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Targeted Killing, Assassination, and the Problem of Dirty Hands

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Notes

  1. I am grateful to Christina Nick for pressing me on this point.

  2. The distinction between act and rule utilitarianism is admittedly problematic and depends on a theory of rules which disallows the endless addition of new (kinds of) detail as exceptions which are nonetheless part of the rule itself. How to frame such a rule for rules is probably impossible. I am grateful to Richard Bronaugh for this comment. I nonetheless assume throughout that there is a valuable and tenable distinction between Act and Rule Utilitarianism.

  3. See esp: Former President Barack Obama, Speech at the National Defense University. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/05/23/remarks-president-national-defense-university.

  4. One Chronicles 22:8 “You have shed much blood and have fought many wars. You are not to build a house for my Name, because you have shed much blood on the earth in my sight.” (One Chronicles, 28:3). But God said unto me, ‘Thou shalt not build a house for My name, because thou hast been a man of war and hast shed blood.’

  5. http://www.btselem.org This website no longer displays the statistics from the early 2000’s but their recent figures equally indicate relatively low collateral damage in TK.

  6. With reference to B’tselem.

  7. http://www.btselem.org/statistics/fatalities/after-cast-lead/by-date-of-event/gaza/palestinians-killed-during-the-course-of-a-targeted-killing.

  8. “…acts inviting the confidence of an adversary to lead him to believe that he is entitled to, or is obliged to accord, protection under the rules of international law applicable in armed conflict, with intent to betray that confidence Protocol I, Article 37.“ (Gross 2004: 100).

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  1. Department of Political Science, Faculty of Social Sciences, Tel-Aviv University Ramat Aviv, P.O.B. 39040, 69978, Tel-Aviv, Israel

    Tamar Meisels

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Meisels, T. Targeted Killing, Assassination, and the Problem of Dirty Hands. J Ethics 27, 585–599 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-023-09452-7

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