Elämän ehdot

Antinatalism, Extinction, and the End of Procreative Self-Corruption

“…In the eighteenth century, George Berkeley, the Anglican Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland, did what Western philosophers have done throughout history and turned the quest for pleasure once again on its head, into a model of implicitly obeying God's orders. 72 Berkeley admitted that seeking pleasure is good but queried the best way of achieving it. Since we do not know with any certainty what distant consequences our actions will have and how these will affect our well-being, we cannot reasonably judge our choices by their impact.…”

“…Since we do not have that, reproducers have spontaneously come up with an arrangement that averts the issue. 189 They have children, teach them to have children, and convince themselves and their children that this gives all their lives the objective, or at least intersubjective, 190 purpose required. A perfect, victimless self-deception.…”

“…In most cases, they do not explicitly force them to reproduce but they can and often do make the alternative highly unattractive. 194 This phenomenon has been identified by Julio Cabrera as a type of manipulation; 195 by David Benatar as a kind of indoctrination; 196 and by Heta Häyry as a form of unwarranted paternalism. 197 The parental motivation to raise children in the spirit of pronatalism is understandable in many ways.…”

Negotiations about Reproduction by Domestic Tables – Space, Gender and Genetic Technology in Ian McDonald’s River of Gods and Ken MacLeod’s Intrusion

“…However, this time the matter is not just about avoiding the negative but about actually enhancing the child. As such, and as explained by Matti Häyry 61 , the technologies of the two novels represent two methods of modifying children genetically in the discussion about bioethics: correcting harmful defects or enhancing the child. In both novels, the effects on the children represent something that not only affects those who are modified, but also their progeny.…”

Roles of Justice in Bioethics

“…In addition to civil rights and civil disobedience, they included environmental matters and the position of women. 34 As bioethics in the United States evolved and specialized, however, these were sidelined or became fields of inquiry of their own. Feminist concerns were never absent from bioethicsdebates on abortion and reproductive technologies saw to that.…”