Quality Management in Organizations

Introduction In manufacturing as well as the service industry, among the critical success factors includes building in addition to sustaining high performance in organizations. If an organization implements an effective quality management strategy, there is a significant likelihood that the organizational success will be underpinned.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Quality Management in Organizations specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Contemporary organizations have realized the significant number of benefits presented by incorporating an aspect of quality management. The profitability as well as the competitiveness associated with the modern organizations can be largely attributed to quality management. Antony, Escamilla and Caine (2003, p. 40) identifies quality management as an approach whose main focus is to improve, not only quality but performance as well in an effort towards meeting or even exceeding the exp ectations of the customers. Generally, quality assurance entails four major aspects, which include quality assurance, quality control, quality planning in addition to quality improvement. An organization that employs quality management tends to focus on quality and the way in which the quality can be achieved. Therefore, in quality management, not all the four aspects are utilized. Instead, only quality assurance and quality control are emphasized on (Antony, Escamilla Caine 2003, p. 41). Thesis statement The purpose of this paper is to review the manner in which quality management frameworks can generally contribute to the success of an organization. In addition to this, the paper will also focus on identifying and analysing critically how quality management frameworks are applied in an organization. This analysis will be based on management as well as technical systems. Further, the paper will access both the benefits as well as the problems that are likely to be encountered by a n organization with application of six-sigma quality management in the future. Discussion How quality management framework facilitates the success of an organization Foremost, in order to understand how this success comes around, the top management of the organization must ensure that they understand this concept fully. As such, quality management framework is a term commonly used in total quality management to refer to a tool used to facilitate the successful delivery of both products as well as services across the enterprise.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More Guided by the quality management framework, an organization that has implemented total quality management in its system usually operates to its full capacity. On the other hand, an organization that has not yet realized the necessity of quality management does not operate to its full potential (Shenawy, Baker Lemak, 20 07 p. 442). Below are some of the ways in which quality management frameworks facilitate success to an organization. Standardization of processes An organization employing the aspect of total quality management is known to standardize the internal in addition to the external processes. This implies that quality management frameworks provide an allowance of increased efficiencies, that is, faster processes in addition to fewer costs, with regards to introducing new products to the customers. Further, the standardized processes add up to strengthen the techniques used in the supplier management. Moreover, standardized processes, through quality management, enable an organization to effectively control the robust costs. This implies that the overall profits of the organization will be greatly improved. PCI and security compliance In their research, Shenawy, Baker and Lemak (2007, p. 460) found out that quality management framework, when implemented, serves as a key success factor. The reason for this is that through it, an organization is able to ensure that the PCI in addition to security across the lifecycle of a project is entirely complied with. Defining the Lifecycle of a project to be undertaken by an entity helps in coming up with the most viable framework and as such; it helps greatly in implementing the robust security policy. This in turn guarantees success to an organization. When quality management framework is adopted by an entity while making use of artefacts, which have been designed specifically for robust security policy, it follows that there will be an achievement of meaningful improvements in the organization and this implies continued success. Fit for purpose processes Organizations implement quality management frameworks to ensure that the both the internal as well as the external processes are fit for use. The essence of quality management is continuous improvement of processes. This involves continuous checking of the processes and thereby identifying the cause of any flaw within the processes. Through this continuous checking, it implies that the processes will always be free from flaws and this in turn ensures that the processes are always fit for purpose. When an organization’s processes are always fit for purpose, there is no instance where questionable quality of products or under productivity will be reported and this guarantees success in addition to maintaining the competitive advantage of the organization.Advertising We will write a custom essay sample on Quality Management in Organizations specifically for you for only $16.05 $11/page Learn More Sufficiently robust processes Implementation of quality management frameworks ensures that the internal as well as the external processes of an organization are sufficiently robust. This means that the scope or the coverage of the production processes is extensive thus the organization is able to capitalize on any opportunities w hile identifying problems. Further, robust processes utilize the full capacity and potential of the organization while observing the quality and thus maximization of returns. This in turn helps the organization to establish itself among the most financially stable and hence attracting investors at the same time consolidating its credit worthiness status to the financiers. Burdensomeness An organization that has not realized the usefulness of quality management in most cases succumbs due to unproductiveness, inadequate quality as well as constant losses owing to burdensome processes. However, implementing quality management process minimizes or entirely wipes these burdens and hence restoring the competitiveness of an organization. How quality management frameworks are applied in an organization Quality management frameworks, when applied in an organization, entirely focus on the satisfaction of the expectations of the customers, detection of problems, commitment building in addition to promoting contribution of ideas from the employees for the purpose of decision making. Quality management frameworks applies several analytical tools including check sheets as well as statistical chards with an aim of collecting data regarding the activities practiced within the organization. Several techniques are used and these include; brainstorming, nominal groupings in addition to forming of consensus in an effort towards facilitating both the decision making process as well as the communication process (Juran 1995, p. 87). Several organizations have been practicing quality management framework application since it was discovered. However, this has been limitedly done. The process of integrating quality management frameworks not only do it enhance but complements the methodologies used in standard program and assessment model as well. These methodologies are indeed vital as they are considered as mechanisms necessary to establish the strategic directions for an organization . With model standards available, an organization is therefore provided with a rational method in which it can assess its stipulated goals in addition to its potentials with regards to products or service outcomes.Advertising Looking for essay on business economics? Let's see if we can help you! Get your first paper with 15% OFF Learn More An organization that applies quality management frameworks tends to put its entire focus on work processes. In this kind of a focus, several techniques are applied with an aim of improving the production process of the organization and these include both behavioural as well as analytical techniques. Application of quality management frameworks involve use of a series of flow diagrams and therefore aiding in identifying the steps followed in the production process of an organization. Further, the factors perceived to be the chief contributor to delays in the process are also identified. Apart from this, application of quality management frameworks allows an organization to not only identify but try various steps to improve the production process in addition to monitoring the results in an effort towards the attainment of improvements, which is continuous in nature. In this kind of an application, there is a fundamental challenge surfaced and this concerns the utilization of internal standards of performan and Lemak (2007, p. 471) established that, while the utilization of standards of performance is considered to be the initial point of total quality management, quality management process, which is continuous a continuous process, surpasses the conformity to standards of management. Application of quality management frameworks requires the top management conduct a systematic analysis of the entire work performed by the employees in and for the organization. During this analysis, the emphasis point should be the horizontal integration of both the services as well as products across the present program areas in the organization. The process improvement is usually based not only on processes but outcomes as well. An organization must exhibit that it has the capabilities of improving the problem solving capacity in a constant manner while making use of leverages such as performance standards during the process of improvement (Henderson Evans, 2000, p. 260). Applic ation of quality management frameworks requires that the intended change be based on both the needs as well as the desires of the organization’s customers as in addition to the needs of the employees involved in the entire organizational process. The application also requires that all personnel levels participate actively. Particularly, the application of these frameworks in an organization requires the top management respond to the ideas suggested by the participating personnel quite rapidly and in a thoughtful manner. The quality management framework’s application requires that the participating personnel have a clear in addition to precise understanding of the process of the work involved as well as how it relates to the larger system. It is necessary that there be an analysis of the process and it should be done in a rigorous manner. Also, evaluation of each and every activity should be done provided that the organizational process is ongoing. The application of th e framework further requires the recognition in addition to application of all the underlying psycho-social principles which, according to the findings of Wyper Harrison (2000, p. 720), affects individuals as well as groups in an organization. Quality management frameworks require the acceptance of the fundamental assumption that most problems faced in organizations does not arise out of errors by employees but due to the inability of the system, which the entire personnel of the organization must function within, to perform sufficiently. While model standards put strategic production outcomes objectives as the major focus in addition to stakeholders as the ultimate organization clients, quality management frameworks are used to examine each and every link in the production process involved in order to attain production objectives (Sila 2007, p. 100). In the application of quality management frameworks, the main challenge to the top management team is to spend both time as well as energy extensively rather than assuring adherence to stipulated performance standards in an effort towards facilitation in addition to assurance of continued improvements with regard to the various interrelated production processes that are the duties of the various departments in the organization (Henderson Evans, 2000, p. 275). Six-sigma approach to quality management Six-sigma, as used in quality management, is used to describe a measure of quality known to drive an organization to reach near perfection state. Usually, it is an approach, which is disciplined in addition to being data driven. Further, it entails methodologies through which defects and flaws in a process are eliminated. Wyper Harrison (2000, p. 727) acknowledged that six-sigma approach to quality management involves an aspect of quality management that is project driven in an effort towards improving both the products as well as the services of an organization in addition to processes used in producing them. The approach focuses entirely on reducing the defects in an organization in a continuous manner. It is referred by many analysts as a business strategy that advocates the improvement of understanding of all the customer requirements. Further, the approach also tends to focus on improvement of a business system, the productivity of the business and the performance especially the financial performance. Benefits, obstacles, and future of six sigma application Benefits The benefits of applying six-sigma approach to quality management vary with different sectors. Manufacturing sector Application of six-sigma approach to quality management causes both savings as well as reduction of defects in several processes. For instance, it causes a great reduction of defect levels in the manufacturing process. With regard to aircraft integration systems, the time allocated for the maintenance of the depot is also ideally reduced. In organizations involved with leasing business, the turnaround time spent at repair facilities are also reduced significantly (Lin 2007, p. 315). For businesses involved with shipments, the time for concept-to-shipment cycle is also reduced. Financial sector For businesses in the financial sector, application of six-sigma quality management leads to increased savings (Lin 2007, p. 320). Health sector The principles of six sigma approach to quality management match absolutely well with health care service. This is because; health care encompasses an aspect of zero tolerance with regard to mistakes as well as medical errors. Engineering and construction field Implementation of six-sigma approach to management leads to savings in this sector. These savings are realized due to the effective identification as well as prevention of reworks and defects in each and every construction process ranging from designing to on-time delivery of the payrolls to the employees (Gloet 2006, p. 405). Research and development In the research and development sector, the goals mainly focused include reduction of costs and speed to market increase in addition to the improvement of research and development processes. In order to identify the degree of the effectiveness of six-sigma, it is necessary that the organization puts a focus on reviews, which are data driven, as well as integration of research and development into the stipulated work processes among other focus aspects. Problems There are several problems associated with implementation of six sigma approach to quality management. Problems in strategy For a considerable time, six-sigma has been under criticism and subject to controversies. Indeed, some critics call it Quality management on steroids. Critics argue that there is nothing innovative new ideas advanced by the approach. Instead, it is only a rendition of traditional techniques associated with quality. Indeed, this kind of an approach is not really the answer to the entire diverse issues that face a business. In order to ensure that the app roach is sustainable for a considerable period of time going into the future, an organization must not only analyse the approach’s strengths and weaknesses but accept them as well. Problems in the culture of an organization Rather than just concentrating on monitoring quality at the manufacturing phase, there is a need to embed quality concept into the designing phase. In quality management, change of organizational culture is the most important point to consider since it waylays quality into planning (Evans Lindsay, 1995, p. 59). There is no point of addressing only those issues that can be easily corrected and then claim that six-sigma approach to quality management is viable. Indeed, this is a clear deception. There is a big likelihood of failure for those organizations whose management has not fully understood the problems of the approach. A strong commitment in addition to support as well as leadership exhibited by the top management team are among the vital considerati ons to effectively deal with cultural differences or issues, which are largely associated with the implementation of the six-sigma approach (Evans Lindsay, 1995, p. 55). Issues evident in training In the implementation of this approach to quality management, training serves as an essential aspect. Indeed, it should be incorporated as part of an integrated approach during the implementation process. The training program ought to be customized in order to have both the managerial as well as economic benefits incorporated. According to the findings of a research conducted by Johnson Swisher (2003, p. 12), it was established that challenges that surface during the implementation of six-sigma projects are responsible for the selection of employees identified by having less capabilities. Conclusion From this analysis, it is evidently clear that the aspect of quality management, if implemented in an organization, plays a significant role in ensuring that the organization maintains its co mpetitive nature while enjoying superior returns on investments, that is, profits. In order to comprehensively in addition to successfully implement quality management so that the underlain benefits can be realized, the organization should be centered on the customer while accepting the fact that employees are not a means to an end but rather assets to the company. Focus on the customers can only be done through ensuring improvements throughout the organization and therefore deriving quality which a customer desires (Antony, Escamilla Caine 2003, p. 42). Quality management entails improvement of the production process. As such, according to this analysis and as Johnson Swisher (2003, p. 15) found out, it is only through detection of flaws in the production process that improvements can be made. He further assets that the detection of problems should be a continuous process and ultimately, a great deal of quality will have been ensured and the benefits of quality management will ha ve surfaced. References Antony, J, Escamilla, JL Caine, P 2003, ‘Lean Sigma’, Manufacturing Engineer, Vol. 82 no. 4, pp. 40–42. Evans, JR Lindsay, WM 1995, The management and control of quality, West Publishing, New York, NY. Gloet, M 2006, ‘Knowledge Management and the Links to HRM Developing Leadership and Management Capabilities to Support Sustainability’, Manage. Res, Vol. 29 no. 7, pp. 402-413 Henderson, KM Evans, JR 2000, ‘Successful implementation of six sigma: benchmarking general electric company benchmarking’, An International Journal, Vol. 7 no. 4, pp. 260–281 Johnson, A Swisher, B 2003, ‘How six sigma improves RD’, Research Technology Management, Vol, 46 no. 2, pp. 12–15. Juran, JM 1995, A History of Managing for Quality, ASQC Quality Press, Milwaukee, WI. Lin, HF 2007, ‘Knowledge sharing and firm innovation capability: an empirical study’, Int. J. Manpower, Vol. 28 no. 4, pp. 315-3 32 Shenawy, EE, Baker, I, Lemak, DJ 2007, ‘A metal-analysis of the effect of TQM on competitive advantage’, Int. J. Qual. Reliability Mange, Vol. 24 no. 5, pp. 442-471 Sila, I 2007, ‘Examining the effects of contextual factors on TQM and performance through the lens of organizational theories: An empirical study’, American Journal of Management. Vol, 25 no. 1, pp. 83-109 Wyper, B Harrison, A 2000, ‘Deployment of six sigma methodology in human resource function: a case study’, Total Quality Management and Business Excellence, Vol. 11 no. 4, pp. 720–727. This essay on Quality Management in Organizations was written and submitted by user Sage to help you with your own studies. You are free to use it for research and reference purposes in order to write your own paper; however, you must cite it accordingly. You can donate your paper here.

How Teachers Should Rethink the Summer Work Packet

How Teachers Should Rethink the Summer Work Packet Simply stated: Summer vacation has a negative impact on academic performance. In the book  Influences And Effect Sizes Related To Student Achievement  (updated 2016) by John Hattie and Greg Yates,  39 studies  were used  to rank the effect of summer vacation on student achievement. The findings using this data  are posted on the  Visible Learning  website. They noted that  summer vacation has one of the greatest negative effects (  -.02 effect) on student learning. To combat this negative impact, many teachers in middle and high schools are encouraged to create discipline-specific summer assignment packets. These packets are an attempt to equalize academic practice for all students during summer  vacation. The summer assignment packets that teachers distribute at the end of a school year are designed for students to practice  a few hours every week  throughout the summer. What happens in reality, however, is that completing the summer packet often turns into a  contentious activity. Students may wait until the last possible moment to do schoolwork or lose the packet entirely. Additionally, depending on the grade level, subject, or teacher, summer work packets vary in quality, length, and intensity. Examples of high school summer assignments on the Internet vary from two pages of geometry that can be completed online to  22 pages of geometry problems that must be downloaded to complete. Multiple Advanced Placement courses, such as AP English Literature, show the disparity in summer assignments with some schools offering a choice (Read three novels from this list) to a required five novels matched with pages and pages of worksheets. There is no standardized summer assignment packet for middle and high schools. Who Complains About Summer Assignment Packets? Complaints against the assigned summer work packets come from each of the stakeholders: parents, teachers, and students. Their complaints are understandable. Parents may  argue for freedom from summer assignment packets suggesting that â€Å"My child needs a break,† or  Ã¢â‚¬Å"Why must we do this to students every summer?† or This is more work for me than for my child! Teachers are not happy to begin the school year with a pile of summer assignment papers to grade. Despite their best intentions in creating the packets, they do not want to start the year collecting or chasing students for summer assignment work.   Harris Cooper,  chairman of the department of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, addressed these  concerns in his brief essay Forgotten on Vacation. His response was featured in  an editorial debate in the New York Times titled  The Crush of Summer Homework  in which several prominent educators were asked their opinions on summer assignments. Cooper was one who chose to respond as to how parents can meet the demands of the summer assignment packet: Parents, if the assignments are clear and reasonable, support the teachers. When your child says I’m bored (what parent hasn’t heard this on a rainy summer day?) suggest they work on an assignment. He also responded to the concerns of teachers: My advice? Teachers, you need to be careful about what and how much summer homework you assign. Summer homework shouldn’t be expected to overcome a student’s learning deficits; that’s what summer school is for. However, in another response, What Low Achievers Need,  Tyrone Howard, associate professor at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, suggested that summer assignment packets do not work. He offered an alternative to the summer assignment packet:   A better approach than homework is to have more intensive, small learning community-type summer school programs that last four to six weeks. Many educators who contributed to the NY Times debate   The Crush of Summer Homework  viewed summer assignments as  a measure of accountability or student responsibility rather than an academic practice. They argued that many of the students who do not complete homework assignments as academic practice during the school year are unlikely to complete summer assignments. Missing or incomplete work is reflected in student grades, and missing or incomplete summer assignments can damage a students grade point average (GPA). For example, some of the summer work assignments posted for high school students on the Internet include warnings, such as: Certain mathematical practice packets may take more than one day to complete. Dont wait until the last minute!The teacher will personally consult with the student and/or parent if  the student does not hand in the summer work packet on the first day of class.This work will be 3% of your first quarter grade. 10 points will be deducted for each day it is late. Seeing the impact on a students GPA for incomplete or missing summer work, many educators argue, If teachers cannot get students to turn in homework during the school year, especially when they see them every day, what is the chance that these summer work assignments will be completed? Student Complaints But  students are the  most vocal group arguing against the summer assignment packet.    The question  Should students be given summer homework?  was featured on  Ã‚  Debate.org.   18% Students say Yes to summer assignments82% Students say No  to summer assignments Comments from the debate arguing against summer assignments included: Summer homework takes around 3 days and it feels like the whole summer  (7th grade student).Mostly summer homework is just a review so you dont really learn anything. Im going into 8th grade and Im not learning anything its all a review for me.If a student really wants to learn, they will do extra work, without it being assigned.The homework should just be suggestions, to stop students from stressing out over work that probably wont even be checked. In contrast, there were some students who saw value in summer assignments, but most of these comments reflected the attitudes of students who already expected additional work from their advanced level classes. I, for example, am going to be enrolling in an Advanced Literature course next year and have been assigned two books to read this summer, an essay to write... this pushes me to find out more information about the subject matter that will be in the course. While students who take the advanced level (Advanced Placement, honors,  International Baccalaureate, or college credit courses) like the one above fully expect to engage in an academic practice, there are other students who do not see the importance keeping their academic skills sharp.  While a summer packet is designed to help all students, regardless of ability, the  student who may not complete the work may be the very student who most needs the practice. No Buy-in from Students In an interview posted on Great Schools,  Denise Pope, senior lecturer at the Stanford University School of Education and co-founder of  Challenge Success, a research, and student-intervention project, agrees that the months off for summer vacation is too long a time for students to not do anything, but she expressed concern stating  I’m not sure this idea of giving workbooks and pages and pages of handouts works.†Ã‚  Her reason for why summer assignments may not work?  No student buy-in: â€Å"In order for any learning to be retained, there has to be engagement on the part of the students.† She explained that students must be intrinsically motivated to complete the systematic practice that is designed for the summer assignments. Without student motivation, an adult must monitor the work, which according to Pope, puts a burden more on the parents.† What Does Work? Reading! One of the best research-based recommendations for summer assignments is to assign reading. Rather than spending the time to create and then grade a summer assignment packet that may or may not be done at all, educators should be encouraged to assign reading. This reading can be discipline specific, but by far, the best way to have students maintain academic skills during the summer-at every grade level- is to encourage their motivation to read. Offering students choice  in reading can improve their motivation and participation. In a meta-analysis titled  Reading Takes You Places: A Study of a Web-based Summer Reading Program,  Ya-Ling Lu, and Carol Gordon recorded ways that student choice in reading increased engagement which led to improved academic achievement. In the study the traditionally required reading lists of classics were replaced with   recommendations based on several of the following  research-based guidelines: 1. People who say they read more read better (Krashen 2004), therefore the primary purpose of the [summer] program is to encourage students to read more.2. In order to encourage students to read more, the primary purpose of summer reading is reading for fun rather than for academic purposes.3. Student choice is an important element in reading engagement (Schraw et al. 1998) including the choice to pursue personal reading interests.4. Materials and materials access can be Web-based (Note:  92% of teens report going online daily - including 24% who say they go online â€Å"almost constantly,† Pew  Research Center) The results showed an increase in student motivation and engagement, leading to improved academic performance. Summer Packets vs. Reading Despite the research  that proves motivation and systemic practice must be in place for summer assignment packets to help the student,  many teachers, particularly at the middle and high school levels, will still assign summer work packets. Their time and effort, however, may be better spent assigning reading in their content area, and where possible, offering student choice in reading. While summer vacation allows students to have time to play and to relax, why  not encourage students to practice over the summer the kind of academic practice that reinforces a life-long critical skill, the skill of reading? Additional Research on Summer Reading: Allington, Richard.  Summer Reading: Closing the Rich/Poor Reading Achievement Gap.  NY:  Teachers College Press, 2012. Fairchild, Ron. Summer: A Season When Learning is Essential. Afterschool Alliance. Center for Summer Learning. 2008. Web. afterschoolalliance.org/issue_briefs/issue_summer_33.pdf Kim, Jimmy. â€Å"Summer Reading and the Ethnic Achievement Gap.† Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk (JESPAR). 2004. Web. ala.org/research/librariesmatter/node/161 Krashen, Stephen. Free Reading. Pasco School District. School Library Journal. 2006. Web. psd1.org/cms/lib4/WA01001055/centricity/domain/34/admin/free reading (2).pdf National Summer Learning Association. n.d.  summerlearning.org/about-nsla/ Report of the National Reading Panel: Findings and Determinations of the National Reading Panel by Topic Areas.† National Institute of Health. 2006. Web. https://www.nichd.nih.gov/publications/pubs/nrp/Pages/findings.aspx

The Case for Open Heart Surgery at Cabarrus Memorial Hospital Research Paper

The Case for Open Heart Surgery at Cabarrus Memorial Hospital - Research Paper Example Discuss ways the program does or does not comply with the hospital’s mission First, the availability of the open heart surgery program should be reviewed. In fact, it is available in 11 counties in North Carolina, however, it is not offered in the primary operational area, the CMH involves. Actually, this can be regarded as a key decisive factor for extending the range of procedures. Considering the hospital’s mission, it should be emphasized that the hospital has the sufficient base for heart surgery and therapy; therefore, the open heart program will lower the risks for the patients, who need angioplastry, and other invasive therapies. Considering the planned expansion of the hospital, the open heart surgery program is required for attracting experienced heart surgeons as well, while the lack of experts may be regarded as a stop factor. Considering the necessity to review the mission, the CMH will have to consider several additional aspects for launching the program. Therefore, the program will need some amendments, such as including output measurements, integrating the emergency practices into the new program, as well as differentiate responsibilities of the entire team. (Courtney, 2008) These amendments require the in-depth restructuring of the strategic approaches applied, as well as improving the implementation control schemes. Therefore, the mission of the hospital will have to be oriented at several aspects: 1. Patients’ satisfaction 2. Qualification improvement of the personnel (including training courses and experience exchanges) 3. Resolving legislative issues (medical insurance, new program formalities, etc.) Analyze whether or not CMH has sufficient infrastructure and financial resources / leverage necessary to add the program As it is stated in the case study description, the hospital has sufficie nt financial resources for rearranging the space, purchasing equipment, and employing additional personnel. (Swayne, Duncan and Ginter, 2008) Nevertheless, there is a lack of experienced personal expected. Therefore, as it is emphasized in the discussion, the hospital has only one invasive cardiologist, while the other experts are either interns, or non-invasive cardiologists. Therefore, the hospital will have to resolve the problem of finding the experienced personnel, for launching the open heart surgery program. Nevertheless, this could be regarded as the only serious threat for implementing it. On the other hand, the CMH will have to redesign the overall control management in order to launch the open heart surgery program. In accordance with the research by Scharer (2005), such a redesign may be performed by considering the engineering approach to measure and calculate the possible workload. These measures are required for adapting the HR strategy to the new working approaches, associated with launching the new program. However, such a shift will also require applying organizational development approach concentrated on the proper team building principles, since proper recruiting, and necessity for coordinated team work is essential for health care strategic management. Describe the competitive situation among other area hospitals that could impact the decision On the one hand, the CMH has an opportunity to become the first clinic in the county, offering the open heart surgery program. On the other hand, in accordance with the case description, the lack of the experienced personnel is essential, and some experts have been already gained by other clinics of the State. (Swayne, Duncan

Diversity Boing Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Diversity Boing - Essay Example Moreover, systemic changes to the way in which the Boeing culture existed and the way in which it currently exists were also required. As a means of tracking these changes and making key observations concerning them, the following analysis will engage the reader with a level of understanding concerning the way in which diversity was motivated and the ways in which it was implemented within Boeing. Further, a brief summary and reflective statement will be provided at the end of this assignment as a means of classifying and categorizing the utility that working as a part of the group dynamic was able to have with regards to better understanding the case study and the many factors associated with it. As Boeing’s upper management and senior stakeholders began to realize that their firm’s hope of long-term success hinged upon the ability to integrate with the outside world, a brief internal audit revealed the fact that diversity within the firm’s design and production elements was ultimately extraordinarily low (Mecham, 2002). As such, in order to appeal to a more broad demographic and come more in line with the globalized nature of an increasingly diverse society and world, Boeing saw the immediate need to seek to diversify its staff. Whereas many firms realize this particular need and slowly make moves to see this happen over time, Boeing initiated an aggressive diversity strategy that hinged upon seeking out the most qualified applicants while keeping in mind the unique levels of diversity that the firm required. This two-pronged approach was effective in the fact that it did not place either ability or diversity as the prime goal for the firm. In such a way, the expertise and focus of the firm was able to be maintained while a subtle yet decisive change to company culture was initiated. Moreover, even a cursory level of analysis with regards to the way in which diversity takes place indicates the fact that sudden rapid changes with regards t o diversity and/or diversity implementation within a culture can oftentimes be negatively received by the stakeholders. Realizing this, Boeing set out to engage a slower and more gradual approach that would seek to replace outgoing talent with a more diverse workforce; while at the same time reinforcing the mores and norms of diversity appreciation within the culture of the firm. This nuanced approach proved to be highly effective as the company was not only able to continue to operate in a profitable manner domestically; it was also able to continue the march towards global success by providing its international clients with the products and services they required. This is a testament to the success of Boeing’s diversity is the fact that the firm championed this goal alongside the vision and mission statements that had already proven to be so effective in helping to garner profitability to the Boeing firm (Holmes, 2003). Without inherently changing the scope of activities an d/or the expertise that it had already accrued over the years of successful business implementation, Boeing was able to chart a somewhat distinct approach to the future. Looking all the way into the present era, it can be noted that Boeing exhibits a very high degree of diversity within an aerospace company that

Comparisons & Careers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words

Comparisons & Careers - Essay Example local, public health aims to prevent disease, promote population health, and prolong life through organized community or group efforts (Beaglehole & Bonita, 2009, 2). Thus, it is essential to study the individual population health of each country in order to understand the global public health of the United States. To have a comparison of public health among other countries and the United States, the author selected Kenya’s health data. Kenya is located in the African region and the health metrics used both in Kenya and United States’ health data are for 2009. From the global perspective, 50% must be the global average of population living in urban areas. Kenya has less than global average of people living in the urban areas (22%) while the United States is far above the global average (82%). Meanwhile, United States has greater life expectancy (81 years) than Kenya (62 years) from a global perspective of 71 years (WHO, 2012, n.p.). Other health metrics are also observed, particularly those of mortality rates among children, adult risk factors, availability of health workforce, and inequities in health care. Surprisingly, the author found strikingly deviations between two countries and the global perspective of public health. For instance, health metrics of Kenya revealed that the population has higher mortality rates than U.S. in children under five years old, adult, pregnant women, and those with HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. Kenya’s morality rates of 63 cases of HIV per 1,000 population aged 15-49 years and the 283 cases of tuberculosis per 100,000 population have caught the attention of the author as communicable diseases are more prevalent in Kenya (76) than in U.S. (9) while non-communicable diseases are more prevalent in U.S. (72) than in Kenya (14) (WHO, 2012, n.p.). In addition, the author found out that there are 360 deaths per 100,000 population due to maternal-related causes which calls for exte nsive need to address this health problem. Other

Estimation of Importance of Web Pages for Web Crawlers

Estimation of Importance of Web Pages for Web Crawlers

Object Oriented Development :: essays research papers

BSA400 – Week 3 Individual Paper University of Phoenix, Online Object Oriented Development   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   When I first started learning how to write code, I had never heard the term â€Å"Object Oriented Development†, or even â€Å"Object Oriented Modeling.† I’m sure that some form of both of these existed, but they might not have been referred to in exactly those words. Fifteen years of coding later, I was finally indoctrinated in the ways of object oriented development.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  The first language that I learned to use was BASIC, which was very simple and easy to learn. There were no objects per se, and the code was pretty much written from the top down. Now that I understand the mechanics of object oriented development, I can see that there were parts of the language that could be considered objects, especially from a design point of view. Even though most of my programs were written from the top down and were executed from the top down, a lot of them incorporated logic that was reused multiple times. Blocks of code that contained that logic could usually be segregated from the rest of the code. Instead of appearing multiple times, these blocks would be written only once, but â€Å"called† multiple times.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After BASIC, the next language that I learned was Pascal, named after the seventeenth century French mathematician. Compared to BASIC, Pascal was a much more organized language, with the code separated into actual blocks demarcated with â€Å"BEGIN† and â€Å"END† statements. Against my instructor’s wishes, as well as popular programming practice, I still coded from the top down. I suppose this would have been an issue if I was entering code on punch cards. Luckily, though, these programs were all on monitors, so I could go back and forth through the document, correcting errors and changing the code where necessary.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After Pascal, I learned a few more languages, slowly realizing that maybe it wasn’t a great idea to always code from the top down. Another bad habit that I was slowly trying to rid myself of was writing code without a design document. A design document can be written in either plain English or pseudo code. With plain English, I would just write out what each part of the program should do, and then translate those concepts into code. Pseudo code is a cross between plain English and full code, using elements of both. Even though it might not be easily readable by someone without a working knowledge of that particular language, a lot of the time it could be figured out fairly quickly.

Immanuel Kant Essay

HYPERLINK â€Å"http://www. philosophypages. com/ph/kant. htm† Immanuel Kant answers the question in the first sentence of the essay: â€Å"Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-incurred immaturity. † He argues that the immaturity is self-inflicted not from a lack of understanding, but from the lack of courage to use one’s reason, intellect, and wisdom without the guidance of another. He exclaims that the motto of enlightenment is â€Å"Sapere aude†! – Dare to be wise! The German word Unmundigkeit means not having attained age of majority or legal adulthood. â€Å"Unmundig† also means â€Å"dependent† or â€Å"unfree†, and another translation is â€Å"tutelage† or â€Å"nonage† (the condition of â€Å"not [being] of age†). Kant, whose moral philosophy is centred around the concept of autonomy, here distinguishes between a person who is intellectually autonomous and one who keeps him/herself in an intellectually heteronomous, i. e. dependent and immature status. Kant understands the majority of people to be content to follow the guiding institutions of society, such as the Church and the Monarchy, and unable to throw off the yoke of their immaturity due to a lack of resolution to be autonomous. It is difficult for individuals to work their way out of this immature, cowardly life because we are so uncomfortable with the idea of thinking for ourselves. Kant says that even if we did throw off the spoon-fed dogma and formulas we have absorbed, we would still be stuck, because we have never â€Å"cultivated our minds. † The key to throwing off these chains of mental immaturity is reason. There is hope that the entire public could become a force of free thinking individuals if they are free to do so. Why? There will always be a few people, even among the institutional â€Å"guardians†, who think for themselves. They will help the rest of us to â€Å"cultivate our minds. † Kant shows himself a man of his times when he observes that â€Å"a revolution may well put an end to autocratic despotism . . . or power-seeking oppression, but it will never produce a true reform in ways of thinking. † The recently completed American Revolution had made a great impression in Europe; Kant cautions that new prejudice will replace the old and become a new leash to control the â€Å"great unthinking masses. † Immanuel Kant’s Ideas on Science and Morality According to the 18th-century German thinker Immanuel Kant, no person may possess inherent wisdom about reality. This is best summarized in the philosopher’s famous expression, â€Å"Thoughts without content are empty; intuitions without data are blind. † Indeed, Kant believes that in order for us to utilize our sensible intuition, we must possess two stimuli, â€Å"physical sensation† and â€Å"moral duty. † The first of the two addresses a portion of Kantian thought known as â€Å"empirical realism,† a reasoning that defines that absolute reality as the entire universe in which all human beings dwell. Every time we acquire external data from that absolute reality, our perception of it assumes a greater degree of accuracy. And what would be the optimal way of acquiring such data with only minimal if any contact with other persons’ perceptions (which are, like ours, inaccurate, only in different ways, since each human being possesses a unique arsenal of experiences)? Scientific exploration is, therefore, the key to an ultimate comprehension of things-in-themselves. Kant was a fervent admirer of Newtonian thought and the Scientific Method, which permitted scientists to ascend to unprecedented heights in their understanding of and control over nature. The second stimulus to action, moral duty, provides the explanation for the purpose of all human actions toward the comprehension of the universe. This portion of Kant’s doctrine has been dubbed by the philosopher as â€Å"transcendental idealism,† since it establishes a framework outside the natural world upon which correct actions are based. Kant sees the ultimate virtues to be the attempts to reach three goals which are not yet found in reality, God, freedom, and the immortality of individuals. God, the Creator and Supreme Being of the universe, must be fathomed, properly interpreted, and obeyed in accordance with his true desires. Freedom, the individual liberty to act as one wishes and to grant all others this right, must be instituted through societal reforms and a development of ideology to understand the proper order that would establish such an atmosphere. And, at last, every human being must rise to possess the right to exist for an indefinite length of time that he may 1 / 3 obey the commandments of God and practice his freedoms. Kant states that all which is right and moral must be based upon those three principles. As such, Kant separates the scientific realm (which describes what is) from the moral realm (which explains what ought to be), but he considers these two realms to go hand-in-hand — ultimately advocating putting the scientific realm in service to moral one. Kant: The â€Å"Copernican Revolution† in Philosophy The philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) is sometimes called the â€Å"Copernican revolution of philosophy† to emphasize its novelty and huge importance. Kant synthesized (brought together) rationalism and empiricism. After Kant, the old debate between rationalists and empiricists ended, and epistemology went in a new direction. After Kant, no discussion of reality or knowledge could take place without awareness of the role of the human mind in constructing reality and knowledge. Summary of Rationalism The paradigm rationalist philosophers are Plato (ancient); Descartes, Spinoza, Leibniz (modern). Don’t trust senses, since they sometimes deceive; and since the â€Å"knowledge† they provide is inferior (because it changes). Reason alone can provide knowledge. Math is the paradigm of real knowledge. There are innate ideas, e. g. , Plato’s Forms, or Descartes’ concepts of self, substance, and identity. The self is real and discernable through immediate intellectual intuition (cogito ergo sum). Moral notions are comfortably grounded in an objective standard external to self — in God, or Forms. Kant says rationalists are sort of right about (3) and (4) above; wrong about (1) and (2). Kant would like (5) to be true. Summary of Empiricism The paradigm empiricist philosophers are Aristotle (ancient); Locke, Berkeley, Hume (modern). Senses are the primary, or only, source of knowledge of world. Psychological atomism. Mathematics deals only with relations of ideas (tautologies); gives no knowledge of world. No innate ideas (though Berkeley accepts Cartesian self). General or complex ideas are derived by abstraction from simple ones (conceptualism). Hume — there’s no immediate intellectual intuition of self. The concept of â€Å"Self† is not supported by sensations either. Hume — no sensations support the notion of necessary connections between causes and effects, or the notion that the future will resemble the past. Hume — â€Å"is† does not imply â€Å"ought†. Source of morality is feeling. Kant thinks empiricism is on the right track re (1), sort of right re (2), wrong re (3), (4), (5), and (6). Summary of Kant’s Argument The epistemological debate between rationalism and empiricism is basically about whether, or to what extent the senses contribute to knowledge. Both rationalism and empiricism take for granted that it’s possible for us to acquire knowledge of Reality, or how things really are, as opposed to how they seem to us. But both rationalism and empiricism overlook the fact that the human mind is limited; it can experience and imagine only within certain constraints. These constraints are both synthetic and a priori. All our possible experience must conform to these SAPs. The SAPs include location in space and time, causality, experiencing self, thing-ness, identity, and various mathematical notions. (Twentieth- century Gestalt psychology’s attack on psychological atomism is based on Kant’s views. ) Therefore, we must distinguish the world we experience, bounded by SAPs, and the world of things as they really are â€Å"in themselves†. Kant calls these two worlds the phenomenal (apparent) world versus the noumenal (real) world. Empiricism pretty much nails what it means to know something, once the SAPs are in place; i. e. , within the phenomenal world, empiricism rules. The phenomenal world is a world of things, publicly observable, describable by science, known to the senses, determined by physical laws. No God, no 2 / 3 freedom, no soul, no values exist in this world. If God, freedom, souls, and values exist, then they must be noumenal and unknowable by any ordinary means. Thus, according to Kant: Both rationalism and empiricism are wrong when they claim that we can know things in themselves. Rationalists are wrong not to trust senses; in the phenomenal world, senses are all we have. Rationalists are right about â€Å"innate ideas†, but not in Plato’s sense of Forms— much more like Descartes’ in argument of the wax. Hume is wrong when he claims the concept of self is unsupported by senses, and thus bogus. Rather, the experiencing self is a pre-condition for having any experience at all (Descartes was right). Hume is wrong when he says the notion that the future will resemble the past is due only to â€Å"custom and habit†. That notion is a SAP; we couldn’t have ordinary experience without it. Hume is wrong when he says the source of morality is feeling. Morality, properly understood, provides the key to linking the noumenal and phenomenal worlds. Kant argues that if morality is real, then human freedom is real, and therefore humans are not merely creatures of the phenomenal world (not merely things subject to laws). Ramifications of Kant’s Views Kant revolutionized philosophy. Kant showed that the mind, through its innate categories, constructs our experience along certain lines (space, time, causality, self, etc. ). Thus, thinking and experiencing give no access to things as they really are. We can think as hard as we like, but we will never escape the innate constraints of our minds. Kant forced philosophy to look seriously at the world for the agent (what Kant calls the phenomenal world) independently of the real world outside consciousness – the world in itself (the noumenal world). Ethics had long recognized the importance for moral evaluation of â€Å"how things seem to the agent. † But the ramifications of Kant’s noumenal-phenomenal distinction extend far beyond ethics. Philosophers like to take credit for all the big events in 19th century intellectual history as direct consequences of Kant’s philosophical legitimizing of the perspective of the subject: Hegel and German idealism, Darwinism, Romanticism, pragmatism, Marxism, the triumph of utilitarianism, Nietzsche, and the establishment of psychology as a science, especially Gestalt psychology. Phenomena and NoumenaHaving seen Kant’s transcendental deduction of the categories as pure concepts of the understanding applicable a priori to every possible experience, we might naturally wish to ask the further question whether these regulative principles are really true. Are there substances? Does every event have a cause? Do all things interact? Given that we must suppose them in order to have any experience, do they obtain in the world itself? To these further questions, Kant firmly refused to offer any answer. According to Kant, it is vital always to distinguish between the distinct realms of phenomena and noumena. Phenomena are the appearances, which constitute the our experience; noumena are the (presumed) things themselves, which constitute reality. All of our synthetic a priori judgments apply only to the phenomenal realm, not the noumenal. (It is only at this level, with respect to what we can experience, that we are justified in imposing the structure of our concepts onto the objects of our knowledge. ) Since the thing in itself (Ding an sich) would by definition be entirely independent of our experience of it, we are utterly ignorant of the noumenal realm. Thus, on Kant’s view, the most fundamental laws of nature, like the truths of mathematics, are knowable precisely because they make no effort to describe the world as it really is but rather prescribe the structure of the world as we experience it. By applying the pure forms of sensible intuition and the pure concepts of the understanding, we achieve a systematic view of the phenomenal realm but learn nothing of the noumenal realm. Math and science are certainly true of the phenomena; only metaphysics claims to instruct us about the noumena. POWERED BY TCPDF (WWW. TCPDF. ORG).

Abortion Is Immoral 2 Essays

Abortion Is Immoral 2 Essays Abortion Is Immoral 2 Essay Abortion Is Immoral 2 Essay JSTORs Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at jstor. org/action/showPublisher? publisherCode=jphil. Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printed page of such transmission. JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [emailprotected] org. Journal of Philosophy, Inc. s collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Journal of Philosophy. jstor. org WHY ABORTION IS IMMORAL 183 WHY ABORTION IS IMMORAL T n HE view that abortion is, with rare exceptions, seriouslyim- moral has received little support in the recent philosophical literature. No doubt most philosophers affiliated with secular institutions of higher education believe that the anti-abortion position is either a symptom of irrational religious dogma or a conclusion generated by seriously confused philosophical argument. The purpose of this essay is to undermine this general belief. This essay sets out an argument that purports to show, as well as any argument in ethics can show, that abortion is, except possibly in rare cases, seriously immoral, that it is in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being. The argument is based on a major assumption. Many of the most insightful and careful writers on the ethics of abortion-such as Joel Feinberg, Michael Tooley, Mary Anne Warren, H. Tristram Engelhardt, Jr. , L. W. Sumner, John T. Noonan, Jr. and Philip Devinebelieve that whether or not abortion is morally permissible stands or falls on whether or not a fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end. The argument of this essay will assume, but not argue, that they are correct. Also, this essay will neglect issues of great importance to a complete ethics of abortion. Some anti-abortionists will allow that certain abortions, such as abortion before implantation or abortion when the life of a woman is threatened by a pregnancy or abortion after rape, may be morally permissible. This essay will not explore the casuistry of these hard cases. The purpose of this essay is to develop a general argument for the claim that the overwhelming majority of deliberate abortions are seriously immoral. I. A sketch of standard anti-abortion and pro-choice arguments exhibits how those arguments possess certain symmetries that explain why partisans of those positions are so convinced of the correctness of their own positions, why they are not successful in convincing Feinberg, Abortion, in Matters of Life and Death: New Introductory Essays in Moral Philosophy, Tom Regan, ed. New York: Random House, 1986), pp. 256-293; Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide, Philosophy and Public Affairs, ii, 1 (1972):37-65, Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide (New York: Oxford, 1984); Warren, On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion, The Monist, I. vii, 1 (1973):4361; Engelhardt, The Ontology of Abortion, Ethics, lxxxiv, 3 (1974):217-234; Sumner, Abortion and Moral Theory (Princeton: University Pre ss, 1981); Noonan, An Almost Absolute Value in History, in The Morality of Abortion: Legal and Historical Perspectives, Noonan, ed. Cambridge: Harvard, 1970); and Devine, The Ethics of Homicide (Ithaca: Cornell, 1978). 0022-362X /89/8604/183-22 (? 1989 The Journal of Philosophy, Inc. 184 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY their opponents, and why, to others, this issue seems to be unresolvable. An analysis of the nature of this standoff suggests a strategy for surmounting it. Consider the way a typical anti-abortionist argues. She will argue or assert that life is present from the moment of conception or that fetuses look like babies or that fetuses possess a characteristic such as a genetic code that is both necessary and sufficient for being human. Anti-abortionists seem to believe that (1) the truth of all of these claims is quite obvious, and (2) establishing any of these claims is sufficient to show that abortion is morally akin to murder. A standard pro-choice strategy exhibits similarities. The prochoicer will argue or assert that fetuses are not persons or that fetuses are not rational agents or that fetuses are not social beings. Pro-choicers seem to believe that (1) the truth of any of these claims is quite obvious, and (2) establishing any of these claims is sufficient to show that an abortion is not a wrongful killing. In fact, both the pro-choice and the anti-abortion claims do seem to be true, although the it looks like a baby claim is more difficult to establish the earlier the pregnancy. We seem to have a standoff. How can it be resolved? As everyone who has taken a bit of logic knows, if any of these arguments concerning abortion is a good argument, it requires not only some claim characterizing fetuses, but also some general moral principle that ties a characteristic of fetuses to having or not having the right to life or to some other moral characteristic that will generate the obligation or the lack of obligation not to end the life of a fetus. Accordingly, the arguments of the anti-abortionist and the pro-choicer need a bit of filling in to be regarded as adequate. Note what each partisan will say. The anti-abortionist will claim that her position is supported by such generally accepted moral principles as It is always prima facie seriously wrong to take a human life or It is always prima facie seriously wrong to end the life of a baby. Since these are generally accepted moral principles, her position is certainly not obviously wrong. The pro-choicer will claim that her position is supported by such plausible moral principles as Being a person is what gives an individual intrinsic moral worth or It is only seriously prima facie wrong to take the life of a member of the human community. Since these are generally accepted moral principles, the pro-choice position is certainly not obviously wrong. Unfortunately, we have again arrived at a standoff. Now, how might one deal with this standoff? The standard approach is to try to show how the moral principles of ones opponent lose their plausibility under analysis. It is easy to see how this is WHY ABORTION IS IMMORAI, 185 possible. On the one hand, the anti-abortionist will defend a moral principle concerning the wrongness of killing which tends to be broad in scope in order that even fetuses at an early stage of pregnancy will fall under it. The problem with broad principles is that they often embrace too much. In this particular instance, the principle It is always prima facie wrong to take a human life seems to entail that it is wrong to end the existence of a living human cancercell culture, on the grounds that the culture is both living and human. Therefore, it seems that the anti-abortionists favored principle is too broad. On the other hand, the pro-choicer wants to find a moral principle concerning the wrongness of killing which tends to be narrow in scope in order that fetuses will not fall under it. The problem with narrow principles is that they often do not embrace enough. Hence, the needed principles such as It is prima facie seriously wrong to kill only persons or It is prima facie wrong to kill only rational agents do not explain why it is wrong to kill infants or young children or the severely retarded or even perhaps the severely mentally ill. Therefore, we seem again to have a standoff. The anti-abortionist charges, not unreasonably, that pro-choice principles concerning killing are too narrow to be acceptable; the pro-choicer charges, not unreasonably, that anti-abortionist principles concerning killing are too broad to be acceptable. Attempts by both sides to patch up the difficulties in their positions run into further difficulties. The anti-abortionist will try to remove the problem in her position by reformulating her principle concerning killing in terms of human beings. Now we end up with: It is always prima facie seriously wrong to end the life of a human being. This principle has the advantage of avoiding the problem of the human cancer-cell culture counterexample. But this advantage is purchased at a high price. For although it is clear that a fetus is both human and alive, it is not at all clear that a fetus is a human being. There is at least something to be said for the view that something becomes a human bei ng only after a process of development, and that therefore first trimester fetuses and perhaps all fetuses are not yet human beings. Hence, the anti-abortionist, by this move, has merely exchanged one problem for another. The pro-choicer fares no better. She may attempt to find reasons why killing infants, young children, and the severely retarded is 2 For interesting discussions of this issue, see Warren Quinn, Abortion: Identity and Loss, Philosophy and Public Affairs, xiii, 1 (1984):24-54; and Lawrence C. Becker, Human Being: The Boundaries of the Concept, Philosophy and Public Affairs, iv, 4 (1975):334-359. 186 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY wrong which are independent of her major principle that is supposed to explain the wrongness of taking human life, but which will not also make abortion immoral. This is no easy task. Appeals to social utility will seem satisfactory only to those who resolve not to think of the enormous difficulties with a utilitarian account of the wrongness of killing and the significant social costs of preserving the lives of the unproductive. 3 A pro-choice strategy that extends the definition of person to infants or even to young children seems just as arbitrary as an anti-abortion strategy that extends the definition of human being to fetuses. Again, we find symmetries in the two positions and we arrive at a standoff. There are even further problems that reflect symmetries in the two positions. In addition to counterexample problems, or the arbitrary application problems that can be exchanged for them, the standard anti-abortionist principle It is prima facie seriously wrong to kill a human being, or one of its variants, can be objected to on the grounds of ambiguity. If human being is taken to be a biological category, then the anti-abortionist is left with the problem of explaining why a merely biological category should make a moral difference. Why, it is asked, is it any more reasonable to base a moral conclusion on the number of chromosomes in ones cells than on the color of ones skin? 4If human being, on the other hand, is taken to be a moral category, then the claim that a fetus is a human being cannot be taken to be a premise in the anti-abortion argument, for it is precisely what needs to be established. Hence, either the antiabortionists main category is a morally irrelevant, merely biological category, or it is of no use to the anti-abortionist in establishing (noncircularly, of course) that abortion is wrong. Although this problem with the anti-abortionist position is often noticed, it is less often noticed that the pro-choice position suffers from an analogous problem. The principle Only persons have the right to life also suffers from an ambiguity. The term person is typically defined in terms of psychological characteristics, although there will certainly be disagreement concerning which characteristics are most important. Supposing that this matter can be settled, the pro-choicer is left with the problem of explaining why psychological characteristics should make a moral difference. If the pro-choicer should attempt to deal with this problem by claiming that an explanaFor example, see my Ethics and The Elderly: Some Problems, in Stuart Spicker, Kathleen Woodward, and David Van Tassel, eds. , Aging and the Elderly: Humanistic Perspectives in Gerontology (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities, 1978), pp. 341-355. 4See Warren, op. cit. , and Tooley, Abortion and Infanticide. WHY ABORTION IS IMMORAL 187 tion is not necessary, that in fact we do treat such a cluster of psychological properties as having moral significance, the sharp-witted anti-abortionist should have a ready response. We do treat being both living and human as having moral significance. If it is legitimate for the pro-choicer to demand that the anti-abortionist provide an explanation of the connection between the biological character of being a human being and the wrongness of being killed (even though people accept this connection), then it is legitimate for the antiabortionist to demand that the pro-choicer provide an explanation of the connection between psychological criteria for being a person and the wrongness of being killed (even though that connection is accepted). Feinberg has attempted to meet this objection (he calls psychological personhood commonsense personhood): that The characteristics confer commonsensepersonhoodare not arbitrarybases for rights and duties, such as race, sex or species membership;ratherthey are traitsthat makesense out of rightsand duties and wouldhaveno point or function. It withoutwhichthose moralattributes is becausepeople are conscious;havea sense of theirper sonalidentities; haveplans,goals, and projects;experienceemotions;are liableto pains, anxieties, and frustrations;can reason and bargain, and so on-it is becauseof these ttributesthat people havevaluesand interests,desires and expectationsof their own, includinga stake in their own futures, and a personalwell-beingof a sort we cannot ascribeto unconsciousor nonrationalbeings. Because of their developed capacitiesthey can assume duties and responsibilities can have and makeclaimson one and another. Only becauseof their sense of self, their life plans, their value hierarchies,and their stakesin their own futures can they be ascribed fundamentalrights. There is nothing arbitraryabout these linkages (op. cit. , p. 270). The plausible aspects of this attempt should not be taken to obscure its implausible features. There is a great deal to be said for the view that being a psychological person under some description is a necessary condition for having duties. One cannot have a duty unless one is capable of behaving morally, and a beings capability of behaving morally will require having a certain psychology. It is far from obvious, however, that having rights entails consciousness or rationality, as Feinberg suggests. We speak of the rights of the severely retarded or the severely mentally ill, yet some of these persons are not rational. We speak of the rights of the temporarily unconscious. The New Jersey Supreme Court based their decision in the Quinlan case This seems to be the fatal flaw in Warrens treatment of this issue. 188 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY on Karen Ann Quinlans right to privacy, and she was known to be permanently unconscious at that time. Hence, Feinbergs claim that having rights entails being conscious is, on its face, obviously false. Of course, it might not make sense to attribute rights to a being that would never in its natural history have certain psychological traits. This modest connection between psychological personhood and moral personhood will create a place for Karen Ann Quinlan and the temporarily unconscious. But then it makes a place for fetuses also. Hence, it does not serve Feinbergs pro-choice purposes. Accordingly, it seems that the pro-choicer will have as much difficulty bridging the gap between psychological personhood and personhood in the moral sense as the anti-abortionist has bridging the gap between being a biological human being and being a human being in the moral sense. Furthermore, the pro-choicer cannot any more escape her problem by making person a purely moral category than the anti-abortionist could escape by the analogous move. For if person is a moral category, then the pro-choicer is left without the resources for establishing (noncircularly, of course) the claim that a fetus is not a person, which is an essential premise in her argument. Again, we have both a symmetry and a standoff between pro-choice and antiabortion views. Passions in the abortion debate run high. There are both plausibilities and difficulties with the standard positions. Accordingly, it is hardly surprising that partisans of either side embrace with fervor the moral generalizations that support the conclusions they preanalytically favor, and reject with disdain the moral generalizations of their opponents as being subject to inescapable difficulties. It is easy to believe that the counterexamples to ones own moral principles are merely temporary difficulties that will dissolve in the wake of further philosophical research, and that the counterexamples to the principles of ones opponents are as straightforward as the contradiction between A and 0 propositions in traditional logic. This might suggest to an impartial observer (if there are any) that the abortion issue is unresolvable. There is a way out of this apparent dialectical quandary. The moral generalizations of both sides are not quite correct. The generalizations hold for the most part, for the usual cases. This suggests that they are all accidental generalizations, that the moral claims made by those on both sides of the dispute do not touch on the essence of the matter. This use of the distinction between essence and accident is not meant to invoke obscure metaphysical categories. Rather, it is in- WHY ABORTION IS IMMORAL 189 tended to reflect the rather atheoretical nature of the abortion discussion. If the generalization a partisan in the abortion dispute adopts were derived from the reason why ending the life of a human being is wrong, then there could not be exceptions to that generalization unless some special case obtains in which there are even more powerful countervailing reasons. Such generalizations would not be merely accidental generalizations; they would point to, or be based upon, the essence of the wrongness of killing, what it is that makes killing wrong. All this suggests that a necessary condition of resolving the abortion controversy is a more theoretical account of the wrongness of killing. After all, if we merely believe, but do not understand, why killing adult human beings such as ourselves is wrong, how could we conceivably show that abortion is either immoral or permissible? II. In order to develop such an account, we can start from the following unproblematic assumption concerning our own case: it is wrong to kill us. Why is it wrong? Some answers can be easily eliminated. It might be said that what makes killing us wrong is that a killing brutalizes the one who kills. But the brutalization consists of being inured to the performance of an act that is hideously immoral; hence, the brutalization does not explain the immorality. It might be said that what makes killing us wrong is the great loss others would experience due to our absence. Although such hubris is understandable, such an explanation does not account for the wrongness of killing hermits, or those whose lives are relatively independent and whose friends find it easy to make new friends. A more obvious answer is better. What primarily makes killing wrong is neither its effect on the murderer nor its effect on the victims friends and relatives, but its effect on the victim. The loss of ones life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer. The loss of ones life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted ones future. Therefore, killing someone is wrong, primarily because the killing inflicts (one of) the greatest possible losses on the victim. To describe this as the loss of life can be misleading, however. The change in my biological state does not by itself make killing me wrong. The effect of the loss of my biological life is the loss to me of all those activities, projects, experiences, and enjoyments which would otherwise have constituted my future personal life. These activities, projects, experiences, and enjoyments are either valuable for their own sakes or are means to something else that is valuable for its own sake. Some parts of my future are not valued by me now, but will come to be valued by 190 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY me as I grow older and as my values and capacities change. When I am killed, I am deprived both of what I now value which would have been part of my future personal life, but also what I would come to value. Therefore, when I die, I am deprived of all of the value of my future. Inflicting this loss on me is ultimately what makes killing me wrong. This being the case, it would seem that what makes killing any adult human being prima facie seriously wrong is the loss of his or her future. 6 How should this rudimentary theory of the wrongness of killing be evaluated? It cannot be faulted for deriving an ought from an is, for it does not. The analysis assumes that killing me (or you, reader) is prima facie seriously wrong. The point of the analysis is to establish which natural property ultimately explains the wrongness of the killing, given that it is wrong. A natural property will ultimately explain the wrongness of killing, only if (1) the explanation fits with our intuitions about the matter and (2) there is no other natural property that provides the basis for a better explanation of the wrongness of killing. This analysis rests on the intuition that what makes killing a particular human or animal wrong is what it does to that particular human or animal. What makes killing wrong is some natural effect or other of the killing. Some would deny this. For instance, a divinecommand theorist in ethics would deny it. Surely this denial is, however, one of those features of divine-command theory which renders it so implausible. The claim that what makes killing wrong is the loss of the victims future is,directly supported by two considerations. In the first place, this theory explains why we regard killing as one of the worst of crimes. Killing is especially wrong, because it deprives the victim of more than perhaps any other crime. In the second place, people with AIDS or cancer who know they are dying believe, of course, that dying is a very bad thing for them. They believe that the loss of a future to them that they would otherwise have experienced is what makes their premature death a very bad thing for them. A better theory of the wrongness of killing would require a different natural property associated with killing which better fits with the attitudes of the dying. What could it be? The view that what makes killing wrong is the loss to the victim of the value of the victims future gains additional support when some of its implications are examined. In the first place, it is incompatible h I have been most influenced on this matter byJonathan Glover, Causing Death and Saving Lives (New York: Penguin, 1977), ch. 3; and Robert Young, What Is So Wrong with Killing People? Philosophy, l iv, 210 (1979):515-528. WHY ABORTION IS IMMORAL 191 with the view that it is wrong to kill only beings who are biologically human. It is possible that there exists a different species from another planet whose members have a future like ours. Since having a future like that is what makes killing someone wrong, this theory entails that it would be wrong to kill members of such a species. Hence, this theory is opposed to the claim that only life that is biologically human has great moral worth, a claim which many antiabortionists have seemed to adopt. This opposition, which this theory has in common with personhood theories, seems to be a merit of the theory. In the second place, the claim that the loss of ones future is the wrong-making feature of ones being killed entails the possibility that the futures of some actual nonhuman mammals on our own planet are sufficiently like ours that it is seriously wrong to kill them also. Whether some animals do have the same right to life as human beings depends on adding to the account of the wrongness of killing some additional account ofjust what it is about my future or the futures of other adult human beings which makes it wrong to kill us. No such additional account will be offered in this essay. Undoubtedly, the provision of such an account would be a very difficult matter. Undoubtedly, any such account would be quite controversial. Hence, it surely should not reflect badly on this sketch of an elementary theory of the wrongness of killing that it is indeterminate with respect to some very difficult issues regarding animal rights. In the third place, the claim that the loss of ones future is the wrong-making feature of ones being killed does not entail, as sanctity of human life theories do, that active euthanasia is wrong. Persons who are severely and incurably ill, who face a future of pain and despair, and who wish to die will not have suffered a loss if they are killed. It is, strictly speaking, the value of a humans future which makes killing wrong in this theory. This being so, killing does not necessarily wrong some persons who are sick and dying. Of course, there may be other reasons for a prohibition of active euthanasia, but that is another matter. Sanctity-of-human-life theories seem to hold that active euthanasia is seriously wrong even in an individual case where there seems to be good reason for it independently of public policy considerations. This consequence is most implausible, and it is a plus for the claim that the loss of a future of value is what makes killing wrong that it does not share this consequence. In the fourth place, the account of the wrongness of killing defended in this essay does straightforwardly entail that it is prima facie seriously wrong to kill children and infants, for we do presume that they have futures of value. Since we do believe that it is wrong to kill 192 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY defenseless little babies, it is important that a theory of the wrongness of killing easily account for this. Personhood theories of the wrongness of killing, on the other hand, cannot straightforwardly account for the wrongness of killing infants and young children. 7 Hence, such theories must add special ad hoc accounts of the wrongness of killing the young. The plausibility of such ad hoc theories seems to be a function of how desperately one wants such theories to work. The claim that the primary wrong-making feature of a killing is the loss to the victim of the value of its future accounts for the wrongness of killing young children and infants directly; it makes the wrongness of such acts as obvious as we actually think it is. This is a further merit of this theory. Accordingly, it seems that this value of a future-like-ours theory of the wrongness of killing shares strengths of both sanctity-of-life and personhood accounts while avoiding weaknesses of both. In addition, it meshes with a central intuition concerning what makes killing wrong. The claim that the primary wrong-making feature of a killing is the loss to the victim of the value of its future has obvious consequences for the ethics of abortion. The future of a standard fetus includes a set of experiences, projects, activities, and such which are identical with the futures of adult human beings and are identical with the futures of young children. Since the reason that is sufficient to explain why it is wrong to kill human beings after the time of birth is a reason that also applies to fetuses, it follows that abortion is prima facie seriously morally wrong. This argument does not rely on the invalid inference that, since it is wrong to kill persons, it is wrong to kill potential persons also. The category that is morally central to this analysis is the category of having a valuable future like ours; it is not the category of personhood. The argument to the conclusion that abortion is prima facie seriously morally wrong proceeded independently of the notion of person or potential person or any equivalent. Someone may wish to start with this analysis in terms of the value of a human future, conclude that abortion is, except perhaps in rare circumstances, seriously morally wrong, infer that fetuses have the right to life, and then call fetuses persons as a result of their having the right to life. Clearly, in this case, the category of person is being used to state the conclusion of the analysis rather than to generate the argument of the analysis. The structure of this anti-abortion argument can be both illuminated and defended by comparing it to what appears to be the best 7 Feinberg, Tooley, Warren, and Engelhardt have all dealt with this problem. WHY ABORTION IS IMMORAL. 193 argument for the wrongness of the wanton infliction of pain on animals. This latter argument is based on the assumption that it is prima facie wrong to inflict pain on me (or you, reader). What is the natural property associated with the infliction of pain which makes such infliction wrong? The obvious answer seems to be that the infliction of pain causes suffering and that suffering is a misfortune. The suffering caused by the infliction of pain is what makes the wanton infliction of pain on me wrong. The wanton infliction of pain on other adult humans causes suffering. The wanton infliction of pain on animals causes suffering. Since causing suffering is what makes the wanton infliction of pain wrong and since the wanton infliction of pain on animals causes suffering, it follows that the wanton infliction of pain on animals is wrong. This argument for the wrongness of the wanton infliction of pain on animals shares a number of structural features with the argument for the serious prima facie wrongness of abortion. Both arguments start with an obvious assumption concerning what it is wrong to do to me (or you, reader). Both then look for the characteristic or the consequence of the wrong action which makes the action wrong. Both recognize that the wrong-making feature of these immoral actions is a property of actions sometimes directed at individuals other than postnatal human beings. If the structure of the argument for the wrongness of the wanton infliction of pain on animals is sound, then the structure of the argument for the prima facie serious wrongness of abortion is also sound, for the structure of the two arguments is the same. The structure common to both is the key to the explanation of how the wrongness of abortion can be demonstrated without recourse to the category of person. In neither argument is that category crucial. This defense of an argument for the wrongness of abortion in terms of a structurally similar argument for the wrongness of the wanton infliction of pain on animals succeeds only if the account regarding animals is the correct account. Is it? In the first place, it seems plausible. In the second place, its major competition is Kants account. Kant believed that we do not have direct duties to animals at all, because they are not persons. Hence, Kant had to explain and justify the wrongness of inflicting pain on animals on the grounds that he who is hard in his dealings with animals becomes hard also in his dealing with men. 8 The problem with Kants account is that 8 Duties to Animals and Spirits, in Lectures on Ethics, Louis Infeld, trans. (New York: Harper, 1963), p. 239. 194 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY there seems to be no reason for accepting this latter claim unless Kants account is rejected. If the alternative to Kants account is accepted, then it is easy to understand why someone w ho is indifferent to inflicting pain on animals is also indifferent to inflicting pain on humans, for one is indifferent to what makes inflicting pain wrong in both cases. But, if Kants account is accepted, there is no intelligible reason why one who is hard in his dealings with animals (or crabgrass or stones) should also be hard in his dealings with men. After all, men are persons: animals are no more persons than crabgrass or stones. Persons are Kants crucial moral category. Why, in short, should a Kantian accept the basic claim in Kants argument? Hence, Kants argument for the wrongness of inflicting pain on animals rests on a claim that, in a world of Kantian moral agents, is demonstrably false. Therefore, the alternative analysis, being more plausible anyway, should be accepted. Since this alternative analysis has the same structure as the anti-abortion argument being defended here, we have further support for the argument for the immorality of abortion being defended in this essay. Of course, this value of a future-like-ours argument, if sound, shows only that abortion is prima facie wrong, not that it is wrong in any and all circumstances. Since the loss of the future to a standard fetus, if killed, is, however, at least as great a loss as the loss of the future to a standard adult human being who is killed, abortion, like ordinary killing, could be justified only by the most compelling reasons. The loss of ones life is almost the greatest misfortune that can happen to one. Presumably abortion could be justified in some circumstances, only if the loss consequent on failing to abort would be at least as great. Accordingly, morally permissible abortions will be rare indeed unless, perhaps, they occur so early in pregnancy that a fetus is not yet definitely an individual. Hence, this argument should be taken as showing that abortion is presumptively very seriously wrong, where the presumption is very strong-as strong as the presumption that killing another adult human being is wrong. III. How complete an account of the wrongness of killing does the value of a future-like-ours account have to be in order that the wrongness of abortion is a consequence? This account does not have to be an account of the necessary conditions for the wrongness of killing. Some persons in nursing homes may lack valuable human futures, yet it may be wrong to kill them for other reasons. Furthermore, this account does not obviously have to be the sole reason killing is wrong where the victim did have a valuable future. This analysis claims only WHY ABORTION IS IMMORAL 195 that, for any killing where the victim did have a valuable future like ours, having that future by itself is sufficient to create the strong presumption that the killing is seriously wrong. One way to overturn the value of a future-like-ours argument would be to find some account of the wrongness of killing which is at least as intelligible and which has different implications for the ethics of abortion. Two rival accounts possess at least some degree of plausibility. One account is based on the obvious fact that eople value the experience of living and wish for that valuable experience to continue. Therefore, it might be said, what makes killing wrong is the discontinuation of that experience for the victim. Let us call this the discontinuation account. ~ Another rival account is based upon the obvious fact that people strongly desire to continue to live. This suggests that what makes killing us so wrong is that it interferes with the fulfillment of a str ong and fundamental desire, the fulfillment of which is necessary for the fulfillment of any other desires we might have. Let us call this the desire account. I'( Consider first the desire account as a rival account of the ethics of killing which would provide the basis for rejecting the anti-abortion position. Such an account will have to be stronger than the value of a future-like-ours account of the wrongness of abortion if it is to do the job expected of it. To entail the wrongness of abortion, the value of a future-like-ours account has only to provide a sufficient, but not a necessary, condition for the wrongness of killing. The desire account, on the other hand, must provide us also with a necessary condition for the wrongness of killing in order to generate a prochoice conclusion on abortion. The reason for this is that presumably the argument from the desire account moves from the claim that what makes killing wrong is interference with a very strong desire to the claim that abortion is not wrong because the fetus lacks a strong desire to live. Obviously, this inference fails if someones having the desire to live is not a necessary condition of its being wrong to kill that individual. One problem with the desire account is that we do regard it as seriously wrong to kill persons who have little desire to live or who have no desire to live or, indeed, have a desire not to live. We believe it is seriously wrong to kill the unconscious, the sleeping, those who 9 I am indebted to Jack Bricke for raising this objection. Presumably a preference utilitarian would press such an objection. Tooley once suggested that his account has such a theoretical underpinning. See his Abortion and Infanticide, pp. 44/5. re tired of life, and those who are suicidal. The value-of-a-humanfuture account renders standard morality intelligible in these cases; these cases appear to be incompatible with the desire account. The desire account is subject to a deeper difficulty. We desire life, because we value the goods of this life. The goodness of life is not secondary to our desire for it. If this were not so, the pain of ones own premature death could be done away with merely by an appropria te alteration in the configuration of ones desires. This is absurd. Hence, it would seem that it is the loss of the goods of ones future, not the interference with the fulfillment of a strong desire to live, which accounts ultimately for the wrongness of killing. It is worth noting that, if the desire account is modified so that it does not provide a necessary, but only a sufficient, condition for the wrongness of killing, the desire account is compatible with the value of a future-like-ours account. The combined accounts will yield an anti-abortion ethic. This suggests that one can retain what is intuitively plausible about the desire account without a challenge to the basic argument of this paper. It is also worth noting that, if future desires have moral force in a modified desire account of the wrongness of killing, one can find support for an anti-abortion ethic even in the absence of a value of a future-like-ours account. If one decides that a morally relevant property, the possession of which is sufficient to make it wrong to kill some individual, is the desire at some future time to live-one might decide to justify ones refusal to kill suicidal teenagers on these grounds, for example-then, since typical fetuses will have the desire in the future to live, it is wrong to kill typical fetuses. Accordingly, it does not seem that a desire account of the wrongness of killing can provide a justification of a pro-choice ethic of abortion which is nearly as adequate as the value of a human-future justification of an anti-abortion ethic. The discontinuation account looks more promising as an account of the wrongness of killing. It seems just as intelligible as the value of a future-like-ours account, but it does not justify an anti-abortion position. Obviously, if it is the continuation of ones activities, experiences, and projects, the loss of which makes killing wrong, then it is not wrong to kill fetuses for that reason, for fetuses do not have experiences, activities, and projects to be continued or discontinued. Accordingly, the discontinuation account does not have the antiabortion consequences that the value of a future-like-ours account has. Yet, it seems as intelligible as the value of a future-like-ours account, for when we think of what would be wrong with our being WHY ABORTION IS IMMORAL, 197 illed, it does seem as if it is the discontinuation of what makes our lives worthwhile which makes killing us wrong. Is the discontinuation account just as good an account as the value of a future-like-ours account? The discontinuation account will not be adequate at all, if it does not refer to the value of the experience that may be discontinued. One does not want the discontinuation account to make it wrong to kill a patient who begs for death and who is in severe pain that cannot be relieved short of killing. (I leave open the question of whether it is wrong for other reasons. Accordingly, the discontinuation account must be more than a bare discontinuation account. It must make some reference to the positive value of the patients experiences. But, by the same token, the value of a future-like-ours account cannot be a bare future account either. Just having a future surely does not itself rule out killing the above patient. This account must make some reference to the value of the patients future experiences and projects also. Hence, both accounts involve the value of experiences, projects, and activities. So far we still have symmetry between the accounts. The symmetry fades, however, when we focus on the time period of the value of the experiences, etc. , which has moral consequences. Although both accounts leave open the possibility that the patient in our example may be killed, this possibility is left open only in virtue of the utterly bleak future for the patient. It makes no difference whether the patients immediate past contains intolerable pain, or consists in being in a coma (which we can imagine is a situation of indifference), or consists in a life of value. If the patients future is a future of value, we want our account to make it wrong to kill the patient. If the patients future is intolerable, whatever his or her immediate past, we want our account to allow killing the patient. Obviously, then, it is the value of that patients future which is doing the work in rendering the morality of killing the patient intelligible. This being the case, it seems clear that whether one has immediate past experiences or not does no work in the explanation of what makes killing wrong. The addition the discontinuation account makes to the value of a human future account is otiose. Its addition to the value-of-a-future account plays no role at all in rendering intelligible the wrongness of killing. Therefore, it can be discarded with the discontinuation account of which it is a part. IV. The analysis of the previous section suggests that alternative general accounts of the wrongness of killing are either inadequate or unsuccessful in getting around the anti-abortion consequences of the value 198 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY of a future-like-ours argument. A different strategy for avoiding these anti-abortion consequences involves limiting the scope of the value of a future argument. More precisely, the strategy involves arguing that fetuses lack a property that is essential for the value-ofa-future argument (or for any anti-abortion argument) to apply to them. One move of this sort is based upon the claim that a necessary condition of ones future being valuable is that one values it. Value implies a valuer. Given this one might argue that, since fetuses cannot value their futures, their futures are not valuable to them. Hence, it does not seriously wrong them deliberately to end their lives. This move fails, however, because of some ambiguities. Let us assume that something cannot be of value unless it is valued by someone. This does not entail that my life is of no value unless it is valued by me. I may think, in a period of despair, that my future is of no worth whatsoever, but I may be wrong because others rightly see value-even great value-in it. Furthermore, my future can be valuable to me even if I do not value it. This is the case when a young person attempts suicide, but is rescued and goes on to significant human achievements. Such young peoples futures are ultimately valuable to them, even though such futures do not seem to be valuable to them at the moment of attempted suicide. A fetuss future can be valuable to it in the same way. Accordingly, this attempt to limit the anti-abortion argument fails. Another similar attempt to reject the anti-abortion position is based on Tooleys claim that an entity cannot possess the right to life unless it has the capacity to desire its continued existence. It follows that, since fetuses lack the conceptual capacity to desire to continue to live, they lack the right to life. Accordingly, Tooley concludes that abortion cannot be seriously prima facie wrong (op. cit. , pp. 46/7). What could be the evidence for Tooleys basic claim? Tooley once argued that individuals have a prima facie right to what they desire and that the lack of the capacity to desire something undercuts the basis of ones right to it (op. cit. , pp. 44/5). This argument plainly will not succeed in the context of the analysis of this essay, however, since the point here is to establish the fetuss right to life on other grounds. Tooleys argument assumes that the right to life cannot be established in general on some basis other than the desire for life. This position was considered and rejected in the preceding section of this paper. WHY ABORTION IS IMMORA, 199 One might attempt to defend Tooleys basic claim on the grounds that, because a fetus cannot apprehend continued life as a benefit, its continued life cannot be a benefit or cannot be something it has a right to or cannot be something that is in its interest. This might be defended in terms of the general proposition that, if an individual is literally incapable of caring about or taking an interest in some X, then one does not have a right to X or X is not a benefit or X is not something that is in ones interest. Each member of this family of claims seems to be open to objections. As John C. Stevens2 has pointed out, one may have a right to be treated with a certain medical procedure (because of a health insurance policy one has purchased), even though one cannot conceive of the nature of the procedure. And, as Tooley himself has pointed out, persons who have been indoctrinated, or drugged, or rendered temporarily unconscious may be literally incapable of caring about or taking an interest in something that is in their interest or is something to which they have a right, or is something that benefits them. Hence, the Tooley claim that would restrict the scope of the value of a future-like-ours argument is undermined by counterexamples. 3 Finally, Paul Bassen4has argued that, even though the prospects of an embryo might seem to be a basis for the wrongness of abortion, an embryo cannot be a victim and therefore cannot be wronged. An embryo cannot be a victim, he says, because it lacks sentience. His central argument for this seems to be that, even though plants and the permanently unconscious are alive, they clearly cannot be victims. What is the explanation of this? Bassen claims that the explanation is that their lives consist of mere metabolism and mere metabolism is not enough to ground victimizability. Mentation is required. The problem with this attempt to establish the absence of victimizability is that both plants and the permanently unconscious clearly lack what Bassen calls prospects or what I have called a future life like ours. Hence, it is surely open to one to argue that the real reason we believe plants and the permanently unconscious cannot be Donald VanDeVeer seems to think this is self-evident. See his Whither Baby Doe? in Matters of Life and Death, p. 233. 12Must the Bearer of a Right Have the Concept of That to Which He Has a Right? Ethics, xcv, 1 (1984):68-74. `See Tooley again in Abor tion and Infanticide, pp. 47-49. Present Sakes and Future Prospects: The Status of Early Abortion, Philosophy and Public Affairs, xi, 4 (1982):322-326. 200 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY victims is that killing them cannot deprive them of a future life like ours; the real reason is not their absence of present meritation. Bassen recognizes that his view is subject to this difficulty, and he recognizes that the case of children seems to support this difficulty, for much of what we do for children is based on prospects. He argues, however, that, in the case of children and in other such cases, potentiality comes into play only where victimizability has been secured on other grounds (ibid. , p. 333). Bassens defense of his view is patently question-begging, since what is adequate to secure victimizability is exactly what is at issue. His examples do not support his own view against the thesis of this essay. Of course, embryos can be victims: when their lives are deliberately terminated, they are deprived of their futures of value, their prospects. This makes them victims, for it directly wrongs them. The seeming plausibility of Bassens view stems from the fact that paradigmatic cases of imagining someone as a victim involve empathy, and empathy requires mentation of the victim. The victims of flood, famine, rape, or child abuse are all persons with whom we can empathize. That empathy seems to be part of seeing them as victims. In spite of the strength of these examples, the attractive intuition that a situation in which there is victimization requires the possibility of empathy is subject to counterexamples. Consider a case that Bassen himself offers: Posthumous obliteration of an authors work constitutes a misfortune for him only if he had wished his work to endure (op cit. , p. 318). The conditions Bassen wishes to impose upon the possibility of being victimized here seem far too strong. Perhaps this author, due to his unrealistic standards of excellence and his low self-esteem, regarded his work as unworthy of survival, even though it possessed genuine literary merit. Destruction of such work would surely victimize its author. In such a case, empathy with the victim concerning the loss is clearly impossible. Of course, Bassen does not make the possibility of empathy a necessary condition of victimizability; he requires only mentation. Hence, on Bassens actual view, this author, as I have described him, can be a victim. The problem is that the basic intuition that renders Bassens view plausible is missing in the authors case. In order to attempt to avoid counterexamples, Bassen has made his thesis too weak to be supported by the intuitions that suggested it. I Note carefully the reasons he gives on the bottom of p. 316. WHY ABORTION IS IMMORAL 201 Even so, the mentation requirement on victimizability is still subject to counterexamples. Suppose a severe accident renders me totally unconscious for a month, after which I recover. Surely killing me while I am unconscious victimizes me, even though I am incapable of mentation during that time. It follows that Bassens thesis fails. Apparently, attempts to restrict the value of a future-like-ours argument so that fetuses do not fall within its scope do not succeed. V. In this essay, it has been argued that the correct ethic of the wrongness of killing can be extended to fetal life and used to show that there is a strong presumption that any abortion is morally impermissible. If the ethic of killing adopted here entails, however, that contraception is also seriously immoral, then there would appear to be a difficulty with the analysis of this essay. But this analysis does not entail that contraception is wrong. Of course, contraception prevents the actualization of a possible future of value. Hence, it follows from the claim that futures of value should be maximized that contraception is prima facie immoral. This obligation to maximize does not exist, however; furthermore, nothing in the ethics of killing in this paper entails that it does. The ethics of killing in this essay would entail that contraception is wrong only if something were denied a human future of value by contraception. Nothing at all is denied such a future by contraception, however. Candidates for a subject of harm by contraception fall into four categories: (1) some sperm or other, (2) some ovum or other, (3) a sperm and an ovum separately, and (4) a sperm and an ovum together. Assigning the harm to some sperm is utterly arbitrary, for no reason can be given for making a sperm the subject of harm rather than an ovum. Assigning the harm to some ovum is utterly arbitrary, for no reason can be given for making an ovum the subject of harm rather than a sperm. One might attempt to avoid these problems by insisting that contraception deprives both the sperm and the ovum separately of a valuable future like ours. On this alternative, too many futures are lost. Contraception was supposed to be wrong, because it deprived us of one future of value, not two. One might attempt to avoid this problem by holding that contraception deprives the combination of sperm and ovum of a valuable future like ours. But here the definite article misleads. At the time of contraception, there are hundreds of millions of sperm, one (released) ovum and millions of possible combinations of all of these. There is no actual combination at all. Is the subject of the loss to be a merely possible 202 THE JOURNAL OF PHILOSOPHY combination? Which one? This alternative does not yield an actual subject of harm either. Accordingly, the immorality of contraception is not entailed by the loss of a future-like-ours argument simply because there is no nonarbitrarily identifiable subject of the loss in the case of contraception. VI. The purpose of this essay has been to set out an argument for the serious presumptive wrongness of abortion subject to the assumption that the moral permissibility of abortion stands or falls on the moral status of the fetus. Since a fetus possesses a property, the possession of which in adult human beings is sufficient to make killing an adult human being wrong, abortion is wrong. This way of dealing with the problem of abortion seems superior to other approaches to the ethics of abortion, because it rests on an ethics of killing which is close to self-evident, because the crucial morally relevant property clearly applies to fetuses, and because the argument avoids the usual equivocations on human life, human being, or person. The argument rests neither on religious claims nor on Papal dogma. It is not subject to the objection of speciesism. Its soundness is compatible with the moral permissibility of euthanasia and contraception. It deals with our intuitions concerning young children. Finally, this analysis can be viewed as resolving a standard probthe standard problem-concerning the ethics of lem-indeed, abortion. Clearly, it is wrong to kill adult human beings. Clearly, it is not wrong to end the life of some arbitrarily chosen single human cell. Fetuses seem to be like arbitrarily chosen human cells in some respects and like adult humans in other respects. The problem of the ethics of abortion is the problem of determining the fetal property that settles this moral controversy. The thesis of this essay is that the problem of the ethics of abortion, so understood, is solvable. DON MARQUIS University of Kansas