The Weaponization of Self-Defense Claims

Join the Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics for this Ethics Exchange featuring author Caroline Light, Senior Lecturer and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard’s Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Dr. Light will discuss her book Stand Your Ground in conversation with Edmond & Lily Safra Center for Ethics Faculty Associate Susanna Siegel, Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy at Harvard.

About Stand Your Ground

Stand Your Ground narrates the history of our nation’s deep attachment to lethal self-defense, exposing the roots of the contemporary “gun rights” movement to colonial times. Including wide ranging legal and social histories such as the original “castle laws” of the 1600s; a normalized crusade of racial terror following the Civil War; and the NRA’s evolution from sporting organization to one of the most radical lobbying groups in the country, Stand Your Ground reveals how violent self-defense has been justified for the most privileged and weaponized against the most vulnerable. 
 
With an updated introduction by Light and a new foreword by Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, renowned historian and author of Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment, Stand Your Ground exposes a history hidden in plain sight and illuminates how the United States ascended to become the world’s foremost stand-your-ground nation. 

About Caroline Light

Caroline Light is a Senior Lecturer and the Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard’s Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies. Her first book, That Pride of Race and Character: the Roots of Jewish Benevolence in the Jim Crow South (NYU Press, 2014) tells the stories of Jewish orphans raised in institutions that lifted them from poverty to prosperity. Stand Your Ground: A History of America’s Love Affair with Lethal Self-Defense (Beacon Press, 2017) tracks the evolution of our nation’s ideals of armed citizenship, from the centuries-old “castle doctrine” to the “Stand Your Ground” laws that have removed the duty to retreat in a majority of the states. A ten-year anniversary edition of Stand Your Ground - with a Preface by historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz - is forthcoming. 

About Susanna Siegel

Susanna Siegel is Edgar Pierce Professor of Philosophy at Harvard. Her research focuses primarily on perception, drawing on both philosophy and the sciences of the mind. Her books The Contents of Visual Experience (2010) and The Rationality of Perception (2017) were both published by Oxford University Press, and she won the 2023 Lebowitz prize along with Professor Kristie Dotson for their joint work on norms of attention.  

About The Ethics Exchange

Ideas take on a different shape when they’re shared around a table. The Ethics Exchange gathers our community over lunch in the Dennis F. Thompson Seminar Room to think aloud about questions that matter. Building on the traditions of Ethics in Your World and Ethics Mondays, the series alternates between two formats: some sessions are open conversations, guided by a short reading or prompt; others feature invited speakers who share their work before opening the floor for dialogue. The aim is not to deliver neat answers but to create a space for genuine exchange—of ideas, perspectives, and disagreements—in an informal and engaging setting. Come with curiosity, and leave with sharper questions, new connections, and of course, full bellies.

This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required. 

All attendees must agree to the Chatham House Rule: participants are free to use information received, but neither the identity nor the affiliation of the speakers may be revealed.