Substance Ontology Cannot Determine the Moral Status of Embryos

Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 37 (4):331-350 (2012)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Assigning the appropriate moral status to different stages of human development is an urgent problem in bioethics. Many philosophers have attempted to assess developmental events using strict ontological principles to determine when a developing entity becomes essentially human. This approach is not consistent with recent findings in reproductive and stem cell biology, including the discovery of the plasticity of early embryonic development and the advent of induced pluripotent stem cells. Substance ontology should therefore not be used to determine the moral status of the embryo

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,616

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Analytics

Added to PP
2012-08-15

Downloads
68 (#217,472)

6 months
1 (#1,042,085)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Citations of this work

Nine Months.Elselijn Kingma - 2020 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 45 (3):371-386.
The Constitution of the Human Embryo as Substantial Change.David Alvargonzález - 2016 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 41 (2):172-191.
Dignity, Health, and Membership: Who Counts as One of Us?Bryan C. Pilkington - 2016 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 41 (2):115-129.

View all 17 citations / Add more citations

References found in this work

Sixteen days.Barry Smith & Berit Brogaard - 2003 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 28 (1):45 – 78.
The potential of the human embryo.Mark T. Brown - 2007 - Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 32 (6):585 – 618.

Add more references