Necessity and liability: On an honour-based justification for defensive harming

Journal article

This paper considers whether victims can justify what appears to be unnecessary defensive harming by reference to an honour-based justification. I argue that such an account faces serious problems: the honour-based justification cannot permit, first, defensive harming, and second, substantial unnecessary harming. Finally, I suggest that, if the purpose of the honour based justification is expressive, an argument must be given to demonstrate why harming threateners, as opposed to opting for a nonharmful alternative, is the most effective means of affirming one’s honour. Along the way, I also suggest why I think that internalism about the constraints on defensive harming (the view that the satisfaction of the necessity constraint is a necessity condition of a threatener’s liability) is correct. Most importantly, externalism implies that threateners can be liable to suffer gratuitous harm. I take this to be an unattractive consequence of the view.

Authors: Bowen, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: University of Oxford, Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics
• Journal: Journal of Practical Ethics
• Volume: 4
• Issue: 2
• Pages: 79-93
• Publication date: 2016-01-01
• Acceptance date: 2016-12-01
• ISSN: 2051-655X