Last time: Warren's criticism of anti-abortion argument. See handout.

For the traditional argument to be good, you need to argue that whatever is genetically human is also morally human, a person.

Warren says there are good reasons for denying this claim, reflecting on the concept of a person.

Criteria according to which someone is

-- a person

-- a member of the moral community

-- a human in the moral sense (p. 103)

-- consciousness

-- reasoning

-- self-motivated activity

-- the capacity to communicate

-- self-awareness

Strong claim: a creature must have all of these to be a person.

Weaker claim: a creature with none of these is not a person.

Warren is making weaker claim.

Implication:

Fetus is not a person.

Only persons have a right to life.

Objections to Warren's view:

1. Fetal development

2. Potential Personhood

3. Infanticide

A newborn infant doesn't meet the criteria of personhood much better than a late term fetus.

Warren's justification of abortion would justify infanticide as well.

Infanticide is clearly wrong.

So, there must be something wrong with W's argument.

Reflective Equilibrium:

Moral Principle: Only creatures with psychological features (1-5) have a (full) right to life.

Moral claims: --> fetus has no right to life

--> infant has no right to life

--> coma victim has no right to life

The Moral Principle must be wrong.

Don Marquis -- An Argument that Abortion is Wrong

Review of debates

1) All humans have a right to life

2) a fetus is human

Warren's objection to this argument

Fallacy of equivocation, begging the question

-- human in genetic, biological sense

-- human in the moral, psychological sense

(see handout)

But Marquis points out that Warren's argument (personhood views generally) has similar problems.

1) Only a person has a right to life.

2) A fetus is not a person

Fallacy of ambiguity? Begging the question?

So, abortion debate seems stuck. Marquis offers a different approach.

"Is killing a fetus wrong?"

--> "Why is killing ever wrong?" Why is it wrong to kill someone like us?

If that reason is equally applicable in the case of a fetus, then killing a fetus will be wrong too.

Why would killing s.o. like us be wrong?

-- it would make those who remain sad/ worse off

-- lose contribution to society

-- dehumanize the killer

(not main reasons)

-- it would deprive the person who is killed of all those experiences, activities, enjoyments, projects that would constitute that person's future personal life

In short, killing is wrong because it deprives a person of a valuable future -- a FLO

Considerations in favor of FLO -- implications that fit with our other intuitions and feelings

-- Premature death is unfortunate.

-- Euthanasia is sometimes permissible.

-- We feel differently about killing someone in a permanent coma vs. someone in a temporary coma.

-- We should try to prevent the suicide attempts of someone in a temporary depression.

-- It may be wrong to kill non-human creatures.

-- aliens

-- some animal

-- It is wrong to kill infants.

All can be explained by appeal to idea that it is a bad thing when someone is deprived of a FLO.

Upshot --> abortion is wrong.

Other things being equal, a fetus has a FLO.

Abortion is wrong for the same reason it is wrong to kill people like us.

Objections to FLO

1. Potentiality

Dubious principle:

"If x's have a right to y, then potential x's have a right to y"

Reply: Marquis not using this premise.

2. Interests

Reply: Ambiguity -- taking an interest, caring, requires consciousness.

-- something being in your interest, doesn't.

Counter-intuitive implications of FLO

3. Equality

Most killing of adults is equally bad. Age doesn't matter.

On FLO, killing a very old person would be less bad.

Reply:

-- FLO view offers one reason why killing is wrong.

There may be others.

-- Practical reason for a general prohibition on murder

-- We don't want to have to judge how valuable a victim's life would have been if he had lived to determine how wrong the killing is. So, we just prohibit it in general.

4. Contraception

If you use contraception, or even abstain from sex, you are preventing someone from having a FLO.

So, the FLO argument entails that contraception (and abstinence!) are wrong.

Reply: At the time of contraception, there is no individual that has a FLO. No individual is wronged.

So, the FLO view doesn't imply that contraception is wrong.