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Even in the era of AIDS, sex raises no unique moral issues at all. Decisions about sex may involve considerations about honesty, concern for others, p...more

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In an earlier stage of our development most human groups held to a tribal ethic. Members of the tribe were protected, but people of other tribes could...more

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What one generation finds ridiculous, the next accepts; and the third shudders when it looks back on what the first did.

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Philosophy ought to question the basic assumptions of the age. Thinking through, critically and carefully, what most of us take for granted is, I beli...more

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For a merely conscious being, death is the cessation of experiences, in much the same way that birth is the beginning of experiences. Death cannot be ...more

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In the absence of any general inference from ‘A is a potential X’ to ‘A has the rights of an X’, we should not accept that a potential person should h...more

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In thinking about ethics, we should not hesitate to question ethical views that are almost universally accepted if we have reasons for thinking that t...more

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Our ancestors lived in groups of no more than a few hundred people, and those on the other side of a river or mountain range might as well have been l...more

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It is interesting, in this context, to think again of our earlier argument that membership of the species Homo sapiens does not entitle a being to bet...more

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The capacity for suffering – or more strictly, for suffering and/or enjoyment or happiness – is not just another characteristic like the capacity for ...more

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Suppose that we believe that in 200 years, people would be prepared to pay a million dollars (that's in today's dollars, not inflated ones) to be able...more

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We have examined a number of ethical issues. We have seen that many accepted practices are open to serious objections. What ought we to do about it? T...more

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The merely conscious being does not have a preference for continued life. Perhaps while having a pleasurable experience it has a preference for that e...more

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My suggestion, then, is that we accord the fetus no higher moral status than we give to a nonhuman animal at a similar level of rationality, self-cons...more

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Pacifists have usually regarded the use of violence as absolutely wrong, irrespective of its consequences. This, like other ‘no matter what’ prohibiti...more