Abstract
One motivation for adopting a justice-based view of the right to self-defense is that it seems to solve the puzzle of how a victim may kill her attacker even when doing so is not predicted to protect her from the threat imposed upon her. The paper shows (a) that this view leads to unacceptable results and (b) that its solution to cases of futile self-defense is unsatisfactory. This failure makes the interest-based theory of self-defense look more attractive, both in the context of futile self-defense and in general. To understand how a victim might use force in this context, one need only point to some interest of hers that is threatened, and the best candidate for such interest in cases of futile self-defense is her honor.
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Notes
These two formulations refer respectively to an objective vs. a subjective view of self-defense. For the purpose of the present paper we need not decide between these views.
In more technical terms, the puzzle concerns what Statman calls “the success condition” for justified self-defense. The condition is familiar from just war theory, i.e. from the requirement to wage war only if it has a “reasonable hope of success.” The puzzle, then, is how to justify acts of self-defense which seem to violate the success condition, acts which fail – and are expected (in the descriptive sense of the term) by Victim to fail – in providing defense.
On the distinction between deserving X and being liable to X, see McMahan (2009), 8–9.
One might suggest that only the state has authority to punish, which explains why although individuals may not dish out punishment on wrongdoers they are allowed to rely on justice-based considerations in forced choices between lives. This view of punishment has a long history; see, for example, the Biblical law that forbids revenge by family members and demands instead that the killer escape to one of the cities of refuge “until he stand before the congregation in judgment” (Numbers, 35:12, KJV translation). But, first, Øverland does not indicate that he assumes this view of punishment. Second, the spirit of his argument does not seem to welcome it. And third, thinkers close to Øverland, like McMahan, explicitly concede that in some contexts individuals may refer to punishment as one of their considerations to justify harming others. See Ferzan (2018a, 2018b), esp. pp. 274–276. Ferzan herself shares this view, saying: “Like Steinhoff and McMahan, I believe individuals can inflict punishment in some cases” (276).
The analogous argument against act-utilitarianism is that if act-utilitarianism does not provide a unique decision procedure, it “no longer defines a distinctive political position” (Kymlicka 1990, 47).
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Benbaji, Y., Statman, D. Against Moral Taint. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 24, 5–18 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-020-10130-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-020-10130-y