According to some philosophers, the morality of infanticide depends on considerations very different from those on which the morality of killing adult human beings depends. More specifically, these philosophers maintain that killing infants can be immoral only on general utilitarian grounds, but that killing adult human beings is sometimes wrong inherently and irrespective of utilitarian considerations. Other philosophers claim, however, that the morality of killing infants depends on the same non-utilitarian considerations as does the morality of killing adult human beings. I will refer to these respectively as the "liberal" and "conservative" positions on the morality of infanticide.' As these positions are elaborated and defended in the literature, they invariably take stands on the issue of whether infants are capable of possessing a right to life. Liberals insist that infants lack some property the possession of which is necessary (and perhaps sufficient) for anything to have a right to life. And conservatives argue that, while there are certain properties at least some of which individuals must possess in order to have a right to life, infants have all that are necessary. Discussions of infanticide typically center, therefore, on the idea that possessing certain properties is necessarily correlated with having a right to life, and on whether infants possess the properties in question. I think it is fair to say, however, that neither liberals nor conservatives have been particularly successful in their efforts to deal with these matters in ways which support their respective positions. I think too that, while it seems natural to regard someone wishing to establish either of these positions as having first to resolve the issue of whether infants have a right to life, this is not in fact