The rational cure for prereproductive stress syndrome revisited

Abstract

If it is irrational to allow the worst outcome of our actions, and if it is immoral to cause suffering, then it is irrational and immoral to have children.

Full text

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The rational cure for prereproductive
stress syndrome revisited
MHa¨yry
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If it is irrational to allow the worst outcome of our actions, and if it
is immoral to cause suffering, then it is irrational and immoral to
have children.
Irecently published in this journal a
paper, entitled A rational cure for
prereproductive stress syndrome, and was
happy to see that three colleagues—
Rebecca Bennett, Søren Holm, and
Sahin Aksoy—had taken the time to
critically examine it. This gave me an
opportunity to briefly revisit the topic,
and to clarify some of the arguments I
put forward.
THE IRRATIONALITY OF HAVING
CHILDREN
In my paper, A rational cure for prerepro-
ductive stress syndrome,
1
I claimed that it is
irrational to have children,
Nif (a) it is irrational to deliberately
allow the worst outcome of our
actions in a given situation,
Nand if (b) to have children allows this.
I argued that having children allows
the worst outcome of our reproductive
choices (the creation of a possibly bad
life, where the alternative is no life),
Nif (c) it makes good sense to restrict
the analysis to the comparative value
of life versus non-existence of possi-
ble future individuals, as experienced
by themselves,
Nand if (d) there are individuals who
genuinely would prefer non-exis-
tence to their own life.
My practical conclusion in the paper
was modest: (e) ‘‘Possible parents could
be told that, according to at least one
philosopher, it would be all right for
them not to reproduce at all.’’
1
This was
my suggested ‘‘rational cure for prere-
productive stress syndrome’’.
‘‘NOT STRONGLY IRRATIONAL’’
Holm argues against (a) that it is not
irrational to deliberately allow a low
probability of the worst outcome.
2
He
starts from the premise that to make
my argument work I would need to
regard the maximin rule—the rule
specified in claim (a)—as the only
criterion of rationality. If I do so,
however, I should never, in fear of
micro-organisms, eat food that has
not been fully sterilised in an
autoclave—something that Holm seems
to think would be ludicrous. On the
other hand, if I do not regard the
maximin rule as the only criterion of
rationality, I cannot defend directive
counselling against having children.
I have a very simple countercomment
to this. I do not regard the maximin rule
as the only definition of rationality. Nor
do I need to do so, because I do not
advocate directive counselling—a choice
I hoped would be clear from the
cautious formulation of conclusion (e).
My apologies, if I have expressed myself
in unclear terms.
‘‘LIFE CANNOT BE THE WORST
OUTCOME’’
Aksoy argues against (b) that having
children cannot bring about the worst
outcome, because the worst possible
outcome of reproductive choices is
always non-existence.
3
He refers to his
own previously formulated view,
4
according to which existence ‘‘is essen-
tial and prerequisite to everything good
or bad, and deserves to be protected and
respected’’.
3
He also quotes Spinoza,
who in his work published in 1677
wrote: ‘‘No one can desire to be happy,
to act well and live well, who does not at
the same time desire to be, to act, and to
live, that is to say, actually to exist’’.
3
My primary reason for not being
impressed by these statements in the
present context is that they do not
address choices before a being is or is
not brought into existence. I can fully
agree with Aksoy that human existence,
once it is ‘‘here’’, so to speak, is the basis
of all experiences. I can also agree with
Spinoza that being alive precedes desires
concerning the content of one’s life (if
this is what he meant): but I fail to see
the relevance of these statements to the
choice to reproduce or not to reproduce.
All they demonstrate is that as the
foundation of our experiences, life can
have positive instrumental value to us if
our experiences are good. By the same
token, it can have negative instrumental
value to us if our experiences are bad. It
does not, however, have any value, good
or bad, when it is not present.
‘‘IT IS RATIONAL TO HAVE
SAVIOUR SIBLINGS’’
Bennett notes against my claim (c) that
in certain circumstances it does seem
irrational to ignore the interests of a
potential child’s existing siblings.
5
A
case in point is when these siblings
suffer horribly from conditions that
could be cured or substantially alle-
viated by tissue transplants from the
new individuals. It would seem rational,
according to my adopted account, to
produce these ‘‘saviour siblings’’. By
doing so we could remove certain
suffering by allowing only a slight
possibility of suffering—surely an acc-
eptable trade off?
Well, no. In fact, such trade offs are
not in line with the maximin rule. The
remark is good from the viewpoint of
maximising expected utility, which is
another feasible way of construing what
rationality means.
67
Because, however,
the worst possible outcome of creating
‘‘saviour siblings’’ is that there will be,
in the end, two lives that those living
them would prefer not to have (instead
of just the already existing one), max-
imin rationality does not support this
choice.
THE IMMORALITY OF HAVING
CHILDREN
I also claimed in my paper that it is
immoral to have children:
Nif (f) it is immoral to bring about
avoidable suffering,
Nand if (g) having children has this
effect.
I took the first statement to be self
evidently true, and supported the sec-
ond by specifying two senses in which it
can be said to be true. Having children
brings about avoidable suffering
Nin the sense that (h) all human beings
suffer at some point in their lives,
Abstract
If it is irrational to allow the worst outcome of our actions, and if it is immoral to cause
suffering, then it is irrational and immoral to have children.
606 REPRODUCTION
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Nand in the sense that (j) potential
parents cannot guarantee that their
child’s life would not become at some
point in time (physically, mentally, or
socially) overwhelmingly miserable.
The truth of these statements was not
contested by my critics, although their
ethical implications were.
My practical conclusion from these
premises was even more modest than
my inference from the analysis of
rationality: (k) ‘‘In principle, and in an
equal discussion between competent
participants, my moral views may enti-
tle me to reproach individuals who
decide, or have decided, to have chil-
dren. There is, however, seldom much
point in my doing so.’’
1
‘‘IT IS IN (NEARLY) EVERYBODY’S
INTEREST TO EXIST’’
Aksoy and Bennett both dispute my
claim (f)—that it is immoral to bring
about avoidable suffering—by arguing
that it would be good to all, or at least
most, individuals, to exist, and therefore
always morally acceptable to help them
in this endeavour, despite the suffering
produced.
According to Aksoy, it is right to allow
any suffering our potential children can
experience, because existence is in and
of itself valuable, and non-existence is
the paragon of evil. In his view, it is
‘‘immoral to ‘sentence’ someone to non-
existence while you have the chance to
bring them into life’’.
3
Bennett, in her
turn, argues that it is permissible to
bring about some suffering, if good
things in life depend on this. In her
words, it ‘‘is in the interest of any child
whose life will be likely worth living
overall, that he or she is brought to
birth’’.
5
My main conceptual difficulty with
these critiques is that I do not know who
Aksoy and Bennett are talking about.
Who exactly is the absent someone who
is sentenced to non-existence; and who
precisely is the unborn child whose
interests would be served by bringing
her to birth? How can we attribute
experiences and interests to beings
who have not existed in the past, do
not exist now, and will possibly never
exist in the future?
Apart from this metaphysical pro-
blem, there are a couple of normative
issues that I would like to raise.
Aksoy seems to say that even indivi-
duals whose lives would be utterly
miserable—filled with suffering and
nothing else—must be brought into
existence, when we have that chance.
If this is his message, I disagree and so
do many others.
589
I think that it would
be inhumane to force suffering human
beings to live. Aksoy’s view also implies
that we should spend our entire lives
trying to make babies. Women should
aim to be with child all the time, and
men should probably focus on perfect-
ing the techniques of ectogenesis and
male pregnancy. This is not an impos-
sible idea, of course, but it is not one
that is likely to have wide popularity,
either.
Bennett, on the other hand, resorts to
the language of ‘‘worthwhile lives’’ (an
expression, by the way, which is not
used in my original paper). This is
undoubtedly a good move in that it
helps her to avoid the criticism levelled
at Aksoy’s more stringent view. It is not
easy, however, to draw the line between
‘‘worthwhile’’ and ‘‘unworthwhile’’
lives in a universally acknowledged, or
even widely accepted, way.
So although Aksoy can be accused of
committing himself to an absurdly stern
view, Bennett defends a position that
seems to require further specifications.
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS
I have argued in this response to my
critics that if it is irrational to allow the
worst outcome of our actions, and if it is
immoral to cause suffering, then it is
irrational and immoral to have children.
I have also spelled out the premises of
my argument, and claimed that they
remain intact against the main objec-
tions presented by my critics.
I have not argued—either here or in
the original paper—that the accounts of
rationality and morality I have evoked
are the only ones. All I have said is that
it makes good sense to apply the
maximin rule to reproductive choices,
in which we can actually refrain from
creating beings that we can harm
merely by creating them. Nor have I
argued—here or originally—that would
be parents should be given directive
antinatal counselling. All I have implied,
by arguing that abstinence is a rational
and moral choice, is that would be
parents should probably not be given
directive pronatal counselling, either.
In the light of these observations, I
still believe it would be all right for
people not to reproduce: and I still think
that people would not be horribly
manipulated if someone told them this.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This article was produced as a part of
the project Ethical and Social Aspects of
Bioinformatics (ESABI), financed between
2004 and 2007 by the Academy of Finland
(SA 105139). My thanks are due to the
academy for its support, to Dr Tuija Takala
for her helpful comments, and to Peter
Herissone-Kelly for checking my English.
J Med Ethics 2005;31:606–607.
doi: 10.1136/jme.2005.011684
Correspondence to: M Ha¨yry, Centre for Social
Ethics and Policy, Institute of Medicine, Law and
Bioethics, School of Law, University of
Manchester, Williamson Building, Oxford
Road, Manchester, M13 9PL, UK; matti.hayry@
manchester.ac.uk
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