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I’m not a fan of utalitarianism myelf, so this might be wrong; this sounds like utalitarianism - as the action you did cause other suffering.
then in your moral philosophy, are all actions that cause suffering (and joy, and all other feelings a human can experience) morally wrong?
Is then not dating, f.ex Morally wrong?
Or is it the impossibility of consent? Yes, a child is unable to consent to being born. Just as we are all unable to consent to the world being created, or nature’s whims. I cannot consent to a state on the other side of the world making policies, but I can still react and do things about it.
Is it morally wrong to let animals have children?
If one animal species is harming an ecosystem then I don’t see how it’s morally wrong to limit their reproduction.
Usually, a better way to help an ecosystem balance itself is to reintroduce predators or similarly.
the deer population in yellowstone was destroying the soil, this was solved by reintroducing wolves.
there’s a big difference between this, and f.ex castrating a lot of the deer, or going on a shooting spree.
It also goes with the assumption that the ecosystem is either outside the moral spectrum, or morally good.
What’s f.ex mean?
A guess, but “for example”? That’s how I’m reading it, anyway.
It’s the norwegian / danish way of writing e.g
But without infinite growth how can we feed the capitalistic engine with more souls?
Just think of all them empty mines, sad and alone, only wanting to be filled with the sound of children coughing themselves to death from black lung.
I’m sure that big bad capitalists will be sad of you not having kids and spending all your time and money on movies, games, traveling, …
What money?
People have children because they want to, not for growth. In a relatively stable society most people don’t even have many children…
“If I didn’t have children, who’d take care of me when I get old?”
“If we didn’t have children, who’d work for our pensions and keep society running when we retire?”
“I want to live a happy life after I retire, and you (young people) are obliged to provide that.”Real words I heard.
A lot of people have kids mostly for future-proofing themselves.India: “I need many children to support my everyday life and me when I’m old.”
Germany: “wtf are children?”
(A bit exaggerated of course, but should illustrate your point.)
Access to opportunities and birth control drop birthrates.
Lots and lots of poor countries have large populations because poor parents are hoping many children can work. Also lack of access to birth control and far right groups insisting children are a religious necessity.
Lol, I’m not far-left but I do love comments like these.
It’s important to note that capitalism is far from the only major exploitative system in the world. This said, I’m part of that particular system, and yes… It truly does feel like we’re just cogs in an ever-hungry, broken system.
especially when I see what kind of people choose to have kids
Then you’re leaving the future to them.
And the suffering that they cause.
Such a doomer mindset
If noone is cultivating and passing on positive culture, it’s not making the chances of reducing suffering any better is my point.
Adoption. Community building. Helping the disenfranchised.
These are all methods of bettering the future without pumping another child into this world. And arguably, they’re morally better than having a child.
I didn’t know these where mutually exclusive.
You were the one who implied that, by saying that not having children leaves it up to those who will.
They’re not making a choice. They’re anti-choice.
At the level of humanity as a species we are born to reproduce, like every other living thing.
I don’t care about the species, I care about the people. If someone doesn’t want to reproduce, it’s better for both them and the species that they don’t. People only reproducing when they personally get something out of it will eventually make future generations enjoy it more. Forcing it just promotes suffering, perpetuating the cycle of unhappy parents in the long run.
This whole idea of caring about furthering our “species” is eugenics anyways. My genes make me want to be a parent, but I understand that the genes themselves don’t matter for shit. I’m planning to have kids because I will enjoy raising them and helping them live full lives. If someone doesn’t share this desire, I’m not gonna force my preference onto them.
Freedom and treating humans with dignity does that very job of eugenics better than the eugenics notion of pressuring people to be parents. There’s no Darwinian excuse for being shitty to other people. Just be good.
There’s no Darwinian excuse for being shitty to other people.
Exactly. There’s even an evolutionary reason to be good to other people, as described by Pjotr Kropotkin in “Mutual Aid”.
As long as you’re keeping it to your own life not trying to encourage genocide via antinatalist policy then you do you.
This. I don’t have children and don’t think its a good idea do to what humanity is doing to the planet, regardless of which element of humanity is to blame, but my other family members have children as do my friends and neighbors. Im not going to proselytize to them or encourage society to disallow it. I may not want it subsidized though, but even that there is often times no choice. For example while people may be bad for the planet in general, ignorant people is worse, so im gonnna want education funded and that same thing plays out for a lot of things.
The subsidies have an ontological value in that they improve the quality of life for the child. So removing subsidies will actively perpetuate and increase the very systemic issues that many antinatalists care about in the first place. You address this too, I’m just expressing agreement that simply removing chiodcare subsidies is not ethically simple even for staunch antinatalists.
In general governments ought to be working to support the people they represent. To me it seems an antinatalist who’s goal is to reduce suffering would want to introduce things like a basic income or some such to improve the quality of life of those who do exist, not further take from those who have yet to be.
Yup. education, healthcare, basic income, carless cities, improved energy efficiency and usage of the cleanest sources. Im down.
It’s fine if you don’t want kids for yourself, but antinatalism as an ideology is only a few steps away from ecofascism.
correct. i would have no problem if this post and the subsequent comments defending it didn’t use the words “wrong” and “immoral.” but they do and that’s fascist territory.
Lmao, no it’s not
“Nuh uh”
I guess each person has a different approach to antinatalism. I don’t want to bring children into the world because unlike many people who outright lie, I do not think it will bring me joy. I’m also scared that if I bring a child into this world and it will suffer as much as I currently do, I won’t be able to live with the blame.
Antinatalism isn’t just a personal decision to not have kids, it’s an ideological belief that having kids is morally wrong.
This is an overgeneralisation which completely misses the nuance. Antinatalism does not postulate that it’s morally wrong to procreate, only that it is morally wrong to bring another human consciousness into a soup of suffering, which… yeah, kinda’! I mean, is the world not presently a soup of suffering, with extra helpings on the way?
Personally, I doubt most people who presently subscribe to Antinatalism would do so if society weren’t literally a hell hole right now.
if “a soup of suffering” means “life/the world” u just said “its not that its morally wrong to give birth, but that its morally wrong to give birth”? :p
The world as it is now, yes. But this is far from the only option, thus the world is not an inevitable soup of suffering. So, no.
Unless you’re both an antinatalist and a philosophical pessimist and believe that the world will always be that soup. But yeah, that’s not the case for all antinatalists. A friend of mine calls himself a “temporary antinatalist”.
True. I guess the distinction, though semantically redundant, seems to be contextually necessary nowadays…
The problem with that argument is that the world has ALWAYS been a terrible place for the vast majority of people to live, at least since the industrial revolution and arguably since the agricultural revolution. The now vanishing middle class, an artifact of post war economic boom, was about the only time ever it was “morally right” to have a child because chances were very good that they would lead a life of even less suffering than their parents. I chose not to have kids because I agree that the world is headed in a bad direction, but more so because of my financial situation as a working class person, and my mental health as a result of a decade working check to check. If I were in the situation my parents were when I was born, I truly think the equation would work out differently.
I have to disagree with the idea that the world has always been a terrible place. Actually building upon what you’ve said subsequently, the world itself isn’t terrible, it’s just a rock with some moss and critters on it, the systems we’ve created for ourselves are terrible. That’s exactly the nuance to which I was referring in my initial comment, Antinatalism isn’t universally applicable to all existing and potential existential contexts.
I’m not antinatalist, but I am in favor of voluntary human extinction.
What a bunch of cringe edgy antinatalist nonsense. Think about the future, if you don’t have kids, who are we gonna feed to the machine a few decades from now?
Who feeds the machine now, it’s you so why are you even around
I was a mild antinatalist for a while. Personally wanted kids, but felt the world was too broken to pass to a new generation that didn’t ask for it.
And then – I know this sounds dumb, but whatever – I played Horizon: Zero Dawn.
Parenthood in a time of armageddon is a central theme, and it’s not subtle about it. Every story element is named in a way that alludes to either parenthood or annihilation. The overarching plot describes the moral challenges of…
spoiler
…planning a next generation of humans to rise from the ashes, thousands of years after the previous generation went extinct. They died to an AI catastrophe, but it works just as well as an allegory for climate change.
Is it ethical to even subject a new generation to this, knowing what we know about how we fucked things up? If we’re gonna try, do we have a duty to put in a kill switch in case things go off the rails again?
Obviously, the game sides firmly with the new humans, but it doesn’t dismiss these questions out-of-hand, and it’s okay with ambiguity and hypocrisy even on the part of Project Zero Dawn’s chief architect.
The ending scene still gets me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFJ_vSCJdO0
I believed this once, but then I went to therapy. People have thrived under way worse conditions.
I’m more worried about the reefs thriving
Me too
Then not having kids is one of the best things you can do.
I am not willing to sacrifice having children. It’s an integral part of life for me. Killing myself would probably be good for the climate as well.
Less good than not having children. But we are all free to make our own choices, but I don’t think that you can seriously hold both “I care about the environment” and “I’m choosing to bring life into the world and damage the environment” ideas in your head without a lot of hypocrisy.
I know you may think, my one kid won’t have such a big impact on the environment, but when 7 billion think that, the problem is exponential.
To be human is to hold contradicting understandings of reality in equal measure. The amount of people who hate the idea of animal cruelty (or environmental destruction for that matter), yet still consume animal products is astronomical.
The environment will never be saved by trying to convince people to not have kids. It’s a biological staple of existence stretching back billions of years, and we as a species will never give that up.
Having children gives us a species a more personal stake in the planet’s future, and it would be better to focus our energies on that angle instead of demonizing people who agree with you 95% of the time.
It’s absolutely fine if you don’t want to have kids
I don’t agree with the Antinatalist idea that having children is immoral. Or that Antinatalism reduces suffering.
If I’m incorrect please elaborate
Yeah, I’m in the same boat. I’m enjoying playing devil’s advocate here, however. People who justify having children as some sort of gift to the world are far less reasonable, and the arguments being made here by those types are exhausting.
I can diffuse just about every comment like this here with a simple word: “adoption”.
/> Pulls existence from the void into this mortal coil
/> Questions how not doing so could have prevented suffering
Pulls existence from the void
This point is highly dependent on whether or not you believe there is some sort of soul or existence before birth. I cannot argue on this point since this is pure belief, so I will accept your view for the sake of the discussion
Questions how not doing so could have prevented suffering
You could say it prevents suffering, but it also prevents Joy, Love, Friendship. Sure it also prevents Sadness and Grief and so on. It prevents everything by way of not giving life a chance.
If you think you cannot provide a happy life to your children then it’s perfectly valid to not want children. But it’s egoistic to think that other people should not have kids because of your own world view.
Many Antinatalists believe that life in the current world is filled with so much suffering that it’s not worth being born.
But that’s like… Your opinion man! Let people make their own choices
Important distinction: Only one side is using “belief”, and that is the one that has subscribed or invented themselves the idea of life before or after death. Zero evidence supports this. I’m not saying it does or does not exist, but it’s a weak point to bring up.
You could just as easily invent the idea of children being literally us, reborn, to justify their creation. Or that children are literal currency in the after-life market. Conversly, what if taking lives gives us points? Maybe the Vikings had it right.
As for your second point, I think it’s the first strong natalistic argument I’ve seen here! I don’t agree with it any more than I agree with the antinatalism folks, but I appreciate the optimistic counter to all of the pessimistic points being made here.
In the end, I guess I remain of the opinion that this area of life (like countless others) is a gray area. I don’t see either extreme as logically moral or immoral without more information being applied on a, case-by-case basis
No, you’re a fool if you truly believe this. Every generation has had some form of this feeling. Imagine considering having children during WW1, or WW2, or during Vietnam or Korea? Then after that we had McCarthyism and the Cold War - all seemingly hopeless days. Yet there is still so much beauty in the world, and there is so much that makes life worth living.
My son will turn 2 in a few months. It’s tough being a parent, but it is entirely worth it. You cannot give into myopia - every time I hear him laugh, I am reminded that there is good in the world and it is worth fighting for. He will have his own challenges to face in life, but it is our job as a society to equip him, and all of the next generation, with the tools they need to succeed.
I’m troubled about the future, but you cannot make that stop you from striving for better days. As Marcus Aurelius said, never let the future disturb you. You will meet it, if you have to, with the same weapons of reason which today arm you against the present.
I’ve been re-reading the Lord of the Rings lately, and there is a lot there on this topic, but I always think back to Sam. We all should be so lucky to have a friend like that, but what he says when all hope seems to be lost is truly striking:
“It’s like the great stories, Mr. Frodo, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn’t want to know the end because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad has happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing this shadow, even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it’ll shine out the clearer. I know now folks in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn’t. They kept going because they were holding on to something. That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo, and it’s worth fighting for.”
Tolkien wrote this after his experiences fighting in The Somme. If he could find hope and found the courage to keep striving for better days, then so should we.
I’ve always loved that Samwise Gamgee line. Makes me tear up every time I read it.
I’d have to disagree from the angle that, you cannot philoshpy your way out of ecology. If you actually look at a population graph for any species which experiences a massive spike in birthrates, and what comes for them afterwards, you would probably come to a conclusion that the rate at which we’ve been producing kids is very unsustainable, and while we probably shouldn’t tell people not to have kids completely we should probably begin to consider how to transition towards more sustainable population numbers. A given ecosystem can only sustain so much of one species before it begins to break down. Our Eco system is the entire world and it is very much breaking down as we hit record temperatures year after year. There were lights at ends of tunnels during every war as they’ve always like, ended with a winning side that could rebuild/regrow, and even ecological collapses have been recovered from by humans but we’re not going to get to be the humans that recover, and it doesn’t look like our kids will be either. So, if we want to have kinda okay lives we should maybe consider minimizing the impact from what is about to happen, and also not bringing children into a world that has pretty much no chance of being better for them than it was for us.
You’re conflating population growth with capitalistic and exploitative growth. the fact that we’re destroying our ecology does have little to do with the population and everything to do with capitalist overextraction.
The capitalists would extract less if they had fewer workers and not as many people to sell stuff to.
are u serious?
I’m being a little snide but yeah supply and demand right? If the population reduces it impacts the demand for products and also the supply of workers.
Capitalists aren’t going to stop ruining the earth out of the goodness of their hearts or anything.
I get that less workers would mean more power to the workers, but avoiding having kids to limit the supply of workers seems, idk, fucking weird and also weirdly passive?
You can protest, join a union, start a workers co-op or organise in different ways, but that takes effort. Or you could not have kids, which takes less effort than having kids, and say it’s praxis? Idk, to me this feels like packaging your own personal choice as a grand political stand, as if you would jump at the opportunity to have kids if we lived in a socialist society.
Also, to counter your point, historically a lot of protest and unrest came from a dissatisfied populace with not enough job opportunities. So by that logic you should just pop out kids so they’ll be a part of the revolution. I don’t believe this, to be clear, but I mention it as a way to illustrate that basing your decision to have kids on how it will affect the supply and demand of labour is really fucking weird, and also not even something with a predictable outcome.
Oh my heavens no it’s not the only reason not to have kids and it’s not even factor #1 for me as a reason to not. Just one factor among many.
But this part of the thread started with a claim, as I understood it, that population growth wasn’t the problem - that the problem was instead capitalistic exploitation.
I’m just pointing out that limiting one could solve the other. Because I don’t think the oligarchs who rule the world will ever let us protest/unrest in a meaningful way again. People are kept just comfortable enough with fast food, Starbucks, entertainment, etc and just tired enough from selling labour that the vast majority of people wouldn’t care or engage with any sort of meaningful reform to the system.
We can’t even get people to engage in not electing King Fascist (US) and far-right populist Milhouse (Canada). For what reason??? Our other alternatives are middling, one is too old and in Canada I think they’re just tired of the tone and the tone deafness of our current guy. Seems like pretty lame excuses peddled by media that is owned by the very same oligarchs who stand to benefit the most from far right governments. The recent news in the UK and France makes it sting a little less, I guess.
How bad are we prepared to let things get? It’s gonna have to get pretty ugly at a local level for any meaningful change to happen.
Socialism would no doubt increase the planets carrying capacity for humans, but not make it limitless. It is also nowhere near close to being implemented so I am assessing the world that we have, not the one I’d like it to be. Also, even if we did away with capitalism tomorrow we’d probably still need to discuss reasonable population growth and come up with a reasonable estimate for our planet’s carrying capacity which could be weighed against quality of life, human happiness, etc as we transition our economy away from late stage capitalism.
I’d argue that it’s more likely that capitalism is abolished tomorrow than any government having a proposed solution to population control that’s not fundamentally evil.
I wouldn’t. Really all post industrial countries need to do is stop trying to directly insentivize having kids and maybe provide access to free/low cost contraceptives. I think that’s a lot easier than having socialism implemented in enough countries for it to matter.
Maybe Santa will bring that to you next Christmas, if you’re a good Femcowboy. /s
Well said.
I don’t want to have kids simply because I’m miserable and never consented to being born. I am not suicidal but I would have rather not been born in the first place.
Most people grow up happier than me, so I can’t really make a philosophical argument out of my own experience. All the best to you and your family!I would rather not have been born in the first place
This is called being passively suicidal
I’d say you can find things that make life worth living if you’re already here. But if someone’s not “here”, why drag someone you’re supposed to love the most into this mess when we can’t even properly look after the children that are already here.
I’m not anti-child - I’d consider adopting if it didn’t cost like $20k. I’m anti-new child for myself, and yeah I get sad when I see other people have kids, especially now. It’s like having another kid when you lived in the middle of the dust bowl and people were actively dying from starvation and the dust. Probably not the best time to have kids, similar to now. They just couldn’t easily make the choice to not have kids back then.
There are tons of arguments in favour of having kids like what if they cure cancer etc.
However, for myself, I truly believe there will be an ecological collapse due to climate change if not during my lifetime, in the immediate next generation. And we’re still not doing enough. I don’t want to flee natural disasters with a child in tow. One of best things you can do for the climate is not have kids. I’m privileged enough to make that choice so I did, but it’s not my only reason. You got late stage capitalism and the accelerating concentration of resources with the hyper wealthy, war / nuclear war, and the fact that pregnancy is one of most risky things I can medically do. Social media, the toxic drug supply, the rise of fascism (again), microplastics in literally fucking everything. I don’t even think we’ll have social healthcare or social security in Canada by the time I die because they’re gutting our programs so badly.
I get that people have a strong reaction to their choices being called immoral. Morality looks different for everyone. However, the counterargument of “Well I have children and they’re great and bring me so much joy etc” falls on deaf ears, because it truly does not sound like joy to me and when I say I am anti-child for myself I am telling you that. It’s like trying to convince someone skydiving is the greatest thing - some people love it, but not my cup of tea. It is so foreign to me that whenever I hear parents say this it feels like they are trying to convince themselves that they made the right choice.
Have you watched Idiocracy? I consider myself a smart guy, and having children is my way to fight against the world getting stupider.
Also, it is a joy. Yeah, it’s expensive, and yeah, it’s a ton of work. But it’s like working on a very big project that you know you’ll be proud of when it’s done. I didn’t understand it before because I only experienced other people’s children, but it’s different with your own children in a way that’s hard to explain.
Idiocracy is eugenics propaganda. People don’t get dumber because of their genes but because of worse education.
Like the other commenter said, adopt if you want to improve the world (and not just your own life), but that’s harder without the biological attachment that comes from your own kids.(Not trying to be rude btw, just noting generally my thoughts)
What I don’t get is, why not just adopt? Instead of creating more potential for misery, why not reduce it while still being able to enjoy parenthood?
It’s usually exceptionally expensive, especially considering insurance won’t be any help.
What I don’t get is why people pretend fostering isn’t even an option!
I agree that having kids can be awesome, but the idea it’s foolish to see it as a waste of time is shitty as well. OP is perfectly reasonable to find it terrible, because for many people, it is. People are less happy after having children on average, as alien and counterintuitive as it may seem to you. It’s a spectrum, with many people actually being happier, or at least more content with their life after. However, many people don’t.
The problem is that people make the mistake of seeing children as a means rather than an end. If they knew the truth, that raising children is the end goal for a parent rather than a step to something else, they wouldn’t want to do it. Those people shouldn’t be mislead. If you won’t get satisfaction out of nurturing your kid, it’s better for both you and your potential offspring that you live your own life. The kid might grow up and love life, but both of you will suffer for it.
Someone else, someone who really wants to change diapers and deal with tantrums to see a human grow, can raise the next generation just fine. If you want to pass on genes or whatever, but see no purpose beyond that, then have someone adopt them and be on your way. It’d be a win-win for us both.
OP is claiming having children is wrong, in other words that people who have children are wrong. They’re not saying that it’s not for them but might be the right choice for others, but rather that their own choice is the right one.
And OP is wrong to claim that. Both of your gut feelings about what is correct for you are valid, but you’re both talking past each other emotionally. Your comment sounded condescending to me, and I actually wish I could have kids.
Life is a painful mess, no matter what you do, you can’t guarantee that your child won’t have the most horrid existence imaginable, rolling the dice on someone else’s life due to your own selfish need to procreate is what they’re saying is wrong. I regret that my mom had me, life has been a living hell, nothing short of her not having me would have changed that.
Your life is a painful mess and you’re generalising that to everyone. I’m sorry you’re unhappy about your life, but that really isn’t an argument about other people having children.
Life can be painful, it can be beautiful, it can be dull or exciting, or anything in between. It’s not inherently negative or positive, as you’re claiming.
The point is lost on you. I genuinely hope your kid has a good life, but I personally would never gamble someone else’s life for my own selfish wants, and I can’t reconcile others decisions to do so either.
But you’re basing that on your own negative experiences in life, and you’re acting like they’re objective and universal.
Also, by that logic you shouldn’t do anything that could potentially cascade into making someone else unhappy, which would be absolutely debilitating.
Don’t get me wrong, I get that you should think twice, thrice and even more about having kids, especially if you’re not in a position to give them a good life and/or if you have certain heritable issues. But your overall position seems overly negative and, idk, somewhat misanthropic? In your worldview humanity should just stop existing because people can be unhappy in life. It’s overly reductive and negative to me.
Everybody is basing their opinions on their own experience.
I find it hilarious that you can argue your own experience is any different.
To better explain the argument: they are not saying “it’s 50:50 the child will suffer”, they mean “there is obviously a non-zero chance that children will suffer”, which is absolutely true. It’s up to the individual to consider their situation (money, time, temper, parental knowledge, genetic diseases etc) to gauge how much more may their children have it worse than average.
And I would say that many children do indeed suffer, and many don’t have the conditions that I personally would consider ideal.
But having a child is always on their respective parents. Morality won’t change their minds.
I don’t think I would have brought a new person into the world during any of the other time periods you mention either.
That’s fair, and not an unreasonable choice. What I can’t get over is people acting like that’s the only reasonable choice, and that people who have children are idiots.
Just look around in this thread and you’ll see some smug ass attitudes. It kind of reminds me of those 14 year old kids who feel immensely smart because they’re atheist, you know?
I didn’t say people who have children are idiots. I just think it’s immoral
Ok lol, my point remains exactly the same and I think your viewpoint is incredibly reductive.
You really think it’s ethical to bring another human into this world?
Why do you think it’s not?
The only way to experience suffering is to be alive. The only way to be born is without consent
Obviously yes
I don’t think it’s objectively and clearly unethical, so I think your claim that it is is wrong.
You’re awfully judgy for someone who doesn’t like other people judging you for having kids.
Just let people have a difference of opinion to you. It’s okay if some people look down on your choices. This is inevitable in life.
- I don’t even have kids lol
- Calling people out for being condescending is not the same as being condescending. This reeks of the same mentality that people who unironically say hating racists makes you hateful and therefore just as bad as racists have.
Ignore or assume we fix socioeconomics, environment, etc.;
Is having a child moral given the child cannot consent to being born?
(Not offering any opinion or trying to lead towards any answer)
I would say it isn’t
I mean… with all the negativity in this thread, every single person here is consenting to be alive every single day. While there are a number who choose an early exit, the vast vast statistical majority overwhelmingly consent to live another day every day. With such stats I feel like it’s fine to assume the default status is consent in this context.
Plus, speaking of morals, we’re just dumb little apes. You give us too much credit if you think we can fight the greatest biological urge of all life over something we’ve completely invented in our minds : morals, and the morals of the unborn is like double hypothetical.
Death is scary, not wanting to die is not the same as wanting to live. I would’ve rather not been born during about 1/3 of my life, it’s only now that I’m finding any substantial (though inconsistent) enjoyment from life.
"by waking up today, you consent to continue existing, and acknowledge the suffering it brings. Do you wish to continue?”
[yes] [yes]
no the fuck I do not. If I had a magicall button that would let me stop existing without the risk of damaging my neck and spending the rest of my life incapacitated but alive, and it didn’t cause trauma to the people around me, I would have pressed it fucking years ago.
vast statistical majority overwhelmingly consent to live
what disgusting mental acrobatics
The child can still consider taking the one-way exit as soon as it is able to make such considerations and thereby gets a choice.
You could ask in a similar manner:
Wouldn’t it be immoral to disallow this decision making process by leaving the child no choice by not having it?Asking for consent of an unborn is paradoxial and inherently impossible. It’s almost like asking a plant whether it consents into being planted and eaten afterwards. It has no agency. Is it immoral though to plant it and eat it anyway?
Having a child is similar. Get it, let it grow and develop its agency. Then it can decide for itself.
So the answer boils down to kill yourself when you turn 18 bud? That seems like incredibly callous and unnecessary pain for all involved.
Consent 101: If you’re unsure about whether or not someone would consent, the answer is no. And since we can’t ask the unborn, people who don’t want kids assume the answer is no.
And that’s why you should never pull an unconscious person out of a fire. QED.
That seems like incredibly callous and unnecessary pain for all involved.
Which is - at least to some extent - a culturally formed perception. We know cultures where suicide was not frowned upon nor was seen as an inherently bad thing. For example:
- Harakiri / Seppuku: ritual suicide commited by Samurais (and later officers during WWII) (lazily taken from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seppuku ) as a way to restore or uphold their or their families’ honour.
- Ättestupa, sites with cliff-like rock formations in Sweden where old people threw themselves off in order to not burden their community. (There are quite a number of examples regarding such kinds of senicides in different cultures. Currently this is also a topic regarding assisted suicide for (old) people who are severly ill with no realistic hopes of improvement.)
This proves that it can be possible to embrace such decisions of mature adolescents, be it for life or against it.
Consent 101: If you’re unsure about whether or not someone would consent, the answer is no. And since we can’t ask the unborn, people who don’t want kids assume the answer is no.
We can turn this easily around: If you’re unsure whether someone would consent to not being born, the answer is no and therefore they should be born.
But more importantly, to ask that question at all is already built on a erroneous premise, in my opinion: The unborn child has no sufficient agency to form an opinion about this question. It is therefore pointless to ask it. The ability to make such decisions comes with time and maturity of the child. Until this level is reached, you could also deny plants and even stones their existence because you are not able to ask them whether they want to exist at all. They have about the same level of agency as an unborn child.If you’re unsure wether someone would consent to not having sex, the answer is no. Therefore… If someone is unconscious it’s okay, or even morally necessary, to have sex with them in order to not deprive them of a decision they don’t have the agency to make themselves?
Yeah I just don’t think having a kid under the premise “well you can kill yourself later” is a really great argument. And they’re not really letting us kill ourselves humanely anyway - Medical Assistance in Dying laws are still incredibly restrictive and they actively prosecute people who sell alternatives.
Just because I find joy in life I can’t force that on other people. We all have different perspectives.
I look at it like joy is not guaranteed. The only thing that is guaranteed through life is suffering and death.
I don’t need to have kids for survival and we have too many people already. Why guarantee suffering in another person.
Death is far scarier than having never been born. I went through sooooo much torment thinking about death and if I should make today the day. I have PTSD from years of that. This is not a fair exit.
I understand that. It’s a very scary feeling for most. (btw: If you really feel like this damaged you, I hope you’ve considered therapy.)
However, if someone decides they don’t want to be alive (and we can ensure that this decision is made of “sound mind” (whatever that might look like)) I can imagine that they might get used to the idea of death and ending it.
Crazy take: people get to choose if they have children.
Of course. You can, and it’s your right to do so. But that doesn’t mean it’s ethical.
Yes… But should they get that choice?
If I could wave a magic wand, I’d make it so every 12 year old that could make sperm (trans, cis, whatever) gets a reversible vasectomy automatically. Then, if/when they ever want and plan for starting a family, they can take the class on childhood development and how to be a good parent who raises not shitty humans. If they pass, great! They get to undo the vasectomy and try for a family. If not, oh well, no one wanted to have to support your shitty kids in the first place.
I have no idea how something like this could ever actually be implemented in a fair way… Hense the need for the magic wand
Ah, genocidal eugenics, there you are. How I didn’t miss you.
Neither of those words apply here.
They do, in fact.
Nah… Not sure what you think those words mean, but no one’s talking about genetics or the eradication of a race of people.
Ah of course, my mistake.
Eugenics certainly couldn’t be checks notes deciding who can have kids, and humans arent checks notes people.
Absolutely ridiculous. Imagine actually being pro genocide.
Yes. Ultimately, the reason we should let people choose isn’t to prevent people who would be bad parents from becoming parents. That’s an issue that couldn’t be solved directly, but could be indirectly addressed by providing comprehensive sex ed. The real reason we should let people choose is so people aren’t forced to do or not do something they don’t or do want. People may choose the wrong option for themselves and regret it, but outside forces aren’t going to know what they want better than they will.
Magical thought experiments can often mislead, as ethics cannot exist outside of our uncertain, unmagical reality.
But in this case the “wrong option” means a human being will suffer terribly (assuming we’re talking about parents who wouldn’t pass the test)… Do we not ethically owe it to children/humanity to take some level of precautions against allowing them to grow up in hell?
We do owe them protection, but not only do we owe ourselves reproductive rights, there are other ways to protect those children. We can give people the knowledge and resources to be better parents while taking kids away from those that still suck. How many parents largely suck because of poverty? How many never got the chance to learn how to parent or what the experience will be like?
How about we fix the fucking society, so raising children isn’t so fucking volatile instead of thinking up some wand of eugenics +2?
Well, yeah, that would be the best way to go… I’d still think people should have to pass a class before they’re allowed to be responsible for another human beings entire life
I don’t trust state insitutions enough for that not to turnsinto yet another way to screw over the poor.
Weirdo
… without being judged for it, I hope?
I wish they did but the governments are intent on taking that choice away
I wish I got to choose if my parents had children.
I consider myself staunchly antinatalist. Almost nobody I see in the world day-to-day should have children. Hell, working in retail I’ve come to understand how few people deserve life in general. And then those shitty people have shitty kids.
But I feel like I love as deeply as I hate. When I do meet actually decent people, it makes me feel very happy. It’s just not often enough.
, working in retail I’ve come to understand how few people deserve life in general.
Hope you don’t hurt falling from that highest of horses
Cats tend to land on their feet.
Buddy needs to go touch some grass
That’s fair.
Hell, working in retail I’ve come to understand how few people deserve life in general.
How full of yourself you are.
That’s an output of the system, cat thing. Systems can be changed.
I’ve come to understand how few people deserve life in general
This honestly made me laugh. Again, fair.
It should do more than that, I should hope!
That’s just misanthropy.
