PHIL20401 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Fetus, Condom
Document Summary
Future life is important because we value experiences activities and enjoyments. Can also apply this to fetuses because they have a future as well. Reason desire to live is because there is value in your future. His argument: p1) killing one of us is wrong, p2) the best explanation of this is the loss of the victim"s future. This suggests that what makes killing us so wrong is that it interferes with the fulfillment of a strong and fundamental desire, the fulfillment of which is necessary for the fulfillment of any other desires we might have. Needs to attack 2 other rival accounts. Problems: 1) not all discontinuation is bad, e. g. a mercy killing. In some cases a killing is okay: 2) it seems to imply that an agent"s past is relevant when it is only the value of the agent"s future that is relevant. (his main objection). What"s relevant is it"s future experiences and not his past experiences.
