Abortion and Moral Risk Talk on Campus Tomorrow

Subject       : "Abortion and Moral Risk"
When          : Wednesday, February 14, 2007 4:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Where         : Skinner  : 1115
Event Type(s) : Colloquium

Dan Moller, Johns Hopkins University

It is natural for those of us with permissive attitudes toward abortion to suppose that, if we have examined all of the arguments we know against abortion and have concluded that they fail, our moral deliberations are at an end. Surprisingly, this is not the case, as I argue. This is because the mere risk that one of those arguments succeeds can generate a moral reason that counts against the act. If this is so, then liberals may be mistaken about the morality of abortion. However, conservatives who claim that considerations of risk rule out abortion in general are mistaken as well. Instead, risk-based considerations generate an important but not necessarily decisive reason to avoid abortion. The more general issue that emerges is how to accommodate fallibilism about practical judgment in our decision-making.

Website: www.philosophy.umd.edu/deptwebsite/events/events.html

For more information, contact:
Louise Gilman
Dept of Philosophy
301-405-5689
lgilman@umd.edu