This paper develops a form of moral actualism that can explain the procreative asymmetry. Along the way, it defends and explains the attractive asymmetry: the claim that although an impermissible option can be self-conditionally permissible, a permissible option cannot be self-conditionally impermissible.

The author argues for a theory of responsibility for outcomes of imposed risk, based on whether it was permissible to impose the risk. When one tries to apply this persuasive model of responsibility for outcomes of risk imposition to procreation, which is a risk imposing act, one finds that it doesn’t match one’s intuitions about responsibility for outcomes of procreative risk. This mismatch exposes a justificatory gap for procreativity, namely, that procreation cannot avail itself of the shared vulnerability to (...) risks and their constraints—to the balance one is forced to strike between one’s interest in being free to impose risks on others and one’s interest in being safe from harm resulting from the risk imposed by others—which serves to justify risk imposition, generally. Whereas most risk impositions involve trade-offs of liberty and security among people who share the vulnerabilities associated with the taking, imposing, or being constrained from imposing risks, procreation involves the introduction of people into that position of vulnerability in the first place. Thus, when one procreates, one imposes risks in the absence of the shared vulnerability that usually serves as a justification for risk imposition. Procreative risks may not be wrongfully imposed, but they aren’t permissibly imposed in a manner fully comparable to other permissibly imposed risks. This makes procreation a unique form of risk imposition, with unique implications for its justification and for one’s responsibility for its outcomes. This insight can help explain several puzzling procreative asymmetries. (shrink)

The Asymmetry in procreative ethics consists of two claims. The first is that it is morally wrong to bring into existence a child who will have an abjectly miserable life; the second is that it is permissible not to bring into existence a child who will enjoy a very happy life. In this paper, I distinguish between two variations of the Asymmetry. The first is the Abstract Asymmetry, the idealized variation of the Asymmetry that many (...) philosophers have been trying to solve. The second is the Real-World Asymmetry, a non-idealized variation that applies explicitly to cases of ordinary human reproduction. I argue that the Real-World Asymmetry can be defended by properly acknowledging the general wrongness of causing someone else to suffer, the limits of what morality can reasonably demand of us, and the significance of respecting women’s autonomy. I then argue that the Abstract Asymmetry is indefensible. (shrink)

According to asymmetric comparativism, it is worse for a person to exist with a miserable life than not to exist, but it is not better for a person to exist with a happy life than not to exist. My aim in this paper is to explain how asymmetric comparativism could possibly be true. My account of asymmetric comparativism begins with a different asymmetry, regarding the (dis)value of early death. I offer an account of this early death asymmetry, appealing (...) to the idea of conditional goods, and generalize it to explain how asymmetric comparativism could possibly be true. I also address the objection that asymmetric comparativism has unacceptably antinatalist implications. (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)

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)

We should not have children because (i) we have no child-regarding reasons to do so, (ii) we have child-regarding reasons not to do so, and (iii) although we have other-regarding reasons to do so, these reasons are not decisive. Objections to (i) include that life is always good and that possible individuals would choose life if given the opportunity. These fail if there is no duty to create even a good life (the argument from asymmetry), all lives are bad (...) (the argument from quality of life), and potential parents are not entitled to produce lives without the permission of the offspring (the argument from assumed consent). The failure of the objections is not, however, self-evidently inevitable if a hedonistic axiology is used. It becomes inevitable with a switch to an autonomy-respecting, need-based theory of value. There is no need to become existent (i), and there is a need to avoid frustration, pain, and suffering once an individual has been brought into existence (ii). Since any life can be or turn out to be very bad, potential parents put their children in harm’s way by creating them (the argument from risk). To see this and to see how the preferences of the potential parents do not change the situation (iii), it is necessary to assume a concept of gambling that allows genuinely serious harm in case the player loses. (shrink)

According to the Asymmetry, we’ve strong moral reason to prevent miserable lives from coming into existence, but no moral reason to bring happy lives into existence. This procreative asymmetry is often thought to be part of commonsense morality, however theoretically puzzling it might prove to be. I argue that this is a mistake. The Asymmetry is merely prima facie intuitive, and loses its appeal on further reflection. Mature commonsense morality recognizes no fundamental procreative asymmetry. (...) It may recognize some superficially similar theses, but we will see that they derive from more familiar principles, and are compatible with there being moral reason to bring happy lives into existence. (shrink)

My dissertation investigates the requirements of procreative justice. The procreative justice problem is that parents' interest in procreation conflicts with children's interest in optimal birth conditions. Intergenerational reciprocity is the principle that adjudicates this conflict: reciprocity dictates that children demand no more of their parents' procreative practices than they themselves are willing to abide by as adults and dig parents only procreate in accordance with principles dig they would have wanted their own parents to have followed. I (...) develop a Rawlsian Contractualist theory, grounded in the view of justice as the principles that would result from self-interested rational choice under fair bargaining conditions, i.e. unbiased rational prudence over the course of a lifetime by agents who know that they will be born children and grow into adults who may want to procreate. ;This deliberation yields three principles: The Obvious Principle bans procreation that undermines the interests of both prospective parents and prospective children or involves risking/sustaining a major burden for the sake of a minor benefit. The Balance Principle permits procreation only when it would not be irrational for the prospective parent to accept for herself the very same risk her procreation imposes on her prospective child, in exchange for permission to procreate under these circumstances. The Motivation Restriction requires that procreation be at least partially, yet still prominently, motivated by a desire to raise, nurture, love, and care for one's future child once it is born. These principles are defended against rival principles and applied to a wide variety of cases. ;Stymied by metaphysical paradoxes and confusion about persons and existence, contemporary ethicists have struggled to formulate a sound theory of procreative justice that provides more than bare-bones consideration of children's interests. I argue that these efforts have failed. Whereas procreative liberty principles, including Feinberg's Birth Rights and Parfit's Non-Identity Problem principles, neglect children's interests, strictly paternalistic principles, e.g. Benatar's Asymmetry principle, neglect parental interests. My theory of procreative justice provides a much needed middle-ground position which promotes and protects the interests of prospective parents and children. (shrink)

In this article I reconsider David Benatar's primary argument for anti‐natalism—the asymmetry argument—and outline a three‐step process for rejecting it. I begin in Part 2 by reconstructing the asymmetry argument into three main premises. I then turn in Parts 3–5 to explain how each of these premises is in fact false. Finally, I conclude in Part 6 by considering the relationship between the asymmetry argument and the quality of life argument in Benatar's overall case for anti‐natalism and (...) argue that it is the latter argument that is actually doing the work. In this sense, the asymmetry argument is not only unsuccessful in generating Benatar's anti‐natalist conclusion, it is also unnecessary as well. (shrink)

This paper develops transfinite extensions of transitivity and acyclicity in the context of population ethics. They are used to argue that it is better to add good lives, worse to add bad lives, and equally good to add neutral lives, where a life's value is understood as personal value. These conclusions rule out a number of theories of population ethics, feed into an argument for the repugnant conclusion, and allow us to reduce different-number comparisons to same-number ones. Challenges to these (...) arguments are addressed, including the issue of comparing existence and non-existence in terms of personal value, the possibility of minimal quanta of time and life, and the meaningfulness of measuring closeness between outcomes with different population sizes. An asymmetry is uncovered between transfinite cycles of worseness and betterness, supporting a version of the weak procreative asymmetry. Transfinite transitivity principles are also favourably compared to the better-known principles of continuity. (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)

Imagine a world where everyone is healthy, intelligent, long living and happy. Intuitively this seems wonderful albeit unrealistic. However, recent scienti c breakthroughs in genetic engineering, namely CRISPR/Cas bring the question into public discourse, how the genetic enhancement of humans should be evaluated morally. In 2001, when preimplantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) and in vitro fertilisation (IVF), enabled parents to select between multiple embryos, Julian Savulescu introduced the principle of procreative bene cence (PPB), stating that parents have the obligations to (...) choose the child that is expected to have the best life. In this paper I argue that accepting the PPB and the consequentialist principle (CP) that two acts with the same consequences are morally on par, commits one to accepting the parental obligation of genetically enhancing one's children. (shrink)

Recently, Julian Savulescu and Guy Kahane have defended the Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB), according to which prospective parents ought to select children with the view that their future child has ‘the best chance of the best life’. I argue that the arguments Savulescu and Kahane adduce in favour of PB equally well support what I call the Principle of General Procreative Beneficence (GPB). GPB states that couples ought to select children in view of maximizing the overall expected (...) value in the world, not just the welfare of their future child. I further argue that Savulescu and Kahane's claim that PB has significantly more weight than competing moral principles, such as GPB, lacks justification. A possible argument for PB having significant weight builds on a principle of parental partiality towards one's own children. But this principle does not support PB; it supports a Principle of Sibling-Oriented Procreative Beneficence (SPB), according to which parents selecting a child should maximize the benefit of all their children. Indeed, PB itself will in some cases be self-effacing in favour of SPB. (shrink)

An influential thought-experiment by Derek Parfit sought to establish that people have a preference for unpleasant events to lie in the past rather than the future. In recent discussions of Parfit’s argument, this purported preference is modelled as a discounting phenomenon, as is the tensed emotion of relief, which Arthur Prior argued demonstrated that there is an objective metaphysical difference between the past and the future. Looking at recent work demonstrating some psychological past/future asymmetries that are more clearly instances of (...) discounting I argue that this existing philosophical literature fails to distinguish between what are clearly two quite different psychological phenomena. This affects recent attempts to respond to Prior’s metaphysical argument, because it is not clear that they have identified the right phenomenon to be explained. It also affects Parfit’s thought-experiment, because the purported unitary ‘preference’ may in fact be an amalgam of these two quite different psychological phenomena. (shrink)

This paper reconsiders Tommie Shelby's (2016) analysis of procreation in poor black communities. I identify three conceptual frames within which Shelby situates his analysis—feminization, choice-as-control, and moralization. I argue that these frames should be rejected on conceptual, empirical, and moral grounds. As I show, this framing engenders a flawed understanding of poor black women's procreative lives. I propose an alternative framework for reconceiving the relationship between poverty and procreative justice, one oriented around reproductive flourishing instead of reproductive responsibility. (...) More generally, the paper develops a methodological challenge for nonideal moral and political philosophy, especially concerning the obligations of the oppressed. Specifically, I argue that in the absence of descriptive and conceptual accountability, the moral gaze of the philosopher risks preserving, rather than destabilizing, oppressive ideologies. (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)

We have a reason to use information which is available about such genes in our reproductive decision-making; (3) couples should selec.

The argument of Julian Savulescu’s 2001 paper, “Procreative Beneficence: Why We Should Select the Best Children” is flawed in a number of respects. Savulescu confuses reasons with obligations and equivocates between the claim that parents have some reason to want the best for their children and the more radical claim that they are morally obligated to attempt to produce the best child possible. Savulescu offers a prima facie implausible account of parental obligation, as even the best parents typically fail (...) to do everything they think would be best for their children let alone everything that is in fact best for their children. The profound philosophical difficulties which beset the attempt to formulate a plausible account of the best human life constitute a further independent reason to resile from Savulescu’s conclusion. Savulescu’s argument also requires parents to become complicit with racist and homophobic oppression, which is yet another reason to reject it. Removing the equivocation from Savulescu’s argument allows us to see that the assertion of an obligation to choose the “best child” has much more in common with the “old” eugenics than Savulescu acknowledges. (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)

Herjeet Kaur Marway recently proposed the Principle of Procreative Justice, which says that reproducers have a strong moral obligation to avoid completing race and colour injustices through their selection choices. In this article, we analyze this principle and argue, appealing to a series of counterexamples, that some of the implications of Marway's Principle of Procreative Justice are difficult to accept. This casts doubt on whether the principle should be adopted. Also, we show that there are some more principled (...) worries regarding Marway's idea of a strong pro tanto duty not to complete injustices through one's procreative choices. Nonetheless, we believe Marway's arguments point in the right general direction regarding duties and structural injustice. Thus, in the final part, we suggest a positive proposal on how it would be possible to respond to the cases we raise. More specifically, we explore the suggestion that agents have a pro tanto duty to participate in eliminating structural injustice. Importantly, this duty can be satisfied, not only in procreation choices but in multiple ways. (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)

There has been much argument over whether procreative selection is obligatory or wrong. Rebecca Bennett has recently challenged the assumption that procreative choices are properly moral choices, arguing that these views express mere preferences. This article challenges Bennett's view on two fronts. First, I argue that the Non-Identity Problem does not show that there cannot be harmless wrongs – though this would require us to abandon the intuitively attractive ‘person-affecting principle’, that may be a lesser cost than abandoning (...) some more firmly-held intuition. But, even if we accept Bennett's claim that these choices are not moral, that does not show them to be mere personal preferences. I argue that there is a class of non-moral ‘categorical preferences’ that have much the same implications as moral preferences. If a moral preference for able-bodied children is problematic, then so is a non-moral categorical preference. Thus, showing that these preferences are not moral does not show that they are not problematic, since they may still be categorical. (shrink)

The Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB) holds that when a couple plans to have a child, they have significant moral reason to select, of the possible children they could have, the child who is most likely to experience the greatest wellbeing – that is, the most advantaged child, the child with the best chance at the best life.1 PB captures the common sense intuitions of many about reproductive decisions. PB does not posit an absolute moral obligation – it does (...) not dictate what people must do. Instead it holds that there is a significant moral reason to select the best child, but one that must be weighed against other reasons.Recent research suggests that it may become possible to derive gametes (eggs and sperm) from human stem cells in vitro, a process which we will term in vitro gametogenesis (IVG). The ability to create large numbers of eggs or sperm through IVG greatly increases our capacity to select the best child possible. (shrink)

Julian Savulescu has given clear expression to a principle—that of “procreative beneficence”—which underlies the thought of many contemporary writers on bioethics. The principle of procreative beneficence holds that parents or single reproducers are at least prima facie obliged to select the child, out of a range of possible children they might have, who will be likely to lead the best life. My aim in this paper is to argue that prospective parents, just by dint of their being prospective (...) parents, are in fact not obliged to act on PPB. That is, there is something about their filling the role of prospective parents that exempts them from selecting the child with the best life. I urge that it is more realistic to view prospective parents as bound by a principle of acceptable outlook, which holds that they ought not to select children whose lives will contain an unacceptable amount of suffering. (shrink)

Should nonprejudiced reproducers genetically select embryos for light skin under background conditions of racism and colourism, given that darker skin will be disadvantageous for their child? Many intuit that there are strong moral reasons not to select light skin in these contexts. I argue that existing procreative principles cannot adequately account for this judgement. Instead, I argue that a more compelling rationale for this intuition is that such selection completes an instance of race or colour injustice. Given this, I (...) propose a new, complementary principle—Procreative Justice—which holds that reproducers have strong pro tanto moral reasons to avoid completing race and colour injustices via their selection choices. While these reasons may be overridden by competing considerations, they nonetheless continue to exert normative force. (shrink)

Many contemporary ethical debates turn on claims about the nature and extent of our alleged procreative moral rights: moral rights to procreate or not to procreate as we choose. In this article, I argue that there are no procreative moral rights, in that generally we do not have a distinctive moral right to procreate or not to procreate as we choose. However, interference with our procreative choices usually violates our nonprocreative moral rights, such as our moral rights (...) to bodily autonomy or to privacy. My argument presents hypothetical cases in which a state interferes with a person's procreative choices in order to promote aggregate social welfare, but this interference does not violate any of the person's nonprocreative moral rights. These cases not only undermine frequently made claims that widely recognized nonprocreative moral rights entail procreative moral rights, they also challenge the intuitively plausible claim that interference with our procreative choices as such violates our moral rights. What at first appear to be substantive moral rights are in fact a kind of illusion created by the frequent overlap of other rights, but lacking in substance beyond that overlap. While this argument against the existence of procreative moral rights has substantive implications for ongoing debates in reproductive ethics, I ultimately suggest that it is consistent with a progressive approach to reproductive justice. (shrink)

Causes always seem to come prior to their effects. What might explain this asymmetry? Causation's temporal asymmetry isn't straightforwardly due to a temporal asymmetry in the laws of nature—the laws are, by and large, temporally symmetric. Nor does the asymmetry appear due to an asymmetry in time itself. This Element examines recent empirical attempts to explain the temporal asymmetry of causation: statistical mechanical accounts, agency accounts and fork asymmetry accounts. None of these accounts (...) are complete yet and a full explanation of the temporal asymmetry of causation will likely require contributions from all three programs. (shrink)

Advances in reproductive technologies – in particular in genetic screening and selection – have occasioned renewed interest in the moral justifiability of the reasons that motivate the decision to have a child. The capacity to select for desired blood and tissue compatibilities has led to the much discussed 'saviour sibling' cases in which parents seek to 'have one child to save another'. Heightened interest in procreative reasons is to be welcomed, since it prompts a more general philosophical interrogation of (...) the grounds for moral appraisal of reasons-to-parent, and of the extent to which such reasons are relevant to the moral assessment of procreation itself. I start by rejecting the idea that we can use a distinction between 'other-regarding' and 'future-child-regarding' reasons as a basis on which to distinguish good from bad procreative reasons. I then offer and evaluate three potential grounds for elucidating and establishing a relationship between procreative motivation and the rightness/wrongness of procreative conduct: the predictiveness, the verdictiveness, and the expressiveness of procreative reasons. (shrink)

The asymmetry is the view in population ethics that, while we ought to avoid creating additional bad lives, there is no requirement to create additional good ones. The question is how to embed this intuitively compelling view in a more complete normative theory, and in particular one that treats uncertainty in a plausible way. While arguing against existing approaches, I present new and general principles for thinking about welfarist choice under uncertainty. Together, these reduce arbitrary choices to uncertainty-free ones, (...) regardless of how the latter should be made. I illustrate these principles by developing two theories of the asymmetry, reflecting different views about the non-identity problem. In doing so, I clarify some other major choice-points, presenting new arguments that creating additional good lives can justify (but not require) doing harm. Finally, I consider what the developed theories have to say about the importance of extinction risk and the long-run future. (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)

This essay presents a challenge to the parental obligation objection. This objection is usually made by abortion opponents who argue that because child support laws hold men postnatally responsible for children they helped bring into existence, women too have prenatal parental responsibilities that should prevent them from ending pregnancies through abortions. My essay draws on recent publications in bioethics that distinguish procreative from parental responsibilities. This distinction was originally developed to clarify the duties of third-party participants in assisted reproduction. (...) However, the distinction inadvertently poses a problem for the parental obligation objection, for it raises questions about whether women who do not wish to carry a child to term have parental rather than procreative responsibilities. It does not necessarily follow that the objection must be wrong. But rather, that there is an explanatory gap in it. If abortion violates procreative responsibilities, then drastic changes must be made to fertility medicine. Conversely, there does not appear to be non-question-begging criteria that would explain why pregnant women must have parental responsibilities, in addition to procreative ones, whereas third-party participants in assisted reproduction, such as fertility doctors, embryologists, gamete donors, and surrogates, have only procreative responsibilities. (shrink)

In this conceptual paper, the traditional conceptualization of sustainable entrepreneurship is challenged because of a fundamental tension between processes involved in sustainable development and processes involved in entrepreneurship: the concept of sustainable business models contains a paradox, because sustainability involves the reduction of information asymmetries, whereas entrepreneurship involves enhanced and secured levels of information asymmetries. We therefore propose a new and integrated theory of sustainable entrepreneurship that overcomes this paradox. The basic argument is that environmental problems have to be conceptualized (...) as wicked problems or sustainability-related ecosystem failures. Because all actors involved in the entrepreneurial process are characterized by their epistemic insufficiency regarding the solving of these problems, the role of information in the sustainable entrepreneurial process changes. On the one hand, the reduction of information asymmetries primarily aims to enable actors to become critical of sustainable entrepreneurs’ actual business models. On the other hand, the epistemic insufficiency of sustainable entrepreneurs guarantees that information asymmetries remain as a source of new sustainable business opportunities. Three further characteristics of sustainable entrepreneurs are distinguished: sustainability and entrepreneurship-related risk-taking; sustainability and entrepreneurship-related self-efficacy; and the development of satisficing and open-ended solutions, together with multiple stakeholders. (shrink)

Procreative Beneficence (PB) states that couples should have “the best child” they can, that means, they have a moral obligation to select the child, that “can be expected to enjoy the most well-be...

The aim of this paper is to scrutinize a contemporary standoff in the American debate over the moral permissibility of human reproductive cloning in its prospective use as a eugenic enhancement technology. I shall argue that there is some significant and under-appreciated common ground between the defenders and opponents of human cloning. Champions of the moral and legal permissibility of cloning support the technology based on the right to procreative liberty provided it were to become as safe as in (...) vitro fertilization and that it be used only by adults who seek to rear their clone children. However, even champions of procreative liberty oppose the commodification of cloned embryos, and, by extension, the resulting commodification of the cloned children who would be produced via such embryos. I suggest that a Kantian moral argument against the use of cloning as an enhancement technology can be shown to be already implicitly accepted to some extent by champions of procreative liberty on the matter of commodification of cloned embryos. It is in this argument against commodification that the most vocal critics of cloning such as Leon Kass and defenders of cloning such as John Robertson can find greater common ground. Thus, I endeavor to advance the debate by revealing a greater degree of moral agreement on some fundamental premises than hitherto recognized. (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)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Procreative Liberty, Biological Connections, and MotherhoodMargaret Olivia Little (bio)Given the complex and dramatic array of issues currently facing us in reproductive ethics, bioethicists working on the topic might be forgiven feelings of trepidation when they cast their minds toward the next century. Currently, technologies such as artificial insemination by donor (AID), once the source of intense controversy, are used on a routine basis; mainstream newspapers carry advertisements offering (...) “excellent compensation” to ova “donors;” courts are arguing whether women who serve as gestational or “surrogate” mothers have any parental rights; and proposals resurface to jail pregnant women who take street drugs. Sorting out which developments are to be welcomed and which are to be resisted—and why—will require us not only to clarify some of our most basic value commitments, but also to reflect on our understanding of concepts, such as motherhood, that we previously had the luxury of thinking obvious. Let me highlight two issues I think we will be forced to confront as we try to navigate the ethics of reproduction into the twenty-first century—namely, the value of biological connection and the meaning of motherhood.Procreative Liberty and the Value of Biological ReproductionPeople who are unable to conceive a child or to carry one to term now face a variety of extraordinary means of procreative assistance: they can buy sperm and ova, undergo in vitro fertilization, or contract another woman to gestate and give birth to the baby. Those who are enthusiastic about these new technologies [End Page 392] and arrangements often explain their support in terms of many people’s deep desire or even right to bear children biologically related to them; those who are suspicious of the techniques often explain their resistance by criticizing our culture’s “pronatalist” emphasis on biological rather than social relations with children. Focusing on such clear-cut positions, though, undersells the complexity and difficulty of the issues involved. Few want to dismiss altogether the importance of biological connection; but the question remains, what measure of importance should it be granted? Or again, while most agree that procreative liberty is one of our most fundamental rights, the question remains, whose procreation, in what context, and by which means? The truly difficult questions, that is, pertain to how we are to value biological relatedness and how we are to draw the contours of procreative liberty.One perspective emerging in current debates urges an expansive answer to these questions, arguing that the new reproductive technologies and arrangements deserve constitutional protection. Procreative liberty is deeply important, it is urged, given how fundamental the decision to have or to refrain from having children is to our sense of dignity, identity, and meaning of life. But if we recognize a right to reproduce coitally, it is claimed, we should also recognize a right to reproduce noncoitally: people with infertile partners should no more be barred from exercising their right to “beget, bear, and raise” children biologically linked to them by using surrogate arrangements or AID than those who are blind should be barred from exercising their right to written information by using Braille texts. 1The fundamental question is whether the value of biological reproduction persists when pursued outside of the intimacies of marriage and family that form its traditional home. The new reproductive technologies and arrangements, after all, represent a departure not simply because they are noncoital but because they involve reproduction with strangers, under contract, and for pay. One question that demands our reflection, then, is whether the procreative liberty we value attaches to individuals atomistically, as it were, or to individuals only insofar as they are in relationships of an intimate and ongoing nature.Other developments on the horizon sound a restrictive note about procreative liberty. Many IVF clinics, for instance, have denied services to would-be single parents or to gay or lesbian couples. Some legislators have proposed making certain welfare payments for women conditional upon their use of contraceptives such as Norplant—an odd view if one regards procreative liberty as a fundamental right. After all, we do not usually make the receipt of public aid contingent on waiving a constitutional right. (Imagine the government stipulating that... (shrink)

In a recent book and an article, Carl Craver construes the relations between different levels of a mechanism, which he also refers to as constitutive relations, in terms of mutual manipulability (MM). Interpreted metaphysically, MM implies that inter-level relations are symmetrical. MM thus violates one of the main desiderata of scientific explanation, namely explanatory asymmetry. Parts of Craver’s writings suggest a metaphysical interpretation of MM, and Craver explicitly commits to constitutive relationships being symmetrical. The paper furthermore explores the option (...) of interpreting MM epistemologically, as a means for individuating mechanisms. It is argued that MM then is redundant. MM should therefore better be abandoned. (shrink)

In Rationality and the Genetic Challenge: Making People Better? Matti Häyry provides a clear and informed discussion and analysis of a number of competing answers to the above questions. Häyry describes three main perspectives on the morality of prenatal genetic diagnosis , the “restrictive,” “moderate,” and “permissive” views, and his analysis illuminates that these views can be distinguished in terms of their different “rationalities”—their respective understanding of what counts as a reasonable choice for parents to make in light of PGD.

While the fundamental laws of physics are time-reversal invariant, most macroscopic processes are irreversible. Given that the fundamental laws are taken to underpin all other processes, how can the fundamental time-symmetry be reconciled with the asymmetry manifest elsewhere? In statistical mechanics, progress can be made with this question. What I dub the ‘Zwanzig–Zeh–Wallace framework’ can be used to construct the irreversible equations of SM from the underlying microdynamics. Yet this framework uses coarse-graining, a procedure that has faced much criticism. (...) I focus on two objections in the literature: claims that coarse-graining makes time-asymmetry ‘illusory’ and ‘anthropocentric’. I argue that these objections arise from an unsatisfactory justification of coarse-graining prevalent in the literature, rather than from coarse-graining itself. This justification relies on the idea of measurement imprecision. By considering the role that abstraction and autonomy play, I provide an alternative justification and offer replies to the illusory and anthropocentric objections. Finally, I consider the broader consequences of this alternative justification: the connection to debates about inter-theoretic reduction and the implication that the time-asymmetry in SM is weakly emergent. 1Introduction 1.1Prospectus2The Zwanzig–Zeh–Wallace Framework3Why Does This Method Work? 3.1The special conditions account3.2When is a density forwards-compatible?4Anthropocentrism and Illusion: Two Objections 4.1The two objections in more detail4.2Against the justification by measurement imprecision5An Alternative Justification 5.1Abstraction and autonomy5.2An illustration: the Game of Life6Reply to Illusory7Reply to Anthropocentric8The Wider Landscape: Concluding Remarks 8.1Inter-theoretic relations8.2The nature of irreversibility. (shrink)

There is widely assumed to be a fundamental epistemological asymmetry between self-knowledge and knowledge of others. They are said to be ’categorically different in kind and manner’ , and the existence of such an asymmetry is taken to be a primitive datum in accounts of the two kinds of knowledge. I argue that standard accounts of the differences between self-knowledge and knowledge of others exaggerate and misstate the asymmetry. The inferentialist challenge to the asymmetry focuses on (...) the extent to which both self-knowledge and knowledge of others are matters of inference and interpretation. In the case of self-knowledge I focus on the so-called ‘transparency method’ and on the extent to which use of this method delivers inferential self-knowledge. In the case of knowledge of others’ thoughts, I discuss the role of perception as a source of such knowledge and argue that even so-called ’perceptual’ knowledge of other minds is inferential. I contend that the difference between self-knowledge and knowledge of others is a difference in the kinds of evidence on which they are typically based. (shrink)

This book, by one of the pre-eminent philosophers of science writing today, offers the most comprehensive account available of causal asymmetries. Causation is asymmetrical in many different ways. Causes precede effects; explanations cite causes not effects. Agents use causes to manipulate their effects; they don't use effects to manipulate their causes. Effects of a common cause are correlated; causes of a common effect are not. This book explains why a relationship that is asymmetrical in one of these regards is asymmetrical (...) in the others. Hausman discovers surprising hidden connections between theories of causation and traces them all to an asymmetry of independence. This is a major book for philosophers of science that will also prove insightful to economists and statisticians. (shrink)

According to the Principle of Procreative Beneficence, reproducers should choose the child, of those available to them, expected to have the best life. Savulescu argues reproducers are therefore morally obligated to select for nondisease traits, such as intelligence. Carter and Gordon recently challenged this implication, arguing that Savulescu fails to establish that intelligence promotes well-being. This paper develops two responses. First, I argue that higher intelligence is likely to contribute to well-being on most plausible accounts. Second, I argue that, (...) even if it does not, one can only resist the conclusion that reproducers should select on the basis of intelligence if its expected net effect is neutral. If intelligence reduces expected well-being, then reproducers should select offspring of low intelligence. More likely, the effect of increased intelligence on expected well-being varies at different levels, which makes identifying an optimum for well-being more complex than hitherto appreciated. (shrink)

It is often said that while we have a strong reason not to create someone who will be badly off, we have no strong reason for creating someone who will be well off. In this paper I argue that this asymmetry is incompatible with a plausible principle of independence of irrelevant alternatives, and that a more general asymmetry between harming and benefiting is difficult to defend. I then argue that, contrary to what many have claimed, it is possible (...) to harm or benefit someone by bringing her into existence. (shrink)

The article considers the changing position of women and the family from the Second World War until today using the UK as its example. It offers a theoretical perspective by setting out to examine the possibility that the rise of second-wave feminism both reflected and spearheaded an aspect of demographic transition to non-replacement populations. It considers the tension between the formation of ‘sexual difference’ to enable reproduction and what it calls the ‘engendering of gender’ in lateral relations which are indifferent (...) to procreation. With the achievements of feminism as a political vanguard and the demographic transition as its socioeconomic base, women were no longer defined by the family; their definition ceased to depend on procreation. The article proposes that the new use of the term ‘gender’ entered the political arena to become a key concept of feminism to indicate non-procreative sexuality and sexual relations that need not be heterosexual or biologically procreative. Judith Butler’s well-known suggestion that ‘gender’ troubles the status quo in a revolutionary manner cannot be sustained. Rather than disturbing the universe, the advent of ‘gender’ reflects the transition to a new demographic order. (shrink)