Word: rationale
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Applying these considerations to the abortion debate, first let us ask whether we think that the fetus first has the rational capacities necessary to ground the full-blown rights of persons. Plainly it does not. Does the fetus have the capacity to suffer? It may have these capacities, and if...
My suggestion is that in addition to whatever rights might come from the capacity that the fetus has for suffering, it also represents a value. It represents the locus of human striving (the human strivings of others than the fetus) and the instrumentalities of human strivings. The fetus does represent...
Abortions of convenience and other procedures that treat the fetus too casually deny these extremely important values. Let me make a somewhat brutal sounding analogy, which nevertheless brings out the logical structure of my point. A rare painting, a manuscript, or some other intrinsically valuable product of the human spirit...
Finally, I recognize there are implications of what I am saying for the rights of newly-born infants which analogously to the fetus, also do not have developed rational capacities. To the extent that the argument really does carry through to them I reluctantly accept its conclusions. If abortion and...
Our horror of infanticide might be accommodated within my argument in several ways: first, our growing uncertainty as the infant grows about the point where rudimentary rational capacities actually set in. Second, the fact that the infant represents a much more intense focus of value than does the fetus by...