The climate crisis is an enormous challenge for contemporary societies. Yet, public discussions on it often lead to anger, mocking, denial and other defensive behaviours, one prominent example of which is the reception met by the climate advocate Greta Thunberg. The paper approaches this curious phenomenon via shame. It argues that the very idea of anthropogenic climate change invites feelings of human failure and thereby may also entice shame. The notion of “climate shame” is introduced and distinguished from “climate guilt”. (...) Whereas climate guilt prioritises the flourishing of the environment and is focused on actions and morality, climate shame is concerned with human identity and selfhood. The paper then explores whether shame is a morally destructive or constructive emotion. Making use of both psychological and philosophical literature on shame, it argues that although shame faces many challenges that question its usefulness in moral pedagogy, these challenges can be met with “moral maturity”—moreover, following a utilitarian approach, the overall benefits of climate shame can justify its costs to individuals. My argument is that climate shame holds the potential of being a highly effective moral psychological method of persuasion, capable of inviting wholesale critical reflection on current, environmentally damaging practices and cultivation of more virtuous ways of co-existing with the rest of the natural world and other species. (shrink)

Criticism can sometimes provoke defensive reactions, particularly when it implicates identities people hold dear. For instance, feminists told they are upholding rape culture might become angry or upset, since the criticism conflicts with an identity that is important to them. These kinds of defensive reactions are a primary focus of this paper. What is it to be defensive in this way, and why do some kinds of criticism, or implied criticism, tend to provoke this kind of response? What are the (...) connections between defensiveness, identity, and active ignorance? What are the social, political, and epistemic consequences of the tendency to defensiveness? Are there ways to improve the situation? (shrink)

Most people believe that it is sometimes morally permissible for a person to use force to defend herself or others against harm. In Defensive Killing, Helen Frowe offers a detailed exploration of when and why the use of such force is permissible. She begins by considering the use of force between individuals, investigating both the circumstances under which an attacker forfeits her right not to be harmed, and the distinct question of when it is all-things-considered permissible to use force against (...) an attacker. Frowe then extends this enquiry to war, defending the view that we should judge the ethics of killing in war by the moral rules that govern killing between individuals. She argues that this requires us to significantly revise our understanding of the moral status of non-combatants in war. Non-combatants who intentionally contribute to an unjust war forfeit their rights not to be harmed, such that they are morally liable to attack by combatants fighting a just war. (shrink)

Many think that it would be wrong to defend an individual from attack if he competently and explicitly refuses defensive intervention. In this paper, I consider the extent to which the preferences of victims affect the permissibility of defending groups or aggregates. These cases are interesting and difficult because there is no straightforward sense in which a group can univocally consent to or refuse defensive intervention in the same way that an individual can. Among those who have considered this question, (...) the dominant view is that that consent imposes only an extremely weak constraint on defending groups. I argue that this is mistaken and defend a much more robust requirement. Indeed, on the account that I develop there are cases in which the refusal of a single member of a victim is enough to make it impermissible to defend a much larger group. At the heart of my account is the idea that consent functions as an internal component of the broader requirement that defensive harms be proportionate: if a victim validly refuses defensive intervention, the fact that defence will benefit him cannot be used to justify harming innocents as the lesser-evil. An important implication of this view is that what constitutes sufficient consent from the members of a victim group will vary on a case-by-case basis. (shrink)

Defensive medicine has become pervasive. Defensive medicine is often thought of as a systems issue, the inevitable result of an adversarial malpractice environment, with consequent focus on system-responses and tort reform. But defensive medicine also has ethical and professionalism implications that should be considered beyond the need for tort reform. This article examines defensive medicine from an ethics and professionalism perspective, showing how defensive medicine is deeply problematic. First, a definition of defensive medicine is offered that describes the essence of (...) defensive practice: clinical actions with the goal of protecting the clinician against litigation or some adverse outcome. Ethical arguments against defensive medicine are considered: defensive medicine is deceptive and undermines patient autonomy; defensive medicine subjugates patient interests to physician interests and violate fiduciary obligations; defensive medicine exposes patients to harm without benefit; defensive medicine undermines trust in the profession; and defensive medicine violates obligations of justice. Possible arguments in favor of defensive medicine are considered and refuted. Defensive practice is therefore unethical and unprofessional, and should be viewed as a challenge for medical ethics and professionalism. (shrink)

The Moral Responsibility Account of Liability to Defensive Harm (MRA) states that an agent becomes liable to defensive harm if, and only if, she engages in a foreseeably risk-imposing activity that subsequently threatens objectively unjustified harm. Advocates of the account contend that liability to defensive harm is best understood as an aspect of distributive justice. Individuals who are liable to some harm are not wronged if the harm is imposed on them, and liability to defensive harm thus helps ensure that (...) harm is borne by whoever has least of an objection of justice against being burdened with it—or so advocates of the MRA insist. In this paper, I argue that liability to defensive harm is not grounded in considerations of distributive justice. While it depends on the wider societal context what allocation of a burden is distributively most just, liability to defensive harm is a distinctly localised affair. I propose that liability to defensive harm is best understood as part of the enforcement dimension of our rights to non-interference. Framing liability in this way does not invalidate the MRA. It does, however, render subjective impermissibility accounts of liability particularly promising. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: How Much of a Bad Thing Is Too Much? Unreasonable Expectations A Third Kind of Skeptical Defense Interim Verdict on Draper and Rowe Suggested Reading.

Rising negative emotions are like “time bombs” that impede productivity in the workplace. The present investigation provides an insight into the effects of defensive silence and defensive voice on counterproductive work behavior through knowledge hiding in the context of knowledge workers in Chinese academic institutions. Partial least square structural equation modeling was applied to the current samples. The study obtained conjecture the proposed mediating role of knowledge hiding between the negative working attitude and counterproductive work behavior, which is against the (...) organizational norms and performance. The result indicates that the positive relationships exist from defensive silence and defensive voice to counterproductive work behavior, mediated by knowledge hiding. This study links knowledge hiding literature and stimulus-organism-response to better explore the academic behavior in a knowledge setting. (shrink)

I address a foundational problem with accounts of the morality of war that are derived from the Just War Tradition. Such accounts problematically focus on ‘the moment of crisis’: i.e. when a state is considering a resort to war. This is problematic because sometimes the state considering the resort to war is partly responsible for wrongly creating the conditions in which the resort to war becomes necessary. By ignoring this possibility, JWT effectively ignores, in its moral evaluation of wars, certain (...) types of past wrongdoing. I argue that we can address this problem by incorporating an account of compensatory liability into an account of the morality of war. Doing so yields the view that, if we have culpably failed to compensate victims for past wrongs, we might be morally required to weigh the well-being of those victims more heavily in our calculation of proportionality when determining the permissibility of a defensive act that harms the victim as a side-effect. This, in turn, makes satisfying t. (shrink)

This study examines how the leading beverage company handles the strategic paradox between its core business and the social issue of obesity. A discursive analysis reveals how the organization does embrace a social goal related to obesity but not the paradoxical tension between this goal and its core business. The analysis further shows how the tension, along with the responsibility for the social goal, is projected outside the organization. This response is underpinned by the paradoxical constructions of consumers and the (...) concept of obesity in the organization’s communication. Based on these findings, I outline a new type of process for projection, one of the defensive mechanisms recognized in the literature. The findings increase our understanding of defensive responses to organizational paradoxes and help distinguish between different kinds of strategic paradoxes. They also highlight the need to further open up the complexity and multiplicity of strategic paradoxes related to corporate sustainability. (shrink)

In the face of argument to the contrary, it is shown that there is defensible middle ground available for entity realism, between the extremes of scientific realism and empiricist antirealism. Cartwright's ([1983]) earlier argument for defensible middle ground between these extremes, which depended crucially on the viability of an underdeveloped distinction between inference to the best explanation (IBE) and inference to the most probable cause (IPC), is examined and its defects are identified. The relationship between IBE and IPC is clarified (...) and a revised version of Cartwright's argument for defensible middle ground, which is free of the identified defects, is presented. (shrink)

Understanding defensive internationalism: black, white, or shades of gray -- Clubs, identities, and institutions: a tale of overlapping interests -- Domestic support for contributions: how stable and strong? -- International development assistance -- International debt management and relief -- United Nations peacekeeping operations -- Pursuing international environmental quality -- A global prognosis of muted optimism?

Experimental realism aims at striking a middle ground between scientific realism and anti-realism, between the success of experimental physics it would explain and the realism about scientific theories it would supplant. This middle ground reinstates the engineering idea that belief in scientific entities is justified on purely experimental grounds, without any commitment to scientific theories and laws. This paper argues that there is no defensible middle ground to be staked out when it comes to justifying physicists' belief in colored quarks, (...) and that experimental realism shifts, under analysis, into scientific realism. (shrink)

Despite worries about paternalism, when we are unjustifiably attacked, we are morally warranted, and sometimes required, to act in self-defense for the sake of our attacker to prevent him from committing this morally defiling act. Similarly, when a third party is unjustifiably attacked and we can assist without undue cost, we are morally warranted, and sometimes required, to act in third-party defense for the sake of the attacker as well as the victim, to prevent the attacker from committing this morally (...) defiling act. The case for these claims can be extended to national defense and humanitarian intervention. (shrink)

A minimally responsible threatener is someone who bears some responsibility for imposing an objectively wrongful threat, but whose responsibility does not rise to the level of culpability. Minimally responsible threateners include those who knowingly commit a wrongful harm under duress, those who are epistemically justified but mistaken in their belief that a morally risky activity will not cause a wrongful harm, and those who commit a harm while suffering from a cognitive impairment which makes it prohibitively difficult to recognize and (...) act on what is morally required of them. The chapter argues that minimally responsible threateners can indeed be morally liable for the harms they impose. Put differently, culpability is not a necessary basis for liability. (shrink)

In this article, I consider the permissibility of forming defensive alliances, which is a neglected topic in the contemporary literature on the ethics of war and peace. Drawing on the jus ad bellum criterion of proportionality in just war theory, I argue that if permissible defensive force requires that its expected harms must be counterbalanced by its expected goods, then, permissible defensive alliance formation seems to also require that its expected harms must be counterbalanced by its expected goods, as the (...) latter can result in much the same consequences as the former. Moreover, due to the incommensurability of values in play when making proportionality judgments, I argue for a value pluralist understanding of the criterion. On this view, defensive alliance formation is proportionate if the expected gains in certain values (goods) intuitively justify the expected losses in others (harms) when compared to the alternative expected value trade-offs of not allying. To explore the implications of my theoretical claims I consider them in relation to John Mearsheimer’s influential account of the causes of the Russo-Ukrainian War. On this account, the West’s strategy to assimilate Ukraine and Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership post-annexation of Crimea were disproportionate because the expected harms were unjustified when compared to the alternative expected goods and harms of forgoing Ukrainian membership of NATO. This does not imply that Russia’s aggression is just, but it does imply that the West and Ukraine are partially responsible for the war and that they acted impermissibly in attempting to expand/join NATO. (shrink)

Despite how revered Socrates is among many educators nowadays, he can seem in the end to be a poor model for them, particularly because of how often he refutes his interlocutors and poses leading questions. As critics have noted, refuting people can turn them away from inquiry instead of drawing them in, and being too directive with them can squelch independent thought. I contend, though, that Socrates' practices are more defensible than they often look: although there are risks in refuting (...) people and posing leading questions, Socrates has sensible ways of minimizing the risks, ways that are feasible even for teachers nowadays, and there are times when the risks are worth taking. I illustrate my point by discussing Plato's _Meno_. (shrink)

The defense of plants against herbivores and pathogens involves the participation of an enormous range of different metabolites, some of which act directly as defensive weapons against enemies (toxins or deterrents) and some of which act as components of the complex internal signaling network that insures that defense is timed to enemy attack. Recent work reveals a surprising trend: The same compounds may act as both weapons and signals of defense. For example, two groups of well‐studied defensive weapons, glucosinolates and (...) benzoxazinoids, trigger the accumulation of the protective polysaccharide callose as a barrier against aphids and pathogens. In the other direction, several hormones acting in defense signaling (and their precursors and products) exhibit activity as weapons against pathogens. Knowing which compounds are defensive weapons, which are defensive signals and which are both is vital for understanding the functioning of plant defense systems. (shrink)

In his book Das Recht der Freiheit, Axel Honneth develops a theory of social justice that incorporates negative, reflexive and social forms of freedom as well as the institutional conditions necessary for their reproduction. This account enables the identification of social pathologies or systemic normative deficits that frustrate individual efforts to relate their actions reflexively to a normative order and inhibits their ability to recognize the freedom of others as a condition of their own. In this article I utilize Honneth’s (...) theory in the diagnosis of a contemporary social pathology, which impedes social recognition and thereby contributes to social injustice. I argue that this particular social pathology – associated with the Second Amendment right to bear arms – has given rise to a pernicious form of subjectivity, which I call self-defensive. I conclude with some remarks concerning what this application reveals about the strengths and weaknesses of Honneth’s account. (shrink)

In a series of publications, Eli Hirsch has presented a sustained defense of common-sense ontology. Hirsch's argument relies crucially on a meta-ontological position sometimes known as ‘superficialism’. Hirsch's argument from superficialism to common-sense ontology is typically resisted on the grounds that superficialism is implausible. In this paper, I present an alternative argument for common-sense ontology, one that relies on (what I argue is) a much more plausible meta-ontological position, which I call ‘constructivism’. Note well: I will not quite argue that (...) constructivism is true; merely that it is significantly more plausible than superficialism, and consequently affords a safer route to common-sense ontology. Thus my main goal in the paper is not quite to establish common-sense ontology, nor for that matter to refute Hirsch's argument for it. My goal is, in a way, more expressive than argumentative: I wish to articulate a novel meta-ontological position, one that I take to be in no way obviously less plausible than already familiar positions, and to point out that the position probably leads to common-sense ontology. I open, in section 1, with a discussion of Hirsch's argument and the main objection to it. I then develop, in section 2, a sketch of the alternative meta-ontology I have in mind. I close, in section 3, with the argument that this alternative meta-ontology, too, leads to common-sense ontology. (shrink)

When is it morally permissible to engage in self-defense or the defense of others? Jonathan Quong gives an original philosophical account of the central moral principles that should regulate the use of defensive force. The morality of defensive force needs to be understood in the context of a more general account of justice and moral rights.

This article responds to objections to the account of permissible harming developed in Defensive Killing, as raised by Christian Barry, Jeff McMahan, Kimberly Ferzan, Massimo Renzo and Adil Haque. Each paper deserves much more attention than I can give it here. I focus on Barry’s important observations regarding the liability to defensive harm of those who fail to rescue. In response to McMahan, I grant some of McMahan’s objections to my rejection of the moral equivalence of threats and bystanders, but (...) reject his analysis of my Shield cases. I welcome much of Ferzan’s development of my account of ‘futile’ defence, but offer some concerns regarding her own view of when honour can be appropriately defended. I argue that Renzo’s objections to my account of bloodless invasions are unpersuasive, and identify some problems with Renzo’s own view. Finally, I defend my account of civilian liability against Adil Haque’s critique. (shrink)

Animal ethicists often distinguish between direct and indirect defenses of speciesism, where the former appeal to species membership and the latter invoke other features that are simply associated with it. The main extant charge against indirect defenses rests on the empirical claim that any feature other than membership in our species is either absent in some humans or present in some nonhumans. This paper challenges indirect defenses with a new argument, which presupposes no such empirical claim. Instead, (...) the argument from discordance resorts to the following principle: a certain feature can only justify discriminating on the basis of that feature. (shrink)

Abstract During the 20th century some versions of just war doctrine came to restrict the condition of just cause to defense, that is, these just war doctrines now hold it to be a necessary condition for the moral justifiability of any war that it be undertaken for defensive purposes. These purposes need not be self ? defensive but may be defensive of the welfare and legitimate rights of other polities and groups. Some reasons for war are obviously not defensive, for (...) example, the acquisition of territory or the assertion of imperialist control. But the boundaries of defensive warfare are unclear. I will consider two important cases in which this lack of clarity is proving to be morally significant: namely, preventive and punitive warfare undertaken for the sake of the goal of defense. I will argue that the normative rationale for limiting just cause to defense does not allow these as legitimate forms of defense. That rationale moves towards the view that one should not intend the deaths of enemies but only the restraint of their wrongdoing, and preventive and punitive warfare appear to involve intending the deaths of enemies. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: Side‐Effects of Wykstra's Noseeum Defense Verdict on Noseeum Defenses Evaluating van Inwagen's Second Skeptical Defense Overall Verdict on Skeptical Defenses On to Substantive Defenses Suggested Reading.

David Sosa, Michael Nelson, and Jason Stanley have recently offered a series of interesting and provocative challenges to Kripke's modal arguments against Descriptivism. In this paper I explore these challenges and some of the issues to which they give rise. I argue that, in the end, all three challenges fail.

BackgroundObstetrics and gynaecology always has reputation for being a highly litigious. The field of obstetrics and gynaecology is surrounded by different circumstances that stimulate the doctors to practice defensive medicine.MethodsThis study was directed to assess the extent and the possible effect of defensive medicine phenomenon on medical decision making among different grades of obstetric and gynaecologic Sudanese doctors, and to determine any experience of medical litigations with respect to sources and factors associated with it.ResultsA total of 117 doctors were approached, (...) their distribution according to job description was as follow: consultants registrars and specialists. The majority 89.7 % had the impression that litigation against doctors are increasing and 27.6 % had a direct experience of litigation. In this study less than one half of the surveyed doctors knew the concept of defensive medicine and 71.8 % reported practicing one or another form of defensive medicine. The different sources of the litigations reported by the doctors included: maternal death, perinatal death, other {misdiagnosis, intra-uterine fetal death, uterine perforation, rupture uterus}, fetal distress, injury to viscera and shoulder dystocia. In this study the experience of medical litigation was significantly observed among those who worked in area of blame culture. In logistic regression model, there was no significant difference between those who knew the concept of defence medicine and those who didn’t.ConclusionThere should be strategic plan to reduce the practice of defensive medicine and medical litigation against doctors. (shrink)

We explicate and evaluate arguments both for and against the insanity defense itself, different versions of the insanity defense (M'Naghten, Model Penal Code, and Durham (or Product)), the Irresistible Impulse rule, and various reform proposals.

In this commentary, I discuss Christopher Stratman’s article, “Ecotogenesis and the Problem of Abortion.” First, I try to offer some better defenses of assertions that Stratman makes. Next, I question Stratman’s supposition that “there is no morally relevant difference between a fetus and a cryopreserved embryo.” Finally, I challenge the claim that immoral actions cannot give rise to rights.

In contemporary China, physicians tend to require more diagnostic work-ups and prescribe more expensive medications than are clearly medically indicated. These practices have been interpreted as defensive medicine in response to a rising threat of potential medical malpractice lawsuits. After outlining recent changes in Chinese malpractice law, this essay contends that the overuse of expensive diagnostic and therapeutic interventions cannot be attributed to malpractice concerns alone. These practice patterns are due as well, if not primarily, to the corruption of medical (...) decision-making by physicians being motivated to earn supplementary income, given the constraints of an ill-structured governmental policy by the over-use of expensive diagnostic and therapeutic interventions. To respond to these difficulties of Chinese health care policy, China will need not only to reform the particular policies that encourage these behaviors, but also to nurture a moral understanding that can place the pursuit of profit within the pursuit of virtue. This can be done by drawing on Confucian moral resources that integrate the pursuit of profit within an appreciation of benevolence. It is this Confucian moral account that can formulate a medical care policy suitable to China's contemporary market economy. (shrink)

A popular informal argument suggests that statistics about the preponderance of criminal involvement among particular demographic groups partially justify others in making defensive mistakes against members of the group. One could worry that evidence-relative accounts of moral rights vindicate this argument. After constructing the strongest form of this objection, I offer several replies: most demographic statistics face an unmet challenge from reference class problems, even those that meet it fail to ground non-negligible conditional probabilities, even if they did, they introduce (...) new costs likely to cancel out any justificatory contribution of the statistic, but even if they didn’t, demographic facts are the wrong sort to make a moral difference to agents’ negative rights. I conclude that the popular argument should be rejected, and evidence-relative theories do not have the worrisome implication. (shrink)

The contemporary theory of epistemic democracy often draws on the Condorcet Jury Theorem to formally justify the ‘wisdom of crowds’. But this theorem is inapplicable in its current form, since one of its premises – voter independence – is notoriously violated. This premise carries responsibility for the theorem's misleading conclusion that ‘large crowds are infallible’. We prove a more useful jury theorem: under defensible premises, ‘large crowds are fallible but better than small groups’. This theorem rehabilitates the importance of deliberation (...) and education, which appear inessential in the classical jury framework. Our theorem is related to Ladha's (1993) seminal jury theorem for interchangeable (‘indistinguishable’) voters based on de Finetti's Theorem. We also prove a more general and simpler such jury theorem. (shrink)

This article offers a brief synopsis of some of the main claims from The Morality of Defensive Force, and replies to the symposium contributions of Lars Christie, Lisa Hecht, and Jonathan Parry.

BackgroundMedical errors, unsatisfactory outcomes, or treatment complications often prompt patient complaints about healthcare providers. In response, physicians may adopt defensive practices to mitigate objections, avoid complaints, and navigate lengthy trial processes or other potential threats. However, such defensive medicine (DM) practices can carry risks, including potential harm to patients and the imposition of unnecessary costs on both patients and the healthcare system. Moreover, these practices may run counter to accepted ethical standards in medicine.MethodsThis qualitative study involved conducting semi-structured interviews with (...) 43 physicians, among whom 38 were faculty members at medical universities, 42 had administrative experience at various levels of the health system, and 23 had previously served as health system policymakers. On average, the participants had approximately 23.5 years of clinical experience. The selection of participants was based on purposive sampling. Data collection through interviews continued until data saturation was achieved.ResultsBased on the findings, DM manifests in both positive and negative forms, illustrated by instances like ordering unnecessary lab tests, imaging, or consultations, reluctance to admit high-risk patients, and avoiding high-risk procedures. The study participants identified a range of underlying and contextual factors contributing to DM, encompassing organizational-managerial, social, personal, and factors inherent to the nature of defensive medical practices. The results also highlight proposed strategies to address and prevent DM, which can be grouped into organizational-managerial, social, and those focused on modifying the medical complaints management system.ConclusionDM is a multifaceted and significant phenomenon that necessitates a comprehensive understanding of its various aspects, including interconnected and complex structures and underlying and contextual factors. While the results of this study offer a solid foundation for informing policy decisions within the healthcare system and include some explanatory policy suggestions, we encourage policymakers to complement the findings of this study with other available evidence to address any potential limitations and to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the policymaking process related to DM. (shrink)

The primary psychological process leading aggressive children to grow into dysfunctional adults is a defensive mindset, which encompasses a pattern of deviant social information processing steps, including hypervigilance to threat; hostile attributional biases; psychophysiological reactivity, experience of rage and testosterone release (in males); aggressive problem-solving styles; aggressogenic decision-making biases; and deficient behavioral skills. These processes are acquired in childhood and predict adult maladjustment outcomes, including incarceration and premature death. The antecedents of defensive mindset lie in early childhood experiences of trauma (...) and threat. The Fast Track (FT) intervention was designed to improve social competence in aggressive children. A randomized controlled trial demonstrated that FT is effective in preventing externalizing psychopathology; the primary mediating factor is the reduction of defensive mindset processes. This Element concludes with insights that defensive mindset might also explain dysfunction in other realms, including school culture, parenting, marriage, the workplace, intergroup relationships, politics, and international relations. (shrink)

Since people have a right even to kill a culpable aggressor if, in the circumstances, this is a proportionate and necessary means of self–defense against an imminent or ongoing attack, and since most forms of torture are not as bad as killing, people must also have a right to torture a culpable aggressor if this, too, in the circumstances, is a proportionate and necessary means of self–defense against an imminent or ongoing attack.But can torture really ever be a form of (...) self–defense? Yes, it can. For instance, a child kidnapper, by holding the child hostage in a wooden box, thereby depriving it of its freedom and torturing it,is an aggressor, whether in custody or not. He is, after all, torturing the child right now while he is in custody. Thus, torturing him to save the child would be a case of self-defensive torture. (shrink)

Eating disorders are mental illnesses that can have a significant and persistent physical impact, especially for those who are not treated early in their disease trajectory. Although many persons w...

We draw a distinction between defensive and predatory forms of aggression, and how these forms relate to basic neuropsychological systems, especially the Fight-Flight-Freeze-System (FFFS; putatively related to defensive aggression), and the Behavioural Approach System (BAS; putatively related to predatory aggression). These systems may help further to account for proximal brain processes and personality influences in the context of sex differences.

Jonathan Quong argues for the “moral status” account of defensive liability. According to the moral status account, what makes it the case that assailants lack rights against the imposition of defensive violence on them is that they are treating defenders as if those defenders lack rights against the imposition of aggressive violence on them. This “as if” condition can be met in some situations in which one person, A, commands very good but factually inaccurate evidence that another person, B, poses (...) a lethal danger to her. In this “Mistaken Attacker” case, A will be entirely blameless. Nonetheless, A is defensively liable, because A assumes that B is defensively liable despite the fact that B is not defensively liable. In other cases, A may threaten B, who is innocent and hence defensively non-liable, without treating B as if B lacks rights. For example, in the “Conscientious Driver” case, A may have lost control of her car, having taken all due precautions, and be posing a lethal threat to an innocent pedestrian, B, but A is not treating B as if B lacks rights because B’s interests have already been taken fully into account in arriving at the verdict that careful driving is morally permissible. In this paper, I explore and criticize Quong’s account. I argue that the distinctions Quong draws between Conscientious Driver and Mistaken Attacker cannot be sustained in ways that uphold the moral status account, and I suggest that the moral status account’s focus on the “as if” condition is morally undermotivated. The drift of my argument is that we should take much more minimal accounts of defensive liability more seriously than we typically do. (shrink)

Defence cases with an escalatory structure, in which the levels of violence between aggressor and defender start out as minor and then become major, even lethal, raise sharp problems for defence theory, and for our understanding of the conditions of defence: proportionality, necessity, and imminence. It is argued here that defenders are not morally required to withdraw from participation in these cases, and that defensive escalations do not offend against any of the conditions of defence, on an adequate understanding of (...) them. No plausible interpretation of proportionality or necessity excludes defensive permissions in escalatory cases. Moreover, the structure of escalatory defensive cases also sheds useful light on permissible responses to conditional deadly threats. This is because we can analyse conditional deadly threats as disguised cases of escalation. Because defensive resistance is permissible in escalatory cases, it is also permissible in cases involving conditional deadly threats. (shrink)

We have recently found that nondirective meditation facilitates stress reduction. This supplementary study investigated whether defensive functioning would moderate these beneficial effects. We explored the occurrence of defense mechanisms and the impact of defensive functioning on the outcome of companies’ stress management programs regarding worries nervousness, mental distress, sleep problems, and muscle pain. The sample was a population of active, working professionals recruited from Norwegian companies. The intervention group obtained significant benefits on all outcome measures, but there were no effects (...) in the control group. We analyzed defensive functioning with the self-report questionnaire, Life Style Index, at four time points. The healthy adults who participated had a low level of defense scores at the outset. There was a significant reduction in the level of defenses in both groups over the study period, 6 months. Defensive functioning significantly moderated the change of the outcome measures from baseline to follow-up in the intervention group, but not in the control group. (shrink)