Review article: the ethics of population policies

ABSTRACT

This is a review of contemporary philosophical discussions of population policies. The focus is on normative justification, and the main question is whether population policies can be ethically justified. Although few analytical philosophers have directly addressed this question – it has been discussed more in other academic fields – many arguments and considerations can be placed in the analytical philosophical discourse. This article offers a comprehensive review and analysis of ethically relevant aspects of population policies evaluated on the basis of the main ethical theories. This analysis is preceded by a brief historical contextualisation of when and how population policies became ethically contentious and how this relates to philosophical debates in environmental ethics, population ethics and political philosophy. The article also includes a conceptual analysis of population policies in which the empirical intricacies around individual fertility decisions are sorted out and the different ways in which they can be affected are categorised in a taxonomy which highlight the most relevant ethical aspects of population policies. The ethical analysis shows that while population policies can be justified on the basis of most ethical theories, it all depends on what prior assumptions are made about what is at stake.

KEYWORDS:

• Population policies
• population ethics
• coercive
• eugenics
• population control
• ethics
• climate change

Acknowledgments

We presented earlier versions of this article at Lund University and the Institute for Futures Studies. We are grateful for all comments we received there.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. There were, of course, those who disagreed and put forward more positive views of population growth. The most famous example is Esther Boserup’s The Conditions of Agricultural Growth (Boserup, (2014) [1965]). Boserup argued that, as necessity is the mother of invention, population growth will lead to more efficient agricultural production. Another important criticism to this line of thought can be found in Julian Simon’s The Ultimate Resource (Simon, 1981) and The Resourceful Earth (Simon & Kahn, 1984) in which he argues that, roughly, a growing population leads to innovation, and when scarcity of a resource raises its price alternative resources will be found. This belief made him challenge Paul Erlich in a wager on the price development of metals, as he believed that their price would not rise with increasing scarcity.

2. A few years prior, in 1964, economist Kenneth Boulding proposed that a system of marketable procreation licences would meet the overpopulation problem in the most ethical way: ”Each girl on approaching maturity would be presented with a certificate which will entitle its owner to have, say, 2.2 children, or whatever number would ensure a reproductive rate of one. The unit of these certificates might be the ‘deci-child,’ and accumulation of ten of these units by purchase, inheritance, or gift would permit a woman in maturity to have one legal child. We would then set up a market in these units in which the rich and the philoprogenitive would purchase them from the poor, the nuns, the maiden aunts, and so on” (Boulding, 1964, p. 135).

3. This is not an analogy that is meant to tell us something about commons, rather it is meant to show us that coercive means can be justified.

4. For a more contemporary discussion similar to the The Limits of Growth, see e.g, J. Rockström et al. (2009).

5. In the Final Act of the International Conference of Human Rights 1968, sect II, item 16, the following claim can be found: ”Parents have a basic human right to determine freely and responsibly the number and the spacing of their children.” However, population growth is also seen as a hurdle for human rights provision. In other words, this shift has gradually happened. For a good overview of this development see Pizzarossa, L. B. (Pizzarossa, 2018). For a discussion about the possibility that this formulation can be construed as a justification for population control see Freedman and Isaacs (1993).

6. As noted, population policies must typically involve an intention to affect the population pattern. We will however also discuss some policies that will have such an effect even if it is not intended (cf. Räikkä, 2001). To call any policy that will affect the population pattern, even if it is not the intended effect, seems to be too inclusive since most policies may have this effect to some degree.

7. This may be compared to Diana Coole’s definition of population control. That is, ‘a policy regime designed to modify fertility trends through deliberate interference in reproductive behaviour, with the aim of influencing demographic outcomes.’ (Coole, 2018, p. 4)

8. Pro-natalist policies are common in many parts of the world, and in some contexts, they are not believed to be as problematic as anti-natalist policies. However, as we shall discuss in section 4.4, pro-natalist policies can be criticised on feminist grounds.

9. The most influential publication at the time, advocating sterilization, was Gosney and Popenoe (1929). The compulsory means were often motivated by arguing that the individuals subjected to these sterilizations would actually benefit from it, that is, on paternalist grounds. This, in turn, was often based on ideas of racial supremacy. For a general critique of eugenics and sterilisation programs, see Glover (1998).

10. For a brief introduction to deep ecology see Brennan and Lo (2016).

11. Hickey et al understand an incentivizing population policy as an ‘attempt to influence fertility by directly altering the costs and benefits associated with certain reproductive behaviors.’ (p 13).

12. For more on the ethical dimension of incentives see e.g., Ruth W. Grant 2012.

13. For more on this see Davidson and Kalmuss (1997) and Hartmann (2016).

14. Interestingly, if these conditions are accepted, then it can be inferred that the reproductive right is violated in cases where not everyone has access to family planning, and so are forced to have more children than they actually desire.

15. See also McKibben (2013) for the view that we ought only to have one child and Overall (2012) for a discussion on procreative rights and their limits.

Additional information

Funding

This work was funded by Svenska Forskningsrådet Formas (grant number 2018-02334). Henrik Andersson's work was also funded by Vetenskapsrådet (grant number 2018-06698).

Notes on contributors

Henrik Andersson

Henrik Andersson is a post doc at Lund University. His research has had a focus on value theory and especially the phenomenon of value incommensurability. In his current research project, Hard choices, climate change and moral responsibility, he applies recent results from value theory in order to address the hard choices we face when we aim to combat climate change. His works are published in Theoria, Ratio, Journal of Value Inquiry and Ethical Theory and Moral Practice.

Eric Brandstedt

Eric Brandstedt is a senior lecturer in human rights studies at Lund University. He is working on a project about a just transition to a low-carbon future in which he investigates grievances raised by the ongoing energy transition to meet climate objectives. His research interests are climate justice, intergenerational justice, human rights, methodological questions in normative theorising. His works are published in Journal of Political Philosophy, Journal of Ethics, and Canadian Journal of Philosophy among others.

Olle Torpman

Olle Torpman is a lecturer in animal ethics at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, and affiliated researcher at the Institute for Futures Studies. Except for animal ethics, he is teaching and researching on environmental ethics and climate ethics. His main research interests are normative and applied ethics in general, and environmental action guidance and just distribution of climate burdens in particular. His works are published in journals like Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, and Environmental Politics.