Is procreative beneficence obligatory?
Is procreative beneficence obligatory?
Julian Savulescu defends the principle of procreative beneficence, according to which parents have a prima facie moral obligation to choose the child with the best expected life. In this paper, I argue that Savulescu fails to show that procreative beneficence is genuinely obligatory, because of his equivocation between moral reason and moral obligation. Savulescu assumes that morality requires us to do what we have most (moral) reason to do, but many deny this, for instance because they believe we have reasons (but no obligation) to perform supererogatory actions. Even if parents have moral reasons to choose the child with the best expected life, they may not be under any obligation to do so.
175-178
Saunders, B.
aed7ba9f-f519-4bbf-a554-db25b684037d
February 2015
Saunders, B.
aed7ba9f-f519-4bbf-a554-db25b684037d
Abstract
Julian Savulescu defends the principle of procreative beneficence, according to which parents have a prima facie moral obligation to choose the child with the best expected life. In this paper, I argue that Savulescu fails to show that procreative beneficence is genuinely obligatory, because of his equivocation between moral reason and moral obligation. Savulescu assumes that morality requires us to do what we have most (moral) reason to do, but many deny this, for instance because they believe we have reasons (but no obligation) to perform supererogatory actions. Even if parents have moral reasons to choose the child with the best expected life, they may not be under any obligation to do so.
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Accepted/In Press date: 13 January 2014
e-pub ahead of print date: 12 February 2014
Published date: February 2015
Organisations:
Faculty of Social, Human and Mathematical Sciences
Identifiers
Local EPrints ID: 370287
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/370287
ISSN: 1473-4257
PURE UUID: 8e5a5bf5-2f19-4815-97fa-18b50ea31dce
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Date deposited: 21 Oct 2014 11:19
Last modified: 15 Mar 2024 03:50
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