The moral limits of violence in political resistance

This paper examines whether violence in political resistance against state injustice is morally permissible. Contemporary analytic political and legal philosophy seldom discusses this question, and the literature on nonviolent disobedience does not offer much help. The most relevant literature seems to be the ethics of war and the ethics of individual self-defense, in which four principles are commonly employed to assess the moral limits of force – just cause, reasonable prospect of success, necessity, and proportionality. This paper examines the extent to which these principles can provide practical moral guidance for participants in resistance movements that are highly dynamic and open-ended. Specifically, the paper addresses two questions: 1. To what extent can the four principles provide practical moral guidance for people to start and continue to engage in an uncivil (but unarmed) resistance movement? 2. What would be the morally right things for protestors to do under uncertainty? In addressing these questions, the paper focuses on two principles: the reasonable prospect of success and proportionality. The paper defends the following claims: 1. In evaluating the moral permissibility of a resistance movement, we look for action-guiding principles; moral permissibility is understood in the evidence-relative sense. 2. Even fact-relative, ex-post sense of moral rightness of a resistance movement is hard to be determined, given the highly dynamic nature of a resistance movement. 3. A wide margin of appreciation should be given to protesters. "The weak must have the right to fight dirty, otherwise the strong will always win." (Michael Ignatieff, The Lesser Evil, p.91.) 4. The reasonable prospect of success is of very limited relevance in a highly dynamic and open-ended resistance movement. 5. The spirit of proportionality is about preventing excessive responses, not strictly proportionate responses. Proportionality calls for self-restraint, and the fight for honor requires it.