Moral obligations are an extension of the idea of social contract-- I shouldn't do harm to others because I do not want to have harm done to me. But I don't have a social contract with non-existent entities, whether they are my hypothetical offspring or not.
What I DO have is a hot-ass wife, and something in my nature that makes me want strongly to tap that ass. Now that I have kids, I try to help them through the same joys and suffering that we all go through. That's what life is. I don't need to justify acting according to my nature any more than an apple has to justify falling from a tree.
Anyway, the hedonic view of morality is broken. "Harm" is not really even definable. For example, I can pump my kids full of heroin for the next couple weeks until they die of an overdose. They'd probably feel pretty good through the whole process. If I administered the right combinations of drugs, I could probably string them along for a few years feeling numb at worse or elated at best.
But this is a bullshit way to define harm. Harm doesn't mean suffering. It means the loss of capacity to act and function according to one's nature. And the best way to make sure someone has no capacity to act is to prevent them from being born.
What I DO have is a hot-ass wife, and something in my nature that makes me want strongly to tap that ass. Now that I have kids, I try to help them through the same joys and suffering that we all go through. That's what life is. I don't need to justify acting according to my nature any more than an apple has to justify falling from a tree.
Anyway, the hedonic view of morality is broken. "Harm" is not really even definable. For example, I can pump my kids full of heroin for the next couple weeks until they die of an overdose. They'd probably feel pretty good through the whole process. If I administered the right combinations of drugs, I could probably string them along for a few years feeling numb at worse or elated at best.
But this is a bullshit way to define harm. Harm doesn't mean suffering. It means the loss of capacity to act and function according to one's nature. And the best way to make sure someone has no capacity to act is to prevent them from being born.
