Abstract
To have a right means to have a certain moral or legal status that determines the scope of freedoms and obligations between the right-holder and others. 1 If I have a right to life, others have a duty not to kill me. 2 If they attempt to kill me, they violate my right and create an asymmetry in our moral and legal relationship. 3 The changed relationship may lead to their liability both to me as the intended victim and the state as the guarantor and enforcer of people's rights and obligations. The state may impose punishment on the attackers whereas I may acquire the right to compensation (for the harm suffered) as well as the right to use force to prevent the harm I may suffer. I acquire the right to use preventive force against my attackers because, by their assault on my vital interests, my attackers release me from my duty not to assault their vital interests to the extent my assault on their interests is necessary to protect my interests. 4 In its very basic form, the idea of self-defense is that I may use force and I may inflict harm with respect to those who threaten me with harm to which I am not liable if I cannot otherwise protect my legitimate interests. Unfortunately, very few moral rules can be reduced to a single-sentence maxim, and the rule of self-defense is not one of those few. The italicized qualifiers above are evidence of one of the most tantalizing issues in the ethics of self-defense: the issue of uncertainty.