Blog Post 7

If you choose to post by Wednesday night by 11:00 PM, either (a) raise and develop an objection to something in the family morality readings, OR (b) offer and develop a supporting argument for something in the family morality readings.

Sexual Morality

I think the strongest argument for sexual morality comes from Goldman when he describes sex as the desire for physical contact with another person’s body. I think as a college aged student with certain priorities on the mind I come into this with a fair amount of bias, and it’s no surprise I find the most “liberal” of the views on sexual morality the most appealing. That being said I will defend Goldman’s argument by elaborating on the historical context he touched on when he mentioned contraception. One has only to travel back in time a few hundred years to find a period when raising a family was extremely difficult. Resources were scarce, and in places with harsh winters surviving was even more difficult and precarious. The birthing process itself was extremely painful without the advancements in pain regulation we have today. The chance of the mother dying in child birth was also greater, as well as the chance of the child dying in infancy. Sex had to be restricted to the notion of being simply for procreation, because the risks associated with treating it as an activity for pleasure were simply too great. Sex in the not too distant past could really only be implemented when one was financially secure with the resources at hand to deal with the almost inevitable consequences of what would result. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in conditions like these, treating sex as a means-to-an-end was morally responsible. To treat it otherwise would pose a grave threat to both mother and child. But as Goldman mentions, the advent of contraception and its widespread acceptance today has rendered this idea of sex as a means-to-an-end reproductively speaking as outdated. There is nothing wrong with the views of the past in my opinion; they were prudent for the time. But life is the process of change, and I believe our views could fall more in line with Goldman’s in an attempt to ease the tensions that can arise from the confusion surrounding sexual conduct, as well as to acknowledge the significant differences from the past we now have. 

I am going to agree with Goldman and defend his argument that "sexual desire is desire for contact with another person's body and for the pleasure which such contact produces; sexual activity is activity which tends to fulfill such desire of the agent.” I think that today sex has a very different meaning than it did years ago.  Years ago it was something sacred that was long-anticipated and waited for, while today it seems to be becoming more and more prevalent in society, and does not seem to hold the same meaning.  I think that sex can be an expression of romantic love because when you get to know someone more personally and their personality you can be attracted to them even more.  I think that Goldman is right when he says that sex is not a means to an end. I agree that sex can be to fulfill pleasure and desire or it can be an act of romantic love.  I do not agree with the idea of polygamy or polyandry and I think that although sex does not have to be an ends to a mean, it does not mean that we should disrespect ourselves and not hold it as a high standard. I think that sex can either be just for the pleasure and not for the romantic act of love, but that it can also have a greater meaning if it is with someone who we are attracted to their personality as well as their body.  I think Goldman does a good job of defending that sex can be interpreted in different ways, and that it is not just something that justifies and fulfills a desire or want.  I guess you can say that my argument to further expand Goldmans theory is that sex can have many different meanings, but can only be an expression of romantic love when there is more of a relationship between the two people, and that personality and body are not the only two things that go into romantic love.  It is all about developing a relationship with another person on a deeper level, and getting to know them over time.

Sexual Morality

I found each view on sexual morality ultimately unsatisfactory. The analysis that I most align with is Goldman’s view. I appreciate this analysis because I believe that many forms of intercourse are acceptable, unless sex violates some other categorical imperative, i.e. rape is wrong because it because it is “an extreme violation of a person’s body. However, I am confused about the logic of the argument in that he denies the “means-end-analysis” as being extraneous and not relevant to plain sex, which he asserts has no morality in and of itself. For humans, in a Kantian analysis, could this ever actually be true? I do not really see how just viewing sex as a pleasurable act, and carrying out sex for no other reason, would not also be a means to an end. Wouldn’t Kant say that this violates the categorical imperative to not use any person as a mere means to an end? Further, I think his argument is fairly week in stating that sex is morally neutral. He addresses the negative feelings many people get from having sex without extra means to an end such as love and relationships, and says that this “psychological toll often attached may be a function of the restrictive sexual ethic itself, rather than a legitimate apology of it.” I am really on the fence about this point and do not think he adequately defends it. I think it is just as easy to say that the psychological toll may be a result of not viewing sex as something with moral weight when it actually does. I think here I go back to the paradox this analysis faces that sex for just sex does seem to ultimately violate a categorical imperative. Further, if ethics asks how I should be living my life, from my experiences I do feel a degree of right or wrongness when I have engaged in meaningful versus meaningless sex. I don’t necessarily believe that anyone else should care, but if I am asking these questions and going with my gut, accepting that sex is morally neutral and that using people for pleasure with the lack of care and emotion, does not hold for me personally. 

Blog 7

I found the stark contrast between Sctuton's Aristotelian view and Goldman's Kantian view quite interesting; however I found Chung Tse's take on the definition of procreation, sexual morality and desire the most intriguing.  He claims procreation does not start and end with intercourse but rather begins with intercourse and ends when the child is born nine months later; this is why sexual activity holds the 'highest place' in Confucian life.  Tse's definition goes well with Scruton's view of sexual desire where love is the most powerful self fulfillment while erotic love and lust are habits of desire.  Even here though Scruton claims that our base desire is for physical contact and pleasure (both in a sexual and non sexual way).   If love is the most powerful form of self fulfillment and sex (physical contact & pleasure) is the outcome of this fulfillment then it would only be logical that with Tse's view, procreation is the product of love.  This is very interesting to me because this would mean that biologically and culturally we have evolved to where our life purpose is primarily to procreate.  But even then, all love has to have some sort of sexual desire in its roots; if Scruton truly took the Aristotelian stance, wouldn't doing things only out of often misplaced desire be a fundamental flaw?

Blog Post 7

If you choose to post by Monday night by 11:00 PM, either (a) raise and develop an objection to something in the sexual morality readings, OR (b) offer and develop a supporting argument for something in the sexual morality readings.

Comparison between abortion and the wanton infliction of pain on animals.

Throughout the arguments laid out by Don Marquis in this passage, it becomes clearer and clearer that he is not afraid to go to an extreme level when comparing abortion to things that are bad or morally wrong. In the case of one of his arguments in which he attempts to make a comparison between abortion and "wanton" infliction of pain on animals, he seems to consciously make an effort to associate the word "abortion" to "wanton infliction of pain" in the reader's mind, which I believe is a dysphemism and also a fallacy.

Beyond that, his argument that it is morally wrong for me to inflict pain upon him because pain causes suffering and suffering is a misfortune is very much correct in my mind. The issue that arises with his argument then is that he does not seem to take into account the gray area that is present when the discussion of a fetus becomes involved. My question for him would be in this case, at what point can he tell me for sure that the fetus is capable of registering the feeling of pain? Since fetuses are severely undeveloped at the time that an abortion is able to be done, can it be said for sure that the fetus has even developed the ability to feel? If it has not, then his argument comparing abortion to the infliction of pain on animals seems to be potentially irrelevant in that case. Since the fetus cannot feel pain, no suffering is caused, and therefore there is no misfortune.

The other issue that I had with this argument was his use of the word "wanton". By definition, wanton means: (of a cruel or violent action) deliberate and unprovoked. While I do not believe that all women who get abortions do it for a good or well thought out reason, I do believe that many abortion cases are not unprovoked by something. We could even say that Don Marquis was using "wanton" in a more literal sense that would suggest that he means unprovoked by the fetus, but even in that case it may not hold. If the pregnancy of the woman is directly going to put her life in danger, then an abortion would not be unprovoked. In fact, in that case, even though the fetus is unable to know it, its presence in the mother's body and the resulting threat to her life that it is imposing on would cause the resulting abortion to have been provoked by the fetus itself. There are also other outside influences such as the woman becoming pregnant as the result of a rape, or a situation similar to that, which would provoke the mother to get an abortion.

Due to these holes that can be found in this argument, I can only believe that this particular argument that Marquis poses is irrelevant and unsound.

Blog 6

In Marquis's piece he asserts that the killing of the embryo and the child is wrong because you take away the greatest thing in life, the ability to live through it. The fact that one is taking the opportunity for experiencing life, in Marquis's opinion, is immoral. Fetus in his eyes are victims because in his eyes they are actual beings that have the opportunity to live life and if an abortion occurs that is taken away. I have an issue with this observation. With this idea, it seems that Marquis believes that every child will have an opportunity to live life to the fullest when born, in his phrasing and wording. In a  circumstance such as a family who is impoverished, or a teenage girl who has been raped, that is not likely the case. A child is more valuable to the society as a whole if it is raised in a environment that is prepared for it and that can nurture it properly. There are very few instances that people such as Celine Dian and Tim Tebow will be created out unplanned children and more often than not the parents will not be able to provide properly in poor circumstances and the child will almost become a hindrance to society rather than a productive member. So in circumstances where the child is not going to be well provided for, the mother is inseminated without her consent, or a child will be mistreated and malnourished, then it is feasible to allow an abortion.

Testing the "future like ours" Claim

My objection begins, appropriately enough, with sperm and egg.  Marquis's central argument is that what differentiates a fertilized egg from an individual gamete is the "future like ours" that the fertilized egg could have.  He asserts that this is the fundamental principle that can make killing immoral even if no other reason is present.  He admits, however, that his argument "stands or falls on the moral status of the fetus."  It does not necessarily need to be a full human, but needs to have a future like ours.

Some people would assert that a sperm or an egg also have a possible future, to which the response would probably be that the odds of this happening for an individual gamete are so ridiculously slim they should not be considered.  Marquis, for example, says that contraception is no problem because there is simply "no obligation to maximize," implying that before the two are combined, it is not worth considering that they have rights.

I would like to propose a scenario which could challenge this assumption, in the the style of the “kill one to save 5 – organ harvest vs. oncoming train” dilemma.  We first ask 2 questions:

Should we protect sperm and eggs (or feel bad about the loss of sperm or eggs)?  Most people say no.  Should we protect a fertilized egg?  Significantly more people will say yes (understandably).

The third scenario, which makes the distinction more difficult, is this:

There is a stage during fertilization, before implantation, where the sperm has merely become attached to the egg, and the egg has sealed off its outer layer to other sperm.  No genetic material has yet been combined.  They are still two separate cells which are merely stuck together.  In Marquis's argument, however, we must protect them both because they now have the possibility of a "future like ours," but are not even really a single being yet. To me, this level of moral status of a fetus is not enough to grant the critical support his argument "stands or falls" on, and the argument, though generally very well thought out, falls. 

Blog 6

Abortion has always been a very sensitive topic.  A lot of content in this writing is directed at what is defined as killing, which is a parallel of what we define as life as well or in a more specific sense to abortion, where life starts. My first question is about killing though. This course is of ethics and morality.  A main argument has been whether or not there is a universal set or a baseline of morals that we must follow: do not lie, do not steal, do not kill, etc. If we as humans elect to believe in this universal set of morals, then why do we object to the perspective of “pro-life”? And if we do, are we that immoral if people can accept their immoral flaws.

On another note regarding the reading, I think that he is rather general when he refers to abortion simply as a killing of a life. I think that abortion is a much more complicated issue and the black and white view that it is just a killing is unrealistic. I don’t think that having an abortion is an action that is thought of without serious regard. There are even arguments that would say if the child was to have a hard life, then an abortion would be a good thing. He argues that it’s impossible to say what the child will value their life as, but in a case that a child could be born into poverty or to violence, I don’t think it’s fair to call someone who considers that immoral.

Abortion

The biggest controversy that I found in this article, is that concerning women’s rights. The specific quote that I found most interesting was, “How complete an account of the wrongness of killing does the value-of-a-future-like-ours account have to be in order that the wrongness of abortion is a consequence.” I found this the most fascinating because I believe that this is a very important decision to contemplate when making the decision to be pro-choice. Who is to say that the next person born into this world isn’t the next Steve Jobs or the next Einstein, or could be the next person to save someone from a burning building? That is just it, you don’t know, nobody does. The fact that the validity of a human life rests in the hands of a woman standing at the door debating on whether she is pro-life or pro-choice is a situation that no one should have ever had to even think about, but the reality of it is, is that it happens hundreds of times a day. I disagree with the statement that the “desire account” is in opposition to this statement. I think that there is no way to know the desire of an unborn fetus and compare it to the desire of someone who is living, but who is also suicidal. You cannot compare these two because the outcomes of the fetus are unknown. Overall, I think that the topic of abortion is a very sensitive issue to discuss, especially as a woman. I will never understand how just because you are a woman who is pregnant, that the world gets to judge you for the decisions you make regarding the unborn fetus inside of you. This article brings up many valid points and has given me a new aspect to think about when discussing or defending this controversial issue as a woman in society.

BLOG

One of the main points in Don Marquis’s argument is that by allowing for someone to have an abortion, you are morally killing the future of a human life. Me personally I disagree with Marquis’s argument. I think that everyone should have the choice of what they want to do, it should be up to them to have an abortion or not. I would say that moral decision for abortion is that it is ultimately up to the individual. I honestly do not think all cases of abortion can and should be considered, as is an injustice. A lot of things can happen to girls that are out of their control. There was a major study done where kids who are not wanted and kids who are wanted by their parents the study showed that the kids who are not wanted are more likely to commit crimes and other bad things. The study also saw that crime rates and other things dropped when an individual chose to have an abortion.  A child should have every opportunity to a positive future and supporting family with this option they can have this possibility.

Marquis and Contraception

    I struggled with Don Marquis’ section on rejecting the premise that, if the ethic of killing he is arguing for is presumed correct, the use of contraception is also seriously immoral. Marquis writes, “The ethics of killing in this essay would entail that contraception is wrong only if something were denied a human future of value by contraception. Nothing at all is denied such a future by contraception, however.” He breaks down four categories of potential subjects of harm by contraception: some sperm or other, some ovum or other, a sperm and an ovum separately, and a sperm and ovum together. While I agree with Marquis on this point, I believe there are examples of the use of contraception denies a valuable future, which would require Marquis to accept that some forms of contraception are immoral. Focusing on the fourth subject, sperm and ovum together, and a form of contraception that kills sperm, spermicide, I will argue that Marquis fails to overcome the objection that contraception fails to deny a future of value in this specific case. 

     Marquis writes “the immortality of contraception is not entailed by the loss of a future like ours argument simply because there is no nonarbitrarily identifiable subject of the loss in the case of contraception.” However, I believe in the specific case described above, where a sperm and ovum come together but fail to fertilize because of the use of spermicide, that the argument that there is no “nonarbitrarily identifiable subject” is insufficient. In this case I find it difficult for Marquis to argue that the sperm and ovum that have joined and, under normal circumstances, would have fertilized cannot be considered an “identifiable subject.” The spermicide, which effectively kills the sperm that had the potential to join an egg, destroys the potential for a valuable future of the fertilized egg because it destroys a necessary component of the fertilization process that under normal circumstances would have potentially created a future of value. 

Argument against Marqui

Marqui takes his readers through his process to discover if abortion is morally permissible or not. He concludes that what makes murder wrong is that it denies the victim any chance in the future to do anything valuable, because this is what makes murder wrong Marqui goes on to say that abortion must be wrong because it denies the fetus any chance for a future. He goes on even further to show readers the weight of a fetus’s life and an adult human beings life, “Hence this argument should be taken as showing that abortion is preemptively very seriously wrong, where the presumption is very strong- as strong as the presumption that killing another adult human being is wrong.” (263). In this claim Marqui draws a parallel between the morality of killing an adult human being and aborting a fetus, and that the wrongness of killing an adult human being and aborting a fetus are equally wrong. I find issue in this argument because the life of an adult human being and the life of a fetus are drastically different, and it is a false comparison to claim that it is equally wrong to kill an adult human being and abort a fetus. The adult human being, if he or she is behaving like a rational social animal, will have fostered relationships with their family and friends, they probably have a job and are doing something that affects the community. A fetus has not made any relationships or behaved in a social way at all. If the adult human being were to be killed than his or her community will have been impacted in some way.  The life of a fetus impacts far less people than the life of an average adult human being, namely just the fetuses mother and father and, perhaps, close family will even know of its existence. The fetus has not done anything, consciously, to benefit his or her community and family. The future of the fetus is mostly hypothetical, who knows if it will actually do anything worth-while or otherwise in its life. The adult human being, on the other hand, has established value in his or her life; therefore his or her life is a more prominent loss if he or she dies. Later on in his essay Marqui briefly touches on the idea that fetuses and the adult human being are different because of the fetuses lack of life, “…for fetuses do not have experiences, activities, and projects to be continued or discontinued.” (Marqui). But after admitting that there are some differences Marqui does not change his claim that adult human being’s life has more value than a fetus. 

                In reading these two separate arguments on abortion, I find it very hard to agree with Marquis’s view on abortion. The first problem I had was how little regard Marquis paid to the person doing the killing (in this scenario, the mother). He chooses only to focus on the fetus. The main premise of his argument is the value of the fetus’s future. While this is an aspect to seriously consider, shouldn’t there be some consideration of the value of the mother’s future? In choosing to have a child, a woman’s health and physical capabilities are seriously compromised for nine months. It does not end there, after having this child, she must now take care of him or her until he or she is able to live a sustainable life. By saying that abortion is immoral, it is eliminates a woman’s right to do as she pleases with her body.               

                But in entertaining the idea of this being a matter of the effects to the victim, I still disagree with his argument. How are we to know that the fetus will live a life of value? If a woman chooses to have an abortion because they cannot afford to have another child, according to Marquis, this would be considered immoral. So say this woman is has the child and it grows up in poverty. Statistically, those that grow up in poverty are more likely to have trouble with the law. As a societal norm, a person who lives a life of crime isn't generally considered having lived a life of value. If we then take into account the life the mother is now saddled with, she is also not living a life of value. I don’t think Marquis made a strong enough argument in his attempt to defend the immorality of abortion. 

Don Marquis

I do not disagree heavily with Don Marquis' view on abortion theoretically however realistically I have a difficult time getting behind any part of his argument.  Marquis argues that killing anyone is morally wrong because you would be depriving them of their future.  Abortion is killing a fetus, therefore abortion is morally wrong.  Speaking strictly morally I do not think most people would disagree with this.  But take this stance out into the real world and I see a much different picture.  I believe everyone is at liberty to make choices about what happens in one's own body.  It should make no difference if you are a high school senior who accidentally got pregnant or a career oriented middle aged woman, your right to get an abortion should be the same.  It is morally wrong to kill another person who's life has already started however to say that it is morally wrong to kill a fetus is like saying it is morally wrong to kill a vegetable.  When in this stage, a fetus cannot walk, talk, or have relationships with others.  Human beings are defined by the relationships we share with others; one day this could be a living, breathing thing however during the time abortion can occur, it is not.  This then leaves only the problem of depriving 'what could have been' for the future of the fetus.  If we walked around every day worrying about what could have been or should have been the world would be a very backwards place.  It is a very juvenile stance to take asking people to think of the possibilities that could happen in the next 5 years much less the next 75-80 years of a person's life.  I do think Marquis' argument has some validity but his supporting evidence is very lacking in today's society.

value of life

Connor Newlin

 

                Marquis and Thomson offer a lot of interesting takes on both sides of the abortion. One argument that they propose is that a being isn’t considered life until it is conscious enough to value its own life and its future. A counter argument is made to combat this statement quickly and I completely agree because this initial argument about life seems so ridiculous that it actually angered me. This would mean that infants that have been born into this world for a fair amount of time are not considered conscious beings that deserve to live. If a baby is not valued by anyone including its parents and it is not intelligent enough to value itself that makes it a creature that is not considered living according to this argument. This would mean all orphaned children would be disregarded at a young age and thought of as mere animals. Even animal’s lives are valued and I think that they can know their lives are important which is why they keep themselves out of danger as much as possible.

                I think things have value even if a higher life form doesn’t put value on them. An animal will value its young and protect to certain extremes quite often. Humans keep and remember certain things that at the time think have no value but realize that there is a possibility of valuing it later. This is especially true in the case of human beings. A baby may not seem to hold any value to you but this baby has the potential to grow up and save your life which is reason enough to save a baby whose life is in danger.  

argument against Don Marquis

I totally disagree with Don Marquis on his belief that abortion is immoral. It’s not necessarily that I don’t believe that abortion is wrong, because to some extend I do. It’s the fact that Marquis makes it seem very bad and taboo like if you do get one you’re the worst person in the world. I believe that during life things happen and we make mistakes, and if there is a way to put aside that mistake then why not? The way Marquis is phrasing it makes it seem like it’s an injustice to get an abortion, which to me it is not. For example, a lot of teenagers in American get pregnant while they’re still in high school and they still have the rest f their lives to look forward to. I am not saying that by having a baby they can’t achieve their dreams, but it will be harder to do so. They are much more likely to leave school; receive inadequate parental care; rely on assistance to raise a child; or develop health problems. All of these issues could occur just by having a child. To me, I think it is worse to have a child and not be able to support it both mentally and financially than having an abortion because at least at the early stages it hasn’t really developed yet, so you’re not necessarily killing a human. I think it is shellfish to bring a child in this world and you’re not ready to take care of it because there are tons of things that can go wrong for both the baby and you; usually, they end up putting the baby through adoption because they can’t take care of them. Why would parent’s want their babies to have a rough childhood going from home to home rather than getting the abortion and waiting a little longer until you were fit to have a child? I do agree that abortion is wrong, but I believe being an unfit parent is even worse because the child is effected 100% of that mistake while and abortion you’re only effect. I can’t speak for parents, but they tend choose the latter part since they cherish their child’s lives over their own.

Slippery Slope of Abortion

Abortion is a very touchy topic. Both Marquis and Thomson acknowledge this and try to prevent the occurrence of slippery slope fallacy within their arguments. Marquis begins by stating he would not be arguing exceptional cases and that is his way of avoiding the fallacy by not having to draw the line, however he still mentions it within the following, “Accordingly, morally permissible abortions will be rare indeed unless, perhaps, they occur so early in pregnancy that a fetus is not yet definitely an individual” (Marquis, 263). His mention of these cases is endearing but I feel that it diminishes his argument about future value. I also think he could support his argument further in the section on suicidal people. He discusses the moral wrongness of killing a suicidal person, but not the morality of them killing themselves which I think is a vital point to the future value argument.

Oppositely, Thomson bases her whole argument off of scenarios, and drawing the line especially in exceptional cases like the one about a scared, sick, teenager pregnant from rape as she says, “I am inclined to think it a merit of my account precisely that it does not give a general yes or a general no…any law which rules this [pregnancy due to rape] out is an insane law” (Thomson, 276). The relativist would love her answer to abortion because it is entirely situational, but I believe her attempt at drawing the line failed and her examples of the teenager or the woman hooked up to the violinist are helpful but provide little overall situational guidelines, invalidating her main point to provide insight into the permissibility of abortion.

While I feel they both make engaging arguments they can both be strengthened. I feel as if Marquis did a better job avoiding the line rather than Thomson not being able to make a firm line in regards to the slippery slope fallacy. I just have to decide if avoiding the line is more admirable or smarter than attempting to place a line.

Effect on the Victim

In Don Marquis' article he states "What primarily makes killing wrong is neither its effect on the murderer nor its effect on the victim's friends and relatives, but its effect on the victim. The loss of one's life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer. The loss of one's life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one's future."

I partially agree with the idea that what makes killing wrong is the effect on the victim and not the external figures. However, I do also believe in Thomson's argument, that often times dialogues regarding abortion focus on the fetus and its development and not on the mother herself. In this case the external figure is crucial to the argument. I believe some of Thomson's arguments are very powerful, while others could be furthered developed, but I genuinely appreciate her view on the topic and found it insightful. In the patriarchal society we live in, we often forget to evaluate a woman's right to her own body, and I myself had never thought about this argument in regards to a woman's agency over her body and what occurs inside of it.

That being said, I did not want to focus on whether killing is wrong due to external forces, rather I wanted to focus on the sentence where he states that the loss of one's life deprives one of experiences, activities, etc. Many things can deprive an individual of experiences, activities, etc., abortion is not the only issue which may interfere with enjoyments that would have otherwise constituted one's future. For example, let's say that a mother who wants to have an abortion but is not allowed to, because of laws or any other reason, decides to follow through with her pregnancy. In this scenario she would be moral because she is not depriving the tiny human of his or her future. However, let's say that although she decides to follow through with her pregnancy, she begins to indulge in unhealthy behavior, such as indulging in drugs. If we suppose that she ingests enough substances to harm her child and affect his or her mental and physical condition, she would be depriving her child of many experiences, activities, projects, etc. due to the effects of the substances. She may not be fully depriving her child but she would still deprive the child of many experiences. Since other things outside of abortion may have the power to heavily alter one's life experiences, to the extent where one may not be dead but may end up in a vegetative state, I believe the premise of Marquis' paper is ultimately flawed.

Abortion

                    In Don Marquis' argument against abortion he argues that killing a fetus is comparable to taking the life of an adult, he then goes on to argue about how the potential of a fetus is destroyed by aborting it. While I do agree that abortion is not a decision to be taken lightly and all alternatives should be thought of, it is still permissible if the mother doesn't want the child and wont be able to give it the love and care that it needs. My main problem with his argument of potential is that he's comparing potential to actual ability. While a fetus might be able to grow up and do great things in life, an actual adult can do great things at this moment. The arguments based off of potential are speculation and that could go both ways, so it can't be used as a defense against abortion. The potential argument can go both ways, the fetus could grow up to be a great leader and help a lot of people or they could grow up to be a serial killer and make a hat out of someone. This is why I have a problem with him comparing the possible potential of a fetus to someone that is able to do great things at this moment.
                  Another problem that I have with his argument is that it arguably comes down to the choice of the mother and father alone. While it's not  pleasant thing and shouldn't be done lightly, it is their decision of whether or not they want the child since they are the ones that have to deal with it and take care of it. The concept of killing a child seems horrible, but in the end it might cause more bad than good. An example of this would be that the parents are very poor and already have two kids, and through some odd chance the birth control failed and the wife gets pregnant. They are poor to the point where they are just scraping by and can barely put food on the table or pay rent. Having a child is a very large financial burden and they know that if they have this child they wont be able to feed themselves or their other children and possibly wont even be able to afford a place to live. So are they still obligated to keep the child even though it could possibly ruin the lives of them and their current already living children? While he does mention that there are specific cases where abortion would be permissible, he seems to only include cases of rape or where the mother would die during birth. So overall I don't think that you can rule out abortion for a family like the one mentioned above because they made the fetus and they are responsible for it, so if they don't think that they can adequately take care of it why should they be forced to bring a child into a bad environment where is wont get all of the care that it needs and deserves.

Abortion

After reading the piece about abortion by Don Marquis I felt that his ideas were to strong and valid arguments can be presented to refute the claims that he is making. He is saying that by having the embryo aborted that mother is depriving the child what could have been a successful life. He makes the comparison that is it wrong to kill a normal adult so shouldn’t the same standard be help for an unborn child? First addressing the claim that the mother is denying the child that could possibly have a valuable future is way too farfetched of an argument. Many times the mother has good reasons for making the decision to terminate the pregnancy, and a lot of the time they have to do with the quality of life the child will be born into. For a child to have a successful like there needs to be some stability. Next moving onto the idea that terminating a pregnancy is like killing a full grown human is completely false. Medically they are the same but there are so many other aspects, and adult has relationships with others and had formed friendships and bonds. Whereas a fetus though still having value does not have the same value as the full grown man. Also if Marquis Argument is correct then the use of contraception would have to be the equivalent of murder. Meaning that by using contraception it would be the same as committing murder against another human being. His views come of too strong and when apply to situations can be seen as a little extreme.             

Considering the Mother

In this post I am going to argue against Marquis's anti-abortion ideas. His main argument is that killing a fetus is wrong because it takes away the potential future for the fetus which he believes is the victim. He quickly dismisses the thought that the killing is wrong having anything to do with the person committing the "killing". He says that we shouldn't care about the person doing the act because it brutalizes the person as being the reason for wrongness, but this is all he acknowledges in regard to the person making the choice of having an abortion. I think that there is so much more than just the mother choosing to have an abortion and killing the fetus as the victim. During pregnancy, the fetus is an extension of the mother and therefore I believe the argument cannot be structured as just the mother being the perpetrator and the fetus being the victim because the two are in a very physical sense connected. Therefore I believe that the pregnant women can be viewed as just as much of a victim to the act or not of an abortion in addition to the fetus. She has just as much of a future that is worth valuing and considering the rightness or wrongness of an abortion as the fetus does. I am going to try to clarify this stance with an example. 

Suppose there is a young woman about to pursue her lifelong dream of doing intensive field research in a rainforest. She is bright and has the potential to make groundbreaking discoveries and fulfill her passions. She is in a relationship and she and her partner agree they do not want children and she takes birth control. However, in a rare case her birth control fails and she becomes pregnant anyway despite taking proper contraceptive measures. If she has the child she will have to give up her dreams and may very well resent the child and her partner as a result. While the future that the fetus is still something to seriously consider, she decides that because it is her body that the fetus will be affecting and she has dreams that do not involve motherhood, she chooses to abort it. I believe that this is justifiable because in a case like this, it is not clear cut that there is a victim and a perpetrator because as I stated previously, the fetus is physically an extension of the pregnant woman. The future-value argument that Marquis uses therefore wrongfully separates the mother and the fetus and in order for it to be sound it should consider the future of the pregnant woman as well, which in circumstances, can be more important than that of the fetus. This is not saying that the fetus has absolutely no worth and I am not objecting that there are important considerations to having an abortion for the future of the fetus, but that this is not the sole or necessarily most important consideration to make. 

On the intrinsic value of parenthood

On pg. 241 of Hursthouse's Virtue Theory and Abortion, she takes it as a premise that parenthood is an intrinsically valuable thing, and mentions having argued for it in an earlier piece of hers that I am, sadly, unable to access. I have serious doubts about this premise, and despite having very little presented material to argue against, I'll be doing my best to make a point that stands alone against the premise rather than leaning against an opposing argument.


First, I feel the need to dismiss the idea that simply because it may be considered to be the greater purpose of humanity or, truly, of the majority of living beings to reproduce and thus perpetuate the species, that it can be considered an intrinsically worthwhile act. Simply because something is in line with nature, doesn't mean that it has intrinsic worth, and to claim so is fallacious.


Also, it needs to be made clear that I am not arguing that parenthood cannot have value, but only that it is not necessarily or intrinsically valuable. Of course it can have value given the right situation and right people, but in the wrong situation, say in one where the parent(s) could not adequately care for the child, or one in which the child would grow up to be a detriment to society, it is either not worthwhile or would simply be a net negative to be a parent.

Abortion

I think the author’s point on women’s rights being irrelevant to the discussion of abortion with regard to virtue theory was surprising, and at the core of virtue theory. Women’s rights are often brought up in the context of abortion because regardless of what any law of nation or state might say, it is a woman’s body, and therefore she has a right to choose what to do with her body. But virtue ethics is not concerned with what a woman, or any person for that matter, has a right to. It only concerns the virtue theorist if an act propagates one’s flourishing. It’s not one people are used to, or I am. But in that vein, ones shouldn’t lie, not because of some inherent moral wrong, but because honesty is a virtue that will promote one’s on life, and dishonesty is a vice that will hinder it. Now while the author says she is not trying to convince anyone of how to sway on the issue, she thinks that once her thought process is laid out in the virtue theory fashion, the answers should all become self-evident. Have an abortion, if it will truly lead to your eudaimonia. And in this regard, it takes much of the vitriol and partisanship out of the debate. Was a woman raped? Then it probably isn’t in her wellbeing to continue the pregnancy. Is it a woman’s fifth abortion? There may be nothing wrong with proceeding with it, but there may be some actions further up the road that could be unvirtuous, leading to this abortion, which in itself may be fine. The author states, this is a tricky doctrine to adhere to because there is no, “what would Socrrates/Jesus/any influential person do in my situation?” It is up to the morally informed and experienced person to address the abortion on a case by case basis. This is not easy, but I think the author makes a powerful case for it. 

Blog Post #6

I feel like what Hursthouse has stated surrounding women’s rights is a bit too ‘jump to conclusions’. He is too quick to write off a woman’s right to abort her fetus. I think that it should be pointed out that the fetus is attached to the woman’s body, developed within the body of a person – essentially a malignant tumor that sucks out nutrients from the body. Comparatively like a cancer tumor (as an example mentioned from a previous example in the article unrelated to abortion). Cancer is the growth of abnormal cells in the body. Much like the development of a baby could be considered as a growth of abnormal cells; being for the fact that you do not cultivate a child every day – such as in a process of normative biological systems. If we thus accept this idea as true, that the development of a baby is considered as a growth of abnormal cells, we can then be lead to the point that women should be morally permissible to rid themselves of malignant growths of abnormal cells and that it is the right of a woman to decide to rid herself of malignancy within the body. I feel that this argument then therefore calls into question the establishment of a person for I am arguing that a fetus growing within a mother is not considered a person. When a child is detached from their mother, the baby’s umbilical cord is cut, the entity of a person therefore takes over.