Abstract
The inclusiveness thesis is now widely endorsed among moral philosophers and other members of the moral community. The thesis claims that the moral community includes the set of all sentient beings. The developmental disadvantages of those human beings who lack rationality or a sense of the past and future or autonomy or imagination, and so on, do not exclude these beings from direct moral standing. The most powerful argument for the inclusiveness thesis is the well-known argument from marginal cases. I show first that the argument from marginal cases is unsound and therefore cannot establish the inclusiveness thesis. I offer instead the impartial argument from marginal cases and show that the impartial argument from marginal cases establishes both the inclusiveness thesis and the greater inclusiveness thesis: the position that early-term fetuses and human embryos have direct moral standing. I conclude that early-term fetuses and human embryos have all of the protections extended to full members of the moral community. Lethal experimentation on early-term fetuses and human embryos therefore demands the sort of direct moral reasons that would justify lethal experimentation on more developed members of the moral community.
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Notes and References
The foregoing version of AMC is based on Lawrence Becker’s formulation in Drombroski, D. A. (1997) Babies and Beasts: The Argument from Marginal Cases. University of Illinois Press, Chicago. See Drombroski for an extended discussion of the importance of AMC in recent moral debate.
See Becker, L. (1983) The priority of human interests, in Ethics and Animals (Miller, H. and Williams, W., eds.), Humana Press, Totowa, NJ.
See, for instance, Kuhse, H. and Singer, P. (2002) Individuals, humans, and persons: the issue of moral status, in Unsanctifying Human Life (Kuhse, H., ed.), Blackwell Publishers, Oxford.
Of course, the termination of human embryos might be prohibited for its instrumental disvalue. But because human embryos are not members of the moral community, the termination per se of human embryos is not something for which a moral justification is required.
I do not assume in this argument that anyone is identical with the embryo or fetus that is his precursor. On some theories of personal identity that identification fails, on others it does not. But neither assumption affects the argument that follows. The argument also does not assume that the embryo possesses (or is identical to) a hylomorphic soul or a Cartesian soul. For an interesting series of arguments on whether the embryo is ensouled and the permissibility of killing “early life,” see McMahon, J. (2002) The Ethics of Killing. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp. 7–19 and p. 267 ff.
The argument I am proposing applies to existing human beings at various levels of development. I do not conclude or propose that potential human beings—unfertilized ova, for instance—are also members of the moral community. But it should be clear that I am not using “human being” synonymously with “human person.”
But compare Kuhse, H. and Singer, P. (2002) The moral status of the embryo, in Unsanctifying Human Life ( Kuhse, H., ed.) Blackwell Publishers, Oxford. In a series of hypothetical cases Singer contends that there is no obligation to preserve the lives of embryos. Suppose it is permissible to dispose of an egg and sperm from a certain couple. If so, then argues Singer, suppose
We have arrived at the conclusion that the developmental differences between adult human beings and human embryos is not so significant that human embryos are excluded from the moral community. The reasoning can be set out in matrix form.
Compare Holland, S., Lebacqz, K., and Zoloth, L., eds. (2001) The Human Embryonic Stem Cell Debate. MIT Press, Cambridge. Among the extraordinary potential of stem cells is allowing permanent repair of failing organs. Medical therapy could not only halt the progression of chronic disease but also restore entirely lost organ function. Patients with spinal cord injury, for instance, could receive cell-based treatments restoring central nervous system functions.
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Almeida, M.J. (2004). Marginal Cases and the Moral Status of Embryos. In: Humber, J.M., Almeder, R.F. (eds) Stem Cell Research. Biomedical Ethics Reviews. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-674-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-59259-674-4_2
Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ
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