Can one be a Cartesian dualist and consistently hold that abortion is immoral? It seems to me that such a position, though tenable, makes arguing against abortion significantly harder. This is because according to the Cartesian dualist, I am not a body, but an immaterial soul that has a body. My body is something that I own. Abortion, then, does not kill me, but my body. It would no longer be murder, but a mere property crime. Still, it would be wrong to deprive me of what I own, but it becomes significantly harder to argue that abortion is, for the most part, immoral; since it becomes a less weighty crime.
There also seem to be some other counter-intuitive implications of the Cartesian view. Since the body is the property of an immaterial soul, and since property can be bought and sold, prostitution and selling oneself into slavery would seem to be morally permissible. Moreover, just as one’s stereo, car, and house are his property, debt-collectors and the government may seize one’s body and force him into slavery, given that they have a sufficient reason for doing so.
A better approach (And this happens to be my own view) would be to defend a form of hylomorphism in which one’s body and soul are seen as interconnected. This view is defended by scholars such as Robert P. George, Francis Beckwith (I think), and J. P. Moreland.
Tags: Abortion, applied ethics, dualism
I’m not sure that this concern is particularly problematic for Abortion. If you’re right that Cartesianism entails being debonair about bodily abuses (as it’s only property) then that applies to almost everything. It wouldn’t be only abortion that ‘wasn’t murder’, but nothing could be murder.
Yet I don’t think you’re right here. It seems simple for a substance dualist to say something like: “Sure, you aren’t your body, but your body (in fact) is the only route through which your soul interacts with the world, and body and soul interact. So abuses to your body can harm your soul too (e.g. pain from bodily torture). Murder is bad not because it ‘kills’ your immaterial self, but because it precludes that self from enjoying the great goods of bodily life.” Wouldn’t this get Descartes out of jail? Thrasymachus
Perhaps. A future-like-ours argument would still work (And would probably be all that the pro-lifer has left). It would, however, deal a rather large blow to personhood arguments, which is how most pro-life advocates tend to argue. Tim H
I think a Cartesian dualist would see the body as being slightly more than a posession that we own. It is what ties us to this world. When were deprived of a body, we’re also deprived of all the experiences that this life may have had to offer us.
If wrote-off my car, the compensation required should be proportional to the extent to which I rely on it. If I had many cars, I could still get to work in one of the others.
In the same sense, a body is an essential vehicle required to experience life. it would be far more grievious to have ones body taken away than to experience some other run of the mill property crime. Steve