On what basis are you making this claim? — Isaac

That it's stupid? No basis. But I'm sure we can agree that a moral commandment to undo 10mm nuts is stupid.

To clarify before you conflate them again: No basis =/= No natrualistic explanation for why I think so. If you are asking me to provide an account of the neural activity that led to me thinking that a moral commandment to undo 10mm nuts is stupid then I can't do that (if such a thing even makes sense).

That it can be a moral commandment? Because it is talking about what you should do, and is done for its own sake.

That it can be a moral commandment? Because it is talking about what you should do, and is done for its own sake. — khaled

Yes, that one. Where are you getting this definition from?

Yes, that one. Where are you getting this definition from? — Isaac

You make it sound like there is some set definition of the word. Where do you get yours from? Silly question.

The world is not ideal. It is what it is. However, we can think of a more ideal world. It would be wrong to put anyone in a world that isn't the most ideal world. There's only three things people will do in this case to try to counter this.

1) Equate the actual world with an ideal world. This is just false because if you can ever evaluate a task/situation where you would rather it have been different, than you already have a more ideal world. It's easier to pull out some Eastern/Buddhist crap to say that it is our expectations and mental attachments on things.. but that's not how it works (via experience in living daily life). Even if it is true, the fact that we need the Eastern thought is the more ideal state that we are not at yet so by way of self-refutation it is wrong.

2) Claim that if people weren't born, they wouldn't even know there was an ideal world, ergo, people need to be born to realize this sad truth that this isn't an ideal world. That is just ridiculous even on its face. That's like saying, suffering doesn't exist unless someone suffers to know it sucks, so we better bring more suffering so that it can exist to know it sucks. Doesn't compute.

3) Claim that the actual world is good enough to be born into. But this is like saying that it is good to create situations of impositions that are inescapable. So, if the actual world has the imposition of needing to survive and this causes all sorts of stress, anxiety, harms, and that this cannot be escaped by going to a more ideal world, but only by suicide, this is not an optimal situation to impose on anyone.

Here’s my take on anti-natalism. I begin from a psychological analysis of the concept of choice, freedom and will. To choose anything, or to have one’s choice thwarted, implies desire, want, goal-directedness, purposiveness Such purposiveness in turn implies a system, field
or gestalt, a pattern of interaction with the world. I like Piaget’s way of defining need in relation to such a behavioral system. He says that Need is the expression of a totality momentarily incomplete and tending toward reconstituting itself. So that which we choose furthers our goals and that which takes away our freedom is that which acts as an obstacle to our achieving our goals.

Note that, unlike older notions of pleasure as being connected to a state of quiescence and absence of activity, constructivist and enactivist notions of fulfillment of need and desire make them synonymous with an increase in organizational coherence. Desire is an active notion, pertaining to a system
of sense making that aims toward an ever more harmonious balance between differentiation and integration.,what Piaget called progressive equilibration.

At any rate, from this perspective , suicide is a life-affirming desire in that, in aiming for the cessation of pain, it desires the elimination of that which obstructs and interrupts goal-directed ness. It may sound strange to suggest that wanting to off yourself is life-affirming , but dreaming of or craving nothingness is aiming only at a change. The idea of pure nothingness in itself is incoherent.

When we think about death or pure nothing we are thinking of an active comparison, a transformation, a differential. As soon as we take away what we compare the nothingness to, nothingness itself
vanishes. In order for us to think of nothingness, we must continually re-think an active change from
one state to another. So pure absence of being has no meaning in itself for us. All we can ever experience, care about, desire, etc, is the continutiy of our cognitive functioning and the overcoming of obstacles to that continuity.

In this context, what would it mean to wish to have never been born?It would be similar to wishing suicide, the desire to overcome an obstacle to the goal-directed integrity of thinking.

Again, we’re not actually imagining non- being, even though we think that’s what we’re doing when we dream about how nice it would be not to ever have been born. The ‘niceness’ or ‘ relief’ or peace we associate with non-being is peaceful in same way that any other change in thinking is peaceful, by moving past an interruption in active goal-oriented cognitive activity.

Desire knows nothing of non-being, only different forms of movement of thought.

So what does it mean, then, to claim
that our freedom of choice has been taken away by being born. ? We
certainly didn’t have a choice in the matter, did we?

But keep in mind that ‘freedom of choice’ requires a thwarting of willing and desiring, an interruption of or obstacle to our goals by the actions of another. In other words , violation of freedom of choice is an event that takes place within a functioning cognitive system. But what if that event takes place (conceiving a child) before the system in question has come into existence?

It would be pointing out the obvious to state that ‘I’ am not the one whose freedom of choice was thwarted by someone’s else choosing to have me be born, ‘I’ had no say in the matter since there was no ‘I’ at that point. The particular ‘I’ who had no say in being born also had no say in any of the events that took place since the beginning of the universe up till the moment of their conception. But none of those events affected ‘me’ , neither benefiting ‘me’ nor violating
my right to choose, since there was as yet no ‘me’ to have desires that could be thwarted.

The key point is that anti-natalism confuses elimination of pain with absence of being. You don’t take away MY pain by not having me be born in the first place. You only take away MY pain by giving me the choice of removing an obstacle that is interrupting my ongoing self-functioning. If I choose suicide, I havent chosen ‘non-being ‘ , since that notion has no meaning in itself. I have only chosen that way of thinking which reduces pain, provides a sense of relief , and so ENHANCES my functioning.

The key point is that anti-natalism confuses elimination of pain with absence of being. You don’t take away MY pain by not having me be born in the first place. You only take away MY pain by giving me the choice of removing an obstacle that is interrupting my ongoing self-functioning. If I choose suicide, I havent chosen ‘non-being ‘ , since that notion has no meaning in itself. I have only chosen that way of thinking which reduces pain, provides a sense of relief , and so ENHANCES my functioning. — Joshs

Um, antinatalism isn't about the already existing person. It is about the future person. Also, oddly, your points are already predicted and refuted in the post I made right above the one you chose to write here.

See points 1-3. https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/483507

In this context, what would it mean to wish to have never been born? — Joshs

Nothing. Agreed.

we dream about how nice it would be not to ever have been born — Joshs

No one is doing this in this thread. We are instead predicting how likely it is that it would suck to be born. And the chance is greater than 0. So don't take it with someone else, because you're not the one paying the consequences.

that our freedom of choice has been taken away by being born. ? — Joshs

No one has claimed this in this thread.

You don’t take away MY pain by not having me be born in the first place. You only take away MY pain by giving me the choice of removing an obstacle that is interrupting my ongoing self-functioning. If I choose suicide, I havent chosen ‘non-being ‘ , since that notion has no meaning in itself. I have only chosen that way of thinking which reduces pain, provides a sense of relief , and so ENHANCES my functioning. — Joshs

Agreed.

However by choosing to have a child you take a non zero risk of them having a shit life despite your best efforts. The act risks harming someone. Normally we would need some justification to take such an act then, but that is not present here. That is the argument.

Antinatalism isn't about helping non existent people. An antinatalist does NOT claim that not having children is good. On the other hand he claims having them is bad. Similar to how "not shooting people" is not a good act, but shooting them is bad. Because shooting people has a significant risk of causing unjustified harm. And having children has a slight risk of causing unjustified harm, so it gets the same treatment.

This seems a very obvious point, but it's not one that the anti-natalists here accept, so there must be some fundamental disagreement about the basics of the argument involved. — Echarmion

I think it is that you guys think we consider "not having children" as a good act. It isn't. Having children is a bad act. That doesn't make the opposite good. The opposite (not having children) is not good or bad, because it doesn't harm or benefit anyone.

Put simply, the goal of antinatalism was never the elimination of pain, as that would require the existence of someone whose pain you're eliminating. The goal was not to cause pain. So the fact that the elimination of pain is not the same as absence of being is irrelevant.

The key point is that anti-natalism confuses elimination of pain with absence of being. — Joshs

This seems a very obvious point, but it's not one that the anti-natalists here accept, so there must be some fundamental disagreement about the basics of the argument involved. Unfortunately, I have been so far unable to figure out just how exactly this fundamental disagreement comes about.

Bad metaphysics which they handwave at as "semantics" is my experience.

This seems a very obvious point, but it's not one that the anti-natalists here accept, so there must be some fundamental disagreement about the basics of the argument involved. Unfortunately, I have been so far unable to figure out just how exactly this fundamental disagreement comes about. — Echarmion

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/483829

Bad metaphysics which they handwave at as "semantics" is my experience. — Benkei

Also https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/483829

Put simply, the goal of antinatalism was never the elimination of pain. The goal was not to cause pain. So the fact that the elimination of pain is not the same as absence of being is irrelevant. — khaled

Good points.

I think it is that you guys think we consider "not having children" as a good act. It isn't. Having children is a bad act. That doesn't make the opposite good. The opposite (not having children) is not good or bad, because it doesn't harm or benefit anyone.

Put simply, the goal of antinatalism was never the elimination of pain, as that would require the existence of someone whose pain you're eliminating. The goal was not to cause pain. So the fact that the elimination of pain is not the same as absence of being is irrelevant. — khaled

The problem is I don't see how "do not cause pain" can possibly be a reasonable goal in isolation. In the abstract, pain is just a fact of the universe. It's a bit like making a rule not to strengthen magnetic fields.

The entire reason we care about pain is because we care about people. If your solution to pain is to prevent people from existing in the first place, you're totally missing the point.

So conduct a poll. See what percentage of the population thinks it would have been better if they hadn’t been born, and whether there is too much pain for it to be worth being brought into this world. Let’s say 30% agree with anti-natalism and 70% say they felt the pain in their life was worth it and they are glad that they were born. So if you’re trying to make a proxy decision for the yet to be born, that poll should tell you that the odds are 70% you are not doing the yet to be born any favors. Most would be saying they don’t mind the pain and your decision ‘deprived’ them of life.

Meanwhile, you as the anti-natalist are very much alive, and while the decision you make not to bring a life into the world is designed to ‘prevent causing pain’ in another, it has a paradoxical effect. Because it at the same time is relieving your pain. That is , your decision on behalf of the yet to be born resolves a dilemma, problem or dissatisfaction within you. It eliminates or reduces your pain (felt on behalf of others). So your voting for ‘non-being’ enhances and
furthers the functioning of your cognitive system. One could say your decision against another’s birth is a kind of fecundity. You are after all a self-organizing complex system , and your vote on behalf of ‘non-being’ does what all personal choices do , it increases the complexity of your living system by resolving interruptions in its functioning and therefore transforming and strengthening itself further. Your vote for the other’s non-being was at the same time a vote for the affirmation and enhancement of your own life vector. This is why I think that the motive of not wanting to CAUSE suffering in others cannot be separated from the ELIMINATION of suffering in yourself. Not just because you would not be motivated
to do the former if it didnt also achieve the latter. But because the two are really one motivation.

My point isn’t that all supposedly altruistic acts are
really selfish. Benefiting others benefits ourselves because our personal and social welfare are inextricably intertwined. It’s that not wanting to cause suffering is in the service of life enhancement, even when couched in the confused terms of anti-natalism.

So while anti-natalists think the terms of the debate are about being versus non-being, they’re really about how best to move forward in life.

So while anti-natalists think the terms of the debate are about being versus non-being, they’re really about how best to move forward in life. — Joshs

I actually don't mind this interpretation. Certainly by having children, an existential stance is being made on how to move forward in life. It is an ideology of a way of life that is literally replicated in another person who will be involved in some way in the socio-cultural-political-economic sphere of the society they are born into. It is a stance on how things are, and an affirmative for perpetuating that way of life. The pessimist/antinatalist takes a "no" stance on this perpetuation. It stops here. I don't speak for all antinatalists though. Certainly for the philosophical pessimist variants, this makes sense.

I've posted stuff previously about how procreation is actually an a political act. It is a stance on behalf of someone else, that they need to live the life that the parent deems needs to be lived out by this new person.

Most would be saying they don’t mind the pain and your decision ‘deprived’ them of life. — Joshs

Nothing exists to suffer the deprivation, or to miss out on the good in life. Children are not out there somewhere in the aether, suffering from lack of embodiment. Preventing suffering takes precedence over the creation of pleasure, especially when not creating 'good lives' does not harm the unborn. It's an unjustifiable risk to create life where it needn't have existed in the first place. You are essentially gambling with the potential welfare of another person, yet if the dice roll is unlucky, it's somebody else that suffers the loss. There is no moral obligation to make this gamble. People don't need to be born - there's nothing wrong with non-existence, while on the other hand human embodiment contains serious harms.

“ Preventing suffering takes precedence over the creation of pleasure, especially when not creating 'good lives' does not harm the unborn. It's an unjustifiable risk to create life where it needn't have existed in the first place.“

This is your opinion. That’s what makes it a political issue, and why you have to honor the voices of those already living who say that preventing suffering does not take precedence over the creation of pleasure, and it is not an unjustified risk to create life. They are speaking from their own experience , just as you are. Why are you a better proxy for those not yet born than these other voices? Especially if they are the majority? Maybe your unhappy life gives you a skewed perspective.

One wonders why there are not more suicides. Many who don’t contemplate suicide have had much suffering in their life, and yet they view each new day as if they are potentially reborn, with a new chance at meaningful existence. Even though they know what great pain may lie ahead, they clearly don’t believe that choosing to be ‘born again’ into the next new day is an unjustifiable risk where they needn't ‘re-birth’ themselves into new life in the first place. They could choose preventing further suffering over the creation of pleasure , but they don’t. Why? Perhaps because even the suffering has meaning and value to them. If they feel this way about their own lives, maybe you can see why they feel the same about conceiving children.

Furthermore, isn’t choosing the benefit of the many over the suffering of the few the basis of modem legal systems and governance? Remember, the political issue here isn’t about preventing the birth of everyone who might suffer, it’s about preventiing the birth of those whose suffering would cause them to regret having been born and to support anti-natalism, and that I imagine is a small fraction of the population.

Having children benefits society in myriad ways, and leaves only a small fraction wishing they had never been born. If the measure of success of the anti-natalist movement ( if there is such a thing) is a cessation of reproduction, then let’s examine the consequences of this. It will lead over time to a progressive deterioration of the quality of life as populations dwindle
down to nothing. This in turn will cause wide-scale
suffering. If in this extreme hypothetical all of humanity wiped itself out ( not sure if this is the goal of anti-natalism) , eventually the species would re-appear, as evolution likes to repeat itself. So the cycle would have to continue over and over. This sounds to me like an awful lot of needless suffering. Let’s look at an alternative scenario: human ingenuity evolves more and more reliable ways to reduce suffering and promote happiness, and eventually figures out how to genetically engineer immortality, providing an alternative to procreation. This sounds to me like a more ethical program from the standpoint of preventing suffering than letting society dwindle to nothing just so it can eventually re-evolve and have to be tamped down over and over in spasms of cataclysmic suffering

I think the lesson here is you can try to quash life in the aim of preventing suffering, but life will
always re-emerge one way or another anyway, so really the only ethical direction is embracing and improving life.

One wonders why there are not more suicides. Many who don’t contemplate suicide have had much suffering in their life, and yet they view each new day as if they are potentially reborn, with a new chance at meaningful existence. Even though they know what great pain may lie ahead, they clearly don’t believe that choosing to be ‘born again’ into the next new day is an unjustifiable risk where they needn't ‘re-birth’ themselves into new life in the first place. They could choose preventing further suffering over the creation of pleasure , but they don’t. Why? Perhaps because even the suffering has meaning and value to them. If they feel this way about their own lives, maybe you can see why they feel the same about conceiving children. — Joshs

This is another natalist trope.. that because people don't commit suicide all over the place, that must mean that the decision to create another human who will suffer must be justified. Again, look at my post that actually predicted pretty much all of your arguments..

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/483507

A life starting and continuing are different. The choice itself of "Well, you just have to live this out or kill yourself" is an unfair choice, cold comfort really.

is your goal the elimination of the human race? Because not procreating on a wide scale isnt a zero sum game. You’re trading the potential suffering of the not yet born for the real suffering youre causing for many people if you eliminate procreation.

This is your opinion. — Joshs

Compare two people - one of whom is starving, while the other is simply not experiencing taste pleasure. There is a moral urgency to prevent the starvation of the first person, yet inducing taste pleasure in the second lacks this same urgency.

Why are you a better proxy for those not yet born than these other voices? — Joshs

"Not yet born", is a poetic turn of phrase - there is no referent for the term. I'm not speaking on behalf of anyone or anything (literally), which is precisely the point - nothing exists to suffer from lack of life.

“A life starting and continuing are different. The choice itself of "Well, you just have to live this out or kill yourself" is an unfair choice, cold comfort really.”

You’re still not dealing with the central political issue. The only people you can put in your camp are those who support anti-natalism , not those who have suffered in their life but nonetheless believe life is worth living , and procreation also. So your mission can’t simply be to prevent suffering. It has to be to prevent the suffering of those who , when born, would grow up to believe they shouldn’t have been exposed to the risk of suffering. How large a group so you think this is?

“"Not yet born", is a poetic turn of phrase - there is no referent for the term. I'm not speaking on behalf of anyone or anything (literally), which is precisely the point - nothing exists to suffer from lack of life.”

Just substitute ‘would have been born’ for ‘not yet born’.



You are speaking on behalf of that sliver of humanity that believes that we should not expose future generations to the risk of a suffering that would lead them to become anti-nataliats, and I distinguish this group from that group that believes that giving birth is exposing future generations to worthwhile suffering.

As I wrote to Schopenhauer, if you want to eliminate procreation this isn’t a zero-sum game because you’re trading off the potential suffering of the not yet born anti-natalist for the real suffering you would cause in many living people.

“This is another natalist trope.. that because people don't commit suicide all over the place, that must mean that because people don't commit suicide all over the place, that must mean that the decision to create another human who will suffer must be justified.”

My point isn’t that not killing oneself in and of itself means that one believes the decision to create another human who will suffer must be justified.” It is that I believe that most of them do believe it is justified, in spite of their misery, because they equate the gamble involved in a life starting and one continuing.

So your mission can’t simply be to prevent suffering. It has to be to prevent the suffering of those who , when born, would grow up to believe they shouldn’t have been exposed to the risk of suffering. How large a group so you think this is? — Joshs

I refer you back to what @Inyenzi says.. there is no referent of the unborn that will suffer not being born. There will be someone who suffers if born. No one actually loses out in a situation of no person born (that could have been let's say). A person will be born and will be harmed.

My point isn’t that not killing oneself in and of itself means that one believes the decision to create another human who will suffer must be justified.” It is that I believe that most of them do believe it is justified, in spite of their misery, because they equate a life starting and one continuing. — Joshs

You make an impossible situation, and you still haven't read my post probably that I keep referring to. You think people ought to live to "know" if living was worth it. The antinatalist side would simply say, harm can be prevented, and no one suffers from not being born. Period. You are trying to subtly do the tree falling in the woods argument. If no one exists to know about suffering, who is this "for"? People need to exist to evaluate this pain, according to you.. But they don't. People don't have to exist to evaluate anything, and no "one" is losing out for this. However, once born, it is too late. Someone will be harmed. That someone also exists to evaluate this, doesn't matter. We don't need people to exist so that suffering can be evaluated. If you would be creating unnecessary suffering on someone else's behalf, and there is no actual person who needs to suffer in the first place, then don't create this unnecessary suffering. It's not like they exist already, and you are preventing a future of even more suffering (like a vaccine or something), but rather, there was no conditions of suffering for a person to begin with, and then you are creating this from whole cloth, unnecessarily. No good that.

The problem is I don't see how "do not cause pain" can possibly be a reasonable goal in isolation. In the abstract, pain is just a fact of the universe. It's a bit like making a rule not to strengthen magnetic fields. — Echarmion

But I'm sure we can agree there is a difference caused between the pain that you experience when you stub your toe and when I punch you in the face. The difference being that I am directly reponsible for one. The goal of antinatalism is to cause as little of the latter as possible while ensuring you yourself survive. With having kids you are responsible for every pain and pleasure they go through. Because none of it would have happened without you. And you didn't need it to survive.

And making a rule not to strengthen magnetic fields is fine, it's just dumb.

But khaled, according to @Joshs, most people will have wanted to have been born, and think that it was justified for the parents to cause the harm. The end. End of story. Go home, pack your bags, end of debate.

See what percentage of the population thinks it would have been better if they hadn’t been born — Joshs

We agreed the question makes no sense so I'm not sure what the poll is supposed to accomplish.

So if you’re trying to make a proxy decision for the yet to be born, that poll should tell you that the odds are 70% you are not doing the yet to be born any favors. — Joshs

Again, we agreed that you don't do the not-yet-to-be-born favors at all, period, because they don't exist. I think you mean "there is a 70% chance that your next child will find their life worthwhile".

Let's say I have a drug that has a 70% chance of immunizing people to COVID and a 30% chance of giving them COVID. Am I within my rights to go around putting it in people's food without telling them?

Meanwhile, you as the anti-natalist are very much alive, and while the decision you make not to bring a life into the world is designed to ‘prevent causing pain’ in another, it has a paradoxical effect. Because it at the same time is relieving your pain. That is , your decision on behalf of the yet to be born resolves a dilemma, problem or dissatisfaction within you. It eliminates or reduces your pain (felt on behalf of others). So your voting for ‘non-being’ enhances and
furthers the functioning of your cognitive system. One could say your decision against another’s birth is a kind of fecundity. You are after all a self-organizing complex system , and your vote on behalf of ‘non-being’ does what all personal choices do , it increases the complexity of your living system by resolving interruptions in its functioning and therefore transforming and strengthening itself further. Your vote for the other’s non-being was at the same time a vote for the affirmation and enhancement of your own life vector. This is why I think that the motive of not wanting to CAUSE suffering in others cannot be separated from the ELIMINATION of suffering in yourself. Not just because you would not be motivated
to do the former if it didnt also achieve the latter. But because the two are really one motivation.

My point isn’t that all supposedly altruistic acts are
really selfish. Benefiting others benefits ourselves because our personal and social welfare are inextricably intertwined. It’s that not wanting to cause suffering is in the service of life enhancement, even when couched in the confused terms of anti-natalism.

So while anti-natalists think the terms of the debate are about being versus non-being, they’re really about how best to move forward in life. — Joshs

Mostly agreed but none of this is a rebuttal. For the 100th time, I NEVER claimed that "not having children" is altruistic. I don't know why everyone here thinks ANs think that. No one has claimed that not having children is altruistic, on the other had having them is bad.

“ Preventing suffering takes precedence over the creation of pleasure, especially when not creating 'good lives' does not harm the unborn. It's an unjustifiable risk to create life where it needn't have existed in the first place.“

This is your opinion. That’s what makes it a political issue, and why you have to honor the voices of those already living who say that preventing suffering does not take precedence over the creation of pleasure, and it is not an unjustified risk to create life. They are speaking from their own experience , just as you are. Why are you a better proxy for those not yet born than these other voices? Especially if they are the majority? Maybe your unhappy life gives you a skewed perspective. — Joshs

"They are the majority therefore they are right, you're just sad". Has to be the worst thing I've read in recent memory. I know it isn't directed at me but it is still pretty pathetic.

Though I do agree that it is an opinion and that it is possible to hold a different one.

They could choose preventing further suffering over the creation of pleasure , but they don’t. Why? Perhaps because even the suffering has meaning and value to them. If they feel this way about their own lives, maybe you can see why they feel the same about conceiving children. — Joshs

So if I find purpose in your suffering I get to cause you to suffer? If I for some reason derive an immense amount of pleasure and purpose by torturing people I can just go around torturing people?

I don't think anyone in their right mind believes that if they find pupose in some suffering or other that that gives them permission to inflict it on others.

As Inyenzi said

Is it that the people who regret having been born are essentially collateral damage justified by the majority who don't? — Inyenzi

I think the lesson here is you can try to quash life in the aim of preventing suffering, but life will
always re-emerge one way or another anyway, so really the only ethical direction is embracing and improving life. — Joshs

"I predict your moral premise cannot be enforced therefore you shouldn't have it". Is a close second in terms of worst things I read in recent memory. "You will never be able to prevent theft entirely therefore theft is okay".

Also note that "embracing and improving life" doesn't contradict antinatalism.

if you want to eliminate procreation this isn’t a zero-sum game because you’re trading off the potential suffering of the not yet born anti-natalist for the real suffering you would cause in many living people. — Joshs

So what you're saying is that we ought procreate so that the future people can be used as a means to reduce/prevent the suffering of the already living?

Remember, the political issue here isn’t about preventing the birth of everyone who might suffer, it’s about preventiing the birth of those whose suffering would cause them to regret having been born and to support anti-natalism, and that I imagine is a small fraction of the population. — Joshs

Antinatalists seek to prevent all human suffering - regardless of whatever philosophical position the child would have ended up adopting. Can you spell out exactly what you're implying when you say, "I imagine is a small fraction of the population"? Is it that the people who regret having been born are essentially collateral damage justified by the majority who don't?

“ So what you're saying is that we ought procreate so that the future people can be used as a means to reduce/prevent the suffering of the already living?”

Most of the future people will also say that they are grateful they were born. So between them and the current generation who benefit from their birth, there’s a much larger consensus in favor of procreation than against it. You’ll have to convince people to be much more miserable if you want your movement to catch fire. That could very well happen, especially in rural
areas of Western countries, where suicide and addiction is rampant , and fewer men are marrying.


“Antinatalists seek to prevent all human suffering - regardless of whatever philosophical position the child would have ended up adopting.”
So you would run roughshod over the views of some of those those who you are claiming to help? Would you also try and prevent the suffering of masochists? Not all suffering is the same. I can understand to some extent you’re acting on behalf of preventing the kind of suffering that would lead someone to say that they regret having been born, that their suffering was so great that it wasn’t worth it, or that you’re prepared to accept the risk of preventing the births of those whose suffering would have been worth it along with those whose suffering would have led them to become anti-natalists. But if you’re trying to say that you’re lumping all suffering together as requiring your moral imperative my response is that you’re turning the concept of suffering into a meaningless term.