Utilitarianism and New Generations – Do More Children Equal More Happiness?

Utilitarianism is a philosophical theory which maintains that happiness or pleasure is good, and pain is bad. Therefore, any event which leads to people being happy is automatically good and better than any event which leads to pain. In his article “Utilitarianism and New Generations,” Narveson is taking a look at the assumption that utilitarianism is suggesting that people should have as many children as they can, so long as the happiness of those children exceeds their pain. He does this by splitting the issue up into two different questions that can be answered separately; one, should we produce a child if we know that that person will be happy; and two, should we produce a child if we can say for sure that his or her existence will have a ‘good’ effect on people other than himself. Narveson then proceeds to explore the ramifications of the original question throughout the article, by suggesting that there are different ways to interpret the theory of utilitarianism, and also looking at classical versus non-classical utilitarianism. He looks at why the actual phrasing of the question at the beginning of the article makes it into a logical fallacy, breaks it down to show why this is so, and then finally answers the question using his interpretation of the theory of utilitarianism.

The beginning of the article states that “if utilitarianism is correct, then we must be obliged to produce as many children as possible, so long as their happiness would exceed their misery” (62). The first problem Narveson seems to see with this objection to utilitarianism is that, as he says, according to classical utilitarianism people who haven’t been born cannot be said to exist –– and so, since we can’t speak about one individual person or another in the abstract –– we can talk about ‘people’ as a concrete group, in the abstract (Narveson 64), but nothing else –– it is impossible to talk about the potential happiness of that person (Narveson 63-64).

Those who would wish to consider embryos as a kind of person may simply replace ‘born’ and ‘birth’ with ‘conceived’ and ‘conception’ throughout. And as we all know, non-existent people are not just a special kind of people; therefore, unborn people are also not just a special kind of people. Further, “people” are among the things you can point to, see, hear and so forth. There is no such thing as an “abstract person,” though we may talk in the abstract about people (concrete) (63-64).

In fact, the critique doesn’t even need to go as far as that –– if we talk about X, then X must already have been born, since we are assuming that he existed. In that case, we cannot talk about if X was born, then he would be happy, because X has already been born, since we are speaking about him as though he existed.

The fact that utilitarianism does not think of unborn people as existing is a very good point to bring up against the fallacy of utilitarianism, which is the entire focus of the article. I can’t help but think that Narveson invalidates his own point slightly at the very end of the article, when he says “clearly, it will often be the case that we can foresee good or bad effects on the existing population by the production of new people” (Narveson 71), which does seem to suggest that, in direct contrast to his previous statements that happiness or pleasure cannot be predicated on someone being born, simply because to utilitarians, someone who is unborn doesn’t exist and therefore can have no effect on people’s happiness; the general happiness can be determined in the face of any new additions. Granted, the article explores it only in the context of the moral duty to have children if the population needed growth (which, in utilitarian terms, would make people happy, which would therefore make having children the correct and ‘good’ thing to do), but the inclusion of this particular piece of moral explanation right at the end of the article makes that explanation feel a little rushed, as though Narveson has only put it in because he has to give a balanced view of the question, even if it does make his own conclusions slightly irrelevant. It does make the conclusions reached earlier a little irrelevant…if utilitarians say that an unborn child doesn’t exist, then either their own happiness or the happiness of the people who will surround them cannot be predicated on their existence, so surely utilitarians can’t then turn around and claim that general happiness can in fact be predicated on people who are not yet born, and who, by the admission of the utilitarians themselves, don’t exist according to this philosophy.

In the next section, the article lays out possible outcomes of any event from a utilitarianist point of view, saying that the act either will (1) increase the general happiness, (2) decrease the general happiness, or (3) have no effect on the general happiness. Neglecting such interesting but here irrelevant questions as how you decide which in fact will result,...In cases where the different things we can do would some of them eventuate x in (1), others in (2), and others in (3), it is our duty to avoid (2) and prefer (1). (Narveson 65)

This answers the question that immediately came to mind when I first saw the beginning of the article. If utilitarianism takes pleasure to be good and pain to be bad, then on a superficial level it does seem as though anybody who subscribes to this philosophy would only be out for themselves, and not other people, which makes it odd that the question of children being happy would come up at all, since it seems unlikely that a utilitarian would care about others unless they could afford him some pleasure. Narveson does point out that utilitarians think that they should be allowed to pursue pleasure as far as that is possible (63) essentially saying that the pursuit of pleasure should remain within the limits of the law, and within the limits of reason (potentially a ‘my rights end where yours begin’ situation), but it is nice to have the limits, ideas, and benefits of utilitarianism and the pursuit of pleasure over pain spelled out so plainly.

The above quote helps Narveson point out the moral dilemma inherent in the question of whether or not utilitarians believe we should have as many children as we can keep happy. Ordinarily, you would expect this question to be a non-starter: of course you should not use children in your own personal journey towards happiness. Narveson agrees in this article, specifically stating that the question is a “non-moral one” (Narveson 66) because while it is true and shown in the article that general happiness goes up after a child is born, that does not make having children the moral thing to do. In the article, which first establishes that having children is or should be a morally indifferent matter, Narveson uses the example of citizens in a country named Fervia being told by their king “that a certain city on Mars, populated by extremely happy Martians will shortly become a part of Fervia” (66) This situation would no more guarantee the increased happiness of the populace than the arrival of a new baby –– however happy –– would guarantee the happiness of those around them, because as the article says:

When the Fervians are told that their happiness will be affected by something, they assume that the happiness of those presently understood by them as being Fervians will be increased. (Narveson 66)

To suppose that the general happiness of a country’s populace will be increased by the addition of people who are very happy makes as much sense as assuming that the general population of the world will be made happy by the addition of one happy baby. Perhaps those around both the fictional Martians and the real baby may find their happiness increasing due to contact with the new addition, but happiness cannot really be calculated in the way laid out in Narveson’s Martian example without leading into several fallacies to do with the interpretation of utilitarianism as it affects people.

To finish off his article, Narveson returns to the question of one’s moral duty, according to utilitarian philosophy, to have children by having a look at when it is morally right to refrain from having said children. The only concrete answer he can give is his own personal opinion as a utilitarian; Whenever the production of new children would either result in misery for them, or would result in substantial decreases in the happiness of other people, it is one’s duty not to have them. (72)

This opinion seems to be morally correct, even though as he says, it is not a defensible opinion in the context of this article. Narveson is correct, however, when he says that either way, having children should never be seen as duty. It is a little confusing that in the article Narveson could only finally discount the idea of utilitarians believing that in certain cases having children was a duty by detailing why he thought the opposite case –– that in certain cases not having children was a duty –– was true; if utilitarians think that happiness and pleasure are morally ‘good’ and that pain is morally ‘bad,’ surely a duty would be considered painful and therefore bad? As Narveson says, utilitarianism says that people should feel able to pursue their own pleasure within limits (63). In that context, something that was considered a duty would be seen as standing in the way of pleasure, and so it would automatically be considered as ‘bad,’ in my opinion.

In this article, Narveson tackles the idea that utilitarianism considers it a moral duty to have children, so long as it can be assured that they will be happy. He does this by breaking the idea down into two constituent questions dealing with the happiness of the child, on one hand, and the happiness of those around the child, on the other. Though by the end of the article Narveson has to admit that he can only concretely offer his own opinion as to why utilitarians do not consider it the duty of people to have as many children as they can keep happy, and that only by explaining when he thinks people have a duty to refrain from having children, his explanations throughout the article of why these questions are fallacies are clear and coherent. Having children as a duty to happiness in terms of utilitarianism is a fallacy because, according to Narveson, the question assumes that different types of happiness, the happiness of a population in general versus the happiness of a select few people in general, can be conflated, and therefore viewed in the same way when that cannot happen. Overall happiness cannot be changed by the addition of happy people when the majority of people will not be affected directly by the change. The only place where Narveson falls down is in his seeming difficulty in rounding up the conclusion to the article without resorting to voicing an opinion which is, by his own admission, indefensible.

Work Cited

Narveson, Jan. “Ultilitarianism and New Generations.” Mind, 76 (1967): 62-72. Web. 27 Feb. 2014.