The moral case for population reduction
July 13, 2021
A frequent assumption in population policy debates is that
stabilizing populations will be sufficient to achieve
ecological sustainability. But as Karin Kuhlemann observes,
“that a population’s size is stable in no way entails sustain-
ability. It may be sustainable, or it may be far too large.”
A recent book from philosopher Trevor Hedberg convincingly
argues the moral case for global population reduction.

by Philip Cafaro

In recent decades, scientific studies and ethical analyses
of global climate disruption and mass species extinction
have proliferated, along with calls for political action to
avert these twin ecological disasters. These investigations
& proposals have mostly avoided discussing population policy.
Now humanity’s failure to arrest global ecological decline
has become the stuff of regular news reports, & the reali-
zation is starting to sink in that the impacts we worried
about inflicting on our grandchildren are happening to us.
This seems to have opened up an intellectual space to discuss
“the P word.” As philosopher Trevor Hedberg writes in his
excellent new book The Environmental Impact of Overpopulation
from Routledge Press:

"We are now over 25 years past the UN Int'l Conference on
Population & Development – the venue where explicit discussion
of population policy became a political taboo. Evading the
problem has not helped us. Population growth has continued &
made it more difficult to mitigate climate change, slow down
the rate of species extinctions, & adequately distribute the
world’s finite resources. Minimizing the harm that befalls
present & future people requires confronting this reality &
abandoning the fiction that procreative choices are too
private or intimate to be subjected to moral scrutiny."

Or as Samuel Johnson once said: “Depend upon it, sir, when a
man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates
his mind wonderfully.”

Important recent studies of population ethics include Sarah
Conly’s One Child: Do We Have a Right to More? (2015) and
Partha Dasgupta’s Time and the Generations: Population Ethics
for a Diminishing Planet (2019). Hedberg’s The Environmental
Impact of Overpopulation: The Ethics of Procreation (2020) is
a valuable addition to this literature. All three books are
grounded in the realization that excessive human numbers are
helping drive humanity deeper into ecological overshoot.
While they start out from different ethical premises and
support somewhat different policy prescriptions, all three
scholars converge on the general conclusion that policies to
limit human numbers are necessary to create the ecologically
sustainable societies essential to future human well-being.

Hedberg’s philosophical approach does not rely on any
particular ethical theory, such as utilitarianism or social
contract theory. Instead he appeals to general moral
principles that he believes most people, whether theorists
or the general public, will accept. The first half of his
book’s central argument, which he calls the Population
Reduction Argument (PRA), runs as follows:

1.People morally ought to avoid causing massive and
unnecessary harm to other currently existing people.

2.Our moral duties of non-harm are just as stringent toward
future people as they are toward current people.

3.Thus we morally ought to avoid causing massive unnecessary
harm to future people. [necessarily follows from premises
1 and 2]

4.If we do not dramatically reduce our current levels of
environmental degradation, then we will cause massive and
unnecessary harm to future people.

5.Therefore we morally ought to greatly reduce our current
levels of environmental degradation. [necessarily follows
from premises 3 and 4]

Premise 1 is indeed a generally accepted moral principle:
almost everyone accepts the idea that people should avoid
causing important & unnecessary harms to others. Premise 2
is denied by many mainstream economists, who accept
discounting the well-being of future people, at least people
in the far future, in the same way that businesses discount
future returns on capital compared to current returns. But
Hedberg convincingly argues that what may be good economics
is bad morality, in a world where our actions today could
make a huge difference to our descendants’ quality of life.
Hence he affirms a robust moral duty to avoid massive harm
to future people (premise 3). Combined with recent scientific
evidence that current levels of environmental degradation
imperil future generations (premise 4), this logically
implies a moral duty to greatly reduce such degradation
(premise 5).

Few environmentalists are likely to disagree with the first
half of Hedberg’s argument. But many still avoid connecting
the duty to limit environmental degradation to a commitment
to addressing population matters. The second half of PRA
aims to compel this conclusion:

6.Environmental degradation is the product of human
population size and the average rate of environmental
degradation per person.

7.Thus we morally ought to reduce our population size,
reduce the average rate of environmental degradation per
person, or reduce both. [necessarily follows from
premises 5 and 6]

8.There is no morally permissible way to reduce population
size enough to adequately respond to our environmental
problems if the average rate of environmental degradation
per person remains unchanged.

9.There is no feasible way to reduce the rate of environ-
mental degradation per person enough to adequately respond
to our environmental problems if our population size remains
at its current size or continues to grow.

Conclusion: Therefore we morally ought to do both: reduce
our rates of environmental degradation per person & reduce
our current population size. [necessarily follows from
premises 7, 8 and 9]

Premise 6 is a version of Ehrlich’s & Holdren’s IPAT
formula with affluence (A) and technology (T) combined.
Hedberg justifies this by noting the need for prompt action
& the uncertainty about whether technological progress will
help or hinder efforts to protect the biosphere, asserting
that “even if some technological optimism is justified, the
rapid onset of these problems simply does not give us enough
time to wait for techno-fixes to emerge” (56). So in order
to live up to our moral duty to avoid massive environmental
degradation, we must address either population size or
average consumption, or both (premise 7). The question of
which must be informed by science.

Given humanity’s current population momentum (we add over
80 million people to the global population annually) & the
evidence that we are already overpopulated by billions of
people relative to what Earth can sustain, there is no way
we can humanely reduce the global population fast enough &
drastically enough to avoid having to cut back on our per
person consumption (premise 8). Hedberg thus rejects views
which see population reduction as an environmental panacea.
But the obstacles to cutting average consumption fast & deep
enough to avoid environmental catastrophe are perhaps even
more daunting. After all, most nations around the globe
have decreased their fertility rates significantly over the
past half century, while no country in the world has a lower
per capita consumption rate than it did 50 years ago, or
aspires to one. Hundreds of millions of people around the
globe would like to have better access to contraception to
decrease their personal fertility, according to national
health surveys, but there is no evidence that many people
are looking for ways to significantly decrease their
personal consumption. Thus there appears to be no feasible
way to cut average consumption enough to sustain a global
population of 8-12 billion people over the long term (premise 9).

The realization that premises 8 and 9 are both true leads
many environmentalists to throw up our hands and hope for
technological miracles; it leads others to put their heads
down and work on their own projects to protect particular
landscapes or species. Such personal efforts are valuable,
but their long-term success will depend on the creation of
ecologically sustainable societies—and as premise 7 affirms,
we have a moral obligation to create such societies. Instead
of avoidance or wishful thinking, committed environmentalists
should hold fast to this fundamental moral commitment, accept
the massive empirical confirmation of premises 8 and 9, and
join Hedberg in concluding that humanity must reduce both our
per person environmental demands and reduce our current
population size. Both. Significantly. As quickly as possible,
subject to moral and practical limits—which, however, cannot
be used as excuses for inaction without the grim
consequences rebounding on us and our descendants.

So runs Hedberg’s central moral argument, which he develops
with great clarity and ingenuity in the first half of his
book. Its second half is devoted to fleshing out the
practical implications regarding both personal procreation
decisions & govt population policies, & to responding to
likely objections to his positions. Hedberg is particularly
concerned to identify public policies that uphold & enhance
human rights, including a right to procreate. But his
treatment suggests that in our crowded future, upholding
rights will depend on acknowledging limits rather than
avoiding thinking about them. As he writes:

"David P." wrote in message
news:11d83f00-ae76-4edd-bb39-89e697cb9ba7n@googlegroups.com...
>
> The moral case for population reduction

Elon Musk may beg to differ: https://tinyurl.com/nn3csc4m

On 07/13/2021 09:02 PM, Byker wrote:
> "David P."  wrote in message
> news:11d83f00-ae76-4edd-bb39-89e697cb9ba7n@googlegroups.com...
>>
>> The moral case for population reduction
>
> Elon Musk may beg to differ: https://tinyurl.com/nn3csc4m

"Population reduction" basically translates
into "genocide". How do you turn 8 billion
into 100 million in any reasonable timeframe ?
You conspire to KILL them, that's how.

Maybe Covid didn't "escape", but was intentionally
let out by 'greenies' ???

"NSquared" wrote in message
news:8pqdnQ6Y69Vl_3P9nZ2dnUU7-X_NnZ2d@earthlink.com...

On 07/13/2021 09:02 PM, Byker wrote:
>> "David P." wrote in message
>> news:11d83f00-ae76-4edd-bb39-89e697cb9ba7n@googlegroups.com...
>>>
>>> The moral case for population reduction
>>
>> Elon Musk may beg to differ: https://tinyurl.com/nn3csc4m
>
> "Population reduction" basically translates
> into "genocide". How do you turn 8 billion
> into 100 million in any reasonable timeframe ?
> You conspire to KILL them, that's how.

Hell, the "deep ecology" eco-kooks should welcome the Kung Flu, in the hopes
that it will erase the pestilence called Homo Sapiens from the face of the
earth.

Prince Philip's pearl of wisdom:
https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_depopu12.htm

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jan/10/i-campaign-for-the-extinction-of-the-human-race-les-knight

On Wednesday, July 14, 2021 at 12:07:27 AM UTC-4, NSquared wrote:
> On 07/13/2021 09:02 PM, Byker wrote:
> > "David P." wrote in message
> > news:11d83f00-ae76-4edd...@googlegroups.com...
> >>
> >> The moral case for population reduction
> >
> > Elon Musk may beg to differ: https://tinyurl.com/nn3csc4m
> "Population reduction" basically translates
> into "genocide". How do you turn 8 billion
> into 100 million in any reasonable timeframe ?
> You conspire to KILL them, that's how.
>
> Maybe Covid didn't "escape", but was intentionally
> let out by 'greenies' ???

Number of people is one thing. The energy and greenhouse gas per capita profile is a different thing.
The US is less than 5% of world population, yet its energy and greenhouse gas profile is more than
20% of world energy usage and greenhouse gas production.

I, in principle, do not object population reduction. But learning how to consume less is more readily
achievable. Less calories everyday will improve the health of many people, easily in the hundreds of
millions.

Eating less meat will also greatly improved the environment. Because it takes 100 calories of feed to produce
1 calories of edible beef. And 100 units of feed protein to produce 4 units beef protein. Eating less meat will
also reduce the number of live stocks and the probably of epidemic originated from them.

On 7/14/21 1:25 PM, Byker wrote:
> "NSquared"  wrote in message
> news:8pqdnQ6Y69Vl_3P9nZ2dnUU7-X_NnZ2d@earthlink.com...
>
> On 07/13/2021 09:02 PM, Byker wrote:
>>> "David P."  wrote in message
>>> news:11d83f00-ae76-4edd-bb39-89e697cb9ba7n@googlegroups.com...
>>>>
>>>> The moral case for population reduction
>>>
>>> Elon Musk may beg to differ: https://tinyurl.com/nn3csc4m
>>
>>   "Population reduction" basically translates
>>   into "genocide". How do you turn 8 billion
>>   into 100 million in any reasonable timeframe ?
>>   You conspire to KILL them, that's how.
>
> Hell, the "deep ecology" eco-kooks should welcome the Kung Flu, in the
> hopes
> that it will erase the pestilence called Homo Sapiens from the face of the
> earth.
>
> Prince Philip's pearl of wisdom:
> https://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/esp_sociopol_depopu12.htm
>
> https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jan/10/i-campaign-for-the-extinction-of-the-human-race-les-knight
>
Each Democrat has the power to make a difference of one in their battle
against the EARTH being over populated...

They should use that power to do what they are preaching and reduce the
population by the one, that they have power over.

But for some reason they all want the people that reduce the population
to be the rest of us so they can continue their life.

Why is that?

--
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