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                   Futile Resistance as Protest
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                          ABSTRACT

Acts of futile resistance--harms against an  aggressor  which  could
not reasonably hope to avert the threat  the  aggressor  poses--give
rise to a puzzle: on the one hand, many such  acts  are  intuitively
permissible, yet on the other, these acts appear to fail to meet the
justificatory  standards  of  defensive  action.  The  most   widely
accepted solution to this puzzle  is  that  victims  in  such  cases
permissibly defend  against  a  secondary  threat  to  their  honor,
dignity, or moral  standing.  I  argue  that  this  solution  fails,
because futile resistance is not plausibly regarded as defensive  in
the relevant sense. I propose  instead  that  futile  resistance  is
justified as a form of protest, where  protest  is  analyzed  as  an
expression  of  rejection  of  victims'  wrongs.  Such  protest   is
justified, I argue, when and because it is the fitting  response  to
the circumstances of futility.

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