Antinatalism is the philosophy that ascribes a negative value to existence.  It stipulates that having children is immoral because you impose suffering on a new entity without its consent.

There are some logically valid points.  For example: there's no moral obligation to impose pleasure.  But there is a moral obligation not to impose harm.

Another example: when people think about imposing life, they say "what about the joys?" But what about the joys of drugs?  Would you impose drug addiction on someone?

But most antinatalists strike me as profoundly depressed people who I can't relate to.  I'm happy and wouldn't feel so guilty if I ended up having a kid.

Moral obligations are an extension of the idea of social contract-- I shouldn't do harm to others because I do not want to have harm done to me. But I don't have a social contract with non-existent entities, whether they are my hypothetical offspring or not.

What I DO have is a hot-ass wife, and something in my nature that makes me want strongly to tap that ass. Now that I have kids, I try to help them through the same joys and suffering that we all go through. That's what life is. I don't need to justify acting according to my nature any more than an apple has to justify falling from a tree.

Anyway, the hedonic view of morality is broken. "Harm" is not really even definable. For example, I can pump my kids full of heroin for the next couple weeks until they die of an overdose. They'd probably feel pretty good through the whole process. If I administered the right combinations of drugs, I could probably string them along for a few years feeling numb at worse or elated at best.

But this is a bullshit way to define harm. Harm doesn't mean suffering. It means the loss of capacity to act and function according to one's nature. And the best way to make sure someone has no capacity to act is to prevent them from being born.

Every sperm is sacred! You know, according to Benny's rather well worded argument, it is now clear that we should bring as many entities into existence as possible because to NOT is to prevent them from doing ANYTHING!

Quote:It stipulates that having children is immoral because you impose suffering on a new entity without its consent.

Sounds like the mantra of helicopter parents everywhere.

Admittedly, the harm the antinatalist argument makes becomes a lot more logical to me when thinking about it not on a level of individual harm, but on a societal level.

Just to make one example (out of a great many potential arguments), I've come into being into a world where A) Going to college has become vital for getting a job that pays enough that you can live on, and B) There are so many people with college degrees that it has become virtually worthless. People keep multiplying, jobs don't, and Malthus' prophecies about overpopulation have turned from a question of too little food for too many people to a question of reduced access to it, and ending up in debt for the rest of their lives. And you want to ADD to that number? I think that, more than any other instance, the old saying about being "part of the problem" becomes apt. I can't pretend to be part of the solution, and quite frankly, anyone who isn't working on something like Samuel L. Jackson's evil scheme in Kingsman: The Secret Service propably isn't, but I know I have no intention of having children for this, and other reasons.

Show me a problem with society, and I can guarantee, you can find a very good reason to not subject any potential children to it and the other myriad of problems in the world. And I can probably help you along in that.

For the record, I do suffer from depression, but I've been medicated for over 2 years and the Luvox really seems to work, so I'm not exactly profoundly depressed, although I suppose years of Hell in grade school and a firm schooling in Schopenhauer and Bill Hicks and the like probably set my more cynical worldview into stone.

I hope I can have a healthy baby.

I don't think it makes sense to talk about whether or not the world justifies bringing kids into the world. It comes down to personal preferences obviously. I'm not biologically responsible for anyone and I am entirely fine with that. No regrets. But it isn't because the world is such a bad place. In fact it has more to do with wanting there to be fewer of us so that there is more room for habitat needed for more creatures and therefore a more diverse web of life. The world isn't just a toy box for humans.

I do not intend to procreate and I am not depressed. Other people having children doesn't factor in to my decision at all, but I do admit I am unwilling to create a life mainly because I am unwilling to help or look after it.

What I do wish though is that society would stop looking at childless people as somehow 'selfish' or weird. People always assume 'oh so when are you having children then?' When I respond never because I enjoy my life without them they always disbelieve me, or say stupid inane idiotic things like 'oh but you'll change your mind one day!' I won't, at all, but it also ignores the fact that some people can't have children and that in fact it's none of your goddamn business. People feel obliged or even entitled to ask that question, when in fact it's actually pretty personal and is not something I'd ever dream of asking even my friends. It is not an obligation to reproduce.

Most people with healthy brains seem happy enough to be alive. That works for me.

I like kids but don't have any. If my SO wanted one or two, I would try to persuade her to take the adoption route; because I think in a world with overpopulation and children who need parents, that's the more moral way to go. She doesn't want to be a mother though, so that's that.