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Article: Permissible Killing: The Self-Defence Justification of Homicide.
- Article from:
- Criminal Justice Ethics
- Article date:
- January 1, 1995
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1995 Institute for Criminal Justice Ethics. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Until Suzanne Uniacke's recent book, Permissible Killing, it was probably true that "George Fletcher ha[d] developed the most complete contemporary theory of self-defense."(1) That honor, at least at the level of philosophical analysis, may now belong to Uniacke, however, whose book offers an elaborate argument explicating the underlying rationale for the common assumption that killing in self-defense is justified as a matter of positive right. Unlike Fletcher and a few other theorists, Uniacke does not engage in detailed legal analysis but relies on traditional common law doctrine as the given starting point for her discussion.
I do not intend here to engage in a ...