Most people seem to subscribe to what I call the Special Immunity Thesis: the idea that the set of conditions under which it is permissible, in self-defense or defense of others, to deceive, lie to, sabotage, attack, or kill a government agent is much more stringently constrained than the set of conditions under which it is permissible to deceive, lie to, sabotage, attack, or kill a private civilian.
On the flip side, we have what I call the Moral Parity Thesis: the idea that, very simply, you have the same right of self-defense against government agents as you do against civilians. Officials have no special moral status that immunizes them from defensive actions. When they commit injustices of any sort, it is morally permissible for us, as private individuals, to treat them the same way we would treat private individuals committing those same injustices. Whatever we may do to private individuals, we may do to government officials. We may respond to governmental injustice in exactly the same ways as private injustice.
The Moral Parity Thesis has radical implications. It means you may assassinate leaders to stop them from launching unjust wars. You may fight back against a police officer who arrests you for something that shouldn’t be a crime—e.g., marijuana possession or homosexuality. You may escape from jail if mistakenly convicted or convicted of a bogus crime. Your business may lie about its compliance with an unfair regulation and evade excessive taxes. A jury or judge may nullify an unjust statute by refusing to convict those who break it. The Moral Parity Thesis vindicates helicopter pilot Hugh Thompson, who threatened to kill fellow American soldiers to stop them from killing civilians during the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. It vindicates Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden for sharing at least some state secrets. It vindicates government agents who sabotage unjust efforts from within.
My basic argument is simple: By default, we should accept the Moral Parity Thesis, unless we can find some good reason to believe the Special Immunity Thesis instead. Upon inspection, though, the arguments for the Special Immunity Thesis fall flat. Governments and their agents aren’t magic.
Jason Brennan
December 2018
When Nonviolence Isn’t Enough—Does the right to self-defense apply against agents of the state?
[It’s an interesting article on personal and political philosophy.
Lysander Spooner had some things to say on this topic as well:
It is a natural impossibility that a government should have a right to punish men for their vices; because it is impossible that a government should have any rights, except such as the individuals composing it had previously had, as individuals. They could not delegate to a government any rights which they did not themselves possess.
I took a philosophy class in college but it was far less interesting and relevant than what I have read in the years since. And it was philosophers never mentioned in class, such as Ayn Rand and Spooner, that my Marxist professor left out of the curriculum that made the difference.—Joe]
“…And it was philosophers never mentioned in class, such as Ayn Rand and Spooner, that my Marxist professor left out of the curriculum that made the difference.—Joe”
Interesting to look back and realize that the lack of competing ideas is not a recent phenomena, making the Marxist infiltration even more clear.
Oh, it goes as far back as recorded human history, of course.
Why anyone would assume otherwise, is the obvious question here. Maybe it’s because they too had Marxist professors, etc., i.e. if you’re lied to with enough skill, you’ll believe that there was at least some (magical) place and time in which people were not being generally misled.
That was my experience as well. I got a steady stream of leftist views of the world in my economics, history, and political science classes in the ’60s. However, the kids today get even a more slanted view.
In the ’60s the focus was on state actors, today the focus is on more of an individual level that has evolved into the field of social justice focused on white privilege and fragility. And it is not just in the social sciences, technology programs are also incorporating social justice message to ‘keep students interested in learning’ so that they can say ‘your experiences matter’. You too can be an SJW and get paid very well as a tech worker.
I wasn’t in college until the 70s and I was at the University of Idaho.
Just as, when you’re poor it is the wealthy who are to blame, so too it is now that, if you’re weak and afraid, it is the strong and the brave who are to blame for your misfortunes.
Cain was envious of Able, so he killed him. Nothing has changed since.
In adopting the Moral Parity Thesis, and acting on it, you can be killed in the comfort of knowing that you hold the moral high ground, just as huge numbers of Protestants went, singing, to be burned at the stake by the papists, for those against whom you have morally and justly defended yourself have adopted the Brute Force Thesis, which we can clarify as the I Have A Bigger Stick AND It’s “Legit” Thesis, “authority” and title being the hinge points in the minds of all authoritarians.
But don’t worry, and cheer up; you’ll soon be dead either way.
Way more accurate:
In adopting the Special Immunity Thesis, and following it, you can be killed in the comfort of knowing that you hold the moral high ground, just as huge numbers of Protestants went, singing, to be burned at the stake by the papists, for those against whom you have morally and justly defended yourself have adopted the Injustice Thesis, which we can clarify as the They Have A Bigger Stick AND It’s “Legit” Thesis, “authority” and title being the hinge points in the minds of all authoritarians.
But don’t worry, and cheer up; you’ll soon be dead either way.