Department of Philosophy, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK.
Allied Health Sciences, London South Bank University School of Health and Social Care, London, UK.
J Med Ethics. 2019 Jul;45(7):478-479. doi: 10.1136/medethics-2018-105267. Epub 2019 Feb 16.
In 'Abortion and deprivation: a reply to Marquis', Anna Christensen contends that Don Marquis' influential 'future like ours' argument for the immorality of abortion faces a significant challenge from the Epicurean claim that human beings cannot be harmed by their death. If deprivation requires a subject, then abortion cannot deprive a fetus of a future of value, as no individual exists to be deprived once death has occurred. However, the Epicurean account also implies that the wrongness of murder is also not grounded in the badness of death, which is strongly counterintuitive. There is an alternative: we can save our intuitions by adopting a more moderate Epicurean account such as that proposed by David Hershenov, who grounds the wrongness of killing in the prevention of the benefit of further good life rather than in the badness of death. Hershenov's account, however, is equally applicable to Marquis' argument: abortion similarly prevents a fetus from enjoying the benefit of a future like ours. Consequently, we conclude that Christensen's criticism of Marquis' argument fails to undermine his reasoning.
在《堕胎与剥夺：对马奎斯的回应》一文中，安娜·克里斯滕森认为，唐·马奎斯关于堕胎不道德的“我们的未来般的未来”观点受到了伊壁鸠鲁学说的挑战，该学说声称人类的死亡不会对其造成伤害。如果剥夺需要一个主体，那么堕胎就不能剥夺胎儿有价值的未来，因为一旦死亡发生，就没有个体可以被剥夺。然而，伊壁鸠鲁的说法也意味着谋杀的错误不是基于死亡的罪恶，这与强烈的直觉相悖。还有另一种选择：我们可以通过采用一种更温和的伊壁鸠鲁学说来挽救我们的直觉，比如大卫·赫舍诺夫提出的学说，他将杀人的错误归咎于阻止进一步美好生活的好处，而不是归咎于死亡的罪恶。然而，赫舍诺夫的说法同样适用于马奎斯的论点：堕胎同样阻止胎儿享受我们这样的未来的好处。因此，我们得出结论，克里斯滕森对马奎斯论点的批评并没有破坏他的推理。
