Killing, letting die, and normative inertia.
According to commonsense and deontological ethics, it is impermissible to kill a person in order to save the life of another person, all else being equal. But why? This article suggests a justification of this restriction. It appeals to the idea of normative inertia—very roughly, to the idea that in...
| Published in: | Philosophy & Phenomenological Research Vol. 111; no. 2; pp. 728 - 750 |
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| Format: | Article |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Sep2025
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| Online Access: | View this record in EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=187979502&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 187979502 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00318205 PPO jtl: Philosophy & Phenomenological Research issn: 00318205 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Sep2025 vid: 111 iid: 2 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 187979502 10.1111/phpr.70053 ppf: 728 ppct: 22 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 419KB tig: atl: Killing, letting die, and normative inertia. aug: au: Henning, Tim affil: Institute of Philosophy, University of Mainz, Mainz, Germany su: Deontological ethics Justification (Ethics) Decision making Plausibility (Logic) Contractarianism (Ethics) sug: subj: Deontological ethics Justification (Ethics) Decision making Plausibility (Logic) Contractarianism (Ethics) ab: According to commonsense and deontological ethics, it is impermissible to kill a person in order to save the life of another person, all else being equal. But why? This article suggests a justification of this restriction. It appeals to the idea of normative inertia—very roughly, to the idea that in practical decisions, changing course is harder to justify than staying on track. So, in a nutshell, the reason why we may not kill one person to save another is not that killing is worse than letting die, but that it is not better. Various arguments for, and various formulations of, principles of normative inertia are discussed. The article then argues for a specific principle that is not directly concerned with moral permissibility but with practical rationality in a general sense. When coupled with an independently motivated moral premise, this principle can be shown to vindicate intuitions about restrictions on killing. The resulting account is not only plausible and well‐motivated. Further, it vindicates intuitions about cases of "withdrawing aid" that have long seemed puzzling. Finally, the account presented here fits particularly well into a contractualist moral theory, refuting the widely held view that contractualism cannot accommodate deontic restrictions. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Philosophy & Phenomenological Research is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Philosophy & Phenomenological Research holder: Wiley-Blackwell dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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