People born in the future stand to inherit a planet in the midst of a global ecological crisis. Natural habitats are being decimated, the world is growing hotter, and scientists fear we are experiencing the sixth mass extinction event in Earth’s history. Under such circumstances, is it reasonable to bring a child into the world?
My philosophical research deals with environmental and procreative ethics – the ethics of choosing how many children to have or whether to have them at all. Recently, my work has explored questions where these two fields intersect, such as how climate change should affect decision-making about having a family.
Procreation is often viewed as a personal or private choice that should not be scrutinized. However, it is a choice that affects others: the parents, the children themselves and the people who will inhabit the world alongside those children in the future. Thus, it is an appropriate topic for moral reflection.
A lifelong footprint
Let’s start by thinking about why it might be wrong to have a large family.
Many people who care about the environment believe they are obligated to try to reduce their impact: driving fuel-efficient vehicles, recycling and purchasing food locally, for example.
But the decision to have a child – to create another person who will most likely adopt a similar lifestyle to your own – vastly outweighs the impact of these activities. Based on the average distance a car travels each year, people in developed countries can save the equivalent of 2.4 metric tons of CO2 emissions each year by living without a vehicle, according to one literature review. For comparison, having one fewer child saves 58.6 metric tons each year.
So, if you think you are obligated to do other activities to reduce your impact on the environment, you should limit your family size, too.
In response, however, some people may argue that adding a single person to a planet of 8 billion cannot make a meaningful difference. According to this argument, one new person would constitute such a tiny percentage of the overall contribution to climate change and other environmental problems that the impact would be morally negligible.
Crunching the numbers
Environmental ethicists debate how to quantify an individual’s impact on the environment, especially their lifetime carbon emissions.
For example, statistician Paul Murtaugh and scientist Michael Schlax attempted to estimate the “carbon legacy” tied to a couple’s choice to procreate. They estimated the total lifetime emissions of individuals living in the world’s most populous 11 countries. They also assumed a parent was responsible for all emissions tied to their genetic lineage: all of their own emissions, half their children’s emissions, one-quarter of their grandchildren’s emissions, and so on.
If emissions stayed similar to 2005 levels for several generations, an American couple having one fewer child would save 9,441 metric tons of CO2-equivalent, according to their calculations. Driving a more fuel-efficient car, on the other hand – getting 10 more miles to the gallon – would save only 148 metric tons of CO2-equivalent.
Philosopher John Nolt has attempted to estimate how much harm the average American causes over their lifetime in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. He found that the average American contributes roughly one two-billionth of the total greenhouse gases that cause climate change. But since climate change may harm billions of people over the next millennium, this person may be responsible for the severe suffering, or even death, of one or two future people.
Collective toll
Such estimates are, at best, imprecise. Nevertheless, even if one assumes that each individual child’s impact on the environment is relatively insignificant on the global scale, that does not necessarily mean that procreators are off the moral hook.
One common thought in ethics is that people should avoid participating in enterprises that involve collective wrongdoing. In other words, we should avoid contributing to institutions and practices that cause bad outcomes, even if our own individual contribution to that outcome is tiny.
Suppose someone considers making a small donation to an organization that they learn is engaged in immoral activities, such as polluting a local river. Even if the potential donation is only a few dollars – too small to make any difference to the organization’s operations – that money would express a degree of complicity in that behavior, or perhaps even an endorsement. The morally right thing to do is avoid supporting the organization when possible.
We could reason the same way about procreation: Overpopulation is a collective problem that is degrading the environment and causing harm, so individuals should reduce their contribution to it when they can.
Moral gray zone
But perhaps having children warrants an exception. Parenthood is often a crucial part of people’s life plans and makes their lives far more meaningful, even if it does come at a cost to the planet. Some people believe reproductive freedom is so important that no one should feel moral pressure to restrict the size of their family.
One point of general consensus among ethicists, following the lead of philosopher Henry Shue, is that there is a moral difference between emissions tied to crucial interests and those that are tied to convenience and luxury. Emissions connected to basic human needs are usually regarded as permissible. It isn’t wrong for me to emit carbon to drive to the grocery store, for example, if I have no other safe or reliable transportation available. Getting to the store is important to my survival and well-being. Driving purely for recreation, in contrast, is harder to justify.
Reproduction occupies the messy conceptual space between these two activities. For most people today, having their own biological children is not essential to health or survival. Yet it is also far more important to most people and their broader life plans than a frivolous joyride. Is there a way to balance the varied and competing moral considerations in play here?
In prior work, I have argued the proper way to balance these competing moral considerations is for each couple to have no more than two biological children. I believe this allows a couple an appropriate amount of reproductive freedom while also recognizing the moral significance of the environmental problems linked to population growth.
Some authors reason about this issue differently, though. Philosopher Sarah Conly argues that it is permissible for couples to have only one biological child. In large part, her position rests on her argument that all the fundamental interests tied to child-rearing can be satisfied with just one child. Bioethicist Travis Reider argues in favor of having a small family, but without a specific numerical limit. It is also possible, as ethicist Kalle Grill has argued, that none of these positions gets the moral calculus exactly right.
Regardless, it is clear that prospective parents should reflect on the moral dimensions of procreation and its importance to their life plans.
For some, adoption may be the best way of experiencing parenthood without creating a new person. And there are many other ways for prospective parents to do their part in mitigating environmental problems. Carbon offsets or donations to environmental organizations, for example, are hardly perfect substitutes for limiting procreation – but they certainly may be more appealing to many prospective parents.
Trevor Hedberg, Assistant Professor of Practice, W.A. Franke Honors College / Philosophy Department, University of Arizona
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
It is dismaying that people often rescue dogs and cats but hardly ever seem to consider rescuing a child by adoption. The situation for children in foster homes is just as dire but people seem to need to reproduce, to create a little version of themselves, sometimes going to great lengths to do so.
The desire to replicate is as natural as breathing. It’s no great mystery as to why we prefer to make our own.
Animals are Much Lower Maintenance than kids , And do you expect people to line up to adopt inner city crack babies ?
Anybody who believes in man-made global warming would be an absolute hypocrite to have any children. I don’t care about carbon offsets or adoption. Carbon offsets are a ruse rich people use to assuage their guilt for using private jets, owning energy-guzzling mansions, eating nutritious food, and using personal vehicles for transportation. Adoption encourages the rich to believe that they aren’t contributing to overpopulation, when anyone who truly believes that humans are destroying the planet must recognize that any more than 300 million humans on this Earth will lead to its rapid destruction.
Therefore, please, if you meet this description, refrain from having any children. They’d probably lead miserable lives being raised to hate themselves like Greta Thunberg by guilt-ridden hypocrites like you. Have the courage to be the modern-day Shakers, who believed the world to be so evil that they should have no intercourse or children. Go a step further, as a matter of fact, and make a revolutionary statement of suicide protesting the evils of capitalist exploitation. You’re so tired, so tired. You told them the truth but they just kept believing their lies, and now it’s time to take the injection. You don’t leave the world. The world has left you, and now it’s time, my children, to rest, to have peace, to finally have the peace we fought so hard for. Lie down with your children next to the pavilion. We tried to build a paradise, but they wouldn’t just leave us alone. Come now, my children, don’t cry, don’t fight. It’s so beautiful… Sound familiar?
Well, among other things these philosophers may have failed to consider is that the social security system, essentially a Ponzi scheme, and pensions depend upon having enough people paying into those systems to provide money for the beneficiaries. A two-child rule is not likely to produce enough workers to support these retirement benefits. And, of course, since it seems that the need to fight wars is baked into humankind, a two-child rule will likely frustrate that function. As I understand it, the race needs to produce 2.something children in order to keep the population stable. It wouldn’t seem that a two-child policy would meet that goal. The Chinese are now facing the consequences of their one-child policy. But with that said, I certainly would not want to bring a child into a world if he were to have to live within the structures these Climate Change people are dreaming of imposing, and a governmental limit as to the number of children a person may have is just one of those limits
Agreed.
That’s just “but what about me?”-ism. having kids to cover your own retirement needs. The idea is becoming les selfish, consuming less, etc. stop driving so much. downsize. reduce your needs.
How about regulating family size based on parents iq and education level?
The democRATs don’t care more kids mean more money ADC income.
Currently child rearing amongst the high IQ is framed as unfashionable. Articles such as this are a good example as to why. Additionally, our incessant medaling in the natural selection process (see: the nanny state, handouts , etc.) promotes dysgenic outcomes that will only get exponentially worse. This is a cultural problem not easily solved by dictate.
Isn’t that what abortion was supposed to accomplish?
Nope. But some stupid people say it is.
I’ve come to know quite a few idiots with doctoral degrees. Same with IQ. They can be book smart but then can’t solve the most mundane, real world problems. The more apt measures as to who should have children should be those with good genetics and overall value to society.
So, you would be childless.
You are evil. Move out if you hate it.
Sit on it Trevor
I only got thru 2 paragraphs of your article before nausea started to set in. The arrogance of child shaming individuals is over the top. Get a life. Maybe your parents should have decided against procreation.
Or the arrogance of those that choose to have children because it allows them to make more of themselves in the world, rather than choosing adoption.
Who takes care of the older population if there are not younger people around to assist them?
Have fun dying alone and on the ground, after falling and not having a more able body to help you up.
Why not eliminate yourself?
“In other words, we should avoid contributing to institutions and practices that cause bad outcomes, even if our own individual contribution to that outcome is tiny.”
Seems like encouraging people to have less children based upon potential carbon footprint applies to this, so I’ll voluntarily avoid this enterprise. Thanks.
These people are narcissistic fools
The planet is currently experiencing population crashes everywhere
Have babies
It’s the human thing to do
To say ‘it’s the human thing to do’ suggests it is what we can do that separates us from the other animals. LOL. It’d be more accurate to say it is the animal thing to do and doing the opposite is ‘the human thing to do.’
God often told mankind to multiply.
Babies get in the way of facebook and tictoc.
This is Neo Albigensianism dressed up as ethical analysis. One only needs to look at the inverted demographic pyramids of countries such as China, India, and Japan to see that social pressure to limit family size invariably leads to other unforeseen and worse problems. Limiting family size to two children per family leads to human rights abuses such as forced abortion and forced sterilization, and when you fill more graves than cradles, when your culture has more pets than children, you wind up with a society that devalues the elderly and young alike as a drain on precious resources.
The solution is simple. Those who have reached their peak and offer nothing to society, such as the author,should remove themselves in a Socratic way to make way for the potential of youth, such as my newborn daughter. The pessimism bias in this article is astounding, not to mention the ignorance it portrays by ignoring the problems of history that nations, such as China, are currently experiencing by mistakenly applying a one-child policy. My proposal is: If you have no natural children by age 50 (less in the author’s case) you’ve been pre-selected to have your genes removed from the pool simply by natural selection. Do the honorable thing for the next generation and stop breathing so as not to waste their air. They could be using the oxygen you’re stealing to live a more productive life and you’re just busy “living for you” looking at your iphone – shameful. Misunderstanding and disregarding the potential for technology to be applied as an offset or reduction to human influence is intellectual laziness at its best and a clear demonstration of academia in an unapplied setting simply reaching for the low-hanging-fruit; it’s disgraceful.
People brought children into peasantry, slavery, world wars, plagues, and now people in the richest country in the world are debating whether they should bring a child into this world. Lol. drama queens.
Arrogant tripe .
It’s astounding that this generation even goes outside at all. They think that they have it so bad and the future looks so bleak. Humanity has in every generation faces difficulties head on and had children. The problem is they are still children mentally and emotionally.
Why does anyone think not having children is fine? Because Easy times convince them that there will be someone to take care of them when they are older. Imagine a solar Flare takes out the power grid worldwide… this will be a mass casualty event. 95% of th US population could die. Now the struggle to survive is why having children is the sane option. Insane is relying on a vulnerable technology to always be there…. Hence the focus on making people to dumb to realize what is in their own self interest. Children produce citizens.
What drivel. We have it so good that people can now contemplate if we should exist.
What a terrible time to be alive…
The vibe I got from this article is disturbing. If this is the direction of climate science, then they need a new policy. Because this is just flirting with fascism. I can’t believe that some philosophers have the gall to try to control procreation. Humans ruin everything they try to control. But I digress.
I’m an HVAC technician that works in the industrial field and I can tell you that businesses and the products they produce are what’s causing majority of your “emissions”. Their machines run 24/7 and put out more pollutants than Enrico’s 5 child family ever would unless Pedro opens up a steel plant. Are you guys going to blame the polluted rivers on little newborn Chico too?
Like the others said, get a life and stop imposing your “scientists” idiot calculations on others.
The basic premise of this is flawed. There is no impending climate or environmental catastrophy. Economic progress leads to cleaner environment, more wilderness, and smaller families. The climate crisis exists only in flawed computer models, the media, and people whose careers depend upon it. Real data reveals no serious bad effects from rising CO2. Blaming everything and on man made climate change masks real causes and prevents solutions. Actual data shows that the only real result of our raising atmospheric CO2 by 50% is that crop yield have gone up about 20%. The resulting reduction in hunger while decreasing crop acreage and increasing forests is not a bad thing. Obviously exponential growth of fossil fuels cannot continue forever. However, market forces are again forcing a change in energy sources which will correct the problem long before it gets serious. My 7 great grandkids are going to have a good life on an improving planet.
Tell me you are a armchair scientist without telling me. – “Actual data shows that the only real result of our raising atmospheric CO2 by 50% is that crop yield have gone up about 20%”
Deciding right and wrong is not a scientist’s job. That’s for God.
Which God? Thor, Athena, Zeus?
There are lots and lots of Gods.
All fake.
“Actual data shows that the only real result of our raising atmospheric CO2 by 50% is that crop yield have gone up about 20%.”
Global grain production peaked in 2014.
Drought has taken it’s toll on production.
This will continue.
“My 7 great grandkids are going to have a good life on an improving planet.”
Your grand children will curse your name for being so ignorant and advocating for a diminishment of their lives and their children’s lives.
No they aren’t, you delusional fool. They are going to inherit a flaming ball of garbage that is dying thanks to stupid people breeding irresponsibly
Clearly the solution is Child Sharing, and just in time Child production.
That made me laugh. Thank you.
You went to school and got a degree. You are working in your chosen field so I would assume you aren’t green right out of school. The article appears to be written well so I will make another assumption that you are reasonably intelligent. Then you pick a subject discussing bringing children into the world and how it could potentially affect the climate when decisions around having children are majorly an emotional decision and when childbirths are declining overall around the world. Tell me why anyone would want to read this sort of fear mongering blather?
I am a demographer. I study live births, migration, aging and deaths. As simple as this science is very, very few people understand it. 75% of the world’s countries are already below replacement level fertility of 2.2 children per couple. The 50+ countries in Sub-Sahara Africa are the only exceptions. So, what is going on? Not only are birth rates dropping like a stone but so are marriages and even relationships between men and women. Why? Pornography and the internet. Humans have literally found a substitute for normal male female bonding online. And computers don’t have babies. Addiction to porn is overwhelming. Will it take mankind as we know it down? Yup. When? Before 2100.
It’s unreasonable for a world to have billionaires. 8 figure net worths are really the absolute peak and even that needs to be low 8 figures.
But things will work themselves out. In 50 years the world will be a better place, possibly, when there are less people around and so good people will be able to rebuild things. Right now there’s too many people so evil is in charge.
My wife and I moved out of the USA nearly six years ago because I didn’t like the direction the country was going. Our decision had nothing to do with the so-called climate change.
Regarding bringing children into the world, I do not have an answer but I will say responsible USA couples should be very knowledgeable of all current events before deciding whether to subject a child to the ways of our government.
I am a news junkie who reads USA news reports daily. There isn’t a four-letter word that adequately describes my attitude regarding the USA people and the government.
17,000 dead children in Gaza.
America willingly and eagerly supplied the bombs and the bullets, knowing full well what was being done.
That is Complicity in mass murder and Genocide.
Remember that, and act against them appropriately.