Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-dzt6s Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-26T20:27:55.738Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

A Fallacy in Potentiality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Don Berkich
Don Berkich
Affiliation:
Texas A&M University, Corpus Christi
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A popular response to proponents of embryonic stem cell research and advocates of abortion rights alike—summarized by claims such as “you came from an embryo!” or “you were a fetus once!”—enjoys a rich philosophical pedigree in the arguments of Hare, Marquis, and others. According to such arguments from potentiality, the prenatal human organism is morally valuable because every person's biological history depends on having completed embryonic and fetal stages. In this article I set out the steps of the underlying argument in light of how it has been cast in the philosophical literature and uncover an intriguingly illicit inference.

Type
Articles
Information
Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review / Revue canadienne de philosophie , Volume 46 , Issue 1 , Winter 2007 , pp. 137 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Philosophical Association 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Gosselin, P. 2000 “Can the Potentiality Argument Survive the Contraception Reductio?” Journal of Philosophical Research, 25: 437–58.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hare, R. M. 1975 “Abortion and the Golden Rule.” Philosophy and Public Affairs, 4, 3: 201–22.Google ScholarPubMed
Marquis, D. 1989 “Why Abortion Is Immoral.” The Journal of Philosophy, 86, 4: 183–202.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Noonan, J. T. Jr., 1970 “An Almost Absolute Value in History.” In The Morality of Abortion: Legal and Historical Perspectives. Edited by Noonan, J. T.. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, pp. 1–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pruss, A. R. 2002 “I Was Once a Fetus: That Is Why Abortion Is Wrong.” Life and Learning, 12: 169–82.Google Scholar
Stone, J. 1987 “Why Potentiality Matters.” Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 17, 4: 815–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar