Rejecting Anti-natalism

[Anonymous No.19329901]

Has a philosopher ever managed to make a strong argument against philosophical pessimism and anti-natalism? I know anti-natalism is often attacked here but I'm becoming convinced that it's the truth. I don't want to accept it, of course.

[Anonymous No.19329909]

Philosophy concluded with Zapffe and Becker, I'm afraid.

[Anonymous No.19329921]

>>19329901
Never. It's as simple as that.

[Anonymous No.19329922]

>>19329901
Bronze Age Mindset.

[Anonymous No.19329936]

>>19329901
Rudolf Steiner. Philosophy of Freedom. The final chapters on ethics.

[Anonymous No.19329945]

>>19329936
>Rudolph Steiner

What does he have to offer?

[Anonymous No.19329949]

>>19329921
It's the perennial truth

[Anonymous No.19329959]

>>19329945
Monist epistemology similar to Hegel, ethical philosophy of absolute freedom and individualism. Also occult spiritualism if you're into that.

[Anonymous No.19329961]

>>19329901
If Natalism so bad, then why people have kids?

[Anonymous No.19329964]

>>19329959
Hey, not a bad cope. I'll check it out

Appreciate it, anon

[Anonymous No.19329967]

>>19329961
Because it's biologically hardwired

Also, being deluded enough to believe life is worth living

[Anonymous No.19329991]

>>19329901
I've never heard a good argument for antinatalism.

[Anonymous No.19330003]

>>19329991
Can you elaborate on this?

Have you read Zapffe?

[Anonymous No.19330020]

>>19329901
Anti-natalists are just depressed
https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2021.1946026

[Anonymous No.19330050]

>>19329901
I just want to put my penis into as many vaginas as I can. I don't care about anything else.

[Anonymous No.19330061]

>>19329901
Read Spinoza if you want to GTFO of Schopenhauerianism & moralism. Antinatalism is just gnostic ultramorality for depressed boys.

[Anonymous No.19330079]

>>19330020
Of course, the truth isn't pleasant

[Anonymous No.19330100]

>>19330003
I've never heard an argument that isn't based on some weird unwarranted premise. And no, I haven't read him. What's his argument? Is it more convincing than the cringelord Benatar's?

[Anonymous No.19330117]

>>19330020
The mental state of those holding a belief does not have any bearing on the legitimacy of those beliefs.

[Anonymous No.19330120]

>>19329961
Because most people don't question the ethics of it; it was thrust upon them, so why not continue the cycle? Most people don't actively consider the ethics of anything in the standard life script. They don't question the standard life script at all.

[Anonymous No.19330135]

>>19330120
>>19329967
You guys know that utilitarian ethics and subjective moral realism is not a means to an end, right?
What would to say to an emotivist? Is he also a fraud?

[Anonymous No.19330139]

>>19330135
>utilitarian ethics and subjective moral realism is not a means to an end
I don't know what you mean by this, or how it's supposed to counter antinatalism.

[Anonymous No.19330152]

>>19330139
Why would anyone adhere to utilitarianism? What metaethical theory is utilitarianism a part of? Why can't non-cognitivists just discard all your claims about the validity of antinatalism?

[Anonymous No.19330166]

>>19329901
>imagine having to search for arguments in order to pass on your genes

[Anonymous No.19330172]

>>19329922
half of that book is him complaining there's too many people on Earth and that white nats are retards for trying to outbreed 3rd worlders

[Anonymous No.19330189]

>>19329901
There is no objective ethical system that makes reproduction unethical.

In subjective ethics, "I love having kids/I want to perpetuate a part of myself/I just indulge my instincts/I require more goyim wageslaves" can all be entirely valid foundations. It's the anti-natalists that have to BTFO them, and they sorta can't. All they can do is pretend that there actually IS an objective system of ethics that makes reproduction fundamentally unethical. Which is gay and hypocritical, so the discourse just bullies them for it without taking them seriously.

[Anonymous No.19330197]

>>19329901
>The single most necessary thing we can possibly do to save our civilization—the single most necessary thing citizens can *ever* do to save their civilization, at all times and all places and in all cultures, whether they are good or evil, religious or irreligious, ancient or modern—is to have children.
>If you don't have children, your civilization will cease to exist. Before you can be good or evil, religious or irreligious, you must exist.
—Peter Kreeft, How to Destroy Western Civilization

[Anonymous No.19330206]

I've never heard any decent arguments pro antinatalism. All of them are retarded, like "my life sucks therefore people shouldn't have kids because these kids will suffer like me".

[Anonymous No.19330212]

>>19330197
They typically counter with "but civilization should not exist". When we ask "why?", they go "but muh suffering". If you ask why are we obliged to absolutely minimize suffering they go BSOD.

[Anonymous No.19330216]

>>19330117
>The mental state of those holding a belief does not have any bearing on the legitimacy of those beliefs.
You can't necessarily discredit a philosophical idea just because "it's psychological." But psychology can be used as a part of a broader argument against those beliefs. Also, the time of day you give to an idea or a person varies on a case-by-case basis. If you feel that someone is psychotic, schizophrenic, etc. or that their philosophy arises from their unstable mental state, you won't bother with them as much as you would with a "normal" person. I think the mental state of a person has some bearing, or even quite a bit of bearing on the legitimacy of their beliefs. According to another study on the psychology of philosophy, the majority of professional philosophers agree that the mental states from which philosophical beliefs derive have philosophical value.
>We discuss whether or not these empirical results have philosophical implications, while noting that 68% of our sample of professional philosophers indicated that such findings would indeed have philosophical value.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2021.1915972

[Anonymous No.19330220]

>>19330166
>Imagine having a brain

[Anonymous No.19330237]

>>19330212
>civilization should not exist.
Indeed.

[Anonymous No.19330248]

>>19329901
Antinatalism is simple to refute: one only has to disagree that suffering is the greatest value, and the greatest evil. Proving positions is something else, of course.

[Anonymous No.19330253]

>>19330152
What could be more intuitive than the minimizing of suffering and the maximizing of not suffering? I think it's so obvious and moral that anybody who disagrees is just taking the piss.
>>19330216
>I think the mental state of a person has some bearing, or even quite a bit of bearing on the legitimacy of their beliefs.
I really don't see how they're related at all. You give the examples of a schizophrenic or psychotic, but those are disorders that manifest delusions. Mere depression does not manifest delusions, it's just a mood disorder, so there's no reason to question philosophical, potentially logically sound arguments based on the mood of the speaker. And for the record, I don't consider myself depressed.

[Anonymous No.19330260]

>>19329901
>Virgin anti-anti-natalist:
Just kill yourself then lololol :DDDD

>Chad anti-natalist:
Then who will prevent you from murdering more children?

[Anonymous No.19330262]

>>19330079
>Participants who scored higher on the dark triad personality traits (especially Machiavellianism and psychopathy) (SD3.1.1) showed greater inclination to anti-natalist views.
Does anti-natalism make you a psychopath as well? Or is it more likely that the psychological states affect your philosophical beliefs, and not the other way around? Their philosophical beliefs are rationalizations of their particular psychic states.

[Anonymous No.19330263]

>>19330100
It will, just read his Wikipedia article

It will sway you, anon

[Anonymous No.19330276]

>>19330237
Why tho?

[Anonymous No.19330287]

>>19330276
What's the point?

[Anonymous No.19330289]

>>19330253
>What could be more intuitive than the minimizing of suffering and the maximizing of not suffering? I think it's so obvious and moral that anybody who disagrees is just taking the piss.
You’re thinking very singular and won’t address to what degree suffering is prevalent and why it outweighs the good aspects of life. Suffering or not, people are generally happy and think life is good. The rest is inconsequential classroom nonsense.

[Anonymous No.19330292]

>>19330253
>minimizing of suffering and the maximizing of not suffering? I think it's so obvious
ok atheist

[Anonymous No.19330293]

>>19330253
>What could be more intuitive than the minimizing of suffering and the maximizing of not suffering?
Something being intuitive is not an argument. If you wish to adhere to it - cooming inside a women is objectively more intuitive for the vast majority of men than any particular philosophy. You can only claim that their intuitive conclusions are wrong, but in order to do that you have to appeal to arguments that have nothing to do with intuitive conclusions - so the reasoning has nothing to do with it being intuitive or not.

>I think it's so obvious and moral that anybody who disagrees is just taking the piss.
And someone else thinks that it's so obviously immoral that anybody who claims that is just taking the piss. How do you respond? Do you go searching for truth as it can be understood by others through their reason, or do you seethe and cope like a dog?

[Anonymous No.19330321]

>>19329901
Antinatalism and pessimism have no real argument to begin with because they're founded on a "life is suffering" type declaration which is an arbitrary evaluation most people do not even agree with.

[Anonymous No.19330328]

>>19330287
Civilization allows me to shitpost on /lit/. I find being able to shitpost on /lit/ superior and more desirable than not being able to shitpost on /lit/. Hence I put efforts towards maintaining a civilization, and experience a degree of suffering, including enforcing suffering on my descendants - as shitposting on /lit/ is a worthwhile compensation for this suffering in my perception. True, I deprive my descendants of their agency in making this choice according to their own perception, but the reality dictates that I do so either way - either I force suffering on them, or I force lack of /lit/ shitposting on them, so it's a breach either way. I just pick an option where they can eventually choose to refuse - someone who doesn't find /lit/ shitposting worth the suffering can eventually refuse and an hero, but someone who was not born cannot refuse not being born and switch back to having /lit/ shitposting.

[Anonymous No.19330384]

>>19330253
>Mere depression does not manifest delusions, it's just a mood disorder, so there's no reason to question philosophical, potentially logically sound arguments based on the mood of the speaker
While it is true that a depressed person is not experiencing delusions similar to those with schizophrenia, I would still argue that their view of the world is far from balanced. But one could argue in favor of depressive realism, that the negativity of those with depression paints a more accurate picture of the world.
>Does the observed relationship between dark triad personality traits/depression and anti-natalism give us reason to reduce or increase our credence in anti-natalism? For one, one might think that higher psychopathy scores and the presence of (mild) depression might give one reason to doubt the judgments about anti-natalism made by the lay population. After all, is it rational to rely on the judgments of individuals whose personality profile differs substantially from the norm and who are more depressed than the mean person? Specifically, the Machiavellian (but also the psychopathic) personality trait is often associated with emotional detachment in those who also suffer from depression (Demenescu et al., 2010) as well as an inability to feel pleasure in some contexts (Gómez-Leal et al., 2019, p. 10; Cairncross et al., 2013). This would give one reason to believe that the lay evaluation of the quality-of-life argument central to Benatar’s formulation of anti-natalism (2006) might be subject to individual variation if these come with emotional detachment and the inability to feel pleasure. After all, emotional attachment and the ability to feel pleasure are central to our evaluation of life as good and as such tie directly into Benatar’s quality of life argument.
The study does not however "decisively argue one way or another." And just like every study, it concludes by saying that there needs to be more research done to give a definitive answer. The same goes for depressive realism. "The evidence that depression does indeed lead to a more realistic outlook on life is relatively restricted in methodological scope and generally shows relatively small effect sizes (Moore & Fresco, 2012, p. 505)." However, the author is leaning toward the view "that those high on dark triad personality traits and depression are less well-equipped to judge the truth of arguments about anti-natalism."

[Anonymous No.19330442]

>>19329901
Honestly who the hell cares, have children or don't have children, it's that simple.

[Anonymous No.19330472]

That doesn't make it anti natalist you goober

[Anonymous No.19330474]

>>19329901
I could try, if anyone gives me the gist of their arguments.

[Anonymous No.19330475]

>>19330287
There isn’t one.
That’s not an argument though, since it’s Utilitarianism can not really be applied to moral questions.

[Anonymous No.19330483]

>>19330117
It actually does, since they're appealing to mental states too. If they claim that for most people life is not worth living, and then you check up and discover that they were depressed and thst everyone else is pretty much fine with living, then you can singlehandedly shut down their argument, by saying that their just trying to generalize their mental states even though it cannot be generalized.

[Anonymous No.19330491]

>>19329901
The beauty of antinatalism is that nobody needs to argue against it. Antinatalists will remove themselves out of the gene pool thanks to their own teaching, without any outside effort required.

Why do you think there is absolutely no historical precedent for such a suicidal religion? They all kill themselves one way or another while the rest of the world flourishes.

[Anonymous No.19330498]

>>19330474
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Wessel_Zapffe

[Anonymous No.19330507]

>>19330483
It's just that copium is one hell of a drug, anon. Everyone is aware of life's terror deep down.

Also, the fact that we're capable of HAVING mental illness is in favor of anti-natalism!

[Anonymous No.19330521]

>>19330253
>What could be more intuitive than the minimizing of suffering and the maximizing of not suffering? I think it's so obvious and moral that anybody who disagrees is just taking the piss.
I think that that principle holds only in extreme cases. In fact I would claim that it works only in the most extreme negative case: namely that we should avoid absolute misery (as in, those conditions that make life intolerable for the greatest number of people). But when you're outside of that extreme negative case, that maxim becomes much weaker. There are countless examples in which sacrificing a modicum amount of wellbeing can make sense. Hell, there are even cases in which sacrificing oneself might be the best option.
Personally, I would reframe your maxim in this way: not living an intolerable life is a necessary condition for a worthy life (and I'll add, for a moral life too - you can't do much when you're in blinding pain). But that said, it is not a sufficient condition, and as such it cannot be generalized as the prime principle of ethics. Once life becomes tolerable, values that are different from the ones of pain and pleasure set in.

[Anonymous No.19330522]

>>19330321
>most people do not even agree with.
Hmmmm I wonder why.

[Anonymous No.19330529]

>>19330507
>mental illness is in favor of anti-natalism!
Not in favor, the cause of.

[Anonymous No.19330547]

>>19329901
> Have kids bro they'll make you happy for a little while, make you feel accomplished, take care of you when you grow up and maintain YOUR civilization. I'm going decide that for you and you're going to decide that for them. They don't exist so why shouldn't you?! Suffering?! That's normal, it's not important. Just eat healthy, sleep 8 hours, exercise, build relationships, work and be successful.
t. 4 ft-thick titanium block for a skull pronatalist who's too (humanly) selfish to be truly honest to myself.

[Anonymous No.19330560]

>>19330547
>I'm impotent and unable to procreate or be happy
>Therefor I will seethe at others for doing as I can't

[Anonymous No.19330570]

>>19329901
Kevin Solway has a video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KkkJ4HztuQ0

[Anonymous No.19330575]

>>19330547
How can an expression of selfishness be dishonest?

[Anonymous No.19330578]

>>19330483
They're just trying to generalize their mental states even though they cannot be generalized*
Damn, that was bad.
>>19330507
>Everyone is aware of life's terror deep down.
I am aware of that too, but I still want to live, and if I had access to a time machine I wouldnt prevent my own birth (nor would I instruct anyone to prevent it after my death). Life is terrifying, and as soon as you deattach yourself from day-to-day life literally everything becomes extremely weird and unsettling (even something as simple as the fact that I have hands, or that there is a spatial and temporal dimension): still, in spite of all of that I genuinely want to leave, and I genuinely appreciate doing so. I suspect that I would hold the same view even if I were to find myself in much worse situations. Even Jews in concentration camps latched as much as they could to their own livelihood: when i see that even people who were in so much misery still managed to think that life was worth living, I cant help but think that the concerns antinatalists have are of a pathological nature (e.g. clinical depression, or maybe just a teenage edgy phase).
>Also, the fact that we're capable of HAVING mental illness is in favor of anti-natalism!
Only if you adopt a strictly utilitarian framework (I've argued against it here >>19330521), and even then, I doubt the odds are stacked on your side. It seems to me that the chances of being crippled by mental illness, to the point of having a life that is genuinely not worth living, are vastly overshadowed by the chances of living a tolerable life.

[Anonymous No.19330604]

>>19330578
>I genuinely want to leave
Freudian slip. You're coping. You really just want to die, but are afraid to admit it to yourself.

[Anonymous No.19330613]

>>19330604
I caught that as well

Truly sad

[Anonymous No.19330617]

The more I read about Anti-Natalists the more sympathetic I grow towards Pol-Pot just executing all the other intellectuals

/lit/ needs to stop engaging these things and start killing them instead

[Anonymous No.19330623]

>>19330522
Because most people simply do not find their lives to be constituted primarily of suffering. It's not a cope; it is actually a cope to imagine normies are secretly miserable when they are not.

[Anonymous No.19330629]

>>19330617
Based.

[Anonymous No.19330635]

>>19330617
this but unironically

[Anonymous No.19330642]

>>19330617
Pol-pot?

Enlighten me

[Anonymous No.19330662]

>>19330263
>>19330498
There's not a single argument for antinatalism in that article.

[Anonymous No.19330664]

>>19330604
I'm ESL and I'm a bit drunk. Not a freudian slip, I wouldnt be ashamed of wanting to die if this were to be the case. In fact I wish I could be immortal.

[Anonymous No.19330670]

>>19330617
>anti-natalists
>intellectuals
Lmao

[Anonymous No.19330676]

The best counter-argument to anti-natalists is killing them

[Anonymous No.19330683]

>>19330604
>he made a mistake in his grammar that means he secretly wants die
Absolute pseud.

[Anonymous No.19330689]

>>19330617
>I read about Anti-Natalists
Why would you read in the first place? There is but only one awnser to that

[Anonymous No.19330695]

>>19330676
Hey, you can't do anything to people who have nothing to lose now, eh?

[Anonymous No.19330699]

>>19329967
>being deluded enough to believe life is worth living
What's the difference between "deluding yourself" to enjoy life and just enjoying life?

[Anonymous No.19331144]

Pessimism was a truth before materialism when people still had illusions

It's absolutely over

[Anonymous No.19331227]

If producing life is ethically wrong, then by logical necessity so is continuing to to stay alive, therefore being an anti-natalist is indistinguishable from being suicidal.

[Anonymous No.19331373]

>>19330498
>all around me are familiar faces,
>jewish places
>jewish faces

[Anonymous No.19331439]

>>19331373
His family is German immigrants to Norway anon, they aren't Jewish.

[Anonymous No.19331463]

>>19331373
The absolute state of this board

[Anonymous No.19331733]

>>19331144
I'm scared

[Anonymous No.19331776]

>>19330662
What do you mean, anon?

[Anonymous No.19331843]

>>19331439
>>19331463
The face doesn't lie

[Anonymous No.19331854]

>>19331843
Read The Last Messiah

It's short and will destroy your prejudice

[Anonymous No.19331938]

>>19331227
>producing
>continuing
They're not the same.

[Anonymous No.19331976]

all philosophy is a refutation of antinatalism because antinatalism is a philosophy whose only dictate is suicide, and not even its adherents are insane enough to follow through.

Maybe one of the children in this thread can explain it to me, because I've never been able to wrap my head around this: if the founding presupposition of your philosophy is that life is composed exclusively of suffering, and therefor not worth living, and therefor we should not bring children into this world, why are you making that third supposition? Why are you not stopping at the second and killing yourselves? Why is the final position of antinatalism this odd in-between position of 'well, we shouldn't kill ourselves, and we shouldn't attempt to affect any change in the world, but we should convince people that they shouldn't have kids'?

Thank you in advance for your timely responses.

[Anonymous No.19331985]

>>19331976
Because of preservation instinct

Many do take their life, it's just difficult

[Anonymous No.19331986]

>>19331776
I mean that there's not a single argument for antinatalism in that article. Even given that the type of pessimism presented there is the case, it doesn't mean that antinatalism follows. That's a leap in logic.

[Anonymous No.19332001]

>>19331986
If you accept Zapffe's evolutionary pessimism then why wouldn't antinatalism be the conclusion?

Suicide is the other option

[Anonymous No.19332009]

>>19331854
I read it, and it is very arrogant in the way only Westernoids can be
>"uhhhh there are any pre-industrial tribes where you don't hate life or have any anxiety then they are not human!"

>It's short and will destroy your prejudice
I actually want to kill you *more* now that you have wasted my time.

[Anonymous No.19332018]

>>19331976
Killing themselves wouldn't prevent others from reproducing.

[Anonymous No.19332032]

>>19332009
No! You can't just reject my blackpill!

[Anonymous No.19332054]

>>19331854
I will not read any pilpul from jews. All antinatalists are by their very nature either hypocritical by not killing themselves or as many people as possible before an heroing, or outright evil in the sense that they only preach to those who they want to disappear (pic related). There is no excuse to be an antinatalist and be alive at the same time, because by their very existence they betray their ideology. By living, they declare that life, however miserable they tell you it is, is worth more than non-existence.
If i want to go further, i'd say this ideology is pro-suffering, because they want the only species who are moral beings and can mitigate suffering, to perish. By discovering fire, humans have alleviated the suffering of countless beings, for aeons.

[Anonymous No.19332055]

>>19332001
How does he derive an ought from an is?

[Anonymous No.19332130]

>>19331985
this is the answer I already had in mind: that they are simply too cowardly. But that simply leads back to them having no philosophical ground to stand on, and the ideas have been refuted by their own followers.

>>19332018
So they continue to experience the omnipresent suffering of life in order to selflessly reduce the suffering of others? Then it would follow that there is /something/ worth living for, and this also has refuted the potion of antinatalists that there is simply nothing to make life worth living. Unless, I suppose, the only possible thing worth living for is ending life itself. But if this is the case, why would the short term effects of not having kids be at all on the philosophical radar compared to the infinitely larger infinity of the potential suffering of all life that could ever exist? Unless it is also your contention that /only/ human life is composed of omnipresent suffering? But then why are humans unique in this way, and is it not desirable to understand why before forcing the species extinct, such that some mechanism can be put into place all over the universe to prevent any other life from suffering as we humans uniquely have? Or alternatively, is it that only human suffering is worth caring about, and any other species that develops omnipresent suffering will have a kind of suffering unique to themselves that we, lacking a specific conception of, ought not take responsibility for? But if this is the case, then why is this reasoning only applied on the species level, and not to the level of the individual (My suffering is uniquely mine, and you have no place telling me whether it is bearable or not, and therefor all suffering is unique and you have no place deciding whether any suffering but your own is bearable.)?

Thank you for your timely response.

[Anonymous No.19332156]

Is there an non-utilitarian Anti-Natalism?