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Friday, May 29, 2020

Definitions of "Murder" and Anything Else

I recently had a discussion with someone who insisted this: when and where abortion is legal, it cannot be "murder" because murder only has a legal definition, 'illegal killing.' 

I responded that "murder" also has a moral definition, at least "wrongful killing" or the "wrongful killing of a person."

This person denied this definition, insisting that anyone who understood "murder" this way is just mistaken.

How can this dispute be resolved? In general, how can disputes about definitions be resolved?

One response to the question involves thinking about what definitions are, or how to define "definition."

In many cases, definitions report on how people use a term: if people use some words to express an idea, they are defining that idea, at least in one way (since terms sometimes have multiple definitions).

So then how do you find out how people define a word? You can do a survey! So that's what I did:
So, at least many people are willing to define "murder" as wrongful killing.

If they are mistaken, how exactly could that be shown, if it could?

First, you could read an encyclopedia entry on definitions also. And you could check our discussion of attempts to define, say, human embryos as "babies" or "children", or watch this video on definitions below.

Definitions define a topic, of course, and definitions often dictate what we need to argue about and what we can let go, sometimes for the sake of argument. So the more you know about definitions, the better you can engage the issues that define the topic. If you'd like more sources on how to evaluate definitions, especially for terms related to ethical issues, let me know!



No comments:

Saturday, May 23, 2020

Are you part of a cult about abortion, or anything else?

How people engage the issue of abortion can be indicative of general patterns of inquiry, thinking and communicating about controversial and challenging issues. Some of these patterns of response are good but others are bad.

One bad response to issues like these is to engage in what can be called "cult-like" thinking and behavior. To be part of a cult is similar to being part of an "echo chamber" or - a newer related term - an "epistemic bubble."

So if someone engages in cult-like thinking, or is part of an echo chamber or an epistemic bubble about abortion, what's likely true of that person? 
  1. they tend to enthusiastically affirm just about anything and anyone that agrees with their own position, without asking whether that source of potential support is a good one or not; 
  2. they generally don't engage with people they disagree with on the issue, and these people are often "demonized": they are called stupid, or dumb, or evil or worse, although not in any kind of direct engagement that might wind up being productive;
  3. if they engage with people who they disagree with, it's from a distance and doesn't involve an attempt to reach out in good-will to increase understanding and have productive engagement: they are "drive-by critics";
  4. they don't really engage the materials (writings, videos, etc.) that people who disagree with them produce;
  5. they are unaware of questions and objections that other people have about their own views: that is, they are unaware of what their critics say, much less whether their critic's objections have any merit;
  6. sometimes their engagement of the issue is mediated through someone that they view as an expert or "prophet" on the issues: they agree with this person's conclusions on the issues, but aren't really up on the support for those conclusions, and so they leave it to this person to do that thinking and engagement for them;
  7. in that way, their position on the issue is driven by the conclusions they antecedently accept, not so much their own reasoning towards that conclusion that starts from a place of neutrality or lack of bias (or at an attempt at seeing things from this neutral starting point, as best they can). This relates to the "If you agree with me (on the correct conclusion on this issue), then I agree with you, no matter what!" attitude mentioned above. 
  8. likewise, they are generally unable to distinguish rejecting a conclusion on an issue from rejecting a reason or argument given for a conclusion on an issue: so, e.g., someone (even a pro-choice person) who says "This one reason is not a good reason to think that abortion is OK (although there are other good reasons to think that abortion is OK)" somehow gets seen as a threat by some pro-choice people, even though they are both pro-choice;
  9. they consider themselves very knowledgable on the issue, despite not having read widely on the issues, taken classes on the issues, or engaged with a variety of potential experts on the issues: so they think they are experts when they are not; they do not know that there is a lot they do not know about the topic;
  10. they think the issues are simple, when the experts know that there are genuine complications, challenges, and subtleties to be addressed;
  11. they do not wonder about whether there is any "common ground" between them and the people they disagree with to use to make progress on the issues; 
  12. there is often an unwillingness to "compromise" on anything, even when that compromise is reasonable. So this involves "black and white" thinking: it's either "all this" or "all that." Now, sometimes this response is appropriate - there are many things we shouldn't compromise on and there are not legitimate different perspectives on! - but compromises are sometimes reasonable and justified; 
  13. people in cults and echo-chambers don't allow any member of their own insider group to question any aspect of the group's beliefs or ideology: you are either all for it or not and, if not, well, you aren't "one of us": self-critique isn't allowed. This is related to the phenomena of "groupthink."
This is just an incomplete and quickly-made list of some common features of this type of engagement. (What is missing?)

Looking at this list, do these seem to be good ways of engaging issues, or not? Are many issues engaged this way? Why is this?

Finally, do many people exhibit these tendencies in how they engage the topic of abortion, both people who are pro-choice and people who are critical of abortion?

If so, why is this? And, more importantly, what can be done about it, on this issue and any other? 
4 comments:

Tuesday, May 19, 2020

Trent Horn on "The Problem of Personhood"

Dear Mr. Horn,

Someone kindly alerted me to the fact that you discussed some of the arguments I have reviewed on the topic of abortion on your apologetics podcast. Thanks for that discussion there!

I hope you watched those videos that I made for classes, read our book Thinking Critically About Abortion, and have reviewed some of my other materials that are especially relevant to what you said, such as my reply to Christopher Tollefsen on what might (and might not) follow, morally, from our having “rational natures,” and my review of Francis Beckwith’s book.

I’ve taught logic, philosophy, and ethics at the college (and, occasionally, medical school) level for 20 years or so, and I’ve published a fair amount on this issue and many others.

My main motivation for engaging these issues is just that I believe many academic philosophers know a lot about them and so should share their knowledge to help improve the quality of engagement on these issues (and, of course, people who honestly don’t know much about these topics should learn about them from experts). Given that, I want to briefly respond to some of the things you say about personhood, at least in the transcript that I read. 

First, although I’m not sure you are endorsing this reasoning, you mention that some people seem to argue this way:
1. Some people have been wrongly not recognized as people; some people have been wrongfully considered non-persons.
2. Therefore, there is something bad or problematic about the concept of person.
This is a bad argument. The problem is that it depends on this false premise: 
3. If a concept can be or has been misapplied, then it is a bad or problematic concept.
The problem with misapplying a concept is the concept is misapplied. If someone calls a brick a person, or a person a brick, the problem isn’t with any concepts of “person” or “brick”: the problem is the person’s misuse of the concepts.

That some people fail(ed) miserably at recognizing the personhood of certain people doesn’t show any problem with the concept of personhood: the problem is (and was) these people’s mistaken misunderstanding of personhood or their ill-will in applying what they know about it or other relevant mistaken beliefs about the people they claimed aren’t (or weren’t) persons. (This point applies to almost anything: take any concept “X”: that some people misidentify things as X’s doesn’t mean that X is a problematic concept or that nothing is an X or anything like that.)

To get to the more important issues, you asked these important questions:
  • “So, how do we define persons?
  • How do we come up with a proper definition?”
I want to point out that - although perhaps I missed it - you don’t seem to directly respond to your second question, which seems to be about what methods one would use to find the correct definition of “person” (or anything else). Instead, you seem to just propose a definition, instead of first asking how one would best answer the question.

In our book, we offer some thinking-activities or discussion questions to help people reason towards definitions of persons. Here they are:
1. We are persons now. Either we will always be persons or we will cease being persons. If we will cease to be persons, what can end our personhood? If we will always be persons, how could that be? 
2. Make a list of things that are definitely not persons. Make a list of individuals who definitely are persons. Make a list of imaginary or fictional personified beings which, if existed, would be persons: these beings that fit or display the concept of person, even if they don’t exist. What explains the patterns of the lists?
These activities can lead someone to reasonably accept a broadly psychological explanatory theory of what persons are: persons are conscious, aware beings. Such a view has been popular ever since John Locke, although it has been modified and improved, especially in recent decades: the theory doesn’t require “rational abilities,” if this means pretty fancy thinking; it can allow for just consciousness or awareness, that there is a way it is for that individual to be, from their own point of view.

Additional support for this type of hypothesis also can come from considered judgments about the ethics of killing and allowing to die various human beings such as brain-dead human beings and anencephalic newborns: if they are persons, but persons are prima facie (meaning, usually, or unless there's a good reason) wrong kill or let die, but these human beings can permissibly be treated in ways very different from how most children and adults are treated, then something has to go: some belief here has to change. (Update: this type of view agrees with what you, Mr. Horn, say, that its "not of what you are currently able to do, but in virtue of just what you are," that makes you have, say, rights.) 

You propose that persons are “individual member[s] of a rational kind.” Maybe, but why? And how does one come to a reasonable answer on this type of question anyway?

This type of theory needs to be adequately explained: what exactly is a kind? Why is our kind the “rational” kind and not something else, since there are other options? (These questions come up in with some arguments about ethics and animals). Most importantly, however, what follows and does not follow, morally, for being of a “rational kind”? If an answer is “the right to life,” why not also a right to autonomy? Why not any rights related to responsibility? There are hard questions here about this type of proposal and at least unbiased, rational inquirers want good answers if they are to believe anything on these matters.

For better or worse, I haven’t here reviewed every, or even many, details of what you wrote or said, although I would be willing to take the time to do so.  If you are interested in a seeking-to-be-very careful, patient, honest, and, I hope, intellectually-virtuous discussion of these issues, let me know. Nobody should be a "drive-by critic" in these days of the internet since misunderstandings can so easily be corrected and positive discussion and interactions promoted. If you are interested in that, let me know! Thanks!

Sincerely,

Nathan Nobis, Ph.D.

Update:

Trent Horn on Abortion: Discussion

Here's from a discussion with Trent Horn on abortion at Emory's Medical School. 


A talk through here: 


Powerpoint is also here. Presentation as text here.

Thanks to some of the comments online, I realized that a few things at the event prevented me from responding to Trent in an ideal way there. So I made some videos and a text that better engage Trent's initial talk. I hope people find them helpful for better understanding the issues! Thanks!

A Revisited Response to Trent Horn from Nathan Nobis 


Trent's "Opening Statement" which the videos and text below are a response to.


Full set of videos:

An Introduction Video:


The “Humanity” Argument Against Abortion:


A “Personhood” Argument Against Abortion:


Arguments from Personal Identity Against Abortion:


The "Future Like Our’s" Argument Against Abortion:


The Impairment Argument Against Abortion:



Concluding Thoughts:



A Revisited Response to Trent Horn from Nathan Nobis 


Notes below; talked through here: 

Trent Horn and Abortion: Revisited Responses and Initial Presentation - YouTube 


www.NathanNobis.com

www.AbortionArguments.com

https://twitter.com/NathanNobis 

https://www.youtube.com/c/NathanNobis101 

https://www.tiktok.com/@nathan.nobis 


Discussion, not “Debate”


Too bad none (?) of the medical students, students or any pro-choice people showed up to hear Trent. 


At least I need an outline or handout or visuals to effectively follow, at least in these situations. 


Listening, taking notes, and formulating a response all at once is something I cannot do. I’m a “slow listener.” Now I know. 


There are some very close details here; very hard for anyone to engage this material without notes and visuals. Really cannot be done?


So, here’s my review of Trent’s arguments. 


Trent’s conclusion: “Abortion is gravely immoral and ought to be illegal.”


The “Humanity” Argument 3

A “Personhood” argument 6

Arguments from Personal Identity 9

The Future Like Our’s Argument 14

The Impairment Argument 16

Conclusion 18


The “Humanity” Argument


  1. It’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent biological human beings. 

  2. The fetus is an innocent biological human being. 

  3. Abortion intentionally kills a fetus. 

Therefore, abortion is prima facie wrong. 


All these premises are false.


2. The fetus is an innocent biological human being.


2: Why accept 2? Science supports this, he claims.


My response: science supports that these are human organisms; whether they are human beings depends on what’s meant by “human beings.”


“Human being” definition 1 = a “being” that’s biologically human.


What’s a “being”? Not just anything that “has being”: organisms?


“Human being” definition 2 = a biologically human organism who has perceptions, feelings, reason, emotions, memories, etc. Ask around!


“Innocent”: I think the term “innocent” really only applies to beings who could do something wrong. So embryos and beginning fetuses are neither innocent nor not innocent: term just doesn’t apply. 


  1. It’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent biological human beings. 


1: Why accept 1? 


Trent responds to a question based on a misunderstanding: Whatabout friendly space aliens? Suggested answer: these aliens, we are, are of a rational “kind.” 


Objections from Trent:

If 1 is true, then taking people off life support is wrong? 


Trent’s response: we are letting them die, not killing them. 


My response: what if they were actively killed? Why would that be (seriously) wrong? 


What if there was some urgent need to speed up the process? Would that be wrong? (Not really? Or there could easily be a good reason to justify doing this). 


Later Trent argues these human organisms are persons. So he thinks some persons are OK to let die. It seems to me like it’s OK to let a body die because there is no a longer a person there: if there were a person, then it’d be wrong to let them die. 


Trent’s response here depends on:

  • assuming there’s always a weighty difference between killing and letting die. (See James Rachels “Active and Passive Euthanasia” summed up at my “Euthanasia, or Mercy Killing”). I don’t think there’s always a difference. 

  • Assuming that killing in these situations is (seriously) wrong. I don’t think killing these bodies would be seriously wrong: nobody would be harmed, nobody would be disrespected, etc.  


3. “Abortion intentionally kills a fetus.”


Trent didn’t comment on that. 


Some would say, “Not really: the point is to end a pregnancy (or prevent parenthood), not to intentionally kill a fetus: that’s a foreseen but not intended side effect” Someone with the primary goal to intentionally kill fetuses would act in other (wrong!) ways: what might they do? 


Lots of discussion of this type of argument in this article:

https://www.salon.com/2021/04/11/why-the-case-against-abortion-is-weak-ethically-speaking/ 



A “Personhood” argument


4. Abortion directly kills an innocent person.

5. Killing persons is usually wrong.

Therefore, abortion is usually wrong. 


What distinguishes persons from non-persons? Lots of questions here to think about.


Trent claims that rats and pigeons are not persons. He claims this is a “clear case.” 


Really, rats and birds are like rocks and plants? Some of the top philosophers and law professors and others argue that (some) animals are persons or are personlike. 


Comment: suppose someone says, “Embryos certainly aren’t persons. They certainly don’t have the right to life.” 


“Horselaugh,” question-begging response. What’s the motivation? (Isn’t that what anti-abortion people say about pro-choice people?)


So what are “persons” 

= sentient beings? 

  • Trent’s objection: then some animals would be persons. This is question-begging, a horse laugh, dismissing with prejudice a huge body of research. 

= actually rational beings?

  • Objection: then babies aren’t persons with rights, etc.

= an individual member of a rational kind, with the “innate capacity for certain functional abilities” . .. “rational capacity.” 


Other options, that build on the “sentient being” example: 

  • Locke: “persons are conscious, intelligent beings, capable of rationality and reflection, including self-reflection.” 

  • Tom Regan, perhaps: persons are “subjects of lives”: sentient beings with are psychological connections over time (but no need for “self-reflection”).


Some concerns about persons are “individual members of a rational kind, with the ‘innate capacity for certain functional abilities’ . .. ‘rational capacity.’


  1. Is this why you are a person? If you asked yourself this, does this seem like the best – simplest, most obvious, most explanatory, most coherent with other beliefs, etc. answer to you?  


  1. If something is “personified”  – made like a person, or personlike, are they made to resemble “individual members of a rational kind”? Or are they given abilities to perceive, feel, think, reason, emotions, etc?


  1. Individuals in permanent comas, “vegetative states,” “brain dead,” anencephaly (babies born without a brain, or almost all of their brain) are of this “kind” right? They are not persons.


  1. If X is a person, then it’s wrong to let X die (and seriously wrong to kill X too). 

  2. These living human organisms are not wrong to let die or are seriously wrong to kill.

  3. Therefore, they are not persons. 


  1. How does this all work? Rationality is at the core: why’s that? (Ableism?). Rights depend on rationality, somehow. Why is it that if you are part of a group – even if that group is a species – where some of the members are rational (and get other characteristics from being rational), every member of the group gets those characteristics, even if they aren’t rational? Why is it that severely cognitive human beings are persons with rights because of a relation to or similarity they have with sophisticated rational beings? This is very abstract: needs to be explained. 


4. Abortion directly kills an innocent person.

5. Killing persons is usually wrong.


Comments about 4 - yes, but perhaps not “intentionally”: that’s not the intended goal, which is to end a pregnancy or prevent parenthood.


Comments about 5 - there are exceptions, of course; there can be cases where it’s OK to kill an (innocent) person when they are using something that they don’t have a right to, or you are not otherwise obligated to provide them with. “Bodily rights” discussions.


In sum:

 

  • psychological theories of personhood more simply explains why we are persons in a range of cases, including end of life cases (where the body is alive yet the person is gone and/or how they are treated suggests a loss of personhood);

  • they don’t dismiss with prejudice that some animals might be persons or personlike, 

  • doesn’t tie personhood to some form of sophisticated rationality (and so claims that severely cognitively disabled persons are persons because of their relations to some alleged “ideal” rational person). 


Arguments from Personal Identity

https://www.amazon.com/Knowledge-Reality-Value-Mostly-Philosophy/dp/B091F5QTDS/ref=sr_1_2?qid=1651245578&refinements=p_27%3AMichael+Huemer&s=books&sr=1-2 


https://1000wordphilosophy.com/2021/03/11/animalism/ 


6. If an organism that ever existed has never died, then this organism still exists.

7. I am [essentially, in essence] an organism.

8. Therefore, I am an organism that once existed in my mother’s womb and never died.

9. It is always prima facie wrong to kill me.

10. Since I existed in my mother’s womb, it was prima facie wrong to kill me then. 

11. That’s true about everyone: what’s true of me is true of everyone. 

C: So abortion is generally prima facie wrong.  


My (simple) responses:


A lot of people would ultimately deny 7 that “they are [essentially, in essence, an organism]”: if they went into a permanent coma or become brain dead, the organism is there but they – the person – are gone. 


Also, many people think they could “survive” death – they could go to Heaven (or Hell) even if their body is destroyed: so they are not their organism, in essence. (Such folks don’t have to believe they could make it to heaven only if their body, with enough of the same matter, is “rebuilt”.) 


Related: about 9 (9. It is always prima facie wrong to kill me) in such cases the body can be OK to let die: so “you” can be let die. If you = your organism and that organism is a person, then it’s OK to let people die. (Also, there could be cases where it’d be OK to actively kill that organism; see other discussions). 


This argument also assumes that properties that give “someone” the right to life are essential to that organism: many animalists deny that (ask them!): so they deny 9. 


Trent’s Discussion: 


Maybe I am not an organism: maybe I am a mind. (Other options: maybe we are both? Maybe we are neither, e.g., we are souls?).   


Trent: If we are minds and not organisms, then nobody has been raped: that affected their body, not them.


Hmm: that is just basic factual data that everyone agrees on whatever you think about any highly abstract metaphysical issues. (Someone should write an article arguing that only “animalists” can acknowledge the existence and wrongness of rape; submit it to an analytical metaphysics journal or send it to leading animalists (e.g., Eric Olson): see what happens or what their reaction is)


Obviously, if you think you are a mind in essence (or a soul!), you also think that your mind or soul are very closely related to your body: what happens to your body affects you, and what happens to you affects your body! 


Trent: If I am not my body, then the government could take my body, tax my body. 


Hmm. Again, we are very closely related to our bodies: even if I am, in my essence, my mind, if you take my body, you take me, or part of me. 

Also, the government does “take” people and their bodies: the draft, imprisonment, etc. These facts have nothing to do with any highly abstract metaphysical theories. 


Trent: if I am a collection of thoughts, then I don’t think. 


Hmm. This is deep. The view is, roughly, that the “thinking thing” would be this collection of thoughts. 


If you think you are a body, since you can lose parts of your body, yet you still exist, what body part(s) are essential to you? (Or are you the whole thing, spacio-temporally connected, even though some body parts aren’t essential?)


You are a thinking animal. (One response: does this view allow for an afterlife, for those who believe there is one?)


If I am thoughts, what happens when I sleep? 


If you wake up, you’ll be back! There were also prior mental experiences that had expectations, plans, etc. for the future. And again, people who think that we are minds don’t deny that we are closely related to our bodies. 


Trent mentions that some rights he has always had, such as to not be tortured or enslaved. But if he was an embryo, since you can’t torture or enslave an embryo (right?), he didn’t have those rights then. So some, even important rights are not essential to the organism: other capacities are necessary to have them. 


General thoughts: the metaphysics of personal identity is really controversial. Really understanding the options takes a lot of hard study. Suggestion: run these arguments by advocates of animalism and see what they think! 





Personal identity: biological view, psychological view, or further-fact view?

Other

347 / 931 (37.3%)

Accept or lean toward: psychological view

313 / 931 (33.6%)

Accept or lean toward: biological view

157 / 931 (16.9%)

Accept or lean toward: further-fact view

114 / 931 (12.2%)






The Future Like Our’s Argument 


From philosopher Don Marquis, who interestingly argues that arguments like Trent’s “humanity” and (I think) “personal identity” arguments fail: 

https://ndpr.nd.edu/reviews/the-ethics-of-abortion-women-s-rights-human-life-and-the-question-of-justice/ 



12. Killing us is prima facie wrong. 

13. Killing us is prima facie wrong because it deprives us of our valuable futures (a “future like our’s”).

14. Fetuses have valuable futures’s like ours.

15. Anything with a valuable future like our’s is prima facie wrong to kill.

Therefore fetuses are prima facie wrong to kill.

Therefore, abortion is prima facie wrong.


One objection to this argument:


To have a future like our’s, a being needs to have some psychological connection to its future: it’s not just that there are potential future events “out there”. Embryos and beginning fetuses don’t have that, since they lack psychologies: they’ve never had any kind of mind: so they don’t have a future like our’s. 


Trent’s response: newborn babies aren’t psychologically connected to their futures either. 


Response: really? Babies have minds; they are aware of things; they know who different people are. People talk about playing music to the fetus in utero and getting reactions, and then the baby has a reaction when born: that’s memory. A baby is not like a mythical 10-second memory goldfish. Babies are quite different from embryos: babies have minds: they are conscious and feeling; they exist over time, which is how they are able to learn things, etc.  


Comments:


Marquis’s arguments are most popular – meaning often thought to be the best – among philosophers. Not popular among most real-life abortion critics. 


Why’s that? Perhaps because his views can support euthanasia; could support some abortions (in cases of an extremely bleak future), and can be adapted for positive results for animals too. 


Again, Trent advocates for asphyxiating / gassing rats and reports that few people would find that problematic. How would the rats feel about that? What would there experience be? Golden-rule: how would you like that if that were done to you? 


There is lots of interesting discussion about Marquis’s arguments. Check it out!


The Impairment Argument


From Perry Hendricks 


  1. It would be wrong to drink excessively during pregnancy so as to cause Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in the child (and then adult). 

  2. If it would be wrong to drink excessively during pregnancy so as to cause Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in the child (and then adult), then it is wrong to “impair” a fetus. 

  3. If it’s wrong to impair a fetus by doing things that result in it having Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (an impairment), then it’s wrong to kill the fetus since that’s a far greater (greatest?) impairment. 

  4. Therefore, it’s wrong to kill a fetus since that’s a great or greatest impairment.

  5. So abortion is typically wrong. 


Note: this argument is supposed to not depend on fetuses being persons. 


My basic response:

  • Why should women not drink alcohol too much, use drugs, etc. during pregnancy?

  • Because that will result in someone existing with a worse quality of life than they would have had: needless problems and difficulties: a worse quality of life.

    • Read up on WebMD or anything on what’s advised about this and why!

  • This explanation has no implications for abortion, since abortion prevents there from being such a person with this quality of life from existing in the first place.  


Trent’s response:

Trent says this presumes that the beginning fetus was an individual who was harmed. 

No, it doesn’t: it entails the “raw materials” or “building blocks” were damaged, not that there was some individual (or person) who was harmed. 


Again, advocates of the Impairment Argument think their argument does not assume that beginning fetuses are persons. An abortion prevents these “raw materials” or “building blocks” from becoming a person with a quality of life that is worse because of that drinking: so the explanation why pregnant women should avoid drinking heavily does not entail abortion is wrong. 


There is an interesting philosophical literature on this argument: check out PhilPapers or Google Scholar about it. 


https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C11&q=impairment+argument+abortion&btnG= 



Conclusion


My goal is that people better understand these issues and seek better arguments. I hope this helps.



1. The “Humanity” Argument


  • It’s wrong to intentionally kill innocent biological human beings. 

  • The fetus is an innocent biological human being. 

  • Abortion intentionally kills a fetus. 

  • Therefore, abortion is prima facie wrong. 


2. A “Personhood” argument


  • Abortion directly kills an innocent person.

  • Killing persons is usually wrong.

  • Therefore, abortion is usually wrong. 


3. An Argument from Personal Identity 


  • If an organism that ever existed has never died, then this organism still exists.

  • I am [essentially, in essence] an organism.

  • Therefore, I am an organism that once existed in my mother’s womb and never died.

  • It is always prima facie wrong to kill me.

  • Since I existed in my mother’s womb, it was prima facie wrong to kill me then. 

  • That’s true about everyone: what’s true of me is true of everyone. 

  • So abortion is generally prima facie wrong.


4. The Future Like Our’s Argument 


12. Killing us is prima facie wrong. 

13. Killing us is prima facie wrong because it deprives us of our valuable futures (a “future like our’s”).

14. Fetuses have valuable futures’s like ours.

15. Anything with a valuable future like our’s is prima facie wrong to kill.

Therefore fetuses are prima facie wrong to kill.

Therefore, abortion is prima facie wrong.







5. The Impairment Argument


  1. It would be wrong to drink excessively during pregnancy so as to cause Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in the child (and then adult). 

  2. If it would be wrong to drink excessively during pregnancy so as to cause Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in the child (and then adult), then it is wrong to “impair” a fetus. 

  3. If it’s wrong to impair a fetus by doing things that result in it having Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (an impairment), then it’s wrong to kill the fetus since that’s a far greater (greatest?) impairment. 

  4. Therefore, it’s wrong to kill a fetus since that’s a great or greatest impairment.

  5. So abortion is typically wrong. 




See also the videos tab for other presentations. 



All other blog posts are available here: here are some of them:
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