The paradox of tolerance is just a description of how a virtue can at limit become a vice in practice. It's not a math problem for the oh so smart folks in this thread to resolve. One cannot be unbound from the social contract because someone else breaks it. This is why for instance even when we go to war we try to limit harm and when we punish someone, even a murderer, they are entitled to process and law even while we are punishing them.
You are always bound to ethics and law based on who YOU are not who they are. This is nearly the most fundamental fact of ethics.
One cannot be unbound from the social contract because someone else breaks it.
That's what "self-defense" is. Someone breaks the social contract and tries to harm you so you are allowed to also break the social contract and harm them.
It's not what self defense is. For instance in most civilized spaces you can't respond out of proportion, you are usually required to retreat if its safe to do so from public spaces, you can't continue attacking while your opponent flees, you can't instigate or cause the conflict and then claim the protection of self defense.
He and about everyone in this thread including the originator are talking shit about things they don't even slightly understand and then trying to scramble to justify.
That’s what “self-defense” is. Someone breaks the social contract and tries to harm you so you are allowed to also break the social contract and harm them.
This just isn't correct your social contract didn't magically change. You aren't excused from it by someone's actions. It is rooted in who you are not who they are. It can be described in this case by a sentence. Just because a clause doesn't apply to a particular situation doesn't mean the fuckin rule changed.
Don't cause people to come to harm by action or inaction wherein your actions are themselves justifiable to reasonable people while protecting yourself by doing the least harm possible while preserving your justifiable interests. We end up needing a lot more words to describe what reasonable is because people are stupid assholes but it is what it is.
You apply the same rule to someone trying to attack you as someone making change at the fucking grocery store. The attacker is part of the same social contract even if you end up bloodying the one person and thanking the other.