Bioethics 22 (7):364-369 (2008)
Abstract |
The purpose of this paper is to review critically Julian Savulescu's principle of 'Procreative Beneficence,' which holds that prospective parents are morally obligated to select, of the possible children they could have, those with the greatest chance of leading the best life. According to this principle, prospective parents are obliged to use the technique of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PGD) to select for the 'best' embryos, a decision that ought to be made based on the presence or absence of both disease traits and non-disease traits such as intelligence. While several articles have been written in response to Savulescu's principle, none has systematically explored its philosophical underpinnings to demonstrate where it breaks down. In this paper I argue that the examples that Savulescu employs to support his theory in fact fail to justify it. He presents these examples as analogous to PGD, when in fact they differ from it in subtle but morally relevant ways. Specifically, Savulescu fails to acknowledge the fact that his examples evoke deontological and virtue ethics concerns that are absent in the context of PGD. These differences turn out to be crucial, so that, in the end, the analogies bear little support for his theory. Finally, I lay out the implications of this analysis for reproductive ethics.
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Keywords | PGD Savulescu Principle of Procreative Beneficence |
Categories | (categorize this paper) |
DOI | 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2008.00659.x |
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Citations of this work BETA
Quality Time: Temporal and Other Aspects of Ethical Principles Based on a “Life Worth Living”. [REVIEW]James Yeates - 2012 - Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Ethics 25 (4):607-624.
Failures of Imagination: Disability and the Ethics of Selective Reproduction.Marta Soniewicka - 2015 - Bioethics 29 (8):557-563.
Balancing Procreative Autonomy and Parental Responsibility.Tom Buller & Stephanie Bauer - 2011 - Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 20 (2):268-276.
Is Procreative Beneficence Obligatory?Ben Saunders - 2015 - Journal of Medical Ethics 41 (2):175-178.
The Non-Identity Problem and «Historical Victims».Marcos Alonso & Rodrigo Escribano - 2021 - Philosophia 50 (2):369-384.
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