Morality, Mortality Volume II Rights, Duties, and Status [Paperback]

InMorality, Mortality, Volume II, Kamm continues to explore questions of life and death as illustrations of general issues in moral theory. Resuming her development of non- consequentialist ethical theory and its application to practical ethical problems, she explores the distinction between killing and letting die, between harming and not aiding, and between intending and foreseeing harm. Throughout this examination, she focuses on the methodology used in analyzing these questions. Kamm develops a principled account of when harming some to save others is permissable and impermissable. In the process, she discusses the Survival Lottery and Trolley Problem, and other related dilemmatic situations. Kamm then covers the concepts of rights and prerogatives, contrasting a victim-focused account of rights with that of an agent-relative account. Here, she considers the problem of minimizing rights violations, and the significance of the status of inviolability. She concludes Volume II by assessing whether agreements or superogatory conduct may permissably override restrictions, and what their doing or not doing indicates about morality, duties, and prerogatives.

Kamm's book is a brilliant and powerful defense of the deontological perspective concerning the morality of killing. It is arguably the most impressive book-length treatment of substantive ethics since Derek Parfit'sReasons and Personswas published over a decade ago...[H]er painstakingly meticulous case method yields a wealth of important insights. --Ethics

...an impressive display of Francis Kamm's talent for discerning hard-to-see but morally salient differences between apparently similar cases. This, in conjunction with its several theoretical innovations, make the book well worth reading. --The Philosophical Review