Utilitarianism and new generations

Jan Narveson

Mind, vol. 76, no. 301, 1967, pp. 62–72

Abstract

The existence of persons whose happiness is in question is presupposed in calculations of utility; hence that new individuals produced would be happy is no reason by itself for producing them. But their misery, if produced, would be a reason for not producing them. The decision ’not’ to produce new people must be made on the assumption of a population which includes them, whereas the decision to produce cannot be made on that assumption, since it will be false if they aren’t produced. Hence there can be a duty, on utilitarian theory, to avoid having children, but not to have them, so far as considerations of the welfare of the contemplated new generations are concerned.

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Quotes from this work

Some people should not have been born; and as there are other people whose existence is a good thing, we may say of the that they, in the same sense, “should have been born”; though of course they were, and it is not a point of much practical importance so far as it concerns the individual the desirability of whose birth is in question. Hitler should not have been born, Churchill should have been born, and there are other cases where it is debatable—though I admit that all such questions, are, as we say, “merely theoretical”. What I am claiming is that, if we regard ‘Hitler’ and ‘Churchill’ as proper names, Hitler’s mother and Churchill’s mother could not have presented themselves, prior to their conception, with sensible questions of the form, “ought we to give birth to Hitler?”, “Ought we to give birth to Churchill?” The latter appear to be parallel to, “ought I to spank Adolph?”, “Ought I to spank Winston?”; but they plainly are not.

Adolf Hitler · Winston Churchill · population ethics
p. 64