Why Francis Beckwith's case against abortion fails (and metaphysics remains irrelevant to abortion)
| Abstract | In Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice (Cambridge University Press, 2007) Francis Beckwith argues that fetuses are such that, from conception, they are prima facie wrong to kill. He thinks abortion is almost never permissible beyond rare cases where, unless the fetus is killed, both the pregnant woman and the fetus will die. He defends his view not from religiously-justified premises but by appealing to “a particular metaphysics of the human person” that he calls “The Substance View.” I will argue that such metaphysics is irrelevant to the morality of abortion. Beckwith’s metaphysics thereby neither supports, nor detracts from, his abortion ethic. Moral, not metaphysical, assumptions drive the argument, and Beckwith inadequately defends these assumptions. Indeed, they are often false, and his main argument is unsound. (130 words). | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | ||||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,679 |
| External links |
  Try with proxy. Try with proxy. |
| Through your library | Only published papers are available at libraries |
Similar books and articlesA. Giubilini (2012). Abortion and the Argument From Potential: What We Owe to the Ones Who Might Exist. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 37 (1):49-59.
R. Jo Kornegay (2011). Hursthouse's Virtue Ethics and Abortion: Abortion Ethics Without Metaphysics? Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 14 (1):51-71.
Francis J. Beckwith (2010). Abortion. Faith and Philosophy 27 (4):478-482.
Francis J. Beckwith (2006). Defending Abortion Philosophically: A Review of David Boonin's a Defense of Abortion. [REVIEW] Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 31 (2):177 – 203.
F. M. Kamm (1992). Creation and Abortion: A Study in Moral and Legal Philosophy. Oxford University Press.
D. Stretton (2008). Critical Notice--Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice by Francis J Beckwith. Journal of Medical Ethics 34 (11):793-797.
N. Nobis (2011). Abortion, Metaphysics and Morality: A Review of Francis Beckwith's Defending Life: A Moral and Legal Case Against Abortion Choice. [REVIEW] Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 36 (3):261-273.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads109 ( #5,119 of 549,087 )Recent downloads (6 months)4 ( #19,228 of 549,087 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
