18.“OntheLegalityofEnslavingtheAfricans,”byaHarvard
student; quoted in Louis Ruchames, Racial Thought in
America(Amherst:UniversityofMassachusettsPress,1969),
pp. 154–156.
19.See LeslieStephen,SocialRightsand Duties(London,
1896) quoted by Henry Salt, “The Logic of the Larder,”
which appeared in Salt’s The Humanities of Diet
(Manchester:TheVegetarianSociety,1914),pp.34–38,and
hasbeenreprinted inT.ReganandP.Singer,eds.,Animal
Rights and Human Obligations (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.:
Prentice-Hall, 1976).
20.S.F.Sapontzishasarguedthatthepossiblehappylifeofa
normalchildand thepossiblemiserablelifeofa deformed
childarebothreasonsforhavingornothavingthechildonly
when the child is in existence, and there is thus no
asymmetry. (S.F.Sapontzis,Morals,Reason andAnimals,
Philadelphia: Temple UniversityPress, 1987, pp.193–194.)
Butthiswouldmeanthatitisnotwrongtodecidetoconceive
amiserablechild,althoughitiswrongtodecidetokeepthe
childaliveonceitexists.Whatifoneknows,atthetimethe
child is conceived, that one will have no opportunity for
havingan abortionor forcarrying outeuthanasiaafter the
child is born? Then there willbe a miserablechild, so it
wouldseemthatawronghasbeendone.ButinSapontzis’s
view,thereappearstobenotimeatwhichthatwrongcanbe
done. I cannot see that this suggestion solves the problem.
- See my Practical Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1979) chapters 4 and 6. For further
discussion,see Michael Lockwood,“Singeron Killingand
thePreferenceforLife,”Inquiry 22 (1–2):157–170;Edward