Jeff McMahan

Jeff McMahan urges us to reject the view, dominant throughout history, that mere participation in an unjust war is not wrong. He argues powerfully that combatants who fight for an unjust cause are acting wrongly and are themselves morally responsible for their actions. We must rethink our attitudes to the moral role of the individual in war.

Killing in War

Robert McKim

Nationalism is one of the most intractable political problems in the world today. In this collection of essays, some of today's most eminent political scientists and philosophers address the ethics of nationalism. Rather than focusing on descriptive and prescriptive themes or policy issues, this volume focuses on the deeper moral issues that must be addressed if a policy prescription is to be well grounded. The contributors include Charles Taylor, Will Kymlicka, Thomas Hurka, Allen Buchanan, and Michael Walzer --

The Morality of Nationalism

Drawing on philosophical notions of personal identity and the immorality of killing, Jeff McMahan looks at various issues, including abortion, infanticide, the killing of animals, assisted suicide, and euthanasia.

Problems at the Margins of Life

The Ethics of Killing

Tim Campbell

James Goodrich

Ketan Ramakrishnan

Derek Parfit, who died in 2017, is widely believed to have been the best moral philosopher in well over a century. The twenty new essays in this book were written in his honour and have all been inspired by his work—in particular, his work in an area of moral philosophy known as 'population ethics', which is concerned with moral issues raised by causing people to exist. Until Parfit began writing about these issues in the 1970s, there was almost no discussion of them in the entire history of philosophy. But his monumental book Reasons and Persons (OUP, 1984) revealed that population ethics abounds in deep and intractable problems and paradoxes that not only challenge all the major moral theories but also threaten to undermine many important common-sense moral beliefs. It is no exaggeration to say that there is a broad range of practical moral issues that cannot be adequately understood until fundamental problems in population ethics are resolved. These issues include abortion, prenatal injury, preconception and prenatal screening for disability, genetic enhancement and eugenics generally, meat eating, climate change, reparations for historical injustice, the threat of human extinction, and even proportionality in war. Although the essays in this book address foundational problems in population ethics that were discovered and first discussed by Parfit, they are not, for the most part, commentaries on his work but instead build on that work in advancing our understanding of the problems themselves. The contributors include many of the most important and influential writers in this burgeoning area of philosophy.

The Legacy of Derek Parfit

Ethics and Existence

Derek Parfit, who died in 2017, is widely believed to have been the best moral philosopher in well over a century. The twenty new essays in this book were written in his honour and have all been inspired by his work--in particular, his work in an area of moral philosophy known as 'population ethics', which is concerned with moral issues raised by causing people to exist. Until Parfit began writing about these issues in the 1970s, there was almost no discussion of them in the entire history of philosophy. But his monumental book Reasons and Persons (OUP, 1984) revealed that population ethics abounds in deep and intractable problems and paradoxes that not only challenge all the major moral theories but also threaten to undermine many important common-sense moral beliefs. It is no exaggeration to say that there is a broad range of practical moral issues that cannot be adequately understood until fundamental problems in population ethics are resolved. These issues include abortion, prenatal injury, preconception and prenatal screening for disability, genetic enhancement and eugenics generally, meat eating, climate change, reparations for historical injustice, the threat of human extinction, and even proportionality in war. Although the essays in this book address foundational problems in population ethics that were discovered and first discussed by Parfit, they are not, for the most part, commentaries on his work but instead build on that work in advancing our understanding of the problems themselves. The contributors include many of the most important and influential writers in this burgeoning area of philosophy.

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 it is wrong to fight in a war that is unjust because it lacks a just cause.

Principles and Persons contains twenty-one new essays addressed to themes drawn from the work of the late Derek Parfit. Topics include the nature of reasons and duties, the rationality of our attitudes to time, and the question of personal identity.

Jeff McMahan

About

Books

Join the club