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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 the article A New Argument for Anti-Natalism, philosopher Christopher Belshaw argues that antinatalism doesn’t necessarily entail – pro-mortalism.
Belshaw disagrees with David Benatar’s attempt to avoid pro-mortalism while arguing for antinatalism, and defines it as an ‘unstable anti-natalist and anti-mortalist mix’ which may made Benatar’s view more publically acceptable but also less consistent philosophically.

Basically, Belshaw’s criticism of Benatar is that if there is reason not to start lives, then there is reason to end them. And if the smallest amount of pain is sufficient to make life not worth starting as Benatar argues, given that everyone will experience at least some pain, Benatar’s argument for antinatalism entails pro-mortalism.
However, since I have addressed Benatar’s argument in relation to pro-mortalism in a former post, and since Belshaw himself doesn’t focus on Benatar’s argument but rather on his own argument for antinatalism, which he claims succeeds in avoiding pro-mortalism, this will be the focus of the following text.

Pleasure Springboards

Given that babies lack developed conceptions of time and of their own identities as persisting through time, Belshaw argues that as opposed to grown people who will often choose to endure pain in the present for benefits in the future, this can’t be the case with babies who don’t have desires about their longer term futures. Babies live only in the present, and have no desire to tolerate pain in order to acquire future pleasures. For someone unaware of its own future, a good future cannot make up for a bad present. Therefore, hurting babies in the present, for a benefit in the future, which they have no and can’t have an interest in, is morally unjustified.

According to Belshaw when it comes to whom who lacks developed conceptions of time, present pains are not justified by future pleasures. So babies suffer uncompensated pain. But the premise of his new argument for antinatalism goes way further than that. He claims that babies are distinct from the persons that develop from them. From his point of view the baby is one being, the person is another.
To illustrate and simplify the matter he suggests thinking about babies not as an integral gradual process of becoming a person but more in a sense of a distinctive transformation stage:

“Imagine that our relationship to a baby is like that of a butterfly to a caterpillar. Rather than a piecemeal emergence of complex psychological properties, and thus of the person, imagine instead that a baby is born, lives a baby life for about eighteen months, then falls into some sort of coma. Its life is over. After a year a pretty much fully-fledged person emerges. What should we think of this baby’s life? Is it worth living?” (p.124)

This distinction is of course very significant in an ethical sense, since not only that hurting babies is wrong because it is trading the present pains for the future pleasures of a creature who lacks developed conceptions of time, it’s a trade of pleasures and pains between different lives. And that is much worse, and highly questionable ethically.

Thinking about babies not from the point of view of the persons they supposedly become, but as a separate creature, then that creature – who has no developed notion of itself, or of time, no desire to live on into the future, no ability to think about pain and decide to endure it – experiences a lot of suffering. That is the case of even totally healthy babies. They all come into the world screaming, cry a lot, suffer colic and teething pains, stress, discomfort, emotional distress and etc. Therefore Belshaw argues that a baby’s life is not worth living.
Some may argue that a baby is an indispensable stage in creating a wholly worthwhile life, but this is not at all in the interests of, and brings about no compensations or benefits for – the baby. It would have been better for the baby had it never been created.

Belshaw argues that gradualism has no bearing here:

“Even if we come into existence by degrees, the two beings here remain distinct. And so the conclusion still stands. If we value our own lives, want there to be more people in the world, we may well continue to make babies. But what’s good for them isn’t good for us, and vice versa. We’re exploiting them, and exist only because this other creature has suffered. I may be glad that there was a baby. But it would have better for the baby never to have been born.” (p.124)

So basically his argument is that the creation of a person necessarily involves the creation of a baby which isn’t a person but is certainly a sentient creature, and one who suffers very much, without consent, and without compensation as the person that would develop from that baby is not a continuation of the baby. The creation of a person necessarily involves an exploitation of a baby. It is forcing suffering on a creature so that someone else would benefit, because it is not that the pleasures of the future person compensate the baby for its pains, and the baby has no concept or any interest in the future.

Arguable Conception and Unarguable Exploitation

Belshaw doesn’t seem to be bothered with a person being created, but with a baby being created in the process of creating a person. He is bothered with the harms caused to the baby, harms for which the baby would never be compensated. He is bothered with the harms that creating a person brings about not to the person created but to the baby which is according to him, although an indispensable stage of a person, still a separate entity.
Since Belshaw separates between a person and the baby that person had developed from, his argument is actually more of a version of the harm to others argument than it is a version of Benatar’s argument. Only that in Belshaw’s version of the harm to others argument, although there should be no disputes regarding the ‘harm’ part, there are many regarding the ‘others’ element. While his distinction between a baby and the person that grows from that baby is disputable, in the case of the original version of the harm to others argument, meaning absolutely unquestionable harms caused to absolutely unquestionable others, there is no room for any dispute. The only reason that nevertheless there is much dispute is because people are speciesist and careless about the suffering of others, not because the sacrifice of trillions of sentient creatures can ever be ethically justified.

The specific distinction Belshaw claims for may be arguable but the sentiment isn’t.
Even if it is disputable that each person necessarily exploits the baby that s/he supposedly developed from and that each person exists only because a baby has suffered, given that each person needs to feed oneself, dress oneself, clean oneself, clean oneself’s clothes, heat oneself in the winter, cool oneself in the summer, live somewhere, work somewhere, move around somehow, entertain oneself, consume enormous amounts of energy, produce enormous amounts of waste, and etc., and considering that each of these necessarily harm others, it is undisputable that each person necessarily exploits others and that each person exists only because others have suffered.

And people don’t even seem to care that much about the fact that numerous other sentient creatures are suffering so they can enjoy themselves. Most are still choosing, time and again, the most harmful ways to feed themselves and regardless of how harmful it is to others. Harming others while consuming food is inevitable, even if it is plant based, local, organic and seasonable, but most people insist on the worst kinds of food production, ones that involve the greatest exploitation and suffering. Therefore, in most cases, creating a person is sacrificing chickens to be cramped into tiny cages with each forced to live in a space the size of an A4 paper, calves to be separated from their mothers, and cow mothers to be left traumatized by the abduction of their babies, pigs to suffer from chronic pain and various diseases, sheep to suffer from lameness, turkeys to barely stand as a result of their unproportionate bodies, ducks to live out of water and in filthy crowded sheds, rabbits to be imprisoned in an iron cage the size of their bodies, geese to be aggressively plucked for their feathers, and male chicks to be gassed, crushed or suffocated since they are unexploitable for eggs or meat.

So even if you reject Belshaw’s distinction within a person, the following description he made is surly the case when it comes to a person’s relation with others “we are inevitably free-riding on the several misfortunes of small, helpless and shortlived creatures”.

Even if you disagree with Belshaw’s distinction between the future person’s supposed wholly worthwhile life and the baby’s lack of any interest, compensations or benefits for that, you can’t disagree that other creatures surly lack of any interest, compensations or benefits for a person’s supposed wholly worthwhile life. Even if we refuse to accept Belshaw’s distinction, the thousands of creatures overall that would be harmed so a person would benefit, will not be compensated. Therefore even without his distinction move, the creation of a person is indeed a trade of pleasures and pains across different lives.

Belshaw’s argument may be new but in some ways it reflects on an old problem. He deeply emphasis the exploitation of babies for the pleasures of persons, yet he deeply ignores the obvious exploitation – one that doesn’t require the metaphysical complexity of differentiating between a person and the baby from which that person had developed – of probably thousands of nonhuman animals by each human person.

Preventing that suffering is my main motivation. And people being so speciesist and careless about the suffering of others is my main reason not to wait for them to change.
If Belshaw’s main motivation is to prevent babies from being sacrificed for the sake of persons while avoiding pro-mortalism for persons, he can support a non-pro-mortalist option, but still ensure that people will stop sacrificing babies. Although for slightly different motives and perceptions than mine, he can support forced sterilization.

References

Benatar, D. Better Never to Have Been (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)

Belshaw, C. A New Argument for Anti-Natalism South African Journal of Philosophy 31 (1) 117-127(2012)

Like many other antinatalists, I am referring to procreation as a crime, a very serious one.
This definition is often counter argued by claims such as that procreation is not a crime since as opposed to cases of supposedly real crimes, in procreation there is no intention to harm, and according to pro-natalists it is actually the exact opposite.
Since I have addressed the alleged opposite intention of procreation along many former texts, here I’ll only shortly address the aspect of the seemingly unintended harm in procreation.

Allegedly, there is a difference between crimes which are considered as crimes and the crime of procreation which is not considered as one by non-antinatalists, since the first case is of causing intended harm and the latter is being consciously aware of harm with no explicit intention of causing it. However, when people are aware that their unnecessary actions are bound with inevitable harm how is that unintentional? Not wishing to harm another person by performing an action might be less wrong than performing an action with an intention to harm another person, but knowing that harm is inevitable is enough to make that harm intentional even if the harm was not intended but an unintended inevitable consequence of an action with a different intention. In other words, if people are consciously causing unnecessary harm to someone else, or consciously unnecessarily put someone in harm’s way, the fact that causing that unnecessary harm to another person wasn’t their intention doesn’t make it less of a crime as long as they were aware of inevitably causing unnecessary harm.

One explicit example of an inevitable harm is death. Given that everyone must die, people who procreate are intentionally creating people who would necessarily die. They would also necessarily be harmed by many other things, but even if we’ll assume that that is speculative, despite that clearly it is definitely not, everyone must surly die. Although people don’t procreate with the intention of causing their children’s death, they are aware of their children’s inevitable death. And so all parents can’t avoid intentionally creating people who would inevitably die.

People might truly not want their children to be harmed, but they are willing to force them to be harmed so they themselves won’t be harmed by not creating them.
That claim can be exemplified by anticipating parents’ reply to an hypothetical proposal such as will they be willing to trade a guarantee that their children would never be harmed and will always be happy, in exchange for them never seeing them again, which probably only a few if any parent would agree to. This thought experiment is an exemplification of the fact that people don’t create people for these people’s sake but out of their own interests.

Of course, there is no need for this thought experiment to prove that all procreations are self-interested as no procreation can even theoretically be about the created person as no one has an interest in being created before being forced to exist, nor is it needed to prove that had people truly cared about their children not being harmed they would have chosen the surest, most reliable and absolutely guaranteed way to prevent any harm caused to any of them which is of course to never create them in the first place. However, the fact people don’t procreate to intentionally harm their children but would not intentionally give their children up so to protect them from any harm by choosing that option in this fictional deal, or by choosing not to create them in real life, is another indication of their nevertheless intentional harm.

People prefer that their children would suffer from everything that they would suffer from during their whole life, which at least some of it is necessarily known in advance like the just mentioned inevitable fact of death, and also the accompanied fear of death, not to mention all the suffering they would cause to others during their whole life time, and all that so they would not suffer themselves from not breeding. This is how selfish people are. So selfish that it is pointless to try and convince them not to procreate for moral reasons. So selfish that we need to find by-passes in order to prevent them from breeding and by that prevent all the suffering that would have been caused to the children they would have created had it been up to them, and all the suffering that the children that they would have created had it been up to them would have caused to others.

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

The former two texts address couple of the most common arguments against ‘Wrongful Life’ claims. If you haven’t read them yet, it is recommended (though not necessary) to do so before reading this one, which addresses another common argument against ‘Wrongful Life’ claims, that is that they would put pressure on doctors to advise people to have abortions.

Just a quick reminder, a ‘Wrongful Life’ case is when a child sues for medical negligence a doctor or hospital for failing to diagnose and/or for not informing the child’s parents about a genetic disorder or foetal impairment when abortion was still an option and would have been chosen by the parents had they been informed. The claim in a wrongful-life suit is not that the negligence of the doctor was the cause of the impairment, but that by failing to inform the parents, the doctor is responsible for the birth of an impaired child who otherwise would not have been born and therefore would not experience the suffering caused by the impairment. The lawsuit is in respect of the damage caused by the impairment, this would generally include pain, suffering, and ‘disability costs’—the extra financial costs attributable to the disability, such as the cost of nursing care.

A quite common claim against ‘Wrongful Life’ suits is that it would put a lot of pressure on medical advisers to suggest abortions in cases of foreseen or a suspicion for impairments, out of fear of being sued for damages. That might indeed happen, but of course the creation of people with severe impairments merely to avoid doctors being pressured to encourage abortions out of fear of being sued, can never be morally justified.

Every breeding case is performed without the consent of whom who is supposed to be the protagonist of the action. But in ‘Wrongful Life’ cases the omission of consent is even more extreme as it is not even performed with the consent of the children’s parents, who had they been informed about their children’s impairments they would have had an abortion. And according to the above claim, these children should not even be compensated for their harm since that might put pressure on doctors to advise other people to do – what these people would have done had they been informed – an abortion.

Anyone who is not adherently opposed to abortions shouldn’t be so alarmed by a potential pressure put on doctors to advice it. And anyone who is adherently opposed to the creation of people with severe impairments is supposed to be in favor of such a pressure, in the aspiration that as many preconception and prenatal testing as possible are performed to avoid as many impairments as possible.

Of course I can’t speak for other antinatalists other than myself, but in spite that on the face of it the argument that ‘Wrongful Life’ claims disvalue the life of people with disabilities is supposed to be the more challenging one for us antinatalists, I feel most uneasy with this one. That is because on the one hand I have no doubt in my mind that these are cases of medical negligence as surly the doctors could have prevented the children’s suffering had they informed their parents. But on the other hand, parents, all parents, can’t always prevent the misery caused to their children, which statistically may be smaller and less probable than the cases at the center of this text, but sometimes can also be worse than these cases. Accidents and horrible events that take place along the way can turn someone’s life to be much worse than someone who was born with impairments. The life of a person who was born with impairments that luckily don’t involve chronic pain, can be much less worse than people who weren’t born with impairments but life somehow hit them hard along the way and turned their existence into an ongoing misery.
Life necessarily involves many unavoidable harms which none of them are necessary and people are forced to endure them only because their parents have decided to create them. Shouldn’t parents have some responsibility over their children’s harm?
Only because harms are so natural, mandatory and self-evident we treat them with acceptance. But they are unnecessary, and causing unnecessary harm is morally wrong.
Pain, frustration, sickness, boredom, fatigue, weariness and etc., are all certain and unavoidable, shouldn’t parents have some responsibility for not preventing it or getting consent from their children about it?
We don’t need genetic screenings to figure out that harms would occur. And the harmed is never informed, not to mention agrees to any of them before being created.

Some supporters of ‘wrongful life’ cases, claim that the plaintiffs need not to show the court that non-existence is a preferable option, but only to show that they suffer from reasonably foreseeable, and preventable harms caused by the defendants. Yet, isn’t it the case that everyone suffers from reasonably foreseeable, and preventable harms caused by the parents?

That is why although I agree that indeed there is a criminal negligence by the medical staff in these cases of procreation, there is a criminal negligence by the parents in every case of procreation.
While the doctors are guilty not of causing harm but of not preventing harm, the parents are guilty of both causing harm and of not preventing it. The parents are guilty of every harm they would personally and directly cause to their children, and for not preventing every harm that would be caused to their children by everything that is not them.
Every procreation is a case of criminal negligence by the parents because of all the misery that can happen to all people, at any given moment, and for all the misery that would be caused by all people at any given moment.

So I agree that the pressure put on doctors is unfair, but obviously not because of fear of more abortions, but because most of the liability must still be put on the parents. That is since the option of the doctors missing or not informing the parents about impairments is always there, not to mention the option of misery not caused by doctors’ negligence but by something else later in life, therefore it is still, and always, the parents’ responsibility.

Surly the doctors are guilty of criminal negligence for not adequately examining the possibility of impairments, or for not informing the parents about examined impairments, giving them the chance to have an abortion. But the bigger crime is that people are in the position of deciding whether to have an abortion or not in the first place. The major issue is the situation in which people can decide whether to create a person without that person’s consent, while running the risk of that person being miserable, without having any justified reason or purpose, and with that person being forced to endure pain, fear, sickness, frustration, regret, broken-heartedness, boredom, death, the fear of death, and etc.

The doctors’ actions are criminal because had they informed the parents these pregnancies wouldn’t have ended with a ‘wrongful life’ but with abortion. But every case of pregnancy that doesn’t end with abortion ends with a ‘wrongful life’ because every case of procreation is a very serious crime.

Procreation is a very serious crime because it is forcing on someone else the most important decision in that person’s life.

Procreation is a very serious crime because it is harming someone else without that person’s consent.

Procreation is a very serious crime because it is gambling on someone else’s life.

Procreation is a very serious crime because it is forcing someone into a needless, pointless, absurd, constant chase after meaning in a meaningless, needless, pointless, and absurd world.

Procreation is a very serious crime because it is forcing someone into a needless, pointless, absurd, constant chase after pleasures despite that pleasures are not really intrinsically good but addictive falsehood smoke screen illusions, which trap sentient beings in an endless, pointless and vain seek for more of them. Pleasures are preceded by wants which are the absence of objects desired by subjects. People want because they are missing something. They seek pleasures to release the tension of craving. Craving or wants, are at least bad experiences if not a sort of pain. Pleasures are short and temporary, and compel a preceding deprivation, a want or a need, which is not always being fulfilled, rarely to the desired measure, and almost never exactly when wanted. And even when desires are fulfilled, the cycle starts again.

Procreation is a crime because it is forcing someone into a situation where pain is the natural default state. If one would stop all action, pains would attack very shortly in the form of hunger, thirst, boredom, loneliness, physical discomfort, thermal discomfort and etc. Pain comes if one does nothing. Pleasures are unguaranteed, brief, and at some point become boring and ineffective. There is no chronic pleasure, but there is definitely chronic pain. And it is quite abundant. Pain is always guaranteed for every person born.

Procreation is a very serious crime because it is forcing someone into a needless, pointless, absurd, constant chase after happiness – despite that according to the “set point” theory of happiness (which many psychologists find convincing nowadays), mood is homeostatic and we all have a fixed average level of happiness. That means that even desirable things which people do manage to obtain, are satisfying at first, but eventually people adapt to them and return to their “set points”. Therefore people usually end up more or less on the same level of wellbeing they were before. That’s why some argue that people actually run on hedonic treadmills.

Procreation is a very serious crime because there is a very realistic probability that a person forced into existence would be miserable. There is not even a theoretical possibility that a person forced into existence won’t be harmed at all. Creating someone who would definitely be harmed and the only variable is to what extent (with the potential of extreme misery), must be morally prohibited. Given that the motives are never the interests of the to-be born person, it is not only morally flawed, it is selfish, egocentric, arrogant, and careless.

Procreation is a very serious crime because 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 a very serious crime because it is treating someone as a means to others’ ends. People create new persons to serve their own purposes such as to take care of them when they are old, to save their decaying relationships, to continue the family line, to please their parents, to ease their boredom, to fill their empty and pointless lives with a sense of meaning and purpose, to feel powerful because someone is totally depended on them, to feel needed and important, to ease their loneliness, to hush their biological impulses, to boost their ego, to create an immortality illusion, to take care of society’s elderly, to be loved even if that love is temporary and conditioned and a result of imprinting and not of free choice and objective assessments, to continue the human race, to feel normal, to make them look normal to others. And creating extremely emotionally and physically vulnerable persons as means to others’ ends is a very serious crime.

Procreation is a very serious crime because it diverts energy, time and resources from persons who already exist and are in need, to those who needed nothing, were deprived of nothing, and harmed by nothing before they were forced into existence.

Procreation is a very serious crime because life is a constant Sisyphean struggle just to survive a life no one chose. Everyone is bound to overcome needless frustrations, disappointments, pains and discomforts.

Procreation is a very serious crime because people are creating new persons for their own selfish sake and count on that their children would adapt and adjust to the difficulties of life, just like everybody else does. Only that not everyone manages to adapt to life’s difficulties, and even if everyone did, why condemn people to such a state in the first place? Why knowingly create someone who would have to adjust to bad situations, instead of easily avoiding any bad situation that person would be forced to endure coming to existence? Why consciously choose to throw other people into the position in which they must always compromise and never get everything they want?

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

Procreation is a very serious crime because there is no way to retroactively undo it, and there is also not an easy and harmless option to end one’s existence by carrying out suicide. Many people are trapped in horrible lives without a truly viable option to end it because they are too afraid to kill themselves, or because they don’t want to hurt the ones who care about them if they do, or are too afraid that if they won’t succeed in killing themselves they would be socially stigmatized in the better case, or coercively hospitalized in a worse one, or harm themselves so severely while trying to kill themselves that they would end up even worse than they were. Trapping people in the impossible situation of not wanting to live but not wanting to kill themselves so not to hurt others or because they are afraid to kill themselves for any of the mentioned reasons, is a very serious crime.

Procreation is a very serious crime because it forces someone to die, and to fear of death for most of one’s life.

Procreation is a very serious crime because people can choose whether to create sentient creatures who would necessarily suffer from many bad experiences that they have necessarily not given consent to, and with no guarantee whatsoever that the created persons won’t be very miserable, yet they choose to do so anyway. They choose that other persons would experience pain, frustration, fear, boredom, they choose they would get disappointed, sick, rejected, and humiliated. Yes, that person may enjoy parts of life too, but that is not mandatory, while it is mandatory that this short list of bad things will happen at some point, at least once in each person’s life. Despite that pleasure is optional, happiness isn’t even optional, and suffering is inevitable, people criminally choose to willingly force sentient creatures into this condition.

And finally, more than anything, what makes procreation such a serious crime, is that it is forcing enormous needless and pointless suffering on thousands of individuals vulnerable to harms. While the person created is one morally relevant creature which would be harmed by being created, each person created is hurting infinitely more morally relevant creatures during a lifetime.

References

Begeal, Brady “Burdened by Life: A Brief Comment on Wrongful Birth and Wrongful Life.” Albany Gov’t Law Review Fireplace Blog. 2011. Accessed Jun 1, 2012. http://aglr.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/burdened-by-life-a-brief-comment-on-wrongfulbirth-and-wrongful-life

Benatar D (2006) Better never to have been: the harm of coming into existence. Clarendon, Oxford

Botkin Jeffrey R., “Ethical Issues and Practical Problems in Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 26, no. 1 (1998): 17-28.

Ettorre Elizabeth, “Reproductive Genetics, Gender and the Body: ‘Please Doctor, may I have a Normal Baby?’,” Sociology 34 no. 3 (2000): 403-420.

Gardner, M. (2016). Beneficence and procreation. Philosophical Studies; 173(2) 321-336

Giesen Ivo, “Of wrongful birth, wrongful life, comparative law and the politics of tort law systems,” Journal of Contemporary Roman-Dutch Law 72 (2009): 257-273.

Harris John, “The Wrong of Wrongful Life,” Journal of Law and Society 17, no. 1 (1990): 90.

Hensel Wendy F., “The Disabling Impact of Wrongful Birth and Wrongful Life Actions,” Harvard Civil RightsCivil Liberties Law Review 40 (2005): 141-195.

Jennifer Ann Rinaldi, “Wrongful Life and Wrongful Birth: The Devaluation of Life With Disability,” Journal of Public Policy, Administration and Law, 1 (2009): 1-7; Liu, “Wrongful life: some of the problems.”

Kumar R (2015) Risking and wronging. Philos Public Aff 43(1):27–51

Liu, Athena N. C. “Wrongful life: some of the problems.” Journal of Medical Ethics 13 (1987): 69-73.

Loth Marc A., Courts in quest for legitimacy; the case of wrongful life (Rotterdam: Erasmus University, 2007).

Mackenzie Robin. From Sanctity To Screening: Genetic Disabilities, Risk And Rhetorical Strategies In Wrongful Birth And Wrongful Conception Cases Feminist Legal Studies 7: 175–191, 1999

Morreim E. Haavi, “The Concept of Harm Reconceived: A Different Look at Wrongful Life,” Law and Philosophy 7, no. 1 (1988): 3-33.

Morris Anne and Saintier Severine, “To Be or Not to Be: Is That The Question? Wrongful Life and Misconceptions,” Medical Law Review 11 (2003): 167-193.

Murtaugh Michael T., “Wrongful Birth: The Courts’ Dilemma in Determining a Remedy for a Blessed Event,” Pace Law Review 27, no. 2 (2007): 243

Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. (Oxford University Press 1986)

Ramos-Ascensão José, “Welcoming the more vulnerable: do parents have a right to selection of a healthy child?” Europeinfos – Christians perspectives on the EU, 2012: 5, accessed Aug 4, 2013, http://www.comece.eu/europeinfos/en/archive/issue153/article/5140.html

Robertson John A., “Extending preimplantation genetic diagnosis: the ethical debate – Ethical issues in new uses of preimplantation genetic diagnosis,” Human Reproduction 18, no. 3 (2003): 465-471

Sàndor Judit, “From Assisted to Selective Reproduction: Through the Lens of the Court,” The Faculty of Law – Norway, 2013: 14, accessed Jan 14, 2014, http://www.jus.uio.no/english/research/news-andevents/events/conferences/2014/wccl-cmdc/wccl/papers/ws7/w7-sandor.pdf

Savulescu J. Procreative Beneficence: why we should select the best children. Bioethics 200115413–426

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The philosopher Julio Cabrera, which I have previously addressed, has another book translated into English. It is called Because I Love You, You Will Not Be Born! and it is a joint reflection about procreation, written with Thiago Lenharo di Santis. The book is half philosophical essay and half novel, aiming to examine what its authors view as the coldness and detachment with which thousands of humans are dumped daily on planet Earth, just for the distraction of their parents or as a mere involuntary product.

The first part is mainly dedicated to Cabrera’s structural mortality claim which I’ve addressed in the post about the book A Critique of Affirmative Morality.
The second part is dedicated to considerations about the decision to generate a new being from the point of view of the ones who are about to be born. This part is written by Thiago di Santis.
The third and last part is called Letters of Abstention and is a fictional correspondence between a young negative philosopher and an austere teacher.

Unfortunately there are relatively few antinatalist books so there is no reason to choose between them, yet if you have to choose just one of Cabrera’s books translated into English, I highly recommend reading Discomfort and Moral Impediment which is undoubtedly one of the best books I’ve ever read.
However there is an unmissable part in Because I Love You, You Will Not Be Born!, surprisingly in the exchange of letters part of the book, where one of the writers decides to synthesize the many questions and discussions detailed along the text, in a table. That is done in hope that after seeing everything together, it becomes clear how sadistic and unscrupulous the procreative attitude is.

Here is the moral mapping of procreation:

Attitude of not having children:	Attitude of having children:
One makes a sensitive and reflected consideration of the implications, possibilities and perspectives involved in the act of procreation.	An unreflective* and insensitive act of procreation is carried out, unconditionally* yielding to impulses and attempting to exempt oneself from responsibility, with total disregard for rationality and sensitivity, and disregarding* possibilities and perspectives.
One does not oblige, impose or bestow anyone. (One carries their bag of bricks without forcing anyone to carry another).	Obligation, imposition, bestowal of someone. (One carries their bag of bricks and forces someone to carry another).
The possibility of participation of the new being in the third group is considered (of being suicidal, for example).	The possibility of participation of the new being in the third group is not considered*.
The risk of one’s actions remain with the individual who made the decision. One brings responsivity to oneself, one keeps the implications of one’s actions to oneself.	The risk remains with the child, thus expanding beyond those who made the decision. One throws on the shoulders of their children the whole package, with all its implications; from there, the problem is of the new being.
One answers no to the question: “do you want to be responsible for the existence of a person (without power or knowledge about the decision to make them be) that can be so sensitive to the point of being affected, hurt, devastated, and even destroyed by the pains of existence?”.	One answers yes to the same question.
One does not oblige the child to pay any debt that they have not incurred. One does not make their children victims of intergenerational tyranny.	The child will have to pay debts (paid every second and impossible to be removed) that they did not incur (which were inherited). There is intergenerational tyranny.
One considers the possibility of the new being occupying the position of the intense sufferer.	The possibility of the new being occupying the position of the intense sufferer is not considered*. (Including of the one who wants to die and can not).
One does not impose a mortality on the new being, a life that is terminative, debilitating and self-aware, that frustrates every project and generates insecurity.	One imposes to the new being precisely this type of life. One obliges the new being to a life that is always decadent, in which one suffers actions that cause greater limitations to the human condition.
One does not oblige or enable the new being to experience the illness and death of the father, mother, son or daughter, relatives, friends, among others, being fully aware of these possibilities.	One obliges or enables the new being to experience the illness and death of all these people, and, in general, the coexistence with the suffering of loved ones.
One does not condemn the new being to make choices, to go through frustrations and failures.	One condemns the new being to make choices, to go through frustrations and failures, to be disrespected and hindered by the other.
One does not oblige a sensitive being to pain and suffering, to be a sufferer, subject to the various natural limitations. (By not forcing someone to have a body, no needle can hurt them).	One obliges a sensitive being, of particular perception, to be a sufferer, imbued by the various natural limitations (not chosen and immutable). And all this without any choice, power or responsibility of the new being. (By forcing it to have a body, a needle can always be threaded into it).
One worries (in X1) with “for whom) the pain would remain.	There is no concern with “for whom” the pain will remain. On the contrary, the exploitation of the new being begins, mentally, already in X1, as part of the practice of an absolutely indefensible attack against the prototypical innocent victim.
For the already existing individual, there can be resignation to life (it is “like that”), but not to the new being, who was not obliged to the same painful situation.	For the new being, life will be “like that”, just as it is for the already existing individual, because the parents decided for them.
One either does not fit into any of the three categories (egoism, super-egoism, ultra-egoism), or at most one is characterized as egoistic, or as super-egoistic, or both, about other already existing people.	It is the practice of ultra-egoism par excellence, the maximum degree of egoism (that is, it is the creation a new being only to satisfy oneself).
One considers the consequences of one’s own action, which may be pleasurable to oneself, but which will be painful to the new being.	One does not consider* the painful consequences to the other, resulting from one’s own satisfaction.
One does not oblige someone to be an agent of nature (in particular, a reproducer).	The child is obliged to be an agent of the natural system (in particular, a reproducer).
An attitude of respect for human suffering is adopted, particularly with regard to the child.	An attitude of disrespect or indifference towards human suffering is adopted, particularly in relation to the child.
One does not oblige the new being to be an agent of the generator’s belief system. One does not force a new being to be a means to anything. The new being is not seen as a means but as an end.	One obliges the child to be a means within the belief systems of the generator.
The new being is maintained in X1, in the privileged status of the first nothingness, without the perspective of the 2ND nothingness, without limitations, without impotence, without anguish, without pain, without suffering, without worries, without losing oneself every day.	One is obliged to be something and nothing more, at least not much more than being. One is forced into a subtractive and debilitating life, against the second nothingness. One is obliged to a limited existence, of negative potency, impotent, fearful, anguished, worried and painful, of loss of oneself every day. One is obliged to be, “leaving” the privileged status of the first nothingness.
One hurts the right to be of the non-being, only in X1, that is, it is not an effective injury, since nothing was taken from him, for he simply is not.	One hurts the right to not be of the being, in X2 and forever (something irremediable even with suicide), in addition to the abuse in X1.
One reacts responsibly to the regencies in force, to the traditional simian inertia.	One repeats the same irresponsible, thoughtless, insensitive, and traditional attitude.
One does not condemn or sacrifice what would surely exist, that is, the body, sensitivity, thoughts and feelings of the new being, in potential benefit of what may or may not exist.	One sacrifices and condemns what guaranteedly exists: the body, the sensitivity, the thoughts, the feelings of the new being, in potential benefit of what can exist or not.
The proposal of having the well-being of the new being as one’s main or sole objective is accepted entirely.	The proposal of having the well-being of the new being as one’s main or sole objective is entirely abandoned.
One answers yes to the question: “would it not be better to satisfy oneself without doing harm to an absolutely innocent individual?”	One answers no to the same question.
One thought about the motives that the new being would have to be.	One obliges the new being to be, even without any undoubted and necessary reason for all.
At the moment X1, one thinks about the well-being of the new being, one reveals a moral concern and love for him, for the sensitive and absolutely innocent element.	One does not think about the well-being of the new being, one does not worry about it as such, properly speaking. There is concern and love for oneself, in a very high degree of involvement with oneself. No love is devoted to the sensitive and absolutely innocent element, nor is there any moral concern with it.
One does not allow a fetishization or objectification of the new being, treating it as non-human.	One utilizes the child as an object, a thing, for one’s own satisfaction. The distinction between a thing and a human is lost, the child becomes a fetish.
One does not commit a crime to then protect the injured; one thinks before doing so and one decides, first of all, not to make a victim.	One commits a crime whose victim is one’s own child, from which one then tries to spare them (to be victimized by others).
One thinks of the many difficulties that the new being would live, the necessary conditions of its existence, inherent in the human, and does not oblige it to that.	One does not think about these difficulties. Being human life very difficult (naturally and socially), and even though one can avoid it, one obliges the new being to all this only by virtue of one’s own ultra-egoism.
In the attempt to reconcile self-satisfaction with the well-being of the new being, the well-being of the new being is prioritized, even to the detriment of one’s own interests (perhaps, to “experience parenthood”). But there is the option of being satisfied in a deeper way, knowing that one is effectively doing the best for the possible new being.	In the attempt to reconcile self-satisfaction with the well-being of the new being, at best, one’s own contentment is prioritized, even with the total and irreversible damage to the new being. In most cases, however, one can not even consider that there is a prioritization, for indifference and insensitivity are such that one does not even realize the existence of the perspective of the new being (completely ignored under the ultra-egoistic view). In these cases, only one thing is seen: “I, I, I…”.

*If the concern for the son or daughter’s well-being is maintained
X1: This moment is considered to be “existential” in relation to the parents and “pre-existential” in relation to the child (therefore, prior to his existence).
Mother and father already exist and therefore have a physical apparatus developed (brain) and are able to consider the issue of birth consciously, to reason about the aspects involved and to make a decision. Observe that one can make the decision without consciously considering the issue and without reasoning about all the aspects involved (which, in fact, seems to be very common), but at least there is the possibility of making these types of consideration, since the physical apparatus is available for this.
The child, however, does not exist in X1. They have therefore no (cerebral) physical apparatus or any other to consider the issue, there is no consciousness, there is no reasoning, there is no decision-making. If such a tool is not available, it is absolutely impossible that there be any awareness or choice about the issue on the part of the new being.
X2: This moment is considered as the beginning of the existence of the child. From this will occur a series of processes of development of the new individual generated.
X3: This moment is considered as one in which the individual who was before in development is already developed.

The fact that the vast majority of people would still procreate even after reading this list is one of the most unequivocal proofs that us radical antinatalists shouldn’t focus on making lists of arguments aiming at convincing people not to procreate, but focus on lists of technological options aiming at making people unable to procreate.

Some antinatalists argue that the only way to justify creating a person is if the parents are willing to “fix what they broke”. Meaning, that people are permitted to create a person if they are ready and are committed to compensate their child for harms, including assisting suicide to their child if the child asks for it, regardless of it being illegal; and they are certainly not allowed to try to prevent their children from carrying out suicide if they choose to.

I sympathize with the logic behind the argument that given that parents risk their children’s well-being, let alone in an attempt to improve their own, then if their children’s well-being ends up being poor and undesirable in their own view, the parents are obligated to return their children to their previous state, but since this option is even theoretically impossible simply because there is no pre-existing state someone was in before being created or can somehow go back to, procreation is impermissible under this condition just as much.

Beyond the lawfulness issue and beyond the unlikeliness that parents would not try to prevent their children from carrying out suicide if they choose to, let alone provide them with assistance, carrying out suicide doesn’t compensate anyone for anything. Harms done are not retroactively being undone once a person doesn’t exist anymore. Existence can’t be undone. Things can happen but can never “unhappen”. There are no, and there could be no compensations for the harms endured in existence when it ends. Ending one’s existence can only stop the current harms and prevent the future ones, but it can’t compensate for past harms.

Suicide cannot compensate anyone for the suffering of existence, but can only stop the continuance of the suffering of existence. It can’t retroactively justify the existence of someone who doesn’t want to live, or wish s/he had never existed. The harm can never be compensated for nor justified, even if the parents provide assistance, and even if suicide was fast, fearless, absolutely sure, plain, painless and harmless to others, which it is definitely none of the above. Carrying out suicide is always difficult, scary, unsure, dangerous, potentially painful, and rarely unharmful to people who knew the person carrying it out, including the parents, and despite them (under the conditions of this argument) making a prior agreement to assist or at least not hold back their children if that’s what they wish for.

Even people who have decided to end their life, and even people whom their life was a continuance misery, are naturally and biologically built to fear death, and they are obviously afraid of pain, of permanently disabling themselves if they don’t succeed in carrying out suicide. Some fear that they are committing a sin, some fear of what they view as the unknown, some of breaking the law, of being socially shamed, of being blamed for selfishness, of the option of isolation ward in a psychiatric hospital, and etc. All that as well as the fact that people are biologically built to survive, make many people prisoners of their biological mechanisms and social norms. They are trapped in horrible lives without a truly viable option to end it, even if their parents would agree, and even if they would provide them with assistance.

People must overcome too many obstacles with each being too difficult, for suicide to really be an option. And even if it wasn’t the case, carrying out suicide, even if was absolutely safe, easy and free of any collateral damage, as aforementioned, doesn’t by any means compensate for a miserable existence.

No one should take the risk that their children would suffer so much that they would not only want to die, but that they would overcome all these obstacles and try to do something about it, or won’t because they are too afraid or because they care too much about the people who care about them. No one should put anyone in such a horrible position where they don’t want to live but are trapped in life.

Compensation to Others

Even if parents’ preacceptance that they might have to assist their children with ending their own lives if they want to, was a relevant “fix” and compensation for their children’s miserable existence, given that creating a person is not only gambling on that person’s life, but also, if not first and foremost, ensuring that more sentient beings, probably tens of thousands of them, would be forced to endure miserable lives so to support and pleasure the created person, and given that compensation is even less relevant in their cases, procreation is a unidirectional thing for tens of thousands, and is unfixable for each and every one of them.

Before discussing the relevancy and feasibility of compensating and fixing a potential problem of a person who doesn’t yet exist so to justify its creation, people must ensure compensation and that they can fix the certain problems of everyone who would be harmed due to that person’s creation. And obviously that is impossible. How can people compensate everyone who would be sacrificed and otherwise harmed by the people they will create? How can they compensate everyone who would be genetically modified so to provide the maximum meat possible for the to-be born persons? How can they compensate everyone who would be imprisoned for their entire lives? How can they compensate everyone who would be forced to live without their family for their entire lives? How can they compensate everyone who would suffer chronic pain and maladies for their entire lives? How can they compensate everyone who would never breathe clean air, walk on grass, bath in water, and eat natural food?

Procreation is not only taking a risk of causing harm to the person created, it is indifferently deciding to cause harms to everyone who would be harmed by the person created.
None of them can be compensated for any of it. Not the created person and not any of its victims.

The first broken thing that people must fix before creating more people is the enormous harm each of them is causing. And that is not likely to happen. Ever.
Given that no person is harmed by the life that s/he had never lived, but tens of thousands are harmed by the life that each person does live, not only that when it comes to procreation there is no way to fix what is broken, it keeps breaking and breaking more and more things all the time. And that requires a real fix.

 

 

Some pro-natalists are claiming that humanity is evolving all the time and things are getting better all the time. Medicine had been extremely improved, people are less sick, they are eating better than they used to in the past, they are richer than ever, there is much higher awareness to hygiene and pollution, and the world is less violent. Humanity is constantly improving, so we just need to grit our teeth for a little longer, and life in the future would be much better.

This claim is simply wrong if we consider every aspect of living and of every sentient creature, and if we remember that what matters ethically is harms to actual living sentient creatures and not statistical probabilities of harms.

So first we need to ask, life is better for whom? The lives of most people have not been significantly improved due to the increase of wealth and technology. The gaps between rich and poor people, within and between nations, have only become wider. Billions of people are suffering daily from malnutrition if not hunger in the most literal and harsh sense of not having anything to eat. And that is despite the soaring technological advances in food production along the past century. Billions of people are suffering on a daily basis from lack of water or from using contaminated water, despite technological advances in water pumping, desalination and water purification. Billions of people are suffering on a daily basis from various curable diseases despite the soaring technological advances in medicine. Billions of people are suffering on a daily basis from pollution, filth, pain, violence, frustration and hopelessness. This is the reality of the majority of the human race. Advances and improvements in the fields of medicine, hygiene, food production, and technology, don’t reach most people.

And since the good aspects of technology didn’t benefit most people, clearly the major problems in this world are not technical but social and political. And these issues have not been solved and there is no reason to believe they will ever be solved.

The fact that it is much easier to produce food, to develop medicines, that there is much more awareness of clean water, clean air, green areas, hygiene and etc., yet all the problems are still here, is not an indication of improvement but the other way around. The technological potential didn’t prove itself for being able to solve these basic issues and in fact it made a lot of things a lot worse. The air, water and soil are much more polluted. People are eating food which is less nutritious, less natural, more chemically infected, and is produced using various harmful methods. Despite technological advancements people are forced to work longer hours. Despite the advancements in the entertainment business and platforms, with so many people having a smartphone connected to the internet in their pockets, they are much more bored. Instead of making people more connected and knowledgeable they are more ignorant, more divisive, more cynical, more alienated and less compassionate.

Some problems have gotten much worse, and some have only been created in modern time such as mass surveillance, cyberbullying, loss of privacy, algorithmic discrimination (amplification of racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination by AI systems), shaming – online and otherwise, impulsive consumerism, drug abuse, anxiety, neuroticism, systematical dissatisfaction, lack of meaning, existential detachment, depression, loneliness and etc.

And last but definitely not least in this brief list of technology’s effects, is factory farming and everything involved in it , most probably the worst effect technology has ever had on sentient creatures. Yet.

Secondly, we need to remember that even if the claim that life is getting better was true, it is so in terms of ratio, not in absolute numbers. Meaning, maybe it is true that the chances of a person nowadays to be severely harmed by something (for example an infection caused by not much more than a flesh wound), compared with a few centuries ago, are lower; but since there are many more people in the world today there are many more people who are harmed by all kinds of things (even becoming severely ill from an infection caused by not much more than a flesh wound) than there were a few centuries ago.
It might be true that the chances of a person to fall victim to a violent attack are lower than they were in the past, but there are many more people who are victims of violent attacks because there are many more people today. And since it is absolute numbers that count, real actual people, not probabilities which are not morally relevant entities, the world is not getting better. It is less important ethically that statistically there is a lesser chance of someone to be harmed, and it is not an indication of the world becoming better as long as these odds don’t reflect a decrease in the total number of harmed people. There are more victims today of most of the harms, including ones that should have been eradicated long ago such as various easily treatable diseases, lack of food, and lack of clean water.
Victims of harms are what we must count and there are more of these than there were in the past.

Thinking that things have gotten better because they have gotten better statistically is thinking about humanity as an ethical entity instead of thinking about humans as ethical entities. It is thinking in relative terms and in patterns of the human race as a species instead of thinking about individuals of the human species which are the truly ethically relevant entities for that matter.

Also, this is a very Western thinking, as in many places the chances to be severely harmed, if to follow the previous examples, by an infection caused by not much more than flesh wound or by a violent attack, have not been significantly improved.

And most importantly for that matter, this is a very speciesist thinking as the chances of a nonhuman animal to be harmed by a violent attack nowadays is immensely higher than it was in the past. There are many more animals who are created specifically and especially to be harmed and then consumed by humans, than ever before. There are many more victims, and each is suffering much more than ever, since factory farms are way worse than hunting. So when considering every aspect of living and of every sentient creature, even if we’ll ignore the fact that this claim is falsely formulated, it is wrong on every aspect.

Thirdly, although it is true that when it comes to some aspects of life, the chances of a human individual to be harmed are lower than they used to be, the chances of a human individual to harm numerous others by numerous ways are higher than they used to be.
That is, first and foremost, because most people still choose to feed themselves in the most harmful ways. But even the ones who don’t, are forced to participate in various harmful methods bound with modern agriculture and with modern food production. But it is not just food, it is everything people are doing. Humans’ daily use of technology means harming others on a daily basis. It starts with mining relevant components for technology which is often done by human bondage, exploitation of poor areas, logging, land clearing, and heavy metal pollution; and continues with more use of energy, more CO2 emission, more oil leaks, more use of water, more pollution of water, more pollution of air and etc.
The amount of chemicals each person is using is enormous and surely is greater than ever before.
The amount of plastic each person is using is enormous and surely is greater than ever before.
There is no doubt that it is better for a person to have the option of changing clothes every day, and taking a shower every day, but like many other things, this is an advantage only in the human column, and a great disadvantage in the animals column. For animals, humans’ frequent washing and use of detergents, means less water in general, and less clean water in particular.
Life may be more convenient for many more people than they were in the past, but this is not the case for other creatures. There weren’t so many disposable products in the past. Not so many roads. Not so much artificial lighting. Not so much noise. Not so many fences and obstacles. Not so many poisons.

And the fact that humans live much longer nowadays, means each has a much longer period of harming others simply by living one’s life.
Each person, even if not directly or intentionally (for example by choosing a vegan diet and a minimalistic lifestyle), causes much more suffering and to many more sentient creatures nowadays. Even if it was true that life has gotten better for people, life with people has gotten significantly worse. People’s lives may have improved in terms of their own private welfare, but they have dramatically deteriorated in terms of their harm to others.

Fourthly, 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.

Fifthly, 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 have emerged, what is the basis for the assumption that the future is going to be bright? 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.