Antinatalism and Moral Particularism

Paper by Gerald Harrison, published on January 22, 2019 in Essays in Philosophy

Harrison argues that procreative acts possess numerous features that, in other contexts, would be considered to make an action immoral. He finds no reason that this should be different for the act of procreation and so concludes that procreating is immoral as well.

The typical wrongmakers covered by Harrison include consent, harm and the cause of harm to the environment or other beings. He also shows how the loving relationships between parent and child, while usually praised as unconditional love, are problematic, considering how they are started completely one-sided and rely on processes such as imprinting, which would be immoral in any other context of falling in love.

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7710/1526-0569.1629
Essays in Philosophy 20/1 (2019), 66–88