‘Morality is altogether an inexhaustible field’
(Kant, V-Mo/Collins, 27: 466).
Abstract
The paper asks the question whether Kant’s ethical theory can be applied to issues in assisted reproductive technology (ART). It argues against three objections to applying Kant’s ethics to ART: (i) the non-identity objection, (ii) the gen-ethics objection, and (iii) the care-ethics objection. After showing that neither of the three objections is sufficiently persuasive the paper proposes a reading of Kant’s ‘formula of humanity,’ and especially its negative clause (i.e., the ‘merely as means’ clause), that can be of some guidance in ART. The paper conclude that although Kant’s ‘formula of humanity’ cannot be used as a simple litmus test for determining whether an ART practice is morally permissible or not, it nonetheless can supply us with some guidance in our moral deliberation.
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Notes
All writings of Immanuel Kant are cited by the volume and page number of the Akademie Edition (AA): Immanuel Kants gesammelte Schriften, Ausgabe der königlish preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (Berlin: W. d. Gruyter, 1902–). Translations are my own. The verb brauchen in GMS, 4: 429 is most commonly translated as ‘to use,’ and this is indeed a good way to interpret it. But since in what follows the meaning of the word ‘to use’ itself will be one of the loci of our inquiry, for now I want to translate brauchen in a more neutral way, namely as ‘availing oneself of something or someone.’ Later, when we will have a clearer understanding of the full connotation of the verb we can return to its more common translation in Kant’s corpus as ‘using’.
These are but a few examples from today’s literature on savior siblings. The ‘instrumentalization’ worry, as it is often referred to, still persists: many authors appeal to Kant’s FH in precisely the way they did in the 1990s. For other instances of direct appealing to Kant’s FH in the ‘savior sibling’ discussion see Pennings et al. (2002), Kahn and Mastroianni (2004), and Strong et al. (2011). In virtually all of these discussions, it is then argued that the child will likely not be used as mere means, because the child will be loved by the family, etc.
For an overview of non-identity problem, see the entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Roberts 2015).
Parfit himself offers a solution to the problem. He claims that it is quite correct to say that the teen did something wrong, but incorrect to assume that the wrong that she did was an instance of harm (because the child cannot be said to be worse off). Thus, the child has no legitimate grounds for complaining about the 14-year old mother’s choice, even if the child is born into sub-optimal conditions. However, Parfit argues, the teen is guilty of making a wrong choice. The action of the teen effectively consists in choosing one of two possible worlds: (A) the world where she is a teen parent, and where her child is at a disadvantage, and (B) the world in which she is older and financially more secure, and in which her child is off to a better start in life. Of the two possible worlds, (B) is better than (A), so the mother should have chosen (B) over (A) (Parfit 1984).
See, for instance, Woodward (1986).
Manninen does offer a rights-based solution, borrowing from Steinbock and McClamrock’s ‘principle of parental responsibility,’ according to which the rights of the (non-existing child) can be derived from the parents’ duty to think of the welfare of the future child. Since we agree that parents have such duties (the argument goes), and since duties are correlated with rights, we are bound to conclude that future children do indeed have rights (Manninen 2012, p. 12).
For a more detailed explanation of de re and de dicto, see McKay and Nelson (2010).
For another version of this response see Reiman (2007).
For this, see especially Kant’s Idea for a Universal History and ‘An answer to the question: ‘what is enlightenment?’’.
Kant’s lecture notes “Collins” (which can be found in volume 27 of the Akademie edition) date to the lectures Kant gave on ethics in 1784–1785. Although Collins is most likely to have purchased these lectures, as they would have been available for purchase in Königsberg at the time, and not have taken these notes himself, the title of Kant’s work bears his name: Moralphilosophie Collins. These notes contain Kant’s much earlier views on ethics (or what later became his ‘metaphysis of morals’), but they have a striking resemblance to Kant’s ‘Doctrine of Virtue’ of 1797. On Moralphilosophie Collins, see Denis and Sensen (2015).
Today’s literature contains numerous readings of Kant’s FH. Samuel Kerstein (2009) offers a detailed summary of traditional accounts, such as Allen Wood (1999), Thomas Hill (1980), Christine Korsgaard (1986), and Onora O’Neill (1989). Kerstein (2009) also develops an account of his own, building on the strengths of the classical accounts and augmenting them in a number of important ways. My reading of Kant can be seen as an extension of Hill’s position (1980). Specifically, my reading focuses on concepts such as ‘worth’ and ‘dignity’ (highlighted by Hill) rather than ‘consent’ [as can be found in O’Neill (1989)].
Although commonly these are called ‘imperfect duties,’ there are good reasons to resists this terminology and speak of duties of virtue instead. Schneewind (1990) has persuasively argued that in the natural law tradition, preceding Kant, the distinction between perfect and imperfect duties was so commonplace that Kant would have taken it for granted. Kant does not talk much about this distinction in GMS and when he does, his criteria are not well-defined. This is because this is not a distinction that he carefully thought-out and introduced, but rather accepted as part of the dialectic at the time. In MM, he is more interested in the legal/moral distinction as related to duties’ enforceability. Since for us nothing hinges on the terms ‘perfect’ and ‘imperfect,’ we can simply talk about ‘duties of justice’ and ‘duties of virtue,’ which is the language used in MM.
Another question to ask here is what sort of obligation parental duties are. In Kant, there are two concepts that can capture this obligation—‘practical love’ and ‘pathological love’ (see GMS, 4: 399)—practical love (or ‘beneficence from duty’) can be an object of a moral commanded, while pathological love (as it is based on feeling and inclination) cannot. In MS 6: 401, Kant explains that pathological ‘love is a matter of feeling, not of willing, and I cannot love because I will to, still less because I ought to’.
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Patrone, T. Kant’s ‘formula of humanity’ and assisted reproductive technology: a case for duties to future children. Monash Bioeth. Rev. 34, 206–225 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40592-017-0072-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40592-017-0072-8