Section — Prümmer, Manuale Theologiae Moralis
2. On The Killing Of An Unjust Aggressor Or On Bloody Defense
120. Principle. It is lawful to defend oneself, even by the killing of an unjust aggressor, if this is necessary a) for preserving one's own life; b) for preserving the life of the neighbor, and especially of a connected person; c) for protecting the integrity of members and other goods of great value.
The ancient authors briefly announced this principle: It is lawful to kill an unjust aggressor with the moderation of blameless defense.111
Proof. The reason is that everyone by natural right itself can defend himself and his own; and in these cases the killing of the aggressor is not directly intended, but the preservation of a very great good, which the aggressor unjustly attacks. Therefore all the conditions are had which are required for placing a cause from which a double effect follows, the one good, the other bad, namely preservation of one's own life and destruction of another's life. For 1. the intention is good, 2. a proportionately grave cause is had, 3. the action placed is not evil in itself, since it is defensive of one's own life. Therefore he acts licitly who defends himself, even with the killing of the unjust aggressor. Thus positive laws establish;112 thus almost all theologians teach, with a few contradicting, e.g., Gerson, Noris, Henry of St. Ignatius. Let St. Thomas alone be heard:113 "According to the laws it is lawful to repel force with the moderation of blameless defense. Nor is it necessary for salvation that a man omit an act of moderate defense in order to avoid the killing of another, because a man is more bound to provide for his own life than for another's life."
The principle is explained. It is said 1. to everyone it is lawful; therefore such defense is a morally licit act and not only not punishable, as some jurists wish; nevertheless (at least generally) no one is bound to choose this mode of defense. For to kill another man is something very harsh and horrible. Moreover, generally no private man is bound to employ so harsh a means for conserving his own life, unless nevertheless he himself is very necessary to the common good. Thus, e.g., there can exist an obligation of killing an aggressor if the one attacked is a father, wife, or bishop. For then the obligation of piety and charity comes in. Certainly those who are held to the defense of others by office, as soldiers and the public police, are also bound under grave sin to kill unjust aggressors if otherwise the life of others cannot be preserved.
It is said 2. an unjust aggressor; because if the aggressor acts justly, it is not licit to kill him; as if a guard or minister of justice, from legitimate authority, draws one juridically condemned to the punishment of death, it is not lawful to repel force with force and to kill that guard or minister. This is plain of itself. Likewise, he who is justly detained in prison cannot kill the prison guard in order to acquire his own liberty. But it is not required that the aggressor be formally unjust, or that he act from theological fault; it is enough that he is trying actually to inflict a grave material injury upon me. Hence even one drunk, mad, furious, etc., threatening death to me can be killed, if otherwise his action cannot be impeded. But whether the aggressor is formally or materially unjust, he can be killed, even if perhaps he exists in the state of mortal sin and therefore is going to Gehenna; for 1. the state of mortal sin is not certain in a materially unjust aggressor; 2. the formally unjust aggressor must impute such danger to himself and indeed to himself alone. An aggressor is understood only as one who actually inflicts force, not as one who is in a power more or less remote of inflicting damage. Hence, e.g., an unjust aggressor can be killed who is already drawing a sword, who is already directing a gun at someone; but not he who is foreseen as going to attack after some days or who is going to accuse falsely. Therefore proposition 18 was deservedly condemned by Alexander VII as scandalous: "It is lawful to kill a false accuser, false witnesses, and even a judge from whom an unjust sentence certainly threatens, if in another way the innocent person cannot avoid damage."114
It is said 3. for preserving either one's own life, or the life of the neighbor, or the integrity of members and other goods of great value. Therefore it is not lawful to kill an unjust aggressor for the defense of any good whatever; and for this reason proposition 30 was condemned by Innocent XI: "It is right for an honorable man to kill an attacker who strives to inflict calumny, if otherwise this disgrace cannot be avoided; the same also must be said if someone strikes with a slap or strikes with a staff and after the slap or blow of the staff has been inflicted flees";115 and proposition 31: "Regularly I can kill a thief for the preservation of one gold coin."116
The reason of all these things is that on the one side charity and justice would be injured if a neighbor, although unjustly attacking, were deprived of the greatest good, namely his life, on account of small damage inflicted upon me; but on the other side everyone has a strict right to preserve for himself goods of great value, as are one's own life, the life of the neighbor, the integrity of members, pudicity, etc. But if another unjustly wishes to take these goods away, he can be beaten back with all strength; but if this cannot be done otherwise, even by the killing of him. But I have deliberately said, "if this cannot be done otherwise"; for in defense the moderation of blameless defense must always be observed. Hence if these goods of great value can be preserved in another way, e.g., by beating or mutilation of the unjust aggressor, this certainly must be done, and in that case killing would be gravely sinful.
The goods which, with the moderation of blameless defense thus preserved, it is lawful to defend are therefore, besides life and members, also goods of fortune and pudicity, but not honor and reputation, as will be said below.
111 Das Recht der Notwehr, la défense légitime.
112 c. 3, 18, X 5, 12; c. 3, X 5, 39; German Penal Code § 53 sqq.; German Civil Code § 227 sqq.; French Penal Code a. 328.
113 S. theol. 2, 2, q. 64, a. 7. But the Angelic Doctor adds: "It is illicit that a man intend to kill a man in order to defend himself." Several teach the contrary, e.g., Lugo (De iust. et iure disp. X, n. 149), saying: "You will be able to intend the death of him, not only as the striking, but as it is death, because not otherwise except as death is it useful for your protection." They give this reason for that opinion, why it is lawful also to intend the death of an unjust aggressor. For the defender in his defense acts as the mandatary of the republic, which permits the killing of the aggressor. But the opinion of St. Thomas seems better.
114 Denz. n. 1118. This proposition was defended by Thomas Sanchez, Decalog. l. 2, c. 39, n. 7; cf. St. Alphonsus, Theol. mor. l. 3, n. 388.
115 Denz. n. 1180.
116 Ibid. n. 1181.
121. a) Goods of fortune of great value, provided nevertheless that those goods are truly possessed. For it is not lawful to kill him who impedes us from the obtaining of goods concerning which we have only a right to the thing, as is plain from proposition 32 condemned by Innocent XI: "It is lawful to defend by killing defense not only those things which we actually possess, but also those to which we have an inchoate right and which we hope that we are going to possess."117 St. Alphonsus118 asks whether it is lawful to kill a thief of a thing of great moment, and calls the affirmative opinion most probable and common, which St. Antoninus, Sylvius, Dominic Soto, St. Raymund, Cajetan, and Lugo hold; and St. Thomas119 clearly adheres to it. For after the Angelic Doctor brought forward the text of Sacred Scripture: "If a thief breaking into a house or digging under it has been found, and, having received a wound, has died, the striker will not be guilty of blood,"120 he infers: "But it is much more lawful to defend one's own life than one's own house." Therefore he supposes as certain that that text permits the killing of an invader of goods. Nor do the words which are afterward read in the same place of Exodus stand in the way: "But if when the sun has risen he has done this, he has perpetrated homicide, and he himself shall die." For when the sun has risen, the thief can be more easily recognized and the goods taken away can be recovered through the sentence of a judge. Therefore then the killing of the thief would be illicit, because it would exceed the moderation of blameless defense. Billuart121 holds the contrary opinion, teaching that it is not lawful to defend goods of fortune with the killing of the invader; but the reasons brought forward by him do not seem to be probative.
What is a good of great value is not so certainly established. The value of one gold coin is not enough, as is plain from proposition 31 just cited, condemned by the same Innocent XI; but theologians judge that a thing of great value is one whose price is equivalent to about the sum of 1000 francs. Indeed D'Annibale,122 Bucceroni123 think that a thing of great value is already 400 or 500 lire.
117 Ibid. n. 1182.
118 Theol. mor. l. 3, n. 383.
119 S. theol. 2, 2, q. 64, a. 7, arg. Sed contra.
120 Ex. 22, 2.
121 De iure et iust. diss. 10, a. 6, § 1.
122 Summula Theol. mor. II, n. 283.
123 Inst. theol. mor. I, n. 732.
122. b) Pudicity. It is lawful for a woman to repel by force an invader of pudicity, and if an unjust aggressor wishes to extort carnal intercourse, the woman, when other means are lacking, can kill him. Thus the common opinion. For if it is lawful to defend goods of fortune of great value by the killing of the invader, a fortiori it is lawful in this way to save the good of pudicity, which is much more excellent. For in that case the woman is exposed not only to some danger of consenting to a sinful act, but also of becoming pregnant and of bearing the greatest burdens of childbirth and education of offspring.124
Cuniliati, O.P.,125 writes concerning this matter: "The invader of another's pudicity, wishing by force to oppress an honorable woman, a girl, or a male, granted that no other way of escaping lies open (which otherwise seems difficult; nevertheless, this being supposed), is justly killed, not by intending the killing but the defense of oneself. Thus many others after St. Antoninus." St. Augustine126 is sometimes alleged as contrary to this opinion, because he seems to approve the opinion of Evodius: "Wherefore I indeed do not censure the [civil] law which permits such men to be killed; but in what way I may defend those who kill them, I do not find." Nevertheless from the context it does not appear whether that is truly the sense of St. Augustine. Billuart127 vigorously asserts that a virgin cannot licitly defend pudicity with the killing of the invader. Although the intrinsic reasons brought forward by St. Antoninus, whom St. Alphonsus,128 Lugo, Molina, Lessius, Reiffenstuel, Elbel, Sporer, etc.129 follow, do not seem to be so convincing (because the danger of consenting to sin is not so grave; the physical violation of virginity does not seem equivalent to the life of the aggressor; and finally the danger of conceiving offspring is almost none in such circumstances), nevertheless their opinion seems safe in practice, because such deflowerers are accustomed by intercourse to infect the woman with venereal disease, by which they themselves are not rarely infected; then, after the crime extorted by force, they are often carried off into such rage that they immediately kill the deflowered virgin (Lustmord). Therefore the virgin is then also placed in danger of death, and thus she can licitly kill the unjust aggressor. But if it is a question not of carnal intercourse itself, but of other immodest acts which do not cause so great a damage or shame, e.g., of kisses or touches, it is indeed lawful to beat but not to kill the unjust aggressor. But after deflowering or adultery has been extorted by force, it is no longer lawful to kill the deflowerer or adulterer, because then the killing would not be defense but illicit revenge.130
124 Cf. St. Antoninus, S. theol. P. 2, tit. 5, c. 6.
125 Theol. mor. tr. 8, c. 2, § 2, n. 3.
126 De lib. arb. l. 1, c. 5 (Migne, Patr. lat. 32, 1228).
127 De iure et iust. diss. 10, a. 6, § 2.
128 Theol. mor. l. 3, n. 382.
129 Cited by St. Alphonsus, l. c.
130 Cf. ibid. n. 386.
123. c) Reputation or honor cannot be defended with the killing of an unjust aggressor. This is plain from proposition 30 condemned by Innocent XI, cited above.131 The reason is that then the moderation of blameless defense would be exceeded; for honor or reputation is not saved from the fact that someone kills his calumniator. Hence already from this head it appears how illicit and inept dueling is.132
131 Cf. above n. 120.
132 The things which have been said thus far concerning bloody defense are also accustomed to be admitted by diverse criminal codes. Thus, e.g., it is had in the German Criminal Code § 53: "A punishable act is not present when the act was commanded by necessary defense. Necessary defense is that defense which is required to avert a present unlawful attack from oneself or another."