Skip to main content
Log in

Hursthouse’s Virtue Ethics and Abortion: Abortion Ethics without Metaphysics?

  • Published:
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This essay explicates and evaluates the roles that fetal metaphysics and moral status play in Rosalind Hursthouse’s abortion ethics. It is motivated by Hursthouse’s puzzling claim in her widely anthologized paper “Virtue Ethics and Abortion” that fetal moral status and (by implication) its underlying metaphysics are “in a way, fundamentally irrelevant” to her position. The essay clarifies the roles that fetal ontology and moral status do in fact play in her abortion ethics. To this end, it presents and then develops her fetal metaphysics of the potential and actual human being, which she merely adumbrates in her more extensive treatment of abortion ethics in her book Beginning Lives. The essay then evaluates her fetal ontology in light of relevant research on fetal neural and psychological development. It concludes that her implied view that the late-stage fetus is an actual human being is defensible. The essay then turns to the analysis of late-stage abortions in her paper and argues that it is importantly incomplete.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. Despite being widely anthologized, “Virtue Theory and Abortion” has received little scrutiny in print. Relatively brief discussions of this paper (which are integrated into analyses of other virtue theorists’ views of abortion and related issues) are found in John Hacker-Wright, 2007, pp. 449–450, 457–459 and Eric Rovie, 2002, pp. 142–146. Another exception is the brief criticism of two of Hursthouse’s arguments in Jeffrey Reiman, 1999, pp. 57–59. With this essay I hope to begin a thorough discussion of Hursthouse’s paper.

  2. See Hursthouse, 1987, Ch. 8, Sect. 4, “Abortion,” pp. 330–339 with additional material from Ch. 5, Sect. 4, “Abortion as Special,” pp. 204–213 and Ch. 8, Sect. 2, “Bearing Children as Intrinsically Worthwhile,” pp. 307–318.

    Beginning Lives has received some limited critical attention. There have been several book reviews, needfully too brief to do justice to Hursthouse’s work. For instance, it was reviewed favourably by Christine Swanton, 1989. It received a decidedly mixed review by Ian Tipton, 1988, who laments the indeterminacy of Hursthouse’s moral evaluation of many abortions and her failure to support adequately her crucial contention that abortion is always a highly serious moral matter (p. 234). The book was scathingly reviewed by Peter Morriss, 1989, who contends its virtue analysis of abortion is “insufficiently developed” (p. 71).

    A comparatively recent article has dealt with her book in a minor way, i.e., by raising alleged problems for her rejection of the slippery slope argument (to the conclusion that conception is the only non-arbitrary point at which to hold the zygote-embryo-fetus achieves significant moral status) in Hursthouse 1987, pp. 36–37. See Michael J. Wren 2004, pp. 554–560

  3. Cf. Hursthouse 1987 , pp. 11, 207–208.

  4. Cf. David Boonin’s distinction in his introduction to A Defense of Abortion between the moral im/permissibility of abortions (whether abortions violate fetal rights) and the broader issue of the “moral criticizability” of abortions. Boonin concedes the narrowness of his focus on the former within the broader landscape of the latter mapped out by Hursthouse. However, he defends his work as follows: “The reason for this focus is simple: Virtually everyone who is morally opposed to abortion claims that abortion is morally impermissible in this sense, that it does violate rights, not merely that it is morally criticizable” (Boonin 2003, pp. 5, 7).

  5. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, especially, I, II, III. 6–12, IV. 1, and VI. 5–13, 1999, pp. 3–51, 68–89, and 152–173.

  6. She offers a more elaborate account of virtues in terms of dispositions likely to promote the flourishing of the individual and his or her social group in her more recent On Virtue Ethics, 1999, pp. 198–201.

  7. Hursthouse wisely emends the definition of ‘right’ action to “what a virtuous agent would characteristically (i.e. acting in character) do in the circumstances” in 1999, p. 28.

  8. Cf. Hursthouse 1987, p. 216.

  9. Peter Moriss similarly observes, “Everything that Hursthouse says against abortion holds against celibacy” in his review of Beginning Lives, p. 70; his emphasis.

  10. In Hursthouse’s terminology, abortion is ‘wrong simpliciter,’ but not ‘wrong absolutely’ (Hursthouse 1987, pp. 245–246).

  11. For Hursthouse, these relations give rise to various moral considerations. First, the result of a successful pregnancy is a new, irreplaceable human life with intrinsic value (1987, pp. 309–310. Cf. pp. 290–291). Secondly, the process of bearing a child is the intrinsically good creation of a human being (1987, pp. 312–315). Thirdly, bearing a child well manifests virtues, e.g., bearing sickness with fortitude and refraining from drugs and alcohol with responsible foresight (1987, pp. 300–303). Moreover, if the woman fails to abort, she will bear the heavy responsibility of caring for the child or of transferring that responsibility to another. Even the latter rarely ends the woman’s concern for the child’s well-being (1987, pp. 210–212). If the woman rears the child, she typically enhances her “emotional development through a natural life-cycle,” experiences passionate maternal love, and achieves the highly valuable mother-child relationship (1987, pp. 311, 315).

    In rejecting the traditional narrow focus and seeking a broader social, emotional, and moral contextualization of pregnancy, birth, and child-rearing, Hursthouse resembles feminist theorists. See, for example, Gatens-Robinson 1992, pp. 39–66 and Sherwin 1991, pp. 327–342, esp., pp. 331–336.

  12. In characterizing Hursthouse’s approach, Eric Rovie does not seem to appreciate this fully. He claims she ‘...avoids the tricky question about the moral status of the fetus by instead focusing on “familiar biological facts”’ (2002, p. 144). It would be more accurate to state she avoids the pitfall of taking fetal moral status to be the crux of the abortion debate. However, his unqualified assertion that fetal status is irrelevant for Hursthouse (2002, p. 144) is fortunately belied by his claim that she believes, even when an abortion is morally acceptable, it merits “regret and sorrow” (2002, p. 144) “...strictly on the basis of the (potential) human life that was cut short...” (2002, p. 145). There Rovie clearly alludes to the significant moral value Hursthouse attributes to the fetus qua potential human being.

  13. My reconstruction might appear to simplify Hursthouse’s views since she writes, “...if one ties the concept of justice very closely to rights, then if women do have a moral right to terminate their pregnancies it may follow that in doing so they do not act unjustly.... But it is debatable whether even this much follows” (1991, note 10, p. 235; her emphasis). However, conclusion (2) is consistent with Hursthouse’s claim as I state “prima facie” unjust to allow for considerations other than (1) that might factor in assessments of an act’s justice, e.g., a woman’s promise to the father to bear a child at the time. Since Hursthouse accepts (1), the vice of failing to respect, or appreciate the value of, fetal life is not injustice, but light-mindedness about human life (1991, pp. 238–240).

  14. This claim that the pre-embryo is a potential human being is contentious and arguably wrong for two reasons. First, as Carson Strong argues, the pre-embryo divides and develops into the placenta, amnion, chlorion, and embryo-disk. Only the latter, once it develops into cells organized around the primitive streak at 14 days, becomes the embryo proper. Strong borrows the distinction between potential to produce and potential to become, whereby only the latter preserves identity, from Stephen Buckle (1988), pp. 230–233. Strong then concludes that the fertilized cell has the potential to produce an embryo (and, hence, a self-conscious being), a placenta, etc.; but not the potential to become an embryo (Strong 1997, p. 460). Secondly, the lack of differentiation in the pre-primitive streak conceptus makes twinning possible (Korein 1997, p. 14). The conceptus has the potential to produce one or more embryos. Hence, Hursthouse’s claim should be modified as follows: the embryo-fetus (from the formation of the primitive streak) is a potential human being.

    Failure to refine her claim is symptomatic of her method to apply a virtue framework without the aid of obscure biological facts or academic metaphysics with its insistence that a definite individual human must have bodily integrity and continuity as well as unity through time.

  15. Current developmental psychology locates the onset of self-awareness and the use of self-referential language between 15 and 18 months, well into toddlerhood (Korein 1997, p. 27).

  16. Here, Hursthouse has a series of Michael Tooley’s articles on abortion, beginning with “Abortion and Infanticide” (1972) and his book Abortion and Infanticide, 1983, primarily in mind (Hursthouse 1987, pp. 107–129).

  17. This case was put to me by an anonymous referee for this journal, whom I thank for pressing me to make the case for my alternative interpretation of Hursthouse’s view.

  18. Note that the latter argument would be a non sequitur if not for her stipulation that any member of a species whose typical, mature individual members have the characteristic human psycho-social capacities has full moral status. Her equation of the moral status of an infant with that of a typical adult human is entailed by her unargued claim.

  19. Glover, Causing Death and Saving Lives (1977), p. 145.

  20. Thomson, A Defense of Abortion (1971), pp. 65–66.

  21. Presumably, practicing contraception throughout one’s adult life would not disrespect human life for her. However, depending on the circumstances, it might manifest a disinclination to grow up and take responsibility for another human being or a failure either to appreciate the opportunity for character-development parenthood affords or the value of family life (Hursthouse 1991, pp. 241–242).

  22. For example, according to the Department of Health in the U.K., 90% of abortions in England and Wales during 2008 were performed on fetuses under 13 weeks of gestation. According to the Centers for Disease Control in the U.S., 88% of abortions in the U.S. during 2005 were carried out on fetuses under 13 weeks; and 87% of abortions carried out in the U.S. during 1984–85 (several years before Beginning Lives was published) were on fetuses under 12 weeks.

  23. The prospects for survival (and escaping serious impairments) have improved very little for extremely premature neonates since Hursthouse wrote her book in 1987. The Nuffield Council on Bioethics in its Critical Care Decisions in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine, pp. 154–155 (2006) recommends that neonates born at 25 weeks or above be given intensive care because of their relatively high survival rate and relatively low risk of serious disabilities. Neonates born between 24 weeks and 24 weeks and 6 days should normally be given life support except when the parents and the pediatrician agree that the particular infant’s condition makes it very unlikely that s/he will benefit from treatment. However, initiation of intensive care for neonates born under 24 weeks is generally considered problematic. The council recommends that the decision whether or not to initiate intensive care for neonates born between 23 weeks and 23 weeks and 6 days be made based on the agreement of a pediatrician, who has assessed the individual infant’s condition, and the desires of the parents. They further recommend that, in light of the dismal prospects, neonates born between 22 weeks and 22 weeks and 6 days should rarely be given intensive care (i.e., only when the parents are insistent after being relevantly informed). Those born below 22 weeks should not be given intensive care except as subjects of experimental research (since they almost certainly will not benefit). Hence, it is still reasonable to set the threshold of viability at 24 weeks. Prior to 24 weeks the prospects for benefitting from treatment are such that life-support is not recommended as standard practice.

  24. At least in this respect, Morriss’s conclusion in his book review that Hursthouse’s virtue analysis is “underdeveloped” is warranted (although this is not one of his putative reasons). See note 2 above.

  25. Derbyshire himself rejects this view. He contends that pain requires cognition (concept-application) in addition to a noxious stimulus and the affective dimension. Hence, he concludes that pain cannot be felt until 12 months of age (post-partem) (Derbyshire 1999, pp. 4, 18–28).

  26. As I argued pages 7–8 above, Hursthouse believes a commonsensical concept of the fetus as a would-be future (or potential) baby suffices.

  27. See, for example, an article from The New York Times: Paul, Feb. 10, 2008.

References

  • Aristotle (1999) Nicomachean Ethics, I, II, III, 6–12, IV, 1, VI, 5–13, translated by Martin Ostwald. Prentice-Hall, Garden City, pp 3–51, 68–89, 152–173

    Google Scholar 

  • Boonin D (2003) A defense of abortion. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 5–7

    Google Scholar 

  • Bower TGR (1982) Development in infancy, 2nd edn. W. H. Freeman and Co, San Francisco, p 259

    Google Scholar 

  • Buckle S (1988) Arguing from potential. Bioethics 2:227–253

    Google Scholar 

  • Burgess JA, Tawia SA (1996) When did you first begin to feel it?—locating the beginning of human consciousness. Bioethics 10:1–26

    Google Scholar 

  • Centers for Disease Control, U.S., Abortion <www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/Data_stats/index.htm#Abortion>

  • Department of Health, U.K., Abortion Statistics, 2008 <www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/Publicationsstatistics/DH_099285>

  • Derbyshire SWG (1999) Locating the beginnings of pain. Bioethics 13:1–31

    Google Scholar 

  • Field T, Woodson R et al (1982) Discrimination and imitation of facial expressions by neonates. Science 218:179–181

    Google Scholar 

  • Field T, Woodson R et al (1983) Discrimination and imitation of facial expressions by term and preterm neonates. Infant Behav Dev 6:485–489

    Google Scholar 

  • Fifer WP, Moon C (1988) Auditory experience in the fetus. In: Smothermon WP, Robinson SR (eds) Behavior of the fetus. The Telford Press, Telford, p 176

    Google Scholar 

  • Fifer WP, Moon C (1995) Effects of fetal experience with sound. In: Leucanet J-P et al (eds) Fetal development: a psychobiological perspective. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Hillsdale, p 356, 361–362

    Google Scholar 

  • Flower MJ (1985) Neuromaturation of the human fetus. J Med Philos 10:237–251

    Google Scholar 

  • Gatens-Robinson E (1992) A defense of women’s choice: abortion and the ethics of care. South J Philos 30:39–66

    Google Scholar 

  • Glover J (1977) Causing death and saving lives. Penguin Books, London, p 145

    Google Scholar 

  • Grobstein C (1988) Science and the unborn: choosing human futures. Basic Books, New York, p 144

    Google Scholar 

  • Hacker-Wright J (2007) Moral status in virtue ethics. Philosophy 82:449–473

    Google Scholar 

  • Hursthouse R (1987) Beginning lives. Basil Blackwell with the Open University, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Hursthouse R (1991) Virtue theory and abortion. Philos Public Aff 20:223–246

    Google Scholar 

  • Hursthouse R (1999) On virtue ethics. Oxford University Press, Oxford, p 28, 198–201

    Google Scholar 

  • Korein J (1997) Ontogenesis of the brain in the human organism. In: Edwards RB (ed) Advances in bioethics: vol. 2, new essays on abortion and bioethics. JAI, London, pp 14–27

    Google Scholar 

  • Meltzoff A, Moore MK (1983) Newborn infants imitate adult facial gestures. Child Dev 54:702–709

    Google Scholar 

  • Morriss P (1989) Review of Rosalind Hursthouse, Beginning Lives. Bioethics 3:67–71

    Google Scholar 

  • Nuffield Council on Bioethics. (2006) Critical Care Decisions in Fetal and Neonatal Medicine, pp. 154–155. <www.nuffieldbiethics.org/filelibrary/pdf/CCD_web_version_22_June_07(update)pdf>

  • Paul AM (2008) The First Ache, The New York Times, Feb. 10, <www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/magazine/10Fetal-t.html>

  • Reiman J (1999) Abortion and the ways we value human life. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, pp 57–59

    Google Scholar 

  • Rovie EM (2002) Abortion: approaches from virtue. Auslegung 25:137–150

    Google Scholar 

  • Sherwin S (1991) Abortion through a feminist ethics lens. Dialogue 30:327–342

    Google Scholar 

  • Strong C (1997) The moral status of preembryos, embryos, fetuses, and infants. J Med Philos 22:457–478

    Google Scholar 

  • Swanton C (1989) Review of Rosalind Hursthouse, Beginning Lives. Australas J Philos 67:109–110

    Google Scholar 

  • Thomson JJ (1971) A defense of abortion. Philos Public Aff 1:47–66

    Google Scholar 

  • Tipton I (1988) Review of Rosalind Hursthouse, Beginning Lives. Philos Books 29:231–234

    Google Scholar 

  • Tooley M (1972) Abortion and infanticide. Philos Public Aff 2:37–65

    Google Scholar 

  • Tooley M (1983) Abortion and infanticide. Oxford University Press, Oxford

    Google Scholar 

  • Wren M (2004) The standing is slippery. Philosophy 79:553–572

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to R. Jo Kornegay.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Kornegay, R.J. Hursthouse’s Virtue Ethics and Abortion: Abortion Ethics without Metaphysics?. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 14, 51–71 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-010-9230-2

Download citation

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-010-9230-2

Keywords

Navigation