PHIL 3000 Lecture Notes - Lecture 16: Sentience, Moral Agency, Syllogism
3 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
• Debate is over the moral permissibility of abortion (different from the political debate of abortion)
Warren
• Anti-abortion syllogism
o Its og to kill ioet hua eigs
o Fetuses are innocent human beings
o Theefoe, its og to kill fetuses
• Warren says this argument is invalid b/c its guilty of fallay of euioatio / te hua eigs
is being used in 2 different senses (1st case is moral sense and 2nd case is genetic sense)
• Warren says argument should focus on if restrict sense to moral sense, is argument sound (Warren
says no)
• Human in moral sense = person
o Sentience
o Emotionality
o Reason
o Capacity to communicate
o Self-awareness
o Moral agency
▪ Fetuses have 0 criteria
• Objection: who is in the moral community?
o Infants
o Severely disabled
Marquis
• Argument
o I geeal, if X has a FLO futue like ous, the its og to kill X
o Fetuses have FLOs
o Theefoe, i geeal, its og to kill fetuses
• Why is it wrong to kill persons?
o Persons have FLOs
o FLOs are highly valuable
•
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