Judith Jarvis Thomson was an American philosopher, born in 1929 and died in 2020, who worked on ethics and metaphysics across a range of fields but is most known for her writing on the trolley problem and on abortion. She is credited with naming, developing and initiating the extensive philosophical literature on the trolley problem, first posed by Philippa Foot, which has since found wide use in moral philosophy. Thomson also published the widely read 1971 paper A Defense of Abortion, which argues that abortion can be morally permissible even granting, for the sake of argument, that a fetus is a person with a right to life.
Facts
Defining MomentShe is credited with naming, developing, and initiating the extensive literature on the trolley problem first posed by Philippa Foot which has found a wide range use since. 1 Notable Publication Office HeldProfessor Emerita, Massachusetts Institute of Technology 1 Death PlaceCambridge, Massachusetts, U.S. 1 Connections
Influenced
Source Trolley Problem (Wikipedia)
In the Other Atlases
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1. Judith Jarvis Thomson (Wikipedia)
Wikipedialead paragraph, first sentence, Judith Jarvis Thomson (Wikipedia)
October 4, 1929
lead paragraph, first sentence (year), Judith Jarvis Thomson (Wikipedia)
October 4, 1929
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New York City, U.S.
lead paragraph, first sentence (death), Judith Jarvis Thomson (Wikipedia)
November 20, 2020
lead paragraph, first sentence (death year), Judith Jarvis Thomson (Wikipedia)
November 20, 2020
infobox field 'death_place', Judith Jarvis Thomson (Wikipedia)
Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.
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Analytic philosophy
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Thomson also published a paper titled "A Defense of Abortion", which makes the argument that the procedure is morally permissible even if it is assumed that a fetus is a person with a right to life.
lead paragraph, third sentence, Judith Jarvis Thomson (Wikipedia)
She is credited with naming, developing, and initiating the extensive literature on the trolley problem first posed by Philippa Foot which has found a wide range use since.
MIT News obituary headline citation, Judith Jarvis Thomson (Wikipedia)
Professor Emerita Judith Jarvis Thomson, highly influential philosopher, dies at 91
Lead section, nationality sentence
Judith Jarvis Thomson (October 4, 1929, November 20, 2020) was an American philosopher who studied and worked on ethics and metaphysics.
View the Source Trolley Problem (Wikipedia)
WikipediaInfluenced: The Trolley Problem, Origin sectionQuote, Influenced: The Trolley Problem, Origin section
Later dubbed 'the trolley problem' by Judith Jarvis Thomson in a 1976 article that catalyzed a large literature, the subject refers to the meta-problem of why different judgements are arrived at in particular instances.
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