The Importance Of Self Defense

My view is that killing an innocent threat in defence of oneself or others can be justified, but only when it meets the traditional constraints of being necessary, proportionate and imminent (Townsend 2014:34-35). I take this position because, in agreeance with Hobbes (1651:153-163) and Thompson (1990:135-141), I hold that person’s always retain the liberty right to self defence and that by perpetrating a lethal threat to a person’s life, one forfeits their own right to life. I will defend this claim by explaining the position of Hobbes (1651:153-163) and Thompson (1991:287), showing why traditional constraints are necessary and replying to Otsuka’s (1994:143-151) argument on self defence. Throughout this essay, I shall take any argument that

Say, for example, your neighbor and their family don’t like you, you see her looking at you in a strange way and so, under the guise of pre-emptive self defence, you kill them all. This is obviously morally impermissible for intuitive as well as rational reasons (e.g. utilitarianism or violating ones right to life) and could be the beginning of a blood feud or state of perpetual war. If the attacker in this scenario had acted under these traditional constraints, peace would have been maintained as well as the retention of the right to self defence. Hobbes’ law of nature (Hobbes 1651:157) states that men must ‘seek peace and follow it’. These traditional constraints facilitate a continued state of peace while allowing for self defence. Thompson’s (1991:287) Innocent Threat scenario also illustrates the necessity of these constraints by saying things that draw attention to imminence like ‘just enough time’ and providing a proportional response like ‘shifting an