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Frick’s Defense of the Procreation Asymmetry
Stockholm University, Faculty of Humanities, Department of Philosophy.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4370-7201
Number of Authors: 22025 (English)In: Journal of Moral Philosophy, ISSN 1740-4681, E-ISSN 1745-5243, Vol. 22, no 1-2, p. 125-150Article in journal (Refereed) Published
Abstract [en]

The Procreation Asymmetry, in strongest form, states (roughly) that while we have no reason to create happy people, we do have reason not to create unhappy people. Despite its popularity among non-utilitarian philosophers, it has been surprisingly difficult to give an adequate theoretical defense of this asymmetry. However, in a recent paper, Johann Frick attempts to provide a unified account of the asymmetry that avoids the problems with previous attempts. One of Frick’s novel claims is that a certain wide-scope conditional reasons principle, together with two plausible inference rules, serves to capture both conjuncts of the asymmetry. We argue that while Frick’s account is more plausible than previous accounts, it can explain the asymmetry only by appealing to a unexplained further asymmetry that in effect reaffirms the asymmetry, and that the wide-scope conditional reasons principle does not help to provide a satisfactory explanation of the asymmetry.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2025. Vol. 22, no 1-2, p. 125-150
Keywords [en]
bearer-regarding reasons, population ethics, procreation asymmetry, wide scope conditional reasons
National Category
Philosophy
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:su:diva-240156DOI: 10.1163/17455243-20244161ISI: 001455215700006Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-85217066655OAI: oai:DiVA.org:su-240156DiVA, id: diva2:1942145
Available from: 2025-03-04 Created: 2025-03-04 Last updated: 2025-11-20Bibliographically approved

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Bykvist, Krister

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