The purpose of this article is to approach the ethical essence of creating and terminating life, with special emphasis on the question of justification of ‘life’ as an overriding basic value.
Life appears as a meta value in, for example, the biologism represented by sociobiologists, in most utilitarian theories and in the philosophical statements of R.M. Hare, among others. My objective is not to find historical reasons for this; rather, my purpose is to examine the underlying assumptions throug…
Read moreThe purpose of this article is to approach the ethical essence of creating and terminating life, with special emphasis on the question of justification of ‘life’ as an overriding basic value.
Life appears as a meta value in, for example, the biologism represented by sociobiologists, in most utilitarian theories and in the philosophical statements of R.M. Hare, among others. My objective is not to find historical reasons for this; rather, my purpose is to examine the underlying assumptions through which life has been derived as a value over non-life. The subject has been mentioned in passing in the discussions on abortion and euthanasia in the past few years, but without focusing on the actual core of the issue: why should life be justified as a basic value over non-life? Or why should this not be done?
