Dan Marquis contends that except in \u201crare cases,\u201d abortion is immoral, and it is immoral, he further argues, because the fetus has a \u201cFLO\u201d\u2014a \u201cfuture like ours.\u201d<\/p>\n
Before arguing that abortion is wrong, Marquis first attempts to show what makes killing in general wrong. Killing is wrong, he concludes, because it deprives the person killed of a \u201cfuture of value.\u201d\u00a0 Marquis writes: \u201cThe loss of one\u2019s life deprives one of all the experiences, activities, projects, and enjoyments that would otherwise have constituted one\u2019s future.\u201d<\/p>\n
Marquis elaborates, explaining that when a person\u2019s life is extinguished, that person is deprived of both what he values presently <\/em>about his future,<\/em> as well as what he would have <\/em>valued later on in his life.<\/p>\n Since a fetus too has a future of value, a FLO, abortion is wrong for the same reason that killing anyone <\/em>is wrong.<\/p>\n Marquis notes some virtues of his account.<\/p>\n First, it is silent with respect to questions concerning the relationship between such concepts as \u201chuman being\u201d and \u201cpersonhood,\u201d as well as concomitant issues like \u201cnatural rights.\u201d Instead, the FLO theory simply notes that a fetus is no different from any reasonably healthy adult in having a future of value. Thus, if it is wrong to kill the latter because of this consideration, it is no less wrong to kill the former because of it.<\/p>\n Secondly, Marquis\u2019 FLO account accommodates several moral intuitions of ours.<\/p>\n Thirdly, Marquis insists that his <\/em>approach does not rely upon illicit reasoning of the sort on display in the (all too common) argument that since killing persons <\/em>is immoral, it must also be immoral to kill potential <\/em>persons. The relevant moral category of the FLO theory is not personhood, but having a future of value.<\/p>\n Marquis\u2019 position is attractive for its originality, as well as for its author\u2019s desire to avoid the routine cluster of issues that tend to bog down the abortion debate. Yet originality is no substitute for truth.<\/p>\n And the truth is that Marquis\u2019 position is not without its problems.<\/p>\n Marquis rightly recognizes that it is indeed invalid to reason from the wrongness of killing persons to the wrongness of killing \u201cpotential\u201d persons. Presumably, what renders such reasoning illegitimate is not that the premise speaks to one type of being while the conclusion addresses a fundamentally different type of being. What renders the reasoning invalid is that it proceeds from what is allegedly true of one type of being\u2014persons\u2014to what is allegedly true of what practically amounts to a non-<\/em>being: a \u201cpotential\u201d person is a virtual no-thing. <\/em><\/p>\n But if this <\/em>is Marquis\u2019 reason for rejecting this argument, then hasn\u2019t he just given a reason for rejecting his <\/em>argument?<\/p>\n Here\u2019s the point: the future is just as potential, just as much of a non-entity, as a so-called \u201cpotential person.\u201d The future has not yet happened.\u00a0 It is, quite literally, nothing.<\/em><\/p>\n There is a further problem: From the fact that a person values X, it does not follow that it would be immoral to deprive him of X. For example, Jones may value an affair with Smith\u2019s wife, but this certainly doesn\u2019t imply that it would be impermissible for Smith (or his wife) to deny Jones the affair.<\/p>\n Simply put, it is far from obvious that the wrongness <\/em>of killing stems from depriving a person of a future that he values.<\/p>\n Closely related to this last consideration is a third problem. It can be argued that Marquis equivocates <\/em>on the word \u201cvalue.\u201d\u00a0 Though he speaks of a future of <\/em>value, <\/em>what he really means\u2014and he says as much from time to time\u2014is a future that one<\/em> values. <\/em>However, the difference between these two ways of speaking is not inconsiderable.<\/p>\n Whether or not this is his intention, the phrase, \u201ca future of value,\u201d suggests that the value in question is objective, <\/em>i.e. transcends the preferences and desires of the person whose future it is.\u00a0 In stark contrast, the word \u201cvalue\u201d in the phrase, a \u201cfuture that I<\/em> value,\u201d is subjective: <\/em>the future is valuable because, <\/em>and maybe only <\/em>because, I <\/em>value it.<\/p>\n For as thought-provoking as Marquis\u2019 FLO theory of the wrongness of abortion undoubtedly is, it nevertheless raises at least as many, if not more, of the same problems as those theories that it rivals.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Dan Marquis contends that except in \u201crare cases,\u201d abortion is immoral, and it is immoral, he further argues, because the fetus has a \u201cFLO\u201d\u2014a \u201cfuture like ours.\u201d Before arguing that abortion is wrong, Marquis first attempts to show what makes killing in general wrong. Killing is wrong, he concludes, because it deprives the person killed…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n\n