She is saying, even if were to grant, hypothetically, for the sake of arguing, that you, Mr. Anti-Abortionist, are correct that fetuses have a right to life equivalent to a grown violinist, even if we were to go along with you in saying that the difference in cognitive development are morally irrelevant -- we don't in fact grant these things and assert their truth with you, but even if we did, there would still be a right to abortion, so you can't get from the premise The Fetus Has A Right To Life Equivalent To A Grown Violinist to the conclusion, Aborting The Fetus Would Be Immoral.
In other words, JJT's point is that the anti-Abortionist's argument _does not follow_, _is formally invalid_, not that the premises are in fact true.
For some reason this sort of conditional acceptance of a premise for the sake of attacking the validity of an argument based upon it is cognitively difficult to process even for people who are very smart. Example: a long time ago I debated the racist philosopher Michael Levin at Antioch College in Ohio. I argued that (1) He was factually wrong in his claim that the undisputed difference in IQ scores between blacks and whites proves that blacks are genetically dumber than whites, and (2) _even if he were not wrong about that_, it does not follow that affirmative action programs are pointless. I was lambasted by the Antioch students and the student paper for agreeing with Levin that blacks are genetically stupider than whites. Of course I had denied the truth of that claim in the first part of my talk, and conceded it only for the sake of argument, to show that a conclusion Levin wanted did not follow, in the second.
--- On Sat, 12/13/08, Matthias Wasser <matthias.wasser at gmail.com> wrote:
> From: Matthias Wasser <matthias.wasser at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Catholicism, was Re: blacks about as morally conservative as Republicans
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Saturday, December 13, 2008, 11:49 AM
> >
> > I'm not enough of a moral philosopher to
> articulate
> > where the difference lies. But I don't think we
> ought
> > to give up the difference, as Thompson does or seems
> > to.
> >
>
> I violinist has hopes and dreams, definite social
> relationships,
> opinions, values, an awareness of her own mortality, moral
> autonomy,
> &c.; a fetus has none of these. I don't think it
> has to be much more
> complicated than that, unless you want to submit journal
> articles for
> analytic philosophy, in which case you would of course be
> much more
> precise with your terms.
>
> Babies don't have these either, but it's hard to
> draw a line; more to
> the point, a baby doesn't compromise anyone's
> bodily autonomy.
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