Spotlight: Anti-Natalism

Procreation is a cornerstone of any species - it is required for them to not die out. Many people have their own beliefs on when it is the right time to have kids; after marriage, in your late twenties, when you’ve found the right partner, etc. Some outlooks are a little more extreme than others. There are people who strongly believe that procreation is not to be continued in the human race at all. This philosophy is named anti-natalism. By definition, anti-natalism is the belief that birth is inherently bad and immoral. There are many different takes on this study of philosophy. Many philosophers have different beliefs on why giving birth is immoral, but they all lead to the same conclusion; birth causes more harm than good.

Anti-natalism is not a very well-known area of philosophy, in part because it can seem like a very harsh ideology. Simply proposing the idea that human lives should not be created can be very upsetting to many people. It is easy to try to dismiss the concept as absurd or impractical when it is first described. The majority of people have the predisposition of being very pro-natalist. Besides wanting to procreate naturally from human instincts, the idea of having kids and starting a family is pushed throughout everyone’s lives. People are expected to get a job, get married, then start a family. When that is the life you expected to have it can feel like anti-natalist trivialize some of your life goals. Not to mention it implies even you would have been better off not born than alive today - it can sound like anti-natalist trivializes not only a person's life goals but also their life. It is easy to infer that anti-natalists expect everyone to stop having kids. If that is where the discussion is leading, then many people might decide that it is too ridiculous of an idea to happen and therefore discussing it is a waste of time. That specific line of thinking has ended a lot of discourse on the topic. Just like any other moral questions, the goal of a discussion on the morality of human reproduction is whether it is right or not. The purpose is to conclude what is the most ethical, anti-natalists do not believe everyone will stop having kids. They hope to understand the gravity of the situation and decide for themselves.

Trying to understand a jarring idea like anti-natalism can be difficult. It can seem very far out there but the core concept is not too different than what many philosophers already believe. Anti-natalists are not fueled but a hate for humanity but rather a love for peace. They want to make the world a better place and their method is to minimize the amount of harm in the world. There are some different takes on anti-natalism and one of the most common, yet least discussed, versions is local anti-natalism. Local anti-natalists believe that before a kid is born, the parents should be certain that they can provide a good life for them. Ideally, a couple would only have a kid if they knew they could provide for it. This ideology is very easy to understand even if you do not agree with it. If the kid is not going to have a good life, then it seems wrong to force them into it. On the other side you have global anti-natalists. Global anti-natalists will say that you need to define what is good before you can have decided whether or not the kid’s life would be good. What is “good” can vary from person to person. Maybe having a lot of money is good or just having enough for food is good. How of the couple’s situation should contribute to the kid having a positive life experience before it is okay for them to have a kid? There is no amount of positive that can happen in life that everyone can agree on besides one hundred percent. This makes global anti-natalism believe that knowing any harm done to someone’s future child is enough to make it immoral to force them into existence.

Local anti-natalism is not very controversial and most people already believe some parts of it so naturally it is not the main topic of discussion among philosophers. Modern anti-natalism tends to focus on global aspects. The leading thinker in modern anti-natalism is a philosophy professor named David Benatar; before he contributed to the study there was very little discussion on it. It had come up in religious conversations but rarely in the context of a serious philosophical discussions. His most popular defense for anti-natalism is what he calls the asymmetry of please and pain. The argument is set up with three premises that Benatar argues to be true; the presents of pain is bad, the absence of pain is good, the presence of pleasure is good, and the absence of pleasure is neither good nor bad. The first three arguments are very easy to get behind - when something is bad then it is bad, when something is good it is good, etc. The last one, however, can be confusing. He believes the last statement to be true because the absence of pleasure is only bad when there is someone to desire it. Without someone to be deprived of the pleasure then there is no harm done in it not existing. With those assumptions in place you can weigh the options between having a kid an not; not having a child would bring them pleasure (good) and pain (bad) but not having a child would resolve with the absence of pain (good) and the absence of please (not bad). One choice brings good and bad into the world and the other brings something good and something neutral. Therefore, to create a better world the best option is not not bring new people into it to experience good and bad. Something that does not exist has no need for pleasure but has reason to avoid pain.

There is a common counter argument for anti-natalism that asserts lives are worth creating because they believe lives are worth living. The justification for this belief is that they are happy to have been born and the majority of people they have asked to agree. Asheel Singh, author of Furthering the Case of Anti-Natalism, refers to these people as friends of endorsement. In response to the friend of endorsement, Singh offers a parable created by Seana Shiffrin. The parable is called the Wealthy/Unlucky Case and is as follows; there was a man named Wealthy who has quite a bit of money. Wealthy decides he want to share his money with people on an island who are in no need of money, but Wealthy thinks they would still appreciate it. He gets in his plane and flies over the island dropping bars of gold on it. He makes his best attempt to avoid hitting anyone but knows it is still possible for him to hurt or even kill someone. On that island lived a man by the name of Unlucky. Unlucky is struck by a bar of gold and his arm is shattered. While Unlucky is grateful to have been given this wealth, he is not happy about his arm and questions if it was even worth it. Given the option beforehand, Unlucky is not certain he would have chosen the wealth over his pain. This parable is far from subtle but it makes a strong point. Why should others have the right to make large decisions for other people without getting their consent? Imagine that Wealthy had no way to get the permission of the people on the island to do what he believes to be good - would he have sufficient justification to do it? Perhaps Wealthy believes it to be good but does not take the time to question it. Helping people can feel emotionally rewarding so maybe he is blinded by his own gains. Singh’s has good reason to use the parable but he does not solely rely on it in his counter to the friend of endorsement. He also claims that their reasoning relies on an appeal to emotion in order to be valid. The basic claim they say is something along the lines of, “I am happy I was born so I endorse my birth.” That argument relies on an argument that falls into the argumentum ad passiones fallacy; it uses emotion over logic, making the reasoning (by definition) unreasonable. Singh suggests a revised version of that same argument but without the fallacy; “I think that my parents were all-things-considered justified in creating me. I therefore endorse my creation.” The point he is trying to make with all of this is the endorsement of something happening in the past does not permit future instances of it. The other people on Unlucky’s island sure endorsed Wealthy’s actions but that doesn't excuse his behavior.

Christopher Belshaw, modern philosopher who rivals Benatar in anti-natalist thinkers, would argue that the endorsement of one’s birth has no sway on the debate because a person's opinion on their own birth is not relevant. Not only because their opinion could not have been known before, they were born but also because it was a thoughtless baby that was born, not them. Balshaw's argument might be confusing but he has thorough justification. In his writing A New Argument for Anti-natalism Belshaw sets up his argument by defining what he will be referring to as a person. He says that he will be using the word “person” to mean something that can think and understand who they are. This mean there can be non-person humans (babies and corpses) and there can be non-human persons (cyborgs and dolphins). Belshaw suggests this distinction to indicate the difference between who you are today and the non-person human you were when you were born. The question Belshaw askes is if a baby dies in 12 months of being born is its life worth living? it seems a little morbid to say but if a terminal baby was expected to die before it can understand why it experiences pain and before it can appreciate pleasure then its life might not be worth living. In a real world sacario the baby might be kept alive but it would not be a gesture for the baby as much as one for the parents. Now assume instead of dying it becomes a person and the no-person human fades out of existence. It is still not worth being born for the baby, Belshaw argues - the later existence of a person that can only happen with the baby does not justify the baby’s nonconsensual suffering. Belshaw does not want to upset the reader with his sad example but wants them to understand that something good happening to one person does not justify something bad happening to another. If there can be a distinction made between the person that was born and the person they grew up to be then the same standards can be applied to the creation of life; the human being born cannot agree to going through their trauma so the person they turn into can be happier than they otherwise would. Furthermore, the person that would become happier cannot speak for the human that was born as they are a different entity.

Regardless of the direction or argument taken for it, anti-natalism is a philosophy that seeks to minimize suffering. It is still a new area in philosophy and is constantly changing. It can seem ambitious when you first assume anti-natalists want to end human exists - that is easy to conclude but it is an overly exaggerated understanding of it. Anti-natalists want there to be less pain in the world. They reason the best way to do achieve that is for people to avoid having kids. Well aware of the likelihood of everyone agreeing to that, they would recommend everyone who can and are willing to do their part. One incredibly helpful way to support this view is simply to adopt. Adopting brings the family that adopted joy and prevents any further pain for the kid created by them being an orphan (and what comes along with that). Benatar and Belshaw do not want to upset people - their goal is the opposite. Even the friend of endorsement would agree with the anti-natalists’ morals. There are no anti-natalists protesting but instead they are trying to find what they can reason to be the best way to prevent harm. Anti-natalism uses reason to conclude the best way to prevent human harm is to avoid human birth.

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