Abstract
This is a review essay of Jeff McMahan's recent book The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (OUP: 2002). In the first part, I lay out the central features of McMahan's account of the wrongness of killing and its implications for when it is permissible to kill. In the second part of the essay, I argue that we ought not to accept McMahan's rejection of species membership as having any bearing on whether it is permissible to kill a particular individual, as there are ways of understanding its relevance that are more plausible than McMahan allows.
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A review essay of Jeff McMahan. The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).
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Kumar, R. Permissible killing and the irrelevance of being human. J Ethics 12, 57–80 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-007-9021-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-007-9021-8