This article discusses the origins, spiritual aspects, and development of Mahaputra Pencak Silat in Cintaraja village, Singaparna subdistrict. The main focus includes analysis of martial arts training which teaches how learners control their desires and impulses, as well as emphasizing the importance of self-defense in the life of a soldier. The research method was evaluated based on a historical and sociological approach where the discussion of the object was based on society and related to existing facts in Cintaraja village (...) which were collected through observation, appropriate questionnaires and existing documentation. The results of the training process for the "Bender" style begin with prayers to the Creator, the ancestors, and martial arts teachers from the eight cardinal directions. This series of prayers symbolizes spiritual practice in starting training and is also an effort to defend oneself (manage one's readiness) so that one can master the techniques being learned. The ritual behavior process applied to students is adapted from daily behavior according to the era or period. The impact felt by the learner gives rise to behavior related to self-defense. (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 (...) class='Hi'>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)

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)

The aim of this paper is twofold. First, we argue that killing a Conditional Threat usually involves an unnecessary act of self-defense, so killing this aggressor is usually morally impermissible. We defend this thesis by showing that this case is fundamentally similar to a case involving an Unconditional Threat in which the victim can flee to safety although this involves incurring a minor cost. Second, we analyze the thresholds of maximal harm that victims are required to bear before they (...) are permitted to defend themselves by harming their aggressors related to the conditions of necessity and of proportionality. We argue that the maximal harm a victim is required to bear sanctioned by the condition of necessity is, all else being equal, lower than the maximal harm that a victim must bear sanctioned by the condition of proportionality. This result is relevant for determining in which cases victims may use lethal force against Conditional Threats, both in the individual case and also in the case of war. (shrink)

Introduction -- The principles of self-defense -- The leading theories of self-defense -- The doctrine of double effect -- Double effect and common sense morality -- Can double effect justify self-defense? -- Conclusion: Justifying self-defense.

This essay argues on behalf of a hybrid theory for an ethics of self-defense understood as the Forfeiture-Partiality Theory. The theory weds the idea that a malicious attacker forfeits the right to life to the idea that we are permitted to prefer one's life to another's in cases of involuntary harm or threat. The theory is meant to capture our intuitions both about instances in which we can draw a moral asymmetry between attacker and victim and cases in which (...) we cannot. I develop the theory by attending to instances of intentional, villainous harm and instances of involuntary danger—the latter of which are a matter of bad luck. I call some bad luck cases "Interpersonal Lottery Conflicts." These cases refer to potentially lethal conflicts into which parties are thrown as victims of circumstance. Although neither party has a moral advantage over another, that fact does not preclude permissible self-defense. (shrink)

In this essay I analyze and defend the common sense moral conviction that terrorism, i.e., the use of violence against civilians for political or military purposes, is always morally impermissible. Terrorism violates the fundamental moral prohibition against harming the innocent, even to produce greater overall good. It is therefore just the sort of case that serves as a refutation of consequentialist moral theories. From a deontological perspective, the only remotely plausible forms of justification for a terrorist act would be that (...) it constitutes a form of justifiable punishment of the guilty, or that it is legitimate self-defense against an aggressor. But an examination of the fundamental moral and legal principles of punishment and self-defense demonstrates that neither of these claims can succeed. Since terrorism cannot be justified either as punishment or as self-defense, it cannot be morally justified at all. (shrink)

Building on Rodin's analysis, Ryan raise further issues about self-defense as a justification of modern nation state war. Principal among these is what he calls the "conscription paradox.".

This article attemps to provide a good defense for battered women who kill their sleeping husbands, particularly in cases where it is judged that she was mistaken in her assumption of the need to exercise self-defense. Proceeding from the distinction between the imputation of an act to an actor and the imputation of blame to an actor for criminally prohibited conduct , the article moves on to a discussion of the relevance of mistakes as to justifying circumstances under the (...) criminal law. Although some attention is given to the theoretically sound solution to the problem raised by the unknowingly justified actor, primary emphasis is placed on the putatively justified actor. The argument is advanced that the false assumption of justifying circumstances negates the imputation of wrongful conduct to an actor, rather than negating the imputation of blame to him for his wrongful conduct. Accordingly, criminal liability can only attach to an individual acting in putative self-defense, for example, if that individual was negligent for making the mistake . The standard for judging negligence in the United States is that of the so-called "reasonable person". A great deal of discussion in the U.S. scholarly literature has been revolving around the question of whether an "objective" or "subjective" standard of reasonableness should be employed when determining whether an individual acted reasonable and thus non-negligently. This article argues for a "subjective" standard for the criminal law, as opposed to an "objective" standard, which is claimed to have more relevance for tort law . Finally, the claim is made that a battered woman who kills her sleeping husband should be given the benefit of the self-defense justification under the U.S. law approach to self-defense. If the woman is mistaken as to the need to exercise self-defense, then wrongful conduct should be imputed to her only on the basis of whether her mistake was subjectively unreasonable and thus negligent . Der Aufsatz liefert Argumente dafür, daß eine "battered woman" für die Tötung ihres schlafenden Ehemannes strafrechtlich nicht zur Verantwortung gezogen werden kann, und zwar insbesondere dann nicht, wenn sie irrig Umstände annimmt, die, wenn sie vorlägen, die Handlung der Frau unter Notwehrgesichtspunkten rechtfertigen würden. Die Unterscheidung zwischen der Zurechnung eines Vorgangs als Handlung und der Zurechnung einer rechtswidrigen Tat zur Schuld wird vorangeschickt . Dann wird die strafrechtliche Relevanz von Irrtümern über rechtfertigende Umstände besprochen. Zwar wird die theoretisch richtige Lösung auch solcher Fälle diskutiert, bei denen der Täter rechtfertigende Umstände verkennt. Doch wird die Betonung auf die Fälle der Putativnotwehr gelegt, wobei die These vertreten wird, daß die irrige Annahme von rechtfertigenden Umständen die Zurechnung des Vorgangs als Totschlagshandlung und nicht erst die Zurechnung zur Schuld ausschließt. Daraus läßt sich entnehmen, daß der Täter, der in Putativnotwehr handelt, strafrechtlich nur dann verantwortlich ist, wenn sein Irrtum auf Fahrlässigkeit beruht . In den U.S.A. wird die Frage, ob jemand fahrlässig gehandelt hat oder nicht, danach beantwortet, ob eine "reasonable person" in der gegebenen Situation genauso wie der Täter gehandelt hätte. Zur Zeit findet eine lebhafte Diskussion darüber statt, ob dieser Maßstab "objektiv" oder "subjektiv" aufzufassen sei. Anders ausgedrückt: Es wird die Frage gestellt, ob die Geschworenen die Annahmen eines Durchschnittsmenschen oder aber die eines Menschen mit den persönlichen Merkmalen und Erfahrungen des Angeklagten in ihren Überlegungen darüber heranziehen sollten, ob dieser hypothetische Mensch einem Irrtum wie dem des Angeklagten erlegen wäre. Der Aufsatz spricht sich, was strafrechtliche Urteile angeht, für den "subjektiven" und gegen den "objektiven" Maßstab aus, der statt dessen für die deliktsrechtlichen Urteile der angemessenere zu sein scheint . Die Ergebnisse dieser Argumentationen werden dann auf den Fall der "battered woman" angewandt. Es wird gezeigt, daß die geschundene Frau, die ihren schlafenden Ehemann tötet, nach dem U.S. Model Penal Code unter Notwehrgesichtspunkten gerechtfertigt sein kann. Sollte es im Einzelfall so sein, daß die Frau sich über die Erforderlichkeit der Notwehrhandlung geirrt hat, dann kann ihr die Handlung nur dann zugerechnet werden, wenn der Irrtum im "subjektiven" Sinne fahrlässig gewesen ist. (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)

Discussions of the ethics of war commonly – and reasonably – assume that defensive wars are morally justified if any wars are. They also assume that explanations of why defensive warfare is morally justified must be based on principles that also explain the moral justifiability of individual self-defense. David Rodin has recently argued that the second of these assumptions is mistaken, and he has developed an alternative account of the morality of defensive warfare. The purpose of this paper is (...) to show that Rodin’s argument fails, and to explain how defensive warfare can indeed be justified in terms of principles that also apply to individual self-defense. (shrink)

Moral agents sometimes have to act on the basis of beliefs that are reasonable in the context but are in fact false. In these circumstances, agents often act in ways that would be right if their beliefs were true but that they would recognize as wrong if they could see that their beliefs were false. Sometimes our tendency is to think that what these agents do is justified – for example, in the case discussed by Ferzan in which one person, (...) Defender, kills another, Threatener, who has loaded one bullet into a revolver, spun the chambers, pointed the gun at Defender’s head, and started to squeeze the trigger.1 We think that Defender was justified in killing even if we discover that the chamber was in fact empty. (Let us refer to this as the ‘‘Roulette case.’’) We accept, however, that if Apparent Defender had known with certainty that the chamber was empty and that Apparent Threatener would (or could) have pulled the trigger only once, it would have been pointless and therefore wrong to kill her. (shrink)

This paper has a threefold purpose: to question the adequacy of two familiar proposals for explaining the permissibility of harming others in self-defense, to suggest an alternative explanation, and to answer some objections to this latter explanation. By and large, discussions of the proposals whose adequacy I will question focus on what they imply about the permissibility of self-defense in controversial cases. I will argue here that the proposals themselves contain large and significant theoretical gaps. Accordingly, examining their (...) implications for controversial cases is premature, since they don’t adequately explain permissible self-defense in even the clearest cases—that is, those in which people defend themselves against “culpable attackers”. (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)

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)

People with dementia at times exhibit threatening and physically aggressive behavior toward care staff in residential aged care facilities (RACFs). Current clinical guidelines recommend judicious use of antipsychotic (AP) medications when there is an immediate risk of harm to care staff in RACFs and non-pharmacological interventions have failed to avert the threats. This article examines an account of how this recommendation can be ethically defensible: caregivers in RACFs may have a prima facie ethical justification, in certain cases, to use APs (...) as an act of self-defense. The author examines whether such uses of APs meet the three commonly invoked conditions of ethically permissible acts of self-defense—namely, the conditions of liability, proportionality, and necessity—and argues that such conditions obtain only in a restricted range of cases. The liability constraint can be satisfied if residents are the only ones who are causally responsible for the threats they pose. Further, the condition of proportionality obtains if there is sufficient objective ground to demonstrate that the harm of using the medications does not outweigh the good to be secured. Lastly, the necessity condition obtains when the medications are used at their lowest effective dosage and caregivers in RACFs can reasonably assume that, for the purpose of averting threats posed by residents, the use of APs is the only available course of action. Not meeting any of these fairly stringent conditions renders uses of APs as acts of self-defense in RACFs morally impermissible actions. -/- . (shrink)

In this paper I bring together self-defense theory and animal rights theory. The extension of self-defense theory to animals poses a serious problem for proponents of animal rights. If, in line with orthodox self-defense theory, a person is a legitimate target for third-party self-defensive violence if they are responsible for a morally unjustified harm without an acceptable excuse; and if, in line with animal rights theory, people that consume animal products are responsible for unjustified harm to (...) animals, then many millions, if not billions, of otherwise law abiding and decent people will be legitimate targets for third-party self-defense violence on behalf of animals. I call this problem: the multiple inappropriate targets problem for animal rights. (shrink)

The ethics of self-defense is dominated by the Orthodox View, which claims that at least some cases of self-defensive assault are permissible. I defend the radical view that there are no permissible instances of self-defensive assault. My argument proceeds as follows: Every permissible act of self-defensive assault could, in principle, have its permissibility be massively overdetermined. Such ‘super-permissible’ acts of assault are ones in which agents are objectively permitted to perform those acts in morally trivializing or (...) cavalier fashion: that is, agents need not ‘think twice’ about inflicting or permitting harm and are permitted to assault persons as if it were morally insignificant. Yet this is never true, since assaulting persons is always morally serious. It follows that there are no acts of permissible self-defensive assault. (shrink)

In a recent paper given at a Symposium on terrorism, Thomas Hill, Jr., discussed “Making Exceptions Without Abandoning the Principle: Or How a Kantian Might Think about Terrorism.” His argument, however, after acknowledging that “terrorists of course often claim to have morally worthy ends and also means that are morally justified in the context,” and further stating that “some such claims deserve a serious hearing,” goes on to deal with the related question of…what one may justifiably do in response to (...) morally indefensible terrorism. (shrink)

According to Theistic Defensive Incompatibilism, common theistic commitments limit the scope or explanation of permissible self-defense. In this essay, I offer six original arguments for Theistic Defensive Incompatibilism. The first four arguments concern narrow proportionality: the requirement that the defensive harm inflicted on unjust threateners not exceed the harm they threaten. Hellism, Annihilationism, and Danteanism each imply that narrow proportionality is rarely satisfied, whereas Universalism implies that killing never harms. The final two arguments concern wide proportionality, or the requirement (...) that defensive harm not excessively harm non-liable third parties. Omnisubjectivity and Divine Love imply that wide proportionality is rarely satisfied. (shrink)

If there are rights there is surely a right to self-defense. But self-defense has proved very puzzling to rights theorists. The central puzzle has been called the "paradox of self-defense": If our right not to be harmed gives rise to our right to fight back, what happens to the attacker's right not to be harmed when the defender fights back? If the attacker somehow forfeits his right to self-defense because he is a bad actor, what do (...) we say about innocent threats? I argue that these problems stem from a confusion about the nature of rights. (shrink)

Jeff McMahan rejects the relevance of desert to the morality of self-defense. In Killing in War he restates his rejection and adds to his reasons. We argue that the reasons are not decisive and that the rejection calls for further attention, which we provide. Although we end up agreeing with McMahan that the limits of morally acceptable self-defense are not determined by anyone’s deserts, we try to show that deserts may have some subsidiary roles in the morality of (...) self-defense. We suggest that recognizing this might help McMahan to answer some unanswered questions to which his own position gives rise. (shrink)

But what if in order to save 0nc’s life one has to ki]1 another person? In some cases that is obviously permissible. In a case I will call Villainous Aggrcssor, you are standing in :1 meadow, innocently minding your own business, and 21 truck suddenly heads toward you. You try to sidestep the truck, but it tums as you tum. Now you can sec the driver: he is a mam you know has long hated you. What to do? You cannot (...) outrun thc truck. Fortunately, this is not pure nightmare: you just happen to have em antitank gun with you, and can blow up the truck. Of course, if you do this you will kill thc driver, but that does not matter; it is morally permissible for you to blow up thc truck, driver and 211, in defense of your life. (shrink)

Philosophers have had trouble defending the common sense view that it is permissible to impose significant cost on an innocent person who is about to harm you to prevent the harm from occurring. In this paper, I argue that such harm can be justified if one pays attention to the moral significance of imposing a cost on others. The constraint against harming people who give rise to cost by their presence or movements is weaker than the constraint against harming bystanders. (...) Moreover, I argue that people who give rise to cost have a duty to take on some of that cost to help protect the person under threat. (shrink)

A well-known part of Hobbes's political theory is his discussion of the inalienability of the right of self-defense. In this article, I present and defend a reinterpretation of Hobbes's account of self-defense. I begin by showing the weaknesses of the standard interpretation of this account: It rests on an implausible thesis about the evil of death; it renders Hobbes's applications of the right of self-defense inexplicable; and it conflicts with Hobbes's claim that there are cases in which (...) the right of self-defense can be given up. I argue that we should understand Hobbes's claim to be that the right of self-defense is inalienable only in the social contract, and I offer a new interpretation of how his argument on this point might go. (shrink)

Book review of Øyvind Kvalnes: Moral reasoning at work: Rethinking ethics in organizations. Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 108 pages.First published online: 22 MARCH 2016.

Rights forfeiture or liability are not a path to the permissibility of self-defense (not even barring extraordinary circumstances), and the necessity condition is not intrinsic to justified self-defense. Rather, necessity in the context of justification must be distinguished from necessity in the context of rights forfeiture. While innocent aggressors only forfeit their right against necessary self-defense, culpable aggressors also forfeit, on grounds of a principle of reciprocity, certain rights against unnecessary self-defense. Yet, while culpable aggressors would (...) therefore not be wronged by certain unnecessary defensive means, the use of such means against them would still not be justified. The underlying rationale of this necessity requirement lies not in the rights of the aggressor, but in an agent-relative requirement to take fair precautions against violating the rights of the innocent. This concern is also expressed in the necessity criterion defended and formulated in this paper, which is very harsh on aggressors. To wit, the necessity condition for justified self-defense must not be interpreted as requiring the employment of literally the least harmful means or of means that the defender reasonably believes to be, literally, the least harmful ones. What he must believe about the properties and possible effects of the means he employs is something that is much less demanding. Finally, the necessity condition of justified self-defense is also harsh (on the aggressor) in not implying a “success condition” worth its name. (shrink)

This paper argues that there is a significant moral difference between force applied against (imminent) attackers on the one hand and force applied against “threatening” people who are not (imminent) attackers on the other. Given that there is such a difference, one should not blur the lines by using the term “self-defense” (understood as including other-defense) for both uses of force. Rather, only the former is appropriately called self-defense, while for the latter, following German legal terminology, the term (...) “justifying defensive emergency” will be used here. The two justifications are not governed by the same criteria and thus lead to different results. The paper will proceed by providing first, in section (1), a brief sketch of the contours of the self-defense justification, putting particular emphasis on the necessity criterion. On the account presented here, the necessity criterion of the self-defense justification is particularly harsh on the aggressor (and thus not to be interpreted as literally requiring the employment of “the mildest means”) and its applicability is only triggered by an (imminent) attack, not by other kinds of threats. Section (2) will then further explain the differences between self-defense and justifying defensive emergency. A particularly important difference is that people who are subjected to justified self-defense cannot permissibly defend themselves, while people who are subjected to (extremely harmful or even lethal) justified defensive emergency measures can. Thus, in this latter case we have a “moral equality” (of sorts) of the involved parties: they can permissibly use force against each other. Section (3) will list and defend some conditions that a successful argument against the imminence requirement of the self-defense justification has to satisfy. In the light of these conditions, sections (4) to (7) will discuss a number of objections that have been adduced against the imminence requirement as well as proposals that have been made in support of alternative accounts. It will be argued that all these objections and proposals fail. Section (8) will provide a number of thought experiments in support of the claim that the harsh necessity criterion of the self-defense justification is only triggered by imminence while force against non-imminent threats can be justified with the help of the justifying emergency exemption, as well as for the claim that the justifying emergency exemption puts the person using preventive force against non-imminent threats on a shorter leash and makes him liable to counter-measures. Section (9) will explain the rationale for tying the applicability of the harsh necessity criterion of the self-defense justification to imminent attacks. Section (10) will discuss some special cases and show why they do not undermine the normative validity of this tie. (shrink)

This piece is a review essay on Victor Tadros’s The Ends of Harm. Tadros rejects retributive desert but believes punishment can be justified instrumentally without succumbing to the problems of thoroughgoing consequentialism and endorsing using people as means. He believes he can achieve these results through extension of the right of self-defense. I argue that Tadros fails in this endeavor: he has a defective account of the means principle; his rejection of desert leads to gross mismatches of punishment and (...) culpability; and he cannot account for punishment of inchoate crimes. (shrink)

The self-defense argument maintains that, even if a fetus is a person, abortion on demand is morally permissible on the grounds that the fetus is using his mother’s body in an intimate way, and, in an unwanted pregnancy, without her ongoing consent. According to the argument, this sort of use justifies lethal self-defense on the part of the mother against her unwanted fetus. I produce a counterexample to one of the premises of this argument and show that it (...) cannot be successfully revised. I further show the underlying commitments of the self-defense argument lead to the absurd conclusion that a woman who has consensual sex that results in pregnancy thereby violates the fetus’ right to bodily autonomy and so such an act would be morally impermissible. We thereby have good reason to abandon the argument. (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)

Philosopher Elsa Dorlin looks across the global history of the left to trace the politics, philosophy, and ethics of self defense.

On September 11th, an apparent gang of nineteen people set to work, equipped with the little tools you use to unseal the tape on cardboard boxes. About an hour later, they destroyed several giant buildings and four jumbo airplanes, murdering several thousand people from all over the world and from all walks of life.

It is an orthodoxy of modern political thought that violence is morally incompatible with politics, with the important exception of the permissible violence carried out by the state. The “commonsense argument” for permissible political violence denies this by extending the principles of defensive ethics to the context of state-subject interaction. This article has two aims: First, I critically investigate the commonsense argument and its limits. I argue that the scope of permissions it licenses is significantly more limited than its proponents (...) allow. Second, I develop an alternative (and supplementary) framework for thinking about permissible political violence. I argue that under certain circumstances, subjects may violently protest their treatment, where protest is understood as an expression of rejection of those circumstances. On my view, protest, including violent protest, is permissible when it is the fitting response to those circumstances. This alternative framework accounts for an important class of cases of intuitively permissible political violence, including cases in which such violence does not serve strategic political ends or is even counterproductive towards those ends. (shrink)

I try to show that agent responsibility is an inadequate basis for the attribution of liability, by discrediting the Risk Argument and showing how the Responsibility Argument in fact collapses into the Risk Argument. I have concentrated on undermining these as philosophical theories of self-defense, although I at times note that our theory of self-defense should not be predicated on assumptions that are inapplicable to the context of war. The potential combatant, I conclude, should not look to the (...) agency view to ease his conscience about the killing he will do in war. If he is to fight without violating rights, then he will need a different theory of self-defense; if there are no more defensible theories, then he must either accept pacifism—which I think is a live possibility—or seek to identify stronger countervailing reasons, which can override the great force of his victims’ rights to life. (shrink)

According to the self-defense view, the moral justification of punishment is derived from the moral justification of an earlier threat of punishment for an offense. According to the forfeiture view, criminals can justly be punished because they have forfeited certain rights in virtue of their crimes. The paper defends three theses about these two views. (1) The self-defense view is false because the right to threaten retaliation is not independent of the right to carry out that threat. (2) (...) A more plausible account of the right to threaten says instead that the right to retaliate is primary to the right to threaten, and that the former right in turn arises because aggressors forfeit the right not to suffer retaliation. (3) The ?fair warning thesis,? according to which just punishment must be preceded by a threat, is less plausible than first appearances suggest and is therefore no serious obstacle to the view of threats described above. (shrink)