Do Motives Matter? On the Political Relevance of Procreative Reasons

According to the “reasons-relevance thesis,” why we have children matters for assessing the morality of our procreative conduct. This chapter asks whether, and on what grounds, procreative motives might be politically relevant. Three different grounds for thinking that procreative motives matter are considered—predictiveness, justification, and expressiveness. In addition, reasonable disagreement about procreative motives complicates the extension of the reasons-relevance thesis into the political domain. Taking that disagreement seriously leads to the doctrine of liberal neutrality with its attendant notion of public reason. The application of public reason to procreative motives leads to the Principle of (presumptive) Procreative Motivational Irrelevance. According to that principle, the state must tolerate otherwise morally suspect procreative motives so long as, when acted upon, they do not violate the justice-based entitlements of others; similarly, it cannot tolerate such violations, even if they are motivated by otherwise morally innocuous motives.