Favorite Philosophers?

[possibletarian]

I believe that self-defense that uses violence is immoral if you cause more suffering to the person who attacked you than the person who attacked you would have caused had you not defended yourself.

Let me play devil's advocate then. A woman is attacked by a rapist (who only intended to rape her--not kill her). She defends herself by shooting him in the head with a 38 special. Justified?

I know you used that simply as an example but it does highlight difficulty in cases like this, if someone were to attack me I have no idea what the intentions are, so by instinct I'm likely to assume the worse case scenario. I remember a judge in the U.K. arguing that in the case of a shoplifter for instance, the theft actually took place the moment a person decides to steal and reaches out for it, but of course not being privy to a persons thoughts means that you have to wait till it's obvious the person is not going to pay for it through actions in order to have a case in court.
This is fine of course when what we are talking about is a bar of chocolate, but if someone is under attack, they clearly cannot afford to wait for it to play out.