Ok, you’re right; yet what really matters? The desire or the life itself? How many times more does the latter matter? Are past desires the only discriminatory factor between the two situations presented?
The desire. We have no moral imperative to keep self-aware being alive if those beings are indifferent to their own survival. “Life itself” has perhaps an aesthetic value, but no other, and no moral weight in and of itself. Any other value is derived from the value that those living themselves have.
I thought this is what we just resolved! The fetus only has that desire if he or she grows to be an adult!
Let’s postulate a child in world A. World A never existed, because in world B, the real world, I destroyed the spermatozoon that fertilized that child. Another spermatozoon takes its place, and a different child was born. Did I commit murder? I hardly think so, even though there is a potential child that was never born, that had it been born it would have wished me preserve the conditions that allowed its birth.
If I did commit murder, then I must also have caused a death in World A, by preventing (through inaction) the birth of the child that could only have existed in World B.
The hypothetical entities that do not yet exist do not get to clamor for their own existence!
One might respond that killing a fetus frustrates the human’s future desire to live.
Satisfying the desires of actual people is hard enough without trying to satisfy the desires of possible people.
Only one of those existed; the other’s existence is dependent on your decision.
Ok, you’re right; yet what really matters? The desire or the life itself? How many times more does the latter matter? Are past desires the only discriminatory factor between the two situations presented?
The desire. We have no moral imperative to keep self-aware being alive if those beings are indifferent to their own survival. “Life itself” has perhaps an aesthetic value, but no other, and no moral weight in and of itself. Any other value is derived from the value that those living themselves have.
Sounds ok. But the fetus is almost certain to have the desire to live when he develops. Isn’t killing the fetus robbing him of that opportunity?
I thought this is what we just resolved! The fetus only has that desire if he or she grows to be an adult!
Let’s postulate a child in world A. World A never existed, because in world B, the real world, I destroyed the spermatozoon that fertilized that child. Another spermatozoon takes its place, and a different child was born. Did I commit murder? I hardly think so, even though there is a potential child that was never born, that had it been born it would have wished me preserve the conditions that allowed its birth.
If I did commit murder, then I must also have caused a death in World A, by preventing (through inaction) the birth of the child that could only have existed in World B.
The hypothetical entities that do not yet exist do not get to clamor for their own existence!