Ethics for Enemies

Ethics for Enemies comprises three original philosophical essays on torture terrorism and war. F. M. Kamm deploys ethical theory in her challenging new treatments of these most controversial practical issues. First she considers the nature of torture and the various occasions on which it could occur in order to determine why it might be wrong to torture a wrongdoer held captive even if this were necessary to save his victims. In the second essay she considers what makes terrorism wrong--whether it is the intention to harm civilians rather than harm to them being collateral damage or something else--and whether terrorism is always wrong. The third essay discusses whether having a right reason in the sense of a right intention is necessary in order for a war to be just. Kamm then examines ways in which the harms of war can be proportional to the achievement of the just cause and other goods that war can bring about so as to make the declaration of war permissible.