Is Reproduction Permissible or Required?
Is reproduction permissible? Is it required? Many population ethics imply that we should have children whenever there is some positive impersonal value in their existence (Holtug, 1996; Holtug, 2001; Roberts, 1998; Roberts, 2003; Adler, 2009). Others deny that it is even permissible to have them (because, e.g.,the fact that all lives contain some suffering and death makes it better never to have been (Benetar, 2008)).
This paper considers one way of defending the idea we are permitted, but not required, to have children. The idea is this: If it is neither good nor bad to have a greater number of people in a population for a wide (or at least non-unitary[1]) range of welfare levels, it is presumably neutral to have children at these welfare levels. One might think this suggestion is a non-starter as John Broome (amongst others) has argued at length against the wide neutrality idea. This paper suggests such objections fail. So the common sense view about reproduction may be defensible. If it is generally neither good nor bad to have a greater number of people in a population, we may be permitted, but not required, to have children.
Consider, for instance, why Broome objects to the idea that it is neither good nor bad to have a greater number of people in a population for any (non-unitary) range of welfare levels. He suggests comparingthe following vectors of welfare (or more generally advantage) A= (1,2), B= (1,2,0), C= (1,1,0). Suppose that the third value in B represents the addition of a person with a level of advantage in the “neutral” range to A. Suppose that C has the same people in it as B but, in C, the second person in B has lost one unit of advantage. If adding people to a population is neutral (regardless of their levels of advantage). Broome says B and C are not worse than A. But since B and C have the same people in them and the second person in C has less than the second person in B, C is worse than B. So, since “worse than” is transitive, C is worse than A. Broome concludes that it is not the case that it is neither good nor bad to have a greater number of people in a population for any (non-unitary) range of welfare levels (Broome, 2005).
One may, however, hold that C is worse than A – there is one respect in which it is worse – it is worse for the second person and the addition of another person to C is neutral – so at least if C is derived from A there is some reason for thinking that it is worse. Moreover, one need not hold that C is worse than B. One can say that if C and B were to come into existence, C *would* be worse than B and if one had to choose whether to move to B or C from A one should choose B. Then there is no problem maintaining that A is not worse than B or C. Rather, there is some reason to think A is better than C.
Consider Broome’s argument against this proposal (Broome, 2004, 152-7). Broome considers a version of the mere addition paradox where most of the individuals in A have 4 units of good and one has 5. He then considers an otherwise identical situation, B, where the individual with 5 has 6 and there is an additional person who has 1 unit of good. Finally, C is the same as B but the person with 5 only has 4 and the person with 1 also has 4. We can represent the situations this way:
A = (4,4,…4,5,*)
B = (4,4,…4,6,1)
C = (4,4,…4,4,4)
Broome says that A is equally as good as B and C for the last person (who has 1 in B, 4 in C and who does not exist in A). B is better than A for the second to last person (who has 6 rather than 5) and A is better than C for that person (who has 5 rather than 4). So B is overall better than A, which is better than C. This, however, violates transitivity of betterness (Broome, 2004, 152-7).
The problem with this argument is that A may not be equally as good as B and C for the last person (who does not exist in A). It is true that A is neither better nor worse for that person than B and A is neither better nor worse for that person than C. But this tells us nothing about how B and C compare to each other. If either B or C will be the case, it is clearly better for the last person to be in C than in B. A is incomparable with B and C for the last person. Nevertheless, C is clearly better than B for that person (and better impersonally in one respect). That is, C>B for the last person. So even though B>A>C for the second to last person, it is not clearly the case that B>A>C all things considered.
Objections to arguments like do not amount to an argument that for the idea thatit is neither good nor bad to have a greater number of people in a population. So, Broome (and colleagues) may be right to reject the intuition that adding a person to a population is neutral in many cases. Still, I know of no positive argument for the view that it is (almost) always good or bad to have a greater number of people in a population. So, it seems, one might endorse neutrality for a large range of welfare levels. If so, perhapswe are permitted, but not required, to have children after all.
References
Benetar, D. 2008, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Broome, J. 2004, Weighing Lives, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Broome, J. 2005, Should We Value Population?,The Journal of Political Philosophy, 13, 399-413
Roberts, M. A., 1998, Child versus Childmaker: Future Persons and Present Duties in Ethics and the Law, Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, M.D.
Roberts, M. A., 2003, “Can it Ever Be Better Never to Have Existed At All? Person-Based Consequentialism and a New Repugnant Conclusion”, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 20(2): 159-185.
Adler, M. D., 2009, “Future Generations: A Prioritarian View”, TheGeorge Washington Law Review, 77(5/6): 1478-1520.
Holtung, N. 2001, “On the Value of Coming into Existence”, The Journal of Ethics, 5(4): 361-384
Holtug, N., 1996, “In Defence of the Slogan”, in W. Rabinowicz (ed.), Preference and Value: Preferentialism in Ethics, Studies in Philosophy, Dept. of Philosophy, Lund University pp. 64-89.
[1] Broome makes this exception as his argument is not directed against critical level utilitarians (Broome, 2005). Obviously, this paper’s argument will undercut this argument against some competing consequentialist theories.