The species cannot be accounted for in one's actions. "The species" is not the source of natural selection, but the individual.
Fair enough, but the species, not the individual, is the beneficiary of reproduction and natural selection.
Well it is, in the esnse that one's genes continue to persist after one has died. In that sense, the immortal element in mortality is expressed. Perhaps you find it somewhat poetic, but I think it is an accurate reflection.
Take, for instanec, the Y-Chromosome. There is a direct paternal ancestry that preserves the Y-Chromosome. My Y-Chromosome (which belongs to haplogroup I) could be traced back tens of thousands of years, and hundreds of generations, to an early paternal ancestor. This directly links me to his identity and his actions in his life. In a sense, I am an outgrowth of his deeds, as my sons will be of mine. Autosomal DNA is less resistant to this sort of change, due to greater recombination, but is likewise reflective of ancestry and the continuation of someone's line.
I understand all that, and this is why it's sentimentality. Albeit, well-informed sentimentality.
What you are describing is not immortality, it sounds more like a desperate rationalization of mortality (no offense intended).
I'm not saying that everything that makes you who and what you are is dead, but a vague genetic memory - barely a whisper of the original - left over a few generations down the line is not you.
You will be dead, therefore - sentimental rationalisation aside - you were never immortal.
Not exactly a reliable bunch
specifically, studies which relate to choices in life which make for legitimate happiness.
And there are a great many studies that indicate parental happiness increases as A) the parents get older; and B) The children grow up and move on.
Since relationships, in general, make people happier it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that as those parents get older, and their roster of friends starts to thin, it's simply the relationships that make them happier, rather than the source of those relationships.
Anyway, studies have to be funded by someone, so they tend to be agenda-driven.
And those people are murderous monsters and should be dealt with.
That's beside the point. I would say that those people should not have had children, and that any reason they come up with to rationalize such a decision would have been worth it.
I am not suggesting that responsibility to one's children doesn't imply a host of duties.
I didn't imply that you did.
If something makes one more fulfilled and happy, is it a true restriction on freedom?
If something restricts your freedom, it is a true restriction of freedom.
It could, of course, be debated whether or not freedom is really all it's cracked up to be.
On top of that, your question here is based on an assumption that cannot be validated to any level of satisafaction.
Any choice we make in life commits one to a course of action.
I didn't imply otherwise.
Women have a point in which they cannot choose otherwise, restricting their freedom to be mothers just as much as someone else (I mean biologically, as I am speaking purely of biological parenthood).
Yes, and one would hope that they had made the choice about whether or not to reproduce before the choice was made for them. This does nothing to counter the point that motherhood can be viewed as a restriction of freedom.
Very few economic considerations should be taken into account to permanently defer parenthood. It may require us to occasionally abstain, or only reproduce a number of times, but it rarely is so pressing as to make it ridiculous to choose parenthood.
This is a pretty immoral stance, and displays a distinct and selfish lack of concern for your offspring, or the life you might be forcing them to lead.
Though, that's possibly just because we live in very different worlds.
Suffice it to say that I interact daily with many people whose economic situation is tragic enough to justify neutering.
Moreover, those who tend to disfavour parenthood are those who have the economic resources to do so - meaning they are choosing this option out of mere nihilism.
Choosing not reproduce does not indicate nihilism. At all. Not even a little bit.
Psychological and social considerations are almost always nonsense.
So every mother is at least an average to good mother?
Alcoholic fathers don't exist?
Every neighbourhood is one that is suitable to raising children?
Society has been built around the institution of marriage and parenting in order to accomodate the future of said society.
So?
Unless one is truly warped, one is generally a healthy enough person to rais ea child.
Abusive parents exist. Parents who resent their children exist.
These terrible parents are not always people who were unhinged before having kids.
Ants are colony organsisms that could be considered as almost cells in a body, rather than as autonomous beings. But yes, okay, I grant you: Were we eusocial colony organisms, we'd not have a duty, individually, to reproduce.
Sure, sure, but ant societies are the closest existing parallel to human societies. They just happen to be better at it than us.
And, out of interest, to whom exactly do we owe this duty of reproduction?
It's about the individual's contribution to the next generation.
What does this mean?
Is it the individual's contribution to the next generation that he/she will produce? So, essentially, you owe it to the kids you haven't had to have them; or,
You owe it to society's next generation? Which, in essence, means you owe it to the species.
Sorry, I'm not sure what the third option is, though I acknowledge that there has to be one.
Dooming himself to oblivion is not a wise choice, in spite of the fact that his social legacy will be great.
Why wouldn't it be wise? What negative affect would 'oblivion' at the end of his life have on him?
In fact, he'll almost certainly hurt the "good of the species", which you speak of, by not passing on his good, scientist genes (intelligence and such) to the next generaiton.
Only about 40% - 50% of intelligence is hereditary.
He's do the world far more good by doing his work than he would by having kids and gambling on them doing it instead, while simultaneously serving as an example that humanitarian greatness is secondary to domestic mundanity.
That's vaslty dysgenic, and why it is so troubling that high-IQ nations (Europe and East Asia) feature below-replacement population growth, whereas low-IQ nations (Africa and Central America, much of Asia) feature hugely high reproductive rates. The net result of this behaviour is a world-wide lowering of IQ, that will become most pronounced when the worst areas in the world, IQ wise, will dwarf the population of high IQ areas.
1.) The fact that smarter people choose not to breed (or at least, not to excess) is pretty telling in itself.
2.) High IQ isn't all that important if you cannot put it to use. Every high-IQ individual on the planet choosing to pop out kids at the same rate as those of the low-IQ nations would reduce the productive output of their respective nations, and probably lead (eventually) to them becoming low-IQ nations themselves, since IQ is not entirely hereditary, and the environment which promotes it would fall to disrepair as the greater burden of more people was placed upon it.
3.) If the high-IQ nations did not pop kids out at the same rate as low-IQ nations, they would still be outnumbered.
4.) This argument isn't one you should be making, since it revolves around the benefit to the species, which you've indicated does not matter where reproduction is concerned.
5.) If you feel that low-IQ people outnumbering high-IQ people is such a bad thing, maybe you should be advocating for reduced reproduction amongst stupid people, rather than increased reproduction amongst smarter ones.
