Di Nucci E
School of Philosophy, University College Dublin, Dublin 4, Ireland.
J Med Ethics. 2009 May;35(5):304-5; discussion 326-7. doi: 10.1136/jme.2008.028233.
This paper shows that the counterexamples proposed by Strong in 2008 in the Journal of Medical Ethics to Marquis's argument against abortion fail. Strong's basic idea is that there are cases--for example, terminally ill patients--where killing an adult human being is prima facie seriously morally wrong even though that human being is not being deprived of a "valuable future". So Marquis would be wrong in thinking that what is essential about the wrongness of killing an adult human being is that they are being deprived of a valuable future. This paper shows that whichever way the concept of "valuable future" is interpreted, the proposed counterexamples fail: if it is interpreted as "future like ours", the proposed counterexamples have no bearing on Marquis's argument. If the concept is interpreted as referring to the patient's preferences, it must be either conceded that the patients in Strong's scenarios have some valuable future or admitted that killing them is not seriously morally wrong. Finally, if "valuable future" is interpreted as referring to objective standards, one ends up with implausible and unpalatable moral claims.
本文表明，斯特朗于2008年在《医学伦理学杂志》上针对马奎斯反对堕胎的论证所提出的反例是不成立的。斯特朗的基本观点是，存在一些情形——比如绝症患者——在这些情形中，杀害一个成年人类在表面上严重违背道德，即便该人类并未被剥夺“有价值的未来”。所以，马奎斯认为杀害一个成年人类的错误本质在于他们被剥夺了有价值的未来，这种观点是错误的。本文表明，无论“有价值的未来”这一概念如何被解释，所提出的反例都是不成立的：如果将其解释为“像我们这样的未来”，所提出的反例与马奎斯的论证无关。如果该概念被解释为涉及患者的偏好，那么就必须承认，斯特朗所设想情形中的患者拥有某种有价值的未来，或者承认杀害他们在道德上并非严重错误。最后，如果将“有价值的未来”解释为涉及客观标准，最终会得出令人难以置信且难以接受的道德主张。
