Against Anti-Natalism

The anti-natalist’s bête noir.

Anti-natalism is the view that that human beings should not have children, because it is unethical to do so. Different reasons can be offered for this startling position, but the position I discuss in this essay specifies that life has negative value for those burdened by it. It is more bad than good, or the bad that there is in life is somehow more significant or weighty than the good.

Better Never to Have Been—published.

Perhaps the best-known anti-natalist, David Benatar, maintains that since life includes suffering and nonexistence does not, and since nonexistence has nothing bad about it—he is much impressed by this “asymmetry,” i.e., that suffering only occurs for life—it follows that nonexistence is preferable to life. But since it is impossible for parents to obtain consent from their future children for their coming into life (this looks like nonsense, as I will explain), we are imposing that pain onto our children without their consent. Anti-natalists can often be found blaming parents for all the suffering that their children ever have.

I will be honest: it is hard for me to take this view seriously. Moreover, I have little taste for pretending to take it seriously. On my view, any more elaborate or precise versions of the foregoing arguments do not make them any more plausible. The arguments are simply awful, and their social consequences strike me as deeply pernicious. Still, a few people reading this might disagree with me: maybe you think anti-natalism needs a hearing; maybe, even, it sounds plausible. If that is your reaction, after reading the previous paragraph, then I suspect it is not because of the excellent quality of the arguments. It is probably because it appeals to your more basic pessimism—perhaps a pathological condition. After all, we are talking about about a view according to which no one should ever have children because life is just that terrible.

In this brief essay, I will try to refute anti-natalism in the sense defined above. It is very possible that my arguments will not address or refute versions of arguments that some people have come up with. But they will, I hope, address some common versions. In any case, bear in mind this just an essay, an attempt, not a carefully-formulated position paper giving my final word on the subject. I might update this if conditions warrant.

Pain, ergo a worthless life?

As I understand it, there are two main parts to the case for anti-natalism. First, there is the part that says that it is morally wrong to foist a life of suffering onto children without their consent. Second, there is the premise that the suffering inherent in human life makes it indeed worthless, or worse than worthless. Both parts seem necessary. If human life were a good thing, then it would not be so objectionable to give life to new people. And simply claiming that human life is worthless does not clinch the case unless you draw the further conclusion that parents are doing wrong by creating worthless life (or life with negative value).

So I will take these two parts separately, beginning with:

The Question of Consent

The very idea that unconceived children have a right to consent whether or not they wish to be born is, of course, strictly nonsense. If something does not exist, it has no rights, no wishes, and no way to assert rights or wishes. Indeed, it makes no sense to speak of “it” at all; the pronoun stands for a posited individual which does not exist yet. Some people (who do very much exist today) point a finger of blame at their own parents: “I had no say in this life; I was not consulted,” they say. The answer is straightforward: “You could not have been consulted, because you did not exist yet.”

My answer leaves anti-natalists unimpressed. They are determined to blame their parents for making the bad choice of birthing them: there seems to be real resentment there. “You did decide to give birth, and the person you gave birth to happened to be me. This was a bad move and I resent it. You took this action, and it resulted in a life, which just happens to be my terrible life.”

This genius sued his parents because they did not get his consent to bring him into the world. Here, he may be indicating the value he places on his life.

If this is to be the line, then it is pointing toward a slightly different argument. After all, the original argument was supposed to be that parents did not obtain consent from their as-yet unconceived children, and parents have no right to consent on their children’s behalf. But that argument really is nonsense. “Ought” implies “can”: if I ought to obtain consent from my future children, then I should be able to obtain consent from them. But as this is a metaphysical impossibility, it is not the case that I ought to obtain consent. At the time, there is no one to obtain consent from.

But if the argument is, instead, that parents make a poor choice generally by bringing a sad new life into this vale of tears, then no mention of (impossible) consent need be made. Then the idea is that the parents are doing something that has bad effects; the anti-natalist has, essentially, a consequentialist argument, i.e., one about the goodness or badness of consequences. People experiencing existential anger at their parents feel personally affronted because they are the recipients of these purportedly bad consequences.

But then the strength of the blame we assign to parents depends on the strength of the argument that life is worthless; on that, see the next section.

Whether he wants to or not.

Even if, contrary to fact, some sense could be made of the notion that parents are making a decision for their children which they have no right to make, we can simply deny the latter: parents decide things for their children all the time, after all. Parents raise children in a particular place, teach them a particular language, send them to a particular school, raise them in a certain religion, punish them for doing wrong and reward them for doing right, and so forth, all without consulting the children. The law recognizes this right. Reasonable people can, of course, disagree about specific cases; parents do not own their children, and they do not have unlimited authority over them. But one particular area of authority rests in the basic right to have children in the first place. The law certainly recognizes procreation as a basic, fundamental human right.

Admittedly, this is just a legal right, however; if to be born is to be harmed, then perhaps a moral right has been violated. That remains to be hashed out in the next section.

I want to make one further point on this head: the argument (again, that we should not have children because doing so does not respect their autonomy) proves too much, as philosophers are wont to say. Consistency on the point has some decidedly unpleasant consequences that could make anti-natalists look like monsters.

Let us agree, just for the sake of argument, that adults should never have children. But life sometimes throws us a curveball: suppose a gal gets knocked up. What is she to do? Well, if she decides to have an abortion, is she not making a decision on behalf of her child, just as much as if she were to bring it to term? It is misplaced to insist on the word “fetus” in this case, by the way: anti-natalists go far beyond pro-lifers, who talk about the rights of unborn persons, to claim that nonexistent persons have rights, or at least the right to consent to come into existence.

Too late.

Let us suppose the anti-natalist advises her to get an abortion. After all, that baby has not given consent. Very well. But if, before conception, there is a hypothetical person there with a right to consent, surely after conception there is a person there with a right to life. Which right—the right to deny consent to exist, or the right to live—should prevail? The anti-natalist is faced with a dilemma. Either there is a person with rights there, and hence a right to life that must not be violated, or there is not. It will not do to say, “Well, that mother should not have conceived.” Let us suppose she has conceived; that is just a sad fact. This dilemma must not be ignored. Its existence does not imply that anti-natalism is wrong, but it does make it hard to be a consistent anti-natalist, for abortion rights advocates anyway.

The problem is this. If you (i.e., an anti-natalist) think a child has a right to consent, then immediately after conception at least it certainly is capable of having other rights. If, in that case, you conclude that abortion is justifiable, then you are in effect denying that this growing human life has a right to life. One way out of the dilemma is to bite the bullet and find some reason to deny that this person, who has at least one other right, has no right to life. And, come to think of it, the anti-natalist does have a reason ready to hand: if life really is worthless, perhaps we should reconsider the very idea that there is a right to live, at least for the very young.

In that case, the dilemma is not over. Suppose the mother decides to have the baby after all, and now it is one year old. The baby still has not given consent, of course, and the usual human suffering has already started (e.g., colic). By the anti-natalist’s lights, is the mother perpetrating an ongoing harm to her baby, by continuing to support it? It certainly seems she is. After all, if bringing a child into existence harms the child, then surely continuing to care for the child does as well. Should she not, in that case, snuff out this nonconsensual life? Why not?

Possibly an anti-natalist.

The idea fills us with moral horror, of course, or it should. But what resources can the anti-natalist bring to bear to avoid the consequence? From the point of view of a philosopher considering that life is worthless, and that the child has not consented to live, there really is not much difference between a newly conceived child and a one-year-old child. Both are lives that should not have been, according to the anti-natalist. If you could abort a newly-conceived fetus because (despite having other rights) it lacks a right to life, then why would it have gained a right to live by the very tender age of one?

The anti-natalist might say, “But there are other reasons we would not commit infanticide. Obviously we cannot have people going around killing babies.” Yes indeed, well spotted. There are other reasons. But the anti-natalist cannot help himself to those reasons, because they generally presuppose the value of human life, and human life, especially the life of the very young, has no value—remember?

You cannot rest on the comforting practices and beliefs of civilized society as it is now constituted to escape these moral horrors—not without abandoning the premises of your position. If you begin to tell me about the comfort the baby feels in her mother’s arms, or the joy the mother feels in her baby, I will remind you that none of that seemed to matter when you were advocating against birth in the first place. Such maternal joys were, after all, perfectly predictable.

Maybe not actual anti-natalists, but hippies on an island commune.

To bring out this point, I imagine a secret anti-natalist cult—a colony on a desert island, say. Everyone there is an anti-natalist, all planning to die childless. But some of these are young people and, of course, nature will sometimes take its course. The mother (nature intruding, again) opts not to have an abortion, and to the horror of the island cult’s anti-natalists, a child is born.

In such a society, “enlightened” as it is by anti-natalist sentiments, I imagine there would be an immediate demand to kill the child—humanely, of course. After all, that child did not choose to live; its mental capacity is unequal to a dog’s. On what grounds would the anti-natalists—far from the “corrupting” and “unenlightened” influence of broader society—choose to preserve the life of the child? Perhaps a right to life; but most anti-natalists will be fine with abortion, of course, so that theoretical expedient seems unavailable. No one who understands the issues wants the baby to endure a life of suffering. The baby can die peacefully and painlessly—and so, one imagines the anti-natalist cult concluding, in its “enlightened” wisdom, the baby should die.

But then, one wonders why they, themselves, would choose to continue living, but that is another question, to consider below.

The Value of Life

Experiencing intrinsic value.

In another essay I argued that the value of life is intrinsic, i.e., human life itself just is that in virtue of which everything else is evaluated. I am not going to argue this claim much further here, except to point something out: the reason pleasure is good, when it is, is that it is the natural biological response to a life well lived. But sometimes, pleasure is very bad indeed, as when we are motivated to gain pleasure from activities that will kill us (as for example in drug addiction). Similarly, there is a reason suffering is bad, namely, it is the natural biological response to harm to the organism. Sometimes, however, the painfulness of suffering means no such thing. The suffering we endure from exercise is often a sign of a healthy activity. The suffering a rescuer endures from saving lives belies the notion that all suffering is bad: enduring it can be courageous and heroic.

The point is that pleasure and pain are imperfect qua signals of whether life is lived well or not. But ultimately the thing our pleasures and pains—and our bodily and cognitive systems, needs, desires, and in short the operation and flourishing of our entire human nature—aim at is the preservation of our lives and more generally of life wherever it is found. (I add the “more general” point because sometimes, arguably, we have biological urges to preserve someone else’s life, as when a parent risks all to save a child.)

I have gone into a bit of detail about this in order to clarify why, as I will now maintain, the anti-natalists’ notion of the value of human life frequently seems desiccated.

Your future.

“We live only to be faced with an often painful death, and typically after a whole lifetime of suffering,” these pessimists intone. “Suffering is always much more awful than pleasure is pleasant. Pleasure really can be understood as the satisfaction of needs, i.e., the filling of a void. What is the significance of the mere absence of a negative in the face of profound suffering?”

Now, if this line of thinking is supposed to justify the conclusion that it is wrong to have children, it can only be through an intermediate conclusion, because it certainly does not follow immediately. Let us concede that life is a 100% fatal condition, that death is often painful, that suffering is often more intense than pleasure (not always—there are “peak moments,” after all, that some people sometimes say they live for). Now, it seems to me that the needed intermediate conclusion is that life is worthless, or worse than worthless; or, to put it more simply, not living is preferable to living.

Benatar and many anti-natalists are constantly found assuming the truth of this claim, but it strikes me as not just (a) unsupported by the weak premises, but also (b) quite obviously false. Let us consider the latter first.

Thomas Cole, The Voyage of Life: Manhood

Not Typically a Vale of Tears

Take the latter point first: it seems obviously false to say that not living is preferable to living. Most of the time, most people find life to be worth living, not merely a “vale of tears.” Various surveys of “average happiness” have been conducted around the world, and with few exceptions, on average, people in most countries are more happy than not.

Older folks are, typically, filled with regrets about mistakes and missed opportunities; but rarely do you hear them regret having lived at all. If they say, “What has it all been for?” it is because they feel they have not been productive enough, or maybe because they have left no family behind. Sometimes it does enter into their calculus that their life was filled with physical and emotional suffering. But few lives are burdened by unremitting suffering. There are, of course, exceptions, i.e., people who are depressed or miserably schizophrenic their whole lives long, or whose bodies were never-ending sources of pain. But the portion of humanity that fits into those categories is small.

How do anti-natalists respond to this? There are two ways to respond. One is to look down upon all those small-minded happy people with contempt. Happy people are living a lie. This strikes me as arrogant and, in any case, unpersuasive. One common reason is for such arrogant pessimism is the observation that we will all obviously die eventually. It is supposed to follow from this that our lives are meaningless and pointless. That has never struck me as being a good argument. It is a stance some anti-natalists take, but, in short, I think there is no way to defend it. After all, the value experienced in a life clearly has a time limit, this is well-known to everyone but the young and foolish, and yet people continue to find meaning in that value. A mother might have only fifty years in which to love a child; but that love is certainly one of the things that gave her life meaning for those fifty years. Why not? Who is the anti-natalist to tell the mother that that love is meaningless just because it has an expiration date?

(There is, of course, more to say on this point, especially for the religious sorts who believe life and love do not necessarily have an expiration date.)

Anti-natalists are glass-half-empty kind of people.

A second type of response has the anti-natalist realistically acknowledge that some people are happy, but the problem is that there is no way for a parent to know, in advance, if a child will end up being one of them. There is massive risk inherent in life—the risk of having a life of misery.

To this I reply that indeed, it is true that life is risky, and that some (I think few) people might justifiably conclude, in their own cases, that it would have been better never to have been born. Given that, it seems parents must be courageous on behalf on their children, so to speak—a concept that I think will be perfectly familiar to parents. There is a kind of existential courage every new parent ought to muster: making the most of a new little life in the face of possible disasters is a very big responsibility. Then, a part of what it means for the child to grow up is to accept the mantle of that existential courage on one’s own behalf. It is cowardly to reject that mantle. When we want to admonish a young person who seems to be cowardly in the face of this existential challenge, the usual thing to say is: “No one said life would be easy.”

Leo anti-natalis

This is not to deny that, sometimes, the challenge is beyond a person’s power. If you have a disease that leaves your body racked with pain, and there is no end in sight, no one will blame you terribly if you declare you want to give up. Fortunately, life is rarely so awful. If you have a typical life, with typical diseases and typical heartbreaks, you are better advised to get up the courage that a typical life requires.

In any event, to argue that parents should not have children because they might have a life of misery is to counsel the opposite: cowardice. And as far as I can see, the mere risk of disaster is by itself an obviously terrible argument in favor of such cowardice.

The Bad in Life Is Not More Profound than the Good

We were discussing the anti-natalists’ key claim that not living is preferable to living. My first response is to point out that this is unpersuasive; indeed it simply seems false (and cowardly). My second response is that the anti-natalist is guilty of a rather obvious non-sequitur. Clearly it does not follow from the ancient platitude that life is a vale of tears (something poets, prophets, and philosophers have told us for millennia) that life is not worth living (a view the same sages rarely endorse). It seems one hardly needs to say more than that. It simply does not follow from the patent and prosy fact that life kind of sucks sometimes that life is not worth living.

The fact that it is such an obvious non-sequitur is probably why David Benatar felt it necessary to bolster that patent and prosy fact with what sounds like a very logical, technical, and irrefutable argument. To wit—living and nonliving are asymmetrical, he correctly points out. Or rather, he is correct just insofar as the former features something decidedly bad (viz., suffering), while the latter has nothing either good or bad in it. Benatar also, curiously, wants to insist that nonliving lacks suffering, and that is good; but I will not admit this feature, because something nonexistent cannot have either good or bad features.

The problem is that the anti-natalist conclusion still does not follow, even given Benatar’s observation about the living-nonliving asymmetry, and for a few different reasons.

First, the asymmetry goes both ways. It is true that whatever is nonliving lacks suffering and other bad things, and that is all very well. But life has value in itself, as I said above, a value nonexistent things cannot have. Which asymmetry should we be more impressed by? The inherent value of life is a belief we have naturally, even despite ourselves; even animals of different species value the life they see in each other—enough, even, to rescue each other.

Even if you did not agree that life is valuable in itself, you must at least admit that life has all sorts of good aspects, and not just some vague unspecified pleasures, but love, truth, and beauty—the list can go on long. What of productivity, virtue, and worship? Only someone with an arid, hedonistic view of the value of life could possibly be intellectually impressed by Benatar’s argument if it is couched only in terms of pleasure. And only a pessimist, or someone with clinical emotional difficulties, could actually be persuaded by it.

After all, we rightly congratulate people for their new babies. We celebrate birthdays. We honor the dead and their lives in funerals. When we do this, we are not saying, “Oh, this person had some pleasure and on balance avoided pain.” The very suggestion is laughable—patently absurd.

Now, Benatar takes pains (so to speak), sometimes, to point out that by “pleasure” and “pain” he really means “anything good” and “anything bad,” and that he is happy to recast his argument in terms of most any value theory. The problem is that the asymmetry he insists on is really obvious only in the hedonistic version of the argument. In other words, we can perhaps agree with him that suffering is more intense and long-lasting than pleasure—i.e., when the goods are pleasures and pains. We cannot agree with him so easily that the bad in life (more generally) is more important or consequential than the good. After all, this is precisely why we undergo such painful sacrifice, sometimes, in our lives: in order to secure things that are more importantly good. Students will rack their brains and stay up many late nights in order to gain knowledge. New parents will go to great trouble for the well-being (not merely the pleasure) of a new baby. A soldier will sacrifice everything in a key battle, or undergo awful torture, for the sake of a cause he regards as much more important than himself, such as freedom. There is something shabby, contemptible, and cowardly in the suggestion that these reasons we have for living and even dying are somehow less important or profound than the the various troubles that life throws at us. Do Benatar and his followers not care about such things? And if not, why not?

Even those who are living with painful disease, the memories of abuse, or profound personal tragedy usually—with grim determination—admit that it is better for themselves and the rest of the world that they continue to struggle on. To dismiss such brave thinking is shabby. A few supposedly sober and serious philosophers do seem to dismiss it—such trials are a reason never to have children, they say. We more normally attribute such pessimism only to terminally depressed mental patients. Why should we expect there to be any good argument for it? Why should we be surprised when, upon examination, the arguments put forth are terrible?

Beauty, freedom, peace—among the things we live for.

There is a fact known to everyone facing life’s challenges with grim determination: some deeply important values are worth upholding in a full, rich life. Again, we live for family, knowledge, beauty (e.g., music), freedom, security, and much more: Christians add, for the glory of God. These values, which together comprise the value of human life, are incredibly profound and worth living for. They are worth risking pain. Hence no person inspired by any wise, far-seeing vision of the values available to our lives—values that are admittedly limited and all-too-human—can be persuaded by the anti-natalist conclusion.

Is Anti-Natalism a Death Cult in the Making?

So far I have merely been defending the value of new human life against attacks upon it by anti-natalists. Now I wish to take the offensive.

Anti-natalism is difficult to distinguish from terminal depression: its grim assessment of the value of life closely resembles that of a suicidal person. So one really has to wonder: why would a consistent anti-natalist not simply end it all? Death, or at least nonliving, is preferable to life, or so the anti-natalists maintain.

Some anti-natalists might disagree with Benatar.

Benatar’s response is that killing yourself and dying are quite different from never coming into existence in the first place, which is easy to concede. To say that parents should not give birth to children is very different from the claim that you should commit suicide. True, acting on both will result in a person not living. But the difference is that killing yourself happens only after you have lived at least some of a life. Throwing that life away can be an awful thing, Benatar says—and, of course, he is very right about that—in a way that never creating a life is not awful at all.

Benatar is a bit too much impressed with this point, however, because it does not do the work he wants it to do. Before a new life begins, anti-natalists want to say, the suffering and risk to be expected in the new life are so awful that we cannot justify creating it. But if that observation is true, does it somehow change when a new person is born? Surely not. The suffering and risk we can anticipate in the life of a newborn is the same as that in a person who has never been born—or, for that matter, in a person who is 50 years old and facing declining health.

Very well. Benatar’s suggestion must be that killing—whether we mean a baby being killed (out of “mercy”), or a 50-year-old committing suicide—has awful consequences. There are fear and pain associated with the killing itself; grieving; the loss of support to a family, or the loss of future generations if a young person dies.

But if human life is so worthless that we can confidently tell in advance that it is not worth living, then what, really, is the loss once life has begun? If nonliving is better than living, then an enlightened anti-natalist would not fear but welcome death. The pain of dying can be minimized with drugs. Anyone who cared about a person who has died would not grieve but celebrate that another person has left this vale of tears, if they take the anti-natalist assessment of the value of life seriously. And while loss of support to a family is unfortunate, this is bearable; those still remaining usually make do. As to the loss of “future generations,” of course anti-natalists think that is a good thing, not a bad one.

 

The Jonestown Cult—and one way of expressing anti-natalist belief.

Let us return to the island with the secret anti-natalist cult. I speculated that cult would have no trouble with infanticide. But I would go farther to say that there is no reason to think they would not, if consistent anti-natalists, all eventually commit suicide; perhaps it would be a mass suicide, like a real death cult. Why not? Nonliving is preferable to living, and the cult members are already surrounded by like-minded people who will understand and properly celebrate their passing.

If you are an anti-natalist, you might well find this to be an insulting and silly thought experiment. You’ve probably heard it all before. If that is your attitude, you must take your own view more seriously. After all, why should you be able to help yourself to the attitudes of ordinary natalists, and of a society constructed by natalists, in defending an anti-natalist philosophy? What, will you say the reason you abstain from killing yourself is that you are part of a society in which doing so is considered impolite, wrong, and shocking? But that is the view of natalists. Your view is that it would have been better if you had never been born. That means that, if we compare a possible world in which you exist to one in which you don’t exist, the one in which you don’t exist is better. Given that bold assumption, why not assume that a world in which you are dead tomorrow would be better than one in which you stay alive as long as possible?

Is it because you can anticipate that, probably, the rest of your life will be adequately happy? Well, most conscientious new parents may make a similar assumption on behalf of their children, may they not? I just don’t know how you can have it both ways. Either human life is worth living, or it is not.

The anti-natalists’ preferred scenario.

In any event, one thing that anti-natalists can agree on is that humanity should die out. After all, if our lives are worthless and no new humans should be born, then if we followed that principle consistently, humanity would be extinct in about 100 years. Anti-natalists are committed, therefore, to the incredibly ugly and indefensible proposal that mankind as a whole, all our works, everything we have ever produced, fall into oblivion. This might not involve any killing, but it is worse than anything Hitler, Mao, or Stalin ever advocated for.

Let us not forget that it is not exactly a leap from Benatar’s view to the view that we should all be put out of our misery. There are environmentalists and occultists who take exactly that view. They are not Benatar’s “philanthropic” anti-natalists, but “misanthropic” ones; but they share with Benatar the key premise, the radical and dangerous premise, that human life is worthless or worse than worthless, and that it would be better if the human race were to die out entirely.

I hope this makes it clear why I view anti-natalism as a thoroughly evil philosophy, and I mean this quite literally. There are not many philosophical views one can say that about. But it should not be surprising if anti-natalism earns the label. After all, it is opposed to the very thing that gives life its value—the preservation and development human life itself—and it literally displays profound contempt for human lives individually and for the entire human race. That fits the very definition of “evil” that I formulated last week, before writing this essay: “Evil is contempt for the humanity, the human life, of others.”

If you prefer this end result, we’re going to have some words.

 


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65 responses to “Against Anti-Natalism”

  1. So you are not man enough to adress my arguments. No one cares if the amount of people who suffer their whole lives is small, for their suffering is experienced subjectively every minute. You have brilliant thinkers who were a million times more brilliant and productive than you, who will be forgotten, will ever be, and who suffered from mental illness: Pascal, Leopardi, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Cioran, etc. pp. It’s over. “Older folks typically”: yes and no. I started to hate existence at the age of 13/14, understood I had to kill myself at age 16, wanted to do it at age 19, but waited and finally hanged myself at 23. This was almost ten years ago. I now continue to live only due to my faith, and due to the fact that the Christian has the duty to stay alive; otherwise, if Christ taught he was cool with suicide, nothing would stop me. But as it stands, I’d risk being tortured for eternity: for a life I never asked for in the first place, riddled with mental illness, a horrible character, ugliness, a four inch wiener, a hunchback, thin hair, average IQ, loser status, never going to be able to live in this world. My only hope is that at some point I’d muster the strength and live as a monk in the woods, like some still lived in Moldawia in the late 90’s (Search YouTue for: “I have never enjoyed living in the world” / “MOdern day hermits”)

    PS: Surveys don’t mean anything, these people are addicted to their social ladder climbing, their tinder slut banging, their travels and so on. Money-making etc. pp. Take this away, and they’d almost die. We are not allowed to have more than one partner; God, the Creator of the universe, wants us to either marry and stay married until death does us apart, or to remain completely celibate. This is the Christian position, this is what C. S. Lewis understood too. Our lowly origins aren’t a source for cheer either. Sex is wicked, it’s base and animal, it’s different than being created by God. We are the product of lust: Wisdom Solomonis 7:1-2

    1. Heh. Well, you posted me a 3,887-word essay through my contact form. I would be happy to include it here in this discussion thread, if you like, and then respond (at least partially) to it here. Let me know. But the reason I didn’t respond had nothing to do with Manliness and everything to do with lack of time for long private philosophical conversations. Mercifully, your remarks above are brief enough to be tractable to reply to (and still have a bit of time for others).

      I don’t wish to sound callous, and my heart goes out to people who are suffering unavoidable chronic pain, but that’s the luck of the draw. One thing we’ve always known about is that life is a massive risk and massively unfair, and some people end up with the short end of the stick, that’s for sure. I am not denying that those people’s lives might be worthless (in some very few cases, perhaps), but it is a straightforward fallacy to conclude from any such sad fact that the lives of the rest of us are worthless. Your life sounds fine. Who the hell cares if you are an ugly loser hunchback with thin hair? I’m quite short, overweight, bald, old, subject to various pains of age, yet I view it as both good advice and ultimately my duty to dwell on the good things and not let the bad things bother me too much. I don’t care what other people think, for one thing; I commend that attitude to you. That’s an important part of maturity, you know.

      Read more widely. Pessimistic philosophers are depressing as hell. Screw them.

      The reason Christians say you should not kill yourself—and I agree with both the advice and the reason they give—is that life is extremely precious (and they go on to say that it is only God who may decide when your life should end). Have you ever had Christian counseling? I hear that can be very effective, not that I know anything about it.

      Four inches? That’s plenty.

  2. There’s a response by “The Friendly Antinatalist” at here, but I thought I’d take a few minutes to respond. She begins by responding to other mentions.

    It was my job to start Wikipedia. I led the project in its first 14 months and led its predecessor (defined much policy and got many early contributors) for the year before that.

    I have three degrees in philosophy, including a Ph.D. from Ohio State.

    I wasn’t “ousted.” I was laid off and then cut ties; you can look it up.

    I’ve coined a few words. “Wikipedia” is another word I made up.

    “Long-winded” is apparently how philosophy appears to you. You should try it sometime!

    You say you’re responding to my anti-natalism article, but instead you start attacking my antivitism article.

    Um. I don’t say antivitism is a death cult. I say that anti-natalism comes dangerous close to being, or becoming, a death cult, and I say that only in the anti-natalism article.

    You get around to my brief mention of anti-natalism in the article and get very excited about the fact that I say anti-natalism is “easily debunked.” Well, yeah. Anti-natalism is incredibly easy to debunk, which I happened to show in the later essay. I said I didn’t (at the time) feel like debunking it, so it’s not surprising if I don’t proceed to debunk it (with arguments). It’s not “weak” or “lazy,” because it’s not the main subject of the essay, which was to describe antivitism in general.

    The statistics about anti-natalist depression etc. are found right on the page I linked to!

    I don’t reference ethical theories because I wasn’t debunking the theory, as I said. (Golly, this is a weak discussion.)

    Um, “breeder” is used as a dismissive epithet, that’s why it is one.

    “What the hell does that mean?” You could look up the hard words in a dictionary, you know.

    Oh I can’t believe she actually answered my question as to when people stop being abhorrent: the magic age is 21! Why? Why not 11? Or 81?

    “The rich white dude.” I’m not rich. I’m middle-class and never have been rich.

    “The Friendly Antinatalist,” indeed! Good lord.

    I was not coddled any more than 80% of Americans. I knew there were child pedophilia rings. What I didn’t know, and what most people still don’t know (so, you don’t have to be naive not to know it), is that there have been (1) many (2) elite child pedophilia (3) and trafficking rings. Did you know that?

    Now you move onto the essay on evil.

    Yes, individual members of the movement are not necessarily evil (depends), but the direction of the movement is, like Communism, Nazism, and a few other poisonous societal influences evil. Evil is banal (there, there’s a proper reference for you), snickering, “normal,” etc., and largely fails to recognize itself as evil. “

    Read the whole quote: “But anyone who takes such a theory seriously enough to act on it, I think, would have to be among the most inhuman monsters conceivable.”

    Oy. I didn’t go into the asymmetry and the other arguments about anti-natalism there because that wasn’t my topic. I did go into them in the anti-natalism essay.

    Sloppy, insulting, and unpersuasive. Try harder next time, “Friendly Antinatalist,” and rethink that moniker.

  3. AC

    “It will not do to say, ‘Well, that mother should not have conceived.’ Let us suppose she has conceived; that is just a sad fact. This dilemma must not be ignored. Its existence does not imply that anti-natalism is wrong, but it does make it hard to be a consistent anti-natalist, for abortion rights advocates anyway.”

    “Anti-natal” is an unfortunate choice of words. It implies opposition to birth under all circumstances. A better term would have been “anti-conceptio”, since it allows neutrality on the question of abortion. You can’t be an Antinatalist and Pro-Life (or Pro-Choice), but you can be an Anticonceptionist and Pro-Life.

    The rest of your article isn’t worth getting into. It’s repetitive, uses straw-men, circular reasoning (life makes life good), and strong words (cowardly, ugly, evil, worse than Hitler) as a substitute for good arguments. Please learn to get your points across faster in the future, and refrain from malicious accusations. Then we can have some words.

    1. AC: You’re correct that you can recognize a right to life and a right to deny consent, except that the latter continues to be incoherent because there is no existent being to exercise the right. I don’t see how nonexistent things can have rights (or interests).

      All of the “action” in the debate happens properly elsewhere, not here (so to speak). The business about consent always was a ridiculous canard that is essentially a placeholder or metaphor for other, more substantive points.

      The rest of your comment isn’t worth getting into. It’s vapid, fails to consider substantive points, and dismissive. Please learn to debate honestly. Then we can have some words.

      1. AC

        You’re straw-manning again. I made no statement about consent. How am I supposed to have a debate with someone who already decided it’s outcome. You even go as far as to make up a definition of evil solely to target an inconvenient view.

        “Evil is contempt for the humanity, the human life, of others.”

        I guess torturing animals is fair game then.

        I am willing to change my position on procreation if someone debunks the reason that I am subscribing to it. But for that you’d actually need to hear me out. If you instead choose to immediately demonize your opponent, of course you are going to get dismissed.

        Look up the principle of charity. I guess we are already having some words, but if these are actually supposed to go somewhere, you gotta be at least open to the possibility that you may be wrong.

        1. I taught the principle of charity to undergrads decades ago. I’m giving your arguments every bit as much charity as they deserve, and getting none in return.

          “You even go as far as to make up a definition of evil solely to target an inconvenient view.” Talk about straw-manning. The definition in my “Theory of Evil” essay was formulated a week before I wrote the anti-natalism, and in that “Evil” essay, I actually consider and respond to the objection that, according to the definition, anti-natalists are evil by definition. I concluded then, as I still do now, that anti-natalists simply must be inconsistent if they continue to treat their own lives and those of people around them with respect. Either you value human life, or you don’t. Either the existence of suffering makes human life not worth living (and hence valueless in that perfectly robust sense), or it doesn’t.

          I haven’t “demonized” anybody. If you actually had studied logic and understood it, then you would understand the structure of the arguments in my essay. Look up “reductio ad absurdum.”

    2. Jeremy

      Nailed it. My applause.

  4. Life Sucks

    So torturing someone is good but not torturing someone is “evil.” That doesn’t make any logical sense. Evil is just a subjective word, you should use more easily definable words like “harm” and “prevention.”

    You clearly misunderstand antinatalism. Antinatalists value life more than you pro-natalists ever have or ever will. We do no think that it is “worthless.” In fact there is no greater value than a sentient brain in crisis. Procreators are the ones who will risk the welfare of a new being just because it selfishly brings them pleasure.

    “Anti-natalists are committed, therefore, to the incredibly ugly and indefensible proposal that mankind as a whole, all our works, everything we have ever produced, fall into oblivion.” This is your statement about why you love internet porn… or whatever crap you’re into.

    Just because you subjectively think that human “works” are somehow interesting doesn’t mean anything. What is broken about the universe that humans fix? How would the universe change if human went extinct? That’s right: nothing. You can’t justify any of it for one person suffering from cancer. You probably eat animals too and think that it’s fine ’cause “humans rule.”

    The human race will go extinct just like every other species. It’s a 100% guarantee. So wake up to reality. And for the record the images you showed are not an antinatalists “utopia.” What we would prefer is more like a moonscape, a place where suffering never even emerged. Suffering is bad. Sentient life involves suffering and often a lot of it, therefore life is bad. There is no harm in not creating it. You just have a psychological addiction. Perhaps you are just defensive that you caused a human being to be born, to suffer, and to die and this article is just a defensive reaction to the cold hard realization that you are fact the evil one who gambled with someone else’s welfare.

    1. “Evil is just a subjective word…”

      Suppose you throw in with a band of criminals, all of which “subjectively” judge that torturing you is the right thing to do. It’s not evil. They think it’s right. Who are you to disagree? Listen, one of the worst, most damaging lies that intellectuals and educationists have told you, and some have been repeating it for the last 75 years or more, is that there is no such thing as objective morality. If there is no objective basis of value, right, and wrong, it follows that our lives truly are meaningless. You can try to “create value” for yourself, but psychologically this is doomed to failure. You won’t be able to make it stick in your own mind if it isn’t rooted in something quite real—such as that which preserves and enhances life.

      “Harm” is not in any way more objective than “evil.” It too is well-known to be a value-laden term. After all, harm is held to be a bad thing. Well, surely, badness is subjective. Suppose that whatever you call “harmful” I say is quite a good thing, and that’s all subjective anyway, so you can’t argue with me?

      “You clearly misunderstand antinatalism. Antinatalists value life more than you pro-natalists ever have or ever will. We do no think that it is ‘worthless.’ In fact there is no greater value than a sentient brain in crisis.” What difference could it possibly matter if a person is “in crisis”? Are you actually saying that a person’s value increases if they are in crisis? I propose that that which has value, whatever it is, is something we want more of. Agreed? So—we should want more crises?

      You can deny all you like that antinatalists deeply value human life. Very well. The problem is that your premises entail the opposite conclusion, as I argue in my paper. Did you find the argument? Beyond denying the conclusion, do you have any response? It’s a reductio ad absurdum. I attack those premises by showing that they result in an unacceptable (absurd) conclusion—in your case, a contradiction, because you assure me that you value human life.

      “This is your statement about why you love internet porn… or whatever crap you’re into.” What on earth are you talking about? Actually, I’ve become quite hostile to Internet porn, as it happens, but that’s another topic. Are you saying that, in your opinion, Internet porn is the very best humanity has to offer? (This from a person who claims to value human life.)

      “Just because you subjectively think that human ‘works’ are somehow interesting doesn’t mean anything.” You seem to think human works are deeply valuable. One of our works is to create new life, and you say you deeply value human life. Another is to preserve and protect life. Another is to educate and train. And then there is all the knowledge and research and invention and building that goes to make up all the civilizations that have ever been. That’s all human life as well, which you claim to value, and yet you also claim are uninteresting and not worth protecting.

      Do you see why I say you are contradicting yourself now? What is your answer?

      “The human race will go extinct just like every other species. It’s a 100% guarantee.” It’s not a 100% guarantee. We don’t know the ultimate fate of the universe. We don’t know that the soul doesn’t exist and that there isn’t an afterlife in eternity. But even if you are right, it hardly follows from that that human life and works are worthless (which you sometimes say you believe, and sometimes that you don’t believe). The value to yourself that we can observe in this world has a definite expiration date. Does that mean that it is valueless? Suppose I climb a mountain and that I consider that a tremendous achievement, which I regard with satisfaction and fond memories. Is that valueless, or not, because I will die? It will always be a fact that I climbed that mountain. It will always be a fact that Shakespeare wrote his plays, Michelangelo painted his pictures, and so forth, even if these things ultimately fall into oblivion. So what? What is supposed to follow from this? Not that those things lack value now.

      “Suffering is bad. Sentient life involves suffering and often a lot of it, therefore life is bad.” This is an idiotically bad argument, as I explained in my paper. You didn’t even try to understand or respond to my arguments.

      1. Bill

        If morality is objective, why have “morals” changed so much over time? When I was born, gay marriage was considered by most to be immoral. By the time I was 40 the majority of people seemed OK with it. It is immoral to many to destroy the environment, others argue it is not. The bible gives explicit instructions on how to care for slaves. Is slavery immoral?

        1. These are very old arguments, with very old replies, that every high schooler, or at least every college student, should be able to field without difficulty.

          Yes, well spotted, morals have changed greatly over time. There are two possible explanations you might draw from this state of affairs: golly, since people have changed, and therefore morality itself has changed. The other explanation is that there is such a thing as moral progress. Of course, the latter is the conclusion that most people do draw after a tiny bit of reflection: when we got rid of slavery, wife-beating, and ancient pederasty, did society morally improve thereby? Of course it did. And society can decline in its morals as well; one thinks of the decadence of the late Roman empire.

          Ethics is extremely complex and most people are idiots. If most people come to believe a certain way, as they have about gay marriage, that fact by itself does not indicate anything about the rightness or wrongness of the change of belief. Maybe all those people who believe that gay marriage is hunky-dory are all wrong. How can you tell? By going back to fundamental principles and debating the issues in great depth (which is what is really required).

          If you have been told all your life that there are no fundamental moral principles, then of course you will think that it all depends on social trends, because in the absence of actual reasoning and logic, people become herd animals. Then they put a patina of reasonableness on their herd behavior, they rationalize it, by producing this quite absurd theory of moral relativism.

          Moral relativism is utterly incoherent. You cannot make rational sense of it and continue to speak the language of any morality. The only logically consistent moral relativist is like an old professor of mine, who was an “anti-realist” about all ethical talk. He actually called his theory “amoralism”; he recommended that we stop using morally evaluative language altogether. Of course, I think that is disastrous as well.

          If you want to see an attempt at justifying some basic principles of morality, see this essay of mine.

  5. BR

    Your natalist system accepts the collateral damage that at least an unavoidable certain minimum percentage of those who were born will suffer more than life is worth to them.
    Your whole Russian roulette pyramid scheme is based on this.
    As an antinatalist, I avoid to play this Russian roulette, As a result, I don’t inflict collateral damage.
    I have found a 100% sure way to avoid all suffering for my children. You can start wars, burn down the planet, spread diseases as much as you want. My children and grandchildren will never ever have to risk suffering. Merely by using birth control.
    Since you at least agree that some lives are not worth living because of too much suffering : is there a tipping point at which point you would say that the collateral damage is not worth creating unnecessary lives ? is it 3% ? 5% ? 10% ? 20% ? Which percentage of lives can be more suffering than can be handled, before you’d agree it is not worth procreating ?

    1. A brave and confident argument.

      Comparing the suffering we all endure (some more than others) to “collateral damage” won’t fly. Collateral damage is not just foreseeable harm—it is harm for which an actor is responsible. But parents, contrary to the silly anti-natalist belief, are not responsible for all of their children’s suffering, but only for that specific damage which they could foresee and prevent. Failing to have children at all is not (and this is important) preventing damage to anyone, because there is no one we can attribute the “prevention of damage” to (unless a child is actually conceived—and then the argument proves too much, as I explained in the paper). How many children did I prevent harm to today, by not getting some woman pregnant? The question is absolute nonsense.

      Only silly, angst-ridden, badly brought-up adolescents blame their parents for all their problems. Their parents are responsible only for those problems the parents caused after conception.

      This is why it won’t fly to compare birthing human beings to Russian roulette. The parents aren’t pulling the trigger, if we must use the stupid metaphor; chance, God, the Devil, or Fate is.

      You don’t avoid playing Russian roulette, because no parent does that. You merely fail to procreate, and then the universe doesn’t play Russian roulette. That’s all very well, but if everyone had to do what you do, then the entire human race would die out because of your goddamn cowardice.

      “I have found a 100% sure way to avoid all suffering for my children.”

      No. No you haven’t. What you said is literal nonsense, because you don’t have any children. You haven’t avoided suffering for any of your children, because you have none. I, on the other hand, having had children, actually do keep them from much suffering in a zillion little ways throughout their development.

      “My children and grandchildren will never ever have to risk suffering.”

      Nonsense. You will never have children or grandchildren because you’re a goddamn existential coward.

      Whatever the tipping point would be, we’re nowhere even close to it today.

      1. BR

        You claim to be a philosopher or having a degree in philosophy ?
        Please tell me how “silly” “coward” “goddamn” etc… is relevant to your argument ?

        You haven’t answered the question : which percentage of people suffering more than life is worth it for them would you agree that antinatalism makes sense ? Even natalists might agree that at the extreme of 98% of people suffering, it would be better to adopt the antinatalist view. There is a tipping point for most natalists. What would be your tipping point ? Doesn’t have to be exact. Why are you obviously afraid to answer ? Not being able to give an exact number is no excuse : you can give a range, like say “between 20-40%”.

        Birthing humans IS Russian Roulette : you played it, FULLY knowing that your son could suffer greatly. It doesn’t matter whether the odds are small or not : the odds ARE there, you can look up the statistics for many of these odds.

        We antinatalists are monsters ? Will your son be YOUR monster if some day he will become antinatalist ?

        Collateral damage : it doesn’t matter if the exact nature is foreseeable or not. But the overall damage will be there in some form. Your son might suffer greatly in 50 years from anything which you were completely unable to predict. But you don’t care, because having a trophy is more important. Despite you doing everything to protect him from suffering, he might be the one of those who WILL cause suffering actively. And you, I, and your son can’t be privileged in our lives without the collateral damage of those who contribute to our well-being.

        One of your descendants will – statistically unavoidable – cause suffering, by raping, killing, whatever… that’s your collateral damage you are comfortable with by playing “procreation”
        One of your descendants will – statistically unavoidable – suffer greatly.. that’s your collateral damage you are comfortable with by playing natalism.
        You only “love” your son, and your grandchild(ren), from then on, your “love” doesn’t care anymore.

        Russian roulette : WHO pulls the trigger is irrelevant. By procreating YOU pushed the “let the games begin button”, so that chance, fate, or whatever will repeatedly pull the trigger for different kinds of suffering.
        I let the game die out with me being the last player in my line.

        How angst-ridden or cowardly am I, that I’m fully prepared to be the last one in this game, prepared to be the last who turns of the switch, prepared to deal with the discomfort of having nobody to take care of me. It doesn’t scare me in the least little bit. But natalists are cowardly, scared, about being the last one of their bloodline, last one of mankind, the perceived emptiness of extinction.
        “Who will take care of you when you’re old” describes perfectly how cowardly natalists are.

        “That’s all very well, but if everyone had to do what you do, then the entire human race would die out “
        That’s a description, not an argument.
        Yep, we would die out sooner than otherwise.
        Because we WILL die out anyway.
        So what ? What’s the problem with not being existent ? Are you afraid maybe ? Does it scare you ?
        “..because of your goddamn cowardice.”
        It seems natalists are the ones fearing extinction. I am bold and daring in the face of extinction. I embrace it, while you and natalists shiver in fear.

      2. jp

        the Suffering of a person is the Parents fault no matter what. They put a the child into the world giving them the means and opportunity to feel suffering. Parents are the ones pulling the trigger by bringing them into the world. They knew people can suffer they chose to have a kind anyway. I know this hard to understand Larry but let me expain. If you put somebody in a position to suffer your at fault has your the one who put said person in that position.

        No. No you haven’t. What you said is literal nonsense, because you don’t have any children. You haven’t avoided suffering for any of your children, because you have none. I, on the other hand, having had children, actually do keep them from much suffering in a zillion little ways throughout their development.

        That’s all very well, but if everyone had to do what you do, then the entire human race would die out because of your goddamn cowardice.

        Yes being decent enough to gamble with another person well being is cowardice. Thats what your doing when you have a kid your gambling with there well-being Larry they have guarantee of suffering all pleasure is relief from that suffering. All life is very degrees of suffering in relief but your the one who put them into this world were there only hope is they have on average more relief then other people.

        Your the coward Larry you have kids beacuse your scared of imagining a world without people and your to much of a coward to admit the morals problems with what you have done. And you hate the anti natalist for rubbing your nose in it.

        Yes you caused children suffering you gave them nerves you put them into this world all there suffering is your fault. All you have done is made your s***** mistake slightly less s*****.

        1. You need to use the “b-quote” button to put quotations from me in block quote form. Otherwise, just use quotation marks. Otherwise, it is hard to tell who is saying what, and what you are responding to.

          You also need to rethink a lot of this. You think “this is hard to understand,” but it’s really not. I’m very familiar with the arguments. I simply find them idiotic and psychologically damaging, to be honest. You’ve been indoctrinated by some quite evil people, I’m afraid.

          The parents do not give their children “the means and opportunity to feel suffering”; that is part of the common human condition, for which no one of us is to blame. If we could prevent all suffering in our children, we certainly would. But the fact that we know they will, eventually, suffer does not mean we are to be blamed for the suffering, any more than we can be praised for the pleasure, achievement, love, and other good things they will experience as well. Those are part of our built-in human equipment.

          “Yes being decent enough to gamble with another person well being is cowardice.”

          Look, kid. This is a dumb argument. Having children is not a “gamble.” To say so is to beg the question by to drawing a comparison, an analogy, to a largely immoral, often damaging behavior. To have a child is not immoral. If you think so, you need to give a separate argument for that silly claim. Nor does coming into existence in any way damage a child (because, well, what was there before, which could then be damaged?).

          I don’t “hate” anti-natalists. I pity them. They seem to be broken souls, indoctrinated by evil jerks and made to indulge their own most immature impulses. You need to grow up.

          Anyway, I’m done with you. If you are not capable of producing any actual arguments, and can do nothing but insult me and curse on my blog, you won’t be able to post here. That’s your last and only warning.

    2. Bill

      The point of my reply was to show that morals aren’t objective, not whether I agree/disagree with moral/ethical/changes/improvements. I do think many of the changes humans have made, such as abolishing slavery are a good thing. Objective reality happens absent an observer, absent human emotion. These examples only bolster the fact that morality is subjective.

      1. Yes, and I replied by saying that you failed to show that morals aren’t objective.

        Indeed, the reality of morality is entirely bound up with human concerns (not just human emotions). True: if humans did not exist, then there would be no (human) values. That by itself does not make morality subjective. That makes morality relative to the values that preserve and enhance human life.

        1. Bill

          “Objective truths are matters of fact, so an objective, factual moral statement would run afoul of the naturalistic fallacy. Instrumental statements about the most effective means of achieving certain goals can be objective. For example, if we want to maximize happiness for the greatest number of people, there may be objective knowledge to be had about the most efficient means of achieving that end. But the rightness of the goal doesn’t correspond to any fact or mere object. How could it? Rightness is about what ought to be the case, not what is factually so. That’s why Plato’s objective Form of the Good, which corresponds to the sun in his cave analogy, is a perfectly transcendent object.”

          So the question I’d ask someone who thinks morality is objective is this: Where can we find the fact or the object that embodies the rightness of their imperative? I want to be able to pick up the object in question. If it’s a transcendent object, such as God’s mind, that allows the moralist to confuse subjectivity and objectivity, since the transcendent entity is actually nothing whatsoever.

          If the object is something natural, such as a human brain state, it shouldn’t take long to see the object isn’t inherently right or wrong but just is what it is. We humans could have evolved to think differently about how we want to live, and the universe wouldn’t have cared one way or the other. We’re the ones who care, which makes our goals subjective. Otherwise, the objective moralist has to get around the naturalistic fallacy.” – Benjamin Cain

        2. “The naturalistic fallacy” is not a logical fallacy but a theory about ethics. Since you had to quote someone else to introduce the point, I assume you don’t actually understand what it means, so I’ll explain it to you. Introduced (at least in so many words) by G.E. Moore and supposedly demonstrated by his “Open Question Argument,” the “fallacy” is that ‘good’ is an unavoidably and irreducibly evaluative term. Any attempt to define it in terms of X (anything at all) eventually runs afoul the supposedly killer objection that you could ask, “But is X really good?” and the question would make sense.

          The Open Question Argument is itself fallacious, however. The mere fact that we might not immediately recognize a definition of ‘good’ as being obviously correct doesn’t establish that the word cannot be analyzed (in non-evaluative terms).

          Every philosopher who tries to justify a theory of value (not a meta-ethical theory, but an actual theory of value) is essentially offering a definition of ‘good’ in non-evaluative terms and thus runs afoul of this pseudo-fallacy.

          I myself have taken a stab at a theory of value in this essay. So if this person (whose prose you quote doesn’t really contain much in the way of clear, cogent argumentation) wants to know what “fact or object” is valuable in itself, I would direct him to that essay. That’s where I’d direct you.

          I can respond more directly by conceding that, to a certain extent, we—I believe most sentient creatures—can and should regard that which is good in the sense I define it to be good. Basically, life is good in itself, so essentially that which preserves and enhances life is instrumentally good. This is why we find “heartwarming” any action, by any sort of person or animal, to save or help some other living being.

          That’s the basis of all morality right there.

          That’s also why I say anti-natalism, being opposed as it is to life itself, is an evil doctrine.

        3. Hi, Larry Sanger, I’m the fellow Bill was quoting from. I had a look at that article where you lay out your theory of value. I wrote a response to it on my blog, in my exchange with Bill, and I thought I’d post it here:

          Well, I agree with him that antinatalism is wrong, but it’s a false choice between objective morality and nihilism or antinatalism.

          I see from his long article that he takes an Aristotelian view of morality. Aristotle’s teleological ethics goes wrong in his analogy between natural and artificial things. He assumes that because artifacts have final causes, so must natural things, including rational creatures like us. An artifact’s purpose comes from its designer, but natural things don’t have designers, so the analogy falls apart.

          But there are other problems with Sanger’s account. He says, “If you want to know what is ultimately valuable to a tree, or a dog, or a person, it is: those things that keep it alive…A farmer, veterinarian, or doctor studies the needs of the things in their care and quite naturally considers what is good for the organism as what is life-preserving (or life-enhancing)…I say that life itself is what is valuable; but now I will qualify that by saying that, for us humans, it is human life that is valuable, not mere biological flourishing.”

          To show that life is valuable _to living things_ isn’t to show that life is objectively valuable. On the contrary, adding that qualifier is the essence of making the value subjective. When I say, “To me the best kind of beer is so and so,” I’m backing away from saying that that assessment is objective. I’m conceding that the preference is an expression of my taste. Indeed, Sanger seems to contradict himself on this point, since he says both that life “has value in itself” and that life is “good for” living things. That’s an equivocation.

          There’s another equivocation in his article between life being “objectively” and “ultimately” good. He takes himself in the beginning and end of the article to be showing that life is “ultimately,” as in fundamentally good, but that would only be to show that the value of life isn’t instrumental, meaning it doesn’t depend on other desires but underlies all our other projects. To achieve anything in particular, we typically need to stay alive (unless we’re sacrificing our life in some dire situation, which would be a special case). Saying that our desire to go on living is primary is consistent with saying that the value of life is subjective. Indeed, the primacy of that desire may make the desire especially subjective because it would be the most cherished one.

          So the instrumental values or techniques for achieving our goals may be objective, as I said, but that doesn’t entail that the goals themselves are objective. Some goals are only means to achieving other goals, but the fundamental goal of staying alive, together with its assumption that life is good can’t be objective in the same instrumental way, because the primary goal can’t be a means to achieving some other goal. And once you admit that the value of life is due to the interests of living things, you’re as good as saying that that fundamental value is subjective.

          One other confusion that’s likely at work here is between objectivity and universality. The love of life is virtually universal but that’s not to say that the goodness of living is objective. Polls may show that people prefer to see low-brow movies, but that doesn’t mean such movies are objectively better than those that are more likely to win high-brow awards. Sanger exhibits this confusion when he says, “morality is part of the normal and natural order.” Normality has to do with universality, which is different from objectivity.

  6. Simon

    “A brave and confident argument” from “a goddamn existential coward”?
    Forgive us then for thinking you’re mentally somersaulting all over the place, Larry, or else just courting controversy.

    “How many children did I prevent harm to today, by not getting some woman pregnant?”
    At current US non-Hispanic white breeding rates: about 0.0000273 children.
    Congratulations for keeping at least some of your controversial ejaculations to yourself!
    And you can multiply that number by about 5 for all their descendants (existing or not, the maths doesn’t care about suffering, but we do) that you are in effect ‘responsible’ for (let’s not call it blame).
    Oh, and before you get too comfortable, United Statians consume about 370 times more energy than Ethiopians, and they invade other continents.

    We’re not blaming parents, we’re blaming natalism.
    Like you’re blaming ideologies but not individuals.

    “We antinatalists are monsters ? Will your son be YOUR monster if some day he will become antinatalist?” – that was genius, BR. We are the new Gays!

    “In any case, bear in mind this just an essay, an attempt, not a carefully-formulated position paper giving my final word on the subject.” – I feel this will be your salvation. Credit to you for keeping your wiki-brain open to updates. Please do re-read Benatar’s work. We might be brave and confident simply because we may be right.

    1. ” ‘How many children did I prevent harm to today, by not getting some woman pregnant?’
      At current US non-Hispanic white breeding rates: about 0.0000273 children.
      Congratulations for keeping at least some of your controversial ejaculations to yourself!”

      Bzzt, wrong. The answer is zero. Since I did not have any, I did not prevent harm to any children. Only if I had a child could I prevent harm to it. But I do get why you’re reduced to the above sort of gibbering. There is no sensible way to respond.

      “Oh, and before you get too comfortable, United Statians consume about 370 times more energy than Ethiopians, and they invade other continents.”

      (That’s “American” to you, bub.) *yawn* So you’re defending anti-natalism by descending into anti-Americanism? You’re just a barrel of fun, aren’t you? Small-minded, illogical little creep.

      “We’re not blaming parents, we’re blaming natalism.
      Like you’re blaming ideologies but not individuals.”

      No, it isn’t a philosophical position that, if carried into effect consistently, would be responsible for the death of the human race. It is the choices of people following that philosophical position.

      I should have probably said in the paper that the reason I don’t blame anti-natalists too much (as much as, say, violent criminals), enough to really call them quite evil (if the shoe fits…), is that they do not act quite consistently with their own declared aggressively announced contempt for human life. Which is a relief. You’re not quite a death cult yet—except for the entire human race, the disposition of which, thankfully, you have little control over.

      “We antinatalists are monsters ? Will your son be YOUR monster if some day he will become antinatalist?” – that was genius, BR. We are the new Gays!

      Heh. Let’s hope not. They have far too much sense for that. He also won’t become a murderer or a pedophile, I hope.

      You’re not the new gays because you choose your anti-natalism, and gays don’t choose their gayness, right?

      “We might be brave and confident simply because we may be right.” No. It’s because you’re arrogant little fools.

  7. Bill

    Is it OK to have sexual contact with someone who is passed out drunk? If not, why?

    1. What a question.

      Of course not, and the reason is that it fails to respect the autonomy of a person. I’m sure you’ll have a clever way to use this to defend anti-natalism; bring it on.

      1. Bill

        I’m all for respecting peoples autonomy. I am pro-choice for that very reason.

        1. Before my sons were conceived, they didn’t exist. Not existing, they had no autonomy.

          Existing is a necessary condition of having autonomy.

          You literally cannot respect the autonomy of someone who doesn’t exist; the proposition is literal nonsense.

        2. Bill

          I was referring to the autonomy of the woman choosing to abort her fetus.

        3. Fine, let’s just clarify that, on your view, fetuses aren’t people and therefore their autonomy doesn’t matter.

          But somehow, the autonomy of wholly nonexistent, hypothetical people, before they are even conceived, is deeply important to respect?

        4. Simon

          I am sure this has been addressed by smarter people than I. But I am smart enough to have discovered that when you force some’thing’ to exist, you are then responsible for it.
          It’s a massive cop out to say it didn’t exist therefore it doesn’t have a right not to exist.

          It’s like saying a rape victim wasn’t a victim before the rape, therefore there was no case to answer, and whatever happens thereafter is annulled. Nonsense. There are retrospective laws, rights, and ethics.

          Even if you win this philosophical argument, you are spending your time on earth justifying creating feeling things that suffer. Then you call us evil.
          Not a very impressive use of your talents.

      2. Simon

        At least the victim probably CHOSE to get drunk.
        What has the unborn done to deserve being forced into an existence where they eventually always become a victim of something?
        Pro-choice does sound generous and liberal, but the unborn doesn’t even get a choice.
        And yes the unborn is an entity-in-waiting. To say that it isn’t assumes you are not creating it, which would be lovely, but you have unilaterally decided against that option.

        1. Bill

          I agree. Respecting a persons autonomy is not the only reason to avoid sexual contact with someone who is passed out. They are unable to give consent due to being unconscious. The same goes for the unborn.

        2. “The unborn,” not existing, can’t be forced in way at all. Forcing can occur only after existing.

          When is somebody going to address this basic argument?

  8. Bill

    Humans are born with an overdeveloped skill (understanding, self-knowledge) which does not fit into nature’s design. The human craving for justification on matters such as life and death cannot be satisfied, hence humanity has a need that nature cannot satisfy. The tragedy, following this theory, is that humans spend all their time trying not to be human. The human being, therefore, is a paradox. The tragedy of a species becoming unfit for life by over-evolving one ability is not confined to humankind. Thus it is thought, for instance, that certain deer in paleontological times succumbed as they acquired overly-heavy horns. The mutations must be considered blind, they work, are thrown forth, without any contact of interest with their environment. – Peter Wessel Zapffe

    1. I don’t know what this Zapffe means by “the human craving for justification matters such as life and death.” Can you explain? Does he mean, perhaps, that we desire to live forever, but can’t (unless there is life after death)?

      “[H]umans spend all their time trying not to be human”—again, what the hell does this even mean? I don’t. I know I’ll die within a few decades. Am I terribly terribly broken up about it? No. I’ve gotten over my midlife crisis, such as it was.

      I honestly don’t know what is going through the heads of the people who claim to be so disturbed, all their lives long, about death.

      1. Bill

        Humans have created an endless array of immortality projects, heaven, trans-humanism, god, etc. Humans may not consciously think about death all the time, but their actions suggest it’s a fear lurking deep in their subconscious.

        Zapffe described four principal defense mechanisms that humankind uses to avoid facing this paradox:

        Isolation is “a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling”.

        Anchoring is the “fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness”. The anchoring mechanism provides individuals a value or an ideal that allows them to focus their attentions in a consistent manner. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society, and stated “God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future” are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments.

        Distraction is when “one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions”. Distraction focuses all of one’s energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself.

        Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones. The individuals distance themselves and look at their existence from an aesthetic point of view (e.g., writers, poets, painters). Zapffe himself pointed out that his produced works were the product of sublimation.

      2. antinatalist

        Death is no biggie, I agree. No big fucking deal.

  9. Simon

    Why don’t we get emails when a new post is added? Do I have to keep this tab open forever (well, until extinction)?

    1. I’ll have to add a notification plugin.

  10. Bill

    Have you considered writing about why people SHOULD have children? Other than the standard biological imperative, personal desire, future tax revenue, old age care, etc.

    1. Christina Law

      The argument here is why we shouldn’t exist, asking why we should is just a different question demanding the same answer, I don’t see the rationality of asking it. Its akin to saying we should exist/procreate because we shouldn’t end ourselves and we shouldn’t end it because……see where this is heading? It circles back.

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