@philosophyminis: Anti-natalism is the idea that it is wrong to have kids. It argues that anybody who chooses to have biological children is immoral. One of the earliest and most cited proponents of anti-natalism is David Benatar. Benatar argues that we each give an 'unreliable assessment' about how good our lives actually are. We say things are great when actually life is far worse than we let on. Humans are optimistic. We tend to focus on the rare and fleeting moments of happiness that pop up in the long night of misery that makes up reality. We shrug our shoulders and say, 'Oh, it's not that bad,' when actually it really is. The only reason we delude ourselves this way is so that we can carry on the species, because evolution doesn't want us to accept the fact that life is misery. Evolution wants us to be optimistic, because that is what lets us reproduce. But Benatar says that we are rational beings, and we can go beyond our evolutionary priming to recognise that life is suffering. And so Benatar's conclusion is that it is immoral to bring children into a world so full of misery, suffering, and hardship. And he explains it this way: 'each of us was harmed by being brought into existence, because the quality of even the best lives is very bad, and worse than most people recognise it to be. But it is not too late to prevent the existence of future generations.' So, is Benatar right? Is life just misery? Do we pretend things are much better than they are? And is it wrong to bring children into a world such as this?

Jonny Thomson

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Region: GB

Friday 19 December 2025 18:54:14 GMT