{"id":5350,"date":"2017-08-11T16:54:59","date_gmt":"2017-08-11T16:54:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/08\/11\/elizabeth-harmans-idiotic-abortion-argument\/"},"modified":"2017-08-11T16:54:59","modified_gmt":"2017-08-11T16:54:59","slug":"elizabeth-harmans-idiotic-abortion-argument","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2017\/08\/11\/elizabeth-harmans-idiotic-abortion-argument\/","title":{"rendered":"Elizabeth Harman’s Abortion Argument"},"content":{"rendered":"

A curious new abortion argument by Princeton's Elizabeth Harman is making the rounds. (A tip of the hat to Malcolm Pollack for bringing it to my attention.) It is not clear just what Harman's argument is, but it looks to be something along the following lines:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

1) "Among early fetuses there are two very different kinds of beings . . . ."<\/span><\/p>\n

2) One kind of early fetus has "moral status."<\/span><\/p>\n

3) The other kind of early fetus does not have "moral status."<\/span><\/p>\n

4) The fetuses possessing moral status have it in virtue of their futures, in virtue of the fact that they are the beginning stages of future persons.<\/span><\/p>\n

5) The fetuses lacking moral status lack it in virtue of their not having futures, in virtue of their not being the beginning stages of future persons. <\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore<\/span><\/p>\n

6) If a fetus is prevented from having a future, either by miscarriage or abortion, then the fetus does not have moral status at the time of its miscarriage or abortion. "That's something that doesn't have a future as a person and it doesn't have moral status." (From 5)<\/span><\/p>\n

7) If a fetus lacks moral status, then aborting it is not morally impermissible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Therefore<\/span><\/p>\n

8) " . . . there is nothing morally bad about early abortion."<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Some will say that this argument is so bad that it is 'beneath refutation.'  When a philosopher uses this phrase what he means is that an argument so tagged is so obviously defective as not to be worth refuting. There is also the concomitant suggestion that one who refutes that which is 'beneath refutation' is a foolish fellow, and perhaps even a (slightly) morally dubious character when the subject matter is moral inasmuch as he undermines the healthy conviction that certain ideas are so morally abhorrent that they shouldn't be discussed publicly at all lest the naive and uncritical be led astray.<\/span><\/p>\n

But to quote my sparring partner London Ed, in a moment when the muse had him in her grip: "In philosophy there is a \u2018quodlibet\u2019 principle that you are absolutely free to discuss anything you like."  That's right. The Quodlibet Principle<\/strong> is one of the defining rules of the philosophical 'game.' There is nothing, nothing at all, that may not be hauled before the bench of reason, there to be rudely interrogated. (And that, paradoxically, includes the Quodlibet Principle!)<\/span><\/p>\n

I hereby invoke that noble and indeed Socratic principle in justification of my attention to Harman's argument.<\/span><\/p>\n

What's wrong with it?  She is maintaining in effect that the moral status of a biological individual depends on how long it lasts. Accordingly, moral status is not intrinsic to the early fetus  but depends on some contingent future development that may or may not occur. So the early fetus that developed into Elizabeth Harman has moral status at every time in its development, because it developed into what we all recognize as a person and rights-possessor, while an aborted early fetus has moral status at no time in its development because it will not develop into a person and rights-possessor. <\/span><\/p>\n

This issues in the absurd consequence that one can morally justify an abortion just by having one. For if you kill your fetus (or have your fetus killed), then you guarantee that it has no future. If it has no future, then it has no moral status. And if it has no moral status, then killing it is not morally impermissible, and is therefore morally justified. <\/span><\/p>\n

Is it ever morally right and reasonable to question or impugn motives or character in a debate?<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I have just demolished Harman's argument. She has given no good reasons for her thesis. Quite the contrary. She has presented perhaps the most lame abortion argument ever made public. But what really interests me is the bolded question.  And I mean it in general. It is not about Harman except per accidens<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Is it ever morally right and reasonable in a debate to question motives and character? I didn't get a straight answer from London Ed in an earlier discussion.  So I press him again. <\/span><\/p>\n

We agree, of course, that arguments stand and fall on their own merits in sublime independence of their producers and consumers. I have hammered on this theme dozens of times in these pages. One may not substitute motive imputation and character analysis for argument evaluation. <\/span><\/p>\n

But once I have refuted an argument or series of arguments<\/em>, am I not perfectly morally justified in calling into the question the motives and character of the producers of those arguments?  I say yes.  <\/span><\/p>\n

I have a theory about what really drives the innumerable bad pro-abortion\/pro-choice arguments abroad in this decadent culture, but I leave that theory for later. Here I pose the bolded question quite generally and apart from the abortion question.<\/span><\/p>\n

Do you now see my point, Ed? And what do you say? <\/span><\/p>\n

Harmon's argument is here<\/a>. <\/span><\/p>\n

\nRelated articles<\/legend>\n
\n
<\/a>Death Penalty, Abortion, and Certainty<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/fieldset>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A curious new abortion argument by Princeton's Elizabeth Harman is making the rounds. (A tip of the hat to Malcolm Pollack for bringing it to my attention.) It is not clear just what Harman's argument is, but it looks to be something along the following lines: 1) "Among early fetuses there are two very different … Continue reading “Elizabeth Harman’s Abortion Argument”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[313,60,113,128],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-abortion","category-ethics","category-logica-utens","category-reason-and-rationality"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5350\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}