Permissible Killing

Permissible Killing PDF Author: Suzanne Uniacke
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521564588
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Do individuals have a positive right of self-defence? And if so, what are the limits of this right? Under what conditions, if any, does this use of force extend to the defence of others? These are some of the issues explored by Dr Uniacke in this comprehensive philosophical discussion of the principles relevant to self-defence as a moral and legal justification of homicide. She establishes a unitary right of self-defence and defence of others, one which grounds the permissibility of the use of necessary and proportionate defensive force against culpable and non-culpable, active and passive, unjust threats. Particular topics discussed include: the nature of moral and legal justification and excuse; natural law justifications of homicide in self-defence; the Principle of Double Effect and the claim that homicide in self-defence is justified as unintended killing; and the question of self-preferential killing. This is a lucid and sophisticated account of the complex notion of justification, revolving around a critical discussion of recent trends in the law of self-defence.

Permissible Killing

Permissible Killing PDF Author: Suzanne Uniacke
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521564588
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 258

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Book Description
Do individuals have a positive right of self-defence? And if so, what are the limits of this right? Under what conditions, if any, does this use of force extend to the defence of others? These are some of the issues explored by Dr Uniacke in this comprehensive philosophical discussion of the principles relevant to self-defence as a moral and legal justification of homicide. She establishes a unitary right of self-defence and defence of others, one which grounds the permissibility of the use of necessary and proportionate defensive force against culpable and non-culpable, active and passive, unjust threats. Particular topics discussed include: the nature of moral and legal justification and excuse; natural law justifications of homicide in self-defence; the Principle of Double Effect and the claim that homicide in self-defence is justified as unintended killing; and the question of self-preferential killing. This is a lucid and sophisticated account of the complex notion of justification, revolving around a critical discussion of recent trends in the law of self-defence.

The Mechanics of Claims and Permissible Killing in War

The Mechanics of Claims and Permissible Killing in War PDF Author: Alec D. Walen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190872055
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 265

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Book Description
According to the dominant account of rights, there are two ways to permissibly kill people: they have done something to forfeit their right to life, or their rights are outweighed by the significantly greater cost of respecting them. Contemporary just war theorists tend to agree that it is difficult to justify killing in the second way. Thus, they focus on the conditions under which rights might be forfeited. But it has proven hard to defend an account of forfeiture that permits killing when and only when it is morally justifiable. In The Mechanics of Claims and Permissible Killing in War, Alec D. Walen develops an alternative account of rights according to which rights forfeiture has a much smaller role to play. It plays a smaller role because rights themselves are more contextually contingent. They systematically reflect the different kinds of claims people can make on an agent. For example, those who threaten to cause harm without a right to do so have weaker claims not to be killed than innocent bystanders or those who have a right to threaten to cause harm. By framing rights as the output of a balance of competing claims, and by laying out a detailed account of how to balance competing claims, Walen provides a more coherent account of when killing in war is permissible.

The Ethics of Killing

The Ethics of Killing PDF Author: Jeff McMahan
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195169829
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
Drawing on philosophical notions of personal identity and the immorality of killing, Jeff McMahan looks at various issues, including abortion, infanticide, the killing of animals, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.

Justified Killing

Justified Killing PDF Author: Whitley R. P. Kaufman
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780739128992
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Book Description
The right of self-defense is seemingly at odds with the general presupposition that killing is wrong; numerous theories have been put forth over the years that attempt to explain how self-defense is consistent with such a presupposition. In Justified Killing: The Paradox of Self-Defense, Whitley Kaufman argues that none of the leading theories adequately explains why it is permissible even to kill an innocent attacker in self-defense, given the basic moral prohibition against killing the innocent. Kaufman suggests that such an explanation can be found in the traditional Doctrine of Double Effect, according to which self-defense is justified because the intention of the defender is to protect himself rather than harm the attacker. Given this morally legitimate intention, self-defense is permissible against both culpable and innocent aggressors, so long as the force used is both necessary and proportionate. Justified Killing will intrigue in particular those scholars interested in moral and legal philosophy.

Targeted Killings

Targeted Killings PDF Author: Claire Finkelstein
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191625906
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 517

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Book Description
The war on terror is remaking conventional warfare. The protracted battle against a non-state organization, the demise of the confinement of hostilities to an identifiable battlefield, the extensive involvement of civilian combatants, and the development of new and more precise military technologies have all conspired to require a rethinking of the law and morality of war. Just war theory, as traditionally articulated, seems ill-suited to justify many of the practices of the war on terror. The raid against Osama Bin Laden's Pakistani compound was the highest profile example of this strategy, but the issues raised by this technique cast a far broader net: every week the U.S. military and CIA launch remotely piloted drones to track suspected terrorists in hopes of launching a missile strike against them. In addition to the public condemnation that these attacks have generated in some countries, the legal and moral basis for the use of this technique is problematic. Is the U.S. government correct that nations attacked by terrorists have the right to respond in self-defense by targeting specific terrorists for summary killing? Is there a limit to who can legitimately be placed on the list? There is also widespread disagreement about whether suspected terrorists should be considered combatants subject to the risk of lawful killing under the laws of war or civilians protected by international humanitarian law. Complicating the moral and legal calculus is the fact that innocent bystanders are often killed or injured in these attacks. This book addresses these issues. Featuring chapters by an unrivalled set of experts, it discusses all aspects of targeted killing, making it unmissable reading for anyone interested in the implications of this practice.

The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death

The Cambridge Companion to Life and Death PDF Author: Steven Luper
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107022878
Category : Medical
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
This volume discusses the philosophical issues connected with the nature and significance of life and death, and the ethics of killing. It will be of interest to all those taking courses on the philosophy of life and death, applied ethics covering abortion, euthanasia, and suicide, and ethics and metaphysics.

The Mechanics of Claims and Permissible Killing in War

The Mechanics of Claims and Permissible Killing in War PDF Author: Alec D. Walen
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190872063
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 352

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Book Description
According to the dominant account of rights, there are two ways to permissibly kill people: they have done something to forfeit their right to life, or their rights are outweighed by the significantly greater cost of respecting them. Contemporary just war theorists tend to agree that it is difficult to justify killing in the second way. Thus, they focus on the conditions under which rights might be forfeited. But it has proven hard to defend an account of forfeiture that permits killing when and only when it is morally justifiable. In The Mechanics of Claims and Permissible Killing in War, Alec D. Walen develops an alternative account of rights according to which rights forfeiture has a much smaller role to play. It plays a smaller role because rights themselves are more contextually contingent. They systematically reflect the different kinds of claims people can make on an agent. For example, those who threaten to cause harm without a right to do so have weaker claims not to be killed than innocent bystanders or those who have a right to threaten to cause harm. By framing rights as the output of a balance of competing claims, and by laying out a detailed account of how to balance competing claims, Walen provides a more coherent account of when killing in war is permissible.

Homicide Justified

Homicide Justified PDF Author: Andrew Fede
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820351121
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 362

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Book Description
This comparative study looks at the laws concerning the murder of slaves by their masters and at how these laws were implemented. Andrew T. Fede cites a wide range of cases--across time, place, and circumstance--to illuminate legal, judicial, and other complexities surrounding this regrettably common occurrence. These laws had evolved to limit in different ways the masters' rights to severely punish and even kill their slaves while protecting valuable enslaved people, understood as "property," from wanton destruction by hirers, overseers, and poor whites who did not own slaves. To explore the conflicts of masters' rights with state and colonial laws, Fede shows how slave homicide law evolved and was enforced not only in the United States but also in ancient Roman, Visigoth, Spanish, Portuguese, French, and British jurisdictions. His comparative approach reveals how legal reforms regarding slave homicide in antebellum times, like past reforms dictated by emperors and kings, were the products of changing perceptions of the interests of the public; of the individual slave owners; and of the slave owners' families, heirs, and creditors. Although some slave murders came to be regarded as capital offenses, the laws con-sistently reinforced the second-class status of slaves. This influence, Fede concludes, flowed over into the application of law to free African Americans and would even make itself felt in the legal attitudes that underlay the Jim Crow era.

Who Should Die?

Who Should Die? PDF Author: Ryan C. Jenkins
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190495650
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
This volume collects influential and groundbreaking philosophical work on killing in war. A "who's who" of contemporary scholars, this volume serves as a convenient and authoritative collection uniquely suited for university-level teaching and as a reference for ethicists, policymakers, stakeholders, and any student of the morality of war.

Killing in War

Killing in War PDF Author: Jeff McMahan
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191563463
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 264

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Book Description
Killing a person is in general among the most seriously wrongful forms of action, yet most of us accept that it can be permissible to kill people on a large scale in war. Does morality become more permissive in a state of war? Jeff McMahan argues that conditions in war make no difference to what morality permits and the justifications for killing people are the same in war as they are in other contexts, such as individual self-defence. This view is radically at odds with the traditional theory of the just war and has implications that challenge common sense views. McMahan argues, for example, that it is wrong to fight in a war that is unjust because it lacks a just cause.