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Procreative Altruism: Beyond Individualism in Reproductive Selection
Existing debate on procreative selection focuses on the well-being of the future child. However, selection decisions can also have significant effects on the well-being of others. Moreover, these effects may run in opposing directions; some traits conducive to the well-being of the selected child ma...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Oxford University Press
2013
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905710/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23856478 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jht022 |
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author | Douglas, Thomas Devolder, Katrien |
author_facet | Douglas, Thomas Devolder, Katrien |
author_sort | Douglas, Thomas |
collection | PubMed |
description | Existing debate on procreative selection focuses on the well-being of the future child. However, selection decisions can also have significant effects on the well-being of others. Moreover, these effects may run in opposing directions; some traits conducive to the well-being of the selected child may be harmful to others, whereas other traits that limit the child’s well-being may preserve or increase that of others. Prominent selection principles defended to date instruct parents to select a child, of the possible children they could have, likely to have a good (or nonbad) life, but they do not instruct parents to independently take the well-being of others into account. We refer to these principles as individualistic selection principles. We propose a new selection principle—Procreative Altruism—according to which parents have significant moral reason to select a child whose existence can be expected to contribute more to (or detract less from) the well-being of others than any alternative child they could have. We present the case for adopting Procreative Altruism alongside any of the major individualistic selection principles proposed to date and defend this two-principle model against a range of objections. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-3905710 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2013 |
publisher | Oxford University Press |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-39057102014-04-23 Procreative Altruism: Beyond Individualism in Reproductive Selection Douglas, Thomas Devolder, Katrien J Med Philos Article Existing debate on procreative selection focuses on the well-being of the future child. However, selection decisions can also have significant effects on the well-being of others. Moreover, these effects may run in opposing directions; some traits conducive to the well-being of the selected child may be harmful to others, whereas other traits that limit the child’s well-being may preserve or increase that of others. Prominent selection principles defended to date instruct parents to select a child, of the possible children they could have, likely to have a good (or nonbad) life, but they do not instruct parents to independently take the well-being of others into account. We refer to these principles as individualistic selection principles. We propose a new selection principle—Procreative Altruism—according to which parents have significant moral reason to select a child whose existence can be expected to contribute more to (or detract less from) the well-being of others than any alternative child they could have. We present the case for adopting Procreative Altruism alongside any of the major individualistic selection principles proposed to date and defend this two-principle model against a range of objections. Oxford University Press 2013-08 2013-07-13 /pmc/articles/PMC3905710/ /pubmed/23856478 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jht022 Text en © The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Inc. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/3.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com |
spellingShingle | Article Douglas, Thomas Devolder, Katrien Procreative Altruism: Beyond Individualism in Reproductive Selection |
title | Procreative Altruism: Beyond Individualism in Reproductive Selection |
title_full | Procreative Altruism: Beyond Individualism in Reproductive Selection |
title_fullStr | Procreative Altruism: Beyond Individualism in Reproductive Selection |
title_full_unstemmed | Procreative Altruism: Beyond Individualism in Reproductive Selection |
title_short | Procreative Altruism: Beyond Individualism in Reproductive Selection |
title_sort | procreative altruism: beyond individualism in reproductive selection |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3905710/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23856478 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jmp/jht022 |
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