INTRODUCTION

Measured in centuries, the United States is a young nation. Yet measured in terms of enduring traditions, values, and institutions, its stability and continuity belie its youth. That it has endured as a nation is, in part, the result of its size and immense natural resources.

The other and more important part of American history lies in its political values and institutions. The principles expressed in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution, among them "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness," and the human rights they espouse, have from the first remained normative. To be sure, on more occasions than most Americans like to recall, these values and rights have been ignored. Large segments of the American population, in the past and particularly at present, believe they have been paid mere lip service.

Nonetheless, whether as a goal, a reality or a reproach, America has cherished and proclaimed a vision of the human good: "one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." Any discussion of ethics and American population policy must begin with a recognition of the centrality of that historical vision.

The question of whether, to what extent, and in what way, the United States needs a conscious and deliberate population policy cannot fail to raise fundamental ethical issues. It does so because it touches on matters of sexuality, procreation, childbearing, and child rearing, all of intense human concern. No less importantly, it is bound to touch on envisioned or received conceptions of the common good, what a people and a nation believe they need for their survival, welfare and happiness.

The purpose of this study is to analyze the major ethical issues which are posed by the development of an American population policy. It will be concerned with population growth, distribution, migration and immigra tion. It will construe the term "ethics" in its broadest sense: as bearing on the question of normative values, principles, and policies. The context of this study is a call by Congress for an examination of population in the light of "the ethical values and principles of this [American] society." Therefore, the analysis and discus

sion will, on the whole, be limited to American conceptions of values, principles, and obligations. Many key American values and principles are, of course, broadly Western in their source and orientation; thus, it will also be necessary to examine some of the fundamental premises and implications of that wider tradition. An examination of the tradition would be incomplete if it centered only on general ideals, ignoring the frequently nasty discrepancies between the ideal and real. For that reason, it will be necessary to examine the actual values of groups within American society. Values consistently demanded point out the gap between ideals and fact.

Defining "The Problem": Facts and Values

A fundamental difficulty with any discussion of the ethical issues is that the nature of the population problem itself has been a matter of debate, even among those who agree that there is, in some sense, "a problem." This is not surprising. An assertion that the nation suffers from excessive growth or maldistribution must be based on some belief about what the nation needs, wants, or cherishes-upon some set of values, whether manifest or latent. Assertions that the United States has a population problem rest not only on ostensible common-sense observations (crowding, traffic, environmental decay, for instance) but also on interpretations of demographic, environmental, and other data.

The way "the problem" is defined will have direct bearing on the formulation of public policy. First, if the focus is upon ecological problems of environmental contamination, pollution, and consumption of natural resources potentially subject to legislative regulation, then reduction of growth may be only one among many dimensions of a public policy. Second, if the problem is conceived in terms of ecological factors not easily regulated, those which are more global and long range (for example, eventual accumulation of heat and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere), then the policy emphasis may have to be much more directly on regulation of growth rates. Third, if the problem is perceived as one of urban density, high crime rates, city management, growing welfare rolls, or individual family welfare, different data are likely to be seen as relevant, different

target populations will receive attention, and very different policies may result.

While objective data may be accumulated on a number of demographic and environmental indices, there will be no such thing as a "value-free" interpretation of the data. Whether a certain rate of population growth, or a certain pattern of population distribution constitutes something "good" or "evil," "harmful" or "beneficial," will be a matter of value judgement, for example, whether certain present or projected future conditions will constitute a value or a dis-value for American life. Moreover, no collection of facts, by itself, necessitates any particular policy. Even the factual component is not free from the impact of values in at least two ways: First, facts must be selected and the basis of the selection will have to be some system of evaluation-the decision, for instance, about which facts are "relevant," will be an evaluative decision; second, facts may be distorted on the basis of the personally held values of those collecting the data-not necessarily in a deliberate way, but simply because the collector himself will be affected by his own values.

For all these reasons, it is vital that any attempt to define the "population problem" be sensitive to the role that value judgments play in any definition, whether explicitly or implicitly. A failure in sensitivity on this point will have a number of undesirable consequences: (1) Collected empirical data will be open to a confusing array of interpretations and competing claims concerning the "meaning" of the data; (2) different minority groups, who already in part feel threatened by discussions of population policy, may believe that the problem is being defined in a way which makes them the culprits by virtue of the very definition of the problem; (3) attempts to formulate population policy will be hampered by a lack of agreement on (or at least a clear understanding of) the nature of the values or dis-values at stake. This study cannot attempt to define the nature of "the population problem." That must involve, in the end, the combined data of many scientific disciplines, together with a public decision on how various goods, rights, benefits, and harms ought best be recognized and balanced.

The Range of Ethical Issues

Just why the size, growth, and distribution of population in the United States have important ethical implications can be quickly spelled out. The size and distribution of a population, together with the amount and distribution of available natural and economic resources, has a direct bearing on life in society, on its economic viability, its cultural stability, and its standard of living. Population growth rates present an index of

demographic tendencies which may and probably will have a direct impact on the capacity of a nation to achieve its national goals, to protect the welfare and enhance the well-being of its citizens, and to enable human beings to make the most of the environmental assets at their disposal. There can be no doubt, on the one hand, that the combination of a large population size, a rapid rate of growth invigorated by large numbers of immigrants, and a skilled, powerful utilization of people and resources were greatly responsible, in the past, for American power, prosperity, and progress. On the other hand, the question now before the nation is how large a population it can tolerate, and what level of population growth would be healthy for the future. That question cannot be isolated from the larger question of what the nation values, what it seeks, and how it envisions its domestic and international future. Population distribution-where people live and why-cannot long be separated from size and growth. People's lives are affected by population density, migration patterns, urban and rural living conditions, work and housing conditions, all intimately related to distribution.

Even if it is possible to agree on a definition of the problem, in part the initial ethical task, the formation of policy responses will raise an additional, and very wide, range of further ethical difficulties. At the very least, it will be necessary to say-as a fundamental ethical axiom-that the chosen policy ought to contribute to the achievement of the values thought to be threatened by population pressures. The goals of a population policy should be human welfare, understood in the richest and widest sense possible-the promotion of physical and psychological security, the achievement of legitimate human needs, desires and aspirations, and the preservation and enhancement of national goals and ideals. The furtherance of these goals should be the final test of any policy. Moreover, any policy on population should be coupled with other general welfare policies which simultaneously protect and enhance these goals. It would not be enough, in other words, for a policy simply to reduce (or raise) population growth rates, or effect a better population distribution; these are, from an ethical point of view, proximate goals only. Their ethical acceptability will depend, in the final analysis, on their capacity to further a realization of the basic human and national goods at stake. Human beings do not exist to serve population policies; population policies should exist to serve human beings.

VALUES AND PRINCIPLES, AMERICAN
AND WESTERN

The fundamental ethical problem is to devise means of testing the ethical legitimacy and acceptability of