Debating Procreation: Is It Wrong to Reproduce?

277 Pages·2015·5.31 MB·English

by  David Benatar

DEBATING PROCREATION
Debating ethics
general editor
christopher heath Wellman
Washington University of st. Louis
Debating Ethics is a series of volumes in which leading
scholars defend opposing views on timely ethical questions
and core theoretical issues in contemporary moral,
political, and legal philosophy.
Debating the Ethics of Immigration
Is There a Right to Exclude?
christopher heath Wellman and Philip cole
Debating Brain Drain
May Governments Restrict Emigration?
gillian brock and Michael blake
Debating Procreation
Is It Wrong to Reproduce?
David benatar and David Wasserman
00-Benatar-Prelims.indd 2 19/03/15 3:42 PM
Debating
Procreation
Is It Wrong to Reproduce?
DAVID BENATAR
DAVID WASSERMAN
1
1
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Debating procreation : is it wrong to reproduce? / David Benatar
and David Wasserman.
p. cm. — (Debating ethics)
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 978–0–19–933355–4 (pbk. : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–19–933354–7
(hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Human reproduction—Moral and ethical aspects.
2. Life—Moral and ethical aspects. I. Benatar, David, author.
II. Wasserman, David, author.
BJ1335.D42 2015
176—dc23
2014042303
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
CONTENTS
Introduction 1
By David Benatar and David Wasserman
PART I ANTI-NATALISM
By David Benatar
1. Introducing Anti-Natalism 11
2. The Asymmetry Argument 18
3. The Quality-of-Life Argument 40
4. The Misanthropic Argument 78
5. Contra Procreation 122
PART II PRO-NATALISM
By David Wasserman
6. Better to Have Lived and Lost? 135
7. Against Anti-Natalism 148
vi | CONTENTS
8. Th e Good of the Future Child and the
Parent-Child Relationship as Goals
of Procreation 182
9. Impersonal Constraints on Procreation 209
10. Alternatives to Impersonal Approaches:
Birthrights and Role-Based Duties 228
Index 265
Introduction
DAVID BENATAR AND DAVID WASSERMAN
READERS OF A BOOK DEBATING the ethics of procreation
would be excused for thinking that the book might be pre-
mised on the assumption that procreation is sometimes
permissible and would then discuss the conditions under
which it is and is not morally acceptable. In fact, we shall
be debating the more basic question—whether procreation
is ever morally justifiable.
On the face of it, there are only two responses to this ques-
tion: “no” and “yes.” Those, in broad terms, are the views that
we, respectively, defend. David Benatar argues that procre-
ation is never morally permissible, while David Wasserman
argues that procreation is sometimes morally permissible
and that there can be positive value in creating children.
However, as one should expect, there are numerous
views on the ethics of procreation. For example, the view
that procreation is sometimes permissible is actually a
2 | DEBATING PROCREATION
range of views along the spectrum covered by the vague-
ness of the word “sometimes.” To say that it is sometimes
morally permissible to have children leaves open the ques-
tion of how often it is permissible. Some views are more
permissive; others less so. David Wasserman will examine
some of these views and defend one account of when it is
permissible to create children.
The respective positions we take are not symmetri-
cal. David Wasserman does not offer a categorical defense
of procreation that mirrors David Benatar’s categorical
attack. Although David Wasserman’s account is more per-
missive than most mainstream views, he rejects the view
that procreation can never be faulted on the grounds of
harming or wronging the children brought into existence.
Like David Benatar, he holds that procreation can harm
and wrong the child created, as well as wronging other
individuals.
There is another asymmetry between our two posi-
tions. The overwhelming majority of people think that pro-
creation is generally morally acceptable and many of those
are outraged at any suggestion to the contrary. Thus David
Wasserman defends a general position that enjoys wide-
spread support while David Benatar attacks a very fecund
holy cow. The latter author, therefore, has the harder task
of defending a “heresy.” Shifting metaphors, we are two
Davids, but only one of us is attacking a Goliath. Thus, at
least in terms of persuading people, David Benatar bears
the burden of proof, although he argues that, given the
harms of procreating, it is the defender of procreation who
bears the moral burden of proof.
Although the specific view that David Wasserman de-
fends is not heretical, it is, at the very least, unorthodox.
INTRODUCTION | 3
Unlike the majority of pro-natalists, he rejects the idea
that that it is even pro tanto wrong to have a less happy
child when one could have a happier one instead—or (what
is not the same thing) a disabled one when one could have
a non-disabled one instead. While agreeing that it is prob-
lematic to select a less happy or a disabled child, he argues
that it is also problematic for prospective parents to select
against such a child—options that prospective parents
increasingly have. He also argues that the intentions or
motivation with which they have a child can affect the per-
missibility of their actions, an equally unorthodox view.
And he argues, here against David Benatar and the main-
stream, that there is a perfectly intelligible sense in which
prospective parents can create a child for reasons that con-
cern the good of that child; indeed, that they should only
procreate with such an intention.
Both of us have written previously about procreation
and the reader may want to know how what we say here dif-
fers from what we have said before. In Part I, the axiologi-
cal argument will be familiar to those who have read David
Benatar’s Better Never to Have Been. However, whereas the
argument was presented in fuller form there, only an over-
view of it is presented here.1 This is in order to cater to the
broader readership for which the current book is intended.
It is nonetheless the most technical of the arguments in
Part I. Readers daunted by more technical arguments can
skip to the subsequent arguments in Part I.
The core of the quality-of-life argument is also drawn
from Better Never to Have Been, but it does not cover ex-
actly the same ground. Some details of the earlier argu-
ment have been omitted, but in other ways the argument
has been expanded here. For example, the risk argument,