Self‐defence and Forcing the Choice between Lives

In the standard case of justifiable killing in self‐defence one agent without provocation tries to kill a second agent and the second agent's only way to avoid death is to kill his attacker. It is widely accepted that such killings in self‐defence are morally justifiable, but it has proved difficult to show why this is so. Recently, Montague has put forward an account in terms of forcing a choice between lives, and Teichman has propounded a quasi‐Hobbesian rights‐based account of self‐defence. I argue that neither Montague nor Teichman has succeeded in providing an adequate justification for killing in self‐defence.