Rövid leírás:
When is it right to kill? Three ethical theories are examined, deontology, a moral rights theory, and utilitarianism. The implications of each theory are worked out for different kinds of killing. In the final analysis, utilitarianism can best account for our considered intuitions about these kinds of killing.
Több
Hosszú leírás:
When and why is it right to kill? When and why is it wrong? Torbjörn Tännsjö examines three theories on the ethics of killing in this book: deontology, a libertarian moral rights theory, and utilitarianism. The implications of each theory are worked out for different kinds of killing: trolley-cases, murder, capital punishment, suicide, assisted death, abortion, killing in war, and the killing of animals. These implications are confronted with our intuitions in relation to them, and our moral intuitions are examined in turn. Only those intuitions that survive an understanding of how we have come to hold them are seen as ‘considered’ intuitions. The idea is that the theory that can best explain the content of our considered intuitions gains inductive support from them. We must transcend our narrow cultural horizons and avoid certain cognitive mistakes in order to hold considered intuitions. In this volume, suitable for courses in ethics and applied ethics, Tännsjö argues that in the final analysis utilitarianism can best account for, and explain, our considered intuitions about all these kinds of killing.
What this book does do admirably is give a demonstration of the process of trying to reconcile one’s moral intuitions with what one has come to think as the overall best normative theory.
Több
Tartalomjegyzék:
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1. Method
Chapter 2. Three Bold Conjectures
Chapter 3. The Trolley Cases
Chapter 4. Murder
Chapter 5. Capital Punishment
Chapter 6. Suicide
Chapter 7. Assisted death
Chapter 8. Abortion
Chapter 9. Survival Lotteries
Chapter 10. Killing In War
Chapter 11. The Killing of Animals
Chapter 12. What Are We to Believe?
References
Index
