Marquis Why Abortion is Immoral

hello I am professor Zaldivar and this is a brief discussion of Don Marquis si why abortion is immoral Marquis begins his discussion by arguing that standard arguments or standard explanations for for and against abortion are rather similar and fairly unsophisticated what he need what we need he argues is a better way to think about wrongful killing in philosophical literature it is something debated that whether wrongful killing ie murder is bad because of the effect on the murderer or because the effect on society or the effect on the victim there’s a there’s a controversy over what is it that makes murder wrong fundamentally speaking Marquis argues that what makes killing wrong is not the effect on the killer ignore the effect on surviving friends and family the victim but rather the effect on the victim more specifically being killed inflicts one of the greatest possible losses on the victim it deprives the victim of all things in life that are valuable activities projects enjoyments etc in other words what makes life valuable is our experiences in life are the things that we do in life and of course being killed robs you of the chance to have any of any of these activities or projects or enjoyments but there’s a concern here this theory explains why it might be wrong to kill a child who after all has valuable experiences but what about whether it’s wrong but what about the question of whether it’s wrong to kill a fetus we might think that the argument does not work for fetuses because fetuses don’t have fully developed Minds in fact they are not persons and so they value nothing right they’re actually incapable of valuing anything and so it looks like this argument while explaining why murder is wrong for anyone sufficiently developed enough to value experiences does not explain why abortion is wrong to address this concern Don Marquis introduces an amendment to the original statement he says so he notes some parts of my future are not valued by me right now but will come to be valued by me as I grow older and as my values and capacities change and this is a crucial point for the anti-abortion proponents being killed therefore is bad or killing is bad because being killed deprives the victim of all things in life that they value now or will come to value in the future now this more refined statement of Marquis position does in fact may explain or give a justification for why murder of a person is wrong and also for why the killing of a fetus is wrong although it does require that fetuses be the source of individuals that have futures in which they will come to value things this has a kind of odd consequence that it makes killing bad in proportion to how much future the person has it also makes killing bad in proportion to how much that person values their life or will value their future as you think about this essay you might want to consider would does this does this theory mean it’s not wrong to kill someone who does not value their life at all and that concludes our discussion of Don Marquis essay or of the highlights and main points of Don Marquis essay as always there is more to be learned from reading and there is more to be there’s more to the argument so you are encouraged and expected to read the essay before completing your work thank you for listening goodbye