Animals and the Harm of Death - Killing Happy Animals: Explorations in Utilitarian Ethics - page 42

remainder of this section, I will present some controversial implications
of the Time-Relative Interest Account.
One implication of the Time-Relative Interest Account is that killing
a foetus does not harm it. Thus, it is likely that this account can serve
to justify abortion. According to the forbearance view, death is a signifi-
cant harm for a sentient foetus if it deprives the foetus of the pleasant
experiences she would otherwise have had. As the time-relative interest
account discounts the harm of death for lack of psychological connect-
edness, it implies that death is not very harmful for a foetus. After all, a
foetus has no desires for the (distant) future, and her later self will have
no memories of her life as a foetus. Even though the foreclosure view
considers death harmful for the foetus, it needs not preclude abortion.
Even if a utilitarian takes the significant harm to the foetus into account,
killing a foetus will be justified if there are countervailing benefits. The
Time-Relative Interest Account also implies that death is only a minor
harm to late embryos and to demented and brain-injured humans. These
implications have been brought forward to question the plausibility of
the Time-Relative Interest Account on the harm of death. 12
One influential argument in favour of the Time-Relative Interest
Account is based on an imaginary case. A person has a disease that
would soon cause her death. The person could be cured. The cure would
cause a profound change in the person's values and desires. After the
cure the person would live on for many happy years, but there would
be very little psychological connectedness between the person before
the cure and after the cure. The Time-Relative Interest Account can
explain that it would be reasonable for the patient to reject the cure. 13
This capacity to explain why it would be reasonable to reject the cure
has been brought forward as an advantage of the Time-Relative Interest
Account, as compared to the standard foreclosure view. Proponents of
the foreclosure view without modification have considered rejecting the
cure short-sighted and irrational, 'like the decision of a child to ignore
the consequences of his behavior on his adult self, since he does not
currently care about the things his adult self will care about.' 14
If one explores why it might be reasonable to reject the cure, it becomes
clear that those considerations are compatible with the unmodified fore-
closure view. First, if the cure causes a change of identity, that implies
that the person has no future, even if she accepts the cure. Such a view
on personal identity is compatible with the foreclosure view. In this
case, the unmodified foreclosure view would not recommend taking the
cure. Second, another reason for not taking the cure can be the fear that
the cure causes a change of the person's moral values. For instance, the