The article argues that procreation is intrinsically valuable because it produces persons. The essential thought of the argument is that among the valuable things in the world are not only products, but the actions by which they are produced. The first premise is that persons have great value, for which a common consent argument is offered. The second premise is that, as an action type, procreation has persons as a product. Procreation is always a part of the action that produces (...) a person. This is because procreators take as their goal the creation of an organism that itself has development into a person as a goal. Such a claim also helps explain the moral obligations of procreators, the affective lives of procreators and the common preference for procreation. The third premise is that if an action type has a product of value, then all its tokens have intrinsic value. I argue that even when such actions fail to produce anything outside the agent, they are intrinsically valuable because of how they actualise the powers and virtues of the agent, in part achieving the agent’s goal. I then apply that argument to the case of procreation and person producing. (shrink)

Many philosophers and members of the public think it is wrong to procreate. If one wants children, it is permissible to adopt. But procreation is allegedly impermissible because there is some respect in which adoption is better than procreation. I show that such objections are unsound.

It is widely assumed that people have a moral right to procreate. This article explores recent arguments in opposition to procreation in some or all contexts. Some such views are concerned with the risks and harms of life that procreation imposes on non-consenting children. Others articulate concerns for third parties – the environmental damage or opportunity costs that procreation poses to already existing people. The article then surveys arguments that favor procreation despite the risks to the children created and third (...) parties. The best argument for procreation is based on the significant interest people have in forming the parent–child relationship. An important under-discussed middle ground is suggested – one that avoids the criticisms of the anti-natalist while fulfilling the best aims of procreation – viz. adoption. The duty to adopt is summarized and objections to it considered. Thoughtful people who deeply desire to become parents but do not wish to participate in the range of potential procreative harms should consider adoption as a first choice. (shrink)

There is growing acknowledgement of a moral obligation to curb our personal carbon emissions. However, while much has been said regarding certain kinds of carbon- ntensive behaviours, the philosophical literature has – until only very recently – been largely silent regarding one of the worst things that a person can choose to do from a climate perspective: namely, have a child. I contend that procreation is an inessential high-emission activity – one that results in inordinately greater emissions than other activities (...) like joyguzzling or flying. Given this, I argue that if we believe that individuals bear moral responsibility for their personal carbon emissions, then we have strong moral reasons to refrain from choosing to procreate, reasons which – for many – amount to a moral obligation to refrain from choosing to have children. I also consider whether our climate duties might also be discharged by offsetting the climate burden of any children we do choose to have and providing a concrete quantification of what that offsetting might look like. (shrink)

The aim of this commentary is to critically examine Matti Häyry’s article ‘Just Better Utilitarianism’, where he argues that liberal utilitarianism can offer a basis for moral and political choices in bioethics and thus could be helpful in decision-making. This commentary, while generally sympathetic to Häyry’s perspective, argues that Häyry should expand on who belongs to our moral community because, to solve practical ethical issues, we need to determine who (and what) deserves our moral consideration. Challenging Häyry’s principle of actual (...) or prospective existence, this commentary suggests that – at least sometimes – the quality of life of those who will never come into existence matters. In a similar vein, this commentary aims to show that determining how to treat mindless humans such as fetuses might pose difficulties for liberal utilitarianism unless the issue of the boundaries of the moral community is addressed. (shrink)

Peter Singer has argued that the affluent have very extensive duties to the world’s poor. His argument has some important implications for procreation, most of which have not yet been acknowledged. These implications are explicated in this paper. First, the rich should desist from procreation and instead divert to the poor those resources that would have been used to rear the children that would otherwise have been produced. Second, the poor should desist from procreation because doing so can prevent the (...) very bad things that would otherwise have befallen the children they would have brought into existence. Third, the rich sometimes have a duty to prevent the poor from procreating. Fourth, the rich sometimes have a right to prevent the poor from reproducing. Although these implications may not amount to a categorical prohibition on all procreation, they do significantly restrict the permissibility of procreation. They are, in that sense, anti-natalist. (shrink)

Many philosophers believe that the relationship between a parent and a child is objectively valuable, but few believe that there is any objective value in first creating a child in order to parent her. But if it is indeed true that all of the objective value of procreative-parenting comes from parenting, then it is hard to see how procreative-parenting can overcome two particularly pressing philosophical challenges. A first challenge is to show that it is morally permissible for prospective parents to (...) procreate given that adoption takes us much closer to both environmental and social justice. A second challenge is to show that it is morally permissible for biological parents to parent their biological child given that other prospective parents are willing and able to do a much better job at furthering the child's interests. In this essay, I argue that there is value in procreative-parenting, and that this value is of sufficient magnitude so as to block both the case against procreation and the case in favour of child re-distribution. (shrink)

In the past decade, research on the dark triad of personality (Machiavellianism, narcissism, and psychopathy) has demonstrated a strong relationship to a number of socially aversive moral judgments such as sacrificial utilitarian decisions in moral dilemmas. This study widens the scope of this research program and investigates the association between dark triad personality traits and anti-natalist views, i.e., views holding that procreation is morally wrong. The results of this study indicate that the dark triad personality traits of Machiavellianism and psychopathy (...) are strongly associated with anti-natalist views. Further, depression is found to be both standing independently in a relationship with anti-natalist views as well as functioning as a mediator in the relationships between Machiavellianism/psychopathy and anti-natalist views. This pattern was replicated in a follow-up study. These findings add to the literature on dark triad personality traits and their relationship to moral judgments, suggesting that personality and mood play a substantive part in variation in anti-natalist views in a lay population. (shrink)

This paper revitalizes the debate of an ethics of contemporary famine. Famine constitutes a distinct development challenge that has only received moderate public and academic attention. Singer’s Famine Relief Argument from 1972 emphasizing a strong obligation of charitable benevolence towards victims of famine, for example, continues to constitute the dominant ethical principle of famine. The paper argues this revisionary principle still constitutes a strong and convincing ethical argument. However, the dynamics of contemporary famine makes it necessary to expand this ethical (...) obligation outside the realm of pure philanthropy. Concretely, the paper argues for the obligation of criminalizing famine and prosecuting the perpetrators of famine that have either callously allowed famine to unfold or have intentionally created and exacerbated the conditions for famine. While such an obligation is not void of ethical dilemmas, a famine ethics relying on obligations of charity as well as obligations of criminal prosecution constitutes a superior ethical principle for the alleviation of famine. (shrink)

I consider Christine Overall’s proposal that counteracting the ecological threats born from overconsumption and overpopulation morally obligates Westerners to limit their procreative output to one child per person. I scrutinize what Overall finds valuable about the genetic link in the parent-child relationship through the complementary lenses of Shelley M. Park’s project of “queering motherhood” and the ecofeminist concept of “earth mothering.” What comes of this theoretical mix is a procreative outlook I define as queer earth mothering : an interrogative attitude (...) for identifying the ways in which anti-ecological and heteronormative ideologies seep into maternal praxis. I argue that QEM has potential to relocate the value of the putative parent-child relationship, change attitudes toward adoptive motherhood for the better, and shed light on the reality that procreative decisions in affluent contexts can and will rebound with devastating environmental consequences on both present and future populations if left unabated. My hope is that with QEM as our guide for thinking through the biological paradigm of motherhood we will be in a much better position to appreciate why affluent prospective parents should favour adoption over biological reproduction. (shrink)

Procreation in the face of an apocalypse: Some ethical considerations In the field of procreation ethics both Kantian and consequentialist arguments have been developed purporting to show the moral impermissibility of having (more than two) children. A survey of the most important arguments leaves us wondering whether one could derive general obligations or prohibitions from abstract principles and apply them to deeply personal decisions about whether or not to have children (and how many). At the same time it is undeniably (...) true that having children, however private the decision to procreate may feel, has an impact far beyond the private sphere. While we argue that the answer to the question whether or not to have a child cannot be derived from moral principles, we recognize that moral considerations about global and intergenerational justice do pertain to the question. We therefore develop an alternative framework for traditional Kantian and consequentialist approaches in procreation ethics, which we call holistic virtue ethics. (shrink)