چکیده:
On the supposition that one’s ethics and politics are fundamentally dignitarian in a broadly Kantian sense—as specifically opposed to identitarian and capitalist versions of Statism, e.g., neoliberal nation-States, whether democratic or non-democratic—hence fundamentally non-coercive and non-violent, then is self-defense or the defense of innocent others, using force, ever rationally justifiable and morally permissible or obligatory? We think that the answer to this hard question is yes; correspondingly, in this essay we develop and defend a theory about the permissible use of force in a broadly Kantian dignitarian moral and political setting, including its extension to non-violent civil disobedience in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr; and perhaps surprisingly, we also import several key insights from Samurai and Martial Arts ethics into our theory.
خلاصه ماشینی:
We think that the answer to this hard question is yes; correspondingly, in this essay we develop and defend a theory about the permissible use of force in a broadly Kantian dignitarian moral and political setting, including its extension to non-violent civil disobedience in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr; and perhaps surprisingly, we also import several key insights from Samurai and Martial Arts ethics into our theory.
In view of the necessary connection between States and coercion, and also in view of the ever-present possibility of coercion per se, then the following hard question arises: on the supposition that one’s ethics and politics are fundamentally dignitarian in a broadly Kantian sense, hence fundamentally non- coercive and non-violent, then is self-defense or the defense of innocent others, using force, ever rationally justifiable and morally permissible or obligatory?
Indeed, a characteristic and indeed essential feature of this creation of the Other is that the members of that group be caricatured and even represented as “sub-human” in the morally pregnant sense of being sub-persons, and more generally as being thoroughly inferior to the We. To be sure, this diametrically sharp and also—just like the contrast between Statism and broadly Kantian dignitarianism—mutually exclusive contrast between identitarianism on the one hand, especially when it’s combined with the coercive authoritarianism of States, and broadly Kantian dignitarianism on the other, oversimplifies the real-world and philosophical situation somewhat, in three important ways.
And in that case, the otherwise essentially peaceful and non-violent demonstrators might also have to use minimal sufficiently effective, last resort, defensive, protective, and preventive moral force, possibly even including violence with respect to people.