-
94No, Pregnancy is Not a DiseaseJournal of Medical Ethics (Online first): 1-3. 2024.Anna Smajdor and Joona Räsänen argue that we have good reason to classify pregnancy as a disease. They discuss five accounts of disease and argue that each account either implies that pregnancy is a disease or, if it does not, it faces problems. This strategy allows Smajdor and Räsänen to avoid articulating their own account of disease. Consequently, they cannot establish that pregnancy is a disease, only that plausible accounts of disease suggest this. Some readers will dismiss Smajdor and Räsä…Read more
-
119Defending the Doctrine of the Mean Against Counterexamples: A General StrategyPacific Philosophical Quarterly (Online First): 1-24. 2024.Aristotle’s doctrine of the mean states that each moral virtue stands opposed to two types of vice: one of excess and one of deficiency, respectively. Critics claim that some virtues—like honesty, fair-mindedness, and patience—are counterexamples to Aristotle’s doctrine. Here, I develop a generalizable strategy to defend the doctrine of the mean against such counterexamples. I argue that not only is the doctrine of the mean defensible, but taking it seriously also allows us to gain substantial i…Read more
-
64Deception, intention and clinical practiceJournal of Medical Ethics 49 (7): 510-512. 2023.Regarding the appropriateness of deception in clinical practice, two (apparently conflicting) claims are often emphasised. First, that ‘clinicians should not deceive their patients.’ Second, that deception is sometimes ‘in a patient’s best interest.’ Recently, Hardman has worked towards resolving this conflict by exploring ways in which deceptive and non-deceptive practices extend beyond consideration of patients’ beliefs. In short, some practices only seem deceptive because of the (common) assu…Read more
-
98Unintended Intrauterine Death and Preterm Delivery: What Does Philosophy Have to Offer?Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 48 (3): 195-208. 2023.This special issue of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy focuses on unintended intrauterine death (UID) and preterm delivery (both phenomena that are commonly—and unhelpfully—referred to as “miscarriage,” “spontaneous abortion,” and “early pregnancy loss”). In this essay, I do two things. First, I outline contributors’ arguments. Most contributors directly respond to “inconsistency arguments,” which purport to show that abortion opponents are unjustified in their comparative treatment of abo…Read more
-
352Deception, intention and clinical practiceJournal of Medical Ethics 1 (Online First): 1-3. 2022.Regarding the appropriateness of deception in clinical practice, two (apparently conflicting) claims are often emphasised. First, that ‘clinicians should not deceive their patients.’ Second, that deception is sometimes ‘in a patient’s best interest.’ Recently, Hardman has worked towards resolving this conflict by exploring ways in which deceptive and non-deceptive practices extend beyond consideration of patients’ beliefs. In short, some practices only seem deceptive because of the (common) assu…Read more
-
25Hypocrisy, Consistency, and Opponents of AbortionIn Nicholas Colgrove, Bruce P. Blackshaw & Daniel Rodger (eds.), Agency, Pregnancy and Persons : Essays in Defense of Human Life, Routledge. pp. 127-144. 2022.Arguments that claim opponents of abortion are inconsistent in some manner are becoming increasingly prevalent both in academic and public discourse. For example, it is common to claim that they spend considerable time and resources to oppose induced abortion, but show little concern regarding the far greater numbers of naturally occurring intrauterine deaths (miscarriages). Critics argue that if abortion opponents took their beliefs about the value of embryos and fetuses seriously, they would i…Read more
-
249Moral enhancement, acquired virtue, and theism: A response to Brummett and CrutchfieldBioethics 36 (8): 891-898. 2022.Recently, Brummett and Crutchfield advanced two critiques of theists who object to moral enhancement. First, a conceptual critique: theists who oppose moral enhancement commonly do so because virtue is thought to be acquired only via a special kind of process. Enhancement does not involve such processes. Hence, enhancement cannot produce virtue. Yet theists also commonly claim that God is perfectly virtuous and not subject to processes. If virtue requires a process and God is perfectly virtuous …Read more
-
282How to Spot a Usurper: Clinical Ethics Consultation and (True) Moral AuthorityChristian Bioethics 28 (2): 143-156. 2022.Clinical ethics consultants (CECs) are not moral authorities. Standardization of CECs’ professional role does not confer upon them moral authority. Certification of particular CECs does not confer upon them moral authority (nor does it reflect such authority). Or, so we will argue. This article offers a distinctly Orthodox Christian response to those who claim that CECs—or any other academically trained bioethicist—retain moral authority (i.e., an authority to know and recommend the right course…Read more
-
344Moral Enhancement, Acquired Virtue, and Theism: A Response to Brummett and CrutchfieldBioethics 1 (Online First): 1-8. 2022.Recently, Brummett and Crutchfield advanced two critiques of theists who object to moral enhancement. First, a conceptual critique: theists who oppose moral enhancement commonly do so because virtue is thought to be acquired only via a special kind of process. Enhancement does not involve such processes. Hence, enhancement cannot produce virtue. Yet theists also commonly claim that God is perfectly virtuous and not subject to processes. If virtue requires a process and God is perfectly virtuous …Read more
-
95Inconsistency arguments still do not matterJournal of Medical Ethics 48 (7): 485-487. 2022.William Simkulet has recently criticised Colgrove et al ’s defence against what they have called inconsistency arguments—arguments that claim opponents of abortion act in ways inconsistent with their underlying beliefs about human fetuses. Colgrove et al presented three objections to inconsistency arguments, which Simkulet argues are unconvincing. Further, he maintains that OAs who hold that the fetus is a person at conception fail to act on important issues such as the plight of frozen embryos,…Read more
-
109Why inconsistency arguments fail: a response to ShawThe New Bioethics 28 (2): 139-151. 2022.Opponents of abortion are commonly said to be inconsistent in their beliefs or actions, and to fail in their obligations to prevent the deaths of embryos and fetuses from causes other than induced...
-
105Agency, Pregnancy and Persons: Essays in Defense of Human Life (edited book)Routledge. 2022.This book provides extensive and critical engagement with some of the most recent and compelling arguments favoring abortion choice. It features original essays from leading and emerging philosophers, bioethicists and medical professionals that present philosophically sophisticated and novel arguments against abortion choice. The chapters in this book are divided into three thematic sections. The first set of essays focuses primarily on unborn human individuals--zygotes, embryos and fetuses. In …Read more
-
27Inconsistency arguments still do not matterJournal of Medical Ethics 1 1-4. 2021.William Simkulet has recently criticised Colgrove et al’s defence against what they have called inconsistency arguments—arguments that claim opponents of abortion (OAs) act in ways inconsistent with their underlying beliefs about human fetuses (eg, that human fetuses are persons at conception). Colgrove et al presented three objections to inconsistency arguments, which Simkulet argues are unconvincing. Further, he maintains that OAs who hold that the fetus is a person at conception fail to act o…Read more
-
291In defence of newborns: a response to KingmaJournal of Medical Ethics 48 (8): 551-553. 2022.Recently, I argued that subjects inside of artificial wombs—termed ‘gestatelings’ by Romanis—share the same legal and moral status as newborns (neonates). Gestatelings, on my view, are persons in both a legal and moral sense. Kingma challenges these claims. Specifically, Kingma argues that my previous argument is invalid, as it equivocates on the term ‘newborn’. Kingma concludes that questions about the legal and moral status of gestatelings remain ‘unanswered’. I am grateful to Kingma for raisi…Read more
-
255If You Love the Forest, then Do Not Kill the Trees: Health Care and a Place for the ParticularJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 46 (3): 255-271. 2021.There are numerous ways in which “the particular”—particular individuals, particular ideologies, values, beliefs, and perspectives—are sometimes overlooked, ignored, or even driven out of the healthcare profession. In many such cases, this is bad for patients, practitioners, and the profession. Hence, we should seek to find a place for the particular in health care. Specific topics that I examine in this essay include distribution of health care based on the particular needs of patients, the imp…Read more
-
1800Prolife Hypocrisy: Why Inconsistency Arguments Do Not MatterJournal of Medical Ethics (Online First): 1-6. 2020.Opponents of abortion are often described as ‘inconsistent’ (hypocrites) in terms of their beliefs, actions and/or priorities. They are alleged to do too little to combat spontaneous abortion, they should be adopting cryopreserved embryos with greater frequency and so on. These types of arguments—which we call ‘inconsistency arguments’—conform to a common pattern. Each specifies what consistent opponents of abortion would do (or believe), asserts that they fail to act (or believe) accordingly an…Read more
-
375The Devil in the DetailsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 20 (12): 18-20. 2020.McCarthy et al.’s proposal gains much of its plausibility by relying on a superficial treatment of justice, human dignity, sin, and the common good within the Christian tradition. Upon closer inspection of what these terms mean within the context of Christianity, it becomes clear that despite using the same phrases (e.g., a commitment to “protecting vulnerable populations,” the goal of “promoting justice,” etc.) contemporary secular bioethical goals are often deeply at odds with goals of Christi…Read more
-
619The (In)Compatibility of the Privation Theory of Evil and the Mere-Difference View of DisabilityThe National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 20 (2): 329-348. 2020.The privation theory of evil (PTE) states that evil is the absence of some good that is supposed to be present. For example, if vision is an intrinsic good, and if human beings are supposed to have vision, then PTE implies that a human being’s lacking vision is an evil, or a bad state of affairs. The mere-difference view of disability (MDD) states that disabilities like blindness are not inherently bad. Therefore, it would seem that lacking sight is not a bad state of affairs. Thus PTE and MDD s…Read more
-
703Gestaticide: Killing the Subject of the Artificial WombJournal of Medical Ethics 47 (12). 2021.The rapid development of artificial womb technologies means that we must consider if and when it is permissible to kill the human subject of ectogestation—recently termed a ‘gestateling’ by Elizabeth Chloe Romanis—prior to ‘birth’. We describe the act of deliberately killing the gestateling as gestaticide, and argue that there are good reasons to maintain that gestaticide is morally equivalent to infanticide, which we consider to be morally impermissible. First, we argue that gestaticide is hard…Read more
-
273Artificial wombs, birth and ‘birth’: a response to RomanisJournal of Medical Ethics 46 (8): 554-556. 2020.Recently, I argued that human subjects in artificial wombs ‘share the same moral status as newborns’ and so, deserve the same treatment and protections as newborns. This thesis rests on two claims: subjects of partial ectogenesis—those that develop in utero for at time before being transferred to AWs—are newborns and subjects of complete ectogenesis—those who develop in AWs entirely—share the same moral status as newborns. In response, Elizabeth Chloe Romanis argued that the subject in an AW is …Read more
-
801Frozen Embryos and The Obligation to AdoptBioethics (8): 1-5. 2020.Rob Lovering has developed an interesting new critique of views that regard embryos as equally valuable as other human beings: the moral argument for frozen human embryo adoption. The argument is aimed at those who believe that the death of a frozen embryo is a very bad thing, and Lovering concludes that some who hold this view ought to prevent one of these deaths by adopting and gestating a frozen embryo. Contra Lovering, we show that there are far more effective strategies for preserving …Read more
-
390The Place for Religious Content in Clinical Ethics Consultations: A Reply to Janet MalekHEC Forum 31 (4): 305-323. 2019.Janet Malek (91–102, 2019) argues that a “clinical ethics consultant’s religious worldview has no place in developing ethical recommendations or communicating about them with patients, surrogates, and clinicians.” She offers five types of arguments in support of this thesis: arguments from consensus, clarity, availability, consistency, and autonomy. This essay shows that there are serious problems for each of Malek’s arguments. None of them is sufficient to motivate her thesis. Thus, if it is tr…Read more
-
621Artificial Wombs, Birth, and "Birth": A Response to RomanisJournal of Medical Ethics. 2019.Recently, I argued that human subjects in artificial wombs (AWs) “share the same moral status as newborns” and so, deserve the same treatment and protections as newborns. This thesis rests on two claims: (A) “Subjects of partial ectogenesis—those that develop in utero for at time before being transferred to AWs—are newborns,” and (B) “Subjects of complete ectogenesis—those who develop in AWs entirely—share the same moral status as newborns.” In response, Elizabeth Chloe Romanis argued that th…Read more
-
937Miscarriage Is Not a Cause of Death: A Response to Berg’s “Abortion and Miscarriage”Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 46 (4): 394-413. 2021.Some opponents of abortion claim that fetuses are persons from the moment of conception. Following Berg (2017), let us call these individuals “Personhood-At-Conception” (or PAC), opponents of abortion. Berg argues that if fetuses are persons from the moment of conception, then miscarriage kills far more people than abortion. As such, PAC opponents of abortion face the following dilemma: They must “immediately” and “substantially” shift their attention, resources, etc., toward preventing miscarri…Read more
-
490Responding (appropriately) to religious patients: a response to Greenblum and Hubbard’s ‘Public Reason’ argumentJournal of Medical Ethics 45 (11): 716-717. 2019.Jake Greenblum and Ryan K Hubbard argue that physicians, nurses, clinical ethicists and ethics committee members should not cite religious considerations when helping patients (or their proxies) make medical decisions. They provide two arguments for this position: The Public Reason Argument and the Fiduciary Argument. In this essay, I show that the Public Reason Argument fails. Greenblum and Hubbard may provide good reason to think that physicians should not invoke their own religious commitment…Read more
-
444Resistance: Its Nature, Virtues, and Application to Matters of FaithDissertation, Baylor University. 2019.There are many cries to resist particular objects (e.g. inequality in the workplace) but very little is said concerning the nature of resistance. As such, this project begins by mapping the concept of resistance. Next, I develop several tools that allow us to distinguish between reasonable and unreasonable instances of resistance. I then argue that many versions of “the problem of evil” are actually instances of resistance. As such, these versions of the problem of evil are subject to the tools …Read more
-
816The Subjects of Ectogenesis: Are “Gestatelings” Fetuses, Newborns, or Neither?Journal of Medical Ethics 45 (11): 723-726. 2019.Subjects of ectogenesis—human beings that are developing in artificial wombs (AWs)—share the same moral status as newborns. To demonstrate this, I defend two claims. First, subjects of partial ectogenesis—those that develop in utero for a time before being transferred to AWs—are newborns (in the full sense of the word). Second, subjects of complete ectogenesis—those who develop in AWs entirely—share the same moral status as newborns. To defend the first claim, I rely on Elizabeth Chloe Romanis’s…Read more
-
390The Emotional Impact of Evil: Philosophical Reflections on Existential ProblemsOpen Theology 5 (1): 125-135. 2019.In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky illustrates that encounters with evil do not solely impact agents’ beliefs about God (or God’s existence). Evil impacts people on an emotional level as well. Authors like Hasker and van Inwagen sometimes identify the emotional impact of evil with the “existential” problem of evil. For better or worse, the existential version of the problem is often set aside in contemporary philosophical discussions. In this essay, I rely on Robert Roberts’ account of emoti…Read more
-
399Hawthorne’s might-y failure: a reply to “Knowledge and epistemic necessity”Philosophical Studies 173 (5): 1165-1177. 2016.In “Knowledge and epistemic necessity,” John Hawthorne gives a defense of what he rightly calls the “standard approach” to epistemic possibility against what he calls a new “competing idea” presented by Dougherty and Rysiew which he notes has been “endorsed and elaborated upon” by Fantl and McGrath. According to the standard approach, roughly, p is epistemically possible for S if S doesn’t know that not-p. The new approach has it that p is epistemically possible if p has a non-zero epistemic pro…Read more
-
440Meeting the Epicurean challenge: a reply to ’Abortion and Deprivation'Journal of Medical Ethics 45 (6): 380-383. 2019.Anna Christensen argues that it is implausible to claim that abortion and murder are morally impermissible given that they deprive individuals of a future like ours. In this essay, I provide two responses to Christensen’s argument. First, I show that the premises upon which Christensen’s argument relies have implausible implications. Second, I provide a direct response to Christensen’s challenge, showing that abortion and murder are morally impermissible given that they do deprive individuals of…Read more
Nicholas Colgrove
Augusta University
-
Augusta UniversityAssistant Professor
APA Eastern Division
Areas of Specialization
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Philosophy of Religion |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Philosophy of Religion |