The ethics of harming

Abstract

Commonsense morality rejects an unqualified requirement to promote the overall good. Moral constraints prohibit you from bringing about the overall good. For example, you seem morally required to save five people over one. But you seem prohibited from hurling an innocent bystander onto a live grenade that is going to kill five innocent strangers, thereby killing the bystander while shielding the five from the blast. This dissertation provides a defence of moral constraints and explores their practical implications.