GetWiki

{{short description|American moral philosopher (born 1954)}}{{for|the politician|Jeff McMahan (politician)}}{{Use mdy dates|date=April 2024}}

factoids

| birth_place =Analytic philosophy>Analytic| alma_mater = University of the SouthCorpus Christi College, OxfordSt. John's College, Cambridge| institutions = St. John's College, CambridgeUniversity of Illinois, Urbana-ChampaignRutgers UniversityUniversity of OxfordNormative ethics>Normative and applied ethics| doctoral_advisor = Jonathan Glover, Derek Parfit, Bernard Williams| influences = Derek Parfit, Bernard Williams| influenced =| thesis_title = Problems of Population Theory| thesis_url =| thesis_year = 1986| notable_ideas = The ethics of intensive animal farming, the ethics of wild animal suffering, the ethics of killing in war, the ethics of nuclear weapons|website =}}Jefferson Allen McMahan ({{IPAc-en|m|ə|k|ˈ|m|ɑː|n}} {{respell|mək|MAHN}}; born August 30, 1954) is an American moral philosopher. He has been Sekyra and White's Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Oxford since 2014.

Education and career

In 1976, McMahan completed a B.A. degree in English literature at the University of the South (Sewanee). In 1978, he got a second B.A., in philosophy, politics, and economics, then did graduate work in philosophy at Corpus Christi College, Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. In 1983, he earned his M.A. at the University of Oxford. He was offered a research studentship at St John's College, Cambridge. He studied first under Jonathan Glover and Derek Parfit at the University of Oxford and was later supervised by Bernard Williams at the University of Cambridge, where he was a research fellow of St John's College from 1983 to 1986. He received his doctorate in 1986 from the University of Cambridge. His thesis title was Problems of Population Theory.WEB, Jeff McMahan,weblink April 9, 2024, www.philosophy.ox.ac.uk, WEB, Mcmahan, Jeff(erson Allen) 1954-,weblink April 9, 2024, encyclopedia.com, He taught at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (1986–2003) and at Rutgers University (2003–2014).WEB,weblink Curriculum Vitae, McMahan, Jeff, January 2018, Jeff McMahan, He was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2022.WEB,weblink New Members,

Philosophical work

Bioethics

McMahan has written extensively on normative and applied ethics, especially on bioethics and just war theory. His publications in bioethics include The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (Oxford University Press, 2002). The book consists of five parts: about identity, death, killing, the beginning of life, and the end of life. In its first part, McMahan defends a mixed view of personal identity, claiming that individuals are what he calls "embodied minds". In the following parts, he claims that the badness of death and the wrongness of killing depends on our interest in living. He also defends what he calls a "time-relative interest account of living". According to his view, our interest in living depends on our psychological connection to our future selves at each time.JOURNAL, Lacewing, Michael, November 1, 2002, Review of The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life,weblink Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 1538-1617,

Animal ethics

{{See also|The Meat Eaters}}In relation to his contributions in bioethics, McMahan has also written on the subject of animal ethics, where he has argued against the moral relevance of species membership.McMahan, Jeff. 2002. "Animals", in R. G. Frey and Christopher Wellman, eds., Blackwell Companion to Applied Ethics (Oxford: Blackwell).McMahan, Jeff. 2005. “‘Our Fellow Creatures’,” Journal of Ethics, 9, 353-380. McMahan has also claimed that intensive animal farming is a major ethical problem. He has argued for a strong negative duty to stop the suffering inflicted on animals through modern industrial agriculture and against the eating of animals.McMahan, Jeff. 2008. "Eating Animals The Nice Way". Daedalus 137 (1): 66-76. {{doi|10.1162/daed.2008.137.1.66}}. He has also participated in the ethical debate on wild animal suffering.Faria, Catia. 2015. "Making a Difference on Behalf of Animals Living in the Wild: Interview with Jeff McMahan". Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism 3 (1): 82-4. {{doi|10.7358/rela-2015-001-fari}}. {{open access}} He has additionally made a case for intervening in nature to alleviate the suffering of wild animals when doing so would not cause more harm than good.WEB,weblink The Meat Eaters, McMahan, Jeff, September 19, 2010, New York Times Opinionator, July 10, 2017, BOOK,weblink Philosophy Comes to Dinner: Arguments on the Ethics of Eating., McMahan, Jeff, Routledge, 2014, 978-0415806831, Chignell, Andrew, London, The Moral Problem of Predation, July 10, 2017, November 11, 2020,weblink" title="web.archive.org/web/20201111235547weblink">weblink dead, JOURNAL, Dorado, Daniel, Ethical Interventions in the Wild. An Annotated Bibliography, Relations. Beyond Anthropocentrism, 2015, 3, 2, 219–238,weblink April 21, 2016, 10.7358/rela-2015-002-dora, free,

Just war theory

McMahan's main contributions to just war theory are made in his book Killing in War (OUP, 2009), which argues against foundational elements of the traditional basis of just war theory. Against Michael Walzer,Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Illustrations, 4th ed. (New York: Basic Books, 1977) he claims that those who fight an unjust war can never meet the requirements of jus in bello.

Other work

McMahan has also co-edited the books The Morality of Nationalism (with Robert McKim, OUP, 1997) and Ethics and Humanity (with Ann Davis and Richard Keshen, OUP, 2010). In the early 1980s, he wrote two books about the political situation at the time: British Nuclear Weapons: For and Against (London: Junction Books, 1981, with a preface by Bernard Williams) and Reagan and the World: Imperial Policy in the New Cold War (London: Pluto Press, 1984). In more recent times, he has also done work on effective altruism.McMahan, Jeff. 2016. "Philosophical Critiques of Effective Altruism", The Philosopher's Magazine 73 (2nd Quarter).McMahan, Jeff. 2017. "Doing Good & Doing the Best", in Paul Woodruff, ed., Philanthropy and Philosophy: Putting Theory Into Practice (New York: Oxford University Press).He is on the editorial board of The Journal of Controversial Ideas.NEWS, Rosenbaum, Martin, Pseudonyms to protect authors of controversial articles,weblink November 13, 2018, BBC, November 12, 2018,

Selected publications

Articles

• McMahan, Jeff (2009). "Intention, permissibility, terrorism, and war". Philosophical Perspectives 23 (1):345-372.
• NEWS,weblink The Meat Eaters, September 19, 2010, The New York Times, The Stone,
• NEWS,weblink Predators: A Response, September 28, 2010, The New York Times, dead,weblink October 30, 2019, The Stone,
• NEWS,weblink Rethinking the 'Just War,' Part 1, November 11, 2012, The New York Times, The Stone,
• NEWS,weblink Rethinking the 'Just War,' Part 2, November 12, 2012, The New York Times, The Stone,
• NEWS,weblink Why Gun 'Control' Is Not Enough, December 19, 2012, The New York Times, The Stone,
• NEWS, Cutting, Gary,weblink Can Torture Ever Be Moral?, December 19, 2012, The New York Times, The Stone, Jeff, McMahan,

Books

• The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (Oxford University Press, 2002) ({{ISBN|0-195-16982-4}})
• Killing in War (Oxford University Press, 2009) ({{ISBN|0-199-54866-8}})
• The Ethics of Killing: Self-Defense, War, and Punishment (Oxford University Press, 2020) ({{ISBN|0-195-18721-0}})

See also

• American philosophy
• List of American philosophers

References

{{Reflist}}

External links

• Unjust War in Iraq. The Pelican Record XLI, no. 5 (December 2004): 21-33.
• Introduction to the work of Jeff McMahan. By Lucia Sommer.
• Jeff McMahan on Killing in War. An interview for Philosophy Bites, November 21, 2009.
• {{IMDb name|nm11657567}}

{{White's Professor of Moral Philosophy, Oxford}}{{University of Oxford}}{{Wild animal suffering}}{{Authority control}}