Proportionality

Abstract

Chapter 4 develops and defends an original conception of proportionality in defensive force: the stringency principle. On this view, the degree of force to which a wrongful attacker renders himself liable is determined by the stringency of the right that the attacker threatens to violate. The more stringent the right that is threatened, the greater the degree of force to which the wrongful attacker is liable. The chapter also provides a critique of an influential alternative view, one that makes an attacker’s degree of liability depend, in part, on the attacker’s degree of moral responsibility for posing a wrongful threat.