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PBA410H: Don Marquis

  • Goals and Assumptions
    • Aim is to show that abortion is generally immoral
      • Assumes that if we can prove a fetus has a right to life, it is wrong to abort it
        • Responding to people who believe in pro-choice arguments based on ‘personhood’
      • *Marquis’ argument is irrelevant to Violinist Argument defenders
  • The debate: characterizing the fetus
    • Prolife:
      • life starts at conception
      • fetuses possess unique DNA and so are human individuals
      • Therefore, abortion is wrong
    • Prochoice:
      • fetuses don’t have personhood
      • fetuses are not rational agents
      • fetuses aren’t social beings
      • Therefore, abortion is not wrong
    • Marquis: The justifications for both sides are, for the most part true
  • The debate: finding a general moral principle
    • Pro-life
      • it is wrong to take a human life
      • killing babies is wrong
    • Pro-choice
      • being a person/rational agent gives one intrinsic moral value
      • it is only wrong to take the life of a member of the ‘human community’
  • PROBLEMS WITH THE PROCHOICE SIDE (ACCORDING TO MARQUIS)
    • Principle embraces too little:
      • Infants, young children, severely disabled, temporarily unconscious, and mentally ill people are not rational agents
      • It’s hard to fix this without arbitrary/ad hoc reasoning
    • Principle is ambiguous
      • Why should psychological characteristics make a moral difference? Why not a biological difference instead? (ableism?)
      • If ‘personhood’ is moral term, it is assuming the premise
  • Problems with prolife side (according to Marquis)
    • Principle embraces too much
      • Human cancer-cell culture is both living and human
      • You can say instead “it is wrong to take a human being’s life” but Marquis doesn’t think it is obvious that fetuses are human beings
    • Principle is ambiguous
      • Why should biological characteristics make a moral difference? Why not a psychological difference instead? (speciecism?)
      • If ‘human being’ is moral term, it is assuming the premise
  • Both sides are missing the essence of the issue
  • First premise: it is wrong to kill us
  • How does killing harm us?1)
1)
Blaise: “I use it in a rough way often - like every month or two? - when trying to get at why killing is wrong in general. Like, once in particular at George Brown Casa Loma, I think it helped get through to one guy as a complement to the HRA. I'm not using the argument in detail, but taking his/Kaczor's guidance to inform some of the questions I'm asking.
  • Q: Okay, so, you agree that it'd be wrong for someone to just kill any of us on the sidewalk here, right?
  • A: Yeah, that's wrong
  • Q: Why? Why is that wrong? Like, forget abortion for a second - why do you think it's wrong to kill an innocent adult human being?
  • I don't remember what his answer way in particular, but I remember it was 100% applicable to pre-born children. I find that's often the case - unless someone sees that coming and they put it some stupid arbitrary distinction which you can deal with using SLED or the science of when life begins…I don't remember how he answered specifically, and when I pointed that out, in addition to having gone at him with the HR argument and general apologetics for a while, what I do remember is he changed his focus to kind of asking how it could be practical to be pro-life…
  • Guy: So… can I ask you a question?
  • Me: Of course…
  • Guy: Do you have sex?
  • Me: 😐 Yes…
  • Guy: Okay, so like, what happens if you get a girl pregnant? [continues on about sex and contraception and premarital relationships etc etc]
  • 😅 It was an interesting opening to talk about how I don't think we should be willing to kill to have sex, and why I waited until I was married. Guy also assumed I was 10 years younger than I am. It's the hair.
  • But more seriously, I often use those questions - but it's less often that I go into Marquis' actual answer (future like ours) or Kaczor's Thomistic take on it (flourishing like ours). That, I use maybe once a year ish, if talking to philosophy students or something, to combine the HRA (Beckwith's Substance View or Kaczor's Endowment View) with the FLO argument (Marquis/Kaczor) to make a more comprehensive secular case. That's not something I commonly use on the streets, only on occasion.
  • I guess I might use it a little more often if someone asks why I think after I've asked them those questions, especially if I've also addressed pain (pain isn't what makes killing wrong, it's what makes killing worse), e.g. “I think killing you or I would be wrong because it's denying an individual human being their human rights, just like killing a pre-born child would do the same thing. It's not pain or the method of killing that makes it wrong, it's taking away their future, taking away their life.” 🤷🏻‍♂️”
Matthew B: I can't recall a vivd memory of using that argument. But, when people are very set on very specifc life experiences that make life meaningful… Then reminding them that abortion completely denies a very young human person of those meaningful life experiences, could be effective in illustrating a serious injustice? Especially when we know that this child should grow and develop and have extraordinarily meaningful life experiences
  1. Katie: Yes, what Matthew said! When I’m arguing the difference between wrongness of killing born vs preborn, I point out that it’s not the fact that someone had a past and past life experiences that makes killing wrong - it’s that you’re depriving them of all future experiences. It hurts the families of the born more, yes, but as far as why we shouldn’t kill, it’s because we are robbing someone’s future, and that is true of born and preborn alike.))