Making Sense of John Harris and The Value of Life: An Enigma, Wrapped in Mysterious Contradictions, inside an Absence of Theoretical Commitments?

This paper critically engages with the work of John Harris. Its central focus is his 1985 book, The Value of Life; a foundational text in philosophical bioethics, whose relevance and resonance continue firmly to endure. My aim is to examine what it says—and omits to say—about political authority. Through analysis of apparent and substantive contradictions, and of John’s core focus on moral reasons rather than a basic moral theory, I argue that John says too little about the founding of political obligation. This is so even while he sees political obligation as morally required. I argue that the framings he gives in favour of moral requirements to accept political obligations are particularly significant because they indicate problems in the fundamentality and import of the idea of respect for persons as it features in The Value of Life.