Meijers Climate Change and the Right to One Child (original) (raw)
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The Duty to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions and the Limits of Permissible Procreation
Essays in Philosophy, 2019
Many environmental philosophers have argued that there is an obligation for individuals to reduce their individual carbon footprints. However, few of them have addressed whether this obligation would entail a corresponding duty to limit one’s family size. In this paper, I examine several reasons that one might view procreative acts as an exception to a more general duty to reduce one’s individual greenhouse gas emissions. I conclude that none of these reasons are convincing. Thus, if there is an obligation to reduce one’s unnecessary greenhouse gas emissions, then people should also limit the size of their families when they have the means to do so.
Population Ethics and the Prospects for Fertility Policy as Climate Mitigation Policy
The Journal of Development Studies, 2021
What are the prospects for using population policy as tool to reduce carbon emissions? In this paper, we review evidence from population science, in order to inform debates in population ethics that, so far, have largely taken place within the academic philosophy literature. In particular, we ask whether fertility policy is likely to have a large effect on carbon emissions, and therefore on temperature change. Our answer is no. Prospects for a policy of fertility-reduction-as-climate-mitigation are limited by population momentum, a demographic factor that limits possible variation in the size of the population, even if fertility rates change very quickly. In particular, a hypothetical policy that instantaneously changed fertility and mortality rates to replacement levels would nevertheless result in a population of over 9 billion people in 2060. We use a leading climate-economy model to project the consequence of such a hypothetical policy for climate change. As a standalone mitigation policy, such a hypothetical change in the size of the future population-much too large to be implementable by any foreseeable government programme-would reduce peak temperature change only to 6.4°C, relative to 7.1°C under the most likely population path. Therefore, fertility reduction is unlikely to be an adequate core approach to climate mitigation.
Climate ethics and population policy: A review of recent philosophical work
WIREs Climate Change, 2021
It is well-established that human population growth is a leading cause of increased greenhouse gas emissions and accelerating global climate change. After decades of neglect, philosophical ethicists have, over the past decade, taken up the issue of climate change and population policy and there are now numerous articles and books which explore the subject. Both rights-based and consequentialist approaches seek to balance reproductive rights against other human rights and interests threatened by overpopulation and ecological degradation. While biocentric ethicists have additional reasons to advocate for smaller human populations, even anthropocentrists affirm the need to balance reproductive rights against reproductive responsibilities in order to promote the well-being of future generations. There is a particularly strong consensus on the value of choice-enhancing population policies that reduce fertility voluntarily, such as securing universal access to modern contraception and promoting equal rights and opportunities for women. There is strong support for government policies that incentivize smaller families, some support for policies that disincentivize larger ones, and little to no support for punitive policies. Many ethicists warn that failure to enact reasonable population policies now may necessitate harsher policies in the future, a common theme in climate ethics generally.
Human Rights, Population and Climate Change
Recently many environmental ethicists have argued that tackling climate change requires addressing the growth in the world's population. This paper critically examines two different versions of this argument. One which I term Restrictivism argues that there should be limits on people's procreative choice. Sarah Conly, for example, maintains that each couple has a right to one child, no more, and that this limit can be coercively enforced. I argue that such Restrictivist accounts suffer from three serious problems. First, in order to determine how many children people could permissibly limit Restrictivists like Conly would need to provide an account of intra- and inter-generational justice and they would then need to show empirically that realizing this requires that people have a right to one child and no more. Since, however, they do not provide the normative or empirical analysis the numbers they give are arbitrary. Second, Restrictivist accounts are objectionably monocausal and fail to take into account the role of other determinants of ecological sustainability (notably the levels of consumption and the kind of technology available). Third, their imposition of equal procreative limits is unfair. They penalize the poor for the high-emissions lifestyles of the rich. A second strategy adopts what I term the Byproduct Approach. This maintains that realizing human rights to reproductive choice, education, employment and to a decent standard of living would reduce population growth and, indeed, are sufficient to establish ecological sustainability. I argue that this is a more attractive approach and that such measures are necessary. However, I argue, we lack any reason to think that they are sufficient. For to know whether they would be sufficient we would need to know what we owe future generations, what limits on ecological impacts this would in practice require, and whether the net effects of such human rights policies would result in the necessary limits on ecological impacts. In the absence of this we have no reason to think that the Byproduct Approach would be enough. In the final part of the paper I outline a third more promising approach. This holds that humanity must live within certain ecological limits - where these limits are derived from (i) an understanding of our responsibilities to current and future generations and (ii) an empirical analysis of what is needed to comply with these responsibilities. Together (i) and (ii) define what I term the Sustainability Frontier. I then draw on the observation that humanity's environmental impact is a function of three kinds of factor (people's levels of consumption, the technology available and the number of people alive) to argue that there is a plurality of different ways in which people can comply with their responsibility to live within the Sustainability Frontier. They can choose different combinations of procreation, consumption and technological investment and diffusion. This ecological liberalism thus combines a commitment to ecological sustainability with a commitment to individual liberty. In short: Those who emphasize the role of demographic change as a causal factor in climate change are right to do so. However, it is important that we do not treat population in isolation, but rather treat it together with levels of consumption, global inequalities, the role of the built environment in determining energy use, the political economy of energy, and the unequal access to, and control of, clean technology.
The Value in Procreation: A Pro-tanto Case for a Limited and Conditional Right to Procreate
Journal of Value Inquiry , 2020
Having children is an important aspect of peoples’ lives. I will take the intuition that there is something valuable about procreation as a starting point, and asks whether we can appeal to the value of procreation when engaged in liberal justification. This is an important question philosophically speaking, but it also has important implications. There is a lively debate, both in philosophy and society at large, about constraints on the right to procreate as well as about government family policies. The strength and the nature of the interest people have in procreation has implications for both of these debates. We cannot take a position, for example, on the permissibility of procreation in the light of sustainability issues, without a view on the value in procreation. In this paper I offer such an account.
Population Policy through Tradable Procreation Rights
2006
Tradable permits are now widely used to control pollution. We investigate the implications of setting up such a system in another area -population control -, either domestically or at the global level. We first generalize the framework with both tradable procreation allowances and tradable procreation exemptions, in order to tackle both over-and under-population problems. The implications of procreation rights for income inequality and education are contrasted. We decompose the scheme's impact on redistribution into three effects, one of them, the tradability effect, entails the following: with procreation exemptions or expensive enough procreation allowances, redistribution benefits the poor. In contrast, cheap procreation allowances redistribute resources to the rich. As far as human capital is concerned, natalist policy worsens the average education level of the next generation, while population control enhances it. If procreation rights are granted to countries in proportion to existing fertility levels (grandfathering) instead of being allocated equally, population control can be made even more redistributive. Our exploratory analysis suggests that procreation entitlements offer a promising tool to control population without necessarily leading to problematic distributive impact, especially at the global level.
Justice in procreation : five essays on population size, parenthood and new arrivals
2016
People create new people. This rather obvious and seemingly trivial fact raises a range of important and complex questions in moral and political philosophy. I argue that certain demographic developments are better than others from the point of view of justice: at the very least, we need to make sure the size of future generations is compatible with sustainable just institutions. Crucial when thinking about population size, population policies and moral limits to procreation, is the question of what – if anything – makes procreation particularly valuable. By an appeal to the role that future generations play in our lives and to goods of parenthood, I defend an account of the value of procreation. I explore the implications of this account for the role fertility reduction can play in making the world more sustainable. In addition, I ask who should carry to costs of parenthood and procreation, and explore in particular the grounds on which firms could be said to have an obligation to contribute. Finally, I ask what – if anything – can justify the practice of including new-borns as full members of society, while at the same time refusing citizenship to many prospective immigrant. What makes them different? I reject several candidate arguments, and argue that the grounds on which the practice can be defended are both limited and surprising. Taken together, the five chapters in this thesis aim to contribute to a more complete account of justice in procreation. It investigates what liberal egalitarian theories of justice require in the domain of procreation, and evaluates several principles that should inform our individual and collective decisions around the creation and the accommodation of new people.(FILO - Philosophie) -- UCL, 201
More Co-parents Fewer Children Multiparenting and Sustainable Population
Essays in Philosophy, 2019
Some philosophers argue that we should limit procreation – for instance, to one child per person or one child per couple – in order to reduce our aggregate carbon footprint. I provide additional support to the claim that population size is a matter of justice, by explaining that we have a duty of justice towards the current generation of children to pass on to them a sustainable population. But instead of, or, more likely, alongside with, having fewer children in in each family, we could also create families with more than two parents. I explore this possibility by pointing out the ways in which multi-parenting can advance children’s interests: in higher levels of well-being, in non-monopolistic child-rearing, and in a future opportunity to become themselves parents.
The problem with reproductive freedom. Procreation beyond procreators’ interests
Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy, 2019
Reproductive freedom plays a pivotal role in debates on the ethics of procreation. This moral principle protects people's interests in procreative matters and allows them discretion over whether to have children, the number of children they have and, to a certain extent, the type of children they have. Reproductive freedom's theoretical and political emphasis on people's autonomy and well-being is grounded in an individual-centred framework for discussing the ethics of procreation. It protects procreators' interests and significantly reduces the permissible grounds for interference by third parties. In this article I show that procreative decisions have far-reaching effects on the composition and size of the population. The upshot of considering these effects allows for the appreciation of the inadequacy of a framework that solely considers individual (i.e. procreators') interests to discuss the ethics of procreation. To address such inadequacy, I assess costs and benefits of past and present proposals to reflect on procreation in such a way as to consider its far-reaching effects. I conclude by arguing that reproductive freedom should be defended as an imperfect but instrumentally necessary tool. This framing would enable those participating in debates on the ethics of procreative decisions to work towards an ethical framework that accounts for the cumulative effects of these decisions.
2020
This thesis departs from scientific literature which suggests to "have one fewer child" as the most effective individual lifestyle choice to reduce one's contribution to (and even actively fight against) climate change. By employing critical discourse analysis of this literature, I explore how childbearing and carbon emissions have been coupled, and what the implications of this phenomenon are. Throughout this work I seek to show that quantifying an unborn child in emissions savings and suggesting to restrain from them must be understood in the socio-political and historical context which drives the individualization of climate causes and solutions; gives authority to "value-neutral" science to produce and naturalize reproductive recommendations; and ignores the patriarchal history of reproduction within capitalism. I essentially argue that "have one fewer child" conceals the gendered nature of reproduction in capitalism, accelerates the instrumental treatment of both childbearing and the climate crisis, and implies that female bodies and sexual life should serve a greater purpose and thus remain manageable. I also suggest that the latter is likely to get a grip in the (m)Anthropocenea human-dominated era in which human has become the biggest threat.