Diversity Reading List

Abstract: Many have asked how and why feminist theory makes a distinctive contribution to bioethics. In this essay, I outline two ways in which feminist reflection can enrich bioethical studies. First, feminist theory may expose certain themes of androcentric reasoning that can affect, in sometimes crude but often subtle ways, the substantive analysis of topics in bioethics; second, it can unearth the gendered nature of certain basic philosophical concepts that form the working tools of ethical theory.

Abstract: In this article, I urge that mainstream discussions of abortion are dissatisfying in large part because they proceed in polite abstraction from the distinctive circumstances and meanings of gestation. Such discussions, in fact, apply to abortion conceptual tools that were designed on the premiss that people are physically demarcated, even as gestation is marked by a thorough-going intertwinement. We cannot fully appreciate what is normatively at stake with legally forcing continued gestation, or again how to discuss moral responsibilities to continue gestating, until we appreciate in their own terms the goods and evils distinctive of gestational connection. To underscore the need to explore further the meanings of gestation, I provide two examples of the difference it might make to legal and moral discussions of abortion if we appreciate more fully that gestation is an intimacy.

Abstract: My aim in this essay is to defend the claim that posthumous harm is possible against an argument that assumes that an event harms a person only if it makes it the case that his or her welfare diminishes (compared to some benchmark) and further assumes that no one exists after death. This argument gets a purchase against posthumous harm only if one adds what I call Mortality-Bounded Welfare: the thesis that no events that occur after the end of one-s life can detrimentally affect one-s welfare. I accept the first two assumptions with some modification, but provide an argument to reject Mortality-Bounded Welfare. Although I use an argument form familiar in these kinds of discussions -- contrast cases in a thought-experiment, one involving an undeniably living person, and one not -- my defense of the thesis that the boundaries of welfare-affecting events may extend beyond the existence of the person in question is novel. My strategy is to make a case for a human condition having residual boundaries, by which I mean that it may obtain because of events that postdate a person, and then argue that it affects welfare. In the course of my argument, I provide a subsidiary argument that rights have residual boundaries. In particular, I argue that once rights vest (in existing people), they delineate not only a sphere of behavior that satisfies the rights but also a sphere of rights-violating behavior on the part of others. Unless this delineation is defeated by moral means, actual behavior on the part of others that falls within the respective spheres is right-satisfying or right-violating. The story does not change with regard to a right to performances potentially or necessarily postdating the right-holder. Unlike some attempts to argue that posthumous harm is possible, my defense of the possibility of posthumous harm is compatible with various metaphysical positions about when a posthumous harm occurs. I go on to demonstrate that my thought-experiment argument is free of an important objection (raised by Taylor, 2005) to two well-known attempts to defend posthumous harm on the basis of thought-experiments, Parfit-s (1984) and Feinberg-s (1984). For the sake of completeness, I sketch a different thought-experiment argument against Mortality-Bounded Welfare. I explain why this different thought-experiment does not make use of the idea of rights with residual boundaries. In closing, I trace a recent attempt, grounded in our agency, to argue for the possibility of posthumous harm. This attempt accepts, as mine does, the assumptions about welfare diminution and nonexistence after death and is likewise compatible with various metaphysical positions about when posthumous harm occurs. The argument in question is provided by Keller (2004) and is compatible with analyses of welfare offered by Scanlon and Raz. Although I grant its underlying assumption that agency sometimes has a posthumous extension, I argue that my defense of the possibility of posthumous harm is superior to this one by expanding on a recent criticism of its position on welfare offered by Bradley (2007).

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Abstract: Essays on excusing conditions and their correlates, mitigating conditions, usually begin with the assumption that there is general agreement on what the standard excuses are, and on where they are inapplicable. This assumption is justified; criminal law and the history of discussions of excuses have produced accord, though now and then doubts are expressed about particulars. Essays on excuses typically aim not so much to convince one that such-and-such are the general types of excuses but, rather, to show how they work and what their operation reveals about the nature of voluntary acts, full responsibility, etc.

Abstract: Medical complicity in torture is prohibited by international law and codes of professional ethics. But in the many countries in which torture is common, doctors frequently are expected to assist unethical acts that they are unable to prevent. Sometimes these doctors face a dilemma: they are asked to provide diagnoses or treatments that respond to genuine health needs but that also make further torture more likely or more effective. The duty to avoid complicity in torture then comes into conflict with the doctor's duty to care for patients. Sometimes the right thing for a doctor to do requires complicity in torture. Whether this is the case depends on: the expected consequences of the doctor's actions; the wishes of the patient; and the extent of the doctor's complicity with wrongdoing. Medical associations can support physicians who face this dilemma while maintaining a commitment to clear principles denouncing torture.

Publisher's Note: Few subjects have generated so many newspaper headlines and such heated controversy as the treatment, or non-treatment, of handicapped newborns. In 1982, the case of Baby Doe, a child born with Down's syndrome, stirred up a national debate in the United States, while in Britain a year earlier, Dr. Leonard Arthur stood trial for his decision to allow a baby with Down's syndrome to die. Government intervention and these recent legal battles accentuate the need for a reassessment of the complex issues involved. This volume--by two authorities on medical ethics--presents a philosophical analysis of the subject based on particular case studies. Addressing the doctrine of the absolute sanctity of life, Singer and Kuhse examine some actual cases where decisions have been reached; consider the criteria for making these decisions; investigate the differences between killing and letting die; compare Western attitudes and practices with those of other cultures; and conclude by proposing a decision-making framework that offers a rational alternative to the polemics and confusion generated by this highly controversial topic.

Publisher's Note: According to the "sanctity-of-life" view, all human lives are equally valuable and inviolable, and it would be wrong to base life-and-death medical decisions on the quality of the patient's life. Examining the ideas and assumptions behind the sanctity-of-life view, Kuhse argues against the traditional view that allowing someone to die is morally different from killing, and shows that quality-of-life judgments are ubiquitous. Refuting the sanctity-of-life view, she provides a sketch of a quality-of-life ethics based on the belief that there is a profound difference between merely being alive and life being in the patient's interest.

Abstract: The philosophical debate over the moral difference between killing and letting die has obvious relevance for the contemporary public debate over voluntary euthanasia. Winston Nesbitt claims to have shown that killing someone is, other things being equal, always worse than allowing someone to die. But this conclusion is illegitimate. While Nesbitt is correct when he suggests that killing is sometimes worse than letting die, this is not always the case. In this article, I argue that there are occasions when it is better to kill than to let die

Abstract: At the heart of the argument of the Critique of Practical Reason, one finds Kant's puzzling and much-criticized claim that the consciousness of the moral law can be called a 'fact of reason'. In this essay, I clarify the meaning and the importance of this claim. I correct misunderstandings of the term 'Factum', situate the relevant passages within their argumentative context, and argue that Kant's argument can be given a consistent reading on the basis of which the main questions and criticisms can be answered.