Marquis
General Argument:
- 1) Depriving an individual of a “Future Like Ours” (FLO) is always morally wrong
- 2) Killing a fetus (as in the case of abortion) deprives it of a FLO
- 3) Therefore, abortion is morally wrong.
Killing a person is wrong because it causes premature death. Premature death is bad
because if the person hadn’t been killed she would have been to experience all kinds of
goods (things that make like worth living)
Test Cases to demonstrate the FLO approach
- Timing of Death Case
o Case 1:
 A) I fall into a coma, I recover immediately before my death.
 B) I fall into a coma, and die right away
 For the person who dies, b and a are equal—the amount
of pleasure you’ll experience or not experience is that
same in both cases.
o Case 2:
 A) I’m terminally ill with cancer, but treatment will limit my pain,
and I’ll die in 6 months
 B) I’m terminally ill with cancer, treatment will keep me alive for 6
months, but pain and suffering will dominate my conscious life in
this time.
 B is a worse future than a.
Together, the coma and cancer examples show that continued consciousness is
necessary, but not sufficient for a valuable future.
-
Case of Withholding Medical Treatment
o A) we withhold medical treatment from a comatose patient who is
permanently unconscious, knowing that death will result.
o B) We withhold medical treatment from a patient who is temporarily
unconscious, knowing that death will result.
Four Arguments Against Marquis
- 1) The Potentiality Argument
o If adults have a right to life, potential adults also have this right. So early
term abortions are immoral
o RESPONSE: The FLO theory is the theory that actual beings with
potential valuable future have a right, not that potential beings with
potential futures do.
-
2) Argument from Interests
o To have a valuable future, one must take an interest in that future. Early
fetuses lack awareness, so they can’t take an interest in their futures. So,
fetuses lack interests. Therefore, because they lack interests, we do not
wrong them if we kill them.
o RESPONSE: Someone who is unconscious takes no interest in the
future. But life support can be in the interest of someone who takes no
interest in it. So fetuses can have interests that they do not take any
interest in, and therefore killing them can be wrong.
-
3) The problem of Equality Argument
o If prematurely killed, the young are deprived of more things of value than
the elderly. The FLO theory makes it worse to kill the young. But killing
the young isn’t worse than killing the elderly, so the FLO is wrong.
o RESPONSE: There’s more than one reason why killing is wrong. It
worse to kill an admirable person than one who is not admirable. They
very young aren’t admirable. So by this standard it’s worse to kill the
elderly than the young. Also, even it it’s true that killing some people is
worse than killing others, it’s just too hard to figure out each person’s
likely future. So LEGAL prohibition against killing should treat all killings
as the same.
-
The Contraception Argument
o If FLO is correct, then contraception is just as bad as killing.
Furthermore, abstaining from sexual intercourse is also wrong. But these
things are not wrong, so FLO must be wrong.
o RESPONSE: To do wrong, one must deprive an ACTUAL individual of
their likely future.
Since almost every fetus has a FLO, most abortions are wrong.
- Which abortions are immoral?
o Pregnancies due to rape.
o Abortions in the first 14 days past fertilization.
o Cases where continuing pregnancy threatens the woman’s life.
o Cases where the fetus is anencephalic