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The Identity Objection to the future-like-ours argument
1Department of Philosophy, Frostburg State University, Frostburg, MD, United States.
Abstract:
Some critics of Don Marquis's 'future-like-ours' anti-abortion argument launch what has been called the Identity Objection. The upshot of this objection is that under a psychological theory of personal identity, a non-sentient fetus lacks precisely what Marquis believes gives it a right to life - a future like ours. However, Eric Vogelstein, in a recent article, has argued that under this theory of personal identity a non-sentient fetus, in fact, has a future like ours, which he believes dissolves the Identity Objection. But Vogelstein is mistaken. Even if he is correct that there is a sense in which a non-sentient fetus has a future of value under a psychological theory of personal identity, the sense in which it has one is importantly different from the sense in which we have one, meaning that, under such a theory, a non-sentient fetus does not have a future like ours.
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