# Having children is immoral (antinatalism) **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [May 28, 2008, 12:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834 "2008-05-28T00:27:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/61 "2008-05-29T00:34:49Z")
[QUOTE=marshmallow] I disagree because these examples involve consent between sapient beings. Antinatalism is talking about messing with something that is only a dream of someone that can eventually make decisions. And once they’re here it’s too late. Of course, the true logical end to this line of thinking is that the most moral action humanity could do would be to nuclear firebomb the Earth such that the biosphere is ruined forever. Humans and animals would stop suffering on this planet, forever. By the time evolution kicks in again to produce macro-organisms the Sun will be dying and it will be too late. [/quote] If this is a personal position only, I have no issue with it. I neither want to force anyone to have children or even encourage it. But it seems to me that someone who stands back and lets others have kids under your scenario is no different from someone who stands back and does nothing when suspecting a person is beating a child - or who knows this. > [@](#): > > No, because I do not believe in giving easy excuses to imperialists who wish to invade and conquer and kill. But also, it is physically impossible even if we were all angels. I think asking the average person to do their best to prevent actively causing harm to one another is about as good as things will get as a position, but even that doesn’t work out very well in real life. As a random example, although nations locked in brutal war may forge a ceasefire treaty men will never stop raping, abusing, and killing women. Is the easy excuse a rejection of pacifism? I don’t understand otherwise how rejecting causing suffering would lead to someone causing suffering to prevent it. Anyone create excuses to do anything, so an invaders misusing the principle to justify an invasion does not invalidate it. I see suffering and pleasure as symmetric. You can’t justify preventing a potential person from getting pleasure because it is just potential without also invalidating the concept of potential suffering. I think that any human will feel pleasure at some point. You are still value balancing,assigning suffering a very high weight. I don’t think that is what we actually do. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/62 "2008-05-29T00:37:12Z")
[QUOTE=marshmallow] Speaking of the pain/pleasure balance, this argument is even clearer when we bring in classical monotheistic religions which have a hell/heaven paradigm. I am personally an atheist, but if there really is a hell where unbelievers like me suffer for all time then antinatalism is even more urgent: by not giving birth to new generations we are preventing infinite suffering. Even if you are in the right religion and believe the correct things to get into the everlasting paradise it is always possible your offspring will disagree, stray, and be punished. Why risk it? [/QUOTE] :dubious: _Why_ are you appealing to religious stuff if you’re an atheist? And every religious theory _I’ve_ heard that has a heaven/hell paradigm presumes that there’s a specific number of spirits to be processed. That means that they’re all going to get born, whether you like it or not; you taking yourself out of the gene pool changes exacly _nothing_, which utterly _annihiliates_ your moral argument if you are even one _iota_ more likely to raise a kid with less suffering than the average bloke. [QUOTE=marshmallow] Those imploring me to put a bullet in my head are missing the point: I’m already here. I’ve decided for a variety of reasons that I enjoy living, for now anyway. I can easily imagine scenarios where I wouldn’t want to live anymore, although it would be questionable for a whole host of reasons if I would or could actually kill myself instead of just going along. But this is all beside the point. It would be quite presumptuous for me to therefore utter some trite phrase like “life is good” and then gamble with someone else’s money at the casino. [/QUOTE] Suffice to say that I, at least, don’t think you should necessarily off yourself. Unless you want to, of course. Which you apparently don’t. Of course, your kids get to make the same decision too, if _they_ feel like the road is too hard. So they’d actually be gambling with their own money, as soon as you handed it over to them. [QUOTE=marshmallow] Especially since, as far as humanity goes, everyone posting here is extraordinarily privileged and pampered. [/QUOTE] Which includes youre prospective kids, right? [QUOTE=marshmallow] There is a clear asymmetry with the pleasure/pain relationship when speaking of people who don’t exist. Many speak as if not giving birth to these “people” means they are being deprived of life’s wonders. Well, they aren’t, because they don’t exist. But bringing them into existence ensures they will suffer, to some extent or another. [/QUOTE] I percieve pleasure/suffering to be on a continuum. Not existing is not on the conituum, at _either_ end; if you don’t exist, you don’t suffer, but you also you don’t experience pleasure, you’re equally distant from _all_ parts of the continuum. Which makes it all symmetrical to me. Your problem is that you are valuing pain higher than pleasure. A person who rates pleasure higher than pain will say that by preventing prospective progeny from experiencing life you are _depriving_ them their opportunities for pleasure, _which is morally the same as causing suffering_. (It’s a continuum, remember.) [QUOTE=marshmallow] Even if we concoct an impossible ledger of some hypothetical ideal person who has 99% pleasure and 1% suffering through his entire life, the argument holds. If he’s not born no one will miss the pleasure, so why risk the suffering? Why do it? Even if it’s a 100% pleasuredome somehow, why? [/QUOTE] You mean aside from the numerous selfish reasons? Surely you haven’t forgotten those. (And if it’s a 100% pleasuredome, there’s not even any _cost_ for your progeny, after all…) And you’re throwing out the test paper that has the 99% on it. Let’s get arithmetical: this is a continuum, so by definition one unit of pleasure = -1 unit of pain. So, your hypothetical 99/1 person would get a surplus of 98 units of pleasure if it existed (once the pain was accounted for), and precisely no surplus if it didn’t. Ergo, existing is a win. You’ll note that recognizing that it’s a continuum forces a logical person to vote ‘yes’ as soon as the pleasure outweighs the pain. The tricky part is, of course, that there’s no objective metric for how many units of pleasure or pain this misfortune or that moment of happiness grant, and of course that little difficulty about not being able to predict the future. However if you think that your child’s life is likely to be more like a field of flowers than a vale of tears, then I don’t see a moral issue with bringing them into the world. Since I don’t completely devalue pleasure, that is. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/63 "2008-05-29T03:28:39Z")
[QUOTE=marshmallow] However, this sweet loving rich couple’s child will suffer. Much less than most African children, perhaps, but the suffering will be there all the same. They will grow old, become sick, die, and sow even more suffering on those left behind. The question is, why would that original couple go through with it? They could simply live their lives together and enjoy each other’s company without going through the risk. [/QUOTE] Risk of what? Of creating suffering? The problem with that, of course, is that it makes two assumptions that I don’t buy; 1. That suffering is an evil that trumps any associated positives, and 2. That the rest of the human race derives no benefit from the existence of the child. Point 1 is, I think, patently ludicrous. It sucks to have a needle poked into your skin, but it sure sucks a lot less than dying of rabies, which is what will happen if you’ve contracted the rabies virus and DON’T get the needle. It’s obvious that suffering can be substantially outweighed by joy. Point 2 is less openly ludicrous, but clearly also false, at least on average. Humans are the best resource humans have; they’re aggregately productive, and put more into the species than they take out. That’s really obvious in some cases (Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Einstein, Borlaugh, etc.) and obviously not the case sometimes (Hitler, any random serial killer) but on the average, humans are productive and innovative to a slightly larger degree than they’re consumptive. Furthermore, the proximate result of having kids can be, and in most cases is, enormously joyful. I am certainly much happier for having had one, and the same joy has been brought to many others by the same kid. That utility has to be counted or else you’re just not looking at the whole equation. ---
**Author:** ![focusonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@focusonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/focusonz)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/64 "2008-05-29T03:30:22Z")
[QUOTE=phouka] 2. Every human life is filled with the opportunity for joy and love. [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Der Trihs] Incorrect; some children are born with birth defects or into a **life of abuse that ensures that they will never know anything but suffering** before death. [/QUOTE] There you go again spouting Marxism as if it were Pravda! > [@](#): > > Marx, indeed, is explicit to the effect that such will be the case, that wages will decline below the subsistence minimum; and he **cites English conditions of child labor, misery, and degeneration** to substantiate his views. Kapital, vol. i, chap. xxiii, sections 4 and 5. > > the farther and faster capital accumulates, the larger will be the reserve of unemployed, both absolutely and relatively to the work to be done, and the more severe will be the pressure acting to reduce wages and lower the standard of living, and\*\* the deeper will be the degradation and misery of the working class\*\* and the more precipitately will their condition decline to a still lower depth. [http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/veblen/marx1.txt](http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/veblen/marx1.txt) [QUOTE=Der Trihs] I find it silly to argue that someone who’s life was 90% utter misery was better off having existed. [/QUOTE] The disabled and the unborn(if they could advocate) would not find their existence nor the argument silly! > [@](#): > > A liberative theory of Disability requires the posing of values counter to the classical conservative and radical consensus, the assertion of the rights of the human ‘being’ against the universalisation of human ‘doing’. [http://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/Abberley/sigofwork.pdf](http://www.leeds.ac.uk/disability-studies/archiveuk/Abberley/sigofwork.pdf) [QUOTE=Der Trihs] Realistically, the anti-children argument always loses because the people who make it leave no descendants to carry on the argument, not because they don’t have a point. [/QUOTE] Your wrong, they don’t have a point! > [@](#): > > Marx, that misery is, or has hitherto been, no hindrance to the propagation of the race. [http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/veblen/marx1.txt](http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/veblen/marx1.txt) This is my final post on this thread regarding this matter. But I reserve the right to start a new thread. ---
**Author:** ![focusonz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9dc877/32.png) [@focusonz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/focusonz)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/65 "2008-05-29T03:35:28Z")
Now, **marshmallow** ,I have spent all day trying to figure out an approach to your plea “Can You? “ You have been absent for the SDMB since 3/20/08 and this thread is so uncharacteristic of your previous postings. I personally feel honored that you would share your innermost thoughts with me. These thoughts are OK. Having them and seeing them through is part of your spiritual growth process. It seems that you have resigned yourself to conformity with others rather than creating yourself anew each day. Listen to your heart (feelings/emotion) and your head (logic/reasoning) and in the moment create your destiny. Both faculties have purpose and each can arrive at different conclusions in the moment. The trick is to get them to balance in the moment. Some evoke a higher power and leave it at that, I learned that there is more to life. See [http://www.moretolife.org/](http://www.moretolife.org/) I congratulate authors of posts #57, #61, and #62 for providing a rational argument against antinatalism on the grounds risk of misery but they do nothing to assuage the emotional anguish of your feelings. \*\*It seems that you are waging a war of aggression on yourself! \*\* Launching a war of aggression is destructive while **launching a new life is building** are not at all similar. One must manifest a serious concern for one’s own interests if one is to lead a healthy, purposeful, fulfilling life. See Virtue of Selfishness by Ayn Rand, [The Objectivist Center--home of The Atlas Society](http://www.objectivistcenter.org/cth--406-FAQ_Virtue_Selfishness.aspx) At times I note that a lot of **coercive** persuasion is employed in debates and often times it is well disguised. It is possible that some of the ‘brainwashing’ has caused the nastiness and vileness of the world to loom much larger than it actually is and causes one to blame themselves for it. [QUOTE=marshmallow] I am fortunate enough to have been born in a rich, comfortable Western country, yet even I will become sick and die [/QUOTE] You did not create the nastiness and vileness so do not accept the blame and don’t allow being condemned for it. You are in that fortunate state like no other to further defeat nastiness and vileness and you and your children are welcomed by me and my children to fight that battle where ever and when ever we are called. Yes we will die and we will be remembered for having fought the **good fight.** During your absence I have transitioned through many phases of emotional discovery that you might find helpful if you have the time. See “Atheistic doubt. “ > **[Atheistic doubt.](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=466865)** > > I fully understand all the arguments in atheism which explain existence (universe, planets, our planet) and our existence (animals, humans, us, me) but there are times when the sheer magnificence of it, that it all happened, and the complexity of... “Why can’t we all just get long… w/o hating? “ > **[Why can't we all just get long... w/o hating?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=466580)** > > Something has been bothering me an awful lot in the modern world, and it’s something which ahs essentuially never changed since humans were around. It seems like groups of uhmans cannot disagree without imputing insanity, smallness of character,... “The Unfortunate Effect of the Negative Stereotype [ed. title] “ > **[The Unfortunate Effect of the Negative Stereotype \[ed. title\]](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=467698)** > > I must be the oldest and wisest poster on the SDMB for me to see the dilemma of all political thread posters. I started this new thread because my point(s) seem to just get lost in all the noise in the political debates. The thread “Why can’t we all... “The Bush Family is a Cancer on America “ > **[The Bush Family is a Cancer on America](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=468249)** > > Now, I have for a long time believe that the Bushes have been working to insinuate themselves into a sort of American Aristocracy/Oligarchy since Prescott Bush. For the past three generations they have made their plays for the Presidency, and... “Who wants the United States to fail in Iraq? “ > **[Who wants the United States to fail in Iraq?](https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=468646)** > > Apprently, Iran would have significant influence over Iraq while the situation stresses the U.S militarily and financially. Meanwhile it boosts Iran’s oil revenues which makes it all but impossible for the U.S to seriously threaten Iran at this... > [@](#): > > No one since Darwin would have the hardihood to say that the increase of the human species is not conditioned by the means of living. [http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/veblen/marx1.txt](http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/veblen/marx1.txt) Ah, The meaning of life, is what you seek! > [@](#): > > Happiness is not related to power over others; rather it is intimately connected to learning to have power over one’s self in order to harness the capabilities within and become the best person you can be, > “HELPING THE WORLD OUT OF ITS MISERY” [Dr. Sanity: HELPING THE WORLD OUT OF ITS MISERY](http://drsanity.blogspot.com/2007/10/helping-world-out-of-its-misery.html) You are who you are and you are good enough. I have every confidence that you will get it sorted. Then when you ‘fall for the call of the wild’ - [QUOTE=Lazarus Long] Do not handicap your children by making their lives easy. [/QUOTE] such is the irony of raising children. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 5:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/66 "2008-05-29T05:49:30Z")
[QUOTE=Voyager] You’re saying that the “kill yourself” solution is not practical, not that it is stupid. If you had a button to end your life painlessly and quickly, or could discorporate, why not use it to prevent your future suffering? [/QUOTE] There are two major flaws with the “kill yourself” solution \*\*1) Not everyone who thinks having children is bad is having a miserable life. \*\* If you think of all the seriously bad shit that can happen to someone - Being grossly disfigured in an accident - Losing the love of your life at an early age due to some disease - Witnessing the love of your life slowly wither away in a hospital bed - Losing a child - Being diagnosed with a terminal illness at the prime of your life - Having a debilitating chronic illness - etc what percent of the population goes through at least one of these? Let’s say it’s 2%? It may be more, but, for the sake of argument, assume it’s 2%. Someone who is having a great life and has not experienced any of the above, can still see the world around him and see that if he has a child, there is a 2% chance that the kid might go through at least one of the above devastating events. Even though there is a 98% chance that none of the above events will happen to the kid (and only garden-variety shit happens, that is easily gotten over) and the kid will be overall happy, some people might decide that 2% chance of life with a horrible experience is too much of a price to pay for that 98% chance of a life that is free of such experiences. Of course, some people might think a) I’ll take my chances. Even if it was 51% chance of a relatively happy life, it is still worth the gamble. b) Even if these things happen, you can get over them, and the ups and downs are part of life. But, of course, not everyone thinks like that. Some people are more risk-averse. We can’t force people to accept how risk-averse or pain-averse they should be. So, it is not unreasonable for someone who is having an overall happy life to do the mental calculus and decide that having kids is a bad thing. **2) Even if someone is having a miserable life, killing themselves is not easy** Even if you make death painless, that does not take away from all the other barriers to killing yourself. First, I think people have a built-in vague fear-of-death and it has little to do with the pain you might feel when you die. It is mostly related to the uncertainty of what the hell happens to you after you die. Unless you’re an atheist who is sure that we just disappear and rot in the ground, or a true believer who is sure that he will meet God and exist in peace for eternity, I think most people are not sure one way or another what exactly awaits them after they die, so they are afraid of it. Having fear of death hard-coded in our genes doesn’t help either. So, even if you are miserable in this life, it does not necessarily follow that it makes sense for you to take your own life. As they say, “better the devil you know”. ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/67 "2008-05-29T06:56:47Z")
What is suffering? Is it when I get my tooth kicked out by a mugger? Is it when my girlfriend dumps me? Is it when I don’t the promotion at work? Is it when I realize that my life isn’t going to add up the way I thought it would? Yes that all sounds very bad, but then realize that we in the West don’t know what suffering is compared to the rest of the world. There’s at least a billion people on this planet that would live every single day of their life as your worst day. People adjust to every situation. People adjust to prison. If you haven’t ever done without then I suspect you wouldn’t know how the mind can adapt to anything. How bad can human suffering be when you grow up in a house? Just because you get made fun of in high school doesn’t mean that it was an all together bad experience given the other possibilities. Personally I think that life is full of good and bad. If you spend more side on the good side, then it was worth it for sure. Who can argue against that? But if you spend more time on the bad side, then what? You would have been better off not having existed? I don’t know the answer. Obviously by what we can measure, having the best life out there is worth living. Having the worst life in the world? Is that not worth living? I can’t even say. I think a useful thought exercise is worth living. Imagine what the worst possible life in the world is in your opinion. Then ask yourself, if you had to choose, given your knowledge now… You take this life now, or you die. Which would you choose? Would you live as a starving mother or would you rather die? Death is pretty scary. So I guess the question you have to ask is, “Is it worth being born to have to cope with the knowledge of death?” “Is it good, good enough to offset the amount of bad that we go through” I personally think that if anything life is a zero sum game. You end up about even in the end. It’s an average though, obviously some people end up worse/better. And even if it weren’t a zero-sum game, I’d probably be more willing to live the lives of one of the 25 percent worst off before death. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/68 "2008-05-29T07:31:49Z")
[QUOTE=Polerius] There are two major flaws with the “kill yourself” solution \*\*1) Not everyone who thinks having children is bad is having a miserable life. \*\* Someone who is having a great life and has not experienced any of the above, can still see the world around him and see that if he has a child, there is a 2% chance that the kid might go through at least one of the above devastating events. Even though there is a 98% chance that none of the above events will happen to the kid (and only garden-variety shit happens, that is easily gotten over) and the kid will be overall happy, some people might decide that 2% chance of life with a horrible experience is too much of a price to pay for that 98% chance of a life that is free of such experiences. [/quote] I expect that few people who think this are having a miserable life - otherwise they’d have better things to do. However, even someone with a perfect life, so far, must accept that there is a probability that suffering will enter into it. No, a certainty, since we will all see loved ones die. Yet he is willing to take that chance for himself - but not let a child exist to make the same choice of the child’s self. It might be cowardice, but I rather think it is because life isn’t nearly as bad in reality as it could be projected to be for a child. Our deal with our children should be to protect them from bad experiences, as much as possible, until they are old enough to make their own choices on whether to face them. > [@](#): > > **2) Even if someone is having a miserable life, killing themselves is not easy** > > Even if you make death painless, that does not take away from all the other barriers to killing yourself. > > First, I think people have a built-in vague fear-of-death and it has little to do with the pain you might feel when you die. Probably not so strong if a person really believes in the suffering hypothesis, and it gets a lot weaker as you get older. My fear of death isn’t nearly as strong as it was 40 years ago, and my father who is 36 years older than me has even less of a fear. I think at this age people fear dying in pain, not dying. > [@](#): > > It is mostly related to the uncertainty of what the hell happens to you after you die. Unless you’re an atheist who is sure that we just disappear and rot in the ground, or a true believer who is sure that he will meet God and exist in peace for eternity, I think most people are not sure one way or another what exactly awaits them after they die, so they are afraid of it. Since the OP (and I) are atheists, this isn’t an issue. If a theist believes in God’s plan, then he should feel that God might want children to be born - in fact many religions practically require it. Besides the Shakers, very few seem to think that God’s destiny for us is quietly dying out from lack of reproduction. > [@](#): > > Having fear of death hard-coded in our genes doesn’t help either. > > So, even if you are miserable in this life, it does not necessarily follow that it makes sense for you to take your own life. As they say, “better the devil you know”. Again, all your points are very practical, but don’t address the fact that the philosophy espoused in the OP should make us not to want to face suffering in the future for ourselves. But you do bring up the inherent contradiction, that preventing suffering in the future would entail suffering now, and so isn’t done. If that is valid for us, isn’t it also valid for prospective parents who would suffer now if they didn’t have kids? That the suffering is another’s is not an issue, especially because it is so hypothetical. One can come up with all sorts of counter-intuitive actions mandated by this worldview. A father with a newborn child, knowing that the child will suffer as an adult when the father dies, might die now when the child is too young to understand and thus suffer. A philosophy that leads to so many such absurdities must be suspect. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/69 "2008-05-29T07:36:14Z")
[QUOTE=Merkwurdigliebe] What is suffering? Is it when I get my tooth kicked out by a mugger? Is it when my girlfriend dumps me? Is it when I don’t the promotion at work? Is it when I realize that my life isn’t going to add up the way I thought it would? [/QUOTE] That’s a good point. In addition, who can say that suffering today won’t be looked back on as something great in the future? Your girlfriend dumps you today, but this frees you to meet the true love of your life next month. I’ve only had one bad job, and was miserable for a time, but it prompted me to find another job which was far better. The suffering threshold in the OP seems absurd. “Ow, I hit my finger with a hammer, and it hurts. I guess I shouldn’t have any kids to protect them from this horrible eventuality!” ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/70 "2008-05-29T17:29:09Z")
Yes, I’d say that’s one of the most awesome parts of life, when you realize that suffering isn’t always so terrible. Sure there’s the chance you’ll get horribly disfigured, but that’s about as low as the chances of becoming fabulously wealthy and famous. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/71 "2008-05-29T17:33:24Z")
I don’t understand why anti-natalist groups don’t stage a mass die-in with multiple cities participating. If a thousand people worldwide killed themselves at the same time, it would make history and be an inspiration to like-minded people worldwide. Maybe the anniversary would be a day of population reduction from here on out. ---
**Author:** ![Polerius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/d78d45/32.png) [@Polerius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polerius)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/72 "2008-05-29T17:42:34Z")
[QUOTE=Merkwurdigliebe] Yes, I’d say that’s one of the most awesome parts of life, when you realize that suffering isn’t always so terrible. Sure there’s the chance you’ll get horribly disfigured, but that’s about as low as the chances of becoming fabulously wealthy and famous. [/QUOTE] Yes, having that particular horrible thing happen to you has a very low likelihood, but what is the likelihood that one of many possible horrible things can happen to you? As I’ve mentioned in a post above, a quick list off the top of my head would be - Being grossly disfigured in an accident - Losing the love of your life at an early age due to some disease - Witnessing the love of your life slowly wither away in a hospital bed - Losing a child - Being diagnosed with a terminal illness at the prime of your life - Having a debilitating chronic illness - etc I don’t see many people going through these and then thinking “suffering isn’t always so terrible”. Any of these may have low probability, but in aggregate, I think the probability should be at least in the single-digit percentage points. ---
**Author:** ![Merkwurdigliebe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/74df32/32.png) [@Merkwurdigliebe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Merkwurdigliebe)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 7:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/73 "2008-05-29T19:03:42Z")
I think you’re more pessimistic than probably about 95 percent of the people on this planet. Which is why the view you hold is so uncommon. There’s no amount of logic you can use to convince the rest of us that on the whole, it’s better to not have been born. You seem FAR too pessimistic. You’re sitting there in your air-conditioned house saying, “Woe is me” when really there are people out there with REAL FUCKING PROBLEMS. Really though, you shouldn’t have children. If this is what you think life is all about, then I wouldn’t recommend it. Do you not realize how much better we have it than even our grandparents? They went through a depression! We have never suffered hunger. It’s better to be a human being now than it has ever been. By your logic, it could apply to animals as well. It can apply to any living thing really. If we want to truly end suffering then we have to be rid of all life. Life is EQUAL parts suffering and pleasure. For some it’s more pleasure, for some it’s more pain. That’s the gamble. Finally if someone said to you, “You have two choices, you can either live your life as one of the 25 unhappiest percent, or you can die” which would you choose? Obviously at some point you’d have to choose life. For me it would be lower than 50 percent for sure. Suffering sucks, but it’s part of the human experience. I’m sorry you can’t see the benefits of it. It’s the sufering that makes the pleasure all the better. You also mistake the above problems as being terminal. I can’t think of a single one that isn’t recoverable. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/74 "2008-05-29T19:17:18Z")
It boils down to attitude. Basically, I find a life-affirming attitude - one which recognizes the difficulties and disappointments inherent in living, but attempts to find pleasure and meaning out of life in spite of such problems - more admirable than an attitude of defeat and dispair. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2008, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/75 "2008-05-29T19:48:38Z")
[QUOTE=Merkwurdigliebe] Yes, I’d say that’s one of the most awesome parts of life, when you realize that suffering isn’t always so terrible. Sure there’s the chance you’ll get horribly disfigured, but that’s about as low as the chances of becoming fabulously wealthy and famous. [/QUOTE] From \*\* Through the Looking Glass\*\* > [@](#): > > `The horror of that moment,' the King went on, `I shall never, > NEVER forget!’ > > `You will, though,' the Queen said, `if you don’t make a > memorandum of it.’ ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [May 31, 2008, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/76 "2008-05-31T06:20:38Z")
> [@Pochacco](#): > > Heh. I make decisions for other people all the time where they don’t have a say in it. When another person lacks the capacity to make a rational decision on his own behalf, the only moral course of action is to make the decision for him. > > Would you allow a small child to play in traffic? Would you allow an elderly widow to sign away her life savings to a swindler? > > Refusing to act does not absolve you of responsibility for the consequences of your inaction. These are examples of cases where one has a reasonable possibility of preventing suffering in others and most will say people in these positions have a moral responsibility to act. One could also create more examples where the standard response is more divided (e.g. working an unwholesome job to feed one’s family or do other good, spending money in a business which abuses human rights abroad or paying taxes to the government). However, in all these cases we are discussing people who already exist. We want to help the child in the street because otherwise negative consequences will ensue. How does this line of reasoning apply to the unborn? I do not believe there are negative consequences to not being born because that doesn’t make sense. > [@Voyager](#): > > If this is a personal position only, I have no issue with it. I neither want to force anyone to have children or even encourage it. But it seems to me that someone who stands back and lets others have kids under your scenario is no different from someone who stands back and does nothing when suspecting a person is beating a child - or who knows this. If it is of any comfort I will not go around taking baseball bats to men’s testicles nor will I found an evil organization which will attempt to eradicate the human race. > [@](#): > > Is the easy excuse a rejection of pacifism? I don’t understand otherwise how rejecting causing suffering would lead to someone causing suffering to prevent it. Anyone create excuses to do anything, so an invaders misusing the principle to justify an invasion does not invalidate it. I am not a pacifist. The rest of this paragraph made me dizzy. But I think I might know what you’re saying. Tell me if I’m wrong. Here’s you in post #43: > [@](#): > > Do you agree that there is a moral imperative to prevent all suffering? The idea of preventing suffering (which is a **very** different concept than not causing suffering) around the world via force of arms is a very dangerous idea which is embraced by many in the Western world, including several on this very message board. The interesting thing to me is that many of these are ones who claim to be against the occupation of Iraq or Vietnam or the War on Drugs or the British Empire or whatever other grand social engineering project we wish to examine which involves stacking corpses while someone earns money while mouthing platitudes about how much We’re Helping. Of course, many people do believe their state’s own propaganda which they helped craft. That’s why it works so well. We could have a discussion on collective responsibility, how do morals apply to nation states, war, imperialism, and “humanitarian intervention” as a different topic if you wish to know my views. > [@](#): > > I see suffering and pleasure as symmetric. You can’t justify preventing a potential person from getting pleasure because it is just potential without also **invalidating the concept of potential suffering.** I think that any human will feel pleasure at some point. You are still value balancing,assigning suffering a very high weight. I don’t think that is what we actually do. Please elucidate the bolded portion because I don’t think I understand what you’re saying. > [@begbert2](#): > > _Why_ are you appealing to religious stuff if you’re an atheist? The overwhelming majority of humanity is religious. Also, I find discussing the extremes of heaven and hell even as a hypothetical can be a useful prop in a debate like this. After all, if I’m going to end up burning in hell for all time then wouldn’t it have been better if I was never born? In fact, doesn’t Jesus say exactly like that in the Bible? > [@](#): > > And every religious theory I’ve heard that has a heaven/hell paradigm presumes that there’s a specific number of spirits to be processed. That means that they’re all going to get born, whether you like it or not; you taking yourself out of the gene pool changes exacly _nothing_, which utterly _annihiliates_ your moral argument if you are even one iota more likely to raise a kid with less suffering than the average bloke. In my experience most people I talk to don’t have a set belief on whether a host of souls are waiting out there in the aether for an egg to be inseminated or whether a new soul is born with each child. If one held the belief you describe what you said would be true. Of course, if everyone stopped having children (or humanity went extinct some other way) this problem would be alleviated since we could plug the funnel with a cork. > [@](#): > > Of course, your kids get to make the same decision too, if they feel like the road is too hard. So they’d actually be gambling with their own money, as soon as you handed it over to them. Although millions of people commit suicide around the world every year I don’t think this is a reliable back up plan for reasons brought up elsewhere but even if one disagrees then what, we’ve only created a person so depressed and filled with regret that they killed themselves instead of going through the motions for a couple more decades? That doesn’t assuage me much… The question is, why does any gambling have to go on at all? Why have a casino in the first place? We can have a nice quiet field. No one will enjoy ice cream, sure, but no one will be getting fire bombed or have their clitoris torn off to the root either. > [@](#): > > I percieve pleasure/suffering to be on a continuum. Not existing is not on the conituum, at _either_ end; if you don’t exist, you don’t suffer, but you also you don’t experience pleasure, you’re equally distant from all parts of the continuum. Which makes it all symmetrical to me. If you’re saying that not existing (either never having been born or being dead) is neutral then I might agree. I just find it difficult to assign a subjective weight to a state where there is no subjective feeling and in which state no one can make any judgment. In a sense I understand what it is to be dead because I was once unborn for 15 billion years. I don’t know what to say about it. It just was. So neutral? Well, whatever. More like N/A IMO. > [@](#): > > Your problem is that you are valuing pain higher than pleasure. A person who rates pleasure higher than pain will say that by preventing prospective progeny from experiencing life you are depriving them their opportunities for pleasure, _which is morally the same as causing suffering._ (It’s a continuum, remember.) They could say that, I suppose, but they would make no sense. How can one speak of depriving someone that doesn’t exist? If not creating a life is, as you say, the same as causing suffering, are we being immoral by wearing condoms or taking the birth control pill? I personally do not think so, but there are those who do. Of course, one could flip this on me: does that mean I think having unprotected vaginal sex is immoral? Well, practically, in a real life way, I don’t. Philosophically I’m leaning towards that belief and debating for it as shown in this thread. [quote=] You mean aside from the numerous selfish reasons? Surely you haven’t forgotten those. [/quote] Yeah, those are obvious. I’m asking for a rational reason. Like I said, I’m probably going to end up having a kid or two anyway for the same reasons most people do. But those aren’t good reasons IMO. [quote=] You’ll note that recognizing that it’s a continuum forces a logical person to vote ‘yes’ as soon as the pleasure outweighs the pain. [/quote] The same question is going throughout this: why is being born and hooked into this fantastical pleasuredome (built on the bones of the past, mind) better than not being born? \*\* focusonz\*\*: Does your foot hurt from having it slammed in the door so much? How would you say this topic has been uncharacteristic of my previous posting? Out of your already odd post I found that the strangest bit. > [@Merkwurdigliebe](#): > > You’re sitting there in your air-conditioned house saying, “Woe is me” when really there are people out there with REAL FUCKING PROBLEMS. I am doing no such thing if you care to read my posts more carefully. In fact, quite the opposite. But I do agree: being the average human on the planet is not as comfortable or peaceful compared to where most of us sit. That may be candidate for understatement of the year. And as noted, our ancestors had it off even worse. This is very important to understand. > [@](#): > > By your logic, it could apply to animals as well. It can apply to any living thing really. If we want to truly end suffering then we have to be rid of all life. I agree. Hence the end of my previous post. Has this idea for a poster ever been used tongue in cheek at a protest?: “End War! Kill Everyone!” It’s not like anything else would work. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2008, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/77 "2008-06-01T00:52:05Z")
[QUOTE=marshmallow] If it is of any comfort I will not go around taking baseball bats to men’s testicles nor will I found an evil organization which will attempt to eradicate the human race. I am not a pacifist. The rest of this paragraph made me dizzy. But I think I might know what you’re saying. Tell me if I’m wrong. The idea of preventing suffering (which is a **very** different concept than not causing suffering) around the world via force of arms is a very dangerous idea which is embraced by many in the Western world, including several on this very message board. The interesting thing to me is that many of these are ones who claim to be against the occupation of Iraq or Vietnam or the War on Drugs or the British Empire or whatever other grand social engineering project we wish to examine which involves stacking corpses while someone earns money while mouthing platitudes about how much We’re Helping. Of course, many people do believe their state’s own propaganda which they helped craft. That’s why it works so well. [/quote] In summary, you would not beat someone up, but also would not forcibly intervene to prevent someone from being beat up. I agree that the details of when to intervene are complex, but in the same manner we can debate when the chance of a child being born to great suffering warrants that child not being born at all. Your position is more absolutist than this. We could have a discussion on collective responsibility, how do morals apply to > [@](#): > > Please elucidate the bolded portion because I don’t think I understand what you’re saying. You said that the pleasure a child may get doesn’t count because it is potential, since someone being born will not miss it. Missing it is not the issue - they won’t enjoy it either. If you intercept an unexpected check for $1 million meant for me I won’t miss it either, but that doesn’t mean you have the right to take it - even if you are sure that I will suffer at least some from getting it. (Being bugged by scammers, for instance.) ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2008, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/78 "2008-06-03T20:43:48Z")
[QUOTE=Merkwurdigliebe] What is suffering? Is it when I get my tooth kicked out by a mugger? Is it when my girlfriend dumps me? Is it when I don’t the promotion at work? Is it when I realize that my life isn’t going to add up the way I thought it would? [/quote] Well, when that happens to _me_, it’s tragedy. When it happens to _you_, it’s comedy. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/79 "2008-06-05T00:25:05Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > The overwhelming majority of humanity is religious. Also, I find discussing the extremes of heaven and hell even as a hypothetical can be a useful prop in a debate like this. After all, if I’m going to end up burning in hell for all time then wouldn’t it have been better if I was never born? In fact, doesn’t Jesus say exactly like that in the Bible? > > In my experience most people I talk to don’t have a set belief on whether a host of souls are waiting out there in the aether for an egg to be inseminated or whether a new soul is born with each child. If one held the belief you describe what you said would be true. Of course, if everyone stopped having children (or humanity went extinct some other way) this problem would be alleviated since we could plug the funnel with a cork. You’ve talked to different religious people than I have. I know of none that believe that the act of human sex causes God to maufacture a soul on the spot. I will immidiately concede though that if you happen to be a religious person who _does_ believe that you control the manufacture of souls via your soft bits, and you also believe that [the total agony of hell]_[the odds of your child ending up there] \> [the total pleasure of heaven]_[the odds of your child ending up there], then you should definitely choose not have children. (I think it can be safely assumed that everything in this mortal coil pales in comparison to the ridiculously exaggerated theoretical extremes of ‘hell’ and ‘heaven’.) > [@marshmallow](#): > > Although millions of people commit suicide around the world every year I don’t think this is a reliable back up plan for reasons brought up elsewhere but even if one disagrees then what, we’ve only created a person so depressed and filled with regret that they killed themselves instead of going through the motions for a couple more decades? That doesn’t assuage me much… Then you can instead imagine that person who is filled with happiness and joy, and pleasure in their daily life, who you are also arguing to prevent from having a chance of existing. I stand by my position - anyone who decides that living their life is a worse option than not living, and assesses the odds of that changing as being terminally low, has the option of punching their own ticket. The fact that most people seem not to take that route is actually evidence that, when assessed from the perspective of the victims you’re trying to save from their pain, the problem apparently isn’t as bad on average as you seem to think it is. > [@marshmallow](#): > > The question is, why does any gambling have to go on at all? Why have a casino in the first place? We can have a nice quiet field. No one will enjoy ice cream, sure, but no one will be getting fire bombed or have their clitoris torn off to the root either. Some people see the enjoyment of ice cream as having value. And, if I actually thought that for every time somebody enjoyed ice cream somebody else was firebombed or had their clitoris torn off, I’d be against eating ice cream too. However, I don’t think that’s the case. I think you’re exaggerating the level of ‘bad’ on the scale again. And a casino (or, perhaps better, a _carnival_) is more fun than a nice quiet barren empty lot. On average. In my estimation. > [@marshmallow](#): > > If you’re saying that not existing (either never having been born or being dead) is neutral then I might agree. I just find it difficult to assign a subjective weight to a state where there is no subjective feeling and in which state no one can make any judgment. In a sense I understand what it is to be dead because I was once unborn for 15 billion years. I don’t know what to say about it. It just was. So neutral? Well, whatever. More like N/A IMO. But, you _have_ assigned a subjective weight to it - you’re valuing it equal to _a perfect, pain free, pleasure-filled life_. You saw no advantage to a 100% pleasuredome over it, right? There you go. You’ve assigned a value to it - one that can’t possibly be attained in real life, which is, of course, the whole basis for your argument. To me, this is a ridiculous as the position that one can disregard _suffering_ when comparing life against nonexistence; that any chance of pleasure at all justifies the risk. Nonsense; both extremes are nonsense. In reality there is a point where the pleasure ceases to justify the pain, and it’s clearly somewhere in the middle. You can’t hide behind an N/A; your _entire argument_ is a comparison between life and non-existence. If they’re not comparable, then you _have_ no argument. > [@marshmallow](#): > > They could say that, I suppose, but they would make no sense. How can one speak of depriving someone that doesn’t exist? If not creating a life is, as you say, the same as causing suffering, are we being immoral by wearing condoms or taking the birth control pill? I personally do not think so, but there are those who do. > > Of course, one could flip this on me: does that mean I think having unprotected vaginal sex is immoral? Well, practically, in a real life way, I don’t. Philosophically I’m leaning towards that belief and debating for it as shown in this thread. We can speak of depriving someone that doesn’t exist by speaking of the total levels of pleasure and pain in the world, with and without them. By not popping out that batch of well-adjusted, happy kids, you are creating a world with less happiness on average in it than it would have _with_ those kids. And when you talk about the morality of popping out as many kids as you possibly can, one has to remember that 1) after a certain point how well are you going to be able to raise your tenth kids, and 2) is another kid going to have a negative impact on your _own_ situation, happiness, and well-being? (Altruism is great and all, but we’re balancing against _potential_ kids here, so I think the existent self gets at least an _equal_ say. And one mustn’t forget the spouse and existing children, either.) As I’m actually _not_ one who argues for the “any life is worth it” mirror to your position, I recognize that there are cases where it’s not moral to have a kid due to expectations of hardship - I just don’t think it’s the kneejerk _automatic_ position. > [@marshmallow](#): > > Yeah, those are obvious. I’m asking for a rational reason. Like I said, I’m probably going to end up having a kid or two anyway for the same reasons most people do. But those aren’t good reasons IMO. Selfish reasons most certainly _are_ rational reasons. Even morally - you yourself are in the set of people that we’re trying to improve things for, aren’t you? Personally, I have doubts that paranoid fear that your child might be firebombed or have their clitoris torn out meets the standard for “rational” (or “good”) - at least in the area _I_ live. How big a hellhole _is_ Indianapolis, anyway? > [@marshmallow](#): > > The same question is going throughout this: why is being born and hooked into this fantastical pleasuredome (built on the bones of the past, mind) better than not being born? The ice cream. It’s the ice cream that tips the balance. Serously, _you’re_ the one extending the proposition that life is _not_ worth the risk. So, _you_ back it up. Why should we assume that our children are likely to curse us for having borne them? (Bones of the past? 😕 ) ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2008, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834/80 "2008-06-05T01:20:13Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] Well, we saw what happened to the Cathars. Very few things will incite the ‘breeders’ to a frenzy like a cohesive antinatalist movement. [/QUOTE] I don’t think there’s much danger of that, at least not in present-day western countries. As an example, there may still be a few Shakers left. > [@](#): > > **From Wikipedia:** > Strict believers in celibacy, Shakers maintained their numbers through conversion and adoption of orphans. Turnover was very high; the group reached maximum size of about 6,000 full members in 1840,[citation needed] but as of 2006 had only four members left.[2] Those last members are getting pretty old, if they’re still around. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/having-children-is-immoral-antinatalism/450834.md?page=5)