Two-thirds of the way through this dense, involved and exhausting book, its author acknowledges that his views about the nature of persons have the following implication. Suppose that a woman, without family or friends, dies giving birth to a healthy infant. At the same hospital there are three five-year-old children who will die if they do not receive organ transplants, and the newborn has exactly the right tissue type. If Jeff McMahan's theory is right, it is morally permissible to 'sacrifice' the orphaned infant in order to save the other three children.

LRB 22 August 2002 | PDF Download