Self-defense

Philosophy and Public Affairs 20 (4):283-310 (1991)
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Abstract

But what if in order to save 0nc’s life one has to ki]1 another person? In some cases that is obviously permissible. In a case I will call Villainous Aggrcssor, you are standing in :1 meadow, innocently minding your own business, and 21 truck suddenly heads toward you. You try to sidestep the truck, but it tums as you tum. Now you can sec the driver: he is a mam you know has long hated you. What to do? You cannot outrun thc truck. Fortunately, this is not pure nightmare: you just happen to have em antitank gun with you, and can blow up the truck. Of course, if you do this you will kill thc driver, but that does not matter; it is morally permissible for you to blow up thc truck, driver and 211, in defense of your life.

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Author's Profile

Judith Jarvis Thomson
Last affiliation: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Citations of this work

The Russellian Retreat.Clayton Littlejohn - 2013 - Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 113 (3pt3):293-320.
Defensive Killing.Helen Frowe - 2014 - Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Proportionality in the Morality of War.Thomas Hurka - 2004 - Philosophy and Public Affairs 33 (1):34-66.
The Moral Grounds of Reasonably Mistaken Self-Defense.Renée Jorgensen Bolinger - 2020 - Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (1):140-156.

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