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548Thinking Critically About AbortionDecaturish. 2019.An editorial / opinion piece on abortion: "I’m a philosophy professor who specializes in medical ethics and I teach and write about the ethics of abortion. So I am very familiar with the medical, legal and – most importantly – ethical or moral issues related to HB 481, the so-called “heartbeat bill” that would effectively ban abortion in Georgia. At least hundreds of other philosophy, ethics and law professors in Georgia teach these ethical debates about abortion: they are also, to varying degre…Read more
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1789Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. 2019.Sadly, there are people in very bad medical conditions who want to die. They are in pain, they are suffering, and they no longer find their quality of life to be at an acceptable level anymore. When people like this are kept alive by machines or other medical treatments, can it be morally permissible to let them die? Advocates of “passive euthanasia” argue that it can be. Their reasons, however, suggest that it can sometimes be not wrong to actively kill some patients, i.e., that “active euthana…Read more
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2281A Moral Argument for VeganismIn Andrew Chignell, Terence Cuneo & Matthew C. Halteman (eds.), Philosophy Comes to Dinner: Arguments on the Ethics of Eating, Routledge. 2016.We offer a relatively simple and straightforward argument that each of us ought to be vegan. We don’t defend this position by appealing to ‘animal rights’ or the view that animals and humans are ‘moral equals’. Rather, we argue that animal agriculture causes serious harms to other animals (such as pain, suffering and death) and these harms are morally unjustified or caused for no good reason. This is true for both ‘factory farming’ and smaller, so-called ‘humane’ farms. We argue that attempts to…Read more
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297Reply to Christopher Tollefsen on AbortionIn Bob Fischer (ed.), Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues that Divide Us, Oxford University Press. 2019.Are *you* the same thing as your body? Did *you* begin at conception? Do you have a rational and free "nature" or "essence"? Some answer 'yes' to all and argue that this means that abortion is wrong. This argument is discussed here.
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52Feminist Ethics without Feminist Ethical Theory (Or, More Generally, “φ Ethics without φ Ethical Theory”)Journal of Philosophical Research 30 (9999): 213-225. 2005.There are at least two models of what it is to be a feminist ethicist or moral philosopher. One model requires that one accept a distinctively feminist ethical theory. I will argue against this model by arguing that since the concept of a feminist ethical theory is highly unclear, any claim that ethicists who are feminist need one is also unclear and inadequately defended. I will advocate what I call a "minimal model" of feminist ethics, arguing that it is philosophically and practically suffici…Read more
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883Early and Later Abortions: Ethics and LawIn Bob Fischer (ed.), Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues that Divide Us, Oxford University Press. 2019.Most abortions occur early in pregnancy. I argue that these abortions, and so most abortions, are not morally wrong and that the best arguments given to think that these abortions are wrong are weak. I also argue that these abortions, and probably all abortions, should be legal. I begin by observing that people sometimes respond to the issue by describing the circumstances of abortion, not offering reasons for their views about those circumstances; I then dismiss “question-begging” arguments abo…Read more
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446Responding to Morally Flawed Historical Philosophers and Philosophies1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. 2018.Many historically-influential philosophers had profoundly wrong moral views or behaved very badly. Aristotle thought women were “deformed men” and that some people were slaves “by nature.” Descartes had disturbing views about non-human animals. Hume and Kant were racists. Hegel disparaged Africans. Nietzsche despised sick people. Mill condoned colonialism. Fanon was homophobic. Frege was anti-Semitic; Heidegger was a Nazi. Schopenhauer was sexist. Rousseau abandoned his children. Wittgenstein be…Read more
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932Tom Regan on Kind Arguments against Animal Rights and for Human RightsIn Mylan Engel & Gary Comstock (eds.), The Moral Rights of Animals, Lexington. pp. 65-80. 2016.Tom Regan argues that human beings and some non-human animals have moral rights because they are “subjects of lives,” that is, roughly, conscious, sentient beings with an experiential welfare. A prominent critic, Carl Cohen, objects: he argues that only moral agents have rights and so animals, since they are not moral agents, lack rights. An objection to Cohen’s argument is that his theory of rights seems to imply that human beings who are not moral agents have no moral rights, but since these h…Read more
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16Ought We Accept What Neuroscience Might Imply? Many Questions, Incommensurable Answers?American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 1 (4): 45-47. 2010.
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141Abortion, Metaphysics and Morality: A Review of Francis Beckwith's Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (review)Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 36 (3): 261-273. 2011.In Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (2007) and an earlier article in this journal, "Defending Abortion Philosophically"(2006), Francis Beckwith argues that fetuses are, from conception, prima facie wrong to kill. His arguments are based on what he calls a "metaphysics of the human person" known as "The Substance View." I argue that Beckwith’s metaphysics does not support his abortion ethic: Moral, not metaphysical, claims that are part of this Substance View are the…Read more
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261Reasonable Humans and Animals: An Argument for VegetarianismBetween the Species 13 (8): 4. 2008.
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109|Scope: | |1. The first sentence should include the subject’s name, life span in | |parenthesis, and place and date of birth (day and month) if known (followed by | |mentioning early work on civil disobedience, perhaps) | |2. Outline key contributions to animal ethics, focusing on Animal Liberation | |and Practical Ethics | |3. Outline contributions to debates on poverty, relating this to environmental | |ethics | |4. Outline more recent work on globalization and climate change eg in One World|.
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14In Putting Humans First: Why We Are Nature’s Favorite, Tibor Machan argues against moral perspectives that require taking animals’ interests seriously. He attempts to defend the status quo regarding routine, harmful uses of animals for food, fashion and experimentation. Graham and Nobis show that his arguments fail: they arguments provide no good reason to resist pro-animal moral conclusions that are supported by a wide range of contemporary ethical arguments.
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80Carl Cohen and Tom Regan, the animal rights debate (book review)Journal of Value Inquiry 36 (4): 579-583. 2002.
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51The ethics of animal research: a survey of pediatric health care workersPhilosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 9 20. 2014.Pediatric health care workers often perform, promote, and advocate use of public funds for animal research . We aim to determine whether HCW consider common arguments in support of AR convincing
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157Animals and RightsJournal of Ayn Rand Studies 8 (2): 331-339. 2007.In his reply to the Nobis-Graham review of Tibor Machan's book, Putting Humans First, John Altick defends Machan's and Rand's theories of moral rights, specifically as they relate to the rights of non-human animals and non-rational human beings. Nobis and Graham argue that Altick's defense fails and that it would be wrong to eat, wear, and experiment on non-rational—yet conscious and sentient—human beings. Since morally relevant differences between these kinds of humans and animals have not been…Read more
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3935Chimpanzee Rights: The Philosophers' BriefRoutledge. 2018.In December 2013, the Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) filed a petition for a common law writ of habeas corpus in the New York State Supreme Court on behalf of Tommy, a chimpanzee living alone in a cage in a shed in rural New York (Barlow, 2017). Under animal welfare laws, Tommy’s owners, the Laverys, were doing nothing illegal by keeping him in those conditions. Nonetheless, the NhRP argued that given the cognitive, social, and emotional capacities of chimpanzees, Tommy’s confinement constituted …Read more
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35Review: Beating Hearts: Abortion and Animal RightsNotre Dame Philosophical Reviews 1. 2016.This is a book review of Beating Hearts: Abortion and Animal Rights by Sherry F. Colb and Michael C. Dorf.
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41Ethics and “Extra Credit”1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology. 2018.Grades on assignments and tests are reliable, yet imperfect, indicators of students’ knowledge and understanding of a subject matter. Overall course grades are also often influenced by students’ complying with class procedures: e.g., if attendance and participation are required, then students who rarely attend class may get poor grades, even if they understand the course content and have done well on the assignments and tests. A variety of extra credit opportunities are often given as a way to r…Read more
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47Bob Fischer, ed. College Ethics: A Reader on Moral Issues that Affect YouTeaching Ethics 17 (2): 259-262. 2017.
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434Xenotransplantation, Subsistence Hunting and the Pursuit of Health: Lessons for Animal Rights-Based Vegan AdvocacyBetween the Species 21 (1). 2018.I argue that, contrary to what Tom Regan suggests, his rights view implies that subsistence hunting is wrong, that is, killing animals for food is wrong even when they are the only available food source, since doing so violates animal rights. We can see that subsistence hunting is wrong on the rights view by seeing why animal experimentation, specifically xenotransplanation, is wrong on the rights view: if it’s wrong to kill an animal to take organs to save a human life, it’s wrong to kill an an…Read more
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52What is the moral status of animals? What’s the moral status of fetuses? What’s the moral status of the permanently comatose? While questions like these are sometimes asked (also about ‘moral standing’), I have written a few paragraphs where I argue that the term “moral status” shouldn’t be used.
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897The Philosophers' Brief on Chimpanzee PersonhoodProposed Brief by Amici Curiae Philosophers in Support of the Petitioner-Appelllant Court of Appeals, State of New York,. 2018.In this brief, we argue that there is a diversity of ways in which humans (Homo sapiens) are ‘persons’ and there are no non-arbitrary conceptions of ‘personhood’ that can include all humans and exclude all nonhuman animals. To do so we describe and assess the four most prominent conceptions of ‘personhood’ that can be found in the rulings concerning Kiko and Tommy, with particular focus on the most recent decision, Nonhuman Rights Project, Inc v Lavery.
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644Moral Experts, Deference & DisagreementIn Jonathan Matheson, Nathan Nobis & Scott McElreath (eds.), Moral Experts, Deference & Disagreement, Springer. 2018.We sometimes seek expert guidance when we don’t know what to think or do about a problem. In challenging cases concerning medical ethics, we may seek a clinical ethics consultation for guidance. The assumption is that the bioethicist, as an expert on ethical issues, has knowledge and skills that can help us better think about the problem and improve our understanding of what to do regarding the issue. The widespread practice of ethics consultations raises these questions and more: • What would…Read more
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267Review of SHERRY F. COLB AND MICHAEL C. DORF Beating Hearts: Abortion and Animal Rights (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 1 (1): 1-2. 2016.In this book, law professors Sherry F. Colb and Michael C. Dorf argue that: many non-human animals, at least vertebrates, are morally considerable and prima facie wrong to harm because they are sentient, i.e., conscious and capable of experiencing pains and pleasures; most aborted human fetuses are not sentient -- their brains and nervous systems are not yet developed enough for sentience -- and so the motivating moral concern for animals doesn't apply to most abortions[2]; later abortions affec…Read more
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39Review of Jonathan Kahn, Race in a Bottle: The Story of BiDil and Racialized Medicine in the Post-Genomic Age (review)American Journal of Bioethics 15 (10): 4-5. 2015.This article is book review of Race in a Bottle: The Story of BiDil and Racialized Medicine in the Post-Genomic Age by Jonathan Kahn
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50Cut the fat! Defending trans fats bansAmerican Journal of Bioethics 10 (3). 2010.Is banning trans fat a bad policy? Resnik (2010) offers two general reasons for thinking so. First, because trans fat bans could lead to the government’s placing other objectionable restrictions upon food choices. Second, that, because we can adequately reduce trans fat consumption through education and mandatory labeling, bans are unnecessary. There are good reasons to reject both claims. First, since any slippery slope towards further restrictions on food choices is easily avoided, trans fat b…Read more
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51Abortion and Moral Arguments From AnalogyAmerican Journal of Bioethics 10 (12): 59-61. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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10The Babe VegetariansIn Sandra Shapshay (ed.), Bioethics at the movies, Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 56. 2009.
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156Putting Humans First? (review)Journal of Ayn Rand Studies 8 (1). 2006.In Putting Humans First: Why We Are Natures Favorite, Tibor Machan argues against moral perspectives that require taking animals' interests seriously. He attempts to defend the status quo regarding routine, harmful uses of animals for food, fashion and experimentation. Graham and Nobis argue that Machan's work fails to resist pro-animal moral conclusions that are supported by a wide range of contemporary ethical arguments
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Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Epistemology |
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