Philosophy 220
Abortion
Liberal, Moderate and Conservative Views
Warren, "Moral and Legal Status"
 In addressing the question of the moral
status of abortion Warren starts where we
started: with a discussion of how to
define the moral community.
 As we discovered, defining it requires
specifying the property(ies) that
establishes Direct Moral Standing.
One Answer: Genetic Humanity
 As we saw in JPII's discussion, some people identify
our shared genetic heritage as the property that
establishes DMS.
 Problem: Without an account of the connection
between our biology and our morality (and perhaps
even with) this claim is question begging.
 "…in the absence of any argument showing that
whatever is genetically human is also morally
human…nothing more than genetic humanity can be
demonstrated by the presence of the human genetic
code" (385c2).
Warren's Answer
 Distinguishing genetic humanity from
moral humanity, Warren's identification of
the property that establishes DMS is: "the
moral community consists of all and only
people, rather than all or only human
beings [in the genetic sense] (385c2)."
 Not a perfect definition. What about this
concept of "Person?"
Defining Personhood
 One question to ask is: "Is it one thing that makes
someone a moral person, or is it a number of things?"
 Warren thinks the latter is true. A number of features (or
capacities) must be present for the property of
personhood to be present.
 See the list at 386c1.
 Warren does not claim that these criteria are
exhaustive or even necessary, but she insists that
something which meets none of these criteria cannot
be considered a person in the moral sense.
The Thought Experiment
 Warren uses a thought experiment to help
us grasp what she thinks is the intuitive
appeal of the capacities on the list.
 If we encountered an alien species with
substantial apparent social/technological
development, what capacities would we look
for to determine whether they were
members of the moral community?
Important Implications
 Some human beings (in the genetic
sense) are not people and some people
are not human beings.
 If we take this implication seriously, we
must recognize that assigning moral
rights to a non-person is as unjustified as
assigning moral responsibilities to them.
Two Important Questions
 At what level of fetal development should a
fetus be considered a person?
 Warren insists that we should not let similarities of
appearance confuse the issue (387c2).
 What about the potential of the fetus to be a
person?
 Though Warren does not deny the significance of
this potential, she does insist that the rights of
potential persons in no way outweigh rights of an
actual person.
Postscript on Infanticide
 To the objection that the personhood criteria
enumerated in the article would seem to lead to the
conclusion that there is nothing morally wrong with
infanticide, Warren points to the value that children
have to other people (instrumental value).
 To the counter claim that these sort of concerns also
suggest that abortion is wrong, Warren notes that there
is a difference. In the case of infants, the mother's
rights to self-determination are not impacted (the child
is independent). But forcing a woman to carry a baby
does impact her rights.
Thomson For the "Defense"
 Thomson starts where Warren leaves us, with
the concept of person.
 Like Warren, she's not too complimentary of
various attempts to define the fetus as a
person, that is to grant it DMS.
 She highlights a new line of argument: the
problem of line drawing.
 Her response is to identify it as a slippery slope
fallacy.
Right To Life?
 Even if we granted the claim to personhood, it
would not be enough to assign to it a right to life.
 Thought Experiment: The Unconscious Violinist.
 "Is it morally incumbent on you to accede to this situation"
(392c2)?
 This thought experiment allows her to quickly
review and catalog a range of conservative
positions.
What is a Right to Life?
 One of the temptations to talk of a 'right to life' is
that the nature of the right is underdetermined.
 Some interpret it broadly as a right to the means
necessary to sustain life.
 Certainly can't include subordination of others to your right.
 Others interpret it more narrowly as a right not to
be killed by anyone.
 Here too, however, we have to be careful to recognize coordinate
rights (the violinist has no right to the use of your kidneys).
Do We have a Right to Life?
 Does justice require your subordination to the life
of the violinist?
 Only if you have agreed to the use of your kidneys and then
renege.
 So if he does have a right to life, it's not one you violate by
unplugging yourself from him.
 The upshot of all of this is not that we don't have a
right to life, but that, "…having a right to life does
not guarantee having either a right to be given the
use of or allowed the right to be allowed continued
use of another person's body…" (394c1).
What about Abortion
 For Thomson, the proper understanding
of the right to life is the "…right not to be
killed unjustly” (394c1).
 Thus, for Thomson, the issue is not does
the fetus have DMS, but, even if it does,
does that moral standing make killing it
unjust.
Is Abortion Unjust Killing?
 One important concern is the proximity of pregnancy to the
violin player thought experiment.
 After all, we’ve already noted that if you agreed to let the
violin player use your kidneys, you are in a much different
situation than if you were just an unwilling host.
 One common claim (that the woman willingly engaged in
intercourse knowing that pregnancy was a possible
implication) would suggest that the woman has at least
partial responsibility for the pregnancy and thus it would be
unjust to have an abortion.
Implications of Willfulness
 This claim opens up a new line of argumentation which
highlights the dependency of the fetus on the mother
(emphasizing the responsibility inherent in willfulness).
 This form of argument leaves open a series of exceptions
including all of those when the will of the woman is
constrained or interrupted (occurent or dispositional
coercion).
 Claim is not as obvious as it is common.
 Open window does not give a burglar a right to come in; defective
bars do not change the matter.
 At best, Thomson suggests, willfulness establishes that
some cases of abortion are unjust, not that they all are.
Argument from Virtue
 Leaving justice to the side, Thomson want us to recognize
that the right to life doesn’t exhaust the issue.
 Let's say that the violinist only needed an hour of your time.
She suggests that it would be immoral to detach her not
because she has a right to life but because the burden on
us is so small that to refuse it would be callous and selfish.
 In other words, virtue ethical concerns seem operative in
these circumstances (e.g., abortion) and should lead us to
conclude that some (though not all) abortions are wrong
(though not necessarily unjust and not because of the
fetus’s right to life).
Good vs. Minimally Decent Samaritan
 The Good Samaritan is a person who goes out of the
way, at some significant personal cost, to help
someone out.
 The Minimally Decent Samaritan is the person who
seeks to help, but not at any significant personal cost or
deflection.
 Thomson argues that the proper standard, both morally
and legally, is the MDS. To require GS is to require of
moral agents more than they are responsible for
(supererogatory actions).
 That's all that we can ask of pregnant women.
Two Liberal Objections
 Thomson's view is a moderate one. There may
be many cases when carrying a child to terms
requires only MDS, and in these cases the
mother has a moral obligation to do so.
 Largely on the basis of Virtue Ethical concerns.
 The permissibility of abortion in a number of
situations is not equivalent to a right to kill a
fetus.
 She's not explicit here, but she seems to suggest that after
viability, methods of abortion which would preserve fetal life (Csection) should be employed.
Marquis on the Immorality of
Abortion
 Marquis's purpose is to provide a
defensible anti-abortion position which is
free from “irrational religious dogma” or
“philosophical confusion.”
 His position is that abortion is in the same
moral category as killing an innocent
adult human being.
 “…[A]bortion is, except possibly in rare
cases, seriously immoral…” (400c1).
An Important Assumption
 Though Marquis doesn’t use the language, his
argument relies on the assumption of a prima
facie duty:
“If fetuses are in the same category as adult human
beings with respect to the moral value of their lives,
then the presumption that any particular abortion is
immoral is exceedingly strong. Such a presumption
could be overridden only by considerations more
compelling than a woman's right to privacy” (400c1).
Getting At Abortion
 Somewhat surprisingly, Marquis does not begin by
trying to establish the basis for the shared DMS of
innocent adults and fetuses.
 Instead, he begins by trying to establish the moral
status of murder by providing an account of why
murder is wrong.
 The answer that he comes up with is that the
immorality of murder lies in the effect that it has on
the victim, not in the mere loss of life, but in the
loss of the value of my future (cf. 401c2).
What’s With the Future?
 Of course, Marquis cannot just assert that his account of the
wrongness of murder is preferable, he has to give us some
reasons to accept it.
 Marquis points to our common moral intuition that murder is
more serious than other crimes and to the accounts of some
people facing death.
 His more (philosophically) interesting claim is that in futurity
(the projective character of existence; the capacity for
experiences, meaningfulness, value in the future) he has
located a natural property that both fits our intuitions about
the matter and that it is the only one that does so.
Other Advantages
 There are various advantages to the futurity
theory that Marquis identifies.
1. Like personhood theories, it avoids the claim
that moral standing is a function of biology.
2. Entails that it is wrong to kill any being that has
this sort of futurity (including perhaps some
non-human animals).
3. Does not rule out active euthanasia.
4. Establishes the moral impermissibility of
infanticide (advantage over personhood
theories like Warren's).
How Does this Help with Abortion?
 Marquis specifies futurity as the property that establishes
DMS.
 Works in the case of murder, but what about other cases?
 If the fetus has a future, then it is wrong to kill it for the same
reason that it is wrong to kill any other futural being.
 What about this “If?”
 Marquis thinks that this is the place where his theory has the
most advantage over one like Thomson’s.
 He insists that futurity is not like potential, and is thus by
implication immune to the sort of arguments Thomson offered.
What about Contraception
 A possible (and possibly important) counter-claim to
Marquis’s account of the wrongness of abortion is it's
consequences for contraception.
 Contraception can be understood as a loss of futurity
(this is, for example, one way of understanding the
Catholic Church’s objections).
 Marquis rejects this argument on the grounds of the
difference between an actual as opposed to merely
potential futurity.
 There is a possible contradiction here with Marquis’s rejection
of counter-arguments like Thomson’s.
The Final Analysis
 “Clearly it is wrong to kill adult human beings.
Clearly it is not wrong to end the life of some
arbitrarily chosen single human cell. Fetuses
seem to be like…human cells in some respects
and like adult humans in other respects. The
problem of the ethics of abortion is the problem
of determine the fetal property that settles this
moral controversy” (404c2).
 Marquis: Futurity.