Your writings on this subject often emphasize an extremely high regard for the value of people making their own reproductive decisions, even when the weights are (as in this case) a humanās life and an enormous amount of farmed animal suffering.
When would the other stakes be sufficiently large for you to endorse preventing someone from making their own reproductive decision?
For example, letās say Hitlerās mother could have been forced to have an abortion, preventing Hitlerās birth. Would you say thatās a tradeoff worth making, with regret?
Or letās say we know Aliceās son Bob, were he to be born, will save 1 billion lives by preventing a nuclear war, and Alice currently intends to abort Bob. Would you say forcing Alice to carry Bob to term would be a tradeoff worth making, with regret about the forced birth?
The reason why I ask is because my intuition is that while reproductive autonomy is very important, it seems to me that there are always ways to up the stakes such that it can be the right thing to compromise on that principle, with regrets. I feel like thereās something Iām missing in my understanding of your view which has caused us historically to talk past each other.
If you can stipulate (e.g. in a thought experiment) that the consequences of coercion are overall for the best, then I favor it in that case. I just have a very strong practical presumption (see: principled proceduralism) that liberal options tend to have higher expected value in real life, once all our uncertainty (and fallibility) is fully taken into account.
Maybe also worth noting (per my other comment in this thread) that Iām optimistic about the long-term value of humanity and human innovation. So, putting autonomy considerations aside, if I could either encourage people to have more kids or fewer, I think more is better (despite the short-term costs to animal welfare).
Your writings on this subject often emphasize an extremely high regard for the value of people making their own reproductive decisions, even when the weights are (as in this case) a humanās life and an enormous amount of farmed animal suffering.
When would the other stakes be sufficiently large for you to endorse preventing someone from making their own reproductive decision?
For example, letās say Hitlerās mother could have been forced to have an abortion, preventing Hitlerās birth. Would you say thatās a tradeoff worth making, with regret?
Or letās say we know Aliceās son Bob, were he to be born, will save 1 billion lives by preventing a nuclear war, and Alice currently intends to abort Bob. Would you say forcing Alice to carry Bob to term would be a tradeoff worth making, with regret about the forced birth?
The reason why I ask is because my intuition is that while reproductive autonomy is very important, it seems to me that there are always ways to up the stakes such that it can be the right thing to compromise on that principle, with regrets. I feel like thereās something Iām missing in my understanding of your view which has caused us historically to talk past each other.
If you can stipulate (e.g. in a thought experiment) that the consequences of coercion are overall for the best, then I favor it in that case. I just have a very strong practical presumption (see: principled proceduralism) that liberal options tend to have higher expected value in real life, once all our uncertainty (and fallibility) is fully taken into account.
Maybe also worth noting (per my other comment in this thread) that Iām optimistic about the long-term value of humanity and human innovation. So, putting autonomy considerations aside, if I could either encourage people to have more kids or fewer, I think more is better (despite the short-term costs to animal welfare).