Life in this world is structurally unfair. And it starts even before a person is born. Many things are pre-decided for each created person without that person doing anything to deserve them. Anyone who doesn’t believe in reincarnation must agree that it is unfair that every person starts its life when everything in it (including factors that would have a critical effect on the rest of that person’s life) has nothing to do with anything that that person did. That is already a very unjust element of life. No one chooses where to be born, to whom, its personality, its body, its physical conditions, its genetic heritage. It is extremely unjust that even before a person is born it is often already the case that bad things happen to good people, or in this case to people who haven’t yet done anything wrong. It is never the fault of anyone that it was born into a dire situation. The structured injustice of life begins before the first breath. Obviously the fact that someone was created without giving consent is also a very severe structured injustice, but my focus in this text is not on the structured injustice bound and inherent in the decision to create a person without its knowledge let alone consent, but on how structurally unjust this decision is in the light of how structurally unjust life is.

From the moment a person is born, life imposes fear, pain, dangers, anxiety, limitedness, helplessness, physical discomfort, separation from the only familiar thing in the whole world and etc., to be later followed by more fear, pain, dangers, stress, as well as ailments, disappointments, deterioration, and eventually and inevitably death.

When people are creating new people, they know that their children will not only necessarily experience all of the above, but in addition would live in an unjust world where there is no causal relation between their actions and their experiences. They can be very reasonable, cautious, considerate and thoughtful yet miserable.
Yes, some will enjoy their lives, but only those who were arbitrarily blessed by blind luck.
There is no real sense or guarantee whatsoever in ‘do good things and good things will happen to you’.

It is not as if people start life in a neutral state, and due to their own decisions and actions they either have good lives or terrible ones. Instead, every person is born into an unjust and unfair world. This state disadvantages everyone from the beginning, making their entire life a struggle to overcome the curse of unfairness.

Life is inherently and structurally unfair and unjust without any option of repair. So to claim (as some pro-natalists do) that what we need to do about the world’s problems is to fix them, not stop procreating, is totally disconnected. However even if it wasn’t the case, obviously this claim is nothing but a lame excuse as people are creating new people all the time, without any of the world’s problems (even the ones which are not inherent and structural and so at least theoretically are solvable) even being close to any repair in the foreseeable future. In fact people are so careless, so indifferent, that they are not even thinking about the fact that they are throwing their own children into an unjust world, or about the world’s problems, or about the chances of their children to personally and directly be affected by some of the world’s problems.

Only those who are blessed with blind luck their entire lives, can be hopeful. And no one can guarantee blind luck in advance. So parents must face the fact that the world they force their children into is deeply broken and unjust.

The ethical thing to do, given this structurally unjust world, is to refrain from creating people.
Parents are active and contributive participants in perpetuating this unjust world by throwing into it more and more victims and victimizers.
The fact that the only way to create a new person is in a structurally unjust world, does not serve as an excuse for creating people in a structurally unjust world. That is especially so since there is nothing unjust in not creating people. No one is treated unjustly, unfairly, or harmfully by not being created.

Parents condemn their children to live in an unfair world where no matter what they do, bad things can always happen to them. No one chooses neither to be born, nor to be born in such an unjust world. The harm of living in a structurally unjust world is forced on everyone without their consent. Parents must take into account this dreadful imposition when considering whether to create new people.

But they don’t. Many people refuse to accept that this world is random, purposeless, unfair, and inherently unjust. They insist on sticking to the just world theory. That position is completely illogical and ignorant but it is also quite understandable. It is much more appealing to think that the world is just, that life has a purpose, that there is a guiding hand, or a transcendent supervisor than the other way around. As false as these notions are, obviously it is much more soothing, comforting and it gives a sense of control, to believe that if something bad happens to good people it must be the case that they are doing something wrong. Otherwise people would have to accept that there is no justice in this world, no fairness, no reason, no bigger picture, no purpose, and that quite often bad things happen to good people, and good things happen to bad people.

It is important to internalize the appeal of this viewpoint. As false and ridiculous as it is, ignoring its power and its effect on procreation is also false and ridiculous. As long as antinatalists are trying to convince people not to breed using rational arguments they must acknowledge who they are dealing with. People believe in the just world theory because they are highly motivated to do so. Its appeal doesn’t stem from its logic but from its usefulness, not from its substantiation but because it makes it easier for people to keep doing what they want.

Since intuitively it seems that it would be much easier to convince people not to create people once they realize how structurally unjust this world is, there is an appeal to simply show people that they are mistaken. But it is this approach which is mistaken, as there is nothing simple in convincing people to reject a positon that their desires are depended upon.

There is no point in trying to convince people that this world is unjust. Their motivation not to see that is way stronger than our arguments will ever be. When the most obvious and self-evident things are not at all obvious, obviously what is needed is not convincing arguments but definitive actions.