★ On Antinatalism

One of my most conspicuous principles is that of Antinatalism. I am an antinatalist. I am against procreation.

There are many reasons to procreate, which is to say there are many reasons to have a child. However, none of those reasons is for the good of the child. It cannot be, for the child does not exist yet. You cannot have a child for the child’s sake. It follows that having a child is a purely egocentric decision. One has a child for the benefit of one’s self.

I was once told that by not having a child I was being “selfish”. I am not sure what their point was, but I suppose it had to do with the idea of denying someone’s existence. I wonder what they would have said, had I asked them if someone who only has 1 child, is being selfish by not having an infinite amount of them? Surely, there are an infinite amount of “existences” that could be. Are they depriving them of that?

On the reasons for having a child, there are many, as I have already mentioned. For example, one can have a child because one feels like their sundays are a bit lonely. They have already watched all the movies they wanted to watch, and now they feel bored. Why not bring a life to existence? Maybe they want their genes to be passed on to the next generation. Maybe a relationship is going through some turmoil and a child would salvage it. Regardless of the reasoning, having a child is always unethical.

You cannot go through life without suffering. The richest person in the world suffers greatly. Babies suffer greatly; so much so that their first act after being born is to cry. Children suffer greatly. Not all suffering is created equally, though all suffering is bad. Having a disease is obviously bad. Seeing loved ones die is obviously bad. But so is stubbing your toe on a piece of furniture. So is wanting to go on a vacation but being unable to. Wanting to befriend someone and them not wanting anything to do with you is also suffering. Suffering is the one guarantee we have of existence.

When you decide to have a child, you decide to create a life that will suffer. You cannot avoid it. Existing, and therefore suffering, is bad. Not existing, and, therefore not suffering, is good. The presence of pain is a bad thing. The absense of pain is good, even if there is nobody that benefits from it (as is the case when one does not exist).

There are also positive sides to a life, I don’t deny that. Good things happen. That first cup of coffee after you haven’t had one for a while; heavenly. The presence of pleasure is a good thing! However, the absense of pleasure is not bad, if nobody is deprived from it.

Say you have n children. Are you being bad/unethical for not having a n+1 child and, thus, not allowing/providing pleasure to that child? Obviously not, it sounds absurd.

We see that there is an assymetry here. This is called the “assymetry argument of antinatalism”, and it was coined by David Benatar¹. To sum it up:

• Presence of pain is bad.
• Presence of pleasure is good.
• Absence of pain is good (even if nobody benefits from it).
• Absence of pleasure is not bad (if nobody is deprived).

If you accept this argument, you must accept the conclusion that having a child is unethical. It is morally wrong.

I have also heard arguments such as “sufferig is important for the health of a person”. And I agree with that. Suffering is important to create an interesting and attractive personality. I 100% agree. However, this not invalidate anything that I have said previously, namely the assymetry argument.

Stating “I like existing, my child may also like existing, therefore having a kid is not unethical” is also something that does not resonate with me. Not existing is not an experience. The assymetry argument is here again. And what is worse is seemingly ignoring the possibility of the child preferring not to exist. That is a real possibility, and one is essentially throwing a dice to decide whether or not to create a life of suffering. This sounds categorically evil and repugnant.

And to end this note, I just want to say that we are going throw a climate emergency. It is my opinion (and the opinion of many climate scientists) that what is to come is the extinction of many many species and humans might just be one of them. Not before a great amount of suffering. Soil degradation due to climate change will lead to falling crop yields which leads to an increase of food prices. There will also be water scarcity. The ecosystem will collapse. All this will lead to forced migrations. Massive migrations. We will be seeing more and more right-wing governments and everything that comes with it: Racism, xenophobia, transphobia, homophobia, loss of reproductive rights for women, sexism, wars, loss of basic rights, etc.

Please, if you are reading this and thinking of having a child. Please, think again and decide not to have one.