Actually, I have to start by pointing out that I formulated the topic as "ethical duty not to abort," not "immoral to have children." For one thing, I am using the term "ethical" in order to make it clear that I am not talking about personal value-fulfillment, but rather about how we behave towards other people, social rules and laws, and so on. I actually agree that there may be plenty of cases when it is moral for someone to have a child, but that's not relevant to the issue of it being ethical or not. For another, I focused on the topic of abortion because, while one may create pregnancies by accident, to abort or not to abort is always a conscious choice.

However, if the latter issue is found irrelevant, I am willing to change the topic to "we have an ethical duty not to create human lives." But I am not willing to change it to "immoral."

"Actually, I have to start by pointing out that I formulated the topic as "ethical duty not to abort," not "immoral to have children." For one thing, I am using the term "ethical" in order to make it clear that I am not talking about personal value-fulfillment, but rather about how we behave towards other people, social rules and laws, and so on."

Francois,

Your argument is noted and I understand what you’re saying. I'll respond once you make your initial argument.

So Ken, since you agree with the definitions, are you okay with the topic "we have an ethical duty not to create human lives." If the topic cannot be changed, then are you okay with "we have an ethical duty to abort potential persons."

Either way, I think we both agree that the topic is the same either way, so I'm going to present my opening case now. If the issue of abortion brings specific issues (such as when a fetus becomes a person), we can deal with those when the time comes.

My position is that starting new human lives creates harm, and we have an ethical duty not to create harm. Therefore, we have an ethical duty not to start new human lives.

1. Benatar's Asymmetry Argument

Compare a potential person to an existing person. No harm can come about to a potential person, while harm can befall an existing person. Here, the existing person has a net negative. On the other hand, no potential person can be deprived of any pleasure, so any pleasure experienced by the existing person is irrelevant, and these two terms cancel out. Therefore, logically, it is harmful to bring a potential person into existence, because it can now experience harm, while experiencing pleasure of which it was not deprived at all.

Note that when we are doing this comparison, we are not actually comparing two persons, but rather comparing two states of affairs, one where the person exists and one where the person does not exist. This is the same sort of comparison we do when we consider whether it is better for a person to commit suicide or not: we are not comparing the hypothetical future dead person with the existing person, but rather a state of affairs where the person exists and one where the person has killed emself.

2. The Means to an End Argument

Consider that coming into existence entails entering a great number of lotteries, and "winning" many of these mean a lower standard of life, suffering, even agony or even death (being in a car accident, dying of congenital anomalies, dying of cancer, homicide, HIV, contemplating suicide, being verbally, physically or sexually abused, intellectual disabilities, handicaps, schizophrenia, and so on). When people bring a new human life into this world, they are enrolling that life into all these various lotteries without its consent. This is clearly a harm, on the same level as enrolling someone by force into a game of Russian Roulette.

Furthermore, new human lives must always be brought about as means to an end, by simple logic. When people bring a new human life into this world, they obviously cannot do so for the interests of, or to fulfill the values of, the potential person, since it has no such interests or values. It can only be for the interests of, or to fulfill the values of, the people involved in starting the new life. Therefore, children are necessarily always means to an end. But we clearly have an ethical duty not to treat people as means to an end (slavery, serfdom, crime and exploitation are all recognized as evil precisely because they entail treating people as means to an end). The only justifiable attitude towards others is to treat them as autonomous beings with values and needs.

3. Argument from Neo-Liberalism

Any child brought into this world as a white Western person will, by virtue of eir's birth, live a higher lifestyle which is dependent on the massive exploitation of the second and third world. The restructuring of nations' economies brought about by neo-liberalist policies which suck second and third world production for Western consumption destroy health care and welfare systems, force the export of local food which creates famines, creates more industrial growth which generates pollution, the number one cause of death around the world, and so on. Therefore, starting a new life in the Western world necessarily entails inflicting harm on other people (not to mention all the people in one's own society who also have to risk harm for that society to keep functioning).

4. Duty Argument

It is widely agreed upon that we have a duty not to create harm (we have a duty not to kill, attack, rape, defraud other people), but it is also widely agreed upon that we do not have a duty to provide pleasure (for one thing, such a duty would conflict with the duty not to harm, since it may very well give pleasure to a lot of people to kill, attack, rape or defraud others, at least in certain situations). If we assume that these universal intuitions are correct, then clearly it is wrong to start new human lives, since we have a duty not to create the harm that will inevitably befall it, while we have no duty to create the pleasure that will also befall it.

By "duty," I mean a strong and far-reaching ethical obligation. If the term "duty" is found problematic, then I have no problem replacing it with such a definition or a similar definition.

Note that all of these arguments both stand alone and also provide a greater picture when put together. I think that altogether the conclusion is clear: starting new human lives is not only wrong, but goes against our fundamental ethical duties as human beings.