According to the dominant account of rights, there are two ways to permissibly kill people: they have done something to forfeit their right to life, or their rights are outweighed by the significantly greater cost of respecting them. Contemporary just war theorists tend to agree that it is difficult to justify killing in the second way. Thus, they focus on the conditions under which rights might be forfeited. But it has proven hard to defend an account of forfeiture that permits killing when and only when it is morally justifiable. In The Mechanics of Claims and Permissible Killing in War, Alec D. Walen develops an alternative account of rights according to which rights forfeiture has a much smaller role to play. It plays a smaller role because rights themselves are more contextually contingent. They systematically reflect the different kinds of claims people can make on an agent. For example, those who threaten to cause harm without a right to do so have weaker claims not to be killed than innocent bystanders or those who have a right to threaten to cause harm. By framing rights as the output of a balance of competing claims, and by laying out a detailed account of how to balance competing claims, Walen provides a more coherent account of when killing in war is permissible.

Do individuals have a positive right of self-defence? And if so, what are the limits of this right? Under what conditions, if any, does this use of force extend to the defence of others? These are some of the issues explored by Dr Uniacke in this comprehensive philosophical discussion of the principles relevant to self-defence as a moral and legal justification of homicide. She establishes a unitary right of self-defence and defence of others, one which grounds the permissibility of the use of necessary and proportionate defensive force against culpable and non-culpable, active and passive, unjust threats. Particular topics discussed include: the nature of moral and legal justification and excuse; natural law justifications of homicide in self-defence; the Principle of Double Effect and the claim that homicide in self-defence is justified as unintended killing; and the question of self-preferential killing. This is a lucid and sophisticated account of the complex notion of justification, revolving around a critical discussion of recent trends in the law of self-defence.

"This academic text brings together, in one volume, the most recent and innovative accounts of liability in war. It offers a "who's who" of contemporary scholars working on and rigorously debating the major ethical questions surrounding self-defense and killing in war, including: liability to harm, rights theory, selective conscientious objection, obligations toward civilians, and autonomous weapons. This volume pulls together, expands upon, and provides new and updated analyses of the concept of liability (and related concepts) that have yet to be captured in a single work. As a convenient and authoritative collection of such discussions, this title is uniquely and well suited for university-level teaching and as a scholarly reference for ethicists, policymakers, and other stakeholders."--Provided by publisher.

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.

War remains a grim fixture of the human landscape, and because of its tremendous and ongoing impact on the lives of millions of people, has always attracted the attention of careful, rigorous, and empathetic moral philosophers. And while war is synonymous with death and ruin, very few people are willing to surrender to moral nihilism about war--the view that all really is fair. At the center of debates about war remains the most important question that faces us during battle: whom are we allowed to kill? This volume collects in one place the most influential and groundbreaking philosophical work being done on the question of killing in war, offering a "who's who" of contemporary scholars debating the foundational ethical questions surrounding liability to harm. In ten essays, it expands upon and provides new and updated analyses that have yet to be captured in a single work. Essays explore questions such as: Are some soldiers more deserving of death than others? Should states allow soldiers to conscientiously object (to opt out of war) on a case-by-case basis? Can a theory of rights best explain when it is permissible to kill in war? When are we allowed to violently resist oppression that is itself nonviolent? Is there anything wrong with targeting people with autonomous weapons? As a convenient and authoritative collection of such discussions, this volume is uniquely suited for university-level teaching and as a reference for ethicists, policymakers, stakeholders, and any student of the morality of killing in war.

Just War theory - as it was developed by the Catholic theologians of medieval Europe and the jurists of the Renaissance - is a framework for the moral and legal evaluation of armed conflicts. To this day, Just War theory informs the judgments of ethicists, government officials, international lawyers, religious scholars, news coverage, and perhaps most importantly, the public as a whole. The influence of Just War theory is as vast as it is subtle - we have been socialized into evaluating wars largely according to the principles of this medieval theory, which, according to the eminent philosopher David Rodin, is "one of the few basic fixtures of medieval philosophy to remain substantially unchallenged in the modern world". Some of the most basic assumptions of Just War Theory have been dismantled in a barrage of criticism and analysis in the first dozen years of the 21st century. "The Ethics of War" continues and pushes past this trend. This anthology is an authoritative treatment of the ethics and law of war by both the eminent scholars who first challenged the orthodoxy of Just War theory, as well as by new thinkers. The twelve original essays span both foundational and topical issues in the ethics of war, including an investigation of: whether there is a "greater-good" obligation that parallels the canonical lesser-evil justification in war; the conditions under which citizens can wage war against their own government; whether there is a limit to the number of combatants on the unjust side who can be permissibly killed; whether the justice of the cause for which combatants fight affects the moral permissibility of fighting; whether duress ever justifies killing in war; the role that collective liability plays in the ethics of war; whether targeted killing is morally and legally permissible; the morality of legal prohibitions on the use of indiscriminate weapons; the justification for the legal distinction between directly and indirectly harming civilians; whether human rights of unjust combatants are more prohibitive than have been thought; the moral repair of combatants suffering from PTSD; and the moral categories and criteria needed to understand the proper justification for ending war.