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Population ethics is the philosophical study of the ethical problems arising when our actions affect who is born and how many people are born in the future. An important area within population ethics is population axiology, which is "the study of the conditions under which one state of affairs is better than another, when the states of affairs in question may differ over the numbers and the identities of the persons who ever live."
In rhetoric and ethics, "two wrongs don't make a right" and "two wrongs make a right" are phrases that denote philosophical norms. "Two wrongs make a right" has been considered as a fallacy of relevance, in which an allegation of wrongdoing is countered with a similar allegation. Its antithesis, "two wrongs don't make a right", is a proverb used to rebuke or renounce wrongful conduct as a response to another's transgression. "Two wrongs make a right" is considered "one of the most common fallacies in Western philosophy".
A person-affecting or person-based view in population ethics captures the intuition that an act can only be bad if it is bad for someone. Similarly something can be good only if it is good for someone. Therefore, according to standard person-affecting views, there is no moral obligation to create people nor moral good in creating people because nonexistence means "there is never a person who could have benefited from being created". Whether one accepts person-affecting views greatly influences to what extent shaping the far future is important. Person-affecting views are also important in considering human population control.
The Asymmetry, also known as 'the Procreation Asymmetry', is the idea in population ethics that there is a moral or evaluative asymmetry between bringing into existence individuals with good or bad lives. It was first discussed by Jan Narveson in 1967, and Jeff McMahan coined the term 'the Asymmetry' in 1981. McMahan formulates the Asymmetry as follows: "while the fact that a person's life would be worse than no life at all ... constitutes a strong moral reason for not bringing him into existence, the fact that a person's life would be worth living provides no moral reason for bringing him into existence." Professor Nils Holtug formulates the Asymmetry evaluatively in terms of the value of outcomes instead of in terms of moral reasons. Holtug's formulation says that "while it detracts from the value of an outcome to add individuals whose lives are of overall negative value, it does not increase the value of an outcome to add individuals whose lives are of overall positive value."
Rivka Weinberg is an American philosopher. She is a Professor of Philosophy at Scripps College. She specializes in bioethics, the ethics of procreation, and the metaphysics of birth, death, and existence.
References
- ↑ Kavka, Gregory. "The Paradox of Future Individuals" (PDF).Cite journal requires
|journal=(help) - ↑ Roberts, M. A. "The Nonidentity Problem". The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2015-12-17.
- ↑ Conly, Sarah (18 December 2018). "Review The risk of a lifetime: how, when, and why procreation may be permissible". Journal of Moral Philosophy. 15 (6): 787–790. doi:10.1163/17455243-01506007.