ABORTION

Abortion

Abortion

C.

The formula of universal law (FUL) is the first formulation of the categorical imperative that Kant introduces. It states: 'Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law' (G 4:421). FUL has a variant, the formula of universal law of nature (FULN): 'Act as if the maxim of your action were to become through your will a universal law of nature' (G 4:421).

FUL is the formulation of the categorical imperative that most clearly captures the notion of morality as a categorical imperative, that is, as a universal law that commands us to act on certain principles independent of our inclination- based ends or our personal characteristics. Kant says, 'if I think of a categorical imperative, I know immediately what it contains. For since, besides the law, the imperative contains only the necessity that the maxim should accord with this law, while the law contains no condition to restrict it, there remains nothing but the universality of a law as such with which the maxim of the action should conform' (G 4:420-21).

Kantians have traditionally understood FUL/N as providing a test for the moral adequacy of agents' proposed maxims. If a proposed maxim can be consistently willed along with its universal form, it is morally permitted to act on it; if not, it is not. Many philosophers have attempted to use Kant's notion of universalization to shed light on issues of contemporary moral controversy, including abortion. In 'A Kantian Argument Against Abortion,' Harry Gensler argues 'that abortion is wrong and that certain Kantian consistency requirements more or less force us into thinking this. And in 'A Kantian Approach to Abortion,' R.M. Hare uses the 'Kantian' notion of universal prescriptivity to argue that 'abortion [is] prima facie and in general wrong' and 'that a principle forbidding it in general is the one we should adopt' for use at the intuitive level of moral thinking.

Hare's argument goes like this. Imagine a 'time-switch into the past' in which I can speak with my mother when she is considering aborting the pregnancy that would result in my birth. Assume that I am a 'normally happy person' and that my existence is valuable to me. Also assume that my mother will not die if she goes through with the pregnancy. Under these circumstances, I would tell her not to have an abortion. Indeed, I would morally advise her that she ought not to have an abortion, for my preference to live and enjoy all life has to offer outweighs my mother's preference for an abortion. If it is wrong for her to have an abortion in these circumstances, then it would be wrong for anyone in relevantly similar circumstances to have an abortion. Most circumstances in which a woman considers abortion are relevantly similar to that one. So abortion is usually wrong; that is, it is wrong except perhaps in such cases as those in which the woman would die if she completed the pregnancy, ...