{"pk":49970,"title":"The Folk Ethics of Self-Defense: An Emprical Study on the Moral Permissibility of Killing Apparent Threats","subtitle":null,"abstract":"Philosophers of self-defense debate whether it can be morally \npermissible to kill an aggressor who only appears to threaten \nyou. In developing moral theories of self-defense, these \nphilosophers  sometimes  make  (untested)  conjectures  about \nwhat most people believe about self-defense. This paper aims \nto explore lay judgments on this issue. To do so, we conduct \nthree pre-registered experiments manipulating the actuality of \na  threat.  Across  abstract  and  concrete  scenarios  as  well  as \nwithin-subjects and between-subjects designs, results \nconsistently  show  that  laypeople  judge  certain  self-defensive \nkillings morally permissible regardless of whether the \naggressor  poses  a  genuine  threat  or  a  merely  apparent  threat. \nThese findings oppose Objectivist views on self-defense, \nwhich hold that self-defense is only permissible when facing a \ngenuine threat. Instead, they support Subjectivism and what we \ncall  the  \"It's  Complicated  View\",  both  of  which  hold  that \napparent  threats  can  justify  lethal  self-defense  (albeit  with \npossible variation in permissibility ratings).","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Philosophy; Psychology; Sociology; Other; Statistics; Survey"}],"section":"Papers with Poster Presentation","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1cd4v38q","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"August","middle_name":"Renbo","last_name":"Olsen","name_suffix":"","institution":"Lund University","department":""},{"first_name":"Jan","middle_name":"","last_name":"Garc’a Olier","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Zurich","department":""},{"first_name":"Pascale","middle_name":"","last_name":"Willemsen","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Zurich","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2025-01-01T13:00:00-05:00","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/49970/galley/37932/download/"}]}