PHI 2396 Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Virtue Ethics, Reproductive Rights, Harm Principle

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Philosophy
• Course: PHI 2396
• Professor: David Zane Shaw

Document Summary

The procreative liberty argument (also called the reproductive autonomy argument: relies on the harm principle: we are only justified in interfering with the choices of persons when those choices are clearly harmful to others . If they are only harmful to the individual who chooses them, then we cannot interfere. There are two reasons to support the claim for reproductive autonomy: that ascriptions of harm rely on principles that not everybody can agree on, that a child born via reproductive technologies cannot be harmed. #2 technologies: because no one existed before being born, there was nobody to harm. It is better to exist than not exist, so somebody can only suffer substantial harm if coming into existence is worse than not existing: really, we don"t know if existing or not existing is better. Arguments for pla must consider that some technologies could harm future children. A utilitarian would ask if reproductive technologies are the best allocation of resources.