Procreative Generosity: Why We Should Not Have Children

Abstract

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.

1. From Procreative Beneficence to Procreative Generosity: The Outline of the Argument

In 2001, Julian Savulescu published a seminal article titled “Procreative beneficence: Why we should select the best children.” [1]. It was an influential plea against having offspring with less than optimal genes—and, hence, presumably less than optimal lives. I take a step further and explore the possibility that we should not have children at all because every human life is or at least can become considerably less than optimal. In doing so, I rely on the work of many predecessors [2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10]. My novelty compared to them is that I use an axiology which makes their main contentions more comprehensible and better protected against the most common objections to antinatalism—the view that assigns birth a negative value. My framework here is outcome-based—to be more precise, negative utilitarian—and deontological and teleological considerations fall outside my remit.

As I see the matter, a valid argument for not having children can be built on three premises:

(i)

We do not have any possible-future-child-regarding reasons to reproduce.

(ii)

We do have some possible-future-child-regarding reasons not to reproduce.

(iii)

We have some other-people-regarding reasons to reproduce, but they pale in comparison with the reasons specified in (ii).

Premises (i) and (ii) place the wellbeing of the possible future child in the center. Premise (iii) allows other people’s interests to enter the equation but denies their decisive power.

In what follows, I will begin in Section 2 by considering two objections against the premises—that life is good and that future children would choose to be brought into existence—and explicating briefly the main extant counterarguments to these objections. After establishing that the counterarguments, if based on straightforward pleasure-pain calculations, are either intuitively difficult to accept or incapable of validating premise (i), I will show in Section 3 how a different theory of value could move the argument further. The main idea is that the problems created by a hedonistic axiology can be overcome by a need-based, autonomy-respecting one. Premises (i) and (ii) secured, I will move on in Section 4 to define the conditions on which premise (iii) can be accepted. The transition from pleasure and pain to autonomy-inclusive need satisfaction and frustration raises issues concerning other people’s needs, and they require attention. I will conclude in Section 5 by summarizing theories on the value of human life as seen by the protagonists of the debate and assessing the merits and limitations of my argument.

My overall normative aim is to establish that although potential reproducers may well have an autonomy-based claim to pursue having children, procreative generosity could dictate that it would be kinder of them to forgo this pursuit. By remaining voluntarily childless, they can avoid the hazard of creating lives overshadowed by severe need frustration. This generosity, then, would be an improvement on Savulescu’s proposed benevolence.

My argument provides grounds for the view that reproduction is irrational and immoral. Since people act in immoral ways even when they know them to be immoral, I suspect that my account can have practical value only for those who are already in doubt about the rightness of having children. Like Savulescu, I believe that morality and law are separate domains and follow slightly different logics. I do not advocate the use of force or coercion in reproductive matters. I simply point out what I believe to be the correct way of thinking about producing new lives. The aim is to further persuade individuals who share my convictions partly or entirely. People may, for instance, feel that antinatalism is the right choice but still have residual doubts concerning its justification. My main message to them is that switching from simple hedonism to the need-based theory of value I sketch here could provide a foundation for a theoretically better case against having children.

My conclusions are conditional or assertoric rather than categorical. They are conditional in that if readers believe my premises to be sound and my inferences valid, they should, in the name of rationality as consistency, also believe that having children is morally wrong. The presentation is assertoric in that since I believe in the argument, I also believe in its conclusions and direct my own conduct accordingly.

2. We Do Not Have Any Possible-Future-Child-Regarding Reasons to Reproduce

2.1. But Life Is Good

The most obvious objection to premise (i) is that human life is good. It may have its challenges and difficulties, but commentators have time and again expressed this view. If they are right, it stands to reason that the lives of future individuals would also be good and that by not bringing them into existence we would fail to allow this good to emerge. This, the commentators say, gives us a good future-child-regarding reason to reproduce [5,6,8].

The standard responses are that the observation is either irrelevant or false, or both [2,3,4,7]. Let me outline the contemporary discussion on these points insofar as they are relevant to my argument. The following subsections demonstrate the problems that confront the most popular defenses of antinatalism as they are standardly understood. I will, in other words, provide a summary devil’s-advocate criticism of existing arguments to make room for my own revision. Those who have faith that the arguments stand despite my critical commentary can rely on them—and the idea of procreative generosity remains intact, perhaps under some other title like procreative rationality or morality.

2.2. The Asymmetry of Good and Bad

The observation that life is good is at least partly irrelevant if we believe in the asymmetry of good and bad as foundations of our moral choices. Good and bad can be defined in many ways, but a convenient axiology (theory of value) for explaining the idea is hedonistic. Happiness or pleasure is the only intrinsic good, and suffering or pain is the only intrinsic bad. Other things are good and bad insofar as they increase happiness and pleasure or decrease suffering and pain.

In typical utilitarian theories of morality, good and bad are considered commensurable. We can measure the happiness and suffering produced by action alternatives available to us and arrive at a comparable net value for each. The alternative that has the highest value should be selected.

In the creed of negative utilitarianism, the symmetry is broken [11,12]. The reduction of suffering takes precedence over the promotion of happiness. The idea has analogous forerunners in the history of philosophy [13]. It is more important to fight evil than to strive for saintliness, and so on. David Benatar—the author of the best-known and the most detailed defenses of antinatalism—taps this source. He claims, for instance, that it is more natural to be worried about the future suffering of a child brought into existence than to be worried about the lost happiness of a child not brought into existence [4] (p. 34). Intuitions like this are, according to Benatar, best explained by assuming the asymmetry of good and bad. In his words, “the presence of pain is bad,” but “the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.” [4] (p. 32). This asymmetry, if accepted, works in favor of not having children. We have a duty not to cause the birth of a child who would have a bad life but no corresponding duty to cause the birth of a child who would have a good life.

The asymmetry does not, however, vindicate premise (i) completely. The premise states that we do not have any reason to produce children for their own sake, and this has not been proven yet. We may not have a legitimate reason to create suffering offspring, but the case of happy future children remains open. We may not have a duty to produce them, but we do not have a duty not to produce them, either. Having children with good lives could still be permissible.

2.3. The Overall Badness of Human Life

Benatar overcomes this remark by challenging the goodness of human life on a more fundamental level. He argues that all lives are bad. They are not necessarily bad in any spectacular way, as in the cases of great physical suffering or dramatic existential anguish. They are, according to Benatar, dull, uneventful, full of disappointments, and always prone to turn for the worse [4] (pp. 60 ff). This mundaneness, for him, suffices to counter claims based on life’s value. In his own words, “even the best lives are very bad.” [4] (p. 61).

If Benatar is right, premise (i) holds against the first objection. The goodness of life does not give us a reason to reproduce because there is no such thing. The objection simply states a falsehood. In its directness, this counterargument even pre-empts the need for considerations of asymmetry. If we have a duty not to bring about bad lives, and if all lives are bad, we have a duty not to create new lives. No comparisons between positive and negative values are necessary.

There are those who agree with Benatar that human lives are essentially not worth living [14,15]. The majority of his commentators hold, however, different views. They return to the root of the objection and state that at least their lives and the lives of most people they know are good enough [5,6]. Rational discussion between the parties ends here.

The debate then continues with more or less subtle references to the opponent’s mistaken attitudes and failing mental health. Benatar argues that the insistence on life’s goodness in the face of indisputable facts is ungrounded Pollyannaism [4] (pp. 64–69). Some of his critics, in turn, suggest that Benatar and his cronies’ pessimism is unwarranted and caused by clinical depression [16]. The details of these exchanges are not focal to my narrative here. The disagreement alone shows—to me at least—that the antinatalist argument has not met universal approval in this form.

2.4. But They Would Choose Life

Another way of approaching life’s value is to appeal to people’s preferences. The majority of people are not suicidal and, given the choice, would like to continue living. Similarly, we have reason to believe that future people, once they are brought into existence, would be happy, even grateful, that they are alive [17]. This might give us a future-child-regarding reason to reproduce. If we could ask them, they would choose life.

The responses to this include that the situation of already living people is different from that of non-existing imaginary entities (elaborated in Section 2.5) and that we cannot assume consent when the future life would contain debilitating elements (elaborated in Section 2.6).

2.5. Asymmetry Revisited

On suicide, it is true that most people continue their lives without even contemplating a self-induced exit. With very few exceptions, human beings who are already in existence do seem to choose life or its continuation. They have, however, reasons for this that are not shared by the unborn and the unconceived.

People are born into a web of relationships, and by the time they can consider the option of exiting voluntarily, they have acquired obligations and responsibilities toward other people. It is quite possible that the apparent will to live is based on a sense of duty and that it is forced upon us by circumstances. A thought experiment elucidates the situation. If we had an opportunity to relinquish our mental existence without any effect on other people, would we take it? The arrangement could be that a physical avatar takes our place and completes our social lives. Other people would not even notice that we, as conscious beings, would be gone [18].

Insofar as this scenario has more appeal than the possibility of suicide, the key seems to be that other-regarding factors are missing. The unborn and the unconceived are automatically in that situation. They do not have any specific other-regarding concerns. They could, therefore, be freer to choose non-existence than already living people. They would not necessarily choose life for the reasons that existing people do, as they do not have those reasons, and the analogy suggested by the objection is broken.

2.6. The Lack of Rational Consent

Seana Shiffrin’s considerations on consent provide another line of attack. Since possible future individuals cannot give their actual permission to be brought into existence, the consent has to be hypothetical or rationally assumed. Shiffrin presented her argument in the context of wrongful life lawsuits, cases in which disabled people seek compensation for being forced to live lives that contain seriously debilitating elements [3].

The debate at the time—the turn of the millennium—had settled that if a person’s life has no redeeming factors, compensation can be in order. It is rational to assume that, given the choice before being brought into existence, people with thoroughly miserable lives would not have consented to be born. Shiffrin extended this, in theory, to cases in which a life has both good and bad elements [3].

The objection to the extension was that we cannot legitimately complain about existence which is partly good and partly bad. It is, so the thinking went, a justifiably paternalistic case of rescue. The non-existing individual would not have a life unless produced at the expense of some harm. This was seen as analogous to the case that we break a person’s arm in dragging the person out of a burning house [19] (p. 127).

Leaning on a version of the asymmetry argument, Shiffrin questioned the analogy. A life which can be good or bad does not give potential parents an unquestioned right to bring it about, whereas knowledge of debilitating factors, even in the presence of better episodes, provides a reason against it [3,7]. The details of this view, which is strongly linked with American jurisprudence, have been explicated elsewhere [20].

2.7. What Has Been Proven So Far, and What Still Needs to Be Proven?

Although often seen as an independent reason for not having children, Shiffrin’s argument from consent, with its connection with wrongful life cases and asymmetry, seems to leave us exactly where we were after considering Benatar’s view on the difference between causing harm and not producing a benefit. It would be wrong to produce lives that are more or less bad, but if some lives can be seen as genuinely good, their goodness may still provide a reason for reproducing.

Benatar’s quality-of-life argument could provide a way forward, and there are some other considerations that could help. To present them, I must go on the offensive and consider the direct reasons for the wrongness of having children.

3. We Do Have Some Possible-Future-Child-Regarding Reasons Not to Reproduce

3.1. From Pleasure and Pain to the Satisfaction and Frustration of Needs

It is clear that if Benatar is right, and all human lives are bad, potential parents would be wrong to produce yet another suffering life. The opposition is firm, though. The majority of people do not believe that all lives are bad. As long as we hold on to a hedonistic or similar axiology, the case for not having children will not receive wide intuitive support. The core of the problem seems to be in the limitless accumulation of virtually impersonal value, a hallmark of straightforwardly aggregative utilitarianism. The approach invites observers to weigh the good and the bad in potential lives and argues that the ones with a positive balance should be created [21,22].

An alternative axiology could be based on a specific interpretation of needs. The concept is elusive, but it is easy to agree that the frustration of important needs is prima facie wrong while the satisfaction of important needs is prima facie right. One and the same action can, of course, lead to need satisfaction for some and need frustration for others, but this is not an issue in considering possible-future-child-regarding reasons not to reproduce [23].

If possible future individuals had a need to become existent, that would provide a reason for procreation. They do not, however, have such a need. They do not have any needs. They do not exist. There is no one there. This is why it makes sense to postulate, as has been done in the principle of actual or prospective existence: “When the moral rightness of human activities is assessed, the imagined needs of non-existent beings who will never come into existence shall not be counted.” [24] (p. 126).

The principle in its original context is a postulated axiom and, as such, incapable of drawing support from deeper considerations. It can, however, be expressed in a form that is difficult to dispute: “There is no need to become existent.” [24] (p. 187, n. 56). The principle probably says the same thing as Benatar’s “the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation”, but it says it more concisely and, in my mind, more convincingly. Again, I have no quarrel with Benatar’s wording—I am just trying to address those who find it too complicated.

3.2. The Ceaseless Pursuit to Satisfy Needs

The need approach, apart from showing the possible-future-child-regarding futility of reproduction, also elucidates the point that lives are rarely, if ever, optimal. From the moment we are born, we have unsatisfied needs. If we are lucky, most of these are satisfied, first by our carers and then to an increasing degree by ourselves in collaboration with others. The luck that we may or may not have does not, however, remove the fact that we are forever on the back foot. Once one need is satisfied, another emerges. We may get our daily nutrition today, but nutrition will be needed again tomorrow. The same applies to any category we can think of, whether high or low in Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of needs [25] or other psychological accounts. The idea has been expressed more eloquently as “brokenness that has to be fixed” by the antinatalist activist Inmendham in his plethora of YouTube entries on the issue and by his artistic collaborators (e.g., [26,27,28]).

That we are born into a state of dissatisfaction and frustration can provide a possible-future-child-regarding reason not to reproduce. At least three objections have to be considered, though: the constant pursuit of happiness gives life its meaning; we cannot count every fleeting disappointment as an existential crisis; and trust in the triumph of the good insures us against all temporary setbacks. Let me sketch why these may not be entirely convincing.

It is indeed customary to think that pursuing good things is a desirable activity, something that we are entitled to do and something that defines the value of our lives. When we talk about career progression and life projects, this sounds sensible. We can make our existence momentarily tolerable, even enjoyable, by seeking promotion through meaningful work contributions or building dwellings for our families. There are, however, less attractive frustrations like diseases, injuries, discrimination, injustice, and many smaller things that make daily routines arduous and occasionally disappointing.

The proponents of childbearing are likely to dismiss at least the smaller frustrations as irrelevant. We cannot, according to them, judge a person’s life by a childhood incident of, say, dropping one’s ice cream in the sand and ending up in tears. This is a readily understandable point, but it can also be easily contested. To begin with, there are more profound frustrations in life, and the example does not make them go away. Even more fatally to the objection, however, we do not actually know what the long-term impact of the ice cream episode on a person’s outlook will be. Little things like that stay in our memories, pile up, and may well contribute to eventual unhappiness on a more profound scale.

The suggested remedy to this is that we have to learn to trust that things go right in the end. For centuries, people in Europe and also in its colonies followed this rule and placed their faith in an afterlife of bliss after a good fight on Earth [29]. Although the grip of religion has loosened in many parts of the world, something similar survives in people’s belief in progress and ever-improving living conditions. We may not live to see the promised land, but our children or our children’s children will. The credibility of this anticipation can well be questioned, like, for instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has repeatedly done in its reports [30].

3.3. Risk and the Asymmetry of Needs

Not everyone believes that reproduction is wrong just because it creates lives of ceaseless but mostly low-level need frustration. To get closer to the conclusion, the stakes must be raised, and one way is to rely on the idea of unacceptable risk. Human lives are unpredictable, and any one of them can, without warning, become miserable. Illness, injury, war, gross injustice, and many other generally foreseeable but, in particular cases, unpreventable factors can cause a radical turn for the worse. Having children imposes this risk on them, and the existence of the risk could provide a possible-future-child-regarding reason against reproduction [31].

Critics have been quick to point out that it would be excessively timid to avoid all action that carries remote risks of disaster with them [8,10]. It is not how we conduct our daily lives. We routinely cross streets, although there is the risk of being run over. What is more, we also take similar risks for others. We drive cars, although there is the risk of running someone else over.

When we analyze the situation through the lens of a need-based axiology, however, an important difference emerges between the cases of imaginary non-existing entities and our already existing fellow beings. The latter have a need to participate in the traffic game, whereas the former do not have a need to partake in the life game. There may be a need to go to work, but there is no need to become existent. We take legitimate risks to conduct our daily lives, with consenting fellow humans, because we all need to conduct our daily lives. We cannot take similar risks with the unborn and the unconceived because they do not need to be. The risk of a miserable life is, then, within this theory of value, a valid possible-future-child-regarding reason not to reproduce.

4. We Have Some Other-People-Regarding Reasons to Reproduce, but They Are Not Decisive

4.1. There Is a Biological Need to Have Progeny

The challenge here is that already existing people may have reproduction-related needs which cannot be ignored once the need-based axiology has been chosen. The simplest interpretation is that human beings, like all living beings, have a need to have progeny. Whether this need is seen to be “biological” or “human”, however, there are reasons to think that it does not amount to a justification for having children who can suffer.

The reproduction-related biological need that people have is the urge to have sex. Its frustration can lead to unhappiness, and its satisfaction can lead to having children. Until the twentieth century, the chain between sex and reproduction was unbroken. Ways of birth control were known, but they were not always reliable, and they were not known to all. Contraceptive pills and intrauterine devices changed the situation, at least in the Global North. The connection was severed, and sexual needs are not inexorably linked with procreation anymore.

If there is a direct biological need to have progeny, it is a species-level phenomenon. The human DNA “needs” new people to continue its existence. Individual human beings do not, according to prevalent psychological, economic, and political theories, have such a need [32,33,34] (pp. 76–78). Being childless is not a deficiency that would threaten a person’s life or health. The person may want to have children, but wants and needs are two different things. The axiology I am relying on is need-based. This, for me, marks another advantage that my view has over a more traditionally hedonistic utilitarian account. In the latter, the pleasure and happiness of having children could be a more potent force.

That some individuals want to have children is a prima facie other-people-regarding reason to allow reproduction. When someone wants something, and there is no harm to anyone else, we usually consider it unkind or inconsiderate to stand in their way. In the case of reproduction, however, there is, arguably, harm to the as-yet-not-existing future individual, and this changes the situation. It is not unkind or inconsiderate to remind reproducers of their moral obligation not to impose a potentially painful existence on a new human being—to remind them of the grounds of procreative generosity as I see it.

4.2. There Is a Human Need to Have Progeny

Although the prevalent psychological, economic, and political accounts do not recognize an independent need to reproduce, they come close by identifying people’s strong interests in fulfilling their life plans and living autonomously according to their own conceptions of the good. If it is a part of some people’s life plan or conception of the good to have children, should they then be entitled to it?

Life plans and conceptions of the good, as well as personal autonomy, are subject to moral limitations. Observing and fulfilling them is allowed as long as this does not harm others. If what I have said about the risk of imposing a possibly bad life on future individuals is correct, however, this criterion is not met in reproduction. Parents inflict harm by having children, and this cancels their entitlement to act according to their preferences, albeit that these preferences may be deeply entrenched in their minds and their cultures.

In an attempt to explain the benefits of human mortality, Leon Kass has argued that having children, teaching them the ways of past generations, and then dying to make room for their ascendance to the roles of parents and grandparents is the closest that we can come, in secular terms, to understanding the meaning of human life. Not having children would break the chain, and living forever would confuse relationships so that humanity as we know it would cease to exist [35] (p. 271) and [36].

The thought of the voluntary self-extinction of humankind—even more concretely—does not deter Benatar and other antinatalist philosophers [4,14,15]. Seeing human suffering come to an end is a part of their conception of the good. But whose opinion should count? The difference that might tip the balance in favor of the antinatalists could be found in the concept of voluntariness. Kass would allow legal restrictions to complete his vision, whereas supporters of voluntary extinctionism can settle for raising awareness and exerting moral persuasion. The latter is more firmly grounded in the ethos of liberal democracies. Society’s view of what is good and right cannot be used as an excuse for harming individuals. The argument from human need in this sense is not, then, a valid reason for overriding the considerations supporting premise (i).

5. Different Views on the Value of Life, Risk, and the Limitations of My Argument

5.1. Scales of Value

Different people have different views on the value of human life, and this has an impact on their attitudes concerning reproduction. The clearest distinction can be drawn between pronatalists and antinatalists. Pronatalism is the view that we have a right, and maybe a duty, to have children. This has been the default value in procreative matters since time immemorial. Antinatalism is the view that we have a right, and maybe a duty, not to have children. The idea has been around for some time, but the word, in its current philosophical sense, was coined only in 2006 [4,14,15]. Pro- and antinatalism are compatible in the moderate zone (“right”) governed by the principle of reproductive autonomy [37]. For the purposes of my present endeavor, I am more interested in the strict variations (“duty”).

Pronatalists typically believe that the value of human life ranges from (almost) zero to full positive value. Most people live good lives close to the full positive end, and while suffering may reduce the lived experience, even quite miserable lives are still worth living. Some have made the admission, in the context of permitting euthanasia, that in rare cases, life’s value may approach or reach zero [38]. This makes possible the wrongful life thinking considered by Shiffrin and her predecessors. Smaller adversities like Benatar’s tedium and hardship and my permanent state of low-level frustration are, for pronatalists, a part of the human lot. They do not make lives worse.

In the antinatalist camp, Benatar places life’s value completely and definitely in the negative zone. As he states, “even the best lives are very bad” [4] (p. 61), and the rest are even worse. My own need-based axiology paints a slightly brighter, although still a fully pessimistic, picture. At its best, when all our needs are momentarily satisfied, we can approach zero value, a kind of Epicurean ataraxia, or tranquility of the mind [17]. For the rest of the time, we are struggling lower down the scale.

These interpretations of the value of human life are summarized in Figure 1.

Interpreting Figure 1, a further distinction is useful. In assessing the value of full human lives, antinatalists do not go over zero, and pronatalists do not go under it. In assessing particular episodes within human lives, however, both can admit moments or spells of exhilaration and misery. Denying these would contradict our shared experience.

5.2. Two Images of Gambling

The idea that human existence can, even sporadically, have genuinely negative value is obvious, but it has been hidden behind medical and healthcare definitions of the quality of life. These have traditionally supported scales that mark death as zero and give all other conditions positive readings against commonsense intuitions in truly miserable cases [39]. This observation is important for my narrative because it explains why pronatalists do not necessarily see the force of the argument from risk in reproduction.

In the context of the argument, having children has been likened to gambling. The gambles pro- and antinatalists have in mind differ, however, drastically.

The pronatalist image is that of a middle-class player who sees the casino as an opportunity to experience excitement and possibly win some money. Even if the player leaves the site empty-handed, nothing crucial is lost. The money saved for a couple of months is gone, but life is still on track, and the experience can be repeated once the gambling fund has been replenished. Losing does not drop the player or the player’s family below the level of survival in any sense. Applied to procreation, possible future children will, with the exception of wrongful-life cases, either win or hold their own. Considerable losses are not to be expected.

The antinatalist scenario is that of a compulsory gambler who owes money to a merciless mob. If the player fails to win, gangsters will retaliate to maintain their credibility as debt collectors. Physical violence is inevitable, and permanent incapacity is quite possible. Losing does not just restore the zero level; it sinks the gambler, and perhaps the gambler’s family, firmly toward the negative end of the value-of-life continuum. Having children will, within this interpretation, commit them to an existence that can be genuinely undesirable. The loss is of a completely different magnitude.

Opening up the scale to the truly negative—an entirely intuitive move—and allowing both readings of gambling to be considered gives the argument from risk the depth that it requires. I use the analogy only to bring out this formal point.

5.3. Reproductive Generosity and Its Limits

To return to where I started, Savulescu introduced his principle of procreative beneficence like this:

[C]ouples (or single reproducers) should select the child, of the possible children they could have, who is expected to have the best life, or at least as good a life as the others, based on the relevant, available information.

[1] (p. 415)

In a similar spirit, I conclude by stating the principle of procreative generosity like this:

Potential reproducers should, based on the relevant, available information about life’s actual and possible badness, decide not to have children.

This is my contribution to the discussion. If Savulescu was right and suboptimal lives should not be created and since any life can be suboptimal, no lives should be created, although people are keen on having children.

My argument for the principle rests on premises (i), (ii), and (iii), which I have already explicated and defended against the most pertinent objections. (I leave it to colleagues to assess if there are others.) To express the view in a nutshell, it is founded on three insights. We do not have a possible-future-child-regarding duty to reproduce because there is no need to become existent. We do have a possible-future-child-regarding duty not to reproduce because by doing so we would risk creating a miserable life, immediately or in time. Other-people-regarding reasons to reproduce are not potent enough to justify the risk.

In this “public” defense of my view, I am not relying on my pessimist axiology or on Benatar’s. I am personally convinced that ceaseless frustration and tedium suffice to show that it would be wrong to bring new individuals into existence. I know, however, that this conviction is not widely shared. Let it be cherished by those who agree with me. For the rest, the argument is that the risk of genuinely bad lives should not be taken.

I agree with Savulescu that ethical principles like ours can generate only moral, not legal, obligations. In an ideal world, potential reproducers would understand that they have no actual need to have children. In the real world, at least for the time being, they have strong, culturally dictated urges in procreative matters. Forcing them to abstain would probably lead to need frustration to no avail. Some would not have children and suffer the consequences, while others would find a way, and the chain of needless suffering would remain intact.

As a final disclaimer, my analysis and its conclusions are not meant to offend or put blame on people who have children. Procreative generosity—putting the possible child’s need not to exist before one’s own parental plans—is a new concept. It will need time to take root if it ever does, and it would be futile and unfair to throw accusations based on it. Perhaps, however, it could serve as a reminder of the self-induced duties that reproducers have to their children—failing full procreative generosity in the sense that I have defined, at least extreme caution and compassion are called for [40]. Now that you have them, take care of them as best you can.