The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life

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.

About the Author :
Jeff McMahan is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.

Review :
"Publication of this book is a welcome event. McMahan's discussions involve analyses of more alternative views than, I suspect, anyone other than McMahan has ever imagined. The Ethics of Killing is detailed, careful, comprehensive, and innovative. [It] is an example of philosophy at the highest level. It is a genuine pleasure to have the opportunity to read such a probing, careful, analytical, honest, and utterly wonderful book. I recommend it highly. It would not be unreasonable to make it required reading for any graduate student (or anyone else) who needs to understand the nature of first-class philosophical thought."--Ethics "An enormously rich contribution to personal identity theory, ethical theory, and applied ethics. [Each of the five hefty chapters] could be a short book of scholarly significance...Chapter 2 presents the most probing investigation of the harm of death of which I am aware."--David DeGrazia, Philosophy and Public Affairs "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." --The Times Literary Supplement "McMahan is one of America's finest contemporary moral theorists...[His] long-awaited book combines a close attention to real-life moral issues with a solid insight into foundational matters of metaphysics and ethical theory. It is always well-argued, sophisticated and very interesting. The Ethics of Killing is an excellent book and deserves close study. I recommend it to anyone who, for professional or existential reasons, is interested in the topics it tackles. And who is not for the latter reasons?" --Nordic Journal of Philosophy "McMahan's book is outstanding within the present literature in virtue of its breadth, succinctness, and argumentative erudition. The two dominant qualities of the book are, first, an extraordinary care for argumentative fairness and balance, and second, a new interest in bringing applied ethics into helpful contact with its so far neglected philosophical foundations."--Deutsche Zeitschrift f�r Philosophie "With a careful application of metaphysics to ethics, McMahan has developed a field of argument that has been insufficiently explored, and in so doing, created a whole new structure for the debates surrounding abortion and euthanasia. This makes this a novel and, at times, exciting book."--Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "The Ethics of Killing is applied ethics at its best. From now on, anyone who is serious about getting to the bottom of issues like abortion, infanticide, brain death, euthanasia and the killing of nonhuman animals will have to take account of the novel and ingenious theory presented in Jeff McMahan's lucidly-written, rigorously-argued book."--Peter Singer, Princeton University "This is a deep, detailed examination of the full range of moral problems having to do with killing those who are at the beginning of life (abortion) and those who are at its end (euthanasia). McMahan brings out the sources of the problems and the connections among them; his extensive discussions of the ideas of the moral theorists with whom he disagrees are beautifully clear and fair; and he draws some new conclusions--they are bound to capture attention and provoke debate. The book is a major piece of work, required reading for anyone with an interest in moral theory."--Judith Jarvis Thomson, MIT "Beginning with an original view about the nature of personal identity, McMahan goes on to offer illuminating discussions of the badness of death, and the wrongness of killing in various 'marginal' cases (e.g., animals, fetuses, or cases involving brain death). To be sure, the book does not make for easy reading. It is densely written and overflowing with arguments, painstakingly dissecting a wide range of alternative views. But whatever your own views about these important issues, they will be thoroughly challenged here. The Ethics of Killing is a remarkable book."--Shelly Kagan, Yale University "This book sets out from central issues in moral theory and brings us in the end to some of the hardest moral problems of modern life. It is a book of deep, intricate, concentrated and continuous argument, presented in the clearest language. At the beginning of the new century, it will form the cornerstone of the moral philosophy of killing."--John Broome, Corpus Christi College, Oxford University