Procreation is intrinsically valuable because it is person producing

Bibliographic Data

ID11419997
AuthorsMarcus William Hunt (0000-0001-6858-1903, Independent Scholar, Chicago, USA, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume41
Issue1
Pages75-87
Publication date2022-01-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueSouth African Journal of Philosophy (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0258-0136 • E-ISSN: 2073-4867
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/02580136.2022.2045424
OpenAlexW4220999751
LanguageEN
References cited32

The article argues that procreation is intrinsically valuable because it produces persons. The essential thought of the argument is that among the valuable things in the world are not only products, but the actions by which they are produced. The first premise is that persons have great value, for which a common consent argument is offered. The second premise is that, as an action type, procreation has persons as a product. Procreation is always a part of the action that produces a person. This is because procreators take as their goal the creation of an organism that itself has development into a person as a goal. Such a claim also helps explain the moral obligations of procreators, the affective lives of procreators and the common preference for procreation. The third premise is that if an action type has a product of value, then all its tokens have intrinsic value. I argue that even when such actions fail to produce anything outside the agent, they are intrinsically valuable because of how they actualise the powers and virtues of the agent, in part achieving the agent’s goal. I then apply that argument to the case of procreation and person producing

Economics · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Preference · Premise · Sociology · Computer Science · Free Will and Agency · Medicine · Philosophical Ethics and Theory · Philosophy · War, Ethics, and Justification

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