8.  A Critical Evaluation of the Potentialities Version of the Central Anti-Abortion Argument

        In our preliminary examination of different versions of the central anti-abortion argument we identified two versions that seemed especially worthy of closer examination.  In the previous lecture we considered the biological version of the argument, and we saw that it is open to decisive objections.  In this lecture I shall consider the potentialities version of the argument.

        One way of formulating this version of the argument is as follows:

(l) All innocent organisms that have the potential to acquire the capacity for thought and self-consciousness have a serious right to life.

(2) It is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill anything which possesses a serious right to life.

(3) Therefore it is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill an innocent organism that has the potential to acquire the capacity for thought and self-consciousness.                      [From (1) and (2)]

(4) Any human fetus, embryo, or zygote is itself an innocent organism that has the potential to acquire the capacity for thought and self-consciousness.

(5) Therefore it is at least prima facie very seriously wrong to kill a human fetus, embryo, or zygote.
                                                                                                                            [From (3) and (4)]

(6) Abortion involves the killing of a human fetus, embryo, or zygote.

(7) Therefore abortion is at least prima facie very seriously wrong.        [From (5) and (6)]

        In our preliminary examination of the potentialities version of the argument, we noticed that that argument would not show that abortion is always prima facie wrong in itself.  The reason is that the premise that is introduced at step (4) in that version of the argument - namely:
 

Any human fetus, embryo, or zygote is itself an innocent organism that has the potential to acquire the capacity for thought and self-consciousness

is false.  For some fetuses are anencephalic, or else have brains that are so defective that they can never support the capacity for thought and self-consciousness, and such humans, therefore, do not possess the potentiality in question.

        However, while this shows that the argument in question cannot support the extreme anti-abortion position, the argument, if it were not otherwise defective, could be modified to support a conclusion of great scope and interest, and one that would refute all liberal positions on abortion, and almost all moderate positions.  For the argument would establish the following, very important conclusion:
 

(7*) Abortion is at least prima facie very seriously wrong, except where the embryo or fetus in question is anencephalic, or suffers from certain very severe brain defects.

        Let us consider, then, whether the argument is otherwise sound or not.  Here the crucial question is whether the first premise in the argument is true or false:
 

All innocent organisms that have the potential to acquire the capacity for thought and self-consciousness have a serious right to life.

8.1 The Question of Potentialities

        We have seen that a crucial question that must be answered before one can definitely settle the issue of the moral status of abortion is whether potentialities by themselves suffice to give something a right to life.  As the importance of this question was not really noticed until around the early 1970s, one cannot find many arguments bearing upon this issue in the great ethical theorists of the past.  Since the early 1970s, however, a variety of arguments have been offered on both sides of this issue, and I shall briefly sketch, and comment upon, the more important of these in what follows.
 

8.2  Arguments in Support of an Affirmative Answer

        Four main arguments have been offered in support of the view that potentialities can in themselves give something a right to life, or, at least, can make the destruction of something just as seriously wrong as the killing of a normal, innocent, adult human being.

Argument 1:  Comas and Potentialities

        The thrust of this first argument is that while it is not wrong to kill a person who has suffered upper brain death, and who thus is in an irreversible coma, it is wrong to kill someone in a temporary coma.  It is then suggested that the difference between the two cases is a matter of potentialities, and thus that potentialities do give something a right to life.

Critical Comments

1.  Active versus Passive Potentialities

        A person who advances the potentialities version of the anti-abortion argument has to draw a distinction between active potentialities and passive potentialities, where this distinction is roughly as follows:

X has an active potentiality for the acquisition of property P

means

All of the positive causal factors that are required for a process that would give rise to the possession of property P are present in X.

X has a passive potentiality for the acquisition of property P

means

There is something that could be done to X that would initiate a process that would give rise to the possession of property P.

        Why must an advocate of the potentialities version of the anti-abortion argument draw this distinction?  One reason will emerge when we consider an argument, advanced by Mary Anne Warren, for the view that potentialities do not in themselves provide the basis of a right to life, since we shall see that it is only by drawing a distinction between active and passive potentialities that any response to Warren's argument is possible.

        But one can also see, in a direct fashion, why that distinction is needed.  For consider a spermatozoon and an unfertilized human egg cell.  If these are brought together, and then placed in an appropriate environment, the eventual result will be an individual with the capacity for thought and self-consciousness.  The combination of a spermatozoon and an unfertilized human egg cell (plus a uterus) therefore has the potentiality of giving rise to an individual with the capacity for thought and self-consciousness.  Accordingly, if it were very seriously wrong to destroy such a potentiality, it would be very seriously wrong to destroy an unfertilized human egg cell.  The latter, however, is surely not true.  Consequently, what the advocate of the potentialities argument must say is that while it is wrong to destroy active potentialities, it is not wrong - or, at least, not nearly as wrong - to destroy passive potentialities.

        But now the problem is that the argument based upon the case of the comatose individual shows too much, for if that case really showed that active potentialities by themselves endow something with a right to life, it would also show that passive potentialities do so as well.  For consider the case of a person who is in a coma, and who will never come out of it on his or her own, but who would recover if a certain operation were performed.  Killing such a human being would be just as seriously wrong as killing the person who is in a temporary coma from which he or she will emerge without assistance.  So if the case of the comatose individual showed that potentialities by themselves give something right to life, it would show that passive potentialities also do this.

2.  Potentialities, or the Persistence of Memory and/or Personality?

        But what, then, is going on in the case of the comatose individual?  The answer is that in that case more is present than just certain potentialities, either active or passive.  For the individual's brain contains the physical basis of his or her memories, and of his or her personality traits.  In short, the states that make for personal identity are present in the brain of the comatose individual, and, because of this, what is present is not just a general potentiality for the existence of an individual who is capable of thought and self-consciousness: there is also the potentiality for the continued existence of the person who enjoyed thought and self-consciousness in the past, and it is this that makes the killing of such an individual seriously wrong.

Argument 2:  Potentialities and an Entity's Intrinsic Value

        The principle underlying this second argument is this:
 

The value of an entity is related to the values of the things into which it may develop, taking into account the relevant probabilities.

        Since, then, a fetus has a reasonable chance of developing into a normal, adult person, its value must be reasonably close to that of an adult person.

Critical Comment

        One needs to distinguish between destroying something that has value - where something has value if it makes the world a better place - and destroying something that, though it need not make the world a better place, does have a right to life.  The above principle relates to value, not to rights.  What would be needed, then, for the argument would be something like the following principle:
 

The extent to which an entity possesses a given right R is related to the extent to which the things into which it may develop possess right R, taking into account the relevant probabilities.
 

Argument 3:  Potentialities and Infanticide

        If potentialities do not give an entity a right to life, and something like capacities are necessary, then a fetus will not have a right to life, but neither will a newborn baby, since a newborn baby does not have those capacities that give something a right to life - such as the capacities for thought and self-consciousness.  So infanticide will not be morally wrong - which surely cannot be correct.  Therefore, potentialities must give something a right to life.

Critical Comments

        Those who advance this argument usually assume that one can establish the claim that infanticide is morally wrong simply by appealing to one's moral intuitions.  There are two questions that one needs to ask about such an appeal.  First, as we saw earlier, there are reasons for thinking that an appeal to moral intuitions is appropriate only in the case of basic moral principles.  For if a principle is derived, one should be able to set out the derivation, and then ask whether the basic principle in question is supported by one's moral intuitions.  But mightn't the claim that human infanticide is wrong itself be a basic moral principle?  Not if basic moral principles should be free of all reference to physical properties, such as species membership.

        The second point arises from the fact that anthropologists have claimed that, in the past, infanticide was accepted in at least some circumstances by most societies.  It seems, then, that the intuitions that are being appealed to in this argument are by no means universally shared.  This in turn leads to the question of what grounds one has for holding that it is one's own intuitions that are correct on this matter.

        The upshot is that further argument is needed if this line of argument can be sustained.

        A different response to this argument is advanced by Mary Anne Warren in the "Postscript" to her article, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion".  Warren attempts to show that there are consequentialist objections against infanticide that do not apply - or that do not apply with equal force - to abortion.

Argument 4:  Consequentialism, and the Value of Additional Happy People

        The final argument appeals to certain forms of consequentialism - where consequentialism is the view that the right action is the one that will result in the best balance of desirable states over undesirable states.  The basic idea, then, is that if a fetus has an active potentiality for acquiring the capacity for thought and self-consciousness, then that is also a potentiality for the existence of an individual who is likely to be happy.  Other things being equal, then, it is wrong to destroy such a potentiality, since the world is likely to be one that contains less happiness.

Critical Comments

        There are many things to be said about this argument.  Many philosophers, for example, hold that consequentialism is not a satisfactory ethical theory.  Others, who are consequentialists, maintain that what has value is not the addition of happiness to the world, but the addition of happiness to individuals who already exist.  The main point to be made in the present context, however, is, I think, that this line of argument would prove much more than anti-abortionists are likely to want to accept.  Thus it would also show, for example, that destroying a passive potentiality is just as seriously wrong as destroying an active potentiality, and, consequently, that intentionally refraining from reproducing is just as seriously wrong as having an abortion.
 

8.3  Arguments in Support of a Negative Answer

Argument 1: Mary Anne Warren's Cloning Argument

        In her article "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion", Mary Anne Warren has argued that if potentialities gave something a right to life, then every cell in one's body would have a right to life, since if the nucleus of such a cell were to be transferred to an unfertilized human egg cell from which the nucleus had been removed, the resulting cell would develop in exactly the same way that a fertilized human egg cell develops.

Comments

        As I noted above, the anti-abortionist will respond by drawing a distinction between active potentialities and passive potentialities.  This provides a way of blocking Warren's argument, but it is far from clear that it is satisfactory.  For the question immediately arises as to whether the distinction between active potentialities and passive potentialities is really morally significant - a question that is raised  in a very vivid way by the "almost active" potentialities argument that follows.

Argument 2:  The "Almost Active" Potentialities Argument

        The thrust of this argument is, first, that a fertilized human egg cell on its own - e.g., in a test tube - will not develop into a person, and so it does not in fact have an active potentiality for giving rise to an entity with the capacity for thought and self-consciousness: its potentiality is, at best, an "almost active" one.  But then, secondly, consider the combination of an unfertilized ovum lying next to a spermatozoon.  This combination is almost comparable to an isolated fertilized human egg cell with respect to its "almost active" potentiality.  For, in the former case, one needs to transfer the fertilized human egg cell to a uterus, whereas, in the latter case, one merely needs to combine the two, and then transfer the result to a uterus.   Given the small difference with respect to what must be done to produce a fully active potentiality, can there really be a great moral gulf here?

        This point can be reinforced, moreover, by a different comparison, namely that between (1) an unfertilized ovum lying right next to a spermatozoon, both of them inside a uterus, and (2) a fertilized human egg cell that is far removed from any human uterus.  Now it is the former situation that seems to involve a more nearly active potentiality, and so if potentialities count to the extent that they are nearly active, then destruction of the potentiality involved in (1) should be morally worse than destroying the potentiality involved in (2).  Destruction of the potentiality involved in situation (1), however, is not seriously wrong.  So neither is destruction of the potentiality involved in situation (2) seriously wrong.

Argument 3:  Artificial Wombs and the Generalized Potentiality Argument

        If active potentialities give something a right to life, then it would seem that the presence of any active potentiality for giving rise to an entity with the capacity for thought and self-consciousness must mean that there is something that it is wrong to destroy, regardless of exactly how the potentiality is realized.  That is to say, given any situation that will, if not interfered with, give rise to a person, it must be wrong to interfere, and to prevent a being possessing the capacity for thought and self-consciousness from coming into being.  But it turns out that there are situations that will, if not interfered with, give rise to such an entity, but where very few people think it would be seriously wrong to prevent a person from coming into being.  Consider, for example, situations where one has a spermatozoon and a unfertilized ovum, and where, in addition, the situation is such that there are factors that causally ensure that the ovum will be fertilized by the spermatozoon, and that the resulting zygote will then develop normally, so that the ultimate result, if the system is not interfered with, will be a normal adult human being.  Given such a situation, very few people would hold that it is seriously wrong to shut down the system before fertilization takes place, thus causing the spermatozoon and the unfertilized ovum to perish.  But such an action would destroy an active potentiality for the acquisition of a capacity for thought and self-consciousness. Consequently, the destruction of an active potentiality for the acquisition of a capacity for thought and self-consciousness cannot be seriously wrong.

Argument 4:  The Rights and Interests Argument

        What is the functions of rights?  According to this final argument, the function of rights is to protect corresponding  interests.  But what sorts of beings can have interests?  A plausible answer is that only something that either now has, or has had in the past, desires, can now have interests.  But if this is correct, then a fertilized human egg cell does not have interests, and so does not have rights, and this in turn implies that mere potentialities do not give something a right to life.
 

8.4  Summing Up:  The Potentialities Argument Against Abortion

        The crucial question with regard to this version of the central anti-abortion argument is whether potentialities by themselves suffice to give something a right to life.  I have considered a number of arguments on both sides, and we have seen, I believe, that all of the arguments for the view that potentialities do give something a right to life are open to strong objections.  By contrast, there are a number of very plausible arguments for the view that potentialities by themselves do not suffice to give something a right to life - arguments that have, on the whole, not even been addressed by defenders of potentiality arguments against abortion.  Unless significant objections can be mounted against those arguments, the potentiality version of the central anti-abortion argument must be set aside as unsound.
 

9.  Abortion:  A Final Summing Up

        What conclusions can we draw concerning the moral status of abortion?  I have focused mainly on the central type of argument for an extreme anti-abortion position, an argument which involves the claim that abortion is always in itself at least prima facie very seriously wrong on the grounds that all human beings, including zygotes, embryos, and fetuses, have a right to life that is just as weighty as that possessed by normal, innocent, adult human beings.  The crucial question that arises for this type of argument is this: What property is possessed by human zygotes, embryos, and fetuses, and which is such that any entity that possesses that property has a right to life?   As regards responses to that question, we have canvassed the following five possibilities:

(1)  The possession of an immaterial, immortal soul gives an entity a right to life;

(2)  The possession of the capacity for relevant higher mental functioning - such as the capacity for thought - gives an entity a right to life;

(3)  Membership in the biologically defined species, Homo sapiens, gives an entity a right to life;

(4)  The possession of the active potentiality for acquiring the capacity for relevant higher mental functioning - such as the capacities for thought and self-consciousness - gives an entity a right to life;

(5)  Membership in a species whose normal adult members possess the capacity for relevant higher mental functioning - such as the capacities for thought and self-consciousness - gives an entity a right to life.

Let us now briefly consider how those five suggestions fare.

(1)  The Immaterial, Immortal Soul Criterion

        If human beings possessed immaterial souls that (1) were present from conception, and (2) involved the capacity for relevant higher mental functioning - such as the capacity for thought - then it might well be argued that human beings have a right to life from conception onward.  But the problem with this criterion is, first, that there is no plausible argument for the presence of an immaterial soul even in the case of adult human beings; and secondly, that what we know about neurophysiology, both in the case of humans and other animals, provides positive evidence against the hypothesis that mental functioning is based upon capacities that reside in an immaterial substance.

(2)  The Capacities Criterion

        The objection to using this criterion to support the claim that human zygotes, embryos, and fetuses have a right to life is, first, that there is no behavioral evidence for the claim that humans at such stages in their development have, for example, the capacity for thought, and, secondly, that what we know about the dependence of the capacity for thought not only upon the existence of a brain, but also upon the presence in the brain of certain very complex neuronal circuitry provides very strong evidence that human beings in the early stages of their development do not possess any capacity for thought.

(3)  The Membership in Homo Sapiens Criterion

        Appeal to this criterion is, as we have seen, exposed to two main objections.  First, there are excellent reasons for holding that the principle that all innocent members of the biologically defined species Homo sapiens have a right to life cannot be a basic moral principle: there must, for example, be some principle that does not refer to particular species that explains why members of other species - consider the imaginary case of ET - also have a right to life.  But if the principle in question cannot be basic, then one needs to go back to the underlying, basic principle, and show that that principle supports the claim that humans have a right to life from conception onward.  But this, of course, takes one back to the other criteria that we have been considering, and if none of those criteria is sound, then neither is the derived criterion that appeals to membership in the biologically defined species, Homo sapiens.

        The second objection is that the claim that all innocent members of the biologically defined species, Homo sapiens, have a right to life is exposed to counterexamples - such as the cases of anencephalic infants, and adults who have suffered whole brain death or upper brain death.

(4)  The Potentiality Criterion

        The objection to the claim that having certain potentialities - such as the potentiality for acquiring the capacity for thought - is that, on the one hand, none of the arguments that have been offered in support of this criterion is sound, and, on the other hand, that there are very plausible arguments in support of the claim that this criterion is unsound.

(5)  The 'Normal Members of a Species' Criterion

        This final proposal is very closely related to the third criterion above, and is exposed to the same types of objection.  Thus, in the first place, just as there are strong reasons for holding that a basic moral principle will not contain any reference to a particular species, so there are strong reasons for holding that it should not involve the general concept of a species.  In the second place, the present criterion entails that all members of the biologically defined species, Homo sapiens, have a serious right to life, and so it is exposed to precisely the same counterexamples as the third criterion - namely, the cases of anencephalic infants, and adults who have suffered whole brain death or upper brain death.

        The upshot is, first, that none of the arguments that advocates of an extreme anti-abortion position offer in support of the claim that all humans from conception onward have a right to life stands up to critical scrutiny, and, secondly, that that claim has itself been shown to be false in view of the counterexamples provided by the cases of humans that either lack a brain, or that suffer from brain defects or brain damage so sever that no mental life at all is present.

        The extreme anti-abortion position is, therefore, refuted.  What, then, is the correct position on abortion?  Answering that question would require much more discussion.  In particular, one would need to find satisfactory answers to the following two questions:

(1)  What property, or properties, are the basis of an entity's having a right to life?

(2)  At what stage in the development of a human being does it acquire the property, or properties, in question?

        The first of these questions is a question in ethical theory.  We have seen that some answers - e.g., answers to appeal to species membership, or to an immaterial soul, or to potentialities - are unsound.  But what is the correct answer?

        Unfortunately, this is one of the most difficult issues in moral theory, and so we cannot even begin to address it here.  But in thinking about this issue, it is important to have in mind the general sort of view that many liberals on abortion would hold is correct:

First, a developing entity does not have a right to life until it acquires relevant psychological capacities - such as the capacity for thought and/or self-consciousness.  Secondly, once an entity acquires the right to life, it does not lose that right if it temporarily loses the relevant capacities:  if it could in principle regain those capacities, then it continues to possess a right to life.  Thirdly, an entity does lose the right to life if it can never again have the relevant capacities.

        Though I myself favor a slightly different criterion, I think that the personhood criterion has much to recommend it.  First, it explains the intuitions that most people have both about the cases of anencephalic human infants, and about adult human beings who have suffered whole brain death or upper brain death.

        Secondly, it enables one to offer a non-arbitrary, species-free account of the differences in moral status of normal adult members of different species, both real and imaginary.  Mice do not have a right to life, not because they are not members of our species, but because they do not have the capacity for thought and/or self-consciousness.  Chimpanzees, on the other hand, may have a right to life, even though they are not members of our species, since they may have the relevant psychological capacities, and the relevant sort of mental life.  And beings such as the imaginary ET would certainly have a right o life completely on a par with that of normal adult members of our species, since such beings clearly would possess the capacity for thought and self-consciousness.

        Thirdly, a plausible view of rights is that they function to protect interests, and if this is correct, then one can offer an argument for the personhood criterion, since one can argue that individuals who possess the capacity for thought and self-consciousness will be able to envisage their own continued existence, and will be able to have desires about that, and those desires in turn will make it the case that their continued existence is, in general, in their own interest.  Attribution of a right to life to entities that satisfy the personhood criterion is therefore justified, because that attribution will contribute to the protection of an interest that such entities have in their own continued existence.

        If something like the personhood criterion is correct, which position on the moral status of abortion is correct: a moderate view, or a liberal one?  This will depend on the correct answer to the second question mentioned above - that is, the question:

(2)  At what stage in the development of a human being does it acquire the property, or properties, in question?

        Unlike the first question, this is not a philosophical question as such, but a scientific question, and only careful scientific investigation can settle at what point, for example, a developing human being first acquires the relevant capacities - such as the capacity for thought and the capacity for self-consciousness.  If those capacities are acquired, say, at some point during fetal development, then fetuses will have a right to life from that point onward, and so abortion would in itself be prima facie very seriously wrong from that point onward.   Presumably, then, a moderate view on abortion would be correct.  If, on the other hand, the relevant capacities are not acquired prior to birth, then a liberal view on the moral status of abortion will be correct.

        In short, while there strong reasons for holding that the extreme anti-abortion view is untenable, the choice between  moderate views and an extreme liberal view is, at present, a matter for further investigation, since that choice depends both upon the answer to some difficult philosophical questions concerning the precise properties that are the basis of the right to life, and also upon a scientific determination of the point in the development of human beings when the relevant properties are first acquired.  But answers to both of these questions are well within reach.  Accordingly, it should not be long before the difficult question of the moral status of abortion is settled, once and for all.