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https://aeon.co/essays/having-children-i...ts-immoral

EXCERPT (David Benatar): In 2006, I published a book called Better Never to Have Been. I argued that coming into existence is always a serious harm. People should never, under any circumstance, procreate – a position called ‘anti-natalism’. In response, readers wrote letters of appreciation, support and, of course, there was outrage. But I also got this message, which is the most wrenching feedback I have received...

[...] The idea of anti-natalism is not new. ... Anti-natalism will only ever be a minority view because it runs counter to a deep biological drive to have children. However, it is precisely because it is up against such odds that thoughtful people should pause and reflect rather than hastily dismiss it as mad or wicked. It is neither. Of course, distortions of anti-natalism, and especially attempts to impose it forcefully, might well be dangerous – but the same is true of many other views. Appropriately interpreted, it is not anti-natalism but its opposite that is the dangerous idea. Given how much misfortune there is – all of it attendant on being brought into existence – it would be better if there were not an unbearable lightness of bringing into being.

But even if life isn’t pure suffering, coming into existence can still be sufficiently harmful to render procreation wrong. Life is simply much worse than most people think, and there are powerful drives to affirm life even when life is terrible. People might be living lives that were actually not worth starting without recognising that this is the case.

The suggestion that life is worse than most people think is often met with indignation. How dare I tell you how poor the quality of your life is! Surely the quality of your life is as good as it seems to you? Put another way, if your life feels as though it has more good than bad, how could you possibly be mistaken?

It is curious that the same logic is rarely applied to those who are depressed or suicidal. In these cases, most optimists are inclined to think that subjective assessments can be mistaken. However, if the quality of life can be underestimated it can also be overestimated. Indeed, unless one collapses the distinction between how much good and bad one’s life actually contains and how much of each a person thinks it contains, it becomes clear that people can be mistaken about the former. Both overestimation and underestimation of life’s quality are possible, but empirical evidence of various cognitive biases, most importantly an optimism bias, suggests that overestimation is the more common error.

Considering matters carefully, it’s obvious that there must be more bad than good. This is because there are empirical asymmetries between the good and bad things. The worst pains, for instance, are worse than the best pleasures are good. If you doubt this, ask yourself – honestly – whether you would accept a minute of the worst tortures in exchange for a minute or two of the greatest delights. And pains tend to last longer than pleasures. Compare the fleeting nature of gustatory and sexual pleasures with the enduring character of much pain. There are chronic pains, of the lower back or joints for example, but there is no such thing as chronic pleasure. (An enduring sense of satisfaction is possible, but so is an enduring sense of dissatisfaction, and thus this comparison does not favour the preponderance of the good.)

Injury occurs quickly but recovery is slow. An embolus or projectile can fell you in an instant – and if you’re not killed, healing will be slow. Learning takes a lifetime but can be obliterated in an instant. Destruction is easier than construction.

When it comes to the satisfaction of desires, things are also stacked against us. Many desires are never satisfied. And even when they are satisfied, it is often after a long period of dissatisfaction. Nor does satisfaction last, for the satisfaction of a desire leads to a new desire – which itself needs to be satisfied some time in the future. When one can fulfil one’s more basic desires, such as hunger, on a regular basis, higher-level desires arise. There is a treadmill and an escalator of desire.

[...] Optimists respond to these observations with a brave face. They argue that although life does contain much that is bad, the bad things are necessary (in some or other way) for the good things. Without pain, we would not avoid injury; without hunger, meals would not satisfy; without striving, there would be no achievement.

But plenty of bad things are clearly gratuitous. Is it really necessary that children are born with congenital abnormalities, that thousands of people starve to death every day, and that the terminally ill suffer their agonies? Do we really need to suffer pain in order to enjoy pleasure?

Even if one thinks that the bad is needed, perhaps to better appreciate the good, one must admit that it would be better if that were not the case. That is, life would be better if we could have the good without the bad. In this way, our lives are much worse than they could be. Again, the actual is much worse than the ideal.

[...] One important explanation for this is that in deliberating about whether their lives were worth starting, many people actually (but typically unwittingly) consider a different question, namely whether their lives are worth continuing. Because they imagine themselves not existing, their reflection on non-existence is with reference to a self that already exists. It is then quite easy to slip into thinking about the loss of that self, which is what death is. Given the life drive, it is not surprising that people come to the conclusion that existence is preferable.

Asking whether it would be better never to have existed is not the same as asking whether it would be better to die. There is no interest in coming into existence. But there is an interest, once one exists, in not ceasing to exist. There are tragic cases in which the interest in continuing to exist is overridden, often to end unbearable suffering. However, if we are to say that somebody’s life is not worth continuing, the bad things in life do need to be sufficiently bad to override the interest in not dying. By contrast, because there is no interest in coming into existence, there is no interest that the bad things need to override in order for us to say that it would be better not to create the life. So the quality of a life must be worse in order for the life to be not worth continuing than it need be in order for it to be not worth starting. (This sort of phenomenon is not unusual: a performance at the theatre, for example, might not be bad enough to leave, but if you knew in advance that it would be as bad as it is, you would not have come in the first place.)

The difference between a life not worth starting and a life not worth continuing partly explains why anti-natalism does not imply either suicide or murder. It can be the case that one’s life was not worth starting without it being the case that one’s life is not worth continuing. If the quality of one’s life is still not bad enough to override one’s interest in not dying, then one’s life is still worth continuing, even though the current and future harms are sufficient to make it the case that one’s life was not worth starting. Moreover, because death is bad, even when it ceases to be bad all-things-considered, it is a consideration against procreation – as well as against murder and suicide.

There are further reasons why an anti-natalist should be opposed to murder. One of these is that one person should not force on another competent person a decision whether the latter’s life has ceased to be worth continuing. Because nobody can be certain about these matters, such a decision should, where possible, be made and acted upon by the person who will either live or die as a result. (MORE - details)
The Case For Not Being Born

***"I asked Benatar why the proper response to his arguments wasn’t to strive to make the world a better place. The possible creation of a better world in the future, he told me, hardly justifies the suffering of people in the present; at any rate, a dramatically improved world is impossible. "It’ll never happen. The lessons never seem to get learnt. They never seem to get learnt. Maybe the odd individual will learn them, but you still see this madness around you," he said. "You can say, 'For goodness' sake! Can’t you see how you’re making the same mistakes humans have made before? Can’t we do this differently? But it doesn’t happen." Ultimately, he said, "unpleasantness and suffering are too deeply written into the structure of sentient life to be eliminated." His voice grew more urgent; his eyes teared up. "We’re asked to accept what is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable that people, and other beings, have to go through what they go through, and there’s almost nothing that they can do about it." In an ordinary conversation, I would’ve murmured something reassuring. In this case, I didn’t know what to say.

***He also hears from people who share his views and are disabled by them. "I’m just filled with sadness for people like that," he said, in a soft voice. "They have an accurate view of reality, and they’re paying the price for it."

What are your thoughts, C C?

Obviously, there are circumstances that would be unbearable but there are also lots of physical or mental struggles that by themselves aren’t necessarily that difficult. A friend of mine has cancer. Second round so the odds are slim. She's sick and concerned about leaving loved ones, of course, but she suffers more from other people’s judgement.

I guess, my question is do you think that antinatalists allow society to define what a good life is or is this actually their perception of it?
(Oct 6, 2019 12:07 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]The suggestion that life is worse than most people think is often met with indignation. How dare I tell you how poor the quality of your life is! Surely the quality of your life is as good as it seems to you? Put another way, if your life feels as though it has more good than bad, how could you possibly be mistaken?

It is curious that the same logic is rarely applied to those who are depressed or suicidal. In these cases, most optimists are inclined to think that subjective assessments can be mistaken. However, if the quality of life can be underestimated it can also be overestimated. Indeed, unless one collapses the distinction between how much good and bad one’s life actually contains and how much of each a person thinks it contains, it becomes clear that people can be mistaken about the former. Both overestimation and underestimation of life’s quality are possible, but empirical evidence of various cognitive biases, most importantly an optimism bias, suggests that overestimation is the more common error.

Seems to miss the rather obvious point that, if people can mistake how good or bad life is, the real problem is one of perception/outlook, not life.
(Oct 6, 2019 12:07 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Considering matters carefully, it’s obvious that there must be more bad than good. 
That's fine.  I fully support anyone's right to not have children.  

Doesn't seem to be much else to discuss.
Antinatalism is prescriptive.
(Oct 6, 2019 03:04 AM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]The Case For Not Being Born

***"I asked Benatar why the proper response to his arguments wasn’t to strive to make the world a better place. The possible creation of a better world in the future, he told me, hardly justifies the suffering of people in the present; at any rate, a dramatically improved world is impossible. "It’ll never happen. The lessons never seem to get learnt. They never seem to get learnt. Maybe the odd individual will learn them, but you still see this madness around you," he said. "You can say, 'For goodness' sake! Can’t you see how you’re making the same mistakes humans have made before? Can’t we do this differently? But it doesn’t happen." Ultimately, he said, "unpleasantness and suffering are too deeply written into the structure of sentient life to be eliminated." His voice grew more urgent; his eyes teared up. "We’re asked to accept what is unacceptable. It’s unacceptable that people, and other beings, have to go through what they go through, and there’s almost nothing that they can do about it." In an ordinary conversation, I would’ve murmured something reassuring. In this case, I didn’t know what to say.

***He also hears from people who share his views and are disabled by them. "I’m just filled with sadness for people like that," he said, in a soft voice. "They have an accurate view of reality, and they’re paying the price for it."

What are your thoughts, C C?

Obviously, there are circumstances that would be unbearable but there are also lots of physical or mental struggles that by themselves aren’t necessarily that difficult. A friend of mine has cancer. Second round so the odds are slim. She's sick and concerned about leaving loved ones, of course, but she suffers more from other people’s judgement.

I guess, my question is do you think that antinatalists allow society to define what a good life is or is this actually their perception of it?


For instance: If some might innately tend toward being solitude lovers, the surrounding society oppositely preaches to them that they are supposed to feel miserable if they're alone (so they are until discovering otherwise). Among other things that might not actually be the case if it wasn't for that kind of conformity programming taking root.

I can only go back to the issue of children. The middle ground is that if an individual has good reasons for why he/she would make a bad parent (including mental illness), or they're living in horrible conditions for raising youngsters -- especially an armpit country overflowing with violence, crime, extreme poverty, hunger, gangs, diseases, famine, etc... Then in that context Benatar is giving potentially good advice. But of course, choice is not universally an option. Many girls and women around the world are coerced into motherhood and even in developed countries there may still be pockets of milder(?) traditional pressures on both sexes.

As he points out, it's an outlook that runs counter to our biological make-up, so there's no danger of it ever becoming a majority thought orientation. If it's therapeutic for those suffering from life to identify with the philosophy and read, listen to lectures, publicly discuss or gather at meetings... Then so be it. Strangely enough, there are population groups in the developed Western world that are outputting fewer births on average, but that's usually due to other reasons than the degree of pessimism underlying anti-natalism.

To get around to that latter supposed negativity and despondency: "They have an accurate view of reality, and they’re paying the price for it."

It seems suitable to toss out the Weinberg quote from The First Three Minutes:

"It is almost irresistible for humans to believe that we have some special relation to the universe, that human life is not just a more or less farcical outcome of a chain of accidents reaching back to the first three minutes, but that we were somehow built in from the beginning. As I write this I happen to be in an airplane at 30,000 feet, flying over Wyoming en route home from San Francisco to Boston. Below, the earth looks very soft and comfortable — fluffy clouds here and there, snow turning pink as the sun sets, roads stretching straight across the country from one town to another. It is very hard to realize that this all is just a tiny part of an overwhelmingly hostile universe. It is even harder to realize that this present universe has evolved from an unspeakably unfamiliar early condition, and faces a future extinction of endless cold or intolerable heat. The more the universe seems comprehensible, the more it also seems pointless. … The effort to understand the universe is one of the very few things that lifts human life a little above the level of farce, and gives it some of the grace of tragedy."

So anti-natalism might indeed be "honest" as far as allowing the consequences of a group of perspectives lumped here under "scientism" (for the sake of brevity) to actually continue over the cliff which the horses pulling the carriage probably want to go toward if not distracted and bridled back (as is usually case) by contamination from more classic habits of human culture.

"They have an accurate view of reality, and they’re paying the price for it." Might be better to say it's a more authentic view of where the scientism carriage should be taking society if not for the adulteration of its effects and mitigation by evolution-carved tendencies, once its trickles into the general population. Humans are arguably designed to project higher-level purpose, meaning, etc into even the most dismal situations -- and when not that, then at least possessing enough self-importance to feel they are the gods or authors themselves decreeing what such is.

Except for those (like anti-natal folk?) who seem to be have missed the additional enchantment dust being sucked into their nostrils after birth.

"There are many 'misanthropic anti-natalists': the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, for example, has thousands of members who believe that, for environmental reasons, human beings should cease to exist. For misanthropic anti-natalists, the problem isn’t life—it’s us. Benatar, by contrast, is a 'compassionate anti-natalist.'”

Based purely on first-glance, the above sounds more like an ideological cult that elevates the billions of years before people to radical worship status, requiring its restoration at all costs. Which is to say, their disparagement of themselves slash humans seems more of a Platonic stripe rather than falling out of the brutal pointlessness and pain affliction of the other perception of reality.

EDIT ADD-ON: Though it's unnecessary, out of expected ritual one should state somewhere in here that would it be a good thing to have a smaller number of us on the planet (rather than gunning for the next highlighted celebration of nine billion plus). And simply conceiving fewer offspring is the way to go about it rather the other alternatives (either waiting on such to finally happen accidentally/naturally or the reprehensible direction of being artificially introduced/caused).
I guess pleasure can be derived from life by writing about how miserable it is. There’s only one way you’ll get that chance. This guy just might be the happiest man on Earth.
(Oct 6, 2019 03:21 AM)Syne Wrote: [ -> ]Seems to miss the rather obvious point that, if people can mistake how good or bad life is, the real problem is one of perception/outlook, not life.

Exactly.

Lord knows that I hate using a word that corresponds with your view because I’ve been trying to cut your apron strings for some time now but "potentiality" comes to mind.

I could understand someone saying that they are deficient in any sensory appeal but they’re not. They abhor value judgments and see themselves as victims of chance. They’re offended at the lack of beauty. Therefore, it’s hypocritical to say the least. It’s a pathetic fallacy, as well, right? 

Do you think that they’re defensively looking for fault in the world because it’s more convenient than self-examination?



(Oct 6, 2019 07:01 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Except for those (like anti-natal folk?) who seem to be have missed the additional enchantment dust being sucked into their nostrils after birth.

An explanation doesn’t dissolve something into nothingness, though, right? Understanding how a rainbow is formed doesn’t make it any less beautiful.  Even if emotions are forms of evaluative judgments, my emotional response doesn’t disappear simply because I understand the chemical process. 

In regards to the Kantian imperative, the wiki article states the he rejects this position. How so, C C?
I hope this guy doesn't volunteer to work the Suicide Prevention Hotline.
(Oct 6, 2019 04:15 PM)Secular Sanity Wrote: [ -> ]
(Oct 6, 2019 07:01 AM)C C Wrote: [ -> ]Except for those (like anti-natal folk?) who seem to be have missed the additional enchantment dust being sucked into their nostrils after birth.

An explanation doesn’t dissolve something into nothingness, though, right? Understanding how a rainbow is formed doesn’t make it any less beautiful.  Even if emotions are forms of evaluative judgments, my emotional response doesn’t disappear simply because I understand the chemical process. 

For the anti-natalist (or Benatar at least) I assume beauty being an incentive for introducing new people into the world would be subject to the same reasoning he gives for pleasure. (The perspective apparently treats it as universal how people regard agony or discomfort and what that means for them, when there's actually considerable variability). The tired platitude of beauty being subjective does carry some weight (I know I occasionally have to feign liking eccentric tastes to avoid hurt feelings). So little doubt that could be trivially exploited by the philosophy, too: "Huh, what beauty? You think going through all this #### for the past year was worth it just to observe that for two minutes?"

"The worst pains, for instance, are worse than the best pleasures are good. If you doubt this, ask yourself – honestly – whether you would accept a minute of the worst tortures in exchange for a minute or two of the greatest delights. And pains tend to last longer than pleasures. Compare the fleeting nature of gustatory and sexual pleasures with the enduring character of much pain."

Quote:In regards to the Kantian imperative, the wiki article states the he rejects this position. How so, C C?

They're not so much rejecting it as utilizing it for their own ends (as far as purely going by what the article says): " ...therefore, following Kant's recommendation, we should not create new people."
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