In Responding to Global Poverty, Christian Barry and Gerhard Øverland argue that, while exploitation is morally problematic, responsibilities not to exploit are characteristically less stringent than responsibilities not to harm. They even suggest that exploiters’ responsibilities to assist the exploited may be weaker than the responsibilities of culpable bystanders who are able to help the poor but fail to do so We think Barry and Øverland underestimate the prospects of the exploitation argument. In our paper, we suggest that exploitation can (...) plausibly be understood as a kind of harm. If exploitation harms, then it requires special justification and can generate stringent responsibilities not to exploit that have a different ground than those generated by morally culpable failures to assist. This suggests an important way to rehabilitate arguments for poverty relief on the basis of a duty not to harm, and that there is more interesting territory to explore than Barry and Øverland’s arguments suggest. (shrink)

The non-identity problem concerns actions that affect who exists in the future. If such an action is performed, certain people will exist in the future who would not otherwise have existed: they are not identical to any of the people who would have existed if the action had not been performed. Some of these actions seem to be wrong, and they seem to be wrong in virtue of harming the very future individuals whose existence is dependent on their having been (...) performed. The problem arises when it is argued that the actions do not harm these people—because the actions do not make them worse off than they would otherwise be.1 Consider: Radioactive Waste Policy: We are trying to decide whether to adopt a permissive radioactive waste policy. This policy would be less inconvenient to us than our existing practices. If we enact the newly-proposed policy, then we will cause there to be radioactive pollution that will cause illness and suffering. However, the policy will have such significant effects on public policy and industry functioning, that different people will exist in the future depending on whether we enact the policy. Two things should be emphasized. First, the illness and suffering caused will be very serious: deformed babies, children with burns from acid rain, and adults dying young from cancer. Second, the policy will affect who will exist in the future because our present practices invade people’s everyday lives, for example by affecting recycling practices in the home; these practices will change if the policy is adopted. Furthermore, whether we adopt the policy will determine which plants are built where, what jobs are available, and what trucks are on the road. These effects will create small differences in everyone’s lives which ultimately affect who meets whom and who conceives with whom, or at least when people conceive. This affects who exists in the future. (shrink)

European Journal of Philosophy, Volume 30, Issue 2, Page 515-529, June 2022.

I believe most acts of human procreation are immoral, and I believe this despite also believing in the truth of moral particularism. In this paper I explain why. I argue that procreative acts possess numerous features that, in other contexts, seem typically to operate with negative moral valences. Other things being equal this gives us reason to believe they will operate negatively in the context of procreative acts as well. However, most people’s intuitions represent procreative acts to be morally permissible (...) in most circumstances. Given moral particularism, this would normally be good evidence that procreative acts are indeed morally permissible and that the features that operate negatively elsewhere, simply do not do so in the context of procreative acts in particular. But I argue that we have no good reason to think our intuitions about the ethics of human procreation are accurate. Our most reliable source of insight into the ethics human procreative acts are not our intuitions those acts themselves, but our intuitions about the typical moral valences of the features such acts possess. If that is correct, then acts of human procreation are most likely wrong. (shrink)

Benatar’s central argument for antinatalism develops an asymmetry between the pain and pleasure in a potential life. I am going to present an alternative route to the antinatalist conclusion. I argue that duties require victims and that as a result there is no duty to create the pleasures contained within a prospective life but a duty not to create any of its sufferings. My argument can supplement Benatar’s, but it also enjoys some advantages: it achieves a better fit with our (...) intuitions; it does not require us to acknowledge that life is a harm, or that a world devoid of life is a good thing; and it is easy to see why it does not have any pro-mortalist implications. (shrink)

The paper explores how harm must be understood if intuitively attractive deontological principles concerning the infliction and prevention of harm are to be vindicated. It focuses especially upon how harm must be understood if it is to be plausible that preventing people from undergoing harm takes priority over improving the conditions of badly-off people who have not suffered harm.

The Counterfactual Comparative Account of Harm says that an event is overall harmful for someone if and only if it makes her worse off than she otherwise would have been. I defend this account from two common objections.

What difference does it make to matters of value, for a desire satisfactionist, if a given desire is *absent*, rather than *present*? I argue that it is most plausible to hold that the state in which a given desire is satisfied is, other things being equal, incommensurate with the state in which that desire does not exist at all. In addition to illustrating the internal attractions of the view, I demonstrate that this idea has attractive implications for population ethics. Finally, (...) I show that the view is not subject to John Broome's `greedy neutrality' worry. (shrink)

The following is dedicated to promoting a version of the disability critique of negative genetic selection while navigating claims that launching such a critique threatens reproductive liberty or is unavoidably antichoice. I highlight problematic conceptual assumptions regarding genetics and choice made by proponents and opponents of selection alike and bring out the underlying ableist values of the prevailing conversation. Ableism is discrimination against persons on the basis of perceived disability. I conclude that the existing social and institutional milieu surrounding genetic (...) selection threatens persons who experience difference with stigma and its accompanying political and social disadvantages. My .. (shrink)

Suppose a woman can carry to term only one of two viable embryos. One has the genetic potential to become a normal child. The other has a gene that gives it the potential for both the artistic genius and the severe manic-depression of the painter Vincent Van Gogh. I think it would be permissible to select either embryo. But I also believe that it would be impermissible to intervene to turn an embryo that has the potential to be normal into (...) a potential Van Gogh, and vice versa. The paper aims to resolve the tension between these beliefs. (shrink)

Suppose a woman can carry to term only one of two viable embryos. One has the genetic potential to become a normal child. The other has a gene that gives it the potential for both the artistic genius and the severe manic-depression of the painter Vincent Van Gogh. I think it would be permissible to select either embryo. But I also believe that it would be impermissible to intervene to turn an embryo that has the potential to be normal into (...) a potential Van Gogh, and vice versa. The paper aims to resolve the tension between these beliefs. (shrink)

Analytic philosophers tend to agree that intentional parental genetic shaping and intentional parental environmental shaping for the same feature are, normatively, on a par. I challenge this view by advancing a novel argument, grounded in the value of fair relationships between parents and children: Parental genetic shaping is morally objectionable because it unjustifiably exacerbates the asymmetry between parent and child with respect to the voluntariness of their entrance into the parent–child relationship. Parental genetic shaping is, for this reason, different from (...) and more objectionable than parental environmental shaping. I introduce a distinction between procreative decisions one makes qua mere procreator—that is, without the intention to rear the resulting child—and procreative decisions one makes qua procreator-and-future childrearer. Genetic shaping is objectionable when undertaken in the latter capacity: Both selection and enhancement are objectionable because they introduce an unnecessary and avoidable inequality in the parent–child relationship; in the case of enhancement, this also results in harm to the future child. (shrink)

Several philosophers argue that individuals have an interest-protecting right to parent; specifically, the interest is in rearing children whom one can parent adequately. If such a right exists it can provide a solution to scepticism about duties of justice concerning distant future generations and bypass the challenge provided by the non-identity problem. Current children - whose identity is independent from environment-affecting decisions of current adults - will have, in due course, a right to parent. Adequate parenting requires resources. We owe (...) duties of justice to current children, including the satisfaction of their interest-protecting rights; therefore we owe them the conditions for rearing children adequately in the future. But to engage in permissible parenting they, too, will need sufficient resources to ensure their own children's future ability to bring up children under adequate conditions. Because this reasoning goes on ad infinitum it entails that each generation of adults owes its contemporary generation of children at least those resources that are necessary for sustaining human life indefinitely at an adequate level of wellbeing. (shrink)

In philosophy, there are two competitor views about the nature and value of childhood: The first is the traditional, deficiency, view, according to which children are mere unfinished adults. The second is a view that has recently become increasingly popular amongst philosophers, and according to which children, perhaps in virtue of their biological features, have special and valuable capacities, and, more generally, privileged access to some sources of value. This article provides a conceptual map of these views and their possible (...) interpretations, and notes their bearing on issues of population ethics and on the duties that we are owed during childhood. (shrink)

The problem of justified harm is the problem of explaining why it is permissible to inflict harm for the sake of future benefits in some cases but not in others. In this paper I first motivate the problem by comparing a case in which a lifeguard breaks a swimmer’s arm in order to save her life to a case in which Nazis imprison a man who later grows wiser as a result of the experience. I consider other philosophers’ attempts to (...) explain why the lifeguard’s action was permissible but the Nazis’ action was not. After arguing that principles having to do with consent, expected utility, and the types of harms and benefits at issue do not fully solve the problem, I argue for a causal solution to the problem. The causal solution includes both a causal account of harming and a distinction between causes and mere conditions. It then distinguishes between the lifeguard and Nazi cases with following principle: A harmful action that causes greater benefits can sometimes be justified by those benefits, but a harmful action that does not cause greater benefits cannot be justified by any subsequent benefits that the action, itself, does not cause. (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 14, Issue 1, pp 73 - 87 According to action-relative accounts of harming, an action harms someone only if it makes her worse off in some respect than she would have been, had the action not been performed. Action-relative accounts can be contrasted with effect-relative accounts, which hold that an action may harm an individual in virtue of its effects on that individual, regardless of whether the individual would have been better off in the absence of the (...) action. In this paper, I argue that our judgments about the strength of the reason against harming lend support to effect-relative accounts over action-relative accounts. I first criticize Fiona Woollard’s argument for the claim that an effect-relative account of harming could ground only a weak reason against harming. I then argue for a set of three principles that can be conjoined with an effect-relative account to explain the strength of the reason against harming. (shrink)

According to various “harm-based” approaches to the non-identity problem, an action that brings a particular child into existence can also harm that child, even if his or her life is worth living. In the third chapter of The Non-Identity Problem and the Ethics of Future People, David Boonin surveys a variety of harm-based approaches and argues that none of them are successful. In this paper I argue that his objections to these various approaches do not impugn a harm-based approach that (...) Boonin does not consider, an approach I call the “existence solution to the non-identity problem.” I also argue that the existence solution is more plausible than Boonin’s own proposed solution. (shrink)

Consider a duty of beneficence towards a particular individual, S, and call a reason that is grounded in that duty a “beneficence reason towards S.” Call a person who will be brought into existence by an act of procreation the “resultant person.” Is there ever a beneficence reason towards the resultant person for an agent to procreate? In this paper, I argue for such a reason by appealing to two main premises. First, we owe a pro tanto duty of beneficence (...) to future persons; and second, some of us can benefit some of those persons by procreating. In support of the first premise I reject the presentist account of time in favor of the view that future persons are just as real as presently existing persons. I then argue that future persons are like us in all the morally relevant ways, and since we owe duties of beneficence to each other, we also owe duties of beneficence to future persons. In support of the second premise I offer an account of benefiting according to which an individual can be benefited by an action even if it makes her no better off than she would have been, had the action not been performed. This account of benefiting solves what I call the “non-identity benefit problem.” Finally, I argue that having a life worth living is a benefit, and some of us can cause some persons that benefit by causing them to exist. (shrink)

Many of us agree that we ought not to wrong future people, but there remains disagreement about which of our actions can wrong them. Can we wrong individuals whose lives are worth living by taking actions that result in their very existence? The problem of justifying an answer to this question has come to be known as the non-identity problem.[1] While the literature contains an array of strategies for solving the problem,[2] in this paper I will take what I call (...) the harm-based approach, and I will defend an account of harming—which I call the existence account of harming—that can vindicate this approach. -/- Roughly put, the harm-based approach holds that, by acting in ways that result in the existence of individuals whose lives are worth living, we can harm and thereby wrong those individuals. An initially plausible way to try to justify this approach is to endorse the non-comparative account of harming, which holds that an event harms an individual just in case it causes her to be in a bad state, such that the state’s badness does not derive from a comparison between that state and some alternative state that the individual would or could have been in. However, many philosophers argue that the non-comparative account of harming is inadequate,[3] and one might be tempted to infer from this that any harm-based approach to the non-identity problem will fail. My proposal, which I call the existence account of harming, will show that this inference is faulty: we can vindicate the harm-based approach without relying on the non-comparative account of harming. (shrink)

Humane farming, that is, a husbandry system where animals do not suffer, either during their lives, or at the time of their killing, has been advertised as an ethical alternative to the horrors of factory farming. Although it could be argued that such a system does not currently exist, we ought to determine whether this is a morally desirable end to strive for. My objective is to assess one of the utilitarian arguments used in the debate about humane farming. In (...) particular, I am interested in whether we have risk-related reasons to argue against the implementation of this practice. I will argue, against de Lazari-Radek and Singer, that considerations of moral risk should lead us to reject the practice of humane farming. In doing so, I will engage with arguments dealing with both the badness of animal death and the value of coming into existence. (shrink)

The nonconsequentialist revival in tort theory has focused almost exclusively on one issue: showing that the rules governing compensation for acts reflect corrective justice rather than welfarist norms. The literature either is silent on what makes an act wrongful in the first place or suggests criteria that seem indistinguishable from some version of cost/benefit analysis. As a result, cost/benefit analysis is currently the only game in town for determining appropriate standards of conduct for socially useful but risky acts. This is (...) no small omission, and the failure of nonconsequentialists to acknowledge it or cure it can be traced to a number of recurring problems in the nonconsequentialist tort literature. Chief among them is the tendency to conflate prohibition and compensation, and to treat imposition of risk and imposition of harm as if they were distinct forms of conduct rather than the same conduct viewed from different temporal perspectives. (shrink)

The article offers an overview of the deontic theory developed by the philosophical school of Mīmāṃsā, which is, and has been since the last centuries BCE, the main source of normative concepts in Sanskrit thought. Thus, the Mīmāṃsā deontics is interesting for any historian of philosophy and constitutes a thought-provoking occasion to rethink deontic concepts, taking advantage of centuries of systematic reflections on these topics. Some comparison with notions currently used in Euro-American normative theories and metaethical principles is offered in (...) order to show possible points of contact and deep divergences. In more detail, after an introduction explaining the methodology and aims of our work, we discuss how Mīmāṃsā authors distinguished and defined some fundamental deontic concepts, such as different types of prescriptions and prohibitions. We then discuss how Mīmāṃsā authors approached the problem of conflicts among commands without jeopardising the validity of the normative text issuing them. In the second part of the article we introduce our formal apparatus, which is construed around the main taxonomic and conceptual distinctions used in the first part. Our formal rendering captures the most important features of the Mīmāṃsā theory and can thus serve as a concise and rigorous presentation of it for scholars working in deontic logic. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 4, Page 15-17, April 2012.

In “Harmful Choices, the Case of C, and Decision-Making Competence,” Pickering and colleagues advance an argument in favor of externalism, a view in which the competence of a decision maker is judged relative to factors external to their cognition. In advancing this argument, Pickering and colleagues focus on the external factor of harm: In their view, it is the harmfulness of a considered or chosen action that provides evidence against the competence of the decision maker. However, the proper identification of (...) harmful choices and outcomes remains a demanding task, largely because our understanding of what harm is remains deeply incomplete. Despite 50 years of tempestuous debate, the metaphysics of harm remains an unsettled question. The existence of such a debate does not, in and of itself, provide evidence against the externalist position; rather, it is the theories of harm themselves that pose meaningful challenges for the externalist. Our purpose, here, is to illuminate these challenges. (shrink)

This article defends the Harm Principle, commonly attributed to John Stuart Mill, against recent criticism. Some philosophers think that this principle should be rejected, because of severe difficulties with finding an account of harm to plug into it. I examine the criticism and find it unforceful. Finally, I identify a faulty assumption behind this type of criticism, namely that the Harm Principle is plausible only if there is a full-blown, and problem-free, account of harm, which proponents of the principle can (...) refer to. (shrink)

This article defends the Harm Principle, commonly attributed to John Stuart Mill, against recent criticism. Some philosophers think that this principle should be rejected, because of severe difficulties with finding an account of harm to plug into it. I examine the criticism and find it unforceful. Finally, I identify a faulty assumption behind this type of criticism, namely that the Harm Principle is plausible only if there is a full-blown, and problem-free, account of harm, which proponents of the principle can (...) refer to. (shrink)

An important objection to the Counterfactual Comparative Account (CCA) of harm is that the account fails to cohere with standard views about the normative significance of harm. In response, some proponents of CCA suggest that the concept of harm should play a more limited role in normative theorising than philosophers might usually think. This paper addresses the most elaborate defence of CCA of this sort, namely that by Neil Feit (2019) Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 22, 809–823, and argues that (...) it is unsuccessful. (shrink)

I argue that it is permissible for pregnant women to expose their unborn children to risks and injury. I begin with the premise that abortion is permissible. If so, then just as a pregnant woman may permissibly prevent an unborn child from experiencing any future wellbeing, she also may permissibly provide her child relatively poorer prospects for wellbeing. Therefore, it is permissible for pregnant women to take risks and cause prenatal injury. This argument has revisionary implications for policies that prevent (...) medical research and drug use during pregnancy. It also explains why moralistic criticism of pregnant women is unwarranted. (shrink)

Vaccine refusal harms and risks harming innocent bystanders. People are not entitled to harm innocents or to impose deadly risks on others, so in these cases there is nothing to be said for the right to refuse vaccination. Compulsory vaccination is therefore justified because non-vaccination can rightly be prohibited, just as other kinds of harmful and risky conduct are rightly prohibited. I develop an analogy to random gunfire to illustrate this point. Vaccine refusal, I argue, is morally similar to firing (...) a weapon into the air and endangering innocent bystanders. By re-framing vaccine refusal as harmful and reckless conduct my aim is to shift the focus of the vaccine debate from non-vaccinators’ religious and refusal rights to everyone else’s rights against being infected with contagious illnesses. Religious freedom and rights of informed consent do not entitle non-vaccinators to harm innocent bystanders, and so coercive vaccination requirements are permissible for the sake of the potential victims of the anti-vaccine movement. (shrink)

In this paper, I construct and defend an account of harm, specifically, all-things-considered overall harm. I start with a simple comparative account, on which an event harms a person provided that she would have been better off had it not occurred. The most significant problems for this account are overdetermination and preemption cases. However, a counterfactual comparative approach of some sort is needed to make sense of harm, or so I argue. I offer a counterfactual comparative theory that accounts nicely (...) for such cases, by taking claims about harm to be, potentially, irreducibly plural. In some cases, there are some events such that they are harmful, even if no one of them is such that it is harmful. I try to work out the details. (shrink)

According to Jerome Wakefield’s harmful dysfunction analysis of medical disorder, the inability of some internal part or mechanism to perform its natural function is necessary, but not sufficient, for disorder. HDA also requires that the part dysfunction be harmful to the individual. I consider several problems for HDA’s harm criterion in this article. Other accounts on which harm is necessary for disorder will suffer from all or almost all of these problems. Comparative accounts of harm imply that one is harmed (...) when one is made worse off, that is, worse off than one otherwise would have been. Non-comparative accounts imply that one is harmed when one is put into some kind of condition or state that is, in some way, bad in itself. I argue that whether harm is construed comparatively or non-comparatively, HDA’s harm criterion is problematic. I tentatively conclude that an analysis of medical disorder should not make use of the concept of harm. (shrink)

Abstract It is common practice to regard participants in assisted and collaborative reproduction (gamete donors, embryologists, fertility doctors, etc.) as simply providing a desired biological product or medical service. These agents are not procreators in the ordinary sense, nor do they stand in any kind of meaningful parental relation to the resulting offspring. This paper challenges the common view by defending a principle of procreative responsibility and then demonstrating that this standard applies as much to those who provide reproductive assistance (...) in the form of medical services or gametes, as it does to coital reproducers or intending parents. Drawing on vocabulary from the common law tradition, I suggest that it may be helpful to refer to the various participants in assisted and collaborative reproduction (ACR) as accessories to procreation. Referring to the participants in ACR as accessories to procreation highlights the fact that these agents are not just providing medical services or products. They are participating in a supply chain designed to bring about new persons. I conclude by arguing that regulative standards in the fertility industry should be structured such that they permit, facilitate, and encourage agents to satisfy the requirements of procreative responsibility. Content Type Journal Article Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s10677-011-9330-7 Authors Melissa Seymour Fahmy, Department of Philosophy, University of Georgia, 107 Peabody Hall, Athens, GA 30602, USA Journal Ethical Theory and Moral Practice Online ISSN 1572-8447 Print ISSN 1386-2820. (shrink)

Are some risks to study participants too much, no matter how valuable the study is for society? This article answers in the negative.

The Procreation Asymmetry holds that we have strong moral reasons not to create miserable people for their own sakes, but no moral reasons to create happy people for their own sakes. To defend this conjunction against an argument that it leads to inconsistency, I show how recognizing ‘creation’ as a temporally extended process allows us to revise the conjuncts in a way that preserves their intuitive force. This defense of the Procreation Asymmetry is preferable to others because it does not (...) require us to take on controversial metaphysical or metaethical commitments – in other words, it has the theoretical virtue of portability. (shrink)

Existing debate on procreative selection focuses on the well-being of the future child. However, selection decisions can also have significant effects on the well-being of others. Moreover, these effects may run in opposing directions; some traits conducive to the well-being of the selected child may be harmful to others, whereas other traits that limit the child’s well-being may preserve or increase that of others. Prominent selection principles defended to date instruct parents to select a child, of the possible children they (...) could have, likely to have a good (or nonbad) life, but they do not instruct parents to independently take the well-being of others into account. We refer to these principles as individualistic selection principles. We propose a new selection principle—Procreative Altruism—according to which parents have significant moral reason to select a child whose existence can be expected to contribute more to (or detract less from) the well-being of others than any alternative child they could have. We present the case for adopting Procreative Altruism alongside any of the major individualistic selection principles proposed to date and defend this two-principle model against a range of objections. (shrink)

The non-identity problem arises when our actions in the present could change which people will exist in the future, for better or worse. Is it morally better to improve the lives of specific future people, as compared to changing which people exist for the better? Affecting the timing of fetuses being conceived is one case where present actions change the identity of future people. This is relevant to questions of public health policy, as exemplified in some responses to the Zika (...) epidemic. There is philosophical disagreement about the relevance of non-identity: some hold that non-identity is not relevant, while others think that the only morally relevant actions are those that affect specific people. Given this disagreement, we investigated the intuitions about the moral relevance of non-identity within an educated sample of the public, because there was previously little empirical data on the public’s views on the non-identity problem. We performed an online survey with a sample of the educated general public. The survey assessed participants’ preferences between person-affecting and impersonal interventions for Zika, and their views on other non-identity thought experiments, once the non-identity problem had been explained. It aimed to directly measure the importance of non-identity in participants’ moral decision-making. We collected 763 valid responses from the survey. Half of the participants (50%) had a graduate degree, 47% had studied philosophy at a university level, and 20% had read about the non-identity problem before. Most participants favoured person-affecting interventions for Zika over impersonal ones, but the majority claimed that non-identity did not influence their decision (66% of those preferring person-affecting interventions, 95% of those preferring impersonal ones). In one non-identity thought experiment participants were divided, but in another they primarily answered that impersonally reducing the quality of life of future people would be wrong, harmful and blameworthy, even though no specific individuals would be worse off. Non-identity appeared to play a minor role in participants’ moral decision-making. Moreover, participants seem to either misunderstand the non-identity problem, or hold non-counterfactual views of harm that do not define harm as making someone worse off than they would have been otherwise. (shrink)

The application of genetic technologies in China, especially in the area of prenatal genetic testing, is rapidly increasing in China. In the wealthy regions of China, prenatal genetic testing is already very widely adopted. We argue that the government should actively promote prenatal genetic testing to the poor areas of the country. In fact, the government should prioritize resources first to make prenatal genetic testing a standard routine care with an opt-out model in these area. Healthcare professions would be required (...) to inform pregnant women about the availability of genetic testing and provide free testing on a routine basis unless the parents choose not to do so. We argue that this proposal will allow parents to make a more informed decision about their reproductive choices. Secondarily, this proposal will attract more healthcare professionals and other healthcare resources to improve the healthcare infrastructures in the less-developed regions of the country. This will help to reduce the inequity of accessing healthcare services between in different regions of China. We further argue that this policy proposal is not practicing eugenics. (shrink)

This article brings together two debates in bioethics more substantively than has been the case until now. One is the methodological debate over "principlism," i.e., the theoretical framework for analyzing and solving ethical problems proposed by Beauchamp and Childress in Principles of Biomedical Ethics. The other is the normative debate about reproductive ethics, i.e., procreative rights and obligations in a time of pervasive opportunities for making detailed choices about the properties and capacities of future people. The obvious point of bringing (...) the debates together is to show how they can illuminate each other in fruitful ways consistent with the method of reflective equilibrium endorsed in PBE. Furthermore, discussions of reproductive ethics is almost absent in PBE, making it an interesting "test case" on how principlist theory can have an impact on and be affected by confrontations with new practices and considerations in biomedicine. Reproductive ethics is especially interesting due to the so-called non-identity considerations, which pose a challenge to common morality views on harm to and respect for persons. My focus is mainly on some methodological points about the import of concrete normative discussions for formulating basic normative principles. However, I unfold a number of substantial points in order to demonstrate this. It is my impression that most writers on principlism underestimate the effect of engaging with concrete problems. Specifically, I conclude that reflecting on procreative obligations provides strong reasons for specifying the basic principles in ways that uncover new dimensions of them and not just new applications. _Key words: _principlism, reproductive ethics, non-identity problem, nonmaleficence, respect for persons. (shrink)

The concept of “harm” is ubiquitous in moral theorising, and yet remains poorly defined. Bradley suggests that the counterfactual comparative account of harm is the most plausible account currently available, but also argues that it is fatally flawed, since it falters on the omission and pre-emption problems. Hanna attempts to defend the counterfactual comparative account of harm against both problems. In this paper, I argue that Hanna’s defence fails. I also show how his defence highlights the fact that both the (...) omission and the pre-emption problems have the same root cause – the inability of the counterfactual comparative account of harm to allow for our implicit considerations regarding well-being when assessing harm. While its purported neutrality with regard to substantive theories of well-being is one of the reasons that this account is considered to be the most plausible on offer, I will argue that this neutrality is illusory. (shrink)

In recent attempts to define ‘harm’, the most promising approach has often been thought to be the counterfactual comparative account of harm. Nevertheless, this account faces serious difficulties. Moreover, it has been argued that ‘harm’ cannot be defined without reference to a substantive theory of well-being, which is itself a fraught issue. This has led to the call for the concept to simply be dropped from the moral lexicon altogether. I reject this call, arguing that the non-comparative approach to defining (...) harm has not been sufficiently explored. I then develop such an account that avoids the difficulties faced by comparative accounts whilst not presupposing a substantive theory of well-being. I conclude that this definition renders a concept of harm that can be meaningfully employed in our moral discourse. (shrink)

Some have put forward a normative principle that it is immoral and highly disrespectful to create free, rational creatures (like human beings) without their prior consent. (See, for instance, Monaghan in Int J Philos Relig 88(2):181–195, 2020) If true, this principle constitutes a new argument against the existence of God since it is logically impossible to acquire the consent of someone before they are created. Thus, God’s existence is taken to be incompatible with creating any persons. I shall examine this (...) normative claim and show that it is not plausible. In the first place, it fails to meet three criteria that are commonplace to the “logical problem of evil.” In the second place, the principle has clear counterexamples that show many plausible exceptions that could justify God in creating persons. (shrink)

It has long been thought that by using morphine to alleviate the pain of a dying patient, a doctor runs the risk of causing his death. In all countries this kind of killing is explicitly or silently permitted by the law. That permission is usually explained by appealing to the doctrine of double effect: If the use of morphine shortens life, that is only an unintended side effect. The paper evaluates this view, finding it flawed beyond repair and proposing an (...) alternative explanation. It is not the intention of the doctor that counts, but the availability of an “objective” palliative justification. (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)

Might it be morally wrong to procreate? David Benatar answers affirmatively in Better Never to Have Been , arguing that coming into existence is always a great harm. I counter this view in several ways. First, I argue against Benatar’s asserted asymmetry between harm and benefit—which would support the claim that any amount of harm in a human life would make it not worth starting—while questioning the significance of his distinction between a life worth starting and one worth continuing. I (...) further contend that his understanding of hedonism and desire-fulfillment theories distorts their implications for the quality of human life; as for objective-list theories, I rebut his critique of their human-centered basis of evaluation. Notwithstanding this multi-tiered challenge to Benatar’s reasoning, I conclude with praise for his work and the intellectual virtues it embodies. (shrink)

There are three stages at which procreative outcomes can be prevented or altered: (1) prior to conception (2) during pregnancy and (3) after birth. Daniel Engster (Soc Theory Pract 36(2):233–262, 2010) has ably argued that plans to prevent or alter procreative outcomes at stages (2) and (3)—through abortion and adoption—introduce financial, physical, and emotional hardships to which women are disproportionately vulnerable. In this paper, I argue that plans to prevent or alter undesirable procreative outcomes at stage (1)—through contraception use—similarly disadvantage (...) women. I suggest that accounts proposing moral responsibilities to delay or permanently avoid procreation are insufficiently attentive to the methods through which undesirable procreative outcomes might be prevented and how such methods unfairly burden women. In conclusion, I propose several ways that men and women might more equitably share contraceptive responsibility. (shrink)