Legal Issues

Legal Issues

Introduction

A government knowing that a commercial airline has been hijacked is a significant responsibility that requires effective measures to be taken in order to deal with such threat. In this paper, we will discuss how the government can decide what to do in such a situation where the target lies within the government's territory and also has the capability to destroy the plane in the air to save the other thousands of people. This question will be discussed by in the light of three different theories which include Libertarianism, Kantianism, and Mid-20th Century Liberalism as spoken by Rawls.

Discussion

Libertarianism

The central idea of Libertarianism hovers around the political philosophies that put emphasis on the individual liberties, voluntary association and freedom. It shows the liberties of individual without any interference of governmental powers. The belief of libertarianism is that every individual has the right to life his/her life according to their own style and are sole responsible for making choices in their lives, related to property. Moreover, it also holds the individual is responsible for their own preferences (Burchill, 2001). Moreover, Libertarianism holds that individual besides their own rights, must respect the liberties and rights of others (Hamovy, 2008).

In this particular case, the stance of government in destroying the plane is much holds the philosophy of libertarianism. The government the government knew that a hijacked commercial airliner is being flown by a person, and they would be going to crash it into a major sporting event. This would have caused enormous people losing their lives. As a matter of fact, the government tried utmost effort to prevent such a huge incident to happen. However, all their efforts were not feasible since the plane was in the air. The notion of government is right in a sense that if it would not have destroyed the plane it would have caused massive destruction in terms of human lives other than on board.

The government stance is right from the lens of Libertarianism because the hijackers were absolutely against the concept of libertarianism because they did not have any concern about the liberties of others - those whom they wanted to target; in this case the decision of government is right in terms of protecting the liberties of people by destroying the plane.

Kantianism

Kantianism is a philosophy presented by a German philosopher 'Immanuel Kant'. The central theme of this philosophy is that people should be treated an end and never as a means to an end. Simply, it means that people should not be used for the personal gains because they hold particular value in themselves. Theory of Kantianism is a non-consequential, which means that the act itself is more significant than its outcomes (Woodward, 2013).

The stance of government to destroy the commercial airliner is not justified under the umbrella of Kantianism. The government thought about the consequence, i.e. if the hijackers would have successful in their intentions, it would cause a massive human ...