In the following texts I will comment on some of Julio Cabrera’s replies to questions he was asked in The Exploring Antinatalism Podcast #19 – Julio Cabrera ‘Questionaire on Antinatalism’.

I find this episode very interesting and highly important with many issues worth addressing. Therefore I decided to divide my review into three parts:
Cabrera’s general approach to Antinatalism, His approach to animals (and also to EFILism, Veganism and Abortion), and the last part is dedicated to the question of .
Another very important issue which was brought up in question number 10, but mostly in question number 15, regards his perspectivist stands elaborated in his book “Introduction to a Negative Approach to Argumentation”. But since I have addressed this issue as part of a critical review of the book, and especially in the appendix of that review which was specifically dedicated to the issue of perspectivism, I’ll not address it here as well.

In this first part I’ll address questions regarding his general approach to Antinatalism.

I would like to use this opportunity of mentioning The Exploring Antinatalism Podcast to highly recommend everyone to listen to each and every episode of it. I think it is an ethical and an intellectual treasure, and that the people involved in it are doing an outstanding job. We highly differ on the practical level, meaning on what we think must be done regarding antinatalism, but we highly agree on the theoretical level, meaning that we all must be sentinetcentered EFILists.

Question 2:

“Can you explain to me your general position on the subject of antinatalism?”

Cabrera:

“I accept the central idea: better not to be born, better not procreate. But I have three reservations. First, antinatalism is, in my case, just a part of a negative ethics, which is based on a negative ontology. The problem of procreation is a special problem, not the central one; and it does not appear out of nowhere, but within a complex system of ideas. Secondly, my antinatalism is not centered on the issue of suffering, but on manipulation. Thirdly, antinatalists are ethical pessimists, but they remain logical optimists. All of these questions will be clarified throughout the questionnaire. But these ethical and logical reservations are not enough to undermine the central antinatalist idea.”

Since I’ve already broadly addressed negative ethics in the text dedicated to text dedicated to Cabrera’s book A Critique Of Affirmative Morality, I’ll only briefly argue here that antinatalism shouldn’t be just a part of a negative ethics but its main derived conclusion especially since Cabrera’s negative ethics is based on a negative ontology, meaning (based on his article from History of Antinatalism, Pages 168-169) life as imposed at birth constitutes a situation that causes a sensible and moral discomfort, which is not merely empirical but structural, based on the phenomenon of terminality of being, on the crude fact that all things are terminal, in the sense of things that begin to end at their very starting point, and not calmly but painfully, affected by all kinds of frictions and hardships. And in trying to escape from terminality, humans harm others; they become terminal to each other. The main impact of terminality in humans is the phenomenon of moral impediment – the impossibility of being ethical in the sense of not manipulating and not harming others.
In an article called Summary of The Ethical Question in Julio Cabrera’s Philosophy, Cabrera writes that:

“a negative life shall emerge, basically, on four ideas: (a) Full conscience about the structural disvalue of human life, assuming all the consequences of it; (b) Structural refuse to procreation (a negative philosopher with children is even more absurd than an affirmative one without them); (c) Structural refuse to heterocide (not killing anybody in spite of the frequent temptation to violence); (d) Permanent and relaxed disposition for suicide as a possibility.”

Now, since the only way to avoid the structural disvalue of human life, to avoid violence of all kinds, to all creatures, at all times, and to avoid the complexity and hardships of suicide as a possibility, is not to procreate, I think that antinatalism should nevertheless play the central role in negative ethics.
According to negative ethics life is structurally unethical. What then can be more central than the derived conclusion that procreation is morally unethical?

Regarding his claim that his antinatalism is not centered on the issue of suffering but on manipulation, in the article which I’ve just quoted from, he writes that procreation is in any case morally problematic because “it consists in providing to others the terminal structure of being and its consequent pain, tedium and moral disqualification”, so if indeed it is the manipulation which is in the center of his antinatalism then procreation is morally problematic because the created persons were manipulated into a terminal structure of being and its consequent pain, tedium and moral disqualification, and not because the created persons are in a terminal structure of being and its consequent pain, tedium and moral disqualification. In other words, it seems that according to Cabrera the act of manipulation by the parents is morally more important than the actual state of their children – the created persons. That is despite that the created persons might not be aware of or view their creation as a manipulation, while they all feel pain, tedium and are structurally morally disqualified (even if they may not be aware of or care much about the last defect). In my view, structural manipulation can never be morally more important than how the manipulated creatures actually feel. Or put it even more simply, the central problem with “providing to others the terminal structure of being and its consequent pain, tedium and moral disqualification”, is not that the providing is manipulative but that the pain, tedium and moral disqualification are harmful.
If it is the manipulation and not the suffering which makes procreation wrong, would procreation be wrong even if there was nothing wrong with pain, tedium and moral disqualification, as long as the created persons were manipulated into a terminal structure of them? And would procreation not be wrong, if the created persons weren’t manipulated but still in a terminal structure of being and its consequent pain, tedium and moral disqualification?

Even if only few people suffered during their lives and all people were manipulated, suffering should still be the center of antinatalism because experiences of actual people are more ethically important than abstract notions, no matter how unethical they abstractly are. If no one is hurt by an abstract notion then it is morally meaningless.
It is morally meaningless to manipulate water in itself, as water are not subjects, they don’t feel anything. They don’t experience their manipulation on any level. Manipulating water is morally meaningful only if it affects the experience of sentient creatures who live in or rely on it. The basic unit of ethics is experience, not abstract notions such as manipulation.

In his answer to a different question (Number 12), he said:

“In favor of antinatalism, I think that the manipulation argument is more striking than the suffering argument. The thesis “we should not have children because they will suffer”, face many counter-arguments; for example: there are also many good things in a human life, we are well equipped to endure suffering, suffering is relative to peoples and so on.
On the contrary, the thesis: “we should not have children because we manipulate them when we make them be born” it is something impossible to deny. There may be people who suffer little during their lives, but they were certainly manipulated at birth. Anyway, I use both arguments.
I show that life is full of suffering and that therefore, the “value of life” cannot justify manipulation.”

But suffering is also something impossible to deny, especially if like me, you think that many “good” things in a human’s life 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 the craving. Craving or wants, are at least bad experiences if not a sort of pain (I elaborate about this in the text about Benatar’s Asymmetry argument and its supplemental text about how bad is stronger than good).

And regardless of that the “good” things are actually not good, just as people can counter-argue that there are also many good things in a human’s life and so the suffering during it is worth it, they can just the same claim that the good things in life outweigh the manipulation. The manipulation argument is exposed to the same counter-argument that Cabrera claims that the suffering argument is exposed to. Anyone can say that the manipulation is not that bad and they are happy to be alive even if they were manipulated. Of course there is a lot to say about why many people state they are happy to be alive, and about how happy they really are, and for how long, and etc., but the point here is that it is not the argument of manipulation that would convince them otherwise but if anything, other arguments from other areas, most probably (but highly improbably) ones that involve theirs or their children’s suffering.

The fact that he admits that when he is challenged with his manipulation centered argument, he uses the suffering argument, all the more so claiming that life is full of suffering, goes to show that it’s the suffering and not the manipulation which tips the scales even according to his view.

He knows that not many would be convinced by the fact that people manipulate their children when they make them ‘be born’, but at least some may be convinced by the option that their children would suffer during their lives. He realizes that it is hard to be convinced by the argument that the “value of life” cannot justify manipulation in itself, so he must add the ‘full of suffering’ part, otherwise people might be rather indifferent to the fact that all people manipulate their children by making them ‘be born’ as long as their lives are good. Most people are not bothered with the fact their parents manipulated them when they made them ‘be born’. Most people are rather satisfied with this manipulation. It seems that most people are happy that they were created (or at least they state that they are) despite that it was a manipulation at their expanse. The ones who admit that they are not happy that they were created, usually feel this way because they are suffering during their lives, not because they were manipulated to be born.

But much more important than which argument can do a better job convincing people and dealing with counter-arguments, is which argument better describes the wrongness of procreation. The fact that there are not many people who feel that they are harmed by the fact that they were manipulated to be born, but there are many people who feel that they are harmed because of the suffering they endure during their lives, indicates that it is the suffering which should be in the center of antinatalism.
Contrary to the manipulation argument, one which centers suffering can base itself on the fact that there are people who can’t bare their own suffering in life and would rather never to have been, and that some of them kill themselves. On the other hand, it is highly unlikely that there are people who feel that their lives are not worth living and that some of them decide to kill themselves because their parents manipulated them to be born. People who kill themselves and people who seriously consider killing themselves, do it because they can’t bare their suffering in life, not because they can’t bare the fact that their life started as a manipulation. So it is the suffering argument which is more striking than the manipulation argumecnt, and that is the argument which is less exposed to counter-arguments by people who most would probably severely underrate the chances of their children to suffer during their lives because of the optimism bias, but wouldn’t even understand how “giving” life to someone and loving them supposedly unconditionally is a manipulation. Obviously that is not to say that manipulation is not the case, of course it most definitely is, but few people can acknowledge this, while many can accept that suffering children is an option.

Question 6:

“Can you envisage a plausible mode of living that avoids (or diminishes to a trivial level) the “moral impediment” or is this an intrinsic feature of life that is inescapable?”

Cabrera:

“The thesis of moral impediment is very important in my philosophy and it helps to understand why my pessimism is, above all, an ethical pessimism, not a hedonistic or sensible pessimism. I am not primarily pessimistic because of suffering, but because it is impossible to be moral with others and because others cannot be moral with me. My antinatalism is also primarily moral: not to procreate not only to save someone from suffering, but because it creates another morally disabled being, beings who will be structurally incapable of morality.”

It seems as if Cabrera treats morality as the thing that subjects of life should defend instead of the other way around. It is morality that should defend moral subjects. It is individual sentient beings who are morally important, and morality is the conceptual idea that is supposed to defend them. Morality is so important because and only because of the existence of moral subjects, not in itself. As aforesaid, the basic unit of ethics is experience, had no one experienced anything negative, the fact that it is impossible for anyone to be moral with others and that others cannot be moral with anyone, would have been ethically meaningless. Had all the beings in the world been structurally incapable of morality but were also insentient, there would have been no need for morality and there would have been nothing wrong with them being incapable of it. The structural incapability of morality wouldn’t hurt anybody because nobody could get hurt.
The central problem with structural incapability of morality is not ontological one, it is its practical consequences and its implications on the experience level, which are the only things that matter morally. The problem with beings who will be structurally incapable of morality is that they are bound to hurt each other, not that they will hurt morality.

Cabrera’s relation to morality sometimes sounds almost religious, in terms of it having a first cause argument, as if it must exist for its own reasons. But morality is supposed to be a tool for moral subjects to use in order to protect them. It sounds like Kant’s ethics which is so focused on reason as if reason is its own reason. But reason is a tool, a mean, not an end. And so is morality.

Just like ‘humanity’, ‘species’, and ‘nature’, morality is a concept, a notion, a term, not a moral entity in itself. Morality doesn’t care that its implication is impossible. Moral subjects care, because they are the ones who are hurt by the fact that its implication is impossible. And that is a very good reason to never procreate. In my view the most important one. The fact that procreating is necessarily and inevitably creating beings who will be structurally incapable of morality, means that all beings will necessarily and inevitably harm each other.

Cabrera writes that: “in principle, it is not possible to escape moral impediment. As long as you want to continue living, the chances of you falling into moral impediment multiply (including the possibility of procreation).”
Therefore the only way to avoid moral impediment is antinatalism. The impossibility to escape moral impediment is a sufficient reason. If by definition people cannot be moral, and by ‘cannot be moral’ I mean that it is impossible for them not to harm others, then their existence cannot be morally justified.

Question 13:

“if it was possible to completely abolish involuntary suffering in the future, would you still say that procreation is unethical in such a hypothetical future? What hypothetical scenario would convince you to (pro)natalism?”

Cabrera:

“Certainly, I would continue to claim that procreation is immoral in this future world; and here it is clear again why it is convenient to center the argument of the immorality of procreation on manipulation and not on suffering. For even having children in a hypothetical world without suffering, this act would continue to be inevitably manipulative, and therefore immoral. Furthermore, there would still be conflicts between beings without suffering, and boredom and restless desire would be inevitable.”

I fail to see why conflicts between beings without suffering is morally problematic. Problematic to whom? Who is harmed by these conflicts? Is it that the very existence of conflicts is immoral despite that no one is harmed by them? If so, isn’t it to attribute moral status to the conflicts themselves despite that obviously they are not moral entities? Is the conflict between water and rocks immoral?

And given that boredom and restless desire are a sort of suffering, they are not supposed to be included in the hypothetical world described in the question. The whole point is that there would be no suffering in order to isolate the manipulation component in Cabrera’s antinatalsim (if I understand the purpose of the question correctly).

The fact that he would continue to claim that procreation is immoral in this future hypothetical world, despite that no one is harmed in it, goes to show how strange centering the argument of the immorality of procreation on manipulation and not on suffering is. Surly, even in the hypothetical world described in the question, procreation would remain manipulative, but by definition no one is going to be harmed by this manipulation. There would be no victims to this manipulation, and to state that a situation is immoral despite it having no victims is senseless to me.

Nevertheless, this position that I have just expressed is relevant only to a hypothetical world in which suffering was somehow completely abolished, but not to the extremely implausible option of trying to somehow turn our real actual world into a supposedly suffering free world by some advanced technological invention. In that case, I would still argue that procreation is immoral, not because it would remain manipulative as Cabrera argues, but because even if it was plausible, there is no guarantee that someday things wouldn’t change in this world and suffering would come back, and mostly and most importantly because of all the suffering of thousands of trillions of sentient creatures that would be caused while waiting for this extremely implausible option. So to prevent all that I would continue to claim that procreation is immoral. The only thing better than a world that suffering was completely abolished from, is a world that suffering can never come back to.

Cabrera further explains the reasoning of his claim:

“I sustain a structural pessimism about human life, not a mere empirical pessimism of balance between “good things” and “bad things”, with a predominance of “bad things”. This is not my line. In “discomfort and moral impediment” (p.23 onwards), I present a long argumentation about the lack of sensible and moral value of human life based on what I call “terminality of being”, the decaying and frictional being received at birth. As long as this structure is maintained procreation will be immoral.”

I understand that balancing between “good things” and “bad things” is not his line. But it also wasn’t the line of the question. He wasn’t asked whether he would continue to claim that procreation is immoral even if the balancing between “good things” and “bad things” would be in favor of the “good things”, but will he continue to claim that procreation is immoral even if there would be no “bad things” at all. And he gave his answer in the first paragraph. Practically, the scenario given in the question is beyond hypothetical to the point of being absolutely delusional, so obviously it should be taken as a thought experiment only, not a practical suggestion. And under this hypothetical scenario, the whole point is that the structure he describes will not be maintained, “the decaying and frictional being received at birth” is somehow supposed not to negatively affect whom who would live in this future hypothetical world, and so, this can’t be the problem with procreation in this hypothetical world.

Cabrera ends his answer with the following:

“From the pessimistic and antinatalist point of view, we can state that there is no responsible scenario where it is better to be than not to be, no type of being that can compete with the sublime perfection of nothingness.”

Nothingness is not sublime perfection, but literally the absence of all things. There is nothing in nothing by definition, so it can’t be perfect sublime. There are no experiences in nothingness. Non-existence is not worse or better than existence because there is no one there for whom it would be better or worse compared with existence. So it is not better not to be, as no one can not to be, it is just bad to be. Being is harmful and not being is not harmful for the obvious and simple reason that only existing beings can harm others and be harmed, and no one can harm others and be harmed had not existed.