Maverick Philosopher

'Probative Overkill' Objections to the Potentiality Principle

Here is a simple version of the Potentiality Argument (PA):

1. All potential persons have a right to life.
2. The human fetus is a potential person.
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3. The human fetus has a right to life.

Does PA 'prove too much'? It does if the proponent of PA has no principled way of preventing PA from transmogrifying into something like:

1. All potential persons have a right to life.
4. Everything is a potential person.
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5. Everything has a right to life.

Modal Sentences and Truncated Counterfactual Conditionals

Let's think about the following modal sentence:

1. My expository skills could be better than they are.

(1)  is a modal sentence because of the presence in it of the modal word 'could.'  Whether or not you agree with me that (1) is true, you must concede that (1) has a definite meaning understandable by any competent speaker of the English language.  (1) is a bit of ordinary, grammatically correct English: there is nothing extraordinary or 'philosophical' about it.  Not only does (1) have a definite meaning, it has exactly one definite meaning: no question of ambiguity arises.  One cannot say that (1) is meaningless or incoherent or ambiguous.  Compare (1) with the nonmodal

2. My expository skills are better than they are.

(2) is plainly incoherent for reasons that need no belaboring.  And anyone who understands English will instantly discern the difference between (2) and (1).