Key Concepts for (Some) Articles
in J. Boss's Analyzing Moral Issues

by Dr. Jan Garrett

This page was last revised March 20, 2010.

The page numbers with the exception of those related to the Watson article refer to the fifth edition of Boss's book.

Chapter on Abortion

Introduction to Chapter

proposed criteria for moral standing (or personhood, depending on the author): biological humanity (80), socially responsive membership in the human community (81), sentience (81), viability (81), having a future it can value (82), conflicts of rights (fetus, mother, father) (82-83)

Thomson

Person (87), conception, right to life, extreme view of the right to life (88),
right to decide what happens to and in one's body,
Right to X [a thing] (91), Right against P [a person] (91), kindness [to a person] (91),
right to be given the use of (or allowed the continued use of) another's body (91),
duty or obligation [to a person], duty to refrain, requirement to sacrifice (95),
three kinds of "Samaritan" (Minimally Decent, Good, and Very Good) (94-95).

The difference between "Q [person] ought to allow P [person] to have X [object]" and "P has a right to X against Q"

Noonan

Proposed criteria for humanity: ensoulment, human potentiality, viability (98), experience (sentience) (99), effects on (by valued by) adults (99.1-2), social visibility (99.2), nonarbitrary line (100.2-101.1)

Mary Ann Warren

moral community, human in the moral sense (103.2), human in the genetic sense (103.2), basic criteria of personhood (103.2-104.2), potential for becoming a person (105), actual person (105, 107), infanticide (104-105), right to autonomy (106-107), infant as social being (105.1, 107)

Chapter on Cloning

Capital Punishment

Handout

punishment, retributive justice, retribution, reparation, retributivism, equality retributivism, proportional retributivism, deterrence, reform rationale for punishment, incapacitation, restitution approach to crime, therapeutic approach

Introduction to chapter

deterrence (235), incapacitation (235)

Morris

punishment (246.1), justice (246.2), (247.2), benevolence (246.1), moral object (247.1), direct moral object (247.1), indirect moral object (247.1), moral subject (247.2), moral standing (247.1-2), cruelty (250.1)

Bedau

forfeiture of rights (253.1), social defense argument for death penalty (253.2), dignity argument for death penalty (254.1-2), principle of retribution (254.2), lex talionis (259.2-260), argument from justice against death penalty (260), argument from dignity against death penalty (259.2-260)

Chapter on Drugs

General and Introduction to Chapter

See Liberty-Limiting Principles. drug (278), drug abuse (278), addiction (278)--but see also Addictive Qualities of Popular Drugs, disease model of addiction (285-86), moral model of addiction (286), principles used to argue on this topic (287-290): virtue ethics, human dignity, autonomy, liberty rights, hedonism, paternalism, nonmaleficence and preventing harm to others

Husak

drug (309.1), recreational use (of drugs) (309.2), non-recreational uses of drugs (310.1), presumption of freedom (310.2) paternalist rationale for laws against drugs (311.1-331.1), legal moralism (311.1)

Chapter on Animal Rights and Environment

Introduction

moral standing (645), moral agents (646), moral patients (646), sentience (646), ecocentrism and biocentrism (646), social contract view of moral standing of animals (646), hedonistic utilitarians and animal interests (647), (non-utilitarian) animal rights view (647), interest-based model of animal rights (647), animal welfarism (647), speciesism (648)

Singer, Animal Liberation

speciesism (661.1), principle of equality (661.1), capacity for suffering (roughly = sentience) (661.2-662.1), having interests (662.1) researcher's central dilemma (665.1-2, 666.1)

Regan, Moral Basis of Vegetarianism

consciousness, language test for (650.2-651.1); noninjury, principle of (651.1); nonmaleficence, principle of (651.1); intensive (animal-) rearing methods (652.2); causal implication in a practice (653.1); sentience (653.2); being that can have rights (rights-bearer) (652-53)

Cohen, Do Animals Have Rights?

rights (670.1); interest (670.1); correlativity of rights and obligations (671.1-672.1); moral patient (672.2); moral agent (672.2); community of moral beings (i.e., moral agents) (673.1); two senses of autonomy (673.2), esp. moral autonomy; inherent value, two senses of (674); fallacy of equivocation (674.2)

Devall-Sessions, Deep Ecology

deep ecology (680-683.1), self-realization (681), biocentric equality (681), dominant worldview (regarding humans' relation to nature) (682)

Watson, A Critique of Anti-Anthropocentric Ethics (NOT IN 5TH EDITION OF BOSS)

anthropocentic (anthropocentrism) (760), biocentrism (760), preservation principle (760), hands off nature approach (760), regeneration of species from primordial soup (763), movement toward entropy (763)

Karen Warren, Power and Promise of Ecological Feminism

ecofeminism (688), ecofeminist philosophy (688), conceptual framework (688), value-hierarchical thinking (689), oppositional value dualisms (689), "power-over" power (689), privilege (688), logic of domination (689), explanatorily basic (= required for purposes of explanation; 689-690) logic of domination as a premise (690.1), patriarchal conceptual framework (690.2), traditional feminist ethics, arrogant perception, caring perception (692.2-693.1), ecofeminist ethic (692-693)

Other

Eyal Press, In Torture We Trust (NOT IN BOSS)

torture, absolute prohibition, ticking bomb [case], slippery slope, last resort, dehumanize…victims, liberty, security, openness, accountability, resentment, desire for revenge