Defensive Killing: An Essay on War and Self-Defence

241 Pages·2014·2.141 MB·English

by  Helen Frowe

Defensive Killing

Defensive Killing
Helen Frowe
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For Alan, Andrew, Brad, Jimmy, and Jeff

Acknowledgements
Many people have helped me to clarify and develop the ideas in this book. I owe
thanks to Yitzhak Benbaji, Jules Coleman, John Cottingham, Andrew Cullison,
Jonathan Ichikawa, Steve Kershnar, Harry Lesser, Lionel MacPherson, Gerhard
Øverland, Daniel Schwartz, Danny Statman, and Noam Zohar. I owe special
thanks for written comments and/or many helpful conversations to David Rodin,
Jon Quong, Frances Kamm (especially for letting me borrow her class of Harvard
undergraduates for an evening), Jimmy Lenman, Brad Hooker, Adam Hosein,
Andrew Williams, Gerald Lang, Massimo Renzo, Victor Tadros, Jeff McMahan,
Saba Bazargan, Andréas Lind, John Oberdiek, Peter Vallentyne, Ian Frowe,
Michael Neu, Suzanne Uniacke, Guy Sela, James Pattison, David R. Mapel, and
Tyler Doggett (this list is probably not exhaustive). Conversations with Victor
Tadros (often whilst waiting for planes, trains, or automobiles, but occasionally
in rather nicer places) have been especially helpful. As always, I owe super-special
thanks to Seth Lazar for his thoughtful comments and encouragement.
I am very grateful to the Leverhulme Trust, which awarded me an Early Career
Fellowship during my time at Sheffield that enabled me to do much of the work
contained within these pages, and to the University of Kent for a period of sabbat-
ical in 2013. Thanks also to the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, which has
been funding me during the final stages of this work. I’m particularly grateful to
my wonderful new colleagues in the Stockholm philosophy department for their
enthusiastic support of my obsession with war and killing. Gustaf Arrhenius,
Torbjörn Tännsjö, Krister Bykvist, and Staffan Carlshamre all deserve a special
mention.
Bits of this book have been presented in various forms at the following con-
ferences, workshops, and department seminars: Nordic Network in Political
Ethics; Summer School at Aarhus University; the APA (Pacific Division); The
Joint Sessions of the Aristotelian Society and Mind Association; the Society for
Applied Philosophy annual conferences; the British Postgraduate Philosophy
Association conferences; Philosophy Days Conference (Gothenburg); Harvard
University; Boston University; Belgrade University; SUNY Fredonia; York
University; Oxford University; Lancaster University; the Open University;
Sheffield University; the University of Kent; Brighton University; Glasgow
University; MANCEPT; Institute for Advanced Studies, Hebrew University of
Jerusalem; Westmont College, Santa Barbara; University of California at San
viii Acknowledgements
Diego; Workshop on Self-Defence, Bowling Green State University; Centre for
Ethics, Law and Public Affairs, Warwick University; Workshop on the Ends of
Harm, Rogoznica; UK Association for Legal and Political Philosophy Annual
Conference, Cambridge University; Oxford Workshop for Political Philosophy,
University of Arizona; Nottingham University; and Stockholm University. I am
very grateful to the audiences for their comments. The lovely people at the Centre
for Ethics, Law and Public Affairs at Warwick University also organized a work-
shop on a draft of the manuscript—thanks to Massimo Renzo for arranging this,
to the SAP for sponsoring it, and to James Pattison, Vittorio Bufacchi, Victor
Tadros, and Jonathan Parry for their comments. Thanks also to all those who
attended.
Writing this book has been made immeasurably easier by the support of my
friends and family. In particular, Andréas Lind not only discussed, read, and
commented on large sections of the text, but also provided a steady stream of tea,
wine, and canapés to see me through the difficult stages. He’s also put up with
my frequent and often prolonged absences without complaint. My dad Ian read
and commented on various chunks of the book when it was in Ph.D. form. My
mum Julia bore the burdens of visiting me in Boston, New Jersey, and California
surprisingly well (‘Martha’s Vineyard? Well, if I must . . .’). Clare Crowson, Fiona
Whittle, and Emma Crowson have, as always, provided welcome distractions
from the world of death and destruction that I usually inhabit, not to mention
unfailing support throughout the trickier times of life.
As made evident by the list above, I have been lucky enough to benefit from
the support and advice of many excellent philosophers (and good friends) dur-
ing the course of writing this book, which started out as a Ph.D. thesis. But
I would not have pursued philosophy at all had Alan Thomas not gently ush-
ered me towards an MA degree many years ago. His friendship and wisdom
have been invaluable ever since. Brad Hooker and Andrew Williams were the
best doctoral supervisors I could have hoped for—an unbeatable combination
of American enthusiasm and Welsh pedantry. I am eternally grateful for their
patience and encouragement. Both have continued to cheerfully offer their sup-
port long past my days as a graduate student at Reading. I was equally lucky at
Sheffield to have Jimmy Lenman as my official department mentor—an admin-
istrative task that seemed to entail lots of nice home-cooked dinners and long
walks in the countryside. Jimmy now knows more about just war theory than
he ever thought necessary or desirable, and hardly ever complains that I haven’t
read enough of his papers on metaethics. The time I spent at Rutgers with Jeff
McMahan has had a profound influence on both the direction of my philosoph-
ical interests and my understanding of how to do philosophy. Jeff has been more
Acknowledgements ix
generous with his time and support than I could ever have expected. I hope
these five wonderful people will not mind sharing a dedication (I suspect that
writing them a book each would be beyond me).
Helen Frowe
Cambridge, May 2014