The article discusses how normative inertia influences moral decisions on killing and letting die, suggesting implications for ethical frameworks like contractualism.
Key Points
Killing one person to save another is often deemed impermissible due to the principle of normative inertia.
The justification for this principle hinges on the idea that changing our moral course is harder to justify than maintaining existing norms.
A specific principle of practical rationality is developed to reconcile intuitions about killing restrictions with moral acceptability.
The findings especially support a contractualist moral theory, countering claims that it fails to address deontological constraints.