Abstract
The philosophers Peter Singer and Jeff McMahan hold variations of the view that infant interests in continued life are suspect because infants lack the cognitive complexity to anticipate the future. Since infants cannot see themselves as having a future, Singer argues that the future cannot have value for them, and McMahan argues that the future can only have minimal value for an infant. This paper critically analyzes these arguments and defends the view that infants can have interests in continuing to live. Even though infants themselves lack a strong psychological connection to the future, others who are involved in an infant’s life can anticipate, on an infant’s behalf, the kind of future that awaits the infant, and on the basis of this insight judge that continuing to live would be in the infant’s interests. After defending this position, I argue that this position on the interests of infants in continued life does not commit one to opposing abortion, and it does not commit one to the view that our ethical obligations to protect the lives of sentient animals are the same as our ethical obligations to protect infant lives.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Batson C. D., L. L. Shaw (1991) Evidence for Altruism: Toward a Pluralism of Prosocial Motives. Psychological Inquiry 2: 107–122.
Batson C. D. (1991) The Altruistic Question: Toward a Social-Psychological Answer. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Boonin D. (2003) A Defense of Abortion. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Candland D. K. (1993) Feral Children and Clever Animals: Reflections on Human Nature. New York: Oxford University Press.
Darwall S. (2002) Welfare and Rational Care. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
DeGrazia D. (1996) Taking Animals Seriously: Mental Life and Moral Status. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Engelhardt H. T. Jr. (1996) The Foundations of Bioethics. 2nd Edition. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kamm F. M. (1992) Creation and Abortion: A Study in Moral and Legal Philosophy. New York: Oxford University Press.
Kuhse H., P. Singer (1985) Should the Baby Live? The Problems of Handicapped Infants. New York: Oxford University Press.
Lantos J. D. (2001) The Lazarus Case: Life-and-Death Issues in Neonatal Intensive Care. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press.
Marquis, D. “Why Abortion is Immoral.” Bioethics: An Anthology. Edited by H. Kuhse and P. Singer. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999.
McMahan J. (2002) The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life. New York: Oxford University Press.
Nussbaum M. C. (2006) Frontiers of Justice: Disability, Nationality, Species Membership. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press.
Schechtman M. (1996) The Constitution of Selves. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.
Singer P. (1990) Animal Liberation. Second Edition. New York: New York Review / Random House.
Singer P. (1993) Practical Ethics. 2nd Edition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Thomson, J. J. “A Defense of Abortion.” In Bioethics: An Anthology. Edited by Helga Kuhse and Peter Singer. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999.
Tooley M. (1983) Abortion and Infanticide. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kaposy, C. Can Infants Have Interests in Continued Life?. Theor Med Bioeth 28, 301–330 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-007-9044-y
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11017-007-9044-y