Persons as goods: response to Patrick Lee.
Developing a British perspective on the abortion debate, I take up some ideas from Patrick Lee's fine paper, and pursue, in particular, the idea of individual humans as goods in themselves. I argue that this notion helps us to avoid the familiar mistake of making moral value impersonal. It also shows us the way out of consequentalism. Since the most philosophically viable notion of the person, the individual human, is (as Lee argues) a notion of individual substance that is there from conception, the move has a third effect, which is to rule out abortion.
Chappell
T D J
TD
Department of Philosophy, University of Dundee, Scotland DD1 4HN. t.d.j.chappell@dundee.ac.uk
D000028:Abortion, Induced / Q000941:ethics*; D002835:Christianity; D028663:Ethical Theory; D005333:Fetus; D006801:Humans; D028723:Personhood; D010684:Philosophy; D026712:Value of Life