Why Procreation is Immoral

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Procreation is immoral because life is suffering and it is immoral to perpetuate suffering. Life is a priori suffering for three main reasons:

1.) One must survive in some way (usually in a societal context of jobs, but could be something as simple as hunting-gathering, shelter building, etc.) and this fact of life is a major form of suffering.

2.) After the work of maintaining survival levels and comfort levels, we get bored because our big evolutionary brains need to be occupied with some contrived goal (obviously this does not apply to ferrel children, the mentally handicapped, etc…)

3.) Besides survival, boredom there are all the little mini goals that we have to pursue to avoid suffering.

In addition to these a priori reasons, there are all the various feelings and emotional states of pain that come from dealing with other people, with natural disasters, diseases, etc…

If one is to choose a) to bring a being into this world of suffering or b) not bringing a being into the world of suffering, the moral choice is to not bring the being into the world of suffering.

Think of not being born as a precious glass vase. Once you are born it is broken. It doesn’t matter that you suffer now…it is too late because you were born, whether you kill yourself or not. It is better to not have been born than to have lived and died. Killing yourself is not equivelant to piecing the broken vase back together. I am claiming that there is a fundamental difference between not being born at all and having lived and died.

THis all implies an “annihilationist Utilitarianism”. Even though life has an inherent suffering, it is better to stay alive and spread the “good word” of anti-procreation so that the greatest amount of suffering can be attained. Also, suicide is not the best option, because as stated in the paragraph before this, it is better “not to have been born, than to have lived and died” which implies preventing future people from being born is more of a priority or more important than ending your own personal suffering.

2

Also read Emile Cioran.

Yet man is bound by no morality.
He creates because he can.

3

Yes, E.M. Cioran had great insight into the “Trouble with Being Born” and the “Fall into Time”. What I like about him is he doesn’t need tired axioms, he uses aphorisms to express the insights into the sufferings of existence and the troubles with being born.

4

Is life only suffering? I think not. I say procreation is a consequence of the will to power. Pleasure is the feeling of power, the feeling that power increases, that a resistance is overcome. This resistance, however, causes suffering. So the power-willing being even seeks out suffering (resistance), that it may overcome it. Then again, I’m not a Schopenhauerian, but a Nietzschean.

Why? What is the point of surviving? Does the will to survive not presuppose that life is pleasurable?

This follows from your flawed conception of the will of life as the will to survival. It is not will to survival, but will to power. Once we have achieved a certain threshold level of power (the power to survive), we are not satisfied; we want more power. And then we may even put our safety at stake in pursuit of this.

I am never, or hardly ever, bored. I sure as hell can’t remember being bored. When I find something boring, I move on. I think boredom is for the bores.

Why do we have to avoid suffering? Is our goal the absence of suffering? Or rather equilibrium, control, mastery? Is suffering not a challenge, a stimulus to grow? Are the birththroes not justified for the mother who rejoices in her child?

Does it not follow from this that morality is hostile to life?

You may be like a broken vase, but if you wouldn’t have been born you would not be like a new vase; you would be nothing, you would not be, there would be no “you”.

I present to you the opposite ideal to this Silenic wisdom (see Nietzsche’s Birth of Tragedy): instead of that the best thing would be never to have existed, the second-best thing however to exist as briefly as possible (to die as soon as possible), I present to you the opposite valuation: that the best thing would be to live forever, the second-best thing to live as long as possible (but with the emphasis on “live”: to live as long as possible, not to vegetate in a nursery home). But life includes death. So to live forever would mean: to be born, to live, and to die again and again, to all eternity.

How about keeping procreating, keeping lusting after power, until overpopulation and exhaustion of natural resources make life on earth impossible? Would that not be a grand goal?

5

I came up with this exact same theory when in a state of extreme depression.

It’s not moral. It’s not grand. It’s defeatist, and you know it.

6

Who are you talking to, Ponty? Because of your use of the word “grand”, I suspect it is me. Well, first off, it was not meant to be moral, secondly, I think it is rather grand, this black nihilism, and lastly, it is not defeatist because it does not mean the end of life, not even necessarily of human life. And even if it does, is it not more important to live intensely than to live long?

“Happiness at Becoming is only possible in the annihilation of the real, of “existence”, of beautiful appearance, in the pessimistic shattering of illusion: - in the annihilation of even the most beautiful appearance does Dionysian happiness attain its high point.”
[Nietzsche, Nachlass, my translation.]

Dionysian happiness is the greatest happiness.

7

Nietzchean “will-to-power” is a poor inverse of Schopenhauer’s “will-to-live” which is closer to what reality is. Certainly Schopenhauer was not right on everything, but the core of his philosophy that life is inherently suffering ala Eastern style, is very astute. Buddhism has some great insight into this suffering as well (Schopenhauer drawing from Eastern philosophical insights). However, Buddhism and other Eastern thought brings metaphysical baggage which I do not ascribe to (reincarnation, karma, nirvana, etc.). I am purely in the Matrialist camp, when it comes to metaphysics. That is…everything is made from matter and energy and has evolved from the big bang, etc. etc. in a completely physical evolutionary framework. It is part of the human condition (where we have language, “awareness of a different sort than other animals”) to suffer in this unique way of having to survive, get bored, and find diversions to boredom. We are the only animal who may feel “world-weariness” (also called ennui). Even if individuals do not subjectively feel this, this does not make the human condition any less real.

Also, I realize there is no “you” before “you” were born. That is why I say “future potential being” because there is no “you” just the idea in someone else’s head of a future birth. So although I said “you” I am aware there is no “you” before you were born. A

Also, if not being born has a value of 0. Being born brings a value of -. It is better to be a 0 than a -.

8

In order for the statement “life is suffering” to be true, all life would have to be suffering. For life to have a negative value, all aspects of life would have to be negative.

Since we can apply meaning to our lives (the pursuit of an ambition, the adherence to duty, etc.) it doesn’t follow that all life is suffering. This also means that not all life has a negative value.

The short and simple truth of the matter is this: We start at 0, and certainly, life for people is a -1, or worse, but some people make life a 1 or a 2.

If life seems unnecessarily cruel to you, quit sitting around hypothosizing about how you can cogently claim life is suffering, and instead, do something to make the world a better place. Your resigned defeatism creates more suffering than your station if life does; go sponser a 3rd-world child, go give all your money to a charity, go volunteer at a community centre, or something to that effect. Your sitting about whining about the cruelty of the world is preventing you from performing the few goods you are capable of.

I have listed several ways you can lessen the suffering of the world around you. The question, then, is this: whether you have the faculty to do good, in light of your own selfish solipsism.

Go study your Seneca, and come back when you realize that you do not have it so badly, and that, there is a very clear redemptive quality to life.

9

Well, these are ungrounded assertions. Will to power is not a “poor inverse” of Schopenhauer’s will to live; I wonder whether you have actually read the relevant passages of Nietzsche’s work. As for the will to live, how can this exist? For it is pointless for a living being to want to live, and impossible for a livingless or dead “being”. But I interrupted you, please continue.

Is it? If life is inherently suffering, why is there life at all? Why want to live? Why want to survive? Why want to suffer?

There is no such thing as “being a 0”, as you have just said that not being born - i.e., not being - has a value of 0.

If not being born has a value of 0, being born may bring a value of - or +, this is subjective (dependent on what your angle is: whether you think life is at bottom pleasurable or the contrary). -1 has an absolute value of 1. This is simple maths. It is therefore absolutely “better” (more positive) to be born than not to be born.

10

To never have been born would be best under your logic. But the next best would be to end the suffering as soon as possible. Thus not only stop reproduction, but kill as many and as indiscriminately as possible. If you like, take yourself out at the end or whenever, it really doesn’t matter.

or, give life a chance. It’s not like you have anything better to do.

11

If you want to find meaning in your life, stop over using intellect and use your immagination. Your intellect will tell you about humans as a group, but your immagination will tell you of your desires.

that’s my two cents. two cents is greater than 0 . . . but “quality” of humans lives is too diverse to measure in counting numbers.

12

“elitism does not just bring ugliness to the person recieving, but the also to the person dishing out.”

That was at the bottom of aporia’s post. I think that applies to you Aluscardum. To your comment about being charitable etc… Yes I am all for ending the suffering of others who are living, but suffering is a systemic problem that affects ALL classes and culture-, rich, poor, Western society, bushmen, aboriginees, everyone. To not procreate is not the same as killing. So aporia your comment does not follow from the argument.

Nietzche, the suffering is there, whether you a) admit it or not or b) don’t perceive it. Also, so we don’t run in circles over whether life is suffering or not for yourself; we can approach the matter from a different angle. If not being born is like value 0…since you DON’T know whether that future possible being will have wanted to have been born, it is better not to procreate. Look at this website for more information in regards to this argument.

http://jme.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/30/4/377

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Why?

I am not Nietzsche, just as little as you are Schopenhauer.

14

my comment was not meant as a gem to end all suffering. It was like I said, just my two cents. Not even a nickel really.

Discussions and philsophy is pointless in my opinion unless it can be applied in the real world. My simple post was pretty much a statement of using immagination to find the tools to act on what will work for each person.

like I said, just two cents.

15

I don’t need " Your " reasons, because I have MY life.
Who are you to call Other peoples Lives " Suffering " ?
Who are you to call Your Parents, and every other Parent Immoral ?
If your life is " Suffering ", there is always solution for you, not to " suffer "
anymore.
Does word Love imply any connections in your state of mind ?

much love

Jewpiter

16

what is life without suffering? boring. suffering is a big a part of the human experience as pleasure is.

17

Allow me to present Nietzsche’s stance on the matter:

"Concerning life, the wisest men of all ages have judged alike: it is no good… Always and everywhere one has heard the same sound from their mouths—a sound full of doubt, full of melancholy, full of weariness of life, full of resistance to life. Even Socrates said, as he died: “To live—that means to be sick a long time: I owe Asclepius the Savior a rooster.” Even Socrates was tired of it.— What does that evidence? What does it evince?— Formerly one would have said (—oh, it has been said, and loud enough, and especially by our pessimists!): "At least something of all this must be true! The consensus sapientum [consensus of the sages] evidences the truth."— Shall we still talk like that today? May we? “At least something must be sick here,” we retort. These wisest men of all ages—they should first be scrutinized closely! Were they all perhaps shaky on their legs? late? tottery? décadents? Could it be that wisdom appears on earth as a raven, inspired by a little whiff of carrion?..

“This irreverent thought that the great sages are types of decline first occurred to me precisely in a case where it is most strongly opposed by both scholarly and unscholarly prejudice: I recognized Socrates and Plato to be symptoms of degeneration, tools of the Greek dissolution, pseudo-Greek, anti-Greek (“Birth of Tragedy” 1872). The consensus sapientum—I comprehended this ever more clearly—proves least of all that they were right in what they agreed on: it shows rather that they themselves, these wisest men, agreed in some physiological respect, and hence adopted the same negative attitude to life—had to adopt it. Judgments, judgments of value, concerning life, for it or against it, can, in the end, never be true: they have value only as symptoms, they are worthy of consideration only as symptoms—in themselves such judgments are stupidities. One must by all means stretch out one’s fingers and make the attempt to grasp this amazing finesse, that the value of life cannot be estimated. Not by the living, for they are an interested party, even a bone of contention, and not judges; not by the dead, for a different reason. For a philosopher to see a problem in the value of life is thus an objection to him, a question mark concerning his wisdom, an un-wisdom. Indeed? All these great wise men—they were not only décadents but not wise at all?”
[Twilight of the Idols, The Problem of Socrates, sections 1-2.]

Schopenhauer here exemplifies profoundly the necessary coincision of the moralist, the nay-sayer, and the decadent; whereas yours truly, perhaps, exemplifies the opposite case, the necessary coincision of immoralism, affirmation, and great health. It is a case of pessimism of weakness versus pessimism of strength. It is a case of an invalid fatalistically announcing his invalidity to live, and of his opposite, joyfully flaunting his happiness and confronting the former with the truth. Procreation as such is not immoral; but for a decadent like schopenhauer to procreate - that is immoral! Life as such is not suffering; schopenhauer1’s life is suffering! And no imaginary vase is broken; schopenhauer1 is broken!

To such people, Nietzsche does not offer salvation; to the contrary:

“What does “underprivileged” mean? Above all, physiologically–no longer politically. The unhealthiest kind of man in Europe (in all classes) furnishes the soil for this nihilism: they will experience the belief in the eternal recurrence as a curse, struck by which one no longer shrinks from any action; not to be extinguished passively but to extinguish everything that is so aim- and meaningless, although this is a mere convulsion, a blind rage at the insight that everything has been for eternities–even this moment of nihilism and lust for destruction.–It is the value of such a crisis that it purifies, that it pushes together related elements to perish of each other, that it assigns common tasks to men who have opposite ways of thinking–and it also brings to light the weaker and less secure among them and thus promotes an order of rank according to strength, from the point of view of health: those who command are recognized as those who command, those who obey as those who obey. Of course, outside every existing social order.”
[The Will to Power, section 55.]

18

And Baghdad is perfect City to live in, City where " pleasure " never stops.
Lets Paaaaaarty ! Don’t forget C4 =D>

19

Life is a rollercoaster of ups and downs. But the peaks raise the value of life above and beyond all prejudice. Furthermore, great suffering leads to great peaks:

‘The discipline of suffering, of great suffering - do you not know that it is this discipline alone which has created every elevation of mankind hitherto? That tension of the soul in misfortune which cultivates its strength, its terror at the sight of great destruction, its inventiveness and bravery in undergoing, induring, interpreting, exploiting misfortune, and whatever of depth, mastery, mask, spirit, cunning and greatness has been bestowed upon it - has it not been bestowed through suffering, through the discipline of great suffering?’ - Nietzsche, BGE 225

20

Too true! :laughing: