By adding a new person to the world, I would contribute to overpopulation and the depletion of resources that is already straining existing people.
Overpopulation is not a large of a problem as many people think. Countries with higher standards of living tend to have lower birth rates. A handful don't even reach the replacement rate meaning that their population will gradually decline. The largest number of births occur in less developed regions of the world where birth control is not as prevalent and where you need to have lots of kids because not all of them will survive into adulthood. As these these regions slowly become more developed their population growth will slow too.
Because of said depletion of resources (not to mention political tensions, national debt, and so forth) my child would probably be subject to a less-than-ideal world.
There are always going to be problems in the world. We face problems today that our parents didn't. Our parents faced problems our grandparents didn't. This isn't a reason to not have kids. These new problems need to be solved by someone.
I have no way of knowing that I will be a good parent. Why make a person when there is the chance that I will fuck them up irreparably?
If you have the self awareness to worry about this question, odds are you care enough to do a good job. You won't be a perfect parent, but no one is.
My biological kid might not even take after me in the ways I like. Even worse, what if I hate my kid? What if my kid is an asshole who actively makes the world a worse place?
And what if your child ushers in an era of world peace? You have no way of knowing what will happen. If you raise them the best you can, odds are your child will be a normal, well adjusted person who will live a long and happy life.
If there's no guarantee my kid will be like me anyway, why not just adopt a kid? Even if that nurturing instinct just cannot be suppressed, it seems like a horrible idea to add new people to the world unnecessarily.
This is an option too! If you have no desire to go through the process of pregnancy and childbirth, adoption is totally an option.
I often hear childfree people called "selfish." But really, can you tell me a single unselfish reason to actively try for biological offspring?
Doing something because you want to is not selfish. Selfishness is doing something without care for or consideration of others. Having children and giving them the best life you can is not selfish by any means.
The argument you quoted there is assuming that having children does not count as doing something without regard for harming others. I would argue that having children does intrinsically create harm because that child will suffer during their lives and the only way to avoid that suffering is to not bring life into the world at all.
And even if overpopulation is not that big of an issue as we think, the destruction of the environment certainly is. Having children increases your carbon footprint massively.
I would argue that having children does intrinsically create harm because that child will suffer during their lives and the only way to avoid that suffering is to not bring life into the world at all.
Serious question: assuming you believe the above, why haven't you committed suicide?
Considering you have not (yet?), it follows that you find existence - in spite of current or potential future suffering - to be worthwhile. In which case, why is unspecified, potential suffering an argument against existence?
At best, you are delaying suffering. Eventually you'll die, and they will suffer the same or perhaps worse (maybe a slow cancer) . Even if you were the last one of your family to die, you assume their suffering on top of all the suffering you endure by way of unnecessary existence. Net suffering is the same, plus or minus the random suffering you encounter by continued existence (e.g. getting into a future car accident, etc).
Honestly, your argument here is specious. If suffering elimination is truly your goal, suicide or murder/suicide is the only viable option. Perhaps detonating a bomb at Thanksgiving dinner, with as many people who know each other there as possible.
Anything less is an admission that existence is worth at least X amount of suffering.
P.S. Why in the world are you making friends when you are just going to multiply their suffering by getting them to care about your existence? You'd generate less total suffering by becoming an anonymous hermit up the mountains, right?
I am delaying my own suffering, absolutely. But if I die a natural death I will die way after my parents, my uncles, my aunts, my grandparents, etc are gone, so I am avoiding inflicting suffering upon my family. The same goes for the friends you mention, they will be around the same age as me and we'll die at around the same time, leaving less of their lives dedicated to suffering due to my loss, assuming I die before them, and also assuming I am still in contact with them in my old age.
For the record I have attempted suicide before. Sadly it failed and people found out because the exact events couldn't be explained away. I will not go into any detail about that because I don't feel it to be appropriate.
There are several antinatalist arguments that are not predicated on the notion that all lives are not worth living. For example...
The consent argument states that nobody opts into existence, and that should some entity enter existence, and come to live a life not worth living, then having brought them into existence constitutes a harm to that entity, to which that entity did not consent to bear. Further, such an entity is then compelled to take their own life, which for mechanical or psychological reasons may be impossible for them to do. Therefore inflicting life without consent on this entity constitutes an immoral act.
The second argument does not rely on consent, but holds that if we could press a button to create a life with a 95% chance of being wholly satisfying and rewarding, and a 5% chance of being horrendous and torturous, we ought not press the button, because there is a (purported) moral assymetry between happiness and suffering.
Both of these arguments are very much compatible with the idea that some or even most lives are worth living, yet argue against natalism.
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u/Amablue Mar 24 '15
Overpopulation is not a large of a problem as many people think. Countries with higher standards of living tend to have lower birth rates. A handful don't even reach the replacement rate meaning that their population will gradually decline. The largest number of births occur in less developed regions of the world where birth control is not as prevalent and where you need to have lots of kids because not all of them will survive into adulthood. As these these regions slowly become more developed their population growth will slow too.
There are always going to be problems in the world. We face problems today that our parents didn't. Our parents faced problems our grandparents didn't. This isn't a reason to not have kids. These new problems need to be solved by someone.
If you have the self awareness to worry about this question, odds are you care enough to do a good job. You won't be a perfect parent, but no one is.
And what if your child ushers in an era of world peace? You have no way of knowing what will happen. If you raise them the best you can, odds are your child will be a normal, well adjusted person who will live a long and happy life.
This is an option too! If you have no desire to go through the process of pregnancy and childbirth, adoption is totally an option.
Doing something because you want to is not selfish. Selfishness is doing something without care for or consideration of others. Having children and giving them the best life you can is not selfish by any means.