ABSTRACT
Why can't we own people? Boyer proposes that the key consideration concerns inclusion in the moral circle. I propose an alternative, which is that specific mental capacities, especially the capacity for autonomy, play a key role in determining judgments about human and animal ownership. Autonomous beings are viewed as owning themselves, which precludes them from being owned by others.
Subject(s)
Enslavement , Morals , Ownership , Personal Autonomy , Animals , Humans , Judgment , Ownership/ethics , Cognition , Enslavement/ethics , Enslavement/psychologyABSTRACT
The goal of this Views and Reviews is to let colleagues and leaders well versed in the African American experience in reproductive medicine address the problems of racism affecting our trainees and patients and, more significantly, propose solutions. The areas in reproductive medicine that will be explored from the African American perspective include the pipeline of providers, health disparities, and access to infertility treatment.
Subject(s)
Black or African American , Healthcare Disparities , Racism , Reproductive Medicine , Black or African American/ethnology , Black or African American/history , Education, Medical, Graduate/ethics , Education, Medical, Graduate/history , Education, Medical, Graduate/organization & administration , Education, Medical, Graduate/trends , Enslavement/ethics , Enslavement/history , Female , Health Services Accessibility/ethics , Health Services Accessibility/history , Healthcare Disparities/ethics , Healthcare Disparities/history , History, 19th Century , History, 20th Century , History, 21st Century , Humans , Infertility/ethnology , Infertility/history , Infertility/therapy , Male , Physician-Patient Relations/ethics , Racism/ethics , Racism/history , Racism/prevention & control , Reproductive Medicine/education , Reproductive Medicine/ethics , Reproductive Medicine/history , Reproductive Medicine/trends , Socioeconomic FactorsSubject(s)
Black or African American/history , Gynecologic Surgical Procedures/ethics , Gynecology/ethics , Human Experimentation/ethics , Ovarian Cysts/surgery , Enslavement/ethics , Enslavement/history , Female , Gynecologic Surgical Procedures/education , Gynecologic Surgical Procedures/methods , Gynecology/history , Gynecology/methods , History, 19th Century , Human Experimentation/history , Humans , Medicine in the Arts , United StatesABSTRACT
The development of John Woolman's views on slavery plays an important evidentiary role in Philip Kitcher's recent book, The ethical project (Kitcher 2011). In this work Kitcher takes what he calls a "pragmatic naturalist" approach to ethics and claims that the discovery of ethical truth plays no role in the emergence of ethical progress. To support his view, he argues that Woolman's contribution was not due to his discovery of an ethical truth about slavery, not previously known, but due to his sensitivity to slavery and his influence on others, which contributed to collective progressive change in moral norms involving slavery. While not disputing Kitcher's ethical theory, I argue that personal discoveries of a moral psychological nature made by Woolman served both as insights and motivations for his contribution. Thus, even if there are no such things as independent ethical truths that can be discovered by individuals, a fully naturalistic approach to ethical progress requires that we make room not only for group-level progressive evolution of norms, but also for individual discoveries of a moral psychological nature that can sometimes cause an individual to play a significant initiating role in progressive ethical transitions that occur at a group level.
