ipl-logo

The Importance Of Personhood

964 Words4 Pages

This section started with the questions of why personhood is relevant to the abortion debate, what is a person and how can one identify personhood? Personhood is relevant because without an idea what is a person we cannot have a judgment whether foetuses are persons. Having a moral judgment about abortion seems heavily relies on the personhood of foetuses. We proposed that the arguments on the personhood of the foetus needs to be classified differently from the manner in which this task is carried out in the current literature. This was argued on the basis that the arguments from the intrinsic (essential) property of personhood are not making an argument from potentiality. For the proponents of the intrinsic (essential) property arguments, …show more content…

But this is problematic for two reasons: first we started our discussion with making distinction between abortion and contraception. Second, this is very unintuitive if one think that even sperms are persons and consuming contraceptive pills are killing. Even some scholars in Abrahamic religions who advocate the idea of ensoulments do not support the personhood of sperms! In response, one can appeal to the theory of degrees of personhood explaining that sperms can be person but in a very vague sense. However, one can again object that the whole point is that when exactly personhood …show more content…

One can simply shows that these two arguments relies on the essentiality of personhood for a foetus with a potential future even if that potential is not actualized. One the other hand, it seems that the Marquis and Boonin arguments are similar in the sense that both refers to one thing with different terminology. Boonin is reacted to Marquis argument by building his argument on the same platform. In fact, both start with one base and have the same intuition. Marquis refers to the value and goodness of future while Boonin refers to the interest and desire. The most important difference between Marquis and Boonin is related to the scientific point. Marquid is quiet about how one can find the value of future but Boonin appeals to science to identify the interest and desire of foetuses. They both at least believe that abortion at some point (after 25-30 weeks) is wrong. Boonin makes a different rout by applying scientific evidence stating that before week 25-30 abortion is

Show More
Related
311 Words | 2 Pages

1002215550 5. Sinnot Armstrong criticizes Marquis’s article and tries to refute the argument made by Marquis in his tendentious paper “You Can’t Lose What you Ain’t Never Had”. Firstly, he points out the Fallacy of Equivocation committed by Marquis on the word ‘Loss’. The word loss has two meanings which he shows with his race example while showing the ethics of abortion. In the race example he says that if there are two people running in a race and one is faster than the other and beats him; it is a neutral loss as the person who lost was not entitled to win.

Read More
368 Words | 2 Pages

He begins with comparing pro-life and pro-choice arguments, commenting that they are largely similar and have comparable issues. Marquis points out many fallacies both parties fall subject to, such as Feinberg and Quinlan. He also accuses them of making accidental generalizations. A few pages in, Marquis begins his own analysis on these arguments.

Read More
128 Words | 1 Pages

Don Marquis’s purpose to his essay is to set out to prove that abortion is seriously wrong. He is addressing that abortion is morally wrong and should not be permitted except in certain cases. The authors thesis is “Abortion, except perhaps in rare instances, is seriously wrong”(Marquis, 754). Marquis’s purpose for exceptions or rare instances is to eliminate those instances that could be considered ethically controversial such as cases like abortion after rape or abortion during the first fourteen days after conception. Marquis provides another exception in the form of a pregnancy that could endanger a woman’s life and abortion when the fetus is anencephalic.

Read More
886 Words | 4 Pages

That said, I welcome others to reply with counterarguments. First of all, Marquis argued that in order to understand wether or not abortion is wrong, one must analyze why killing is wrong instead of who counts as killing. It seems to me though that you can't disregard who counts as killing when discussing topics such as abortion. I understand that this makes the debate easier for Marquis,

Read More
1529 Words | 7 Pages

It is important before breaking down Hursthouses argument, to examine the basis in which she grounds her claims. We can see through her investigation her examination of whether having an abortion is something a virtuous person would do. A virtuous person therefore, is someone who exercises virtue with virtue being defined by Hursthouse as “a character trait a human

Read More
273 Words | 2 Pages

Patrick Lee and Robert George assert that abortion is objectively immoral. One of Lee and George’s main reason for coming to this conclusion is that human embryos are living human beings. This essentially validates that abortion is indeed the process of killing a human. Another main point said by the two is a rebuttal to a common argument used in favor of abortion, which states that a potential mother has full parental responsibilities only if she has voluntarily assumed them. The rebuttal to this was that the potential mother does indeed have special responsibilities to raise the child.

Read More
1070 Words | 5 Pages

In “A Defense of Abortion,” Judith Thomson argues with a unique approach regarding the topic of abortion. For the purpose of the argument, Thomas agrees to go against her belief and constructs an argument based on the idea that the fetus is a person at conception. She then formulates her arguments concerning that the right to life is not an absolute right. There are certain situations where abortion is morally permissible. She believes that the fetus’s right to life does not outweigh the right for the woman to control what happens to her own body.

Read More
1384 Words | 6 Pages

Essay On Why Abortion Is Immoral This article called “Why Abortion Is Immoral” written by Don Marquis argues and why abortion is prima facie impermissible. Marquis accesses both anti-abortion arguments and also pro-choicer’s claim to protect the legalization of abortion. My paper is going to understand and examine the the both sides arguments, and to attempt to recognize abortion is immoral.

Read More
2131 Words | 9 Pages

Hursthouse states, “... the status of the fetus - that issue over which so much ink has been split - is according to virtue theory, simply not relevant to the rightness or wrongness of abortion” (Hursthouse 164). Don Marquis argues that abortion is seriously wrong. Marquis does admit that his argument can include some exemptions which include such cases as

Read More
794 Words | 4 Pages

Mary Anne Warren establishes a belief that a fetus’s right to live is overruled by an expecting mother’s right to an abortion because it is not a technically a true person until it is born. Warren supports her argument by saying that a nearly full-developed fetus is no more significant than a small embryo because “…it is not fully conscious… it cannot reason or communicate message… and has no self-awareness” (Warren, page 499). In contrast, our text states that “…some fetuses develop the capacity to survive outside the womb…” after nearly being two-thirds fully developed; this means that a fetus is ultimately capable of communication and awareness through it’s movements (Munson and Lague, page 469).

Read More
178 Words | 1 Pages

My Day of the Dead project is inspired by someone that I knew and sadly died a tragic death. Her name was Pamela Graddick. She was twenty-six years old and was like older sister to me. She was murdered about four years ago and there has been no justice for her. Pamela has knew me her whole life.

Read More
1261 Words | 6 Pages

Abortion is not only a fluctuating concept in our society, but an ethical and emotional debate, as well. The image I have chosen presents concepts from a cultural and historical background, as well as presents an ethical, emotional, and logical appeal to the audience. The debate about abortion has simply been overblown and exhausted. The truth of the matter is, abortion is murder. Ending a life, whether innocent or guilty, is murder.

Read More
327 Words | 2 Pages

Nagel follows the view that death is “timelessly bad” for the one who dies, considering death as an evil which deprives one of the benefits of living. This key assumption within Nagel’s notion links closely with the view of Marquis, who believes that killing a human being deprives one of the value of our future, what we have now and what we possibly could have had. Similarly to Nagel’s view on death, Marquis looks at a future-like-ours argument: depriving a being of a future like ours makes killing wrong, and killing a foetus deprives it of a future like ours, so therefore killing a foetus is wrong. However, Nagel considers some objections within his assumption.

Read More
632 Words | 3 Pages

The debate whether abortion is morally permissible or not permissible is commonly discussed between the considerations of the status of a fetus and ones virtue theory. A widely recognized theory of pro-choice advocates can be thought to be that their ethical view is that fetus’s merely are not humans because they lack the right to life since they believe a fetus does not obtain any sort of mental functions or capability of feelings. Although this may be true in some cases it is not in all so explaining the wrongness of killing, between the common debates whether a fetus does or does not obtain human hood, should be illustrated in a way of a virtuous theory. The wrongness of killing is explained by what the person or fetus is deprived of, such as their right to life; not by means of a heart beat or function of one’s body, but by the fact that it takes their ability of potentially growing into a person to have the same human characteristics as we do.

Read More
1170 Words | 5 Pages

Why Abortion Should Be Illegal Abortion has been a popular debate in the United States, especially after the Supreme Court ruling in 1973 stating a woman has the right to an abortion. In my opinion, abortion is wrong and very unethical. There are some specific instances where abortion may be acceptable, but for the most part, abortion is an evil act. Abortion should be illegal because it is the killing of an innocent human, even if he or she has not been born yet.

Read More

More about The Importance Of Personhood

Related Topics

Open Document