This week I will look at the ad misericordiam fallacy, the fallacy of appealing to pity. Perhaps the best example I have come across is one used by my friend Francis Beckwith; In his book Politically Correct Death: Answering Arguments for Abortion Rights, Beckwith cites the following letter to the editor: The fallacy in this […]
Entries Tagged as 'Francis Beckwith'
Understanding the Abortion Debate with Francis Beckwith
February 13th, 2011 6 Comments
Those who have been following Matt’s series Abortion and the Morality of Feticide might enjoy this video featuring Francis Beckwith of Baylor University’s Philosophy faculty speaking to the Summit Ministries Interns on the topic “Understanding the Abortion Debate“. Beckwith is arguably one of best contemporary philosophers writing from the pro-life position. He is a clear and entertaining speaker who […]
Tags: Abortion · Feticide · Francis Beckwith · Summit Ministries
Abortion and the Morality of Feticide: Part I
February 10th, 2011 168 Comments
Is it morally permissible to commit feticide? The abortion debate swirls around this question, a lot of rhetoric, emotion and anger gets spent on debating this question or avoiding it. In this series I will examine this question. First I will sketch an argument against feticide: the killing of a fetus. Then I will examine […]
Tags: Abortion · Backstreet Abortion · Ethics · Ethics and Medicine · Feticide · Francis Beckwith · Peter Kreeft · Zoe During
In Atlanta
November 18th, 2010 24 Comments
I have a few snaps of Matt in Atlanta, this first one had our kids excited when they saw it [which should tell you everything you need to know about just how much Matt is a fan of Dr Alvin Plantinga – LOL!] Fellow kiwi Rodney Lake of Thinking Matters Tauranga, also in Atlanta attending the conferences, took […]
Tags: Alvin Plantinga · Atlanta · Craig Hazen · EPS · Francis Beckwith · Georgia · JP Moreland · Mary-Jo Sharp · Mike Licona · Paul Copan · Rodney Lake · SBL · William Lane Craig
Is Abortion Liberal? Part 2
October 27th, 2008 27 Comments
In my previous post, Is Abortion Liberal? Part 1, I argued that liberals who support the non-initiation of force principle can support abortion only on two grounds; (a) the fetus is a person but its existence inside the mother without her consent constitutes a form aggression, and hence, the mother’s action of killing it is […]
Tags: Abortion · Classical Liberalism · David Boonin · Feticide · Francis Beckwith · Liberalism · Libertarianism · Michael Tooley · Peter Cresswell · Rodney Hide
A common objection to belief in the God of the Bible is that a good, kind, and loving deity would never command the wholesale slaughter of nations. In the tradition of his popular Is God a Moral Monster?, Paul Copan teams up with Matthew Flannagan to tackle some of the most confusing and uncomfortable passages of Scripture. Together they help the Christian and nonbeliever alike understand the biblical, theological, philosophical, and ethical implications of Old Testament warfare passages.
