•  221
    Killing, letting die, and the morality of abortion
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 26 (1): 1-26. 2009.
    abstract David Boonin, in his A Defense of Abortion, argues that abortions that involve killing the foetus are morally permissible, even if granting for the sake of argument that the foetus has a right to life. His primary argument is an argument by analogy to a 'trolley case'. I offer two lines of counterargument to his argument by analogy. First, I argue that Boonin's analogy between his trolley case and a normal unwanted pregnancy does not hold. I revise his trolley case in light of my object…Read more
  •  112
    A critique of Sumner's account of welfare
    Utilitas 22 (1): 36-51. 2010.
    Wayne Sumner, in the first six chapters of his excellent book Welfare, Happiness and Ethics, argues for what he calls an authentic life satisfaction theory of welfare. Somewhat generally, Sumner's theory of welfare is a sophisticated subjective account that treats one's happiness of a certain sort, and in the right conditions, as enhancing one's welfare. In this essay, I critically explore Sumner's account of welfare. I argue that Sumner's arguments for his own account of welfare, when followed …Read more
  •  26
    Wanting the bad and doing bad things: an essay in moral psychology
    with Peter Brian Barry, David I. Copp, Marina Oshana, Crystal Thorpe, and Dolores Albarracin
    Title from title page of source document
  •  16
    Killing, Letting Die, and the Morality of Abortion
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 26 (1): 1-26. 2009.
    abstract David Boonin, in his A Defense of Abortion, argues that abortions that involve killing the foetus are morally permissible, even if granting for the sake of argument that the foetus has a right to life. His primary argument is an argument by analogy to a ‘trolley case’. I offer two lines of counterargument to his argument by analogy. First, I argue that Boonin's analogy between his trolley case and a normal unwanted pregnancy does not hold. I revise his trolley case in light of my object…Read more