ABSTRACT
In the previous chapter we examined John Harris’s version of the bioethical argument for the conclusion that the lives of foetuses and infants lack value. Bioethicists are utilitarians; yet at first sight the argument just referred to might not seem to be a utilitarian argument. Harris appeals, not to utility, but to a certain conception of what it is to be a person; and the principle he later presents as fundamental to morality in general and medical ethics in particular is the Kantian sounding principle of Respect for Persons. So how, it might be asked, can he be expressing a utilitarian point of view? The answer to this question has already been given. As I said in the first chapter, when we look at what Harris means by respect for persons, we find that although his rhetoric may owe something to Kant, his thinking most certainly does not.
