Loss of a Future Like Ours: The FLO Argument

1
Loss of a Future Like OursThe FLO Argument

• Marquis argues that the wrongness of killing
  beings like us consists in the loss of all the
  experiences, activities, projects and enjoyments
  that would otherwise have constituted ones
  future and make it worth-living.

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Application to the Abortion Argument

• Marquis hasnt said what sort of future a being
  must have for it to be s a serious wrong to have
  that being to lose its future.
• He doesnt think he has to solve this problem in
  order to apply his theory to the abortion
  question.
• He argues (in his original paper) that the loss
  of the future to a standard fetus, if killed, is
  . . . at least as great a loss as the loss of the
  future to a standard adult human being who is
  killed.
• Thus, he argues that if the killing of a
  standard adult human being is a serious moral
  wrong for the reasons Marquis identifies, the
  killing of a standard fetus in an abortion is a
  serious moral wrong, too.

3
Marquis Replies to Some (not all) Objections

• Objections
• Potentiality Objection
• Argument from Interests
• Contraception Objection

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Potentiality Objection (210)

• The FLO argument basically says that the fetus
  has the potential for certain future states and,
  in virtue of this potential, has a right to life.
  
• But potential for a certain status does not give
  a thing that status.
• (This is the common complaint about the
  justification of the potentiality criterion of
  moral personhood.)

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Potentiality Objection

• Marquiss Reply (210)
• The FLO argument doesnt use potentiality to
  shoehorn fetuses into the status that normal
  adults have.
• Instead, it is the potential of all humans
  (whether adults, children, infants or fetuses) to
  have a future of value that explains why it is
  significantly wrong to kill them.

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Argument from Interests (210)

• Sentience (the capacity to feel and have
  experiences) is a necessary condition for having
  any interests at all.
• The early stage fetus is not sentient.
  (Sentience begins about 22 weeks into the
  pregnancy.)
• Therefore, early stage fetuses cannot have
  interests and, in particular, cannot have an
  interest in experiencing a future like ours.

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Argument from Interests

• Marquiss Reply (210-1)
• Sentience is not a requirement for having
  interests.
• Temporarily unconscious people have interests
  even though they are not sentient.

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Argument from Interests

• Response to Marquis
• No one believes that moral interests blink in and
  out of existence with the current sentience of
  the being who has them.
• The temporarily nonsentient person is still a
  sentient being in the dispositional sense.
• This person has been sentient in the occurrent
  sense and will be again.
• Interests survive these gaps in occurrent
  sentience.
• What the critic is saying is that sentience must
  be there first for the being to have any
  interests at all.
• Marquis has not refuted this claim.

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The Contraception Objection (211)

• Marquiss argument proves too much.
• If it works to show that the fetus has a future
  like ours, it also shows that the unfertilized
  egg and the sperm have a future like ours.
• If so, then not only is abortion morally wrong
  but so is the use of contraception and the
  failure to bring about conception when one can.
• But since these things are not wrong, Marquiss
  argument is must be flawed.

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The Contraception Objection (211)

• Marquiss Reply
• The FLO argument turns, Marquis says, on whether
  there is an individual who can lose a future like
  ours.
• Because, prior to conception (or even perhaps
  during the first fourteen days after conception
  see p.204), there is no determinate individual
  that will, without interference, have a future
  like ours, the argument cannot be extended to egg
  cells or sperm cells.

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The Contraception Objection

• Marquiss Argument
• A. Prior to conception, there is no non-arbitrary
  determinate subject of harm.
• B. If there is no non-arbitrary determinate
  subject of harm, then no determinate thing was
  harmed.
• C. If no determinate thing was harmed, then no
  wrong has been done.
• -
• Thus, the FLO account of the wrongness of
  abortion does not entail that contraception is
  wrong.

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The Contraception Objection

• The criticism of Marquiss Argument against the
  Conception Objection It proves too much, once
  again.
• The Booby-Trapped Asteroid Cave
• Suppose that I explore a cave on distant
  asteroid and decide to plant a booby-trap to kill
  the next visitor to the cave. I know that no one
  living nowor even conceived yetwill be the next
  visitor. Because it takes so long for a spaceship
  to make it to the asteroid, it will be at least a
  hundred years before anyone else can visit the
  cave. But, sometime in the future, someone will
  visit the cave and that person will be killed by
  my booby-trap.
• On Marquiss account, accepting premises A.
  through C., we must conclude that my action does
  not harm a determinate thing and, so, no wrong
  has been done.

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Continued 2. The Pre-poisoned Fetus

• Suppose there is a recreational drug that causes
  some mild enjoyment but has disastrous
  consequences if it is ingested by a mother within
  a day prior to conceiving a fetus. It will alter
  the chemistry of the uterus so that any fetus
  conceived will have severe physical and mental
  defects.
• Notice, though, that prior to conception, there
  is no non-arbitrary determinate subject of harm.
• Thus, by Marquiss reasoning, there is nothing
  wrong with taking the drug for a few minutes of
  pleasure even if you know you will conceive a
  child during the critical period. Your action
  harms no determinate thing and, so, no wrong has
  been done.
• Marquis argument proves that we cant harm and
  wrong future generations. He should respond to
  the objection in another way.
• But let me note some defenders of Marquis admit
  contraception is wrong. Thus, for their point of
  view at least, the contraception objection does
  not have any bite even if it turns out to be
  correct.

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Other Possible and Actual Criticisms of Marquiss
Argument that Abortion is Wrong

• Sinnott-Armstrongs Objection
• The Space-Explorer/Potentially Intelligent Cow
  example
• Structural Features of Marquiss Argument

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Sinnott-Armstrongs Objection

• Sinnott-Armstrong points out that it is not
  always morally wrong to have a being lose its
  future like ours.
• This seems clear in certain cases of self- or
  other- defense.
• Sinnott-Armstrong also argues that in the
  following case, Beths having Adam lose his
  future like our is not wrong.
• For example, suppose Adam will die without a
  certain medicine. Beth has a milder case of the
  disease, so she needs the same medicine only to
  prevent her from being sick for nine months, from
  some risks of complications, and from longer-term
  adverse effects on career, feelings etc. However,
  Beth owns the only dose of medicine. She obtained
  it fairly and did not promise it to anyone. If
  Adam asks Beth to give him her medicine, would it
  be morally wrong for Beth to refuse? (65)
• Or suppose Beths medicine container is blown off
  to Adams feet, and Adam picks it up. Is it wrong
  for Beth to take it from Adam or get the police
  to take it?

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Continued

• Sinnott-Armstrongs point is that even if the
  deprivation of a future like ours is part of the
  reason why most cases of killing normal adult
  human beings are wrong, it is not the sufficient
  condition.
• Thus, that abortion is having a fetus lose a
  future like ours is not sufficient to show
  abortion is morally wrong.
• To show that abortion is wrong, Marquis needs to
  show that abortion satisfies whatever additional
  condition makes the loss of a future like ours
  unjustified.

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The Space Explorer and the Potentially
Intelligent Cow

• In Warrens space explorer example, the cultured
  cells have a future like ours.
• Then, it is immoral to have these cells lose a
  future like ours.
• The same goes to the potentially intelligent cow
  example.

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Structural Features of Marquiss Argument

• Because Marquiss argument for FLO is an
  inference to the best explanation it is always
  subject to the objection that a better
  explanation for the wrongness of killing can be
  found.
• The argument does, though, put the burden on his
  opponent to find that better explanation.
• We will see alternative explanations below.
  First, lets see why many people take
  self-awareness and evaluating capacity as (part
  of) C for the status to have a moral right to
  life.

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Tooleys Explanation of the Wrongness of Killing
a Normal Adult Human Being (299-300 of the text)

• According to Michael Tooley, killing a normal
  adult human being is wrong because he or she has
  a right to life but he admits that this
  explanation is not deep it does not explain why
  he or she has a right to life, and why (the right
  to) life is that important.
• Tooleys answer to these questions is as follows
  because he or she has interest in the
  continuation of his or her life.
• Behind this answer is the following general
  account of the relation between moral rights and
  interests ones moral rights to something (his
  or her body, liberty, properties etc.) exist to
  protect her or her corresponding interests in
  them.

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Tooley on the Relation between Self-Awareness,
Evaluating Capacity the Moral Right to Life

• Tooley holds that a being can have interest in
  the continuation of his or her life only if it
  passes the following two conditions. (1) The
  being is self-aware that is, aware of itself as
  an entity, distinct from other entities in the
  world, existing over a period of time from a past
  to a (possible) future. (2) The being has the
  capacity to desire (or value) the continuation of
  the self-conscious self.
• For the similar reason, many people take
  self-awareness and evaluating capacity as (part
  of) C for moral personhood (i.e., the status to
  have moral rights, e.g., right to life).

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A Comparison with FLO Account

• An advantage of this account over future like
  ours account is that it eliminates an apparent
  arbitrariness of privileging our life over other
  lives, e.g., lives of possible intelligent
  aliens, angels or deities.
• On this account, as far as these other creatures
  have interest in the continuation of their lives,
  it is wrong to kill them. It is not clear whether
  FLO account guarantees this conclusion if their
  lives are very different from ours.
• Young biological humans fetuses and neonates
  have futures like ours. On FLO account, their
  lives should be protected as ours. On the present
  account, this might not be true because they do
  not have self-awareness and evaluating capacity
  (though they usually have the potential).
• If we take self-awareness and evaluating capacity
  as (part of) C for moral personhood, and hold the
  actual possession criterion, fetuses and neonates
  will not have moral rights to life. (See
  Feinberg, 209-210, again.)

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Kantian Account

• Second, consider the Kantian account of a moral
  right to life and the wrongness of killing a
  person.
• A person has a right to life and killing is wrong
  because of the persons rational autonomy.
• The actual (or perhaps even potential) possession
  of rational autonomy is what makes a being have
  moral rights.