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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...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Douglas, Thomas, Devolder, Katrien
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Oxford University Press 2013
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
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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.
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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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