Warren's "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion"

 

  1. Introduction. So far we have considered two types of position. (1) Brody’s: fetus is a person and abortion is not necessarily wrong. (2) Thomson’s: fetus is a person but abortion is not necessarily wrong. Today we will consider Warren’s view that the fetus is not a person, so abortion is not necessarily wrong.

  2. Two Senses of "Person": On Warren's view, there are two senses in which one can be said to be a person (human being):

    1. Genetic Sense. A thing is a person (human being) in the genetic sense iff it is conceived by human beings (or possesses a fully human genetic code);

    2. Moral Sense. A thing is a person in the moral sense iff it is a member of the moral community with full and equal rights.

    These are two very different kinds of claim. The first is a descriptive claim about what the world is actually like. To say that X is a person in the genetic sense is to make a descriptive claim about an empirical property that X actually has. The second is a normative claim about what the world ideally ought to be like. In contrast, to say that X is a person in the moral sense is to make a normative claim: it is to say that X has a very strong kind of moral standing that deserves moral respect.

  3. The Logical Relationship Between Descriptive and Normative Claims. Descriptive claims, by themselves, do not imply normative claims. Notice that there is a logical gap between:

    1. Factory-farming hurts animals to satisfy non-basic needs (descriptive claim).

    2. Therefore, factory-farming is wrong (normative claim).

    QUESTION: What do we need to make the argument work? Give an example of a premise that will close the gap? What kind of claim does your premise make? Descriptive or normative? What does this tell you about moral arguments and moral justification?

     

     

     

     

     

  4. Equivocation in the Pro-life Argument. On Warren's view, the arguments for abortion trade on the ambiguity in the word "person" in the following way. Recall the first three steps of the classic pro-life argument.

    5.

    1. Every person has a right to life.

    2. Every fetus is a person.

    3. Therefore, every fetus has a right to life.

    QUESTION: How, on Warren’s view, does the argument exploit the fact that there are two different senses of "person?" Explain.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

  5. The Characteristics that Define Moral Personhood: Warren wants to show that the fetus isn’t a person and she does so by way of an ingenious thought experiment. Explain.

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    According to Warren, the following characteristics define personhood:

        1. Consciousness (of objects and events external or internal to the being) and in particular the capacity to feel pain;

        2. Reasoning (the developed capacity to solve new and relatively complex problems);

        3. Self-motivated activity (activity which is relatively independent of either genetic or direct external control);

        4. The capacity to communicate, by whatever means, messages of an indefinite variety of types (i.e., not just with an indefinite number of possible contents, but on indefinitely many possible topics); and

        5. The presence of self-concepts, and self-awareness, either individual or racial, or both.

    OBJECTION: Can you think of an objection to Warren’s analysis?

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    VII. Infanticide and the Concept of a Person: What implications, if any, does Warren's argument have with respect to the moral permissibility of infanticide?

     

     

     

     

    1. Alternative Accounts of Personhood. Many accounts proceed by identifying a point during the pregnancy at which personhood begins. For example, the following points have been suggested:

     

     

     

    Point in Time------------------------Morally significant property

    1. Conception-------------------Existence of new living being

    2. Has human DNA--------------------Existence of living human

    3. Heart Activity Begins------------------Historical (criterion of determining death)

    4. Brain Activity Begins------------------Current way of determining death

    5. Quickening---------------------Historical (movement signals the fetus has a soul)

    6. Viability------------------Fetus can live outside the womb

    7. Birth----------------Historical ("ensoulment" takes place at birth)

 

 

 

 

 

 

  1. The Relevance of Potential Personhood. How does Warren respond to the claim that potential personhood is a morally significant property that justifies prohibiting abortion? Do you agree?