Law Commons^™

Culpable Aggression: The Basis For Moral Liability To Defensive Killing, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan

All Faculty Scholarship

The use of the term, "self-defense, " covers a wide array of defensive behaviors, and different actions that repel attacks may be permissible for different reasons. One important justificatory feature of some defensive behaviors is that the aggressor has rendered himself liable to defensive force by his own conduct. That is, when a culpable aggressor points a gun at a defender, and says, "I am going to kill you," the aggressor's behavior forfeits the aggressor's right against the defender's infliction of harm that is intended to repel the aggressor's attack. Because the right is forfeited, numbers do not count (the …