Christopher A. Bobier

In response to criticism of the impairment argument for the immorality of abortion, Bruce Blackshaw and Perry Hendricks appeal to Don Marquis’s future-like-ours (FLO) account of the wrongness of killing to explain why knowingly causing fetal impairments is wrong. I argue that wedding the success of the impairment argument to FLO undermines all claims that the impairment argument for the immorality of abortion is novel. Moreover, I argue that relying on FLO when there are alternative explanations for the wrongness of causing FAS begs the question. I conclude, therefore, that the impairment argument remains unsuccessful.

A growing number of animal ethicists defend new omnivorism--the view that it's permissible, if not obligatory, to consume certain kinds of animal flesh and products. This book puts defenders of new omnivorism and advocates of strict veganism into conversation with one another to further debates in food ethics in novel and meaningful ways. The book includes six chapters that defend distinct versions of new omnivorism and six critical responses from scholars who are sympathetic to strict veganism. The contributors debate whether it's ethically permissible to eat the following: "freegan" meat, roadkill, cultured meat, genetically disenhanced animals, possibly insentient animals such as insects, and fish. The volume concludes with two chapters that examine strict vegan and new omnivore policy. Presenting readers with clear defenses and criticisms of the various dietary proposals, this book draws attention to the most important ethical challenges facing traditional animal agriculture and alternative systems of food production. New Omnivorism and Strict Veganism will appeal to scholars and students interested in food ethics, animal ethics, and agricultural ethics.

There is widespread scholarly disagreement whether Hobbesian passions are or involve a type of cognition (i.e., imagination). This largely overlooked disagreement has implications for our understanding of Hobbesian deliberation. If passions are intrinsically cognitive, then, because Hobbesian deliberation is a series of alternating passions, deliberation would appear to be intrinsically cognitive as well. In this paper, I bring to light this overlooked disagreement and argue for a non-cognitive reading of Hobbesian passions, according to which, a passion is an appetite or aversion caused by, but distinct from, an imagination of a future good or harm.

Preclinical xenotransplantation research using genetically engineered pigs has begun to show some promising results and could one day offer a scalable means of addressing organ shortage. While it is a fundamental tenet of ethical human subject research that participants have a right to withdraw from research once enrolled, several scholars have argued that the right to withdraw from xenotransplant research should be suspended because of the public health risks posed by xenozoonotic transmission. Here, we present a comprehensive critical evaluation of the claim that xenotransplant recipients should be required to waive their right to withdraw from lifelong biosurveillance. We conclude that if xenotransplantation requires participants to waive their right to withdraw, then clinical trials may not be justifiable, given the ethical and legal obstacles involved with doing so. Consequently, if clinical trials are permitted with a right to withdraw, then they may pose a significant public health risk.

Thomas Aquinas situates virtues of character in the noncognitive appetite. He also claims that virtues of character provide the ends in practical matters. Since providing proper ends seems to be a cognitive act, it is unclear how virtues of character, qua perfections of the noncognitive appetite, provide ends. After criticizing three approaches to this interpretive challenge, we suggest that Aquinas provides us with a theory of practical identity. We argue that that on Aquinas's view a practical identity is constituted both by a virtuous disposition in the appetitive power and by a rational commitment to proximate ends, a rational commitment that results from acquiring the virtuous disposition. With this account of practical identity in mind, we explain how Aquinas can consistently claim that virtues, qua perfections of the appetite, provide ends.

One objection to xenotransplantation is that it will require the large-scale breeding, raising and killing of genetically modified pigs. The pigs will need to be raised in designated pathogen-free facilities and undergo a range of medical tests before having their organs removed and being euthanised. As a result, they will have significantly shortened life expectancies, will experience pain and suffering and be subject to a degree of social and environmental deprivation. To minimise the impact of these factors, we propose the following option for consideration—ethically defensible xenotransplantation should entail the use of genetic disenhancementifit becomes possible to do so and if that pain and suffering cannot be eliminated by other means. Despite not being a morally ideal ‘solution’, itismorally better to prevent unavoidable pain until a viable non-animal alternative becomes available.