The Ethics of Killing Problems at the Margins

This magisterial work is the first comprehensive study of the ethics of killing, where the moral status of the individual killed is uncertain. Drawing on philosophical notions of personal identity and the immorality of killing, McMahan looks carefully at a host of practical issues, including abortion, infanticide, the killing of animals, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.

Jeff McMahan is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

Identity

3

(92)

Preliminaries

3

(4)

The Soul

7

(17)

Hylomorphism

7

(7)

The Cartesian Soul

14

(5)

Divided Consciousness

19

(5)

Are We Human Organisms?

24

(15)

When Does a Human Organism Begin to Exist?

24

(5)

Organisms, Embryos, and Corpses

29

(2)

Brain Transplantation

31

(4)

Dicephalus

35

(4)

The Psychological Account

39

(27)

Identity and Egoistic Concern

39

(4)

Beginning to Exist and Ceasing to Exist

43

(3)

``Pre-persons'' and ``Post-persons''

46

(2)

Revisions and a Note on Method

48

(7)

Replication and Egoistic Concern

55

(4)

Psychological Connectedness and Continuity

59

(7)

The Embodied Mind Account

66

(29)

The Embodied Mind Account of Identity

66

(3)

The Basis of Egoistic Concern

69

(13)

Possible Divergences Between Identity and Egoistic Concern

82

(4)

The Individuation of Minds

86

(2)

Mind, Brain, and Organism

88

(7)

Death

95

(94)

Preliminaries

95

(3)

The Problem of Comparison

98

(9)

Immortality

98

(5)

The Token Comparison

103

(4)

The Metaphysical Problem

107

(10)

A Plurality of Comparisons

107

(5)

Criteria for Determining the Appropriate Comparison

112

(5)

The Problem of Overdetermination

117

(28)

When Death Would Have Occurred Soon From a Different Cause

117

(3)

The Inheritance Strategy and the Problem of the Terminus

120

(7)

Overall Losses in Dying

127

(9)

The Previous Gain Account

136

(4)

Discounting Misfortunes for Previous Gains

140

(5)

Overall Lifelong Fortune

145

(20)

The Standard for Assessing Fortune

145

(14)

A Hierarchy of Being?

159

(3)

The Overall Fortune of Those Who Die in Infancy

162

(3)

The Deaths of Fetuses and Infants

165

(20)

The Time-Relative Interest Account

165

(9)

Narrative Unity, Retroactive Effects, Desert, and Desire

174

(11)

A Paradox

185

(4)

Killing

189

(78)

The Wrongness of Killing and the Badness of Death

189

(14)

Two Accounts

189

(5)

The Killing of Animals

194

(9)

Animals and Severely Cognitively Impaired Human Beings

203

(29)

The Options

203

(6)

Membership in the Human Species

209

(8)

Comembership in a Species as a Special Relation

217

(11)

Convergent Assimilation

228

(4)

Equality and Respect

232

(35)

The Time-Relative Interest Account

232

(8)

The Requirement of Respect

240

(11)

The Basis of the Worth of Persons

251

(16)

Beginnings

267

(156)

Early Abortion

267

(2)

Late Abortion

269

(11)

Prenatal Harm

280

(8)

Is a Later Abortion Worse?

288

(6)

Time-Relative Interests and Adaptation

294

(8)

Potential

302

(27)

Potential and Identity

302

(6)

Potential as a Basis for Moral Status

308

(8)

Potential, Cognitive Impairment, and Animals

316

(13)

The Sanctity of Human Life

329

(9)

Infanticide

338

(24)

Abortion and Infanticide

338

(7)

Are Infants ``Replaceable?''

345

(17)

Abortion as the Denial of Life-Support

362

(36)

The Argument

362

(2)

Responsibility for the Fetus's Need for Aid

364

(9)

Parental Responsibility

373

(5)

Killing and Letting Die

378

(14)

The Dependent Child Case

392

(6)

Abortion and Self-Defense

398

(25)

Self-Defense Against a Nonresponsible Threat

398

(13)

Proportionality, Third-party Intervention, and Forfeiture

411

(7)

The Decisive Asymmetry

418

(5)

Endings

423

(82)

When Do We Die, or Cease to Exist?

423

(32)

Two Concepts of Death

423

(3)

Brain Death

426

(17)

Persistent Vegetative State and Deep Coma

443

(7)

Anencephalic Infants

450

(5)

Euthanasia and Assisted Suicide

455

(38)

From Suicide to Euthanasia

455

(9)

The Sanctity of Life, Again

464

(9)

Respect for the Worth of Persons

473

(12)

Nonvoluntary Euthanasia

485

(8)

The Withering Away of the Self

493

(12)

The Metaphysics of Progressive Dementia

493

(3)

The Moral Authority of Advance Directives

496

(9)

Notes

505

(16)

References

521

(10)

Index of Cases

531

(2)

General Index

533

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The Ethics of Killing Problems at the Margins of Life

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials