‘Aggressing’ (from the Legal Principle: ‘don’t aggress’) is defined as:
- Initiating nonconsensual physical force against another person or their property;
- Engaging in fraud;
- Engaging in coercion;
- Creating a substantial risk or threat of initiating nonconsensual physical force against another person or their property;
- Breach someone’s rights to due process;
- Breaching a valid contract;
- Engaging in unreasonable conduct causing harm to another person or their property; or
- Breaching a fiduciary duty.
An aggressor is one whose actions fall under any one of these 8 definitions. Whoever aggresses first is always wrong.
Shorter ways to say it
- Simple definition: imposing upon someone’s body, autonomy or property without consent. It’s doing something that creates a legal victim.
- A concise yet comprehensive definition: initiating, threatening or creating a substantial risk of non-consensual physical force against another person or their property, as well as fraud, coercion, obstructing justice and breaching a contract or fiduciary duty.
Legal context
- In the context of the 3L Global Peace Movement, ‘aggressing’ is a ‘Term of Art’, meaning that it has a distinct legal meaning – in this case, ‘aggressing’ is a category of activity.
What is not ‘aggressing’
- Words used that do not fall under the definition of threats, fraud, coercion or creating a substantial risk, even if abhorrent or untrue, do not meet the legal definition of aggressing. Free speech, racism
- 3L’s Aspirational Values, which include voluntary kindness, honesty and civility, are key for achieving a peaceful society, but morality cannot be forcefully imposed without aggressing – and two wrongs don’t make a right.
- Using force to remedy an aggressor is not initiating force but responding to it. Therefore, self-defense is not aggressing.
