Eben is a thirty-five year old adult human. Like any average fellow, he has desires, goals, passions, etc. Why is it wrong for me to painlessly suffocate him in his sleep? Don Marquis argues because by doing so I would deprive him of a “future like ours” -- one of activities of enjoyment, pleasure, achievement, etc. He believes this reason for not smothering Eben also applies to fetuses in the case of abortions. One way it can be formulated:
Marquis’ argument for the impermissibility of abortion:
It is wrong to deprive something of a future full of activity, enjoyment, etc.
Hence, It is impermissible to kill with a future full of activity, enjoyment, etc.
Fetuses have futures full of activity, etc. in most cases.
Therefore, abortion is impermissible in most cases.
Marquis argument is about the impermissibility of depriving something a future of value. Killing Eben would strip him of his future. Likewise, aborting a fetus is depriving it of a future. Marquis believes there is no requirement that a fetus be a person for it to be wrongful to abort it, but only that it have a future of value, similar to Eben. If it is wrong, or impermissible to kill Eben because it would deprive him of a future, then it is also wrong to abort the fetus.
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Death cannot be bad because of its positive qualities, since it has none. Thus, death must be bad because of its negative features, chiefly the good thing of which it deprives you -- life. Death robs someone of pleasure, enjoyment, achievements, etc. they otherwise would have had if they remained amongst the living. This negative feature of death is part of the badness of death (for the deceased). According to Nagel, killing Eben would be bad for him, since he would be deprived of life’s good stuff. He will be missing out on stuff he otherwise would have had (pleasure, enjoyment, achievements, etc.), if I had not killed