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The Asymmetry?
Jun. 10th, 2010 05:48 pmThere is a downright weird article by Peter Singer here, in the New York Times blog.
"All this suggests that we think it is wrong to bring into the world a child whose prospects for a happy, healthy life are poor, but we don’t usually think the fact that a child is likely to have a happy, healthy life is a reason for bringing the child into existence. This has come to be known among philosophers as “the asymmetry” and it is not easy to justify. "
I don't understand what is not easy to justify.
I mean, duh--of course even if one wanted a child, one would hesitate to have a child doomed to a lifetime of suffering. But this guy seems to be saying that if you don't have any reason to think your children would be doomed to a lifetime of suffering you have a moral obligation to have children (or at least, you can't justify that you *don't*). And whether or not you want children apparently cuts no ice with him.
At the end he wonders, suppose we could persuade everybody not to have children. Just suppose. Would the world be a better place without humans?
The problem is that he's looking at it completely backwards. Suppose, instead, that nobody *wanted* to have children. Should we coerce people to have unwanted babies? Even to continue the species? If so, who should we coerce, and how?
"All this suggests that we think it is wrong to bring into the world a child whose prospects for a happy, healthy life are poor, but we don’t usually think the fact that a child is likely to have a happy, healthy life is a reason for bringing the child into existence. This has come to be known among philosophers as “the asymmetry” and it is not easy to justify. "
I don't understand what is not easy to justify.
I mean, duh--of course even if one wanted a child, one would hesitate to have a child doomed to a lifetime of suffering. But this guy seems to be saying that if you don't have any reason to think your children would be doomed to a lifetime of suffering you have a moral obligation to have children (or at least, you can't justify that you *don't*). And whether or not you want children apparently cuts no ice with him.
At the end he wonders, suppose we could persuade everybody not to have children. Just suppose. Would the world be a better place without humans?
The problem is that he's looking at it completely backwards. Suppose, instead, that nobody *wanted* to have children. Should we coerce people to have unwanted babies? Even to continue the species? If so, who should we coerce, and how?
