Potentiality: Metaphysical and Bioethical Dimensions

287 Pages·2014·2.26 MB·English

by  Lizza

Potentiality
This page intentionally left blank
Potentiality: Metaphysical
and Bioethical Dimensions
Edited by John P. Lizza
Johns Hopkins University Press
Baltimore
© 2014 Johns Hopkins University Press
All rights reserved. Published 2014
Printed in the United States of America on acid- free paper
2 4 6 8 9 7 5 3 1
Johns Hopkins University Press
2715 North Charles Street
Baltimore, Mary land 21218- 4363
www .press .jhu .edu
Cataloging-in-Publication data is on fi le at the Library of Congress.
A cata log record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-4214-1174-3 (pbk : acid-free paper)
ISBN 1-4214-1174-1 (pbk : acid-free paper)
Special discounts are available for bulk purchases of this book.
For more information, please contact Special Sales at 410- 516- 6936
or [email protected].
Johns Hopkins University Press uses environmentally friendly
book materials, including recycled text paper that is composed
of at least 30 percent post- consumer waste, whenever possible.
Contents
Ac know ledg ments vii
Introduction 1
John P. Lizza
Part I The Nature of Potentiality
1 Aristotle’s Theory of Potentiality 29
Mohan Matthen
2 Dispositions and Potentialities 49
Jennifer McKitrick
3 The Paradoxes of Potentiality 69
Joel Feinberg
4 Physical Possibility and Potentiality in Ethics 72
Edward Covey
5 Abortion: Listening to the Middle 84
Edward Langerak
Part II Potentiality at the Beginning of Life
6 Persons with Potential 97
Jason T. Eberl
7 The Moral Status of Stem Cells 120
Agata Sagan and Peter Singer
8 Potential 140
Jeff McMahan
vi Contents
9 Abortion and the Margins of Personhood 174
Margaret Olivia Little
10 Revisiting the Argument from Fetal Potential 191
Bertha Alvarez Manninen
Part III Potentiality at the End of Life
11 Are DCD Donors Dead? 223
Don Marquis
12 The Irreversibility of Death: Metaphysical,
Physiological, Medical or Ethical? 237
Tom Tomlinson
13 On the Ethical Relevance of Active versus
Passive Potentiality 250
John P. Lizza
List of Contributors 271
Index 273
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the staff of The Hastings Center, as inspiration for this work
came while I was a visiting scholar at the Center in the summer of 2009. I have bene-
fi ted greatly from my association with the Center for many years. I would also like to
thank the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education for a summer research
grant that enabled me to work on this project. I am indebted to the conversations on
potentiality that I have had with many of the contributors to this volume, my col-
leagues, and others, especially Allan Bäck, Daniel Callahan, Jason Eberl, David
Hershenov, Joseph Jedwab, Bertha Alvarez Manninen, Mohan Matthen, Jennifer
McKitrick, Alan Shewmon, and Tom Tomlinson. I thank them for their generous
time, patience, and insights. I would also like to thank Laurel Delaney, secretary of
the Philosophy Department at Kutztown University, for her help in assisting with
obtaining materials and tireless proofreading, and two students, Crystal Williams
and Jenn Dum, for their help with or ga niz ing materials and checking bibliographical
references. Finally, I was fortunate to have a great editor in the person of Matt Mc-
Adam at Johns Hopkins University Press.
I gratefully acknowledge permission from the following authors and publishers to
reprint material from previously published work:
Chapter 3. Joel Feinberg, “The Paradoxes of Potentiality,” Appendix from Joel
Feinberg, “The Rights of Animals and Unborn Generations,” in William T. Black-
stone, ed., Philosophy & Environmental Crisis, University of Georgia Press (1974):
67– 68.
Chapter 4. Edward Covey, “Physical Possibility and Potentiality in Ethics,”
American Philosophical Quarterly 28:3 (1991): 237– 44.
Chapter 5. Edward Langerak, “Listening to the Middle,” Hastings Center Report
9:5 (1979): 24– 28.
Chapter 7. Agata Sagan and Peter Singer, “The Moral Status of Stem Cells,”
Metaphilosophy 36:2– 3 (2007): 265–8 4.
viii Acknowledgments
Chapter 8. Jeff McMahan, “Potential,” in Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing,
Oxford University Press (2007): 302– 29.
Chapter 9. Margaret Olivia Little, “Abortion and the Margins of Personhood,”
Rutgers Law Journal 39 (2008): 331– 48.
Chapter 10. Bertha Alvarez Manninen, “Revisiting the Argument from Poten-
tial,” Philosophy, Ethics, and Humanities in Medicine 2:7 (2007), www .peh -med .com
/content /2 /1 /7 .
Chapter 11. Don Marquis, “Are DCD Donors Dead?” Hastings Center Report
40:3 (2010): 24– 31.
Chapter 13. John P. Lizza, “The Ethical Relevance of Active versus Passive Poten-
tiality,” APA Newsletter on Philosophy and Medicine 11:1 (2011): 22– 28. www .apaonline
.org /APAOnline /Publications /Newsletters /Past _Newsletters /Vol11 /Vol _11 .aspx .
Potentiality