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Qawali t1_j90g1gr wrote

Reply to comment by Maximus_En_Minimus in /r/philosophy Open Discussion Thread | February 13, 2023 by BernardJOrtcutt

i dont think anti-natalism is rooted in the fact that life has suffering, i think its more subjective to a persons individual belief that leads to it.

arthur schopenhauer, one of the “OG” anti natalists believed that life is almost entirely just suffering. and that happiness is really just the extremely temporary removal of said suffering.

from a “philosophical anti-natalist” viewpoint, schopenhauer does not believe people should have kids because experiencing life itself is inherently a bad thing.

but from a young person seeing the world burning, society collapsing, another world war approaching, then yes, they would be an anti natalist because they want to prevent their children from experiencing that suffering, not because they believe experiencing consciousness/life is suffering.

the question is - do you think it’s selfish? to say life is not worth living, and then to drive society and all life into death and nothingness because you believe that experience is only bad, and that everyone who believes otherwise is biased, is that not selfish? thats something ive been asking myself. who am i to even answer the question of whether life is worth living?

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Maximus_En_Minimus t1_j92zzfs wrote

  • Life is suffering and life has suffering are not mutually exclusive, however the latter is a predicate of the former. I think you are confusing anti-natalism with Pessimism, which is not a predicate of its believing. Only because many anti-natalists are also pessimist, and derive their natalist views from their pessimism, does not mean it is necessary to be one. Is also doesn’t exactly follow that if one is a pessimist, one thus has to be an anti-natalist. Nietzsche was originally a pessimist, due to Schopenhauer, and - in his later writings - still held heavily to a metaphysics of strife (in the periphery of suffering), yet I don’t believe he was anti-natalist.

  • I discuss a Metaphysics of Suffering, of which Schopenhauer held, at the end of the Well-being Argument, of which it is a substratum off. Itis important to note that Schopenhauer was not the ‘OG’ anti-natalist, as the position goes all the way back to early christianity, buddhism, and ascetic anti-demiurgicalists (often referred to non-academically as ‘Gnostics’).

  • I don’t agree with the phrasing of the question, it is skewed to disfavour anti-natalists. Anti-natalism is about whether or not you should bring someone into existence. Not whether it is worth living once you are within it. If I was to re-write it:

‘Is it selfish to believe one does not have the right and should not bring new people into existence, because it has suffering within it; further, to persuade others to also do the same and, if sufficiently successful, lead humanities extinction within a generation?’

Then: No.

You ask: ‘who am I to even decide if life is worth living?’ - well, there is no life beyond your own, whence you perish, so you are literally the one to decide if your life is worth living or not.

As for the non-existent, I would ask: who are you to bring them into the world? - especially if you don’t know if it is worthwhile?

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