NDLI: Can Infants Have Interests in Continued Life?

Content Provider	Springer Nature Link
Author	Kaposy, Chris
Copyright Year	2007
Abstract	The philosophers Peter Singer and Jeff McMahan hold variations of the view that infant interests in continued life are suspect because infants lack the cognitive complexity to anticipate the future. Since infants cannot see themselves as having a future, Singer argues that the future cannot have value for them, and McMahan argues that the future can only have minimal value for an infant. This paper critically analyzes these arguments and defends the view that infants can have interests in continuing to live. Even though infants themselves lack a strong psychological connection to the future, others who are involved in an infant’s life can anticipate, on an infant’s behalf, the kind of future that awaits the infant, and on the basis of this insight judge that continuing to live would be in the infant’s interests. After defending this position, I argue that this position on the interests of infants in continued life does not commit one to opposing abortion, and it does not commit one to the view that our ethical obligations to protect the lives of sentient animals are the same as our ethical obligations to protect infant lives.
Starting Page	301
Ending Page	330
Page Count	30
File Format	PDF
ISSN	13867415
Journal	Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
Volume Number	28
Issue Number	4
e-ISSN	15731200
Language	English
Publisher	Springer Netherlands
Publisher Date	2007-10-11
Publisher Place	Dordrecht
Access Restriction	One Nation One Subscription (ONOS)
Subject Keyword	abortion care infanticide infants moral status Philosophy of Medicine Ethics Philosophy History of Medicine General Surgery
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Issues, Ethics and Legal Aspects Medicine

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1	Ministry of Education (GoI), Department of Higher Education	Sanctioning Authority	https://www.education.gov.in/ict-initiatives
2	Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	Host Institute of the Project: The host institute of the project is responsible for providing infrastructure support and hosting the project	https://www.iitkgp.ac.in
3	National Digital Library of India Office, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur	The administrative and infrastructural headquarters of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in
4	Project PI / Joint PI	Principal Investigator and Joint Principal Investigators of the project	Dr. B. Sutradhar bsutra@ndl.gov.in Prof. Saswat Chakrabarti will be added soon
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