Suzanne Uniacke

This paper examines the absolutist grounds for denying an agent's responsibility for what he allows to happen in 'keeping his hands clean' in acute circumstances. In defending an agent's non-prevention of what is, viewed impersonally, the greater harm in such cases, absolutists typically insist on a difference in responsibility between what an agent brings about as opposed to what he allows. This alleged difference is taken to be central to the absolutist justification of non-intervention in acute cases: the agent's obligation not to do harm is held to be more stringent than his obligation to prevent (comparable) harm, since as agents we are principally responsible for what we ourselves do. The paper's central point is that this representation of the absolutist response to acute cases- as grounded in a difference in responsibility for what we do as opposed to what we allow- involves a misleading theoretical inversion. I argue that the absolutist justification of non-intervention in acute cases must depend on a direct defence of the nature and the stringency of the moral norm with which the agent's non-intervention complies. The nature and stringency of this norm are basic to attribution of agent responsibility in acute cases, and not the other way around.

Preference utilitarianism is widely considered a significant advance on classical utilitarianism when it comes to explaining why it is wrong to kill people. This paper focuses attention on the nature of the preference utilitarian 'direct' objection to killing a person and on the related claim that a person's preferences are non-replaceable. I argue that the preference utilitarian case against killing people is overstated and overrated. My concluding remarks indicate the relevance of this discussion to deeper issues in normative moral theory

Proportionality is widely accepted as a necessary condition of justified self-defense. What gives rise to this particular condition and what role it plays in the justification of self-defense seldom receive focused critical attention. In this paper I address the standard of proportionality applicable to personal self-defense and the role that proportionality plays in justifying the use of harmful force in self-defense. I argue against an equivalent harm view of proportionality in self-defense, and in favor of a standard of proportionality in self-defense that requires comparable seriousness and takes into account the wrong, as opposed simply to the harm that the victim is fending off. I distinguish the standard of proportionality in self-defense from proportionality in circumstances of necessity, and I discuss whether proportionality is an internal or an external constraint on the right of self-defense

The use of force in self-defense is widely regarded as morally justified. Perhaps for this reason self-defense received only sporadic attention in Western philosophy until relatively recently. In the thirteenth century St. Thomas Aquinas (see Aquinas, Saint Thomas) needed to reconcile permissible self-defense with his view that a private person must not kill intentionally; he sought to do this by distinguishing between intended, as opposed to (merely) foreseen, effects of an action and thus laid the basis of the doctrine of double effect (see Doctrine Of Double Effect). Several sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers discussed self-defense. Thomas Hobbes regarded self-defense as a fundamental and inalienable right (see Hobbes, Thomas). Others addressed self-defense within civil society and in relation to just war (see Natural Law; Just War Theory, History of; Locke, John; Grotius, Hugo; Pufendorf, Samuel Von).

This paper critically addresses two central aspects of Frances Kamm’s account of conceptual and evaluative issues of terrorism in ‘Terrorism and Intending Evil’, Ethics for Enemies (oup 2011), chapter 2. The paper engages with what Kamm says about cases in which an act done from a morally bad intention or motive overtly exactly mimics a justifiable act. I argue that in such a case, an actor’s intention to terrorise is more significant to the question of whether what he or she does is a terrorist act than Kamm allows. I also press considerations that run counter to Kamm’s view that in such cases an actor’s intention or motive is not directly relevant to the moral permissibility of actions that harm other people who are not otherwise liable to receive that type and degree of harm.

The paper’s central focus is the ‘duty’ theory of punishment developed by Victor Tadros in The Ends of Harm. In evaluating the ‘duty’ theory we might ask two broad closely related questions: whether in its own terms the ‘duty’ theory provides a justification of the imposition of hard treatment or suffering on an offender; and whether the ‘duty’ theory can provide a justification of punishment. This paper is principally concerned with the second question, which stems from a significant difference between Tadros’s ‘duty view’ of punishment, as opposed to more familiar theories that seek to justify punishment as essentially the imposition of a penalty for wrongdoing. In addressing this question I highlight this particular difference as problematic for Tadros’s ‘duty’ theory. The issues concern Tadros’s conception of punishment and the central features of his ‘duty view’: the claim that punishment of some offenders can be justified as the fulfilment of a duty of protection that they owe principally to those whom they have wrongfully harmed

Should a legal plea of self- or third-party defence include an ‘awareness component’ that requires that the actor was aware of the justificatory facts at the time of action? Some theorists argue that in cases of so-called unknowing defence, where an actor in fact averts an otherwise unavoidable danger to himself or another person although unaware at the time of action that this is what he is doing, the objective facts alone should allow a plea of self- or third-party defence. Cases of unknowing defence raise issues that are highly significant to the nature of justification and liability. In this article I reject some common approaches to this issue and I offer an account of why acts of unknowing defence are appropriately subject to criminal liability for the complete offence.