Retreating from Necessity

The necessity condition on self-defence, which tells us that defensive violence is permissible only if it is the defender’s least harmful means of resisting an attacker’s threat, gives rise to at least two puzzles. First, it is normally understood as forbidding the defender from standing her ground in cases where she can safely retreat. This gives rise to the following troubling possibility: if a non-retreating defender is acting impermissibly, can the aggressive and supposedly impermissible violence directed towards her now enjoy an unlikely second life as permissible counter-defence? Second, necessity appears to condemn cases of ‘insufficient’ or ‘futile’ defence: if the defender knows there’s no way of warding off a very strong attacker from the assault on her he’s determined to complete, then isn’t her violent response to him gratuitous? I will take a close look at the necessity condition in order to avoid these consequences.