The moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life.
According to what we call the Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB),couples who decide to have a child have a significant moral reason to select the child who, given his or her genetic endowment, can be expected to enjoy the most well-being. In the first part of this paper, we introduce PB,expla...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Journal article |
| Language: | English |
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2009
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| _version_ | 1826305021855137792 |
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| author | Savulescu, J Kahane, G |
| author_facet | Savulescu, J Kahane, G |
| author_sort | Savulescu, J |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | According to what we call the Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB),couples who decide to have a child have a significant moral reason to select the child who, given his or her genetic endowment, can be expected to enjoy the most well-being. In the first part of this paper, we introduce PB,explain its content, grounds, and implications, and defend it against various objections. In the second part, we argue that PB is superior to competing principles of procreative selection such as that of procreative autonomy.In the third part of the paper, we consider the relation between PB and disability. We develop a revisionary account of disability, in which disability is a species of instrumental badness that is context- and person-relative.Although PB instructs us to aim to reduce disability in future children whenever possible, it does not privilege the normal. What matters is not whether future children meet certain biological or statistical norms, but what level of well-being they can be expected to have. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-07T06:26:33Z |
| format | Journal article |
| id | oxford-uuid:f47f7469-13e6-4bce-ad4f-b7af7d59d1c9 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-07T06:26:33Z |
| publishDate | 2009 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:f47f7469-13e6-4bce-ad4f-b7af7d59d1c92022-03-27T12:20:16ZThe moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life.Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:f47f7469-13e6-4bce-ad4f-b7af7d59d1c9EnglishSymplectic Elements at Oxford2009Savulescu, JKahane, GAccording to what we call the Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB),couples who decide to have a child have a significant moral reason to select the child who, given his or her genetic endowment, can be expected to enjoy the most well-being. In the first part of this paper, we introduce PB,explain its content, grounds, and implications, and defend it against various objections. In the second part, we argue that PB is superior to competing principles of procreative selection such as that of procreative autonomy.In the third part of the paper, we consider the relation between PB and disability. We develop a revisionary account of disability, in which disability is a species of instrumental badness that is context- and person-relative.Although PB instructs us to aim to reduce disability in future children whenever possible, it does not privilege the normal. What matters is not whether future children meet certain biological or statistical norms, but what level of well-being they can be expected to have. |
| spellingShingle | Savulescu, J Kahane, G The moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life. |
| title | The moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life. |
| title_full | The moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life. |
| title_fullStr | The moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life. |
| title_full_unstemmed | The moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life. |
| title_short | The moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life. |
| title_sort | moral obligation to create children with the best chance of the best life |
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