The Value of Unrealized Possibilities
نویسنده
چکیده
In “Why Abortion is Immoral,” Don Marquis argues that a sufficient condition for the wrongness of killing an adult is the victim’s loss of a valuable future like ours. Our future is valuable because it is full of valuable possibilities. Because the wrongness of killing an adult is due to the privation of future possibilities, and fetuses have future possibilities, Marquis concludes that killing a fetus is comparably wrong. In this paper I will consider three objections to this account that concern a thing’s relation to its future. Peter McInerney contends that due to an adult’s sentience he has a stronger relation to his future than a fetus has, so a fetus cannot truly possess a future like ours. Similarly, Robert Lovering argues that futures are valuable only insofar as psychologically continuous persons experience them. Because early fetuses are not psychologically continuous, their futures are not valuable. Finally, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong argues that Marquis equivocates in his meaning of “loss.” “Loss” means either the privation of a future to which the victim has a moral right or the privation of a future to which the victim has no moral right. If the former defini tion of “loss” is accepted, Marquis must also explain how a fetus has a moral right to the means of realizing its future for his future-like-ours argument to be sound. I will argue that the future-like-ours account correctly recognizes the value of future possibilities and the immorality of depriving another of these possibilities, even those possibilities that would not otherwise be realized. Although each being will realize only one future, the wide array of future possibilities it has prior to its one future obtaining are nonetheless valuable. I will begin by summarizing Marquis’ future-like-ours account
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تاریخ انتشار 2009