Defensive Desert

ABSTRACT When aiming to justify the infliction of harm upon a culpable wrongdoer, the notion of desert most readily finds its home within the context of punishment. Thus, according to one dominant theory of punishment, retributivism, a wrongdoer deserves the hard treatment constitutive of punishment. In this paper, I argue that desert can play a role in helping justify certain types of defensive action. Specifically, I aim to show how desert‐based reasons can help justify seemingly futile defensive efforts. Importantly, this justification does not stem from the idea that the victim of an attack may “draw against punishment” in seeking to avert a threat, but rather from the belief that culpable aggressors deserve to be resisted.