[Download] "Innocent Attackers and Rights of Self-Defense (Response to war and Self-Defense)" by Ethics & International Affairs * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Innocent Attackers and Rights of Self-Defense (Response to war and Self-Defense)
- Author : Ethics & International Affairs
- Release Date : January 01, 2004
- Genre: Politics & Current Events,Books,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 256 KB
Description
Imagine that a neighboring state drafts an army of ignorant soldiers, makes them falsely believe that your state poses an imminent threat to their survival or political independence, and then launches them across your border. As a soldier, would you have a right to kill such attackers in self-defense or in defense of your country? In this brief comment, I will focus primarily on the question of whether one may kill "innocent attackers," that is, individuals who pose a lethal threat through no moral fault of their own, but because they are acting under a combination of duress and nonculpable ignorance. In War and Self-Defense, David Rodin argues that it is not morally permissible to kill innocent attackers because they are not at moral fault for the danger they pose, and thus do not forfeit their rights to life. (1) He argues, however, that ordinary soldiers usually should not be considered innocent attackers, because they are not excused by duress and nonculpable ignorance for choosing to fight an unjust war. Nevertheless, Rodin argues that such soldiers do not forfeit their own rights to life simply because their state forfeits its right of national defense by acting aggressively. Thus, Rodin ends up arguing that there is often no moral justification, based in individual or national rights of self-defense, for killing the invading soldiers described above.