Abstract
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”.
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Montague, P. SELF-DEFENSE, CULPABILITY, AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE. Law and Philos 29, 75–91 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-009-9050-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10982-009-9050-5