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Shooting, Killing and Dying

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Jonathan Bennett
Jonathan Bennett*
Affiliation:
University of British Columbia
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Extract

There was a duel at dawn between A and B. A shot B, who lingered on until dusk of that day, and then died of his bulletwound. Certain background conditions are satisfied (it doesn't matter now what they are) which make it right to say not just that A caused B's death but that he killed him. So, A shot B and killed him. This seems to be structurally different from "A shot B and he kicked him," but what is this structural difference? How does the shooting relate to the killing?

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , March 1973 , pp. 315 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1973

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References

1 Judith, Jarvis Thomson “The Time of a Killing.” The Journal of Philosophy, LXVIII, 5 (March 1971): 115–132.Google Scholar I have been helped by Mrs. Thomson's comments on an earlier version of the present paper.

2 Ibid, p. 132.

3 Ibid., pp. 122–123.

4 Donald Davidson, “The Logical Form of Action Sentences,” in N. Rescher (ed.), The Logic of Decision and Action (Pittsburgh, 1967); and several other papers.

5 Judith Jarvis Thomson, op. cit., p. 132.

6 Ibid., p. 120.

7 R. Browning. “Incident of the French Camp,” last stanza. L. Tolstoy. War and Peace, Book IV, chapter 5.

8 Donald Davidson, “The Individuation of Events,” in N. Rescher et al. (eds.). Essays in Honor of Carl G. Hempel (New York, 1970). note 16.

9 Judith Jarvis Thomson, op. cit., p. 120.