Taking life: three theories on the ethics of killing
Oxford, 2015
Abstract
When and why is it all right to kill? When and why is it wrong? Three theories on the ethics of killing are critically examined in the book: deontology, a libertarian moral rights theory, and utilitarianism. The implications of each theory are worked out for different kinds of killing in chapters on murder, capital punishment, suicide, assisted death, abortion, survival lotteries, killing in war, and the killing of animals. With the help of a survey given to 1,000 participants in three very different countries (China, Russia, and the United States), the book focuses on various thought-provoking questions, allowing us to see the aforementioned issues in a new light. Through analysis of the survey’s results, we are able to take note of the role that cultural influence plays in shaping people’s opinions on these matters, and thus can attempt to transcend these same cultural biases. In the final analysis, it is argued that utilitarianisam can best account for, and explain, our considered intuitions about each of these kinds of killing.
Quotes from this work
Is there anything we can do about animal suffering in wildlife? There was a time when many said that nothing should be done to obviate human suffering, since attempts to establish a welfare state would either be in vain, jeopardise what kind of welfare there happens to exist, or produce perverse (even worse) results. We rarely meet with that reaction any more. However, many seem to be ready to argue that wildlife constitutes such a complex system of ecological balances that any attempt to interfere must produce no good results, put into jeopardy whatever ecological ‘balances’ there happen to exist, or perversely make the situation even worse. This is not the place to settle whether they are right or not, but, certainly, there must exist some measures we could take, if we bothered to do so, rendering wildlife at least slightly less terrible. If this were so, we should do so, according to utilitarianism.