Abstract
Some argue that procreation is immoral due to its negative environmental impact. Since living an “eco-gluttonous” lifestyle of excessive resource consumption is wrong in virtue of the fact that it increases greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact, then bringing another human being into existence must also be wrong, for exactly this same reason. I support this position. It has recently been the subject of criticism, however, primarily on the grounds that such a position (1) is guilty of “double-counting” environmental impacts, and (2) that it over-generalizes to condemn other clearly permissible behaviors, such as saving lives, or certain instances of adoption and immigration. Here, I will defend the environmental argument against procreation from these criticisms. I will do this, first, under the assumption that our individual consumption and emissions cause significant harm. I will then address the problem of causal impotence, and argue that, even if our individual contributions to environmental problems ultimately make no difference to the amount of harm that occurs, procreation is still immoral for many, if not most, of those living in the developed world.
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Notes
See, e.g., Young (2001), Overall (2012), MacIver (2015), Conly (2016), Rieder (2016), Hedberg (2020), and Burkett (2021). Note that not all of these authors believe that procreation is absolutely immoral, but they do all agree that we have some duty to limit the number of children that we bring into existence. Respectively, their views are that most individuals in developed or high-consumption nations have a duty to have a maximum of: zero children (Young), one child per person (Overall), some limited, but non-explicitly stated number of children (MacIver), one child per couple (Conly), two children per couple, but perhaps one or zero (Rieder), zero or one child per person, depending on the individual (Hedberg), and zero children (Burkett). I should also note Elizabeth Cripps here as someone who has endorsed the view, without offering a formal defense of it, stating in an interview, “I think there’s a duty to take seriously the environmental impact of having children when deciding family size. This often means having fewer biological children than you would have done—i.e., for many of us, stopping at one or two.” (Niker 2020).
Some might question whether bringing a suffering child into existence truly harms them—e.g., if ‘harming’ means ‘making them worse off than they otherwise would have been’, and if existence is incomparable with non-existence. I disagree, but even so: Surely we should all agree that, if one knowingly brings into existence a child who is certain to do nothing but suffer immensely and then die, then they have still done something very, very bad, and seriously immoral.
Reaffirmed in Nolt (2013: 118). Note also: These estimates are based solely on individual greenhouse gas emissions, but keep in mind that our consumption also contributes to habitat loss, water shortage, particulate pollutants, and so on.
Reminder: Here in Sects. 2–4, I am presently defending the argument against procreation under the assumption that our individual contributions to climate change do cause harm. In Sect. 5, I will address the problem of causal impotence, and argue that procreation is still immoral even if our individual actions do not cause any harm.
Most of these are discussed in Conly (2016), Chs. 2 and 3.
In fact, some research indicates that most parents are actually made worse off, overall, by becoming parents. For a discussion of this claim, see Conly (2016: 42–44) and Hedberg (2019: 96–97). Though, I should note that I share the reservations of those two authors, regarding this research. For, it is quite possible—and I am willing to concede that this is likely the case—that even if there is a temporary decrease in well-being for many or most parents, this may frequently be offset by later increases in happiness, or even by an increase in one’s general sense of meaning or purpose in life.
Assume an equivalence here. Imagine that the birthday gift is worth $50,000, while running the person over would cause an injury which the victim would assign that same value to (say, a crushed leg).
This claim is restricted to adoption from within one’s home country (or from a nation with similar per capita emissions). Adopting a child from a nation with low consumption and per capita emissions and then bringing them to a nation with high emissions would cause a significant increase in harmful environmental impact. I address this in Sect. 4.
Some may disagree. For example, Ferracioli (2018) argues that procreation generates several particular goods which adoption does not, such that procreation is still justified, despite the moral reasons in favor of preferring adoption (including environmental reasons). For a rebuttal, see Sect. 2 of Schpall (2023). Interestingly, even Ferracioli admits (in footnote 4) that we might be obligated, for environmental reasons, to have no more than one biological child.
Some other candidates might be experiencing pregnancy, or childbirth, or breastfeeding. Perhaps my opponent could claim that these experiences are essential to a good life. Yet this too seems implausible. For starters, once again, my opponent would need to specify whether these essentials of a good life are determined subjectively (in which case, eco-gluttony could also be justified) or objectively (in which case, it would follow that only fertile females are capable of having good lives). (See Rulli 2016: 312 for additional objections.) Furthermore, even if it were true that one or more of these very specific experiences were essential to a good life, it is worth noting that achieving these goods would typically require no more than one biologically-related child per couple (see Conly 2016: ch. 2), or in some instances, perhaps one biological child per person—for example, within same-sex couples, where it is impossible for both partners to contribute to a single child’s genetic make-up; or, for those who wish to parent without a partner at all; etc. (For further discussion, see Overall 2012: ch. 9.)
If indeed they have any genuine sense of responsibility in mind at all. For, at one point, they say only that each ancestor is “responsible” (in scare quotes) for the emissions of their descendants, stating that their goal is to “obtain an estimate of the total carbon emissions for which the ancestor is ‘responsible’.” (Murtaugh and Schlax, 2009: 19) On the other hand, they also write, “Here we estimate the extra emissions of fossil carbon dioxide that an average individual causes when he or she chooses to have children.” (Murtaugh and Schlax, 2009: 14, emphasis mine).
Note that Burkett actually agrees that it is immoral to procreate on environmental grounds. Still, he goes out of his way to avoid double-counting. Ultimately, he follows MacIver’s proposal (MacIver, 2015: 115–117), attributing responsibility for each biological child’s essential emissions to her parents, and her non-essential emissions to herself.
It is worth noting that at least one popular analysis of causation entails that there are multiple causes of the same effect in these cases. Take for example, the counterfactual account (Lewis 1973). On that proposal, C causes E iff, had C not occurred, then E would not have occurred either. (Assume that C and E are distinct, actual events.) This account entails that both the placement of the oily rags and the sparking of the faulty wire were causes of the house fire because, had either failed to occur, the fire would also have failed to occur. Similarly, both drivers caused the collision because, had the first not run the red light, or had the second not been texting, then (we’ll assume) the collision would not have occurred. (I understand that Lewis’s analysis is subject to many counter-examples. Still, it suitably illustrates the point I am making here.)
Pinkert and Sticker (2021: 298n) actually grant this of Young, the earliest proponent, but nevertheless write,
While Young (2001) does not explicitly use the term “carbon footprint”, he treats procreation as analogous to consumption. As consumption is the paradigmatic contributor to people’s carbon footprints, it is fair to frame Young’s view in terms of the Footprint Thesis [i.e., the thesis that “A person’s carbon footprint includes some or all of the consumption emissions of her children and subsequent descendants.” (Pinkert and Sticker, 2021: 298)].
Yet, I think, it is not fair to frame Young’s view in this way. (And certainly not, if ‘carbon footprint’ means something like ‘the quantity of carbon that one personally produces’.) What Young actually claims is only that procreation and eco-gluttony are “comparable” and “morally equivalent” in virtue of their “similar environmental impact” (Young, 2001: 186). In short, eco-gluttony significantly increases total consumption, and so does procreation. End of story. For this reason alone, Young concludes that “whatever negative judgment one makes [about eco-gluttony], it also applies to having children whenever doing so produces a similar or greater environmental impact.” (Young, 2001: 185) There is no double-counting of emissions here.
Exactly how much of the child’s consumption are parents responsible for? At the very least, I contend, they are responsible for whatever amount of consumption that ought reasonably to be expected from their child. (Typically, it will be reasonable to expect that one’s children will be average consumers, unless one has good reason to believe otherwise.) That said, if The Greens have two children who later go on to burn down the remainder of the Amazon rainforest, it seems that only the children are responsible for that act, since their parents could not have reasonably foreseen that this atrocity would follow from their decision to bring them into existence. (Similarly, if The Don orders Tony to take only Jimmy’s wallet, and Tony unexpectedly brings back a wallet and two kneecaps, it seems reasonable to say that, while both are responsible for the stolen wallet, only Tony is responsible for the kneecaps.) What is more, I believe that parents still act wrongly and are blameworthy for procreating even if their children grow up to be the next Greta Thunberg, or end up living a carbon-neutral life—because it is still the case that they performed an action which they had every reason to expect would result in a massive increase to total consumption and emissions. After all, if I fire a gun at someone and a random soccer ball flies in front of my bullet just in the nick of time, surely I have still acted wrongly, and am blameworthy for knowingly doing something that I had every reason to believe would result in significant harm—despite the fact that no harm actually occurred. (Note: This bullet case is inspired by one in Nagel’s (1979) chapter on moral luck.)
The life-saving version of this objection appears in Pinkert and Sticker (2021: Sect. 4.1). The adoption worry is mentioned in passing by Rulli (2016: 313), but is quickly dismissed. Hedberg (2020: ch. 9) discusses the concern that immigration increases environmental impact. Immigration is briefly mentioned but quickly dismissed in Earl et al. (2017: 585). Nawrotski also raises the immigration worry, only to dismiss it (Nawrotski, 2014: 79), though this is because his focus is on what we owe to climate refugees. (The claim is that our duties of justice to compensate the victims of climate change override any concerns about their increased emissions.) Cafaro (2015) opposes immigration on environmental grounds, but primarily because he is concerned with protecting the natural resources of the U.S.—though he does briefly consider the fact that preventing people from low-impact nations from immigrating to the U.S. would also benefit the world, by keeping our total, global ecological impact lower (see pages 147–148).
As of 2021, the average American produces 14.86 tons of CO2 per year for 76.4 years—a total of 1,135 tons of CO2.
Some data: The U.S. has by far the greatest number of foreign-born residents, and the greatest number of intercountry adoptions. Yet it also has one of the highest per capita emissions in the world (14.86 tons of CO2 per year). Immigration: By far the primary source of lawful immigration into the U.S. is Mexico. Yet, the average American emits nearly five times more CO2 than the average citizen of Mexico. Assuming that these immigrants go on to become average American consumers—an oversimplification, I know—allowing an infant to emigrate from Mexico to the United States causes there to be an additional 60 years’ worth of average American consumption (or, roughly 900 tons of additional CO2 emitted into the atmosphere). And it is actually even worse for all but two of the remaining countries in the top ten sources of immigration to the U.S. over the past five years with available data (2017–2021). For example, the average American consumes thirteen times more than the average citizen of El Salvador, the #8 source of lawful immigration into the U.S. over that period. Adoption: The situation is similar for adoption. The primary source for intercountry adoptions into the U.S. over the past five years is China. Yet, the average American emits almost twice as much as the average citizen of China. In effect, adopting an infant from China causes there to be an additional 35 years’ worth of average American consumption—or, roughly 500 tons of additional CO2 emitted. And the situation is actually far worse for all but one of the remaining countries in the top ten sources of intercountry adoption to the U.S. over the past five years with available data (2017–2021). For example, the average American emits ninety-nine times more CO2 than the average citizen of Ethiopia, the #9 source of intercountry adoption into the U.S. over that period!). Sources (Accessed 19 February 2023): Immigration: https://www.dhs.gov/immigration-statistics/yearbook/2020. Adoption: https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/Intercountry-Adoption/adopt_ref/AnnualReports.html. Per capita CO2 emissions data: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/co-emissions-per-capita.
See, e.g., Gardner (2016), who argues for this claim at length. See also Hedberg (2016). Both admit the existence of a very weak duty to create happy people, which entails that we ought to procreate if doing so is costless. (However, the actual, substantial costs of procreation easily override this duty in the real world.) For the record, I agree with this claim.
There are two other potential morally relevant differences worth noting here, I think: (1) First, when you save a life, you benefit a presently existing person. But, when you procreate, you benefit a non-existing future person. And many have the intuition that our duties to existing persons are much stronger than our duties to future persons. (2) When you save a life, you are preventing the total amount of harm from being reduced (by preventing global emissions from decreasing). However, when you create a life, you are causing the total amount of harm to be increased (by causing an increase in global emissions). The latter seems worse, morally. For, as Hanser (1999) argues, doing harm (i.e., increasing total harm) is morally worse than preventing someone from being saved (i.e., preventing total harm from being reduced). To see why, compare three cases. (Cases I and II are from Foot (Foot, 1984), while III is inspired by Hanser’s essay.)
Rescue I You drive past one drowning person, to make it in time to save five others.
Rescue II You run over someone in the road, to make it in time to save five others.
Rescue III You run over a life preserver that was rolling toward a drowning person, in order to save five others.
Rescue I is an instance of allowing harm, and seems permissible. Rescue II is an instance of doing harm, and seems impermissible. Rescue III is an instance of preventing someone from being saved, and seems permissible. In short, doing harm is much worse, morally, than either of the other two categories. The implication is that our environmentally-based reasons against procreating are much stronger than our environmentally-based reasons against saving a life, since the former increases the total harm, while the latter merely prevents a decrease in the total harm—and the former is much worse, morally. (Note that this difference does not apply to intercountry adoption and immigration cases, since—assuming that the would-be adoptees/immigrants will not die if left where they are—relocating someone to a high-impact nation does increase global emissions, just like procreation, rather than prevent them from being decreased.)
Our duty to help is even more apparent if the refugees in question are climate refugees—for example, the citizens of Tuvalu or Kiribati, two island nations that are disappearing due to rising sea levels caused by climate change. In such instances, those in developed nations are very clearly the cause of the refugees’ dire circumstances. So, in addition to having a moral duty to prevent harms, there is also a duty of reparations to compensate for the harm or injustice done.
Qualification: I should note that what I have just said does not apply to immigrants or adoptees who are not facing severe harms or hardships in their home nations. For example, if a family of four from France applies to immigrate to the United States, where per capita CO2 emissions are roughly three times higher, this would result in an increase of approximately two American lifetimes’ worth of total emissions. In terms of ecological impact, this is morally equivalent to what the eco-gluttonous Greens do (from Sect. 1). Yet, since the French enjoy a high standard of living, on average, granting them entry would not be an instance of saving them from harm, but rather a (pure) benefit. And so allowing them to immigrate would seen to remain immoral, on a par with procreation. Is this a problem for my view? Perhaps the reader will find this unacceptable. I myself am not too perturbed by it. After all, recall that the slight increase in happiness produced by the Greens’ eco-gluttony was not enough to justify their increased consumption. Yet, the French family would enjoy a similar benefit by relocating—namely, a slight increase in happiness. (Presumably. Otherwise, why do they wish to relocate?) Certainly, it seems obvious to me that, when it comes to relocating people to nations like the United States, our focus should be on the very worst off in the world, and we have only the very weakest sorts of moral reasons for facilitating the relocation of individuals who already enjoy a very high standard of living—reasons which are too weak to justify permitting the relocation, if it will lead to a significant increase in environmental impact.
What of Ivy, the in vitro fertilization doctor who helps thousands of couples conceive a child (from Pinkert and Sticker 2021: 313)? Assuming that these couples would not have otherwise conceived without Ivy’s help, then Ivy’s actions do result in a massive increase in total consumption and emissions. Yet, her actions cannot be justified in the same way that Roxanne’s are. For, Ivy is merely ensuring pure benefits rather than preventing harms. As such, the view defended in this section entails that Ivy’s actions are immoral. Perhaps some readers will find this counter-intuitive. I do not. After all, if the argument here is that procreation is immoral on environmental grounds, then it should come as no surprise that anyone who intentionally enables procreation is also acting immorally. To put it simply, Ivy is complicit in the wrongdoings of her patients—much in the same way that someone who enables a murderer by handing them a weapon also behaves immorally, and is complicit in the victim’s death.
My opponent might criticize the view defended in this section as follows: Consider the pond again, but this time really take seriously the claim that, if you save the drowning child, they will go on to cause others to suffer, or even die. Is it really permissible to save them? …I think so? Still, most believe that saving the child is not merely permissible but obligatory. Singer (2009: 3–4) takes this obligation to be uncontroversial, for instance. Is saving the drowning child obligatory? Is there a moral obligation to save a life even when you know that they will go on to cause significant harm to others? The answer, I think, is not clear. This is a bad feature of the view defended above. In the next section, I will argue for a better one. There is, I will argue, a route toward condemning both eco-gluttony and procreation, which is compatible with a clear obligation to save the drowning child. (That route involves denying that our individual emissions actually cause harm.)
In 2021, humans produced 36.3 billion tons of CO2, or about 1,151 tons per second. By comparison, the average American produces only 1,135 tons of CO2 over an entire lifetime (14.86 tons a year for an average of 76.4 years). Source: https://www.iea.org/reports/global-energy-review-co2-emissions-in-2021-2 (Accessed 18 February 2023).
It also seems plausible that it would be permissible—and perhaps in many cases obligatory—to help to push the car in order to help a refugee, immigrant, or adoptee avoid a terrible or life-threatening situation and trade it for a life with a much higher degree of well-being.
Assume here that the term ‘carbon footprint’ is being used in a way that does not count any particular quantity of emissions twice. See Sect. 3 above for further discussion.
Conly is referring here to one child per couple. And I do think that this will be true in most cases. Though it is worth noting Overall’s concern that, as an upper limit of our moral obligation, “‘One child per person’ is preferable because it is not based on a sexist and heterosexist notion that women must necessarily be in a couple and that every couple must consist of a male and a female.” (Overall, 2012: 184).
It is possible that procreation could be justified in a greater number of cases via offsetting. At least, I am open to this conclusion— though with reservations about whether offsetting is ever a plausible absolver, and with the reservations raised by Burkett (2021: 804) that such a conclusion would render permissible biological procreation less available to the poor. But, a full investigation of the moral implications of offsetting falls outside of the scope of this paper.
Nor are most of the other proponents of the environmental argument against procreation arguing for such a policy. For instance, Overall writes, “I am not suggesting that this reproductive limit be legally required or enforceable or that its violation be legally punishable” (Overall, 2012: 184). See also Burkett (2021: 805). Conly is a notable exception, writing, “government legislation to limit how many children we have can be morally permissible” (Conly, 2016: 3). For the record, I would oppose any policy which prohibits or limits procreation. Though, I should say, I am sympathetic to the recommendation of Earl et al. (2017: 583) to offer tax incentives for reduced procreation (to the poor at least, but perhaps tax penalties on the rich).
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Vance, C. Procreation is Immoral on Environmental Grounds. J Ethics 28, 101–124 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-023-09455-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10892-023-09455-4