9 25 Problems with Warren continued Rights of people vs non people Warren claims that if the rights of a person and the rights of a non person conflict then the rights of the person take precedence However this is not obviously true o I have the right to swing my arms wildly in front of me but if it causes me to kill a fetus then I Shouldn t do it even if this restricts my freedom o This shows that in some cases the rights of people do not trump that of a non person This shows that while it is relevant whether we are dealing with persons or not this cannot be the whole story If as Warren grants that non people can have rights then in some circumstances their rights can trump people s rights What those circumstances are may depend on the reasons behind the acts of people if a person has an irrational desire to have an abortion then in that case it may be immoral to abort Warren lists abilities that one should possess in order to qualify as a person But is it necessarily the case that if one does not have the abilities one does not count as a person o What about potential people Potential people can come to have these abilities with time Response to problems o Why would we want to assign the same moral status to an entity that has the potential to be a person and a person o The fact that we value persons is not reason to value non persons even if they are potentially persons One can ask why these capacities are morally relevant o One can respond that they make moral responsibility and reasoning possible o However one can argue that they are only necessary for having duties not rights Something without them might have the right to life and denying this merely begs the question We can still accept Warren s account by deciding that our beliefs intuitions about infanticide were wrong and it is actually permissible o But why not decide that Warren s account of personhood and its implication about abortion is wrong Why gang up on our beliefs about infanticide o In such conflict cases where we wonder which way to go we ought to pick the beliefs to which are less committed and throw it out Marquis Main Claim abortion is except possibly in rare cases seriously immoral it is in the same moral category as killing an innocent adult human being Standoffs between anti and pro abortionists o Anti abortionists hold with good reason that pro abortionist principles concerning killing o Pro abortionists hold with good reason that anti abortionist principles concerning killing are too narrow to be acceptable are too broad to be acceptable If it is legitimate for pro abortionist to demand anti abortionists why fetuses are people it is also legitimate for anti abortionists to demand pro abortionists why fetuses are not people Suggests that to avoid these standoffs one concerns oneself with why we think that killing is wrong in the first place Preliminaries o Assumption It is typically seriously wrong to kill adult human beings 9 25 o What makes it wrong is that killing us deprives us of the value of our future It deprives us not only of what we value now and would have given our current predilections valued later but also of what we would have come to value Implications o Takes the following implications to bolster his account Explains why it is seriously wrong to kill children and infants Allows aliens and robots to have a right to life It doesn t prejudge the animal rights debate some animals do not have the right to life It doesn t prejudge the euthanasia debate it may be moral in some cases The Argument Clarifications o P1 Depriving a being of the value of a future like ours makes killing it wrong o P2 Killing a fetus deprives it of the value of a future like ours o C Therefore killing a fetus is wrong o Marquis wants to establish that the vast majority of abortions are wrong o To do that he does not need to show that a necessary condition for the wrongness of killing some being is that it deprives it of the value of a future like ours o He needs merely to show that a sufficient condition for the wrongness of killing some being is that it deprives it of its value The crucial moral category is Marquis s argument is not that of a person o Vast majority of abortions are wrong o Not arguing id killing is wrong then this is deprived of the value of a future like ours o His position if being deprived of value of the future like ours then its killing is wrong Argue against him Can be attacked by pointing out that there are cases where one cane be deprived of an FLO wherethat would not be wrong brings out the best consequences Argue the desires When killing a being is wrong then there is interference with the beings desire to go on living If your were wronged then you are a victim If you are a victim then you have sentience Fetuses don t have sentience From P2 and P3 a fetus is not a victim C then P1 an dP4 a fetus cannot be wronged so abortion is permissible this is invalid Contraception kills the sperm cells before the go into the ovum In preventing the conception of a being one is cutting off the possible fetus If the one is cutting off a possible future then one is doing something morally wrong Therefor contraception is impermissible There is not particular being wose future is being cut off Incase of contraception we have the following deprived of FLO And the indiviidula consisting of the spermcell and ovum to combine
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