The Ethics of Killing: Life, Death and Human Nature

✍ Scribed by Christian Erk

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 349
• Edition: 1
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In this book, Christian Erk examines the ethical (im)permissibility of killing human  beings in general and of selected killings in particular, namely suicide, lethal selfdefence, abortion and euthanasia, as well as organ transplantation and assisted suicide. He does so by addressing a range of important ethical questions: What does it mean to act? Of what elements is an action comprised? What is the difference between a good or evil action and a permissible or impermissible action? How can we determine whether an action is good or evil? Is there a moral duty not to kill? Is this duty held by and against all human beings or only persons? What and who is a person? What is human dignity and who has it? What is it that is actually taken when somebody is killed, i.e. what is life? And closely related to that: What and when is death? By integrating the answers to these questions into an argumentative architecture, the book offers a comprehensive exploration of one of the most fundamental questions of mankind: Under which conditions, if any, is killing human beings ethically permissible?

✦ Table of Contents

Prologue and Acknowledgements
References
Contents
Abbreviations
List of Figures
I: Prelude: Setting the Stage
1. Kinds of Killings
2. Killing, Letting Die, Dying, Living
3. The Structure of this Book
Bibliography
II: The Ontology of Human Actions
1. Kinds of Actions
2. The Elements of Human Actions
2.1. The End of the Agent
2.2. The Exterior Action and its Natural End
2.3. The Circumstances
2.4. The Consequences
2.5. Summary
3. Degrees of Voluntariness
4. The Stages of a Human Action
5. Killing Actions as Human Actions
Bibliography
III: The General Ethics of Human Actions
1. The Morality of Human Actions
1.1. The Sources of Morality3
1.1.1. The Exterior Action as a Source of Morality
1.1.2. Accidental Consequences as a Source of Morality
1.2. The Standard of Morality: The Good8
1.2.1. The Nature of the Good
1.2.2. The Absence of Good: Evil
1.2.3. An Essential Content of the Good: The Basic Human Goods
1.2.3.1. Nature and Natural Inclination
1.2.3.2. The Basic Human Goods
1.3. Summary
2. The Permissibility of Human Actions
2.1. A Primer on Duties and Rights15
2.2. The Good and the Moral Duty to Pursue It16
2.3. The Moral Duty to Realise the Basic Human Goods21
2.4. Summary
Bibliography
IV: Interlude I: Life and Death
1. What is Death?
2. What is Life?
2.1. The Signs of Life
2.2. Life as Capacity for Endogenous Activity
2.3. The Soul as the Principle of Life
3. When is Death?
4. Human Life and Human Death
4.1. Human Life
4.2. Human Death
5. Summary
6. Brain Death as Human Death?
Bibliography
V: Interlude II: Moral Status, Personhood and Dignity
1. Categorising the Definitions of Personhood
1.1. Capability-Based Definitions of Personhood
1.2. Relational Definitions of Personhood
1.3. Ontological Definitions of Personhood
2. Personhood as Possessing Rational Life
2.1. Rational Life
2.2. What and Who Is a Person?
3. The Dignity of Human Beings
3.1. Facets of Dignity
3.2. Respecting Dignity
Bibliography
VI: The General Ethics of Killing Human Beings
1. The General Ethics of Essential Killings
2. The General Ethics of Accidental Killings
2.1. The General (Im)Permissibility of Accidental Killings
2.2. Accidental Killings as Double Effect Actions
3. Summary
Bibliography
VII: The Special Ethics of Killing Human Beings
1. The Ethics of Killing Oneself (Suicide)
1.1. Ordinary vs. Extraordinary Means of Preserving Life4
1.1.1. Positive Duties, Negative Duties, Ordinary Means, Extraordinary Means
1.1.2. The Ordinary and Extraordinary Means of the Preservation of Life
1.2. Accidental Self-Killings
1.3. Suicide and the Perverted Faculty Argument
2. The Ethics of Killing Others
2.1. Lethal Self-Defence
2.1.1. Accidental Killing in Self-Defence
2.1.2. Deputised Essential Killing in Self-Defence
2.2. Abortion
2.2.1. Mapping the Concept
2.2.2. Essential Abortions
2.2.3. Accidental Abortions
2.2.4. Abortion and the My-Body-My-Choice Argument
2.3. Euthanasia
2.3.1. Mapping the Concept
2.3.2. Direct Voluntary Active Euthanasia
2.3.3. Indirect Voluntary Active Euthanasia
2.4. Organ Transplantation
3. The Ethics of Helping Others Kill Themselves
3.1. Mapping Cooperation in Wrongdoing39
3.2. The General Ethics of Cooperation in Wrongdoing43
3.3. The Ethics of (Physician-)Assisted Suicide
Bibliography
VIII: Postlude: Specific Questions at the Margins of Human Life
1. Delayed or Immediate Ensoulment?
2. Human Cell or Human Being?
2.1. A Primer on Selected Types of Cells
2.2. The Status of Selected Types of Cells
3. Delayed Desoulment: Do We Die Twice?
4. The Twinning Charge to Immediate Ensoulment
5. Asymmetry at the Margins of Life?
6. Brain as Intermediary?
7. Artificial Life?
8. Roma locuta, causa finita?
9. Brain Death and Decapitation
9.1. Decapitation and Death
9.2. Ensoulment after Decapitation
Bibliography
Literature Cited in Abbreviation
Bibliography
Index