Research Catalog

Title

The ethics of killing : problems at the margins of life / Jeff McMahan.

Author

McMahan, Jeff

Publication

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2002.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xiii, 540 p.; 25 cm.

Summary

"This book is a comprehensive study of the ethics of killing in cases in which the metaphysical or moral status of the individual killed is uncertain or controversial. Among the beings whose status is questionable or marginal in this way are human embryos and fetuses, neonates, animals, anencephalic infants, human beings with severe, congenital, cognitive impairments, and human beings who have become severely demented or irreversibly comatose." "In an attempt to understand the moral status of these beings, Jeff McMahan develops and defends distinctive accounts of the nature of personal identity, the evaluation of death, and the wrongness of killing. He contends that the morality of killing is not unitary; rather, the principles that determine the morality of killing in marginal cases are different from those that govern the killing of persons who are self-conscious and rational."--BOOK JACKET.

Series Statement

Oxford ethics series

Uniform Title

Oxford ethics series

Subject

• Killing of older people > Moral and ethical aspects
• Murder > Moral and ethical aspects
• Abortion > Moral and ethical aspects
• Killing of the mentally ill > Moral and ethical aspects
• Euthanasia > Moral and ethical aspects
• Homicide > ethics
• Abortion, Eugenic > ethics
• Abortion, Legal > ethics
• Infanticide > ethics
• Euthanasia > ethics
• Animal Experimentation > ethics
• Euthanasia, Animal > ethics

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 521-529) and indexes.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

1. IDENTITY: Preliminaries -- The soul -- Are we human organisms? -- The psychological account -- The embodied mind account -- 2. DEATH: Preliminaries -- The problem of comparison -- The metaphysical problem -- The problem of overdetermination -- Overall lifelong fortune -- The death of fetuses and infants -- A paradox -- 3. KILLING: The wrongness of killing and the badness of death -- Animals and severely cognitively impaired human beings -- Equality and respect -- 4. BEGINNINGS: Early abortion -- Late abortion -- Prenatal harm -- Is a later abortion worse? -- Time-relative interests and adaptation -- Potential -- The sanctity of human life -- Infanticide -- Abortion as the denial of life support -- Abortion and self-defense -- 5. ENDINGS: When do we die, or cease to exist? -- Euthanasia and assisted suicide -- The withering away of the self.

ISBN

0195079981 (hardbd. : alk. paper)

LCCN

^^2001021768

OCLC

• 123106854
• SCSB-10060627

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library