Abstract

Saba Bazargan proposes a novel “hybrid” justification for the killing of minimally responsible threats (MRTs). His account allegedly combines two elements, namely “the complex account of liability” and “the lesser-evil discounting view.” I argue that Bazargan’s conclusion that minimally responsible threats can sometimes be killed as well as certain other conclusions that Bazargan regards as a particular advantage of his hybrid account are single-handedly generated by one element of the “hybrid account,” namely by the lesser-evil discounting view. The lesser-evil discounting view therefore does not need to be combined with “the complex account of liability,” nor, indeed, with any account of liability. Thus, Bazargan’s hybrid view is redundant. Moreover, I will argue that both the hybrid view and the lesser evil discounting view of killing MRTs have strongly counter-intuitive implications and should therefore be rejected.