When killing is permissible

Neither law nor morality always forbids us to kill another person. Sometimes killing is allowed, and it may even be the right thing to kill. I will mention three sorts of case: necessary self-defence and the defence of others; other cases of necessity; and military service.

The most obvious case when killing is permitted is in necessary self-defence, or the defence of other people. We certainly have a right to defend ourselves against someone who attacks us. If the person who attacks me threatens to kill me, or seriously injure me, the only method of defence may be to kill him; if so, I am entitled to take his life. Surely this must be true even if the person who attacks me is not responsible for his act, for instance if he is mentally disturbed. For I have a right to defend myself, and a duty to defend at least close relatives against attack.

When the person attacked is a stranger to me, the law in most countries gives me a right, though not a duty, to intervene and stop the attack. But from the point of view of the criminal law it makes no difference whether to kill the attacker is a right or a duty. In either case, if I kill the attacker, I have not broken the law.

It is more doubtful whether I have a right to kill in order to defend my property, for example to stop a burglar entering my house or taking my car. Life is more valuable than property. On the other hand a person's house is in a sense his territory, and a state can certainly use force to prevent another state encroaching on its territory.

But in general we can kill an attacker only when it is necessary to kill him in order to prevent or stop the attack. This means that we have to decide on the spur of the moment how serious the danger is. I am not entitled to kill someone who is merely threatening to hit me. But what if he has a toy gun or knife that I mistake for the real thing? On one view (the objective theory) I am justified in killing only if the threat was real. On another (the subjective theory) I can kill if I genuinely thought the weapon was real. A compromise opinion, for which there is much to be said, is that I am justified in reacting to an apparent threat, even if it turns out later that it was not a real one, if at the time I was justified on the evidence in believing that it was real.

Suppose I kill someone in a fit of temper though I do not think they are threatening to kill or seriously injure me. It turns out, however, that they were. Have I killed them lawfully? If so, I am lucky, in the sort of way in which I am lucky if I shoot at someone without any justification but miss.

There is a more doubtful sort of case in which killing may be justified, or at least excused, though not all systems of law admit this. Sometimes I have no alternative, if I am to survive, to killing someone else, though that person is not attacking me. Does that make a difference?

Suppose that, in a shipwreck, I am in a lifeboat that will not hold any more people. I push Jack, who is trying to get in, off the boat, so that he drowns. Or I am in the sea but manage to clamber up and push Jack out, so that I can get in. He drowns. Was I entitled to prefer my life to his? And is there a difference between pushing him off and pushing him out?

If I was entitled to push Jack off he was entitled to push me off. In other words, it was a free-for-all. This does not seem satisfactory. But if I have to sacrifice myself for Jack, he also has to sacrifice himself for me. That does not solve the problem either. Or does the person already in the boat have priority? Remember that, even in a desperate situation, many people care deeply about doing the right thing.

Another case in which we are legally entitled to kill is on military service, when ordered to attack the enemy. Modern systems of law, including international law, take the view that the duty to obey military orders is not absolute. A soldier is not entitled to massacre prisoners or commit acts of genocide even if he is ordered by his superior officer to do so. If he is given an illegal order of this sort he is in a difficult position. If he disobeys, he may be shot. To avoid committing an atrocity he may have to risk his own life.

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20