In this piece I intend to present a brief discussion on what I believe to be the best argument for antinatalism. Other arguments such as Benatar's asymmetry are too easily dismissed on hedonistic grounds. By taking the deontological route, already present intuitions about what should and shouldn't be legal are taken and used to imply antinatalism as routine consequence.
One might phrase the argument as follows: if it's not permissible to kill people, why is it permissible to kill your children? If it's not permissible to make someone suffer, why is it permissible to make your children suffer? If it's not permissible to infect someone with an incurable yet manageable disease, why is it permissible to impose all the burdens of life on your children? On it goes. In order to maintain the current paradigm of procreation ethics, one must demonstrate an asymmetry between killing other people and killing one's children (note in this case the asymmetry rests on the other side of the equation).
To pre-empt and counter any objections to the above, consider this informal syllogism:
1. Coming into existence is a sufficient and necessary condition for a person to die
2. To kill someone is to cause them to die
3. From 1 and 2, procreation kills people
4. People who don't exist cannot consent to coming into existence
5. It's wrong to kill an innocent person without their consent
6. From 3, 4, and 5, it's wrong to procreate
All the points should be straightforward except 5 and so any counter argument would likely focus on the cases where killing innocents is permissible and would attempt to show that procreation is one such instance.
If it's ever ok to kill an innocent then there must be some higher organising moral principle that trumps the innate wrongness of killing. Not only must this principle only apply in the case of procreation but it must also be so great as to allow the deaths of millions of people for its cause. No such good that most would accept readily comes to mind.
In closing, the accusatory undertones of this argument aren't likely to take an antinatalist very far but from a purely logical standpoint, deontological arguments for antinatalism are what I believe to be the best and are too often under used in these debates.
Points 4 and 5 cannot work together. Point 4 is the obvious point that a non-existent being cannot provide consent, but you have to be very particular when making that point. It isn't the case that they can't provide consent just because we can't ask them, they can't provide consent because they don't exist and therefore consent doesn't apply. Point 5 makes it seem as if we could get consent from a non-existent being, it is just the case that we don't. But, that isn't true. Death does necessarily follow from birth, but because before birth a being is a non-entity and thus incapable of having any claim on the duties of others, the case cannot be made that somehow the right of consent has been violated. That right comes only with the process of birth, and thus cannot apply to times before birth. This whole issue of antinatalism is a tricky one, and I think you has better reconsidered some of Benatar's arguments. He is much more clever than you give him credit for. His asymmetry argument avoids the problems of having to deal positively with the absurdity of a non-existent being. And I fail to see how arguments from hedonism are necessarily weak in the way you seem to imply. Hedonism probably has the most real world support in the areas of biology and psychology. It seems to at least be the basis for primitive morals.
ReplyDelete>It isn't the case that they can't provide consent just because we can't ask them, they can't provide consent because they don't exist and therefore consent doesn't apply.
ReplyDeleteMany things can't give consent (the mentally disabled, the comatose, animals, etc,) yet we don't consider this a basis to exclude them from arguments about consent. Rather, we assume that the lack of consent is sufficient grounds such that no antagonistic action should be taken against them. If you wish to argue otherwise you must demonstrate why the hinderance of non-existence in obtaining consent in particular should be treated differently from the others cases.
>Point 5 makes it seem as if we could get consent from a non-existent being,
It doesn't assume so nor is it required for my purposes. All that's needed is that consent must be obtained in any instance of non-wrongful killing.
>That right comes only with the process of birth, and thus cannot apply to times before birth.
See my post here http://suicidetreatise.blogspot.com/2011/01/on-non-identity-problem.html that addresses this issue.
>And I fail to see how arguments from hedonism are necessarily weak in the way you seem to imply.
Benatar's position materialises out of a harm-centric considerations which can be countered out of pleasure-centric considerations. If you present the pleasure-pain asymmetry to someone, they can (and almost always do) argue that pleasure of life can override the pain and thus discussion stagnates as it devolves in analyses of pleasure-harm metrics. Deontological arguments such as the one I gave hold less wiggle room for subjectivity as it rests upon the same founding as the legal system.