Tom Barnes
PRACTICAL
ETHICS
Tom Barnes Finals Revision Notes
Tutor: Hazem Zohny
Wednesday 9 June 2021
,Tom Barnes
Abortion
Abortion links to many issues
- The sanctity of life
- Moral status
- Right to bodily integrity
- The metaphysics of personhood
The main question is whether abortion is morally permissible, which is a separate question, without
a necessary correlation with one’s view on the question of legality.
- Though permissibility is not the only question one can ask
o Little: many of our deepest struggles with the morality of abortion concern rather its
placement on the scales of decency, respectfulness, and responsibility.
Definition
- Abortion is the deliberate termination, either by intending or foreseeing, of a pregnancy
before birth, resulting in the death of the embryo or foetus
The rough controversy
- Those who think that the foetus is a person, and that killing a person is never morally
permissible, will think that abortion is never morally permissible.
- Those who hold that it is sometimes or always permissible will argue one of
o The foetus is not a person
Hence does not have moral status
o Killing a person is sometimes permissible
o Abortion should not be seen as an act of killing
conNever permissible
The question for them is if abortion is never permissible because it violates right X, then what other
acts are also never morally permissible because they violate X
- If the defenders of position A cannot give consistent answers, then they have problems
The main argument for this view
- 1) abortion involves killing a foetus
- 2) a foetus is a person
o And is innocent (to protect the view from the charge that it is incompatible with
views on capital punishment)
- 3) abortion involves killing a (innocent) person
- 4) killing a (innocent) person is never morally permissible
A variation of this argument
- 1) abortion involves killing a foetus
- 2) a foetus is a human being
- 3) Human beings have a right to life
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- 4) abortion involves killing a being with a right to life
- 5) killing a being with a right to life is a violation of a moral right
- 6) violating a moral right is never permissible
The ‘killing and letting die’ response
- These arguments all start with the premise that abortion involves killing a foetus
- Can argue that abortion does not always involve killing the foetus, rather it involves letting it
die
o If there is a distinction, then abortion need not be an act of killing
- In some cases the death of the foetus is a foreseen but unintended effect
o If we accept the doctrine of double effect, then it may be permissible
Is the foetus a person?
- Well what is a person?
- On one view, a person is just a human being, and being a human being is just a member of
the species Homo sapiens
o This means a foetus a person, and if all humans have moral status, then killing it will
be wrong
- On other views, persons and human beings are only contingently linked
o Some non-humans may be persons, and some humans may not be persons
- On the psychological approach to personhood, a being must have some set of psychological
characteristics to qualify as a person
o E.g. having mental states, conscious experience, self-consciousness, concept of a self
o And on this view, though a foetus is a human being, it is not a person
Is the foetus a potential person?
- Proponents of A might accept a psychological approach, and that the foetus is not a person
- They can argue that the foetus will become a person if the pregnancy is not terminated
o Will the argument for A still work on the potential person approach?
o Do potential persons have the rights of persons?
o One argument asks - does a potential prime minister have the rights of an actual
prime minister?
Can be responded that the right to life is special, or that there are other
reasons why killing a foetus us wrong rather than personhood
MARQUIS 1989
Argues that even if we accept that the foetus is not a person, there are strong reasons against killing
the foetus, so it is not morally permissible.
Argues that abortion is wrong because it deprives the foetus of a valuable future like ours.
Argument
- An example of an uncontroversial example of where it is wrong to kill something – It is
wrong to kill us
- The reason why it is wrong to kill us is its effect on the victim. The loss of one’s life is one of
the greatest losses that one can suffer. It deprives us of everything that would otherwise
have constituted one’s future. I am deprived of all of the value of my future.
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- This is a sufficient condition for it to be wrong to kill (not necessary)
- This applies in the case of the foetus too – killing it deprives it of valuable future experiences
it would have had.
Clarification
- This argument shows that abortion is prima facie wrong, not that it is wrong in any and all
circumstances.
- It could be justified but only by the most compelling reasons.
o E.g. if the loss consequent on failing to abort would be just as great.
- This is not a feature of abortion per se, rather a feature of killing.
Note the reliance on saying that we deprive the foetus of the life it would have had. If we argue that
there is no identity relation between the foetus, and the person that later would have existed, then
this argument will not carry much weight.
Sometimes permissible – Thomson
This is to say that there are some conditions for permissibility, and that some cases of abortion will
meet this, but others will not.
The question for this position is where is this point
- Can relate to age of foetus/reason for seeking abortion
- Things that back up this view – the negative effects of pregnancy/birth, focus on female
bodily autonomy, the causes of the pregnancy
THOMSON 1971
Argues that even if the foetus is a person, there are cases where abortion is morally permissible.
Grants that the foetus does have a right to life, but says that it does not follow that abortion is
morally impermissible
She argues this via the ‘famous violinist’ thought experiment
- You wake up attached to a machine which has a person, a famous violinist attached. He is
sick, and the society of music lovers has found out you are the only person who can help,
and has kidnapped you.
- The hospital director says that to unplug yourself from the violinist would be to kill the
violinist. However he will recover in 9 months, and you can then leave.
- Of course the violinist has a right to life, as a person with full moral status.
- But do they have a right to your body?
o No doubt it would be very nice of you, a great kindness but clearly not
- The fact that the violinist needs continued use of your body does not establish that he has a
right to continued use of your body
- The fact that the foetus would likely require the mother’s attention for years after this only
serves to strengthen the point.
Her other thought experiment is the growing child, showing the woman has the right to bodily
autonomy
- Suppose you find yourself trapped in a tiny house with a rapidly growing child, such that
within minutes, you will be crushed to death, and the innocent child will survive
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- However innocent the child may be, you do not have to sit passively while it crushes you
- A woman clearly has the right to defend her life against threats
This is because the right to life is the right not be killed unjustly
- The violinist has a right to life, but you do not act unjustly in unplugging yourself
New violinist argument – Minhan 2021
- The self-aborting foetus
o The foetus can choose to self-abort (i.e. be born early) after 3 months
o The mother will die
o But the mother can take medicines to prevent the self-abortion from happening
o In which case the foetus experiences 6 months of discomfort before the foetus is
born
o It appears that it is justifiable for the mother to take the medicine, and yet this
violates Thomson’s principle that no-one has the right to the use of the body of
another against their wishes.
o What is going on? Not much more than if we supposed that the famous violinist was
conscious, and was able to somehow compel you to stay attached – we would think
him justified in doing so. We need to ask, in Minhan’s example, would the foetus be
justified in self-aborting? Probably.
What this shows is that that there is a strong right to do what is required to
survive, even where this clashes with someone else’s – establishes right to
abortion in some contexts, but arguments about bodily autonomy are
insignificant and do not establish more general right to abortion.
One reason – the mother is responsible for the foetus’ dependence
- In cases of voluntary sexual intercourse, the woman is responsible for the foetus being in
that position
Potential objection – the special relationship between the mother and foetus
- The foetus is the biological offspring of the mother
- Is mere biological relation a morally significant part of the parent-child relation? Most think
it is a very special relation.
o Tadros gives the example of a child who is adopted at birth, and at age 18, finds its
parents, and asks them to allow it to have a relationship of sorts. This seems
reasonable. If a total stranger did the same, that would obviously be crazy. Seems
the biological relationship has some significance.
Potential objection – suppose the pregnancy is giving the mother a condition where she will suffer
intermittent pain for life. She can do nothing, abort, or take a medicine which will injure the foetus so
that it suffers very slightly worse pain than her lower level of pain.
- We assume that Thomson justifies her in having an abortion
- Taking the medication is equally good for her, and better for the foetus (since its life will be
worth living)
- If abortion is permissible then surely so is the medication
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- But it is surely not
o What this reveals is the way in which the non-identity of the foetus, and the person
who would have existed, is of great moral significance.
Singer – same result, very different reasoning
Abortion is morally permissible, but Thomson is very wrong
- Foetuses are neither rational nor self-aware, so they cannot form preferences, whereas the
woman is, can, and does.
- In the famous violinist case, the violinist has a preference to stay alive, and his preference
strongly trumps yours to get out of bed.
Always permissible - Tooley
Question for this view is what other acts will therefore be morally permissible, particularly which
other acts of killing/letting die?
TOOLEY 1972
Argues that the foetus lacks the morally relevant characteristics of a person, and abortion is always
morally permissible
Argues that ‘person’ and ‘human being’ should not be treated equivalently.
- Says we have an unfortunate tendency to treat these the same, which gives covert support
to the anti-abortionist, since it makes the liberal argue that a foetus is not a human being,
which runs into difficulties especially past the point of viability.
What properties must something have to have a serious right to life
- Tooley argues for the self consciousness requirement – it must have the concept of a self as
a continuing subject of experience, and that it is one.
Argument for the self-consciousness requirement
- To have a right to X means: A is capable of desiring X, and when they desire X, others have a
prima facie obligation not to deprive A of X.
- The right to life is the right to continue existing as a subject of experience
- Desires a thing can have are limited to the concepts it has
o Desires are propositional attitudes – to desire P is to desire P to be true
o You have to understand the proposition to have that propositional attitude, and you
have to have the concept to understand the proposition
So for Tooley, the foetus has no serious right to life. Nor do very young infants.
Potentiality response
- Yes, a foetus has no right to life, but if you don’t kill it, then it will
Tooley reply
- Suppose a chemical is discovered, which if injected into a kitten, would slowly turn it into a
being with the mental faculties which we have
- Just because one could initiate a causal process that would transform the kitten into an
entity that would have a serious right to life, does not mean it has a serious right to life
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before it has been transformed. Even if it had been injected, and in a week’s time would
develop these faculties if no one interfered, it would not be as wrong as killing it once it had
actually gained these properties.
- So if it seriously wrong to kill something, the reason cannot be that the thing will later have a
serious right to life.
Reply to Tooley (for essay).
The problem with his argument is the idea that to have a right to something requires you to be
currently capable of desiring it. For example this would seem to deprive the suicidal individual of the
right to life, since they are also incapable of desiring continued existence, but this does not make
them any less worthy of it. Indeed it seems that the right to life, rather than being based on any
specific psychological requirement, must instead be based on considerations about what kind of
being something essentially is. Of course this may involve considering their psychological
characteristics, but will be more general – they may still have the right to life even if they are not the
paradigmatic case of their kind, e.g. the human with severe Alzheimer’s will still have a right to life
by virtue of essentially being the same sort of being as me, even if they lack the features which
ground the moral status of our kind. Hence Tooley’s argument is not conclusive.
Infanticide (McMahan 2007)
There seems to be no difference between a viable foetus and a premature infant. The difference is
just where they are located. There is a 5 month period during which an individual could be a foetus,
or an infant.
If you think that the foetus has lower moral status, then you should surely hold the same for the
infant.
Viability is a function of medical technology, and has changed a lot in relatively recent times.
The relevance of viability is in determining the nature of the action – killing vs letting die, doing vs
allowing.
- It cannot be relevant to moral status, since it is totally implausible for moral status to
depend on extrinsic features.
- Normally we come to think that there are relevant differences between abortion of an X
week old foetus, and the same individual as an infant at that time.
o The difference might be that once there is an infant, the burden on the woman is
very different – the woman need not remain pregnant, and she need not take care
of the child.
We also come to think that there are reasons for an abortion which can come to prove decisive, and
justify abortion beyond the point of viability. This may be difficult to justify.
- Could there be cases of infanticide which are also justified? 3 cases (McMahan).
o 1. Woman wants abortion around point of viability because the continued
pregnancy will cause the woman mild intermittent pain for life. Many think this is
justified – to remove the foetus alive would be too invasive/dangerous.
o 2. The woman discovers that her 4 year old child is about to die unless they get a
transplant, from the foetus. Can the abortion takes place to get the organ for the
transplant? Seems terrible, but if you can abort to avoid pain for the woman, surely
you can do it for the life of the 4 year old.
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o 3. The day before the foetus is to be aborted, it is unexpectedly delivered
prematurely. It is now an infant, not a foetus. Is infanticide permissible? Nobody
wants to say that it is.
The point, McMahan 2007 argues, is that we either need to reconsider our views about infanticide,
or we need to reconsider our views about the permissibility of late term abortion – we can’t keep
our intuitions on both.
- My argument – we should be firm on when the foetus becomes something that it is seriously
wrong to kill, and around this point, have consistent views on infanticide and abortion
o Difficulty for this is what about late term abortion vs killing premature infant
o If the abortion could take place, then what is so special about the infant at 40
weeks?
o Late term abortion is not on unless for important medical reasons, in which case
Thomson stuff comes in.
LITTLE 2014
Argues that abortion, in almost all cases, is morally permissible, but that this does not make it an
easy matter, if we have respect for life.
You can agree that abortion is morally permissible, but abortion is not morally neutral.
- Abortion involves loss. Not just the loss of hope that various parties have invested in the
pregnancy, but loss of something valuable in its own right
- Human life is respect-worthy, and so we ought to avoid conception, where we don’t want to
have a child.
On moral status
The question that is clearly morally relevant is ‘when do we begin to exist’
- A common answer is ‘conception’ (more technically once the zygote is formed)
o Problem: a very high proportion of embryos which are conceived, fail to be
implanted – 1 in 3.
This view would commit us to thinking that there are millions and millions of
deaths every year that no one cares about
o Main problem: at conception there is a single cell. If we are that single cell, then
what happens when the cell divides? If we survive, then there must be two things
present when there is a zygote – a cell, and a human being.
Cells come to constitute something over and above themselves only when
they begin to be differentiated into different types, and function together
This takes place roughly in the second week, when the primitive streak
comes into existence – this is perhaps when the human organism begins to
exist
Only of moral significance if we are living human organisms
o Problem: imagine that you have an identical twin, and you
are both involved in an accident. Your body is in a terrible
state, but not your brain, and the reverse for your twin.
Surgeons take your cerebrum and put it into your identical
twin’s body. You could remain conscious throughout. You
