Where’s the Body
Victimhood as the Wrongmaker in Abortion
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21655341 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Jacob Derin (0000-0002-1793-7364, University of California, Davis, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2022 |
| Volume | 32 |
| Issue | S3 |
| Pages | 1041-1057 |
| Publication date | 2022-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Axiomathes (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1122-1151 • E-ISSN: 1572-8390 |
| Publisher | Springer Science and Business Media LLC (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1007/s10516-022-09650-2 |
| OpenAlex | W4308906182 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 16 |
Much of the work in moral philosophy and the political debate on abortion has focused on when in human development personhood begins. In this article, using a variant of Derek Parfit’s view on personal identity, I instead frame the question as one of victimhood. I argue for what I call the Victim Requirement for the wrongness of killing–killing is wrong only if there is an identifiable victim. An identifiable victim is, temporally speaking, in the midst of a chain of psychological connections in the sense of “Relation R.” I go on to argue for a version of psychological identity which makes consciousness a necessary condition of rational self-interest and numerical identity across time. The implications for the abortion debate, based upon the best neurological evidence, are that abortion cannot be wrong before at least 22 weeks of pregnancy and perhaps significantly later. I then respond to alternatives to my Victim Requirement and argue that they either fail on their own merits or are deeply problematic. Finally, I discuss the role of autonomy and consent in a world where fetal consciousness develops much earlier
Abortion · Aesthetics · Autonomy · Consciousness · Epistemology · Ontology · Personal identity · Personhood · Political science · Pregnancy · Psychoanalysis · Self · Sociology · Computer Science · Ethics in medical practice · Law · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · Psychology · Reproductive Health and Technologies · Social Psychology
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |