Tuesday, August 12, 2025
Arguments, Conclusions, and the Policies of Religious Academic Journals
A discussion concerning something unfortunate that happened to me regarding an attempt at an academic discussion of arguments about abortion is here in the Daily Nous:
Person ≠ Human Being
1. If person = human being (meaning biologically human organism, not human person), then divine, extra-terrestrial, non-human, and/or AI persons are impossible.
2. But they aren't impossible.
3. So it's false that person = human being.
4. If person = anything biologically human, then human cells and toes, etc. are persons.
5. They are not.
6. So it's false that person = anything human.
7. If X is a person only if X is biologically human, then divine, extra-terrestrial, non-human, and/or AI persons are impossible.
8. They are not.
9. So it's false that X is a person only if X is human.
10. If "person = human being" is explanatory, then human beings are persons because they are human beings.
11. But human beings are not persons because they are human beings: that's uninformative: it doesn't say what makes human beings persons.
12. So, "person = human being" is not explanatory.
14. They are not OK with that: their existence as persons would end, they tend to think.
15. So it's false that "person = human being."
In sum, person = a type of conscious being.
Want more discussion on this? See here: https://www.abortionarguments.com/p/full-text.html#persons among many other resources.
#ethics #philosophy #abortion #bioethics
Saturday, August 2, 2025
Don't be a Drive-By Critic: The Ethics of Public Disagreement
Criticism matters. Disagreement can be a tool for discovering truth and exposing error. So, we should welcome criticisms like:
“His argument is unsound—here’s why.”
“She thinks the only options are A, B, and C, but she overlooks D—and here’s why D is actually a good idea.”
“They offer an objection to this argument, but it rests on a false premise—one that presupposes the very thing they’re trying to critique.”
Constructive criticism sharpens ideas. It leads to better reasoning, clearer thinking, and sometimes, genuine progress.
But there’s another kind of critic—one I’ve long thought of as a drive-by critic. This person publicly criticizes someone’s views—in a blog, podcast, article, or video—but does so without engaging the person they’re criticizing. Here’s what they typically don’t do:
they don’t contact the target of their criticism, even when that would be easy;
they don’t check their understanding with the target to avoid straw-manning or misrepresenting the view;
they don’t ask their target, “Is there any merit to this criticism?”—because they aren’t interested in the target’s answers;
and crucially, they usually don’t even notify the person that they’ve been criticized. The “target” only learns about it—if ever—by accident or through a third party, which is the intellectual equivalent of learning that someone has been "talking about you, behind your back."
This kind of engagement, or lack thereof, lacks intellectual virtue. It’s not offered in the spirit of seeking understanding. It seems to be offered in the spirit of performance—for followers, fans, clicks, or ego.
Philosophers and other thinkers—especially public ones—should hold themselves to higher standards. When Socrates challenged someone, he spoke to them. John Stuart Mill argued that even flawed objections deserve hearing because they help sharpen the truth. None of these thinkers advanced knowledge by avoiding the people they disagreed with.
Why Do Drive-By Critics Act This Way?
Sometimes it’s strategic. The critic wants a “gotcha” moment—a dunk, a mic-drop, likes and reposts. And interaction with the person they’re targeting could get in the way of all this. What if the target says, “That’s based on a misunderstanding,” and they’re right? What if the target points out a crucial distinction or nuance? That’s less fun. It’s harder to rally the tribe when the other person seems reasonable.
Some drive-by critics might be extremely confident that their criticism is just devastating so there’s no point in contacting the target first—that would just complicate things and maybe even embarrass the target. But such overconfidence is often misplaced. Skipping the interaction stage protects the critic from pushback—especially the kind that could reveal that their critique isn’t as strong as they think; indeed, it might be a total flop.
Drive-by criticism can be motivated by insecurity. The critic might not be confident in their own view. They’re afraid to “check their work” because it might not hold up. But the mature response to this fear isn’t avoidance—it’s engagement. It’s OK to misunderstand something. It’s OK to offer an objection that misfires. What’s not OK is not making responsible efforts to find out whether you’ve misunderstood or misfired.
Some critics may think, “Why bother? The person I’m criticizing probably doesn’t care.” But how do they know? Why not ask? In many cases, they'd be surprised at how open people are to real engagement—especially when it’s offered respectfully.
And sometimes there are bad incentives. Some people are paid to produce something, anything—so they take cheap shots. Others work in environments that reward confrontation more than collaboration. But none of these are good excuses for abandoning fair, intellectually honest practice.
What Should We Do Instead?
We should model the kind of world we want to live in. A world where people talk to each other about disagreements. A world where people say, “I think you’re mistaken, and I want to understand you better—and I want you to understand me better too.”
Of course, we all fall short. If I’ve ever been a “drive-by critic” myself, I regret it. I’ve rarely thought as carefully as I should have about these ethics, and to my knowledge, there’s no established literature on how to handle these kinds of interactions. So here’s a first pass at what responsible criticism looks like:
If you publicly critique someone’s ideas, tell them.
Where possible, interact with them beforehand—or at least check that you’ve understood them correctly.
Be open to refining or abandoning your criticism if it turns out you missed something.
Offer criticism in a way that invites dialogue, not just attention.
We can’t expect everyone to follow these norms. So, how should we respond to drive-by critics?
Sometimes, ignoring them is best. Starve the troll. Don’t reward the behavior with attention.
Sometimes, the higher road is better: respond charitably, publicly, and thoroughly—showing what better engagement looks like.
But let’s be honest. Drive-by critics usually don’t want dialogue. They want confrontation without consequence. They want to shoot and keep driving. In these cases, I’m sometimes tempted by a Kantian thought: treat them according to the rule they themselves act on. If they want to live in a world of casual, aggressive criticism, maybe they deserve some of it back—ideally with bigger "guns."
But better still is to reserve our energy for those who want to think together. Most of us are partly right and partly wrong about most things. The best way to make progress is to criticize each other’s ideas sincerely and collaboratively. More truth, less error; more justification, less irrationality—for all.
And to any would-be drive-by critics out there: hold your fire. Aim instead for clarity, fairness, and understanding. If you’re going to criticize, do it in a way that might actually change minds—starting with your own.
Thursday, July 31, 2025
That’s Subjective”: Subjectivism about Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
New by me at 1000-Word Philosophy:
“That’s Subjective”: Subjectivism about Truth, Beauty, and Goodness
Relevant to what's often said about abortion issues.
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Tuesday, July 29, 2025
On a Denied Opportunity for a Rebuttal in The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly
Discussing controversial issues sometimes doesn’t go well. One reason is that people often lack—or forget—the ability to distinguish between things that are importantly different. When it comes to arguments—reasons offered in support of a conclusion—there are some key distinctions worth remembering:
The conclusion and the premises offered to support it are separate and should not be confused.
Critiquing premises—for being false, unreasonable, or not logically related to the conclusion—does not require rejecting the conclusion.
One can critique an argument’s premises without taking any stance on whether the conclusion is true or false.
One can reject some premises while acknowledging that other, better premises might support the same conclusion.
When someone critiques the reasons given for a conclusion, they are not necessarily rejecting or accepting the conclusion itself. They are simply saying: this is a bad argument for that conclusion.
While many “debates” (especially online) are a good occasion for reflections like these, these were inspired by a recent email interaction I had with the Editor of The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly. The interaction with this Editor and its backstory is pasted below at 1. After it are some brief further reflections from me at 2.
1.
In May 2025, I received an email from the Managing Editor of The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly seeking permission to extensively quote from our 2021 Salon magazine article, “Why the case against abortion is weak, ethically speaking.” My co-author and I gave our permission.
On Friday, July 18, the Managing Editor emailed me a commentary article about our article by Christopher Kaczor. The email included this (emphasis added by me):
. . this is one of several of our regular columns by a regular columnist that reports on, reviews, and responds to select publications in philosophy and theology, especially but not exclusively in journals . . You can decide if this column warrants a reply.
Since our principal scope is Catholic bioethics, we do have an editorial policy in our submission guidelines that “the NCBQ is committed to publishing material that is consonant with the magisterium of the Catholic Church” and “We do not publish any work advancing views that are clearly contrary to established teachings of the Catholic Church.” Basically, we wouldn’t be willing to publish a defense of the permissibility of direct procured abortion, for example, but we would be willing to publish a letter critiquing the columnist’s argument, defending yourself against misrepresentation or misunderstanding or the like, or pointing to other publications where you have already responded to his concerns.
On July 24th, I submitted a reply article—“Reply to Christopher Kaczor on Abortion” (also on Substack) to the Managing Editor, who said he would forward it to the Editor in Chief for review. Here’s the discussion that followed (with a few typos corrected):
1:05 PM
On Thu, Thursday, Jul 24, 2025 at 1:05 PM Ted Furton wrote:
Dr. Nobles,
We have received your reply to Dr. Christopher Kaczor concerning abortion.
Your reply generally argues that moral arguments offered in opposition to the killing of unborn human beings are false and that therefore the practice should be permissible (except, if I understand, for late term pregnancies). Our journal does not print submissions that contradict established Catholic teaching on moral matters.
The Managing Editor has suggested that your reply and perhaps a further response from Dr. Kaczor might be published in another journal so that the discussion can continue. We would be happy to facilitate that effort, if we can.
Thank you for your kindness in allowing us to print extended sections of your original article from Salon in our journal.
Edward (Ted) Furton
Director of Publications and Ethicist
The National Catholic Bioethics Center
Editor-in-Chief
The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly
Editor
Ethics & Medics
1:20 PM
From: Nathan Nobis
Sent: Thursday, Thursday, July 24, 2025 1:20 PM
To: Ted Furton
Cc: Daniel Traceski
Subject: Re: Reply to Kaczor
Dear Mr. Furton,
Thank you for your response but your evaluation here doesn't seem to be correct. This was a response article that showed that Kaczor's objections to our arguments and claims were poor. This was not any new defense, or really any defense, of our positive claims: it was just "these critiques are weak and here's why." I was told earlier that such a response would be allowable.
If you have any ideas for other forums that might be interested in this, or have a way to help facilitate that, that would be much appreciated.
Thank you!
Nathan
2:10 PM
On Thu, Thursday, Jul 24, 2025 at 2:10 PM Ted Furton wrote:
Nathan,
The claims of weakness in Dr. Kaczor’s arguments are difficult to separate from the substance of your position. You hold that his arguments fail. Therefore, it follows that your position in defense of abortion is untouched and so remains true.
May we send your comments to Kaczor? That may lead to some suggestions about how to proceed from here.
Ted
2:26 PM
From: Nathan Nobis
Sent: Thursday, Thursday, July 24, 2025 2:26 PM
To: Ted Furton
Cc: Daniel Traceski ; Jonathan Dudley
Subject: Re: Reply to Kaczor
Ted,
Yes, feel free to send it along.
Since this is important, I do, however, want to point out that your conclusion does not follow here:
"You hold that his arguments fail. [yes] Therefore, it follows that your position in defense of abortion is untouched [yes, untouched by those objections] and so remains true. [no: that does not follow: that some claims/arguments are poor objections to some arguments for conclusion p does not entail that p is true or that p is supported by good arguments: that's a separate matter, requiring a separate "positive" defense].
I do want to share what I was told earlier:
we wouldn’t be willing to publish a defense of the permissibility of direct procured abortion, for example, but we would be willing to publish a letter critiquing the columnist’s argument, defending yourself against misrepresentation or misunderstanding or the like, or pointing to other publications where you have already responded to his concerns.
Or if you prefer, there is no reason why the discussion couldn’t take place between our journal and another publication.
What I am unclear on now is whether your policy means that really pretty much any critique of these critiques would be considered a defense of the permissibility of abortion---since any saying "well, this was a poor reason to think that this pro-choice argument was a bad argument" is, in a way, a kind of defense of abortion---and so this is pretty much an impossible task here, for this forum.
Thank you!
Nathan
2:43 PM
On Thu, Thursday, Jul 24, 2025, 2:43 PM Ted Furton wrote:
Nathan,
Thanks for your observations, but this is not merely a matter of logic. Perhaps I erred in encouraging a response from you and Dr. Dudley, but I wanted to see if it might work.
I will let Dr. Kaczor know of your reply to his critique.
Ted
3:22 PM
From Nathan Nobis, Thu, Jul 24, 3:22 PM to Ted, Daniel, Jonathan
Ted,
You are correct that this is not merely a matter of logic.
Presumably, you want people to think abortion is wrong, on the basis of good arguments. And you want people to have responses to pro-choice arguments that are, or are based on, good arguments.
Kaczor's responses to our arguments were very poor. Not considering publishing something that shows this because of the (logical) error of not distinguishing "these objections to arguments for p are poor" and "here are good arguments for p" is bad. This results in your readers missing an opportunity to have a stronger understanding and better arguments on these issues.
Now, we have no "right" to a reply here, or even a reply being considered, but some offer for a reply was given. If this really was an impossible task, since almost any response would have been perceived as a positive argument for abortion, then that offer should have never been made.
Thank you,
Nathan
(There was no response to this message).
2.
Logical errors and confusion are not surprising from people who have no formal education about argumentation. I hear things like this all the time from people online, about many claims p:
“You say this is a bad argument for p? Why don't you believe p?! You must think not-p!!!”
But academia and scholarly inquiry are under increasing pressure from various cultural and political forces. Irresponsible engagement—especially by those who should know better—only adds to this problem. When accomplished scholars or institutional authority figures fail to uphold standards of clear reasoning, fair engagement, and intellectual honesty, they undermine the very credibility of scholarly expertise.
This kind of (unapologetic) response also reflects a form of tribalism. While it may not be surprising that a religiously affiliated journal—one operating within a framework committed to particular doctrinal conclusions—would tend toward confirmation bias, it is nonetheless disappointing when this bias results in publishing arguments of poor quality while declining to engage serious, critical responses.
What’s especially troubling is that such a posture appears to contradict the journal’s own stated values. The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly describes itself as seeking to “foster intellectual inquiry” and to publish work that engages in “reasoned and rigorous reflection,” with openness to “all philosophical traditions in the spirit of informed dialogue.” When critiques are excluded not because they are poorly reasoned, but because they challenge a predetermined conclusion, those values are not being honored.Friday, July 25, 2025
Reply to Christopher Kaczor on Abortion
It’s often argued that abortion is usually wrong on the basis of the premises that (1) biologically human embryos and fetuses are innocent human beings or persons and (2) it’s usually wrong to kill innocent human beings or persons. Let’s call this the Standard Argument against abortion.
In our 2021 “Salon” magazine article, “Why the case against abortion is weak, ethically speaking,” we argued that this argument fails.[1] Our goal in that “public philosophy” essay was to get these common critiques before a broader audience to help them better engage the fundamental questions of whether the argument’s premises are true or false, reasonable to believe or not.
In a recent article in The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Christopher Kaczor critiques our critiques.[2] While we appreciate his engagement with our article, we wish to briefly explain why his critiques do not succeed. Since our article is freely available online, we will not summarize its discussion; we will assume that interested readers will read it before reading what follows here.
1. Innocence
We want to begin by noting that Kaczor surprisingly did not address our argument that embryos and fetuses are not “innocent” because they are neither innocent nor not innocent. Innocence, in an ordinary sense of not deserving punishment or ill-treatment, requires the potential for guilt. So innocence requires (a) the ability to act—moral agency or personhood—and (b) not acting wrongly. People sometimes say that embryos and fetuses are innocent because “they haven’t done anything wrong.” Yes, but rocks and plants haven’t done anything wrong either, yet they are not considered “innocent,” because, like embryos and fetuses, they can’t do anything, especially anything wrong, and so the concept of “innocence” just doesn’t apply.
Although we didn’t put it this way in the article, these observations alone undermine the Standard Argument. Since its premises are about innocent beings, it really has no application to, or implications for, beings like embryos and fetuses that are neither innocent nor not and so the Standard Argument fails.
It’s worth reflecting here on the fact that there’s no good reason to think that a being must be innocent for there to be moral obligations to or concerning it, or that a person must be innocent to have, say, the right to life. For example, on the understanding of innocence presented here, babies are neither innocent nor not, but they have the right to life. No influential theory of rights proposes that anyone has rights because they are “innocent,” and no theory even entails that someone loses all their rights if they are guilty of anything either. All and all, the emphasis on “innocence” here is a distraction: it’s not like anyone seriously thinks abortions are justified because fetuses are “guilty” and so deserving of being killed or whatever.
(As an aside, some may wonder if the doctrine of “original sin,” implies that embryos and fetuses are not innocent, contrary to the Standard Argument’s premise, and if and how that matters to the issues).
2. Persons
In our article we argue, in a variety of ways, that persons or human beings—understood as human persons—are a type of conscious being: what makes a being a person is mental characteristics: e.g., consciousness, sentience, emotions, etc. This type of view—following Descartes, Locke, Warren, Parfit, and many others—understands our “essence” or essential properties in terms of being minded beings.[3] Would you like to take a nap . . and never wake up . . even if your body remained biologically alive? Many who wouldn’t would understand this happening as the end of their existence: the person they are would end.
Since embryos and beginning fetuses lack conscious-making brains, and so lack any mental characteristics, they are not persons on this broad theory about what persons are. Kaczor, however, objects to this theory of personhood. His objections, however, all fail.
First, he says that such a theory of personhood would justify the “infanticide of premature newborns.”[4] It is unclear whether he is thinking of premature newborns who are conscious or premature newborns who have never been conscious. Either way:
● if such newborns are conscious, then a broad psychological theory of personhood can apply to them since they have some kind of minds;
● if such newborns are not, and never have been conscious, then Kaczor has “begged the question” or just assumed that killing such premature newborns would be wrong, since he gives no reason to believe it would be. But the case is perhaps moot since this is a born baby, and so no longer intimately dependent on a particular person’s body; if (and how) that makes a difference, and whether (and why) someone (who?!) would be obligated to care for this newborn is not discussed by Kaczor.
It should be recognized, however, that our article did not aim to defend all abortions, or all possible abortions. We observed that later-term abortions raise unique issues due to the potential for fetal consciousness and so our discussion concerned only early abortions, which are most abortions.
Second, Kaczor argues that such a theory implies that “dogs, cats, and even rats are persons with rights to live, since they, too, have brains enabling consciousness.”[5] This too is begging the question, assuming with no argument whatsoever that animals don’t have rights and that all the many philosophers (Singer, Regan, Rowlands, Korgaard, Halteman and many more[6]) and other thinkers (Adams, Francione, Wise, Camosy, and many more[7]) who have argued animals do have rights are mistaken and their arguments unsound. This dismissal of animal rights is likely even offensive to people who have pet dogs, cats, and rats (“even rats”!), see them as friends, and would understand that we can be “friends” only with beings who are persons, or are at least personlike.[8] The online parody-business “Elwood’s Organic Dog Meat” gets lots of hate-mail from people concerned that dogs’ rights to life are being violated; and outed “big game trophy hunters” are often threatened for doing what many people understand to be violating animals’ rights.[9] So, in sum, to dismiss the idea of animal rights, without argument, is irresponsible: it defies arguably the best philosophical thinking and a burgeoning common sense about the matters, all with no reasons given at all.
Kaczor proposes that the implication that animals have rights can be avoided by requiring “human self-aware consciousness,”[10] and observes the repugnant implications of that theoretical modification for conscious but not self-aware human beings. But he overlooks other theoretical options here, such as that being a conscious human being or that being a conscious being who is the “kind” of being that’s a rational being is what’s sufficient for having rights and having rights that are generally stronger than rights animals have (which is the typical view of most animal rights advocates anyway). Kaczor doesn’t consider the many possible ways to (a) accept a broad psychological theory of personhood and (b) think that all conscious human beings usually have some ethical priority over animals.
Finally, Kaczor writes this:
another problem with [psychological theories of personhood is] that if someone has been knocked out, her brain is not (at that time) capable of consciousness. But surely the right to life doesn’t come into existence and go out of existence each time a boxer is knocked out.[11]
Yes, and this should ring a bell, suggesting that a wrong turn has been made. Consider this: the right to one’s material possessions is presumably “weaker” than the right to life. If someone took a nap, and woke up to see all their stuff gone, it would be totally implausible for their housemate to react, “Since you weren’t conscious, I thought you no longer existed and so would no longer need your stuff, so I took it and sold it, and that was fine!” Anyone basing these actions on their supposed understanding of psychological theories of personhood has grossly misunderstood the view: being a conscious being does not require being conscious at all times. This is obvious, given that people sleep, yet they are conscious beings on any ordinary or refined understanding of that concept.
Kaczor adds, “Again, you can shore up the argument by noting that the individual may become conscious later, but this is also true of the typical human fetus.”[12] If he’s saying that, typically, the napping person will awake as a person—indeed, the same (numerically identical) person who existed before the nap—then, no, that is not true of beginning fetuses, if they are not persons and so they, or their bodies, are not numerically identical to any future person. To suggest that an embryo is relevantly similar to a sleeping person who clearly was a person prior to their nap is, again, begging the question, assuming things that cannot be assumed, such as that an embryo is a person.
Finally, perhaps Kaczor intends his discussion of “interests”[13] to be an objection to a psychological theory of personhood, since persons have interests and we argue that nothing can be in the interest of a being that’s never been conscious. He discusses a potential ambiguity in the concept of “interest,” but nothing in our discussion suggests that we think that for any interest, a being can have that interest only if they conceptualize or understand that interest: we say and suggest nothing like that: indeed we deny that. And from nothing about that does it follow, as Kaczor writes, that, e.g., embryos “have an objective interest in their physical well-being, which is destroyed when they are killed.”[14] Arguments are needed to support that claim, which weren’t given.
3. Killing and Letting Die
Kaczor argues while letting an anencephalic baby die can be morally permissible, it doesn’t follow that actively killing such a baby would be morally permissible, and so it especially doesn’t follow that killing an embryo or early fetus would be permissible, even though all these beings lack conscious-producing brains. He writes such reasoning “obfuscates the difference between killing and letting die.”[15]
But why think any killing / letting die distinction is always morally important, or important with these issues? Kaczor says that US law recognizes it, but we all understand that laws can be unjust: furthermore, some countries’ laws reject this distinction and allow the active killing of some people. Kaczor says this distinction is accepted by Catholics, but non-Catholics will surely want good reasons to agree and think that it would nearly always be wrong to actively kill an anencephalic baby (if there happened to be some pressing need to do so) and why, in general, other forms of “active” euthanasia are always wrong and should be illegal.[16]
4. Human Beings
Finally, our article began with the argument that if it’s (usually) wrong to kill innocent human beings, as the Standard Argument claims, then typical organ transplant procedures—which involve killing living human bodies—are wrong; but they’re not (and almost nobody thinks they are) so the Argument’s principle is false. At least, common claims that all living human organisms are (usually) wrong to kill need to be made more specific to identify which exact types of human organisms.
Kaczor’s response does not appear to undermine our main point: indeed, it might support it.
First, again, recall that these living human beings (or bodies) are neither innocent nor not innocent, and so any principle against killing innocent human beings really has no application here. Kaczor did not discuss that.
Kaczor claims that it’s a “minority opinion” among scholars that current organ donation procedures are wrong.[17] Even if that’s true and ignoring the question of whether they are correct, however, what we wrote remains true: “Pro-life organizations have not mobilized against [organ donation procedures] or even signaled disapproval.”
Kaczor writes, “. . if brain death is in fact death, then the human being in question has already died prior to the organs being removed. .. if the human being in question has died, removing his organs cannot kill him.”[18] Now, we agree that the “human being,” in the sense of the human person, has died: that’s the core reason why it’s not wrong to take the organs.
Kaczor next asks a rhetorical question: “Is it fair to say that [such a body] is still alive?” and apparently answers, “. . if brain death is death, then the body is no longer a living body but rather a corpse.”[19] Earlier he wrote, “A corpse cannot be killed.”
While people are free to call what very much seem to be living bodies “corpses,” that results in a need for an odd distinction between something like “real corpses”—corpses in the ordinary sense that are “all dead,” as Miracle Max in The Princess Bride put it[20]—and what we might surprisingly call “living corpses,” which contain living tissues but are not living organisms, Kaczor claims. He claims “what makes an organism to be an organism is not the functioning of parts of the organism, but the functioning of the whole organism.”[21]
While Kaczor does not explain what this means—in particular what the “whole” organism is and what “functioning” is—this perhaps was just our point: embryos and beginning fetuses are also not “functioning whole organisms” since there is no consciousness-producing brain. Four times Kaczor uses the phrase “if brain death is death . .” but does not engage our suggested proposal that if “brain birth”—the onset of consciousness—is “life” in the morally relevant sense, then . . .
If such a proposal is correct, then the Standard Argument against abortion is again unsound. Helping general readers understand that and why that is so was our goal for our article. It does not appear that Kaczor has given any good reason to think we did anything other than succeed at that.
[1] Nathan Nobis and Jonathan Dudley, “Why the Case against Abortion Is Weak, Ethically Speaking,” Salon, April 11, 2021: salon.com/2021/04/11/why-the-case -against-abortion-is-weak-ethically-speaking The main argument of this article is also made in Nathan Nobis and Kristina Grob, Thinking Critically About Abortion (Open Philosophy Press, 2019), AbortionArguments.com and Nathan Nobis, “Early and Later Abortions: Ethics and Law,” in Bob Fischer, ed., Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues that Divide Us (Oxford University Press, 2019).
[2] Christopher Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” The National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly, Volume 25, Issue 1, Spring 2025: 145-151. (Email for a copy if you lack access).
[3] For an introduction to these issues, see Eric Olson. “Personal Identity”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2024 Edition), Edward N. Zalta & Uri Nodelman (eds.), plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2024/entries/identity-personal and Kristin Seemeth Whaley, “Psychological Approaches to Personal Identity: Do Memories and Consciousness Make Us Who We Are?” 1000‑Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology, February 3, 2022, 1000wordphilosophy.com/2022/02/03/psychological-approaches-to-personal-identity.
[4] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 150.
[5] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 150.
[6] See, e.g., Peter Singer, Animal Liberation Now: The Definitive Classic Renewed (New York: HarperCollins, 2023); Tom Regan, The Case for Animal Rights: Updated with a New Preface (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2023); Mark Rowlands, Animal Rights (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2025); Christine M. Korsgaard, Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other Animals (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018); Matthew C. Halteman, Hungry Beautiful Animals (New York: Basic Books, 2024).
[7] Carol J. Adams, The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory, 30th Anniversary Edition (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020); Gary L. Francione, Animals as Persons: Essays on the Abolition of Animal Exploitation (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008); Steven M. Wise, Drawing the Line: Science and the Case for Animal Rights (New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2003); Charles Camosy, For Love of Animals: Christian Ethics, Consistent Action (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2016).
[8] See Jeff Jordan. “Why Friends Shouldn’t Let Friends be Eaten: An Argument for Vegetarianism.” Social Theory and Practice 27, no. 2 (2001): 309-322.
[9] See ElwoodDogMeat.com and their social media channels for their sharing of objections and threats they often receive. For one set of reports on threats to hunters, see CBS News. “Georgia Hunter Threatened over Photos with Dead Elephant Speaks Out,” CBS News, January 21, 2019, cbsnews.com/news/mike-jines-georgia-hunter-threatened-over-elephant-kill-speaks-out/
[10] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 150.
[11] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 150.
[12] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 150.
[13] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 150.
[14] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 150.
[15] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 149.
[16] People interested in these issues are encouraged to not think about them in the abstract. This article can be helpful for that: Gary Comstock “You Should Not Have Let Your Baby Die.” The New York Times, July 12, 2017, nytimes.com/2017/07/12/opinion/you-should-not-have-let-your-baby-die.html Also see Nathan Nobis, “Euthansia or Mercy Killing,” 1000-Word Philosophy: An Introductory Anthology, March 5, 2019, 1000wordphilosophy.com/2019/03/05/euthanasia-or-mercy-killing/
[17] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 148.
[18] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 148.
[19] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 148.
[20] On Miracle Max, see princessbride.fandom.com/wiki/Miracle_Max
[21] Kaczor, “Philosophy and Theology,” 149.