PHIL 1550 Lecture Notes - Lecture 17: Thought Experiment

• School: Carleton University
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHIL 1550
• Professor: Lucas Jurkovic

Document Summary

Defense to kill the mobsters instead of smith if by doing so he will cause smith to relent? : of course he may. A combatant at a camp miles behind the lines is often less a threat than a noncombatant delivering arms and ammunition to the front. Indeed, the combatants at the front will quite likely be less of a threat than the noncombatant supplier. In such a case the principle of self-defense would demand that the noncombatant be killed in preference to the combatant. : alexander"s dilemma, alexander poses a dilemma; suppose there are 2 options: (1 ) killing millions of enemy soldiers, most of whom are morally innocent (indeed, many are children); or (2) killing a handful of noncombatant enemy leaders, all of whom are morally innocent because of insanity . If either of these options will end the war, which should be preferred: alexander thinks option 2 should be preferred: