Philosophical Failure and the Reasonability View of Conscientious Objection: Can Reason Adjudicate Metaphysical or Religious Claims?

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-17-2023

Publication Title

The Journal of medicine and philosophy

Abstract

Robert Card has proposed a reasonability view of conscientious objection that asks providers to state the reasons for their objection for evaluation and approval by a review board. Jason Marsh has challenged Card to provide explicit criteria for what makes a conscientious objection reasonable, which he claims will be too difficult a task given that such objections often involve contentious metaphysical or religious claims. Card has responded by outlining standards by which a conscientious objection could be judged reasonable. In this paper, I extend Marsh's critique to key concepts in the standards outlined by Card such as abortifacient, harm, emergency, and discrimination, showing they can be given radically different interpretations given different metaphysical or religious presumptions. To resolve these conflicting interpretations, a reasonability view of conscientious objection will need more than the criteria outlined by Card, it will need the resources to evaluate the reasonability of metaphysical or religious claims.

Volume

48

Issue

1

First Page

12

Last Page

20

DOI

10.1093/jmp/jhac033

ISSN

1744-5019

PubMed ID

36573544

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