AIM Framework glossary
Self-Defence Disjunction
Canonical definition
The Self-Defence Disjunction is the result that Self-Defence and Claimed Self-Defence share a language and are different phenomena, indistinguishable from the inside and told apart by conduct: Self-Defence escapes an imminent threat or restores blocked provision, and ends when the way opens, and Claimed Self-Defence is directed at the other on the slow timescale. The Disjunction does not make the underlying Ethical claim false. It denies that the act the claim licenses is Self-Defence, and it diagnoses the reciprocal configuration, in which both parties' claims of Harm are true, so that the configuration can be avoided.
Explanation
"Self-defence" names two different things: escaping a threat that is on top of you, and acting against an enemy over time. Only the first is what the word means. The second may answer a real wrong, but it leads to a fight in which both sides end up harmed and both sides end up right.
Epistemic status
Framework-Specific Principle. Synthesis of Appendix A, Section A.5.10, the Ethics–Morality Disjunction and the Self-Defence Orthogonality Principle. No new axioms required.