0 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Is there any actual argument against antinatalism
One is that the decision not to have children is itself making a decision for a non-existent person.
Are you not contradicting yourself? You've just pointed out, rightly, that non-existent people have no well-being. The decision to reproduce, then, is only meaningful when the decision being made results in the creation of a person who has been impacted.
Another is that it ignores the virtual universal moral position that parents make decisions for children until they are capable of making their own decisions.
We don't hold that parents have an inalienable right to dispose with their children however they see fit, though. Many actions parents take towards their children are frowned upon, and some can result in those children being taken away and/or the parents imprisoned. ANs, believing that birth is more or less harm, draw the line of moral permissibility a fair bit further out than you might.
Comment by EffectiveSalamander at 14/07/2024 at 22:57 UTC
5 upvotes, 1 direct replies
No, I'm not contracting myself. If it is wrong to make a decision for a non-existent person, you're making a decision for a non-existent person whether you decide to have children or not.
While parents don't have absolute authority to make decisions for children, that's a red herring. It doesn't mean they have none. There are things that parents are condemned for, but the decision to have children isn't one of them.
Anti-natalists are free to draw whatever lines for themselves, but they insist on drawing those lines for everyone else. I'm not trying to claim that anti-natalists are wrong to not have children, but I do claim that they are wrong in insisting that it is wrong to have children.