Potentiality Is Irrelevant

According to Tooley, the potentiality of the fetus or infant to become a

person is irrelevant. He seeks to show this irrelevancy by the example

of a kitten that is injected with a special serum developed by scientists

to enhance and develop super-feline rationality (Tooley 1972, p. 60).

This serum can turn any young Boots, Whiskers, or Snowball in your

neighborhood into a being as rational as Salem the talking cat from the

TV show

available and you also have your three cuddly kittens nearby.

Would you have an obligation to turn Boots, Whiskers, and Snowball

into talking cats? It might be quite kind to do so, but you certainly would

not be obliged to do so. You have no duty to chase around the entire

neighborhood collecting all stray kittens and changing them all into

rational cats, even though (after the invention of the serum) all kittens

are potentially rational.

To see how the kitten example is relevant to the potentiality of the

fetus and newborn, Tooley introduces a distinct consideration which he

calls the “symmetry principle.” The symmetry principle is, “if it is not

seriously wrong to refrain from initiating such a causal process, neither is

it seriously wrong to interfere with such a process” (Tooley 1972, p. 58).

Similarly, consider two cases (Rachels 1975). Smith enters the bathroom

of his young nephew and drowns the child to get an inheritance. Jones

has exactly the same plan, is going into the bathroom to drown the child,

but watches with delight as the child hits his head and begins to drown

right in front of him. Jones could easily save the child but doesn’t lift a

fi nger, and the young nephew drowns. Jones and Smith are equally at

fault, even though one did something and the other did nothing. One

man performed an act of commission, the other man an act of omission;

but there is no important difference between the two.

Similarly, if you do not inject the kitten with special serum, a functioning

rational animal, a talking cat, will not come to be. If you have an abortion

or destroy a newborn, a functioning rational animal, a human person, will

not come to be. Not injecting the kitten is an act of omission—the failure

to start a process that will have as its end the existence of a functioning

rational animal. Having an abortion or destroying an infant is an act of

commission—interrupting a process that will have as its end the existence

of a functioning rational animal.

According to the moral symmetry principle, there is no important

moral difference between act and omission, between not starting a

process and interrupting a process. We certainly do not seem to have

an obligation to make all kittens rational, thus we have no obligation to

let all human fetuses or all human infants develop into rational animals

(Tooley 1972, p. 62). Since the human infant and the human fetus have

at best the potential to become functioning adult persons (some of course

never make it), the right to life position fails if based on the potentiality

principle.

In sum, there is no duty to turn potential rational beings into actually

rational beings. Further, there is no moral difference between not starting

a process and interrupting a process that is already started (the symmetry

principle). So, since there is nothing wrong with not making potentially

rational beings (the kittens) into rational beings (Salem), so too there

is nothing wrong with interrupting the process whereby a potentially

rational being (the fetusSabrina the Teenage Witch. Let’s imagine such serum is readily