Aborting Aristotle: Examining the Fatal Fallacies in the Abortion Debate

by Dave Sterrett

"Each year 44 million babies are killed from intentional abortion around the world. 1.29 million babies are aborted right here in the United States. These are not just merely cold These are human beings . . . real babies. Sterrett reveals the unreasonableness of abortion and argues against abortion even in the difficult circumstances. In the ancient world, infanticide was defended by Plato and Aristotle. Christians who believed in the sacredness of human life stopped infanticide and intellectually argued against the practice. Peter Singer, professor of ethics at Princeton, hopes the time has come for atheists to reassess the morality of infanticide "without assuming the Christian moral framework that has, for so long, prevented any fundamental reassessment" [Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge University Press, UK; 1993), 173.] Dave Sterrett takes on Peter Singer, along with other scholarly defenders of abortion, including David Boonin, Michael Tooley, and Judith Jarvis Thomson. Although he is against Aristotle's teaching in favor of abortion, Sterrett argues that Aristotle had much good in his metaphysical and logical teachings that Western education has forgotten"--

120 pages, Hardcover

First published April 20, 2015

Reviews

[Clinton Wilcox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Special thanks to Dave Sterrett for the free copy of the book to review.

There are a lot of great books out there defending the pro-life position. There are also some great books to help you get started in pro-life apologetics. Dave Sterrett's book really functions as a pre-starter book, whereas in introductory books the information you learn about are the basics that you need, Aborting Aristotle gives a grounding, the sort of metaphysical basement, for our pro-life views. You won't learn how to defend the pro-life view, that's not its purpose. You'll learn about why the pro-life position works and why pro-choice thinkers fail to justify abortion by jettisoning an Aristotelian framework.

There is a lot of great information contained in this book. His discussions on how naturalistic metaphysics is self-refuting is especially important to understand. His chapter on personhood was also very good. Usually discussions of personhood certain around who counts as persons, but it seems that rarely do these discussions get to the heart of what the concept of "person" actually means. Sterrett shows admirably that our personhood, while different than our humanity, cannot be separated from it. He even talks about some common ground that we can find with pro-choice people in his concluding chapter, which is an excellent thing for pro-life people to keep in mind when talking to pro-choice people.

The only main problems I had with the book are:

1) There was no real discussion about substances and why humans count as substances. It really seems like you'd need at least a basic familiarity with Aristotle in order to know what he's talking about, even in his excellent rebuttals of naturalistic philosophy.

2) There was no real discussion about potentiality and actuality. It was mentioned, but not really discussed. This does seem like a glaring omission, since not knowing what potentiality actually means leads even modern philosophers to make bad arguments against the personhood of the unborn. Two examples are when Michael Tooley, in his book Abortion and Infanticide, argues about injecting a rationality serum into cats, and when Singer, I believe in his book Practical Ethics, argues that potential presidents don't have the same privileges and duties as actual presidents. If Sterrett does a second edition, I think a chapter on potentiality vs. actuality would be in order.

3) The 17.00 price tag is a bit steep for a 120-page book. Granted, this is not the fault of the author, the publisher sets the price tag.

There are a couple of other minor issues that should probably be corrected for future editions. In at least a couple of the chapters, I felt the endings weren't tightened up. They seemed to just end abruptly. Additionally, for many of the quotes regarding Aristotle, he used secondary sources, not the primary sources, themselves. This may affect credibility.

I am an Aristotelian/Thomist in my view of metaphysics. As such, I think this is an important book to add to the discussion. It's a helpful primer on the metaphysical grounding of the pro-life position.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a pro-life book of philosophy which examined philosophical pro-choice arguments and advocated for a pro-life stance based in part on the teachings of Aristotle. I think if I had more of a background in philosophy, I would've found it easier to follow – as it was, I found myself having to research things a number of times to understand them. What I learned some things about philosophy in school, not being a philosophy major and not really have focusing on what I did learn, I didn't really know the teachings that he was referring to in many of his examples. He sort of wrote as if to an audience that already had a good background in philosophy. but I don't how accessible it really would be to the average reader. I'm not sure it's something I would've picked up unless I was very interested in the topic.

[Trey Henry · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I agree with the thesis of the book, and find some of Sterett’s assertions interesting, I cannot give this book more than 2.5 stars. The book begins in a choppy and inarticulate manner, and fails to reason to the final point of his constituent arguments; it lacks a tight structure, and is overall poorly argued. Many of his constituent arguments are well made, and expose rational incongruities within many pro-abortion arguments, however, his overall pro-life argument fails.