Overview
- Argues that all of a thing’s capacities are relevant to its moral status.
- Begins from the moral intuitions most people have when we become temporarily "incapacitated" as a result of repairable brain damage.
- Draws from ideas found in the moral frameworks of J. Rawls and M. Nussbaum.
- Interacts with influential contemporary approaches like those of R. George, J. Mc.
- Mahan, and M. Tooley.
- Applies conclusions to controversial moral debates regarding humans at the beginning and ending stages of life.
Part of the book series: Philosophy and Medicine (PHME, volume 108)
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Table of contents (6 chapters)
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Front Matter
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Back Matter
Keywords
About this book
Many debates about the moral status of things—for example, debates about the natural rights of human fetuses or nonhuman animals—eventually migrate towards a discussion of the capacities of the things in question—for example, their capacities to feel pain, think, or love. Yet the move towards capacities is often controversial: if a human’s capacities are the basis of its moral status, how could a human having lesser capacities than you and I have the same "serious" moral status as you and I? This book answers this question by arguing that if something is human, it has a set of typical human capacities; that if something has a set of typical human capacities, it has serious moral status; and thus all human beings have the same sort of serious moral status as you and I. Beginning from what our common intuitions tell us about situations involving "temporary incapacitation"—where a human organism has, then loses, then regains a certain capacity—this book argues for substantive conclusions regarding human fetuses and embryos, humans in a permanent vegetative state, humans suffering from brain diseases, and humans born with genetic disorders. Since these conclusions must have some impact on our ongoing moral and political debates about the proper treatment of such humans, this book will be useful to professionals and students in philosophy, bioethics, law, medicine, and public policy.
Authors and Affiliations
Bibliographic Information
Book Title: Human Capacities and Moral Status
Authors: Russell DiSilvestro
Series Title: Philosophy and Medicine
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-8537-5
Publisher: Springer Dordrecht
eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law, Philosophy and Religion (R0)
Copyright Information: Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010
Hardcover ISBN: 978-90-481-8536-8Published: 25 June 2010
Softcover ISBN: 978-94-007-3253-7Published: 05 September 2012
eBook ISBN: 978-90-481-8537-5Published: 21 April 2010
Series ISSN: 0376-7418
Series E-ISSN: 2215-0080
Edition Number: 1
Number of Pages: XIV, 208
Topics: Ethics, Theory of Medicine/Bioethics, Life Sciences, general, Philosophy of Medicine, Philosophy of Mind, Public Health