(2013). Moral Ground. Ethics, Policy & Environment. ???aop.label???. doi: 10.1080/21550085.2013.844582.

Contrary to political and philosophical consensus, we argue that the threats posed by climate change justify population engineering, the intentional manipulation of the size and structure of human populations. Specifically, we defend three types of policies aimed at reducing fertility rates: choice enhancement, preference adjustment, and incentivization. While few object to the first type of policy, the latter two are generally rejected because of their potential for coercion or morally objectionable manipulation. We argue that forms of each policy type are (...) pragmatically and morally justified tools for preventing the harms of global climate change. (shrink)

In this article, I challenge the widespread presumption that a child should have exactly two parents. I consider the pros and cons of various numbers of parents for the people most directly affected – the children themselves and their parents. The number of parents, as well as the ratio of parents to children, may have an impact on what resources are available, what relationships can develop between parents and children, what level of conflict can be expected in the family, as (...) well as the costs involved in parenting and the experience of parenting a child. Indirectly, there is also an effect on who will have the opportunity to be a parent, as well as on wider social issues that I mention but do not discuss. Having considered all these factors, I conclude that there is some reason to believe that three or more parents is usually better than one or two, especially if children are to have siblings, which is typically beneficial. However, these reasons are not strong enough to support a general presumption in favor of any particular number. We should therefore jettison the two‐parent presumption and make different numbers of parents more socially accepted as well as legally possible. (shrink)

Climate change is considered among the greatest threats our species has ever faced. The effects of anthropogenic climate change are expected to occur within our own and certainly within our childre...

Reproductive freedom plays a pivotal role in debates on the ethics of procreation. This moral principle protects people’s interests in procreative matters and allows them discretion over whether to have children, the number of children they have and, to a certain extent, the type of children they have. Reproductive freedom’s theoretical and political emphasis on people’s autonomy and well-being is grounded in an individual-centred framework for discussing the ethics of procreation. It protects procreators’ interests and significantly reduces the permissible grounds (...) for interference by third parties. In this article I show that procreative decisions have far-reaching effects on the composition and size of the population. The upshot of considering these effects allows for the appreciation of the inadequacy of a framework that solely considers individual (i.e. procreators’) interests to discuss the ethics of procreation. To address such inadequacy, I assess costs and benefits of past and present proposals to reflect on procreation in such a way as to consider its far-reaching effects. I conclude by arguing that reproductive freedom should be defended as an imperfect but instrumentally necessary tool. This framing would enable those participating in debates on the ethics of procreative decisions to work towards an ethical framework that accounts for the cumulative effects of these decisions. (shrink)

What does it matter if the climate changes? This kind of question does not admit of a scientific answer. Natural science can tell us what some of its biophysical effects are likely to be; social scientists can estimate what consequences such effects could have for human lives and livelihoods. But how should we respond? The question is, at root, about how we think we should live—and different people have myriad different ideas about this. The distinctive task of ethics is to (...) bring some clarity and order to these ideas. (shrink)

Disabled people are impacted by ArtiBicial Intelligence including Machine Learning linked neuro and brain based scientiBic and technological advancements. How disabled people are portrayed and what role is linked to disabled people in AI/Neuro discourses impacts how AI/Neuro are advanced in relation to disabled people. A content analysis was performed on 786 academic abstracts obtained from Scopus and the 70 databases of EBSCO-HOST, 208 Canadian newspaper articles and 286 tweets. Within the academic literature, Canadian newspapers and tweets covered, the main (...) portrayal of disabled people was a medical or deBiciency one, and the main roles of disabled people evident were the ones of being a medical/ therapeutic user and medical focused research participant of AI/Neuro advancements. The following roles were not present: “victim” of AI/Neuro advancements; “educator”, advocate”, or “knowledge producers” on the social and other implications of AI/Neuro, and “stakeholder”. No role was linked to AI/Neuro governance, ethics and policy discourses. The limited scope of roles of disabled people in the AI/Neuro literature covered and the medically slated portrayal of disabled people revealed decreases the utility of how AI/Neuro advancements are discussed, especially the AI/Neuro ethics and governance discourses. (shrink)