Is civilian warfare self-defense?

Author: Savant
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#1
Savant
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In most cases when self-defense is discussed, it refers to killing or otherwise harming someone attacking you. Rarely is it applied to situations where people who don't pose a threat are harmed to protect oneself. For example, harvesting someone's kidneys without their consent to save yourself is not self-defense, presuming they have nothing to do with your own kidneys failing. Cops could arrest the family members of criminals to reduce crime rates, but arresting those family members wouldn't be self-defense.

Much is said about Israel's right to defend itself whenever civilian casualties are brought up. And of course the same argument is brought up for other countries whose attacks have high casualty rates. But if we've learned anything from the previous two examples, it's that self-defense only implies the right to kill the person attacking you, not the right to attack anyone at all. So while there might be potential arguments to justify attacks killing noncombatants, I find it hard to buy that self-defense is one of them. If an attack kills five terrorists and five noncombatants, you can argue self-defense to justify killing the terrorists, but not so much the five noncombatants.
#2
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@Savant
Self defense is an evolutionary morality. Its kinda programmed in person and groups to act to protect themselves. And it makes sense. I have a natural right to protect myself from any danger in any way I see fit. But what Israel does isnt self defense. Self defense consists of increasing number of allies, but Israel has just lost many allies due to what it does to civilians. And by killing civilians, Israel is encouraging civilians to become terrorists and attack Israel. So there is no any advantage in killing civilians. Its not a military advantage either, since you are wasting plenty of resources killing people who arent even fighting against you.
#3
WyIted
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@Savant
you can argue self-defense to justify killing the terrorists, but not so much the five noncombatants.
Israel does far more to avoid killing non combatants than Hamas but with that aside you can kill non combatants and it be considered self defense in some situations. For example a crowd if it is dangerous can be considered a single entity and you can use force to disperse a dangerous crowd, which is why the killing of Ashley Babbit who posed no threat was considered justified. 

War you have much more room to kill ethically especially when it comes to organizations like ISIS or Hamas who will have women stand in front of the. So they can shoot between their legs to kill you. 

Or they hide out in schools and hospitals so any attacks on them kill civilians for propaganda purposes or because they know they are the bad guys and are taking advantage of Israel good nature and reluctance to kill civilians. A reluctance they don't share. 

So the options really are kill civilians or allow terrorists to do whatever they want and reward them for using civilian shields
#4
WyIted
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So in short yes. Yes you can kill non combatants in self defense but war is not usually about self defense but defending national interests from existential threats
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#5
Savant
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@WyIted
Israel does far more to avoid killing non combatants than Hamas
Sure, but that's a pretty low bar. Hamas isn't defending themselves either by killing noncombatants.

you can kill non combatants and it be considered self defense in some situations. For example a crowd if it is dangerous can be considered a single entity
A crowd isn't a single entity though, nor is a country. Individuals aren't responsible for what other members of their country do. Ashley Babbit was shot for trespassing, not just being part of a crowd.

Or they hide out in schools and hospitals so any attacks on them kill civilians for propaganda purposes or because they know they are the bad guys and are taking advantage of Israel good nature and reluctance to kill civilians. A reluctance they don't share. 
I know this has happened at least some times (not clear how often), but let's say they do hide behind civilians in every single case. Even if that's a justification for civilian casualties (and I don't buy that it always is), it doesn't make killing non-aggressors self-defense. The civilians aren't the ones making the terrorists hide behind them. The right to self-defense is just the right to kill aggressors, not every intermediate step that is done to achieve that. You can be threatened into killing a third-party, but unless the third party is also threatening you, killing them is not self-defense.

war is not usually about self defense but defending national interests from existential threats
Which in this case makes more sense as a line of reasoning than self-defense, but it's not as politically palatable to say the ends justify the means.
#6
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@Savant
A crowd isn't a single entity though, nor is a country. Individuals aren't responsible for what other members of their country do. Ashley Babbit was shot for trespassing, not just being part of a crowd.
Trespassers cannot be shot on site in the United States. Even if you to area 51 and jump the gate they aren't allowed to kill you for it. 

The reason Ashley Babbit was considered a self defense kill is because the crowd posed a threat and the courts have ruled that if a crowd or group poses a threat you can use lethal force on individuals in the crowd who may not alone be a threat to your life. 

Even if that's a justification for civilian casualties (and I don't buy that it always is), it doesn't make killing non-aggressors self-defense. The civilians aren't the ones making the terrorists hide behind them
When you say the civilians aren't making the terrorists crouch and shoot between their legs it looks like you are shifting to whether it's unfair or not that they die. Perhaps in some cases the civilians volunteer to be human shields and in others they are forced but let's assume forced. 

It might be unfair for them to die by soldiers shooting back at the terrorists and intentionally aiming through them to do it. It wouldn't make aiming through them to kill somebody who poses an immediate threat not part of the act of self defense. 

You also seem to want to dismiss the steps of performing the act of self defense as not part of self defense but I think you can consider some acts prior to pulling the trigger part of the self defense. 

For example if somebody is in your way and you through them to the ground and hurt them so they get out of your line of site so you can kill a terrorist. I would and I think most courts wouldn't call that battery but include it in the "act" of self defense. So I do believe you are wrong to thing the intermediary steps to the actual bullet through the head of a terrorist doesn't include self defense. I think the act can last quite a while and the act can potentially even be part of the post shooting aftermath in some conditions
#7
WyIted
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Which in this case makes more sense as a line of reasoning than self-defense, but it's not as politically palatable to say the ends justify the means.
Which is why until modern times military was usually kept separate from politics. To avoid terrible decisions for political motives
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#8
Savant
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@WyIted
The reason Ashley Babbit was considered a self defense kill is because the crowd posed a threat and the courts have ruled that if a crowd or group poses a threat you can use lethal force on individuals in the crowd who may not alone be a threat to your life.
Then she personally was posing a threat by being a part of the crowd and contributing to the dangerous behavior. They can't shoot a random person caught up in the crowd.

It wouldn't make aiming through them to kill somebody who poses an immediate threat not part of the act of self defense. 
Killing the threat is self-defense, killing the noncombatant isn't.

For example if somebody is in your way and you through them to the ground and hurt them so they get out of your line of site so you can kill a terrorist.
Some courts might, but only because throwing someone to the ground is barely anything compared to death and they might overlook it. Practically, though, not every step before self-defense is itself self-defense. You can kill three people if they are all attacking you, but if you kill three bystanders to get a line of sight to someone threatening you, you can be charged for their deaths.
#9
WyIted
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@Savant
Then she personally was posing a threat by being a part of the crowd and contributing to the dangerous behavior. They can't shoot a random person caught up in the crowd.
Yes, the courts have ruled that you can treat the crowd as an individual. That means if you get caught up in a crowd that poses a danger to somebody whether accidentally or intentionally than you can be shot and killed in self defense ..

Some courts might, but only because throwing someone to the ground is barely anything compared to death and they might overlook it.
That's not how the law works. Your intention is not determined by the results of your actions.

Practically, though, not every step before self-defense is itself self-defense. You can kill three people if they are all attacking you, but if you kill three bystanders to get a line of sight to someone threatening you, you can be charged for their deaths.
If the court determines there was no other way to save your life than to shoot through 3 people than you are in the clear. 

I think you are putting yourself in the shoes of the bystanders which isn't how court decisions are reached. They are reached by putting yourself in the shoes of the accused and determining if they are factually innocent or not, not usually to be judged based on the results of actions but by the mind of the accused. 

Juries aren't perfect for example there have been experiments that have shown that if a person crashes a car drunk into a tree the jury will determine the act was not intentional, but if a kid happens to be in front of the tree the jury will find the act intentional.. so I won't argue about what the results would be in court only about the philosophical distinctions between what makes a person innocent or guilty. 

Also that's why you'll see cases where the prosecution can use a lot of appeals to emotion the defense lawyer will waive his clients right to a trial by his peers, judges can more easily igbore biases such as the bias of whether what happened to innocent bystanders is fair.
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#10
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@WyIted
If the court determines there was no other way to save your life than to shoot through 3 people than you are in the clear.
That's not a defense in every jurisdiction, and if it was, it would be duress, not self-defense.
#11
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@Savant
The OP was a moral question. Judicial precedence has no relevance because no authority is reliable except reason.


it's that self-defense only implies the right to kill the person attacking you, not the right to attack anyone at all. So while there might be potential arguments to justify attacks killing noncombatants, I find it hard to buy that self-defense is one of them.
Collateral damage is not "anyone at all" it's people in the way or people who are part of production chain used by your enemies.

That implies there is a responsibility to not be a cog in the machine of an aggressive organization, and that seems to follow. If it's immoral to throw the first punch, it's also immoral to be part of a team that plans to throw the first punch.

Now it doesn't feel fair that babies in Nagasaki burned, obviously they are innocent; but that is choosing to look at it as punishment.

Suppose that knowing your enemy values the lives of babies, you take babies hostage and then demand something crazy such as half of your enemies committing suicide (morally the smallest demand is equivalent to the largest demand except in the calculation of proportionality of punishment).

1.) Your enemies refuse and you kill the babies, perhaps they're your own babies. Did the enemy kill the babies?

2.) Now suppose you put a baby in the back seat of every bomber, fighter, and warship? Who killed the babies in that case?

3.) Now you leave them at home, but that home is a base from which you are waging war, a base which must be occupied to end the threat. Who killed the babies in that case?

I assert that all three are the exact same moral situation. The aggressors not only take responsibility for their own potential deaths, but all those deaths of innocents which become necessary to stop them.

Those people in Gaza who are truly innocent, who would stop Hamas if they could, if they die by an Israeli bomb; that is not Israel's fault, its Hamas's fault for turning innocent people's neighborhood into a rocket artillery launching site.

Contrast to this:
Rarely is it applied to situations where people who don't pose a threat are harmed to protect oneself. For example, harvesting someone's kidneys without their consent to save yourself is not self-defense, presuming they have nothing to do with your own kidneys failing.
Presumably not only has the kidney owner not committed an act an aggression but nobody has committed an act of aggression that would predictably endanger the kidney owner.

That it is why it is not self-defense, and why it is not self-defense to steal to fund a just war, or to draft soldiers to fight a just war.

It is not "I have a right to take anything I need to win, or kill anyone if their death would help me win", it is "has the enemy chosen to attack in a way by which they would gain advantage if I could not cause collateral damage".

By definition when a government attacks, they have made everyone in their controlled territory targets and are thus responsible for their deaths.

Keep in mind when I say "attack" I mean the moral factor: initiation of aggressive force (or threat thereof, or breaking a promise). The moral high ground (if anyone has it) will stay with the same side regardless of collateral damage. The fault is the aggressors, not only for the deaths of their own soldiers and their own civilians, but also the deaths of the civilians of the other side who died as collateral.

For example if the French had decided to fight in Paris it could have been Stalingrad before Stalingrad. A million people would die, hundreds of thousands of them civilians, tens of thousands of them children.

but that would not be the fault of the French because they did not initiate the use of force. On the contrary when the nazis decided to fight bitterly in Berlin and from many other major cities, those deaths were their fault as were all the deaths in the whole war.
#12
zedvictor4
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@Savant
Just because someone doesn't carry a gun, doesn't mean that said person is not instrumental in their support for those that do carry guns.

Israel put up with continuous violent harassment from Palestinians for long enough, and the October 7th 2023 massacres and abductions were the tipping point.

There's no going back on Israel's current strategy of Palestinian eradication.

Hamas are Palestinians, Palestinians are Hamas, and there is no separation of friend and foe.


And the thing is, that they all evolved from the same forbears.

But then decided to believe in marginally differing  versions of ideological and cultural crap

Such are humans.

Clever stupid gene.
#13
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@Savant
I would say that:

1. If it's necessary for self-defense of your future self to currently and actively pursue your foe, then the right to self-defense entails a right to pursue your foe wherever he flees or hides.

2. If, in this scenario, third parties are willfully giving shelter to your foes, then the right to self-defense entails a right to count said third parties among your foes and behave accordingly, or at the very least to target their shelters. Just this fact by itself poses no moral dilemma for you; said third parties have effectively consented to become targets.

3. If third parties are giving shelter to your foes under duress (e.g. Hamas will shoot them if they refuse), so that their own pursuit of self-preservation comes into conflict with your pursuit of self-defense, then we get a profound moral dilemma. Both you and the third parties will choose to "resolve" the dilemma by making the selfish choice. There's no way around this; barring the presence of some overwhelmingly powerful outside force that's able to impose a solution, someone has to lose.

4. If third parties are not sheltering your foes, but are free to physically remove themselves from where your foes are yet haven't done so, then there is no moral dilemma. They've incurred no moral guilt but are responsible nonetheless for getting caught up in whatever happens where your foes are. There is no dilemma here insofar as 4 is truly distinct from 5.

5. If third parties are not sheltering your foes, but are not free to physically remove themselves from where the attacker are (e.g. to live their lives they must traverse roads and public spaces where Hamas militants are), then we get a lesser dilemma compared to 3. Having to quarantine in your home isn't the same as having a gun pointed at your head, but if a war goes on long enough then it's unreasonable to assume that the average person would or even could keep doing so.

The Gaza War is some inscrutable mix of all five.
#14
Shila
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@Savant
Much is said about Israel's right to defend itself whenever civilian casualties are brought up. And of course the same argument is brought up for other countries whose attacks have high casualty rates. But if we've learned anything from the previous two examples, it's that self-defense only implies the right to kill the person attacking you, not the right to attack anyone at all. So while there might be potential arguments to justify attacks killing noncombatants, I find it hard to buy that self-defense is one of them. If an attack kills five terrorists and five noncombatants, you can argue self-defense to justify killing the terrorists, but not so much the five noncombatants.
After the Holocaust with 6 million dead Jews. Everything the Jews do is don’t in self defense to prevent a repeat of history.
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#15
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@Swagnarok
@ADreamOfLiberty
Suppose that knowing your enemy values the lives of babies, you take babies hostage and then demand something crazy such as half of your enemies committing suicide (morally the smallest demand is equivalent to the largest demand except in the calculation of proportionality of punishment).

1.) Your enemies refuse and you kill the babies, perhaps they're your own babies. Did the enemy kill the babies?

2.) Now suppose you put a baby in the back seat of every bomber, fighter, and warship? Who killed the babies in that case?
In #1, the enemy didn't kill the babies, they just refused to save them. I'd say that's a significant difference. In #2, if the enemy knew there were babies in the warships and bombed them anyway, then they killed the babies and everyone else on the ship. That's not even a moral judgment, just what killing entails. There are utilitarian routes to arguing bombing the ship is justified, but I don't think "self-defense" applies to killing the babies. Killing the enemies on the warship is self-defense, but you can do multiple things at once. I can shoot an aggressor while embezzling money, but embezzling money isn't self-defense, just another thing I was doing at the same time.

If it's necessary for self-defense of your future self to currently and actively pursue your foe, then the right to self-defense entails a right to pursue your foe wherever he flees or hides.
I think I'd dispute that every intermediate step to achieve self-defense is itself self-defense. What if I steal a car to pursue my enemy? What if I shoot the car owner to steal their car? Is all of that self-defense?

In case #5 that you described, where the third party physically can't remove themselves, I think killing them definitely isn't self-defense, even if there are other routes to argue killing them is justified. The self-defense distinction is important because utilitarian justifications usually require a higher bar to be justified than self-defense. Self-defense is basically a justification in and of itself, but utilitarianism requires that the good of an action outweighs the bad, and a lot of civilian warfare likely doesn't meet that bar. Also requires that you believe the ends justify the means, which isn't universally accepted.
#16
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@Savant
I can shoot an aggressor while embezzling money, but embezzling money isn't self-defense, just another thing I was doing at the same time.
If it is impossible to shoot an aggressor without embezzling money by the choice of the aggressor, it is.

Suppose they put on body armor that triggers a theft of bitcoin from innocent victims into your account every time it is penetrated.
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#17
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@ADreamOfLiberty
If it is impossible to shoot an aggressor without embezzling money by the choice of the aggressor, it is.
Okay, so then what if I steal a car to pursue my enemy? What if I shoot the car owner to steal their car? What if I shoot ten people to steal the car? Is all of that self-defense?
#18
ADreamOfLiberty
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@Savant
If it is impossible to shoot an aggressor without embezzling money by the choice of the aggressor, it is.
Okay, so then what if I steal a car to pursue my enemy? What if I shoot the car owner to steal their car? What if I shoot ten people to steal the car? Is all of that self-defense?
No it isn't, because it wasn't a choice of the aggressor to potentially gain advantage by your restraint.

If you kill ten people trying to pitstop the enemy, that is collateral damage; but violating people's rights to make yourself stronger so you have a better chance of victory (or any chance) is not something that can be blamed on the enemy. That is equivalent to stealing someone's kidney.

"I need to do something immoral to win" != "I am responsible for collateral damage"


A diagnostic question would be this: Who loses the advantage if the (supposed) innocent party did not exist?

If you gain advantage, then the violation of the innocent person's rights would be the aggressor's sin.
If they gain advantage, then the violation of the innocent person's rights would be your sin regardless of whether you are on the right side of the conflict.

If there was no one to steal a kidney from what happens? You die of kidney failure before you can win (I assume).
If there was no one to draft?
If there was no one to tax?
If there was no car to steal even if it takes murder?

You lose advantage without these victims you would drain to make yourself stronger because you aren't strong enough without that theft.

Contrast with:
If there were no innocent children in gaza?
If there were no babies in bombers?
If there were no other cars on the highway that might be involved in a pileup as you pursue your enemy?
If there was no embezzling armor to consider?

Without the (supposed) innocent in gaza, the IDF would be bolder, stronger, able to use far more effective weapons and risk far fewer of their soldiers all for a lower costs.
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#19
Savant
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@ADreamOfLiberty
No it isn't, because it wasn't a choice of the aggressor to potentially gain advantage by your restraint.
Ok, let's say the aggressor stole my car. That's restraining me (in this hypothetical) to have to pursue them some other way.

Without the (supposed) innocent in gaza, the IDF would be bolder, stronger, able to use far more effective weapons and risk far fewer of their soldiers all for a lower costs.
Without the guy who owns the car in his car, I would have a free car and be able to pursue the enemy.

If you kill ten people trying to pitstop the enemy
Collateral damage also includes children in hospitals. Those aren't willing accomplices.
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#20
Savant
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@zedvictor4
Hamas are Palestinians, Palestinians are Hamas, and there is no separation of friend and foe.
I don't think you can hold babies responsible for what Hamas does.
#21
ADreamOfLiberty
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@Savant
Ok, let's say the aggressor stole my car. That's restraining me (in this hypothetical) to have to pursue them some other way.
Apply the diagnostic.


Ok, let's say the aggressor stole my car. That's restraining me (in this hypothetical) to have to pursue them some other way.
because cars just grow on trees... "person or property", recompile and execute.


Collateral damage also includes children in hospitals. Those aren't willing accomplices.
Killing willing accomplices isn't collateral, they are legitimate targets.

Collateral damage means harm to innocent parties either by personal injury or property damage.


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#22
Savant
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@ADreamOfLiberty
Apply the diagnostic. (Who loses the advantage if the (supposed) innocent party did not exist?)
If the innocent party didn't exist, maybe I would have bought the car instead. Then I'd have one to spare and I could go after the aggressor. The innocent party is inconvenient to me, but still not an aggressor. (They bought a car before me.) I think this is analogous enough to fit the diagnostic.
#23
Shila
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@Savant
In case #5 that you described, where the third party physically can't remove themselves, I think killing them definitely isn't self-defense, even if there are other routes to argue killing them is justified. The self-defense distinction is important because utilitarian justifications usually require a higher bar to be justified than self-defense. Self-defense is basically a justification in and of itself, but utilitarianism requires that the good of an action outweighs the bad, and a lot of civilian warfare likely doesn't meet that bar. Also requires that you believe the ends justify the means, which isn't universally accepted.
After the Holocaust with 6 million dead Jews. Everything the Jews do is done  in self defence to prevent a repeat of history.
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#24
Savant
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@Shila
After the Holocaust with 6 million dead Jews. Everything the Jews do is done  in self defence to prevent a repeat of history.
Everything? Are Jewish serial killers, bank robbers, and rapists all just practicing self-defense?
#25
Shila
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@Savant
After the Holocaust with 6 million dead Jews. Everything the Jews do is done  in self defence to prevent a repeat of history.
Everything? Are Jewish serial killers, bank robbers, and rapists all just practicing self-defense?
They are Holocaust survivors.
After the Holocaust with 6 million dead Jews. Everything the Jews do is done  in self defence to prevent a repeat of history.
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#26
Savant
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@Shila
Obviously, those were absurd examples, but you seem to have accepted them. How does serial killing, bank robbing, and raping prevent a repeat of history?
#27
Shila
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@Savant
Obviously, those were absurd examples, but you seem to have accepted them. How does serial killing, bank robbing, and raping prevent a repeat of history?
To avoid a repeat of history. Everything the Jews do is done  in self defence to prevent a repeat of history.
#28
Swagnarok
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@Savant
I think I'd dispute that every intermediate step to achieve self-defense is itself self-defense.

I mean, if a given step is unrelated to or unnecessary for self-defense, then sure. But if there's just one option, and it entails doing X Y and Z, then I would consider a right to do X Y and Z as an extension of the right to self-defense at least in the context of this scenario. This tangentially relates to the 2A debate; what proponents are claiming isn't so much an inalienable human right to discharge a metal slug through a rifled tube and into the air via a chemical propellant, but rather that the right to gun ownership is an extension of the right to self-defense.

The idea of stealing some random third person's car to offensively defend yourself sounds ridiculous, but that's mainly because we live in an environment where this scenario would never come up. For that matter, the idea of pursuing to defend one's self sounds ridiculous since one could readily take refuge in the arms of the law and let them handle it.

But the international system is quasi-anarchic. There are no cops and each country must defend itself, which often means finishing a fight. For Israel, that means dropping bombs wherever Hamas targets are. It doesn't entail dropping bombs elsewhere, of course, but I don't see a whole lot of evidence of Israel doing that.

In case #5 that you described, where the third party physically can't remove themselves, I think killing them definitely isn't self-defense, even if there are other routes to argue killing them is justified. The self-defense distinction is important because utilitarian justifications usually require a higher bar to be justified than self-defense. Self-defense is basically a justification in and of itself, but utilitarianism requires that the good of an action outweighs the bad, and a lot of civilian warfare likely doesn't meet that bar.
I would suggest that #5 only partway applies in reality, since many hundreds of thousands of Gazans have ignored Israeli orders to evacuate zones where the fighting is heaviest. That's not to say Israel hasn't dropped a single bomb outside these zones, but the level of risk to the average civilian is significantly less there.

But sure, to some degree or another there is no escape. From the self-defense angle, there is some degree of moral dilemma.
I haven't touched on utilitarianism because that's a whole different animal. Utilitarians would claim that self-defense is not justified if it does harm without succeeding, or if doing so entails killing a greater number of assailants than your one self, or if doing so entails killing someone who would go on to enjoy a higher quality of life than you or contribute more to humanity. Per this school of thought, a first world citizen's life is worth more than a third world citizen's, since he would tend to experience more pleasure and be more economically productive over his lifetime.
In one telling, it would demand that poor Gazans forfeit their lives and their land to their affluent neighbors. In another, it would demand that the Israeli government on 10/8/23 do nothing at all, since even if their actions averted 4 or 5 additional 10/7s in the future it wouldn't add up to 50,000 lives saved. Or that, hypothetically, the Israelis must subordinate their lives and land if Gaza's women were to pump out a billion children. Naturally, anyone on the losing end of such a utilitarian calculus won't pay it any regard whatsoever.
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Savant
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@Swagnarok
This tangentially relates to the 2A debate; what proponents are claiming isn't so much an inalienable human right to discharge a metal slug through a rifled tube and into the air via a chemical propellant, but rather that the right to gun ownership is an extension of the right to self-defense.
That's a bit different, since I'd say everyone has a prima facie right to discharge a metal slug through a rifled tube, the argument there is that violating this right could cost someone's life if they needed to do it for self defense. Hence the barrier for the government being justified in infringing on this right becomes a bit higher (though maybe not impossible to clear).

The idea of stealing some random third person's car to offensively defend yourself sounds ridiculous, but that's mainly because we live in an environment where this scenario would never come up. For that matter, the idea of pursuing to defend one's self sounds ridiculous since one could readily take refuge in the arms of the law and let them handle it.
I'm not saying it's ridiculous, just that it isn't itself self-defense. People have the right to visit their grandparents, for example, but I don't think stealing someone else's car is covered by that right. A government that bans stealing isn't violating your right to visit people. A government that bans bank robberies isn't violating your right to buy things, etc. How is self-defense different?
#30
ADreamOfLiberty
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@Savant
Apply the diagnostic. (Who loses the advantage if the (supposed) innocent party did not exist?)
If the innocent party didn't exist, maybe I would have bought the car instead.
Aren't you cheeky?

"all else equal"

What's next, maybe Hitler wouldn't have been born?