Weighing unjust lives
Are the lives of those fighting on the unjust side of a war worth less than the lives of those fighting on the just side? It is tempting to answer yes. There is a powerful and popular rationale for this verdict: Things are intrinsically better when people get what they deserve. According to this vie...
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| Format: | Book Chapter |
| Language: | English |
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Oxford University Press
2020
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/145501 |
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| Institution: | Nanyang Technological University |
| Language: | English |
| Summary: | Are the lives of those fighting on the unjust side of a war worth less than the lives of those fighting on the just side? It is tempting to answer yes. There is a powerful and popular rationale for this verdict: Things are intrinsically better when people get what they deserve. According to this view, the goodness of a life is the product of one’s desert-adjusted welfare. In this chapter, I highlight the troubling implications that adjusting for desert has in the context of war. The implausibility of these implications calls into question the core idea of the desert-adjusted account: namely, that there is some level of welfare that each person deserves, and things would go best if everyone were at these levels. |
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