According to Wikipedia, anti-natalism is “a philosophical position that assigns a negative value to birth.”\u00a0 In general, it includes the claim that having children is immoral.\u00a0 Commenter Simon Elliot asked that I take up the topic again, adding,<\/p>\n
I remember you said that you didn’t take it seriously because you thought it demonstrated a “morality inversion” of sorts, but I’ve since spoken to a fellow anti-natalist who has heard that argument many times and has found a way around it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I’ll gladly take up the topic again.\u00a0 As for the anti-natalist who’s “found a way around it,” all I can say is, more power to him.\u00a0 I don’t peddle objective “oughts” on this blog, because no one has ever succeeded in capturing one and showing it to me.\u00a0 As far as I’m concerned, there are only subjective oughts, and I know of no mechanism whereby the ones that happen to reside inside my skull can manage to escape and acquire normative power over other human beings.\u00a0 My personal ought regarding natalism applies only to myself.<\/p>\n
According to that ought, I should have as many children as possible.\u00a0 Since I also believe that I and my descendants would be much better off if the population of the planet were greatly reduced, I certainly don’t want everyone else to share this particular ought.\u00a0 Ideally, I would prefer that only a small percentage of the current population share my opinion on the subject.\u00a0 The subset in question would consist of those individuals whose survival would contribute most to the survival of my own kin in particular, and to the indefinite survival of life as we know it in general.<\/p>\n
Simon is right when he says that I consider anti-natalism an example of a “morality inversion.”\u00a0 By that I mean that anti-natalists typically rely on moralistic arguments to render themselves biological dead ends, whereas morality exists because the genes that are its root cause were selected by virtue of the fact that they resulted in just the opposite.\u00a0 Why am I a natalist?\u00a0 You might say it’s a matter of aesthetic taste.\u00a0 I perceive morality inversions as symptoms that a biological entity is sick and dysfunctional.\u00a0 I don’t like to think of myself as sick and dysfunctional.\u00a0 Therefore I tend to avoid morality inversions.<\/p>\n
My position on the matter also has to do with my perception of my consciousness.\u00a0 My consciousness is the “me” that I perceive, but it will survive but a short time.\u00a0 On the other hand, there is something about me that has survived 3 billion years, give or take, carried by an unbroken chain of physical entities, culminating in myself.\u00a0 That part of me, my genes, is potentially immortal.\u00a0 I consider them, and not my consciousness, the real “me.”\u00a0 My consciousness is really just an ancillary feature of my current phenotype that exists because it happened to increase the odds that the real “me” would survive.\u00a0 I find the thought that my consciousness might “malfunction” and break the chain disturbing.\u00a0 I would prefer that the chain remain unbroken.\u00a0 Therefore, I am a natalist.\u00a0 However, I have no interest whatsoever in “converting” anti-natalists.\u00a0 Other than the exceptions noted above, the more of them the better as far as I’m concerned.<\/p>\n
Good and evil have no objective existence.\u00a0 It is therefore impossible that I could have a “duty” to be either a natalist or an anti-natalist, independent of what is thought<\/em> to be my duty in my own or anyone else’s subjective mind.\u00a0 It does not occur to me that my personal opinion on the matter has some kind of a normative power on anyone else, nor am I willing to allow anyone else’s opinion to have any normative power over me.<\/p>\n