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Chris Heathwood

University of Colorado, Boulder
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  •  215
    The significance of personal identity to abortion
    Bioethics 25 (4): 230-232. 2010.
    In "The Insignificance of Personal Identity to Bioethics," David Shoemaker argues that, contrary to common opinion, considerations of personal identity have no relevance to certain important debates in bioethics. My aim is to show that Shoemaker is mistaken concerning the relevance of personal identity to the abortion debate -– in particular, to Don Marquis’ well-known anti-abortion argument.
    AbortionPersonal Identity and Applied Ethics
  •  98
    On What Will Be: Reply to Westphal
    Erkenntnis 67 (1): 137-142. 2007.
    Jonathan Westphal's recent paper attempts to reconcile the view that propositions about the future can be true or false now with the idea that the future cannot now be real. I attempt to show that Westphal's proposal is either unoriginal or unsatisfying. It is unoriginal if it is just the well-known eternalist solution. It is unsatisfying if it is instead making use of a peculiar, tensed truthmaking principle.
    EternalismThe Open FutureTruthmakers
  •  702
    Could Morality Have a Source?
    Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 6 (2): 1-19. 2012.
    It is a common idea that morality, or moral truths, if there are any, must have some sort of source, or grounding. It has also been claimed that constructivist theories in metaethics have an advantage over realist theories in that the former but not the latter can provide such a grounding. This paper has two goals. First, it attempts to show that constructivism does not in fact provide a complete grounding for morality, and so is on a par with realism in this respect. Second, it explains why…Read more
    Moral Principles, MiscMoral Naturalism and Non-Naturalism, MiscMeta-Ethics, MiscMoral ConstructivismRead more
  •  4293
    Hedonism
    In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
    An encyclopedia entry on hedonistic theories of value and welfare -- the view, roughly, that pleasure is the good.
    The Value of PleasurePleasure and DesireHedonist Accounts of Well-Being