Fighting for One’s Self

This chapter explores a dilemma arising from interveners’ competing duties to respect authorization and to enforce necessity. Even in cases where an intervener could defend an agent more effectively and less harmfully, there is still good reason (within limits) for interveners to refrain from enforcing necessity and to allow or encourage agents to fight for themselves. Borrowing from the works of Statman and Frowe, the chapter argues that “defense of one’s honor” can serve as an independent moral reason justifying one’s use of defensive force, even in cases where necessity appears not to be met. It then considers what implications such analysis holds for interventions at the international level, arguing that political communities may gain extra moral permissions when fighting on behalf of an emergent impersonal good over and above the community’s individual members. Despite this claim, it does not commit one to collectivism.