To Kill Another: Homicide and Natural Law

by McAleer,Graham

• ISBN13: 9781412849609
• ISBN10: 1412849608
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Nonspecific Binding
• Copyright: 2012-10-15
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Basing his argument on natural law, Graham J. McAleer asserts that only public authority has the right to intentionally kill. He draws upon the work of Thomas Aquinas and Francisco de Vitoria, defending the claim that these natural law theorists have developed the best available theory of homicide. To have rule of law in any meaningful sense, the author argues, there must be protections for the guilty and prohibition against killing innocents. Western theories of law have drifted steadily towards the privatization of homicide, despite the fact that it runs counter to rule of law. Public acts of homicide like capital punishment are now viewed by many as barbaric, while a private act of homicide like the starvation of comatose patients is viewed by many as a caring gesture both to patient and family. This subversion of the rule of law is prompted by humanitarian ethics. McAleer argues that humanitarianism is a false friend to those committed to the rule of law. The problem of human vulnerability makes political theology an inescapable consideration for law. Readers will find much to reflect upon in this book. McAleer's argument can be read as a cultural chapter in the history of moral ideas, but also as a close and timely reading of a grim subject.

Author Biography

G. J. McAleer is professor of philosophy and co-chair of the Catholic Social Thought Committee at Loyola College in Maryland. He has also been a visiting professor of medieval philosophy at the Catholic University of Louvain. In addition to writing introductions to the Transaction edition of Aurel Kolnai's, Ethics, Value and Reality and Max Scheler's The Nature of Sympathy, he is the author of Ecstatic Morality and Sexual Politics.

Table of Contents

Preface	p. ix
Abbreviations	p. xxi
Introduction	p. 1
Blood Diamonds and the Limits of Moral Knowledge	p. 15
State Privilege to Kill	p. 33
Victims' Rights and Double Jeopardy	p. 59
Political Theology and the Law of War	p. 85
Wrongful Life Tort	p. 101
Is Carl Schmitt Right? Is Just War Impossible?	p. 117
Why the Case of the Maltese Twins Was Wrongly Decided	p. 139
Kosovo Air War and Why Malthus Was Really a Wise Man	p. 161
Conclusion: Natural Law as Political Theology	p. 187
Appendix: The "Summa Theologica"	p. 199
Bibliography	p. 215
Index	p. 227
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