Justification For Killing Research Articles

The Inconsistent Reduction: An Internal Methodological Critique of Revisionist Just War Theory

This article argues that the reduction of the morality of killing in war to the morality of killing in self-defense by ‘reductive-individualist’ revisionist just war theories is inconsistent, because when those theories apply the moral notion of self-defense to the morality of killing in war, they do not preserve the two conceptions of the “individual” inherent in this notion. The article demonstrates this inconsistency in two steps: First, it disentangles the two conceptions of the individual inherent to the notion of self-defense, namely (1) that the individual is an “entity” potentially bearing a right to self-defense (unlike, e.g., groups) and (2) that the individual is a “particular,” where “particular” signifies that every human is different from every other human. The conception of the individual as a “particular” is tied to the idea that a justification grounded in a rule of self-defense is necessarily “concrete,” in the sense of referring to individually given and specific perceptions or cases, as opposed to “abstract,” in the sense of being detached from specific perceptions or cases. The article then demonstrates that reductive individualism reflects the first notion of the individual, but not the second. Due to the “loss” of the individual as a “particular”, the reductive-individualist reduction of the morality of killing in war to the morality of killing in self-defense is inconsistent, and hence its justification of killing in war grounded in self-defense is not concrete. Since such a justification must be concrete, reductive individualism cannot offer a justification for belligerent killing.

Wars of Recovery

Abstract Aggressor state A occupies territory belonging to victim state V. After decades, V decides to go to war to recover its territory, although hostilities have long subsided. Are such ‘wars of recovery’ lawful under international law? Should they be? Recent conflicts have generated a heated scholarly debate on this question, which has ended in stark disagreement. A permissive approach argues that wars of recovery are lawful instances of self-defence, while a restrictive view claims that situations of prolonged occupation are territorial disputes that should be settled peacefully. This article uncovers the theoretical premises that underlie both approaches. As it shows, the dilemma reflects a larger tension within the contemporary international law on the use of force – mainly, between its traditional focus on state rights such as territory and sovereignty and a competing view that seeks to place individual rights at the core of the legal regime. As the article shows, deciding on the question of wars of recovery requires making commitments in four normative spheres: instrumentally, it requires considering questions of international stability, and, non-instrumentally, it requires considering questions of justice as well as possible justifications for killing and sacrifice. These considerations, however, result in instability owing, among other factors, to the fluctuating effects of the passage of time, which follow our normative assumptions about the legal order. Ultimately, the article suggests that those engaging in debate on wars of recovery make explicit their normative assumptions on the ends of jus ad bellum and that, in any case, even if wars of recovery would be deemed legal, they would still remain heavily contestable owing to strong competing reasons against them.

Distancing animal death: Geographies of killing and making killable

AbstractAt the intersection of death geographies and animal geographies, the topic of animal death offers crucial insights for how we understand death and how we define human/nonhuman boundaries. This review piece brings rich discussions of animal death across anthropology, critical animal studies and the environmental humanities into conversation with work in geography. This article takes a two‐pronged approach; first, in recognition of the intensely spatial nature of death, this article explores where animal death takes place. This section observes how spaces of animal death are physically concealed and how this spatial distancing is aided by verbal concealment and dismemberment of the animal body, as well as how justifications for killing are organised along spatial lines. This helps to make animals killable in these spaces. The second section focuses on who is killed and made killable as well as who kills. The degree of being killable or grievable is highly uneven amongst animals, as it is amongst humans. Moreover, those individuals who routinely inflict animal death are subject to discrimination and vulnerability due to this proximity. Finally, the article concludes with reflections on what the topic of animal death can contribute to the death geographies and animal geographies literatures, and how we can move towards more animal‐centric approaches to animal death.

戦争・テロは生命倫理の課題か : 殺人の正当化と寛容律

戦争・テロは生命倫理の課題か : 殺人の正当化と寛容律

Self-Defence Against Multiple Threats

If a threat (or threatener) is liable to be defensively killed, there is a defeasible justification for killing her. On certain prevailing assumptions about liability, which I accept, there are liability justifications for killing any number of minimally responsible threats, each of whom would otherwise kill a single non-responsible victim. Absent harms to third parties, these justifications appear, counter-intuitively, to be undefeated. I argue that this counter-intuitive appearance is deceptive.

Excuses, justifications, and the just war tradition: are there good reasons to kill the Naked Soldier?

ABSTRACTIn war there is a phenomenon known as the Naked Soldier problem (NS). A combatant discovers a vulnerable enemy combatant who is unable to defend himself and usually unaware of the combatant’s presence. This enemy combatant is not presently engaged in fighting and not threatening the lives of others. While killing the NS is legally permissible, the question I address in this essay is whether or not there can be a moral justification for doing so. I think such a moral justification is lacking, and there are only excuses for killing the NS. In this essay, I distinguish between a justification and an excuse and then I examine four traditional reasons given for the acceptability of killing in war to see if any of them are (a) justifications for killing in war in general and (b) justifications for killing the Naked Soldier, specifically.

The Catholic Tradition on Vital Conflicts

In two important books on the ethics of abortion, Charles Camosy and James Mumford appeal to the concept of “material aggression” to justify direct abortion in cases of vital conflict. Both authors argue that just-war theory justifies the direct killing of merely material aggressors by private citizens and suggest that papal condemnations of unjust-aggressor arguments fail to consider the distinction between formal and material aggression. However, both authors omit any reference to the historical context of the papal condemnations, do not recognize that the justification for killing in just-war theory is fundamentally political, and do not consider how the special relationship between mother and baby might affect the ethics of vital conflicts.

Right of Private Defense - Analysis of Supreme Court Ruling in Right of Private Defense Cases (a Study in Light of Darshan Singh V. State of Punjab,2010 Cri LJ 1393 (SC))

The law relating to the right of private defense extending up to causing death of the assailant has been clearly stated in Sec.100 of Indian Penal Code. Justification of killing of the assailant finds enumeration in the following six clauses of Sec.100.

The Justification of Killing and Psychological Accounts of the Person

The Justification of Killing and Psychological Accounts of the Person

The Application of Collective and Comprehensive Criminal Responsibility for Aggression at the Tokyo International Military Tribunal: The Measure of the Crime of Aggression?

On the road to the Nuremberg International Military Tribunal (IMT) theories of collective criminal responsibility for both aggression and all offences that are a consequence of that aggression were developed by US officials. While this project was largely frustrated at Nuremberg, it was more highly developed and more positively received at the Tokyo IMT. This development by the prosecution and reception in the Majority judgement at Tokyo is the principal focus of this article. The article examines three legal tools used to develop these theories: conspiracy as an inchoate crime against peace, conspiracy as a form of complicity in substantive crimes against peace, and the principle that aggression removes all justification for killing in war-time, which transforms those otherwise lawful killings into murder. The article questions whether these theories and the principles they depend on constitute the measure of the crime of aggression and suggests that they draw the limits of the crime far too broadly.

The Use of Historic and Contemporary Justifications for Killing Wolves By the Palin Administration

The State of Alaska currently employs various methods of killing wolves, including having private citizens hunt them from airplanes and, at least in one case, having government employees remove wol...

Acceptance of killing and homicide rates in nineteen nations

International variation in homicide rates may be attributable to cultural differences in acceptance of moral justifications for killing. The aim of this study is to investigate the relationships between measures of attitudes towards the justification of killing and homicide rates in diverse international populations. Four studies assessed variations in acceptance of killing among adults and young people in nineteen nations and four areas in the USA. Study 1 (1996-1997) assessed adult attitudes in Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Spain, and Venezuela with personal interviews in major cities. Study 2 (1999-2001) assessed attitudes among high school students in Denmark, Finland, Malta, Mexico, Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden, Taiwan, and the UK with paper surveys administered in classrooms. Study 3 (2001) used telephone interviews to measure the equivalent attitudes among the US samples nationally and from regions in Texas. Study 4 (2002-2003) used paper surveys in classrooms to measure attitudes among high school students in Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, and the Russian Federation. The acceptance of killing varied significantly among genders and national/regional groups. The mean attitude scores in the four studies combined were significantly correlated with national/regional homicide rates and the amount of variance explained was similar to that for social inequality (GINI). Together the attitude scores and GINI explained 65% of the variance in homicide rates. This study provides evidence that variations in attitudes toward the justification of killing may be related to international differences in homicide rates.

Killing and Terror

What is the meaning of the word terror and how has its meaning changed through the ages? This article sets out to show how that meaning changed from ancient Greece to the present day. Murders and massacres were an accepted and normal part of societies, and only very recently in history was the killing of defenseless people universally condemned, hence, the word terror or the concept of terrorism had no meaning in history until the modern era. The author provides numerous detailed examples of different types of killings and murders and how they were viewed by society and maintains that Christianity changed very little and that humankind has always provided a justification for killing and instilling terror in fellow humans.

10.1023/A:1026528420307

Tziporah Kasachkoff rejects what she calls the 'Forfeiture Argument' as a justification of killing in self-defence.1 This 'Forfeiture Argument' "claims that all justified self-defensive killings rest on an attacker's forfeiting his right not to be killed."2 According to Kasachkoff, there are two aspects to this argument. The first is the claim that "in every case of justified self-defensive homicide there is a moral difference between the person who attacks and the person who defends himself from the attack". The second is the claim that "this moral difference is what makes it morally permissible for a prospective victim to kill his attacker in self-defense".3 Kasachkoff attributes the most extensive defense of this 'Forfeiture Argument' to me.4

A moral justification for killing in self-defence

In the first part of this paper I will argue that for a case to be one of killing in self-defence at least the following three important conditions need to be met: (i) the defender's death must seem to him/her to be imminent; (ii) there must be a choice forced upon the defender between being killed or killing his/her attacker; (iii) the responsibility for (i) and (ii) must be the attacker's. I go on to point out that a lethal use of force which meets conditions (i)—(iii) is thought by most people to be morally permissible. However we believe also that everyone has the right to life and this cannot be taken away under any circumstances. But if this is so, how can we justify one person intentionally killing another? Or to put the point differently: what, in our moral assessment of such cases, are we to claim an attacker has done that is so morally wrong we are prepared to argue that if one of them has to be killed, it is the attacker? I hope to answer this question in the second part of my paper by developing a strand of ethical thought, associated with Kant.

Consensus and coercion-prerequisites for government in early States

The article discusses the paradoxical situation that in early States, kings who were strongly legitimized by their sacred position, yet exerted much coercion. With the help of data from Black Africa an explanation of this situation is attempted. It is suggested that the contradiction was caused mainly by the combination of being at the same time a sacred king and a mundane ruler. Regarding the problem of regicide, which was found to occur quite regularly in Africa, it is suggested that ageing kings could no longer guarantee fertility, and thus endangered the prosperity of the kingdom. They therefore had to be deposed. Justification for killing could be found in transgressions the king commited during his inauguration ceremonies.