•  23
    Human equality and the impermissibility of abortion: a response to Bozzo
    Journal of Medical Ethics 50 (3): 209-211. 2024.
    I have recently offered a defence of human equality, and consequently an argument against abortion. This has been objected to by Bozzo, on the grounds that my account of human equality is unclear and could be grounded in utilitarian or Kantian ethics, that my account struggles to ground the permissibility of therapeutic abortions, and that my proposed foundation for human equality itself is parasitic on a scalar property which generates the same difficulties I am attempting to solve. I provide a…Read more
  •  21
    Subhumans, human flourishing and abortion: a reply to Räsänen
    Journal of Medical Ethics. forthcoming.
    In a recent article, I argued that all humans are morally equal, and that this generates an argument against abortion. Here, I defend my argument against two objections from Räsänen: that it is possible to ground equal human value in the ability to flourish in a particular kind of way, and that being human is not, in fact, a binary property in the way needed for the argument to work. I show that this proposed criterion for grounding human value falls prey to my original argument, and that Räsäne…Read more
  •  105
    The intrinsic probability of theism
    Philosophy Compass 13 (10). 2018.
    In this paper, I explore one of the most important but least discussed components of an evidentialist case for or against theism: its intrinsic plausibility and simplicity as a theory aside from the evidence. This is a crucial consideration in any inductive framework, whether Inference to the Best Explanation, probabilism, or another. In the context of Bayesian reasoning, this corresponds to an assessment of theism's intrinsic probability. I offer a survey of how philosophers of science have att…Read more
  •  179
    Alvin Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism argues that the probability of our possessing reliable cognitive faculties, given the truth of evolution and naturalism, is low, and that this provides a defeater for naturalism, if the naturalist in question holds to the general truths of evolutionary biology. Stephen Law has recently objected to Plantinga’s evolutionary argument against naturalism by suggesting that there exist conceptual constraints governing the content a belief can …Read more
  •  70
    Human organisms begin to exist at fertilization
    Bioethics 31 (7): 534-542. 2017.
    Eugene Mills has recently argued that human organisms cannot begin to exist at fertilization because the evidence suggests that egg cells persist through fertilization and simply turn into zygotes. He offers two main arguments for this conclusion: that ‘fertilized egg’ commits no conceptual fallacy, and that on the face of it, it looks as though egg cells survive fertilization when the process is watched through a microscope. We refute these arguments and offer several reasons of our own to thin…Read more
  •  23
    Defeating Objections to Bayesianism by Adopting a Proximal Facts Approach
    Quaestiones Disputatae 8 (2): 165-179. 2018.
  •  58
    Arguments about Abortion: Personhood, Morality, and Law
    The New Bioethics 24 (2): 190-193. 2018.
  •  89
    Should trainee doctors use the developing world to gain clinical experience? The annual Varsity Medical Debate – London, Friday 20th January, 2012
    with Barnabas J. Gilbert, Fenella Corrick, and Robert A. Watson
    Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 8 1-4. 2013.
    The 2012 Varsity Medical Debate between Oxford University and Cambridge University provided a stage for representatives from these famous institutions to debate the motion “This house believes that trainee doctors should be able to use the developing world to gain clinical experience.” This article brings together many of the arguments put forward during the debate, centring around three major points of contention: the potential intrinsic wrong of ‘using’ patients in developing countries; the ef…Read more
  •  17
    Scourges: Why Abortion Is Even More Morally Serious than Miscarriage
    Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 48 (3): 225-242. 2023.
    Several recent papers have suggested that the pro-life view entails a radical, implausible thesis: that miscarriage is the biggest public health crisis in the history of our species and requires radical diversion of funds to combat. In this paper, I clarify the extent of the problem, showing that the number of miscarriages about which we can do anything morally significant is plausibly much lower than previously thought, then describing some of the work already being done on this topic. I then b…Read more
  •  18
    Why Biblical Arguments for Abortion Fail
    Christian Bioethics 29 (1): 11-20. 2023.
    While the traditional Christian teaching opposing abortion has been relatively unanimous until the twentieth century, it has been claimed in more recent decades that certain Biblical passages support the view that the fetus, or unborn child, has a lesser moral status than a born child, in a way that might support the permissibility of abortion. In this paper, I address the foremost three texts used to argue this point: Genesis 2:7; Exodus 21:22–25; and Numbers 5:11–31. I argue that interpreting …Read more
  •  113
    Human equality arguments against abortion
    Journal of Medical Ethics 49 (8): 569-572. 2023.
    In this paper, I argue that a commitment to a very modest form of egalitarianism—equality between non-disabled human adults—implies fetal personhood. Since the most plausible bases for human value are in being human, or in a gradated property, and since the latter of which implies an inequality between non-disabled adult humans, I conclude that the most plausible basis for human equality is in being human—an attribute which fetuses have.
  •  25
    The Pro-Life Pregnancy Help Movement: Serving Women or Saving Babies?
    The New Bioethics 27 (4): 368-371. 2021.
    This book is crucial reading for anyone interested in the politics of abortion in the United States of America and around the world. This is perhaps ironic since, as Laura Hussey demonstrates...
  •  89
    Do Animals Feel Pain in a Morally Relevant Sense?
    Philosophia 49 (1): 373-392. 2020.
    The thesis that animals feel a morally relevant kind of pain is an incredibly popular one, but explaining the evidence for this belief is surprisingly challenging. Michael Murray has defended neo-Cartesianism, the view that animals may lack the ability to feel pain in a morally relevant sense. In this paper, I present the reasons for doubting that animals feel morally relevant pain. I then respond to critics of Murray’s position, arguing that the evidence proposed more recently is still largely …Read more
  •  1011
    Must We Be Perfect?: A Case Against Supererogation
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 63. forthcoming.
    In this paper we offer an argument against supererogation and in favour of moral perfectionism. We argue three primary points: 1) That the putative moral category is not generated by any of the main normative ethical systems, and it is difficult to find space for it in these systems at all; 2) That the primary support for supererogation is based on intuitions, which can be undercut by various other pieces of evidence; and 3) That there are better reasons to favour perfectionism, including compet…Read more