Does the Moral Status of Merely Possible People Imply that Early Abortion Is Wrong?
Melinda A. Roberts
Department of Philosophy and Religion, College of New Jersey
RoME III—August 2010
The Problem
Three Cases
Results
Solution: Variabilism
It may seem that existing and future people have a moral
status that the merely possible lack. Why else would we say
that (I) ending the life of an existing person (or, at some
future time, a future person) is ordinarily wrong but
(II) preventing a possible person from ever living at all
ordinarily isn’t? The cases, however, undermine this idea.
They show that we are compelled to accept instead the
Moral Significance of Merely Possible Persons (MSMPP).
According to MSMPP, the merely possible are morally
significant in the same way you and I are; to the extent our
losses matter morally—count against acts that impose them
and in favor of acts that avoid them—so do theirs.
Preliminaries. * plus italics means indicated person never
exists at indicated world. Bold means indicated person does
or will exist. Never existing implies a zero wellbeing level.
Leaving a person out of existence often imposes a loss on
that person (where loss here is shorthand for claim that a
particular existence is better for a person than never existing
is). Green dotted arrows and red solid arrows indicate
losses in wellbeing from one world to another.
From Case 1: Some losses incurred by merely possible persons
count against the acts that imposes those losses; they can make an
otherwise permissible merely possible act wrong.
We may want to say that Ann has a priority that Bob lacks
(perhaps on the ground that Ann alone is actual, or that we seek to
evaluate the actual a1, or that Ann alone exists in both w1 and
w2). But Cases 1-3 show that we can’t. MSMPP —Premise
(1)—is true. Premise (2) isn’t problematic. Loss here is just
shorthand for talk about the betterness-for relation; and just as it is
hard to deny that it is often better for us that we exist than that we
not, so is it hard to deny that that claim holds for the merely
possible as well.
MSMPP seems to undermine the distinction between (I) and
(II). And it also seems to ground a powerful argument
against early abortion. According to that argument, the early
abortion is often wrong in virtue of what it does, not to the
human embryo or early human fetus (or the pregnant woman
or her partner or other existing or future persons), but rather
to the merely possible person it prevents from ever existing.
The power of the argument lies in the fact that, if correct, it
stands even if the human embryo and early human fetus
(perhaps because they are not thinking things) are not
“persons” and have no moral status in their own right.
The problem is to show how we can retain both MSMPP
and the distinction between (I) and (II). Variabilism, I
argue, solves that problem—and, in doing so, provides a
foundation for a defense against the Argument Against Early
Abortion.
Case 1. Mere Addition
+10
a1 at w1
(w1=actual)
Kate
+1
0
a2 at w2
Kate
a3 at w3
Kate, Jaime
A good theory will imply: Jaime’s loss at w2 counts
against a2; Jaime’s loss makes the otherwise permissible
a2 wrong not just at w2 but at the actual w1 as well—
even though Jaime is merely possible relative to w1.
(Otherwise analysis has no action-guiding force.)
a1 at w1
(w1=actual)
0
Cal*
Dee*
Cal
Further conclusions. In determining the permissibility of the
early abortion, any otherwise plausible permissibility theory will
take that morally significant loss—just as it will take any other
morally significant loss—into account. We can anticipate that the
early abortion will be deemed wrong whenever the (ordinarily very
deep) loss incurred by the merely possible person isn’t
counterbalanced by the (ordinarily relatively minor) losses the
pregnant woman or others will incur if the pregnancy continues.
An Objection:
Case 3. Addition Plus
a2 at w2
a3 at w3
Etta
If the above argument is sound,
then, in the Base Case, Bob’s loss in w1 counts against a1, just
as Ann’s counts against a2. But that seems false.
Case 4. Base Case
Etta
+5
0
Premise 3. If MSMPP is true, then that loss—the loss imposed by
any such early abortion—counts against that early abortion.
a2 at w2
Dee
a1 at w1
(w1=actual)
Premise 2. Any early abortion that prevents a merely possible
person from coming into an existence worth having (and not into a
wrongful life) imposes a loss on that person.
Conclusion. Any early abortion that prevents a merely possible
person from coming into an existence worth having imposes a loss
on that person that counts against that early abortion.
Case 2. Double Wrongful Life
+10
+9
Argument Against Early Abortion
Jaime*
A good theory will imply: Cal’s loss at w2 counts against a2
and in favor of a1; it makes the otherwise wrong actual a1
permissible.
A non-person? “A 10 mm [0.39 inch]
embryo from an ectopic pregnancy,
still in the oviduct. This embryo is
about five weeks old (or from the 7th
week of pregnancy).” Wikipedia,
retrieved March 15, 2010.
Since to say that some of a person’s losses bear on the moral
evaluation is surely to say that that person has some moral
significance, MSMPP is inescapable!
Premise 1. MSMPP is true; merely possible people are morally
significant; just as our losses count against the acts that impose
those losses and in favor of any alternative acts, so do theirs.
Jaime
-10
A person? A four-and-a-half week-old (est.)
orphan kitten.
From Cases 2 and 3: Some losses incurred by merely possible
persons count, not just against the merely possible acts that impose
those losses, but also in favor of any actual act that avoids those
losses; they can make an otherwise wrong actual act permissible.
Etta, Fen
Fen*
Fen
A good theory will imply: Fen’s loss at w2 counts against
a2; it makes the otherwise wrong actual a1 permissible.
a1 at w1
(w1=actual)
+100
Ann
0
Bob*
a2 at w2
Bob
Ann
A good theory will say that Bob’s loss doesn’t have anything
like the moral weight that Ann’s does.
The culprit is Premise (3). Cases 1-3 show only that some of the
losses incurred by the merely possible matter morally. We can’t
infer that all their—or all our—losses matter morally. At least:
the option of saying that some of their losses matter morally and
some don’t has not been foreclosed. Moreover, that’s just the
option Cases 1-4 together suggest. We should be deciding, not
who matters morally and who doesn’t, but which losses matter
morally and which don’t. From that perspective, the rule for
deciding which do and which don’t seems obvious: mattering
morally is a function of where a loss is incurred in relation to the
person who incurs it. That is:
Variabilism. A loss incurred at a world where the
person who incurs it does or will exist has full moral
significance for purposes of evaluating the act that
imposes that loss and the alternative acts that avoid it.
But a loss incurred by a person at a world where that
person never exists has no moral significance for
purposes of evaluating the act that imposes that loss or
the alternative acts that avoid it.
Implications: Red solid arrows signify morally
significant losses; green dotted arrows signify losses
that aren’t morally significant; and the loss incurred by
the merely possible person as a result of the early
abortion has no moral significance at all.
Queries: Does Variabilism make the mistake of ignoring gains?
What are the implications for the choices that led to your coming into
existence? For the Asymmetry? Does the nonidentity problem
challenge Variabilism?
Sources: Gustaf Arrhenius (on person-affecting restrictions), John
Broome (on Neutrality Intuition), Caspar Hare, Rivka Weinberg, Josh
Parsons and Jan Narveson (on Moral Actualism), R.M. Hare
(“golden rule” argument against abortion), George Sher (on R.M.
Hare), Elizabeth Harman (on Actual Future account of why agents
has reasons against early abortion in world where pregnancy
continues), Jeff McMahan (on the Asymmetry and on Order of
Presentation account of why abortion can be wrong because worse
for some and better for none than fetal injury), Peter Singer (on Prior
Existence View and Asymmetry), David Benatar (on disvalue of
existing), Ingmar Persson (on Asymmetry), Alan McMichael (on
problem for actualism about possible worlds), Derek Parfit.
References and poster pdf: www.tcnj.edu/~robertsm
Contact: robertsm@tcnj.edu