Don Marquis on Abortion

Marquis aims to show that abortion is almost always wrong (i.e. presumptively wrong)
whether or not fetuses are persons.
His strategy is to begin with a more general question: what makes killing creatures like us
wrong? Abortion, after all, is a type of killing. So, to make progress on the morality of
abortion, it might help to take a step back and ask about the morality of killing in general
specifically the morality of killing creatures like us. If its wrong to kill creatures like
us, what makes it wrong?
Here are some unconvincing answers:
(A) killing leads to more killing
(B) killing destabilizes society.
(C) killing harms the victims friends and family.
Marquiss answer: the wrongness of killing creatures like us is best explained in terms of
the effects that killing has on the victim (and not on society, the victims friends, etc.)
Killing creatures like us is wrong because it deprives the victim of a valuable future (i.e. a
future that is valuable to him or her).
But if having a valuable future is what makes killing creatures like us wrong, then it
looks like killing fetuses via abortion will also be wrong. After all, fetuses also have
valuable futures (i.e. futures that are valuable for them). They have a future like ours,
and so they also possess the quality that makes killing wrongful.
Marquiss argument, then, looks like this:
(1) Killing creatures like us is presumptively wrong.
(2) What makes killing creatures like us presumptively wrong is that it deprives us of a
valuable future.
(3) Therefore, if a fetus has a valuable future, then killing it is presumptively wrong.
(4) Most fetuses have valuable futures.
(C1) Therefore, killing most fetuses is presumptively wrong.
(5) Abortion is a type of killing.
(C2) Therefore, aborting most fetuses is presumptively wrong.
In short, Marquis is arguing that there is something that we have a valuable future that
explains why killing us is presumptively wrong. It turns out that fetuses also have that.
And so, killing them must also be presumptively wrong, and just as wrong as killing you
or me.
Of course, his argument depends crucially on premise (2) on his account of the
wrongness of killing. Why should we accept (2)? Perhaps because it:

(A) is plausible.
(B) explains why we regard killing as one of the worst crimes.
(C) explains why we think that early deaths are more tragic than late deaths.
(D) is incompatible with the view that it is wrong to kill only biological humans.
(E) clearly entails the wrongness of infanticide.
(E) gives Marquiss theory a clear advantage over personhood theories and over standard
pro-choice views. (D) gives him an advantage over standard pro-life views.
Two points of clarification
(1) Marquis doesnt say what sorts of future experiences are valuable, so its not clear if
his view implies that killing animals is presumptively wrong. But thats okay. All he
needs is the claim that its presumptively wrong to kill creatures that have futures like
ours. Since fetuses have such futures, the presumption against killing applies to them.
(2) Marquis is arguing that IF a creature has a valuable future, then killing it is
presumptively wrong. That doesnt commit him to the further claim that if a creature
DOES NOT have a valuable future then killing it isnt presumptively wrong. Marquis is
offering a SUFFICIENT condition for the wrongness of killing and not a NECESSARY
condition.
Bearing these points in mind, we can present an alternative version of his argument:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)

If a creature has a future like ours, then killing it is presumptively wrong.

Most fetuses have a future like ours.
Therefore, killing most fetuses is presumptively wrong.
Abortion is a type of killing.
Therefore, aborting most fetuses is presumptively wrong.

Notice that this version of the argument doesnt commit Marquis to any view of animal
rights or of our obligations to those who lack valuable futures.
Objections
(1) Does Marquiss view imply that contraception is wrong? After all, contraception
seems to deprive something of a valuable future.
In response, Marquis claims that, on his view, contraception is not presumptively wrong
because there is no identifiable entity that suffers a loss. The thought is that there is
nothing that you can point to in the case of contraception and say that thats the thing that
is deprived of a valuable future.

(2) Marquiss argument turns on the idea that just as killing me would deprive me of my
future, so killing a fetus would deprive it of its future. But perhaps you wouldnt be
depriving a fetus of its future by killing it. Perhaps youd be depriving something of a
future, but not the fetus in question.
(3) How would Marquis handle the violinist case?
He could say that, in that case, the presumption against killing is outweighed. Or he
could say that you must remain attached indefinitely. The latter view, however, is highly
implausible whereas the former would seem to threaten his pro-life position.
Crucially, the violinist case reveals that Marquis has overlooked Thomsons crucial
insight, which is that even if a fetus has the same rights as we do and is entitled to the
same protections, it doesnt follow that he or she is entitled to use someone elses body.
The move from (C1) to (C2) in Marquiss original argument seems to ignore Thomsons
insight, mistakenly treating abortion as if it were an ordinary case of killing.
Indeed, the move from (C1) to (C2) isnt valid. Look again at just that bit:
(C1) Killing most fetuses is presumptively wrong.
(5) Abortion is a type of killing.
(C2) Therefore, aborting most fetuses is presumptively wrong.
The reason the above argument isnt valid is because it assumes that the presumption
against killing applies equally to all types of killing. Compare:
(1) Birds can typically fly.
(2) Penguins are types of birds.
(3) Therefore, penguins can typically fly.
(4) Marquis claims that the wrongness of killing is best explained in terms of the harm
done to the victim. But is that really the best explanation?
To see why it might not be, consider if we can understand other kinds of wrongs along
similar lines. For instance, should we say that the wrongness of theft or rape also lies in
harm done to the victim that theft and rape, for instance, are wrong by virtue of the fact
that they deprives the victim of something valuable? That might seem plausible since
theft and rape typically harm their victim. But notice that they dont necessarily harm
their victim.
And so one could argue as follows:
(1) Rape is wrong even when it doesnt harm the victim.
(2) Therefore, harm to the victim doesnt explain the wrongness of rape.

In similar fashion, one could argue as follows:

(3) Killing can be wrong even when it doesnt harm the victim.
(4) Therefore, harm to the victim doesnt explain the wrongness of killing.
Marquis, of course, could insist that (3) is false, but then it seems that hed have to say
that (1) is false, and that seems crazy.
The objection to Marquis, then, is that his theory is not really a theory about the
wrongness of killing but is rather a theory about the badness of death. And a theory about
deaths badness is not yet a theory about killings wrongness.
The badness of death
One could pursue the previous objection further by asking whether Marquis has even
given us a plausible account of the badness of death. On his view, recall, death is bad for
the one who dies insofar as death deprives him or her of a valuable future. This has come
to be known as the deprivation view of deaths badness.
On the deprivation view, death is typically, but not necessarily, bad for the person who
dies; death is not intrinsically bad but it is comparatively bad its bad by virtue of what
you miss out on by not being alive.
That view seems plausible, but its also problematic. One might ask: is death ever bad for
the one who dies? Does it make sense to think of death as something thats bad for the
victim?
You might say yes since death is something that most of us struggle to avoid a
struggle that would make no sense if death werent bad. But consider the following
argument from the Greek philosopher Epicurus:
So death, the most terrifying of ills, is nothing to us, since so long as we exist,
death is not with us; but when death comes, then we do not exist. It does not then
concern either the living or the dead, since for the former it is not, and the latter
are no more.
Here is one interpretation of his argument:
(1) There is no time at which death is bad for the one who dies.
(2) Anything that is bad for you must be bad for you at a particular time.
(3) Therefore, death is not bad for the one who dies.
Heres an alternative interpretation:
(4) Something can be bad for you only if you exist.

(5) When you're dead you don't exist.

(6) Therefore, death can't be bad for you.
Defenders of the deprivation view, it seems, will have to deny (1). On their view, death is
bad for you after you die. That seems weird.
Theyll also have to deny (4) since, on their view, death is bad for you even if you no
longer exist. But that opens the door to the possibility that it could be bad never to exist
that we should feel sorry for merely possible people. These people, it seems, are the most
deprived, and thus the most harmed. Marquiss view, then, might imply (absurdly) that
the people who have it worst of all are those that never existed.