Course Details in 2024/25 Session

Module Title	LI The Ethics of Killing
School	Phil, Theology and Religion
Department	Philosophy
Module Code	08 26826
Module Lead	Jeremy Williams
Level	Intermediate Level
Credits	20
Semester	Semester 2
Pre-requisites
Co-requisites
Restrictions	None
Contact Hours	Lecture-20 hours Seminar-8 hours Guided independent study-172 hours Total: 200 hours
Exclusions
Description	One of the Ten Commandments is ‘Thou shall not kill’. But the Bible doesn’t, of course, forbid all killing. And few of us, whether we have religious commitments or not, are strict absolutists about killing (people, in other words, who believe that taking a life is categorically never morally permissible). Indeed, almost of us believe, at the very least, that it is permissible to kill a villainous attacker in self-defence to avoid being killed oneself. Someone might say that, while killing is not always wrong, it is always wrong to kill the innocent. But is even this true? What, for instance, of the woman who wants to end her pregnancy, thereby killing her innocent fetus? Or the doctor tending to a terminally ill patient who desperately wants to die, but cannot self-administer the lethal dose of morphine that would end his suffering? Or the pilot sent on a bombing raid to destroy an enemy military target, who knows that, if he completes his mission, nearby civilians will unavoidably be caught in the blast? This module examines when killing is wrong, why it is wrong when it is wrong, and how far these moral judgments can and ought to be taken into account in law and policy-making. Topics on which we are likely to focus include abortion, euthanasia and assisted suicide, self-defence, terrorism, and war.The module opens with an examination of some relevant background issues in the philosophy of death, such as the meaning and nature of death, the relationship between death and personal identity, and complexities in assessing the badness of death for the one who dies. It is expected that war and self-defence in particular will be cornerstones of the module, with other likely topics including (depending on what is being offered in other modules from year to year) abortion, euthanasia, and the killing of animals. In studying practical questions about killing in various contexts, participants in the module will also thereby become conversant with a number of important issues in ethical theory of more general significance, such as the distinctions between doing and allowing, intentional and foreseen harm, eliminative and opportunistic agency, and so on. And they will also consider the relationship between the ethics of killing at the level of individual choice and the design of domestic and international laws regulating and prohibiting killing. Where the latter is concerned, students are likely to become acquainted not only with debates concerning the feasibility and potential consequences of implementing different laws and policies, but also, where appropriate, with debates within political philosophy over public justification and state neutrality (that is, over whether the state must refrain from coercing citizens on the basis of reasonably disputed metaphysical or ethical doctrines).
Learning Outcomes	By the end of the module students should be able to: show working knowledge of, evaluate and critique a variety of key perspectives on the ethics of killing, both verbally and in writing; advance and defend their own such perspectives; show the ability to appreciate some of the complexities that arise in trying to accommodate moral judgments about killing into law and policy.
Assessment	26826-01 : 1000 word Take Home Exam (24hrs) : Coursework (50%) 26826-02 : 1750 word Essay : Coursework (50%)
Assessment Methods & Exceptions	Assessments: 1 x 24hr 1000 word take home exam, AND 1 x 1750 word essay (50% each) Reassessment: as above
Other
Reading List