Locke on Conditional Threats

VENEZIA, LUCIANO

Santiago

Seminario; Seminario ?Más allá de Hobbes?; 2022

Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez

John Locke writes that a victim is permitted to kill a Conditional Threat in self-defense. However, David Rodin argues that the defensive act is disproportionate to the harm averted and therefore impermissible. But Rodin mischaracterizes the situation faced by victims of Conditional Threats as analyzed by Locke.By engaging specifically with Rodin?s discussion of Locke, in this paper I aim to provide both a more satisfactory reading of Locke on self-defense against Conditional Threats. In particular, I show that killing a Conditional Threat involves a proportionate response to the harm averted and I also further elaborate and defend this thesis. First, I show that, by issuing a conditional threat of deadly harm, a Conditional Threat deprive his victim of her freedom of act as she thinks fit, so that the victim?s security is seriously compromised. Second, I argue that an interest in not being deprived of one?s freedom in this fashion is of sufficient value to make killing a proportionate response. Under the assumption that killing the Conditional Threat meets the necessity condition of justified self-defense (admittedly, a big ?if?), it follows that Locke, not Rodin, holds the correct view.