Philosophy 2715F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Reductio Ad Absurdum, Spinal Cord Injury, Blastocyst
17 Jan 2017
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Quiz next week, january 25 (wednesday): material in wk 1 & 2 only. Do the study questions for the articles. Moral status: the range of beings to which moral agents have obligations, who counts morally (and why), feature or set of features a being must possess in order to count morally. Rationality/autonomy: capacity for rational action, capacity for self-governance, better, as a criterion, leaves out many human beings, such as young children or the demented elderly. Potential or actual rationality/autonomy: extends the scope of rationality/autonomy, now includes many embryos and many children, some children do not have the potential to develop rationality/autonomy. Sentience: the capacity to experience suffering or pleasure, encompasses most human beings, including children and most demented elderly, importantly also encompasses animals who might be caused to suffer. Is it permissible to destroy human embryos in the context of medical research: turns on considerations of moral status. Article 1: agata sagan & peter singer.
