I understand and appreciate your viewpoint, as it is something new compared to the ideas I’ve already deliberated over several times. One answer could definitely be to go out there and learn more about the world, and about myself. Sometimes certain answers can’t be reached through deliberation alone, I’m well aware of that. So I’ll certainly make sure to consider this from now on whenever I ponder over anti-natalism or other matters even.
That said, as I mentioned earlier, in a few years I will have to make the decision of whether to get married or not, to have children or not. So I do have to deal with a ticking clock. My parents will want me to have a child, but will the child want me to? I do not know yet.
Well in terms of further deliberation, I’d recommend opening up beyond the dichotomy of suffering and ending suffering. Instead, dive into the pluriformity of options in response to suffering. Stoics might see suffering as a grindstone on which they hone their virtues, as an ongoing practice. An artist might make the most beautiful, transcendent art out of their lived suffering and embrace it that way. A Buddhist relates to suffering entirely differently than a Catholic. I, a chronically ill 40-year old from a western liberal tradition, have come to embrace the tragedy and suffering of life and it makes the parts worth living that much more meaningful. And on and on and on.
If suffering is a given, it doesn’t mean the other option must be, not-being.
I appreciate the incredible difficulty of having to make that decision; having a child or not. And that doesn’t even take socio-cultural considerations or family pressure into account. I wonder, does the ticking clock feel more like a socially constructed one to you, or biological one?
Anyway… Life has a way of unfolding itself as a lived experience. Sometimes, as much as we’d like it to be otherwise, you can’t just think yourself out of these quandaries. So, yes, go live life! Explore, adventure, take a chance, love, get hurt, dust yourself off and do it all over again. The question won’t be: “Will my child resent me for being born.” The question will be: “Do I want to become a mom?”, and, “How scary is that?!”
24 year-old nihilists are pretty common in my experience. There’s nothing here I haven’t heard many times over since I was 24 myself, decades ago. The point you make is a good one, but perhaps those who haven’t lived a meaningful chunck find it easier to dismiss their own life and the lives of others. Sounds like Byronic unhappiness (a performative melancholia and pessimism) that Bertrand Russell described back in 1930. I did my share of this back in the 1980’s.
Having said that, there’s some element of truth in the idea that you can end all suffering on earth by killing everyone. Just as you can stop the need for haircuts through decapitation.
As perhaps you can see, I don’t have much patience for the anti-natalist position. Generally, I try to avoid those discussions. No one is ever convinced. That being said, I’d still like to lay out my thoughts on the issue.
Speaking for myself and, I’m sure, most others who have become parents—you’ve misunderstood what being a parent means and why someone might want children. To start, we are social animals and the drive to have children is part of our biological makeup. It’s human, maybe the most human thing.
Beyond that, having children is an act of community. We are social animals and having children is maybe the most social thing. I’ve always seen my children as a gift I’ve given to my family and the people I care about. My loved ones have shown they agree with that view. As I see it, my children have made the world a better place. I’m sure almost all parents see things that way.
To be clear, none of that means you should have children if you don’t want them. I have three children and it is not likely any of them will have children of their own. The 1980s and early 1990s, when my wife and I had our kids, was a different time. I’m not sure I would have children now if I were 30 again.
I’m not sure if I understand. Evolution by natural selection acts on populations, species, not individuals. We’ve all been evolving for 3.5 billion years. None of the species around today have been rejected. We’ve evolved with the universe—we belong here.
This seems inconsistent. Before you were talking about the “vast majority.” Now you say “defects and odd balls.”
Natural selection generates not just new species, but complex webs of interactions between organisms. Sure, competition is a big part of that, but so is cooperation and, probably more importantly, co-evolution. Although lions need gazelles, gazelles also need lions. So suffering takes place, but it’s only a part of what’s going on.
I’ll say it again—the claim that life is not worth the possible suffering is arrogant and self-centered.
Although (antinatalism, Benevolent World Destroyer) is good to go, the OP’s point is (Suffering, Benevolent World Destroyer). That there is suffering is a fact. The desire to end suffering is as natural as water freezing when the temperature drops below 0 and this is also a fact. Pressing the Doomsday button seems to be the obvious choice. One knows there is suffering. One has the means to end it. Would you not end it?
It’s not an easy problem to solve. Legend has it that Avalokitesvera once, by the sheer power of his incalculable merit, ascended every soul to paradise. Suffice it to say it didn’t work out as planned.
It is true that there is a natural process at play, and the interactions between life forms are indeed very complex. But my grief is not for humanity as a whole but rather for the individual. Perhaps we see things differently because you have been a family person while I’ve mostly been alone most of my life. But the way I see it, an individual’s experience of life can be full of suffering, and while it may lead to good things for other individuals or even the species as a whole, the individual only gets to experience his own version of reality.
With no animosity in mind, I want to point out that if anything, I find the claim that most parents think of children as blessings to be privileged, arrogant and ego-centric.
On your comment about social behaviour, I want to point out that the same can be said for dogs or cats. Sentience gives us the ability to evaluate the ethics of socially acceptable or default behaviours, unlike other social animals. Just because it is socially acceptable, would you do potential injustice to your child?
Finally, about your objection to my natural selection argument, I want to clarify that I speak of natural selection on an individual level. I speak not of the species that have died out before us, but rather of the variations among individuals which are intrinsic to the natural selection process. This variation is by its nature good for some and bad for others, and it all depends on which side of the stick we have got.
EDIT: I understand that anti-natalist arguments might seems exhausting to someone like you, perhaps redundant and meaningless. However since you had raised some good points in your arguments, I have clarified my own views in response. Feel free to not reply if you like.
The argument made by the OP seems to be rooted in the basic assumption that a lack of suffering is better than all the good that does exist in the world, or when the question is inverted, that the suffering that exists in the world is worse than the elimination of all the good from the world would be.
I disagree with this fundamental assumption that the bad necessarily outweighs the good.
Furthermore, I would say that life itself is a basic good, such that the act of destroying all life would be a great evil that no mitigating lack of suffering could compensate for.
That makes sense, but I can’t see how it justifies what you propose.
I don’t get it. How can my feelings for my children be arrogant?
I was responding to your statement that parents “[bring] them into this potentially cruel world for our own selfish desires of parenthood and companionship.” I was pointing out that is not the reason most of us have children.
All animals are born, live, and die. It’s also fair to say they are sure to suffer along the way. It doesn’t have anything to do with natural selection or evolution.
No. Your response was fine. I spouted off and it’s fair you get to respond. That being said, I’ve had my say. As I noted, no one was convinced of anything. You are welcome to the final say.
To add to the points that have already been brought up, it seems like hypothetical #2 either leads to logical paradox or a negation of of the logic you presented. If one can go back in time, this implies two scenarios
a) You change the very timeline from which you came. Given that you are a living thing, this means you could not go back in time to prevent life from emerging.
b) There are multiple timelines. In which case you will create one timeline in which life never existed, but suffering would still be present in the timeline you came from, in addition to other timelines.
My thoughts on the overall argument is that the desire to destroy of all human life is an excessively strong way to react to the fact that there is suffering. You aren’t serving humanity itself by eliminating it. And the cosmos has no preference one way or the other about suffering existing, so in the aftermath of such an annihilation is there any end that is really served? Ending the experiece of suffering? Perhaps, though I feel that the positive experiences that we have in life justify existence even with the occurence of suffering.
Sure not. I don’t have the right to decide about the lives of others.
Same as above.
We have to ensure we can provide an acceptable quality of life for a kid before deciding to have one. We have the right to have a kid once we ensure this.
Regardless of the ethics of having or not having children, such a preoccupation with the “suffering” of humanity clearly reflects projecting one’s own mental state onto humanity as a whole and negates that others can be and often are happy, fully capable of feeling joy, etc.
I think that hits the nail on the head. I’ve seen the word “arrogance” pop up a few times during this discussion. I think that’s a false categorization because it implies a certain level of mastery. I think egocentrism is more apt. It doesn’t mean selfish in this context; I use that word in clinical terms here: The logic becomes a post-hoc, intellectual externalization of internal states.
Religious folks have the most kids in the US: The Amish, Orthodox Jews, LDS. They suffer from the opposite of you, which is optimism. Wealth and reproduction are typically inversely related.
“In the universe” means this universe, therefore, to “ensure [life] never starts again” would require a complete dismantling and irrevacble halt of it’s many wonders that are intrinsic to it. Things such as galaxies, constellations, implosions, black holes, supernovae, quasars, things we don’t even know about, really. This would be too extreme or in my opinion simply beyond the ability for any human intelligence to properly and adequately fathom the consequences of.
But, if we want to cheat some, and isolate situations and dynamics that are inseparable and bound for the sake of discussion. Saying all these great wonders and processes (that 100% would otherwise reasonably possess the ability to create life, as science dictates they did before), magically and suddenly would not.
Still, no.
Like, if we’re just going to throw logic out the window and use a magic crayon of imagination to separate what is generally inseparable. Why stop there? Who’s to say planetary bodies are “not alive” yet (again somehow magically, defying all current logic and explanation) feel pain, suffer, and experience a cruel existence.
Once we no longer man the guards of logic that correlate to some sort of underlying reality we can just say anything we want just to say it. Argument sort of loses it’s inherent and intrinsic value at such a point.
But, sure. Let’s consider that. Everything in the universe would remain intact, it’s wondrous processes would somehow no longer produce life, for all eternity, in your scenario.
I can’t say that I would. Why? Because I happen to enjoy life. Sure, that is perhaps selfish, myopic, inconsiderate of those who do not. But if one can enjoy life, than so can everyone, theoretically. So let’s assume one day we reach an existence where everyone enjoys it. What’s wrong with that?
And no, don’t tell me “that’ll never happen” since your argument already defies reality as it is. It’s already it’s own vanguard for the impossible, and so cannot reasonably stand up against another argument that chooses to defy the so-called “impossible” simply by its own existence.
But this changes your premise (which I assume to be the anti-natalist argument) entirely. It becomes, should we execute the mentally ill, euthanize the elderly, sick, or suffering (assuming they desire such, or perhaps even if they insist on us not doing so)? Who are we to judge who is suffering because pain is relative. Some people, actually, quite enjoy pain. There’s an entire group of people who relish in the sort. Not even sexual deviants but some religious folk (see self-flogging).
So, no one individual, or even a large number of individuals who ultimate only have their own perspective, albeit multiplied, should be able to have control or dominion over a life that belongs to another, even if they think it is best. This is the most extreme definition and example of fascism and authoritarianism, really.
If there’s no risk, there is no reward. You can’t honestly tell me you’ve never been happy in life. This happiness is not intrinsic. It is the direct result of a dynamic where one could be unhappy, perhaps incredibly so. Some people enjoy the challenge. The—as it is often so-casually put—“game of life.” Just because you may not, or otherwise have concerns that others may not, doesn’t mean others will feel the same. Now does it?
Ignorance is bliss. The hedonic treadmill basically states “no matter how bad or good things have it, the mind adapts.” This is rooted in evolution, apparently.
Life’s an adventure. Who are you to deny others—even your own children—the fruits of exploration simply because you feel wary about what could go wrong? Answer me that.
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All that aside, yours is a classic, complex, and above all valid argument. It’s just somewhat “icky”—or otherwise easily-discounted— to and by those who happen to place intrinsic or even fleeting value in life, perhaps for sake of their own illogical biases. I’m sure you understand that much. Your posts and arguments are quite concise, convincing even.
Thanks for the reply, TBH I felt it sort of convincing initially.
I’m not convinced that my premise is incorrect. For instance, considering a utilitarian perspective, even if the greatest good is better than the greatest suffering, they don’t both necessarily happen to the same person. Meaning one individual might be blessed at the expense of another’s suffering, the ethics of which I’m not happy with.
As I’ve mentioned before also, I’m not so much concerned with the welfare of the species as a whole, as I am with the welfare of individual members of said species. Individuals only experience their own version of reality. Would you counter-balance the suffering of a worker with the riches experienced by a billionaire? Several individuals, throughout history have suffered greatly in life in places all over the world. Is it okay to sacrifice and forget them while we celebrate the triumphs of the luckier ones?
You cannot average out suffering across different individuals and then say that the good outweighs the bad.
Yes, I recognise that there is often a timing bias to such thoughts. However, I think the presence of a bias should not deter us from trying to overcome it and find objective answers to our problems. But I’ll keep it in mind!
Yes, so far this answer might be the most challenging objection I’ve seen. There is indeed scope to argue that suffering is not inherently undesirable. Will think more along these lines…
But you come to the conclusion that because the bad outweighs the good for particular people it is somehow justifiable to end all life as a result. Even considering that some people do have more suffering than good, you seem to think that you can justify permanently denying all humans, whether considered as individuals or as aggregate, any happiness, joy, etc. just to spare particular individuals suffering.
