It is an open question when procreation is justified. Antinatalists argue that bringing a new individual into the world is morally wrong, whereas pronatalists say that creating new life is morally good. In between these positions lie attempts to provide conditions for when taking an anti or pronatal stance is appropriate. This paper is concerned with developing one of these attempts, which can be called qualified pronatalism. Qualified pronatalism typically claims that while procreation can be morally permissible, there are constraints (...) on when it is justified. These constraints often concern whether an individual is motivated to procreate for the right reasons. For instance, if someone is not sufficiently concerned with the child’s future welfare, the qualified pronatalist will say that procreation is not justified. Moreover, David Wasserman says that this concern forms a role-based duty. That is, prospective parents have special duties to be concerned for the child’s future welfare by virtue of the role they occupy. In this paper, I argue that a proper examination of a prospective parent’s role-based duties entails that more is needed to justify procreation. Bringing a new person into the world leaves fewer resources for people who already need them, and the current size of the human population is unsustainable from a planetary point of view. Therefore, even if there is nothing wrong with procreation per se, the external condition of overpopulation, and its ensuing public health issues, plausibly gives rise to a role-based duty that prospective parents must account for when deciding whether to procreate. (shrink)

The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 4, Page 24-26, April 2012.

This paper is concerned with the examination of Caspar Hare's de dicto approach to the non-identity problem and specifically the non-identity case of The Inconsiderate Mother. On the de dicto approach an act can be wrong if it makes things de dicto worse for a role, even if that act does not make things worse for any actual person that fills that role. In this paper I provide a brief overview and reconstruction of Hare's argument. I argue that objections to (...) Hare's arguments due to David Wasserman do not give us reason to dismiss the de dicto approach. Lastly I consider an objection to the effect that Hare's solution to the non-identity problem is ad hoc. I conclude that the de dicto approach faces some challenges but that we cannot readily dismiss it. (shrink)