Innocent Threat In Self Defense

Within this essay I will argue that a person can be morally permitted to kill an Innocent Threat in self-defence (Frowe, 2009, p. 245). I will argue this by highlighting the importance of individual self-worth and our right to self-preservation, which should be protected. This is done through drawing a distinction between the Innocent Threat which is acting as a causal threat to the victim’s life, as opposed to a bystander who is not causally threatening the victim’s life. This distinction results in the victim being able to kill the Innocent Threat in self-defence as they are a causal threat to one’s life and a threat to maintaining self-preservation, whereas the bystander is not.
An Innocent Aggressor is someone who is not in control of

However, this is not the case, as the killing of either one is done for completely different reasons. The killing of an Innocent Threat is done because they are a direct threat to the victim’s life. Whereas the killing of the bystander is done in order to divert the direct threat from the victim to the bystander. So the victim would be intentionally using the bystander in order to survive, whereas the victim would not have to do this with the Innocent Threat as they are already involved. Thus, the killing of the bystander and Innocent Treat is done for different reasons, and because of this it is morally justified in the victim killing the Innocent Threat – and not the bystander - as they are a direct threat to the victim’s life. Therefore, Otsuka’s move from “the ‘Inviolability of a Bystander thesis’” (Otsuka, 1994, p. 76) to “the ‘Moral Equivalence thesis’” (Otsuka, 1994, p. 76) is not a logical

However, the bystander does not violate the victim’s rights, and consequently does not lose their own right to life. Therefore, it would be immoral for the victim to, under Thomson’s account, kill the Bystander as they have not directly violated the victim’s rights (Frowe, Defensive Killing , 2014, p. 48). Thus supporting my approach to the importance of self-preservation. However, the importance placed on self-worth and self-preservation as a means to justifying lethal force in self-defence, along with “Those such as Thomson, who believe that it is permissible for you to kill the [innocent] Threat but impermissible for you to do that which you know will kill the Bystander … are faced with the following dilemma” (Otsuka, 1994, p. 86). For example, “if they believe that it is permissible for you to destroy the trolley inside of which an innocent person is trapped, then they must perform the difficult task of explaining why an innocent inside a trolley may be killed, whereas one who is near the trolley may not” (Otsuka, 1994, p. 81). What Otsuka does cleverly is blur the distinction between the bystander and the Innocent Treat. Otsuka may go as far to say that the distinction made between the bystander and causal Innocent Threat may not be a morally relevant distinct. However, Helen Frowe would justify this distinction by highlighting that killing a Bystander is treating them “as a means” (Frowe,