According to the person-affecting restriction, one distribution of welfare can be better than another only if there is someone for whom it is better. Extant problems for the person-affecting restriction involve variable-population cases, such as the nonidentity problem, which are notoriously controversial and difficult to resolve. This paper develops a fixed-population problem for the person-affecting restriction. The problem reveals that, in the presence of incommensurable welfare levels, the person-affecting restriction is incompatible with minimal requirements of impartial beneficence even in fixed-population (...) contexts. (shrink)

Most people are skeptical of the claim that the expectation that a person would have a life that would be well worth living provides a reason to cause that person to exist. In this essay I argue that to cause such a person to exist would be to confer a benefit of a noncomparative kind and that there is a moral reason to bestow benefits of this kind. But this conclusion raises many problems, among which is that it must be (...) determined how the benefits conferred on people by causing them to exist weigh against comparable benefits conferred on existing people. In particular, might the reason to cause people to exist ever outweigh the reason to save the lives of existing people? (shrink)

Der Beitrag setzt sich kritisch mit dem Prinzip des prokreativen Wohltuns von Julian Savulescu und seinen Implikationen für den Umgang mit der Präimplantationsdiagnostik auseinander. PB fordert angehende Eltern dazu auf, aus mehreren möglichen zukünftigen Kindern dasjenige auszuwählen, dessen Leben voraussichtlich am besten verlaufen wird. Paare mit Kinderwunsch sind danach zumindest unter bestimmten Umständen moralisch verpflichtet, eine PID in Anspruch zu nehmen, um die Weitergabe genetisch bedingter Krankheiten zu verhindern. Die Auswahl von Embryonen im Rahmen einer PID kann jedoch nur dann (...) mit dem Wohlergehen des zukünftigen Kindes begründet werden, wenn man die entsprechende Wohltunspflicht mit Savulescu und Kahane als „unpersönliche“ moralische Pflicht versteht. PB wirft daher die Frage nach der Relevanz unpersönlicher Erwägungen für Entscheidungen über Fortpflanzung und Familiengründung auf. Gegen Savulescu und Kahane argumentiere ich dafür, reproduktive Verantwortung als einen integralen Aspekt elterlicher Verantwortung und damit als personenbezogene Verantwortung zu deuten, und verteidige diese Konzeption reproduktiver Verantwortung gegen Einwände, die sich aus einem von Savulescu und Kahane konstruierten hypothetischen Szenario – dem Röteln-Beispiel – ergeben. (shrink)

Der Beitrag setzt sich kritisch mit dem Prinzip des prokreativen Wohltuns von Julian Savulescu und seinen Implikationen für den Umgang mit der Präimplantationsdiagnostik auseinander. PB fordert angehende Eltern dazu auf, aus mehreren möglichen zukünftigen Kindern dasjenige auszuwählen, dessen Leben voraussichtlich am besten verlaufen wird. Paare mit Kinderwunsch sind danach zumindest unter bestimmten Umständen moralisch verpflichtet, eine PID in Anspruch zu nehmen, um die Weitergabe genetisch bedingter Krankheiten zu verhindern. Die Auswahl von Embryonen im Rahmen einer PID kann jedoch nur dann (...) mit dem Wohlergehen des zukünftigen Kindes begründet werden, wenn man die entsprechende Wohltunspflicht mit Savulescu und Kahane als „unpersönliche“ moralische Pflicht versteht. PB wirft daher die Frage nach der Relevanz unpersönlicher Erwägungen für Entscheidungen über Fortpflanzung und Familiengründung auf. Gegen Savulescu und Kahane argumentiere ich dafür, reproduktive Verantwortung als einen integralen Aspekt elterlicher Verantwortung und damit als personenbezogene Verantwortung zu deuten, und verteidige diese Konzeption reproduktiver Verantwortung gegen Einwände, die sich aus einem von Savulescu und Kahane konstruierten hypothetischen Szenario – dem Röteln-Beispiel – ergeben. (shrink)

There is a significant debate over the moral status of human embryos. This debate has important implications for practices like abortion and IVF. Some argue that embryos have the same moral status as infants, children, and adults. However, critics claim that the frequency of pregnancy loss/miscarriage/spontaneous abortion shows a moral inconsistency in this view. One line of criticism is that those who know the facts about pregnancy loss and nevertheless attempt to conceive children are willing to sacrifice embryos lost for (...) the healthy children they ultimately have. I respond to this criticism and argue that on the most plausible accounts of well-being, these embryos are not made worse off and thus not “sacrifices.” I then make some more general remarks about what people’s typical views about pregnancy loss show about their views toward the moral status of embryos. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 8, Page 36-38, August 2012.

A comprehensive theory of rational prudence would explain how a person should adjudicate among the conflicting interests of her past, present, future and counterfactual selves. For example, when a person is having an identity crisis, perhaps because she has suddenly become disabled, she may be left with no sense of purpose to keep her going. In her despondent state, she may think it prudent to give up on life now even if she would soon adopt a different set of values (...) that would give her a renewed sense of meaning. Yet we may think that, in many cases, it would be irrational for such a person to allow herself to die. My aim is to explain this prudential intuition by developing a partial framework of rational prudence that interprets and applies the idea that a prudent person acts in ways that are justifiable to herself over time. (shrink)

“de-extinction” refers to the process of resurrecting extinct species by genetic methods. This science-fiction-sounding idea is in fact already in early processes of scientific implementation. Although this recent “revival of the dead” raises deep ethical questions, the ethics of de-extinction has barely received philosophical treatment. Rather than seeking a verdict for or against de-extinction, this paper attempts an overview and some novel analyses of the main ethical considerations. Five dimensions of the ethics of de-extinction are explored: (a) the possible contribution (...) of de-extinction to promoting ecological values, (b) the deontological argument that we owe de-extinction to species we rendered extinct, (c) the question of “playing God” through de-extinction, (d) the utilitarian perspective, and (e) the role of aesthetic considerations in the ethics of de-extinction. A general feature arising from the paper’s discussion is that, due to de-extinction’s special character, it repeatedly tests the limits of our ethical notions. (shrink)

The nonidentity problem is a deep puzzle challenging the moral intuition that what is bad must be bad for someone. The first part of the paper constructs a new theory of harming, whereas the second part builds on the conclusions of the first to offer a new solution to the NIP. The first part discusses the neglected question of when a burden inflicted in the context of overall benefitting can be discretized as a separate entity—only when it can, is it (...) possible to identify the burden as harm, and only then is it possible to harm in bringing into overall good existence. The second part explains how, in those cases where creating is indeed harming, we can use the logic of concept expansion to construct a concept of wronging that applies to creation cases. (shrink)

This paper examines two models of thinking relating to the issue of the right to die in dignity: one takes into consideration the rights and interests of the individual; the other supposes that human life is inherently valuable. I contend that preference should be given to the first model, and further assert that the second model may be justified in moral terms only as long as it does not resort to paternalism. The view that holds that certain patients are not (...) able to comprehend their own interests in a fully rational manner, and therefore ‘we’ know what is good for these patients better than ‘they’ do, is morally unjustifiable. I proceed by refuting the ‘quality of life’ argument, asserting that each person is entitled to decide for herself when it is worth living and when it is not. In this connection, a caveat will be made regarding the role of the family. (shrink)

Advances in technology have made it possible for us to take actions that affect the numbers and identities of humans and other animals that will live in the future. Effective and inexpensive birth control, child allowances, genetic screening, safe abortion, in vitro fertilization, the education of young women, sterilization programs, environmental degradation and war all have these effects. Although it is true that a good deal of effort has been devoted to the practical side of population policy, moral theory has (...) not dealt adequately with the new possibilities. The dilemma faced by moral theory is that traditional theories cannot answer moral questions involving the creation of people. Two related problems arise. The first concerns numbers: how many people should there be? The second asks what sort of people should live and what their levels of well-being should be. Conventional social-contract theories, including the work of Rawls (1971), are restricted to situations with a fixed number of individuals. Sumner (1978) attempts to extend a Rawlsian veil-of-ignorance approach to possible people but is aware of the difficulties involved. The main problem is that possible people must be thought to benefit when they move from non-existence to existence, a view that we reject (see Section 1, Heyd, 1992, Chapter 1; McMahan, 1996a; Parfit, 1984, Appendix G). Rights-based and duty-based theories suffer from a similar problem; there must be a person who has the right or a person to whom the duty is owed (see McMahan, 1981). (shrink)

A theory of intergenerational justice consists in the study of the moral and political status of the relations between present and past or future people, more specifically, of the obligations and entitlements they can potentially generate. The challenges that justify talking about responsibilities between generations are myriad. And the disputes they prompt can focus on the past just as much as on the present, even though the fact that the human species has reached a state of technological progress that enables (...) it to have an irredeemable impact on the planet and perhaps even endanger future human existence tends to make concerns about the future more pressing. Debates on intergenerational justice are twofold. The first revolves around the issue of whether claims of justice across generations whose members' lifetimes do not necessarily overlap could be justified. And the second revolves around the specific conception of justice in play, that is, around the nature of the standard that must be applied as well as around the identification of the contents of the duties that present generations supposedly have vis-à-vis past or future generations. This survey article depicts the conceptual and argumentative framework in which these debates are set. It aims to outline certain of the main features shared by the most influential contemporary theories of intergenerational justice, and the problems inherent in them. It concludes by suggesting that, even though the idea of succeeding generations is merely an abstraction, there are specific empirical states of affairs that require different theoretical responses to intergenerational justice. (shrink)

This paper argues that we can benefit or harm people by creating them, but only in the sense that we can create things that are good or bad for them. What we cannot do is to confer comparative benefits and harms to people by creating them or failing to create them. You are not better off (or worse off) created than you would have been had you not been created, for nothing has value for you if you do not exist, (...) not even neutral value. (shrink)

The ArgumentThis article considers three major problems with the concept of genes for human personality traits: uncertainty about what human personality is; what we mean when we say there is a gene “for” a mental attribute; and the complexity of interactions between genes and environment, and among the genes themselves. It then draws on examples from empirical human genetic studies by the author and his colleagues in order to suggest that the concept of genes for human personality traits nevertheless does (...) have some validity, and also that we may be on the brink of discovering genes with major effects on human personality. This possibility, in particular its ethical aspects, has aroused some public concern. It is suggested that confidential information about an individual's genes does not differ in principle from other confidential information about him or her, and that the ability to affect genes and their expression, temporarily or permanently, does not differ ethically from our current ability to affect other aspects of an individual's physical and psychological functioning. Genes for potential offspring, contained in ova and sperm cells, constitute a special case. (shrink)

Procreative obligations are often discussed by evaluating only the consequences of reproductive actions or omissions; less attention is paid to the moral role of intentions and attitudes. In this paper, I assess whether intentions and attitudes can contribute to defining our moral obligations with regard to assisted reproductive technologies already available, such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD), and those that may be available in future, such as reproductive genome editing and ectogenesis, in a way compatible with person‐affecting constraints. I propose (...) the parent–child relationship argument, which is based on the moral distinction between creating and parenting a child. Hence, I first argue that intentions and attitudes can play a role in defining our moral obligations in reproductive decisions involving PGD. Second, I maintain that if we accept this and recognize reproductive genome editing and ectogenesis as person‐affecting procedures, we should be committed to arguing that prospective parents may have moral reasons to prefer reproduction via such techniques than via sexual intercourse. In both cases, I observe an extension of our procreative responsibility beyond what is proposed by the consequentialist person‐affecting morality. (shrink)

This essay argues that gratitude for one's own life is an intelligible attitude to have. It does so by arguing that reducing pro-attitudes in response to unintentional benefits to “appreciation” is too broad. Instead, such “appreciation” can be understood as gratitude if such benefits satisfy a number of conditions that track or are analogous to why we care about interpersonally bestowed benefits. One's own life satisfies those four conditions, which can make gratitude for it intelligible—when it is perceived as a (...) benefit. (shrink)

Prioritarianism is a moral view that ranks outcomes according to the sum of a strictly increasing and strictly concave transformation of individual well-being. Prioritarianism is ‘welfarist’ (namel...

Most of us believe that it would be unjust to act with indifference about the plight of future generations. Zipper arguments in intergenerational justice aim to show that we have duties of justice regarding future generations, regardless of whether we have duties of justice to future generations. By doing so, such arguments circumvent the foundational challenges that come with theorising duties to remote future generations, which result from the non-existence, non-identity and non-contemporaneity of future generations. I argue that zipper arguments (...) face several significant challenges. The ought-implies-can challenge points out that because prior generations determine what later generations can transfer, they determine how much they ought to transfer. In addition, both intentional and non-intentional non-compliance can break the chain of duties towards future generations on which zipper arguments rely. Some versions are surprisingly resilient especially in real-world circumstances. This paper does not show that zipper arguments inevitably fail, but all ways forward come at significant theoretical costs. Unless the challenges posed here are met (or shown as irrelevant), theorists of justice cannot side-track the foundational challenges that come with doing intergenerational justice. (shrink)

Is it fair to leave the next generation a public debt? Is it defensible to impose legal rules on them through constitutional constraints? From combating climate change to ensuring proper funding for future pensions, concerns about ethics between generations are everywhere. In this volume sixteen philosophers explore intergenerational justice. Part One examines the ways in which various theories of justice look at the matter. These include libertarian, Rawlsian, sufficientarian, contractarian, communitarian, Marxian and reciprocity-based approaches. In Part Two, the authors look (...) more specifically at issues relevant to each of these theories, such as motivation to act fairly towards future generations, the population dimension, the formation of preferences through education and how they impact on our intergenerational obligations, and whether it is fair to rely on constitutional devices. (shrink)

According to the Asymmetry, it is wrong to bring a miserable child into existence but permissible not to bring a happy child into existence. When it comes to procreation, we don’t have complete procreative liberty. But we do have some discretion. The Asymmetry seems highly intuitive. But a plausible account of the Asymmetry has been surprisingly difficult to provide, and it may well be that most moral philosophers – or at least most consequentialists – think that all reasonable efforts to (...) provide such an account have by now been exhausted. In this paper, I argue that, despite the difficulties, the Asymmetry is too important to be set aside. I also note a handful of accounts of the Asymmetry that have been proposed and why they fail. It seems, for example, that it will not do to say that some people matter morally and others don’t, or that a person matters morally in some worlds but not others. My own conclusion is that, while we are bound to say all people matter morally – you, me and the merely possible – we are not bound to say that all their losses– or all ours– matter morally. We can instead distinguish between morally significant and insignificant losses, with the distinction between the two being a matter of where the loss is incurred in relation to the person who incurs it. This way of looking at things – which I call Variabilism– provides the basis for a plausible account of the Asymmetry. The availability of such an account suggests, I think, that our prospects for rescuing the Asymmetry are bright. (shrink)

The Asymmetry consists of two claims. (A) That a possible person's life would be abjectly miserable –less than worth living – counts against bringing that person into existence. But (B) that a distinct possible person's life would be worth living or even well worth living does not count in favour of bringing that person into existence. In recent years, the view that the two halves of the Asymmetry are jointly untenable has become increasingly entrenched. If we say all persons matter (...) morally whether they exist or not and on that basis try to explain the first half of the Asymmetry, we lose the second half of the Asymmetry. If we say that some persons do not matter morally and some do and on that basis try to explain the second half of the Asymmetry, we lose the first half of the Asymmetry – or else find ourselves with a principle that is either inconsistent or otherwise deeply troubled in some way that has nothing to do with the content of the Asymmetry itself. In this article, I propose an alternative approach to the Asymmetry which I will call Variabilism. By understanding each and every person, whether existing or not, to matter morally but variably– such that the moral significance of any loss incurred by any person is considered to depend, not on who incurs that loss and whether that person matters morally, but rather on where that loss is incurred in relation to the person who incurs it – we can both nicely ground the two halves of the Asymmetry and avoid the conceptual difficulties that have plagued competing approaches. (shrink)

Population axiology is the study of the conditions under which one state of affairs is better than another, when the states of affairs in ques- tion may differ over the numbers and the identities of the persons who ever live. Extant theories include totalism, averagism, variable value theories, critical level theories, and “person-affecting” theories. Each of these the- ories is open to objections that are at least prima facie serious. A series of impossibility theorems shows that this is no coincidence: (...) it can be proved, for various sets of prima facie intuitively compelling desiderata, that no axiology can simultaneously satisfy all the desiderata on the list. One’s choice of population axiology appears to be a choice of which intuition one is least unwilling to give up. (shrink)

The question I address in this paper is whether and under what conditions it is morally right to bring a person into existence. I defend the commonsensical thesis that, other things being equal, it is morally wrong to create a person who will be below some threshold of quality of life, even if the life of this potential person, once created, will nevertheless be worth living. However commonsensical this view might seem, it has shown to be problematic because of the (...) so-called 'Non-Identity Problem'. Both utilitarian and rights-based approaches have been unable to provide a solution to this problem. I rest my thesis on two premises: that causing a disability or impairment in a future person is prima facie wrong, so long as we can avoid causing such a disability to that very person; and that reproduction, under normal conditions, is prima facie morally indifferent. From these two premises, I conclude that it is prima facie wrong to bring into existence a person with a non-trivial disability or impairment (which might be, nonetheless, compatible with a worthwhile life), even if the only available alternative is to remain childless. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 8, Page 32-33, August 2012.

Our pollution of the environment seems set to lead to widespread problems in the future, including disease, scarcity of resources, and bloody conflicts. It is natural to think that we are required to stop polluting because polluting harms the future individuals who will be faced with these problems. This natural thought faces Derek Parfit’s famous Non-Identity Problem ( 1984 , pp. 361–364). The people who live on the polluted earth would not have existed if we had not polluted. Our polluting (...) behaviour does not make these individuals worse off. It may therefore seem that we do not harm them by polluting. Parfit argues that we should replace person-affecting principles with an impersonal principle of beneficence, Principle Q ( 1984 , p. 360.). I argue that Principle Q cannot give an adequate account of our duties to refrain from polluting. I consider attempts to solve the Non-Identity Problem by denying that to harm someone an agent must make them worse off. I argue that such responses provide a partial solution to the Non-Identity Problem. They do show that we harm future individuals in a morally relevant sense by polluting. Nonetheless, this is only a partial solution. The Non-Identity Problem still suggests that our harm-based reasons not to pollute are less strong than we intuitively believe. Thus on its own an appeal to the claim that we harm future individuals is not able to give a fully satisfactory account of why we are required not to pollute. (shrink)

If God is morally perfect then He must perform the morally best actions, but creating humans is not the morally best action. If this line of reasoning can be maintained then the mere fact that humans exist contradicts the claim that God exists. This is the ‘anthropic argument’. The anthropic argument, is related to, but distinct from, the traditional argument from evil. The anthropic argument forces us to consider the ‘creation question’: why did God not create other gods rather than (...) humans? That is, if God is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect then why didn’t He create a world populated exclusively by beings that are perfect in the same way that He is—ontological equivalents— rather than choosing to create humans with finite natures and all the suffering that this entails? (shrink)

What is the practical relevance of the Non-Identity Problem (NIP) for our climate change-related duties? Climate change and the NIP are often discussed together, but there is surprisingly little work on the practical relevance of the NIP for the ethics of climate change. The central claim of this article is that the NIP makes a relatively minor difference to our climate change-related duties even if we pursue what has become known as the ‘bite the bullet’ strategy: endorse a person-affecting view (...) threatened by the NIP and not modify it in such a way as to evade the NIP. In particular I will argue that a harm-based view can justify the big-picture call for action emerging from the field of climate ethics. The key to reaching this conclusion is pointing out the consequences of our climate change-related decisions for people whose existence does not depend on these very decisions. (shrink)

One of the most prominent justifications for the use of germline gene editing (GGE) is that it would allow parents to have a “genetically related child” while preventing the transmission of genetic disorders. However, we argue that since future uses of GGE may involve large-scale genetic modifications, they may affect the genetic relatedness between parents and offspring in a meaningful way: Due to certain genetic modifications, children may inherit much less than 50% of their DNA from each parent. We show (...) that the reduction in genetic relatedness between parents and offspring has three important social and legal implications. First, the desire for a genetically related child may end up not being the strong justification it is currently thought to be for the use of GGE. Second, prospective parents may be reluctant to use GGE because of a potential loss of genetic relatedness. Third, in some jurisdictions, parents who would not pass on “enough” DNA to their child may not be recognized as the child's legal parents. We further argue that the reduction in genetic relatedness challenges current conceptions of genetic parenthood that rely on the quantity of DNA shared with the child or on whether the child was directly derived from the parent's genes. We suggest that genetic parenthood should instead be determined based on the nature of the genetic modifications and whether the child's numerical identity has been preserved after the editing process. (shrink)

In February 2016, the Institute of Medicine released a report, commissioned by the United States Food and Drug Administration, on the ethical and social‐policy implications of so‐called three‐parent in vitro fertilization. The IOM endorses commencement of clinical trials on three‐parent IVF, subject to some initial limitations. Also called mitochondrial replacement or transfer, three‐parent IVF is an intervention comprising two distinct procedures in which the genetic materials of three people—the DNA of the father and mother and the mitochondrial DNA of an (...) egg donor—can be used to create a child. Three‐parent IVF would enable a woman with mitochondrial disease to have a genetically related child without transmitting the disease to the child. The possibility for three‐parent children has prompted criticism from many corners. Critics have pointed to ethical issues including safety concerns and risks to children, genetic and germline engineering concerns, the potential exploitation of the third‐parent egg donor, donor anonymity and privacy, and objections to creating babies with three parents, which undermines natural and traditional conceptions of procreation. Additionally, developing the technology would involve experimenting on, manipulating, and disposing of embryos. Although the IOM report considers the ethical concerns about the value of the three‐parent IVF technology, the IOM failed to give due attention to an important objection to the development of this technology: three‐parent IVF lacks the social value necessary to make investment of public resources in it ethical.Unlike the other concerns, this objection is not based on conservativism about new reproductive technologies or default favoritism of the status quo. I argue that the technology does not meet a plausible social value standard to render public research investment into its development ethical. Proponents of three‐parent IVF make inaccurate and exaggerated claims that it will eradicate mitochondrial disease and save lives. Were these claims true, proponents would have a strong case for the social value of the technology. But three‐parent IVF alone will not eradicate mitochondrial disease, and it will not save lives. Rather, it can create healthy lives. As I discuss, the moral distinction is crucial. Most importantly, investment in three‐parent IVF comes at the opportunity cost of researching treatment for mitochondrial disease that would benefit actual, living disease sufferers. (shrink)

David Boonin argues that in a choice between creating a person whose life would be well worth living and creating a different person whose life would be significantly worse, but still worth living, each option is morally permissible. I show that Boonin's argument for this view problematically implies that in a choice between creating a person whose life would be well worth living and creating another person whose life would not be worth living, each option is also morally permissible.

The term dual use technologies refers to research and technology with the potential both to yield valuable scientific knowledge and to be used for nefarious purposes with serious consequences for public health or the environment. There are two main approaches to assessing dual use technologies: pragmatic and metaphysical. A pragmatic approach relies on ethical principles and norms to generate specific guidance and policy for dual use technologies. A metaphysical approach exhorts us to the deeper study of human nature, our intentions, (...) goals, values ideals and social relations when considering dual use technology. Use of science and technology (S and T) is determined by two components of human nature: human intentions and choices. We have drawn a distinction between specific measures, goals and intentions with respect to technologies in order to show that moral judgment about technologies must precede their use. Understanding of our intentionality and values, and our moral ideals, as a measurable, tangible part of the real world is important for the prevention of any possible harm from S and T. In the context of dual use technologies, we stress the importance of three main understandings of human nature: vulnerability, responsibility and narrative identity. These can become a strong ontological “antidote” to technology’s poisoning of modern man. Each new technology can be measured and compared with man’s values, traditions and societal norms. This can be done bearing in mind the concept that human nature is not dualistic, but pluralistic. A system of ethical principles that includes the principles of good intentions, the correspondence of goals and means, the balancing of risks and benefits, simplicity, and contextuality, will help ensure that technologies are more humanistic and friendly to human beings. (shrink)

The ArgumentWhat are the aims of genetic services? Do any of these aims deserve to be labeled “eugenics”? Answers to these strenuously debated questions depend not just on the facts about genetic testing and screening but also on what is understood by “eugenics,” a term with multiple and contested meanings. This paper explores the impact of efforts to label genetic services “eugenics” and argues that attempts to protect against the charge have seriously distorted discussion about their purpose. Following Ruth Chadwick, (...) I argue that the existence of genetic services presupposes that genetic disease is undesirable and that means should be offered to reduce it. I further argue that the economic cost of such disease is one reason why governments and health care providers deem such services worthwhile. The important question is not whether such cost considerations constitute “eugenics,” but whether they foster practices that are undesirable and, if so, what to do about them. The wielding of the term “eugenics” as a weapon in a war over the expansion of genetic services, conjoined with efforts to dissociate such services from the abortion controversy, has produced a rhetoric about the aims of these services that is increasingly divorced from reality. Candor about these aims is a sine qua non of any useful debate over the legitimacy of the methods used to advance them. (shrink)

This paper discusses what the so-called Priority View implies regarding possible people. It is argued that this view is plausible when applied to fixed populations, but that, when applied to the issue of possible people, it faces certain difficulties. If it is claimed that possible people fall within the scope of the Priority View, we are led to the repugnant conclusion at a faster pace than we are by, e.g., utilitarianism. And if it is claimed that possible people do not (...) fall within the scope of the Priority View, we shall have to combine this view with a different view in order to avoid certain counter-intuitive judgements. Such a combined view, however, leads to intransitivities. At the end of the paper, I discuss what these conclusions imply regarding both the Priority View and our moral obligations to possible people. (shrink)

Drawing on the author's recent bookEthics for a Broken World, this article explores the philosophical implications of the fact that climate change – or something like it – might lead to abroken worldwhere resources are insufficient to meet everyone's basic needs, and where our affluent way of life is no longer an option. It argues that the broken world has an impact, not only on applied ethics, but also on moral theory. It then explores that impact. The article first argues (...) that the broken world creates severe difficulties for both libertarians and contractualists. It then explores the impact of the broken world on utilitarianism – and especially on reflective equilibrium arguments for rule-utilitarianism. The article concludes that, while such arguments may still be viable, the form of rule-utilitarianism that results will be less moderate and less liberal than contemporary rule-utilitarians might hope. (shrink)

In this article, I critically analyze the anthropological foundation of the bioethics of philosopher Jean-François Malherbe, particularly as presented in his book, Pour une Éthique de la Médecine. Malherbe argues that such practices as organ donation and transplants, assisted reproduction, resuscitation, and other uses of biotechnologies in contemporary medicine are unethical because they go against essential human nature. Furthermore, he uses this position as a basis to prescribe public policy and institutional practice. In contrast, I argue not only that ‘human (...) nature’ is much more malleable and adaptive to changes in technology and society than Malherbe allows, but also that his criticisms of medicine and technoscientific development overstep the bounds of the social function of philosophical ethics, which is to inform and clarify public debate. Public policy and institutional practice is thus best left to the democratic political process under the parameters of the just rule of law. (shrink)

In a just society, who should be liable for the significant costs associated with creating and raising children? Patrick Tomlin has recently argued that children themselves may be liable on the grounds that they benefit from being raised into independent adults. This view, which Tomlin calls ‘Kids Pay’, depends on the more general principle that a beneficiary can incur an obligation to share in the cost of an essential benefit that the benefactor is responsible for her requiring. I argue in (...) this paper that this principle is both generally false and particularly suspect in the kinds of cases that Tomlin needs it to be true, namely, cases in which a benefactor has created the need to be benefitted to satisfy a self-regarding interest in providing the benefit. In a nutshell, I argue that because parents electively put their children into a needy circumstance for the purpose of satisfying a self-regarding interest in meeting their children’s needs, they lack a legitimate claim against their children to share in its associated costs. (shrink)

Can appealing to children’s rights help to solve the non-identity problem in cases of procreation? A number of philosophers have answered affirmatively, arguing that even if children cannot be harmed by being born into disadvantaged conditions, they may nevertheless be wronged if those conditions fail to meet a minimal standard of decency to which all children are putatively entitled. This paper defends the tenability of this view by outlining and responding to five prominent objections that have been raised against it (...) in the contemporary literature: the identifiability objection; the non-existence objection; the waiving of rights objection, the lack of legitimate complaint objection; and the unfairness objection. (shrink)

ABSTRACT I motivate ‘Origin Conventionalism’—the view that which facts about one’s origins are essential to one’s existence depends partly on our person-directed attitudes. One important upshot is that the view offers a novel and attractive solution to the Nonidentity Problem. That problem typically assumes that the sperm-egg pair from which a person originates is essential to that person’s existence; in which case, for many future persons that come into existence under adverse conditions, had those conditions not been realized, the individuals (...) wouldn’t have existed. This is problematic because it delivers the counter-intuitive conclusion that it’s not wrong to bring about such adverse conditions since they don’t harm anyone. Origin Conventionalism, in contrast, holds that whether a person’s sperm-egg origin is essential to their existence depends on their person-directed attitudes. I argue that this provides a unique and attractive way of preserving the intuition that the actions in the ‘nonidentity cases’ are morally wrong because of the potential harm done to the individuals in question. (shrink)

The most common argument against negative utilitarianism is the world destruction argument, according to which negative utilitarianism implies that if someone could kill everyone or destroy the world, it would be her duty to do so. Those making the argument often endorse some other form of consequentialism, usually traditional utilitarianism. It has been assumed that negative utilitarianism is less plausible than such other theories partly because of the world destruction argument. So, it is thought, someone who finds theories in the (...) spirit of utilitarianism attractive should not go for negative utilitarianism, but should instead pick traditional utilitarianism or some other similar theory such as prioritarianism. I argue that this is a mistake. The world destruction argument is not a reason to reject negative utilitarianism in favour of these other forms of consequentialism, because there are similar arguments against such theories that are at least as persuasive as the world destruction argument is against negative utilitarianism. (shrink)

The ArgumentAmerican eugenics developed out of a cultural tradition independent of medicine. However, the eugenicist Harry Hamilton Laughlin and some legal experts involved in eugenic practice in the United States used medical language in discussing and evaluating enforced eugenic sterilizations. They built on medicine as a model for healing, while at the same time playing down medicine's concern with its traditional client: the individual patient. Laughlin's attitude toward medicine was ambivalent because he wanted expert eugenicists, rather than medical experts, to (...) control eugenic practice. In contrast, legal experts saw eugenics as an integral part of medicine, though one expert challenged basing the judicial system on eugenically minded medicine. All in all, the medicalization of American eugenics involved expanding the scope of medicine to include the mutilation of individuals for the benefit of society. The judicial system was medicalized in that an expanded medicine became the basis of legislation in the thirty states that permitted eugenic sterilizations. (shrink)

In a typical non-identity case, the agent performs an action that causes someone to exist at a low but positive level of well-being, although an alternative was to create another, much happier person instead. There seem to be strong moral reasons against what the agent does, but it is difficult to explain how this can be so. In particular, it seems that on a simple counterfactual account of harm, the action does not harm anyone, as it does not make anyone (...) worse off than he or she would have been had the action not been performed. In this paper, I criticize the response that the action nevertheless harms the actual child, as well as the response that it makes the counterfactual child worse off. I argue that the following alternative view deserves attention: a compound of the actual and the counterfactual child is made worse off by the action. (shrink)

Among moral philosophers, general disapproval of genetic enhancement has in recent years given way to the view that the permissibility of a eugenic policy depends only on its particular features. Buchanan, Brock, Daniels, and Wikler have extensively defended such a view. However, while these authors go so far as to argue that there are conditions under which parents are not only permitted but also obligated to procure genetic treatments for their intended child, they stop short of arguing that there are (...) conditions under which parents are required to procure enhancements. By contrast, David Heyd argues that parents are required to procure treatments or enhancements for their future child, but only if the intervention would not alter the future child’s personal identity. In this paper I take the case for genetic enhancement a step further by arguing that there are conditions under which parents are morally required to procure genetic interventions for their intended child, regardless of whether the intervention is a treatment or an enhancement, and regardless of whether it would alter the child’s personal identity. (shrink)

I respond here to the essays by Karen Lebacqz and Stephen Palmquist, beginning with my debt of gratitude to Lebacqz for her understanding of the methodological depth I try to bring to the analysis of bioethical issues. I further illustrate that observation here by reviewing the logic of my approach to the issue of wrongful life. At the same time, in connection with human genetic enhancement, I acknowledge that I may have not properly appreciated the seriousness of the problem of (...) sin. To Palmquist's assertion that my criticisms of Kant's treatments of grace miss the way Kant has confined himself to being a philosophical theologian, I argue that Kant's problem lies instead in his poor application of his own compelling insights about the depths of human sinning. I close with an appreciation of Palmquist's observation of some important points of contact between Kant's understanding of sin and that of Kierkegaard. (shrink)