I appreciate the thoroughness of different senses of "innocent," but the dictionary analysis leaves out how it is used in context. "Innocent" is often used as a dialectical move.
A: "It's wrong to kill human beings!"
B: "Ah, but what about capital punishment, self-defense, and just war cases? Aren't those counterexamples to that moral principle?"
A: "Those aren't relevant in abortion cases, so I'll restrict the moral principle so that whatever your stance on those issues is, it is compatible with the moral principle operative in abortion cases: It's wrong to kill *innocent* human beings."
The assumption here is not some dictionary definition of "innocent" (neither Webster nor Oxford have any claim to philosophical authority), but the following: *if* killing a human being is permissible in the above cases, what makes them permissible is, at least in part, just punishment or incapacitation of a lethal and morally responsible aggressor. We can certainly quibble about self-defense cases against non-morally-responsible aggressors (a lion, say) or non-aggressive-but-human threats to your life (few and far between, outside cases like ectopic pregnancies), or even about what one can permissibly intend in self-defense cases (Lockean they-lose-their-right-to-life-therefore-lethal-intent versus Thomistic no-lethal-intent-but-side-effect). Whatever the outcome of those debates, (a) the sense of "innocence" will be exactly the same in fetal as adult cases and (b) the *vast* majority of elective abortions will be such that fetuses are "innocent" in the relevant sense.
"Human being" already entails the possibility of being the relevant sort of moral status (even if it is false that being human is sufficient); "innocence" indicates that a being's moral status is not enough to determine the (im)permissibility of killing. Since moral status is the only thing relevant in abortion cases (except, perhaps, life-threatening pregnancies), "innocent" functions to bring the conversation back to the moral status of fetuses. That's why it gives the illusion of being question-begging or entailing personhood; it's purpose is to remind us that considerations besides moral status are irrelevant.
One might, of course, want to head off a response like B's in the first place, and so include "innocent" without going through the above dialogue.
As for other begged questions, merely passing the explanatory buck is not an objection. You're right that those who think that being a human organism is morally significant owe an explanation for what makes such a category significant (and many have - Christopher Kaczor, for example, has a chapter in "The Ethics of Abortion" defending the "all humans are persons" view). But those who think that the exercise of certain intellectual or mental activities *also* owe the same sort of explanation. What makes thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and other mental states morally relevant? Why assess moral status on the basis of developmental capacities or individual activities at a timeslice, rather than natures or natural kinds over characteristic lifespans? (And if we adopt the latter standpoint, humanoid zombies won't count as human organisms, but severely disabled or irreversibly comatose humans will.) As you note, these are open questions.
Be careful about giving psychologizing explanations for the apparent weakness of philosophical arguments (like that the terms are meant to have an exclusively rhetorical effect, or that an interlocutor naively thinks that shorter explanations are better ones), lest others psychologize you. Another (more generous) explanation is that nothing should be taken for granted in abortion debates, and it's possible that there be mutually exclusive, but rationally coherent and philosophically defensible views on a difficult moral matter. And not all those with rationally coherent and philosophically defensible views are able to adequately present robust arguments in defense of those views. That's frustrating, to be sure, but not a sign of irrationality or underhandedness. The view that persons are "an individual substance of a rational nature" (Boethius) has millennia-long philosophical traditions to bolster it and has a central place in the history of "human rights," which helps to explain why so many take its corollary - that all human organisms are persons in the sense relevant to moral obligation - to be self-evident. They may not be aware of this history, or be able to adequately defend its bases (and, again, I understand the frustration at this deficiency), but loving our interlocutors means taking into account their role in a community where there is a wide distribution of intellectual labor, and then attributing to them the *best version* of their view.
I largely agree with this - yes, people use "innocent" to ward off these "but what about this obviously justified killing of a human being" style objections. Yes, both sides need to explain why they think fetuses enjoy or do not enjoy moral status.
My aim here was not to address the best version of the pro-life view, or even to argue that fetuses are not persons, but to respond to a misunderstanding about this argument that is exhibited by many everyday pro-life people. Those everyday people usually take the claim that fetuses are "human beings" to be quite uncontroversial and innocent. They very often take themselves to be saying something that is supported by "basic biology" or something to this effect. My aim here is to show that this is mistaken.
As you seem to be saying, what we really want is a supporting argument for the first premise - an argument that gives us reason to think that fetuses are persons, or members of some moral category. Philosophers like Kaczor give us that supporting argument. What bothers me is that when everyday pro-life people give this
"Innocent human being" argument, they do not realize that a supporting argument is needed. Fetuses are human beings, end of story.
Now that I re-read your comment, I am quite convinced by what you said regarding the dialectical use of the word "innocence", and I agree that just going through the dictionary definitions was not a good approach. I still think going through those definitions was worthwhile, as I have spoken with pro-lifers who use those dictionary definitions.
And it isn’t even necessarily true that it’s always wrong to kill innocent human beings because if a toddler was, say, stabbing you, or had a gun and could shoot you at any moment, you wouldn’t be obligated to just let them or stand idly by simply because they don’t understand the harm they are causing or could cause. It just so happens that in most cases it would take far less than lethal force to stop a toddler from killing or causing grievous bodily harm. That isn’t true of a fetus. But the issue is that pro lifers conflate the dangers of a fetus inside a living person’s body with that of a toddler or baby in a crib. They are not the same, even if both “innocent”
No, going through dictionary definitions was perfectly fine and good. Anyone who insists that, say, embryos are "innocent" can (a) explain what they mean and (b) we can think about what they say makes sense. We can also think about whether their explain involves assuming that, say, an embryo is a person too. So, no, this was fine!
I don't see the point here of the comment by Burke Rea. Yes, many human beings who can be permissibly killed are not "innocent": they are threats in various ways, due to their own choices, so aren't "innocent."
But there are innocent human beings who can permissibly be killed too: "innocent threats" of various types. Typical examples of these, however, are of human beings who usually can make choices and do actions, but -- in these cases -- they didn't choose to be part of whatever scenario that we'd be justified in killing them in.
You mention some sense of "innocent," but it doesn't seem like you ever say what this sense is. Here's one:
S is innocent if and only if (a) S can choose to act and (b) S does not act wrongly.
Embryos and beginning fetuses don't meet both these conditions. Unreflective people often offer up (b) as a definition of innocence, not realizing that this suggests that rocks and plants are innocent.
People often seem to think that something important depends on being innocent, as if X could be wrong to kill only if X is innocent. I think that's a mistake.
Nathan, do you not see the point of my comment, or are you just disagreeing with the claims I make about "innocent"? I thought the point was rather clear: to commend the author's broad approach to philosophizing (considering multiple ways a word can be used, to probe assumptions, to assess what claims are in need of support and note gaps in arguments), while correcting the specific application of that approach, by arguing (1) dictionaries are not good ways to try to understand how an interlocutor uses a word (or good only as a first step to that end), (2) highlighting claims in need of support is not the same as undermining those claims, nor is it a demonstration of begging the question, and (3) psychologizing explanations are typically bad explanations for another's error.
By taking the next step in the dialectic - asserting that "there are innocent human beings who can permissibly be killed too: 'innocent threats of various types'" - you have already accepted my sense of "innocent": merely the non-guilty or non-aggressor status that plays its role in the dialectic and helps us isolate the morally relevant features of abortion. You have gestured at counterexamples to the revised moral principle and the conversation can continue. I think that dialectical progress is "something important" depending on "being innocent," but I take it you (and Lane) are seeing something more in your conversations with others.
"Innocent" is not an independent term, given this dialectic; debates over personhood and its equivalents ("moral status," or whatever your favored language) go under the "human being" part of "it's always wrong to kill an innocent human being." "Innocent" takes whatever we pack into "human being" for granted and then tries to narrow the moral claim appropriately.
Have you seen moves in conversations where "innocent" is employed, but not in the way I've indicated (i.e. to ward off alleged counterexamples to moral principles)? I'm sure there are uses that I'm not familiar with.
I can see two other ways that Pro-Lifers can take "innocent" to be important (there may be more). First, perhaps the Pro-Lifer is starting from the ordinary-language applicability of "innocence" to fetuses (and others, like newborns) to indicate that fetuses deserve our moral protection. You're right: "innocence" does not apply to rocks and grass. But it *does* apply to newborns, who have not yet developed the capacity to understand or act for reasons. "Look at her; so innocent!" In saying something like that, we *do* indicate what Lane investigates above: lacking knowledge of injustices they will be exposed to, as-yet-undeserving of suffering, unable to make sense of suffering, etc. Newborns are not so different than not-yet-newborns (a key but disputable premise). So if "innocent" applies to newborns (differently than to an adult exonerated of a false conviction or to Pollyanna), it does to fetuses; and since newborns deserve our moral protection in part due to their "innocence" then fetal humans deserve our moral protection. Perhaps the argument fails, or perhaps as Lane suggests it needs more support, but it doesn't seem to me question-begging. Close and directed attention is part of what reveals moral truth to us. It is the same sort of reasoning as when Pro-Choicers tell stories about pregnant women in dire situations who can relieve themselves of suffering via abortion. We can debate the particulars, but in general this seems like a fine if incomplete mode of moral investigation (frustrating if it's like a friend trying to show you an optical illusion that you're just not seeing).
Second, perhaps the key ambiguity is not "innocent" but "killing," but the Pro-Lifer *mistakes* the important term to be "innocent." If by "there are innocent human beings who can permissibly be killed" you mean that it is possible to act well by *tolerating the death of* those innocent human beings *as a side-effect*, then I can see many Pro-Lifers agreeing - and then noting that such a principle would not justify the vast majority of abortions. If you mean that it is possible to act well by *aiming to secure the death of* innocent human beings, then one's instinct might be to think: "Surely you can't mean that! You do know we're talking about the innocent, non-aggressor human beings, right? Do you have a different understanding of 'innocent' than me? There must be a misunderstanding." They may want to find any explanation for the Pro-Choice response other than that the Pro-Choicer thinks that aiming to secure the death of a non-aggressor is sometimes good. (It seems charitable not to attribute to someone else a moral view you find abhorrent, unless necessary.) This again puts "innocence" in the category of counterexample-management. The Pro-Lifer thinks not that "innocent" is some special term in isolation, but that the *only* exception to "it is always wrong to aim to secure the death of a human being" is that the human being in question is an unjust aggressor over which one has legitimate authority. Hence "innocent" makes the prohibition on "killing" (in the relevant sense) absolute.
If you take it that only "unreflective" people think that there are kinds of acts that, in virtue of their non-evaluative act-type descriptions, are always and everywhere wrong (e.g. "aiming to secure the death of a non-aggressor human being" --> "murder", and murder is always wrong, no matter the consequences or circumstances), that's a separate issue, though an important one.
In both of these cases, the Pro-Lifer may be in error. But if so, the errors seem honest and intelligent. (And I hope I have attributed error to you and Lane in ways that indicate I think you both honest and intelligent.)
As for the sense of "innocent" you suggested, a fetus clearly *can* choose to act, so long as we understand "can" to mean "within the characteristic mature activities of the kind" rather than "skill-at-a-time-slice." (And why favor the latter as more relevant than the former to who or what deserves moral protection?) A newborn "can" speak French in a way that rocks and grass clearly cannot. (Just as I "can" speak French, though I am presently monolingual.) And given how quickly young children learn languages, and how slow I am, the following statement seems true: "Fetuses in France can speak fluently in French faster than I can." Fetuses and newborns, but not rocks and grass, are candidates for innocence or guilt - members of a kind whose characteristic mature activity is to act for reasons, and thus be morally responsible for those actions - even though it would be absurd to put a fetus or newborn on trial (even to declare them "innocent").
(By "candidate" I mean the sense in which humans, but not rocks or grass, are candidates for "blindness" or that numbers, but not rocks or grass or humans, are candidates for "having a square root." I mean candidacy for the applicability of terms. It is worth remembering that "rocks" and "grass" are not of the same kind of natural-kind category as "fetus". "Fetus" is in the category that includes "newborn," "adolescent," "adult," "elderly," i.e. the category of characteristic developmental phases of a human being.)
Hi, you say a lot here but don't get at the heart of the matter, which is this:
what is it to be innocent?
Again, seems like the best rough definition is that
(a) X could do something wrong
but (b) X doesn't.
For many people, if you ask them what innocence means they only reply with (b), which suggests that rocks are innocent, etc.
Yes we sometimes call a baby "innocent." One reaction is that maybe that's just mistaken and shouldn't be understand literally: that we wouldn't call a baby "guilty" or "deserving" of some punishment or ill treatment suggests this.
So perhaps babies are also neither innocent nor not.
Or we could loosen up and think that babies at least can sorta DO something and that that's close enough to meet condition (a) above.
What also might be driving this is this mistaken thought:
P.S. About "a fetus clearly *can* choose to act, so long as we understand "can" to mean "within the characteristic mature activities of the kind" rather than "skill-at-a-time-slice",' no, this is clearly false: an embryo or early fetus cannot act: it cannot behave with an intention or on purpose. If you mean to say it will be able to act, or its the kind of being that can act, or there's the potential that it will be able to act, OK, but it cannot act or perform actions.
I appreciate the thoroughness of different senses of "innocent," but the dictionary analysis leaves out how it is used in context. "Innocent" is often used as a dialectical move.
A: "It's wrong to kill human beings!"
B: "Ah, but what about capital punishment, self-defense, and just war cases? Aren't those counterexamples to that moral principle?"
A: "Those aren't relevant in abortion cases, so I'll restrict the moral principle so that whatever your stance on those issues is, it is compatible with the moral principle operative in abortion cases: It's wrong to kill *innocent* human beings."
The assumption here is not some dictionary definition of "innocent" (neither Webster nor Oxford have any claim to philosophical authority), but the following: *if* killing a human being is permissible in the above cases, what makes them permissible is, at least in part, just punishment or incapacitation of a lethal and morally responsible aggressor. We can certainly quibble about self-defense cases against non-morally-responsible aggressors (a lion, say) or non-aggressive-but-human threats to your life (few and far between, outside cases like ectopic pregnancies), or even about what one can permissibly intend in self-defense cases (Lockean they-lose-their-right-to-life-therefore-lethal-intent versus Thomistic no-lethal-intent-but-side-effect). Whatever the outcome of those debates, (a) the sense of "innocence" will be exactly the same in fetal as adult cases and (b) the *vast* majority of elective abortions will be such that fetuses are "innocent" in the relevant sense.
"Human being" already entails the possibility of being the relevant sort of moral status (even if it is false that being human is sufficient); "innocence" indicates that a being's moral status is not enough to determine the (im)permissibility of killing. Since moral status is the only thing relevant in abortion cases (except, perhaps, life-threatening pregnancies), "innocent" functions to bring the conversation back to the moral status of fetuses. That's why it gives the illusion of being question-begging or entailing personhood; it's purpose is to remind us that considerations besides moral status are irrelevant.
One might, of course, want to head off a response like B's in the first place, and so include "innocent" without going through the above dialogue.
As for other begged questions, merely passing the explanatory buck is not an objection. You're right that those who think that being a human organism is morally significant owe an explanation for what makes such a category significant (and many have - Christopher Kaczor, for example, has a chapter in "The Ethics of Abortion" defending the "all humans are persons" view). But those who think that the exercise of certain intellectual or mental activities *also* owe the same sort of explanation. What makes thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and other mental states morally relevant? Why assess moral status on the basis of developmental capacities or individual activities at a timeslice, rather than natures or natural kinds over characteristic lifespans? (And if we adopt the latter standpoint, humanoid zombies won't count as human organisms, but severely disabled or irreversibly comatose humans will.) As you note, these are open questions.
Be careful about giving psychologizing explanations for the apparent weakness of philosophical arguments (like that the terms are meant to have an exclusively rhetorical effect, or that an interlocutor naively thinks that shorter explanations are better ones), lest others psychologize you. Another (more generous) explanation is that nothing should be taken for granted in abortion debates, and it's possible that there be mutually exclusive, but rationally coherent and philosophically defensible views on a difficult moral matter. And not all those with rationally coherent and philosophically defensible views are able to adequately present robust arguments in defense of those views. That's frustrating, to be sure, but not a sign of irrationality or underhandedness. The view that persons are "an individual substance of a rational nature" (Boethius) has millennia-long philosophical traditions to bolster it and has a central place in the history of "human rights," which helps to explain why so many take its corollary - that all human organisms are persons in the sense relevant to moral obligation - to be self-evident. They may not be aware of this history, or be able to adequately defend its bases (and, again, I understand the frustration at this deficiency), but loving our interlocutors means taking into account their role in a community where there is a wide distribution of intellectual labor, and then attributing to them the *best version* of their view.
Speaking of intellectual labor, there are much better pro-life philosophers than Marquis (famous though his essay is). I recommend the Kaczor book I mentioned earlier as well as this collection of essays: https://www.routledge.com/Agency-Pregnancy-and-Persons-Essays-in-Defense-of-Human-Life/Colgrove-Blackshaw-Rodger/p/book/9781032015149
I largely agree with this - yes, people use "innocent" to ward off these "but what about this obviously justified killing of a human being" style objections. Yes, both sides need to explain why they think fetuses enjoy or do not enjoy moral status.
My aim here was not to address the best version of the pro-life view, or even to argue that fetuses are not persons, but to respond to a misunderstanding about this argument that is exhibited by many everyday pro-life people. Those everyday people usually take the claim that fetuses are "human beings" to be quite uncontroversial and innocent. They very often take themselves to be saying something that is supported by "basic biology" or something to this effect. My aim here is to show that this is mistaken.
As you seem to be saying, what we really want is a supporting argument for the first premise - an argument that gives us reason to think that fetuses are persons, or members of some moral category. Philosophers like Kaczor give us that supporting argument. What bothers me is that when everyday pro-life people give this
"Innocent human being" argument, they do not realize that a supporting argument is needed. Fetuses are human beings, end of story.
FYI, I think the term "moral status" is not useful. FYI, here's this; I wonder what you'd think of these complaints:
https://www.nathannobis.com/2016/07/on-moral-status.html
Now that I re-read your comment, I am quite convinced by what you said regarding the dialectical use of the word "innocence", and I agree that just going through the dictionary definitions was not a good approach. I still think going through those definitions was worthwhile, as I have spoken with pro-lifers who use those dictionary definitions.
And it isn’t even necessarily true that it’s always wrong to kill innocent human beings because if a toddler was, say, stabbing you, or had a gun and could shoot you at any moment, you wouldn’t be obligated to just let them or stand idly by simply because they don’t understand the harm they are causing or could cause. It just so happens that in most cases it would take far less than lethal force to stop a toddler from killing or causing grievous bodily harm. That isn’t true of a fetus. But the issue is that pro lifers conflate the dangers of a fetus inside a living person’s body with that of a toddler or baby in a crib. They are not the same, even if both “innocent”
No, going through dictionary definitions was perfectly fine and good. Anyone who insists that, say, embryos are "innocent" can (a) explain what they mean and (b) we can think about what they say makes sense. We can also think about whether their explain involves assuming that, say, an embryo is a person too. So, no, this was fine!
I don't see the point here of the comment by Burke Rea. Yes, many human beings who can be permissibly killed are not "innocent": they are threats in various ways, due to their own choices, so aren't "innocent."
But there are innocent human beings who can permissibly be killed too: "innocent threats" of various types. Typical examples of these, however, are of human beings who usually can make choices and do actions, but -- in these cases -- they didn't choose to be part of whatever scenario that we'd be justified in killing them in.
You mention some sense of "innocent," but it doesn't seem like you ever say what this sense is. Here's one:
S is innocent if and only if (a) S can choose to act and (b) S does not act wrongly.
Embryos and beginning fetuses don't meet both these conditions. Unreflective people often offer up (b) as a definition of innocence, not realizing that this suggests that rocks and plants are innocent.
People often seem to think that something important depends on being innocent, as if X could be wrong to kill only if X is innocent. I think that's a mistake.
Nathan, do you not see the point of my comment, or are you just disagreeing with the claims I make about "innocent"? I thought the point was rather clear: to commend the author's broad approach to philosophizing (considering multiple ways a word can be used, to probe assumptions, to assess what claims are in need of support and note gaps in arguments), while correcting the specific application of that approach, by arguing (1) dictionaries are not good ways to try to understand how an interlocutor uses a word (or good only as a first step to that end), (2) highlighting claims in need of support is not the same as undermining those claims, nor is it a demonstration of begging the question, and (3) psychologizing explanations are typically bad explanations for another's error.
By taking the next step in the dialectic - asserting that "there are innocent human beings who can permissibly be killed too: 'innocent threats of various types'" - you have already accepted my sense of "innocent": merely the non-guilty or non-aggressor status that plays its role in the dialectic and helps us isolate the morally relevant features of abortion. You have gestured at counterexamples to the revised moral principle and the conversation can continue. I think that dialectical progress is "something important" depending on "being innocent," but I take it you (and Lane) are seeing something more in your conversations with others.
"Innocent" is not an independent term, given this dialectic; debates over personhood and its equivalents ("moral status," or whatever your favored language) go under the "human being" part of "it's always wrong to kill an innocent human being." "Innocent" takes whatever we pack into "human being" for granted and then tries to narrow the moral claim appropriately.
Have you seen moves in conversations where "innocent" is employed, but not in the way I've indicated (i.e. to ward off alleged counterexamples to moral principles)? I'm sure there are uses that I'm not familiar with.
I can see two other ways that Pro-Lifers can take "innocent" to be important (there may be more). First, perhaps the Pro-Lifer is starting from the ordinary-language applicability of "innocence" to fetuses (and others, like newborns) to indicate that fetuses deserve our moral protection. You're right: "innocence" does not apply to rocks and grass. But it *does* apply to newborns, who have not yet developed the capacity to understand or act for reasons. "Look at her; so innocent!" In saying something like that, we *do* indicate what Lane investigates above: lacking knowledge of injustices they will be exposed to, as-yet-undeserving of suffering, unable to make sense of suffering, etc. Newborns are not so different than not-yet-newborns (a key but disputable premise). So if "innocent" applies to newborns (differently than to an adult exonerated of a false conviction or to Pollyanna), it does to fetuses; and since newborns deserve our moral protection in part due to their "innocence" then fetal humans deserve our moral protection. Perhaps the argument fails, or perhaps as Lane suggests it needs more support, but it doesn't seem to me question-begging. Close and directed attention is part of what reveals moral truth to us. It is the same sort of reasoning as when Pro-Choicers tell stories about pregnant women in dire situations who can relieve themselves of suffering via abortion. We can debate the particulars, but in general this seems like a fine if incomplete mode of moral investigation (frustrating if it's like a friend trying to show you an optical illusion that you're just not seeing).
Second, perhaps the key ambiguity is not "innocent" but "killing," but the Pro-Lifer *mistakes* the important term to be "innocent." If by "there are innocent human beings who can permissibly be killed" you mean that it is possible to act well by *tolerating the death of* those innocent human beings *as a side-effect*, then I can see many Pro-Lifers agreeing - and then noting that such a principle would not justify the vast majority of abortions. If you mean that it is possible to act well by *aiming to secure the death of* innocent human beings, then one's instinct might be to think: "Surely you can't mean that! You do know we're talking about the innocent, non-aggressor human beings, right? Do you have a different understanding of 'innocent' than me? There must be a misunderstanding." They may want to find any explanation for the Pro-Choice response other than that the Pro-Choicer thinks that aiming to secure the death of a non-aggressor is sometimes good. (It seems charitable not to attribute to someone else a moral view you find abhorrent, unless necessary.) This again puts "innocence" in the category of counterexample-management. The Pro-Lifer thinks not that "innocent" is some special term in isolation, but that the *only* exception to "it is always wrong to aim to secure the death of a human being" is that the human being in question is an unjust aggressor over which one has legitimate authority. Hence "innocent" makes the prohibition on "killing" (in the relevant sense) absolute.
If you take it that only "unreflective" people think that there are kinds of acts that, in virtue of their non-evaluative act-type descriptions, are always and everywhere wrong (e.g. "aiming to secure the death of a non-aggressor human being" --> "murder", and murder is always wrong, no matter the consequences or circumstances), that's a separate issue, though an important one.
In both of these cases, the Pro-Lifer may be in error. But if so, the errors seem honest and intelligent. (And I hope I have attributed error to you and Lane in ways that indicate I think you both honest and intelligent.)
As for the sense of "innocent" you suggested, a fetus clearly *can* choose to act, so long as we understand "can" to mean "within the characteristic mature activities of the kind" rather than "skill-at-a-time-slice." (And why favor the latter as more relevant than the former to who or what deserves moral protection?) A newborn "can" speak French in a way that rocks and grass clearly cannot. (Just as I "can" speak French, though I am presently monolingual.) And given how quickly young children learn languages, and how slow I am, the following statement seems true: "Fetuses in France can speak fluently in French faster than I can." Fetuses and newborns, but not rocks and grass, are candidates for innocence or guilt - members of a kind whose characteristic mature activity is to act for reasons, and thus be morally responsible for those actions - even though it would be absurd to put a fetus or newborn on trial (even to declare them "innocent").
(By "candidate" I mean the sense in which humans, but not rocks or grass, are candidates for "blindness" or that numbers, but not rocks or grass or humans, are candidates for "having a square root." I mean candidacy for the applicability of terms. It is worth remembering that "rocks" and "grass" are not of the same kind of natural-kind category as "fetus". "Fetus" is in the category that includes "newborn," "adolescent," "adult," "elderly," i.e. the category of characteristic developmental phases of a human being.)
Hi, you say a lot here but don't get at the heart of the matter, which is this:
what is it to be innocent?
Again, seems like the best rough definition is that
(a) X could do something wrong
but (b) X doesn't.
For many people, if you ask them what innocence means they only reply with (b), which suggests that rocks are innocent, etc.
Yes we sometimes call a baby "innocent." One reaction is that maybe that's just mistaken and shouldn't be understand literally: that we wouldn't call a baby "guilty" or "deserving" of some punishment or ill treatment suggests this.
So perhaps babies are also neither innocent nor not.
Or we could loosen up and think that babies at least can sorta DO something and that that's close enough to meet condition (a) above.
What also might be driving this is this mistaken thought:
X is wrong to kill only if X is innocent.
Here were my initial thoughts on the matter:
https://www.salon.com/2021/04/11/why-the-case-against-abortion-is-weak-ethically-speaking/
P.S. About "a fetus clearly *can* choose to act, so long as we understand "can" to mean "within the characteristic mature activities of the kind" rather than "skill-at-a-time-slice",' no, this is clearly false: an embryo or early fetus cannot act: it cannot behave with an intention or on purpose. If you mean to say it will be able to act, or its the kind of being that can act, or there's the potential that it will be able to act, OK, but it cannot act or perform actions.