In this book, philosopher Seumas Miller analyzes the various moral justifications and moral responsibilities involved in the use of lethal force by police and military, relying on a distinctive normative teleological account of institutional roles.

Introduction Chapter 1 Morally Permissible Use of Lethal Force: A Taxonomy Chapter 2 Killing in Self-Defence Chapter 3 Police Officers, Regular Soldiers and Normative Institutional Analysis Chapter 4 Police Use of Lethal Force Chapter 5 Police Use of Lethal Force and Suicide Bombers Chapter 6 Military Use of Lethal Force Chapter 7 Civilian Immunity Chapter 8 Humanitarian Armed Intervention Chapter 9 Targeted Killing Chapter 10 Autonomous Weapons and Moral Responsibility Conclusion

"Miller is engaging the revisionists [theories of the use of lethal force] and putting forth a substantial alternative [theory] at a high levelâhis institutional approach speaks to those people and their experiences who are (or may be) engaged in using lethal force in law enforcement and warâ.I also find Miller's "collective end theory" (CET) of joint action to be excellentâ He has an excellent approach to joint action that accounts for individual moral responsibility." --Steve Viner, Criminal Justice Ethics "Seumas Miller is one of the rare philosophers who are able to give serious attention to real-world problems while also doing the kind of theoretical work that is necessary in order to shed distinctively philosophical light on these problems. In his new book on the ethics of police and military killing, Miller moves easily and gracefully from abstract theoretical arguments to real-world cases and back again. In my view, Miller's work demonstrates the potential of philosophy to matter for the real world without sacrificing analytic rigor. For that reason, I hope that this book will be read by many people, including many moral philosophers, and not just those who work specifically on issues in military or police ethics." -- David Killoren, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews "While many contemporary philosophers have addressed permissible uses of force, Seumas Miller's Shooting to Kill is unique in developing a unified theory regarding the permissible use of deadly force in private, law enforcement, and military contexts. Miller builds on previously published work in the field of collective responsibility to articulate a sophisticated theory of permissible violence taking into account differences in institutional contexts. The theory is philosophically intricate and yet practical enough to make a difference to concrete cases. It is a true achievement." -- Michael Skerker, Professor of Ethics, US Naval Academy "Seumas Miller's characteristic analytic rigor and carefully constructed argumentation is on full display as he offers a fresh and original approach to understanding the morality of violent force. In Shooting to Kill: The Ethics of Police and Military Use of Lethal Force, Miller departs from the standard approaches that have come to dominate the field over the past decade--carving his own path that is significantly divergent from both orthodoxies of the traditional 'Walzerian'-type accounts and the ascendant 'revisionist' camps. Miller's tightly woven treatise gives us a consistently provocative yet plausible commentary on not only a theory of justifiable killing, but on real-world applied cases as well, such as targeted killing and autonomous weapons. I recommend this excellent work to anyone who gives these crucial issues the importance they deserve."- Bradley Jay Strawser, Assistant Professor, Naval Postgraduate School

Selling point: Engages a topic of urgent contemporary concern from an ethical standpoint. Selling point: Makes a provocative and original argument: a novel alternative to prevailing reductive individualist and collectivist accounts. . Selling point: First monograph providing a comparative ethical analysis of use of lethal force by ordinary citizens, police officers and military combatants. Selling point: Topics covered include: police shootings of armed offenders, police shooting of suicide-bombers, targeted killing, autonomous weapons, humanitarian armed intervention and civilian immunity. Selling point: Tackles thorny moral justifications and moral responsibilities involved in the use of lethal force by police and military combatants.

Seumas Miller is a research professor (joint position) at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University (Canberra), the 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology at Delft University of Technology (The Hague), and the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. He is the author or coauthor of over 200 academic articles and fifteen books, including Terrorism and Counter-terrorism (Blackwell, 2009), Investigative Ethics (Blackwell, 2014) and The Moral Foundations of Social Institutions (Cambridge University Press, 2010). He was recently awarded an EU Advanced Grant to undertake research on collective responsibility and counter-terrorism.

Selling point: Engages a topic of urgent contemporary concern from an ethical standpoint. Selling point: Makes a provocative and original argument: a novel alternative to prevailing reductive individualist and collectivist accounts. . Selling point: First monograph providing a comparative ethical analysis of use of lethal force by ordinary citizens, police officers and military combatants. Selling point: Topics covered include: police shootings of armed offenders, police shooting of suicide-bombers, targeted killing, autonomous weapons, humanitarian armed intervention and civilian immunity. Selling point: Tackles thorny moral justifications and moral responsibilities involved in the use of lethal force by police and military combatants.