The Case For Antinatalism
Steelmaning The Position
Introduction
In this article, I aim to present the strongest possible case for antinatalism, defined here as the position that procreation is, in most cases, morally wrong. This issue, I believe, is too neglected both in academic and informal circles given its importance. Let’s dive into it.
The Misanthropic Case for Antinatalism
Misanthropic arguments for antinatalism assert that procreation is wrong due to the harm future children will cause during their lives. There are various forms of misanthropic arguments, here is mine:
The majority of people are not vegan, and it is highly likely that their children will not be vegan either. In a separate article, I estimated that the average non-vegan is responsible for the deaths of approximately 223 animals annually (including both land and marine animals). Over a lifetime, this equates to thousands of animals. Therefore, if the average person refrains from procreating, it could prevent the deaths of thousands of animals. For this reason, I argue that procreation is immoral.
In a syllogistic form :
1) If an action will bring about the death of thousands of innocent individuals, and if that action is not necessary to prevent a harm of similar or greater magnitude, then this action shouldn’t be done.
2) Procreating will bring about the death of thousands of innocent individuals, and procreating is not necessary to prevent a harm of similar or greater magnitude.
3) Procreation is immoral.
I focus here on the victims that the average humans cause through his eating habits, because it is the biggest source of harm in a human life, but there are many other ways in which the average human causes great harm. An example would be the vivisection industry, which wouldn’t exist if humans were not around. Altough it’s difficult to estimate, it seems that at least 100’000’000+ animals are tortured and killed each year worldwide in vivisection labs. E.g, a 2008 study published in the journal Alternatives to Laboratory Animals estimated that approximately 115 million animals were used in scientific research worldwide in 2005, and it’s very likely that the number is even biggger now in 2025. For more informations on vivisection, see also this and this.
The Philanthropic Case for Antinatalism
The cost of raising a child in the U.S. from birth to age 18 is estimated to be around $300,000. If this amount were instead donated to highly effective charities—such as the Against Malaria Foundation—it could potentially save between 54 and 100 human lives (considering it costs $3,000 to $5,500 to save a single human life). This is merely one example. Even greater impact could be achieved by supporting effective animal charities, given their higher effectiveness. I also recommend donating to animal charities over human charities because, because doing the latter is immoral, as I have argued in this article.
By choosing not to procreate and instead redirecting this money to effective charities, one could save dozens, if not hundreds, of lives. This idea was first brought to my attention in Stuart Rachels' article The Immorality of Having Children.
Compassionate Arguments for Antinatalism
I define compassionate arguments for antinatalism as arguments which contend that procreation is wrong because of the consequences it has for the future individuals brought into existence. Below, I present three such arguments:
My Own Risk-Based Argument
Here is my own Risk-Based Argument for antinatalism :
1) We should avoid being responsible for non-consensually putting people in situations in which they might experience extreme level of suffering and from which they may want to escape and the only escape is suicide, unless doing so is necessary to prevent a harm of similar or greater magnitude.
2) Procreation implies non-consensually putting people in situations in which they might experience extreme level of suffering and from which they may want to escape and the only escape is suicide, and it is not necessary in order to prevent a harm of similar or greater magnitude.
3) We should not procreate.
About (1):
Consider the following scenario: Suppose you hire someone to kidnap an individual and place them in a community of people. In general, the kidnapped individuals adapt well and find contentment in their new environment. However, a small percentage experience such profound dissatisfaction that they desperately wish to leave. Also, a non-negligible percentage of the people will at some point get tortuted by the community. Unfortunately, there is no way to exit the community; the only available escape is suicide. Clearly, such an action would be morally indefensible. This is precisely the ethical concern outlined in point (1).
About (2):
A small percentage of people experience life as unbearable and no longer wish to continue living, with suicide being the only mean of escape. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 720,000 people die by suicide each year worldwide. Additionally, for every suicide, there are an estimated 20 suicide attempts.
It is also crucial to recognize that suicide statistics are often underreported in many regions due to social stigma, cultural taboos, and legal concerns. As a result, the actual figures may be significantly higher than what is officially documented.
Furthermore, it is important to consider that suicide is both highly socially unacceptable and fundamentally opposed to our natural survival instincts. Given these strong deterrents, one must ask: What would the suicide rate be if these factors were not in place? If individuals could approach the decision more rationally, without societal pressures or instinctual barriers, it is plausible that the rate of suicide would be considerably higher than it currently is.
About the extreme levels of suffering : Anyone is under a non-negligible risk of experiencing extreme levels of suffering at least once during their life, whether it is from cancer, heart diseases, severe depression, being tortured, being raped, getting paralysed…
Finally, procreating is not necessary to prevent any harm, to the contrary, as I have argued with the misanthropic and the philanthropic argument, abstaining from procreating is very likely to reduce huge amount of harm.
Technical Note:
It is worth emphasizing the careful choice of wording in point (1). Instead of stating that "we should avoid putting people in situations from which they may want to escape," the phrasing "we should avoid being responsible for putting people in situations from which they may want to escape" has been intentionally used. This formulation aims to circumvent the non-identity problem.
The Risk-Based Argument
Inspired by Erik Magnusson’s article’s “On Risk-Based Arguments for Anti-Natalism”, I have modified his argument slightly to strengthen it:
It is impermissible to non-consensually impose a risk of catastrophic harm on others unless doing so is necessary to avoid harm of a similar or greater magnitude.
Bringing a child into existence entails non-consensually imposing a risk of catastrophic harm on that child, without this being necessary to prevent harm of a similar or greater magnitude.
Therefore, it is impermissible to bring children into existence.
The first premise seems quite plausible. For instance, if someone forced another person to play Russian roulette without a compelling reason (i.e., avoiding harm of similar or greater magnitude), this action would clearly be immoral. This is essentially what the first premise asserts.
The second premise seems quite robust as well. A child cannot consent to their own creation, as they do not exist prior to being brought into existence. Moreover, life inherently entails risks of catastrophic harm, such as cancer, heart disease, paralysis, severe depression, rape, torture, etc., or even death in itself, one could argue. The degree of risk varies, but these possibilities are universal. Importantly, bringing a child into existence is not necessary to prevent harm of a similar or greater scale. In fact, as argued earlier in the misanthropic and philanthropic arguments, refraining from procreation actively reduces harm.
The Responsibility-Based Argument
This argument, inspired by the work of Hereth and Ferrucci, has been modified slightly for clarity and strength:
We should avoid being responsible for non-trivial harms to others to which they neither consent nor are liable, unless doing so is necessary to prevent harm of a similar or greater magnitude.
If we create people, they will experience non-trivial harms to which they neither consent nor are liable, and these harms are not necessary to prevent harm of a similar or greater magnitude.
Therefore, we should avoid creating people.
The first premise seems quite plausible. For example, if you were to hire someone to break an innocent person’s arm without their consent and without doing so to prevent a harm of similar or greater magnitude, this action would be clearly immoral. This is the essence of the first premise.
The second premise seems correct as well. Every person, at some point in their life, suffers at least one harm comparable to having their arm broken, I don’t even need to give examples there I think. Future individuals cannot consent to these harms, as they do not yet exist. Moreover, creating them is not necessary to prevent a harm of similar or greater magnitude. Again, as I argued earlier with the misanthropic and philanthropic arguments, the reverse is true: refraining from procreation prevents significant harm.
Addressing A Common Objection To Compassionate Arguments For Antinatalism
A common response to risk-based, responsibility-based, and consent-based 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.
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 niche philosophers 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 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. As mentioned and sourced earlier in this article, 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.
Given these considerations, I do not believe that the ‘retroactive, tacit consent’ objection succeeds in addressing the compassionate arguments for antinatalism. It’s also important to note that, even if this objection succeeded, it would still not be enough to justify procreation, as it doesn’t address the misanthropic and philanthropic arguments for antinatalism.
Quality of Life Arguments
I have chosen not to include quality-of-life arguments in this article, as I find them more contentious. These arguments claim that procreation is immoral because the average quality of life is sufficiently poor to render existence not worth starting. I consider these arguments to be very much worth discussing though. For those interested, I have written a short article presenting a quality-of-life argument of my own.
Conclusion
This was my steelman of the antinatalism position. I first presented a misanthropic argument which argues that procreation is wrong in most cases given the harm that the future created person will cause. I think this argument is extremely strong, at the least when applied to non-vegans.
I then presented a philanthropic argument which argues that procreation is wrong because the ressources needed for raising a child could do much more good if spent differently. I also consider this argument to be very strong, and this time, also when it comes to vegans.
I finally presented two ‘compassionate’ arguments for antinatalism, which argue that procreation is wrong because of what it does to the future created person. I consider those arguments to be more controversial, although I still take them very seriously. After this, I discussed a common objection to compassionate arguments, which I named the ‘retroactive, tacit consent objection’, and explained why I think it fails.
To conclude, I believe that the case for antinatalism is remarkably strong, and I anticipate that in the coming years, the position will gain greater recognition and popularity—particularly within academic circles—as more ethicists engage with and appreciate the strength of these arguments. I suspect that a lot of the reluctance to take antinatalism seriously comes from the fact that it confronts deeply ingrained social norms and powerful natural instincts instilled in us by evolution. These factors, among others, make it difficult for many to show an appropriate level of consideration towards the position, despite its moral appeal.