Self-Defense against Conditional Threats

VENEZIA, LUCIANO; RIVERA LÓPEZ, EDUARDO

Zurich

Workshop; The Ethics of Defending Yourself and What?s Yours Under Incomplete Information; 2023

We argue that a Conditional Threat is usually not liable to be killed because killing him involves an unnecessary act of self-defense, so that considerations related to the condition of necessity account for the fact that killing a Conditional Threat is usually impermissible. We also argue that the maximum harm that a victim is required to bear before she is permitted to harm her aggressor to defend herself is lower when the relevant norm in play is the condition of necessity than when that norm is the condition of proportionality. We show that this is relevant to determining in which circumstances a victim is permitted to use lethal force against a Conditional Threat in interpersonal self-defense and, also, in international self-defense.