Killing in War

ISBN-13: 9780199548668 / Angielski / Twarda / 2009 / 248 str.

Jeff McMahan

Opis

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 in most cases it is morally wrong to fight in a war that is unjust.

Recenzje

Killing in War makes you wonder why the conventional wisdom about the ethics of killing in war has stood for so long. With persuasive arguments, lucidly stated, McMahan mounts a devastating critique of centuries-old orthodoxies. To wage war on a sound ethical basis is much more difficult than we previously thought. Everyone contemplating fighting in a war, or ordering others to do so, should read this book.

O autorze

Jeff McMahan is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He works primarily in ethics and political philosophy, and occasionally in metaphysics and legal theory.