Reviews

Debating Procreation: Is It Wrong to Reproduce? (Debating Ethics) by David Wasserman, David Benatar

adamcarter's review against another edition

5.0

Both Benatar and Wasserman give the important and difficult topic of procreation the respect and consideration it deserves. For this reason alone, I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in the topic. I will briefly summarise Wasserman's contribution to the book because Benatar merely rehearses the views of his well known earlier book. Wasserman does a really nice job of summarising and disputing the anti-natalist position. Wasserman argues that although we have no obligation to procreate, procreation is permissible if certain conditions are met, the most important being that the child's life be at least worth living. Wasserman also deals with the non-identity problem in a considered and persuasive way. In bringing somebody into existence we must be able to (at least in principle) justify our decision to the person we create. One way of doing this is citing the net good of their life, however it gets harder to justify bringing them into existence if they are exposed to significant harm or you did so for perverse reasons. Conceptualising the problem as one of justification adds much clarity to the field of procreative ethics.