Ethics Study Guide: Abortion, Animal Ethics, and Contractualism

A comprehensive vocabulary review of ethics notes spanning abortion theories, moral status, animal ethics, factory farming, Rawlsian contractualism, and key perspectives from Sumner, Marquis, Tooley, Carruthers, and Cohen.

Standard pro-choice view

The view that a fetus does not have the same moral status or right to life as a person, especially early in pregnancy, making the pregnant person's bodily autonomy central.

Standard pro-life view

The view that a human life begins at conception and, because the fetus is biologically human, it possesses a strong right to life.

Life criterion

The standard stating that being biologically human—or simply being alive—is sufficient for full moral protection against being killed.

Rationality criterion

The standard stating that only rational beings possess strong moral protection against being killed.

Sentience (Sumner's view)

The capacity to experience pain and pleasure, which serves as the morally relevant basis for moral standing that develops gradually during pregnancy.

Future Like Ours (FLO) account

Marquis's account holding that killing is seriously wrong because it deprives an individual of a valuable future consisting of experiences, activities, relationships, and projects.

Tooley's account of rights

The principle that $A$ has a right to $X$ when $A$ is a subject of experiences, is capable of desiring $X$, and if $A$ desires $X$, others possess a prima facie duty not to prevent $A$ from having $X$.

Prima facie duty

A moral obligation that is genuine and real but can sometimes be overridden or outweighed by competing moral duties.

Right to life (Tooley)

A right to continue existing as a subject of experiences and mental states, requiring an entity to possess the concept of itself as a continuing subject.

Tooley's argument against potentiality views

The argument asserting that having the potential to develop a capacity is not the same as currently having that capacity, meaning potential future abilities do not establish present rights.

Argument from Humane Intuitions

The ethical argument that widespread moral reactions against causing animals unnecessary pain or cruelty indicate animal suffering morally matters.

Argument from Marginal Cases

The argument showing that if lacking rationality or self-awareness denies animals moral rights, consistency demands denying rights to non-rational humans such as infants and the severely cognitively disabled.

Rawlsian Contractualism (applied to non-rational beings)

An ethical framework where rational contractors establish societal rules behind a veil of ignorance, seemingly denying direct rights to animals and severely cognitively disabled humans who cannot participate.

Carruthers' indirect duty view

The position that cruelty to animals is wrong only indirectly because it damages human character, fosters cruelty toward people, or upsets human observers, rather than violating animal rights directly.

Social Stability Argument

Carruthers' argument that rational contractors would protect vulnerable, non-rational humans to avoid the social fear, distrust, and instability that would occur if relatives could be harmed by the state.

Cohen's account of the wrongness of killing

The standard stating that it is inherently bad to kill something if and only if it belongs to a kind whose typical member is rational.