On some accounts, . . . it might be suggested that the existence of an act of murder makes the world bad above and beyond the badness of the resulting loss of innocent life. On such a view, even if killing the one were the only way to save the two from dying of natural causes, we could not automatically assume that killing the one would result in the greater amount of good overall. For the choice would be between, on the one hand, the badness of two innocent deaths and, on the other hand, the badness of one innocent death plus the additional badness of an act of murder. It would be possible that the contribution that an act of murder makes to the badness of outcomes is so great that murdering the one so as to save the two from dying of natural causes would not actually promote the greater good.
(Shelly Kagan, The Limits of Morality, Oxford Ethics Series, ed. Derek Parfit [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989], 26 [italics in original; ellipsis added])
Note from KBJ: The view being described by Kagan is deontology, which might be summarized by the slogan, "Better two deaths than one murder." A consequentialist would say, "Better one death than two deaths."
