The Procreation of Risk

Population ethics deals with the moral valuation of populations with different sizes and levels of welfare. This abstract analysis on the society level gives little guidance for the moral behavior on the individual level. There is a special need to clarify the relation between risk-averse population ethics and the individual decision to have children.

Type of Problem

1. Is it plausible to devaluate the chances of possible children? Is risk-aversion reasonable in the context of population ethics?

2. What is the responsibility of the actual generation? Should long-term scenarios be taken into account?

3. What is the relevance of population ethics on the family level? Is it morally defensible to have children?

Result

1) Risk-aversion is reasonable in the context of population ethics.

2) The moral value of a certain change in the population-size depends on the scenario of the future. In a situation of uncertainty, it is rational to work with probabilities. The current technological progress might have to be “paid” by higher risks, so that the optimistic scenario doesn’t get a higher probability.

3) Population ethics should influence the average individual behavior by means of ethical ideals.

4) Is it morally defensible to have children? Under risk-averse premises it is only defensible to have a child, if at least one of the parents suffers severely from not having this child.

5) Risk-averse population ethics attempts to influence the reproductive behavior by means of education and socio-economical support. If such a strategy succeeds in the competition with religious sense of mission remains to be seen.

1. Introduction

Starting point

Population ethics deals with the moral valuation of populations with different sizes and different levels of welfare. This abstract analysis on the society level gives little guidance for the moral behavior on the individual level. There is a special need to clarify the relation between risk-averse population ethics and the individual decision to have children.

Type of Problem

1. Is it plausible to devaluate the chances of possible children? Is risk-aversion reasonable in the context of population ethics?

2. What is the responsibility of the actual generation? Should long-term scenarios be taken into account?

3. What is the relevance of population ethics on the family level? Is it morally defensible to have children?

2. The Rationality of Risk-Aversion

Is it counter-intuitive to claim that, other things being equal, we make a population better by creating an extra person with very high welfare? [Arrhenius 2000, 137]

Such a question is based on unrealistic assumptions. In practice the distribution of welfare is a question of statistics (accidents, illnesses etc.) so that the happy people do not exist without the suffering people and vice-versa. We have to account for risk when valuating the decisions about new lives.

2.1 The Critical Level Risk

In population ethics much attention has been given to the level of well-being which leads to the Repugnant Conclusion. But the debate about average and critical-levels of well-being [Blackorby, 45] is of theoretical nature because these levels cannot be guaranteed. In reality we cannot even guarantee a minimum quality of life. What then is the maximum risk we are exposed to? A qualitative statement can be made insofar, as there is a kind of suffering where the individual wishes not having been born. The capability to compensate suffering by happiness is destroyed and the destruction is as irreversible as a physical destruction. In the following we will call this degree “extreme” suffering. Since the risk to become a victim of extreme suffering cannot be eliminated the following intuition seems to be defensible:

“The moral value of creating a life is questioned by the risk of extreme suffering”.

The future is unpredictable but it is only the course of life which is unknown and not the immanent risks. The risks are known by statistical data throughout human history. There are attempts to calculate the value of life by the quantification of risks [Ackermann, Chapter 4] but no attempt has been made to calculate the value of extreme suffering. It is infinitely negative and makes calculations a senseless task. The probability may be small and the expectation of a life worth living may be statistically secured. But the risk remains and can only be eliminated by renouncing to procreation.

The omnipresence of risk is overruled by all kinds of beliefs. The most prominent of them is optimism, the confidence to escape the worst case. The higher order preferences (beliefs, religions) which justify extreme suffering are sponsored by an immense unconscious wish to survive. In the presence of extreme suffering most preconceived justifications fail however. The term “risk of extreme suffering” not only means the risk of an extreme event as such, but also the risk of not being able to interpret it in a tempering (e.g. religious) manner.

2.2 Distorted Perceptions

Daily life

In daily life the critical level risk is suppressed because the imagination of a constant horrible threat (like accidents, earth quakes, strokes etc.) paralysis all activity. Opinion surveys about happiness [Frey] rely on this suppression. But the seemingly scientific regularity of daily life is an illusion; the power of contingency is omnipresent [Hampe]. Experiences with contingency might have contributed to the concept of the Hindu Maja, the imagination that we live in an illusory world and that our perception is distorted. The unconscious part of the psyche ignores all risks which are not accessible by the senses.

Procreation

1. The degree of risk-aversion, the weighing of the risks and the decision-making in procreation are an individual matter and cannot be delegated to an ethical committee. But it is evident that the perception of risk is systematically distorted because the decision to have children is usually taken at an emotional peak of one’s life. From a biological point of view it makes sense to couple procreation with a spontaneous conviction to do the right thing and (at the same time) with a loss of reason and realism.

2. Parents not only suppress the risk to create possible victims, but also the risk to create possible offenders. A small aspect of the destructive human potential is demonstrated by the killing of animals for food (for an example see Blood of the Beasts). Whereas the taboo of killing non-sentient animals may be based on a distorted perception as well (e.g. in Jainism), the general risk to be confronted with moral dilemmas is unavoidable. Some of them (like The Torture of the Mad Bomber) are strong arguments for denying the world as it is.

Eastern philosophy

1. From a Buddhist point of view the creation of egos is a misconception. The suffering which is produced by the transience of the ego can only be alleviated by weakening the attachment to the ego. So why create an ego in the first place? Once the ego is created, its perception is deluded by the will to survive. Why should we create a state which forces us to interpret suffering in an endurable way?

2. Whereas Buddhists believe that humans can liberate themselves from suffering, there are certain branches within Hinduism which question free will. A quotation from Swami Vivekananda, a Vedantist, offers a good example of the worry about free will in the Hindu tradition:

Therefore we see at once that there cannot be any such thing as free-will; the very words are a contradiction, because will is what we know, and everything that we know is within our universe, and everything within our universe is molded by conditions of time, space and causality. ... To acquire freedom we have to get beyond the limitations of this universe; it cannot be found here (Free Will in Theology, Wikipedia)

It seems that the Advaita (monistic Hindu tradition) comes close to the contemporary denial of free will (see Eine interdisziplinäre Betrachtung zur Unfreiheit). If people’s unwillingness to create children increases in view of determinism, then we enter a dead end of evolution. But this dead end is only a small branch within an immense open end tree.

Dynasties

Dynasties can be regarded like pocket-size utopias. It is accepted that some members of the dynasty will be caught by a terrible fate, but the dynasty as a whole progresses into a bright future. The vision of coming happy generations compensates the efforts of the actual one. The short-lived individual is comforted by the idea that his/her characteristics will be perpetuated within the dynasty. But is that true?

We were built as gene machines, created to pass on our genes, but that aspect of us will be forgotten in 3 generations. Your child, even your grandchild may bear a passing resemblance to you, perhaps in a talent for music, in the color of her hair. But as each generation passes the contribution of your genes is halved. It does not take long to reach negligible proportions. Our genes may be immortal but the collection of genes which is anyone of us, is bound to crumble away. Elizabeth II is a direct descendent of Will the Conqueror yet it is quite probable that she bears not a single one of the old king’s genes [Dawkins].

The human genetic individuality corresponds to only 0.5% of the genes (see Human Genetic Variation). These genetic peculiarities are cut in half with each of the following generations. If we assign 100% to the peculiarities of an individual, then only 12.5% of them are left after 3 generations and only 1.5% after 6 generations. The idea to preserve an individual’s characteristics by building a dynasty proves to be irrational. If we consider the ego as a project in which we have to invest, then we must conclude that this project has no future. Other persons (egos) within or outside of the family share the same fate and cannot preserve their essential characteristics.

The annihilation of experience

Why are distorted perceptions not corrected by experience?

1. A major reason is the fact that experience is systematically annihilated by death. Culture doesn’t have a long-term memory with regard to emotions. The suffering created by past wars, epidemics, natural catastrophes etc. is forgotten as quickly as the fate of extremely suffering individuals.

2. Certain distorted perceptions obviously have a survival value (otherwise they would have been removed by evolution).

2.3 The Concept of the Original Position

The risks produced by the creation of new lives are immense and our perception of risks and chances is apparently distorted. Risk-aversion is characterized by the devaluation of chances in order to avoid risks and therefore corrects the distorted perception. We may argue that risk-aversion is an individual matter, but in the context of procreation the decision-makers (possible parents) decide for a yet non-existing person. Consequently we need a concept which represents the interests of yet unborn persons. Such a concept was proposed by John Rawls in his concept of the Original Position. According to Rawls it is unjust to let the actual generation with its temporary and biased interests decide about the fate of future generations. How would the possible children decide themselves? Rawls proposed to delegate the decision to a representative who doesn’t know in what societal circumstances he/she will be born, but disposes of an undistorted perception.

Example: Chain smokers, when confronted with lung cancer often comment “If I could start from beginning I would abstain from smoking”. Obviously these smokers relied on a distorted perception and paid a high price. A representative who disposes of a complete experience would implement “no-smoking rules” and preserve future generations from lung cancer.

It is therefore plausible to assume that a decision-maker in the Original Position would implement risk-averse laws in general, and a risk-averse population policy in particular. For more arguments supporting this assumption see Negative Utilitarianism and Justice.

3. Scenarios of the Future

The meaning of the term risk-averse population policy depends on the scenario of the future. If it were possible to permanently reduce the degree of suffering by technological progress, and if this progress would require huge populations, then it might be risky to keep populations small.

3.1 Utopias

Revealed religions

The omnipresence of risk is overruled by all kinds of beliefs. Believers of the revealed religions maintain that we are not legitimated to valuate life or they assume that there is an omniscient god who knows the sense of suffering and doesn’t disclose it to humans. The belief in redemption and the hope that suffering will be compensated by happiness in an ulterior world also contribute to the preference for existence and possibly explain the fact that religiousness correlates positively with the fertility rate of a population [Blume]. The best known illustration of the irreconcilable antagonism between a dogmatic and a critical rational foundation of ethics is the following passage in the Book of Genesis:

And the Lord God commanded the man, saying: Of every tree of the garden (Eden) though mayest freely eat: But of the tree of knowledge of good and evil though shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Technological progress

Bioethical Abolitionism, Transhumanism and other utopias claim that the worst kinds of suffering will be besieged one day. The suffering of the children therefore has to be seen in a wider context. The sum of the estimated risks, weighed by the probabilities is not restricted to the family. Procreation is a contribution to a long-term enterprise. If this enterprise promises the extermination of extreme suffering (whereas otherwise it would persist forever) then the suffering of the children can be regarded as a necessary sacrifice. Future suffering has the same moral value as actual suffering, but all depends on the quality of the forecast. The more mankind’s destiny is uncertain, the less it is legitimate to (ab)use children for a secular project of redemption.

Conclusion

As long as utopias cannot be refuted, there are arguments to defend the suffering (sacrifices) of possible children. The strength of these arguments is based on forecasts and probabilities. According to Utility and Suffering in Culture and On the Perception of Risk and Benefit there are reasons to believe that risks are underestimated. In practice probabilities are replaced by the principle of hope.

3.2 Uncertainty

Options

If we restrict the investigation to secular forms of optimism and pessimism then we have to deal with the following options:

1) If cultural evolution is seen as a project which reduces the number of extreme sufferers (where otherwise it would persist or increase) and the number of contributors accelerates the project, then the population-size should be increased (up to the point, where this policy becomes counter-productive). In such a scenario childlessness is morally questionable. Optimists should make a contribution to the project of secular redemption.

2) In a pessimistic scenario (where the number of extreme sufferers persists or increases) the only way to improve the state of affairs is to reduce the population-size up to the point, where this policy becomes counter-productive, i.e. the point where childlessness causes extreme suffering. Global volunteer childlessness or a conscious violent destruction of humanity are excluded from our investigation; we assume that it is impossible to “besiege” life.

Unfortunately the adequacy of optimism and pessimism and the efficacy of population policies are hard to valuate. A shrinking population could lead to an economic crisis, instability and an increase in suffering. Conversely a growing population could accelerate economic and technological progress and lead to a turnaround. The only thing that is certain is the continuing power of biological forces. In an environment of uncertainty childless pessimists are replaced by optimists with many children (who will possibly pay the price for the optimism of their parents).

Conclusion

In a situation of uncertainty, it is rational to work with probabilities. For the reasons given in Utility and Suffering in Culture and On the Perception of Risk and Benefit the current technological progress might have to be “paid” by an increase in risks. The following investigation will therefore discard arguments which are based on progress or utopias. This doesn’t mean that we exclude optimistic scenarios; we just don’t give them a higher probability.

4. Risk-Averse Population Ethics

4.1 Basics

Population ethics

Before we decide about the moral value of procreation, we have to establish a standard for comparing populations. The definition of such an axiology is the subject of population ethics.

Axiology is roughly synonymous with value theory. Axiology can be thought of as primarily concerned with classifying what things are good, and how good they are (Value Theory, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Risk-averse population ethics is characterized by devaluating the chances of possible children in order to avoid risks.

Neutral axiologies

In population ethics a neutral axiology has the following characteristics:

1) values are assigned by a neutral observer outside of the populations to be compared

2) the comparison is static, i.e. the process of getting from one state to another is not investigated

3) If there is a one-to-one mapping from population A to population B such that every person in A has the same welfare as their counterpart in B, then A and B are equally good. [Arrhenius 2000, 114]

Persons are interchangeable, i.e. a person within population A can be mapped to a different person within population B.

Person-affecting axiologies

Person-affecting axiologies violate the mapping principle mentioned above.

These theories count people’s welfare differently depending on the temporal location or the modal features of their lives:

1. Presentists draw a distinction between presently existing people and non-existing people

2. Necessitarians distinguish between people that exist or will exist irrespective of how we act, and people whose existence is contingent on our choices

3. Actualists differentiate people that have existed, exist or who are going to exist in the actual world, on the one hand, and people who haven’t, don’t, and won’t exist, on the other

4. Comparativists draw a distinction between people that are uniquely realizable, that is, people that only exist in one out of two compared outcomes, and those that exist in both of the compared outcomes

[Arrhenius 2000, 114].

Person-affecting axiologies are not investigated in this paper.

Distributive justice

Distributive justice concerns what is just or right with respect to the allocation of goods in a society. Should population ethics analyze the impact of distributive justice on welfare?

Inequality of (economic) welfare can diminish the general welfare in a population. As true as this might be, this is beside the point of the matter since if any such factors are at play, then the effects are already included in the specification of people’s (general) welfare [Arrhenius 2000, 105].

Example: Consider a population consisting of three persons A, B and C only. Let’s assume that in a capitalist economy A would have an income of 80, B and C an income of 40 units. In a communist economy all three would have an income of 40 units. Social welfare can be rated higher in the communist society (although the accumulated income is smaller), if the higher welfare of B and C outweighs the lower one of A. In other words: The specification of people’s welfare already contains the effects of an (in)just distribution of goods.

Multi-generation entities

The moral value of a certain change in the population-size depends on the scenario of the future. Since a short-term improvement may cause a long-term worsening and vice-versa, the long-term scenario is decisive. Consequently we have to compare multi-generation entities. In practice however, forecasts concerning more than two or three generations are hardly reliable.

Example: It makes sense to look at natural resources and climate change for the next 50 years, but the system is too complex in order to predict a technological redemption within the next 300 years.

4.2 The Prior Existence View (Asymmetry)

Definition

In the prevalent utilitarian concept, the so called total view, the risks of additional people are justified by their chances. The total view, as shown in the Mere Addition Paradox, is confronted with the Repugnant Conclusion. The Repugnant Conclusion can be avoided by devaluating the chances or by increasing the risks in such a way, that a possible life is not worth living. The former solution is proposed by the Prior Existence View [Singer] and has the following characteristics:

1) The actual population is benefited by the asymmetry principle:

a) The well-being of possible people doesn’t count as a reason for bringing them into existence. However, their probable misery counts as a reason for not bringing them into existence [Arrhenius 2000, 115].

b) Adding a life with positive welfare neither makes a population better nor worse, other things being equal. Adding a life with negative welfare makes a population worse, other things being equal [Arrhenius 2000, 137].

2) The Prior Existence View (Asymmetry) emphasizes that the situation of an existing suffering person doesn’t get better by the creation of happy people.

Pro

The total view maintains that there is an inconsistency in Asymmetry:

If the pleasure a possible child will experience is not a reason for bringing it into the world, why is the pain a possible child will experience a reason against bringing it into the world? (Between the Species)

The standard answer is that unborn children don’t suffer from missed chances. There are indeed children who say that they are grateful to their parents for having brought them into existence, and that they would have been wronged if they hadn’t been born. But the obvious reply is that, had they not been brought into existence, they also couldn’t have been wronged. Children represent an unnecessary risk. The chances of possible persons are different from the chances of existing persons.

Contra

1. The hostile potential of Asymmetry is limited to population ethics, but population ethics is important enough. Theoretically the creation of new lives could be stopped, if it serves the actual generation.

2. Is it counter-intuitive to claim that, other things being equal, we make a population better by creating an extra person with very high welfare? Consider the following two populations: “A” consists of a number of people with very low positive welfare and “B” is a population of the same size as “A” but made up of people with very high welfare. If we have a choice of either adding the A-people or the B-people then the Asymmetry Principle claims that “A” and “B” are equally good or incomparable [Arrhenius 2000, 137].

3. I think that one of the motivating ideas underlying Asymmetry has to do with the weight of suffering: It is more important to relieve suffering than to increase (already happy people’s) happiness. We can retain this important intuition underlying Asymmetry (perhaps the main intuition underlying it) by giving more weight to negative welfare than to positive welfare by, for example, incorporating some version of the Priority View in our axiology. This move yields that in general, we have a stronger moral reason to refrain from creating people with negative welfare, or to increase the welfare of existing suffering people, than to create people with positive welfare, but it avoids the disagreeable implications of the Asymmetry Principle. [Arrhenius 2000, 138]

Conclusion

Asymmetry cannot be the basis for a neutral axiology.

4.3 Prioritarianism

Definition

See Negative Utilitarianism and Justice.

Example

Imagine a two-person society: its only members are Jim and Pam. There is a choice between two outcomes:

1. In outcome 1, Jim's well-being level is 110 (blissful); Pam's is -73 (hellish); overall well-being is 37.

2. In outcome 2, Jim's well-being level is 23; Pam's well-being level is 13; overall well-being is 36.

Prioritarians would say that outcome 2 is better or more desirable than outcome 1 despite being lower than outcome 1 in terms of overall well-being. Bringing Pam up by 86 is weightier than bringing Jim down by 87. If we could move from a society described by outcome 1 to one described by outcome 2, we ought to.

Prioritarianism is arguably more consistent with commonsense moral thinking than utilitarianism when it comes to these kinds of cases, especially because of the prioritarian's emphasis on compassion. It is also arguably more consistent with common sense than radical forms of egalitarianism that only value equality (Prioritarianism, Wikipedia).

How can we valuate welfare in such a way, that outcome 2 in above example gets a higher value than outcome 1?

Roughly, the idea is that we should maximize welfare, but gains in welfare matter more, the worse off people are, and losses in welfare matter less, the better off people are (…). Another way to express this intuition is to say that the marginal value of welfare is diminishing [Arrhenius 2000, 106].

One can achieve this result by applying a strictly increasing concave transformation to the numerical representation of people’s welfare before summing them up [Arrhenius 2008, 8]

Strictly increasing concave transformation means the following: The lower the welfare of an individual is relative to the others, the more weight it gets in the accumulation and vice-versa [Holtug, 13]. The total of all weights (percentages) equals 1 (respectively 100%). Giving more weight to the bad-off individuals pulls down the total welfare of a population. In our example Pam’s welfare in outcome 1 gets more weight than in outcome 2, so that outcome 1 is pulled down relative to outcome 2.

Like utilitarianism, prioritarianism is a form of aggregative consequentialism. For a more detailed definition see

1. Prioritarianism, Wikipedia

2. Prioritarianism by Nils Holtug

Comparison of different population sizes

As we have defined the Priority View, it implies the Repugnant Conclusion since it ranks populations according to the total sum of people’s transformed welfare. But the core idea of the Priority View – that gains in welfare matter more, the worse off people are, and losses in welfare matter less, the better off people are – can be combined with other aggregation methods. No specific method for aggregating the (transformed) welfare of different lives seems to follow from the core idea of the Priority View and, hence, it is hard to see how this idea could affect our evaluation of different-number cases [Arrhenius 2000, 110].

1) Populations can e.g. be ranked according to the average of people’s transformed welfare (instead of the total sum). The prioritarian transformation then has no influence on the decision, which of the two aggregation methods (average or total sum) is preferable.

2) As well as classical and negative utilitarianism, prioritarianism doesn’t remove the Mere Addition Paradox:

a) The Repugnant Conclusion is unavoidable, if the expected value of an additional child’s welfare is thought to be positive.

b) The Reverse Repugnant Conclusion is unavoidable, if the expected value is negative.

In classical utilitarianism the expected value is usually positive; in negative utilitarianism always negative. In prioritarianism both cases are possible depending on the weight given to the expected suffering.

The distribution of welfare

Do we have to consider the distribution of welfare in valuating populations?

I think that we mistake intuitions about the value of equality of welfare with intuitions about priority of the welfare of the worst off. Roughly, the idea is that we should maximize welfare, but gains in welfare matter more, the worse off people are, and losses in welfare matter less, the better off people are. Let us call this idea, following Parfit, the Priority View. Another way to express this intuition is to say that the marginal value of welfare is diminishing [Arrhenius 2000, 106].

Example: Consider a population A consisting of a person A1 with low welfare and A2 with high welfare. Compare it to a population B consisting of two persons B1 and B2 with average welfare [Arrhenius 2000, 106]. Assume that with a utilitarian accumulation both populations result in exactly the same welfare. If gains in welfare matter more, the worse off people are, then population B is morally superior, because the gain of person A1 (relative to B1) matters more than the loss of person A2 (relative to B2). Obviously, by applying a prioritarian valuation, we devaluate an unjust distribution of welfare.

Contra

1. Objections to prioritarianism include many of the standard objections that adhere to aggregative consequentialism, for instance the Repugnant Conclusionand related objections based on the apparent implausibility of certain trade-offs (e.g., there is some very large number of mild headaches such that it would be worse to bring about these mild headaches than the protracted and intense torture of an innocent person)

2. Another objection to prioritarianism concerns how much weight should be given to the well-being of the worse off. There may be issues of arbitrariness or "sloppy intuitionism" lurking here—prioritarians are faced with the potentially awkward task of balancing overall well-being against priority, as in the example above (see Definition).

(Prioritarianism, Wikipedia)

Pro

Any theory that leaves room for judgment in particular cases is also susceptible to objection about sloppiness or arbitrariness. A prioritarian might claim that how much weight should be given to the well-being of the worse off is something to be worked out in reflective equilibrium, or that, while we cannot determine weights exactly, there is a range of weights that is acceptable or justifiable.

(Prioritarianism, Wikipedia)

The fact that the weight given to the well-being of the worse off remains an open question can also be seen positively, i.e. as a gain in flexibility. Classical and negative utilitarianism, in contrast, are extreme cases of prioritarianism without this flexibility.

Conclusion

It seems that the Priority View is an idea mainly about how to distribute welfare among a fixed number of people [Arrhenius 2000, 110]

If it is used as a neutral axiology, then it leads to paradoxes as well as classical utilitarianism.

4.4 Antinatalism

Definition

According to Antinatalism there is no better population than the empty population. This corresponds to an extreme case of risk-aversion.

Antinatalism is the philosophical position that asserts a negative value judgement towards birth. It has been advanced by figures such as Arthur Schopenhauer, Brother Theodore and David Benatar. Schopenhauer, in his essay On the Suffering of the World comments clearly advocates childlessness (…) Similarly, Benatar argues from the hedonistic premise that the infliction of harm is generally morally wrong and therefore to be avoided, and the intuition that the birth of a new person always entails nontrivial harm to that person, that there exists a moral imperative not to procreate (Antinatalism, Wikipedia)

The preference for non-existence is regarded as a mental illness by the majority. But even for non-Buddhists the empty world ends to be counter-intuitive, if suffering exceeds a certain degree. For Antinatalists the empty world doesn’t have to be a perfect world; it is sufficient to see it as the smaller of two evils.

Examples of antinatalist movements:

1. Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT), About the Movement

2. No Kidding!

3. Buddhist and Hindu monks can be seen as precursors of Antinatalists. Hindu monks believe that nothing detracts the human soul more from the path of liberation than the birth of a child (see Hinduismus), a claim that makes sense in the light of genetic reincarnation

Pro

How can we properly weigh the suffering of the children against the suffering of the parents (from childlessness) if the responsibility is exclusively on the side of the parents?

1. David Benatar's Better Never To Have Been challenges a deep source of status quo bias. Benatar argues that coming into being is always harm. Consequently the ideal population size is zero. Indeed the author advocates the extinction of all sentient life. He is realistic about his prospects of success.

2. Benatar's argument rests on a critical asymmetry. If someone had never existed, Benatar argues, the absence of any pleasure s/he might have experienced wouldn't be bad (…). This asymmetry underlies the widely acknowledged intuition that no one is morally obliged to have children. By contrast, Benatar argues, if the suffering undergone in someone's life hadn't existed, then the absence of suffering would be a good thing. From this fundamental asymmetry - i.e. suffering is intrinsically harmful, but there is nothing morally bad about an absence of pleasure - Benatar draws his nihilistic conclusion.

(Review of Better Never to Have Been, David Pearce)

Above reflection adds nothing new to Asymmetry (chapter 3.2). The conceptual difference between Antinatalism and Asymmetry is the following:

1. Asymmetry considers the possible happiness of the parents as an argument for having children.

2. Antinatalism considers procreation rather as an offense than a gift. The responsibility is exclusively on the side of the parents. The suffering of the possible children cannot be legitimated by the suffering of childless parents.

Contra

1. Christopher Belshaw’s Review

2. A child could possibly remove an immense amount of suffering within society. The suffering of the parents from childlessness is only one of many possible arguments for procreation.

3. According to Antinatalism it is always morally right to stay childless, no matter what the consequences are for the remaining population (in particular for the worst-off).

Conclusion

Prioritarianism is preferable to Antinatalism for two reasons:

1. It doesn’t exclude optimistic scenarios

2. It considers the consequences of childlessness for the remaining population

4.5 The Preference for Quality

The impossibility theorem

In this paper we only mentioned a tiny part of the literature in population ethics. But even with an exhaustive presentation the result would have been the same: it seems that the numerous attempts to order populations by a “is better than” relation are doomed to failure:

Most discussion in population ethics has concentrated on how to evaluate populations in regard to their goodness, that is, how to order populations by the relations “is better than” and “is as good as”. This field has been riddled with paradoxes which purport to show that our considered beliefs are inconsistent in cases where the number of people and their welfare varies

[Arrhenius 2004, 201].

The impossibility theorem for welfarist axiologies [Arrhenius 2000] postulates that paradoxes are unavoidable as long as all qualities (perfectly happy lives, lives barely worth living, tormented lives etc.) are considered to be commensurable. Commensurable qualities can be expressed in a single variable (welfare). According to Arrhenius the only way to avoid paradoxes is by questioning commensurability and breaking out of the two-parameter model. For an investigation concerning the relevant intuitions see On the Buddhist Truths and the Paradoxes in Population Ethics).

Incommensurability

The aggregation of incommensurable preferences is the most general approach to solve the conflict between quality and quantity. The “repugnancy” of a population can be considered to be a matter of individual preference. A majority-definition of “repugnancy” is then derived by aggregating the individual preferences for each combination of population-size and welfare. If the individuals are well informed about the consequences of a certain population policy and if they can freely express their attitude towards risk, the aggregation of their preferences delivers an intersubjective criterion to decide between policies. The focus shifts to forecasting and educational advertising.

There is a theoretical hurdle in the process of aggregation. Incommensurable preferences lead to Arrovian impossibility theorems [Arrhenius 2000, 264]. No voting system can convert the ranked preferences of individuals into a community-wide ranking while also meeting a certain set of reasonable criteria [Arrow]. In practice this theoretical obstacle can be bypassed. The arrovian impossibility theorem only becomes effective if three or more options are at stake and not if the voters have to confirm or decline a specific policy.

A more disturbing problem is the protection of minorities. Under certain circumstances the aggregation of preferences allows exterminating a minority by majority decision [Hare, 121-122]. Theories of justice [Rawls] prevent the worst cases of abuse, but in less evident cases (like the number of deaths tolerated in road traffic) the problem reappears. Risk-aversion is a matter of degree and, in analogy to prioritarianism there are issues of "sloppy intuitionism" lurking here. The risk-averse intuition tells us that the suffering in this world could be reduced by a careful, long-term decrease of the world population. But even if this intuition could be verified by future statistics, it still represents a preference, because many people are ready to pay a high price for a larger population. The majority decides what kinds of suffering are tolerable.

Defining the best risk-averse policy at the society level is not the last hurdle to be taken. The consequences of such a policy on the family level are by no means trivial. An ethical ideal which restricts the number of children touches one of the core issues of human freedom.

5. The Restriction of Consequentialism

5.1 Reproductive Liberty

Definition

Reproductive liberty is the right to

1) individually decide about the number of children and

2) individually valuate the consequences

The possible parents are free to restrict or deny population ethics. They can promote their own theory of value, in particular:

1) promote optimism, while scientific scenarios are pessimistic

2) ab(use) children for a project of redemption

3) deny the relevance of utopias for the individual

Pro

1) An argument for a restricted responsibility is the complexity of the social system. It seems reasonable to limit the scope to the concerned persons. Within the family the consequences are much easier to foresee than on the society level.

2) Another argument is the statistical nature of population ethics. Families with many children might compensate childless families in such a way, that the desired policy is perfectly realized.

3) There is no strict demographic definition of the word overpopulation. How would we define it?

a) In terms of population density? If so, Bermuda would be more overpopulated than Bangladesh.

b) In terms of rates of "natural increase"? In that case, Pre-Revolutionary America (1763-1776) would have been more overpopulated than contemporary Haiti.

c) In terms of the "dependency ratio" of children and the elderly to working-age populations? That would mean Canada was more overpopulated in 1965 than India is today!

(Starved for ideas)

4) According to empirical data the idea that people should be coerced into having fewer babies misses the point. Birth rates fall with death rates (i.e. by defeating famine and diseases) and with the availability of contraceptives [MacKenzie].

Contra

1. If humanity survives, the ones that disrespect the risk-averse ideal win from a biological point of view. But the price for survival might be an increase in suffering. In the case of limited resources and foreseeable natural catastrophes the protection of future generations requires restricting the liberty of the actual generation. Example: If it were known, that mankind will be destructed within the next generation (e.g. by an asteroid) most people would agree that childlessness is an ethical duty (from a biological point of view this strategy is hostile since there remains a little chance that somebody could survive).

2. Religions with a claim to power encourage their adherents to have many children, regardless of available resources. Example: Certain Koranic schools consider birth control to be a weapon of the United Nations in their fight against Islam [Padnos]. Reproductive liberty allows improving the situation of a group at the cost of the entire society (which means in practice at the cost of the weakest members of society).

If the world's population grows beyond 7.5 billion, mass starvation could well occur in many poorer parts of the world.
Marxists and libertarians argue that the world can accommodate a continual increase in population through technological innovation and up to a point this is true. However, it is clearly apparent, even among developed countries, that a higher population leads to a poorer quality of life- compare Britain and Australia for example. Unless you want to live like a battery chicken, technology can't help you without population control. In poor politically unstable countries like Rwanda over-population can lead to genocide.
Similarly, just because some countries can accommodate large numbers of people successfully doesn't mean the whole planet can. The world is increasingly an economically integrated whole with the more sparsely populated countries supplying natural resources and farm products for the densely populated regions. Under-populated countries don't really exist (Why overpopulation matters)

Also see Reproductive Liberty and Overpopulation by Kates, Karol A.,

Human rights

1. Is reproductive liberty a human right?

Although reproductive liberty is not specifically listed as an individual right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), a variety of UN declarations, resolutions, covenants and conventions have been taken to justify the claim that reproduction within the family is a fundamental human right [Kates, 29]

If reproductive liberty is counted among human rights, then it not only conflicts with risk-averse population ethics, but also with other human rights:

If population growth continues unabated, we fear the problems of development will be "solved" by rises in death rates. For this reason, efforts to slow population growth should be treated as a human rights issue (Population: Enough of us now, Ehrlich Paul and Anne)

2. On the other hand the attempt to control birth rates by governments may lead to undesired results as well

Example 1:

India's state of emergency between 1975 and 1977 included an infamous family planning initiative beginning April 1976, which involved the vasectomy of thousands of men and tubal ligation of women, either for payment or under coercive conditions. The son of then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Sanjay Gandhi, was largely blamed for what turned out to be a failed program. A strong backlash against any initiative associated with family planning followed the highly controversial program, which continues into the 21st century (Compulsory Sterilization, Wikipedia).

Example 2:

Among the most interesting policies to be observed is the one of the People's Republic of China:

The policy has been implicated in an increase in forced abortions and female infanticide, and has been suggested as a possible cause behind China's gender imbalance (One-child policy, Wikipedia).

5.2 Intergenerational Justice

Conflict with risk-aversion

Intergenerational justice is associated with the term impartiality. According to Rawls impartial intergenerational laws are the rational choice of a decision-maker in the original position. Is intergenerational justice in conflict with prioritarianism (in a comparison of multi-generation entities with the same number of people)?

Example: If it were known that (due to a natural disaster) the world can only nourish a billion people after the next four generations then the world population would have to be reduced dramatically. But how should the responsibility be distributed among the generations?

1. The logic of impartiality would ask for the same proportional reduction in each generation.

2. Prioritarianism treats a multi-generation entity like a single population. It might burden an over-proportional responsibility to the actual generation, if this policy reduces the accumulated suffering across all generations in question.

Conclusion: Each single generation is a minority within the multi-generation entity. The arguments in favor of such a minority are the same as the ones in favor of minorities within a single generation, see Human rights above.

Synthesis with risk-aversion

How could an ethical ideal on the family level look like?

Assumptions:

1. Arguments which are based on progress or utopias are discarded (see Kap.3.2).

2. Statistical parameters which influence the population size (like life expectancy, death rates, the mother’s age at childbirth, etc.) are not considered, i.e. we compare populations where these parameters are equal.

If we don’t speculate on progress, then a high degree of risk-aversion asks for childlessness. But here the principle of intergenerational justice comes in: Why should the actual generation get the task to annihilate the immense will to survive built up by all previous generations and why should it be responsible for the decision of the next generation to have children? The task to eliminate all future risks cannot be burdened to a single generation. The appropriate moral demand is to reduce risk and not to completely eliminate risk.

If we consider the family like a pocket size population then the risk of this population can be reduced, if the possible parents don’t severely suffer from childlessness. In this case the moral demand is to abstain from procreation, because the next generation might suffer more from childlessness than the possible parents of the actual generation. This leads to the following rule of thumb:

1. It is only defensible to have a child, if at least one of the parents suffers severely from not having this child.

2. It is only defensible to have two children, if both parents suffer severely from not having them.

A family with more than two children violates the ethical ideal of risk-reduction.

This rule of thumb depends on the forecast of welfare and must be reconsidered

1. if the number of severely depressive people increases because of the above promoted ethical ideal

2. if a shrinking population leads to economic crisis and social instability

3. if the chances for a technological redemption increase

6. Conclusion

1) Risk-aversion is reasonable in the context of population ethics.

3) Is it morally defensible to have children? Under risk-averse premises it is only defensible to have a child, if at least one of the parents suffers severely from not having this child.

4) Risk-averse population ethics attempts to influence the reproductive behavior by means of education and socio-economical support. If such a strategy succeeds in the competition with religious sense of mission remains to be seen.

References

1. Ackermann Frank (2004), Heinzerling Lisa, Priceless, On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing, The New Press, New York, London

2. Arrhenius Gustav (2000), Future Generations, A Challenge for Moral Theory, FD-Diss., Uppsala University, Dept. of Philosopy, Uppsala: University Printers

3. Arrhenius Gustav (2008), Egalitarianism and Population Change, in A.Gosseries & L.Meyer (eds.) Intergenerational Justice, Oxford UP

4. Arrow Kenneth J. (1966), Social Choice and Individual Values, Wiley, New York

5. Blackorby Charles, Bossert Walter, Donaldson David (2004), Critical Level Population Principles and the Repugnant Conclusion, in The Repugnant Conclusion, Essays on Population Ethics, Kluwer Academic Publishers

6. Blume Michael, Ramsel Carsten, Graupner Sven (2006), Religiosity as a Demographic Factor – An Underestimated Connection, Marburg Journal of Religion No.11

7. Dawkins Richard (2008), Dawkins, Study Notes

8. Frey Bruno, Stutzer Alois (2001), Happiness and Economics, University Presses of CA

9. Hampe Michael (2006), Die Macht des Zufalls, Wolf Jobst Siedler Verlag, Berlin

10. Hare Richard Mervyn (1976), Ethical Theory and Utilitarianism, Contemporary British Philosophy, H.D. Lewis (ed.)

11. Holtug Nils, Prioritarianism, Internet

12. MacKenzie, Debora (2008), The Population Paradox, in New Scientist, Nov.22

13. Padnos Theo (2010), Undercover Muslim, Bodley Head, London, cited in Zürcher Tages-Anzeiger February 1, p.29

14. Rawls John (1971), A Theory of Justice, Belknap Publishers, Cambridge

15. Singer Peter (1979), Practical Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge