  Outside Moral Thinking itself, a striking application of Hare’s framework was to possible people, that is, to people who may exist, with preferences and interests to be satisfied, if we choose to bring them into existence. Ought we to do so, so long as this will increase the total satisfaction of preference? A positive answer has implications—though not, Hare argued, very radical ones—for population policy, and the morality of such practices as abortion and IVF. Hare reasons that, if I am glad that I exist, I tenselessly prescribe, ceteris paribus, that my parents bring me into existence; universalizing the prescription, I must prescribe, ceteris paribus, the bringing into existence of others relevantly like me (1975, 1988b, 1988c).