Sunday, March 11, 2012

Francis Bacon, on the Right to Self-Defense

Francis Bacon's discussion of the right to self-defense indicates that it was somewhat more limited (in the recognition of it) during his lifetime than it was at other times and in other places, and yet as a component of the justification of "necessity," it made his list of "regulae" -- number 5, I believe:

Necessitas inducit privilegium quoad jura privata.”

“The law chargeth no man with default where the act is compulsory, and not voluntary, and where there is not a consent and election; and therefore if either there bee an impossibility for a man to doe otherwise, or so great a perturbation of the judgment and reason as a presumption of law mans nature cannot overcome such necessity carrieth a priviledge in it selfe.

“Necessity is of three sorts, necessity of conservation of life, necessity of obedience, and necessity of the act of God or of a stranger.”

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