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Don Marquis: “Why Abortion is Immoral” Marquis’ Project

•

Thesis

: In the overwhelming majority of cases, deliberate abortions are seriously immoral.

• Marquis is attempting to dispel the belief that the anti-abortion position arises from religious dogma or poor philosophy.

• Marquis chooses to ignore “hard cases” such as those where the life of a woman is threatened by the fetus.

• Marquis assumes for the sake of argument

that whether or not abortion is morally permissible stands or falls on whether a fetus is the sort of being whose life it is seriously wrong to end.

• As such, Marquis’ argument depends upon his account of when it is seriously wrong to end

any

life.

The Form of Marquis’ Argument

• Killing is seriously immoral when it robs the victim of a future of value.

• Killing a fetus robs the fetus of a future of value.

• (Aborting a fetus kills the fetus.) • Therefore, it is seriously immoral to abort a fetus.

The Wrongness of Killing

• “[A] necessary condition of resolving the abortion controversy is a … theoretical account of the wrongness of killing.” (293)

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“Why My Theory is Better than Your Theory” (I)

•

Killing is wrong not because it brutalizes the killer

.

Presumably, if a murderer is “brutalized”, it is because he performs an immoral act.

•

Killing is wrong not because of the loss to others (family, etc.).

- Presumably, it is still wrong to murder hermits and other solitary individuals.

•

Killing is wrong because it robs the victim of “all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one’s future.”

(293) - This would seem to at least be the case with killing

any

adult human.

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Killing is wrong because it deprives the victim of his or her future.

• The activities, experiences, and so on, that would have constituted my future personal life are either valuable for their own sakes, or for the sake of some other thing (which, in turn, is valuable for its own sake).

• Some parts of my future are valued by me now, and other parts will be valued by me later.

• When I die, I will be deprived of the value of both.

• Inflicting this loss on me is ultimately what makes killing me wrong.

• What makes the killing of

any

adult human wrong is the loss of his or her future (which has value).

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Implications:

Some natural property will ultimately explain the wrongness of killing only if: 1. The explanation fits our intuitions about the matter.

2. There is no other natural property that would

better

explain the wrongness of killing.

That what makes killing wrong is the loss of the victim’s future is supported by: 1. Our intuition that killing is one of the worst possible crimes.

- Killing someone deprives them of

more

than any other crime against them does.

2. The belief held by the dying that dying is very bad for them

because

it deprives them of future experiences.

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Implications

(cont’d)

1. This view is incompatible with the problematic view that it is only wrong to kill biologically human beings.

2. This view entails the possibility that the futures of some actual nonhuman mammals on our own planet are sufficiently like ours that it is seriously wrong to kill them also.

3. This view does not entail the questionable thesis that active euthanasia is wrong.

4. This view straightforwardly entails that it is seriously wrong to kill infants and children (where views depending on a notion of personhood, like Warren’s, may not).

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The Argument from Personhood:

• It is wrong to kill “persons” (usually defined as a thing having rationality, or some particular kinds of desires).

• If it is wrong to kill persons, it is wrong to kill beings with the potential to become persons.

• Children and fetuses have the potential to become persons.

• Therefore it is wrong to kill children and fetuses.

Problematic premise!

• Unlike the argument from personhood, or Warren’s argument, Marquis’ argument does not depend on any notion of personhood.

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Since the loss of a future to a fetus, if killed, is at least as great as the loss to a standard adult human, abortion, like ordinary killing, could only be justified by the most compelling reasons.

• Abortion could be justified in some circumstances only if the loss consequent on failing to abort would be at least as great.

• Presumably, morally permissible abortions would be very rare, indeed.

• So abortions should be considered

presumably

wrong unless it can be shown that failure to abort will result in an even greater loss.

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“Why My Theory is Better than Your Theory” (II)

• This account does not have to be an account of the

necessary conditions

for the wrongness of killing; it provides

sufficient conditions

.

Recall:

• If

A

• If

A

is a

necessary condition

is a

sufficient condition

for

B

, then if not-

A

then not-

B

.

for

B

, then if

A

, then

B

.

• Marquis is arguing that inflicting the loss of a valuable future on an individual by killing him makes the action wrong,

not

that any killing

lacking

this feature

fails

to be wrong.

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The Victim’s Past:

On the “value-of-a-future” account, it makes no difference whether an individual’s immediate

past

contains intolerable pain, or consists in being in a coma, or consists in a life of value.

• What is critical is what the future will bring: if the future is one of value, we want it to be wrong to kill that individual; if the future is intolerable, we want it to be permissible to kill that individual.

• As such, whether killing is wrong does not depend on the value of the victim’s past experiences, or whether he has any at all.

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Possible Counterarguments:

1. Does value imply a valuer? In other words, if the fetus is not capable of valuing its future life, does that future life have no value?

• My (future) life can be of value to me even if I do not (currently) value it. The same will be true of a fetus, who is simply

unaware

of the future value of its life.

2. If an individual is incapable of desiring or having an interest in some thing, can the individual have a right to that thing? That is, if a fetus cannot desire or have an interest in life, can it have a right to life?

• Certainly one who has been drugged has a right to life, even if he is literally incapable of having a desire for, or interest in, that life.

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Possible Counterarguments:

3. Presumably

plants

cannot be victims because they are not

sentient

. Can a fetus be a victim if it isn’t sentient?

• Unlike a plant, a fetus has

prospects

for sentient life experiences. Killing a plant is not wrong because it does not deprive it of a future-like-ours; killing a fetus does.

4. Since contraception likewise prevents the actualization of a possible future of value, doesn’t that make contraception wrong, too?

• As we cannot say

which

sperm is so harmed, we cannot assign harm to any sperm in particular.

• Assigning harm to some ovum is arbitrary, for no reason can be given to assigning harm to an ovum rather than a sperm.

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Discussion



Under Marquis’ view, would a pregnant woman be morally required to carry a baby to term if she knew that the baby would survive, but she would not?



Under Marquis’ view, would a pregnant woman be morally required to carry a baby with spina bifida or Down’s syndrome to term?