The principle of agency

Bioethics

Volumn 12, Issue 2, 1998, Pages 150-161

  Rachels, James ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ACTIVE EUTHANASIA; ARTICLE; BEHAVIOR; BIOETHICS; BIOETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS; CLONING; ETHICS; EUTHANASIA; FERTILIZATION IN VITRO; GENETIC ENGINEERING; HUMAN; HUMAN RIGHTS; INFERTILITY THERAPY; MEDICAL TECHNOLOGY; MOTIVATION; NATURAL SCIENCE; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH; PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS; RELIGION;

BIOETHICS AND PROFESSIONAL ETHICS; PHILOSOPHICAL APPROACH;

BIOETHICAL ISSUES; BIOETHICS; BIOMEDICAL TECHNOLOGY; CLONING, ORGANISM; ETHICS; EUTHANASIA; EUTHANASIA, ACTIVE; FERTILIZATION IN VITRO; GENETIC ENGINEERING; HUMAN RIGHTS; HUMANS; INTENTION; MOTIVATION; NATURE; PREIMPLANTATION DIAGNOSIS; RELIGION; REPRODUCTIVE TECHNIQUES, ASSISTED;

EID: 0032037482     PISSN: 02699702     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/1467-8519.00101     Document Type: Article

References (15)

1. Gregory E. Pence, Classic Cases in Medical Ethics, second edition (McGraw-Hill, New York, 1995), p. 100.
2. For a description of the controversy surrounding the development of this procedure, see Pence, Classic Cases, ch. 4.
3. Newsweek, 10 March 1997, p. 53.
4. Deborah Sharp and Lori Sharn, "Big Questions for Humanity", USA Today, 1 April 1997.
5. Leon Kass, "The Wisdom of Repugnance", The New Republic, 2 June 1997, p. 22.
6. Gilbert Meilander, "Begetting and Cloning", First Things 74 (June-July 1977), p. 42.
7. Gina Kolata, "Analysis: Commission on Cloning - Ready-Made Controversy", New York Times, 9 June 1997.
8. The second case is adapted from an example suggested by Gregory E. Pence in "At Least Talk Before Ban on Human Cloning", Birmingham News, 2 March 1997, p. C-1.
9. For details, see Pence, Classic Cases, ch. 4.
10. Those who believe that eight-cell preembryos have rights will not agree.
11. John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism (Hackett, Indianapolis, 1979; originally published in 1861), ch. 2, para. 19, p. 18.
12. Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 18.
13. Mill, Utilitarianism, p. 18.
14. Until recently, these views have been the main options. Now, however, a third way of thinking about these issues has been made available by Jonathan Bennett. In The Act Itself (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1995) Bennett argues that in moral philosophy we should avoid the notion of "an action" altogether and make do instead with the notion of human behavior. Thus problems about identifying and individuating actions, distinguishing between "the act itself and its consequences, and so on - problems that Bennett thinks come up only because we are thinking about our subject in a confused way - would not arise. IfBennett is right, the problem for the Principle of Agency that we are now considering would not arise either.
15. Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (Basic Books, New York, 1974), pp. 26-42.