jerry3643John d , thanks for the clarification. I don’t know that I would consider retaliatory force to be the same as defensive force. Retaliation carries with it the assumption that the threat has left. Defensive carries with it that the threat is happening. In the former I would agree that that does not agree with our concept of justice.
Also I’d like to mention that I gave up objectivist ethics a long time ago so I may be rusty as to Rand’s specifics in certain regards so I’d like to hear what you have to say about what I mentioned above and if you think it does or doesn’t affect the points made in your original post. If you meant defensive action and not retaliatory then I would say I don’t know how to answer you.
Personally I take more of a consequentialist approach to ethics.
That is to say that if the nap is valid, ‘this’ follows and if its not, then ‘that’ follows. ‘This’ is preferable to ‘that’ and here’s why……….
Perhaps my methods of justifying the nap was coming through in my previous reply to you. But that would be my approach to the issue if its of any value to you.
Have you tried taking your question to an objectivist forum?