Francis Beckwith’s Defending life: a moral and legal case against abortion choice defends the pro-life position on moral, legal and political grounds. In this critical notice I consider three key issues and argue that Beckwith’s treatment of each of them is unpersuasive. The issues are: (1) whether abortion is politically justified by the principle that we should err on the side of liberty in the face of reasonable disagreement over the moral status of the fetus; (2) whether the fetus’s natural (...) capacity or genetic propensity to develop rationality and communication is sufficient to give it a moral right to life; and (3) whether abortion is morally justified on the basis of bodily rights. I also show that Beckwith’s book fails to consider several important issues and arguments. (shrink)

Monists about material constitution typically argue that when Statue is materially constituted by Clay, Statue is just Clay. Pluralists about material constitution deny that constitution is identity: Statue is not just Clay. When Clay materially constitutes Statue, Clay is not identical to Statue. I discuss three familiar puzzles involving grounding, overdetermination and conceptual issues, and develop three new puzzles stemming from the connection between mereological composition and material constitution: a mereological puzzle, an asymmetry puzzle, and a structural puzzle.