Personhood and the Debate about the Beginning and End of Life

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This article refers to:

The End of Personhood

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This is not the name McMahan uses, though it plays an important role in his argument against brain death.

2 Of course, Blumenthal-Barby’s main claim in the paper to “end talk about personhood” is agonistic to claims about political ethics. We focus on it here because of the space that is cleared for bioethicists if her claims are taken seriously, particularly given the central role that personhood will continue to play in public political discourse.

3 We are grateful to Anna Lewis for discussion of these points.

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Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.