II. General desires as grounds for the wrongness of killing

Singer has argued that non‐self‐conscious beings are morally replaceable because they lack the desire to live. For Lockwood this ignores the fact that short‐term desires may ground the wrongness of killing and it is counterintuitive since it legitimizes the painless killing of sleeping infants and animals. Lockwood's suggestion is a preference‐free interest in a potential benefit, but this makes abortion directly wrong. It is proposed that by invoking actual general desires, modelled on Armstrong's general beliefs, potentiality may be avoided since general desires belong to sleeping non‐self‐conscious beings but not to foetuses. Finally, a refutation of Frey's scepticism about attributing desires to non‐self‐conscious beings is offered.