University College Dublin, Ireland.
J Med Ethics. 2009 Oct;35(10):651-2. doi: 10.1136/jme.2009.031294.
In a previous paper, I had argued that Strong's counterexamples to Marquis's argument against abortion-according to which terminating fetuses is wrong because it deprives them of a valuable future-fail either because they have no bearing on Marquis's argument or because they make unacceptable claims about what constitutes a valuable future. In this paper I respond to Strong's criticism of my argument according to which I fail to acknowledge that Marquis uses "future like ours" and "valuable future" interchangeably. I show that my argument does not rely on not acknowledging that "future like ours" and "valuable future" are interchangeable; and that, rather, it is exactly by replacing "future like ours" with "valuable future" that I construct my argument against Strong. I conclude with some remarks on how Marquis's concept of "future like ours" should be interpreted.
在之前的一篇论文中,我曾指出,斯特朗对马奎斯反对堕胎论点的反例——根据该论点,终止胎儿是错误的,因为这剥夺了他们有价值的未来——要么与马奎斯的论点无关,要么提出了关于构成有价值未来的不可接受的主张。在本文中,我回应了斯特朗对我论点的批评,即我没有承认马奎斯使用了“我们这样的未来”和“有价值的未来”这两个概念可以互换。我表明,我的论点并不依赖于不承认“我们这样的未来”和“有价值的未来”是可以互换的;相反,正是通过用“有价值的未来”来取代“我们这样的未来”,我构建了我对斯特朗的论点。最后,我对马奎斯的“我们这样的未来”概念应该如何解释发表了一些看法。