Antinatalism and Moral Particularism

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dc.citation.issue1
dc.citation.volume20
dc.contributor.authorHarrison G
dc.date.available2019-01-22
dc.date.issued2019-01-22
dc.description.abstractI believe most acts of human procreation are immoral, and I believe this despite also believing in the truth of moral particularism. In this paper I explain why. I argue that procreative acts possess numerous features that, in other contexts, seem typically to operate with negative moral valences. Other things being equal this gives us reason to believe they will operate negatively in the context of procreative acts as well. However, most people’s intuitions represent procreative acts to be morally permissible in most circumstances. Given moral particularism, this would normally be good evidence that procreative acts are indeed morally permissible and that the features that operate negatively elsewhere, simply do not do so in the context of procreative acts in particular. But I argue that we have no good reason to think our intuitions about the ethics of human procreation are accurate. Our most reliable source of insight into the ethics human procreative acts are not our intuitions those acts themselves, but our intuitions about the typical moral valences of the features such acts possess. If that is correct, then acts of human procreation are most likely wrong.
dc.description.confidentialfalse
dc.edition.editionJanuary 2019
dc.format.extent66 - 88
dc.identifierhttps://www.pdcnet.org/eip/content/eip_2019_0020_0001_0066_0088
dc.identifier5
dc.identifier.citationEssays in Philosophy, 2019, January 2019, 20 (1), pp. 66 - 88
dc.identifier.doi10.7710/1526-0569.1629
dc.identifier.eissn1526-0569
dc.identifier.elements-id422013
dc.identifier.harvestedMassey_Dark
dc.languageEnglish
dc.publisherPacific University Libraries
dc.publisher.urihttps://www.pdcnet.org/eip/content/eip_2019_0020_0001_0066_0088
dc.relation.isPartOfEssays in Philosophy
dc.rights© 2019 Harrison. This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
dc.subject.anzsrc2203 Philosophy
dc.titleAntinatalism and Moral Particularism
dc.typeJournal article
pubs.notesNot known
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences
pubs.organisational-group/Massey University/College of Humanities and Social Sciences/School of Humanities, Media & Creative Communication
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