The Reproductive Gamble: A Response to Critiques

Behnam Khodapanah: I am grateful to the friends who were kind enough to read the article "The Reproductive Gamble" and offered their critiques of it.

Critique 1: Given that every type of death ultimately leads to non-existence, it makes no difference how it occurs—painful or less painful, the final result is the same. Therefore, the term "gamble" is not appropriate here, because every living being eventually dies. So, if we proceed with the reasoning that dying is a bad outcome, then reproduction is an entirely immoral act!

My Response:

It is true that every life, in being doomed to death, is certain and inescapable, and calling life a gamble in this respect would be meaningless. However, this does not undermine my argument, which claims that reproduction is a gamble in the sense that we do not know what fate and what future will confront the child who is born. This child might very well be killed in a painful and horrific manner in crematoria of the kind Hitler set up, or might have a peaceful and painless death. While life is certainly not a gamble in the respect that it is doomed to death, the prospective quality of the life ahead of the individual is uncertain, indeterminate, and ambiguous, and bringing a child into existence—given that there is no guarantee for the quality of his or her life—turns reproduction into a gamble.

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Critique 2: You state that the uncertainty of reproduction's outcome makes it immoral, and if certainty were to arise, it would still be immoral because that would be determinism! So, in any case, this act is immoral, and uncertainty is not a valid reason for it, as certainty would not change anything either.

My Response:

In the article, after distinguishing between two types of uncertainty, "event uncertainty" and "possibility uncertainty," my argument was as follows: We cannot overcome event uncertainty, because the future is ambiguous, uncertain, and unpredictable. Regarding "possibility uncertainty," we are also faced with two options: 1. Overcome the uncertainty of the future child's possibilities through technologies such as genetics, the result of which is the elimination of freedom and choice for the individual in question. 2. In order to preserve freedom and choice, remain in the state of uncertainty and see what fate the future child carves out for him- or herself. They might become a great scientist or a jihadist terrorist. Our desired option is to overcome event uncertainty, which will beset us in the future, but the impossibility of such an option is, at least to this day, a certainty. But even if we were to overcome this type of uncertainty, the next problem is the inevitability of death, which, as another issue, renders reproduction, as well as life itself, problematic. As I have said, is it not the case that all humans ultimately "die," and the networks of relationships, and the worlds they had formed, so to speak, all vanish and perish? Bitter "definitive realities" of this kind seem to be part of the structures of life. In my view, finding a solution within reproduction itself is impossible. The main problem is reproduction itself. The only way I believe one can overcome all these uncertainties and reduce the harm to zero is to eliminate the problem itself, namely "reproduction."

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Critique 3: The use of the term "gamble" in this article seems problematic to me, and what appears appropriate and intended by this article is the term "risk." Risk exists in all affairs of life; but one cannot, on the pretext of risk, label human affairs as immoral and disrupt human life on this excuse. Otherwise, not only reproduction, but all human affairs—from trade and commerce to driving, to living in a house, and so on—are all risks. Does the risk of loss in business, the risk of an accident, the risk of an earthquake... render the aforementioned matters immoral? Indeed, all legitimate, reasonable benefits are contingent upon accepting responsibility and risk (al-kharaj bil-daman).

My Response: Risking and gambling are not very different. A gambler who, for example, gambles on their property and assets, in fact accepts the risk of endangering their property and assets. Gambling and risking are two equivalent terms. Yes, you are right that risk exists in all affairs of life. But from the fact that risk 'is' present in all affairs of life, one cannot conclude that risk 'ought' to exist in another life as well. When we can prevent such a risk, when the possibility is available to us, why should we bring into existence a being whose life is entirely risk and gamble? From the fact that we ourselves are caught in such a life, it does not follow that we must ensnare another in it. When there is a way to stop such risk-taking, why should we gamble on the existence of another being and entrap them in such a process?

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Critique 4: Sometimes collective morality conflicts with individual morality. For example, in Mr. Douglass North's theory (the book In the Shadow of Violence), you must grant a kind of special privilege (economic rent) to those in power so that the country can, without chaos or regression, proceed on its path toward an open-access economy. From the perspective of individual morality, this is not only unjustified but also incorrect. However, from a collective perspective and the overall outcome for society, it may be justified. Similarly, bringing someone into this world in a personal (two-person) decision might be an unjustified act, but from the perspective of ensuring the survival of the human race and creating spaces of possibility, it might be a commendable act. Ultimately, if, due to the possibility of fraud in elections (whether little or much fraud), we permanently shut down the entire voting and electoral system, the problem of fraud is certainly solved, but perhaps larger problems will arise.

My Response:

That reproduction is a conscious act intended to benefit society, meaning parents engage in reproduction for the collective good, is, as far as I can see, almost non-existent. I have not yet seen with my own eyes a father and mother who engage in reproduction to benefit society. The most common reason for this act, in the best case, is actions based on the self-interest of the parents, and in the worst case, in Schopenhauerian terms, a blind, purposeless act merely out of 'the pressure of instinct,' or in Heideggerian terms, 'the pressure of the crowd.' In all three of these cases, what is overlooked is the individual who is to come into existence. On this basis, the individual is used as a means in service of a personal end (self-interest), a collective end (pressure of the crowd), the preservation of the species, or perhaps nothing at all (pressure of instinct). For if a person were to think for a moment, 'what if my child were to be caught in another Auschwitz,' would they still be willing to bring that child into existence?! I have elaborated on this matter in detail in the article.

But regarding the election analogy, I must say that, in my opinion, comparing elections to reproduction is not a correct or apt comparison. Abandoning the option of elections entirely, compared to participating in them even at the cost of its many expenses, does not seem right, because the degree of loss and harm from canceling elections is far greater than the degree of harm from participating in them. My concern is the problem of reducing harm to zero. By reproducing, you certainly reduce harm to zero, at least as far as the individual in question is concerned, whereas by canceling elections, you will certainly maximize harm.

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The Reproductive Gamble: A Response to Several Critiques

Author: Behnam Khodapanah

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