Self-Defense
idea · 2 works · 2 mentions · 4 anchored passages
defend myself · defending himself · defensive · self-defence · self-defense
in the texts
The Third Tetralogy
The justification, argued at length by the defense, that responding to an aggressor's violence is lawful and not subject to the penalties applied to unprovoked killing.
the blows which he received, he received from no choice of his own and the blows which he gave were given in defense of himself against the aggressor, and much less vigorously than that aggressor deserved, because his only object was to avoid the hurt which was being done to him;
an aggressor deserves to be answered with, not the same, but more and worse than he gave.
whereas no penalty is ever prescribed for him who defends himself.
Against Aristocrates
Legal justification for killing someone who is violently and unlawfully seizing another.
Is it not monstrous, is it not manifestly contrary to law,—I do not mean merely to the statute law but to the unwritten law of our common humanity,—that I should not be permitted to defend myself against one who violently seizes my goods as though I were an enemy?
If any man, while violently and illegally seizing another, shall be straightway slain in self-defence, the legislator ordains that there shall be no penalty for his death.
If any man while violently and illegally seizing another shall be slain straightway in self-defence, there shall be no penalty for his death.