No one consents to being born. This collection examines what that absence of consent means for reproductive ethics, autonomy, and the moral standing of the unborn.
Derek Parfit's non-identity problem challenges the belief that creating a person can be morally wrong, posing a significant hurdle for antinatalist arguments that rely on the concept of harming an individual by bringing them into existence.
A philosophical examination of the foremost counterarguments to antinatalism, from Pollyannaism to future-good, and a reasoned refutation of each.
Rising rates of mental illness and alienation in late modernity are not merely social or political problems; they are existential symptoms of a condition that antinatalist philosophers argue is inherent to conscious existence itself.
While Camus and Sartre sought meaning in absurdity, their foundational insights into the anguish and contingency of existence unintentionally bolster the antinatalist argument against procreation.
David Benatar's asymmetry argument posits a fundamental imbalance between pain and pleasure, leading to the startling conclusion that coming into existence is always a net harm. This essay dissects his core claims.
Emil Cioran's aphorisms, particularly in "The Trouble with Being Born," offer a literary and philosophical witness to the core tenets of antinatalism, arguing that birth itself is the primary catastrophe.
Can we harm someone by bringing them into existence? Derek Parfit's non-identity problem challenges a foundational assumption in procreative ethics.
Antinatalism, the view that procreation is morally wrong, faces perennial objections. A rigorous analysis of these counterarguments reveals their ultimate inadequacy.
Rising mental distress and alienation in late modernity are not merely societal failings but experiential evidence for the antinatalist claim that suffering is an intrinsic feature of sentient existence.
Theological defenses of procreation falter when confronted by the problem of evil. If a loving God orchestrates existence, then creating new beings guaranteed to suffer becomes an act of divine contradiction.