Olsaretti, SerenaTrifan, Isa2025-05-062025-05-062025Olsaretti S, Trifan I. Child, whose emissions? J Appl Philos. 2025 Feb;42(1):3-23. DOI: 10.1111/japp.127940264-3758http://hdl.handle.net/10230/70309The Moral Equivalence Thesis claims that procreation in affluent countries and eco-gluttony are morally on a par, and that both are impermissible. We argue that this ambiguates between two different theses, the Strict and the Lax. On the Strict Reading of the thesis, procreation and eco-gluttony are both wrong for the same reasons, that is, because both involve individuals overstepping their carbon budget. We argue that this is false at least with regard to a certain number of children and a range of the costs of children. By contrast, a Lax Reading of the thesis is, we think, defensible. On this reading, procreation and eco-gluttony may both be wrong, but for different reasons and under different conditions. While eco-gluttony is wrong across a range of ideal and non-ideal conditions because it is a failure to live within one's fair carbon budget, having a child is only wrong, if it is wrong, under non-ideal conditions where prospective parents have weighty reasons, or an obligation, to pick up the moral slack of others.application/pdfeng© 2025 The Author(s). Journal of Applied Philosophy published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society for Applied Philosophy. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Reproducció humana -- Aspectes ètics i moralsCanvis climàticsSuperpoblacióinfo:eu-repo/semantics/article2025-05-06http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/japp.12794info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess