PHIL 2103 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Fetus
7 May 2018
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Do auis a aguet that aotio is og
• Marquis wants to argue that abortion, except perhaps in rare cases, is seriously wrong
• Fetus=developing human being from the time of conception to the time of birth
• The apparent stand-off between (anti) abortion advocates:
o All humans have a right to life
o A fetus is a human
o So, a fetus has a right to life
▪ Or
• Only persons have a right to life
• A fetus is not a person
• So, a fetus does not have a right to life
• Marquis wants to suggest that killing a fetus is wrong for the same reason that killing you or I
would be wrong
o So what is it about killing us that makes killing us wrong?
▪ Death is premature
▪ Robbed of life
• futue like ous aout of the ogess of killig
o Killing us is wrong, marquis says, because it imposes on us the misfortune of a
premature death.
o My death deprives me of my future, i.e. of the life I would have lived if I had lived out
my natural lifespan
o Hoee, it’s ot eely the loss of iologial life that is ufotuate…it’s the loss of ou
future conscious life that underlies the misfortune of premature death. Specifically, the
misfortune of a premature death consists of the loss to us of the future goods of
consciousness, that is, those things I will (or would) value when I will (or would)
experience them
• At least four argument support this FLO account of the wrongness of killing:
o The considered judgement argument
o The worst of crimes argument
o The appeal to cases argument
o The analogy with animals argument
• Why we believe that it is wrong to cause animals suffering
o Because suffering is a misfortune, regardless of who or what undergoes it
o The FLO account of the wrongness of abortion is analogous to why it is wrong to inflict
suffering upon animals
o The loss of a future of value is a misfortune, regardless of who or what undergoes such a
loss
o Therefore, abortion is wrong because it deprives the fetus of a future of value
• Objections (and replies)
o The potentiality objection
o The argument from interest
o The problem of equality
o The contraception objection
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