of much contemporary just war theory means that we often discuss cases with single attackers. But even if war is best understood in this individualist way, in war combatants often have to make decisions about how to distribute harms among a plurality of aggressors: they must decide whom and how many to harm, and how much to harm them. In this paper, I look at simultaneous multiple aggressor cases in which more than one distribution of harm among (...) aggressors is available. I show how such cases pose deep questions concerning the nature, role, and scope of the necessity principle, and its relationship to both liability and narrow proportionality. I argue that a hitherto unrecognised measure – ‘narrow proportionality shortfall’ – and its distribution is relevant in choosing how to distribute harms across aggressors. I then extend this analysis to show how this may help us with a puzzle concerning sequential attacks. (shrink)

This essay argues that culpability and responsibility are independent notions, even though some of the same facts make us both responsible and culpable. Responsibility for one’s conduct is grounded in the strength of the agential connection between oneself and one’s conduct. Culpability for one’s conduct is the vices that give rise to that conduct. It then argues that responsibility and culpability for causing a threat are each grounds of liability to defensive harm independent of the other.

This article considers the proportionality requirement of the self-defense justification. It first lays bare the assumptions and the logic—and often illogic—underlying very strict accounts of the proportionality requirement. It argues that accounts that try to rule out lethal self-defense against threats to property or against threats of minor assault by an appeal to the supreme value of life have counter-intuitive implications and are untenable. Furthermore, it provides arguments demonstrating that there is not necessarily a right not to be killed in (...) defense against theft or minor assaults. While there is a general moral right of self-defense and a general right to life, the scope of these rights depends on certain social facts that—even within a liberal framework—can differ from one society to another. Moreover, the proportionality of self-defense does not depend on the rights of the aggressor alone, but also on a precautionary rule, shaped by the balance of interests of the society in question and aimed at protecting innocent people and other social interests. This rule can protect an aggressor even in cases where he does not have the right to such protection. (shrink)

According to an appealing and common view, the moral status of an action – whether it is wrong, for example – is sometimes important in itself in terms of the moral status of other actions – especially those that respond to the original action. This view is especially influential with respect to the criminal law. It is accepted not only by legal moralists but also by adherents of the harm principle, for example. In this paper, I argue against this view. (...) The main arguments emphasize the distinctions between the moral status of actions, consequences, and agents. I argue that what matters, in terms of other actions, is not the moral status of the original action but rather other factors that may be confused with it, such as the moral status of its consequences – whether they are good or bad – and the moral status of the agent – whether she is praiseworthy or blameworthy. The intuitive appeal of the common view is, I argue, at least partly due to a conflation of these factors. Most importantly, once we recall the distinctions between these factors, we can see more clearly that this view lacks a compelling rationale. Or, at least, that it is based on assumptions that, first, are much more controversial than their conclusion, and, second, do not support every aspect of this view – and thus do not offer a unified foundation for this view. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the role of culpability in determining the degree of liability to defensive harm, and asks whether there are any restrictions on when culpability is relevant to liability. A natural first suggestion is that it is only relevant when combined with an actual threat of harm in the situation in which defensive harm becomes salient as a means of protection. The paper begins by considering the question of whether two people are equally liable to defensive harm in (...) a situation if both culpably intend to harm another, but due to circumstances outside the control of the two people only one has a chance of succeeding in causing harm. I argue that there is no difference in liability between the two. I then turn to a kind of slippery slope challenge that accepting this conclusion would lead to a vast over-inclusiveness in those liable to defensive harm, and consider a recent attempt at meeting it that requires that a person’s culpability can only affect liability if it concerns the very situation in which defensive harm is relevant. Finally, I put forward and assess a new way of meeting the challenge that appeals to a particular conception of culpability together with auxiliary theses concerning how culpability can decrease over time, among others. (shrink)

Oppressive governments that use violence against citizens, e.g. murder and torture, are usually thought of as liable to armed revolutionary attack by the oppressed population. But oppression may be non-violent. A government may greatly restrict political rights and personal autonomy by using surveillance, propaganda, manipulation, strategic detention and similar techniques without ever resorting to overt violence. Can such regimes be liable to revolutionary attack? A widespread view is that the answer is ‘no’. On this view, unless a government is or (...) is likely to turn violent, revolution against it is disproportional. After all, revolution would involve launching potentially lethal attacks against oppressors who do not threaten the lives and bodily integrity of their subjects but pose only lesser threats. I argue that this claim of disproportionality is false. Armed revolution against Stably Non-violent Oppressive Regimes can be proportional under some circumstances, thus they may be liable to revolutionary attack. My argument relies on the Responsibility-Sensitive Account of Proportionality. This account holds that responsibility for posing threats renders agents liable to greater defensive harms than the harms with which they threaten. Even if non-violent oppressive regimes do not threaten citizens with murder, serious physical injury, or enslavement, their responsibility for creating an environment in which citizens’ political rights and personal autonomy are extremely restricted may loosen the proportionality requirement of inflicting defensive harm and render them liable to revolutionary attack. (shrink)

A provocateur does not pose a threat of harm. Hence, a forceful response to provocation is generally considered wrongful. And yet, a provocateur is often denied recourse to a self-defence justification if she defends herself against such a violent response. In recent work, Kimberly Ferzan argues that a provocateur forfeits defensive rights but this forfeiture cannot be explained in the same way as an aggressor’s rights forfeiture. Ordinarily, one forfeits the right not to be harmed and to self-defend against harm (...) by threatening to violate another person’s rights. But provocateurs forfeit their defensive rights because they bring about the situation in which defence becomes necessary. As I argue here, positing these two types of forfeiture justifications is neither desirable nor necessary. I suggest a unified rights forfeiture account that grounds rights forfeiture in moral responsibility for an unjust threat. My account offers clearer distinctions than alternative unified accounts, which I briefly discuss. Furthermore, the account can provide better explanations of intuitively plausible judgements. A provocateur will have less extensive defensive rights than an innocent victim, but will not lose all her defensive rights simply because ‘she started it.’. (shrink)

A person drives her well‐maintained car cautiously and alertly to the movies. Freak circumstances send the car out of control. It veers in the direction of a pedestrian whom it will kill unless she, or a third party, blows it up with a grenade. Whether the driver is liable to be thusly killed polarizes debates about the ethics of self‐defense. But debaters frequently conflate the questions of whether and by what means the driver is liable to be killed. The paper (...) separates these questions: it argues the driver's liability to lethal harm need not entail her liability to the grenade. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe in lesser-evil justifications for doing harm: if the only way to stop a trolley from killing five is to divert it away onto one, then we may divert. But recently, Helen Frowe has argued that we do not only have the option to pursue the lesser evil: in most cases, we are so obligated. After critically assessing Frowe’s argument, I develop three mutually compatible accounts of lesser-evil options, which permit, but do not obligate us to minimize harm. (...) These are the Parity Account, the Prerogative Account, and the Permissible Moral Mistakes Account. Considerations of parity and prerogatives have arisen in this debate before, but in inchoate form. The Permissible Moral Mistakes Account introduces something new. (shrink)

I argue here that the impairment principle requires clarification. It needs to explain what makes one impairment greater than another, otherwise we will be unable to make the comparisons it requires, the ones that enable us to determine whether b really is a greater impairment than a, and as a result, whether causing b is immoral because causing a is. I then develop two of what I think are the most natural accounts of what might make one impairment greater than (...) another. The quantitative understanding of greater impairment is problematic because it leaves the impairment principle vulnerable to counterexamples; just because impairment b impairs a larger number of abilities or the same number of abilities but for a longer period or to a higher degree does not mean that b is a greater impairment than a. The qualitative understanding of greater impairment is problematic because it does not explain examples of greater impairment used in the literature, means that an abortion is always a qualitatively more severe impairment than causing fetal alcohol syndrome regardless of how the organism is affected, and/or entails that lethal impairment is always greater than nonlethal impairment. (shrink)

This paper examines whether the prospect of compensation may render otherwise disproportionate harms proportionate. It argues that we should reject this possibility. Instead, it distinguishes duties of compensation as a requirement of rectificatory justice from a harm’s degree of compensability, and argues that only the latter is relevant to proportionality. On this view, failing to compensate constitutes a distinct wrong, while harms that are not adequately compensable carry extra weight in proportionality calculations. This explains how the prospect of compensation affects (...) permissions to harm, without relying on the dubious assumption that disproportionate harms may be rendered proportionate by future compensation. (shrink)

Jonathan Quong proposes the following “Stringency Principle” for proportionality in self-defense: “If a wrongful attacker threatens to violate a right with stringency level X, then the level of defensive force it is proportionate to impose on the attacker is equivalent to X.” I adduce a counter-example that shows that this principle is wrong. Furthermore, Quong assumes that what determines the stringency of a person’s right is exclusively the amount of force that one would have to avert from someone else in (...) order to have a necessity justification for one’s transgressing the right in order to avert said force. Yet, Quong provides no argument as to why, first, the stringency of a right should be measured exclusively with reference to permissible rights-infringement; and second, he provides no explanation as to why the permissibility of the rights-infringement should be established with reference to “someone else,” namely with reference to an “innocent person,” instead of with reference to the person against whom the right in question is actually being held: the aggressor. I argue that the latter option is certainly the more plausible one, but so amended the stringency principle will be unable to adjudicate any substantive questions about proportionality in self-defense. In particular, Quong’s account cannot “explain” – contrary to what Quong claims – the allegedly intuitive judgment that one must not kill in defense of property or in order to avoid minor injuries. (shrink)

This thesis will utilise the literature on the distinction between doing harm and allowing harm to develop a novel system of moral sequencing that can be applied to general moral problems to decide if, when, and how an agent should intervene to prevent harm from occurring to another agent. Off the back of this discussion, this thesis will offer a way of determining the responsibility of certain agents for their actions within a moral sequence. These motivations will be at the (...) centre of the discussions in this thesis and will be accomplished by ultimately updating the system of moral sequencing so that it makes sense of practical cases of inner-agent change, which itself provides a justification for intervening earlier, and potentially diminishing the responsibility for agents who have experienced an inner-agent change, in a moral sequence. (shrink)