The Just War principle of jus ad bellum explicitly requires a reasonable prospect of success; the prevailing view about personal self-defence is that it can be justified even if the prospect of success is low. This chapter defends the existence of this distinction and goes on to explore the normative basis of this difference between defensive war and self-defence and its implications. In particular, the chapter highlights the rationale of the ‘success condition’ within Just War thinking and argues (...) that this condition is grounded in assumptions about the nature of political authority and responsibility that do not apply to personal self-defence. This important difference is commonly ignored or side-lined by contemporary theorists who regard the principles of these two types of conflict as very closely aligned and the moral differences between them as matters of degree only. (shrink)

The reductivist view of war holds that the moral rules of killing in war can be reduced to the moral rules that govern killing between individuals. Noam Zohar objects to reductivism on the grounds that the account of individual self-defence that best supports the rules of war will inadvertently sanction terrorist killings of non-combatants. I argue that even an extended account of self-defence—that is, an account that permits killing at least some innocent people to save one's own life—can (...) support a prohibition on terrorism, provided that it distinguishes between direct and indirect threats. What such an account cannot support is the blanket immunity of non-combatants to defensive killing. If a non-combatant is morally responsible for indirectly threatening in an unjust war, she can be liable to defensive killing. However, this gives us reason to revise our account of permissible killing in war, rather than to reject the reductivist account. (shrink)

ABSTRACT The paper begins with the suggestion that the aura of respectability that surrounds the notion of self‐defence may render that notion suitable as a rallying point for agreement on the ethical legitimacy of warfare. I first argue that self‐defensive killing by a person X is morally justified if three conditions obtain: (1) X is together with at least one other person in a situation in which one of the persons will be killed through actions of the other (...) person(s); (2) X is not responsible for bringing about that situation; (3) unless X kills another person, X him‐ or herself will be killed. Next, I show that on the basis of this principle military operations are morally justified only if there are no alternatives to executing them that would save more lives or prevent the total loss of freedom for people. The paper concludes with the observation that the morality of individual self‐defensive killing is unable to justify most of current national defence policies. (shrink)

Wars are large-scale conflicts between organized groups of belligerents, which involve suffering, devastation, and brutality unlike almost anything else in human experience. Whatever one’s other beliefs about morality, all should agree that the horrors of war are all but unconscionable, and that warfare can be justified only if we have some compel- ling account of what is worth fighting for, which can justify contributing, as individu- als and as groups, to this calamitous endeavour. Although this question should obviously be central (...) to both philosophical and politi- cal discussion about war, it is at the forefront of neither. In recent years, philosophical discussion of warfare has bloomed, but the debate has focused on whom we may kill, on the assumption that our aims are justified.1 Political debate, meanwhile, is more concerned with matters of prudence, international law, and public justification, than with reassessing what is worth fighting for. For wars of intervention to halt or prevent massive humanitarian crises, this gap is not so troubling. When warfare is the only means to prevent the mass killing or enslavement of the innocent, the purposes of military force are clear enough (though undoubtedly many other problems remain). The problem is more pressing, how- ever, for the justification of national defence.3 Although common-sense morality and international law view national defence as the paradigm case of justified warfare, grounding this consensus is surprisingly difficult.4 We typically believe that any state is justified in using lethal force to protect its territory against any form of uninvited military incursion by any other state. And yet we lack a good argument to explain why this should be so. In this chapter, I explain why one familiar and otherwise plausible approach to the justification of killing in war cannot adequately ground common-sense views of permissible national defence.5 Reductionists believe that justified warfare reduces to an aggregation of acts that are justified under ordinary principles of interpersonal morality.6 The standard form of reductionism focuses on the principles governing killing in ordinary life, specifically those that justify intentional killing in self- and other-defence, and unintended but foreseen (for short, collateral) killing as a lesser evil. Justified warfare, on this view, is no more than the coextension of multiple acts justified under these two principles. Reductionism is the default philosophical approach to thinking through the ethics of killing in war. It makes perfect sense to ask what principles govern permissible kill- ing in general, before applying them to the particular context of war. If it cannot deliver a plausible set of conclusions about when national defence is permitted, then we must either revise our beliefs about which conclusions count as plausible, or else face the significant challenge of developing a different theoretical model for justifying war- fare—an exceptionalist model, which views war as an exception to the regular moral landscape, to which principles apply which apply to nothing else but war.7 We must show, in other words, that there is something worth fighting for in wars of national defence, which is not engaged when we use force in any other context. The chapter proceeds as follows. Section 2.2 sets out the argument against reduc- tionism.8 Section 2.3 considers and rebuts one common response to the argument, which has often been thought sufficient grounds to disregard its conclusion. Section 2.4 then asks whether a modified reductionism would survive unscathed by the argu- ment. Finally, section 2.5 sets out some desiderata on a plausible exceptionalist alterna- tive. Section 2.6 concludes. (shrink)

If a threat is liable to be defensively killed, there is a defeasible justification for killing her. On certain prevailing assumptions about liability, which I accept, there are liability justifications for killing any number of minimally responsible threats, each of whom would otherwise kill a single non-responsible victim. Absent harms to third parties, these justifications appear, counter-intuitively, to be undefeated. I argue that this counter-intuitive appearance is deceptive.

ABSTRACT In the standard case of justifiable killing in self‐defence one agent without provocation tries to kill a second agent and the second agent's only way to avoid death is to kill his attacker. It is widely accepted that such killings in self‐defence are morally justifiable, but it has proved difficult to show why this is so. Recently, Montague has put forward an account in terms of forcing a choice between lives, and Teichman has propounded a quasi‐Hobbesian rights‐based (...) account of self‐defence. I argue that neither Montague nor Teichman has succeeded in providing an adequate justification for killing in self‐defence. (shrink)

Although people generally agree that innocent targets of culpable aggression are justified in harming the aggressors in self-defence, there is considerable disagreement regarding whether innocents are justified in defending themselves when their doing so would harm other innocent people. I argue in this essay that harming innocent aggressors and active innocent threats in self-defence is indeed justified under certain conditions, but that defensive actions in such cases are justified as permissions rather than as claim rights. This justification therefore (...) differs from that of self-defence against culpable aggressors, since defensive acts of the latter type are justified as claim rights rather than mere permissions. I argue, however, that the two justifications are alike in that both rest on considerations of distributive justice. (shrink)

This paper gives a self-defence account of the scope and limits of the justified use of compulsion to control contagious disease. It applies an individualistic model of self-defence for state action and uses it to illuminate the constraints on public health compulsion of proportionality and using the least restrictive alternative. It next shows how a self-defence account should not be rejected on the basis of past abuses. The paper then considers two possible limits to a self-defence (...) justification: compulsion of the non-culpable and over-inclusive compulsion. The paper claims that objections to compelling the non-culpable do not greatly restrict the scope of the self-defence justification. The over-included are, however, innocent bystanders, and methods such as compulsory quarantine, vaccination, and screening are not justified in self-defence. (shrink)

_ Source: _Page Count 9 If a threat is liable to be defensively killed, there is a defeasible justification for killing her. On certain prevailing assumptions about liability, which I accept, there are liability justifications for killing _any number_ of minimally responsible threats, each of whom would otherwise kill a single non-responsible victim. Absent harms to third parties, these justifications appear, counter-intuitively, to be undefeated. I argue that this counter-intuitive appearance is deceptive.

Historians of political thought have begun to discover how contemporaries attempted to argue about armed conflict within the body politic without giving licence to anyone to escape order and subjection. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the concept of 'self-defence' became of overriding importance. English and Scottish interest in German affairs grew after the battle at the White Mountain in 1620. English and Scottish pamphleteers and writers subsequently began to recognize some of the argument concerning 'self-defence' that had (...) been elaborated in the Empire until this point. As the English 'ancient constitution' began to crumble under the mounting pressure of conflict between King and Parliament from 1642 onwards, the exhaustive philosophical and legal reasoning on the nature and basis of the body politic found within political texts emanating from Germany thus appeared increasingly attractive. However, as German ideas on self-defence were used, they underwent a significant transformation within their new English context. Because the sovereignty of the King in Parliament did not allow the integration of German ideas on self-defence based on the peculiar nature of sovereignty in the Empire, English thought gradually transformed the state of necessity in German thought into ideas of a state of nature. (shrink)

I explain the asymmetry between innocent aggressors and their (innocent) victims, and attempt to separate justified and unjustified defensive force when both parties are innocent. I propose the principle of initiating behaviour, which states that: ‘In order for one person to be justified in using defensive force the other party must initiate the apparently threatening behaviour, but the defendant’s interpretation of that behaviour, as being threatening, would have to be reasonable.’ We can thereby maintain the view that there is a (...) significant relation between an act being justified and which party ought eventually to be given priority in a conflict situation. If we know that an act is justified, we know that we have to give preference to its agent when there is a choice between imposing equal harm on him or her and his or her victim. (shrink)

I argue that any successful account of permissible self- defence must be action-guiding, or practical . It must be able to inform people’s deliberation about what they are permitted to do when faced with an apparent threat to their lives. I argue that this forces us to accept that a person can be permitted to use self-defence against Apparent Threats: characters whom a person reasonably, but mistakenly, believes threaten her life. I defend a hybrid account of self-defence (...) that prioritises an agent’s subjective perspective. I argue that it is sufficient to render the use of defence permissible if an agent reasonably believes that (a) she is morally innocent, and (b) if she does not kill this person, then they will kill her. I argue that the correct account of self-defence must distinguish between whether an agent is permitted to inflict harm, and whether the target is liable to bear that harm. (shrink)

Do individuals have a positive right of self-defence? And if so, what are the limits of this right? Under what conditions does this use of force extend to the defence of others? These are some of the issues explored by Dr Uniacke in this comprehensive 1994 philosophical discussion of the principles relevant to self-defence as a moral and legal justification of homicide. She establishes a unitary right of self-defence and the defence of others, one which grounds the (...) permissibility of the use of necessary and proportionate defensive force against culpable and non-culpable, active and passive, unjust threats. Particular topics discussed include: the nature of moral and legal justification and excuse; natural law justifications of homicide in self-defence; the Principle of Double Effect and the claim that homicide in self-defence is justified as unintended killing; and the question of self-preferential killing. This is a lucid and sophisticated account of the complex notion of justification, revolving around a critical discussion of trends in the law of self-defence. (shrink)

In this paper I outline a theory of legitimacy that grounds the state’s right to rule on a natural duty not to harm others. I argue that by refusing to enter the state, anarchists expose those living next to them to the dangers of the state of nature, thereby posing an unjust threat. Since we have a duty not to pose unjust threats to others, anarchists have a duty to leave the state of nature and enter the state. This duty (...) correlates to a claim-right possessed by those living next to them, who also have a right to act in self-defence to enforce this obligation. This argument, if successful, would be particularly attractive, as it provides an account of state legitimacy without importing any normative premises that libertarians would reject. (shrink)

Most studies on the ethics of privacy focus on what others ought to do to accommodate our interest in privacy. I focus on a related but distinct question that has attracted less attention in the literature: When, if ever, does morality require us to safeguard our own privacy? While we often have prudential reasons for safeguarding our privacy, we are also, at least sometimes, morally required to do so. I argue that we, sometimes, ought to safeguard our privacy for the (...) sake of the possible wrongdoer, in order to prevent the possible wrongdoer from committing a morally defiling act that renders them worse off. I illustrate the variety of cases in which this duty binds us and contrast my view to some other claims in the literature which also purport to show that we sometimes have a duty to safeguard our own privacy. (shrink)

This is the final part of a series of two papers that have examined the conceptual development of the philosophical justifications for tyrannicide. While Part I focused on the classical, medieval, and liberal justifications for tyrannicide, Part II aims to provide the tentative outlines of a contemporary model of tyrannicide in world politics. It is contended that a reinvigorated conception of self-defence, when coupled with the modern understanding of universal human rights, may provide the foundation for the normative validity (...) of tyrannicide in contemporary world politics. (shrink)

Do we have the right to defend ourselves against innocent aggressors? If I amattacked in a lift by a knife‐wielding lunatic, may I kill or maim him to protect my own life? On one view the insane man’s plight is his bad luck and I am under no obligation to let it be transferred to me. On the opposing view it is my bad luck to be under attack and I have no right to transfer it to an innocent man (...) by killing him to protect myself. It is perhaps becauseneither of these opposing viewpoints is obviously preferable to the other that there is no consensus about the question. Nevertheless we can find considerations for favouring the first view over the second. (shrink)

I explain the asymmetry between innocent aggressors and their victims, and attempt to separate justified and unjustified defensive force when both parties are innocent. I propose the principle of initiating behaviour, which states that: ‘In order for one person to be justified in using defensive force the other party must initiate the apparently threatening behaviour, but the defendant’s interpretation of that behaviour, as being threatening, would have to be reasonable.’ We can thereby maintain the view that there is a significant (...) relation between an act being justified and which party ought eventually to be given priority in a conflict situation. If we know that an act is justified, we know that we have to give preference to its agent when there is a choice between imposing equal harm on him or her and his or her victim. (shrink)

The reasonable person standard is used in adjudicating claims of self-defence. In US law, an individual may use defensive force if her beliefs that a threat is imminent and that force is required are beliefs that a reasonable person would have. In English law, it is sufficient that beliefs in imminence and necessity are genuinely held; but the reasonableness of so believing is given an evidential role in establishing the genuineness of the beliefs. There is, of course, much contention (...) over how to spell out when, and in virtue of what, such beliefs are reasonable. In this chapter, we identify some distinctive issues that arise when we consider that implicit racial bias might be implicated in the beliefs in imminence and necessity. Considering two prominent interpretations of the reasonable person standard, we argue that neither is acceptable. On one interpretation, we risk unfairness to the defendant-who may non-culpably harbour bias. On another, the standard embeds racist stereotypes. Whilst there are formulations of the defence that may serve to mitigate these problems, we argue that they cannot be avoided in the presence of racist social structures. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper is a reply to three objections raised by Seumas Miller against a ‘forced‐choice’account of the morality of self‐defence. It is argued that Miller's first objection rests on a misconception of how the forced‐choice account is supposed to work; that his second objection is simply mistaken; and that his third objection overlooks how the forced‐choice account explicitly accommodates the moral difference between self‐defence and ‘other‐defence.’Finally, it is suggested that Miller's entire approach is defective in its failure (...) to examine the principle of justice which underlies the forced‐choice account, and whether it applies to standard self‐defence situations. (shrink)

Argues against the right to engage in lethal measures to defend oneself or others against innocent aggressors or innocent threats. Criticizes arguments to the contrary by Judith Jarvis Thomson and Frances Kamm. Offers a positive account of why the killing of an innocent threat or aggressor is morally on a par with the impermissible killing of an innocent bystander in self‐defence.

Measures aimed at general deterrence are often thought to be problematic on the basis that they violate the Kantian prohibition against sacrificing the interests of some as a means of securing a greater good. But even if this looks like a weak objection because deterrence can be justified as a form of societal self-defence, such measures may be regarded as problematic for another reason: Harming in self-defence is only justified when it’s necessary, i.e., when there are no relatively (...) harmless alternatives. While there are few harmless ways to remove the threat posed by dangerous individuals, there are many relatively harmless methods for preventing crime. We can bracket off our preventative failings when we think of present threats, but we cannot do so when contemplating alternative preventative measures. (shrink)

Do individuals have a positive right of self-defence? And if so, what are the limits of this right? Under what conditions does this use of force extend to the defence of others? These are some of the issues explored by Dr Uniacke in this comprehensive 1994 philosophical discussion of the principles relevant to self-defence as a moral and legal justification of homicide. She establishes a unitary right of self-defence and the defence of others, one which grounds the (...) permissibility of the use of necessary and proportionate defensive force against culpable and non-culpable, active and passive, unjust threats. Particular topics discussed include: the nature of moral and legal justification and excuse; natural law justifications of homicide in self-defence; the Principle of Double Effect and the claim that homicide in self-defence is justified as unintended killing; and the question of self-preferential killing. This is a lucid and sophisticated account of the complex notion of justification, revolving around a critical discussion of trends in the law of self-defence. (shrink)

(2011). CHILD SOLDIERS AND KILLING IN SELF-DEFENCE: CHALLENGING THE ‘MORAL VIEW’ ON KILLING IN WAR. Journal of Military Ethics: Vol. 10, No. 1, pp. 36-51. doi: 10.1080/15027570.2011.561639.

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)

ABSTRACTRevisionists about Aquinas’ teaching on private self-defence take the standard reading to hold that Aquinas applies a version of the Doctrine of Double Effect according to which the intentional killing of a wrongful attacker by a private person is morally prohibited while the non-intentional but foreseeable killing of the attacker is permitted. Revisionists dispute this reading and argue that Aquinas permits the intentional killing of wrongful attackers. I argue that revisionists mischaracterize the standard reading of Aquinas. I consider one (...) of its main proponents, Antonio de Córdoba. When Córdoba condemned the intentional killing of wrongful attackers by private persons, he was not applying DDE. Rather, he was arguing that when you decide to kill an attacker you treat the attacker as a resource for the private end of saving your life. Killing a member of your community is a form of irrevocable social exclusion. This decision ought to be left to the public authorities. The disagreement between the authors defending the standard view and their critics was not about DDE but rather about the moral limits that membership in a community sets on the pursuit of private ends, including the private end of staying alive. (shrink)

abstract During the current round of fighting in the Middle East, Israel has provoked considerable controversy as it turned to targeted killings or assassination to battle militants. While assassination has met with disfavour among traditional observers, commentators have, more recently, sought to justify targeted killings with an appeal to both self‐defence and law enforcement. While each paradigm allows the use of lethal force, they are fundamentally incompatible, the former stipulating moral innocence and the latter demanding the presumption of criminal (...) guilt. Putting aside the paradigm of law enforcement which demands due process and forbids extra‐judicial execution, the only possible avenue for justifying named killings lies in self‐defence. While named killings might be defensible on the grounds that there are no other ways to disable combatants when they fight without uniforms, the costs, including the cost of targeted killing emerging as an acceptable convention in its own right, should be sufficient to view the practice with a good deal of caution. (shrink)

Michael Walzer’s use of John Stuart Mill’s A Few Words on Non-Intervention (1859) helped to inaugurate it as a canonical text of international theory. However, Walzer’s use of the text was highly selective because he viewed the first half as a historically parochial discussion of British foreign policy, and his interest in the second was restricted to the passages in which Mill proposes principles of international morality to govern foreign military interventions to protect third parties. As a result, theorists tend (...) to see those canonized passages as if through a glass darkly. Attention to the detail and context of Mill’s first-half critique of Lord Palmerston’s opposition to the Suez Canal project reveals that his discussion of purely protective intervention is embedded in a broader exploration of the limits of self-defence, including the moral permissibility of preventive military force and the use of protective interventions for defensive purposes. Moreover, reading the text holistically facilitates a refutation of some objections directed at it by Michael Doyle to the effect that Mill’s conception of self-defence incorporates elements of aggression which makes it extremely dangerous when adapted for application to the contemporary world. (shrink)

This book offers a philosophical analysis of the moral and legal justifications for the use of force. While the book focuses on the ethics self-defense, it also explores its relation to lesser evil justifications, public authority, the justification of punishment, and the ethics of war. Steinhoff’s account of the moral use of force covers a wide range of topics, including the nature of justification in general, the precise elements of different justifications, the logic of claim- and liberty-rights and (...) of rights forfeiture, the value of human life and its limits, and the principles of reciprocity and precaution. While the author’s analysis is primarily philosophical, it is informed by a metaethical stance that also places heavy emphasis on existing law and legal scholarship. In doing so, the book appeals to widely shared moral intuitions, precepts, and concepts grounded in criminal law. Self-Defense, Necessity, and Punishment offers the most comprehensive and systematic account of the ethics of self-defense. It will be of interest to scholars and graduate students working in applied ethics and moral philosophy, philosophy of law, and political philosophy. (shrink)

Legal responses to battered women who kill have long animated scholarly debate and law reform activity. In September 2012 after 47 years of alleged abuse, Frenchwoman Jacqueline Sauvage fatally shot her abusive husband three times in the back. The subsequent contested trial, conviction for murder, unsuccessful appeal and later presidential pardon of Sauvage thrust the French law of self-defence into the spotlight. The Sauvage case raises important questions surrounding the adequacy of the French criminal law in this area, the (...) ongoing proliferation of gendered stereotypes in law and the need for reform. In the wake of the Sauvage case, this article provides a timely analysis of the gendered law of self-defence in France. Drawing from an in-depth analysis of the judgments imposed in the Sauvage case, this article examines the adequacy of French legal responses to battered women who kill and ignites an argument for further law reform. (shrink)

Drawing on the historical insight of Emer de Vattel to build on the contemporary arguments of Michael Walzer and David Luban, this article develops a model of sufficient risk as a necessary condition for anticipatory war to be deemed self-defence. This model holds that an anticipatory war may constitute legitimate self-defence (as opposed to aggression) when it aims to forestall a threat that poses a sufficient risk to the anticipating state. This is the point where a threat is (...) both sufficiently likely to materialise and sufficiently large to pose a grave risk. Due to crucial problems with the imminence condition for self-defence, I propose that the sufficient risk condition subsume that of imminence. The power of this model lies in its ability to encapsulate all factors raised by previous authors that are morally relevant specifically for anticipatory wars and categorise them as contributing to the judgement of the likelihood of the threat materialising and/or the magnitude of the potential threat. This parsimonious categorisation increases the accuracy and clarity of the moral theory on anticipatory war, making it more robust to change in the types of threats faced by states, and less ripe for manipulation to justify immoral wars. (shrink)

This chapter presents a rights-based explanation of self-defence. A right of defence exists when a subject is at liberty to defend a certain good by performing an action that would otherwise be impermissible. The moral justification for this liberty invokes three considerations: an appropriate normative relation exists between the subject and the end of the right, consisting of either of a right to, or a duty of care towards the good protected; the defensive act is a proportionate, necessary response (...) to an imminent threat of harm; and the object of defensive force has an appropriate degree of normative responsibility for, and the subject is innocent of, the harm threatened. (shrink)

This paper reflects on the current war on Gaza in 2024 that followed the Hamas attack on October 7th 2023, reading the events is a wider historical context. The paper has three main parts. In the first part, the paper argues against the fragmentation of the question of Palestine historically and geographically, arguing instead for the importance of the overall context of the conflict. The second part considers the issue of Palestinian resistance. How can the Palestinians resist occupation? This part (...) is mainly descriptive and indicates the impasse that the Palestinians found themselves in it after the Oslo accords in 1993. The third and last part moves to normative questions regarding the question of self-defense both on the part of the Palestinians and on the part of Israel and tries to outline the ways these arguments can develop. (shrink)

Some contemporary Just War theorists, like Jeff McMahan, have recently built upon an individual right of self-defense to articulate moral rules of war that are at odds with commonly accepted views. For instance, they argue that in principle combatants who fight on the unjust side ought to be liable to punishment on that basis alone. Also, they reject the conclusion that combatants fighting on both sides are morally equal. In this paper, I argue that these theorists overextend their (...) self-defense analysis when it comes to the punishment of unjust combatants, and I show how in an important sense just and unjust combatants are morally equal. I contend that the individualistic and quid pro quo perspective of the self-defense analysis fails to consider properly how the international community, morally speaking, ought to treat combatants, and I set forth four elements of justice applicable to war, which, together, support the conclusion that in principle the international community should not take on the activity of punishing combatants solely for fighting on the unjust side. (shrink)

The right to self‐defense has played a major role in objections to gun regulation. Many contend that gun regulations threaten this right. While much philosophical discussion has focused on the relation between guns and this right, less attention has been paid to the argument for the right of self‐defense itself. In this article, I examine this argument. Gunrights defenders contend that the right of self‐defense is needed to explain why interferences in self‐defense (...) are wrong. I propose an alternative explanation for such wrongs, one which does not posit the existence of a self‐defense right, and then show how it undermines their claim that there exists a strong presumption against gun regulation. I conclude by articulating the implications of this alternative explanatory account for other rights. (shrink)

This paper is not so much concerned with the question under which circumstances self-defense is justified, but rather with other normative features of self-defense as well as with the source of the self-defense justification. I will argue that the aggressor’s rights-forfeiture alone – and hence the liberty-right of the defender to defend himself – cannot explain the intuitively obvious fact that a prohibition on self-defense would wrong victims of attack. This can only (...) be explained by conceiving of self-defense also as a claim-right. However, I will also argue that a claim-right cannot ground the self-defense justification either. Rather, what grounds the self-defense justification and its particular strength and scope is the fact that self-defense is an act-specific agent-relative prerogative: a defender is allowed to give particularly grave weight to his interest in engaging in self-defense, which distinguishes self-defense from most other acts. This is not the same as saying that he has a right or a liberty to engage in self-defense. Thus, self-defense, understood as a normative concept, is a claim-right, a liberty-right, and an act-specific agent-relative prerogative. (shrink)

It is generally agreed that using lethal or otherwise serious force in self-defense is justified only when three conditions are satisfied: first, there are some grounds for the defender to give priority to his own interests over those of the attacker (whether because the attacker has lost the protection of his right to life, for example, or because of the defender’s prerogative to prefer himself to others); second, the harm used is proportionate to the threat thereby averted; third, (...) the harm is necessary to avert that threat. The first and second conditions have been exhaustively discussed, but the third has been oddly neglected. Meanwhile a prominent school of thought has arisen, in the ethics of war, which seeks to ground the justification of killing in war in principles of individual self-defense. They too have failed to offer any substantive analysis of necessity, while at the same time appealing to it when it suits them to do so. In this paper, I attempt a detailed analysis of the necessity constraint on defensive force, and explore the implications of that analysis for the attempt to transpose principles of individual self-defense into the context of warfare. (shrink)