I would have rather seen the racism argument deconstructed, because it's a more relevant issue in real life. it's not uncommon to see people complaining about overpopulation along with racist comments about african countries. Even ecofashism is becoming a real phenomenon, and it definitely overlaps with antinatalistic and other anti reproduction ideas. Antinatalism is deinitely not inherently racist or anything, though. Superficially similar ideas are just useful tools for racism.
It could be that both natalism and antinatalism harm women and only the neutral view is egalitarian. If natalism harms women that’s not necessarily evidence that anti natalism doesn’t harm women
This would be like saying if only women could murder and you thought murder was wrong, therefore youd be sexist for that belief. No claims of discrimination are made but a simple statement, that it is wrong to have children. Many bad things can be exclusive to men or much more common with men, like historically men being the sex which rapes, but that doesnt justify misandry. Its a bad objection and wouldnt even disprove the claim if it was right, which it isnt
@OmniversalInsect and that's not incorrect. I think that she doesn't really attack of the argument itself, from what the video presents. And I do agree that it would increase the amount of sexism, only of we suppose that already misogynistic societies would adopt this tendency. An anti-natalist society, or anatalist (in the sense that they're indifferent) would most probably be already way less misogynistic than today's average
I find Prof. Christine Overall's anti-antinatalist argument, at least as it is presented, very unconvincing. Let us imagine this society in which the doctrine of antinatalism prevails. In such a society, one would expect that opting for one's own sterilisation would be lauded as a responsible decision to make. Because sterilisation involves undergoing surgery, however, it is likely that the decision would be a supererogatory one, rather than an obligatory one (assuming that this society is otherwise much like ours currently is). Since vasectomy is a far less invasive procedure than salpingectomy, men would be regarded as having committed a more grievous dereliction of their responsibility not to reproduce than would women, with sentiments like "If you didn't have the self-control to abstain and if you were too irresponsible to use contraception, you should have had the snip!" more likely to be expressed toward men than toward women. Besides than, it is a fact of human physiology that a man may sire far more offspring than a woman may bear. Human history's most superfecund woman was either the probably legendary Valentina Vassilyev, who bore sixty-nine children, or the definitely real Mariam Nabatanzi, who has borne forty-four. Contrast them with human history's most prolific man, Genghis Khan, who sired thousands of children. Given the disparity in their potential for reproduction, a man who revels in the horrors of procreation would be regarded as far more dangerous and depraved than a similarly perverted woman. I'm not impressed by the argument that antinatalism discriminates against those in poor countries, either. As the good Dr Kane Baker himself already showed in his video on pronatalism (and to which he refered at 30:45), rich countries' welfare states (state pensions, social care, etc.) are collectively maintained by their workforces; unless they are replenished by more people being born, those workforces face shortages, to the collective detriment of those rich countries' societies. Antinatalism would hit just as hard in rich countries as in poor; it's just that the harm is collectivised in rich countries but individualised in poor countries. It has apparently been shown that the best way to reduce human birth-rates is to provide easy access to contraception and to educate women. High birth-rates in Africa are more probably a function of the lack of those things than they are of race. Still, it's not like that will stop people blaming them on race, but I don't think that's a very good argument against antinatalism. Given all the feminist literature that argues that reproduction disproportionately harms women, from which one may infer the corollary that it is _pronatalism_ that disadvantages women, it is hard to see how Prof. Christine Overall can argue that antinatalism disadvantages women. If I were being uncharitable, I would say that feminists are wont to argue that anything and everything disadvantages women. Being a little kinder, it may be said that there are as many feminisms as there are feminists, and no charge of hypocrisy may be levelled against Prof. Overall unless she has herself previously argued her current position's contrary and not recanted it. @KaneB Would you recommend Prof. Overall's 2012 "Why Have Children? The Ethical Debate", either in whole or in part?
"Given all the feminist literature that argues that reproduction disproportionately harms women, from which one may infer the corollary that it is pronatalism that disadvantages women, it is hard to see how Prof. Christine Overall can argue that antinatalism disadvantages women. " I don't like those kinds of arguments because not all continuous functions are monotonic, and pronatalism/antinatalism is not a partition. It could very well be the case that both pronatalism AND antinatalism disadvantage women, and the position that is optimal for women is neutrality about natalism (in other words, the function of moral weight of procreation over utility to women is parabolic). So it would be neither hypocritical nor contradictory to hold both.
Good points about the gender differences in reproductive capacity, and about how vasectomy is less invasive than sterilization methods for women. Indeed, in my limited experience of antinatalist and childfree communities online, I often encounter the attitude that the responsibility for sterilization should fall on men. The sexism argument is garbage, but it's only a couple of pages in an otherwise good book. I'd say it's worth reading if you're interested in procreative ethics.
AN isn't about harming women. But a number of ANs (typically those who subscribe to efilism) unequivocally advocate for harming women, and such advocacy is mostly tolerated within the ANosphere.
In the last part, you for some reason conveniently ignore the anti-natalist rejection of bodily autonomy, that they reject the right for women to become pregnant, as you said "there is a duty to avoid creating people who would suffer". Bodily autonomy gives women the right to refuse pregnancy but also the right to become pregnant. You also failed to present an anti-natlist argument against racism or wealth discrimination. As poorer people suffer more than wealthy people, therefore it is necessarily true for anti-natalism that poorer people have less rights to reproduce, or have more of an obligation / duty to not reproduce. And unlike the points you did give for the sexism argument, this is not conditional on anything, this is intrinsic that it discriminates against people in different living conditions. Therefore anti-natalism necessarily violates the rights and equality of people, so it is wrong.
In the last part, I'm presenting Christine Overall's objection. She didn't raise the idea that bodily autonomy includes the right to become pregnant, so that's why I didn't present it. >> You also failed to present an anti-natlist argument against racism or wealth discrimination I didn't "fail" to present that. I never even attempted to present it. The main topic of the video was Overall's sexism argument. I merely raised the racism point to note that a similar harm-based objection could be made in other ways.
While it's certainly a debate as to whether Anti-Natalism harms women, it is a fact that not liking and commenting hurts women. Please do your part to protect women on this day.
I think another thought experiment is helpful here: Suppose that you have the button that creates a non-suffering person upon pressure. Suppose also that not pressing it (within a certain time limit, for example) will cause an already existing person to suffer. It is then at least superogatory and arguably obligatory, to press it. Contrast this with the admittedly very hypothetical situation where you're a woman and not bringing a child into the world in the next year will cause an already existing person to suffer. Well here the act of pregnancy seems at most superogatory (a caveat being it may be obligatory if the stakes are high enough, but it seems i can easily pick a level of suffering where the former and the later thought experiment differ in result) So really, at least contrasting these two thought experiments, it seems easier to identify the problem- the pain you let be brought into this world is not necessarily the prevailing factor if your (for instance) bodily autonomy is challeged.
One (plausible) premise of the argument is that women are responsible for births. Under anti-natalism, it's women who would get blamed for voluntary births (voluntary conception or refusal to abort), so all that women would have to do is to avoid giving birth voluntarily. Under current moralities it would be unfair to condemn anyone for their involuntary acts ('accidents'), why should it be any different under anti-natalism? At any rate, we can assume that anti-natalism gets adopted differentially across different cultures. Complete anti-natalist societies are bound to go extinct, so that a nonzero threshold for how many children it's good to have will become established (kinda like the one-child policy). This threshold may fluctuate close to the 'accident' rate. In the end, women won't unfairly get blamed unless they keep getting (or staying) pregnant on purpose.
I find the antisymmetry argument problematic in a different way. By positing extremes, moderate stances are obscured, and mask the reasons why we have the intuitions we have. All things being equal, at every instant, in most contexts, we desire less pain and more pleasure. But these are idealisations. However, things are not usually equal. Discomfort is often intrinsic to otherwise worthwhile activity. The discomfort in the instant contributes to the future feeling of achievement, and those achievements contribute to one's feeling of future well-being. Pain itself is context dependent, in that spicy food literally causes pain, but that pain is experienced as novelty. Part of the human escape from our animal natures is precisely this kind of reinterpretation such that we master and use our genetic programming almost against itself so as to overcome our prior circumstances. That is, we are not trapped in a vulnerable biological niche. Then the contexts in which these duties arise becomes relevant. We witness in ourselves and others how we are obstructed by pain and aided by pleasure. Usually, we imagine these duties in the contexts of being obstructed in achieving what we value. Moral philosophers and theologians in particular are not thinking of themselves when they create such duties, but rather the well-being of those in their charge. They would not wish to have a duty placed upon themselves to avoid pain and seek pleasure, nor to have someone impose these conditions upon them against their will. This isn't to deny that in general, pleasure is good, and pain, bad, but analysing the pleasure/pain dynamic in simplistic moralist terms rejects a priori the Greek insight into purposeful happiness, or eudaimonia.
I think if this were polled, then the VAST majority of people would have the intuition that not pressing button 2 would be a paradigmatic instance of moral callousness and would be impermissible. Whether pressing button 1 would be even MORE abhorrent seems completely irrelevant, as long as we still think one ought to press button 2.
My prediction is that most people wouldn't care. At least, most people who live in the south west UK. There are plenty of countries with more strongly pronatalist sentiments, from whom I'd expect different answers. >> Whether pressing button 1 would be even MORE abhorrent seems completely irrelevant There would be an asymmetry concerning procreative duties which would demand explanation. Whether Benatar's pleasure/pain asymmetry would be the best explanation of this asymmetry concerning procreative duties is another matter, of course.
Antinatalism is merely an ontological, philosophical position which posits that living sentient beings will experience vastly more suffering in life than any potential pleasure, and therefore it's better for the being to never have come into this brutal reality in the first place. It's not concerned with "sexism" whatsoever.
"antinatalism "is no one thesis except: a moral disposition against procreation categorically. it does not necessarily involve hedonistic value (pain and pleasures and their weights) or any other commitments .
I think that antinatalism strictly says that any amount of suffering, no matter how small vastly overshadows any amount of pleasure, no matter how large. That's why can't just deconvince an antinatalist by saying "well what if there was more pleasure than suffering in a life of a being".
The pleasure-to-pain asymmetry thesis, arguing that the absence of pain is preferable to pleasure, finds grounding in philosophical behaviorism. However, philosophical functionalism, considering organ system symmetry, posits the absence of pleasure as a form of chronic pain. To illustrate, a sharp pin prick, while an instance of peripheral nervous system pain, is not chronic. Thus, ephemeral peripheral pain is far more preferable than the extended absence of pleasure, often termed hedonic existentialism. This explains the preference for certain pains over an enduring lack of pleasure. Functionalism extends this thesis to a deterministic system where individual preferences converge into social preferences. This system encompasses reproductive, respiratory, digestive, and renal systems, ultimately informing the central nervous system, which generates pleasure and pain signals for the peripheral nervous system. Within this system, modern anthropocentric speciesism has elevated rationalism. Rationality, as a frontal cortex bias in information processing, relies on the complex interplay of biological powers, including non-rational organ systems. Therefore, various "isms" are understood as non-rational, embedded within deterministic materialism. Moralism, in this context, functions as a regulatory mechanism through power structures operating within nation-states and transnational organizations utilizing information technologies. Further issues to address: Clarify Connection to Behaviorism: The connection between the pleasure-to-pain asymmetry thesis and behaviorism needs further elaboration. How does behaviorism support the idea that the absence of pain is preferable to pleasure? Refine Deterministic Language: The deterministic language throughout the text could be nuanced to acknowledge the interplay of biological and environmental factors in shaping preferences and behaviors. Elaborate on "Isms": The assertion that various "isms" are non-rational and part of deterministic materialism requires more in-depth explanation. How do specific ideologies fit into this framework? Expand on Moralism's Role: The role of moralism as a regulatory mechanism within power structures could be expanded upon. How does moralism interact with, or potentially conflict with, other forces within these structures?
Humans can be happy by genetic engineering or selective breeding. It could swap the intensity and frequency of suffering vs happiness. It may be bizar or as good as impossible. But it is not unthinkable. Change the baseline of positive feelings. A planet full kf happy bugs who are only unhappy under dire situations.
May I ask if you're personally an antinatalist? I would consider myself one honestly. I find it hard to argue with a philosophy that could (at least in theory) end all human suffering forever.
No. I consider myself "antinatalist-adjacent": I think that life is mostly bad, that human civilization is a tragic failure, and I have no desire to see it continue. However, I'm not inclined to negatively judge people who disagree with that assessment and who choose to have children, and all of the arguments I've encountered for antinatalism have significant flaws in my view. So I don't hold that it is morally wrong to have children.
@@KaneB Fair enough and I certainly agree with you that life is mostly bad. I don't typically judge people negatively for having children either as I understand they don't do it out of malice or anything and probably are completely unaware that antinatalism even exists. I guess we're the weird ones for even thinking about this stuff.
@@KaneB If you believe that life is mostly bad, then I presume that you believe that life contains a lot of suffering, misery, anguish, etc. which begs the question (not the logical fallacy), what justifies this action? what warrants the creation of a life and bring it to this wretched world to bear all the probable suffering it would endure?
The problem is that I find the free will debate kinda boring. What's the most interesting article on free will, or position about free will, in your view?
@@KaneB Robert Sapolsky's views about how our intent is entirely shaped by countless external factors, none of which we had any control over. But it is more in the realm of science than philosophy.
@@OmniversalInsect The most popular position in contemporary philosophy is that free will is compatible with determinism. I guess it's interesting to learn what the causal factors are that produce our behaviour, but in itself that doesn't address the philosophical arguments.
@@KaneB Honestly i feel very awkward in answering this question! Not because i can’t, but because i feel like the standpoint from which i’m trying to unpack this whole mess of a problem, might be a controversial one. Usually people think about this topic through the lenses of traditional libertarianism, compatibilism and or hard incompatibilism (aka, “free will pessimism”). But personally i find the underlying metaphysics of each one of these stances to be either completely outdated or utterly uninteresting. For reference, i am talking about both determinism and classical indeterminism, as applied to different (most) kinds of ontological monisms and pluralisms (for instance: physicalism, cartesian dualism, idealism, neutral monism and so on). Personally i am a phenomologist, and i draw most of my resources from people like Bergson, Nietzsche, Merleu-Ponty, Sartre, Nishida Kitaro, etc. Though i wouldn’t recommend diving head first into any of those guys. My greatest reccomendation, in this case, would be to get your hands on some of Galen Strawson’s works (e.g. “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility”, “Things that bother me”), then i would advise reading a couple of things from some of his commentators (I’m quite fond of both Michael Istvan and Brian D. Parks), and finally, i would suggest reading Gordon Donald Cooper’s “The Luck Objection”.
@@FreeWill_is_unintelligible I'm familiar with Strawson's work on this, and I find it dull. I'd be probably be more interested by the work you mention from outside the analytic tradition. I've read plenty of analytic stuff on free will and, as far as I recall, literally all of it has bored me. So while my general inclinations lean analytic, I think if I were to get into free will, it would be via a different approach. I love Max Stirner and it's possible to read some of his work as bearing on that topic.
in a world where there is sexism/racism, etc., widespread of antinatalism is impossible. in a world in which there is place for contradictory, irrational and hostile behavior, reproductive behavior will always dominate
"We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder We belong to the sound of the words we've both fallen under Whatever we deny or embrace for worse or for better We belong, we belong, we belong together." 🎶 👆 This one?
finding it pretty hard to buy into this debate given that the price of admission is anti-natalism, a position that works great in a reductio against whichever view entails it.
@@ignotumperignotius630 I find antinatalism a mildly surprising conclusion, at worst. There are plenty of more popular views in philosophy that are far more absurd.
@@jackkrell4238 Easily enough, it simply clashes with more dearly held beliefs. The stuff I need to believe to get to AN I might be on the fence about, but after it results in something (AN) that clashes with what I believe I'm going to throw (at least some of) that stuff out also. But yeah you got me: I confess that I think birth is a good.
The first point about blame for reproduction seems implausible. In my experience the man is the one that has the responsibility to make sure protection is used. So when protection fails, it's his fault.
In my experience, attitudes here seem to go both ways. I'm not sure either gender is held "more responsible" for starting a pregnancy. Clearly, men are legally responsible, since they're on the hook for child support; and I've commonly heard sentiments like "he should've worn a condom", etc. Of course, once a woman is pregnant, it's entirely up to her whether to keep it, in places where abortion is accessible. I think women tend to be held responsible for the continuation of pregnancy in that sense.
This is very off the top of my head, so I may be wording this very poorly. Simone de Beauvoir touched upon this in her chapter on biology in the second sex. It's a lot to do with gestation itself. The zygote binds to the womb where it develops, and becomes an extension of the female body. But the man's sperm, though it is necessary to instigate the pregnancy, is mobile. Once a single sperm fecundates the ovum, the rest die, and though the zygote is the combination of the male and female gametes, the male has at this point broken away physically from any initial connection. In other words, there remains nothing inside the man that links him directly to the zygote. It is entirely deposited in the female body. She contrasts the agility of the sperm to the motility of the ovum. The ovum is required to remain inert for gestation. Her argument is that the biological form-function relationship has been co-opted by patriarchy to subdue woman to her reproductive role. But that the ovum remaining inert compared to the sperm ought not to validate propositions that relegated woman to that same stillness. And nonetheless, arguments that take qualities biological form of the female body to justify her submission have been going on as far as Aristotle. Beauvoir argues that the same could be said about the male body. How the sperm being too mobile and erratic warrants the male to be tamed by the more composed female. but that would lead us nowhere if we aim to have a more egalitarian society.
Women have more anticonception options than men. Men have the condom, vasectomy wich has 3 risks attached to it. I do not cohnt sterilisation as an option as it wrecks havoc on hormones. And amens pill wich is still experrimental. So there is only one for men. The alternative is no coitus.
@@tobiasyoder yes, i apologize for that. I guess I've grown too much used to size 12 font justified text with no paragraph breaks from reading AO3 fanfiction. not even trying to be quirky. my brain is fried
I guess I need to watch this cause I do agree with a lot of antinatalist points but I also realise that there could definitely be information that that might change my views.
Honestly, I think it's an astonishingly weak argument. If you're looking for potentially convincing challenges to your antinatalist views, you don't need to watch this video.
@@KaneB I'm not too set on my views on the subject and don't really care all that much cause it's one of those beliefs that is incredibly difficult to convince someone of. Just feels like a fruitless endeavour. But great video so far, keep it up. You are a very good communicator
This is not a racist argument, in fact only a companion in guilt argument, but there are many other paradigmatic cases of immorality that are more prevalent in Africa and in Black communities outside of Africa. Take murder, theft and female genital mutilation. This is much like fertility due to socio-economic factors but is used by racists. Anti-natalism isn’t too different in that regard.
I take AN to mean "A disposition categorically against imposing conscious life, that it is morally wrong to do so" which involves normativity about others actions, not just your own. One could limit the criteria however they want, anthroprocentric or Sentiocentric or something else, that is arbitrary and up to the individuals frameworks. I think what you are referring to here is 'childfree' , which is just a personal choice and not normative.
Honest question. What does it mean for something to not be sexist? I ask because as I talk to feminists it becomes very difficult to identify where are the parameters that show where sexism ends. I don't want to say that sexism is identical to all conceivable human experiences, but I really struggle to argue otherwise.
By reeding the comments it seems to me that you would agree with Benatar's misanthropic argument for anti-natalism (humans cause lots of suffering to others, therefore we shouldn't produce more of them) . But you have said that, srictly speaking, you're not an antinatalist. Why don't you agree with the misanthropic argument?
First, I don't think there's anything wrong with bringing into existence members of a species that causes vast amounts of suffering. Second, I'm not really a misanthrope. Where I agree with Benatar is in his pessimistic assessment of the value of human life, but to me, humanity is more tragic than evil. In any case, while my own view of humanity is pessimistic, it doesn't bother me that other people take an optimistic view. It's okay to make a commitment to the human project and contribute to its continuation, either because you think humanity is all-things-considered good as it is or because you hope for humanity to become better in the future.
@@KPenceable i think, god's nature is not a noumena, because even if we can't determine some attributes of god(by the way i think we can), at least we know that he can create something from nothing. if there are some branches of hinduism or budism that doesn't agree on this, i don't have any idea about them but, in terms of philosophy of religion, i think, atheists, deists etc. will agree that the only certain thing that we know about god's nature is that he can create. So, i think god's nature is not a noumena according to philosophy of religion, like i said, in terms of theology it may be variable.
Arguments like the one she outlined is why I can't take most discourse in AN circles seriously. Not that I don't lean AN, I do. But it's just a philosophical exercise more than a serious movement. Bringing about human extinction through voluntary AN if it could ever happen is going to suck anyway you do it. But if you are serious enough about it then any suffering that befalls one or more groups is a price worth paying since it's only a transitional cost till we obtain the final goal. Personally, the way I see it is we will either bring about extinction through environmental catastrophe, which includes climate change, or we might be snuffed out by an asteroid or something of that sort. As you said in a previous video most people are glad to be alive, and most people will continue to reproduce even if it is at a rate that will not replenish the population adequately enough. So it's not worth getting worked up about it.
I'm presenting Overall's argument. That's how she frames it. I suppose I could have raised the criticism that she ignores trans men in framing it that way, but honestly I wasn't particularly interested in getting into that here.
Benatar's asymmetry argument for antinatalism: ua-cam.com/video/4ZXnd9ev_sw/v-deo.html
I would have rather seen the racism argument deconstructed, because it's a more relevant issue in real life. it's not uncommon to see people complaining about overpopulation along with racist comments about african countries. Even ecofashism is becoming a real phenomenon, and it definitely overlaps with antinatalistic and other anti reproduction ideas.
Antinatalism is deinitely not inherently racist or anything, though. Superficially similar ideas are just useful tools for racism.
>life sucks and we shouldn't be having babies
>women most affected
Nah this take is wild. The opposite take would be more defensible
I agree.
It could be that both natalism and antinatalism harm women and only the neutral view is egalitarian. If natalism harms women that’s not necessarily evidence that anti natalism doesn’t harm women
Who could have imagined that an idea that is against human existance could view humans negatively.
best philosophy channel hands down
The thing about antinatalistsm is that is actually stands regardless of if you take a selfish or selfess stance. That's pretty cool.
yes, I am an Egoist anti-natalist
Good shit.
'i have a phd'
damn i feel old. when i saw you in your videos originally i just thought you were a talented and enthusiastic undergrad
congratulations
This would be like saying if only women could murder and you thought murder was wrong, therefore youd be sexist for that belief. No claims of discrimination are made but a simple statement, that it is wrong to have children. Many bad things can be exclusive to men or much more common with men, like historically men being the sex which rapes, but that doesnt justify misandry. Its a bad objection and wouldnt even disprove the claim if it was right, which it isnt
Where you wrote "misanthropy" (hatred of humanity), I think you meant "misandry" (hatred of men).
I think the claim isn't that antinatalism itself is sexist but that it would increase the amount of sexism.
@@howtoappearincompletely9739 yea sorry my bad thanks for the correction
@OmniversalInsect and that's not incorrect. I think that she doesn't really attack of the argument itself, from what the video presents.
And I do agree that it would increase the amount of sexism, only of we suppose that already misogynistic societies would adopt this tendency. An anti-natalist society, or anatalist (in the sense that they're indifferent) would most probably be already way less misogynistic than today's average
I find Prof. Christine Overall's anti-antinatalist argument, at least as it is presented, very unconvincing. Let us imagine this society in which the doctrine of antinatalism prevails. In such a society, one would expect that opting for one's own sterilisation would be lauded as a responsible decision to make. Because sterilisation involves undergoing surgery, however, it is likely that the decision would be a supererogatory one, rather than an obligatory one (assuming that this society is otherwise much like ours currently is).
Since vasectomy is a far less invasive procedure than salpingectomy, men would be regarded as having committed a more grievous dereliction of their responsibility not to reproduce than would women, with sentiments like "If you didn't have the self-control to abstain and if you were too irresponsible to use contraception, you should have had the snip!" more likely to be expressed toward men than toward women.
Besides than, it is a fact of human physiology that a man may sire far more offspring than a woman may bear. Human history's most superfecund woman was either the probably legendary Valentina Vassilyev, who bore sixty-nine children, or the definitely real Mariam Nabatanzi, who has borne forty-four. Contrast them with human history's most prolific man, Genghis Khan, who sired thousands of children. Given the disparity in their potential for reproduction, a man who revels in the horrors of procreation would be regarded as far more dangerous and depraved than a similarly perverted woman.
I'm not impressed by the argument that antinatalism discriminates against those in poor countries, either. As the good Dr Kane Baker himself already showed in his video on pronatalism (and to which he refered at 30:45), rich countries' welfare states (state pensions, social care, etc.) are collectively maintained by their workforces; unless they are replenished by more people being born, those workforces face shortages, to the collective detriment of those rich countries' societies. Antinatalism would hit just as hard in rich countries as in poor; it's just that the harm is collectivised in rich countries but individualised in poor countries.
It has apparently been shown that the best way to reduce human birth-rates is to provide easy access to contraception and to educate women. High birth-rates in Africa are more probably a function of the lack of those things than they are of race. Still, it's not like that will stop people blaming them on race, but I don't think that's a very good argument against antinatalism.
Given all the feminist literature that argues that reproduction disproportionately harms women, from which one may infer the corollary that it is _pronatalism_ that disadvantages women, it is hard to see how Prof. Christine Overall can argue that antinatalism disadvantages women. If I were being uncharitable, I would say that feminists are wont to argue that anything and everything disadvantages women. Being a little kinder, it may be said that there are as many feminisms as there are feminists, and no charge of hypocrisy may be levelled against Prof. Overall unless she has herself previously argued her current position's contrary and not recanted it.
@KaneB Would you recommend Prof. Overall's 2012 "Why Have Children? The Ethical Debate", either in whole or in part?
"Given all the feminist literature that argues that reproduction disproportionately harms women, from which one may infer the corollary that it is pronatalism that disadvantages women, it is hard to see how Prof. Christine Overall can argue that antinatalism disadvantages women. "
I don't like those kinds of arguments because not all continuous functions are monotonic, and pronatalism/antinatalism is not a partition. It could very well be the case that both pronatalism AND antinatalism disadvantage women, and the position that is optimal for women is neutrality about natalism (in other words, the function of moral weight of procreation over utility to women is parabolic). So it would be neither hypocritical nor contradictory to hold both.
Good points about the gender differences in reproductive capacity, and about how vasectomy is less invasive than sterilization methods for women. Indeed, in my limited experience of antinatalist and childfree communities online, I often encounter the attitude that the responsibility for sterilization should fall on men.
The sexism argument is garbage, but it's only a couple of pages in an otherwise good book. I'd say it's worth reading if you're interested in procreative ethics.
'If antinatalism. takes off......' - if my grandmother had balls, she would be my grandfather
I always love your videos, Dr Kane. You're a superb lecturer, and one of my favorite philosophers.
AN isn't about harming women. But a number of ANs (typically those who subscribe to efilism) unequivocally advocate for harming women, and such advocacy is mostly tolerated within the ANosphere.
those are called negative utilitarians, it is not necessarily the belief of anti-natalism which makes them arrive at such a place.
@@zeebpc Hence the parenthesis
best philosophy channel
Good video, as usual.
In the last part, you for some reason conveniently ignore the anti-natalist rejection of bodily autonomy, that they reject the right for women to become pregnant, as you said "there is a duty to avoid creating people who would suffer". Bodily autonomy gives women the right to refuse pregnancy but also the right to become pregnant.
You also failed to present an anti-natlist argument against racism or wealth discrimination. As poorer people suffer more than wealthy people, therefore it is necessarily true for anti-natalism that poorer people have less rights to reproduce, or have more of an obligation / duty to not reproduce. And unlike the points you did give for the sexism argument, this is not conditional on anything, this is intrinsic that it discriminates against people in different living conditions.
Therefore anti-natalism necessarily violates the rights and equality of people, so it is wrong.
In the last part, I'm presenting Christine Overall's objection. She didn't raise the idea that bodily autonomy includes the right to become pregnant, so that's why I didn't present it.
>> You also failed to present an anti-natlist argument against racism or wealth discrimination
I didn't "fail" to present that. I never even attempted to present it. The main topic of the video was Overall's sexism argument. I merely raised the racism point to note that a similar harm-based objection could be made in other ways.
Parallel to 'blameworthy' is 'praiseworthy' in a truly anti-natalist culture.
While it's certainly a debate as to whether Anti-Natalism harms women, it is a fact that not liking and commenting hurts women. Please do your part to protect women on this day.
These arguments are so bad… Very similar to the “but what about the farmers” argument against vegansim
What are we talking about, man
I think another thought experiment is helpful here:
Suppose that you have the button that creates a non-suffering person upon pressure. Suppose also that not pressing it (within a certain time limit, for example) will cause an already existing person to suffer. It is then at least superogatory and arguably obligatory, to press it.
Contrast this with the admittedly very hypothetical situation where you're a woman and not bringing a child into the world in the next year will cause an already existing person to suffer. Well here the act of pregnancy seems at most superogatory (a caveat being it may be obligatory if the stakes are high enough, but it seems i can easily pick a level of suffering where the former and the later thought experiment differ in result)
So really, at least contrasting these two thought experiments, it seems easier to identify the problem- the pain you let be brought into this world is not necessarily the prevailing factor if your (for instance) bodily autonomy is challeged.
One (plausible) premise of the argument is that women are responsible for births. Under anti-natalism, it's women who would get blamed for voluntary births (voluntary conception or refusal to abort), so all that women would have to do is to avoid giving birth voluntarily. Under current moralities it would be unfair to condemn anyone for their involuntary acts ('accidents'), why should it be any different under anti-natalism?
At any rate, we can assume that anti-natalism gets adopted differentially across different cultures. Complete anti-natalist societies are bound to go extinct, so that a nonzero threshold for how many children it's good to have will become established (kinda like the one-child policy). This threshold may fluctuate close to the 'accident' rate. In the end, women won't unfairly get blamed unless they keep getting (or staying) pregnant on purpose.
I find the antisymmetry argument problematic in a different way. By positing extremes, moderate stances are obscured, and mask the reasons why we have the intuitions we have.
All things being equal, at every instant, in most contexts, we desire less pain and more pleasure. But these are idealisations.
However, things are not usually equal. Discomfort is often intrinsic to otherwise worthwhile activity. The discomfort in the instant contributes to the future feeling of achievement, and those achievements contribute to one's feeling of future well-being. Pain itself is context dependent, in that spicy food literally causes pain, but that pain is experienced as novelty. Part of the human escape from our animal natures is precisely this kind of reinterpretation such that we master and use our genetic programming almost against itself so as to overcome our prior circumstances. That is, we are not trapped in a vulnerable biological niche.
Then the contexts in which these duties arise becomes relevant. We witness in ourselves and others how we are obstructed by pain and aided by pleasure. Usually, we imagine these duties in the contexts of being obstructed in achieving what we value. Moral philosophers and theologians in particular are not thinking of themselves when they create such duties, but rather the well-being of those in their charge. They would not wish to have a duty placed upon themselves to avoid pain and seek pleasure, nor to have someone impose these conditions upon them against their will.
This isn't to deny that in general, pleasure is good, and pain, bad, but analysing the pleasure/pain dynamic in simplistic moralist terms rejects a priori the Greek insight into purposeful happiness, or eudaimonia.
I think if this were polled, then the VAST majority of people would have the intuition that not pressing button 2 would be a paradigmatic instance of moral callousness and would be impermissible. Whether pressing button 1 would be even MORE abhorrent seems completely irrelevant, as long as we still think one ought to press button 2.
My prediction is that most people wouldn't care. At least, most people who live in the south west UK. There are plenty of countries with more strongly pronatalist sentiments, from whom I'd expect different answers.
>> Whether pressing button 1 would be even MORE abhorrent seems completely irrelevant
There would be an asymmetry concerning procreative duties which would demand explanation. Whether Benatar's pleasure/pain asymmetry would be the best explanation of this asymmetry concerning procreative duties is another matter, of course.
Antinatalism is merely an ontological, philosophical position which posits that living sentient beings will experience vastly more suffering in life than any potential pleasure, and therefore it's better for the being to never have come into this brutal reality in the first place. It's not concerned with "sexism" whatsoever.
Except that in the real world it almost certainly would
this comment in no way addresses the conclusion or argument in the video.
ontological?
"antinatalism "is no one thesis except: a moral disposition against procreation categorically. it does not necessarily involve hedonistic value (pain and pleasures and their weights) or any other commitments .
I think that antinatalism strictly says that any amount of suffering, no matter how small vastly overshadows any amount of pleasure, no matter how large.
That's why can't just deconvince an antinatalist by saying "well what if there was more pleasure than suffering in a life of a being".
The pleasure-to-pain asymmetry thesis, arguing that the absence of pain is preferable to pleasure, finds grounding in philosophical behaviorism. However, philosophical functionalism, considering organ system symmetry, posits the absence of pleasure as a form of chronic pain. To illustrate, a sharp pin prick, while an instance of peripheral nervous system pain, is not chronic. Thus, ephemeral peripheral pain is far more preferable than the extended absence of pleasure, often termed hedonic existentialism. This explains the preference for certain pains over an enduring lack of pleasure.
Functionalism extends this thesis to a deterministic system where individual preferences converge into social preferences. This system encompasses reproductive, respiratory, digestive, and renal systems, ultimately informing the central nervous system, which generates pleasure and pain signals for the peripheral nervous system.
Within this system, modern anthropocentric speciesism has elevated rationalism. Rationality, as a frontal cortex bias in information processing, relies on the complex interplay of biological powers, including non-rational organ systems.
Therefore, various "isms" are understood as non-rational, embedded within deterministic materialism. Moralism, in this context, functions as a regulatory mechanism through power structures operating within nation-states and transnational organizations utilizing information technologies.
Further issues to address:
Clarify Connection to Behaviorism: The connection between the pleasure-to-pain asymmetry thesis and behaviorism needs further elaboration. How does behaviorism support the idea that the absence of pain is preferable to pleasure?
Refine Deterministic Language: The deterministic language throughout the text could be nuanced to acknowledge the interplay of biological and environmental factors in shaping preferences and behaviors.
Elaborate on "Isms": The assertion that various "isms" are non-rational and part of deterministic materialism requires more in-depth explanation. How do specific ideologies fit into this framework?
Expand on Moralism's Role: The role of moralism as a regulatory mechanism within power structures could be expanded upon. How does moralism interact with, or potentially conflict with, other forces within these structures?
Humans can be happy by genetic engineering or selective breeding. It could swap the intensity and frequency of suffering vs happiness. It may be bizar or as good as impossible. But it is not unthinkable. Change the baseline of positive feelings. A planet full kf happy bugs who are only unhappy under dire situations.
May I ask if you're personally an antinatalist? I would consider myself one honestly. I find it hard to argue with a philosophy that could (at least in theory) end all human suffering forever.
No. I consider myself "antinatalist-adjacent": I think that life is mostly bad, that human civilization is a tragic failure, and I have no desire to see it continue. However, I'm not inclined to negatively judge people who disagree with that assessment and who choose to have children, and all of the arguments I've encountered for antinatalism have significant flaws in my view. So I don't hold that it is morally wrong to have children.
@@KaneB Fair enough and I certainly agree with you that life is mostly bad. I don't typically judge people negatively for having children either as I understand they don't do it out of malice or anything and probably are completely unaware that antinatalism even exists. I guess we're the weird ones for even thinking about this stuff.
@@KaneB"i think that life is mostly bad" real
@@KaneBsounds like a touch of negative misanthropy.
@@KaneB If you believe that life is mostly bad, then I presume that you believe that life contains a lot of suffering, misery, anguish, etc. which begs the question (not the logical fallacy), what justifies this action? what warrants the creation of a life and bring it to this wretched world to bear all the probable suffering it would endure?
Still looking foreward to a video on free will!👀 Hoping fate will be on my side on this one!
The problem is that I find the free will debate kinda boring. What's the most interesting article on free will, or position about free will, in your view?
@@KaneB Robert Sapolsky's views about how our intent is entirely shaped by countless external factors, none of which we had any control over. But it is more in the realm of science than philosophy.
@@OmniversalInsect The most popular position in contemporary philosophy is that free will is compatible with determinism. I guess it's interesting to learn what the causal factors are that produce our behaviour, but in itself that doesn't address the philosophical arguments.
@@KaneB Honestly i feel very awkward in answering this question! Not because i can’t, but because i feel like the standpoint from which i’m trying to unpack this whole mess of a problem, might be a controversial one. Usually people think about this topic through the lenses of traditional libertarianism, compatibilism and or hard incompatibilism (aka, “free will pessimism”). But personally i find the underlying metaphysics of each one of these stances to be either completely outdated or utterly uninteresting. For reference, i am talking about both determinism and classical indeterminism, as applied to different (most) kinds of ontological monisms and pluralisms
(for instance: physicalism, cartesian dualism, idealism, neutral monism and so on).
Personally i am a phenomologist, and i draw most of my resources from people like Bergson, Nietzsche, Merleu-Ponty, Sartre, Nishida Kitaro, etc.
Though i wouldn’t recommend diving head first into any of those guys.
My greatest reccomendation, in this case, would be to get your hands on some of Galen Strawson’s works (e.g. “The Impossibility of Moral Responsibility”, “Things that bother me”), then i would advise reading a couple of things from some of his commentators (I’m quite fond of both Michael Istvan and Brian D. Parks), and finally, i would suggest reading Gordon Donald Cooper’s “The Luck Objection”.
@@FreeWill_is_unintelligible I'm familiar with Strawson's work on this, and I find it dull. I'd be probably be more interested by the work you mention from outside the analytic tradition. I've read plenty of analytic stuff on free will and, as far as I recall, literally all of it has bored me. So while my general inclinations lean analytic, I think if I were to get into free will, it would be via a different approach. I love Max Stirner and it's possible to read some of his work as bearing on that topic.
in a world where there is sexism/racism, etc., widespread of antinatalism is impossible. in a world in which there is place for contradictory, irrational and hostile behavior, reproductive behavior will always dominate
Who is benatar
David Benatar. He's the most prominent contemporary anti-natalist.
"We belong to the light, we belong to the thunder
We belong to the sound of the words we've both fallen under
Whatever we deny or embrace for worse or for better
We belong, we belong, we belong together." 🎶
👆 This one?
finding it pretty hard to buy into this debate given that the price of admission is anti-natalism, a position that works great in a reductio against whichever view entails it.
@@ignotumperignotius630 I find antinatalism a mildly surprising conclusion, at worst. There are plenty of more popular views in philosophy that are far more absurd.
How is anti-natalism by any means a reductio? Do you even understand the philosophy?
@@jackkrell4238 Easily enough, it simply clashes with more dearly held beliefs. The stuff I need to believe to get to AN I might be on the fence about, but after it results in something (AN) that clashes with what I believe I'm going to throw (at least some of) that stuff out also. But yeah you got me: I confess that I think birth is a good.
The first point about blame for reproduction seems implausible. In my experience the man is the one that has the responsibility to make sure protection is used. So when protection fails, it's his fault.
In my experience, attitudes here seem to go both ways. I'm not sure either gender is held "more responsible" for starting a pregnancy. Clearly, men are legally responsible, since they're on the hook for child support; and I've commonly heard sentiments like "he should've worn a condom", etc.
Of course, once a woman is pregnant, it's entirely up to her whether to keep it, in places where abortion is accessible. I think women tend to be held responsible for the continuation of pregnancy in that sense.
This is very off the top of my head, so I may be wording this very poorly. Simone de Beauvoir touched upon this in her chapter on biology in the second sex. It's a lot to do with gestation itself. The zygote binds to the womb where it develops, and becomes an extension of the female body. But the man's sperm, though it is necessary to instigate the pregnancy, is mobile. Once a single sperm fecundates the ovum, the rest die, and though the zygote is the combination of the male and female gametes, the male has at this point broken away physically from any initial connection. In other words, there remains nothing inside the man that links him directly to the zygote. It is entirely deposited in the female body.
She contrasts the agility of the sperm to the motility of the ovum. The ovum is required to remain inert for gestation.
Her argument is that the biological form-function relationship has been co-opted by patriarchy to subdue woman to her reproductive role. But that the ovum remaining inert compared to the sperm ought not to validate propositions that relegated woman to that same stillness. And nonetheless, arguments that take qualities biological form of the female body to justify her submission have been going on as far as Aristotle. Beauvoir argues that the same could be said about the male body. How the sperm being too mobile and erratic warrants the male to be tamed by the more composed female. but that would lead us nowhere if we aim to have a more egalitarian society.
Women have more anticonception options than men. Men have the condom, vasectomy wich has 3 risks attached to it. I do not cohnt sterilisation as an option as it wrecks havoc on hormones. And amens pill wich is still experrimental. So there is only one for men. The alternative is no coitus.
@@M0ONCommanderuse paragraphs if you want people to read long comments
@@tobiasyoder yes, i apologize for that. I guess I've grown too much used to size 12 font justified text with no paragraph breaks from reading AO3 fanfiction. not even trying to be quirky. my brain is fried
I guess I need to watch this cause I do agree with a lot of antinatalist points but I also realise that there could definitely be information that that might change my views.
Honestly, I think it's an astonishingly weak argument. If you're looking for potentially convincing challenges to your antinatalist views, you don't need to watch this video.
@@KaneB I'm not too set on my views on the subject and don't really care all that much cause it's one of those beliefs that is incredibly difficult to convince someone of. Just feels like a fruitless endeavour. But great video so far, keep it up. You are a very good communicator
@@unwono Thanks!
@@KaneBwhich videos are best for that
This is not a racist argument, in fact only a companion in guilt argument, but there are many other paradigmatic cases of immorality that are more prevalent in Africa and in Black communities outside of Africa. Take murder, theft and female genital mutilation. This is much like fertility due to socio-economic factors but is used by racists. Anti-natalism isn’t too different in that regard.
Her entire argument is just one big appeal to consequences, basically.
Anti-natalism is a personal choice to not have children. It doesn't advocate for societal enforcement or compelling others not to have children.
I take AN to mean "A disposition categorically against imposing conscious life, that it is morally wrong to do so" which involves normativity about others actions, not just your own. One could limit the criteria however they want, anthroprocentric or Sentiocentric or something else, that is arbitrary and up to the individuals frameworks.
I think what you are referring to here is 'childfree' , which is just a personal choice and not normative.
BRO U NEED A WOMAN THIS SHIT IS CRAZY
He is arguing for the sake of it. He knows it's a weak claim to hold
Let my boy be
Honest question. What does it mean for something to not be sexist?
I ask because as I talk to feminists it becomes very difficult to identify where are the parameters that show where sexism ends.
I don't want to say that sexism is identical to all conceivable human experiences, but I really struggle to argue otherwise.
By reeding the comments it seems to me that you would agree with Benatar's misanthropic argument for anti-natalism (humans cause lots of suffering to others, therefore we shouldn't produce more of them) . But you have said that, srictly speaking, you're not an antinatalist. Why don't you agree with the misanthropic argument?
First, I don't think there's anything wrong with bringing into existence members of a species that causes vast amounts of suffering. Second, I'm not really a misanthrope. Where I agree with Benatar is in his pessimistic assessment of the value of human life, but to me, humanity is more tragic than evil. In any case, while my own view of humanity is pessimistic, it doesn't bother me that other people take an optimistic view. It's okay to make a commitment to the human project and contribute to its continuation, either because you think humanity is all-things-considered good as it is or because you hope for humanity to become better in the future.
Me and my fiance are anti natalist and its the opposite of harmful. Lmao. Saved you all 37 minutes.
a video about nature of the god would be quite interesting i guess
I'm not sure that would be interesting to me, I'm afraid.
God is noumena. Don't fuck with noumena
How about a video on the nature of unicorn glitter farts to go along with it.
actually "nature" is noumena, not god. the concept of god is inappropriate and has a lot of baggage from christianity
@@KPenceable i think, god's nature is not a noumena, because even if we can't determine some attributes of god(by the way i think we can), at least we know that he can create something from nothing. if there are some branches of hinduism or budism that doesn't agree on this, i don't have any idea about them but, in terms of philosophy of religion, i think, atheists, deists etc. will agree that the only certain thing that we know about god's nature is that he can create. So, i think god's nature is not a noumena according to philosophy of religion, like i said, in terms of theology it may be variable.
Frank sounds like Elon Musk
(Derogative)
TY!
Only on the 4th rock-Y planet from our SUN,,,
Saying anti-natalism prevents harm is like saying the Holocaust prevents anti-semitism
it atleast prevents harm for that would-be created individual, right?
Arguments like the one she outlined is why I can't take most discourse in AN circles seriously. Not that I don't lean AN, I do. But it's just a philosophical exercise more than a serious movement. Bringing about human extinction through voluntary AN if it could ever happen is going to suck anyway you do it. But if you are serious enough about it then any suffering that befalls one or more groups is a price worth paying since it's only a transitional cost till we obtain the final goal. Personally, the way I see it is we will either bring about extinction through environmental catastrophe, which includes climate change, or we might be snuffed out by an asteroid or something of that sort. As you said in a previous video most people are glad to be alive, and most people will continue to reproduce even if it is at a rate that will not replenish the population adequately enough. So it's not worth getting worked up about it.
algorithm
You need to stop conflating "childbearing people" with "women"
I'm presenting Overall's argument. That's how she frames it. I suppose I could have raised the criticism that she ignores trans men in framing it that way, but honestly I wasn't particularly interested in getting into that here.
Answer: I don't care
I'm not a big fan of antinatalism, but this video shows that it is still way better than feminism