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Life Enhancement Technologies And the Significance of Social Category MembershipIn Julian Savulescu & Nick Bostrom (eds.), Human Enhancement, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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15Biological Mothers and the Disposition of Fetuses After AbortionIn James Humber & Robert Almeder (eds.), Bioethics and the Fetus, Humana Press. pp. 39--57. 1991.
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1Role Models: A CritiqueIn Kathleen Storrie (ed.), Women—Isolation and Bonding: Readings in the Ecology of Gender, Methuen. 1987.
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115Why Have Children?: The Ethical DebateMIT Press. 2012.In contemporary Western society, people are more often called upon to justify the choice not to have children than they are to supply reasons for having them. In this book, Christine Overall maintains that the burden of proof should be reversed: that the choice to have children calls for more careful justification and reasoning than the choice not to. Arguing that the choice to have children is not just a prudential or pragmatic decision but one with ethical repercussions, Overall offers a wide-…Read more
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Optimism, Pessimism, and the Desire for Longer Life (review)The Gerontologist 44 (6): 847-852. 2004.
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82Transsexualism and “Transracialism”Social Philosophy Today 20 183-193. 2004.This paper explores, from a feminist perspective, the justification of major surgical reshaping of the body. I define “transracialism” as the use of surgery to assist individuals to “cross” from being a member of one race to being a member of another. If transsexualism, involving the use of surgery to assist individuals to “cross” from female to male or from male to female, is morally acceptable, and if providing the medical and social resources to enable sex crossing is not morally problematic,…Read more
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Life Enhancement Technologies: Significance of Social Category MembershipIn Julian Savulescu & Nick Bostrom (eds.), Human Enhancement, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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15A Feminist I: Reflections From AcademiaBroadview Press. 1998.Our universities are the locus of ongoing debates over the politics of gender, of class, of disadvantage and disability—and over the issue of “political correctness.” In _A Feminist I_ Christine Overall offers wide-ranging reflections from a first-person point of view on these issues, and on the politics of the modern university itself. In doing so she continually returns to underlying epistemological concerns. What are our assumptions about the ways in which knowledge is constructed? To what de…Read more
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115Rethinking Abortion, Ectogenesis, and Fetal DeathJournal of Social Philosophy 46 (1): 126-140. 2015.
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2Feminism, Ontology, and ‘Other Minds’In Lorraine Code, Sheila Mullett & Christine Overall (eds.), Feminist Perspectives: Philosophical Essays on Method and Morals, University of Toronto Press. 1988.
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11The Future of Human Reproduction (edited book)Women's Press. 1989.Reproductive technology has become virtually synonymous with new reproductive choices for women. We are led to believe these technological practices will primarily enable women to conceive and bear the children they previously could not. The presentation of this as fact urges us to support the advancement of reproductive technology so that future techniques may be perfected. The Future of Human Reproduction critically assesses the social, moral, legal, and political impact of reproductive techno…Read more
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243Miracles, Evidence, Evil, and God: A Twenty-Year DebateDialogue 45 (2): 355-366. 2006.This paper is the latest in a debate with Robert Larmer as to whether the occurrence of a miracle would provide evidence for the existence of God or against the existence of God. Whereas Larmer’s view is categorical (miracles occur and are evidence for the existence of God), mine is hypothetical (if the events typically described as miracles were to occur -- although I do not believe they do -- they would be evidence against the existence of God). The reason is that miracles, if they were to occ…Read more
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51Ethics and Human Reproduction: A Feminist AnalysisAllen & Unwin. 1987.This book should be essential reading for anyone interested in the new reproductive technologies, biomedical ethics, and women's health.
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1Return to Gender, Address Unknown: Reflections on the Past, Present and Future of the Concept of Gender in Feminist Theory and PracticeIn Yolanda Estes, Arnold Lorenzo Farr, Patricia Smith & Clelia Smyth (eds.), Marginal Groups and Mainstream American Cultures, University Press of Kansas. 2000.
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2John P. Lizza, Persons, Humanity, and the Definition of Death Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 27 (1): 46-48. 2007.
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AIDS and Women: The (Hetero)Sexual Politics of HIV InfectionIn Christine Overall & William Zion (eds.), Perspectives On AIDS: Ethical and Social Issues, Oxford University Press. 1991.
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28Concepts of Life Span and Life-Stages: Implications for EthicsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 32 (sup1): 298-318. 2002.
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The Nature of Mystical Experience: A Study in the Philosophy of W. T. StaceDissertation, University of Toronto (Canada). 1980.Because of the two crucial problems just described, it is concluded that Stace's theory of the nature of mystical experience is inadequate. An alternative approach is outlined, which obviates the weaknesses in Stace's theory by combining C. J. Ducasse's distinction between connate and alien accusatives, with the suggestion by Gilbert Ryle and David Hamlyn that experiencing is like the exercise of a skill. Mystical experience, it is then proposed, is the exercise of the difficult yet rewarding ac…Read more
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My Path to Feminist PhilosophyIn Wendy Robbins, Meg Luxton, Margrit Eichler & Francine Descarries (eds.), Minds of Our Own: Inventing Feminist Scholarship and Women’s Studies in Canada and Québec, 1966-76, Wilfrid Laurier Press. 2008.
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33Staying Alive: A Reply to the Commentators on Aging, Death, and Human Longevity: A Philosophical InquiryDialogue 45 (3): 577-590. 2006.
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28Human Reproduction: Principles, Practices, PoliciesOxford University Press. 1993.Who owns frozen human embryos? Are "surrogate motherhood" arrangements dangerous for women? Should access to in vitro fertilization be limited or increased? With the development of complex reproductive technologies and the ensuing controversies in reproductive ethics, there is an urgent need for more careful examination of moral principles, current practices, and social policies pertaining to reproduction. The issues examined in this collection of nine papers focusing of the Canadian experience …Read more
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Walter Terence StaceIn Stuart Brown (ed.), Dictionary of Twentieth Century British Philosophers, Thoemmes Press. 2005.
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21Mysticism, Phenomenalism, and W. T. StaceTransactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 18 (2). 1982.
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2Feminism and AtheismIn Michael Martin (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Atheism, Cambridge University Press. 2006.
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6Sex/Gender Transitions and Life-Changing AspirationsIn Laurie Shrage (ed.), “You’ve Changed”: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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369Miracles as evidence against the existence of GodSouthern Journal of Philosophy 23 (3): 347-353. 1985.AN ASSUMPTION IN DEBATES ABOUT THE PHILOSOPHICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF MIRACLES IS THAT IF A MIRACLE (A VIOLATION OF NATURAL LAW OR A PERMANENTLY INEXPLICABLE EVENT) WERE TO OCCUR, IT WOULD BE EVIDENCE FOR THE EXISTENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN GOD. THE PAPER EXPLORES RESERVATIONS BY SEVERAL PHILOSOPHERS ABOUT THIS CONNECTION BETWEEN GOD AND MIRACLES, AND PRESENTS ARGUMENTS TO SHOW THAT IF A MIRACLE WERE TO OCCUR THERE WOULD BE GOOD REASON TO DENY THAT GOD EXISTS
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29Conjoined Twins, Embodied Personhood, and Surgical SeparationIn Lisa Tessman (ed.), Feminist Ethics and Social and Political Philosophy: Theorizing the Non-Ideal, Springer. pp. 69--84. 2009.
Kingston, Ontario, Canada
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Animal Ethics |
Reproductive Ethics |
Aging |
Death and Dying |