Holland, Stephen Michael orcid.org/0000-0001-8424-7390 and Efird, David orcid.org/0000-0001-5935-1938 (2019) Stages of life:a new metaphysics of conceptionism. Bioethics. 529–535. ISSN 1467-8519
Abstract
When a human being comes into existence is crucial in bioethics. Conceptionism is the view that a human being comes into existence at conception. The twinning argument is an influential objection to this view. All versions of the twinning argument rely on a metaphysics of material objects, namely, endurantism. Given this, a strategy for defending conceptionism against the twinning argument is to deny endurantism and adopt an alternative metaphysics of material objects. A version of this strategy which has been debated in this journal is to adopt perdurantism, or the ‘multiple occupancy view’, on which monozygotic twins share the zygote region as a temporal part. We present a novel version of this strategy: conceptionists can evade the twinning argument by adopting an exdurantist metaphysics of material objects. We suggest reasons for thinking that this is a plausible and, indeed, preferable way for conceptionists to avoid the twinning argument.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an author-produced version of the published paper. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher’s self-archiving policy. Further copying may not be permitted; contact the publisher for details. |
Keywords: | embryo ethics,exdurantism,metaphysics,monozygotic twinning,zygote |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of York |
Academic Units: | The University of York > Faculty of Sciences (York) > Health Sciences (York) The University of York > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (York) > Philosophy (York) |
Depositing User: | Pure (York) |
Date Deposited: | 27 Nov 2018 15:00 |
Last Modified: | 16 Oct 2024 13:43 |
Published Version: | https://doi.org/10.1111/bioe.12556 |
Status: | Published |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/bioe.12556 |
Related URLs: | |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:139258 |
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Description: Stages of Life - final accepted version