Reproductive obligations

It seems that we can neither harm nor benefit anyone by creating him (Derek Parfit, 1984 on the Non-Identity Problem), and that reproductive decisions, if they have any moral value at all, are at best neutral and at worst incommensurable relative to each other. This sharply contrasts with the moral intuitions we have regarding reproductive choices, and leaves a large area of human endeavour about which morality can say nothing meaningful at all. A theory based on a de dicto conception of future persons, first advanced by Caspar Hare (2007) and further developed here, avoids these anomalies — and has reassuring consequences for some other moral questions. Such a theory also lends strong, albeit qualified, support to the eugenic claims of such as John Harris (esp. 2007) and Julian Savulescu (esp. 2001). Any act that creates a person creates a set of duties to that person; those duties all consist in not making choices which, relative to the alternative, do not disadvantage the person so created; if the reproductive acts between which we are choosing might be said to be creating the same de dicto person, then those choices are covered by those negative duties to that person. There are many theoretical and practical problems with the sort of reproductive libertarianism advocated by the “new eugenicists”, which if anything are more pressing on the de dicto theory. However, I argue that by casting reproductive obligations as negative obligations, the de dicto theory suggests an account of reproductive obligation that acknowledges the theoretical objections and avoids the negative practical consequences of eugenic libertarianism.