Addressing The Best Objection To The "Prevention-of-Harm-For-The-Being-Created" Arguments For Antinatalism
Another Extract From My Bigger Article "The Case For Antinatalism"
Introduction
See my bigger article “The Case For Antinatalism” for an explanation and examples of what are “Prevention-of-Harm-For-The-Being-Created” arguments for antinatalism.
In my view, the best response to those kind of arguments for antinatalism is the claim that most people seem to retroactively and tacitly consent to their creation. This objection resembles the ‘life endorsement objection’ and the ‘hypothetical consent objection’ discussed by Asheel Singh. The objection suggests that since most people do not actively revolt against the fact of their creation—and many even appear happy to have been born—procreation is justified, despite the imposition of significant risks of extreme harm, guaranteed non-trivial harm, and the absence of prior consent.
Addressing The Objection
However, I believe this response fails for the following reasons:
First, even granting that most people give their retroactive, tacit consent, this consent is neither well-informed nor rational. Most individuals have never seriously reflected on the morality of their creation, nor will they ever do so. Only a small percentage of philosophically inclined people seriously engage in such reflections. As a result, this consent is, at best, largely intuitive and, at worst, irrational.
Second, even if people were to reflect carefully and still provide retroactive consent, such consent should be taken with caution. The topic of procreation is heavily influenced by societal norms and natural instincts shaped by evolution, both of which strongly favor natalism. These biases make it difficult to arrive at an objective conclusion.
Finally, even if, in most cases, retroactive consent were given after careful reflection and without bias, I still think it wouldn’t justify procreation. There remains a significant, non-negligible risk of creating individuals who won’t retroactively consent to their creation. This is typically true of most antinatalists, who represent a growing number of people. It has been estimated that there are 36’000’000 antinatalists worldwide.
It will also plausibly be true, for instance, in the case of people commiting or attempting suicide. According to conservative estimates by the WHO, there are approximately 720,000 suicides per year, with an estimated 20 times more attempted suicides. I don’t think one is justified to take such a risk.
Conclusion
Given these considerations, I do not believe that the ‘retroactive, tacit consent’ objection succeeds in addressing the prevention-of-harm-for-the-being-created arguments for antinatalism. It’s also important to remembear that, even if this objection succeeded, it would still not be enough to justify procreation, as it would only address this kind of arguments for antinataism, but it wouldn’t address the prevention-of-harm-to-other-beings and better-allocation-of-ressources arguments for antinatalism.
I should mention, I haven't read your larger article for antinatalism so if you respond to any of this elsewhere I apologize!
Re your first response: I don't see why most people's reflection on whether or not they retroactively consent to their birth is poorly informed or irrational. Surely, if anyone is well positioned to evaluate if they consent to their birth, it is the person in question. It also just strikes me as quite implausible that most people are irrational when evaluating their own life, or at least if they are, they must also be deeply irrational about a wide array of other matters.
Re your second point: It's not clear to me why these 'biases' should be disqualifying. My tendency to consent to the hairdresser I pay cutting my hair is heavily influenced by the societal norms I find myself in, but that doesn't undermine my ability to consent to the activity. In other words, the fact that societal norms incline me towards a particular activity doesn't mean I cannot meaningfully consent to that activity.
Re your final point: Firstly I think it requires further empirical evidence that most anti-natalists don't retroactively consent to their own creation. Also, no offence meant, but the napkin math in the reddit post you link surely does not seem like strong enough evidence to conclude such a large number of anti natalists exist. For one thing it doesn't adjust for duplicate accounts, or people who were on the subreddit and left, etc. I think your case is much stronger from suicides, and I agree it's at least quite plausible they would not retroactively consent. That said, moreso than the average person it seems quite plausible that the suicidal person's judgements about retroactive consent will be less reliable than the typical person's. If someone is suicidal they are plausibly in a highly erratic mental state, or suffering from various neurological conditions which could impair their judgement. I think it would take quite a bit of work to section off the 'calm and reflective' suicidal individuals and figure out what their judgements would be. My guess is that they would represent a much smaller portion of suicidal individuals, and will undercut the case from suicidality substantially.