"Intention and Genocide" A New Article by Frances Kamm

Frances Kamm’s new article “Intention and Genocide” in the Journal of Controversial Ideas, claims that more attention should be paid to the soundness of the U.N. Genocide Convention than to how to meet the requirements for applying it (e.g., how to identify the presence of a genocidal intention).

Kamm, a long-time Center associate, employs the Counterfactual Test to help determine whether an act was committed with genocidal intent even when defensive military action was also involved. The test asks us to consider whether if, contrary to fact, an act would not cause a particular outcome, that would give an agent at least some reason not to do the act and/or to change the act to one that led to the outcome.

The article demonstrates how recent philosophical work on the relation between intention and moral and legal permissibility can bear on the correctness of the Genocide Convention itself.