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Killing

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DOI: 10.1002/9781444367072.wbiee393

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 1

Killing
Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen

Introduction
Roughly, one individual kills another if, and only if, she acts in a way that causes the
death of this person provided the causal route from the act to the death does not run
through the will of another agent and does not depend on a number of intervening
coincidences. In a very wide range of cases, killing is impermissible. In the next section,
however, I consider some cases in which it is generally thought to be permissible. The
third section compares killing to other ways of countenancing someone’s death, non-
conscious existence, or nonexistence. The fourth section explores four accounts of
what makes killing impermissible when it is. Ideally, such an account must allow for
those of the exceptions to the general prohibition on killing mentioned in section two
that are justifiable and explain why killing is worse than the cases listed in section three.

Exceptions
In a number of cases, killing is thought to be morally permissible. First, it is widely,
though not universally, assumed that it is permissible, perhaps not even pro tanto
morally wrong, to kill bacteria, individual plants, and nonhuman animals that are
not persons (see hunting). This assumption, however, leaves open that the killing
of persons who are not human beings – great apes, for example (Singer 1993:
110–19) – is morally no different from killing human persons. Also, the assumption
is compatible with the view that the painful killing of sentient, nonpersonal animals
is seriously wrong. Some people distinguish morally between the killings of different
nonhuman animals. For example, some people believe that killing pigs is less wrong
than killing dogs. While there might be indirect reasons that support this view in
terms of harm done to persons who are emotionally attached to dogs but not to pigs,
no direct reasons appear to motivate it.
Second, many believe that it is sometimes permissible to kill human beings that
are not persons. Arguably, the killing of zygotes, embryos, and fetuses, i.e., abortion
(see abortion), is such a case. Yet, some people deny this. First, some think that
while zygotes etc. are human organisms, they are not yet human beings (Quinn
1993: 20–51). Second, some theorists deny that fetuses can be permissibly killed on
the ground that they have the potential to become persons, i.e., rational, self-
conscious individuals. Yet, the mere fact that someone has the potential to acquire a
certain status does not imply that she already has the rights that go with it (Tooley
1972: 60–2). For instance, children have the potential to become full citizens, but

The International Encyclopedia of Ethics. Edited by Hugh LaFollette, print pages 2918–2928.
© 2013 Blackwell Publishing Ltd. Published 2013 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI: 10.1002/ 9781444367072.wbiee393
2

they do not have voting rights. Apart from fetuses, there are human beings that do
not have the potential for becoming persons, e.g., anencephalic individuals, or indi-
viduals who have lost personhood irreversibly. If, however, only actually being a
person can ground a right not to be killed, there is the challenge of explaining how
abortion is morally different from infanticide (see infanticide) provided that
babies are not persons either. An influential answer is that, unlike an infant, a fetus
lives only through its being located in and sustained by a body that is owned by
another and which it has no right to occupy against the will of the owner (Thomson
1971). On this view, even if fetuses are persons, it is permissible to kill them.
Third, arguably, human beings who are undeniably persons can sometimes be
permissibly killed. There are at least two such putative cases: (1) terminally ill
patients, who suffer great pain, and who consent (see informed consent) to being
killed (voluntary, active euthanasia); (2) terminally ill who would have consented
had they had the ability to do so (nonvoluntary, active euthanasia) (see euthana-
sia). Some say it is never better for a person to die (see death), but this view clashes
with the view that there are cases where it is better for a terminal patient suffering
great pain not to be saved from an imminent threat to her life (passive euthanasia).
While euthanasia is a contested issue, few rule out euthanasia altogether. Appealing
to the doctrine of double effect (see doctrine of double effect), some say that
doctors may permissibly kill patients in a terminal phase as a side-effect of relieving
their pains. Some think euthanasia is permissible even when the doctor aims at the
death of the patient provided that (1) the latter is competent and requests euthanasia
and (2) it is in her interests to be euthanized. Arguably, the former condition applies
only analogously and the latter condition not at all where the killer is identical to the
person killed, i.e., cases of (assisted) suicide (see suicide). Most people believe that
one does not wrong oneself in committing suicide. Kant held a conflicting view. He
thought that to commit suicide for hedonistic reasons would be to fail to treat the
humanity in oneself as an end in itself. But even in his case, it is unclear that he
would condemn any kind of suicide. Perhaps a murderer, who has been fairly sen-
tenced to death and is the last person alive, may permissibly execute himself to see
to it that he gets his just desert.
Fourth, some persons can be killed permissibly, even if they do not consent to
being killed. This may apply to combatants in war (see pacifism; just war theory,
history of; war). Many subscribe to the principle of moral equality of combatants.
It says that it is morally permissible for a combatant to kill any combatant on the
opposing side, irrespective of whether the opposing side has a just cause for war. On
this view, a soldier is not wronged by enemy soldiers who kill her when they invade
her country in a genocidal war of aggression. This example brings out why some
writers reject the principle of the moral equality of combatants (McMahan 2009).
McMahan argues that whereas just combatants are permitted to kill unjust combat-
ants, unjust combatants are not permitted to kill just combatants. Many theorists
reason about the permissibility of killing in war on the basis of their view that, in
nonwar contexts, nonconsenting persons can be killed permissibly in cases of
self-defense (see self-defense) and in defense of a third party. Most people believe
 3

that some threats are so severe that one may permissibly use lethal force against a
culpable aggressor to prevent oneself from suffering it, e.g., if someone culpably
attacks me with an axe intending to kill me, I am morally permitted to use my gun
to kill the aggressor, provided the alternative is that I suffer greatly (Thomson 1991:
286). The last requirement reflects the view that for lethal self-defense to be
permissible, there must be some proportion between the harm that one inflicts on
the aggressor and the harm that one averts. More controversial cases of lethal self-
defense are cases involving the killing of innocent aggressors. A person who has
been unforeseeably kidnapped and brainwashed to want to kill someone else is an
example of an innocent aggressor. Also controversial are cases of nonaggressing
threats. A person whom someone else uses as a human projectile is a threat, but not
an aggressor. If she is culpable for being in a situation where she is so used, however,
she might nonetheless be a culpable threat. Finally, some theorists believe that, in
self-defense, one can even permissibly kill innocent shields, i.e., people who do not
themselves pose a threat, but are nonculpably interposed between oneself and a
lethal threat such that to eliminate the threat, one has to kill the shield.
Fifth, some think that nonconsenting human persons who have committed
serious crimes can permissibly be put to death, if so convicted (see capital punish-
ment). Many resist capital punishment as a part of an ordinary penal system, but
would allow that, in exceptional circumstances (e.g., people who successfully
organized genocide), capital punishment is permissible. Of those who reject capital
punishment, many do so for reasons that are compatible with its sometimes being
permissible to kill a nonthreatening person, e.g., they oppose capital punishment
because it is administered discriminatorily.
Sixth, most believe that nonconsenting human persons can be permissibly killed
outside contexts of self-defense even though they have done nothing to make
themselves liable to be killed. (One is liable to be killed if, and only if, one is not
wronged by being killed.) Such cases arise where the killing of innocents is the only
way to avoid a sufficiently bad outcome. As the celebrated trolley case shows (see
trolley problem), a bad outcome need not be very bad indeed, e.g., involve the
death of millions of innocents, for the killing of an innocent to be permissible.
Suppose a runaway trolley is hurtling down the main track on a hillside. Five
innocents are trapped on the track, but a bystander can divert the trolley onto a
side-track. Unfortunately, one innocent person is trapped there. It is permissible,
most believe, for the bystander to divert the trolley and thereby save the five, even if
she thereby kills the one.
Finally, there are nonharmful killings, where nonconsenting human persons can
be killed permissibly (Lippert-Rasmussen 2001). Paradoxically, killing someone
may prolong their lives. Suppose Adam has given a clot-causing poison to Betty
which, absent any intervention, will cause her to die within 24 hours. Claude, who
has been hired to make sure that Betty dies two years later, gives her another
substance, which has two effects. First, it prevents Betty’s blood from clotting, and
second, it causes Betty to die two years later from kidney failure. When police inves-
tigate the cause of Betty’s death, they will establish that Claude killed her by causing
4

her kidneys to malfunction. On the admittedly controversial assumption that inten-

tions do not bear on moral permissibility, despite the fact that Claude gave Betty the
substance in order to fulfill the terms of a contract killing, he acted permissibly even
though Betty would neither have consented to, nor withheld her consent from,
Claude’s action. If preventing people from committing suicide is permissible, Claude
might even have acted permissibly in the case where Betty would not have con-
sented to being given Claude’s anti-blood-clotting substance.
Two important insights emerge at this point. First, there is a significant range of
cases where killing is morally permissible. This does not mean that in the cases
where killing is morally impermissible, it is not seriously morally wrong. Second, it
is controversial as to which killings are morally permissible. A complete account of
the ethics of killing should offer a list of those. Call it the classification issue. Another
important issue is what makes killing impermissible, when it is. Call it the explana-
tion issue. While these issues are different, they are connected. If what makes killing
impermissible is the harm it inflicts, on the assumption that in some circumstances
it is better for a person to die earlier rather than later, euthanasia cannot be morally
impermissible (on account of its being a killing). Similarly, if it is morally impermis-
sible to kill animals, killing cannot be impermissible solely because of the disrespect
it involves toward the victim qua rational being. Assuming the method of reflective
equilibrium (see reflective equilibrium), theorists will need to make their con-
sidered moral beliefs about which killings are (im)permissible cohere with their
favored principled accounts of the (im)permissibility of killing, sometimes revising
the former, sometimes the latter.

Killing, Letting Die, Rendering Unconscious,

and Not Causing to Exist
One particular version of the explanation issue is the issue of killing and letting die
(see doing and allowing). Most believe that it is morally worse to kill than to let
die. This shows itself in the fact that most believe that an agent is morally obligated
to bear greater costs to avoid killing than to avoid letting die. Even if I will lose my
leg if I do not kill an innocent bystander, it is impermissible for me to kill her. Yet, if
I will lose my leg if I do not let this person die, it is not morally impermissible for me
to let her die and, unlike in the comparable case of killing (Kamm 1983, 1996), the
explanation of this cannot appeal to the fact that one conducts oneself in such a way
that the bystander dies, since the two cases do not differ in this respect. Rather, it
must appeal to the fact that, in the former case, I will be related to this outcome by
way of killing, whereas in the latter, I will be so related by way of letting die. The
challenge for deontologists (see deontology) is to say what renders the former
relation morally worse than the latter. The challenge for consequentialists (see
consequentialism) is to offer some error theory for the commonsense belief that
killing is worse than letting die.
Another version of the explanation issue derives from a comparison of cases of
killing and rendering unconscious that involve deprivation of the same benefits, e.g.,
 5

years in which one is conscious. Would it be more wrong to kill someone who would
otherwise have lived another 20 years than to render her unconscious for the remain-
ing 20 years of her life? On the one hand, it seems no better for the victim to be
unconscious for 20 years and then die without regaining consciousness than to be
killed right away. On the other hand, if there is no intrinsic moral difference between
rendering unconscious and killing, and if some cases of rendering unconscious are
not seriously wrong because the victim loses only a slight amount of time, by parity
of reasoning, killings of people who have very little time left to live are not seriously
wrong. Yet, many resist this conclusion (Lippert-Rasmussen 2007). While common-
sense morality assesses killing and rendering unconscious differently, it is unclear
that this assessment survives critical reflection.
A third version of the explanation issue concerns comparisons of cases where some-
one kills an existing person, thereby imposing a loss on this person of the exact same
magnitude of the benefit a person whom someone prevents from coming into exist-
ence would have enjoyed had she not, say, prevented an egg from being fertilized. This
issue raises the question of the moral status of actual versus merely possible people.

The Wrongness of Killing: Four Explanations

Setting aside the contrast with the ways of countenancing death etc. addressed in the
previous section, what makes killing a person wrong, when it is? Focusing on a par-
adigmatic case of a morally impermissible killing seems a sound methodological
approach (see homicide). Presumably, once we have this account in place, we can
address more peripheral cases and explain why they are not wrong by pointing to
relevant differences between these cases and the paradigmatic case of wrongful
killing. If we cannot, we may have to go back and revise the account of the wrong-
ness of paradigmatically wrongful killings. The literature contains several accounts.
Surprisingly, it is difficult to offer a unified account of the moral wrongness of killing
that fully accommodates our intuitions. Consequentialists think that some such
divergences can be accounted for by the fact that it is for the best if, in our intuitive
moral thinking, we are not guided by wrong- and right-making features – features
that should guide our critical moral thinking – but by general rules-of-thumb, the
employment of which makes common errors of reasoning, e.g., bias in one’s own
favor, less likely (see hare, r. m.).

The harm-based account

The most straightforward account of the moral impermissibility of killing is the
harm-based account (see harm). On this account, killing is pro tanto wrong because
it harms the person who is killed. Don Marquis – a proponent of this account – writes
“the loss of one’s life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoy-
ments that would otherwise have constituted one’s future. Therefore, killing someone
is wrong, primarily because the killing inflicts (one of) the greatest possible losses on
the victim” (Marquis 1989: 189; cf. Rachels 1986: 6; Glover 1977). While the
6

harm-based account must explain what the metric of harm is – say, loss of pleasant
mental states, preference frustration, or lack of objectively valuable achievements –
on any plausible account, being killed is normally a grave harm (even if greater harms
are possible, e.g., one is being kept alive only to be tortured continuously).
Often when a person is killed, she is not the only person who is harmed. We can
imagine cases where the person who is killed is harmed less than others who are
suitably related to this person, e.g., dependents. If the harm-based account implies
that the harm of the indirect victims of killing is irrelevant to its wrongness, we
understand the harm-based account in a way that is irreconcilable with standard
consequentialist moral theories. Deontologists, however, might adopt some such
harm-based account. If all such harms, including harms to the killer – the killer is
overwhelmed by bad conscience – count, morally speaking, the harm-based account
is compatible with a consequentialist moral theory.
The harm-based account has some very attractive features. First, it fits well with
an account of why killing is more wrong than lying etc. Generally speaking, one
harms people much more by killing them than by lying to them. Second, it explains
why, in general, there is a moral difference between killing animals and nonhuman
beings. One relevant idea here is that prudential interest is tied, not to identity, but
to psychological continuity and connectedness, and that such relations obtain
strongly in normal human beings, who are therefore seriously harmed by being
killed when otherwise they would have enjoyed significant benefits in the future,
whereas only very weak relations of this kind obtain between a nonpersonal animal
and its future. Unlike fish, persons lay plans for the future that can only be com-
pleted if they continue to exist. Third, if the harm-based account is combined with a
standard psychological theory of what matters for being prudentially related to one’s
future and fetuses have no or only few and simple mental states, it may explain why
abortion of a fetus is not (seriously) morally wrong (assuming it is not). The fetus is
not psychologically related to any future person in such a way that it loses much, if
anything, by being killed. Finally, the harm-based account can explain the permis-
sibility of beneficial life-prolonging killing.
The harm-based account also clashes with a number of common beliefs. First, it
has a bias against people who lose less from being killed, e.g., old people, who in any
case have little life left, or impoverished people, who live harsh lives. Yet, most would
not think that it is less wrong to kill old or impoverished people than to kill young
people or people leading splendid lives. Second, when the harm-based account is
formulated as saying that killings harm persons by causing them to cease to exist, it
presupposes that identity is the bearer of prudential interest. Yet, this view seems
false. Suppose a crazy surgeon separates the two hemispheres of a patient’s brain and
transplants one of them into an otherwise well-functioning, but brainless, body.
Suppose, sci-fi style, this results in there now being two persons with the exact same
memories and psychological traits as the patient. This certainly seems better than
normal death. Yet, the patient has ceased to exist – we might say the surgeon killed
him – since he cannot be identical to both of the two resulting persons, who are
clearly different persons, and it is implausible to claim that he is identical to one of
 7

them but not the other. On harm-based accounts tied to identity, the surgeon has
acted very wrongly, since he has deprived the patient of a bright future. On harm-
based accounts tied to psychological connectedness, the surgeon may not have
harmed the patient, and insofar as he acted wrongly, this must be for some other
reason. Finally, the harm-based account seems incompatible with the commonsense
view that killing, say, individuals at a late state of Alzheimer’s is much more wrong
than, say, killing a cat. Arguably, however, commonsense intuitions should be revised
here (McMahan 2003: 203–32), and the wrongness of such killings is primarily to be
accounted for in terms of effects on relatives etc.

The sanctity of human life account

Unlike the harm-based account of killing, the sanctity of human life doctrine
(henceforth: SHLD) suggests that killing is wrong independently of the harm
imposed on the victim. This doctrine says that it is intrinsically morally wrong to
(intentionally) take innocent human life. It is often invoked to explain the moral
impermissibility of abortion and the differential permissibility of killing human
beings and nonhuman animals, whose nonhuman lives do not possess sanctity.
Those who defend SHLD might think that killing nonhuman animals for indirect
reasons is wrong, e.g., that cruel killing of animals makes us “hard … in our dealings
with men” as Kant thought (1997: 240).
One problem with SHLD is that it ascribes moral significance to the biological
fact that one belongs to the human species. Suppose a super chimpanzee has
emotional and cognitive capacities much in excess of most human beings. Why
should there be a moral norm according to which it is impermissible to kill the latter
but not the former? One might respond by revising the doctrine such that it applies
to persons only. But friends of SHLD are unlikely to endorse this revision because
then it no longer explains the moral impermissibility of abortion.
Another problem with SHLD is that it suggests a too restrictive view on permis-
sible killings. For instance, it renders it hard to see how suicide or euthanasia can be
morally permissible. If human life possesses sanctity, who are we to take it? Similarly,
as noted above, many believe that killing an innocent threat or shield in self-defense
is permissible. Yet, such innocents have done nothing to undermine the sanctity of
their lives.
A final problem with SHLD is to account for what it means that human life
possesses sanctity. Religiously interpreted SHLD asserts something like the view
that life is given to us by God and that only God has the authority to determine who
dies when and how. But this account will not satisfy those who do not want their
account of the wrongness of killing to rest on theological presuppositions. For those
people, explaining what “sanctity” means is a serious challenge. If it simply means
that taking human life is always wrong, SHLD seems no more than the sheer asser-
tion of a norm which we want explained. Also, it cannot mean something like a
human life having infinite value, since that would imply implausibly that once one
life is lost, more lives lost cannot imply the loss of further value.
8

The rights-based account

This particular problem is avoided by the rights-based account, which is neutral on
the value of human life (see rights). Rights-based accounts differ in terms of which
properties the right not to be killed supervenes on. One (speciecist) member of the
rights-based account asserts that an individual has a right not to be killed in virtue
of being human. Another quite influential, nonspeciecist account asserts a right to
conscious life on the basis of one’s ability to conceive of oneself as a distinct entity
existing over time. Only individuals who have this ability have an interest in contin-
ued existence, and having such an interest is a presupposition of the right not to be
killed (Tooley 1983). Since fetuses, unlike normal adult human beings, have no such
conception, abortion does not violate any right to life. More problematically, nor
does infanticide, on the plausible assumption that infants do not see themselves as
existing over time.
This account is well-suited to explain the moral asymmetry between killing
human beings who possess personhood, and killing fetuses and many nonhuman
animals. Also, on the assumption that one can forfeit one’s right not to be killed, the
rights-based account has the advantage of explaining the permissibility of killing
for penal purposes and, in some cases, in self-defense. It has the additional advan-
tage of identifying an intuitively morally relevant difference between killing and
rendering unconscious, since the latter frustrates no preference for continued
existence. However, this advantage is superficial. Once we take into account the
possibility of continued existence in an unconscious state, it becomes clear that the
relevant preference is a preference for continued existence in a conscious state.
This preference is frustrated by killing and rendering unconscious alike. Note,
finally, that an appeal to preferences for continued existence need not take the form
of a rights-based view. In his explanation of why utilitarians assess the killing of
persons differently from the killing of nonpersonal animals, Peter Singer points to
this preference in support of his claim that persons suffer more harm from being
killed and that utilitarianism does not imply that persons can simply be replaced by
one another (Singer 1993: 94, 126–7).
One serious problem for rights-based accounts appealing to preferences for
continued existence is that an actual preference for continued conscious existence
seems unnecessary for having a right not to be killed. Suppose I have no such pref-
erence, and never had, but have a strong interest in continued existence, say,
because if I continue to exist, I will form many preferences in the future that will all
be satisfied. Arguably, I might have a right not to be killed. If so, it is unclear that
the main version of the rights-based account offers a satisfactory account of the
permissibility of abortion. In response, one might appeal to counterfactual prefer-
ences – if one was fully informed, one would prefer to continue to exist – but it is
not clear that this maneuver will accommodate all cases we want to accommodate
and no cases we do not want to accommodate – e.g., is the information that one is
an individual existing over time one that one – say, a fetus – would have if one was
fully informed?
 9

The respect-based account

A final account of the wrongness of killing of persons specifically is Jeff McMahan’s
respect-based account (see respect). On this view, killing a person is pro tanto
morally wrong because it involves a failure to respect the moral worth of one’s vic-
tim. The worth of persons “derives from their intrinsic nature as persons – in par-
ticular, from their possession of certain higher psychological capacities that
distinguish them from animals” (McMahan 2003: 242–3).
McMahan’s account involves two thresholds which, according to him, it is
plausible to assume “are located at the same point on the scale that measures overall
cognitive and emotional capacity” (1995: 15). The wrongness of killings of beings
below the first threshold – the threshold of respect – is determined by the victim’s
“time-relative interest in continuing to live” (2003: 245). Since fetuses and most
nonhuman animals lie below this threshold and have little time-relative interest in
continuing to live, it is only slightly objectionable to kill them.
The wrongness of killings of beings above the second threshold – the threshold
of equal worth – (i.e., most grown-up human beings) varies neither with variations
in the cognitive and emotional capacity of the victim, nor “with the strength of the
victim’s time-relative interest in continuing to live or the degree of harm the victim
suffers in being killed” (McMahan 2003: 245). Rather, it is explained through the
requirement of respect for the worth of persons. This accommodates the judgment
that killings of persons are equally wrong, even where the degree of harm caused
to the victims varies considerably, or they differ in terms of cognitive and emo-
tional capacities. Moreover, violating one’s duty to respect another person by kill-
ing him is the ultimate violation of the requirement of respect and, thus, seriously
morally wrong.
An important strength of McMahan’s account is its intuitive fit. Specifically, it is
tailored to fit the moral intuition that there is no difference in terms of moral wrong-
ness when it comes to the killing of individuals who lose unequally much from being
killed and to explaining the differences between the killing of nonhuman animals
and persons. Also, it has no speciecist biases.
Yet, the respect-based account is not without problems. First, it must explain why
variation in the properties on which respect is based, i.e., cognitive and emotional
capacities, does not result in variation in the degree of fitting respect above the
threshold of equal worth. This challenge seems particularly pressing, because to
accommodate intuitions about the wrongness of killing young children, McMahan
entertains the thought that the two thresholds mentioned are located differently,
such that the wrongness of killings of young children, and other individuals located
above the threshold of respect, but below the threshold of equal worth, is unaffected
by the degree of harm suffered by the victim but varies with the cognitive and emo-
tional capacity of the victim (McMahan 2003: 265). Second, the respect-based
account appears problematic in the light of cases of rendering people unconscious.
Rendering someone unconscious for the last 20 years of her life, thereby annihilat-
ing the rest of her life in which she exists in a way that is distinctive of persons, is just
10

as disrespectful as causing her to cease to exist altogether. Yet, our intuitive moral
assessment of rendering someone unconscious involves no threshold of equal worth
such that rendering people unconscious for a longer period of time is not more
wrong. Provided killing and rendering unconscious are morally on a par, this casts
doubt on whether our concern for killing should take a threshold form.

Conclusion
The killing of people is normally a very serious moral wrong. Yet, there is a
significant range of cases in which killings are morally permissible. A satisfactory
account of what makes killing morally wrong must explain how killing differs, in a
morally relevant way, from letting die, from rendering unconscious, and from pre-
venting from coming into existence. Also, it must fit reasonably well with the intui-
tive separation of killings into those that are permissible and those that are not. I
have explored four such, partially overlapping, accounts suggesting that none is
unproblematic.

See also: abortion; capital punishment; consequentialism; death;

deontology; doctrine of double effect; doing and allowing;
euthanasia; hare, r. m.; harm; homicide; hunting; infanticide; informed
consent; just war theory, history of; pacifism; reflective equilibrium;
respect; rights; self-defense; suicide; trolley problem; war

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Tooley, Michael 1983. Abortion and Infanticide. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

FURTHER READINGS
Bennett, Jonathan 1995. The Act Itself. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Hanser, Matthew 1995. “Why Are Killing and Letting Die Wrong?” Philosophy and Public
Affairs, vol. 24, pp. 175–201.
Holtug, Nils 2011. “Killing and the Time-Relative Interest Account,” Journal of Ethics, vol. 15,
pp. 169–89.
Kagan, Shelly 1989. The Limits of Morality. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Kamm, Frances 2007. Intricate Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Lockwood, Michael 1979. “Singer on Killing and the Preference for Life,” Inquiry, vol. 22,
pp. 157–70.
Luper, Stephen 2009. The Philosophy of Death. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
McMahan, Jeff 1993. “Killing, Letting Die, and Withdrawing Aid,” Ethics, vol. 103, pp. 250–79.
Singer, Peter 1979. “Killing Humans and Killing Animals,” Inquiry, vol. 22, pp. 145–56.
Steinbock, Bonnie, and Alastair Norcross 1994. Killing and Letting Die, 2nd ed. New York:
Fordham University Press.
Thomson, Judith Jarvis 1999. “Physician-Assisted Suicide: Two Moral Arguments,” Ethics,
vol. 109, pp. 497–518.
Unger, Peter 1996. Living High and Letting Die: Our Illusion of Innocence. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Uniacke, Suzanne 1994. Permissible Killing: The Self-Defense Justification of Homicide.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Quinn, Warren 1994. Morality and Action. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Young, Robert 1979. “What is so Wrong with Killing People?” Philosophy, vol. 54, pp. 515–28.

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