Henry Imler June 1st, 2005

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Don Marquis, in Why Abortion is Immoral, attempts to give an alternate approach to the abortion debate. Prior arguments about the morality of abortion have centered on whether or not the fetus is a person. This approach assumes that only persons have rights. The protection of one�s life is a right. Thus it would seem to follow that the only beings who have a right to life are persons. Consequently, if a fetus is a person they would have a right to life and conversely, if a fetus is not a person, it does not have a right to life.

Marquis takes a look at the flaws in this approach, noting the problems that each side has. The standard anti-abortionist principle is that it is always prima facie wrong to take a human life. A fetus is a human; therefore it is wrong to kill a fetus. This stance, however, also demands that a cancer culture has a right to life:”(Marquis, Don. Why Abortion is Immoral. The Right Thing to Do. P.109)”:. Such a stance is absurd. The standard pro-abortionist principle is that it is prima facie wrong to take the life of persons, i.e. rational agents:”(Marquis, abid)”:. A fetus is not a rational agent, thus it is not wrong to kill it. This view, however, must allow for the killing of all non-rational agents, such as babies and severely retarded. This natural application of the standard pro-abortionist view, like its opposition, leads to moral absurdities.
Instead of attempting to discern the personhood of the fetus, Marquis notes that we are not ultimately asking if the fetus is a person, but rather, if it is morally permissible to kill the fetus. He then says that he knows for sure that it is wrong to kill him. He seeks to find out why and then apply that principle to the case of the fetus. His argument is as follows:

1.I value my future
2.To rob me of what I value is wrong
C.It is wrong to rob me of my future
1.Killing me robs me of my future
2.It is wrong to rob me of my future
C.It is wrong to kill me.
1.I value my futures
2.X will value its future
C. X has a future similar to mine.
1.X has a futures similar to mine.
2.It is wrong to kill me.
3.My intuitions say that it is wrong to kill X
C. It is wrong to kill beings with futures similar to mine.
1.It is wrong to kill beings with a future similar to mine.
2.A fetus has a future similar to mine
C.It is wrong to kill a fetus

The problem for Marquis is his transition from the specific to the general. He is attempting to take a reason of why it is wrong to kill him specifically, create a general rule, and then apply that rule to beings that are different than him. In the third section of the argument, he states that it is wrong to kill beings with a future similar to his. His reasons for this are that it is wrong to kill him and that his intuitions say that it is also wrong to kill X, Y and Z. Restated, this argument can be presented as follows:

1.X and Y share trait H
2.It is wrong to do action A both X and Y
C. Therefore, it is wrong to do A to beings with trait H

However, this does not follow. It may be that having trait H is a purely accidental correlation to the moral impermeability of action A. Consider the following: person A’s hair is stripped. person A’s cat is striped. It is wrong to burn both person A’s hair and person A’s cat. Therefore, one should not burn things that are striped. It does not follow that just because two things share two similar traits, that similar morality of actions done to the two things are a result of that trait. Continuing from the case above, imagine I owned a sheet of striped paper. It would then follow that it was morally impermissible to burn my sheet of striped paper because it was striped. That is, of course, absurd. The moral impermissibility of burning the first two items is their belonging within the set of items that belongs to person A, not their stripedness. The same holds for Marquis’ transfer of the moral impermeability of killing myself, X, and the fetus. The moral impermissibility of the killing of those items does not lie within the future valuing of their futures, but within their belonging to a certain set of beings, namely that set of beings with a right to life. Marquis is on the right path, but his argument went astray in his over generalization of an accidental trait into a general principle. The outcome of futures is merely an accidental quality of the type of beings the generator of the future is. While the futures of two beings may be similar, there is no reason to suspect that the similarity is what determines the worth of a being’s life.

The only way for Marquis to make his argument work is to fully argue for the distinction between moral objects and moral subjects. Moral subjects are the classical products of personhood theory, i.e. the rational agents that have the ability to make moral judgments. Moral objects, on the other hand, are the beings that have rights to be protected, in other words, they are the objects that moral subject must respect. Marquis needs to take this subject/object distinction and inject it into the personhood debate. He wants to steer clear of this, but without a full commitment, his view does not work. In discussing the implications of his theory, he brushes against what might save his theory. In talking about animals that might have futures similar to adult humans, he says the following, �Whether some animals do have the same right to life as human beings depends on adding to the account of the wrongness of killing some additional account of just what it is about my future or the futureness of other adult human beings which makes it wrong to kill us:”(Marquis, abid. p. 111)”:.� This �additional account� is the creation of a the moral object subsection of personhood. When he is able to create this criteria he will be able to correct his argument.

What might this �additional account� be? One needs to be able to speak of the beings on an ontological basis, not an accidental one. The only ontological property that the being would need in order to have a future value of it’s future is to, at some point in its natural development, have the ability to hold valuations of things. That is, to be a person in the subject sense. Such a view would be able to steer clear Marquis’ current problems. If this approach was taken, his argument would be as follows:

1.Moral objects are beings who, at sometime in their natural temporal existence have the ability to make moral choices.
2.X has the ability at some point in its natural temporal existence to make moral choices
C.Therefore X is a moral object.
1.All moral objects have a right to life
2.X is a moral object.
C.X has a right to life.

This approach yields the same results as his argument, such as the explanation of why infants have a right to life even though they are not persons in the subjective sense. However, it does not fall prey to his current objections.

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