The “Right and Duty to be at All Times Armed”

[TPaine7]

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the morality, immorality or neutrality of self-defense (or the defense of other innocents). The idea that one normally has a moral duty to defend oneself seems strange and alien to many. But it was not always so. In the founding era, the duty was enjoined from the pulpit and taken for granted in politics.

Here’s a gentleman you may have heard of, Thomas Jefferson, bragging on his country to an Englishman:

Our Revolution commenced on more favorable ground. It presented us an album on which we were free to write what we pleased. We had no occasion to search into musty records, to hunt up royal parchments, or to investigate the laws and institutions of a semi-barbarous ancestry. We appealed to those of nature, and found them engraved on our hearts. Yet we did not avail ourselves of all the advantages of our position. We had never been permitted to exercise self-government. When forced to assume it, we were novices in its science. Its principles and forms had entered little into our former education. We established however some, although not all its important principles. The constitutions of most of our States assert, that all power is inherent in the people; that they may exercise it by themselves, in all cases to which they think themselves competent, (as in electing their functionaries executive and legislative, and deciding by a jury of themselves, in all judiciary cases in which any fact is involved,) or they may act by representatives, freely and equally chosen; that it is their right and duty to be at all times armed; that they are entitled to freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press.

Source: Jefferson letter to Major John Cartwright, June 5, 1824. http://history.liberatedtext.org/confounders/tj_bergh/v16/18240605johncartwright.html

That’s a strange concept to modern ears—a “duty to be at all times armed.” Uncivilized. Barbaric. Primitive. And out of the mouth of a slave owning hypocrite.

Well the last part is certainly true. But while Jefferson was undoubtedly a slaveholder, a hypocrite and a dishonest sneak (he undermined Washington’s administration from within by leaking papers to the press) he had some profound political insights. In contrast to some of his personal flaws, Jefferson’s political and philosophical musings should not be lightly dismissed.

Even so, I don’t quote Jefferson as an authority, but as a representative of early American thought. I could have quoted ministers and philosophers if I wanted to hunt down references.

Ok. So early Americans thought there was a right and duty of self-defense. Did they have a point? In other words, should we rank this idea with slavery and exclusive white male suffrage, or should we rank it, as Jefferson did, with “freedom of person, freedom of religion, freedom of property, and freedom of the press”? Only we can answer that.

Let’s try. First some definitions.

Duty is, according to dictionary.com, “something that one is expected or required to do by moral or legal obligation.” Moral means, according to the same source, “conforming to the rules of right conduct (opposed to IMMORAL )...”

Putting it all together, a duty is something one is required to do because it conforms to the rules of right conduct. (I left off the legal part because there clearly is not a legal duty to defend oneself in most of America today.)

One of the most elementary rules of right conduct is to choose the best option. If there are two equally effective ways to save the patient’s life, but one gives him a 95% chance of walking again and the other gives him a 42% chance the emergency room surgeon has a duty to choose the better option.

This rule is easy for most to see when defense of others is involved.

A father kills a home invader who is pointing a gun at his daughter. He makes the best available choice. Not the best choice available in an imaginary perfect world, mind you, just the best choice available in the world he inhabits.

What gives him the right to choose his daughter over the criminal? How can he stand as judge over the value of human life? Is he playing God?

I maintain that the innocent child’s life is worth more than the criminal’s. From a strictly utilitarian view, society is better off populated with innocents than with predators. This is society’s judgment. It’s why we have prisons.

If I were to invade another man’s home, point a weapon at his daughter and die as a result it would not be because he had condemned me. It would not be because his daughter had condemned me. No, I would have condemned myself.

Society has judged some people worthy of death because of race, religion, culture, class, and political leanings. Society was wrong. But in this case, society’s judgment seems, to me at least, to be perfect. In fact, for a father to allow a criminal to kill his daughter when it was in his power to prevent it—even by killing the attacker—would be profoundly immoral. Criminal, even.

I think most people will agree so far, but here comes the interesting part. Let’s say that dad has left his little girl at home, safe with mom. He is threatened on the street, and either he or the criminal will likely die. If it is in his power to choose, it appears that he has several clear moral reasons to choose to live himself (over and beyond his clear instinct for self-preservation):

1) It is better that his little daughter’s daddy live to support her and to raise her with love than that a predator live to attack other innocents.
2) It is better that his wife’s husband live to love and share her life than that a predator live to attack other innocents.
3) In any dispute between guilty and innocent, the innocent should prevail. This is why we have courts.
4) Society is better off populated with innocents than with predators. This is why we have prisons.
5) There is nothing arbitrary about concluding that he should prevail, if necessary by force, even deadly force. The choice was not made by the victim but by the perpetrator.

This is not a close decision. It is not morally neutral. Perhaps the early Americans had a point?

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