Kieran Setiya has a nice post on

the reasons (or possible lack thereof) for procreation. He quite rightly points out that the most important reasons people have for having a child do not seem to be based in their own interests - for this, at least intuitively, is surely too self-intestered a reason for bringing a child into the world. But their reasons do not seem to be based any more in the consequences their action will have for the child - not least because heading down this road threatens to lead to Parfitian paradox. And while procreation may sometimes benefit the species or the world, this is surely also not the sort of reason most people are responding to when they decide to have a child. So, Setiya asks, what exactly are the reasons that sometimes make having a child the reasonable thing for two people to do?

This case seems to me to be of interest, in part, because it is an instance of a broader class of actions that raise some interesting practical/moral questions - namely, those actions whereby we create new special relationships, and thus new obligations between persons. For instance, let's consider a case of this kind which does not involve creating a new person: the case of entering into a friendship. Here again, while we do generally hope that our friendships will be beneficial to both parties, the benefits in question do not seem to provide us with our most basic reasons for becoming friends, at least under normal circumstances. After all, if one is asked: "Why do you want to become friends with A?", it hardly seems an acceptable response to answer: "Because I expect a friendship with A to benefit me as follows..." The reasons behind our friendships, one wants to say, just shouldn't be consequential in this way.

The same thing seems to me to be true of entering into other sorts of intimate relationships with others. And it also, albeit in a somewhat different way, seems to be true of procreation. In each of these cases, what makes the action in question reasonable is not anything about its expected consequences. Rather, the reasonableness of the action is best understood in terms of a correct or appropriate response to the current situation or state of affairs. So, for example, becoming friends with someone seems reasonable to us when it is a response to the fact that my interactions with someone have a certain character and provoke a certain sort of emotional response. And procreation seems reasonable, not because of the manner in which it will change the world, but rather as a response to the actual feelings and interactions of the two persons involved in the act of procreation.

If this is correct, then the reasonableness of these sorts of actions is not forward-looking, as the consequentialist analysis suggest, but backward looking. It is best understood, not as an attempt to achieve a certain sort of result, but as a natural and appropriate response to the current state of affairs. Of course, this just raises the question of when and why a given response is appropriate. And to understand this, I think, we need to first better understand the role that passions and emotions play in the practical reasoning of a rational (or better reasonable) agent.