Thursday, November 29, 2012
Abortion: Warren and Marquis
You've now had a chance to consider the early parts of the the Roe v. Wade argument and, in particular, the arguments of two ethicists, Mary Anne Warren and Don Marquis, on the issue of abortion. Clearly, Warren's 1973 article (written in the year of the Roe decision) and Marquis's 1989 article (written a year before the Supreme Court decided another landmark case regarding abortion) differ markedly. Leaving aside your own personal beliefs, which essay (Warren's or Marquis's) do you find more effective? Why? Be sure to cite at least THREE times from the texts (three times altogether, not three times each) as you defend your rationale.
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Both of the essays had many flaws, which makes it difficult to differentiate which is the more persuasive and effective argument. I think that even though both essays have flaws in the opinions and ideas presented in them that they both present the flaws allowing the reader to see very clearly what the advancements and flaws are of each essay. I think that the essay, "On the Moral and Legal Status of Abortion" was a little more effective to me, because Mary Anne Warren sounds more confident in her argument than Marquis. Both authors present the good qualities of their arguments and the bad, but to me Warren seems much more confident of her argument even when stating the issues with it. The first thing that Warren does in her essay is talk about the general issue involved with abortion, which is whether or not a fetus should be considered a human or not. She then goes on to talk about how many people try to make abortion legal because of the effects it has on women and she then says, "Unfortunately, however, the fact that restricting access to abortion has tragic side effects does not, in itself, show that the restrictions are unjustified." Most people who are arguing the side of abortion use the side effects on women as momentum in their argument and I like how honest Warren is in saying that no matter how horrible the results are that still doesn't mean it should be illegal to ban the act of abortion. I also thought it was interesting how she gave the example of someone having the right over their property and what that meant for any people on his property and as soon as she says this she goes on to say, "furthermore, it is probably inappropriate to describe a woman's body as her property." Warren seems to have no fear in using examples that may very possibly offend people and as soon as she says them she seems to undermine them, this is a very odd style of writing. Even this style of writing and arguing is very odd it allows the reader to see both sides of an argument of even concept very clearly and allows the reader to choose for himself. Warren also quotes and states the concepts of many other scholars, which I think adds to the overall effectiveness of the essay, it presents many different ways in which people can view the argument on abortion. Overall I believe that Warren had a more effective and persuasive argument and essay.
ReplyDeleteI had issues with both articles but I seem to lean towards Marquis' argument, although I disagree with it profoundly. I think it was more effective than Warren's argument and it was definitely more accesible at least to me. I got lost far less when reading Marquis' argument compared to when reading Warren's. The first sentence of Marquis' argument, "The view that abortion is, with rare exceptions, seriously immoral has received little support in the recent philosophical literature." almost made me think that maybe Marquis is playing devil's advocate and just arguing for the side of anti-abortion for the sake of getting the argument across. I woud actually admire that, but somehow I think that it isn't the case. Anyways, I love how Marquis started off with the statement, "A sketch of standard anti-abortion and pro-choice arguments exhibits how those arguments possess certain symmetries that explain why partisans of those positions are so convinced of the correctness of their own positions, why they are not successful in convincing their opponents, and why, to others, this issue seems to be unresolvable." It made him seem very knowledgeable of the matter and accepting of the fact that the each argument has it's own validity.Marquis acknowledges that, "The problem of the ethics of abortion is the problem of determining the fetal property that settles this moral controversy." by stating this in his closing paragraph. Although Warren's closing statement was much more solid I enjoy how Marquis' left you thinking instead of giving you a statement saying abortion was completely moral or completely immoral. He states his argument against abortion and then gives us room to form our own opinions on it and I for one appreciate that.
ReplyDeleteI found both articles interesting but I had trouble following Warren's argument. I agree that she was pretty clear on her views and she had a very effective way of stating them; however, her examples made me doubt the actuality of her claims. I believe that using example that resemble a science fiction novel invalidate her claim in a scholarly article as such. Her ignorance in generics make me doubt her knowledge and accuracy of her views, "...newly created men will have all of the original man's abilities, skill, knowledge, and so on". Marquis' lack of bias created a more convincing article for me. His ability to explain the problem with both sides are remarkable in my opinion, "Attempts by both sides to patch up the difficulties in their positions run into further difficulties". His examples are more realistic than Warren's alien example. His views are more explicitly written and dissects a very complex issue more fully. One of the biggest issue I have with him is his final statement, "...the problem of the ethics of abortion, so understood, is solvable" due to my opinion that this particular issue can not be solve due to the myriad of opinions people have. On that note, I had trouble taking him serious every time he would say "serious" before a statement because it gave me the impression of informality.
ReplyDeleteAt first glance, I thought that the Warren article was more convincing, but only because it was easier to understand and more approachable. I am more likely to agree with something that I can actually understand. However, after reading more deeply into both articles, I think that the content of the Marquis article makes more sense. I think that Warren’s examples such as “Imagine a space traveler who lands on an unknown planet” (274) and comparing fetuses to “the average fish” and “a newborn guppy” (277) seem disrespectful to what is clearly a very serious subject. It was easy for me to become disenchanted with her argument because it seemed like she was trivializing abortion, which shouldn’t be done. On the other hand, Marquis made some very good points, but his overall writing style is very dry, and full of way too many “prima facie”s and unnecessary word/phrase repetitions. MY favorite point that Marquis makes is “In this particular instance, the principle ‘It is always prima facie wrong to take a human life’ seems to entail that it is wrong to end the existence of a living human cancer-cell culture, on the grounds that the culture is both living and human”(311). This point really appealed to me because I have never heard it before and because it made me think of bioethics and HeLa cells and Henrietta Lacks, and because it made me smile.
ReplyDeleteAs Hana said, there are major problems with both arguments; I can’t side with one versus the other. Marquis fails to take the mother’s rights seriously, and Warren fails to take the opposition seriously. Marquis’ argument was dry, and sometimes repetitive, but its biggest flaw came from being too narrow. The article spent so much time stating what wouldn’t work that it barely spent time justifying what would. In addition, I felt that Marquis sometimes made outrageous statements without recognizing them as controversial. After giving a story about a perfectionist author who does not value his work, Marquis says that “destruction of such work would surely victimize its author” (200). His defense of the statement is lacking. I also would have enjoyed hearing how Marquis reconciles the mother’s rights with the rights of the fetus; by forcing a woman to have a baby, you are, in a way, taking away her future as well. The Warren article also fell for similar traps as Marquis. Early on, Warren says, “It is probably inappropriate to describe a woman’s body as her property, since it seems natural to hold that a person is something distinct from her property, but not from her body” (44). Again, the argument that follows isn’t very convincing. But Warren did have one interesting point. In summary, Warren says, “…a woman’s right to protect her health, happiness, freedom, and even her life, by terminating an unwanted pregnancy, will always override whatever right to life it may be appropriate to describe to a fetus, even a fully developed one” (60). While I’m not sure how well this would fly in a courtroom setting, the idea of overriding rights seems logical.
ReplyDeleteI had a hard time swerving through the little points of each essay. Each presented a clear and defensive argument. Like Eva, I was able to agree with something more when I can understand it. I actually read Warren, Gensler, and Marqis’ essays. Most of the ket passages I found were actually in the Gensler article. He presents the idea of the Kantian, Utilitarianism and his approach. I found this very interesting. Out of all the articles, the kantian approach took my eye: 1)" if you are consistent and think that it would be all right for someone to do A to A, then you will think that it would be all right for someone to do A to you in similar circumstances.”( 286) I think this is a very fair and easy way of seeing this argument. I also found the “desire” section of Marquis to be interesting. “ One cannot have a duty unless one is capable of behaving morally, and being’s capability of behaving morally will require having a certain psychology.” I thought this was a very deep and (eccentric?) way of looking at this article. Finally, He brings up the idea of “potential persons”(317) I thought this was interesting because it bring up many questions. How do we know what the future of this person is going to hold.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, let me commend both Marquis and Warren for being smarter than me. Secondly, let me say that they could afford less Kant-like qualities to their writing. While they both have different viewpoints, they seem to agree in the area that they should make their arguments hard to follow, for the untrained mind.
ReplyDeleteBUT- this being said, once I got into them, I rather enjoyed it! It was interesting, as well as prevalent, and I felt that both made vaild points that should not, no matter how strangely worded, be ignored. While I might not particularly agree with everything that each article has to offer, I can deeply appreciate how considerate and original each is.
In the Marquis Article, I do not agree with his overall viewpoint. But, I do, however, find many of his smaller points morally resounding. He makes sure to separate himself from both pro-life, as well as pro-choice. He states that "Pro life constitutes that abortion is wrong because it is killing an unborn child. A view that someone who is pro-choice would interpret as too broad" this I do find very true. In its purest sense, killing is wrong. But is does a fetus qualify for personhood? This question is answered by Warren.
Warren says that there are 5 qualifications that a living being must meet in order to attain personhood.They are "1) Consciousness, 2) Reasoning 3) Self motivated activity 4) ability to communicate 5) self awareness" While I do dig the concept of qualifying personhood as such, there are also major holes in what Warren presents. Many who are presently alive do not posses some of these qualities. The elderly or young children would be a prime example.
In conclusion, while I do enjoy many of the separate points of each author, I find myself leaning In a more pro-choice direction. My philosophy is that abortion should be available for whoever needs it. but, seeing as I am a man, I do not really feel as if I should be able to tell anyone if they should or shouldn't get one.
I found the Warren article more effective; Marquis's argument was disconcertingly weak (mostly because of the sentience he attributes to fetuses). "The loss of one's life is one of the greatest losses one can suffer" (315), he writes, as if such "losses" are relevant or perceptible to a fetus. One is reminded of the woman in the Frontline documentary who read the lamentations of a fetus begging its mother for life. The Warren article is also more effective because it gives more respect to existing arguments. Marquis trivializes both sides of the abortion debate with which he is familiar, writing hat both sides "seem to believe that (1) the truth of all of (their) claims (are) quite obvious, and (2) establishing any of these claims is sufficient to show [whether abortion is murder]" (310). Warren has a better understanding of the depth of the issue, never content to hold her claims to be self-evident as Marquis accuses all abortion activists/lobbyists of doing. I was particularly taken by her exploration of the idea "that the term 'human' has two distinct, but not often distinguished, senses" (273).
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the blog posts that have been posted so far, it has become starkly apparent that I am the lone enthusiastic admirer of Warren’s article. As has been stated and reiterated several times already, Marquis’ piece is dry and difficult to follow, bringing no novel concepts to the table (unless I missed one behind a cluster of “prima facie’s”). He spends far too much time laying out common knowledge as to standard arguments on both sides of the issue and considering at length the difficulty of the situation rather than supplying useful points for either.
ReplyDeleteWarren, on the other hand, did what I thought was a fabulous job of providing a 360 degree view of both platforms and their weaknesses. Each time I came up with a flaw in her reasoning, she proceeded to acknowledge and aptly respond to said flaws in the subsequent paragraphs, weaving devil’s advocacy throughout and thus presenting her opinions as moderate yet well-rounded and coherent. The lens through which a good chunk of the essay is written remains relatively uniform in its impartiality as Warren continually undermines and strengthens each side’s argument, revealing bias only when accompanied by tightly reasoned justification. Unlike some of my peers, I thought that her analogies (violinist, space traveler, etc.) were effective in separating the principles of abortion from the knee-jerk reactions and emotions that accompany the variables of the issue itself (i.e babies, pregnancy, women’s rights, etc). A particularly prevalent pro-choice argument – in fact one that scarcely goes unmentioned in a discussion of abortion – concerns pregnancies caused by rape. Warren considers this in reference to her violinist analogy. “What are we to say about the woman who becomes pregnant not through rape but as a result of her own carelessness? With respect to such cases, the violinist analogy is of much less use to the defender of a woman’s right to get an abortion. ” By tackling a controversy within a controversy, Warren examines a weaker spot in the pro-choice stance, putting aside the relatively straightforward rape scenario. This is a prime example of the way that she dismantles each side’s justifications for or against abortion. Warren’s article is undoubtedly the stronger and broader of the two.
I think this one's a little bit of a hard call. Without taking a particular stance on the actual issue of abortion and women's rights and all those sorts of things, I think that Mary Warren's article is articulated a little bit better. At the beginning, she goes into detail about trying to bridge a gap between "anti-abortion [and] pro-life stances," which I find very interesting, considering we haven't ready other articles that really deal with those two concepts separately. In her article, Warren seems very secure in her views towards a generalization. She acknowledges that there are exceptions that would prevent an abortion from being "seriously immoral," as she says in this statement: "This essay will not explore the casuistry of these hard cases. The purpose of this essay is to develop a general argument. "
ReplyDeleteAlthough this particular article frustrated me at some points, I think Warren was more effective in overall delivery and in her summary of her facts and positions. Although she may not have agreed with them, she did include multiple views from multiple sides about the literal "ethics of abortion," and she painted a more holistic picture (although she WAS still posing an argument, and her portrayal had to be skewed, I mean ... the chapter is CALLED "Why Abortion is Immoral" so I can't fault her) of the actual dilemmas that are faced by people and groups trying to defend or attack these particular stances. She poses the familiar questions regarding the fetus and personhood, and she develops and delivers a strong argument, so I have to respect that fact. Plus, her essay was a lot less dense than the Marquis article, and because of that, I felt like I was able to follow it more easily. Who knows, I could go back and read these articles again (I doubt THAT happening...) and my views could change. This is just my opinion from a first encounter with them.
I was not particularly convinced by either essay.
ReplyDeleteI initially agree with Warren’s primary argument of the five characteristics required for life. However I do not think that her argument is strong enough to prove her point without a reasonable doubt. I also disagree with the statement “Thus, in the relevant respects, a fetus, even a fully developed one, is considered less personlike than the average mature mammal, even a fish”(277). She argues that the characteristic that separates a baby from a fetus is consciousness. I don’t agree that she can just arbitrarily decide what specific characteristic of personhood is relevant or how much of that characteristic defines personhood. I also think that comparing human pain (which the fetus does feel) and the pain of a fish is ridiculous.
Despite these problems I have with Warren, I pick her over Marquis. I liked how he started, by offering clear objective arguments on the each side of the debate and discussing the parallels between each. But I have a fundamental problem with his premise. I He argues that “it is the value of a human’s future which makes killing wrong”(217). This ignores the value of human life separate from it’s future. It dismisses the value of your life right now, in the present. Not a second from now, but the life of the moment you read this is valuable. I also think his argument leaves an important question unanswered: what exact quality of a human future makes it so important. Marquis says, “ The future of a standard fetus includes a set of experiences, projects, activities, and such…”. Which aspect of that future is so important? I think this is important to define, because left undefined there is a possibility that some humans lack this quality.
Even though I consider myself to be "pro-choice", or "pro-abortion", I found that the Marquis article, defending the "pro-life" argument, made better points and seemed to have a more convincing argument. This is mainly because of the approach that marquis took. This is one of the few times, or possible the only time, that I have seen someone take a "pro-life"/"anti-abortion" standpoint from a non-religious perspective.
ReplyDelete"No doubt most philosophers affiliated with secular institutions of higher education believe that the anti-abortion position is either a symptom of irrational religious dogma or a conclusion generated by seriously confused philosophical argument. The purpose of this essay is to undermine this general belief" - Don Marquis
This is possibly the most rational seeming "anti-abortion" argument that I have encountered. It did not change my views on abortion but it made me respect the writer's views more. This is not to say that Warren's article was completely ineffective, just that it was simply outdated and that Marquis' piece was superior.
"Unfortunately however, the fact that restricting access to abortions has tragic side-effects does not, in itself, show that the restrictions are unjustified" - Warren
Warren makes rational points and valid arguments. But Marquis' article was just better written. I felt this throughout reading both articles.
"It is also worth noting that, if future desires have moral force in a modified desire account of the wrongness of killing, one can find support for an anti-abortion ethic even in the absence of a value of a future-like-ours account." - Don Marquis
Attempting to put my own opinions aside, I read these articles with as much objection as I could muster. This being said, it is difficult to not find my blood boiling while reading Marquis' article. Whether this was my own disapproval of his opinion or the flaws in his writing I am not sure.
ReplyDeleteDespite this, I came to the conclusion that Warren's article presented a more convincing argument. While reading Marquis' article, I kept wondering why there were few mentions of mothers and women. A fetus is not a capable of surviving on its own, hence why a moral debate has arisen from their termination. Marquis states that "When I am killed, I am deprived both of what I now value which would have been part of my future personal life, but also what I would come to value. Therefore, when I die, I am deprived of all of the value of my future." (315) While I do agree with this statement, his moral argument institutes a hierarchy where the fetus's potential life is inherently more valuable than that of the mother. The fetus has more potential, I suppose.
Warren had a better solution for handling the idea of potential life than Marquis. Her five points and differentiation between human being and person made this decisively clear. She argues that "neither a fetus's resemblance to a person, nor its potential for becoming a person provides any basis whatever for the claim that it has any significant right to life. Consequently, woman's right to protect her health, happiness, freedom, and even her life, be terminating an unwanted pregnancy, will always override whatever right to life it may be appropriate to ascribe a fetus, even a fully developed one." If the issue was simply a matter of potential to enjoy life, as Marquis argues, then there would be countless moral dilemmas besides abortion. While he prefaces parts of his arguments noting that his essay does not consider these hard cases, I do not think it is fair to prescribe this train of thought to one difficult situation and not others. Mary Anne Warren, however, acknowledges this in her definition of persons on page 276, stating that "A man or woman whose consciousness has been permanently obliterated but who remains alive is a human being which is no longer a person; defective human beings with no appreciable mental capacity, are not and presumably never will be people' and a fetus is a human being which is not yet a person, and which therefore cannot coherently be said to have full moral rights." She takes a stab at the difficult truth of her definition, looking at different ways our society defines people.
Overall, my own opinion probably trumped any chance Marquis had at provide a strong argument to myself as a reader. However, he failed to include women into his argument, and I personally believe that woman and abortion are two things that cannot be considered separately.