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OverviewAccording to the dominant account of rights, there are two ways to permissibly kill people: they have done something to forfeit their right to life, or their rights are outweighed by the significantly greater cost of respecting them. Contemporary just war theorists tend to agree that it is difficult to justify killing in the second way. Thus, they focus on the conditions under which rights might be forfeited. But it has proven hard to defend an account of forfeiture that permits killing when and only when it is morally justifiable. In The Mechanics of Claims and Permissible Killing in War, Alec D. Walen develops an alternative account of rights according to which rights forfeiture has a much smaller role to play. It plays a smaller role because rights themselves are more contextually contingent. They systematically reflect the different kinds of claims people can make on an agent. For example, those who threaten to cause harm without a right to do so have weaker claims not to be killed than innocent bystanders or those who have a right to threaten to cause harm. By framing rights as the output of a balance of competing claims, and by laying out a detailed account of how to balance competing claims, Walen provides a more coherent account of when killing in war is permissible. Full Product DetailsAuthor: Alec D Walen (Rutgers University)Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA Imprint: Oxford University Press, USA ISBN: 9780190872076ISBN 10: 0190872071 Publication Date: 19 April 2019 Audience: General/trade , General Format: Undefined Publisher's Status: Active Availability: In Print This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us. Table of ContentsReviewsAuthor InformationAlec D. Walen is a professor at Rutgers University, with a joint appointment in Law, Philosophy, and Criminal Justice. He has published numerous articles on topics in moral philosophy, criminal law, constitutional law, national security law, and just war theory. The central focus of his current work is articulating a view of rights that reflects a fundamental moral commitment to autonomy, equality, and the value of human welfare. Tab Content 6Author Website:Countries AvailableAll regions |