I have a wife with five children so far and would be classified as a radical pro-natalist. Check out my profile to get the gist of my character and lifestyle.

I have three main grounds that I will list, not in order of importance.

I. I hold to the position that contraception is the same as murder, on the basis of a logical connection between potential and actual life that occurs during the moment of potential actualization. I call this the Pronatalist Master Argument and I can present it if you ask.

II. I subscribe to Divine Command Theory and believe that Holy Writ prohibits the prevention of pregnancy in marriage.

III. I affirm a version of a will-to-power anthropology that is confirmed through a historiographic analysis; wherein, I believe that man's nature and obligation is to conquer and dominate and that when he fails to perpetuate his being and culture through a religiously justified patriarchal & monogamous fecundity, that society loses its collective will and begins to grow decadent and then apathetic and eventually will collapse.

Negatively, I have found anti-natalist arguments quite wanting, especially Benatar's argument from the asymmetry between pleasure and pain experiences, which is both simplistic and assumes an ethical framework guilty of the naturalistic fallacy.

In some rural areas of African countries, it is said that no electricity = no TV at night = boredom = activities which lead to kids.

My guess is that most children arrive in this world through the good offices of sexual pleasure and not through the fine reasoning of philosophers. I also doubt that many people who are anti-natalists avoid having children purely as a result of reading philosophy. Indeed, many people who have decided they do not want to produce children haven't even heard the term or the arguments for antinatalism.

Thank you for posting some actual information about yourself in your profile. You have a busy life, what with smoking, drinking, screwing, hunting, killing, interior designing, history of philosophizing, attending divine worship, and whatever else it is that you do. You and Agustino should have a good time together.

Too many of the wrong kind of people are having children. Wrong kind? People who can not support their children, do not really know how to rear children successfully (for this time and place), or are very screwed up and will likely pass their screwed upedness on to their unfortunate children. Some people are just plain having too many children. God to the contrary, there just isn't room and resources for everybody.

BTW, if you smoke and drink a lot you should also plan to be a cancer patient--probably oral or gut cancer. It would be a shame to die early on your 15 planned children, design business, and PhD advisors.

I hold to the position that contraception is the same as murder, on the basis of a logical connection between potential and actual life that occurs during the moment of potential actualization. I call this the Pronatalist Master Argument and I can present it if you ask. — Victoribus Spolia

"Getting frequent blowjobs" is a form of contraception, and hence murder, according to your own principles.

"Getting frequent blowjobs" is a form of contraception, and hence murder, according to your own principles.

Only if blowjobs would occur during a time which contraception is ordinarily possible, I do not practice oral sex during a time when my wife would ordinarily be able to conceive, for as I argued in an initial post, a potential life is connected to actual life during the time of potential actualization. I do not believe that sperm (for example) are in themselves actual life (vitae actualis).

Given that you have not seen my Pronatalist Master Argument, I do not see how you could make such presumptions....the fact that you have not given me the benefit of the doubt makes me wonder whether or not you are already engaging in an attempted confirmation bias regarding me.

Children are primarily accidents, or had because of a social expectation. For many people, having children is just another thing on their checklist. Make more people with checklists. It's very important that we have more people with checklists. It's very important that we check those lists!

Too many of the wrong kind of people are having children. Wrong kind? People who can not support their children, do not really know how to rear children successfully (for this time and place), or are very screwed up and will likely pass their screwed upedness on to their unfortunate children. Some people are just plain having too many children. God to the contrary, there just isn't room and resources for everybody.

Ah, some very deep moral sentiments you have there, I suppose you have some sort of logical grounds for your moral edicts regarding child raising, or ought i suppose these to be merely your arbitary opinion and conjecture?

As for resource allocation and "room," that is a malthusian absurdity to the third degree. there is enough room in Texas for the entire world's population for each family of four to have a 2,000 sq ft home and decent yard. there is enough farmable land in the Guinea Plateau alone to feed the entire world's population beyond our current hectaacre output which is also more than sufficient to feed the world's population. The problem is resource allocation and land management, not population and production (actual or potential). To say otherwise is an incredibly uninformed sentiment. The problem is not population-based, or agricultural...the problem is political and I can defend all of these points with source material if you are interested.

BTW, if you smoke and drink a lot you should also plan to be a cancer patient--probably oral or gut cancer. It would be a shame to die early on your 15 planned children, design business, and PhD advisors.

Not that its any of your business or that it has anything to do with my arguments as presented (red herring?)......but here is my response as to whether I should plan as a cancer patient:

Nah, I don't smoke THAT much, and I am somewhat suspicious of some of the research on tobacco anyway....My life insurance plan guarantees $500,000.00 to my wife, my eldest son will take over the farm, and the rest will split the whats left....the top three oldest living humans in the last fifty years were all chain smokers and regular consumers of alcohol and my time is fixed as far as i'm concerned, so I really don't care...I will eat bacon, drink beer, and smoke and kick ass while doing it....with a name like "bitter crank" I would of expected you to sympathize itstead of being such a pussy.

I suppose you have some sort of logical grounds for your moral edicts regarding child raising, or ought i suppose these to be merely your arbitary opinion and conjecture? — Victoribus Spolia

Since you are living in "The Cold and Snowy Part of The Heroin Addicted Rural Rust Belt" I'm sure you've seen the tragic consequences of people who aren't really able to take care of their children. Children born of addicted mothers are born addicted, and fairly often damaged as well. Same for fetal alcohol syndrome.

Logical ground: Children who are nurtured and protected from harm and guided by their parents as they grow up tend to be more successful and happier adults than people who were not nurtured and protected from harm. It isn't rocket science: We know what healthy children look like and sadly, we know what unhealthy neglected children look like.

So no, it's not just my arbitrary judgement.

Not that its any of your business — Victoribus Spolia

Well, Victoribus, I didn't pry into your drinking and smoking habits -- you acknowledged that you smoke and drink. Fine by me -- I spent quite a few years smoking and drinking as well, and I liked it. It's something of a knee jerk -- I've spent quite a few years doing public health education. Sure, some people who smoked a lot lived to be very old. My father lived to be 102, and he smoked. However, he suffered from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease which made the last 15 years of his life more difficult than they otherwise would have been.

I will eat bacon, drink beer, and smoke and kick ass while doing it....with a name like "bitter crank" I would of expected you to sympathize itstead of being such a pussy. — Victoribus Spolia

I like to eat bacon, drink beer, gin, and whiskey. I quit smoking because it was becoming noticeably counter-productive for me. Bitter cranks come in many varieties, including pussies. I don't think I am a pussy, and I'm actually not bitter either. It's a handle, not a personality summary.

As for being a crank... Well, that's possible, but I'm a fairly happy crank. And my profile picture is the philosopher Isaiah (not Irving) Berlin. I don't know much about Berlin, but I liked this portrait of Berlin by Richard Avedon. He was a liberal Jew, so I'd probably like him just fine.

I have no children, and have never raised any, but I would like to say that in a world of over 147+million starving orphans; its impairitive that the majority of 1st world citiczens stop having children. Vesectomies should be government sponsored, advertised, free, and given at younger ages.

I also think it should be advertised that vegan deits use several times less land, water and resources than traditional western style diets. That the entire world could be fed if each world power reduced their livestock production by ~10-20% and realocated the resulting surplus in grain to people.

This is why cultural change is so important, their is nothing so special about anyones DNA thats going to create the worlds savior. If you have a child of your own and feed them a non-vegan diet, more kids are going to starve on the other side of the world.

Hi, Is there a motivation to bring a child to this world? (from a philosophical perspective of course) — Prasad

Just recently, I was watching a TV documentary, on rag-pickers in slums, in the Philippines and India. Rag-pickers pick over rubbish dumps, competing for bits of plastic and cloth and metal and other paltry items which they can sell for a couple of cents. It is of course the most miserable mode of worldly existence imaginable, surrounded by steaming piles of rubbish, constantly exposed to putrid rubbish and disease, labouring while ever light is available to discern some microscopic speck of redeemable material amongst the waste and muck. Truly a hellish existence.

But - these people had children. Even despite the extraordinary privation of their circumstances, they still procreated. As soon as the children are old enough - and that's not very old - they too become rag pickers.

Their plight is of course painful in the extreme, and I don't wish to make fun of them; God knows, in some future existence, any of us might be amongst them. But the point is, even given their circumstances, they will have children. And why? Because that is the very Darwinian power that drives the existence of born beings. It is, as the philosopher Schopenhauer well knew, a relentless power, an unstoppable force, which everywhere and in all things, seeks only to be; it is 'the will to exist'.

The whole point of philosophy is to be able to question that. To even be aware of the force that drives procreation, its power and relentlessness, and ask yourself 'should I be part of this?', is already to ask a philosophical question, a question that most humans, in their relentless drive to continue to exist, will never stop to ask.

Oh, and I have children; just one week hence, witnessed the birth of a first grand-child.

If we were able to know exactly when conception is possible then there would be no need of contraceptive devices at all.

Apparently you would consider abstinence during what you believed to be your wife's fertile period a form of contraception, and hence prohibited? This is not most religious people's idea of contraception. The rule for people who believe contraception is wrong seems to be to believe that sex (including blowjobs) for any purpose other than conception is also wrong. Abstinence would never be seen as a form of contraception, but rather as an expression of a sensible attitude towards how many children one could adequately care for.

Apparently you would consider abstinence during what you believed to be your wife's fertile period a form of contraception, and hence prohibited? This is not most religious people's idea of contraception. The rule for people who believe contraception is wrong seems to be to believe that sex (including blowjobs) for any purpose other than conception is also wrong. — Janus

I am going to respond in two posts, the first (below) will educate you on the religious debate (i don't mean this in a condescending way, but I was in those circles a long time). The second post will address your objection/evaluation of my position.

1. I never justified my position on contraception as murder as "what most religious people believe...." So that is quite irrelevant (and would be a fallacy, argumentum ad populum); nonetheless, this was the position of the reformers and early church fathers, for they permitted sexual conduct between spouses post-menopause, but argued that pregnancy prevention was murder. Calvin's commentary on Genesis 38 is quite informative on this strain. Likewise, Bryan C. Hodge's book the "The Christian Case Against Contraception" makes this very case and is a pretty recent work (it is available on Amazon and is a scholarly work in theology and exegesis).

Like positions in philosophy, such as idealism for instance, positions in theology have diverse sub-groups with their own proponents. The anti-contraception camp is no different and is split into two main groups with each subdivided into two further groups. Group A argues that contraception is generally immoral because it is contrary to God's design/desire for mankind. Group B argues that contraception is murder.

Group A includes conservative Roman Catholics and the Full-Quiver Evangelical types (e.g. the Duggars). The Roman Catholics of this group would argue that the primary purpose of sex is to reproduce, but permit family planning, just as long as no artificial contraception or other types of sexual conduct occur. The Evangelicals in this group argue that children are a blessing from God and that it is impious and lacks faith to practice contraception, but are ambiguous on other types of sexual conduct, but are generally pretty prudish to practice anything but vaginal intercourse in one of two positions....

Group B includes conservative members of the magisterial Reformation, a few hardcore Catholics, some conservative eastern orthodox, etc. all Group B members believe that contraception is murder, but this group is divided by the quesiton of "how" birth control is murder. B1 believes that human sperm is vitae actualis (actual life) and therefore affirm any non-procreative use of the seed as murder. B2 holds that sperm is only ever vitae potentialis (potential life) and is only vitae potentialis during the time of transition into vitae actualis which only occurs during a time when procreation is ordinarily possible; therefore, to intentionally prevent the transition from vitae potentialis to vitae actualis would be murder, and then only. A proponent of B1 is Charles Provan in his work "The Bible and Birth Control." and the Hodge book I mentioned is B2. I hold to B2.

We'd all be better off if we carnivores limited our meat consumption to 3 oz. of meat per day, on average--including fish and eggs (or 68 pounds a year). 3 oz. is the USDA recommendation for a 2000 calorie daily diet. It amounts to using meat as an enhancer, rather than a twice-a-day main course. The amount of animal protein a carnivore needs for good health just isn't that high.

Instead of 68 pounds a year, Americans on average eat an average 270 pounds of meat per year, or 12 oz. of meat per day. All that greatly exceeds what anyone needs.

Apparently you would consider abstinence during what you believed to be your wife's fertile period a form of contraception, and hence prohibited? — Janus

Yes, intentional and not incidental abstinence during my wife's fertile period would be a form of contraception under my position.

I agree, the less meat and dairy, the better.

When it comes to health, "muscles are muscles" matters not if they come from fish, chicken, cow or pig, the human body is not made to eat them.

Concerning dairy, well, you are better off with small anounts of meat than with any amount of dairy. No animal, wether omnivore, herbivore or carnivore drinks the milk of its prey in nature. The reason dairy is addicitive is becuase it contains enough opiates to keep a calf focused on coming back to the utter.

Nathan Pritikin told us everything we needed to know over 40 years ago.

https://www.drmcdougall.com/health/education/podcast/nathan-pritikin/

I have no children, and have never raised any, but I would like to say that in a world of over 147+million starving orphans; its impairitive that the majority of 1st world citiczens stop having children. Vesectomies should be government sponsored, advertised, free, and given at younger ages. — XanderTheGrey

So that our economies will require these starving third world folks to immigrate in order to stimulate our labor sector and thereby bring their fecundity and incompetence regarding resource allocation here? Wouldn't that just make the whole world to starve instead of just the third world as it currently stands?

I also think it should be advertised that vegan deits use several times less land, water and resources than traditional western style diets. That the entire world could be fed if each world power reduced their livestock production by ~10-20% and realocated the resulting surplus in grain to people. — XanderTheGrey

I already addressed this absurd argument in a different fashion earlier, the problem we have is neither population or food supply, but land management and resource allocation. We currently waste almost 50% of the produced food and the U.S. has more farmable hectares than the whole world is currently using, we increased the amount of food on fewer hectares significantly since the 1970s, and there is enough farmable land in the Guinea Plateau to more than double our current output. The reason orphans are staving has everything to do with their government and their own use of land and knowledge of agriculture. There is enough room in Texas for everyone in the world to live comfortably and the rest of the world could be used for agriculture. That is just simple math. The problem is political and logistical. don't throw out the baby with the bathwater (pun intended).

To All,

I have posted a thread in Ethics, Called the Pronatalist Master Argument.....check it out.

Especially you:

Edit: I changed the title to something catchier: "Is Contraception Murder."

Clearly I need to learn more about this subject. However I think we nearly agree, we both see that the world holds more than enough resources to give everyone a higher quality of life than anyone currently has now, yes?

My personal stance is that its not useful to be concerned with who fault anything is, world powers have the greatest or perhaps only capability to reshape the world.

Damn.

Fair enough. Perhaps we can have future interaction on this topic on a thread more specific to the question of how to ethically solve the problem of people & food, etc. As a personal advocate and practitioner of Permacultural technique, I think that would be an excellent area of discussion...From a philosophical perspective of course...

Permaculture is cool. A shame about the religious contamination in your thinking.

I'm off to plant a few potatoes.

A shame about the religious contamination in your thinking. — Banno

Well, feel free to cleanse me of my ways.

I know, it's such a drag that nicotine and its associated polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and ethanol should have such negative effects on us. Just thinking about it makes me want a beer and a cigarette, or several.

Did Ganymede know how much risk he was putting Zeus to when he brought him the god-sized flagon of gin?

Hi, Is there a motivation to bring a child to this world? (from a philosophical perspective of course) I lack such a motivation. — Prasad

There is no philosophy. It's built into us. It is something we do and were meant to do. What is your philosophy of eating and drinking? Which isn't to say that you can't decide not to have children. I know plenty of people who have. It seems to me that your lack of motivation represents something missing from you. Maybe you need a philosophy for that.

Does biochemistry apply to gods?

If biochemistry didn't apply to the gods, why were they drinking on Mt. Olympus? (granted, they were drinking nectar -- but what was that? High fructose corn syrup soft drink. Was Coca Cola stolen from the gods too? Also, there's a reference in the Gilgamesh epic, a sacrifice is offered to the gods who were hungry. "The gods gathered around the altar like flies in their eagerness to eat the meat." Apparently the Gods can chew.

When I googled Ganymede to check out what he was pouring, the first return was "Bizarre Bulge Found on Ganymede" -- I thought they were referring to a statue or a mosaic. Oh, intriguing! But no, just some moon.

So it wasn't the bulge that first entranced Zeus. It seems their tipple was just water.

There is enough room in Texas for everyone in the world to live comfortably — Victoribus Spolia

What a striking idea. I gather there are 695,662 km² in Texas and a world population of 7 billion. That's 10,000 people per square kilometre. How will Texans (as we all will be) feel about that? I hear people can be a little rough down there.