Nearly two years ago, I brought up the subject of antinatalism here, and the arguments that ensued in the comments thread were impassioned, long-winded, and hysterically funny.
I’ve just discovered that the argument about antinatalism is still going strong, so if you missed it, check up on it here and here. I think the proponents of this belief system are not only wrong but tragically unglued. They appear to be desperately trapped in an endless loop of faulty logic, with no evident escape.
Enjoy!
Hmm…I don’t particularly want to have kids….not because they will suffer though. The way I see it is there’s enough people in the world popping them out and that many unwanted children, why should I, a well off white person need to add to that? Does that make me an antinatalist??
IMHO they should relax adoption laws – particularly in Australia as it’s near on impossible to adopt here.
I guess it’s survival – everyone wants their OWN blood and their OWN race to progress or whatever….I just have no connection to that. As much as my Mum is horrified at the thought, I just really don’t care about having spawn.
People are so cute.
They all need their hobbies.
XuXu
http://www.frenchshelter.blogspot.com
“I think the proponents of this belief system are not only wrong but tragically unglued. They appear to be desperately trapped in an endless loop of faulty logic, with no evident escape.”
You are right on target!
Is this the philosophy on which the Church of Euthanasia was built? Honestly, I’ll take them over the Quiverfulls.
I’m in awe of Matthew Cromer and his rationalization not rationality remark! That’s the sort of talk that would get me into bed and attempt procreation type behaviour.
I don’t want children, but if other people do, it’s not my place to tell them not to. Though the real and horrible effects of overpopulation do suck, it doesn’t mean life isn’t worth living (and neither is suicide something to be joked about or judged, if someone decided they’d had enough). And honestly, overconsumption (which is a choice available to a small chunk of the population of the developed world) can be every bit as awful as the mere presence of new people (who don’t really have a say in getting born).
Well when it comes to feed animals, believe me, they would rather not be born than to be raised in factory farms, treated inhumanely, and then slaughtered in cruel and unusual ways. All factory farm animals believe in antinatalism (as a Bessie the Buddha cow I can speak for them); so does anything in a small cage, with no freedom, sunlight, company, challenge, etc! So do most Buddhist monks. If there are no people there can be no suffering.
Me, on the other hand, I wish I had 10 children instead of one! The joy of motherhood is beyond measure (not that it doesn’t have it’s heartbreaks too). I feel if we, as in all people, were more “evolved” as in humane to the ninth degree, and treated each other with respect, dignity, shared resources, had more compassion for all life, then antinatalism would be a non-issue. The roots of antinatlism are in suffering, suffering comes from inequality, and lacking resources (education, medical, economical, community, etc).
I understand it; however, my reptilian brain says breed, bitch, breed! So does my mammalian brain (more like fuck, bitch, fuck), but it’s my higher functioning brain that does see the rationale behind the idea to end all suffering.
Since you link to TGGP’s critique, it seems fair that Jim’s rebuttal be considered for good measure. Here’s the link:
http://antinatalism.blogspot.com/2010/03/and-here-it-is.html
I will never have children and it was part circumstantial and part my own choice. Almost all my friends are childless, for their own reasons. Above mentioned are even conveniently finding their excuse in their contribution to better world without suffering. We are one selfish bunch.
We want more and only for ourselves, life without stretch marks and diapers.
Sad selfish bastards, we are.
Still, as soon as it is possible, I’ll foster children with diabetes, again a selfish act of love. As much as having children scares me, being a complete dead-end scares even more.
I get it. I usually refer to this as depression. I had no idea there was a formal movement. Thanks!
Bingo Erika! They are depressed. Life is amazing and beautiful and I want to suck up every moment. Being afraid of death is for pussies!
Is the world overpopulated?
If immigration didn’t exist, Canada would have a population of like, 5.
Antinatalism assumes there is some alternative state to existence other than complete non-existence or death–that is something like being spared existence. No positive value judgments can be placed on the state of non-existence, as none of us have knowingly experienced it.
Antinatalism is an egoist philosophy unto itself, as it considers mainly the trials and suffering a self or selves might undergo and seeks to manipulate that fate for no greater purpose than to prevent challenges to the self/ego. Yet proponents of antinatalism regularly categorize “feminist” arguments for choosing to bring life into the world as purely “egoist.” I have never been clear on exactly what the inadvertent founding fathers of antinatalism like Schopenhauer intended to accomplish with arguing this perspective other than an apology for their own failure to commit instant suicide.
Make Do – Yeah, Matthew Cromer is the man. Love him.
Dru – Exactly.
Gene – So are you, re poor Jim.
Bessie – Preaching to the choir!
Eria & Iron Chic – Bingo, yes.
kate – And poor Schopenhauer openly hated women. Why aren’t there any female antinatalists? Is it because women are life-givers or because we’re just not that stupid?
There are female antinatalists. Sister Y for one. Nina Paley. I believe the founder of the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (on closer investigation it appears that’s Nina Paley again). I think there are also lots of women in the Childfree/Childless by Choice movements.
TGGP – With all due respect to Sister Y, she is obsessed with suicide and her inability to carry it out. So this just furthers my conviction that antinatalists are profoundly depressed, and therefore subject to distorted thinking.
Nina Paley seems like a crank but I can’t get interested in her. Childless by Choice is nothing like antinatalism, so far as I’m concerned. Not wanting to reproduce is a long way from insisting that all life is suffering.
p.s. I agree about Citizen Kane.
nonentity – I’m not Buddhist.
nonentity -Explain the irony!
I don’t like children and have no desire for one of my own. The desire to continue the species is a pretty basic evolutionary drive to ensure a species existence. People, esp women are steeped in hormones to make it seem like a good idea. If people want them let them have them
BUT
I am tired of living in the US where babies are worshiped. It seems to me that having babies is endowed with some kind of religious status. Babies should never be mistreated, but i don’t see why popping them out is given such a special status. There are too many people in the world. We dont need any more. The world is full of discarded and unloved children and babies. There is nothing wrong with having babies, but it should not be a selfish act for self satisfaction. And before you give in to the tyranny of hormones, take a look a round and see if maybe you could love a baby that is already here and destined to live out a miserable life.
A related issue… i am tired of working extra hours because i decide to use birth control.
and the happiness factor? when my friends babies were cute little things they all said my life was empty and not worth living because i didn’t have one. Now they are pouting teens they are jealous because they say my life is so easy. Can’t have it both ways.
nonentity,
Sister Wolf’s birth is a much better argument for anti-natalism.
I am devoutly anti-having children, at least for me.
I don’t care what the rest of you do, but dammit, at least be polite enough not to take your stroller that is half the size of my car on to crowded public transportation.
I am actually thinking of making stickers to hand out to parents with children in public who are making conscientious and polite traveling choices when bringing their children (i.e. small folding strollers, keeping their kids from running all over the place like tiny heathen warriors).
America may be enchanted with toddlers and young children, but the extreme lack of proper parenting by countless people I run into on a daily basis is ridiculous and is raising an entire generation of asshats (of which I would not want a child to grow up around).
I’m not saying beat your kid into submission, but dear god, people, caving into the kid’s every need and making the rest of surrounding public make exception for them is just ridiculous. it’s not your kid’s road when she’s in it.
because 6 is definitely old enough to not be screaming songs at the top of your lungs on a crowded train.
nonentity – But then what would they show on the History Channel???
patni – good points.
Hitler’s mom – Oooh, I’m more important than HITLER?!
Apparently not having kids is good for the planet.
GO GREEN!
I’m not Buddhist, but I do play a Buddhist cow on Blogs; however, not having children is not the answer to saving the earth (nature abhors a vacuum anywho, and if there are no people the roaches would evolve and take over or maybe some other insect since they outnumber every other living creature), and I won’t get into the argument of reincarnation since I don’t believe in it and if you do believe in it then you could come back as a slug so suffering doesn’t stop with the end of human kind.
The answer, methinks, lies in sharing resources, ending poverty, stopping racism, mindless consumerism, organic and sustainable agriculture world wide, ending nationalism, and birth control on demand, and other good stuff that you all know about since I’m preaching to choir . . . again.
SW, good post!
Yes, nonentity, I do believe our energy changes but not on a conscious level. We do become worms and chemicals and feed for plants and insects unless we’re set ablaze and turned into little ash particles. But it’s all good . . . and if I’m wrong it may be better . . . or worse . . .
Seanna Shiffrin is also female. I’m not sure whether she self-identifies as an antinatalist, but her writings on “wrongful life” legal theory are entirely consistent with philanthropic antinatalism.
I’m not depressed. But even if it were possible to summarily diagnose the each an every antinatalist with clinical depression, this would not provide a sound basis for rejecting or dismissing their views.
And poor Schopenhauer openly hated women. Why aren’t there any female antinatalists? Is it because women are life-givers or because we’re just not that stupid?
Yes, because “we” are a homogenous mass of breeding cows. I’m not even going to attempt to refute the crux of your, ahem, views, because it has been attempted many times by people far more articulate than I, to no avail.
Two points, however (since they are less controversial than antinatalism, there is a little hope that you and your readers might not automatically label them as crackpottery). Not everyone’s philosophical views are determined by the amount of like or dislike shown to their demographics by the philosopher who happened to advocate a particular point completely unrelated to said demographics. I wonder if the converse would be true for you. Does it mean that if you had enough antinatalists kissing your ass, you would adopt our views? Seems like a poor way of forming ethical judgments. But then, I’m just a crackpot, so what do I know.
Not to mention the fact that you stereotype women just as much as Schopenhauer, albeit in a different way, and openly dismiss an example of a female antinatalist because you are “not interested” in her.
Buddha cow and the rest who talk about the redistribution of resources, avoiding overconsumption, and stopping child abuse: I am by no means sure solving those problems would guarantee a happy life for everyone, but it really would be a great world compared to this one, and I would love to live in it. However, the fact remains that the world we live in today has all those problems, and you are not really doing much to solve them (largely because not much can be done about it, since most people are violently opposed at least to the three things I mentioned). So if you think that someone who hogs resources, pollutes, or abuses children behaves unethically towards other people, it follows that intentionally subjecting people to a world where all those problems exist is also unethical, and so is enabling people to do so by your advocacy for their “reproductive rights”. If you advocated suspending reproduction until those problems are solved, I would at least have to hand some consistency to you. But what you really are saying is, “let’s just keep breeding, and eventually maybe our distant descendants will build a utopian society”. In other words, some ephemeral future possibility (which, given the human track record, I would be more inclined to call an insane dream) is worth more to you than the suffering of all the people that are alive today and that will be born every day for countless generations until that dream of yours comes to fruition (may I remind you that you will also be dead by then). More importantly, since those potential utopia builders currently do not exist, they have no interest in your rose-colored prospects for humanity. Meanwhile, some currently existing teenage victim of gang rape is being stoned to death. But at least she can console herself with the knowledge that some privileged Westerner has a surplus of optimism bias.
Another Antinatalist female : So, let me get this straight: Any world that is not utopia is unfit for humans existence?
Your “logic” is absurd. How about this: Take a poll of 50 people and ask them if they are glad they were born, or would rather not have been born. Ask people coming out of the post office, they are a nice random population.
But wait! People who go to the post office HAVE SOMETHING TO LIVE FOR! They are sending or receiving mail and parcels! They are therefore not a good sample.
Please just consider killing yourself and let the rest of humanity work things out.
love, SW
Chip – Because a group of people who are mentally ill and have a belief system that is directly connected to their distorted perceptions of existence (i.e., that it equals suffering) are not dealing with a full deck. The “logic” of this belief system includes a false premise. Life includes suffering but suffering doen’t negate or trump everything else!
Sister Wolf-
So let me get this straight: you go from saying that it is tragic that I am allegedly depressed to offering me to off myself (which I have no intention of doing at present) just so there’d be no one to disturb your cozy little denial fest. Your thought process is fascinating (assuming there is one in place).
My previous post had to deal with consistency issues among those who view subjecting people to pollution, poverty, child abuse etc. through any other means than bringing them into existence as ethically wrong. If you don’t see a problem with pollution, poverty, child abuse etc. as such at all, that was not addressed to you, but to those readers of your blog who expressed similar sentiments (which I thought I had made clear).
Ask people whether they are glad to have been born? Why don’t you go ask some Jehovah’s Witnesses (and make sure they share your belief that having been brought into existence is a benefit, and want to go on existing as long as possible) whether they would be glad to refuse a blood transfusion and die should they experience a great loss of blood as opposed to accepting it. I’m pretty sure they would say yes because accepting one would mean trading their eternal life for a few short years left on earth. And yet anyone remotely sane realizes that if they refuse a blood transfusion and die, they will remain dead forever. It is quite possible for people to be empirically wrong about what is a harm or a benefit to them, even if we unquestioningly accept the standard according to which they make that judgment.
Oh, and I go to the post office occasionally myself. I assure you that sending and receiving packages has no significant effect on my opinions regarding my coming into existence. Also, having something to live for is not synonymous with being glad to have been born.
When instead of addressing people’s arguments you respond by saying there is something wrong with the people who advance them, like they are all depressed, I believe it’s called logical rudeness, and is an example of a logical fallacy (this is different from an ad hominem attack because you don’t actually know that philantropic antinatalists are all depressed).
But actually, a person who has decided it is unethical from the humanitarian prospective to bring people into existence based solely on their own experience as a depression sufferer has more expertise on the subject than someone who has never been depressed (do those people exist, BTW? If you are one of them, accept my sincere congratulations), if only from the “better safe than sorry” perspective. I have never been allergic to anything, but I don’t go around shoving peanuts down people’s throats because I realize some of them would respond by swelling up and dying, whereas I would find them delicious.
Another Antinatalist – You people are OBSESSED with consistency. That’s probably why you think NO ONE should be born. It’s all black and white to you.
What do Jehovah’ Witnesses have to do with anything? Why bring up weird religious beliefs and practices? They don’t prove anything about anything.
Your belief system is just like a “pro-lifer’s” in that you want everyone to adhere to your personal views about reproduction. There is no arguing with them and no arguing with you. You are stuck on an island of personal suffering and you can’t accept that it isn’t like this for everyone else.
Pollution, poverty and child abuse are serious problems that don’t call for the end of humankind. But I realize you are stuck in a groove here.
Of course I have experienced depression! But I don’t extrapolate from this that NO ONE SHOULD BE BORN.
Sorry about telling you to kill yourself. Let me change that to: Eat more peanuts! They’re delicious!
The “Voluntary Human Extinction Movement”? I presume this group will dissolve through self-selection if it has any integrity. They can receive a Darwin Award on the way out.
“Philanthropic Antinatalism”? I hereby declare myself a Misanthropic Pronatalist.
“Wrongful Life legal theory”? Are you having a laugh? (Is he having a laugh?)
Are there any Antinatalists who make the case with non-pompous language? Parents and future parents have a “surplus of optimism bias?” Whether or not the Antinatalist camp is depressed, I detect a Surplus of Bullshit Bias. What’s with all the latinate and otherwise pretentious phrases? “In toto,” “ad hominem,” “in potentia,” “prima facie,” “mens rea,” “argumentum ad consequentium,” “sub specie humanitas,” “deontological,” “existential and hedonic asymmetry,” “phlogistic vagaries.” Herr Wittgenstein, who was more depressed than all y’all (and who had 3 brothers with the courage of their suicidal convictions) would note that you are just playing language games.
From Jim’s rebuttal: “Puppies shouldn’t be born, either.” Well, I knew a puppy, and you, Jim, are no puppy. This particular puppy was palpably devoid of existential angst – before, during and after our games of fetch in the park. I suppose all animals and plants are being unethical when they reproduce?
Sister Wolf, I can only paraphrase my beloved and ask: Why bother refuting foolish arguments?
Max,
Laugh all you want, but the term “philanthropic antinatalism” is used to distinguish human-centered antinatalist ideas from those proposed on ecological or environmental grounds.
“Wrongful life legal theory” is not some absurd fringe nostrum; it’s a real subset of med-mal tort theory with a significant body of case law. Most of the cases involve children who are born with severe afflictions or disabilities. The usual argument is that doctors or hospitals who withhold information or otherwise act negligently in administering prenatal care or parental counseling assume liability for damages that arise in providing special care for the class who is harmed by being born. Shiffrin’s arguments differ only in that she extrapolates the theory to consider cases of normal births where those who feel harmed by being born may have a cause of action against their parents, the agents who created them without prior consent.
I’ll give you “phlogistic vagaries” (though I sort of like the ring), but most of the philosophical terms of art that you reflexively deride as pretentious come with the benefit of descriptive economy. Distinguishing between deontological and consequentialist or utilitarian schools of moral philosophy is no more obscurantist (oops) than distinguishing between a flathead and Phillips screwdriver.
Finally, for anyone who would like to learn more about the faulty logic underlying the crazy idea that is (philanthropic) antinatalism, I hope you will consider ordering a copy of Jim Crawford’s “Confesssions of an Antinatlist,” which which was just released under my publishing venture, Nine-Banded Books. Here’s an order link:
http://ninebandedbooks.com/?p=292
Sister Wolf,
You characterize the “false premise” of antinatalism by exclaiming “Life includes suffering but suffering doesn’t negate or trump everything else!”
It may or may not surprise you to learn that I don’t disagree with this statement, provided we limit its application to lives already set in motion. Once you’re born, you take the good, you take the bad, etc. Those are the facts of life, right? It’s why we (most of us) try to do right by others. It’s why I try to have fun. By reading your blog, for example.
But procreation is sui generis. The scales we apply to life for the living tip differently when the prospect of never being brought into existence is in play (which, to belabor the point, is not an option once you’re alive). The life yet to be suffers in no way, and is deprived of nothing. In contemplating the balance of good and bad that awaits a person in the event that they are born, this default state of nothingness is the trump. If we consider the nothing that is deprived of nothing for not being born against the pros and cons of sentient existence for those who are, nothing wins every time because nothing will be just fine without being coaxed into something.
But it’s actually worse than this because of risk. In considering whether to create a new being, it is not just the usual slings and arrows that you or I might expect to endure that assume relevance. Given our lack of omniscience as human beings, the prospect of creating a life must also be considered against the unknowable risks associated with any potential life when considered from a neutral vantage. Everyone suffers. But some people suffer immeasurably, whether as victims of crime or natural disasters or sickness or debilitating mental states that lead to suicide. Could the life you create be one of the profoundly unlucky ones? It’s certainly possible. Weigh this risk against the nothingness that will come again for all of us anyway and remind me again of the upside for the ones who are never born.
Max – Because, as you know, I’m argumentative. But even I have my limits!
Chip – But how do you know that the “default state of nothing” is a state of okay-ness? How can you know that we’re not depriving the yet to be born of something valuable, e.g. life?
If the state of nothing is okay, why do people resist returning there? People dread the state of nothing, It’s instinctive. Could it be because the state of nothing is not only neutral, but not good? You can’t remember how you felt before you were born, right? Maybe you’ve blocked out these traumatic memories! But you’re willing to risk conferring this potentially unpleasant state of nothingness on billions!
Shame on you!
Sister Wolf,
You ask:
“But how do you know that the “default state of nothing” is a state of okay-ness? How can you know that we’re not depriving the yet to be born of something valuable, e.g. life?”
I take a naturalistic view of life and its cessation. To consider a state of pre-existence as entailing experiential deprivation requires a very different and most likely supernatural set of premises that I would most likely reject on rational grounds and for lack of evidence. If such a state exists – that is, if there is, as Mormans among others believe, a kind of waiting room crowded with restless souls clamoring to be brought into corporeal existence, then it is indeed possible that this would override the asymmetry. But the plight of these souls would not be something that could fairly be characterized as nothingness, and such a reality would carry terrifying implications. Consider the Vast number of isolated potentially combinant gametes at any given moment that will never result in a specific human lives. Do these potential seeds represent a Borgesian queue of ticket holders to existence proper? And if they do, shouldn’t it follow that procreation is not merely ok, but morally imperative? Shouldn’t each of us then be compelled by this knowledge to relieve as many souls as possible from their purgatorian malaise by eschewing birth control and fucking like rabbits? A compelling argument could be made. In fact, it has been made by such philosophers as R.M. Hare and Don Marguis, both, perhaps problematically, for the purpose of opposing abortion on quasi-secular grounds.
I don’t buy it. The scientific understanding of life tells us that we are but the sum of our physical parts – parts which have a biochemical origin, which, in turn, traces to human agency. There is no rational reason to believe that what comes before is anything other than an existential nullity, i.e., nothing at all. Nothing is nothing. And when considered against the possibility of something bad – perchance very bad – nothing is good.
Erratum: “Marguis” should read “Marquis.”
Erratum 2: Mormons.
Long day.
Chip, what say we set up humane Kevorkian Stations for those of our progeny who wish to return to the eternal nothingness sooner rather than later. Nothing messy or painful, just opt-in euthanasia with the ball in our childrens’ court to redress their “wrongful lives” should they be so inclined. If our philanthropic impulse is indeed directed toward the unborn, why not grant them the ultimate agency to be or not to be? Don’t say “because suicide brings a host of suffering on the principal and his loved ones.” I’m talking peaceful physician-assisted suicide within a framework that the family acknowledges from the get-go. Everybody wins!
non inscribo – Maybe you need to revisit “My Dinner With Andre.” A cup of coffee is bliss. Again, I have to say that anyone who describes life as slow torture has a problem of perception that casts doubt on their brain function. What you consider rational is actually bonkers.
Chip – But if nothing is nothing, then life is by definition better than nothing. All of you guys sound like people who struck out in a ball game and then decided that no one should be allowed to play ball.
Max- Sounds like a reasonable compromise.
Sister Wolf – I think you’re leaping from “more” to “better.” Is the existence of a migraine headache “by definition” better than no headache at all?
Max – I have no problem with voluntary killing centers. But I think you’re being glib when you stipulate that “a framework that the family acknowledges from the get-go” is sufficient to do away with the negative externalities of suicide. Just because I accept that a close friend or family member has the right to kill himself doesn’t mean I won’t be devastated by the loss.
I must say I heartily endorse Max’s and Sister Wolf’s suggestion of Extermination Centers for antinatalists! Geburt macht frei!
Hey antinatalists, if you are so afraid of heights, why don’t you jump off a tall building?
“But if nothing is nothing, then life is by definition better than nothing”
Nothing is better than eternal happiness; a ham sandwich is better than nothing; therefore, a ham sandwich is better than eternal happiness
TGGP – All three statements are false, as far as I’m concerned. I hate ham.
Now image being forced to sit in a restaurant serving NOTHING BUT HAM, and when you complain about it, the waiter yells at you “but the portions are so small!”. And the only way to leave the restaurant is to put your dinner knife in your chest.
Is the knife one of those white-plastic dealies?
Why I’m an antinatalist.
Firstly, and most importantly,: I disagree too strongly with too much of human nature for me to want to contribute my sperm to its upkeep. We tend to be a corrupt, violent, exploitative, and generally selfish species. Furthermore, I’m not to believe that (had they been born) my descendants as a whole would be all that different from the human average. Given all this, why ought I contribute my sperm to sustaining the human race?
Secondly, the human race will go extinct one day anyway, due to the entropy of the Universe, if not earlier. The way I see it, there’s no sense in investing in something that’s gonna last beyond your lifetime if its not going to last absolutely forever. Furthermore, after our species dies off, there’s nobody who’s gonna remember our glories, nor anyone around who’ll even remain to benefit from our glories. Therefore, I see no point in procreation. Even worse, having children will simply pass on the burden of eventual extinction to someone else. Why not stop it with me?
Thirdly, What right do we have to impose life’s hardships onto others, especially if they can’t consent to exist in a world such as ours? As one antinatalist said, that’s like forcing someone to play a sport/game whose rules they don’t agree with beforehand. Siring children forces children to play such a game before they can even consent to the rules of the game. Now where’s the morality in that?
Beyond this, the urge to procreate and to even survive, is ultimately a mere animal instinct, not the product of independent thought and reason. This wouldn’t be so relevant were it not for the above three points. However, because of those three points, the urge to procreate should be held up to serious scrutiny, given the consequenses for any descendants that come along. To say that “it’s just human nature” to want children is actually confusing human nature with animal urges. This makes “human nature” arguments fit for mere mountain lions and timber wolves — NOT for a thinking human being.