Worth: 30% of your final grade
Assignment: Write an argumentative essay on the topic below. Papers must be typed, and must be between 600-1200 words long. Provide a word count on the first page of the paper. (Most programs like Microsoft Word have automatic word counts.)
Topic: Explain and defend your definition of person as it relates to morality, and specifically to the ethics of stem-cell research, abortion, and impaired infants.
(1) First, briefly explain and critically evaluate the different definitions of “person” that we have discussed in class. Be sure to explain each definition offered by the President’s Council on Bioethics, Michael Sandel, Mary Anne Warren, Tristram Engelhardt, and John Robertson.When considering your definition of person, be sure to consider and answer the following questions: Which living entities are persons, and which living entities are not persons? Do you believe one needs to be a person in the moral sense in order to be worthy of moral consideration (for instance, do some non-persons have a right to not be killed and a right to not suffer unnecessarily)? Do persons have special moral significance? Can someone have moral rights before they have moral duties? Be sure to fully explain and philosophically defend each of your answers.
(2) Second, explain how each of the following authors uses the concept of “person” to attempt to settle the particular ethical debate she or he wrote about (The President’s Bioethics Council and Sandel on stem-cell research; Warren and Marquis on abortion; and Engelhardt and Robertson on impaired infants).
[NOTE: Some of these authors think personhood is irrelevant to their issue.]
(3) Third, explain and defend your own definition of “person”: do you agree with one of these authors’ definitions, or do you have one of your own?
(4) Fourth, explain the solution your definition of “person” gives to the ethics of stem-cell research, abortion, and impaired infants.
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