tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post7943244761101182573..comments2023-10-14T09:40:06.690-05:00Comments on Jean Kazez: The Ethics of ProcreationJean Kazezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00592593002719828153noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-61460109523220035882010-03-08T10:39:54.835-06:002010-03-08T10:39:54.835-06:00Hmmm I think I managed to lose a post :)
Yes you ...Hmmm I think I managed to lose a post :)<br /><br />Yes you have the essence of it. <br /><br />My argument hinges on the plasticity of the notion "person" and argues that we need a sufficient condition of personhood to make the paradox go through. It may be true that genetic codes provide a necessary condition for there being a particular person, but the cultural mileu provides an Faustnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-91465248650120864882010-03-07T19:05:26.569-06:002010-03-07T19:05:26.569-06:00I'm going to attempt to put your point in a nu...I'm going to attempt to put your point in a nutshell. Tell me if I've got it right!<br /><br />So -- imagine the slave boy at 10 years old. He's glad to be alive, despite being a slave. His life seems worth living. You're saying that we can't wash away the problem of creating him by saying the parents did him no harm, because the person originally created isn't Jean Kazezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00592593002719828153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-30106693848962737772010-03-07T12:56:52.753-06:002010-03-07T12:56:52.753-06:00OK I think I can make my point in an entirely diff...OK I think I can make my point in an entirely different and simpler way:<br /><br />Let us say there is a couple that conceives a genome.<br /><br />@ 8 weeks they decide they are going to abort the fetus that expresses the genome. <br /><br />At the medical facility they are approached by Slavery Inc. and offered $50,000 to bring the fetus to term and give it to Slavery Inc.<br /><br />Slavery Faustnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-43904680295329616262010-03-06T12:06:50.384-06:002010-03-06T12:06:50.384-06:00To me these decisions can be made analogous to the...To me these decisions can be made analogous to the “taking a pill that gives sexual pleasure while producing mild retardation” scenario. Let us say that one school is free and the other school is expensive. If I send her to the cheap school this will give me “pleasure” in the sense that I will have money to spend on other things. If I send her to the expensive school then I will have less “Faustnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-3147717204995358292010-03-06T12:05:26.099-06:002010-03-06T12:05:26.099-06:00I get that. I'm saying I don't find it a c...I get that. I'm saying I don't find it a convincing way to get the ball rolling. <br /><br />The whole idea is that the very specific genetic identity of the "who" that is created short circuits the application of the obligation principle. You can't say: <br /><br />"You can't sell A into slavery because it would be better for A not to have been a slave," <br /Faustnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-29869666764463802802010-03-05T18:12:14.285-06:002010-03-05T18:12:14.285-06:00He only says sameness of genes is a "necessar...He only says sameness of genes is a "necessary" condition of X being the same person as Y--not sufficient. So if the parents balked at the last moment, but 24 later hours conceived a child to keep and raise as their own, the genes would be different and the kid would be different. Just saying that much gets the ball rolling.<br /><br />I'm not so sure about (2) either--more on Jean Kazezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00592593002719828153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-29334546765075329432010-03-05T13:59:08.961-06:002010-03-05T13:59:08.961-06:00I'm going to be super brief, but here is my fi...I'm going to be super brief, but here is my first pass:<br /><br />1. Accepting everything above, I'm inclined to dispense with 2. <br /><br />2. I don't accept the basis of the arugment however. I reject this notion completely: <br /><br />"Let us assume that sameness of genetic structure is, for practical purposes, a necessary condition of personal identity."<br /><br />Faustnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-18651553788136628262010-03-04T20:29:16.779-06:002010-03-04T20:29:16.779-06:00Hmm...I think a slave's life was full of trage...Hmm...I think a slave's life was full of tragedy and misery...really terrible stuff. Slaves probably had lives "worth living," (most of them, anyway) but still had pretty bad lives. So if we just have to have kids with the best lives we can, as long as they have lives worth living, that's a very permissive standard. It will allow for knowingly having kids with pretty serious Jean Kazezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00592593002719828153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-88658365707971086222010-03-04T16:52:49.012-06:002010-03-04T16:52:49.012-06:00PS I tend to agree with you about the fallibility ...PS I tend to agree with you about the fallibility of our judgements about whether life is worth living. We could call the account that I have given a subjective LWL (life worth living). There might be a different level - the level of a life in which objectively the intrinsically good features outweigh the intrinsically negative features - call this an objective LWL.<br />I think that plausibly Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11482806268276089591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-76933605036098607472010-03-04T16:46:38.180-06:002010-03-04T16:46:38.180-06:00One more comment to note - about principle 3 and s...One more comment to note - about principle 3 and slaves having children. On the first reason that I have given - the avoiding the risk of a life not-worth living, this may have force for the slave parents. If their slave life is very bad (imagine that they are forced to act as prostitutes and are regularly abused. It is worth living but it wouldn't take much for it to be so bad that they Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11482806268276089591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-20235753712205582162010-03-04T16:41:16.520-06:002010-03-04T16:41:16.520-06:00A few quick thoughts--
The Steinbock passage say...A few quick thoughts-- <br /><br />The Steinbock passage says things along the lines I was thinking. What kind of parent excuses the pain they cause by saying the child's at least not better off dead? As you can see, I haven't come to reading her yet.<br /><br />Re: a life worth living. I don't find it obvious that people can't be wrong about whether they have a life worth living Jean Kazeznoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-46215033515827558432010-03-04T16:11:43.794-06:002010-03-04T16:11:43.794-06:00As for my own current view. I don't have a sim...As for my own current view. I don't have a simple answer, and I am not sure I have a totally coherent answer, but here are a couple of thoughts. I contend that parents should not bring a child into existence who is likely to have a very low level of wellbeing - close to the level of a life not-worth living. One reason for this is based on uncertainty. We don't know exactly what the futureUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11482806268276089591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-9917486820946606762010-03-04T16:11:18.375-06:002010-03-04T16:11:18.375-06:00There are different ways of conceptualising a '...There are different ways of conceptualising a 'life worth living', but the most straightforward, and the most plausible is that it is a life that the individual concerned would choose to continue to live rather than to die. From their point of view the bad things in their life are outweighed by the goods.<br /><br /><i>Does bringing about the great moments really compensate for bringing Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11482806268276089591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-60152940987806649602010-03-04T15:21:30.691-06:002010-03-04T15:21:30.691-06:00Dom, Cat's fine now. $110 down the drain. I r...Dom, Cat's fine now. $110 down the drain. I read your last remark. <br /><br />Let's not go the way of Benatar...so the asymmetry in question had better not be the extreme one where bad is bad but good doesn't count. Good counts. But it takes more than "a little more good than bad" to justify causing bad. That's the basic idea. <br /><br />Since the main thing I&#Jean Kazezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00592593002719828153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-37848457268574091782010-03-04T14:17:17.955-06:002010-03-04T14:17:17.955-06:00Dom, I posted my last comment before reading your ...Dom, I posted my last comment before reading your last, just to be clear! I'll come back to it when I can.Jean Kazezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00592593002719828153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-22057064690475963102010-03-04T14:15:51.911-06:002010-03-04T14:15:51.911-06:00Dom, I think I can avoid the double counting and m...Dom, I think I can avoid the double counting and make the same argument.<br /><br />So--the parents know that the kid will have a billion horrible moments. They have a prima facie obligation not to bring about those horrible moments. "A life worth living" as we are defining it (and I don't care for this definition at all), is one with a positive balance. So maybe they anticipate Jean Kazezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00592593002719828153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-67874459904786020682010-03-04T14:08:47.676-06:002010-03-04T14:08:47.676-06:00OK - yes you can say that the parents are wrong fo...OK - yes you can say that the parents are wrong for causing all the bad things in the child's life. But from the child's point of view those bad things are worth it! He has a life that is overall worth living. If they hadn't caused those bad things he wouldn't otherwise exist. <br /><br />You might be suggesting that we have greater responsibility for the bad things in the child&#Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11482806268276089591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-2814039545795543022010-03-04T13:59:37.705-06:002010-03-04T13:59:37.705-06:00No, the bad things are "within" the chil...No, the bad things are "within" the child's life. There will be lots of miserable moments, times when the child feels degraded, etc. Plus, there will be other bad things of other sorts--no need to go into all the details. They depend on your theories of wellbeing and illbeing. <br /><br />Foreseeing all that awful stuff, the parents are violating the prima facie obligation not to Jean Kazezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00592593002719828153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-52142697242169736442010-03-04T13:53:58.379-06:002010-03-04T13:53:58.379-06:00Jean,
the problem with your answer is that you ar...Jean,<br /><br />the problem with your answer is that you are double counting.<br />You cite the bad things in the child's life - restricted autonomy, suffering etc, and then say that this isn't counterbalanced by the fact that the child will have a life that is just worth living.<br /><br />But the standard way of understanding a 'life worth living' - at least when we are talkingUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11482806268276089591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-14109656033256846542010-03-04T13:35:55.960-06:002010-03-04T13:35:55.960-06:00But the bad things are the circumstances of slaver...But the bad things are the circumstances of slavery of the child right? I mean we all have the capacity to suffer, and indeed will suffer in our lives. We all have a limited autonomy for major aspects of our lives (as much as we'd like to believe that we are in control of our own lives.... we just really arn't. Or is this some kind of threshold badness.... We've violated his Waynehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08627147979307495870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-26133268866449636042010-03-04T12:50:12.757-06:002010-03-04T12:50:12.757-06:00Wayne, I think you may have misread my comment. I&...Wayne, I think you may have misread my comment. I'm focusing exclusively on the ethics of creating the child. No other considerations have been brought into play.Jean Kazezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00592593002719828153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-30315228996670024272010-03-04T12:44:45.685-06:002010-03-04T12:44:45.685-06:00dominic- Well assuming that the parents have an e...dominic- Well assuming that the parents have an extravagently well off life, their children that are brought into their lives will also share (at least for a significant part of their lives) that extravagently good life, and likely get a head start in attaining an equally extravagently good life... No? <br /><br />Consequentialists don't have to look at JUST the net gain (although many do).Waynehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08627147979307495870noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-4406724256788123922010-03-04T11:30:42.899-06:002010-03-04T11:30:42.899-06:00How about this approach to the couple--
They are ...How about this approach to the couple--<br /><br />They are deliberately bringing about some bad things. The slave child will suffer, have limited autonomy, etc (this list can be made longer). We have a prima facie obligation not to bring about bad things. We should only do so if we have justification.<br /><br />So, what justification can they cite? If the bad things are suffered by X, the Jean Kazezhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00592593002719828153noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-9727642733771059982010-03-04T10:45:08.542-06:002010-03-04T10:45:08.542-06:00Having started off setting out the standard deonto...Having started off setting out the standard deontological ways of responding to Kavka's challenge, just to liven things up a bit I'll now take the opposite position.<br /><br /><i>"Parents should not have children that they have good reason to believe will live a life significantly worse than their own, in the near future."</i><br /><br />But why?<br />An obvious counter-exampleUnknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11482806268276089591noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8310450667755637519.post-768967652165472772010-03-04T10:30:36.509-06:002010-03-04T10:30:36.509-06:00Parents should not have children that they have go...Parents should not have children that they have good reason to believe will live a life that is not as good as their own. <br /><br />Or perhaps, Parents should not have children that they have good reason to believe will live a life significantly worse than their own, in the near future.<br /><br />I think they say the same thing, but the second one takes into the possibility that some couple XWaynehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08627147979307495870noreply@blogger.com