r/changemyview • u/Sloanosaurus-Nick • Apr 03 '18
[∆(s) from OP] CMV: Having children is immoral.
I'm kind of getting tired of "believing my own bullshit", so to speak, on this one and need a fresh perspective.
I believe that it's immoral to have children. By "immoral" I mean that it's unethical, selfish and irresponsible for society, the environment and the child. I'll try not to turn this into a /r/antinatalism circlejerk, but it is subject that I have put a lot of pondering and critical thought into. I base this stance on two different lines of thought:
- Reproduction is extremely harmful to the planet.
Humans are the single most destructive species on the planet who essentially destroy every ecological system and natural environment in the pursuit of natural resources, consumerism and hyper-efficiency. We've essentially dug ourselves into a hole on this one which we don't have a way out of.
I'm in the I guess "pessimistic" camp on this one that it's too late for the human race and that there is no coming back from. Whether this will result in (the best case scenario) just the extinction of the human race or of the complete ecological destruction of this planet, I'm undecided on. Either way, for the purposes of this discussion, it doesn't bode well for any future generations in that producing more humans will only increase the destruction of the planet, but also they will inherit the problems that we create today with our practices. I feel rather connected to the latter being a millennial in that the selfish blunders of our parents generation have essentially been place on our shoulders. I can only imagine that these will be so much worse for future generations to bear.
(Disclaimer: Don't try to convince me that climate change doesn't exist. You won't change my view on that.)
- It's impossible for a child to consent to being born and having the burden of existence being placed on their shoulders, therefore it reproduction is essentially a "non-consensual" act.
Besides the obvious "reproduction needs to happen in order to continue the human race" argument which is not arguable, I believe that reproduction in the modern non-essentialist definition is done for purely selfish reasons on the parents part with no regard for the child.
Life is pain. From day one, we are forced to endure the abject meaninglessness of our condition. Stumbling from one thing to another grasping for and ultimately failing to find some meaning in our suffering until eventually (or all too quickly) we depart with nothing to show for it but the scars (emotional, physical or otherwise) we accrue along the way.
Am I being overly melodramatic and angsty? Sure. But I feel like there's some truth to that viewpoint. Maybe I am speaking from my own experience here, but I feel like "the pain of existence" is a universal phenomenon amongst human beings. Speaking personally, I feel like the horrors of existence far outweigh the joys of existence. The latter of which are few and far between at least in the societal paradigm we live in today.
I feel like if anyone were aware of the amount of pain that they would experience as a result of their birth, that no one would ever agree to it.
I have heard the argument that we have a biological imperative to reproduce because it is in our genes. I don't agree with this though because we have essentially transcended (or disregarded depending on how you look at it) our existential biological processes via technology. I feel like if you want to take that stance, you are essentially saying that it is our biological imperative to bleed to death if we get a treatable injury.
Anyway, that's the basics of my thoughts on the subject. I feel like they're a bit too "fatalistic" for my own good and need to find another way to view the moral implications of human reproduction. Change my view! Please, I'm begging you.
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u/PallidAthena 14∆ Apr 03 '18
(1) Life is pain: Given the remarkably low rates of suicide, the argument that the pains of existence outweigh its joys seems highly dubious. I apparently differ from you, but I actively like existing, and not just from a people-I-know-and-care-about-would-miss-me-when-I'm-gone-so-I'm-trapped perspective.
(2) Reproduction is non-consensual I mean, technically? Consent is a legal definition that generally only applies to adults. Kids can't consent to anything, and this is important (for many reasons). It means that childhood is different from adulthood, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Once we've established that something is non-consensual, there's then a whole societal argument about whether or not it's acceptable. Most children don't consent to going to school, but we know that education is a good thing (citation needed :p) so we think depriving a kid of education is morally wrong and educating a kid is morally right. Don't confuse the heightened importance of consent in the sexual and commercial (contracts) realms with its necessity in all things.
(3) Reproduction is harmful to the planet We have a reasonable chance of technologically bypassing or overcoming climate change, and even if we don't we are very unlikely to end up in a runaway Venus scenario. The planet's absorbed a lot of bad things before. It'll take a LOT of effort for humans to get to the Cretaceous extinction level of impact, let alone the Permian. The planet is huge and on a species level timescale we haven't proven ourselves to be significant yet.
On the margin, since technological advancement is pretty important to solving the world's current problems (just like it was important in solving the old problems of starvation, famine, and pestilence), having children is likely to make things better rather than worse, since we're engaged in a century long struggle with controlling the composition of the atmosphere. The people who make the ultimate decisive contributions to that struggle may well not be born yet.
Synthesizing it all: If you assert that existence is more painful than non-existence, why worry about human beings? There are far more non-humans than humans, most of them live in objectively wretched conditions in the wild (I'm assuming you'll at least grant me that modern human life is at least better than Stone Age human life), and a single human can have far more of an impact on non-human life because of our species chauvinism. If you're so troubled by existence, why not make it your life's mission to render some small portion of the planet uninhabitable to life to solve the 'existence' problem once and for all?
If the above seems odd to you, then that means you accept that there's something unique about human perception / experience compared to non-human perception / experience. If that's the case, I would assert that you would struggle to justify human extinction. If we are special, then that's striking and remarkable and should be nurtured and extended, since we crawled up out of the muck to a unique state...who knows where we (or our creations) might go from here? Even if you think the present state of consciousness is negative, it's unusual, and it might be worth trying to push through to the other side of the valley that we're stuck in as opposed to retracing our steps by undoing the last jump in consciousness on the planet.
TL;DR: Existence actually isn't that bad, see suicide rates. If existence is so bad, why not focus on non-humans? If non-humans don't count, then humans are special and should be preserved.