Abstract
A very common but untested assumption is that potential children would consent to be exposed to the harms of existence in order to experience its benefits (if it were possible for us to ask and for them to respond). And so, would-be parents might appeal to the following view: Procreation is all-things-considered permissible, as it is morally acceptable for one to knowingly harm an unconsenting patient if one has good reasons for assuming her hypothetical consent—and procreators can indeed reasonably rely on some notion of hypothetical consent. I argue that this view is in error. My argument appeals to a consent-based version of anti-natalism advanced by Seana Valentine Shiffrin. Anti-natalism is the view that it is (almost) always wrong to bring people (and perhaps all sentient beings) into existence. While, like Shiffrin, I stop short of advocating a thoroughgoing anti-natalism, I nevertheless argue that procreators cannot appeal to hypothetical consent to justify exposing children to the harms of existence. I end by suggesting a more promising route by which this justification might be achieved.
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Notes
The list of critics is long, and growing, and includes Bayne (2010), Boonin (2012), Bradley (2010), Brill (2012), Brown (2011), DeGrazia (2010, 2012, 2015), Harman (2009a), Kaposy (2009), McGregor and Sulliven-Bissitt (2012), Metz (2011), Packer (2011), Smilanksy (2008, 2012), Trisel (2012), and Weinberg (2012, 2016). I will not have space to address their criticisms here.
Shiffrin nevertheless attempts to defend procreation as “a special case” of harming (1999:139), perhaps because she fears any perceived anti-natal consequences will result in a reductio ad absurdum objection to her overall argument for a wider range of liability in wrongful life suits. But I do not believe that she does enough to save procreation from the anti-natal implications of her account of permissible harm. The arguments I present in the main text will go some way to showing why I think this is the case.
David DeGrazia (2012) has independently advanced a “Shiffrin-like” anti-natal argument (2012:150–3); however, he rejects her argument, while I support it. Among other things, DeGrazia argues that the issue of procreative harm ought to be weighed against other moral considerations, not the least of which is respecting the procreative autonomy of parents. I will not have space to consider this other-regarding argument in defence of procreation, but I will note here that the objection I will be raising to Shiffrin’s “anti-natalism” focuses only on (expected) benefits to children, and not on benefits to their parents. David Benatar, too, has also noted that Shiffrin’s argument can be used to defend an anti-natal position (2006:49–54). However, he favours his argument over hers.
Note, however, that Benatar (2007) believes contractors in the Rawlsian “original position” would arrive at an anti-natal conclusion.
In attempting to defend procreation via an appeal to benefits to children, my (hypothetical consent) objection to anti-natalism also differs from DeGrazia’s (2012), which appeals to benefits to parents.
For a fairly recent and influential defence of this view, as well as a proposed solution to the non-identity problem (which I do not aim to address here), see Harman (2004).
In Shiffrin’s own words: “Harm is objectively bad in such a way that it is morally problematic to inflict (unsolicited) a significant level of it on another for the sake of conferring a benefit, although a person may reasonably decide to undergo the same level of harm to retain the same level of benefit.” (1999:130)
DeGrazia (2012:153–4) makes an interesting distinction between imposing harm upon others, and merely exposing them to harm. Procreation, he argues, does not usually impose harms upon children; rather, it merely exposes children to harm, along with the potential for great benefits. Though I think that this impose-expose distinction is an important one deserving further discussion, for now I will simply point out that a lack of hypothetical consent is still a problem when aiming to argue that certain harmful acts are permissible—regardless of whether the harm comes about through imposition or (simply) exposure.
It is beyond the scope of my current project to examine the merits of appealing to subsequent compensation—a task I take up in far greater detail in Singh (2012a).
For example, parents often permissibly restrict the autonomy of their teenage children by forcing them to stay in and study. The hope is that this will help give them a better chance at getting into a good college, and thereby secure them the additional benefits that come to gainfully employed adults with college degrees.
For instance, a consenter could explicitly state that she is indeed giving her consent to another by performing some voluntary activity that both parties have agreed would clearly signify consent. Examples of such voluntary activities include the showing of hands and the voicing of “ayes” or “nays”.
To give an example—a modification of the one found in Simmons (1979:79–82)—a university lecturer could ask her students whether there are any objections to her extending her lecture by a few minutes, and, if no student voices an objection or gets up to leave, she could thus infer that all of her students have consented to her proposal.
Note that though I employ him here to spell out the two types of hypothetical consent, Rawls himself is not a friend of the paternalists. Also, see footnote 5.
In the US in 2016, suicide was the second leading cause of death in age groups 10–14, 15–24, and 25–34, and the fourth leading cause of death in age groups 35–44 and 45–54 (CDC 2016). Of course, I recognise that suicide is a phenomenon with many contributory factors, and I am cautious not to assume that there is a straightforward link between suicide and (thereby) “expressing a subjective preference not to exist”. The statistics, though, are sobering, and whilst I am not sure how they should factor into the procreative deliberations of potential parents, I do think it would be unreasonable for parents to dismiss the problem of suicide without some level of existential engagement with it.
Or perhaps a larger set of objective goods, as survival usually encompasses other goods.
This statistic covers the following age groups: 1–4, 5–9, 10–14, 15–24, 25–34, and 35–44.
Not everyone would agree that death should appear in this list; Epicureans would deny that death is bad for the one who dies. For a recent (and forceful) argument against the Epicurean view, see Benatar (2017:92–141).
To be clear, I think that certain pure benefits (Sunset is meant to describe a pure benefit) can be justified even if the condition outlined in 4.1 (significant harm must be at stake) is not satisfied, as long as the harms imposed are not too serious (that is, as long as 4.2 obtains). In fact, I believe that if the harms of a typical life were sufficiently trivial, then, arguably, even many anti-natalists would agree that procreation would be permissible. But, of course, no lives are so blessed as to contain only trivial harms.
Note that a loss of some degree of autonomy is usually the extent to which patients are injured by paternalistic interventions. Procreation is different, in that though autonomy is bestowed, the injuries are far more extensive.
Though Shiffrin does focus on consent, what ultimately weighs against procreation is the fact that non-trivial harms are also involved.
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Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers whose thoughtful comments helped improve this manuscript. I also wish to thank the National Research Foundation of South Africa (NRF), as well as the University of Johannesburg (UJ). Generous funding offered to me by both parties some years ago while I was still a Master’s student—this paper is a substantially reworked version of a chapter from the Master’s dissertation I completed at UJ in 2012—helped me lay the groundwork for the current manuscript. Lastly, I am greatly indebted to Thaddeus Metz for his invaluable contributions toward bringing this paper into being.
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Singh, A. The Hypothetical Consent Objection to Anti-Natalism. Ethic Theory Moral Prac 21, 1135–1150 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-018-9952-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10677-018-9952-0