Abstract
What do we mean when we claim that someone is morally liable to defensive harm? The concept of liability as I use it in this book is introduced in this chapter, as well as the related constraints of proportionality and necessity. This rights-based account of permissible harm is the predominate theory held by most philosophers working on the topic. I discuss the ways in which people can undertake certain actions such that they can be held morally responsible for unjust threats, and thereby make themselves liable to harm. After providing two cases to explicate the theory, I discuss the two primary conditions that must be met in the case of Osama bin Laden for him to be properly liable to be killed: his own moral responsibility for unjust lethal threats; and, the necessity and proportionality conditions of permissible harm being met for his killing.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
Or the defender must reasonably believe (and have proper evidence and warrant for so believing) that doing so will effectively thwart the unjust threat. This is a point of disagreement amongst liability accounts. For a defense of the evidence-relative view, see Bradley Strawser, Evidence-Relative Norms and Liability to Be Killed, unpublished manuscript. For a good discussion of competing views for liability attribution and a critique of the evidence-relative view, see Jonathan Quong, “Liability to Defensive Harm,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 40.1 (2012): 45–77.
That considerations of desert are irrelevant to liability has been the focus of recent scholarly debate. The view of liability I describe here is found throughout Jeff McMahan’s extensive work on liability. But some have challenged this, such as John Gardner and François Tanguay-Renaud, “Desert and Avoidability in Self-Defense,” Ethics 122.1 (October 2011): 111–134. In addition, a fruitful discussion and debate of this paper was held on the website “PEA Soup,” which includes a précis written by Victor Tadros on the matter and responses and contributions by the authors of the original paper as well as McMahan and several other scholars. See: http://peasoup.typepad.com/peasoup/2012/01/ethics_discussions_at_pea_soup_john-gardner-and-fran%C3%A70is_tanguay_renauds_desert_and_avoidability_in_.html.
For a good discussion on how these constraints are internal to the notion of liability, see Jeff McMahan, Killing in War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2009), particularly 156 and 196.
Recently the necessity condition for permissible harm to a liable party has come under scholarly scrutiny. See Seth Lazar, “Necessity in Self-Defense and War,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 40.1 (Winter 2012): 3–44. Before Lazar’s work, the condition has gone relatively unexamined in the relevant literature on liability.
See Jeff McMahan, “The Basis of Moral Liability to Defensive Killing,” Philosophical Issues 15 (2005): 386–405. Interestingly, most theorists hold that for this aspect of liability, one’s culpability does, indeed, come into play, at least between forced choices in tough cases.
Cases like this are famous in self-defense literature, so it is difficult to give proper credit to the origins of its provenance. I believe this version is most similar to a case introduced originally by J.J. Thomson in “Self-Defense,” Philosophy & Public Affairs 20.4 (1991): 283–310.
See David Rodin, War and Self-Defence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003);
Susan Uniacke, Permissible killing: The Self-Defence Justification of Homicide, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); McMahan, Killing in War;
Thomson, “Self-Defense”; and, more recently, Helen Frowe, “A Practical Account of Self Defense,” Law and Philosophy 29.3 (2010): 245–272.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2014 Bradley Jay Strawser
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Strawser, B.J. (2014). Liability to Defensive Harm. In: Killing bin Laden: A Moral Analysis. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137434937_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137434937_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-49458-3
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-43493-7
eBook Packages: Palgrave Political Science CollectionPolitical Science and International Studies (R0)