Mary Anne Warren investigates a theoretical question that is at the centre of practical and professional ethics: what are the criteria for having moral status? That is: what does it take to be an entity towards which people have moral considerations? Warren argues that no single property will do as a sole criterion, and puts forward seven basic principles which establish moral status. She then applies these principles to three controversial moral issues: voluntary euthanasia, abortion, and the status of non-human (...) animals. (shrink)

Does birth make a difference to the moral rights of the fetus/infant? Should it make a difference to its legal rights? Most contemporary philosophers believe that birth cannot make a difference to moral rights. If this is true, then it becomes difficult to justify either a moral or a legal distinction between late abortion and infanticide. I argue that the view that birth is irrelevant to moral rights rests upon two highly questionable assumptions about the theoretical foundations of moral rights. (...) If we reject these assumptions, then we are free to take account of the contrasting biological and social relationships that make even relatively late abortion morally different from infanticide. (shrink)

Moral Status asks what creates moral obligations toward entities. Warren’s thesis is that attempts to ground moral status on a single criterion have been unsuccessful, as they inevitably lead to Procrustean measures to fit diverse values into a single mold. She proposes instead a “multi-criterial’ approach that promises to accommodate these values. In so doing, she expands and generalizes on a strategy she uses quite successfully in her 1990 article “The Moral Significance of Birth” to show why a personhood approach (...) to abortion need not imply the moral permissibility of infanticide. (shrink)

"Readers interested in feminist studies, applied ethics, or social and political philosophy should find Gendercide especially interesting and informative. Highly recommended."-CHOICE.

By a potential person I shall mean an entity which is not now a person but which is capable of developing into a person, given certain biologically and/or technologically possible conditions. This is admittedly a narrower sense than some would attach to the term ‘potential'. After all, people of the twenty-fifth century, if such there will be, are in some sense potential people now, even though the specific biological entities from which they will develop, i.e. the particular gametes or concepti, (...) do not yet exist. For there do exist, in the reproductive capacities of people now living and in the earth's resources, conditions adequate to produce these future people eventually, provided of course that various possible catastrophes are avoided. Indeed, in some sense of ‘potential’ there have been countless billions of potential people from the beginning of time. But I am concerned not with such remote potentialities but with currently existing entities that are capable of developing into people. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: What is Moral Status? The Moral Agency Theory The Genetic Humanity Theory The Sentience Theory The Organic Life Theory Two Relationship‐based Theories Combining these Criteria Principles of Moral Status Human Zygotes, Embryos, and Fetuses Are All Animals Equal? Machines and Artificial Life‐forms Conclusion.

In this anthology of new and classic articles, fifteen noted feminist philosophers explore contemporary ethical issues that uniquely affect the lives of women. These issues in applied ethics include autonomy, responsibility, sexual harassment, women in the military, new technologies for reproduction, surrogate motherhood, pornography, abortion, nonfeminist women and others. Whether generated by old social standards or intensified by recent technology, these dilemmas all pose persistent, 'nagging,' questions that cry out for answers.

This chapter contains sections titled: The Arguments for the Freedom to Choose Fetal Life and Humanity The Argument from Fetal Potential Abortion and Fetal Development Making Abortion Difficult to Obtain Ideological Bases of the Abortion Debate Conclusion References.

A History of Women Philosophers, Volume I: Ancient Women Philoophers, 600 B.C. - 500 A.D., edited by Mary Ellen Waithe, is an important but somewhat frustrating book. It is filled with tantalizing glimpses into the lives and thoughts of some of our earliest philosophical foremothers. Yet it lacks a clear unifying theme, and the abrupt transitions from one philosopher and period to the next are sometimes disconcerting. The overall effect is not unlike that of viewing an expansive landscape, illuminated only (...) by a few tiny spotlights. (shrink)

A History of Women Philosophers, Volume I: Ancient Women Philoophers, 600 B.C. - 500 A.D., edited by Mary Ellen Waithe, is an important but somewhat frustrating book. It is filled with tantalizing glimpses into the lives and thoughts of some of our earliest philosophical foremothers. Yet it lacks a clear unifying theme, and the abrupt transitions from one philosopher and period to the next are sometimes disconcerting. The overall effect is not unlike that of viewing an expansive landscape, illuminated only (...) by a few tiny spotlights. (shrink)