The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of LifeAuthor: Jeff McMahan
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Number Of Pages: 560
Publication Date: 2002-01-03
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 0195079981
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780195079982
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.
"In this exceptional new book, Jeff McMahan offers nuanced and illuminating accounts of personal identity, human nature, the badness of death, the wrongness of killing, the rights of animals, abortion, and euthanasia. This book is a major contribution to both moral theory and applied ethics, and makes a strong case for the relevance of the former to the latter. It is also beautifully written and a joy to read. This is a long, dense book, overflowing with examples, arguments, and counterarguments. [It] is a tour de force of contemporary naturalistic ethics. Defenders of the naturalistic project will cite it as the best evidence yet that the project is on the right track, yielding insights into a wide range of pressing topical issues... No-one on either side can afford to ignore this book." --Tim Mulgan, Canadian Journal of Philosophy
"This is a book that aims to answer practical questions (such as whether and when abortion and euthanasia are permissible and how we should treat animals and the retarded) by answering such theoretical questions as what we are, when we begin and cease to exist, when it is worth caring about the continuation of our lives, and who is entitled to respect. McMahan provides detailed, rigorously argued, comprehensive, and often unconventional answers to both the theoretical and practical questions. The book is an enormous achievement and required reading for anyone concerned with questions of personal identity, issues of life and death, and the morality governing relations with animals."--Frances Kamm, Philosophical Review
"This book is an important contribution to moral philosophy. With respect to the interest of its ideas, and the strength of its arguments, the level of quality is consistently high. Readers will struggle to follow the twists and turns of the discussion, not because it is badly presented or unnecessarily complex, but because it is difficult for us to think as deeply into the issues as McMahan himself does.... [A] complex, and rewarding book."--Dennis McKerlie, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
"Jeff McMahan is one of America's leading contemporary moral philosophers and perhaps one of its most courageous. McMahan's long awaited and widely acclaimed book, The Ethics of Killing, advances a groundbreaking theory of the morality of killing and letting die. ... [Its] arguments are numerous, subtle, and detailed...one of the most comprehensive, rigorous, and illuminating discussions of the morality of ending marginal lives, brimming with thought-provoking observations and arguments that will shape the course of future debate."--Caroline West, The Drawing Board: An Australian Review of Public Affairs
"Masterful...admirably thorough and sensitive...The thoroughness and comprehensiveness with which [McMahan] has worked out [his] ideas is deeply impressive. The presentation is throughout so lucid that non-specialists should be able to profit greatly from the book...There could be no better proof of the paradoxical vitality of the subject of death and killing than this monumental book."-- Ingmar Persson, The Times Literary Supplement
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