
Bedau demonstrates the usefulness of casuistry, or the method of cases in arriving at moral decisions. He examines cases that may compel us to consider questions about who ought to survive when not all can. It seeks to teach something about how we actually reason concerning such...

The answer, to crew and passengers aboard the sinking lifeboat, must have seemed both grimly obvious and unthinkably alien. To save the lives of many, the lives of some would have to be sacrificed. With seawater crashing over the gunwhales, only a lightening of the human cargo...