But instead no one has to be responsible for anything because of this fatalistic attitude towards having children as though it is inevitable. — Andrew4Handel

Good point, especially bringing up the fatalistic attitude. Self fulfilling prophesy.

It is ironic that serial killers in America were allowed to marry in prison whilst gay people were not allowed to marry at all.

I think this reflects on the warped values in this area. Marriage is for children and serial killers

Thus having a child would allow the new person to experience their potential for happiness. — schopenhauer1

This the most common and vague reason now given for having children. Happiness is elusive in terms of what causes it and why it should be perpetuated. I always point out that there are pictures of happy Nazis working at Auschwitz.

But apparently happiness, familial bonds and so on have this mysterious power to outweigh any other consideration even reasonable intervention in the reproduction and parenting process.

I feel one really needs to elaborate a substantial reason for having children to avoid a nihilistic free for all.

Good points. See my thread here about how happiness reason is really about technology. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/3977/on-the-phenomonology-of-technology/p1

It is in you and your children's interest to monitor how other people reproduce. Even if you do everything in your power to give your child a decent quality of life they have to deal with the people around them and other peoples children. (I say this as someone who was bullied by other peoples children in school 20+)

I think humans have wide capacities and it is not impossible to care for your own child and care for the welfare of other children. Indeed some women have had their own children and then gone onto foster and adopt dozens more.

It is ironic what people say about a collective responsibility for children but then they don't want any intervention in their own child rearing.

I don't understand what you're saying here. What sort of intervention in the free ability of prospective parents to have children are you imagining?

Having children is not a 'right' in that it is not someone's responsibility to ensure it. A private family life is a 'right' (in the UN declaration of human rights) meaning that it is the signatory government's responsibility to deliver that 'right' to its citizens who might otherwise find themselves bereft of it.

There's no threat to the ability to have children (except perhaps infertility) so if it were a 'right', what would a government's responsibility to ensure it entail?

It sounds to me more like you are arguing for either some restriction on the ability of prospective parents to have children, or more rights for the resultant child.

The reason why neither of these has been further implemented is pretty straightforward I would have thought. If you prevent people from having children there will be revolution because people love having children, it's about as basic a bit of biological programming as it gets. Resource scarcity and pollution would also be halved if we shot half the population (more than that if we carefully chose which half), but we avoid such an intervention because it clashes with people's will to remain living. How is clashing with their will to procreate any different?

As to the second part, there is literally only one positive right in the whole of the UN declaration of human rights (a positive right being something naturally absent which must be supplied, rather than something naturally present whose removal must be mitigated) and that is primary education of children.

The government already intervenes more in the upbringing of children than it does in any other area of life. In Germany children are forceably taken away from their parents for 6 hours a day to be raised entirely in a manner the state sees fit. What greater application of government to the rearing of children could you possibly be asking for?

I don't understand what you're saying here. What sort of intervention in the free ability of prospective parents to have children are you imagining? — Pseudonym

I am discussing whether people have a right to have a child and if so why?

I am not discussing possible modes of intervention. Even if preventing childbirth was unachievable that does not mean people have a moral right to have a child or did the right thing by doing so

.

In Germany children are forceably taken away from their parents for 6 hours a day to be raised entirely in a manner the state sees fit. What greater application of government to the rearing of children could you possibly be asking for? — Pseudonym

I went to school 5 days a week but I also went to church up to five times a week, my parents were bad parents and authoritarians who didn't show me affection etc. Sending me to school resulted in serious bullying in school.
The school does not act like parents or baby sitters or replace the authority and affection of parents. Sending someone to school does not prevent child abuse in general

The first way of intervening is to change the whole narrative around having children. Lots of people choose not to have children and are happy to do so. I am one of 6 siblings and only one has children.

Most families in the west restrict the number of children they have now they have the option and are better educated. You are taking an unwarranted fatalistic attitude.

You are taking an unwarranted fatalistic attitude. — Andrew4Handel

No, I just don't understand what you are saying. A 'right' is a legal protection meaning that an authority is obliged to ensure that you have it. People can already have children, their ability to do so is currently unrestricted. If you're suggesting that they should not have that right (or at least not automatically) then that is necessarily in the form of some action by some authority. You can't just restrict a naturally unrestricted right in abstract.

It sounds to me more like what you mean to say is that you'd like fewer people to choose to have children for moral reasons. You're trying to make a case that having children is, in some cases, an immoral thing to do? But this would have nothing to do with rights. That's where I'm misunderstanding you.

The school does not act like parents or baby sitters or replace the authority and affection of parents. Sending someone to school does not prevent child abuse in general — Andrew4Handel

On the contrary, I think sending children to school very often actually constitutes child abuse. To take a child with autism and force them to sit still for 6 hours in a room full of 30 other children is a minor torture. The point is, the German government clearly think it is the most responsible way to bring children up. Presuming you're not advocating a complete absence of procreation you need to have a system for determining in which situations it is appropriate to have children.

You keep alluding to, but never quite describing, exactly what considerations you think people should be taking into account (outweighing their spontaneous desire to have children) and what threshold they should meet before concluding that they are morally right to do so.

At one point we could consider child baring a duty to the longevity of humanity. Just the same at some point we could consider not baring children a duty to the longevity of humanity.

I understand the value of pleasure that comes with baring a child, but at what point is it no longer justified as a free for all for everyone? Is it when we run out of water? That's already happening in places. When we run out of ozone? That's happening too. When we run out of property? That happened years ago.

You can't just restrict a naturally unrestricted right in abstract. — Pseudonym

I don't know what you mean. Homosexuality is natural but it has been heavily restricted and forced underground and punished with prison and death.

I don't agree with your definition of a right. If someone has a right to do something the government will not intervene in not them practising that right.The government can intervene to enforce a right but in general a right means someone is allowed to do X unrestricted.

I am looking for an explanation of why people feel and act entitled to have a child. You don't need legal rights for someone to exhibit a sense of entitlement.

I don't feel entitled to have a child regardless of what the law says.

On the contrary, I think sending children to school very often actually constitutes child abuse. — Pseudonym

Children are given an a education to improve their welfare. But we are not discussing that. We are discussing the extent to which the government intervenes in parenting. It is quite possible to home school your child. I think it is the parents fault if a child is abused in school because they create a child within this system of schooling and are naive about it. Another issue is bullying by other peoples children in school and having other peoples out of control children inflicted on you.

People are reliant on schools and other social provisions to help rear and protect their children.
Th futures of schools doesn't mean children shouldn't have an education. How do suggest we allow all children a reasonable education?

You keep alluding to, but never quite describing, exactly what considerations you think people should be taking into account (outweighing their spontaneous desire to have children) and what threshold they should meet before concluding that they are morally right to do so. — Pseudonym

I said earlier "Huge numbers of children have starved to death and still do and do not have gardens to play in with some kind of Snow white mother figure."

This is one of many considerations to be taken into account. I could give a large list but here are a few.

1) The risk of exposing children to serious harm (Famine/War/Disease/Pollution/Crime)
2) Compromising a child's own wishes (a child may have completely different values to a parent)
3) Exposing them to inevitable life harms of varying degrees, from mental illness, their own eventual death and work hardship.)
4) Issues around Imposing religion and false beliefs and values on them.
5) Your own financial stability and mental stability and parenting abilities.
6) The general state and fairness of the world you are bringing them into (war, pollution, exploitation and inequality etc)
7) Meaning of life, morality and purpose issues (Other philosophical issues)

If a parent has explored all these issues properly/factually/reaonsably I would be surprised if they didn't act as a constraint or restraint.

I don't know what you mean. Homosexuality is natural but it has been heavily restricted and forced underground and punished with prison and death. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, that's a good example. People considered that they could have sex with whomever they like, a government decided they could not do so, so they intervened to prevent it. It wasn't prevented in abstract. Reality did not change to make it such that homosexuals no longer had the right to have sex with whomever they wanted. An authority actively prevented them from doings so and that action is what constituted their lack of rights. What action would constitute a lack of right (or restriction of right) to have children?

The government can intervene to enforce a right but in general a right means someone is allowed to do X unrestricted. — Andrew4Handel

Yes, but we don't enumerate those rights that are no at risk. I don't talk about my 'right' to wear a green shirt on a Thursday because no one is talking about restricting my ability to do so. It is the act of restriction (or threat thereof) which makes it necessary to define a right in order to defend it. As procreation is not currently under threat of restriction, I don't understand what purpose referring to it as a 'right' serves.

I am looking for an explanation of why people feel and act entitled to have a child. You don't need legal rights for someone to exhibit a sense of entitlement. — Andrew4Handel

No, but you need a threat to those legal rights for someone to claim 'entitlement'. You're 'entitled to do absolutely everything that is not restricted by some authority. It's the default position. The answer to the question why do people feel entitled to have children is simply, no one is stopping them. People feel entitled to do that which no one else prevents them from doing. What you're referring to is people's decision to actually go ahead and do what they feel entitled to do. I'm definatly 'entitled' to keep all of my money for myself (after tax). I'm entitled to because no effective authority prevents me from doing so. I don't actually keep all my money for myself, because I don't think it fair to, but I'm definitely 'entitled' to.

How do suggest we allow all children a reasonable education? — Andrew4Handel

Children educate themselves quite happily if given the opportunity, but that's a separate discussion.

I could give a large list but here are a few. — Andrew4Handel

I didn't just ask for the considerations, I asked specifically for the thresholds. Unless you are advocating having no children at all then presumably there is some threshold level of having met these concerns above which it is reasonable to have children. So how do you know people haven't already considered these issues and decided they meet said threshold?

And besides all that God told us to do it. In some book somewhere. — Baden

We have since learned though that there is a natural right to abort one's child, inherent in the very concept of liberty, so why shouldn't we also conclude that having children is also the same sort of right?

I didn't just ask for the considerations, I asked specifically for the thresholds.(..). So how do you know people haven't already considered these issues and decided they meet said threshold? — Pseudonym

That is what I want to know.
When people actively decide to have children they must, I suppose, have decided they passed some threshold that made reproducing acceptable.

So I want to know
Why thought it, necessary, morally acceptable, why they thought this was a good world to bring a child into and so on.

At the moment in most countries children can be taken way from their parents for a range of reasons such as physical and emotional neglect types of abuse, inability to parent. There are already some thresholds upon which governments or societies deem people to be unfit to have access to children.

Spiritual abuse is new category in UK law. So it is already possible and enforceable to take control of peoples children, the reluctance is to take earlier measures or suggest people should not have children.

Quite right. Many parents are emotionally &/or morally unqualified to be responsible for children.

Parenting should be a privilege for those who are qualified, and not a right.

But a (impossible) better society would be needed in order to implement such a system. You can't lift yourself by your bootstraps.

Michael Ossipoff

Such metaphysical power you attribute to your supreme court. Natural rights theory is nonsense anyhow. They are both legal rights (and conditionally ethically justifiable) only the right to have children is significantly less controversial for obvious reasons. And that's fine with me. The latter isn't going to be widely recognised as a moral issue until and unless it starts causing problems in practice (highlighting the incoherence of referring to it as a natural right).

So I want to know
Why thought it, necessary, morally acceptable, why they thought this was a good world to bring a child into and so on. — Andrew4Handel

You've answered your own question;

There are already some thresholds upon which governments or societies deem people to be unfit to have access to children. — Andrew4Handel

If the government does not take your child away (or prevent you from having them) then it seems a reasonable presumption that you've met the thresholds society thinks are appropriate to bring a child into the world.

If you disagree with that decision and wish to debate that, you'd need to explain where your thresholds are so that we can discuss the reasons and consequences of having them there.

Handel, Schubert — Andrew4Handel

Handel and Schubert may have been childless, but J. S. Bach fathered and supported 20 children plus turning out a massive amount of music (and he was Lutheran, not Catholic).

It is ironic that serial killers in America were allowed to marry in prison whilst gay people were not allowed to marry at all.

I think this reflects on the warped values in this area. Marriage is for children and serial killers — Andrew4Handel

You sound a bit unhinged when you make statements like "marriage is for children and serial killers". A free rhetorical tip: don't go off the deep end too often.

Yes, sometimes people who are very poorly equipped to bear children do so, with adverse consequences for everyone concerned. Yes, people have difficulty managing fertility. Yes, some children (a few million) are exploited, are made to work, are abused, and so on.

Conversely, don't forget, millions of children are born to capable parents, raised well, and become sensible adults.

Yes, I think there are too many children in the world. Over-population will continue to be an issue, and of necessity, will focus attention on how many children people are having. However, the demographics are tricky. China succeeded in reducing its birthrate because it had a strong and capable central government and a reasonably cohesive society. The 1-child policy produced a mushroom-shaped demographic: many older people on top supported by a relatively narrow stem of younger people. The 1 child policy has been relaxed, and this will in time produce more problems (inevitably).

The heart of the population problem is that 7.3 billion individuals make the decision to have sex and 3.15 billion women decide to bear the resulting children (or not). Controlling 7.3 (soon to be 8) billion people sufficiently to make childbearing a means-tested option involves a level of bureaucratic interference most people do not want--at all.

Look: we're probably screwed no matter what. The climate is warming; no country is close to achieving reductions of CO2 and other gases which cause climate change. Never mind peak oil. We are past peak fresh water. It is estimated that about 1 billion people are now dealing with insufficient fresh water supplies. One billion will be two and three billion fairly soon. We face too many challenges to address. We have neither the resources nor the organizational wherewithal to deal with all of the effects of global warming, over population, resource depletion (which includes depletion of fertile soils), and so forth that we are up against.

Humans have never been able to solve all of their problems. When societies have reached a limit on their various adaptive capacities, they collapse. That doesn't mean they all drop dead (fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how fatalistic one is). It means that it may be centuries before a given area has recovered.

It's easy being negative because most people do it and, after having done it for quite a while, we've become quite adept at it. But, what if we took into consideration a few factors which we know about ourselves (as a society) and, for the hell of it, indulge in them with a little positivity. Take progress, for example. One may ask, 'are we justified in having intellect?' Remember, through out our evolution, no capacity or ability has begun at its peak. So, to question parenthood because we are imperfect is to open 'pandora's box' on a whole lot of issues since we are quite immature even by our own portrayal of what we mean by intelligence. On the flip side, we are learning. Very fast! We've gone from 'every nation for itself' to a world wide association of nations; from knowing only what happens in my community to world wide news; from 'only this matters to me because it concerns me' to 'everything matters to me because this is my world'; from 'I need this therefore I will take it and use it' to 'I need this therefore I must take care of it if I'm to use it'; and all this in a span of about a hundred years. Two hundred years ago humanity couldn't think it would be this connected, informed or invested in a 'general-welfare' type of circumstance. And even those who lag behind are not doing so out of sheer malice, but from a kind of inertia mostly born of fear, and which will eventually be overcome.
We started moving a long time ago and the window of opportunity for us (humanity as a whole) to stop to consider has closed. Therefore, we have to do things on the go. Some of us will take matters into consideration while the rest continue with what they're doing and then they'll find a way to fill them in on the outcome of their deliberations, all the while, on the go. It's the way of our lives. You know how, when you're in a car moving really fast, everything outside seen through the window seems to be a blur of moving objects while inside everything seems stationery? It's the same for us. If you can take a moment to look outside of the window, you'll see how fast human progress really is. I think the best we can do is to help humanity advance even faster.

You sound a bit unhinged when you make statements like "marriage is for children and serial killers". A free rhetorical tip: don't go off the deep end too often. — Bitter Crank

I was referring to the common claim that marriage is for rearing children made by conservatives opposed to gay marriage. The absurdity being that killers could get married and all sorts of other bizarre marriage unions happened that were not campaigned against by those opposing gay marriage.

It is all propaganda to justify norms.

If the government does not take your child away (or prevent you from having them) then it seems a reasonable presumption that you've met the thresholds society thinks are appropriate to bring a child into the world. — Pseudonym

The government threshold for acceptable parenting is not the same as each individual's is. I don't personally support anyone having children. I don't think the government has legitimised people having children. I used it as an example of how we can intervene in the parent child relationship and enforce this intervention.

But if I did legislate on reproduction I would make the process of considering having a child much more profound and the consequences more serious.
I would increase parental accountability
and I think we would need a whole new philosophy that reflects the real dynamics of creating another person and its causal and ethical ramifications.

Handel and Schubert may have been childless, but J. S. Bach fathered and supported 20 children plus turning out a massive amount of music (and he was Lutheran, not Catholic). — Bitter Crank

Half his children died in childhood. His own musical contribution was greater than his genetic contribution and he hasn't left behind many descendants.

I think parents are more like to make a negative contribution overall rather than birthing the next Einstein. I think the narrative around parenthood is to self aggrandising around parents making it an esteem boosting endeavour..

I don't personally support anyone having children. — Andrew4Handel

So you're suggesting that we just let the human race die out? That seems a rather oblique conclusion from your original post.

I find it hard to justify making children. The original post was asking why people feel justified in making children.
I was hoping someone would try and persuade me why it is ethical, desirable or a right to have child.

I think if people are going to have children we need a rational evaluation of the process and it's ramifications and extend the rights of the child.

I find it hard to justify making children. The original post was asking why people feel justified in making children. I was hoping someone would try and persuade me why it is ethical, desirable or a right to have [a] child. — Andrew4Handel

Seems like a fools errand to me. Does anyone here expect that Andrew4Handle or schopenhauer1 or anyone else of that ilk will be persuaded this time?

I was hoping someone would try and persuade me why it is ethical, desirable or a right to have child. — Andrew4Handel

It depends what meta-ethical framework you're working from. Ethics can theoretically be debated within a meta-ethical framework, but it's difficult to raise arguments to persuade someone when you don't know what their criteria are. What is it that you measure the 'rightness' of an action by?

What is it that you measure the 'rightness' of an action by? — Pseudonym

I have a non moral concern about harm. I don't think you can prove something is right or wrong.

If someone gives a moral argument for having children then I can critique that. I don't think any of the standard moral positions can defend having children.

If you believe it is wrong to harm other and that consent is fundamental then that morality would be undermined. I don't see how virtue ethics would defend reproduction based on the previous issues.

I would critique societies current values and misrepresentation of the dynamics of creating new people. Societies are run on false beliefs and false premises. Society is not consensual when people are forced into existence. I think if Persons A and B create Person C they are responsible for Person C and not Person C themself. However I Person C creates Person D they are responsible for person D along with Person A & B.

What is important is that a childless person has no responsibilities or obligations. Having children endorses and props up society but childless people need not support or endorse any product of society. When a childless person collaborates with society it will be so as to survive and avoid further harm. But some childless people endorse people having children so I think they then bear some responsibility for the system.

I describe people as being forced into existence and when you have a horrible life and or reject life you are like a hostage having society and life and the world imposed on you.

The only seeming escape route is self murder which is a brutal solution or to fight against the unjust dynamics of society. There maybe things that could make life for someone in this circumstance more bearable.
I think asking why we were created is THE biggest question in philosophy because our parents reproductive actions are the only reason we exist. It is a fundamental existential question. And one along with all other philosophical dilemmas my nonexistent offspring won't have to ponder.

I have no issue with a very strict responsibility on society towards its children, one of my professional areas of interest was in child development and I strongly believe that children's rights are being undermined.

Where I take issue is with the notion that there's no moral duty, or justification to having children.

I think a significant number of people agree that we have a moral duty to take good enough care of our natural resources to ensure a reasonable standard of living for future generations. Thus we have established that it is possible to have duty towards a person who does not yet exist. Your approach would also require this (you claim we have a duty not to cause suffering to the not yet existing child).

Duties are social. We have a duty to others because they have a duty to us. It follows then that those yet to be born can be understood to have a duty too, at least their potential existence can be said to have a duty.

So, when society is doing well, bringing a child into the world is right because they will, on the whole, experience happiness. When society is not doing well, we have a duty to future generations to make it better. But that duty might take more than one generation. You have a duty to make the world a better place for your great grandchildren (or those of your neighbours), but in order to carry out that duty, you will need to bring into existence a child, who immediately has a duty to do the same (grow up, make the world a bit better and have child to carry on the process).

Of course no one gets a choice in the matter, but that's not how duties work, we don't choose them, they result from the relationships within society.

You might think you can opt out, but who's going to look after you when you're older? Who's going to build your roads, fix your car, defend your borders? It'll be someone else's child. That creates a responsibility on you to look after them now.

This discussion is sick. What gives you the right to decide who can and can't have children, oh would-be eugenicist?