Draft:Francesca Minerva

Francesca Minerva is an Italian philosopher. She is a specialist in applied ethics, with a focus in bioethics. She is the co-founder and co-editor of the Journal of Controversial Ideas with Peter Singer and Jeff McMahan.

Biography
Minerva has a degree in Philosophy from the University of Pisa and has a Doctorate in Bioethics from the University of Bologna. She has been a post-doc at the University of Melbourne and the University of Ghent.

In 2012, she and Alberto Giubilini authored the article After-birth abortion: why should the baby live? which was published in the Journal of Medical Ethics in 2013. The article compared the ethical difference between abortion and premature birth and argued that if the abortion of a fetus was morally acceptable, due to their status as non-persons, then an after-birth abortion done for the same reason should be acceptable as well. The article led to some debate and some death threats.

In 2014, Minerva published an article in  Bioethics titled Why Publishing Pseudonymously Can Protect Academic Freedom. The article led to discussions with Jeff McMahan and Peter Singer. According to Minerva, these discussions concluded with a determination: "We thought we should establish this journal where people can send papers they’re afraid couldn’t be published in other journals." According to McMahan, JCI "enables people whose ideas might get them in trouble either with the left or with the right or with their own university administration, to publish under a pseudonym".

In November 2018, the Journal of Controversial Ideas was established. It began accepting submissions in April 2020, looking for "careful, rigorous, unpolemical discussion of issues that are widely considered controversial, in the sense that certain views about them might be regarded by many people as morally, socially, or ideologically objectionable or offensive", and published its first issue in April 2021.

Her ideas about ugly people ...

She is the author of the 2018 book The Ethics of Cryonics: Is it Immoral to be Immortal? (Palgrave MacMillan)

She is currently writing a book on the Ethics of plastic surgery.