June 26, 2014

On Killing Government Leaders, with a Quotation from Jeff McMahan on the Ethics of Killing in War

Jeff McMahan truly excellent book Killing in War challenges the doctrine of the moral equality of combatants in war. According to this widely held view, soldiers in a war have equal permission…

August 02, 2012

Some Thought Experiments Involving Assassination

1. Suppose an evil demon appears before you and says, “I plan to kill hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians and destroy their country’s architecture unless you kill this one…