DETERENCE NOT EQUIVALENT TO HOSTAGE-TAKING. Nuclear Deterrence and Deontology. William H. Shaw. Ethics, Vol. 94, No. 2 (Jan, 1984), pp. 248-260. Published by The University of Chicago Press. Stable URL http://www.jstor.org/stable/2380515 The mere pointing of French ICBMs at Soviet cities, scary as it maybe, restricts no Soviet citizen's liberty. Soviet civilians are not being tied to bumpers or wired to explosives their lives of joy and sorrow will unfold much the same whether or not they are "held hostage Second, McCoy need not claim aright" to threaten the Hatfield child (let alone to kidnap him, in the sense of putting Hatfield under an obligation not to remove his child from that threat. Rather, McCoy need only advance the weaker claim that he has no obligation not to threaten conduct harmful to Hatfield's child in order to dissuade Hatfield from an immoral action. Does Hatfield's child have some right, which could furnish the ground of this putative obligation, not to have his life made the basis of a threat directed at his father (indeed the child himself may not know about the threat, or do the denizens of Leningrad have aright not to have French missiles pointed their way Talk of rights is frequently rather loose these days, but even so it is hard to see what would be the basis of these supposed rights.
