"Wanting a child" does not, in any way, shape, manner, or form, make a child into an aesthetic object. Most people want children because... they want children. They like children. They like the idea of raising up children to be good people. And, by and large, most children turn out to be "good people". They may be flawed; but they are basically "good". — Bitter Crank

I disagree. Certainly some may have children because they like the idea of contributing a positive influence in the community, but to say that all parents do this is a ridiculous generalization. Children are born all the time out of a pure desire for a child, and then later the parents end up hating the kid because they realize how much work it is.

If having a child was a purely rational action, no children would be born. There just is no good reason to have a child that justifies the risk.

Are disease and starvation good reasons not to have children? Quite possibly. If one is in the middle of a war, plague, or mass starvation, yes--probably a good time to hold off on having children. — Bitter Crank

Not only this, but what about when a community's supply of nutrients goes sour, or when the stability of society crumbles? All of this is unpredictable.

I'm sure if I asked you if you would want to go through any uncomfortable experience again, whether that be middle school or an interview for your first job, or if you would want to go through any uncomfortable experience for that matter, you would say no. It just makes me wonder why you then go on to say that it is perfectly acceptable to force another person to go through these trials, unnecessarily.

One of the biggest reasons why I continue to be opposed to birth is that I see absolutely no good reason to take the risk and have a child. It seems to me that the only arguments that the "natalist" has for having a child is that they 1.) want a child, 2.) believe deeply that their child will come out fine.

The first argument is one of selfishness and desire, one that makes a child out to be an aesthetic object rather than a human being. The second argument is one of utter ignorance, as there is no way a parent can know if their child will come out fine. There are certainly ways of telling if they will come out poorly (by looking at a person's genetics), but that is not a fail-safe, nor does it protect the child from dangers that will happen to them "extra-genetically"; i.e. without the influence of genetics.

Now, there are excellent arguments against having a child, one of which is the risk that is involved in birth. This argument can be further developed by appealing to the utter lack of necessity of birth. There is no extra-emotional reason to have a child. The child is not fulfilling a prophecy, or contributing to the inevitable apotheosis of humanity. The child will become quite literally just another one of the billions of people on the planet, eating and shitting and sleeping their way to death. All of the positive aspects of life are not guaranteed, nor are they something that should be used as a reason for creating a child.

Depends. If I had it my way, all sentient life would cease to procreate. Perhaps non-sentient life would also need to be stopped in case they evolve into sentience.

I don't understand.

I would like to say that I still do not find your definition of what makes an antinatalist convincing. If I am understanding correctly, those who don't have sex or don't have babies are to be considered antinatalistic. But the problem I see with this is that they are not intentionally being antinatalistic, they are only accidentally acting in such a way in that their actions would be compatible with antinatalism.

An ascetic who starves themselves, and then accidentally dies out of hunger, is not suicidal, and yet they happen to act in such a way that their actions are compatible with a suicidal person's.

Carry on with the ridicule, then.

This might be irrelevant but it seems to me that the arguments that are the most convincing yet startling get the greatest amount of ridicule.

After reading the paper, I think that Cabrera is right in criticizing Benatar's misuse of counterfactuals, but I disagree with his assessment that counterfactuals should be used.

For if counterfactuals are used, then we are left in the odd dilemma of potentially being obligated to bring people into existence, for their lack of pleasure would be a bad thing. This is absurd. Neither the absence of pleasure or pain have any moral weight for an unborn, potential person.

However, I would argue that this does not mean that antinatalism as a philosophy is wrong. There are alternate formulations that still lead to an antinatalistic conclusion: it could be argued that the initiation of suffering by birth is immoral (as is any non-consented infliction of suffering), and that nothing is gained nor lost by abstaining from birth. Or, at the very least, birth is unnecessary, at the worst, birth is a highly dangerous and reckless act of liberty-violation. Or perhaps if someone is concerned about the suffering on the planet as a whole, they might argue that stopping the suffering at its source, birth, is to be recommended.

Additionally, perhaps some version of Benatar's asymmetry can be salvaged. Perhaps it is not that the absence of pain is good, but that the proactive avoidance of pain is to be recommended while the initiation of pleasure is good if and only if there is not a sufficient amount of pain that comes along with it.

I contend, however, that the most plausible and obvious argument for antinatalism can be seen if one simply opens their eyes to the suffering in the world. If the world was blissful, and the only pain known was a stubbed toe or a pinprick, birth really wouldn't be immoral. But the fact is that life is completely unpredictable and filled with a lot of suffering.

Don't compare your life to others, and want more than most people have. Maybe most people are getting too much as it is. — Wosret

There are some expectations that just cannot be tamed, though. When you drive by a graveyard and suddenly get that sinking feeling that, yeah, you'll be there one day. Or watching a reality television show and then actually going out in reality and seeing how crappy it is. Or when you are all excited for your marathon only to break your leg the night before. The world is unable to provide for the expectations of the human psyche.

Life isn't fair, and it's easy to say this when things are going alright for you but as soon as things take a turn for the worse, it is you who gets the full-frontal assault and to say that this is not a bad thing is to be masochistic and delusional.

There's a reason why people need entertainment; it's a distraction from their lives. Otherwise we'd be bored out of our minds.

All of the mediocrity and suffering can be avoided by birth. To say otherwise is like to eat a piece of burnt toast and then force everyone else to eat a piece as well.

Actually my life took a turn for a worse, and I found refuge in Schopenhauer and the fellow pessimists. It wasn't a horrible catastrophe but it was enough to shake up my world view and make me realize just how ignorant I was of the human condition.

So if nobody else will get it, then what's the point of making arguments for it? — Pneumenon

I wasn't always an antinatalist.

Your claim is ambiguous. Outweighs in what sense? The most relevant sense would be in terms of it's effect on the overall value of life, rather than, say, in terms of the frequency of occurence or severity. It's arguable whether the weight of suffering outweighs the weight of pleasure and the weight of everything else valuable in life. Furthermore, you'd then have to successfully argue that the former outweighs the latter to such an extent that it renders the latter insufficient and dismissible. — Sapientia

Mediocrity is not "good enough". Every one of us is in the condition that a sufficient amount of pain can befall us that leads us to question our existence.

You say that as if it were an established fact. It isn't. — Sapientia

"It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain."
-Schopenhauer

This is Helen Keller's response to Schopenhauer:

"One who believes that the pain in the world outweighs the joy, and expresses that unhappy conviction, only adds to the pain. Schopenhauer is an enemy to the race. Even if he earnestly believed that this is the most wretched of possible worlds, he should not promulgate a doctrine which robs men of the incentive to fight with circumstance. If Life gave him ashes for bread, it was his fault. Life is a fair field, and the right will prosper if we stand by our guns."

Schopenhauer is not an enemy to the race, he is an individual who has decided that the rat race is not worth it. It is not necessarily his fault that life gave him ashes for bread, and it is far from fact that life is fair or that prosperity is guaranteed by determination. Keller, although admirable for her courage and perseverance, ultimately admits that Schopenhauer is right and that he ought to just stfu cause it's already bad enough. She is the perfect example of the human spirit and the drive for perfection, which is ultimately the only major part that I disagree with Schopenhauer on.

Nevertheless, if you doubt the claim that suffering outweighs pleasure in the world, you only have to look to the suffering of the prey compared to the pleasure of the predator (NSFW).

If we're talking about a homosexual person who goes and tries to encourage other non-homosexuals to engage in sex with him, then probably it does affect the well-being of the general public. — Agustino

True, but this is not exclusive to homosexuals.

Agustino, do you believe that a homosexual lifestyle affects the well-being of the general public?

Some of us acknowledge both the good and the bad in a more balanced way — Sapientia

This is where you are mistaken. Negative experiences far outweigh the positives. Those who look at the Sun, smile and say "life is good" are walking on the bones of their ancestors, the ancestors that lived and died under the Sun, constantly eating other organisms to survive, or competing with others to survive. Suffering is guaranteed, exuberant pleasure is not.

then it is indeed worth giving it a shot - at least if the circumstances aren't too bad. — Sapientia

Say you have a kid. The kid turns out to be an okay person with a decent life and no significant health problems. In all regards, this person is not incredible but neither are they shitty. Instead of it being an expectation that this outcome would occur, you are quite literally just lucky, and so are they, that they didn't turn out to have significant health problems or suffer immensely or turn into a psychopath that kills a ton of people.

There really is no excuse for having a child. It is completely unnecessary and is the ultimate risk.

OK, but I take it you don't approve of throwing surprise parties or giving presents. There's an unnecessary risk imposition. There's a chance that they won't want it. — Sapientia

True. This is an example of when the asymmetry and consent argument begins to break down. But a twenty dollar present is a small loss if they don't like it. That's why we don't spend a fortune on a gift that they may or may not like.

Riiiiiight. Is that supposed to be representative of everyone's life? There can be no happy ending? The world is a stage, but the play must be a tragedy?

Your narrative is impoverished, hyperbolic, and comically one-sided. — Sapientia

Nobody wants to be in this situation. Every parent wishes their child the best. And yet these situations, or analogous situations, do in fact exist. It's just that nobody wants to recognize it.

I don't think you'd be a very good poker player. Judging by your reasoning, you'd fold every hand, or refuse to even join the game! But that's not a very accurate analogy, because there are far more people who profit from life than who profit from poker. — Sapientia

This is not correct. I rather enjoy playing cards and know that there is a chance I may lose. Notice, I may lose, not someone else in the case of birth.

The risk imposition is necessary. It's necessary for humanity to continue to exist beyond the current generation, and that's a goal that most of humanity believes is worth pursuing (so it's not an irrational pursuit for most of humanity, either). — Sapientia

The risk imposition is completely unnecessary, as there is absolutely nothing of substantial value that is worth continuing without consent of those who must bear the burden of continuing the human race.

The value placed upon the continuation of the human race is purely irrational. There is no point in continuing it, and in fact there are good reasons to stop continuing it and allow it to fade out of existence. But the extinction of the human race (and other species presumably as well) is merely a by-product of antinatalism, not the overall goal. We're not pro-mortalists or pro-extinctionists.

And, ultimately, the human race will end, whether you like this fact or not. Entropy's a bitch. So continuing the species is merely kicking the can down the road.

For a balanced view, one must weigh this against the worth of the life that they've lived. Whether it would have been better not to have lived at all. Your error is to think that there can only be one right answer, which happens to be your own. — Sapientia

Someone can live a life of luxury as a prince of a slave nation. They may be one of those very lucky individuals in which suffering is unheard of. But then the slaves rise up and brutally torture and execute the prince, during which all of the past pleasure are entirely unimportant. They are gone. And now the prince is in so much excruciating pain that he wishes he had never been born at all.

There's a category error here that you seem to have made, given this analogy, and that TGW has definitely made in some form or another. Consent doesn't apply. There is no one to either consent or deny or to even consult. For the same reason, it's either false or nonsensical to say that it's against their will. — Sapientia

Do you think bringing a child into the world simply to torture it would be a violation of consent? You at least have to say that it would have been in the child's "best interests" to not have come into existence...but according to your argument, interests cannot be applied to non-existent entities. They have to first be born, and suffer, before they are morally important...what?

That analogy doesn't match up. In the former, you speak of a lack of concern, implying recklessness, but in the latter, you speak of a lack of knowledge, which doesn't necessarily imply recklessness. To be reckless is to not give due consideration to the risks, or to act with disregard of the risks. — Sapientia

But this is exactly what birth entails; an unnecessary risk imposition. The parent's process of "giving consideration" is usually quite little to even none at all, and it is always under the threat of optimism bias (it's always their child that gets the debilitating disease, not my child...and lo and behold the child ends up with a debilitating disease).

Also, you seem to be implying that death is bad, which is arguable. I don't think that death is, in itself, bad. Who actually wants to live forever, when they really think about it? Immortality is the epitome of the cliché "be careful what you wish for...". Death might mean the end to a fulfilling life: a life well lived. One might be prepared for it. It might even be quick and painless. — Sapientia

Death is bad only if someone does not want to die or is not ready to die. I would be willing to say that in most cases, people die either suddenly and when they do not wish to, or die after a grueling process of endurance. For people alive today, death is pushed back to the dark recesses of the mind in the same way taxes are pushed back (procrastinated). It is seen as a far-off problem that one must not focus on because there are "more important things to do".

The mere possibility of a bad life is not sufficient grounds to make a sensible judgement. That also applies to many a situation as a general rule of thumb. Do you avoid crossing roads? Not a fan of any of the more extreme sports? I've been skydiving, and I don't have a single regret about it. It was well worth it. It was possibly the most exhilarating experience of my life. — Sapientia

In those examples, you personally consented to risking your life, and everyone on the road consented to risking their lives, so there's no problem with that. But say you forced someone to skydive, and their chute failed and they plunged to their death...is that acceptable?

And if you asked the vast majority of living people if they'd rather have never been born, what do you think they'd say? If they said "no", are they wrong, or just confused? If the vast majority of people would say "no" (which I'm fairly confident they would), why would you expect a different answer from the unborn? If they're just wrong, and confused about wanting to be alive, again, why is it different? — Wosret

You are confusing a life worth continuing with a life worth starting, and clumping them together as a life worth living. It doesn't matter if the majority think they are glad they are born. Furthermore, there are good reasons to think that people's appropriation of their lives are flawed and stem from optimism biases.

Antinatalism is not an unreasonable view because it doesn't tell people to radically change their lifestyles. It advocates a single change in action that people can live without.

Special pleading. Why does unsolicited mercy killings not violate liberty and consent of potential people? Why can't you kill actually people based on the assumption that there is a chance that they would rather be dead than alive? — Wosret

Because what if they actually don't want to die? Then you'd be harming them. It's none of mine nor your business to be involved in the continuation or lack thereof of someone else's life.

So now you are the cause of their suffering? I thought you were just telling TGW about how that's straining the definition of "cause"? It must be only cool when you do it. — Wosret

You are correct, my mistake.

Anyway, if you throw a glass beer bottle out the window without concern about its trajectory, we would see this as neglect and immoral because you might kill someone. But expel a baby out of the womb of a woman without knowing the various trajectories in life the baby will have, and in fact knowing the ultimate final trajectory (death), for some reason this is supposed to be acceptable.

Unsolicited mercy killings are not preferable because it is violation of liberty and consent. One does not have to assume that potential people would rather be dead than alive, it is enough to assume that there is a chance that they will not want to be alive.

In the case of unsolicited mercy killings, you are enabling suffering that is ultimately in the realm of another person. In the case of potential people, you are causing suffering if you have a child.

Intentions are indeed important, but one also has to take into account ignorant neglect.

But how do we make moral judgement without considering the consequences?

I'm aware of those arguments, but I find that they all collapse into and have as their root some form of consequentialism. I only want to say for the moment that, on my moral presuppositions, which are not consequentialist, my position on birth follows. — Thorongil

I am of the opinion that non-consequentialist normative positions, like deontology or virtue ethics, are quasi-consequentialist in nature. Furthermore, it is a psychological fact that the world and its contents we perceive can be split into three categories of useful, dangerous, or neutral regardless of the intrinsic nature or lack thereof.

And even if you take a non-consequentialist position, such as deontology, you can still have an antinatalistic deontological theory based upon a normative rule that one shall not harm another without their consent, which is an intuitive and simple law. Or you can say that one must not take risks associated with an agent without the agent's consent. The non-identity problem does not make potential agents not morally important, either.

The root word "natal" refers to birth. When the prefix "anti" is applied to it and used as a noun, it can only mean "opposition to birth." I'm not opposed to birth, so I'm not an anti-natalist. But not being opposed to birth is not to be in favor of it. That would be a non-sequitur. The natalist has all his work still ahead of him to convince me of any positive reason for why birth is necessary or good. — Thorongil

If something is not good, it is either morally neutral or morally bad. If you are to take the position that birth is morally neutral, then this means that birth is entirely unnecessary but is not at all morally problematic.

Since you said that you are not opposed to birth, it is assumed that you mean that birth is of neutral moral value.

If this is the case, then I think you have a large project ahead of you to prove this claim, as there is significant and difficult arguments that attempt to show that birth is actually of negative moral value.

So now it is you that seems to be re-defining terms. You can't have it both ways.

Of course the hurricane is too. — The Great Whatever

It's stupid because you enabled the hurricane to wreak havoc on the house.

According to your logic, parents must be murderers because they condemn their children to death since every life form dies. It's a nifty, catchy, angsty little aphorism that you might see in the works of Cioran or Ligotti and co., but outside of that it's really just desperate special pleading.

One suffers just by virtue of being alive; there is no way to be alive without suffering or being threatened with suffering by that very fact. You would have to change very basic material circumstances, like ending the notion of hunger, to change this. — The Great Whatever

Bleh, you're equating pain to suffering. A little bit of hunger, a little bit of discomfort, can be seen as a notification. Extreme hunger is suffering. It's a matter of degree and also of kind; if pain becomes too great that meaning or purpose cannot be derived from it, it becomes suffering.

It looks to me like you're the one playing word games -- your post all but admits that birth causes suffering and then special pleads to say it doesn't (i.e. the one who introduces a seeming non-distinction between 'causing' and 'enabling' is playing the word games). It's not relevant to the point, and drawing a terminological distinction, even if you could justify it (which I don't think you have) won't help. — The Great Whatever

You failed to consider my overall point, though. To say that birth causes suffering is misleading; it's catchy and easy to say that it does, but in fact it does not unless you are willing to equivocate and use the word "cause" outside of its usual definition.

Like I said, building a house in Florida does not cause the destruction of the house. The hurricane causes it. Can it be a bad idea to build a house in Florida right in the middle of a hurricane red zone? Yes. But that does not cause the destruction of the house, it only enables it.

Enabling can be just as bad, but it would be misleading to say that birth causes suffering because it conjures ideas that as soon as someone flies out of the womb, they begin suffering when it's nothing like that. External happenings cause someone to feel suffering, which is ultimately enabled by birth.

Forced chemical happiness, bliss as the response to every foreseeable circumstance isn't hollow, and somehow promotes personal growth and deep insight? — Wosret

The feeling of hollowness is also grounded in a chemical process in your brain. Presumably, all negative feelings could be banished, and the value arithmetic would be radically changed so that conflict is not required for meaning. It seems to me that technology like this is the only way to transcend the barbarism of daily life.

The cause of all these is birth. — The Great Whatever

Birth does not cause suffering, it enables suffering. Building a house in Florida does not cause the house to be destroyed, the hurricane is what causes the destruction of the house.

To be sure, suffering would not exist without birth. But it would be equivocation to say that birth causes suffering when in fact it does not. These kinds of semantic word play arguments are meant to act like a "gotcha!" poke instead of actually proving anything.

You should read this.

Wosret seems to be arguing the route that Nietzsche did regarding Schopenhauer; that the latter was much too decadent and became weak and posh, thus culminating in his gloomy appropriation of the world.

To a point, pain is necessary for life to have meaning, at least life in its current form. Perhaps theoretically we could change the chemical makeup of the human brain so that no pain is necessary for meaning. Perhaps in the theoretical future, the ancestors of our generations will view any kind of discomfort as pathological. But the point is that it's not a cosmic fundamental law that meaning requires pain/conflict, just that its a current fact based on our biological makeup.

The trouble here is that you can't seem to have meaning (or, as I like to see it, a heroic narrative), without there being risk as well as pain. There is pain, but there is also suffering. Suffering creates the risk. And so it seems like a Catch-22 in which, if we were to eliminate suffering but not pain, then there would be no risk, and therefore there would be no hero; for what would there be to overcome/triumph?

If life is set out in front of us with no risk, then there is no meaning because there is no conflict, there is no motivation. But if one should fail in their endeavors, and therefore suffer, suddenly meaning really doesn't have any part of the equation. Meaning goes out the window as soon as someone begins to profusely suffer. Existence, instead of being a heroic game, becomes a thing to endure and wish was better.

And this, in my opinion, is precisely why birth can be seen as a tragic event. The future is unknown, and therefore optimistic foreshadowing is useless and may lead to considerable harm.

Agreed.

Calk it up to personal thresholds, I guess. — Wosret

That, or just luck.

A lot of pain is not preferable to boredom, I would assume.

If you have to actually temper your hopes and expectations for something less than adequate, it makes this whole thing seem quite pathetic.

It can be difficult to lower one's expectations to the point where they aren't expectations at all and still be pleased by a result. I agree the being prepared for disappointment will make the disappointment less annoying, but it does not give someone pleasure or satisfaction. I just gives them a feeling of disillusionment.

And making something interesting does not take away the pain of some situations.

To a point, living on the edge is fun. Being an Absurd (wo)man can be exciting and rebellious.

But sooner or later, and often more than expected, you get knocked down and disappointed, if not seriously hurt. It takes all the fun out of the game.

Although I agree that in some cases the first world natives are too posh and delicate, it would seem that drama and pain, particularly drama, makes life worth living so long as you are not participating in the drama or misery.

We love and are entertained by music, television shows/movies, video games, literature, and even advertisements/propaganda that deifies the hero. We love conflict and drama, so long as we are not actually participating in it. We love watching war movies, but actually being in the scenario of the war movie would suck major. Some of us enjoy playing video games that worship the hero and paint violence, conflict, misery, and drama in an interesting light; it basically acts as a distraction to keep us from twiddling our thumbs out of boredom. But throw any one of us in such a scenario, and I can guarantee that only the psychopaths are the ones that will not want to immediately leave.

Basically, we require a heroic narrative, a story of success, triumph, and glory to continue to live.