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    LoyalLoyalJusticeJustice
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    It is morally wrong for anyone to have children, given Ch... — Carmelics
    Home/Afterlife & Death
    HistoryEditSee Inverse

    It is morally wrong for anyone to have children, given Christian exclusivism and the traditional doctrine of hell.

    Afterlife & DeathEternal Conscious Torment
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    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • Some widespread moral intuitions, together with Christian exclusivism and the traditional doctrine of hell, entail that it is morally wrong for anyone to have children.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
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    • 1.Moral obligations cannot coherently be derived from combining empirical uncertainty about metaphysical doctrines with contested theological exclusivism.
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    • 2.Christian exclusivism is itself a deeply disputed theological position, making it an insufficiently stable premise for generating binding moral duties.
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    • 3.A moral argument requiring the abandonment of procreation proves too much, since it would equally prohibit any action that exposes others to uncertain metaphysical risk.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
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    • 1.Parfit's work on non-identity demonstrates that potential persons who would not otherwise exist cannot coherently be said to be wronged by being brought into existence.
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    • 2.If the child brought into existence ultimately achieves salvation, the parent's act of procreation was instrumentally necessary for that eternal good, defeating the moral prohibition.
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    Afterlife & DeathEternal Conscious Torment

    Related

    A moral argument requiring the abandonment of procreation proves too much, since...Christian exclusivism is itself a deeply disputed theological position, making i...If the child brought into existence ultimately achieves salvation, the parent's ...Moral obligations cannot coherently be derived from combining empirical uncertai...
    +2 moreShow less
    Parfit's work on non-identity demonstrates that potential persons who would not ...Some widespread moral intuitions, together with Christian exclusivism and the tr...

    Similar

    Some widespread moral intuitions, together with Christian exclusivism ...95%The argument that having children is morally wrong is especially force...87%Augustinian theology implies that any child potential parents might pr...77%Human beings beget guilty, not innocent, children.71%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: heaven-hell
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    For similar reasons, Kenneth Einar Himma has argued that some widespread moral intuitions, “together with Christian exclusivism and the traditional doctrine of hell, entail that it is morally wrong for anyone to have children” (Himma 2011, 198). That argument seems especially forceful in the context of Augustinian theology, which implies that, for all any set of potential parents know, any child they might produce could be one of the reprobate whom God has hated from the beginning and has destined from the beginning for eternal torment in hell. The title of Himma’s article, “Birth as a Grave M...

    Details

    Type
    claim
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit