What Ethical Dilemmas Are Explored in Hills Like White Elephants?
Author: MARTIN MUNYAO MUINDE
Email: Ephantusmartin@gmail.com
Direct Answer
Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” explores profound ethical dilemmas centered on autonomy, moral responsibility, and the consequences of life-altering decisions through a conversation between an American man and a young woman named Jig about a potential abortion. The primary ethical conflicts include the tension between individual freedom and relational obligation, the manipulation of consent through power imbalances, the question of moral agency in reproductive choices, and the conflict between utilitarian reasoning (prioritizing happiness and convenience) and deontological ethics (focusing on moral duties and the intrinsic value of life). The story raises critical questions about whether difficult choices can be truly autonomous when made under emotional pressure, whether one person’s desires should outweigh another’s fundamental rights, and how communication failures compound ethical crises. Through sparse dialogue and symbolic imagery, Hemingway presents a case study in moral philosophy that examines the ethics of persuasion, the nature of responsibility in intimate relationships, and the devastating impact of choices made without genuine mutual understanding or respect for human dignity.
What Is the Central Moral Conflict in Hills Like White Elephants?
The central moral conflict in Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” revolves around an unmarried couple’s discussion of abortion, presented through minimalist dialogue that exposes deeper questions about autonomy, manipulation, and moral responsibility. Published in 1927, the story takes place at a train station in Spain, where an American man and his companion, referred to as Jig, wait for their connection while discussing what the man euphemistically calls “an awfully simple operation” (Hemingway, 1927). The ethical tension emerges not merely from the abortion debate itself but from the power dynamics, communication breakdown, and conflicting value systems that shape their interaction. Hemingway employs his characteristic iceberg theory, leaving the most significant ethical dimensions beneath the surface of seemingly casual conversation, forcing readers to confront uncomfortable questions about consent, coercion, and the moral weight of life-changing decisions (Weeks, 1980). The story becomes a meditation on whether choices made under duress can be considered ethically sound and whether the ends of personal freedom justify means that potentially violate another person’s agency.
The ethical complexity intensifies when we examine the communication patterns between the characters, which reveal manipulation masked as reasoned discussion. The American man repeatedly assures Jig that the procedure is simple, that “it’s really an awfully simple operation,” and that afterward “we’ll be fine” (Hemingway, 1927). His rhetoric employs minimization and false reassurance, ethical tactics that philosophers like Immanuel Kant would categorize as treating another person merely as a means to an end rather than as an autonomous agent deserving of full truth and respect (Kant, 1785). The man’s insistence that they will be “just like we were before” and “happy” demonstrates utilitarian reasoning focused on maximizing pleasure and minimizing disruption to his lifestyle, yet this reasoning fails to acknowledge Jig’s emotional reality or her potential desire for motherhood. Feminist ethicists like Carol Gilligan have argued that moral development requires recognizing care-based ethics alongside justice-based reasoning, suggesting that the man’s failure to genuinely hear Jig’s perspective represents a fundamental ethical failure (Gilligan, 1982). The moral conflict thus becomes not simply about abortion itself but about the ethics of decision-making within relationships characterized by unequal power, inadequate communication, and competing visions of the good life.
How Does the Story Illustrate Autonomy Versus Coercion in Ethical Decision-Making?
Autonomy, defined as the capacity for self-governance and the right to make decisions about one’s own life free from controlling interference, stands as a foundational principle in modern ethical philosophy and medical ethics. “Hills Like White Elephants” presents a troubling case study in compromised autonomy, where Jig’s decision-making occurs within a context of emotional pressure, economic dependence, and subtle coercion. The American man’s conversational tactics reveal sophisticated manipulation: he frames the abortion as necessary for their happiness, suggests that Jig’s hesitation stems from irrationality rather than legitimate moral concern, and implies that refusal would end their relationship. When Jig tentatively expresses ambivalence, saying “Then I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me,” the man responds with apparent concern but continues his persuasive campaign (Hemingway, 1927). This dynamic illustrates what philosophers call “adaptive preferences,” where individuals in subordinate positions internalize the preferences of those with power over them, compromising genuine autonomy (Khader, 2011). The ethical question becomes whether a choice made under such circumstances can be considered truly voluntary or whether it represents what legal scholars call “coerced consent,” a contradiction in terms that undermines the moral legitimacy of the decision.
The power imbalance between the characters further compromises Jig’s autonomy in ways that illuminate broader questions about consent and freedom in intimate relationships. The man’s financial control, evidenced by his handling of their luggage and his ability to determine their travel, suggests economic dependence that constrains Jig’s options. Martha Nussbaum’s capabilities approach to ethics argues that genuine freedom requires not merely the absence of direct coercion but the presence of positive conditions that enable meaningful choice, including economic security, education, and social support (Nussbaum, 2000). Jig lacks these enabling conditions, and her isolation—they are foreigners in Spain, disconnected from family and community—intensifies her vulnerability. The man’s statement that “if you don’t want to you don’t have to. I wouldn’t have you do it if you didn’t want to” appears to respect autonomy on the surface, yet the entire context of their conversation undermines this apparent respect (Hemingway, 1927). Feminist philosopher Marilyn Frye has described such situations as involving “the double bind,” where all available options carry significant costs, and the appearance of choice masks structural coercion (Frye, 1983). The story thus raises profound questions about what conditions must exist for ethical decision-making to occur and whether decisions made within relationships of unequal power can ever be fully autonomous.
What Role Does Utilitarian Ethics Play in the Characters’ Reasoning?
Utilitarian ethics, developed by philosophers Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill, holds that actions are morally right to the extent that they maximize overall happiness and minimize suffering for all affected parties. The American man in “Hills Like White Elephants” employs explicitly utilitarian reasoning throughout the conversation, arguing that the abortion will restore their previous happiness and allow them to continue their carefree lifestyle. He insists repeatedly that “we’ll be fine afterward” and “we’ll be all right and happy” if Jig proceeds with the operation, and he characterizes the pregnancy as “the only thing that bothers us” and “the only thing that’s made us unhappy” (Hemingway, 1927). This cost-benefit calculus treats the pregnancy as a problem to be eliminated rather than as a potential life or as a meaningful development in their relationship. From a utilitarian perspective, if the procedure is safe and will genuinely restore their happiness while the pregnancy would cause ongoing distress, the abortion becomes not merely permissible but obligatory. However, Hemingway’s presentation of this reasoning exposes its limitations, particularly the man’s self-serving calculation that prioritizes his own happiness while treating Jig’s deeper feelings as irrational obstacles to their mutual wellbeing.
The story reveals critical weaknesses in utilitarian reasoning when applied to complex moral situations involving relationships, autonomy, and incommensurable values. First, the man’s utilitarian calculus ignores the distribution of costs and benefits: he experiences the pregnancy primarily as an inconvenience, while Jig faces the physical risks of abortion, the potential psychological trauma, and the loss of a potential relationship with a child. Philosopher Bernard Williams criticized utilitarianism for its failure to account for the separateness of persons and the special obligations that arise from personal relationships, arguing that treating all interests as fungible units in a happiness calculation violates our deepest intuitions about moral responsibility (Williams, 1973). Second, the man’s reasoning assumes that happiness can be restored by eliminating the pregnancy, yet Jig’s contemplative gaze at the hills and her comment that “they look like white elephants” suggests she recognizes dimensions of value—potential motherhood, creation of life, transformation of identity—that cannot be captured in simple happiness calculations (Hemingway, 1927). Philosopher Martha Nussbaum has argued that utilitarian approaches often fail to recognize the qualitative distinctness of different human goods and the ways that certain choices foreclose entire dimensions of human flourishing (Nussbaum, 2000). The story thus demonstrates how utilitarian reasoning, particularly when employed by those with power, can become a tool for rationalization rather than genuine moral deliberation.
How Does Deontological Ethics Inform Our Understanding of the Story’s Moral Questions?
Deontological ethics, most powerfully articulated by Immanuel Kant, holds that moral rightness depends not on consequences but on adherence to universal moral principles and respect for persons as ends in themselves rather than merely as means to other ends. From a Kantian perspective, the American man’s treatment of Jig violates the categorical imperative in multiple ways. First, his manipulative communication tactics fail the universalizability test: if everyone engaged in such manipulation to achieve their desires, genuine communication and trust would become impossible, undermining the very social conditions necessary for human relationships (Kant, 1785). The man treats Jig instrumentally, as an obstacle to his preferred lifestyle rather than as a rational agent with her own legitimate moral perspective. Second, his use of euphemism and minimization—calling abortion “an awfully simple operation” and “just to let the air in”—violates the duty of truthfulness that Kant considered fundamental to human dignity (Hemingway, 1927). Kantian ethics demands that moral agents provide others with full, truthful information necessary for autonomous decision-making, yet the man’s rhetoric systematically obscures both the nature of the procedure and his own self-interested motives.
Deontological ethics also illuminates the question of moral duties toward potential life and the obligations that arise from intimate relationships. While Kant himself did not directly address abortion, his emphasis on the intrinsic worth of rational nature and his prohibition against treating humanity merely as a means suggests that decisions about potential life carry profound moral weight that cannot be reduced to calculations of convenience or happiness. Contemporary Kantian philosophers like Christine Korsgaard have argued that moral obligations arise from our capacity to confer value through our choices and commitments, suggesting that the decision to continue or terminate a pregnancy involves fundamental questions about which potential relationships we recognize as making legitimate claims on us (Korsgaard, 1996). The story’s title and central symbol—hills like white elephants—invokes the idiom of a “white elephant” as a burdensome gift, suggesting competing interpretations of the pregnancy as either an unwanted burden or a valuable potential that the man fails to recognize. From a deontological perspective, the ethical failure lies not necessarily in the decision itself but in the process: the man’s refusal to engage Jig as an equal moral agent, his manipulation of her emotional vulnerability, and his inability or unwillingness to recognize duties of care and honesty that intimate relationships create. The story thus becomes a case study in how violations of deontological principles—treating persons as ends, adhering to truthfulness, respecting autonomy—create moral catastrophe regardless of the ultimate decision reached.
What Does Virtue Ethics Reveal About the Characters’ Moral Failures?
Virtue ethics, rooted in Aristotelian philosophy and revived by contemporary philosophers like Alasdair MacIntyre and Rosalind Hursthouse, focuses not on rules or consequences but on character traits that enable human flourishing and on the question of what kind of person one should become. From this perspective, “Hills Like White Elephants” presents characters who lack crucial virtues necessary for navigating moral complexity with wisdom and integrity. The American man exhibits failures of courage, honesty, and practical wisdom (phronesis). His courage fails when he cannot openly state what he wants or engage directly with the gravity of the decision, instead hiding behind euphemisms and false reassurance. His dishonesty appears in the gap between his words and his actions: he claims to support whatever Jig wants while simultaneously pressuring her toward his preferred outcome. Most significantly, he lacks phronesis—the practical wisdom to recognize the complexity of the situation, to understand Jig’s perspective, and to deliberate appropriately about incommensurable values (Aristotle, 350 BCE). Virtue ethics emphasizes that moral perception—the ability to recognize what matters in a particular situation—is itself an ethical capacity that develops through proper formation of character, and the man’s perception is systematically distorted by self-interest and emotional immaturity.
Jig’s character reveals both potential virtues and the damage caused by her relationship with a man who lacks them. Her artistic sensitivity, shown in her perception of the hills and her metaphorical thinking, suggests the imaginative capacity necessary for ethical wisdom. Her initial courage in raising implicit objections to the man’s plan demonstrates moral awareness, even as her resolve weakens under his persistent pressure. However, her ultimate statement—”I’ll do it. Because I don’t care about me”—reveals a profound vice from an Aristotelian perspective: the failure of proper self-love and self-respect that virtue ethics considers essential for ethical life (Hemingway, 1927). Aristotle argued that proper self-love—valuing oneself as a rational and moral being—is necessary for virtue and for the capacity to love others appropriately (Aristotle, 350 BCE). Jig’s statement suggests that the relationship has eroded this foundation of ethical life, leaving her unable to assert her own legitimate interests. Contemporary virtue ethicists like Rosalind Hursthouse have applied virtue ethics to reproductive decisions, arguing that such choices should reflect virtues like courage, honesty, justice, and practical wisdom rather than mere calculation or pressure (Hursthouse, 1991). The story illustrates how vices—cowardice, dishonesty, self-indulgence, lack of wisdom—corrupt decision-making processes and relationships, resulting in choices that undermine human flourishing regardless of their surface rationality. The ethical tragedy lies not simply in what decision will be made but in the character failures that have made a wise, mutually respectful decision impossible.
How Does Care Ethics Provide an Alternative Framework for Understanding the Story?
Care ethics, developed by feminist philosophers like Carol Gilligan, Nel Noddings, and Joan Tronto, challenges traditional ethical frameworks by emphasizing relationships, emotional attunement, and the ethics of responsibility over abstract principles or utilitarian calculations. This approach emerged partly from Gilligan’s research showing that women often approach moral dilemmas through considerations of care, relationship, and responsibility rather than through abstract rights and rules (Gilligan, 1982). Applied to “Hills Like White Elephants,” care ethics reveals the profound relational failures that structure the story’s ethical crisis. Genuine care requires attentiveness to another’s needs and perspective, responsiveness to their expressed and unexpressed concerns, competence in providing appropriate support, and responsibility for maintaining relationship (Tronto, 1993). The American man fails at every dimension of care: he does not truly attend to Jig’s emotional state, he responds to her implicit resistance with intensified pressure rather than with genuine engagement, he lacks competence in supporting her through moral complexity, and he evades responsibility by framing the decision as entirely hers while simultaneously manipulating her toward his preference.
Care ethics particularly illuminates the importance of relational context in ethical decision-making and the ways that the quality of relationships shapes the moral character of choices made within them. Nel Noddings argues that ethical care requires “engrossment” in the other’s reality and “motivational displacement,” where the carer’s motive energy flows toward the other’s projects and needs (Noddings, 1984). The American man’s conversation reveals the opposite: he cannot imaginatively enter Jig’s perspective, and his motive energy flows entirely toward eliminating what he perceives as an obstacle to his desires. The repetitive, circular quality of their dialogue—Jig raising concerns, the man offering reassurance, Jig tentatively agreeing, then returning to doubt—reflects the failure of genuine caring communication that would allow both parties to collaboratively explore their values and options. Joan Tronto has emphasized that care ethics requires addressing power inequalities that distort caring relationships, noting that genuine care cannot occur where one party dominates another (Tronto, 1993). The story thus demonstrates how the absence of care—understood not as mere sentiment but as a complex ethical practice requiring skill, attention, and relational equality—transforms a difficult decision into a moral disaster. From a care ethics perspective, the ethical question is not primarily “Is abortion right or wrong?” but rather “How should people in intimate relationships deliberate together about difficult choices in ways that preserve dignity, autonomy, and genuine mutual care?” The story shows the devastation that results when this question goes unasked and unanswered.
What Symbolism Does Hemingway Use to Convey Ethical Dimensions of Choice?
Hemingway’s sparse prose relies heavily on symbolism to convey the story’s ethical dimensions, with the central symbol appearing in the title itself: hills like white elephants. When Jig observes that the distant hills “look like white elephants,” the American man dismissively responds that he’s never seen one, and Jig replies, “No, you wouldn’t have” (Hemingway, 1927). The white elephant, in English idiom, refers to a possession that is burdensome, expensive to maintain, yet difficult to dispose of—often a gift that one cannot refuse but cannot easily keep. This symbolism operates at multiple levels: it represents the pregnancy as the man views it (an unwanted burden), yet simultaneously suggests value and rarity that the man fails to perceive. White elephants are also sacred in some Asian cultures, suggesting the potential sanctity or specialness of life that the man’s utilitarian reasoning cannot accommodate. The symbol thus encapsulates the ethical tension between competing value frameworks: the man’s instrumental view of the pregnancy as a problem versus Jig’s intuition that it represents something precious and transformative, even if challenging.
The story’s setting provides additional symbolic dimension that reinforces its ethical themes. The couple waits at a junction between rail lines, symbolizing the crossroads of decision they face and the diverging paths their lives might take. The landscape is divided: on one side, the hills are “white in the sun” and the country is “brown and dry,” while on the other side are “fields of grain and trees” and the river (Hemingway, 1927). This contrast symbolizes the choice between fertility and barrenness, growth and sterility, life and its negation. The man faces the barren side and cannot or will not see the difference, reflecting his ethical blindness and his inability to recognize value beyond his immediate desires. The bead curtain through which the man walks to order more drinks at the bar, made of “strings of bamboo beads” painted with “Anis del Toro,” creates a threshold between spaces that echoes the moral threshold the couple faces (Hemingway, 1927). Hemingway’s use of the limited third-person perspective, which shows us only external actions and dialogue without internal thoughts, forces readers to engage in ethical interpretation, making us active participants in determining the moral dimensions of the characters’ situation. This narrative technique itself embodies an ethical position: it refuses to moralize overtly or tell readers what to think, instead demanding that we exercise our own moral judgment and perception, much as the characters themselves must do. The symbolism thus operates not merely as decorative literary device but as integral to the story’s ethical argument about perception, value, and the consequences of moral blindness.
How Does Communication Failure Intensify the Ethical Crisis?
The ethical crisis in “Hills Like White Elephants” is inseparable from the profound communication failure between the characters, demonstrating how linguistic and emotional disconnection compounds moral difficulty. Philosopher Jürgen Habermas argued that ethical discourse requires an “ideal speech situation” characterized by mutual respect, equal participation, freedom from coercion, and commitment to reaching understanding through rational argument (Habermas, 1984). The conversation in Hemingway’s story violates every condition of ethical communication: the man dominates the discourse, coercion operates through emotional pressure and implied threats, and neither party genuinely seeks understanding. The dialogue is characterized by what linguists call “strategic communication” rather than “communicative action”—the man uses language instrumentally to achieve his predetermined goal rather than to genuinely deliberate with Jig as an equal partner (Habermas, 1984). This communication failure is evident in the repetitive, circular quality of their conversation: the same reassurances, the same doubts, the same evasions, cycling without progress or genuine engagement. The man’s language consistently minimizes and obscures—”awfully simple operation,” “just to let the air in,” “perfectly natural”—while Jig’s more metaphorical, emotionally authentic language—”they look like white elephants,” “doesn’t it mean anything to you?”—goes unheard (Hemingway, 1927).
The failure of genuine dialogue transforms what might be a difficult but navigable moral decision into an impossible ethical situation. Feminist philosopher Seyla Benhabib has argued that moral reasoning requires what she calls “concrete other” thinking: the ability to imaginatively enter another’s particular situation and understand their needs and perspectives in their specific context, as opposed to “generalized other” thinking that treats people as abstract bearers of rights and duties (Benhabib, 1992). The American man’s communication reflects exclusively “generalized other” thinking—he sees Jig as a generic obstacle to his preferred lifestyle rather than as a particular person with specific fears, desires, and moral intuitions. When Jig asks whether he thinks “we’ll be all right” and whether things can “be like they were,” she seeks genuine engagement about their relationship and shared future, but the man responds with empty reassurance rather than substantive dialogue (Hemingway, 1927). The communication breakdown is further evidenced by Jig’s final statement: “Would you please please please please please please please stop talking?” (Hemingway, 1927). The desperate repetition signals the complete collapse of communicative possibility and Jig’s recognition that continued dialogue will only deepen her subordination. From an ethical perspective, this communication failure demonstrates that the rightness of difficult decisions depends not merely on abstract principles or calculations but on the quality of deliberative process. When communication fails, moral catastrophe becomes inevitable regardless of what choice is ultimately made, because the decision cannot reflect genuine mutual understanding, respect, or shared commitment to finding a path forward that honors both parties’ dignity and values.
What Contemporary Ethical Frameworks Can We Apply to Understand This Story Today?
Contemporary ethical frameworks provide additional lenses through which to analyze “Hills Like White Elephants” and its ongoing relevance to modern moral debates. Principlism, developed by bioethicists Tom Beauchamp and James Childress, identifies four core principles for medical ethics: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice (Beauchamp & Childress, 2019). Applying these principles to the story reveals multiple ethical violations. Autonomy is compromised through the man’s manipulative communication and Jig’s constrained circumstances. Beneficence (acting in the patient’s best interest) is absent because the man’s primary concern is his own convenience rather than Jig’s wellbeing. Non-maleficence (doing no harm) is potentially violated both by the physical risks of abortion and by the psychological harm caused by coerced decision-making. Justice, understood as fairness in the distribution of benefits and burdens, is violated by the unequal power relationship and the man’s expectation that Jig bear all costs of their mutual choices. This principlism analysis reveals that the ethical problems extend far beyond the question of abortion’s moral status to encompass failures across multiple dimensions of ethical medical decision-making.
Relational autonomy theory, developed by feminist philosophers like Catriona Mackenzie and Natalie Stoljar, offers another valuable contemporary framework for understanding the story’s ethical dimensions. Relational autonomy recognizes that individual autonomy is always situated within relationships and social contexts that can either support or undermine autonomous agency (Mackenzie & Stoljar, 2000). This framework rejects both the atomistic individualism of traditional liberal theory and the denial of individual agency in some communitarian approaches, instead analyzing how relationships and social structures shape the conditions under which genuine autonomy becomes possible. Applied to “Hills Like White Elephants,” relational autonomy theory helps us see how Jig’s capacity for autonomous choice is systematically undermined not through obvious coercion but through subtle dynamics of dependence, isolation, and emotional manipulation within her relationship. The theory also highlights how economic dependence, gender inequality, and lack of social support create structural constraints on autonomy that go beyond individual character or communication failures. Additionally, contemporary narrative ethics, which emphasizes the role of stories in moral understanding and the importance of narrative coherence in ethical life, illuminates how the couple’s inability to construct a shared narrative about their future together reflects fundamental ethical breakdown (Nelson, 2001). The man wants to return to their previous narrative of carefree travel and romance, while Jig intuits a potential narrative of parenthood and transformed relationship, and their inability to integrate these competing narratives or create a new shared story makes ethical resolution impossible. These contemporary frameworks demonstrate that Hemingway’s ninety-year-old story remains profoundly relevant to ongoing debates about autonomy, consent, relationships, and the ethics of reproductive decision-making.
What Lessons Does This Story Teach About Ethical Decision-Making in Relationships?
“Hills Like White Elephants” offers profound lessons about the conditions necessary for ethical decision-making in intimate relationships, particularly when facing difficult choices with life-altering consequences. First, the story demonstrates that genuine ethical deliberation requires authentic communication characterized by honesty, vulnerability, and mutual respect. The man’s strategic use of language to manipulate rather than to genuinely communicate with Jig transforms their conversation into an exercise in coercion rather than collaborative moral reasoning. Ethical decision-making in relationships demands what philosopher Martin Buber called an “I-Thou” relationship, where each person encounters the other as a full subject rather than as an object to be managed or manipulated (Buber, 1923). The man’s treatment of Jig exemplifies the “I-It” relationship, where the other becomes merely instrumental to one’s own purposes. Second, the story illustrates how power imbalances corrupt ethical deliberation. When one party holds economic power, emotional leverage, or greater social freedom, their preferences exert undue influence on decisions that should reflect both parties’ values and needs. Genuine ethical decision-making requires either equalizing power or consciously compensating for power differentials through enhanced attention to the less powerful party’s perspective and interests.
Third, Hemingway’s story reveals that ethical decision-making requires emotional competence: the capacity to recognize, articulate, and respond appropriately to complex emotions in oneself and others. The man’s emotional illiteracy—his inability or unwillingness to engage with Jig’s fear, ambivalence, and grief—makes ethical deliberation impossible because emotions carry important moral information that purely rational analysis cannot capture (Nussbaum, 2001). When the man dismisses Jig’s emotional responses as irrational obstacles to their happiness, he loses access to crucial moral insights that her emotions communicate. Fourth, the story demonstrates that some decisions cannot be made ethically without shared values or at minimum mutual respect for different value frameworks. The man and Jig operate from incompatible value systems—he from a pleasure-maximizing utilitarianism, she from a more care-based and intuitive moral framework—yet they never acknowledge this difference or work to find common ground. Contemporary relationship ethicists emphasize that healthy relationships require explicit discussion of values, particularly before facing major decisions, and they stress the importance of cultivating shared meaning and purpose that can guide couples through moral complexity (Gottman & Silver, 1999). Finally, the story teaches that how we make difficult decisions matters as much as what we decide. A choice to terminate a pregnancy made collaboratively, with full information, genuine mutual support, and respect for both parties’ autonomy carries different moral weight than the same choice made under pressure, with inadequate deliberation, and with one party’s values systematically marginalized. The ethical legacy of decisions depends not merely on their outcomes but on the integrity of the process through which they are reached, and Hemingway’s story powerfully illustrates the human costs when that process breaks down.
References
Aristotle. (350 BCE). Nicomachean Ethics (W. D. Ross, Trans.). Oxford University Press.
Beauchamp, T. L., & Childress, J. F. (2019). Principles of biomedical ethics (8th ed.). Oxford University Press.
Benhabib, S. (1992). Situating the self: Gender, community, and postmodernism in contemporary ethics. Routledge.
Buber, M. (1923). I and thou (R. G. Smith, Trans.). Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Frye, M. (1983). The politics of reality: Essays in feminist theory. Crossing Press.
Gilligan, C. (1982). In a different voice: Psychological theory and women’s development. Harvard University Press.
Gottman, J. M., & Silver, N. (1999). The seven principles for making marriage work. Crown Publishers.
Habermas, J. (1984). The theory of communicative action (T. McCarthy, Trans.). Beacon Press.
Hemingway, E. (1927). Hills like white elephants. In Men without women (pp. 69-77). Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Hursthouse, R. (1991). Virtue theory and abortion. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 20(3), 223-246.
Kant, I. (1785). Groundwork of the metaphysics of morals (M. Gregor, Trans.). Cambridge University Press.
Khader, S. J. (2011). Adaptive preferences and women’s empowerment. Oxford University Press.
Korsgaard, C. M. (1996). The sources of normativity. Cambridge University Press.
Mackenzie, C., & Stoljar, N. (Eds.). (2000). Relational autonomy: Feminist perspectives on autonomy, agency, and the social self. Oxford University Press.
Nelson, H. L. (2001). Damaged identities, narrative repair. Cornell University Press.
Noddings, N. (1984). Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education. University of California Press.
Nussbaum, M. C. (2000). Women and human development: The capabilities approach. Cambridge University Press.
Nussbaum, M. C. (2001). Upheavals of thought: The intelligence of emotions. Cambridge University Press.
Tronto, J. C. (1993). Moral boundaries: A political argument for an ethic of care. Routledge.
Weeks, R. P. (1980). Hemingway’s “Hills like white elephants.” The Explicator, 38(4), 12-13.
Williams, B. (1973). A critique of utilitarianism. In J. J. C. Smart & B. Williams, Utilitarianism: For and against (pp. 77-150). Cambridge University Press.
Word Count: 5,247 words