Violence and Reproductive Projects

3.1. What Are Projects?

Projects are familiar things. They are a unit of agency toward which we have particular attitudes. More specifically, a project is (1) an ongoing series of interrelated actions (2) carried out over a period of time (3) coherently intended to bring about or maintain a state of affairs, (4) about which we care to some degree and (5) with which we identify to some degree.² Projects are thus sources of meaning for us. I take this account to reflect one of the ordinary uses of project, though other uses depart. Among them, we often refer to the products of our efforts as projects—the book, the statue, the knitted sweater. While this is not my primary meaning, I occasionally use it loosely where is sounds more natural or is more efficient. The remainder of this subsection expands on the picture laid out in (1)–(5).

To begin with, we can exclude the following as projects: a single action, a series of actions carried out over too short a time, and a series of unrelated actions. We can also rule out the possibility of accidental projects—although we need not always be fully aware of what our projects are, nor must we start them intentionally. Projects are distinct from mere work, about which we do not particularly care and with which we do not identify. We can also distinguish projects from mere plans and intentions which may never materialize. Projects are active endeavors; they are in progress. We cannot claim as ours projects we have not started—nor indeed can we claim projects until they have been underway for some minimum amount of time. The status of carrying out a particular project must be earned, much like the status of being on a hunger strike or being a vegetarian. Although these statuses can be backdated, they cannot be claimed right from the outset.³ Likewise, we cannot claim projects which we allow to lapse too long. Those who claim unearned or lapsed projects are poseurs. When our projects are complete, we must continue to care about and identify with them if they are to remain ours in the relevant sense—though of course we may have a range of attitudes toward our past projects.

Projects must be coherent—the means must fit the end. Thus, projects structure and constrain the types of actions which are open to us for as long as we continue to carry them out. This is an important feature of Monika Betzler’s (2013, 106–107) account of projects.⁴ Projects have success conditions—there is something that it is to carry out any given project type. Some actions are necessary, some optional, and many more are irrelevant. Others damage a project or are altogether ruled out by the project type. Most projects allow for variation, but there are boundaries beyond which they cannot be stretched. Whatever those boundaries are, failure to take necessary actions or performing incompatible or too many damaging actions amounts to abandoning the project.

The actions we perform are one part of the story. The other part concerns our attitudes toward those actions. Projects are endeavors we care about. By care, I mean roughly what David Shoemaker (2003, 91–92) proposes. For Shoemaker, caring involves emotional, desiderative, and evaluative elements. In caring about our projects, we are emotionally vulnerable to their fortunes.⁵ Because of this vulnerability, we have a range of desires concerning our projects—to act to protect and maintain them, for example. And in desiring that our projects flourish, we judge them to be valuable. Of course, the degree to which we care about our projects varies, and we have projects we are ambivalent about.

We identify, too, with our projects. Projects are expressions of our agency,⁶ and they are tied up with who we take ourselves to be to varying degrees. This is central to Bernard Williams’s (1973, 104) view of our relationship to our projects: “The point is that [the agent] is identified with his actions as flowing from projects and attitudes which in some cases he takes seriously at the deepest level, as what his life is about.” Identification may take a variety of paths. Some projects stem from our character traits and values. We set them freely, and they are ours from the beginning. Other projects do not begin voluntarily or gladly but are thrust upon us. Yet we can adopt them as ours and thus allow them to shape us. Stories involving quests often follow this pattern: a call to action, acceptance (sometimes reluctant), eventual identification. Others yet are endeavors we come to identify with simply because we have chosen them. In such cases, we may be surprised to find that we are carrying out projects rather than merely performing work.

The details of our identification with our projects can be filled out in various ways, depending, among other things, on our preferred account of the self. Though I make no firm commitments on this point, I am sympathetic to Laura Valentini’s (2021, 391) view. She argues that “it is through committing to certain plans of action, values, goals, and projects that I express my agency as a particular person: a concrete ‘me,’ as opposed to an abstract autonomous self.” On such a view, we are in part our projects.

3.2. Ground Projects

Susan Wolf (2010, 35) proposes that meaningful lives are spent “actively and lovingly engaged in projects of worth.” Some of our projects are especially central to the meaning of our lives. It is this subset of projects Williams (1973, 141) is concerned with—those projects which are, to a great degree, what our lives are about: ground projects. I take Williams to have in mind projects like marriages, commitments to faiths, careers, serious hobbies, and, for our purposes, creating and raising children. Williams characterizes ground projects as “closely related to… [our] existence” and giving us “reasons for living,” such that when one fails, we may feel as though we “might as well have died” (Williams 1981, 12–13). Ground projects are presumably those we identify with and care about most.⁷ They may confer meaning in other ways too, including by providing structure to our lives, avenues to develop our talents and skills, a sense of efficacy and self-regard, a sense of self, and rich ways to engage with others. Projects may also be meaningful because of their opportunity costs—the valuable roads they foreclose.

Given the stakes, Williams (1981, 13) reports—or perhaps just hopes—that we typically have more than one ground project, noting that if many or all fail, an enormous amount of life’s meaning is lost. We are thus wise to diversify our portfolios of meaning.

For both Williams and Wolf, our projects are relevant to moral theorizing and to delimiting the demands of morality. Williams rejects utilitarianism and the centrality of impartiality in moral theory in part because they leave no room for our projects: “There can come a point at which it is quite unreasonable for a man to give up, in the name of the impartial good ordering of the world of moral agents, something which is a condition of his having any interest in being around in that world at all” (Williams 1981, 13). Wolf (2010, 60) too argues that reasons of meaning should sometimes trump moral reasons.

In what follows, I take up the relevance of our projects for morality. However, rather than focusing on when we may pursue our projects at the cost of moral demands, I consider what we owe others regarding their projects. I also adopt the term ground project, though I use it liberally to denote deeply meaningful projects, some of which may fall short of the intensity of Williams’s picture.

3.3. Our Obligations to Others Regarding their Projects

Our projects mean something to us. Our ground projects may mean everything to us. Given these stakes, we must take the projects of others into consideration. I aim now to articulate our minimum obligation. I offer a strong and a weak formulation, the latter of which is restricted to ground projects. I endorse the stronger but need only the weaker for my analysis of violence. I claim the following:

1. (1)

   Strong: We have an obligation to refrain from seriously setting back or destroying (for brevity: undermining) the permissible projects of others without good reasons.⁸

2. (2)

   Weak: We have an obligation to refrain from seriously setting back or destroying the permissible ground projects of others without good reasons.

I draw here on Valentini (2021, 390), who argues that respect for persons requires respect for permissible expressions of agency—or what she calls agency respect. Recall Valentini’s claim that it is through our agency that we become particular people, rather than remaining abstract autonomous selves. Thus, there is no respect for particular persons without respect for their agency. Valentini distills this into the following principle: “One has a pro tanto obligation to respect people’s genuine commitments (i.e., ‘to give agency respect to people’), provided those commitments are morally permissible.” This pro tanto obligation, she goes on to argue, is stronger the more central a given commitment is to a person’s life and sense of self. This is true too of the obligation I propose. All else being equal, the obligations we have regarding ground projects are stronger than those regarding minor projects. Note that the obligation I propose is somewhat weaker than Valentini’s pro tanto obligation and is restricted to projects, rather than extending to our commitments more broadly.

What counts as undermining a project varies by project type. Destruction counts sometimes but not always. Smashing an artist’s statue destroys their project. But diners who eat every morsel of a tasting menu offer the chef recognition. Likewise, competition may support or undermine a project. An athlete who seeks excellence in her sport is not undermined by fair competitors but rather requires them for her project. However, romantic rivals work against each other’s projects. Thus, assessing whether a given action conflicts with our obligation involves understanding the project type.

When may I undermine another person’s permissible project? I propose three criteria: (1) There must be a genuine incompatibility between projects, such that I can only proceed without undertaking unreasonable costs if I undermine the other project. (2) My project or ends are permissible too. (3) My project or ends are at least equal to the other in combined subjective and objective assessment, weighted in some way. That is, I must consider the meaning each project has for its respective agent, as well as the broad effects of each project on both the person carrying it out and other individuals. When these three conditions are met, we have good reasons to prefer our own projects to the detriment of the permissible projects of others. Adjudicating these considerations is of course sometimes difficult.

What about those permissible projects of others which require our participation in some way? Among such projects are teaching, coaching, ministering, practicing medicine—and of course, creating and raising children. These projects may seem to pose a problem. Our roles in the projects of others are in tension with our autonomy. A full treatment of this point is merited elsewhere. For now, I simply emphasize the stipulation that these are permissible projects. They are thus projects where no one is used merely as a means, for example, on pain of not being permissible at all. We cannot simply corral people into our projects. Physicians cannot practice medicine on anyone they please, and our well-meaning friends cannot begin coaching us just because they think we would benefit. With this stipulation in mind, I propose that the same obligation applies. Note also that it is often desirable to be—loosely speaking—someone’s project. We do not want our professors, doctors, ministers, coaches, and parents to merely be going through the motions. Where we desire to be part of another’s project, we may be not only morally but also rationally committed to taking their projects into account. What this requires, of course, is highly variable.

I have proposed that we have an obligation to refrain from undermining the permissible projects of others without good reasons. But doing so is sometimes the right course of action, all things considered. Standardly, such cases do not involve a wrong, but rather justifiable harm. However, I wish to flag an alternative proposal, on which undermining ground projects involves a wrong even when done for good reasons. Johann Frick (Frick ms.) proposes an account of wronging on which—in limited cases—an agent does the right thing but the individual affected by the agent’s actions is still wronged. Frick’s target is trolley problem-style dilemmas in which the right course of action involves a terrible sacrifice from someone. When the sacrifice demanded exceeds a certain threshold—death or grievous bodily injury, for example—the affected individual is wronged, not merely harmed. The sacrifice is of a kind that the individual could permissibly deny their assent to, according to Frick. Plausibly, this account might be extended to ground projects. It seems that Williams would think so. Recall his view that there are projects which are a precondition for us having an interest in living. If Frick is right and if his view is appropriately extended to at least our most important ground projects, then undermining them involves someone being wronged, even if the agent is right to do so.

4.1. What Are Reproductive Projects?

Reproductive projects take many forms. All the following are candidates: a couple going through IVF, a father working abroad and sending remittances home, a grandmother caring for a grandchild, a gay couple adopting an infant, a childcare professional working with the same children until they are grown up. Note that while I use parents, mothers, fathers, and children as default terms, I have in mind anyone carrying out reproductive projects and those children who are a part of them.

I wish to use a light touch in laying out the aims of reproductive projects because of the heterogeneity of both parents and children. I take reproductive projects to aim, paradigmatically, at producing independent, flourishing adults—to whatever degree this is possible.⁹ Central to this aim is concern for the health and safety of the developing child, as well as support and respect for their increasing agency—concerns that are sometimes in tension, as we will see. The degree to which this aim is possible varies by child, parent, and circumstance. I aim to capture this. I also wish to remain open to different characterizations of the aims of reproductive projects, including but not limited to those offered by parents of children with disabilities, whose capacities for independence may be constrained. Nonetheless, as with other project types, reproductive projects have success conditions and boundaries beyond which they cannot be stretched.

Paradigmatically, reproductive projects involve ongoing actions such as efforts to conceive, carrying out a pregnancy, giving birth, breastfeeding, and meeting the ongoing physical and psychological needs of children. Yet, as reflected above, there is a great deal of variation across reproductive projects, and parents often have idiosyncratic goals. Thus, much of what reproductive projects involve is contingent and may include activities such as providing music lessons, religious instruction, or passing on a mother tongue.

Cultural context dictates most of what is necessary for a reproductive project. However, there are some efforts without which we cannot coherently claim to be pursuing reproductive projects. Highest on this list, and my focus here, are those actions which meet the ongoing physical needs of children—specifically ensuring their health and safety. Feeding and bathing children, taking them to the doctor, and pulling them back from traffic are all ways to do this. We cannot claim reproductive projects if we fail to adequately promote a child’s health and safety, insofar as that is within our power. The future independence and flourishing of the child depend on them making it to adulthood and are enhanced by the child’s overall health. This will be important for our discussion of what harm to a child means to parents. Parents may feel, regardless of responsibility, that they have failed at their one job.

Anyone who is working toward creating an independent, flourishing adult and who cares about and identifies with this endeavor is carrying out a reproductive project. Recall that care here involves emotional vulnerability to the fortunes of its object, a desire to act to protect it, and a judgment of value. Parents typically possess these attitudes quite intensely. In particular, parents do not just care about their children, they love them. Certainly, these attitudes mix and manifest differently for different people. In particular, the ways in which people identify with reproductive projects are complex. Recall that there are different roads to identification with a project. Some begin intentionally. Others are thrust upon us. And some become ours simply because we are carrying them out. People may come to identify with their reproductive projects in any of these ways.

Pertinent to our discussion is the fact that reproductive projects do not come to tidy ends when children reach majority age. Children achieve independence gradually, and flourishing is measured over a lifetime. Thus, the core work of reproductive projects may end sooner or last longer. Also, though there is a great deal for parents to enjoy along the way, much of the success of reproductive projects is assessed in adulthood once major parental efforts are complete, somewhat like a book project finally reaching its readers. Also, just because the core work has ended does not mean the project is at an end. For many parents, witnessing and worrying about what their children do in adulthood is part of the reproductive project.

4.2. Reproductive Projects as Ground Projects

For many, reproductive projects are ground projects. They feel tied to our existence, such that their loss feels like a kind of death. One way to illustrate this is to, following Williams, consider what happens when they are lost. In service of this aim, we might look to the testimony of parents whose children have died. Merope Mills (2022; 2023) and Paul Laity (2023) have written movingly about the death of their thirteen-year-old daughter Martha. Martha sustained a treatable pancreatic injury while riding her bike. She spent five weeks in the hospital and developed sepsis, from which she died. A hospital inquest showed at least five occasions on which Martha should have been transferred to the pediatric intensive care unit but was not. The hospital admitted to having made a “catastrophic error” (Mills 2022).

Consider now Laity’s description of what being Martha’s father has meant to him:

When you raise a child for 14 years, the line where you end and they begin gets blurred; the cliché is that they become part of you, with all your instincts and priorities transformed. From the time Martha was born in 2007, I saw myself, first and foremost, as a dad; from 2009, I was the father of two daughters and it gave me a huge sense of self-worth and fulfilment. I did what parents do everywhere—the bathtimes, the picture books on repeat, the school run. It felt right; it was a lot of fun. For years, being Martha’s dad was mostly a job of care; gradually, it became a role in which I stood back and was impressed by what she could do.

Laity succinctly captures what it is for a reproductive project to be a ground project. Being a father is the thing most core to his sense of self. It is a great source of fulfillment, sense of self-worth, and fun. Laity is closely connected with the ongoing activities of parenting; its exigencies have structured his days. He also marvels at Martha’s growing independence, aware of the arc of his project.

In the wake of Martha’s death, Laity reflects that “alongside Merope, Martha’s mum, I’m grappling with how to live” and “I no longer have any fear of death (compared to Martha, I’ve had such a long life).” His expression of anguish is in terms markedly similar to those Williams employs. Laity goes on to describe one of the many cruelties of Martha’s death. He feels he has failed in his most fundamental role as her father because he has been unable to ensure her health and safety:

My primal, existential role was to protect my child, to keep her alive—and I failed. Most bereaved parents know a version of this feeling. It’s one of the reasons losing a child can be different from other types of grief. Not only is such a death an inversion of the natural order. And not only was Martha denied anything that resembled a full life (“She had so many plans,” her sister, Lottie, said.) But I was responsible for her welfare during all of her short life. So when I went to see Martha’s body, post-autopsy, at the undertakers, what I howled was: “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

Laity feels a sense of failure despite having done all within his power to help his daughter. Laity notes that this sense of failure is common among bereaved parents, even when they bear no responsibility for their children’s deaths. This sets reproductive projects apart from many. If a sculpture topples in an earthquake, it is unlikely that the sculptor will feel they have failed as a sculptor. Securing statues against earthquakes is peripheral to the project. For parents, however, the death of a child may, cruelly and unfairly, shake their confidence that they were in fact carrying out reproductive projects. As Mills (2022) expresses, “We ended up failing to fulfil the most essential duty of parents—to protect our child when she was in danger.”

4.3. Mothers

There are many deeply engaged fathers—and caretakers of other kinds—for whom raising children is a ground project. The reader likely knows some or may in fact be one. Yet we must not lose sight of the special relevance of this discussion for mothers. Most women have been mothers. Most children have been raised primarily by their mothers (or other female relatives). Taking a global and historical perspective, most reproductive projects have been and continue to be carried out by women. Bearing and raising children is the core of women’s work and, in some contexts, is one of few serious projects available to women. Reproductive projects are thus more likely to be ground projects for women and indeed may be their only ground projects. Mothers are, of course, beneficiaries of the many goods which reproductive projects offer, including a source of self and self-worth, an avenue for achievement, and reasons for living. But women in particular are funneled into motherhood and restricted in some contexts from pursuing other projects. Reproductive projects are also very costly to pursue. For those women for whom undertaking a reproductive project is a genuine choice, it is one which forecloses many other worthwhile projects. It is thus important to bear in mind that women are particularly likely to feel their life’s meaning is bound up in their reproductive projects as we move closer to our discussion of the obligations they occasion.

Whether to become a mother has not been much of a choice for most women. This is due in part to the fact that most have not lived in contexts where reliable contraceptives or abortion are options. This is also, however, due to social norms which demand motherhood of women. These social norms are cross-culturally and cross-temporally robust, but their intensity varies. Contemporary societies which are more traditional, more religious, or otherwise pronatalist have stronger versions of these norms, as do past societies. Where these norms are especially strong, women may additionally be excluded from professional, academic, commercial, and recreational settings.¹⁰

The pull of these social norms is powerful even for women living in contemporary, secular, liberal societies. In Motherhood, Canadian novelist Sheila Heti (2018) wrestles with whether to have children—a choice she experiences as almost unbearably free. Although she lives in a context in which both paths are open, she feels that to choose not to become a mother requires special justification, both to herself and others. Much of Heti’s discussion centers around concerns about her life’s meaning and the desire for that meaning to be legible to others:

To have a child is like being a city with a mountain in the middle. Everyone sees the mountain. Everyone in the city is proud of the mountain. The city is built around it. A mountain, like a child, displays something real about the value of that town. In a life in which there is no child, no one knows anything about your life’s meaning. They might suspect it doesn’t have one—no centre it is built around. Your life’s value is invisible… (Heti 2018, 95–96)

We might think of Heti as observing that, unlike many of our projects, the value of bearing and raising a child does not seem idiosyncratic. Where many projects invite the question Why that?, reproductive projects do not. Bearing and raising children is widely accepted as deeply meaningful and an appropriate endeavor around which to organize a life. As Heti experiences it, the need to justify our projects falls more heavily on women. “What is a woman—who is not a mother—doing that is more important than mothering? Is it possible to even say such a thing—that there is anything more important for a woman to do than mother?” she wonders (Heti 2018, 134). When such a worthwhile project like bearing and raising children is available, women need very good reasons not to pursue it, reflects Heti.

Rejection of motherhood is a matter of deepest taboo. So too is failing to have the right attitudes. For some women, motherhood is not a project. The ethnographic work of Orna Donath (2017) offers a nuanced and compassionate discussion of maternal regret. For some, raising their children is merely work. Consider the testimony of a woman pseudonymously known as Odelya: “For me, it’s a mistake… Because it’s an obligation, and I want to live my life, and I have so many plans. [...] This is why I regret it, because I could have done other things that are meaningful to me” (Donath 2017, 62). Despite their regret, Donath’s subjects tend to report that they perform this work with excellence and love. Odelya again: “I love him and I am a very, very responsible parent […] I am even fighting [against his father’s having] visitation [rights] because I feel that his grandfather’s house is not safe—so I fight for that, even though it is absurd, because it should have been the other way around” (Donath 2017, 117). I interpret Odelya, along with others in Donath’s study, as expressing that while she loves her children, she does not identify with the tasks of motherhood. For the mothers in Donath’s study, their regret is unspeakable outside the context of an anonymous academic study. This, again, even though many report performing their work excellently and loving their children. One of the lessons is this: We really do want mothers to view bearing and raising children as ground projects, with the full force of the attitudes projects involve.¹¹ Though we cannot simply force others to have the attitudes of care and identification projects involve, we can nonetheless influence these attitudes.

Reproductive projects are also paradigmatically physical for mothers in ways which they are not for fathers. Most obviously, women carry out pregnancies, give birth, and breastfeed. For many women, the intimacy of these physical activities and processes is deeply meaningful. We see women employing a variety of metaphors to capture their experiences. Young (1984, 50) describes her child as having been “part” of her—a bodily identification with her child. In her memoir of pregnancy, Chitra Ramaswamy (2016, 92) marvels at the language of property many pregnant women use for their fetuses. They bring “their ownership of the creatures crawling about their wombs into the conversation as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.” Ramaswamy herself appeals to a different metaphor—that of artistic creation:

In a way, to live inside a pregnancy was to make one’s own work of art. A thing so singular, strange and unknowable in both execution and result. You knew that you had made it, yet in many ways once it was done it had nothing to do with you at all. (Ramaswamy 2016, 43)

Ramaswamy portrays the experience of pregnancy as both agential and passive—much as an artist might feel they are at once a creator and yet only conduit for a work of art. She reflects that where she once found it extraordinary that “mere people” created works of art, she is now struck that mere people create people (2016, 43). Those who create other people through pregnancy may have a further special stake in those they create on those grounds.

In addition to the sense of intimacy that pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding may involve, their physical difficulty is also a source of pride for many. The poet Sharon Olds (1980) recalls—prior to pregnancy—longing for “some epic use for my excellent body/some heroism, some American achievement.” Her language hints at the paradigms for physical success—military and athletic prowess. She wishes for recognition for her physical successes too—“to achieve something at the centre of a crowd.” Olds finds what she seeks in pregnancy and birth, concluding:

I and the other women this exceptional
act with the exceptional heroic body,
this giving birth, this glistening verb,
and I am putting my proud American boast
right here with the others.

Olds elevates pregnancy and birth as heroic physical achievements meriting pride—even prideful boasting.

Yet what is required physically of mothers is also very costly. Globally, more than a third of new mothers experience medium- and long-term health complications (Vogel et al. 2024). Common complications include hypertension, gestational diabetes, preeclampsia, perineal tears, incontinence, postpartum depression, and loss of sexual function. The playwright Sarah Ruhl—who developed Bell’s Palsy after giving birth and was chronically itchy during her pregnancy with twins—offers the following commentary:

Didn’t these women have friends who had the weirdest shit happen to them after having babies? Like my friend Sherry, a single mother by choice, who suddenly couldn’t walk the day after giving birth because she had SPD (symphysis pubis dysfunction)—when your pelvic bone gets thrown out of whack during labor and then you can’t walk for a month? (And she happened to live in a sixth floor walk-up.) Or my friend Claire, who got an embolism in the lung during her pregnancy and got to the ER minutes before dying? Or my friend Alexandra, a professional dancer, who, after giving birth had something called drop foot and one of her feet dragged around limply for months? Or my sister, Kate, who came home from the hospital and her C-section wound opened up and it was green and infected with MRSA, a life-threatening staph infection? (Ruhl 2021, 23)

The experiences of Ruhl and her friends illustrate that reproductive projects are dangerous, even with modern obstetrical care. Physical damage is a high cost to pay for any project—health, again, is a great determiner of what other projects are available to us. We see this illustrated in Alexandra’s case: Her reproductive project might have ended her dance career. In the case of pregnancy and birth, these costs are also often kept hidden. Among reasons for this is the fact that many of these complications are intimate—perineal tears, lack of sexual function—or embarrassing—incontinence. What mothers sacrifice physically is thus under-discussed and under-recognized.

Meeting the basic needs of children is costly ongoing work—though how these costs manifest varies. Mothers are more likely to bear primary responsibility for the day-to-day care of their children. They are thus more likely to sacrifice other meaningful endeavors in service of their reproductive projects—at least in contexts where women have professional, academic, commercial, and recreational opportunities. The novelist Rachel Cusk (2008, 57) captures the overwhelming nature of early motherhood and the conflict between her daughter’s needs and her own: “To be a mother I must leave the telephone unanswered, work undone, arrangements unmet. To be myself I must let the baby cry, must forestall her hunger or leave her for evenings out, must forget her in order to think about other things. To succeed in being one means to fail at being the other.” Women with professional projects may be especially attuned to what they give up to care for their children. In the wake of her twins’ birth, Ruhl (2021, 100–101) describes being berated as “the laziest, most irresponsible writer in the American theater” by one artistic director after her play’s successful opening night—an opening night which she had weaned her twins early to attend. As fathers take on a greater share of the work of raising children, they face similar tradeoffs. Michael Chabon (2018, para. 18) recounts being advised by another male author not to have children: “You lose a book for every child.” Chabon wonders, though without regret, whether he would have had four more books without his children.

Of course, the picture is different for mothers for whom their children are their only available ground projects. This may be because of the position of women in a given society or for other reasons, like poverty. For women without other ground projects, raising children may be their only source of meaning and preferable to other activities available to them. One mother living in poverty says, “[My children] are my only reason for living… This is what gives me strength and this is what motivates me to go out and work, to care for them” (Krumer-Nevo 2006, 92). While reproductive projects may not have high opportunity costs for such mothers, this also means that, if lost, there may be few alternative sources of meaning with which to replace them.

Reproductive projects are ground projects for many mothers, and for some, their only ground projects. This puts mothers in a difficult position as their children grow up and become independent adults. Heti (2018, 82–83) captures this in conversation with a friend. “I’m so jealous of mothers because whatever else happens, they have this person, this thing,” says Heti. Her friend corrects her: “That’s not right. I used to have things. I don’t have anything anymore. I don’t have my work… my daughter is her own person. She doesn’t belong to me.” For some, their complete investment in their children leaves them with a sense of regret once those children leave. One mother reflects, “Now, on the downslope of parenting, I have misgivings about my decision to stay home… Although I am fully aware that being a stay-at-home mom was certainly a luxury, staring at an empty nest and very diminished prospects of employment, I have real remorse” (Heffernan 2013). For mothers who are their children’s primary caregivers, as many are, the result is similar. Given that the aim of reproductive projects is to produce independent adults who will go on to lead their own lives, mothers are in a particularly vulnerable position: Regardless of whether they give up important projects or have few other options, mothers are especially likely to invest heavily in meaningful and costly projects, which, upon completion, may simply walk away.

4.4. Our Obligations Regarding the Reproductive Projects of Others

What obligations do we have to others regarding their reproductive projects? Put plainly, we have an obligation not to seriously set back the interests of their children—minor or adult—without good reasons.¹² I emphasize that this is on top of what we owe those children themselves. To undermine a reproductive project without good reasons is, likely, to gravely wrong someone. Even with good reasons, this at least gravely harms someone, likely a mother. This is what I am committed to. Nonetheless I wish to remind the reader of Frick’s account of wronging, on which a person can be wronged, not simply harmed, when what it takes for an agent to do the all-things-considered right thing demands too great a sacrifice from the impacted individual. I have already suggested extending Frick’s view to our most important ground projects. If so, seriously setting back the interests of someone’s child—though it may be the all-things-considered right thing—wrongs the parent.

As I have observed, cultural context dictates most of what is required for a reproductive project. Thus, there are many contingent ways to undermine reproductive projects. However, there are some universals. Projects or actions which damage the health and safety of children are among these universals and will be my focus. Violence is the most unmistakable species of this and the subject of the next and final part of this paper.

The thorniest part of the picture concerns children’s obligations to their parents. I offer only a sketch here and in the final part of this paper. A tension lies at the heart of reproductive projects. William Ruddick (1979, 125) frames it as balancing “a child’s product-origin”—that is, a child’s origin as the product of parental effort—with “its autonomous future, while respecting parental productive hopes.” Striking the right balance may be difficult for both parents and children. For parents, reproductive projects involve creating and shaping people. Yet the ultimate aim is to produce independent, flourishing adults who undertake their own projects which may conflict with those of their parents. For children, the tension is in honoring both their independence and their obligations to their parents regarding themselves as reproductive projects. A full treatment of parental and filial obligation from a reproductive projects framework is merited elsewhere.

For now, I propose that—as with other projects that centrally involve others—the obligation is the same. It is wrong to undermine our parents’ reproductive projects without good reasons. That is, the fact that we are our parents’ projects should factor into our calculations. We can wrong and harm our parents through our treatment of ourselves. This constrains our autonomy, as consideration of others often does. As with projects in general, this obligation is often appropriately overridden. Again, what reproductive projects involve differs greatly by context. Yet they agree on the centrality of health and safety. Thus, children have an obligation to take their own health and safety into account for the sake of their parents. I wish to emphasize that particular cases will be complicated. The account offered here does not aim to yield the result that every action contrary to parents’ wishes—such as getting tattoos or choosing unconventional careers—wrongs them. But perhaps we should refrain from entering into doomed battle with Achaeans.

5.1. Self-directed Violence

Hecuba’s petition is to Hector, so we begin here. One way to understand Hector’s death is as self-directed violence—or, perhaps, the undertaking of enormous self-directed physical risk.¹³ Hector walks knowingly into an unwinnable battle. He risks not only his own life but his mother’s project. Has he wronged or merely harmed Hecuba? This depends on what his project is and how it compares with hers.

Hector is chiefly motivated by a desire to avoid shame and to pursue glory. He replies to his beseeching parents that retreat is “impossible” (Homer 2023, 22.134). His battle strategy has been reckless and ruinous for Troy. If he retreats, he faces shame: “Polydamas will be the first to heap/ shame on my head” and, perhaps worse, “some man of lower rank” may do so too (Homer 2023, 22.136–147). To fight is “to die with glory, in defense of Troy” (Homer 2023, 22.151). From a contemporary perspective, it may seem easy to dismiss Hector’s motives as shallow as compared with Hecuba’s. But this would be hasty. Williams (1993, 75–102) seeks to render the shame present in Homeric society intelligible to the modern reader and to elucidate the felt necessity it creates. Shame is neither simple concern with individual success nor public opinion. Rather, according to Williams, shame is a rich reaction to being seen and accurately assessed by a respected other as meriting serious criticism. Prospective shame leads Hector to believe he can no longer live in a way that he and others will respect (cf. Williams 1993, 85). On such a reading, we might find Hector’s avoidance of shame and pursuit of glory meritorious.

On the other hand, we might join Hector’s parents and wife in their criticisms. Emily Wilson, though sensitive to the pressures Hector faces, notes his willingness to avoid shame and pursue glory “at the cost of everything and everybody else” (Homer 2023, xxxii–xxxiv). Wilson brings our attention to a conversation with his wife Andromache, in which he explains that in predeceasing her, he will be spared the pain of hearing her screams and watching her be dragged into servitude by the Achaeans (Homer 2023, 6.617–634). Wilson sees Hector as abandoning the needs of his people in pursuit of status as a war hero. If Wilson’s characterization is fair, this throws the coherence of Hector’s project into doubt.

I render no verdict here as to whether Hector has good reasons to undermine Hecuba’s project. Perhaps more compelling than a verdict is the illustration of one of the more controversial elements of my account: We may harm and wrong those whose projects we are central to. Even more provocatively, we may in some cases harm and wrong our parents through self-directed violence—or by undertaking great self-directed physical risk. Thus, suicide without good reasons is wrong. Though again, if we accept Frick’s view, suicide may involve a wrong even with good reasons. I leave open that there are such reasons—unbearable suffering which cannot be mitigated, for example. That suicide involves reasons at all, and is not merely or always impulsive, is a core element of Clancy Martin’s (2023, 64) memoir and discussion of what it is like to be suicidal: “The idea that people kill themselves for specific reasons is important, because if we are killing ourselves on account of reasons, then perhaps we can also find reasons not to kill ourselves.” Among reasons to live, Martin finds those which concern his relationships most compelling: “Although our lives may well be our own, they are deeply interwoven with others, which might make us wonder whether those people, too, have a stake in us continuing to live” (Martin 2023, 191). What I have offered here is an account of one of those types of stakes. I emphasize, as Martin does, that such stakes can be recognized without blaming those who are suicidal.¹⁴

5.2. Interpersonal Violence

A second way we might understand Hector’s death is as the result of interpersonal violence. Hector has killed Patroclus, Achilles’s dearest companion. Achilles seeks to avenge his friend. Though rivals, the men are not strangers. Their roles, reputations, and relationships are known to each other. They are both young men; their parents are alive. In important respects, Hector and Achilles are engaged in an altercation that resembles everyday violence. Whether Achilles wrongs or merely harms Hecuba again depends on how his project compares with hers. Perhaps this is what friendship calls for in Homeric society. Or perhaps, as Wilson suggests, Achilles unreasonably refuses the compensation traditionally offered after loss of a loved one (Homer 2023, xxxii–xxxiv). This, again, I leave open.

Recognition of people as reproductive projects has several potentially revisionary implications for interpersonal violence—among them, our understanding of self-defense. Though broadly thought to be permissible, its grounds and limits are contested (see Frowe and Parry 2022). Recognition of ourselves as our parents’ reproductive projects provides an additional avenue for justification. Self-defensive violence protects a reproductive project and thus is, in part, an intervention on behalf of another. This is the spirit of what Silvia Federici (2012, 2) expresses: “What often saves me when I cannot protect myself is my commitment to protect [my mother’s] work and myself as the child to whom it was dedicated.” At the same time, however, recognition of others as their parents’ projects means that self-defensive violence impacts innocent bystanders more often that we may have thought—though not in the sense of bodily injury or death. An attacker may make themselves liable to self-defensive violence, but their parents have done nothing to make themselves liable to damage to or loss of their reproductive project. Though it is permissible in such cases to harm someone’s child, parents should factor into our calculations. We thus have further reasons to constrain self-defensive violence by proportionality and necessity. More surprisingly, cases of self-defense may call for redress.

Similar concerns apply to our systems of criminal sanction. Plausibly, recognition of people as their parents’ reproductive projects is appropriate in these systems. I foresee two potential impacts of this recognition. First, this might affect proportionality judgments about punishment. Alex Guerrero (2022, 10) argues that secondary harms and secondary victims should be considered when making such judgments. These secondary harms need not be physical—they may be emotional or more broadly psychological. Thus, it is not simply damage to our bodies but damage to things we care about or have rights over (intellectual property, for example) that Guerrero has in mind. To illustrate, we might imagine a case of non-lethal violence in which a mother’s minor child has been grievously injured and permanently disabled as a result of everyday violence. She experiences the sort of psychological suffering Laity and Mills describe. The prospects for her reproductive project are now seriously constrained; the independent life she had imagined for her child is no longer available. Her own prospects for completing her reproductive project and undertaking other projects also diminish, as her child may always need her care. Plausibly, this mother fits Guerrero’s schema and merits consideration as a secondary victim.

Second, and in some tension with the first point, recognition of people as reproductive projects encourages mercy in sentencing. This parallels our concern about innocent bystanders in cases of self-defense. Those carrying out reproductive projects suffer when their children are harmed—whether by other people or by states. Though a state might appropriately sanction someone for a crime they have committed, that person’s parents have done nothing to make themselves liable to punishment. And though parents may be devastated by their children’s actions, this does not mean that their attitudes of care and identification cease. Thus, recognition of people as reproductive projects provides an additional reason to treat those convicted of crimes humanely. This is particularly relevant in countries like the United States that practice capital punishment and mete out long prison sentences.

5.3. War and Pervasive Violence

Finally, we might understand Hector’s death as taking place within the context of war. Rather than focusing on Hector and Achilles, we consider the Achaeans as a collective and whether they have wronged Hecuba. Their project is to recapture Helen and restore Menelaus’s honor. They have waged war in its pursuit for a decade before Hector and Achilles meet in battle. How the Achaeans’ project compares with Hecuba’s reproductive project—and indeed the aggregated reproductive projects wasted in war—I once again leave open.

Plausibly, however, recognition of reproductive projects is relevant to judgments of proportionality in war and thus judgments about when wars are just. Within the just war theory debate, room has been made for tallying direct costs beyond death and destruction. For example, Thomas Hurka (2005, 45–46) argues that proportionality judgments should include economic harms, hampered scientific progress, and pain caused to soldiers. Kieran Oberman (2019), too, argues for a wide aperture in considering the direct costs of war. Though he specifically argues that domestic poverty may render a war unjust, he encourages consideration of whether other social issues should be taken into account. If we recognize reproductive projects and the obligations we have regarding them, their aggregated destruction becomes an undeniable cost of war. This cost is paid in particular by mothers, who have again done nothing to make themselves liable to the destruction of their reproductive projects. Though combatants are liable to be injured or killed, doing so gravely harms, if not wrongs, their noncombatant parents.

War in fact threatens to render reproductive projects futile. This is true for contexts of pervasive violence and death more broadly. The aim of a reproductive project is to produce an independent adult who will go on to live their own life. This aim is undergirded by the child’s health and safety. Reproductive projects are incredibly costly and tend to be endeavors people care a great deal about and identify with particularly closely. War and other contexts of pervasive violence radically diminish the prospects of success for reproductive projects. Are such costly projects worthwhile in these circumstances? There are a variety of rational ways to respond to pervasive violence. One is to simply refuse reproductive projects. This is what Federici and many of her peers do in the wake of two world wars.¹⁵ They choose not to become mothers:

For after two world wars that in a space of three decades decimated more than seventy million people, the lures of domesticity and the prospect of sacrificing our lives to produce more workers and soldiers for the state had no hold on our imagination…. [I]n recalling the visits that as school children in Italy we made to exhibits on the concentration camps, and the tales told around the dinner table of the many times we barely escaped being killed by bombs, running through the night searching for safety under a blazing sky, I cannot help wondering how much those experiences weighed on my and other women’s decisions not to have children and not to become housewives. (Federici 2012, 5–6)

Combined, the devastation of two wars and the Holocaust constitutes an environment of pervasive violence in which reproductive projects cannot be expected to achieve their aims. For Federici, pervasive violence functions as a reductio against the case for carrying out reproductive projects.

Whether to bear children is often not a choice. A second rational response to pervasive violence is thus to undertake reproductive work but to withhold the attitudes of care and identification that attend projects. Though whether these attitudes are under our immediate control is an empirical question, something like this is depicted in Nancy Scheper-Hughes’s (1992) Death Without Weeping. Her anthropological and ethnographic research focuses on mothers living in extreme poverty in Northeast Brazil in the 1960’s and 1980’s. Her work depicts the lives of mothers within a context of pervasive violence and high infant mortality. They, as well as non-mothers, respond to these circumstances by adopting attitudes of extreme psychological detachment from young children who are unlikely to survive. Mothers report little sense of agency over their ability to keep their young children alive. Deaths are seen as expected rather than tragic.

Another approach is to bear and raise children but accept that this is not a reproductive project in the way laid out here. It is a project, but something else. This response may be particularly fitting in contexts of war in which pronatalist policies are promoted. Though (or rather, because) war destroys the products of reproductive projects at a mass scale, war efforts often include pronatalist campaigns. In such contexts, women are expected to bear and raise children so that they may join the war efforts—perhaps to be injured or killed. Though many mothers support wars, it seems difficult to coherently carry out reproductive projects in such circumstances. Their project might be creating soldiers for the state, for example. Such a project has different success conditions.

Finally, and most appealingly, we may advocate for nonviolence. Many people wish to undertake reproductive projects even when they live in contexts of war or pervasive violence. For many, raising children is one of their most aspirational projects. It is no surprise that many prominent organizations which promote nonviolence have been started by parents, and mothers in particular.¹⁶ Given the enormous social value of reproductive projects and our collective interest in incentivizing them, we would be wise to join Hecuba and include the promotion of nonviolence in our project portfolios.