The Ethics Programme, Department of Philosophy, Classics, History of Art and Ideas, University of Oslo, Norway.
Bioethics. 2011 Nov;25(9):482-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2009.01794.x. Epub 2009 Dec 30.
Recently, Julian Savulescu and Guy Kahane have defended the Principle of Procreative Beneficence (PB), according to which prospective parents ought to select children with the view that their future child has 'the best chance of the best life'. I argue that the arguments Savulescu and Kahane adduce in favour of PB equally well support what I call the Principle of General Procreative Beneficence (GPB). GPB states that couples ought to select children in view of maximizing the overall expected value in the world, not just the welfare of their future child. I further argue that Savulescu and Kahane's claim that PB has significantly more weight than competing moral principles, such as GPB, lacks justification. A possible argument for PB having significant weight builds on a principle of parental partiality towards one's own children. But this principle does not support PB; it supports a Principle of Sibling-Oriented Procreative Beneficence (SPB), according to which parents selecting a child should maximize the benefit of all their children. Indeed, PB itself will in some cases be self-effacing in favour of SPB.
最近，朱利安·萨弗勒斯库（Julian Savulescu）和盖伊·卡亨（Guy Kahane）为生殖慈善原则（PB）进行了辩护，根据该原则，准父母应该选择孩子，以期他们未来的孩子“拥有过上最好生活的最佳机会”。我认为，萨弗勒斯库和卡亨为 PB 提出的论点同样支持我所称的“普遍生殖慈善原则”（GPB）。GPB 规定，夫妻应该选择孩子，以最大限度地提高世界上的总体预期价值，而不仅仅是未来孩子的福利。我进一步认为，萨弗勒斯库和卡亨声称 PB 比 GPB 等竞争道德原则更有分量，这是没有道理的。为 PB 具有显著权重而提出的一个可能论据，建立在父母对自己孩子的偏爱原则之上。但这一原则并不支持 PB；它支持了“以兄弟姐妹为导向的生殖慈善原则”（SPB），根据这一原则，选择孩子的父母应该使他们所有孩子的利益最大化。事实上，在某些情况下，PB 本身就会为了 SPB 而自我克制。
