QuestionsShould we have children?The first obligation is that there be a humanity
Should we have children?Giving life is good

The first obligation is that there be a humanity

The imperative of responsibility; Jonas' imperative; the newborn as the archetype of responsibility

Hans Jonas 1903 · 1993Builds an ethics for the age of technology: we must answer for the existence of future humans.
See profile
What it claims

We have, collectively, a duty toward the existence of future humanity: that new people be born and welcomed. It is not a duty for each person to have children.

Why

Technology can destroy the conditions of human life, so the first obligation is that people exist in the future.

The same idea through history
Immanuel Kant1785Kant asks us to act on a rule we could will for everyone. Jonas keeps this form of imperative but turns it toward the remote consequences of our acts, which technology makes immense.Mencius320 BCMencius makes descendants a duty toward the lineage and ancestors. Jonas grounds a quite different duty: toward future humans, and for humanity as a whole.
Hans Jonas1979The Imperative of Responsibility (1979): pre-technological ethics looked only at the near and the present; we now need an ethics that answers for the distant future.
In short

"The first obligation is that there be a humanity" is an argument by Hans Jonas (The Imperative of Responsibility, 1979, ch. 1, 2 and 4, 1979) on the question "Should we have children?" (answer: giving life is good). Its claim: We have, collectively, a duty toward the existence of future humanity: that new people be born and welcomed. It is not a duty for each person to have children. According to AskPhilosophy's logic check (Z3 solver), the argument is valid only if one grants a premise the author leaves unstated (P4). AskPhilosophy presents 3 objections, 1 of them with a documented reply, and the original text behind each premise, checked word for word.

The Imperative of Responsibility, 1979, ch. 1, 2 and 4
Valid with an implicit premise

Hans Jonas writes in the age of the atomic bomb and industrial pollution. His idea: for the first time, our acts can destroy the very conditions of human life on earth. From this he draws a new rule, which can be summed up as: act so that the effects of your action are compatible with the permanence of genuinely human life on earth. The first obligation is therefore that there be a humanity. To show what a responsibility is, Jonas takes the newborn: by its mere existence, fragile as it is, it addresses an "ought" to those around it. Note: Jonas grounds a duty toward the existence of humanity, not a duty for each person to have children. The duty concerns the sequence of generations as a whole; it does not say who must have them. We summarize his ideas here without quoting, because we could not read the text.

P1Modern technology gives humanity the power to destroy or long disfigure the conditions of human life on earth. Our acts have remote effects that earlier ethics did not consider.
P2In this situation, the first obligation is that there be a humanity: that human beings exist in the future. All other obligations depend on it.
P3The newborn is the model of responsibility: a fragile being who can demand nothing, but whose very existence addresses an "ought" to those who can act.
P4 · implicit premiseIf the first obligation is that there be a humanity, and if the model obligation is the one owed to the fragile being who is born, then we must, together, answer for the continuity of generations.
Therefore we have, collectively, a duty toward the existence of future humanity: that new people be born and welcomed. It is not a duty for each person to have children.

click a premise to reject it

If you accept every premise, logic forces you to accept the conclusion. So the debate is about the premises.
Checked by a logic solver: the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false.
Without the implicit premise: Without P4, the computer finds a case where humanity is threatened by our technologies, where the first obligation is that it exist, where the newborn is the model of responsibility, but where nobody is nonetheless bound to answer for the continuity of generations.
With its four premises, the argument is valid. Without P4 it no longer is: from "there must be a humanity" one does not automatically move to "we must answer for the continuity of generations". Jonas thinks so, but this step is the one the objectors attack. The conclusion is deliberately collective: it does not say who must have children.
Analogy. Hikers see that a boat may sink with all its passengers. The first rule is that there still be passengers tomorrow. This rule does not bind each hiker to row, but it binds the group not to let the boat sink. Jonas speaks of humanity this way.

Objections

3

Each objection is a conversation: click to see who replies and where the debate stands.

David Benatar 2006 · attacks the conclusion

Summary: according to Benatar, coming into existence is always a harm to the one who is born, since pain is bad even if no one is there to regret the absence of pleasure. If so, the continuity of generations is not what should be protected: it imposes the harm of existing on new beings. He adds that a humanity dying out gently would not be a tragedy, since no one would suffer.

a defender replies
see the argument
No reply possible: objection raised in 2006, after the author's death (1993).
E
Elizabeth Harman defender of the argument · 2009
Summary: Harman denies that coming into existence is a harm for someone whose life is worth living. If she is right, Benatar's asymmetry does not suffice to set aside the duty to continue humanity.
Where the debate stands (our summary)The core disagreement is about the value of existence: is an ordinary life worth starting? If so, Jonas can speak of a duty toward the future; if not, there is nothing to protect.
Derek Parfit 1984 · attacks premise 4

Summary: Parfit examines what happens if we hold that there is a duty to bring more people into existence whose lives are worth living. If we add up goods, we reach the repugnant conclusion: a huge population whose lives are barely happy would be better than a smaller, very happy one. A duty toward future existence must therefore say how far it goes, on pain of leading to consequences almost nobody accepts.

no reply
We have not yet found a direct reply by Jonas in the texts.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Jonas does not ask to maximize the number of humans, but that humanity continue to live in a genuinely human way. Open point: the repugnant conclusion is a problem for theories that add up goods, and Parfit himself did not find a solution that everyone judges satisfactory.
S
Seth Wynes and Kimberly Nicholas 2017 · attacks the conclusion

In a paper on individual actions that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the authors count having one fewer child among the most effective actions. Some draw from this an argument for having fewer children; others dispute it. We take no side: this argument rests, like Jonas', on protecting the conditions of human life, but draws from it an opposite consequence for family size.

no reply
We have not yet found a direct reply by Jonas in the texts.
Where the debate stands (our summary)Open point: no widely accepted answer. Jonas speaks of the continuity of humanity, not of the number of children per family: the two claims do not necessarily contradict each other, but they do not say the same thing.