Abortion and the Moral Significance of Merely Possible Persons

1.1 Goals 1.1.1 I have two main goals in this book. The first is to give an account of the moral significance of merely possible persons persons who, relative to a particular 1 circumstance, or possible future or world, could but in fact never do exist. I call that account Variabilism. My second goal is to use Variabilism to begin to address the problem of abortion. 1.1.2 We ought to do the best we can for people. And we consider this obligation to extend to people who are, relative to a world, existing or future. But does it extend to merely possible people as well? And, if it does, then does it extend to making things better for them by way of bringing them into existence? If we say that surely it doesn't, does that then mean that our obligation to do the best we can for people does not, after all, extend to the merely possible that the merely p- sible do not matter morally? But if the merely possible do not matter morally, then doesn't that mean that it would be permissible for us to bring them into miserable existences and even obligatory to do just that in the case where bringing the merely possible into miserable existences creates additional wellbeing for existing 1 References to merely possible persons and, later on, to persons who do exist existing persons

Explores whether our moral obligation is to make "happy people," as Narveson put it, or to make "people happy" Describes a form of consequentialism tempered by deontological principle Introduces lawyers and philosophers working in applied ethics to the issues in moral theory, population ethics and social choice theory Concludes with concrete results that will be both controversial and (relatively) straightforward, modest and non-doctrinal Includes supplementary material: sn.pub/extras

Klappentext

This book has two main goals. The first is to give an account, called Variabilism, of the moral significance of merely possible personspersons who, relative to a particular circumstance, or possible future or world, could but in fact never do exist. The second is to use Variabilism to illuminate abortion.

According to Variabilism, merely possible personsjust like anyone elsematter morally but matter variably. Where we understand that a person incurs a loss whenever agents could have created more wellbeing for that person and instead create less, Variabilism asserts that the moral significance of any loss is a function of where that loss is incurred in relation to the person who incurs it. That is: a loss incurred at a world where the person who incurs that loss does or will exist has full more significance, according to Variabilism, while a loss incurred by that same person at a world where that person never exists at all has no moral significance whatsoever.

Some other views deem all merely possible persons and all of their losses to matter morally. Still other views deem no merely possible persons and none of their losses to matter morally. Variabilism, instead, takes a middle ground between these two extreme positions. It thus opens the door to a certain middle ground on procreative choice in general and abortion in particular. Thus, given that, for persons, thinking and coming into existence come together, Variabilism supports the argument that the early abortion is ordinarily permissible when it is what the woman wants. That is so, since the loss incurred when, as an effect of the early abortion, a given person is never brought into existence to begin with has no moral significance at all. In contrast, the late abortion is ordinarily subject to a different analysis. For the loss incurred in that case has full moral significance, according to Variabilism, since it is incurred at a world where the person who incurs italready exists.

Inhalt
The Moral Significance of Merely Possible Persons.- The Abortion Paradox.- Three More Arguments Against Early Abortion.- Abortion and Variabilism.- Conclusion.