Abstract
This paper develops a form of moral actualism that can explain the procreative asymmetry. Along the way, it defends and explains the attractive asymmetry: the claim that although an impermissible option can be self-conditionally permissible, a permissible option cannot be self-conditionally impermissible.
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Notes
One could think that there is also an asymmetry in the moral status of choices to procreate, accepting not just (1) and (2), but also:
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(3)
Not creating Joy is permissible if we create Joy.
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(4)
Not creating Misery is obligatory if we create Misery.
One who accepted (1), (2), (3), and (4) might take the procreative asymmetry to be the conjunction of those four claims. But, as I say in Sect. 3, I reject (3).
The procreative asymmetry is sometimes stated in terms of reasons; see e.g. Chappell (2017: 167), Frick (2020), and McMahan (1981: 100; 2009: 49). Like Wedgwood (2015), I’m somewhat skeptical of “reasons”-talk, so I state it in deontic terms.
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(3)
For other work on the procreative asymmetry, see e.g. Algander (2015), Boonin (2014), Broome (2004; 2005), Bykvist (2007a; 2007b), Chappell (2017), Elstein (2005), Frick (2020), Hare (2007; 2011), Harman (2004; 2009), Heyd (1992), Holtug (2001), McMahan (1981; 1994; 2009), Narveson (1967; 1973; 1978); Parfit (1982; 1987), Persson (2009), Roberts (2003a; 2010; 2011a; 2011b; 2019), and Sterba (1987).
Bykvist (2007b) lists many normative theories that are committed to the possibility of both attractive and elusive permission. As we’ll see in Sect. 7, the claim that an agent is permitted to believe any proposition that is likely on her evidence entails the possibility of both attractive and elusive permission. Philosophers who reject the possibility of elusive permission usually also reject the possibility of attractive permission; see e.g. Broome (2004: 74), Carlson (1995: ch. 6), Frick (2020), Hare (2007; 2011: n. 11), and Roberts (2010: 62).
Bykvist (2006: 275–6) calls weak actualism, “ratificationism”.
I assume that which options the agent has never depends on which option the agent chooses. Also, to ensure that agents always choose exactly one option, I assume that options are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive.
This Pareto principle resembles the principle Hare (2007: 502) calls “Minimal Commitment”.
The conflict between the unqualified version of Perspectival Pareto and egalitarian intuitions is brought out by Arrhenius (2015), who also shows that a weakening of Perspectival Pareto, an inequality aversion principle, and an egalitarian dominance principle together entail the repugnant conclusion. One theory that gives pride of place to relative priority is Buchak (2017).
In making this assumption, I follow Hare (2007).
If people are necessary beings, as necessitists, like Williamson (2013), maintain, then we should replace talk of existence with talk of chunkiness.
The name for this principle comes from Bykvist (2007a: 348). Its proponents include Broome (1999: 168), Bykvist (2007a), McMahan (2009), and Parfit (1987: 489). Its opponents include Adler (2009), Arrhenius and Rabinowicz (2010), Holtug (2001), Roberts (1998; 2003a; 2011a; 2011b), and Shiffrin (1999).
Comparability also conflicts with the following two claims: (1) if \(w\) is better for \(x\) than \({w}_{@}\), then \(x\)’s welfare in \(w\) exceeds \(x\)’s welfare in \({w}_{@}\); and (2) if \(x\) does not exist at \(w\), then it is not the case that \(x\)’s welfare in \(w\) exceeds \(x\)’s welfare in \({w}_{@}\). But, as Johansson (2010) and Arrhenius and Rabinowicz (2010) argue, (1) is false. How good \(w\) is for \(x\) is determined, not by \(x\)’s welfare in \(w\) or by the degree to which \(x\)’s interests in \(w\) are satisfied, but by the degree to which \(w\) (actually) satisfies \(x\)’s (actual) interests. And as I say in the text, \({w}_{@}\) may satisfy \(x\)’s (actual) interests less so than does \(w\), even though there is no such thing as \(x\)’s interests at \(w\) because \(x\) does not exist at \(w\).
The failure of Accessibility brings contingency in its wake. The two comparative claims—that possible worlds in which \(x\) leads a happy life are better for \(x\) than possible worlds in which \(x\) does not exist, and that possible worlds in which \(x\) does not exist are better for \(x\) than possible worlds in which \(x\) leads a miserable life—are only contingently true, since they are true only at worlds at which \(x\) exists. This contingency does not falsify Comparability. But it does falsify the following stronger principle:
Necessary Comparability. Necessarily, for any person x, necessarily, a possible world in which x leads a happy life is better for x than a possible world in which x does not exist, and a possible world in which x does not exist is better for x than a possible world in which x leads a miserable life.
Thanks to a helpful referee for pressing me on this point.
Hare (2007: 503), who uses ‘\(S@\)’ to refer to actual people, characterizes strong actualism as follows: “Strong Actualism.—The moral status of any \({a}_{j}\), actual or not, is determined by whether its outcome is better or worse for people in \(S@\) than the outcomes of the other available actions).
Of course one option being obligatory excludes another being permissible. But if normative variance is possible, then one option being self-conditionally obligatory does not exclude another being self-conditionally permissible; for the fact that one option is the only permissible option if chosen does not entail that another option cannot be permissible if chosen. In Joy or Nothing, for example, if \({a}_{J}\) and \({a}_{\overline{J}}\) are the options of creating and not creating Joy, respectively, then it could be the case that \(C\left({a}_{J}\right)=\{{a}_{J}\}\) and \(C\left({a}_{\overline{J}}\right)=\{{a}_{J},{a}_{\overline{J}}\}\).
Roberts (2010: ch.2) argues that two other examples make trouble for strong actualism.
The first is the “Basic Case”, in which option \({a}_{1}\) makes A exist with welfare 100 and B not exist and option \({a}_{2}\) makes A exist with welfare 0 and B exist with welfare 100. My intuitions differ from Roberts about this case. I think that strong actualism is right: that \({a}_{1}\) is obligatory if chosen, and that both options are permissible if \({a}_{2}\) is chosen.
The second is “Addition Plus,” in which option \({a}_{1}\) makes A exist with welfare 10 and B not exist, option \({a}_{2}\) makes A exist with welfare 11 and B exist with welfare 1, and option \({a}_{3}\) makes A and B both exist with welfare 5. Addition Plus turns partly on considerations of equality, which I’ve set aside. But it’s worth pointing out that if \({a}_{3}\) is better both from the perspective of the world that would be actual if \({a}_{2}\) were chosen and from the perspective of the world that would be actual if \({a}_{3}\) were chosen, then the view I call “hierarchical actualism” delivers the result that \({a}_{3}\) is obligatory, no matter which option is chosen.
See McConnell (2018) and references therein.
Some might be tempted at this juncture to motivate a distinction between “positive” and “negative” value, and then try to argue that the person-affecting intuition holds only of positive value; cf. Parfit (1987: 525–6). On the resultant view: In Joy or Nothing, if we do not create Joy, then not creating Joy is not better because it’s not better for anyone; but in Misery or Nothing, if we do not create Misery, then creating Misery is worse even though it’s not worse for anyone. The alleged distinction between “positive” and “negative” value is mysterious, however, as is the claim that the person-affecting restriction applies to one but not the other. I think that a better option is to retain Perspectival Pareto, embrace the claim that creating Misery is not worse if we do not create Misery (since, after all, it’s then not worse for anyone), and respond to the counterexamples by rejecting Maximization.
Hare (2007: 502–3), who uses ‘\(S{a}_{j}\)’ to refer to the people who are would be actual if \({a}_{j}\) were chosen, characterizes weak actualism as follows: “Weak Actualism.—The moral status of any \({a}_{j}\), actual or not, is determined by whether its outcome is better or worse for people in \(S{a}_{j}\) than the outcomes of the other available actions.”
Another merit of weak actualism: It avoids the prediction, in Misery or Moremisery, that we are obligated to create Moremisery if we create Misery.
If we create Joy, \(M\left({a}_{@}\right)=M({a}_{J})\), and \({a}_{J}\in M({a}_{J})\) and \({a}_{\overline{J}}\notin M\left({a}_{J}\right).\)
If we do not create Joy, \(M\left( {a_{@} } \right) = M\left( {a_{{\overline{J}}} } \right)\), and \(a_{J} \in M\left( {a_{{\overline{J}}} } \right)\), \(a_{{\overline{J}}} \in M\left( {a_{{\overline{J}}} } \right)\), and \(a_{J} \in M\left( {a_{J} } \right).\)
If we create Misery, then \(M\left( {a_{@} } \right) = M\left( {a_{M} } \right)\), and \(a_{{\overline{M}}} \in M\left( {a_{M} } \right)\) and \(a_{M} \notin M\left( {a_{M} } \right).\) If we do not create Misery, then \(M\left( {a_{@} } \right) = M\left( {a_{{\overline{M}}} } \right)\), and \(a_{M} \in M\left( {a_{{\overline{M}}} } \right)\), \(a_{{\overline{M}}} \in M\left( {a_{{\overline{M}}} } \right)\), and \(a_{M} \notin M\left( {a_{M} } \right)\).
Of course, it’s controversial whether the quantity that we have been calling “value” is relevant to the permissibility of options. Weak actualists, for example, maintain that the quantity that is relevant to the permissibility of options is not value, but rather self-conditional value. But, in Joy or Nothing, not creating Joy maximizes value if and only if we do not create Joy, so those who think, as I do, that not creating Joy is permissible if and only if we do not create Joy have reason to think that the maximization of value is indeed relevant to the permissibility of options.
A similar phenomenon is familiar in decision theory. It’s tempting to think that any option that maximizes (causal) expected value is rationally permissible for an agent to choose. But there are cases—like Egan’s (2007) Psychopath Button and Ahmed’s (2014) Dicing with Death—in which an option maximizes expected value only because the agent is confident that she will not choose the option, and in such cases the option that maximizes expected value does not seem to be rationally permissible. A number of authors have responded to these cases by defending a stability condition, arguing that an option is made rationally permissible by maximizing expected value only if the option also maximizes expected value conditional on its being chosen; see e.g. Egan (2007), Harper (1986), Spencer and Wells (2019), and Spencer (forthcoming).
See e.g. Rosen (2010: 118).
Here Bykvist echoes Carlson (1995: 101).
For some additional arguments in favor of the possibility of normative variance, see Howard-Snyder (2008).
Thanks to Caspar Hare, Daniel Muñoz, and Kieran Setiya for discussion.
It’s not obvious that permission-makers are reasons; thanks to Kieran Setiya for discussion.
Cf. Hare (2011: 196; 2011: n. 11).
The literature on the nonidentity problem, and the conflict between it and the person-affecting intuition, is vast. See Roberts (2019) and the references therein.
In Joy or Lesserjoy, I claim that, if we have created Lesserjoy, then retrospective gladness is appropriate. There is an attenuated sort of gladness that is appropriate whenever something has a positive component. For example, if I have a choice between $5 and $10, and I choose $5, then, although regret is appropriate, attenuated gladness might also be appropriate, since I am, after all, $5 richer on account of the choice I’ve made. But the sort of gladness that I am concerned—what might be called “all-things-considered” gladness—is not compatible with regret. It’s not appropriate to be (all-things-considered) glad to have chosen $5, but I claim that it is appropriate to be (all-things-considered) glad to have created Lesserjoy.
One could deny that retrospective (all-things-considered) gladness is appropriate if we have created Lesserjoy. I find that claim intuitively compelling, but I have not argued for it here. It may be worth noting, however, that there are others who also find that claim compelling. For example, although Setiya (2014b) and I disagree on several of points, we both agree that, if Lesserjoy has been created, then retrospective (all-things-considered) gladness is appropriate.
Boonin (2014: Sect. 7.3) formalizes the tension by appeal to a transitivity principle. As Boonin points out, however, the transitivity principle he appeals to does not entail that the procreative asymmetry is inconsistent with the improvement claim.
Weak Independent Agglomeration resembles a principle that Hare (2016: 460) calls “Weak Agglomeration”.
If, as I believe, \({a}_{L}\) is not just self-conditionally permissible, but self-conditionally obligatory relative to \(L=\{{a}_{L},{a}_{\overline{L}} \}\), then we can bring out the tension by appeal to an even more plausible principle: namely,
Weaker Independent Agglomeration. If some \(a\in A\) is, independently of \(B\), self-conditionally obligatory relative to \(A\), and some \(b\in B\) is, independently of \(A\), self-conditionally permissible relative to \(B\), then \(a\&b\) is self-conditionally permissible relative to \(A\times B\).
It’s not obvious that Weak Independent Agglomeration is compatible with incommensurability; thanks to Caspar Hare for discussion. For criticism of Self-Conditional Alpha, see e.g. Roberts (2003b: 16–40).
Even with regard to the procreative asymmetry, my claims are modest. I have argued that stable actualism can explain the procreative asymmetry; but whether it provides the best explanation remains to be seen. One stout opponent is Roberts’ variabilism; see Roberts (2011a). For criticism of Roberts’ variabilism, see Algander (2015).
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to the editors and anonymous reviewers for this journal. I’m particularly grateful to one anonymous reviewer, who helped the paper in a variety of ways. My thanks also, for comments, criticism, and encouragement along the way, to David Builes, Thomas Byrne, Caspar Hare, Michele Odisseas Impagnatiello, Daniel Muñoz, Kieran Setiya, and Brad Skow.
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Spencer, J. The procreative asymmetry and the impossibility of elusive permission. Philos Stud 178, 3819–3842 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01627-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11098-021-01627-y