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Utilitarianism and the Morality of Killing

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 February 2009

R. Stephen Talmage
Affiliation:
Carleton University.

Extract

In the course of his interesting paper ‘The Morality of Killing’ (Philosophy, April 1969), Mr. T. Goodrich apparently seeks to prove that decisions about population control cannot be based on the utilitarian principle. More exactly, I think, he wishes to show that such decisions cannot be based on this principle by making appeal either to the interests of those persons who would be brought into existence as a result of a decision to add to the population or to the (supposed) interests, at times subsequent to carrying out the decision, of those persons who would cease to exist as a result of a decision to subtract from the population. I believe that the arguments he uses to support this thesis are not good ones, and I will try to show that they are not.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy 1972

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