Category: Articles

Not only pro-natalists misunderstand or misrepresent antinatalist arguments. In a former post I’ve addressed a position against human extinction for ecological reasons that totally misrepresents the environmental argument for antinatalism, by someone who declares that he has great sympathy for the antinatalist position.
In this post I’ll address another opposition to the ecological antinatalist argument, but this time by someone who is most definitely an antinatalist and a very articulate one. In a blog called Why I’m Sold On Antinatalism, the author – Filrabat, thoroughly and effectively explains the logic of being antinatalist for philanthropic reasons, only that he is doing it while misrepresenting the environmental argument for antinatalism. Same as Magnus Vinding which I have addressed in the former post, he presents the ecological argument as if its only version is the one expressed by VHEMT.

I don’t consider myself as ecological antinatalist, and as explained in the post Involuntary Human Extinction Movement, I don’t share the same arguments nor motive for human extinction as VHEMT, therefore I’ll not defend it here, but I do find it important to correct some of the false assertions presented in Filrabat’s article.

Basically Filrabat rejection to the ecological antinatalist argument is as follows:

“I do not find the ecological antinatalist arguments compelling because they (a) overlook that a much reduced human population with our technology level can be ecologically sustainable, (b) ignore that humans have at least as much right to exist as other lifeforms, (c) handwave away the fact that other species can and have disrupted ecosystems with no human involvement in the process whatsoever, even in recent times (d) apparently find irrelevant that, on a humanless earth, animals still would suffer greatly at the hands of other animals (especially predators), microbes, and natural disasters.”

So as mentioned I am not an ecological antinatalist since I don’t consider ecological systems as moral patients. Ecological systems, the environment, species, and similar terms often ascribed to the ecological argument, are not entities and therefore don’t hold any moral status. Their moral relevancy is only instrumental, not intrinsic, they are important only because they are important to sentient creatures who are harmed when they are affected. I think that people must stop creating new people because each person severely harms numerous other sentient creatures, not because humanity affects the insentient ecological environment in which sentient creatures live.
Anyway I reject his 4 rejections and I think their basic flaw is that they incorrectly present the claims they criticize (though to some extent that is because these claims are often falsely represented by their own supporters).

(a) overlook that a much reduced human population with our technology level can be ecologically sustainable

Filrabat’s first rejection demonstrates considerable and depressing ignorance regarding the harms caused by human technology. Most people know about fossil fuels, pesticides, lead, plastic and etc., but these are just the more famous harmful examples of human activities, while in fact all human activities are harmful. The current human technology level would still be very harmful even if human population would be significantly reduced.fragment their habitat

In the text about the harm to others, I specify some of the main causes of harms humanity inflicts on other animals, so please read it to get a better notion of how ridiculous this claim is. However, even focusing on “just” one aspect of human technology is sufficient to refute Filrabat’s first rejection. So in this text I’ll focus only on one aspect of human technology, one which is usually overlooked – light pollution.

Artificial light pollute the environment of other animals by humans’ use of public lighting, road lighting, buildings lighting, billboards, stores which are over-lit to attract customers, parking lots, sports centers, vehicles and etc.

Light pollution, often referred to as Photopollution, has various forms:
Light trespass – light falling where it is not intended or needed even by humans
Clutter – bright, confusing and excessive groupings of light sources
Glare – excessive brightness that causes reduced contrast, color perception, and visual performance
Skyglow – brightening of the night sky

The impact of light pollution on other animals is extremely harmful. By altering the natural cycles of light and by illuminating the environment, light pollution modifies the behavior, physiological functions and biological rhythms of other living beings. It affects animals’ orientation, navigation, feed, reproduction, and communication.
For example, exposure to artificial light causes nocturnal animals a repulsive response, meaning they move away from light sources. Since humanity’s light pollution is so intensive, the habitats of nocturnal animals which are constantly shrinking as it is by humanity’s expansion, further shrink by humanity’s light pollution.

Other animals are not repulsed by light but are attracted to it – they approach light sources.
Artificial light sources can outshine natural light sources, causing birds to be drawn to or fixate on the artificial lights. This results in birds deviating from their intended migration route, flying until they experience exhaustion and collapse. Marine birds such as albatrosses are known to collide with lighthouses, wind turbines, and drilling platforms at sea due to their bright lights.
The Fatal Flight Awareness Program has estimated that anywhere from 100 million to 1 billion migrating birds are killed every year because they collide with buildings, which in part is due to artificial lighting.
Other animals that use starlight to move in the dark are disorientated by artificial lighting, and often collide with large lighted structures, burn themselves in contact with lamps, or starve and are dehydrated as they limit their movements and their search for food and water to artificially lighted areas.

Reptiles such as sea turtles are greatly affected by light pollution. Female turtles nest on dark remote beaches, so bright coastal lights prevent them from finding safe nesting areas for their eggs. This leads the female turtles to deposit their eggs in an unsafe area or the ocean. Sea turtle hatchlings instinctively crawl toward the brightest part on the beach, which for many centuries was the moonlight and starlit ocean; however, excessive lighting on the beach or near the shore confuses the hatchlings and causes them to wander away from the ocean. The hatchlings may be eaten by predators, run over by vehicles, or die from dehydration or exhaustion. Artificial lights also disorient other nocturnal reptiles.

Light pollution also damages visual communication, especially among bioluminescent animals who communicate by emitting light signals. In the presence of strong illumination, the visibility of light signals is significantly reduced.
Michael Justice, a behavioral ecologist who studies how artificial light affects insects said that we must “Start thinking of a photon as a potential pollutant. Much like a chemical spill or gas leak, the photons being used to light your porch and street can unintentionally leak into surrounding areas and affect the local ecology at every level from plants to apex predators”.

Light pollution also contributes to habitat fragmentation. The example of nocturnal insects is a perfect demonstration of this. An artificial light source can attract nocturnal insects within a radius of 400 to 700 meters. However, in urban areas, streetlights are only 30 to 50 meters apart. Illuminated traffic lanes are therefore real artificial barriers that stand along people’s routes. Considering the attraction that artificial light exerts on nocturnal insects, these barriers therefore limit their movements and fragment their habitat.

And all that is only part of the effects of light pollution which is only part of all of humanity’s pollution which is only part of all of humanity’s harms.
For a more complete picture (but still very partial, as the list of harms humans are causing is practically endless) please read the text the harm to others.

Claim (a) is false since there is no way human technology can ever be ecologically sustainable, and since there is no way humans would voluntarily reduce their population, and since there is no way humans would voluntarily reduce their technology level, and since ecologically sustainable is not a metonym for a good thing in an ethical sense. An ecological system can be sustainable but violent and horrible. Sustainability is a euphemism for the constant struggle to survive under extreme environmental pressure. Sustainability is a product of constant violence and suffering. It is a biological description, not an ethical prescription.

Looking at the current level of human destruction it seems logical that if human population size decreases it can be ecologically sustainable, but that is only compared to the current unbelievably destructive state of affairs. Had this argument been claimed when the human population was more or less at the level Filrabat has in mind, minus the current technology level, suggesting to add the current technology level, obviously would have been considered a blunt violation of the ecological sustainability. In other words, only under the current horrible situation it seems reasonable to suggest that humans can preserve the current level of technology. But this is wrong conceptually and ethically.

It is conceptually wrong since it is not that the ecological system would determine when it is sustainable, or that each and every creature who is depended on each and every ecological system would participate in determining when each is considered sustainable, but that everything would be decided according to humans’ interests and perspective. They would decide what would be the initial population size in each ecosystem, and that would be the criterion from then on. According to Filrabat it sounds as if there is an external criterion for ecological sustainability and that it can be reached. But not only that there is no external criterion, there are only human ones.
The problem with that is not theoretical anthropocentrism, but practical speciesism. The problem is that humans would define sustainability according to their own interests. If they decide that a population of 40 million people in a specific ecosystem, living with the current level of technology is sustainable, then from now on, this ecosystem is sustainable if the human population is about 40 million people. But obviously before humans have invaded that particular ecosystem it had a whole different criterion for being sustainable. It is a human definition, set according to human standards and interests. Had other animals had a say in what is considered sustainable I doubt that the current level of human technology would be part of the definition.

And it is ethically wrong since what matters ethically is not how sustainable the ecosystems are, but how the creatures living in them feel. Under Filrabat’s false description, what matters are the ecosystems, despite that ecosystems don’t feel. Truly, this is how many supporters of the ecological antinatalism present the argument, so they are also responsible for the misrepresentation of the argument. But that makes only this particular rejection of Filrabat valid, and only under a false description of the issue. When considering humanity’s massive harm not to the sustainability of ecosystems, which are not moral entities, but to trillions of its inhabitants, who most definitely are moral entities, I fail to see how it is not wrong for humans to procreate.

(b) ignore that humans have at least as much right to exist as other lifeforms

First of all I don’t think there is such a thing as a right to live before one exists. But even if I’ll accept it for the sake of the argument, humans would have the same right to exist as other lifeforms had they lived like other lifeforms. But humans live as masters of the universe (and evil ones it must be added), not as other lifeforms. Their dominance and harmfulness is unprecedented. There is no other species that is even remotely as harmful as humans. No other lifeform is imprisoning other lifeforms for their entire lives. No other lifeform totally shatters other lifeforms’ social lives. No other lifeform prevents access to clean air, clean water, and natural environment. No other lifeform prevents access to natural food. No other lifeform is constantly genetically modifying other lifeforms to extract more meat, milk, eggs, skin, wool, feathers, fur and etc., from other lifeforms. No other lifeform castrates other lifeforms. No other lifeform burns numbers on other lifeforms. No other lifeform cuts the horns, tails and teeth of other lifeforms. No other lifeform rides, chains, and enslaves other lifeforms. No other lifeform forces other lifeforms to dance, do tricks, to dress up, to jump fences, to fight each other. No other lifeform experiment on other lifeforms.

Humans have an extremely high harm toll which makes supporting their right to exist a support in the violation of the rights of anyone who is hurt by them.

Filrabat presents the claim as if it is one human individual against one nonhuman individual and as if ecological antinatalism is choosing to favor the nonhuman, while practically it is one human individual against ten thousands of nonhuman individuals. It is very hard to estimate the harm other creatures are forced to endure for each human but in any case it is an enormous one under all circumstances (such as different lifestyles) and from several aspects, as humans are making the lives of many animals very miserable.

The human race is the only species ever who chooses to unnecessarily harm others, despite that it can easily choose not to. It is also the only species who can choose not to procreate. But I am in favor of human extinction not because it has no right to exist or because it is evil since it can choose otherwise (I don’t really think it can choose otherwise, the urge to breed is too biologically imprinted, and the indifference to other creatures’ suffering for the most trivial and needless pleasures is, due to several inherent psychological traits, to a large extent not really under its full control), but only because of the tremendous harm it causes to others, including other humans of course.

Filrabat writes that “We’re made of the same basic chemical elements and molecules, after all.” But that is a straw man argument. No one is arguing that the human race better be or must be extinct because humans are made of different basic chemical elements and molecules. The claim for human extinction, and that goes for the one expressed by VHEMT as well, is that the human race acts like a cancerous tumor in the planet, not that humans are actually cancer cells. The motive behind human extinction is their ecological harm, not their biological structure.

Later in the article Filrabat claims that rights should be ascribed to not yet exiting people despite the common objection to ascribe rights to non-existing persons. I am not necessarily against this position, but it is surly very controversial, even among antinatalists. However ascribing rights to existing persons is not controversial. So the question must be asked, how come according to Filrabat, humans, even if they don’t yet exist and might not exist in the future, should be gained with rights, but existent sentient creatures, who weren’t born to the “right” species, shouldn’t?

One of Filrabat main reasons for being an antinatalist is because he thinks it is morally wrong to create a person without consent. I totally agree. However, not only the person who is about to be born, is going to be harmed without consent as a result of its existence, but also thousands of others who would be harmed as part of providing the living support for that person. A “support” none of them has ever given consent for. Even if we could have obtained consent from non-existing persons before creating them, we first must ask for consent from everyone who would be sacrificed and otherwise harmed by these persons. We must get their permission to be genetically modified so they would provide the maximum meat possible for the to-be born persons. We must get their permission to be imprisoned for their entire lives. We must get their permission to live without their family for their entire lives. We must get their permission to suffer chronic pain and maladies. We must get their permission to never breathe clean air, walk on grass, bath in water, and eat their natural food. We must get their permission to be violently murdered so the to-be born could consume their bodies. We must get their permission to destroy their habitats, pollute their land, water, and air. But has any human ever received consent to harm any animal? Did anyone ask the chicken forced into the egg industry if she is willing to live in a battery cage? Were animals asked for their opinion on the number of people that should exist “sustainably”? Did anyone ask any animal what should be the level of human technology in their shared ecosystem? Did anyone ask for the permission of other creatures who are about to be poisoned? Do we have the consent of tree dwellers to cut their home? No one is asking them. And it is not even because everyone knows they would never give their consent, but because others’ harms matter so little to people, that no one even thinks they must be asked.

Another reason Filrabat mentions for being an antinatalist is that he opposes taking risks at others’ expense. Again I totally agree that the risk of serious suffering is a sufficient reason for antinatalism, however I disagree that there is a risk of serious suffering when procreating, as serious suffering is most certainly guaranteed. In terms of general harm, procreation is not at all a gamble or risk that harms would be inflicted, since it is absolutely certain that the person created would severely harm others. Even if the person created would have a great life which s/he is glad to have, it is absolutely certain that serious harms would be inflicted by that person. Therefore procreation is not taking a risk of causing harms, it is indifferently deciding to cause harms.

(c) handwave away the fact that other species can and have disrupted ecosystems with no human involvement in the process whatsoever, even in recent times

I find all of Filrabat’s claims for rejecting the ecological argument rather odd, and this one is probably the oddest. I think that if it was possible to accumulate the harm of all the creatures of all the species that ever lived, their disruption of ecosystems wouldn’t come near the level of human harm, even of the current human generation only. This claim is beyond ignorance. No one is that ignorant regarding humans’ harm to ecosystems compared with the harm of other species. I have no doubt that this claim is a consequence of the desire to strengthen an opposition to the ecological argument. I find it hard to believe that such an intelligent and knowledgeable person seriously believes in such a statement, which is not supported by any historical record.

Filrabat mentions beavers as an example of a significantly ecosystem disrupting species (along with elephants who have supposedly turned Africa from fairly thick woodlands into a savanna). However, the number, the effect, and the disruption of dams built by humans all along history dwarfs anything that all the beavers had ever done despite that beavers exist way longer than human dams are around.

It is estimated that there are 800,000 manmade dams worldwide. Dams are used to store water, for irrigation, to control floods, and for electricity production. Manmade dams have a tremendous negative impact.

The most significant effect of dams on other animals is the loss of land which includes forests, valleys, marshy wetlands, and etc. Flooding of areas drowns a great many shrubs and trees, which adversely affects many species of birds that nest in them, while marshland is a very valuable environment for other birds.

Every animal or plant tends to have a well-defined habitat, or situation in which it thrives and to which it has become adapted. Destruction of their habitats forces more and more birds and mammals to migrate to new environments where they have to struggle against the native animals, as well as readapt to the environmental conditions.

The migratory pattern of river animals like salmon, sturgeon, and trout are extremely affected by dams. Dams divide rivers, creating upstream and downstream habitats, but migratory fish, such as sturgeon, depend on the whole river. Dams block their ability to travel back upstream. Sturgeon fish also rely on temperature triggers and shallow areas for reproduction. Because dams change how rivers flow, the water temperature and natural conditions also change.

Other animals commonly affected by dams are egrets, who along with other wetland birds, depend on healthy river systems for food and shelter. They make their nests in the steep banks of rivers or floodplain thickets. Dams prevent the natural highs and lows of rivers.

River dolphins are also highly affected by dams as they need high quality water and safe migratory routes to survive. Poorly planned dams often reduce dolphins’ food supply, change water quality and destroy habitats. As dams are constructed, the dynamite and noise can harm river dolphins. Once the dam is up, increased boat traffic can lead to more injuries and deaths from collisions.

Another significant impact of dams is changes in temperature, chemical composition, dissolved oxygen levels and the physical properties of a reservoir, which are often not suitable for the aquatic animals and plants that evolved in a given river system. And so, reservoirs often host non-native and invasive species that further undermine the river’s natural communities of animals and plants.

Dams serve as a heat sink, as the water is hotter than the normal river water. This warm water when released into the river downstream affects animals living there.
Slow-moving or still reservoirs can heat up, resulting in abnormal temperature fluctuations which can affect sensitive species. Other dams decrease temperatures by releasing cooled, oxygen-deprived water from the reservoir bottom.
In addition, peak power operations (in dams for electricity production) can change the water level thirty to forty feet in one day and can kill the animals living at the shorelines.

Dams can also degrade water quality when organic materials from in and outside rivers build up behind the dam. When the movement of sediment is disrupted, materials build up at the mouth of the reservoir, starving downriver ecosystems of vital ingredients. These backed-up materials, when decomposing, often result in algal blooms that consume large amounts of oxygen, creating oxygen-starved “dead zones”.

Dams also contribute to global warming. Over 20 years, the warming impact of annual large dam methane emissions is equivalent to 7.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

Nearly 500 dam projects are currently in the pipeline worldwide. Within the next 30 years, thousands of new dams are expected to be constructed globally.

So, beavers’ ecosystem disruption is probably billionth of humans’ ecosystem disruption. And that’s only one disruption out of an endless list of harms that humans are constantly causing.
Comparing the ecosystem disruption of any other animal, or even all of them put together (and probably even all of them put together from the beginning of each existence), with humanity’s ecosystem disruption is simply ridiculous.

(d) apparently find irrelevant that, on a humanless earth, animals still would suffer greatly at the hands of other animals (especially predators), microbes, and natural disasters

Although it is true that animals still would suffer greatly at the hands of other animals even if humans would go extinct, that claim is only relevant if the ecological antinatalist argument was that if the human race goes extinct all the suffering would stop. That is not the argument and if it was, obviously it would have been false. The argument is that the human race is unproportionately the most harmful species ever in the history of the world and other creatures’ biggest problem, so it is best if it goes extinct, not that all the world’s problems would be solved if it did. No one thinks that, so I wonder why Filrabat chose to confront the weakest version of the argument. Clearly animals still would suffer greatly at the hands of other animals, and I wish there was a way to make everyone go extinct, but it is not that the argument is only valid if all the suffering stops, and if it doesn’t, then the argument loses all its validation. If an action can stop most of the suffering but not all of it, it is not a justifiable reason not to perform that action if possible. Human extinction cannot and is not presented as a perfect solution, exactly because animals would still suffer greatly at the hands of other animals, but that is not a reason not to do everything possible to help all the animals who otherwise would still suffer greatly at the hands of humans. It is like arguing against world peace because there would still be great suffering from car accidents. That would be factually true but ethically irrelevant as a case against world peace.

All that this claim shows is that the human race is not the only problem, not that it is not a problem, or that it is not the biggest problem. My focus on humans is not because I think there are no other problems, but because I think humans are the biggest one and because I think it is more solvable. I know that unfortunately the world would stay horrible after human extinction, but much less. Much much much less.

“If we assume humans deserve self-omnicide on the grounds that environmental damage they create causes animals to suffer, then we have to eliminate all other animals that cause ecological damage that causes other animals to suffer as well. It doesn’t matter if these animals are generally considered part of the “authentic” ecosystem. Furthermore, it’s also based on the assumption that one should reduce harm to the minimum reasonable.”

I am in favor of eliminating all other animals that cause other animals to suffer as well. I am not favoring nor idealizing life in nature or in general. Was it realistic to sterilize every creature on earth I would unhesitatingly fully support that. That could be the most wonderful thing that ever happened to life on earth. I am an efilist who focuses on human extinction for practical reasons.
The reason I advocate for human extinction is because they are by far the biggest harm, and since it is by far more realistic than the extinction of all other life forms that cause harms.
Following the logic of the last sentence in the quote above – since the human race causes the maximum harm, reducing harm to the minimum reasonable is to aim at human extinction.

I call for human extinction in the name of trillions of sentient victims per year, not in the name of their species, nor in the name of their ecosystems, nor since humans deserve to go extinct, or because I think it would solve all the problems in the world, or because humans have no right to exist. I relate to none of these claims. My claim and motive is the harm to others.
The human race is the biggest problem in the world more or less since their first step in it. That’s why I aim and hope that they would make their last one as soon as possible.

Every day the human race provides us with more and more reasons for its extinction. And every day it provides us with less and less reasons to believe it would ever happen voluntarily. For it to finally happen, we must make it happen.

References

Why I’m Sold On Antinatalism Personal Reasons Part IV Sunday, September 12, 2010

bbc.com/news/av/stories-43699464/i-m-not-having-children-because-i-want-to-save-the-planet

bbc.com/news/science-environment-36492596

Benatar, D. 2006. Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems. PNAS, 110, 52

britannica.com/science/light-pollution

carbonpositivelife.com

Dams and Migratory Fish by International Rivers

Darksky.org

Destructive Dams by World Animal Foundation

ecowatch.com/u/ecowatch

Environmental Impacts of Dams by International Rivers

Environmental Issues, Dams And Fish Migration By Michel Larinier

Csp Cemagref Ghaape Institut De Mécanique Des Fluides

Fish Passage at Dams by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council

International Dark-Sky Association. “International Dark Sky Places.”

http://www.darksky.org/night-sky-conservation/34-ida/about-ida/142-idsplaces

Lighting Research Center. “Light Pollution.” Accessed November 19, 2013

lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/lightinganswers/lightpollution/abstract.asp

The Problems of Light Pollution – Overview

The Campaign for Dark Skies. “About the Campaign for Dark Skies.” Accessed November 19, 2013. britastro.org/dark-skies/about.htm?1O.

What are the Negative Effects of Building Large Hydroelectric Dams? By Chief Engineer Mohit Sanguri

In an article called “Anti-Natalism and the Future of Suffering: Why Negative Utilitarians Should Not Aim For Extinction” Magnus Vinding argues that people should act so to reduce suffering as much as possible, and should do whatever accomplishes that goal, however antinatalism is not the best way to do that. In his view antinatalism “misses the bigger picture and instead focuses only on whether single individual lives are worth starting for the sake of the individuals who are brought into existence. We have to take a much broader view to address that question, the question concerning how to reduce the most suffering in the world.” Although there are antinatalists who solely focus on the sake of the person forced into existence, many others argue against procreation for being morally wrong regardless of the wellbeing of the created person (the consent argument for example is highly popular among antinatalists), and many also consider the harm to others. In fact, although this blog doesn’t solely focus on the harm to others, in my view, it definitely must be the main claim for antinatalism. So his assumptions regarding antinatalism are mistaken, some of us do take a much broader view to address that question, and that’s exactly why some of us aim for human extinction.

Vinding doesn’t define himself as a pro-natalist, but very much like many pro-natalists he conveniently chooses to present antinatalism as if it is based on one argument by David Benatar. And he criticizes Benatar for claiming in the preface of Better Never to Have Been that he has no expectation that his book or its arguments will have any impact on baby-making:

“So it seems that Benatar actually does not argue for anti-natalism with any serious conviction that it will change the world much (“Procreation will continue undeterred”). Rather, his book seems more like the work of a mathematician who wants to show the truth of a counter-intuitive conjecture for its own sake, because he feels the truth “needs to be said”, not because it will “make (much) difference” in terms of impact in the world.” (p.3)

Besides that it is wrong to present a whole movement, let alone one that is abundant with various arguments, ideas, objections, inner dilemmas, nuances and etc., as if it is a one claim movement, with one thinker, and besides that many antinatalists oppose Benatar’s arguments, including myself, this book was published in 2006 and was based on an article written in the late 90’s, back then antinatalism was much less socially accepted than it is now (an improvement which is to a large extent thanks to Benatar). Since 2006 Benatar himself wrote two more books about the subject, as well as many articles and elaborated replies to his critics, he also attended several conferences, and gave plenty of interviews, in all of which he thoroughly and persistently explained his views regarding the wrongness of creating new persons. So it is unfair to criticize him for being like “a mathematician who wants to show the truth of a counter-intuitive conjecture for its own sake”. Furthermore had it been the case, he wouldn’t have written the third chapter of Better Never to Have Been where he makes the quality of life argument.

I do agree with Vinding that:

“there will always be people who decide to have children, no matter how convincing an argument anti-natalists can make against it, and thus the only way anti-natalists would be able to prevent such people from procreating would be by force”. (p.3)

However I disagree with his predicted scenario:

“And given that people likely also will be willing to defend their right to procreate with force, and given that the proportion of people who will either decide to have children or be in support of such a decision is likely to be the vast majority, the prospects of success for anti-natalists who wish to force people not to procreate looks no better than they do for the nonviolent anti-natalists. In the worst case, a war could break out, and the vastly outnumbered pro-coercion anti-natalists would score a predictable defeat that would leave things largely unchanged…” (p.3)

If the anyway much more desirable option of imposed sterilization on all people without the use of force is found, then his claim is irrelevant. The idea was never to literally force sterilization, but to impose it on everyone using an unforceful method such as a chemical poured into major water systems all over the world, or sprayed all over the world, or developing and spreading virus or bacteria which causes sterilization, or whatever method that can potentially affect everyone without the need to physically force it on everyone. The idea was never one that requires winning a war against pro-natalists.

Anyway, this is not Vinding’s main case against antinatalism. His main claim is that if antinatalism gained instant success today it means that humanity would be left with about a century to cure and prevent all suffering on the planet and on other planets:

“we are by no means guaranteed to be able to end suffering on Earth within the next century. Just consider the oceans with trillions of vertebrates, or the more than a quintillion – a billion billion – insects who live on the planet, and who may well be able to suffer. Making sure that no such beings suffer, or evolve into beings who do, is a huge challenge, and it seems to me that we are far more likely to be unable to accomplish such a thing within the next century than we are to succeed.” (p.4)

Of course humans are by no means guaranteed to be able to end suffering on Earth within the next century, since in order to do that they must first of all want to. Humans haven’t even taken the first step towards ending suffering on Earth which is to at least stop intensifying their share in causing it. Currently humans are still deeply immersed in increasing the suffering on Earth by artificially creating billions of animals who would know nothing but suffering for their whole miserable lives, just so humans could enjoy the taste of their flesh. Humans are way too unethical for anyone to take Vinding’s claim seriously. Let’s see them stop creating and intensifying absolutely needless suffering all the time, before counting on them to ever reduce suffering they are not directly causing.

I fail to comprehend the empirical basis of his argument. Whenever and wherever humans have reached they have wreaked havoc. Humans have consistently hunted other animals, or in the much worse case captivated, domesticated and reared animals for food, exploited them for various uses such as carry them around, carry their belonging, fight in their wars, do their labor, guard their camps, help them hunt, keep them warm, decorate their bodies and homes, serve as the raw material for their tools, killed them when they came near the areas they have conquered from them, and systematically destruct their habitats. So why, as opposed to every single moment in history, would humans all of sudden be such caring creatures whose main task in life would be to help other animals in nature and on other planets? Where is all this compassion now? More than 95% of humans are not even vegans, meaning the vast majority of the human race is still choosing to personally and needlessly harm and abuse other animals, so to expect that they would devote their lives to help animals they haven’t personally harmed? How does it make any sense?

It seems as if Vinding had never read a history book as he presents the issue as if all along history, whenever humans have encountered other animals in nature, they wanted to help them but didn’t know how, while it is exactly the opposite. All along history whenever humans have encountered other animals they wanted to use them for their own benefit, and usually with horrendous success.

When humans have seen other animals hunt each other, they didn’t think to themselves ‘oh, if only we had a way to help these poor animals being hunted’, but more like these poor animals are chasing other animals day after day to feed themselves, when they can confine them instead, and kill them whenever they wish. Humans saw what other animals are doing and made it much much much worse.
Animals in the wild would eventually be hunted or die of disease or hunger, but at least they are free, at least they live in a natural environment and not a filthy and contaminated one, at least they live in their natural society, at least they can eat and drink whenever and whatever they want and not what and when humans decide that they would, at least they can sleep whenever they want wherever they want and not when and where humans decide they would sleep, at least they can spread their limbs, stretch their necks, socialize, breath clean air, clean themselves, fly, roam, run, jump and play. Humans have carelessly and needlessly taken all that away from them. Don’t get this wrong this is not at all a glorification of nature. I agree that life in nature is horrible, only that life under human control is much more hellish. The point is not that nature is good, as it is definitely extremely far from being good, the point is that as horrible as nature is, humanity is nonproportionally worse.
Humans are the world’s biggest problem, not its greatest saviors.

I highly recommend reading the text about The Harm to Others, to get a broader sense of how harmful humans actually are. Vinding’s description gives the false impression that humans are constantly busy with minimizing suffering, while the truth is that most are constantly busy with maximizing it. The risk that suffering on Earth wouldn’t end is because humanity doesn’t care about it, not because it might run out of people.
Most of the world’s suffering is not a result of humans not having enough time to end it, but a result of humans having too much time causing it. The biggest barrier to reducing suffering is the human race, not its extinction.

Interplanetary Exploitation

Vinding argues that the human race must continue not only because it would be the savior of everyone on Earth, but also because it would be the savior of everyone in the universe:

“Even if we were guaranteed to be able to prevent all suffering on Earth for good within the next couple of centuries, this would not give us any guarantee that suffering will not occur beyond Earth.” (p.5)

And how does he suggest helping creatures suffering on other planets…

“The ideal thing would likely be to build a benevolent Von Neuman probe, an advanced spaceship that can travel out in all directions with as high a speed as possible, and which has the technological capability to reduce involuntary suffering in the best way possible wherever it goes.

And what is important to note in this context is that our ability to create such a machine lies even further away in the future than does the ability to “merely” cure Earth from suffering. This must be so, since this probe would have to be able to accomplish both this latter mission of curing Earth from suffering and much more.

So this is the final and supreme reason that counts against anti-natalism: if we take the minimization of suffering seriously, we cannot defend going extinct before we have seeded a cosmic mission to minimize suffering in our future light cone, and it seems safe to say that we will not be able to finish this task any time soon. In order to accomplish our goal of reducing suffering in the world, continued human procreation still seems necessary.” (p.9)

All the suffering currently caused by humans, and all the suffering that will be caused by humans in the future here on earth, if the human race won’t go extinct, can’t be seriously balanced with the hypothetical option that there are sentient creatures outside of earth, and that they are miserable, and that humans (of all creatures) would want and could someday help them using a special spaceship.

It is very cynical, absurd and ironic to argue that all the suffering caused by humans on earth must continue because of the potential suffering in the rest of the universe. That is especially so since humans are extremely far from solving even human related problems.

Hunger wasn’t always a human phenomenon. Surly people were hungry in times of harsh weather, but it was never even remotely similar in kind and extent to the world hunger of the last two centuries. Modern hunger is manmade. It’s a result of politics and economics. And that simple problem that humanity has created by its own hand, to its own kind, wasn’t yet and is still far from being solved. Unlike the case of stopping the creation of new sentient creatures just to torture them, or helping animals in nature, not to mention helping sentient creatures on other planets (if there are any and if it is even possible), this is solving one of the biggest problems humanity has ever faced, and one that is caused by humanity and to its own kind. And it still exists in the third decade of the 21^st century. So justifying the torture of trillions of beings by the human race every single year, because maybe someday humanity might build an advanced spaceship that can travel out in all directions with as high a speed as possible, and which has the technological capability to reduce involuntary suffering in the best way possible wherever it goes, when humanity is so far from feeding all its members, and is even farer from stop fighting each other over territories on this planet?

“The pessimistic anti-natalist might object that building such probes is an impossibly ambitious goal, and that we will only cause more suffering by aiming for such a high goal…one could have said the same thing about the goal of creating civilization 70,000 years ago, when there were only a few thousand humans running around on the plains of Africa, a goal that could barely even be envisioned back then. And yet, 700 centuries later, here we are: civilization has arisen, along with computers and civil liberties, and we have more minds working to improve our knowledge, technology, and ethics than ever before. In light of this development, it seems that we should be careful to deem the aforementioned ambitious goal impossible.” (p.10)

Only an extremely passionate human chauvinist, ignorant of humanity’s horrendous past, and speciesist present, can give civilization as a good example. Civilization is an example of the worst thing that ever happened on earth, surely to other animals, but also to humans. All along history humans have used their intelligence and rationality to use, abuse, exploit, manipulate, and control each other and other animals. All along history humans have consistently brought havoc everywhere they have reached. Wars, pollution, torture facilities, concentration camps, factory farms and many many more examples are the products of human civilization and intelligence. Human civilization is an ongoing memorial of exploitation, domination and destruction.

It is really cruel to condemn trillions upon trillions of sentient creatures to such a miserable life because maybe someday humans might build an advanced spaceship that can travel out in all directions with as high a speed as possible, that might help creatures that might exist on other planets.
There is no reason to believe that as opposed to their history on this planet, when humans would reach other planets, they would act differently. Just as they have taken control of every inch on this planet, same is likely to happen on other planets. They would most probably exploit the extraterrestrials they meet and even “export” their earthly exploitation methods to other planets by taking along with them the creatures they are so good at exploiting here on earth, and if that would happen it would multiply the tremendous suffering they already cause.

Vinding conveniently argues that it would be callous “if humanity, after having glimpsed an Earth plagued by suffering, and a future light cone potentially even more so, chooses to opt for eternal peace without doing anything about the rest. That would be nothing but anthropocentric speciesism and a wasted opportunity.” (p.11). Only that as mentioned earlier this is not necessarily the reason for human extinction. It certainly isn’t mine. The goal is not to opt for humans’ eternal peace, but for the end of humans’ eternal tyranny over every other creature on earth.

In the end of his article against human extinction, Vinding calls to promote suffering focused ethics and anti-speciesism. Ironically, human extinction is the immediate and clear inference from suffering focused ethics and anti-speciesism perspective. The conclusion that human extinction is ethically mandatory is more unequivocal and urgent not under anthropocentric antinatalism, but when considering the harm to others. Then, human extinction is not a desirable by product of antinatalism, but a silent scream coming out of the throats of trillions of miserable sentient creatures.

References

Magnus Vinding Anti-Natalism and the Future of Suffering: Why Negative Utilitarians Should Not Aim For Extinction 2015

The philosopher Thomas Metzinger suggests a thought experiment called Benevolent Artificial Anti-Natalism (BAAN), in which a full-blown autonomously self-optimizing post biotic superintelligence system has come into existence, aimed to assist humanity with ethical decisions. The superintelligence system is benevolent and fundamentally altruistic, so it fully respects humans’ interests and the axiology originally gave to it. The system has a better understanding of humans’ minds and values than humans themselves have, for example, it is familiar with humans’ cognitive biases which disturb and mislead their rational thinking. In Metzinger’s words:

“Empirically, it knows that the phenomenal states of all sentient beings which emerged on this planet—if viewed from an objective, impartial perspective—are much more frequently characterized by subjective qualities of suffering and frustrated preferences than these beings would ever be able to discover themselves. Being the best scientist that has ever existed, it also knows the evolutionary mechanisms of self-deception built into the nervous systems of all conscious creatures on Earth. It correctly concludes that human beings are unable to act in their own enlightened, best interest.”

Since the superintelligence system knows that bad is stronger than good, and that biological creatures are almost never able to achieve a positive or even neutral life balance, and that no entity can suffer from its own non-existence, it concludes that non-existence is in the own best interest of all future self-conscious beings on this planet. “Empirically, it knows that naturally evolved biological creatures are unable to realize this fact because of their firmly anchored existence bias. The superintelligence decides to act benevolently.”

The idea behind this thought experiment is to help humans think about some of the aspects involved in artificial intelligence, as well as serving as a cognitive tool helping to prevent important ethical issues from turning shallow and be affected by biases. Regarding antinatalism, Metzinger argues that: “one of the points behind it is that an evidence-based, rational, and genuinely altruistic form of anti-natalism could evolve in a superior moral agent as a qualitatively new insight.”

However, as smart, elaborated, and efficient as the superintelligence system would be, it is not very likely to help advance antinatalism, for two main reasons, first, since this superintelligence system would be originally designed according to humans’ values which are extremely pro-natalist, there is no reason to believe, even as a thought experiment, that the superintelligence system would infer such unusual and uncommon conclusions.
Second, even if the system would nevertheless infer such conclusions, obviously humans would simply ignore it.
The problem with antinatalism is not that its supporting thinkers are not smart and educated enough, or that people are too perplexed and in need of a more factually authoritative guidance, but that people simply don’t want to accept the antinatalist imperative.

Take an easier ethical imperative such as veganism for example. Veganism is much less violent and oppressive, it is much more sustainable, it is much healthier, and yet…
Veganism is definitely not a matter of lack of knowledge or unconvincing arguments, but a lack of motivation on the side of the offenders.
There are many valid and informative antinatalist arguments, the problem is that there are only few who are ready to listen. I don’t think that the problem is with spokespersons, so I don’t believe that a thought experiment regarding a superintelligence system would help people think about some of the aspects involved in procreation, or serve as a cognitive tool helping to prevent important ethical issues from turning shallow and be affected by biases. Unfortunately, I don’t think it would help even if one day there would actually be a superintelligence system that would really reach the conclusion that the most ethical thing to do is stop procreating.

And that is despite that if the superintelligence system would truly be compassionate, genuinely altruistic, rational, and totally unbiased, then considering the interests of all sentient beings on earth, it is absolutely unquestionable that it would conclude that humans must refrain from procreation. We don’t need a superintelligence system for that conclusion as even in lousy commercial action movies the “bad guys” often argue that humanity is a plague, cancer, a virus and etc. that needs to be destroyed. Humans have never got along with each other. All along history they never stop fighting, looting, killing, raping, destroying everything in their way and everyone they see and can use for their own benefit. They are doing it all along history, with no limits, not even natural ones as they artificially create sentient creatures only to exploit and murder them later. And not only that they almost never miss the chance for harmful actions, they keep inventing new ones. So again, a non-biased superintelligence system shouldn’t even hesitate before concluding that humans must never procreate.

One of the motivations behind this thought experiment is to ignore the noise and to rationally focus only on the empirical data, because cognitive biases such as what Metzinger calls the “existence bias” (humans do almost anything to prolong their existence), interfere with such a process. But why would it be any different when humans would hear the superintelligence system’s conclusion regarding their procreation? Metzinger writes in the article that “sustaining one’s existence is the default goal in almost every case of uncertainty, even if it may violate rationality constraints, simply because it is a biological imperative that has been burned into our nervous systems over millennia.” So there is no reason to believe that the benevolent artificial antinatalism thought experiment, nor the actual existence of a superintelligence system, would make any difference in humans’ unethical behavior.
The problem is not that people don’t know what is right, but that most want what is wrong.
We don’t need technology to help us understand what is right, we need technology to help us implement what is right.

References

Metzinger Thomas Benevolent-Artificial-Anti-Natalism (BAAN) 2017

https://www.edge.org/conversation/thomas_metzinger-benevolent-artificial-anti-natalism-baan

In an article called 10 actually good things that happened in 2023, published in VOX on the occasion of the end of the year, it is argued that despite 2023 being a hard year, 10 news stories can function as a reminder that a better future is possible.

However, reviewing these 10 supposedly actually good things reveals that maybe except for one, they are all actually things that are good in the sense of stopping something bad, not good in themselves.

Many pro-natalists are trying to counter-argue antinatalism by saying that there are many good things in life, but most if not all fail to point at something which is good in itself and not something that eases or solves something bad. And although the article is not at all about procreation, more or less the same goes for the list of supposedly actually good things that happened in 2023 that it mentions.

Don’t get me wrong, the things the article covers are very positive, some are amazingly positive, but they are so because they are solving, or at least mitigating, bad things.
The first thing in their list, for example, is that ‘the economy started undoing 40 years of rising inequality’, which is of course very very positive, but I don’t think that something should be considered as an ‘actually good thing’ if it is actually starting to fix something very bad that should have never happened in the first place. It is very good that, hopefully, the U.S economy is finally starting to deal with wage inequality between poor and wealthy workers, but this inequality should have never happened in the first place. And of course (as mentioned clearly in the article) inequality still remains, and probably will keep remaining, a defining feature of the American economy.

Another example is that psychedelic-assisted therapy seeks FDA approval. But like the case of wage inequality between poor and wealthy, this is an example of a very positive thing because it tackles a very bad thing (mental illnesses like PTSD, depression, and anxiety) and like the case of wage inequality it is an example of something that should have happened much earlier, and probably only due to the conservative fear of psychedelic substances, it didn’t.

An example given in this article which is much closer to home is decriminalization of abortions in Latin America. Clearly a case of something terrible – criminalization of women’s rights over their own bodies – starting to be fixed (and unfortunately while backsliding in other places such as the U.S), is not an actually good thing, but something that it is absolutely outrages that had ever happened in the first place.

Three additional examples of things that it is absolutely outrages that had ever happened in the first place, are: the Supreme Court in USA upheld America’s strongest animal welfare law which is California’s Proposition 12 – a law requiring that much of the eggs, pigs meat and veal sold in the state come from animals given more space on factory farms; the US Department of Agriculture gave final approval for a “cell-cultivated” chicken meat; and that Europe is phasing out the practice of “male chick culling”.
But there should have never been factory farming in the first place. Starting to slightly and slowly improve the worst thing that humans have ever done is actually not a good thing. It doesn’t make the world a good place but a little bit less terrible.
As the article says: “Each year, the global egg industry hatches 6.5 billion male chicks, but because they can’t lay eggs and they don’t grow big or fast enough to be efficiently raised for meat, they’re economically useless to the industry. So they’re killed hours after hatching, and in horrifying ways: ground up or burned alive, gassed with carbon dioxide, or suffocated in trash bags.” And none of that should have ever happened. Humans should have never consumed chicken’s eggs, let alone creating an industrial breed of chickens who lay so many eggs, and cage them in some of the worst facilities ever invented, and humans should have never created a different type of chickens bred to grow bigger and faster at the expense of their own health and welfare. Slightly reducing an atrocity that should have never happened in the first place should not be considered something good.
All these examples can be considered as something good only in a world which is so terribly bad. And if the world is so terribly bad, improving some of its atrocities is far from being sufficient.

And lastly, the article mentions important developments in treatments and vaccines that happened in 2023. But this is something good only if it is necessary that there would be diseases, but it is not. There are diseases, and pain and suffering and any other bad thing in this world, only because people are creating more people, and more other sentient beings, to whom bad things happen. But it is not necessary to create new sentient beings, therefore this suffering is unnecessary. And causing unnecessary suffering is wrong.

It is argued in the article that “when the world is mired in horrible things, it’s important to imagine a better future; without hope, new solutions wouldn’t be possible”, a sort of claim often being used by many pro-natalists to supposedly counter antinatalism, a claim which I have already addressed in another post. Therefore I’ll not repeat all the points I made there, but will make do with the one which is most relevant to the article covering good things that happened in 2023. Even if it was true that it is better in the present than it was in the past, better doesn’t necessarily mean good. Something can be better than something else yet be terrible in itself. The fact that things could have been worse, or if it is true that they have been worse, doesn’t mean that now they are good. If at all true, all this claim can stand for is that it is better in the present than it was, and that it is better in the present than it could have been, but not by any means that it is good in the present. And even if it was true that it is better in the present than it was in the past, there is absolutely no guarantee that it would be better in the future. It also might be a lot worse. And it already is a living hell.

At this moment, there is a war going on somewhere, a nation is crying out for independence in another place, somewhere else there is a political repression, not far from there an ethnical repression, right next to it religious repression, and riots against corruption are being violently hushed by the authorities everywhere. Human history is an endless battle over things that should have been absolutely basic a long time ago and they are absolutely far from being so in the present, so why would they be in the future? If the present is not significantly better than the past why assume that the future will be?

If humanity has yet to succeed solving basic issues among itself, and when many of them become even worse, and new ones emerge, what is the basis for the assumption that the future is going to be better? On what grounds do they assume that present violent conflicts would be solved in the future, and more importantly that new ones won’t constantly emerge?
Was there any reduction in the scope of weapon manufacture in recent years? In arms trade? In developing more lethal and destructive weapons? Did people stop fighting over territories? Over resources? Over religious differences? Did humanity become wiser and more educated and realized that it is totally insane to fight over the “right way” to worship a fictional entity? Did humanity become wiser and more educated and realized that profits are way less important than welfare? Did humanity become wiser and more educated regarding how to raise happy people? Did humanity become wiser and more educated and figured out the purpose of the whole thing? Can it provide a reasonable answer to the so fundamental self-evident and primary question – what is the meaning of life?

And lastly, even if it was true that the present is better than the past and that the future would be better than the present, what for? To what purpose? There is no aim to achieve in the future, there is no important goal to accomplish, and no one who is waiting to exist in the future, so what logical explanation let alone ethical justification is there to sacrifice generations upon generations of humans, and many more of nonhumans, so maybe a tiny fraction of all the sentient creatures who would be forced to be created theretofore would live in a supposedly better world? That is morally reprehensible in every possible respect.

 

In an article called Is Having Children Always Wrong? philosopher Rivka Weinberg claims that she has yet to find an argument to support antinatalism, and criticizes Benatar’s. Ironically, I think she can find a very convincing argument to support antinatalism in one of her own articles. The article is called The Moral Complexity of Sperm Donation, and although as the name suggests it deals with the moral complexity of sperm donation, not of procreation in general, on her way to argue that as opposed to common intuition, sperm donors do have parental responsibility, she presents a new parental responsibility theory which its most basic premise must also, and in fact first and foremost, entails antinatalism.

Parental Responsibility

Weinberg claims that we tend to assume that when a sperm donor sells sperm to an agency, he waives his parental rights, and is absolved of parental responsibility. “If we regard the donor as having parental responsibilities at all, we may think that his parental responsibilities are transferred to the sperm recipients. But, if a man creates a child accidentally, via contraception failure, we tend to assume that the man does indeed have parental responsibilities.”

In order to assess these contrasting intuitions Weinberg analysis various prevalent parental responsibility theories, and concludes that none of them can withstand scrutiny.
For example some argue that voluntarily committing oneself to be parentally responsible for a child is a sufficient parental responsibility theory. However, Weinberg counter argues saying it is uninformative since it does not tell us what counts as a voluntary commitment of this kind. “If it is the bare fact of an explicit commitment to parental responsibility itself, this theory will leave many children with no one parentally responsible for them since, often, children are born ‘accidentally,’ with no one who has explicitly made a parental commitment to them.” (p. 168)
The same problem rises from another common parental responsibility theory which claims that parental responsibility stems from intent to raise the child. But again this theory, like the voluntary commitment theory, may leave many children without anyone parentally responsible for them.
Others claim that the clearest way to determine parental responsibility is to seek the cause of the dependent child, to identify the proximate cause of the child’s existence. Weinberg rejects this theory despite the intuitive appeal “when we see a needy being, we may ask, ‘By whose doing is there this needy being?’ and the answer to that question seems to finger the person/s responsible for caring for the needy being. But it fingers too many people, including, perhaps, fertility specialists, domineering and demanding grandparents, the friends who brought that fabulous bottle of wine to dinner, etc.” (p.168)

She also rejects Gestationalism (a theory that finds the person who gestates the child as parentally responsible for the child) and Geneticism (a theory that finds the person whose genetic material is transferred to create another being as the new being’s parent), but I guess the objections to them are quite clear. So the last theory worth mentioning is a pluralistic account of parental responsibility that incorporates the various causal elements that contributed to the creation of a child. Weinberg claims that this theory spreads parental responsibility too broadly by granting it to genetic, gestational, custodial, and intentional parents, and she rejects it because when numerous people play these roles and claim or disclaim parental responsibility, there is no way to determine which of the claims are legitimate. “With so many candidates for parental responsibility, many children may be left with no one parentally responsible for them, since no criterion is granted priority over another.” (p.170)

After disqualifying the current common theories, she proposes a new theory of parental responsibility, which according to her, is more plausible than the alternatives.

But before detailing her theory, as an antinatalist myself and assuming all the readers of this blog are too, you are probably wondering why am I bothering you with the different parental responsibility theories, and whether sperm selling entails parental responsibility, and is there a difference for that matter between sperm selling and a contraception failure? So first of all to make it clear, obviously I don’t think it matters that much which parental responsibility theory makes more sense since they are all morally wrong (except for adoption which is more complex).
My first response to her title was that there is no moral complexity to sperm selling, but a moral simplicity, it is simply one of the biggest crimes a person can commit. Of course, every action contributing to making more people, and therefore more misery, is a crime, but selling sperm is doing it without even knowing or caring about the kind of lives the people they have contributed to create would be forced to endure. A person selling his sperm contributes to the creation of new lifelong vulnerability merely for some extra cash.
How can someone indifferently jerk off into a cup knowing that it might condemn someone to a life of misery, and most certainly condemn thousands to a life of misery?
People have no problem to create a life they would have no responsibility for and no idea how this life would turn out.

A sperm seller is responsible for so much misery since hadn’t he sold his sperm, at least one person wouldn’t have existed. The claim that ‘if it is not me it’s the other guy’ doesn’t hold since the claim against sperm selling is not personal but general and fundamental, it applies to everyone, and so, had every person who ever sold his sperm, considered the dire consequences of his actions and didn’t sell his sperm, so much misery would have been spared. The fact that people have turned to the sperm bank means they couldn’t procreate by themselves and needed the bank. Had no one sold sperm to the bank, the children of these people wouldn’t exist. In other words, sperm sellers have a crucial part in creating people.

If someone is a crucial link, even if seemingly technical, in a morally wrong action, he is a full partner in crime. There is nothing complex about sperm selling, it is plainly an accessory.

Sperm selling is an appalling contempt towards the effects of creating life. And by agreeing to acquire sperm, society sends people a clear message, come and “donate” whoever you are.

Weinberg is right in claiming that people are mistaken in their intuitions, attributing parental responsibility to contraception failure but not to an aware contribution to someone’s creation. Contraception failure is a case of irresponsibility but not of total carelessness. People using contraception didn’t want to create new life, at least not in that particular time, evidently they tried to stop the sperm from reaching the ovule. A sperm seller on the other hand doesn’t even care what will happen with his sperm, who would it reach, what person would it create, whom would that person hurt, and how much that person would be hurt. This is how low life and suffering are valued in our world.

Having said that, I am bothering you with this article because I find the premise of her alternative parental responsibility theory very interesting, and as mentioned earlier, one that is supposed to satisfy her own proclaimed quest for a convincing antinatalist argument.

The Hazmat Theory

Here are the basics of her parental responsibility theory, brought extensively and in her own words:

“I’d like to suggest that parental responsibility is derived from our possession and high degree of control over hazardous material, namely, our own gametes. Our gametes are dangerous because they can join with the gametes of others and grow into extremely needy innocent persons with full moral status. Being in possession and control of such hazardous material is a very serious responsibility. The enormity of the risks gametes pose generates a very high standard of care. In that respect, gamete owners are comparable to owners of pet lions or enriched uranium.

Dangerous possessions under our voluntary control – e.g. enriched uranium, a loaded gun, viable sperm – generate an extremely high standard of care. When we choose to engage in activities that put our gametes at risk of joining with others and growing into persons, we assume the costs of that risky activity.” (p.170)

“It seems to me that the cost of being born without specific people highly responsible and committed to one’s care are far more serious than the cost of being restricted from engaging, cost free, in behaviour that risks having a child created from one’s gametes. That does not mean that engaging in behaviour which risks creating a child from one’s gametes is wrong or inconsiderate per se. It just means that the costs of engaging in risky behaviour with one’s gametes belong to those who engage in it. Parental responsibility is a cost (or reward) of the risks we choose to take with the hazardous gametes we possess. Thus, parental responsibility is incurred when we choose to engage in activities that put our gametes are risk of joining with others and growing into persons, and persons result from those activities.” (p.171)

The Hazmat theory does not distinguish between the case of contraception failure and sperm selling since both involve voluntarily engaging in activities that put their respective gametes at risk of joining with others and growing into persons, and so when persons result from their respective activities, both are parentally responsible.

A sperm seller is parentally responsible for persons created with his sperm, since selling sperm to a sperm bank, currently gives the seller no information or control over which person or persons will gain control of his hazardous materials. According to Weinberg, this reckless transfer of parental responsibility, makes sperm sellers parentally responsible for persons created with their sperm.

Weinberg analogies:

“Surely, selling your enriched uranium to a uranium brokering agency won’t absolve you of responsibility for the nuclear explosion that may result. Enriched uranium is so volatile and dangerous that it is not easy to transfer it safely and reliably. In order to transfer your enriched uranium permissably to someone else, the transfer would have to be undertaken with extreme care, investigation, and caution. Current practices of sperm donation in many countries, including the USA, fall far short of any claim to the very high standard of care that transferring such hazardous material would demand”. (p.172)

The reason I claim that her theory is actually antinatalist, is since gametes are not dangerous only in cases of sperm selling, birth control failure, drunken sexual activity, and unbridled passion, but always. “Nuclear explosions” are not exclusive to sperm selling, they happen all the time, and by various methods of procreation, to various parents, without their control, and regardless of their initial intentions.
The option of creating a miserable person is possible in each couple of gametes and regardless of the conditions of their uniting. What makes gametes dangerous is the possibility of creating a miserable person, and the certainty of creating a person who would make the lives of others miserable. So it can be argued that a sperm seller is worse than others as he doesn’t even know or care about the results of his activities with his gametes, but their hazardousness remain in every other case of procreation as well. Miserable lives are produced all the time by gametes uniting, without sperm selling, birth control failures, and alcohol. And misery to others is produced every single time gametes unite and no one stops them, absolutely regardless of parental responsibility.

The premise of Weinberg theory, referring to gametes as hazardous materials such as enriched uranium, or a loaded gun, constitutes a very good reason to why people mustn’t breed. And the fact that people are in involuntary possession of their gametes and as she claims are naturally inclined to risky gamete-owning behavior, or in other words, humans are inherently armed with massive weapons and are naturally inclined to use them, is a very good reason why they must be disarmed.

References

Weinberg Rivka The Moral Complexity Of Sperm Donation

Bioethics ISSN 0269-9702 (print); 1467-8519 (online) doi:10.1111/j.1467-8519.2007.00624.x

Volume 22 Number 3 2008 pp 166–178

The following text is sort of an appendix for the claim that pleasure is not a symmetrical opposite to pain, a claim that is made in the text regarding David Benatar’s Asymmetry argument, but is highly crucial in ethics in general. Notwithstanding, this text does not aim at proving that it is more important to avoid causing pain than to cause pleasure. Assuming that anyone reading this text, not only already shares this intuition but is absolutely sure of its ethical verity, I’ll focus here on to what extent and why pain, or more accurately, negative experiences, are more important than positive ones for the experiencing individual.
In a sense, despite that it is not its aim, this text can anyway be seen as an answer to why the intuition that it is more important to avoid causing pain than to bestow pleasure is so common and viewed as obvious by many.

Most of this text is based on an article called Bad Is Stronger Than Good which basically gathers and sums many findings from a broad range of psychological phenomena, and concludes that bad is stronger than good, on principle. A suggested explanatory theory is also provided at the end of the article, and respectively at the end of this text. Despite the abundant quotes from the original article, it is highly recommended to read the full version itself. The reason I yet made this one is mainly since some of the claims made in the post regarding David Benatar’s Asymmetry argument, are not complete without some sound foundation. Since I didn’t want to overburden that already laden text, I’ve decided to make this appendix. Which by the way, can be read as an independent text just as much, since the extensive examples and evidences of how bad experiences are more important than good ones, serve as a proof that good experiences are at least not as good as bad experiences are bad, if not that bad experiences almost always outweigh the good ones, which is of course in itself a very good argument against procreation.

Bad Experiences are Stronger Than Good Ones

One very convincing way to base the claim that pain is more important than pleasure on the ethical level, is to prove that pain is more important than pleasure on the experience level.

If, generally speaking, positive experiences have weaker impact on someone’s wellbeing and behavior than negative experiences of the same intensity have, then positive and negative experiences are not equal. In the asymmetry argument context it means that pleasure is not as good as pain is bad, and so the two shouldn’t be valued in the column of existence as if they have an equal but opposite impact on an organism’s behavior.
The question now is how much stronger and how frequent bad experiences are compared with good ones. According to the article’s authors, it is not that positive experiences have a weaker impact on someone’s wellbeing and behavior compared with negative ones, but that they have a much weaker impact, and it is the case not only generally speaking, but regarding every aspect with sufficient, available and relevant data.

“The greater power of bad events over good ones is found in everyday events, major life events (e.g., trauma), close relationship outcomes, social network patterns, interpersonal interactions, and learning processes. Bad emotions, bad parents, and bad feedback have more impact than good ones, and bad information is processed more thoroughly than good. The self is more motivated to avoid bad self-definitions than to pursue good ones. Bad impressions and bad stereotypes are quicker to form and more resistant to disconfirmation than good ones.”

“bad is stronger than good (see also Rozin & Royzman, in press). That is, events that are negatively valenced (e.g., losing money, being abandoned by friends, and receiving criticism) will have a greater impact on the individual than positively valenced events of the same type (e.g., winning money, gaining friends, and receiving praise).”

“Bad events produce more emotion, have bigger effects on adjustment measures, and have longer lasting effects.”

“it is evolutionarily adaptive for bad to be stronger than good. We believe that throughout our evolutionary history, organisms that were better attuned to bad things would have been more likely to survive threats and, consequently, would have increased probability of passing along their genes. As an example, consider the implications of foregoing options or ignoring certain possible outcomes. A person who ignores the possibility of a positive outcome may later experience significant regret at having missed an opportunity for pleasure or advancement, but nothing directly terrible is likely to result. In contrast, a person who ignores danger (the possibility of a bad outcome) even once may end up maimed or dead. Survival requires urgent attention to possible bad outcomes, but it is less urgent with regard to good ones. Hence, it would be adaptive to be psychologically designed to respond to bad more strongly than good.”

“Adaptation-level effects tend to prevent any lasting changes in overall happiness and instead return people to their baseline. After a short peak in happiness, people become accustomed to the new situation and are no more happy than they were before the improvement. After a serious misfortune, however, people adjust less quickly, even though many victims ultimately do recover.” (P. 325)

Trauma

“Perhaps the broadest manifestation of the greater power of bad events than good to elicit lasting reactions is contained in the psychology of trauma. The very concept of trauma has proven broadly useful, and psychologists have found it helpful in many different domains. Many kinds of traumas produce severe and lasting effects on behavior, but there is no corresponding concept of a positive event that can have similarly strong and lasting effects. In a sense, trauma has no true opposite concept. A single traumatic experience can have long-term effects on the person’s health, well-being, attitudes, self-esteem, anxiety, and behavior; many such effects have been documented. In contrast, there is little evidence that single positive experiences can have equally influential consequences.” (P. 325)

Everyday

“A diary study by David, Green, Martin, and Suls (1997) examined the effects of everyday good and bad events, as well as personality traits. Undesirable (bad) events had more pervasive effects on subsequent mood than desirable (good) ones. Although each type of event influenced the relevant mood (i.e., bad events influenced bad mood, and good events predicted good mood) to similar degrees, bad events had an additional effect on the opposite-valence mood that was lacking for good events. In other words, bad events influenced both good and bad moods, whereas good events influenced only good moods.”

“having a good day did not have any noticeable effect on a person’s well-being the following day, whereas having a bad day did carry over and influence the next day.”

“the bad has stronger power than good because only the bad reliably produced consecutive bad days.” (P. 327)

Sexuality

“Developmental and clinical observations likewise suggest that single bad events are far stronger than even the strongest good ones. Various studies reveal long-term harmful consequences of child abuse or sexual abuse, including depression, relationship problems, revictimization, and sexual dysfunction, even if the abuse occurred only once or twice (Cahill, Llewelyn, & Pearson, 1991; Fleming, Mullen, Sibthorpe, & Bammer, 1999; Silver, Boon, & Stones, 1983; Styron & Janoff-Bulman, 1997; Weiss, Longhurst, & Mazure, 1999). These effects seem more durable than any comparable positive aspect of childhood, and it also seems doubtful (although difficult to prove) that a single positive event could offset the harm caused by a single episode of violent or sexual abuse; whereas the single negative event can probably undo the benefits of many positive interactions.” (P. 325)

Close Relationships

“One of the central tasks and goals of human life is to sustain a network of close relationships characterized by mutual caring and pleasant, supportive interactions (e.g., Baumeister & Leary, 1995). Unfortunately, many relationships fail to last, and others are sometimes less than satisfactory…relationships are most affected by patterns in which one person responds negatively to the other’s negative act or feeling. On the basis of these results, Gottman (1994) has proposed a revealing diagnostic index for evaluating relationships: He proposed that in order for a relationship to succeed, positive and good interactions must outnumber the negative and bad ones by at least five to one. If the ratio falls below that, the relationship is likely to fail and breakup. This index converges well with the thrust of our argument: Bad events are so much stronger than good ones that the good must outnumber the bad in order to prevail.”

“The implication is that the long-term success of a relationship depends more on not doing bad things than on doing good things.”

“Even stronger results emerged from a 2-year longitudinal study by Huston and Vangelisti (1991). They measured three types of socioemotionally expressive behavior among newlywed couples: affectionate communication, sexual interest, and negativity. Sexual affection had no relation to marital satisfaction, and giving or receiving affection had only weak and inconsistent relationships to satisfaction. In contrast, negativity had strong and consistent links to global marital satisfaction. Thus, people’s satisfaction with their marriage depended much more heavily on the bad parts (negativity) than on the good parts (affection and sex).” (P. 325)

Other Relationships and Interactions

Regarding other relationships (non-intimate ones) it was found that “The effects of positive, good interactions were not consistently different from the effects of neutral interactions, whereas bad ones were clearly different from the neutral.” (P. 331)

Emotion

“There are many more techniques people use for escaping bad moods than for inducing good ones. Baumeister, Heatherton, and Tice (1994) noted that there are six possible categories of affect regulation, consisting of efforts to induce, prolong, or terminate either a pleasant or an unpleasant state. Of these, however, efforts to terminate the unpleasant states are by far the most frequently reported. The fact that people exert disproportionate amounts of energy trying to escape from bad moods (and in particular more than they exert to induce good moods) is consistent with the hypothesis of greater power of negative emotions.” (P. 3321)

“there is an assortment of evidence that negative affect is stronger and more important than positive affect. People have more words for bad emotions than good ones and use them more frequently. Bad emotions generally produce more cognitive processing and have other effects on behavior that are stronger than positive emotions. People try harder to avoid and escape bad moods than to induce or prolong good moods, and they remember bad moods and emotions better.” (P. 331)

Learning

“The punishment of incorrect responses (by the presentation of an aversive stimulus on mistakes) was consistently found to be more effective than the reward of correct responses: Punishment led to faster learning than reward, across a variety of punishments and rewards.”

“Textbooks in learning and education sometimes assert that reward is better than punishment for learning, but they do not provide a clear basis for this assertion. The assertion itself would provide an important contradiction to the general pattern of bad being stronger than good. Yet they may assert the superiority of reward over punishment because of various side effects of punishment, such as aggravation, anger, and even disorientation, any of which could interfere with optimal learning. Such interference could even occur because bad events are stronger than good ones and because bad events produce side effects, whereas good ones do not.

In any case, the studies we have reviewed show that punishment is stronger than reward. We were not able to find studies showing the opposite.” (P. 334)

“Even more dramatic evidence comes from studies linking brain responses to learning and extinction of fear responses. Apparently fear inducing events leave indelible memory traces in the brain (LeDoux, Romanski, & Xagoraris, 1989; Quirk, Repa, & LeDoux, 1995). Even after the behavioral response to a fear-inducing conditioned stimulus has been extinguished, the brain retains a changed pattern of neuronal firing in response to that stimulus and of neuronal connections between cells (Quirk et al., 1995; Sanghera, Rolls, & Roper-Hall, 1979).” (P. 336)

“The organism retains the readiness to respond with fear again, so subsequent relearning of the fear response would be facilitated. Clearly, this would be an adaptive pattern insofar as once a threat is recognized, the person or animal will remember the threat more or less forever.” (P. 337)

Child Development

“having exceptionally good parents or a positive environment would not produce any better development than having average parents and an average environment; whereas having bad parents or a bad environment can inflict lasting harm. Thus, only the bad, and not the good, can produce effects that go beyond the average or normal.” (P. 337)

In an article called Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development, the authors argue that infants display a negativity bias: that is, infants attend more to, are more influenced by, and use to a greater degree negative rather than positive facets of their environment. They give plenty of examples of research findings to support their claim.

“An important way that infants learn about their environment is by using the emotional information that they receive from their caregivers. This is especially true toward the end of the first year, when infants begin independent locomotion and become relatively self-sufficient in exploring their surroundings…
In the second half of the first year, infants seem to visually attend more and allocate more attentional resources to fearful than positive expressions…
Ludemann and Nelson (1988) found that 7-month-olds looked longer at fearful than at happy faces, a finding that has since been replicated and extended.” (P. 391)

“In one classic study, Hornik et al. (1987) had mothers use facial, vocal, and gesture cues to display positive affect, disgust, or no affect about an ambiguous toy to their 12-month-old infants. In support of the social referencing hypothesis, Hornik et al. found that maternal displays of emotion appropriately influenced infants’ responses to the toy. Interestingly, however, infants in the disgust condition played less with the ambiguous toy than did infants in the positive or neutral conditions, whereas infant behavior did not differ across neutral and positive conditions.” (P. 385)

“In another social referencing study, Mumme and Fernald (2003) showed 12-month-old infants an experimenter on a television screen displaying happy, neutral, or fear facial and vocal cues toward one ambiguous toy (the target) while ignoring another ambiguous toy (the distracter). These same toys were then presented to infants, and infants’ interactions with the toys were assessed. Again, similar to Hornik et al. (1987) and Mumme et al. (1996), there was no significant difference in the amount that 12-month-olds touched the target in the positive compared with the neutral conditions, whereas infants in the fear condition touched the target less than in the neutral condition.” (P. 388)

“Research with older children has also revealed evidence for a negativity bias in a social referencing context. For instance, Walden (1993) conducted a study in which an experimenter told children what to expect when they opened a box. Children were either made to expect something positive, scary, or neutral, or were not given any information about the box (control). They were then taken to the room with the box and allowed to interact with it for a few minutes. Walden found that for children as young as 2 years, being told that the stimulus was frightening virtually eliminated all proximal behavior toward the stimulus, whereas the other three conditions (positive, neutral, and control) were equivalent in all aspects of these young children’s behavior.” (P. 389)

“the lack of difference in most studies between positive and neutral conditions is suggestive of a positivity offset (Cacioppo et al., 1997, 1999; Cacioppo & Berntson, 1999) because it indicates that in the absence of any negative information about a novel stimulus (whether because the information is positive, neutral, or entirely absent), most infants initially display a tendency to explore the stimulus. Thus, positive information does not increase infants’ exploration of novel stimuli; negative information decreases it.” (P. 395)

“Some research on children’s memories of positive and negative events also indicates a negativity bias. In a longitudinal study, P. J. Miller and Sperry (1988) found that 1.5- to 2.5-year-old girls’ talk with their mothers about distant past events was primarily about negative events, especially those involving physical harm. A longitudinal case study that examined a child’s ability to talk with her mother about the past between 20 and 28 months (Hudson, 1991) revealed that both mother and daughter discussed past negative emotions far more than positive emotions: negative emotions comprised 68% of emotions mentioned by the mother and 76% of those mentioned by the daughter.” (P. 390)

“These results correspond with work on children’s understanding about the causal precursors of negative versus positive emotions. For example, Lagattuta and Wellman (2001) found that 3- to 7-year-old children consistently used a person’s past experiences to explain that person’s current negative emotions (sadness or anger) more than they did to explain the person’s current positive emotions. These children also made more frequent references to the person’s thinking about the past when the person was currently experiencing a negative versus a positive emotion.”

“One suggestion (Nelson, Morse, & Leavitt, 1979) is that certain negative expressions (such as anger or fear) may cause a defensive response in infants, resulting in greater arousal and therefore slower habituation. This response might be due to a species-specific predisposition to code negative expressions as signaling aversive situations. That is, it may be inherently more important for an infant to attend to fear or anger than to happy expressions, as fear and anger signal danger. Such an evolution-based theory seems to imply that the negativity bias is innate, i.e., built right into our neural circuitry and consequently into our psychology (e.g., Rozin & Royzman, 2001).” (P. 391)

Social Support

“Various findings have indicated that negative or upsetting social support weighs more heavily than positive or helpful social support… helpful aspects of one’s social network bear little or no relation to depression, well-being, and social support satisfaction, while upsetting or unhelpful aspects do.” (P. 340)

Stereotypes

“bad reputations are easy to acquire but difficult to lose, whereas good reputations are difficult to acquire but easy to lose. These findings suggest that unfavorable characteristics once acquired as part of a stereotype may be difficult to lose in part because a large number of observations are necessary for their disconfirmation. The findings certainly confirm that bad is stronger than good: It takes far more to overcome the bad than the good trait, and more to change the bad than the good reputation.” (P. 344)

Information Processing

“Participants spent longer viewing the photographs depicting negative than positive behaviors, suggesting that people paid more attention to bad than good acts when forming impressions.”

“Participants were twice as likely to remember the bad ones than the good ones. This suggests that the automatic shifting of attention to the bad traits stimulated some incidental learning, resulting in the superior recall.” (P. 341)

“To be categorized as good, one has to be good all of the time (consistently). To be categorized as bad, a few bad acts are sufficient, and presumably hardly anyone is consistently bad. Hence, negative behaviors carry more weight than positive behaviors for ruling out some categories. The diagnosticity view was tested in a later paper by Skowronski and Carlston (1992). They noted that to be morally good means to be always good, whereas immorality does not require consistent immorality, so single immoral behaviors are more diagnostic. For example, one may be regarded as a liar despite telling the truth on many occasions, but one will not be regarded as an honest man if he tells many lies.” (P. 346)

Memory

“Cognitive psychologists have examined whether bad items are processed and remembered better than positive ones. Robinson- Riegler and Winton (1996) confirmed that participants showed better recognition memory for negative than positive items. Furthermore, they were better able to recall the source of bad than good information, as shown by their ability to identify which stimuli had come to them in a second as opposed to a first phase; whereas the positive stimuli seemed simply to get all mixed together. These findings suggest that the bad material received more thorough processing when it was encoded and was, therefore, retained in a more complex, elaborate memory trace.” (P. 344)

Health

“Given that stressful events happen to everyone at some point, researchers have sought to assess whether relaxation techniques would yield benefits to physiology comparable to the harm caused by stress. Thus far, the answer appears to be no. There has only been one study to assess immune functioning after a stress reduction intervention in the presence of a stressful event (Kiecolt-Glaser, Glaser, Strain, Stout, & Tarr, 1986). These researchers found that training medical students in relaxation techniques did not affect the immune changes that occurred as the result of stressful first-year exams. Cohen and Herbert (1996) concluded that there is little evidence for the benefits of stress reduction techniques on immunological health. In other words, bad events impair the body’s protective system, but good events do not boost it.”

“In summary, various studies and reviews of the immunology literature indicate that bad is stronger than good. In particular, researchers have found that stress and the absence of social support are reliably associated with immunosuppression, whereas their opposites—relaxation and increases in social support—do not seem to have beneficial effects.”

“Optimism and pessimism were examined by Schulz, Bookwala, Knapp, Scheier, and Williamson (1996) in an effort to predict the mortality of cancer patients. Across 8 months, 70 of the 238 patients in a radiation therapy sample died. Using Scheier and Carver’s (1985) Life Orientation Test, Schulz et al. assessed both optimism and pessimism traits. Optimism failed to predict survival, either alone or in interaction with age. Pessimism, however, did yield a significant prediction of mortality, although only for the youngest (30-59) age range. (Thus, the only significant predictor was pessimism interacting with age.) Although the results are correlational, the longitudinal prediction does enhance the plausibility that the trait caused the survival outcome rather than vice versa. The implication is that the negative thoughts and feelings associated with pessimism had a stronger effect on mortality outcomes than the positive thoughts and feelings that characterize optimism.” (P. 353)

Culture

“Love has likewise received idealization in cultural mythology that has made of it a more extreme good than is empirically justified. Songs, films, novels, and wedding vows continue to promise that love is forever, even though the statistics on divorce, marriage therapy, and infidelity indicate that it is not. In fact, Baumeister (1991) concluded that cultural ideals of fulfillment have a general pattern of promising more permanence than is typically found, whether these fulfillments involve love, happiness, spiritual enlightenment, fame and celebrity, wealth, creativity, or others. Thus, culture certainly presents individuals with mythical images of extreme possibilities in both directions. Probably the reason for this is that these cultural myths are important means by which a society can motivate its individuals to behave in socially desirable ways, and mitigating the extremity of the myth would simply weaken the motivations. In particular, culture may find it optimal to encourage people to delay gratification over periods that are far longer than what prevailed in our evolutionary history.”

In Conclusion

“The principle that bad is stronger than good appears to be consistently supported across a broad range of psychological phenomena. The quantity and strength of the evidence were not consistent and in fact varied widely from one topic to another. The breadth and convergence of evidence, however, across different areas were striking, which forms the most important evidence. In no area were we able to find a consistent reversal, such that one could draw a firm conclusion that good is stronger than bad.”

“In everyday life, bad events have stronger and more lasting consequences than comparable good events. Close relationships are more deeply and conclusively affected by destructive actions than by constructive ones, by negative communications than positive ones, and by conflict than harmony…
Even outside of close relationships, unfriendly or conflictual interactions are seen as stronger and have bigger effects than friendly, harmonious ones. Bad moods and negative emotions have stronger effects than good ones on cognitive processing, and the bulk of affect regulation efforts is directed at escaping from bad moods (e.g., as opposed to entering or prolonging good moods). That suggests that people’s desire to get out of a bad mood is stronger than their desire to get into a good one. The preponderance of words for bad emotions, contrasted with the greater frequency of good emotions, suggests that bad emotions have more power. Some patterns of learning suggest that bad things are more quickly and effectively learned than corresponding good things. The lack of a positive counterpart to the concept of trauma is itself a sign that single bad events often have effects that are much more lasting and important than any results of single good events. Bad parenting can be stronger than genetic influences; good parenting is not. Research on social support has repeatedly found that negative, conflictual behaviors in one’s social network have stronger effects than positive, supportive behaviors. Bad things receive more attention and more thorough cognitive processing than good things. When people first learn about one another, bad information has a significantly stronger impact on the total impression than any comparable good information. The self appears to be more strongly motivated to avoid the bad than to embrace the good. Bad stereotypes and reputations are easier to acquire, and harder to shed, than good ones. Bad feedback has stronger effects than good feedback. Bad health has a greater impact on happiness than good health, and health itself is more affected by pessimism (the presence or absence of a negative outlook) than optimism (the presence or absence of a positive outlook).” (P. 361)

Explanatory Theory – Why Bad Would be Stronger than Good across Such Diverse Areas and with Such Reliability

“We began this article by briefly suggesting that the relative strength of bad over good is an adaptive response of the human organism to its physical and social environment. In view of how pervasive the relative strength of bad is, it seems unlikely that this pattern is maladaptive. In particular, we found that bad was stronger than good with regard to health, social support, and learning—all of which are important spheres for adaptations. It seems especially unlikely that maladaptive patterns would have remained powerful there. We also noted that people for whom good is stronger than bad (e.g., people insensitive to pain or to guilt) seem prone to misfortunes and early deaths; this too is consistent with the view that it is adaptive for bad events to have greater power.”
In other words, considering how bad has much greater power than good, it is unlikely that this mechanism is an evolutionary anomaly that somehow was developed among each sentient species, and was naturally selected again and again and again, and every single time. It is much more likely that bad has much stronger effect on a being than good, since it strengthen the fitness of sentient creatures. (P. 358)

“We turn now to the question of why bad would be stronger than good across such diverse areas and with such reliability.”

“The broadest argument we can devise is based on a change in motivational states in the presence of negative events, stimuli, and information. When considering why bad outweighs good, an intriguing possibility is that bad things indicate a need for the self to change something about itself; that is, that bad things prompt self-regulation. Through self-regulation, an organism can adapt and change itself to fit its environment, a strategy that is adaptive, given that the organisms most likely to reproduce are those that can be flexible in the face of ever-changing circumstances.”

“A related argument is that progress may be best facilitated by having bad events have a lasting impact while good events have a temporary one. This too is based on the idea that bad events signal a need for change, whereas good ones do not. If satisfaction and pleasure were permanent, there might be little incentive to continue seeking further benefits or advances. The ephemeral nature of good feelings may therefore stimulate progress (which is adaptive).

If bad feelings wore off, however, people might repeat their mistakes, so genuine progress would best be served by having the effects of bad events linger for a relatively long time. Organisms require not only a system to signal the need for change, but also one that communicates quickly and intensely, with little energy or effort required and without awareness, because the necessary change may require swift responding. Empirical findings have demonstrated that bad things satisfy these criteria. Research confirms that negative stimuli have greater influence on neural responses than positive stimuli (Ito, Larsen, Smith, & Cacioppo, 1998); that negative traits, relative to positive traits, have greater influence on the overall impression of another person (Peeters & Czapinski, 1990); and that negative trait adjectives command more attention, at a nonconscious level, than positive trait adjectives (Pratto & John, 1991).

In summary, it may be that humans and animals show heightened awareness of and responded more quickly to negative information because it signals a need for change. Hence, the adaptiveness of self-regulation partly lies in the organism’s ability to detect when response modifications are necessary and when they are unnecessary. Moreover, the lessons learned from bad events should ideally be retained permanently so that the same dangers or costs are not encountered repeatedly. Meanwhile, good events (such as those that provide a feeling of satisfaction and contentment) should ideally wear off so that the organism is motivated to continue searching for more and better outcomes. As a result, organisms that possess mechanisms for adept perception and processing of negative cues will achieve greater fitness with the environment and, consequently, will have a greater chance of surviving threats and more successful reproductive attempts.” (P.357)

Even if you disagree that pleasure is a form of pain, in the sense that it opens the door for pain in the form of more wants for more pleasures which end up with more frustration when not all of them are satisfied, most people intuition is that not causing pain is more important ethically than causing pleasure. In other words, even if pleasure is not pain increaser in disguise, there is an asymmetry between pain and pleasure. As common as this ethical intuition is, in most cases, it doesn’t seem to lead people to wonder about the origin of this obvious perception, and more importantly to consider what should be the subsequent logical ethical implications.

The ample evidences that bad experiences are more important than good ones, not only serve as a proof that good experiences are at least not as good as bad experiences are bad (if not proving that bad experiences almost always outweigh the good ones), but how horrible life actually and inherently is. Basically, pain and other negative experiences, increase the fitness of individuals by enhancing their respondence ability to threats to their survival and reproduction. It has a crucial adaptive function. Existing sentient beings are tortured by evolutionary mechanisms which their only point is that additional sentient beings would exist, regardless of any of those beings’ personal wellbeing. It is a pointless, frustrating and painful trap.
Procreation is forcing someone into this mechanism of suffering, suffering which each newborn is being compelled to experience and to inflict on other experiencing creatures who are forced into this mechanism as well.

As convincing and unequivocal as these findings are regarding the primacy and dominancy of bad experiences over positive ones, people are very unlikely to prevent this fate from their descendants, let alone sentient creatures from other species, which they don’t even care enough about to stop supporting their torture by stopping to consume them. This misery cycle will not end voluntarily. We have to find ways to break it somehow.

References

Bain, D and Brady, M Pain, Pleasure, and Unpleasure (2014)

Baumeister, R and Bratslavsky, E and Finkenauer, C and Vohs, K Bad Is Stronger Than Good Review of General Psychology 2001. Vol. 5. No. 4. 323-370

Ingraham, P Pain is Weird (2018)

Ingraham, P Why Does Pain Hurt? (2015)

Shriver, A The Asymmetrical Contributions of Pleasure and Pain To Animal Welfare The Cambridge Journal of Healthcare Ethics (2014)

Socrethics The Biological Evolution of Pain (2018)

Vaish, A and Grossmann, T and Woodward, A  Not all emotions are created equal: The negativity bias in social-emotional development Psychological Bulletin 2008, Vol. 134, No. 3, 383–403