The Ethical Life Don Marquis Summary

In the book, The Ethical Life, Don Marquis’ “Why Abortion Is Immoral” is carried into the ethical community. Marquis begins his analysis by addressing two predominant perspectives on the issue: the question of why abortion is immoral and why it is not immoral. Marquis has concluded that both stances of the issue have flaws. He explains that anti-abortion claims are too broad, and that pro-life claims are too narrow to be acceptable. Instead, he follows this general argument throughout his analysis:
Premise One: If someone has the potential to have a future, then they should live.
Premise Two: All fetuses have the potential of a future and to value life.
Conclusion: Therefore, abortion of a fetus would be wrong because doing …show more content…
For example, he implies that the meaning of “human being” can be translated into a biological category or a moral category. These categories both pose a problem to the anti-abortionists’ argument. On the other hand, Marquis attacks the pro-choice attitudes and demands a “connection between psychological criteria for being a person and the wrongness of being killed.” His ultimate proposition is to take a step back from why abortion is wrong and connect it to why murder is wrong. To support why murder is wrong and provide illustration, Marquis looks at people of all kinds: children, the ill, the elderly, etc. He explains how children have substantial potential to have a life composed of valuable experiences and worthy challenges. Marquis goes on to reason that abortion would steal the future of the fetus’ experiences, challenges, and events. This account of discontinuation provides substantial evidence to support his overall assertion that abortion is …show more content…
This account describes that people possess the utmost desire to live. In the event of an abortion, killing would interfere with the fetus’s most fundamental desire: to live. Indeed, he foresees opposition in that there are people who are suicidal or do not have the desire to live. He combats this with the argument that “the goodness of life is not secondary to our desire for it. If this were not so, the pain of one’s own premature death could be done away with merely by an appropriate alteration in the configuration of one’s desires.” He then goes on to support his ultimate argument by illustrating that any future is valuable, even if we do not value it. This is Marquis’ main point: a fetus has the desire to live and killing one would be depleting of one’s desires, whether known or unknown. Marquis’ argument of why abortion is immoral is highly supported. Not only does the author analyze and communicate his stance on the issue, but he foresees several key issues and rebuttals them. In Marquis’ paper, readers may open their eyes with his addition of contradicting views through the addition of: “one problem with [X] is…” “It is worth nothing that…” These additions authenticate his own argument by taking into consideration opposing views and retrieving supplementary feedback to discuss