Law and philosophy in the face of terrorism – the casus of shooting down a hijacked plane

Abstract

The paper discusses the problem of moral responsibility for difficult decisions in the sphere of politics on the example of a former regulation of aviation laws concerning shooting down a hijacked plane. The text analyzes a sentence of the Constitutional Tribunal on the matter, especially the issue of the right to live and the concept of human dignity. A comparison is made between Mill’s utilitarism and Kantian deonthology as two opposing moral philosophies. In the end a hypothesis is made that state authorities should be held morally accountable by the public for their choices, even should that accountability result in their condemnation or the loss of office.