The argument that predictable norm-enforcing punishments are better than chaotic vigilantism against perceived bad actors is fine, I accept it.
There is an additional premise, that identifies that distinction with state vs. nonstate actors, I don’t see an adequate argument for it here, and I disagree with the conclusion. I will try to explain why.
King vs. Parliament in England is a relevant precedent for those two coming apart: Parliament’s eventual use of force against Charles I was legitimated by its fidelity to norms the Crown was violating, not by its prior institutional standing as part of the state. More generally, states can be the active suppressors of the alternative bases for trust that would otherwise allow norm-governed collective action. When a state is organized around trust-suppression, its violence inherently has chaotic and unpredictable elements, because it is hostile to accountability. Of course this is in some tension with the maintenance of state capacity, but in practice we see plenty of capricious violence by states that have normalized executive exceptions to their notional rules (e.g. prosecutorial discretion).
People can be expected to try to act in individual or collective self-defense in the absence of recourse. We should expect most such people to be deranged (because they live without recourse) and also to offer confused arguments (because they live without recourse), but we should neither expect nor hope that people who are not deranged and who are capable of offering good arguments will abstain from acting against people who seem to be trying to kill everyone.
The argument that predictable norm-enforcing punishments are better than chaotic vigilantism against perceived bad actors is fine, I accept it.
There is an additional premise, that identifies that distinction with state vs. nonstate actors, I don’t see an adequate argument for it here, and I disagree with the conclusion. I will try to explain why.
King vs. Parliament in England is a relevant precedent for those two coming apart: Parliament’s eventual use of force against Charles I was legitimated by its fidelity to norms the Crown was violating, not by its prior institutional standing as part of the state. More generally, states can be the active suppressors of the alternative bases for trust that would otherwise allow norm-governed collective action. When a state is organized around trust-suppression, its violence inherently has chaotic and unpredictable elements, because it is hostile to accountability. Of course this is in some tension with the maintenance of state capacity, but in practice we see plenty of capricious violence by states that have normalized executive exceptions to their notional rules (e.g. prosecutorial discretion).
People can be expected to try to act in individual or collective self-defense in the absence of recourse. We should expect most such people to be deranged (because they live without recourse) and also to offer confused arguments (because they live without recourse), but we should neither expect nor hope that people who are not deranged and who are capable of offering good arguments will abstain from acting against people who seem to be trying to kill everyone.