On Killing Threats as a Means

Authors: Andrew P Ross

Publish Date: 2015/04/19

Volume: 43, Issue: 3, Pages: 869-876

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Abstract

Jonathan Quong Ethics 1193 507–537 2009 has recently argued that the permissibility of killing innocent threats turns on a distinction between eliminative and opportunistic agency When we kill bystanders we view them under the guise of opportunism by using them as mere survival tools but when we kill threats we simply eliminate them According to Quong the distinction between opportunistic and eliminative agency reveals that there are two different ways of killing someone as a means to save your own life Call this the Means Distinction In this note I argue that although the Means Distinction seems prima facie plausible it is not a sufficient explanation for the permissibility of killing threats My argument against the Means Distinction is twofold Most nonconsequentialists accept that the Means Distinction carries some moral significance but I argue that this is a mistake we do not have any reason to believe that opportunistic killings are in general worse than eliminative killings Following this I argue that even if we accept the Means Distinction there are threattype scenarios in which there is no intuitive difference between killing a threat opportunistically and killing a threat eliminatively

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