The philosopher John Rawls, author of A Theory of Justice and Justice as Fairness, is not an antinatalist. Furthermore, the theory he developed along these books, is according to him, not an ethical framework but a political one. Yet, some of the basic ideas in the theory are often used in ethical discussions. In my view, applying his theory of justice on procreation, if genuinely used impartially, must lead to the conclusion that procreation is not fair and is unjust – it must lead to antinatalism.

The Original Position

Rawls’s theory of justice is an evolvement of the social contract doctrine, and is mainly based on the idea that justice can only be obtained by free and equal persons who jointly agree upon and commit themselves to principles of social and political justice. The theory suggests that the principles of justice, which according to Rawls would regulate an ideal society, are ones which would be chosen by every individual if every individual were in what he calls The Original Position.
The original position is a thought experiment in which each real citizen has a representative, and all of these representatives come to an agreement on which principles of justice should order the political institutions of the real citizens. The original position is designed to be a fair and impartial point of view that must be adopted when discussing the fundamental principles of justice in order to uncover the most reasonable principles of justice. The main tool for ensuring fairness and impartiality is The Veil of Ignorance – the parties in the original position are deprived of all knowledge regarding the personal characteristics and social and historical circumstances of the citizens they represent. This prevents arbitrary facts about citizens such as their gender, race, class, age, education, religion and etc., from influencing the representatives. They are also unaware of the political system of the society, its history, its class structure, economic system, or level of economic development, and even the time in which they are living (so they won’t overlook the expected interests of future generations).
The idea is that if the representatives know nothing about the people they represent, not only would they be unable to prioritize their personal interests, they would probably promote principles that are fair to all. If no one knows whose fate they are shaping, the rational choice would be to constitute principles that treat all fairly.

The original position, according to Rawls, sets fair and equal conditions for the parties to constitute a just social agreement. The fairness of the original agreement situation transfers to the principles everyone agree to. In other words, the agreement’s fairness is derived from the equal and fair conditions it was created under.

Maximin

Rawls argues that given that the parties are behind the veil of ignorance when setting the principles of justice, it is most rational for them to play it as safe as possible by choosing the alternative whose worst outcome leaves their citizens better off than the worst outcome of all other alternatives. Their aim should be to maximize the minimum regret or loss to well-being, therefore this rule is called maximin. In the original position context it means that the parties should maximize the minimum level of primary goods that the citizens they represent might find themselves with. And in a general context, it’s choosing the best possibility among the worst probabilities.
It is very likely that all parties would adopt the maximin rule since everyone understands that someone has to be in the worst position and since the representatives don’t know who they represent, for all they know it might be them. Therefore rational parties would choose the best possible worst case, by ensuring that the ones who are at the bottom of the social order, would be prioritized in terms of resources. In other words it would be rational of each to maximize the worse off case.

According to Rawls, given the unique character of the original position, being irrevocable and not renegotiable set of choices, a state where the parties decide the basic structure of their society, and the kind of social world they will live in, adopting the maximin rule is particularly rational and advisable. Because all one’s interests and future prospects are at stake in the original position, and there is no hope of renegotiating the outcome, a rational person would act upon the maximin rule. It is more rational under conditions of complete uncertainty, assuming an equal probability of occupying any position in society, always to choose according to the principle of maximin. Rawls’s logic is that if the worst case would be realized, at least it would be the best worst case possible.

Rawls claims that his theory is not being risk-averse, but rather entirely rational to refuse to gamble with basic liberties, equal opportunities, and essential resources, for the sake of the possibility of gaining more power, resources, and income.

A Theory of Antinatalism

Rawls’s theory of justice is a development of the social contract doctrine for an ideal of a well-ordered society. The original position and the veil of ignorance are hypothetical concepts of a thought experiment that aims at extracting and focusing on what really matters to people as social beings.
However, if we apply the basics of this theory to the issue of creating people, given that every possible life must be represented in the original position, including of course the possibility of people who feel that their lives are not worth living and that prefer that they had never existed, in terms of procreation, this would be the worse off case. Since in any case, even in a much better world than our horrible one, it is inevitable that some people would feel that their lives are not worth living, and that they rather never to have been, when it comes to creating people, being coerced to be born is the worst possible option, and so according to the maximin rule, we must never procreate.

The ‘worst case’ possibility is life not worth living. The probability of this option is morally irrelevant since it is the principle that counts, and according the Rawls’s theory of justice the principle is that the worse off are of primal consideration, even if the worse off option was relevant for a tiny minority only. Of course one can argue that if the principle leads us to an absurd conclusion, maybe we should reject it? But there is nothing absurd about this conclusion when it comes to creating people since no one would be harmed by not being created, and at least a tiny minority (which is actually probably hundreds of millions of people) would be forced to live a life not worth living if this conclusion won’t be applied. No matter what the quantitative proportions are, even if it is “only” few people against everyone else, since no one would be harmed had they never existed, and the “few” would be extremely harmed if existed, it is better that no one would exist.
Rejecting the maximin rule in the case of procreation, means imposing lives not worth living for the sake of the ones who might enjoy their lives. That is sacrificing some for the sake of others, and it is treating people, all the more so the less fortunate ones, as means to other people’ ends –  the more fortunate and already better off ones. If anything, that is absurd. How is it fair or just, that someone would suffer so others might enjoy themselves (and anyone with even the slightest familiarity with life knows how brief and fragile joy is), all the more so when none of them would be deprived of this joy had they not existed?

Prospective parents are in a veil of ignorance, they have no idea what kind of a life the person they are creating would be forced to endure. So the right thing to do is to play it as safe as possible by choosing the alternative whose worst outcome leaves their children better off than the worst outcome of all other alternatives. In procreation context the maximin rule means that the prospective parents should maximize the minimum level of harm that the persons they are creating might find themselves with. The way to maximize the minimum regret or loss to well-being, is not to procreate.

It is very likely that most prospective parents would not adopt antinatalism, despite that everyone understands that someone has to be in the worst position (since the prospective parents don’t know what kinds of lives their children would maintain, for all they know it might be them). The reason they won’t adopt antinatalism is that people are too careless, even when it comes to their own children. Therefore, prospective parents, who are definitely not rational parties, are not maximizing the worse off by not taking any risk that their children would lead miserable lives, but rather they are ignoring the worse off possibility, and for their own selfish sake.

It is quite obvious that since there is a possibility of life not worth living, and in fact there are many people who feel that way, then even if we ignore the inherent problems involved with people’s evaluations of their lives value, and for the sake of the argument totally accept their self-evaluation (despite it being totally biased and psychologically inclined), even the strongest pro-natalist claims – that people want to live – don’t hold against the possibility of a life not worth living in the eyes of the ones who live it.

Lives not worth living is not a theoretical possibility, it is a certainty. People whom their lives are not worth living would be born, and the chances for that happening are renewed with each procreation. Misery has no quota. The only way to avoid this worse off option is by not procreating.

Justice to Others

Finally and most importantly, Rawls’s original position consists of free and rational agents who represent humans only. When considering the interests of every sentient creature on earth (as we obviously must and Rawls totally omits), meaning that the original position would really include every morally relevant being, and the representatives have no idea the interests of whose species they represent, human procreation should not only be prohibited under the maximin rule, but as a fundamental violation of other sentient creatures’ most basic rights, such as the right to life, freedom from torture, the right for body integrity, freedom from discrimination, right to free movement, the right to be free from pain, the right not to be treated as means to others’ ends, and etc.

Rawls argues that maximin must be the prime guideline mostly in cases of uncertainty regarding the acceptable outcome, and if it is impossible to guarantee some crucial basic liberties. For nonhumans, humans’ procreation certainly brings about a very unacceptable outcome, and a guarantee that their most crucial and basic liberties would be violated.

I wrote earlier that prospective parents are in a veil of ignorance, but that is only regarding the lives their children would be forced to live. They are not in a veil of ignorance regarding the option that their children would be forced to live miserable lives, and that their children would definitely make the lives of others miserable. They know very well that the first scenario is highly possible, and that the second one is unavoidable. They are just careless enough to ignore these horrible outcomes. They are not ignorant, they are indifferent. Had they been ignorant, us radical antinatalists would ought to educate them. But since they are indifferent, educating them is irrelevant. So what we ought to do is educate ourselves, we must look for technological ways to make it impossible for them to procreate. That would not be a theory of justice, but the best practice of it.

References

Rawls, J. A Theory of Justice (Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press 1971)

Rawls, J. Justice as Fairness: A Restatement (Cambridge, MA Harvard University Press 2001)