The performativity of personhood
In debates on infanticide, including the recent defence of so-called ‘after-birth abortion’, philosophers generally treat the term ‘the person’ as descriptive, such that statements claiming that something is a person (or not) can be considered true or false, depending on the characteristics of that...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2013
|
| In: |
Journal of medical ethics
Year: 2013, Volume: 39, Issue: 5, Pages: 325 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In debates on infanticide, including the recent defence of so-called ‘after-birth abortion’, philosophers generally treat the term ‘the person’ as descriptive, such that statements claiming that something is a person (or not) can be considered true or false, depending on the characteristics of that thing. This obscures important aspects of its usage. J L Austen identified a subset of speech acts as performative, in that they do things in their very declaration or utterance. They do not simply describe states of affairs or things, but perform the act they ostensibly describe. ‘I promise’ or ‘I apologise’ may be taken as paradigmatic. Performative speech acts are not judged according to their truth-value, but their … |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 1473-4257 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of medical ethics
|
| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1136/medethics-2012-101164f |
