Another new argument for antinatalism
I call this argument the moral monster argument.
First, what do I mean by a moral monster? A moral monster, on my usage, is someone who is morally entitled to visit terrible injustices on others.
Here's an example. Imagine a woman is just walking along, minding her own business, when suddenly an angel zaps a baby into her. Is she obliged to undergo all the strains and pains of childbirth or is she entitled to have the baby removed, even though this will kill the baby?
I think the answer is obvious: she's entitled to have the baby removed. Yet that's to visit a terrible injustice on the baby. The baby was innocent and did not deserve to die. She's a moral monster, then. She does nothing wrong in aborting the baby. Far from it: she's perfectly entitled to do so and it is not to her discredit at all that she does so. Yet she has visited a terrible injustice on another.
Sometimes - often, in fact - we are entitled to act in ways that will result in terrible injustices befalling others. Most of us live such lifestyles. If you're living comfortably, then you're lifestyle has a very large injustice footprint, doesn't it? But you're not obliged to give up the lifestyle. You are innocent and the situation is not of your making. And you deserve a happy harm free life. Your comfortable lifestyle does not even come close to what you deserve. So you do not have to give it up, I think. But you are a moral monster. You are - like the woman who got zapped pregnant above - perfectly entitled to do things that are going to create huge injustices for others.
None of this is your fault. Indeed, it's precisely because it is not your fault that you are the moral monster you are. For instance, if the woman above had freely decided to get pregnant, that may well affect - dramatically affect - her entitlement to visit the injustice on the innocent child. But she didn't - she was zapped pregnant by an angel. And if we created ourselves and placed ourselves in this world, knowing full well what kind of injustice-footprints comfortable lives here would leave behind, then that plausibly dramatically affects our entitlement to leave those footprints. But we did not create ourselves and place ourselves here. We are not responsible for our situation at all. We have been zapped here. And as such we are entitled to leave those injustice-harm footprints. And that's terrible. It's not to our discredit. But it is terrible, nevertheless. We are moral monsters, then.
And that's what procreative acts create: they create moral monsters. They create persons who will be entitled to do what they can to secure for themselves comfortable lives in a world in which securing such things involves visiting great injustices on others.
The moral monsters do no wrong in leading their monstrous lives. But it is wrong, surely, to create such beasts?
First, what do I mean by a moral monster? A moral monster, on my usage, is someone who is morally entitled to visit terrible injustices on others.
Here's an example. Imagine a woman is just walking along, minding her own business, when suddenly an angel zaps a baby into her. Is she obliged to undergo all the strains and pains of childbirth or is she entitled to have the baby removed, even though this will kill the baby?
I think the answer is obvious: she's entitled to have the baby removed. Yet that's to visit a terrible injustice on the baby. The baby was innocent and did not deserve to die. She's a moral monster, then. She does nothing wrong in aborting the baby. Far from it: she's perfectly entitled to do so and it is not to her discredit at all that she does so. Yet she has visited a terrible injustice on another.
Sometimes - often, in fact - we are entitled to act in ways that will result in terrible injustices befalling others. Most of us live such lifestyles. If you're living comfortably, then you're lifestyle has a very large injustice footprint, doesn't it? But you're not obliged to give up the lifestyle. You are innocent and the situation is not of your making. And you deserve a happy harm free life. Your comfortable lifestyle does not even come close to what you deserve. So you do not have to give it up, I think. But you are a moral monster. You are - like the woman who got zapped pregnant above - perfectly entitled to do things that are going to create huge injustices for others.
None of this is your fault. Indeed, it's precisely because it is not your fault that you are the moral monster you are. For instance, if the woman above had freely decided to get pregnant, that may well affect - dramatically affect - her entitlement to visit the injustice on the innocent child. But she didn't - she was zapped pregnant by an angel. And if we created ourselves and placed ourselves in this world, knowing full well what kind of injustice-footprints comfortable lives here would leave behind, then that plausibly dramatically affects our entitlement to leave those footprints. But we did not create ourselves and place ourselves here. We are not responsible for our situation at all. We have been zapped here. And as such we are entitled to leave those injustice-harm footprints. And that's terrible. It's not to our discredit. But it is terrible, nevertheless. We are moral monsters, then.
And that's what procreative acts create: they create moral monsters. They create persons who will be entitled to do what they can to secure for themselves comfortable lives in a world in which securing such things involves visiting great injustices on others.
The moral monsters do no wrong in leading their monstrous lives. But it is wrong, surely, to create such beasts?
Comments (10)
If I understand Julio Cabrera correctly, you are describing a similar argument. He thinks that this world is morally disqualifying precisely because it entails that we be moral monsters. There's no way around it.. If we want to get our "projects accomplished", it becomes part of it.. whether destroying other life, manipulation, or frustrating each other's preferences and in order to justify it.
But that's not yet a moral monster. What makes someone a moral monster is that they are morally entitled to live an injustice wreaking life.
Of course, there are limits and we are obliged to do 'something' to ameliorate injustices (and parents are obliged to do a great deal - they ought to sacrifice their comforts). But not much. For the most part, we do no wrong in living comfortable lives of great destruction. Which is terrible.
People will say that this is more a matter of policy, and can change to some degree and is measurable, so can be evaluated. In other words, they might say that it is not intrinsic but simply the state of current affairs due to bad practice. Even if they agreed to the premise that there must be some injustice, they would say this can be minimized to some (or large) extent, if we changed our ways.
Note: that's a good criticism. This: "you antinatalists are miserable misanthropes and you want us all to die and blah di blah di blah" is not.
In response: first, even if the criticism goes through, the moral monster argument would still establish something like antinatalism (and that may still qualify as antinatalism, depending on how you use the term). For it would still show that refraining from procreation is a good thing to do, it's just that it is beyond the call of duty. That is, refraining from procreation would be a supererogatory thing to do.
Second - and again, even if the argument goes through - the point would only apply to those for whom it really is true that procreation is needed for them to secure a happy life. The fact is that procreating is one of those activities that people have been taught to think will make them happy, but that seems highly unlikely to. It is, in this respect, analogous to thinking that taking up heroin is a good recipe for a happy life. For some, perhaps. But for most - including most who are convinced it is - it is not. There's what will actually make you happy, and there's what you believe will do so, and although the two are often the same, they are sometimes not. Most people procreate without having given it much thought and they do so in ignorance of what it is likely to do to them. So, 'in fact' it may be only a minority for whom procreation is needed to secure happiness. That so many 'think' it will make them happy just reflects the widespread stupidity that infects the bulk of humanity.
Third, the criticism to some extent addresses a straw man, as the claim is not that we are entitled to do anything whatever in order to try and secure for ourselves the happy lives we deserve. The point is that there are limits to what can be demanded of us - we who are not responsible for our situation, that is - in terms of preventing injustices from befalling others. The fact the world is a very unjust place and the fact our own actions are partly responsible for this does, I think, give rise to us having an obligation to do 'something' to ameliorate them. We're not total moral monsters, then. We're not wholly excused from considering to what extent our actions contribute to the injustices of the world. We're not wholly excused from making sacrifices, especially not those that it is very easy for us to make. Refraining from procreating is very plausibly a sacrifice it is very easy to make and that would make a very big difference in terms of how much injustice it would prevent. By contrast giving up meat, say, is harder and makes scant difference in real terms. So in terms of the sacrifice/benefit ratio, refraining from procreating is very plausibly something we are obliged to do, even though we are moral monsters.
Only the worst, the most diabolical, of criminals deserve to die! Draw your own conclusions about abortion/antinatalism.
1. Algos (sorrow/joy)
2. Thanatos (death/life)
Pro-choicers may get themselves off the hook by saying the fetus feels no pain (1) when being aborted but they're still killing life and hence abortion is unethical (2).