Hotke Andrew
Bioethics. 2014 Jun;28(5):255-62. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8519.2012.01999.x. Epub 2012 Jul 29.
In the last ten years, there have been a number of attempts to refute Julian Savulescu's Principle of Procreative Beneficence; a principle which claims that parents have a moral obligation to have the best child that they can possibly have. So far, no arguments against this principle have succeeded at refuting it. This paper tries to explain the shortcomings of some of the more notable arguments against this principle. I attempt to break down the argument for the principle and in doing so, I explain what is needed to properly refute it. This helps me show how and why the arguments of Rebecca Bennett, Sarah Stoller and others fail to refute the principle. Afterwards, I offer a new challenge to the principle. I attack what I understand to be a fundamental premise of the argument, a premise which has been overlooked in the literature written about this principle. I argue that there is no reason to suppose, as Savulescu does, that morality requires us to do what we have most reason to do. If we reject this premise, as I believe we have reason to do, the argument for Procreative Beneficence fails.
在过去十年里，有许多人试图反驳朱利安·萨夫勒斯库的生殖利他主义原则；该原则声称，父母有道义责任生育他们所能生育的最优孩子。到目前为止，所有反对这一原则的论点都未能成功反驳它。本文试图解释一些反对该原则的较著名论点的不足之处。我尝试剖析支持该原则的论点，在此过程中，我解释了要恰当反驳它需要什么。这有助于我说明丽贝卡·贝内特、莎拉·斯托勒等人的论点是如何以及为何未能反驳该原则的。之后，我对该原则提出了一项新挑战。我抨击了我所理解的该论点的一个基本前提，这个前提在关于该原则的文献中一直被忽视。我认为，没有理由像萨夫勒斯库那样假定，道德要求我们去做我们最有理由去做的事情。如果我们像我认为我们有理由做的那样拒绝这个前提，那么生殖利他主义的论点就不成立了。
