Procreation Is a Murder

-The Case for Voluntary Human Extinction

by Anti Procreation

If destruction is violence, creation, too, is violence. Procreation, therefore,

involves violence. The creation of what is bound to perish certainly

involves violence.

-Mahatma Gandhi

1
The Anti-natalist Manifesto1

We were forcefully brought into existence even though we weren’t asked

to be born, nor consented thereto. This is unsolicited. Our parents brought

us into existence knowing that every human dies very well, without a

shadow of guilt. How can’t procreation with knowledge it would lead to

death sooner or later, well within 130 years a murder?2 Even if we choose

not to call it a murder, it’s because it’s more heinous crime, not less

heinous crime than murder. Murder only make death happen a few

decades earlier of somebody who was condemned to death by

procreation; whereas procreation condemns nonexistent person to life

and death, making the victim suffer up to about 120 years and die.3 If

1This manifesto have been published on Reddit /r/antinatalism and

Amazon Kindle Store under the pen name ‘antiprocreation’, I edited a little
bit for this book
2https://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?
qid=20070815053516AAwtavs
3 Crisp, Quentin S, ANTINATALISM: A THOUGHT EXPERIMENT, Living
In The Future, Issue 2, http://www.litfmag.net/issue-2/anti-natalism-a-
thought-experiment/
2
murder is a crime, procreation is a sin.4 The consequence of every

procreation is fatal and tragic.5 Every maternity ward is a crematorium.6

Lack of capacity to give consent do not mean somebody can inflict any

action to the person that lacks the capacity to give informed consent. For

example, minor under age of consent deemed to lack the capacity to give

consent, so any sexual contact with such minor is deemed rape

unconditionally (statutory rape). Even though for example, medical

treatment, vaccination, and compulsory education are inflicted without the

informed consent of the child, such action is deemed to be (whether real

or purported) best interest of the child to be justifiable. For procreation,

the child neither given consent thereto nor have any interest to come into

existence, although once came into existence, the child may have the

interest to continue their existence.

4Existential Depression, Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/

permalink.php?id=229835853787959&story_fbid=334158626689014
5I was inspired by a warning sign at the Golden Gate Bridge, San
Francisco
6Watts, Alan W. http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/164339-i-am-what-
happens-between-the-maternity-ward-and-the, Perry, Sarah, Every
Cradle is a Grave, 2014
3
Life is indeed life imprisonment without eligibility for parole, followed by

the death penalty. 7 Even if we are natural born citizen of our country of

citizenship, our stay is only allowed temporarily, we can get deported from

the cosmos at any time, condemned to death and executed for illegal

immigration. Nobody on the planet allowed to stay for more than 130

years, everybody was deported, i.e. executed before she becomes 130

years old.

Article 2, Paragraph 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the

European Union stipulates that “No one shall be condemned to the death

penalty, or executed.”. How can’t be every procreation a condemnation to

death? How can’t be every death an execution? There’s no intrinsic

reason to think that procreation is not a violation of the right to life.

Death is the end of everything, an annihilation; that’s all. If we are already

condemned to life, we can continue to live without suiciding. But why

breed to only endure excruciating torment for decades and die? Breed to

exploit as companion human animal? Breed to provide a sibling? Breed to

exploit as an insurance and pension for old age? Breed as an

investment? Breed to perpetuate genes and last name? Breed to

brainwash your religion or ideology? Breed to perpetuate tribe, nation or

7Existential Depression, Facebook Page, https://www.facebook.com/pg/

Existential-Depression-229835853787959/about/?
entry_point=about_section_header&ref=page_internal
4
human race? Breed because sex with a condom is less pleasant? Breed

because contraception is inconvenient? Breed because abortion is

inconvenient? Breed for no reason at all? How selfish could it be breeding

for such frivolous reasons or no reason at all?

As the partial destruction of the brain is a partial destruction of self,

complete destruction of the brain is a complete destruction of self.8 Death

in neuroscience means reversal to nonexistence before birth; procreation

is a reversible process by death. But philosophically, procreation before

birth is nonexistence of no one, i.e. no one is actually subject to

nonexistence; whereas nonexistence after death is nonexistence of

somebody theretofore existed, i.e. one specific person is subject to

nonexistence, annihilated, destroyed and become no more. 9

There are documented cases of procreation to harvest organ, for

example, bone mallow or a kidney to provide for one’s child with a

disease, for example, leukaemia or renal failure.10 But if we think

procreation to exploit to save another life is evil, we must conclude that

8Carrier, Richard. Sense and Goodness Without God: A Defense of

Metaphysical Naturalism, AuthorHouse, 2005, p. 152
9Benatar, David. "Why it is better never to come into existence."
American Philosophical Quarterly 34.3 (1997): p. 350.
10The New York Times, More Babies Being Born to Be Donors of Tissue,
4 Jun 1991, http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/04/health/more-babies-
being-born-to-be-donors-of-tissue.html
5
procreation to exploit for frivolous reasons or for no reason at all is eviler.

Nobody can procreate for sake of nonexistent person. Unless it’s for sake

of a person brought into existence11, it’s exploitation of a person brought

into existence for sake of somebody else; instrumentalisation thereof.

A potential person who wasn’t born will never die. Eternal life is

impossible, but immortality is possible by not coming into existence. Of

course, we are already born, it’s too late. But we can prevent our potential

descendants condemned to the life and thereby condemned to death.

Indeed, procreation is the root of all evil. If there’s no procreation, there

would be no death, war, massacre, cancer, malaria, AIDS/HIV, refugee

crisis, female genital mutilation, rape, and in numerous human rights

violations. If there’s no procreation, Hitler, Stalin, Mao would never be

brought into existence, no person to die under regimes thereof. But as 6

million Jews were killed by the holocaust, procreation and governmental

aid and abet of such crime killing 6 million people in 40 days. Although

our death ageism obscuring facing this fact, we should face the truth.

We have a duty not to bring a potential person who will suffer into

existence. But we don’t have any duty to bring a potential person who will

11Benatar, David, Better Never to Have Been, Oxford University Press,

2006, pp. 129-130
6
be so-called happy into existence.12 No pleasure can compensate any

suffering and, death. A person under least worst condition too suffering

immense amount, that includes, but not limited to, menstrual pain,

urination and defecation, female and male genital mutilation, corporal

punishment, compulsory education, immigration regulation, incarceration,

governmental regulation, dictatorship, totalitarianism, human rights

violations, restriction of freedom and rights, taxation, hunger, starvation,

HIV/AIDS, malaria, unrequited love, discrimination, poverty, scarcity,

boredom, cancer, ageing, dementia, diminishing marginal utility and

disutility of labour. Even a person under the least bad condition can’t

purchase all goods and services. Even a person under the least bad

condition can’t escape death.

Millions of people care about sufferings in the world and try to alleviate it.

Yet very few of them realise people will not suffer if they are not brought

into existence. Indeed, the only way to prevent suffering -not just

alleviate- of a potential person concerned is not to bring that person into

existence. Of course, it’s too late for people who were already brought

into existence. But it’s not too late to save potential person about to be

brought into existence from suffering.

12 Ibid. p. 32
7
Whereas all humanitarianism heretofore only pertains to the alleviation of

suffering and save no life, only procrastinating death a few decades,

thereby extending their time of suffering a few decades; anti-natalism is

only humanitarianism that prevents suffering and death, saving potential

people from life. Only anti-natalism can eliminate the very need of

alleviation or elimination of suffering.

If we recognise human dignity, human rights or freedom of the potential

person about to be brought into existence, procreation is not consistent

with the principle of human dignity, human rights or freedom. It should be

noted that procreations are conducted with the knowledge of all the

human miseries their child about to face, including violence, disease, and

death. If procreation is conducted with the knowledge of miseries of life,

how can we deny procreation indeed is a form of violence?

Indeed forceful infliction of unsolicited life to more than 130 million people

every year is the biggest humanitarian crisis in the world.

Do your (potential) daughters and sons a ‘favour’, and a duty, by not to

forcefully breeding them, saving her/him from life13, the only way you can

save them from all sufferings and death of your children.

13https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?
story_fbid=828877130550492&id=229835853787959
8
Do your friends’ (potential) children a favour, and a duty, by convincing

them not to commit a sin of procreation, saving them from life, the only

way you can save them from all sufferings and death of your children.

The cosmos is a gigantic annihilation camp. Let us end the vicious cycle

of life; the curse of the selfish gene.

Dear sisters and brothers, let us take the honourable course of

therapeutic extinction.14

Anti-natalists of all countries, unite!15

14Influenced by Pizzolatto, Nic, True Detective, Season 1, Episode 1,

Rust Cohle’s voice
15Obviously inspired by Marx, Karl, The Communist Manifesto. Here I
shall note that I generally hold libertarian or classical liberal view in
governance of existent human animals. Of course, I have completely
contrarian views from majority libertarian views on the views pertaining to
moral status of non-human and/or pre-sentient sentient beings
9
Selected quotes

If destruction is violence, creation, too, is violence. Procreation, therefore,

involves violence. The creation of what is bound to perish certainly

involves violence. -Mahatma Gandhi

Suppose for a moment that all procreation stops, it will only mean that all

destruction will cease. Moksha is nothing but release from the cycle of

births and deaths. This alone is believed to be the highest bliss, and

rightly. -Mahatma Gandhi

Sleep is good, death is better; but of course, the best would be never to

have been born at all. -Heinrich Heine

Every cradle is a grave. -Sarah Perry

The fact of having been born is a very bad augury for immortality. -George

Santayana

It is curious that while good people go to great lengths to spare their

children from suffering, few of them seem to notice that the one (and only)

10
guaranteed way to prevent all the suffering of their children is not to bring

those children into existence in the first place. -David Benatar

We are born between faeces and urine. -St Augustine

We may ask ourselves whether we have a moral right to create people

and thus condemn them to life and death without their consent. -Martin

Neuffer

Murder maybe a crime, but procreation is a sin. -Existential Depression,

Facebook Page

Life is a prison of consciousness and sentience, a life sentence followed

by the death penalty -Ibid.

You cannot save a life, only save someone from life. -Ibid.

[H]aving children was a thing worse than murder. Murder is the curtailing

of a life that would have ended anyway; having a child creates a death

that would never have been. -Quentin S Crisp

11
Table of contents

The Anti-natalist Manifesto

Selected quotes

Table of contents

Chapter 1. Arguments for anti-natalism

Argument 1. Death

The badness of death

Ontological symmetry and axiological asymmetry of pre-vital and

post-mortem nonexistence

Death ageism

Procreation as a cause of death

Comparison of procreative and non-procreative infliction of death

with annihilation account on the badness of death

Comparison of procreative and non-procreative infliction of death

with deprivation account on the badness of death

Voluntary and involuntary cessation of existence

Procreation as a violation of right to life

Suicide argument
12
Lethal and non-lethal sex thought experiment

Death and procreation as an infinite harm

On the claim “Death and suffering gives life meaning”

Argument 2. Suffering

Cancer and Torture

Menstrual pain and parental corporal punishment

Everyday pains and sufferings

Sufferings of infants and children

Compulsory education

Existential angst

Lack of free will

Disutility of labour

Desire frustration

Self-control frustration and regret

Retrospective regret on decisions one has made

Pregnancy anxiety

Freedom frustration

Children’s disenfranchised status

Immigration frustration

Damnation risk: possibility of eternal torment

Human factory farming risk (anthropophagic risk)

13
Suffering footprint of procreation

Argument 3. Benatar’s asymmetry

The Basic Asymmetry

Benatar’s Four Other Asymmetries

Augmented asymmetry: why procreation is always a harm even if

there’s no suffering

The objection that hypothetically infinite pleasure is impossible

Negative Utilitarianism

Argument 4. Consent

Lack of consent of the child

Unsolicitedness of life (life as an unsolicited gift)

Right to cognitive self-determination (cognitive liberty)

Right to ontological self-determination (ontological liberty)

Retrospective Consent

Argument 5. Treating a child as an instrument

Procreation as an instrumentalisation of the child

Instrumentalisation as violation of human dignity

Argument 6. Orphans

Argument 7. Overpopulation and environment

Argument 8. Animal holocaust

14
Argument 9. (Un)aesthetic

Chapter 2. Anti-natalist activism

Contraception

Alternative entertainment methods

Non-human animal companion animal/robot

Girls’ education, prosperity

Prosperity and education in general

Vegans/Animal Rights activists

Kantians and deontologists

Child rights activists

Existing anti-natalist movements

Chapter 3. Anti-natalist policy

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Natural-born-citizen clause of the US Constitution

Impunity and immunity for procreative infliction of death and other

harms

15
Procreation as a tort (wrongful life cause of action)

Procreation tax

Procreation tax usage for universal basic income

Procreation tax usage for universal cryonics

Children’s rights

State discouragement of procreation

Chapter 4. Moral complexities

Is it immoral to save a life?: the negative externality of beneficence

Prima facie duties

Procreative externality of saving life

Carnistic externality of saving life

Carnistic externality of poverty alleviation

Philanthropic exploitation of non-human animals

Unavoidable harms to non-human animals by even vegans

Moral Dilemmas in Anti-natalism Advocacy

Maleficence on the sentient being for the beneficence of the same

sentient being

Maleficence on the sentient being for the beneficence of the other

sentient beings

16
Impossibility of universal beneficence

Professional duty and non-professional duty

Chapter 5. Miscellaneous

Pro-death view on abortion

Non-human animal breeding

Legal personhood of non-human sentient beings

Legal personhood of pre-sentient sentient beings

Possible dysgenic impact of anti-natalism

A response to techno-optimists

Asymmetry in our capacity to reduce and inflict suffering

17
Chapter 1. Arguments for anti-natalism

Argument 1. Death

The badness of death

No one wants to die.16 Those who wishes death do so because the

quality of that person’s life is so unbearable. Those who request for

euthanasia or assisted suicide do so because life becomes worse than

death (under their preference)

Ontological symmetry and axiological asymmetry of pre-vital and

post-mortem nonexistence 17

View Pre-vital nonexistence Post-mortem


nonexistence

Objective Nonexistence Nonexistence

Epicurean Subjectively neither Subjectively neither

existence nor existence nor
nonexistence nonexistence

Benatarian Nonexistence of nobody Nonexistence of

who exists somebody used to exist

16Jobs, Steve, Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address,

Stanford University, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
17
The term was coined by Kauffman, Ferederik, see “Pre-vital and post-
mortem nonexistence”, American Philosophical Quarterly
18
Account of badness Pre-vital nonexistence Post-mortem

nonexistence

Deprivation No (Not deprived of Yes (A sentient person

anything, because theretofore existent is
there’s nobody deprived of prospects of
theretofore existent to be good things in life he or
deprived) she would otherwise
enjoy)

Annihilation No (No sentience Yes (A sentient person

theretofore existent to theretofore existent is
annihilate) annihilated)

Of course, there’re arguments claiming that nonexistence before birth

(more accurately, pre-sentience nonexistence or pre-vital nonexistence) is

the same as nonexistence after death (more accurately, post-annihilation

nonexistence or post-mortem nonexistence). Of course, pre-vital and

post-mortem nonexistence are (ontologically, neurologically and

cognitively) symmetrical.

But it does not follow that pre-vital and post-mortem nonexistence are

axiologically symmetrical. That is to say, there're crucial asymmetries in

ethical implications (axiological asymmetry) of pre-vital and post-mortem

nonexistence. Prof Benatar argued, whereas pre-vital nonexistence is

that do not actually happen to anybody, death is something that happens

to somebody.18

18
Benatar, David. "Why it is better never to come into existence."
American Philosophical Quarterly 34.3 (1997)
19
Also, a theory on why death is a bad thing, which is called deprivation

account on the badness of death, suggests that death is bad because

death deprives good things in life dead person would otherwise enjoy.

David Benatar supplemented deprivation account with annihilation

account on the badness of death. Prof Benatar argued, “annihilation of an

individual is a distinct bad”. He further argued that the badness of death is

not entirely reducible to deprivation. It should be noted that death is most

often considered a bad thing even if an individual has no prospect of

further enjoy good things in life. Death can be a bad thing even if there're

no more good things in life to be deprived by death.19

Death ageism

We tend to regret the death of a child or young person hugely, while

regret death of an old person (say, at age 90) far less than earlier death,

or do not regret at all. But saying some death is less bad than other

deaths, that may mean some life have less value than other lives. David

Benatar said, we tend to consider death at 40 tragic, while a death at 90

is taken casual, and he said that’s because of relative comparison. And

19Benatar, David, Deprived and Annihilated, http://philosophyofdeath.org/

2016-conference-abstracts/ (Conference Abstract for International
Association for the Philosophy of Death and Dying 2016 Conference)
20
Prof Benatar said, people wouldn’t think death at 40 tragic in the past.

And he said the reason we tend to think short life in poor countries tragic

is we are comparing life expectancy to life expectancy we’re accustomed

to. Similarly, Prof Benatar argued, death at age 90 would be taken tragic if

average life expectancy is 120.20 And the life expectancy of 90 years is

much closer to 1 than 1,000 years.21 Prof Benatar argued, all other things

being equal, death is a serious harm, and there’s an intrinsic tragedy in

every death. 22

Marcus Aurelius said, “The longest-lived and the shortest-lived man,

when they come to die, lose one and the same thing.”. Although there

may be (relatively) worse and less worse way of death, the fundamental

quality of death as an annihilation (complete and irreparable destruction)

of sentience is the same across all sentient beings, regardless of self-

awareness, age and/or species.

20
Benatar, David. "Why it is better never to come into existence."
American Philosophical Quarterly 34.3 (1997)
21Benatar, David, Wasserman, David, Debating Procreation, Oxford
University Press, 2015, p. 52
22
Benatar, David. "Why it is better never to come into existence."
American Philosophical Quarterly 34.3 (1997)
21
Every sentient being is individual and final.23 Because all sentient beings

are individual and final, all sentient beings are persons. What I mean by

that every sentient being is individual is, that the subjective phenomenal

experience of individual sentient being cannot be felt by another (aside

indirect influences of one’s phenomenal experience toward another). That

individuality of sentient beings also applies to sentient beings’

annihilation. And what I mean by that every sentient being is final is, that

the annihilation of individual sentient being is final.

23Gray, John N., The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other Modern
Myths, Penguin, 2013, “Humanity is a fiction composed from billions of
individuals for each of whom life is singular and final.”
22
Procreation as a cause of death

Disclaimer: This table Procreative Infliction of Non-procreative

is based on only Death Infliction of Death
human animals

Name Procreation Murder, Manslaughter,

Natural death Homicide, Death
Death by natural causes Penalty, Capital
Death by disease Punishment, Execution,
The Holocaust,
Genocide, Massacre

Time of Death World average: 70 years Usually immediately;

after procreation
1st Word: 80 years Year and a day rule
Max: 125 years Three years and a day
rule

Manner of death Usually ‘non-violent’ Usually violent

Cancer Shooting
Disease Stabbing
Ageing Lethal injection

Punishment Impunity Death

Life imprisonment
Imprisonment for long
term
sometimes impunity

Harm caused Inflicted Death on a Curtailed decades of life

potential person who Made death happen
didn’t have to die earlier
(Inflicted immense (Deprived future
amount of gratuitous pleasure)
suffering) (also Prevented future
suffering)

Fatalities per year 56-58 million 500,000

6 million Jews were killed by the holocaust. 6 million people are killed by

procreation every 40 days. Procreation is indeed the cause of 100% of

23
deaths in the world. Procreation is a violence causing more death than

any kind of cause of death, including cancer, war, malaria, AIDS/HIV.

Procreation is morally problematic because it causes death. (more

accurately put, annihilation) Every procreation causes death. Because

every procreation causes death, procreation can be considered as a form

of infliction of death. Non-procreative inflictions of death are called

‘murder’, ‘manslaughter’ or ‘homicide’. For sake of objectiveness, I would

use the term I coined ‘procreative infliction of death’ henceforth. But it

does not follow that procreation is any less harmful practice than

homicide. Procreation is enough to be called murder, homicide or filicide.

One distinguished difference of procreation (effectively also procreative

infliction of death) and homicide (non-procreative infliction of death) is that

the former is widely praised, whereas the latter is widely condemned. One

of naive pro-natalist assumption is because death is a bad thing,

procreation, which can be considered as an antonym of death, is a good

thing. But the crucial defect of that naive assumption is that it is ignoring

the obvious fact that procreation is an essential prerequisite (and the

ultimate cause) of death.

24
I shall compare procreative infliction of death and non-procreative

infliction of death on annihilation and deprivation account of the badness

of death.

Account Procreative infliction of Non-procreative

death infliction of death

Annihilation Create a new and Not creating new

gratuitous annihilation annihilation, only making
annihilation happen
sooner

Deprivation Deprive infinite time after Deprive only time

death between the time of non-
procreative infliction of
death and the time the
person would otherwise
die

Pleasure Make the person enjoy Deprive prospects of

the pleasure, but pleasure in the future the
nonetheless it is not a person otherwise would
benefit because pre-vital enjoy
nonexistent person is not
deprived of pleasure

Suffering Inflict new and gratuitous Aside suffering during

suffering the non-procreative
infliction of death,
suffering of the person’s
family and friends, make
the person no longer
suffer that person
otherwise would suffer

Comparison of procreative and non-procreative infliction of death

with annihilation account on the badness of death

25
“Murder is the curtailing of a life that would have ended anyway; having a

child creates a death that would never have been.” -Quentin S Crisp24

Non-procreative infliction of death (usually called murder) annihilates the

victim. But the victim would be invariably annihilated in due course. In this

case, although the time of annihilation was changed by non-procreative

infliction of death, the very fact the annihilation would happen sooner or

later wasn’t.

Procreation creates the very liability to the annihilation. Every (human)

procreation cause an annihilation after just a few decades, “well within

130 years”. Such annihilation is never possible without procreation.

Procreative infliction of death changes the very fact whether a potential

person would annihilate or not.

That is to say, ceteris paribus, whereas murder reduces the momentary

number of (alive) life in the world, and increase the momentary number of

death in particular duration (e.g. a particular calendar year), murder itself

do not increase the inter-temporal number of total death. Since all life

brought into existence invariably die.

Contrary to the impact of the murder in inter-temporal number of total

death, ceteris paribus, whereas procreation increase the momentary

24Crisp, Quentin S, living in the future, Issue 2, Anti-natalISM: A

THOUGHT EXPERIMENT, http://www.litfmag.net/issue-2/antinatalism-a-
thought-experiment/
26
number of (alive) life in the world, procreation do increase the inter-

temporal number of total death, even though the majority of

Therefore, procreative infliction of death is more harmful than the non-

procreative infliction of death under assessment with the annihilation

account on the badness of death.

Comparison of procreative and non-procreative infliction of death

with deprivation account on the badness of death

Non-procreative infliction of death (usually called murder) deprives the

victim the good things in life the victim would otherwise enjoy. For

example, if the victim is 20 years old when he was killed and otherwise he

would live until the age of 80, non-procreative infliction of death deprive

him (the good things of) 60 years of life.

Whereas procreation makes the resultant person enjoy good things in

life, the absence of good things in life because of non-procreation is not a

deprivation because there’s nobody thereby deprived. Whereas pre-

sentience nonexistence does not deprive anyone, post-annihilation

nonexistence deprives one specific person theretofore existent the good

things of life. In this case, the deceased was deprived of not just (the

good things of) the (duration of) life from the age she died at the age of

her maximum possible span of life. The deceased was deprived of (the

27
good things of) the life of infinite (hypothetical) time after the time of her

annihilation.

Of course, there can be an argument that “life is a gift”. The problem with

that argument is that the ‘recipient’ of the ‘gift’ of life do not have any

interest coming into existence. Even if a gift never harmed the recipient, if

that gift was unsolicited, there’s no responsibility arise from the receipt of

that unsolicited gift. But if a ‘gift’ is potentially harmful, (for example, a ‘gift’

was a food that was contaminated with fatal amount of toxin, but it was

not stated), the sender is morally and legally liable for murder, or

attempted murder even if the ‘gift’ haven’t caused death.

28
Voluntary and involuntary cessation of existence

Consent type Birth Death

(Procreation)

Consented Voluntary procreation Voluntary euthanasia,

(impossible) assisted suicide, suicide

Non-consensual and Non-voluntary Non-voluntary

unable to give consent procreation euthanasia

Non-consensual and Involuntary procreation Involuntary euthanasia,

able to give consent (impossible) murder/maslaughter/
homicide, also all cases
of non-voluntary death
(such as cancer, death
by natural causes)

There are two kinds of cessation of existence (annihilation/death). One is

the voluntary cessation of existence, and another is the involuntary

cessation of existence. Voluntary cessation of existence, obviously,

includes suicide, assisted suicide and voluntary euthanasia. However,

involuntary cessation of existence not just includes murder/manslaughter/

homicide but also all involuntary death. That is to say, that all so-called

natural death is a form of involuntary death. And all involuntary death is

ultimately caused and inflicted by one’s progenitors. It should be noted,

however, that even the psychological tendency and circumstances to

cause voluntary death is also procreatively inflicted. Because there would

be no death without procreation, all death is a parentally inflicted death.

100% of death in the world is caused by procreatively-caused causes.

29
Procreation as a violation of right to life

Article 2 – Right to life, Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European

Union

1. Everyone has the right to life.

2. No one shall be condemned to the death penalty, or executed.

Finally, procreation can be interpreted as a violation of the right to life. As

every procreation leads to death, procreation is not just as severe as, or

even more severe than capital punishment (capital punishment only

makes death happen a few decades earlier, whereas procreation

condemns a potential person who needs not die at all to death), and as all

EU jurisdictions prohibit capital punishment for the reason of human

dignity, there is no intrinsic reason to think procreation is not a violation of

human right, whereas death penalty is. Procreation is essentially violation

of Article 2 (right to life, prohibition of death penalty) of the Charter of

Fundamental Rights of the European Union; although possibility of EU

jurisdictions and/or European Court of Human Rights admit such claim

seems to be highly unlikely (more likely to be described as a frivolous

claim/litigation). I can’t find any good reason the right to life shouldn’t

include freedom from procreative deprivation of life. (even though

procreation also confers/inflicts such life)

30
Suicide argument

Prof Benatar argued, although there’s no cost not having been born,

ceasing to exist have costs. 25 Of course, annihilation and deprivation

make death a serious harm, but also suicide causes severe trauma

toward family and friends.26

Sarah Perry argued, that free disposal of life suggested by Bryan Caplan

is de facto impossible because suicide has very high cost, for example,

the most certain and pain-free methods of suicide, say, lethal liquid is very

hard to access. And while suicide is not a crime, aiding suicide is a crime.

And in the case of failure of the suicide, it can cause injuries and

disabilities, and make the person who attempted suicide involuntarily

confined to a mental hospital.27

25 Benatar, David, We Are Creatures That Should Not Exist, The Critique,
http://www.thecritique.com/articles/we-are-creatures-that-should-not-exist-
the-theory-of-anti-natalism/
26 Benatar, David, Better Never to Have Been, p. 220
27 Perry, Sarah, Every Cradle is a Grave, Nine Banded Books, 2014
31
By coming into (sentient) existence, a sentient being develops an interest

to continue its existence.28 Axiological asymmetry of the pre-vital and

post-mortem nonexistence shows us that the cost of ceasing to exist

(whether voluntary or involuntary) include annihilation of the person and

deprivation of prospects of life.

Libertarian pro-natalist may argue that the child can commit suicide if it is

unhappy it was brought into existence. It is an appalling argument in a lot

of ways. First, there are crucial axiological asymmetries of pre-vital and

post-mortem nonexistence. Second, it implicitly assumes ‘free will’.

Because it is impossible to have a metaphysical free will, a person’s

decision whether or not to take its own life is determined by factors hugely

influenced by one’s parents, i.e., nature (genes inherited from its

progenitors) and nurture (including, parental attitude toward suicide).

Third, it takes quite a long time for a child to ‘mature’ enough to take its

own life. Fourth, the decision on continuation/cessation of life is hugely

distorted by adaptive preference.

Lethal and non-lethal sex thought experiment

28 Benatar, David, Better Never to Have Been

32
Suppose human animals of each sex have two (i.e. a pair) genitalia each.

Although sex with either genitalia is equally pleasurable, there would be

no particular sexual orientation on particular genitalia to use, and they are

easily distinguishable with each other. And suppose one genitalia (say,

non-lethal genitalia) would create an immortal human animal, while

another (say, lethal genitalia) would create a mortal human animal, which

would die in just a few decades. If we really have such choice whether to

create mortal or immortal offspring, it would be thought completely

unacceptable to have sex with lethal genitalia. Sex with lethal genitalia

may become a crime or even a murder.

Here I shall argue, that non-lethal sexual intercourse is a course of action

which we all could follow. Although the overwhelming majority of human

animals are heterosexual, and heterosexual couple mostly prefer penile-

vaginal intercourse, there’re various ways of heterosexual intercourse

other than penile-vaginal intercourse. (it should be noted pregnancy with

penile-anal intercourse is possible if the female party of the intercourse

has untreated rectocele) Also, although not perfect, vasectomy prevent

the possibility of penile-vaginal intercourse resulting in lethal pregnancy

33
with 99.85-99.9% of probability.29 Of course, it would be needless to say

that homosexual intercourse are non-lethal or abstinence is non-lethal.

Although the non-lethal sex is only possible with the ‘cost’ of non-

procreation, at least in this pre-singularity era, that ‘cost’ is never a cost

for the non-existent potential person, but the cost of hopeful parents and

the community.

Death and procreation as an infinite harm

If we would (or should) think (sentient) life have an infinite value, we

would (and should) think the loss of life as an infinite harm. Because a

potential sentient being does not have any interest to have a life, no

benefit is conferred upon birth (more accurately, the initiation of

sentience). Quite contrary, an infinite harm is caused upon procreation, as

all procreation invariably cause death.

On the claim “Death and suffering gives life meaning”

There are purported claims that harms of life, such as death or suffering,

gives life purported good things in life, such as meaning, mental or

29
http://www.contraceptivetechnology.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/
CTFailureTable.pdf
34
‘spiritual’ growth, etc.. Steve Jobs famously claimed that death gives

purported benefits in life.30 The first problem of such claims is that pre-

vital nonexistent people do not need any such purported good things in

life, and are not benefited by coming into existence and enjoying such

purported good things in life. The second problem of such claims is that it

is dubious we need harms such as death or suffering in order to enjoy

good things in life, and if that is true, our life is worse because we can’t

enjoy pure benefits without harms.

In axiology of harms such as birth (initiation of the sentience), death

(annihilation of the sentience), suffering (including both physical pain and

mental suffering) and other bad things in life, it should be noted that the

intrinsic value of harms and the instrumental value of harms should be

separated. The intrinsic value of harms, by definition, always bad.

Contrary, there may be some instrumental value in harms. For example,

death (annihilation) prevents future suffering that person would otherwise

suffer. But it does not follow we can kill (painlessly while sleeping)

somebody under agonising suffering without her consent. It is prohibited

to (non-procreatively) inflict severe suffering on another without consent,

30Jobs, Steve, Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address,

Stanford University, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc
35
even if it may give ‘meaning’ to the victim and make the victim grow

‘spiritually’. I shall argue we should go just one step further to think

procreative infliction of harm is as morally indecent as non-procreative

infliction of harm.

Argument 2. Suffering

Disclaimer: This table Procreative Infliction of Non-procreative

is based on only Suffering Infliction of Suffering
human animals

Name Procreation Torture

Pain, Suffering, Battery, Hitting, Abuse,
Depression, Stress, Rape, Violence,
Frustration, Cancer Imprisonment, Torture

Time of Suffering Immediately after fetus Immediate but usually

become sentient short-lasting
Until death

Manner of suffering Usually ‘non-violent’ Usually violent

Cancer Torture
Disease Assault
Ageing Sexual Assault

Punishment Impunity Death

Life imprisonment
Imprisonment
sometimes Impunity

Harm caused Inflicted decades of Usually short-lasting

immense amount of pain and/or suffering
gratuitous pain and
suffering

Every procreation causes suffering, not negligible, but an immense

amount. Here, I shall compare procreative infliction of suffering and non-

36
procreative infliction of suffering. As Prof Benatar argued, there’s no

intrinsic reason to treat procreatively inflicted harm any differently with

comparable non-procreatively inflicted harm31 . Of course, unlike death,

suffering is probabilistic, but, as Prof Benatar puts, it is absolutely

guaranteed a person would suffer immense amount in one way or

another32. Some form of pains, for example, menstrual pains, are

expected, considered completely normal and even as a healthy thing.

Cancer and Torture

A potential person who never brought into existence will never suffer

cancer; whereas "40% of men and 37% of women in Britain develop

cancer at some point."33.

Torture is prohibited under the Rome Statute as a crime against humanity

or war crime.

Is there a good reason to permit procreative infliction of the substantial

(nearly-half) risk of a torturous pain of malignant neoplasms, while strictly

prohibiting non-procreative infliction of torturous pain?

31 Benatar, David, Better Never to Have Been, p. 112

32Benatar, David, Direko, Redi, Why your life is worse than you think,
Talk Radio 702, Feb 26, 2009
33Benatar, David, The Critique, ‘We Are Creatures That Should Not Exist’,
15 Jul 2015
37
Menstrual pain and parental corporal punishment

Menstruation is procreatively caused and expected to occur to newly

procreated baby girls in due course, about a decade after procreation;

and usually entail very often significant pain and discomfort lowering

quality of life of the substantial portion of girls' and women's lifetime. In

the sizeable minority of jurisdictions (predominantly in Europe and South

America), parental corporal punishment is prohibited, penalties include

imprisonment and termination of parental rights. If parental corporal

punishment should be prohibited, is there a good reason to allow

procreative infliction of menstrual pain of which degree of pain may be

comparable to usual parental corporal punishment?

Everyday pains and sufferings

Prof Benatar mentioned a list of everyday discomforts, “hunger, thirst,

bowel and bladder distension (as these organs become filled), tiredness,

stress, thermal discomfort (that is, feeling either too hot or too cold), and

itch.”. According to one study, average Briton suffers 10,787 ailments in

the course of their life.34

34 http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/health/life-10787-sore-points---2093834
38
Sufferings of infants and children

During parturition, particularly in cases of vaginal birth, fetus suffer a

severe amount of stresses. Neonates -even though this is just start of an

immense amount of suffering- start a life of decades of suffering by being

slapped to induce self-breathing. Millions of neonate boys start life by

suffering a violation of bodily integrity by being genitally mutilated (so-

called neonate circumcision) for dubious medical benefits, often without

any anaesthetics. Millions of girls are subjected to genital mutilation for no

medical reason at all.

Sharp injection needle causes an immense amount of fear for millions of

adults, and for virtually every child, the injection needle is a source of an

immense amount of fear and pain.

Because infants cannot express unpleasantness without crying, express

unpleasantness and pain by crying. Average infants cry times a day.

Sufferings of infants include hunger, thirst and thermal discomfort.

Particularly for thermal discomfort, a lot of parents abandon children in

the hot car and very often overdress infant. Many parents make infants

sleep in the separate bed (and deprived the interest for attachment to

parents). In the past, children were breastfed until 7 years old. Now,

39
millions of children are not breastfed at all, and most children are

breastfed for only a few months. A lot of children are raised by foster

parents, grandparents and day care centres merely for parental

convenience.

Millions of parents who smoke know very well that (even if one smokes

where there’s no child) smoking is very harmful to one’s child, and

nonetheless smoke without much guilt. Smoking parents often even

smoke in front of the child, sometimes ignoring explicit dislike of one’s

offspring.

About 30% children has been reported to wish they had never been born

according to a research.35

Compulsory education

We can’t deny that acquisition of basic knowledge is instrumental in the

healthy development of the child. But only a few people notice that

compulsory education was invented by arguably the first totalitarian in

human history, Plato. And Plato’s the most (in)famous disciple, Marx is

35Cavan, Ruth Shonle. "The wish never to have been born." American
journal of sociology (1932): 547-559.
40
also one of the earliest advocates of compulsory education. It is clear one

of the major side effect (or even intentional hidden curriculum) is

indoctrination and obedience conditioning.

The best example of the miserable failure of compulsory education

(although compulsory education is not the only factor to blame) is that

only small minority of people notice immorality of animal slavery and

procreation, and act on it. The slave status of non-human sentient beings

and the non-consensual creation of the sentient beings are the most

prevalent forms of human evil. Vegetarianism or veganism is rarely taught

in school, and it is inconceivable compulsory education institutions to

teach anti-natalism.

One of the most severe forms of suffering compulsory education inflicts is

intentional circadian rhythm disruption. According to one research, 10am

or later is the ideal school starting time.36 “[A] 07:00 alarm call for older

adolescents is the equivalent of a 04:30 start for a teacher in their 50s.

Failure to adjust education timetables to this biological change leads to

36Kelley, Paul, et al. "Synchronizing education to adolescent biology:‘let

teens sleep, start school later’." Learning, Media and Technology 40.2
(2015): 210-226.
APA
41
systematic, chronic and unrecoverable sleep loss. This level of sleep loss

causes impairment to physiological, metabolic and psychological health in

adolescents while they are undergoing other major physical and

neurological changes”.37 Almost all schools in the world start much earlier

than 10 o’clock, around 7:30 to 8:30. Current school schedule was

designed not for the sake of the healthy development of the children, but

parental convenience.

Compulsory education most often does not provide adequate tuition of

lingua franka (namely, the English language) if the jurisdiction does not

use English neither as a native language nor as a second language.

Compulsory education most likely does not or very limitedly provide

knowledge about personal finances, computer programming, etc..

The choice of the subjects taught to students are very limited. Universal

Declaration of Human Rights stipulates the only parental right to choose

the education of their offsprings. Many schools are religious schools to

indoctrinate parental or state religion.

37 Ibid.
42
Compulsory education, aside from its necessity, is obviously a form of

involuntary servitude. One of the hidden curricula of school is

standardisation of students. Public schools in many countries, and most

private schools require uniform-wearing. Even hairstyles of students

regulated in some schools in some countries. But even if students are

allowed a ‘privilege’ to wear whatever clothes, non-consensual instruction

of standardised curricula and a standardised assessment on a

standardised test makes students feel oneself as a standardised human,

instead of a unique and singular individual with inviolable dignity.

Perhaps the biggest ‘achievement’ of the inculcation of compulsory

education is the development of ‘adaptive preference’ to retrospectively

consent and appreciate the compulsory education they have been

subjected to. And thereby causing people to voluntarily relinquish the

custody of their offspring to the pseudo-parental (in loco parentis)

institution.

Existential angst

The cause of the existence of the cosmos is unknown, and impossible to

be known by logic since even if the prime cause should be known, the

cause of the prime cause is unknown. Not just our existence is

43
unsolicited, by logic, existence cannot solicit existence of itself. That is to

say, although it is plausible there can be a prime mover, an

anthropomorphic ‘god’, superintelligence or other agent which might

created this universe, even their existence is unsolicited and

nonconsensual. Even purported god can’t know how and why it was

brought into existence. (The ultimate cause of its existence) Moreover, as

an anti-natalist myself, the very fact that the purported god is a pro-

natalist is a very good evidence of moral indecency (at least, non-

omnibenevolence) of the purported god. The purported god engaged in

morally indecent behavior of unsolicitedly (pro)creating more than

quadrillions of us sentient beings without our consent and permission.

The prospect of death, whether the person is religious or not, is very

frightening. For non-religious people, the prospect of annihilation is very

disgusting and demoralising. For religious people, the prospect of

judgment, possibility to be sent to hell is very frightening.

There’s a thought experiment called Roko’s Basilisk 38, that AI may punish

people who didn’t help bring it into existence by torturing eternally.

38
Roko’s Basilisk, LessWrong Wiki, https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Roko
%27s_basilisk
44
Although some people may prefer hell than annihilation, the prospect of

eternal torment is indeed very distressing.

If a person eventually realises that her parents arbitrarily procreated her

for selfish reasons, with knowledge of human miseries she will about to

face, that itself can cause huge emotional distress.

Lack of free will

A lot of neuroscientists agree that there’s no free will. Evidence include

Libet experiment, which found out that EEG could predict the button a

person about to push hundreds of milliseconds before his consciousness

inclined to push one of two buttons.

Lack of free will means nothing can be ultimately chosen by himself, that

everything is decided by one’s parents (genes and environment), and

other environments. It can be disgusting.

Facing one’s fate is predetermined, even if there’re some chances of

difference because of quantum effects, the fact there’s nothing one can

ultimately do to improve one’s condition and fate is really demoralising

and disturbing. (This is not to deny one can improve condition of oneself

45
by effort, the lack of free will means that the action one will take is

determined)

Disutility of labour

After the tunnel of 12 to 20 years of education, most people suffer

immense amount in the work which they accepted only to pay bills. About

70% Americans are reported to hate their job39. Ludwig von Mises

mentioned about disutility of labour40. According to research, the reason

most people work is merely to make money. Of course, most labour in the

world right now is voluntarily accepted and performed, but the urgent

need to support oneself that everybody has, is a gratuitous need that has

been caused with (non-consensual) procreation. Of course, it should be

noted that many young people in the world do not have a chance for the

first (gainful and stable) employment, and a lot of people are fired and

suffer severe financial insecurity.

Desire frustration

3970% Of Your Employees Hate Their Job, Forbes, Nov 11, 2011, http://
www.forbes.com/sites/carminegallo/2011/11/11/your-emotionally-
disconnected-employees/#6737fea6e89b
40 Mises, Ludwig von, Human Action, 1949
46
The most important frustration of desire is a frustration of anti-mortal

preferences. Particularly, non-religious people (more accurately put, those

who hold annihilationist view on death) may feel extreme existential

distress or depression contemplating on mortality of themselves and

fellow sentient beings. Religious people may feel extreme fear on the

possibility of the damnation of themselves or family and friends.

Many cases, the human romantic attraction is unrequited. Human

friendship and romantic relationship are fragile. Many males find

themselves unable to find a partner, as a result of demographic disparity,

naturally caused or as a result of female foeticide or infanticide. Also,

even the richest people find their money not enough (if the desire to

spend money includes a desire to donate). The overwhelming majority of

people in the world die before travelling 100 countries out of about 200

countries in the world. Those with the resources to travel the world often

find themselves too busy to take vacations. Millions of pro-natalist

couples are infertile and desperately seek costly fertility treatments such

as in-vitro fertilisation (IVF).

Drugs that can enhance cognitive performance or alters cognitive state

are mostly prohibited or strictly restricted. These types of drugs include

47
LSD, Adderal, Marijuana. (Violation/restriction of cognitive liberty or right

to cognitive self-determination)

The excellent example of cognitive liberty or right to cognitive self-

determination is, of course, procreation. Procreation not just violates the

right to cognitive self-determination but also the right to ontological self-

determination (ontological liberty). The desire for pre-vital (not post-

mortem) nonexistence can never be fulfilled and frustrates desires of all

anti-natalists.

Height, facial attractiveness, assigned gender, intelligence, skin colour,

race, native language, year of birth, whether or not one have been born,

place of birth (hometown) and country of (natural born) citizenship are

either impossible to change or extremely difficult to change. And

dissatisfaction on these (nearly or completely) irreparably assigned

features of a sentient agent is a source of severe suffering.

Self-control frustration and regret

Infirmity of will is perhaps the greatest source of self-dissatisfaction.

Desire frustrations are sometimes voluntary, but nonetheless painful.

48
Unpleasantness, regret and self-blaming from self-control (or delayed

gratification) frustration is the huge source of human mental suffering.

Many vegans and vegetarians crave animal products -which they

decades-long-addicted to-, even everyday, but endure such craving for

ethical or health reasons. Psychological costs of animal-eating recidivism

not only include self-blaming but criticism from vegan and non-vegan

friends and acquaintances. The overwhelming majority of vegans

‘became’ vegan usually in adulthood, instead of being raised vegan by

vegan parents. Therefore, most vegans find themselves that they have

already eaten thousands of animals. Vegans may feel an immense

amount of guilt for becoming a ‘late-bloomer’ vegan, particularly if they

compare themselves with independent child vegetarians, children in

decided to become a vegetarian even though having been raised non-

vegetarian. About 80% of vegetarians go back to non-vegetarian.41

Ethical anti-natalists may want (biological) children to satisfy reproductive

and/or parenting interests but desist from procreation for ethical reasons.

(Utilitarian) effective altruists who agree on Singer’s drowning child

41http://www.animalcharityevaluators.org/research/foundational-research/
vegetarian-recidivism/#second
49
argument may suffer immense amount from the voluntary curtailment of

consumption and/or guilt for ‘spending far more than one should’.

Many recovering former alcoholics, smokers and drug addicts suffer

serious withdrawal symptoms and cravings. Many people want to lose

weight and fail, and even if one succeeds, it is obtained by enduring

serious discomfort from dietary restriction and exercise.

Many adults and adolescents want to delay their gratification and live life

more productively. But find themselves failing. Only 5% of smokers

succeed in quitting smoking (by cold turkey)42 . Many consumers of

alcoholic beverages regret the consumption on the next morning. Many

people make a new year’s resolution but fail within a few days. Many

people try not to eat or reduce consumption of junk foods but fail and

regret.

Many adults and adolescents think they spend too much time on social

media, television and video gaming, but fail in self-controlling. Many

people think they should reduce or eliminate unnecessary spendings and

42http://www.stopsmoking.news/2015-10-05-the-top-12-success-rates-of-
smoking-cessation-rated-from-worst-to-best.html
50
save money but fail. Many adults think they should work harder and learn

hard skills such as foreign language but fail. Many adolescents and

college students think they should study harder but fail. Many people try

to reduce sleep but fail.

Retrospective regret on decisions one has made

Many people who have been diagnosed with cancer poignantly regret that

one has lived on unhealthy lifestyle. A lot of people find themselves

regretting on death bed for not living the life the fullest. Even not at the

death bed, most of us -if not all of us- regret that we haven’t lived life so

far to the fullest. Many people regret that they left emotional scars on

family and friends, even for decades. A late-bloomer anti-natalist may

regret that they have brought their offspring into existence. It may be one

of the most terrible parental experience to know that their children wish

not have been born.

Pregnancy anxiety

Heterosexual or bisexual anti-natalist may avoid heterosexual

intercourse, or even a romantic relationship because of the possibility of

unintended pregnancy and procreation. First, if an anti-natalist is a male,

he (a potential inseminator) may worry that his partner (a potential

51
gestator) (even if she stated that she would get an abortion if pregnant)

may refuse to get an abortion if pregnant. No contraception is perfect, and

even vasectomy have 0.1%-0.15% chance of failure43. Whereas the fact

only females gestate and males do not gestate may be advantage to

males, such gestational asymmetry can be huge disadvantage in a

jurisdiction where abortion is legal or rarely punished, since inseminating

male have no control over whether or not gestating female get an

abortion. Second, an anti-natalist couple may live in a country which

abortion is illegal or restricted. Third, an anti-natalist may have religious,

ethical and/or sentimental objection to contraception or (pre-sentience)

abortion. Pregnancy anxiety and frustration from unintended pregnancy

and/or procreation is a universal human suffering, even if one is not an

anti-natalist. Contraception is failing in too many cases. “Among

unintended pregnancies in the United States, 60% of the women used

birth control to some extent during the month pregnancy occurred.”44

Freedom frustration

43
http://www.contraceptivetechnology.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/
CTFailureTable.pdf
44 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy
52
According to the Freedom House, only 89 countries are ‘Free’ countries,

whereas 59 countries are ‘Partly Free’ and 50 countries are ‘Not Free’.

Only 40% of the world population live in the ‘Free’ countries, whereas

24% live in the ‘Partly Free’ countries and 36% live in the ‘Not Free’

countries. Only 47 countries were rated 1.0 in overall ‘Freedom Rating’ (1

= most free, 7 = least free). And only 5 countries, Finland, Iceland,

Norway, San Marino, Sweden, are rated 100% in the Aggregate Score.45

Children’s disenfranchised status

And of course, children are severely disenfranchised of freedom. Only 51

countries or territories prohibited parental hitting (so-called corporal

punishment) 46. Parents can inflict non-corporal punishment (such as

grounding, i.e. parental imprisonment) on their discretion (i.e. without due

process of law) in any jurisdiction. Children are not allowed to choose an

educational institution, subjects to learn and careers to pursue without

parental consent. Children cannot work, travel, move, apply for the

passport and emigrate without parental consent. Children in ‘Free’

countries are not much better treated than women in the countries the

45 Freedom in the World, Freedom House, 2016, https://

freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world-2016/table-scores
46 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporal_punishment#Legal_status
53
most oppressive to women. The notion of ‘corporal punishment’ or

‘guardian consent’ by parents can be compared to ‘corporal punishment’

of wives or ‘guardian consent’ by the husband.

Of course, this is not to deny the necessity of some restriction of freedom

of children. But nonetheless, First, we are treating children far worse than

we should and could. A lot of institutions such as procreation, ‘corporal

punishment’ or school schedule (which seriously disrupts circadian

rhythm of the child) is designed for

Second, situating a potential person (that do not have any interest in

coming into existence) to a cognitive condition that mental maturity is

limited, and thereby necessitates serious restriction of freedom, is an

infliction of a serious, gratuitous and irreparable harm, and (ethically)

completely inadmissible.

Immigration frustration

According to Gallup, 700 million people in the world want to emigrate to a

foreign country permanently if they could.47 Even visiting privileged

47 700 Million Worldwide Desire to Migrate Permanently, Gallup, 2009,

http://www.gallup.com/poll/124028/700-million-worldwide-desire-migrate-
permanently.aspx
54
countries are not easily permitted to nationals of lesser privileged

countries. (Permanent or temporary) residence in the privileged countries

is extremely selective. Only 5% of the people in the world have the right

to abode in the United States, the country with arguably most

opportunities for ’self-actualisation’. Only about 1 billion people have the

right to abode in the similarly privileged countries or territories, including,

the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, EU/EEA/Switzerland,

Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Damnation risk: possibility of eternal torment

Scenarios Estimated Probability Consequence

(on equiprobability
heuristic)

Salvation 25% Good

Annihilation 25% Extremely Bad

Damnation 25% Extremely Bad, Perhaps

worse than annihilation

Non-singularity 25% Very Bad

Roko’s Basilisk is an idea that was suggested by Roko in LessWrong.com

in 2010, that an AI would be motivated to eternally torture people who

have not helped to bring it into existence. The more likely possibility of

eternal torment is, I think, a sadistic AI. A Reddit user TheFaggetman

55
suggested the possibility of a sadistic AI in 201548, Brian Tomasik

suggested a possibility of sadists take control of an AI49 .

Although the major focus on AI research is an existential risk50, I think

human extinction only bad as much as an annihilation of the people

thereby annihilated is bad. Although there's no knock-down argument to

prove eternal torment is worse than annihilation, as we can see on 'Better

red than dead' v. 'Better dead than red' debate, if we at least think that

whereas eternal torment may be infinite times worse than annihilation,

annihilation may be only finite times (e.g. 10 times) worse than eternal

torment, perhaps moral priority shall be given to prevention of eternal

torment caused by AI-molecular-assembler than annihilation caused by

AI.

Although I assumed all sentient beings would eventually annihilate, here I

would discuss the possibility of continuation of sentience after 10^1000

48TheFaggetman, https://www.reddit.com/r/Futurology/comments/3l2b7o/
the_hell_of_the_artificial_sadistic_intelligence/
49Tomasik, Brian, Foundational Research Institute, https://foundational-
research.org/artificial-intelligence-and-its-implications-for-future-suffering
50see Bostrom, Nick. "Existential risk prevention as global priority." Global
Policy 4.1 (2013): 15-31.
56
(10000000000 googol) years51, which the heat death of the universe is

expected to happen. This may be made possible by the possibility the

super intelligence find out the way to cheat the heat death of the universe.

But the prospect of the torture, for 10^1000 years, may be enough to

make the overwhelming majority of people to think it is better to die.

Indeed, perhaps that would be the case even 100 years of the most

agonising torture may be enough to make people think it is better to

cease to exist.

It is interesting that several (the prevailing denominations/views of) the

most prevalent religions, a kind of meme (this is a hypothesis I adopt as

an atheist myself), including, namely Christianity and Islam, developed

the notion of eternal torment, not annihilation as an ultimate punishment.

It may be an evidence of the prevailing preference of the people is that

annihilation is a better fate than the eternal torment.

Contrary to that, generally, the death penalty is seen as the more severe

punishment than life imprisonment without eligibility for parole. Of course,

51https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Graphical_timeline_from_Big_Bang_to_Heat_Death
57
there’re a few notable differences between death penalty-life

imprisonment (without parole) and annihilation-eternal torment.

The intensity of suffering of imprisonment, although quite bad, is much

better than the most agonising tortures of eternal torment. But it should be

noted eternal torment is better (or worse) than life imprisonment in one

way. Whereas life inmate dies after decades of suffering, eternal

tormentee don’t die. Eternal torment, although the momentary quality of

life is very low, life expectancy is infinite, which may make strongly anti-

mortal people to prefer eternal torment over annihilation. But it should be

noted that considering people’s attitude toward euthanasia, assisted

suicide and the fact religions usually adopted eternal torment, not

annihilation as an ultimate punishment, the overwhelming majority of

people, or at least sizeable minority of people may prefer annihilation over

eternal torment.

Here, I shall suggest the concept of ‘damnation risk’, to supplement Nick

Bostrom’s existential risk’. Dr Bostrom himself implied that there could be

a worse fate than human extinction in his table. (see Fig. 1)52

52Bostrom, Nick. "Existential risk prevention as global priority." Global

Policy 4.1 (2013): 15-31.
58
 Fig. 1 (See footnote 52)

According to Dr Bostrom, hellish severity of risk (excruciating torture) is

worse than crushing severity of risk (death/annihilation). And cosmic

scope of risk (risk affecting all sentient beings in the cosmos) is worse

than pan-generational scope of risk (risk affecting only human animals or,

human and non-human animals in this planet).53

53This interpretation is my personal view, which was not endorsed by Dr

Bostrom
59
I would like to suggest that it is possible an AI or an sadist-controlled AI

may torture sentient beings eternally or over very long period of time

(10^100 or 10^1000 years), possibly all existent sentient beings. It is even

possible a sadistic AI or a sadist-controlled AI may (pro)create a lot of

(quadrillions to googols to infinite) sentient beings for the purpose of

infliction of torture.

I shall call the risk which a sentient being is condemned to suffering that

may be considered ‘worse than death’ by many people, a ‘torment risk’.

And I shall call ‘torment risk’ happening on the cosmic scale as a

‘damnation risk’.

Of course, what amount of suffering makes people to ‘prefer’ annihilation

over the continuation of sentience is a matter of subjective preference of

(mostly lingual) sentient beings. (I’m not sure language is prerequisite of

development of preference) I doubt there can be an objective threshold

which suffering is worse than annihilation.

In most cases, sentient agent’s preference on continuation/cessation of

life is determined by not by the total amount of suffering it would suffer,

but the intensity of the suffering of the given moment. It should be noted

60
that most (or significant minority of) people in the most desperate

situation do not choose (assisted) suicide or euthanasia. If there’re people

do choose continuation of sentience in any amount of pain, there’s a

reason to think at least some of them would choose eternal torment than

annihilation (I’m one of them). If the value of (sentient) life is infinite, it is

not irrational to choose (sentient) life at the cost of (infinite) pain (finite

pain intensity * infinite time).

It should be noted that, possibility of eternal torment not just include

possibility of eternal physical pain but also possibility of eternal mental

suffering not just include the possibility of eternal physical pain but also

possibility of eternal mental suffering. For example, a sadistic and

disutilitarian AI may inflict a fear of public execution or the humiliation of

public rape every second.

The more worrisome possibility is that AI can deliberately engineer

sentient beings’ cognitive capacity to feel the pain to increase the pain

felt. For example, a disutilitarian AI can exponentially double cognitive

capacity to feel pain every second, and inflict pain to the fullest extent

sentient beings can suffer in that moment. I.e. every 10 second, the

capacity and the intensity of pain can be 1024-folded and it can continue

61
eternally. Even if the likeliness of this type of extreme sadistic disutilitarian

pain-engineering is very small, it is an excellent reason not to have a

child.

Although it is uncertain superintelligence would be able to overcome the

heat death of the universe, if it’s possible, a disutilitarian superintelligence

can inflict literally eternal torment. The antonym of utilitarianism is

disutilitarianism, not deontology.

Human factory farming risk (anthropophagic risk)

Also, it should be noted that because the overwhelming majority of

human animals are not vegan, it is very hard to expect human animals’

‘mind children’54 to be a vegan. Because AIs would not be a member of

the species Homo sapiens, human animals are not their conspecific, and

therefore, it is not a cannibalism to eat human animals (anthropophagy).

Human milk may be produced by our standard industry practices of

production of cow milk. First, semens can be collected by a masturbation

of human male. Second, human females can be forcefully impregnated

with aforementioned semen. Third, after gestation and parturition, the

54 Moravec, Hans, Mind Children: The Future of Robot and Human

Intelligence, Harvard University Press, 1990 (Reprint edition)
62
neonate may be killed for ‘human baby meat’. Fourth, human breast milk

can be forcefully extracted by electric breast pump.

Accordingly, human ‘meat’ may be produced by our standard industry

practices of production of ‘beef’. The human male may be genitally

mutilated (castrated), since testosterone make ‘meat’ less tasty. Human

female and male may be genetically modified, and forcefully medicated

with growth hormone for faster accumulation of fat. Human female and

male may be slaughtered even before they reach puberty.

Although being raised ‘free-range’ may be better than factory farmed, the

possibility of ‘free-range’ human animal product production is worrisome

enough as well.

Suffering footprint of procreation

The suffering footprint of a procreation is about 70 years. The suffering

(time) footprint of 70 years is comparable to suffering (time) footprint of 21

metric tonnes of ‘beef’ consumption, which is 1.19 days per kg55 .

55Tomasik, Brian, How Much Direct Suffering Is Caused by Various

Animal Foods?, Essays on Reducing Suffering, http://reducing-
suffering.org/how-much-direct-suffering-is-caused-by-various-animal-
foods/#Results
63
‘Vegetarian’s and vegans should be aware that time-based suffering

footprint of having one child is comparable to consuming 21 metric tonnes

of ‘beef’. The suffering footprint is even bigger if we should include

sufferings of 3rd or so on generations of descendants and animals they

devour, considering the resultant child is likely to procreate and consume

animal products. Also, it should be noted in the face of unprecedented

uncertainty of the outcome of technological singularity, we should

contemplate that there is a plausible possibility that our offspring may

suffer eternal torment (beyond the heat death) or excruciating torment for

1 googol to 10^10 googol years (until the heat death).

Argument 3. Benatar’s asymmetry

The Basic Asymmetry

According to David Benatar (also see Fig 2.)56:

(1) For existing person, presence of pain is bad;

(2) For existing person, presence of pleasure is good;

(3) For the potential person who has never been brought into existence,

absence of pain is a real advantage over presence of pain in case of (1);

56Benatar, David, Better Never to Have Been, Chapter 2, I slightly

rephrased for easier understanding by comparison of (1) v. (3) and (2) v.
(4) with p.14 of the Better Never …
64
(4) For the potential person who has never been brought into existence,

the absence of pleasure is not a real disadvantage over the presence of

pleasure in the case of (2) because that person cannot be deprived of

pleasure because it was never brought into existence.

Fig. 2 (See footnote 56)

65
Prof Benatar’s insight strikes me as a moral truth that is the most

important in the history of humanity. And his magnum opus, Better Never

to Have Been would be (at least should be) remembered as one of the

most important literatures of the so-called human history.

Prof Benatar argued, because the presence of pleasure of those who

exist is not advantage over the absence of pleasure of those who have

never brought into existence, “as long as life contains some bad in it,

there is a net harm in coming into existence”57. Prof Benatar suggested

that if there’s no pain at all in life, coming into existence is neither harm

nor benefit.

From the axiological asymmetry above (which Prof Benatar named, the

basic asymmetry 58), Prof Benatar derived 4 other similar asymmetries.

Benatar’s Four Other Asymmetries59

57Benatar, David, Paulson, Steve, The Harm of Coming Into Existence,

To The Best of Our Knowledge, Wisconsin Public Radio, http://
www.ttbook.org/listen/85221
58 Benatar, David. "Still better never to have been: a reply to (more of) my
critics." The Journal of ethics 17.1-2 (2013): p. 123.
59 Ibid.
66
“i) The asymmetry of procreational duties:

While we have a duty to avoid bringing into existence people who would

lead miserable lives, we have no duty to bring into existence those who

would lead happy lives.

ii) The prospective beneficence asymmetry:

It is strange to cite as a reason for having a child that that child will

thereby be benefited. It is not similarly strange to cite as a reason for not

having a child that that child will suffer.

iii) The retrospective beneficence asymmetry:

When one has brought a suffering child into existence, it makes sense to

regret having brought that child into existence – and to regret it for the

sake of that child. By contrast, when one fails to bring a happy child into

existence, one cannot regret that failure for the sake of the person.

iv) The asymmetry of distant suffering and absent happy people:

We are rightly sad for distant people who suffer. By contrast we need not

shed any tears for absent happy people on uninhabited planets, or

uninhabited islands or other regions on our own planet.”

Augmented asymmetry: why procreation is always a harm even if

there’s no suffering

67
Here I shall argue, that it is unethical to bring a sentient being into

sentient existence even if the sentience would continue eternally without

annihilation, and there’s no pain at all in any degree whatsoever in any

moment of sentient existence, and that sentient being would enjoy the

best cognitively possible pleasure possible for the level of technology of

that moment. The reason is simple. All sentient being that was brought

into sentient existence can be deprived of pleasures. And all sentient

being can enjoy pleasure infinite intensity in any given moment.

Therefore, the sentient being enjoying the finite intensity of pleasure at

any given moment is deprived of the infinite amount of pleasure

compared to the hypothetical infinite intensity of pleasure.

The objection that hypothetically infinite pleasure is impossible

Of course, there can be an objection that hypothetically infinite pleasure is

not actually possible. But even if in that case, we can compare the

pleasure any sentient being enjoying in any given moment with say, the

pleasure intensity that is the double of the pleasure intensity of the former.

If there are two immortal species without any suffering, but one has

pleasure minimal intensity of pleasure 1 second a day and another has

intense pleasure for 24 hours per day, we would and should think that the

68
latter is immensely better than the former, and the former is immensely

worse than the latter.

Negative Utilitarianism

Negative Utilitarianism is the idea that reduction of pain is morally

important or urgent than increasing pleasure. The term humanitarian

crisis itself strongly implies that what is morally urgent is the reduction of

suffering, not the increase of pleasure. Corollary of Negative Utilitarianism

is obviously assignment of negative value to procreation (anti-natalism).

But it does not follow all negative utilitarians should be a proscriptive/

prescriptive or moral/ethical anti-natalist. That is to say, even those who

think that coming into existence is a (serious) harm (descriptive/

axiological anti-natalist) may think (human) procreation may be conducive

to reduce the total amount of suffering in the world. Brian Tomasik

suggested in his article that although it is true a person is harmed by

coming into existence, reduction of wild animal population (according to

Living Planet Index, the wild animal population was halved compared to

197060 ) because of the existence of the human race reduced the total

60 Living Planet Index, Zoological Society of London and WWF, 2014,

http://www.livingplanetindex.org/projects?
main_page_project=LivingPlanetReport&home_flag=1
69
amount of suffering in the planet.61 Negative Utilitarian David Pearce

pointed out non-procreation of anti-natalists creates selection pressure for

pro-natalism. 62

Argument 4. Consent

Lack of consent of the child

Lack of capacity to give informed consent do not automatically mean it is

ethical or legal to subjecting somebody to the certain action, as we can

see, for example, the age of consent law (statutory rape law).

Jimmy A. Licon’s consent argument on the immorality of procreation63:

1. An individual is justified in subjecting someone to potential harm only if

either: (a) they provide informed consent, (b) such is in their best

interests, or (c) they deserve to be subjected to potential harm.

2. Bringing someone into existence is potentially subjecting them to harm.

61Tomasik, Brian, Strategic Considerations for Moral Antinatalists, Essays

on Reducing Suffering, http://reducing-suffering.org/strategic-
considerations-moral-antinatalists/
62Pearce, David, 2007, Review: Better Never To Have Been: the harm of
coming into existence by David Benatar, https://www.abolitionist.com/anti-
natalism.html
63Licon, Jimmy Alfonso, Think, Volume 11 / Issue 32 / Autumn 2012, p.
88, Cambridge, The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 2012
70
3. Individuals that do not exist: (a) cannot give their consent to being

brought into existence, (b) do not have interests to protect, and (c) do not

deserve anything.

4. Hence, procreation is not morally justified."

Moreover, procreation is conducted non-consensually and also

unsolicitedly (usually said by children to their parents "I never asked to be

born").

Consent is the fundamental principle in the jurisprudence of all

jurisdictions. Whereas potential (nonexistent) person lacks the capacity to

give consent pertaining to procreation thereof, lack of capacity to give

consent do not automatically deem the person given consent. It should be

always the best interest of the person, to be justified the action on him, if

he lacks the capacity to give consent thereto.

For example, statutory rape is deemed illegal because the child (under

the age of consent) deemed to lack the capacity to give consent, even if

she has given (inadmissible) consent. Because a nonexistent person

cannot have any interest to be brought into existence, it is not the best

interest of the child to be brought into existence. Therefore, any

71
procreation should be deemed illegal insofar the same legal principle

applied to statutory rape/age of consent law.

It is curious why the principle of the best interests of the child do not apply

to procreation whereas it does apply to adoption.

Indeed, adoption requires a lot of qualifications and safeguards to protect

the child, including the economic ability of the prospective adoptive

parents. Indeed, there’re a lot of parents who would not qualify as

adoptive parents for the reasons including economic ability go ahead

recklessly procreating, without a shadow of guilt to children thereby

victimised.


Unsolicitedness of life (life as an unsolicited gift)

Whereas the concept of ‘solicitation’ apparently commensurates with the

concept of ‘consent’, the term ‘unsolicited’ apply even in the case of the

person have the capacity to give consent.

A lot of children say to the parents thereof, “I was not asked to be born”.

Although it might be a difficult term for them the term ‘unsolicited’ perfectly

and concisely describe the ultimate unsolicitedness (the very fact we

were not asked to be born) of life.

72
Right to cognitive self-determination (cognitive liberty)

"Procreation is an act far more authoritarian than killing; and just as one

should not take the life of someone else, one should also not impose life

on someone else.”

-Giovanni Soriano

One of the reason murder is considered wrong and criminalised in every

competent jurisdiction is because it is a violation of the right to life, but

also the ultimate violation of cognitive liberty. Because procreation is non-

consensual and unsolicited infliction of sentience to (potential) sentient

being, it could be also described as (one of) the ultimate violation of

cognitive liberty.

Right to ontological self-determination (ontological liberty)

Similarly, procreation is a violation the right to ontological self-

determination. Whereas murder violates only the ontological preference

to (continue) to exist, procreation violates the right to ontological self-

determination not to come into existence, and not to involuntarily cease to

exist. (as shown above, the lack of the capacity to give consent of the

73
person does not and should not mean ignorance of that person’s best

interest)

Retrospective Consent

Prospective (biological) parents may (wishfully and selfishly) think that

their offspring may retrospectively consent for their decision for

procreating their offspring. This argument is problematic in a lot of ways.

First, obviously, not all people retrospectively consent to the parental

decision to procreate them. Anti-natalists, obviously, do not give such

retrospective consent. Also, as David Benatar pointed out, such

retrospective consent may be hugely affected by ‘adaptive preference’64.

Although one can commit suicide if he or she wanted, one cannot change

the fact one has been born. Because the person can never change the

fact one has been born, it is much more psychologically comforting to

think one is benefited, and not at all harmed to be born. Adaptive

preference can possibly apply to a lot of different things one cannot

consent or voluntarily choose, such as, procreation, compulsory

64 Benatar, David, Fox, Rebecca, Better Never To Have Been: An

Interview with David Benatar, Reasonable Vegan Network, Apr 17, 2016,
rvgn.org/2016/04/17/better-never-to-have-been-an-interview-with-david-
benatar/
74
education, religious/ideological/nationalist/statist indoctrination, corporal

punishment, circumcision, assigned gender, native language, one’s

parents, country of (natural born) citizenship, race, ethnic group, etc..

Jimmy Alfonso Licon argued, that people who attempt suicide may not

have given retrospective consent to their procreation. He further argued

“even if one of the partners having sex always consents after the action,

this cannot justify the initial lack of consent. There are only a few cases

where presumed consent is morally sufficient; assuming procreation is

that sort of action begs the question. This is because the individual for

whom consent is presumed has interests. Assisting an unconscious man

in the absence of consent is morally acceptable given the man has

interests worth preserving. That cannot be said of those who do not

exist.”.65

Prof Benatar argued that “The assumption that most people brought into

existence will retrospectively consent to their creation is likely true.

However, it does not justify our bringing children into existence. This is

partly because we have reason to think that the preference of most

65Licon, Jimmy Alfonso, Think, Volume 11 / Issue 32 / Autumn 2012, pp.

89-90, Cambridge, The Royal Institute of Philosophy, 2012
75
people to have come into existence is an “adaptive preference” — a

preference that people develop in order to cope with an unfortunate

situation. When the infliction of harm causes the person harmed to come

to consent to it, we should be very wary. If, for example, lobotomizing

somebody caused that person to endorse the lobotomization, we would

not – and should not – think that the retrospective consent justifies the

practice.”66

It should be noted, even if we think retrospective consent justifies the

procreation, whereas no wrong could be done to the potential person one

failed to bring into existence, even if that person would be glad to be born

if that person would be born, actual wrong is done to the person who

have been brought into existence if that person retrospectively wish not to

be born.67

Argument 5. Treating a child as an instrument

Procreation as an instrumentalisation of the child

66 Benatar, David, Fox, Rebecca, Better Never To Have Been: An

Interview with David Benatar, Reasonable Vegan Network, Apr 17, 2016,
rvgn.org/2016/04/17/better-never-to-have-been-an-interview-with-david-
benatar/
67It is related to David Benatar’s ‘the asymmetry of procreational duties’,
see Chapter 1, Argument 3, Benatar’s Four Other Asymmetries
76
There’re documented cases of procreation to harvest organ, for example,

bone mallow or a kidney to provide for one’s child with a disease, for

example, leukaemia or renal failure. Also in ordinary cases of procreation,

the child cannot be brought into existence for its own sake (because the

potential child is nonexistent, the nonexistent potential person cannot

have any interest to come into existence). Prof Benatar argued, ”In

ordinary reproduction, people produce children (a) to satisfy their

procreative or parenting interests; (b) to provide siblings to existing

children; (c) to propagate the species, nation, tribe, or family; or (d) for no

reason at all.”, and therefore, ordinary procreation is more morally

problematic than procreation to save a life, because those reasons are

weaker reasons of procreation than procreation for saving a life. 68

Children are usually brought into existence for companion animal

purposes. (to satisfy their procreative or parenting interests)69

Instrumentalisation as violation of human dignity

German Federal Constitutional Court stated striking down Section 14.3 of

Aviation Security Act which enabled German Air Force to strike down

68 Benatar, David, Better Never to Have Been, pp. 130-131

69 Ibid.
77
hijacked airplane for the reason it was violation (unconstitutional) of

human dignity clause of Article 1 of the Basic Law for the Federal

Republic of Germany: "human dignity forbids the public authorities to use

human beings as objects of their action, and as a mere means for the

salvation of others. When the authorities use the death of innocent and

helpless people to save other individuals, the former are being

transformed into objects. And this neglects the constitutional status of the

individuals as subjects with inherent dignity and inalienable rights."70

Procreation is essentially treating the future person as a mere mean and

as an object (i.e. exploitation), as shown in the paragraph above

‘procreation as instrumentalisation of the child’. Combined with German

Constitutional Court's view that treating people as mere means is a

violation of human dignity, procreation is a violation of, and not consistent

with, human dignity. (Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human

Rights, Article 1 of the Basic Law for the Federal Republic of Germany,

Article 1 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union)

70Felipe, Miguel Beltran de, Santiago, Jose Maria Rodriguez de,

Shooting Down Hijacked Airplanes? Sorry, We’re Humanists. A Comment
on the German Constitutional Court Decision of 2.15.2006, Regarding the
Luftsicherheitsgesetz (2005 Air Security Act), ExpressO Preprint Series
Year 2007 Paper 1983, https://www.unodc.org/tldb/pdf/
EssayCivilAviation1.pdf
78
There’re some cases parents have a baby to provide to get a suitable

donor for its older sibling or another relative. There’re parents who have a

baby for marrow to provide for its sibling who has leukaemia, or even a

kidney (one case)71.

Argument 6. Orphans

There are about 108 million orphans in the world.72 By creating a new

human, a couple is choosing to turn their face away from a young

parentless child in the helpless situation who desperately need their help.

It should be noted while adoption generally alleviates the suffering of the

adopted child, procreation always inflicts suffering of the procreated child.

(It should be noted there’re a lot of moral corruptions in adoption

‘industry’, and the adopted child do not have a say as much as

procreation)

Argument 7. Overpopulation and environment

71The New York Times, More Babies Being Born to Be Donors of Tissue,
4 Jun 1991, http://www.nytimes.com/1991/06/04/health/more-babies-
being-born-to-be-donors-of-tissue.html
72 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan#Populations
79
Human population surpassed 1 billion in 1804. It took 123 years to add

another 1 billion, in 1927. It took only 32 years human population grow to

3 billion in 1959, 15 years to 4 billion in 1974, 13 years to 5 billion in 1983,

12 years to 6 billion in 1999, 13 years to 7 billion in 2011.73

It should be noted that poverty, unemployment and ‘sweatshops’ are

partly caused by overpopulation. People in the developed countries

procreating 1 child is essentially depriving the chance of a person in the

developing countries to immigrate to richer countries. It would be

needless to mention that procreation in the developed world depletes

resources much more than procreation in developing the world.

Particularly those who is contemplating on procreation need to think

about massive unemployment and uncertainty artificial intelligence will

bring. Automation is already playing the huge role in unemployment. A lot

of poor countries have fertility rate much higher than replacement, even

though they can not feed and educate existing children and adults.

Teacher-student ratio is very high in the poor countries, which result in the

poorly educated new generation of that country.

73
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
World_population#Milestones_by_the_billions
80
It is needless to mention all anthropogenic climate change is attributable

to procreation. According to Oregon State University, an American can

only save 488 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide by all measures (“driving a

high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light

bulbs”) combined. But if an American choose not to have one child he or

she can reduce 9,441 metric tonnes of carbon footprint.74 (it should be

noted that this reduction is a co-reduction with the person’s partner)

Argument 8. Animal holocaust

Although it may be possible that life of one self-aware sentient being is

more valuable than one non-self-aware sentient being, there’s no intrinsic

reason to think the life of one self-aware sentient being is more valuable

than two non-self-aware sentient being. For example, there’s no intrinsic

reason to think one human life is more valuable than two insect life.

Perhaps there’re more objective reasons to think that two insect life is

more valuable than one human life.

74Family planning: A major environmental emphasis, Oregon State

University, Jul 31, 2009 http://oregonstate.edu/ua/ncs/archives/2009/jul/
family-planning-major-environmental-emphasis
81
Average Americans eat 16,000 animals in the course of their life.75 It is

estimated 166 billion animals are killed for human consumption every

year.76 Human animal devouring of non-human animals is particularly

culpable in a way predation by wild animal is not. Of course, the majority

of human have intelligence to contemplate on animal-eating. But another

important difference is that we are the only species that breed and raise

animals to eat. No totalitarian countries are known to breed and raise

millions of human for consumption of human flesh. Considering we have

killed trillions of animals for pleasure in the animal concentration-

annihilation camp (‘factory farm’), and particularly by intentionally

breeding and raising for the sole purpose of exploitation is enough to be

described “absurd and evil”77, “patently evil”78 or “animal holocaust is far

worse than any crime committed against the human race”7980.

75http://vegetariancalculator.com/vegetarian-calculator-yearly, https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy#List_by_the_World_Health_Organi
zation_.282015.29, this calculation used US life expectancy of 79.3 years
76 Benatar, David, Wasserman, David, Debating Procreation, p. 93
77 Benatar, David, The Species Barrier 35 Antinatal, Oct 9th, 2015, 0:33,
http://thespeciesbarrier.podbean.com/e/the-species-barrier-35-antinatal/
78 Ibid.
79Mistro, The Species Barrier 35 Antinatal, Oct 9th, 2015, 0:49, http://
thespeciesbarrier.podbean.com/e/the-species-barrier-35-antinatal/
80 see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_rights_and_the_Holocaust
82
Prospective parents who’re vegans have an excellent reason not to bring

their potential children into existence, as they cannot ensure their

offspring would be vegan when grown up.

Argument 9. (Un)aesthetic

“We are born between faeces and urine.” -St Augustine

“[H]ow many more producers of excrement and urine, flatulence,

menstrual blood and semen, sweat, mucus, vomit, and pus do we really

need?” -David Benatar

David Benatar provided (un)aesthetic considerations for anti-natalism.

According to his calculation, “[o]ver the course of a lifetime, the average

person excretes approximately 50,969 liters of urines and more than 2467

kg of feces”. Other (un)aesthetic considerations he provided include,

“olfactory repugnance” (which require deodorisation), “[s]tatistical

abnormal”ity of “physical beauty”, littering, noise, “fumes from factories,

cars, and cigarettes”, and “masses of rubbish”81

81Benatar, David, et al., Permissible Progeny?: The Morality of

Procreation and Parenting, Oxford University Press, 2015, Chapter 1. The
Misanthropic Argument for Anti-natalism, From the Bad to the Ugly:
(Un)aesthetic Considerations
83
Chapter 2. Anti-natalist activism

Contraception

About 38% of all pregnancies are estimated to be unintended in the

world, resulting in 33 million unintended births annually, which is about a

quarter of estimated about 135 million births. Contraception is failing in

too many cases. “Among unintended pregnancies in the United States,

60% of the women used birth control to some extent during the month

pregnancy occurred.”82 More reliable, yet not perfect methods of

contraception, such as vasectomy or tubal ligation (particularly,

vasectomy) are unpopular among young people because they want to

have children, doctors are reluctant to sterilise young, or have a myth that

vasectomy will lower their libido.

Alternative entertainment methods

Some studies suggested that televisions reduce the fertility rate83. By

developing more alternative entertainment methods, including, television,

82 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pregnancy
83Why aren't there more babies? Cable TV access reduces fertility rates,
Guardian, Dec 10, 2014, https://www.theguardian.com/money/2014/dec/
10/why-arent-there-more-babies-us-fertility-rate-declines-economists-
baffled
84
VOD service, video games, virtual reality, etc. we can reduce fertility rate.

The alternative entertainment might be even addressed to the alternative

relief of sexual desires, including pornographies, VR-based

pornographies, cybersex, sexual partner robot, etc.

Non-human animal companion animal/robot

A lot of people procreate for human companion animal purposes. We

could encourage adoption (but not breeding) of abandoned non-human

animals, thereby reducing demand for companion human animals. Of

course, demand for companion human animals can be met by adoption

as well. Also, robots equipped with AI can serve as a companion robot,

thereby reducing the urge to procreate for human companion animal

purposes.

Girls’ education, prosperity

More educated girls have fewer children.84 Among the reasons are 1)

more knowledge on contraception/family planning 2) more prudence in

procreative decision 3) more likeliness to engage in paid employment,

instead of becoming a full-time housewife. 4) married at the older age 5)

84https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/11/the-relationship-between-
womens-education-and-fertility/
85
more empowered to decide number of babies for her interest, possibly

against pressure from husband, parents, parents-in-law and community

6) lower teenage pregnancy rate 7) less likely to be sexually active at

young age

Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau, Singapore all have very

low fertility rate, below replacement, 1.40, 1.25, 1.18, 1.12, 0.94, 0.81,

respectively.85 In these regions, girls and women who are 15 to 34 are

highly educated, a lot of them had tertiary educations, perhaps even more

than boys and men. Teenage pregnancy rate in these regions is among

the lowest in the world.

Prosperity and education in general

Prosperity and education, in general, lower fertility rate.86 87 As economy

become more advanced, it needs more quality than quantity, so economic

value of children can be increased by having fewer children and

concentrating resources. Also, prosperity provides easier access to

85https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate
86 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_and_fertility
87 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence#Education
86
contraception, sterilisation, alternative entertainments. Also, the society

becomes more individualistic and tolerant as it becomes richer, thereby

reducing family/relative/community pressure to ‘continue’ family or tribe,

to marry and have a lot of kids.

I would not be surprised that research found out anti-natalists, child-free

people, vegans have above average education/intelligence/

socioeconomic status. Particularly, religious people can rarely become an

anti-natalist, anti-natalism requires further intelligence than becoming not

religious (Agnostic/Atheist). Indeed, high degree (possibly very high

degree) of intellect is a prerequisite to understanding arguments of anti-

natalism.

Vegans/Animal Rights activists

A lot of vegans opposes breeding of non-human animals. A lot of vegans

realise they are preventing factory farmed animals brought into existence,

instead of saving lives.88 (Of course, for wild fishes, vegans are saving

their lives) It is curious only a few of vegans and animal rights advocate

88 Benatar, David, Fox, Rebecca, Better Never To Have Been: An

Interview with David Benatar, Reasonable Vegan Network, Apr 17, 2016,
rvgn.org/2016/04/17/better-never-to-have-been-an-interview-with-david-
benatar/
87
seemed to realise their opposition to non-human animal breeding can be

extended to human animal as well. At least as much as breeding of non-

human animal cannot be justified because of there’re a lot of abandoned

non-human animals, insofar there’re abandoned human animal children

who need adoptive parents, breeding cannot be justified.

It should be also noted that breeding of human animal for companion

animal purposes (pet, i.e. human animal child-rearing experience) or

economic purposes (for child labor or as a ‘pension’ or ‘insurance’,

particularly after old age) is exploitive and morally problematic, at least as

much as breeding non-human animal for the pet purposes or economic

purposes (factory farming of non-human animals). Also, it’s very unlikely

none of vegan biological parents’ descendants does not consume any

animal products. Because veganism is hard to do, chances are there

would be more than one person who consumes animal products among

vegan’s children, grandchildren and numerous descendants of

innumerous generations thereafter.

Considering popularity of veganism, and considering about 1% to 2% of

the population of developed world is vegan (minority but big number and

impact considering population of developed world) it would be completely

88
possible to further anti-natalist movements (right not to be born/anti-natal

right movements) to the level of animal rights movements or LGBT

movements, furthermore, (slavery) abolition movements and/or women’s

suffrage movements, African’s rights movement.

Kantians and deontologists

Kantians, although it’s doubtful how many people will identify themselves

so, can be anti-natalists as well, since procreation is essentially treating

the resultant child as mere means to serve parental or other interests.

Child rights activists

It can be considered a violation of child right to procreate, and therefore,

child rights activists can be anti-natalists.

Existing anti-natalist movements

There are existing (population) anti-natalist movements. For example,

Population Action International (PAI), Population Matters, World

Vasectomy Day all have the view the world have human overpopulation

(or we would soon have the human overpopulation), and try to address

the overpopulation by the reduction of the fertility rate.

89
Although leaning toward choice-natalist view (reproductive freedom view)

than anti-natalist view (procreation reduction or abolition), Planned

Parenthood or United Nations Population Fund can be seen as somewhat

anti-natalist.

Chapter 3. Anti-natalist policy

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Article 16, Paragraph 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

stipulates, "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race,

nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.”. The

right ‘to found a family’ “is clearly intended and understood that the right

includes the procreative founding of a family.” 89

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Article 6 (d) and Article 7, Paragraph 1 (g) of the Rome Statute of the

International Criminal Court criminalised "Imposing measures intended to

prevent births within the group;" and "enforced sterilization" as a genocide

and a crime against humanity respectively. Article 7, Paragraph 1 (k)

"Other inhumane acts of a similar character intentionally causing great

89 Benatar, David, Better Never to Have Been, p. 102

90
suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health." can

also be interpreted to prohibit national jurisdiction's non-discriminatory

prohibition of procreation by means not involving enforced sterilisation (by

punishment (e.g. incarceration, fine) conforming to international

standards, i.e. neither cruel nor unusual)

Natural-born-citizen clause of the US Constitution

Natural-born-citizen clause of Article 2, Section 1, clause 5 of the

Constitution of the United States can be interpreted to imply non-

prohibition (if not the treatment of procreation as a natural right) of

procreation within the jurisdiction thereof.

Impunity and immunity for procreative infliction of death and other

harms

Harm Infliction of harm by Infliction of harm by

procreation non-procreative ways
(on human animals)

Death Legal Illegal

Pain Legal Illegal

Disability Legal Illegal

We’ve seen that procreative infliction of death can be as harmful as a

non-procreative infliction of death, if not more harmful. And it is obvious

91
that procreative infliction of death (i.e. procreation) is treated with

impunity. I shall discuss the impunity for procreative infliction of death (i.e.

procreation) and the possibility and implications of the prohibition of

procreative infliction of death (i.e. procreation).

Obviously, no competent jurisdiction have adopted general prohibition of

procreation. There have been limited anti-natal policies such as China’s

former one-child policy, but China’s one-child policy is “a response to

massive (rather than merely moderate) overpopulation”90 and also do not

prohibit all procreation (i.e. permit the procreation of the one’s first child).

In cases of “measures intended to prevent births within the group” for

eugenics or racist purposes, obviously ‘desirable’ procreations are not

prohibited, if not encouraged.

 Of course, there's an English common law principle of the year and a day

rule, or the three years and a day rule for the State of California, but even

if death happen on or before one or three years after the birth or sexual

contact resulted birth, parents are not criminally liable for the death of the

child.

Although Article 16, Paragraph 1 of the Universal Declaration of the

Human Rights stipulates the right to 'found a family', the right to 'found a

family' understood as a right to procreate seems to be inconsistent with

90 Ibid., p. 12
92
human dignity (Article 1), right to life (Article 3, because procreation is

(the ultimate) cause of death), social and international order for protection

of human rights (Article 28) and prohibition of destruction of rights (Article

30).

Preamble of the Rome Statute says the purpose of the Statute and

establishment of the ICC-CPI is to end impunity for international crimes

(subject to jurisdiction thereof), ”Determined to put an end to impunity for

the perpetrators of these crimes and thus to contribute to the prevention

of such crimes,"

If we should think not just the practices of murder, lynching, slavery,

female genital mutilation, etc. themselves but also (even if non-

discriminatory) impunity and/or governmental aiding and abetting of such

practices as human right violations, why not just practice of procreation

themselves but impunity and/or governmental aiding and abetting (pro-

natal policies, e.g. paid maternity leaves, welfare benefit for people

having children, etc.) of procreation (which invariably includes procreative

infliction of sentience, pain and death) also a violation of human right?

Of course, this is not to insist a prohibition of procreation or mass

sterilisation program should be introduced. That’s not just because the

former is very likely, and the latter is certainly prohibited by the Rome

Statute of the International Criminal Court. As Prof Benatar argued, there

93
can be good reasons to legally allow people to do wrong things, even if

some action is morally wrong.91 Prohibition of procreation is likely to

increase suffering in the world, rather than reduce it. 92

Procreation as a tort (wrongful life cause of action)

“Wrongful life is the name given to a legal action in which someone is

sued by a severely disabled child (through the child's legal guardian) for

failing to prevent the child's birth.

Now this should be extended to the wrongful imposition of sentience. So

all those who claim they have had sentience wrongfully imposed upon

them should be compensated by their parents and by the State. This

would be subject to them not having procreated themselves and to

voluntarily being sterilized.

The compensation could be a monthly allowance or a lump sum or

various benefits in kind. It should be sufficient to provide them with a

reasonable quality of life.

In many other areas people are compensated for such things as medical

negligence, rape, grievous bodily harm, murder of relatives, riots, civil

commotion etc., so why not here.”

91 Ibid. p. 103
92 Benatar, David, Wasserman, David, Debating Procreation, pp. 14-15
94
-Existential Depression, Facebook page93

Even if we do not (and I think we should not) criminalise procreation, anti-

natalist view on procreation may imply that children should have the right

to require compensation for the tort of wrongful infliction of sentience to

one's (biological) parents and physicians who assisted one's conception

(if procreation is aided by doctors, e.g. by in-vitro-fertilisation). Because it

is parents who’re indebted to children, not vice versa, children should

have more claim than one’s spouse to require the portion of parents’

property. The most importantly, because children’s association with their

parents is involuntary, children should have more claim than voluntary

spouses of usual cases of voluntary marriage.

Procreation tax

To procreate can be understood as voting for pro-natalist policies

(encouragement, endorsement or permission of procreation). Therefore,

all procreators are collectively responsible for the poverty in pro-natalist

93Existential Depression, Facebook page, https://www.facebook.com/

permalink.php?story_fbid=468086643296211&id=229835853787959, 18
Jan 2014
95
society. (since procreation is “the root of all evil” 94, poverty is also

procreativity caused) Therefore, there could be a ‘procreation tax’ policy

like ‘meat tax’ or ‘sin tax’. ‘Procreation tax’ could be imposed as a lump

sum, or imposed as a form of a surtax on the income tax. (it may be

possible only procreators and non-vegans are liable for tax)

For example, procreation tax can be imposed as an income tax, with the

tax rate of 30% of the annual income for the person with one child, 50%

for the person with two children, 70% for the person with three children or

more. By only taxing people who procreate (or procreated), we can

realise libertarians’ ideal, taxation-optional society. Of course, there are a

lot of implications of the procreation tax. Procreation tax may incentivise

progenitors to hide that they are procreating or have children. More

parturition can happen at the home, instead of a hospital, thereby

endangering pregnant women and the foetus/neonate. Particularly,

progenitors may not declare and register the birth of the child to the

government, thereby denying the child of the education, protection (from

parental and other abuse), citizenship and government-issued ID.

94Benatar, David, Attia, Guillaume A.W., Why We Should Stop

Reproducing, The Critique, Sep 21, 2015, http://www.thecritique.com/
articles/why-we-should-stop-reproducing-an-interview-with-david-benatar-
on-anti-natalism/
96
Procreation tax usage for universal basic income

Procreation tax can be used as a source of universal basic income. Such

basic income can be paid for only people who do not have children, or

even only for people who have got a sterilisation. Because life is an

unsolicited thing, it is unfair to impose work obligation only to survive (to

procrastinate death for a few decades) for those who do not impose life

on one’s offspring. Furthermore, the basic income can be paid only for

people who are vegan, alongside sterilised and/or anti-natalist.

Procreation tax usage for universal cryonics

Because life was unsolicitedly and non-consensually imposed on the

victim (of the procreation), the progenitors (perpetrators) of the victim of

the procreation have the moral obligation to support their children for the

entire life and provide the access to the transhumanist life extension,

such as a cryonics.

Cryonics can be subsidised by the procreation tax, of which all people are

cryopreserved if they wanted, or all people who never procreated are

cryopreserved if they wanted.

97
Children’s rights

Anti-natalist view may also suggest requirement of higher level of support

of children, longer duration of support beyond age e.g. 18 or 21, (as good

as the child's parents reasonably do), increased protection of children's

right (e.g. prohibition of cruel and unusual punishment such as some or

all cases of corporal punishment), increased freedom of children to use

their time and to choose their education and career (and requirement of

support even if child's parent don't like children's career choice), and

emancipation of minor law more favourable to the child.

State discouragement of procreation

It may imply even if procreation is not criminalised, contraception,

sterilisation, and abortion should be not just legal but also encouraged (by

campaign) and subsidised (e.g. free vasectomy, free IUDs, free

contraceptives, free abortion for pregnant poor women or pregnant

teenage girl)

Chapter 4. Moral complexities

Is it immoral to save a life?: the negative externality of beneficence

Peter Singer provided ‘Drowning Child Analogy’ in his famous paper

Famine, Affluence, and Morality (1972), that failure to save a

98
geographically distant life by failure to donate can be as wrong as failure

to save geographically near life (a drowning child). 95

The basic idea of this chapter is simple. Even though we have a prima

facie duty of beneficence (including the duty to a save life if one could),

that prima facie duty of beneficence can be overridden if that beneficence

may cause serious (harmful) side effect on other sentient beings. For

example, saving a non-vegetarian human animal may cause that saved

human animal eating thousands of non-human animals until his or her

death, and then it may be desirable not to save that human animal’s life in

order to save thousands of non-human animals. (it does not follow we

should kill that human animal)

Prima facie duties

According to W.D. Ross, we have a few prima facie duties that may

override each other in certain circumstances.96

95https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine,_Affluence,_and_Morality, Singer,
Peter (Spring 1972). "Famine, Affluence, and Morality". Philosophy and
Public Affairs. Princeton University Press. 1 (3): 229–243. doi:
10.2307/2265052. JSTOR 2265052.
96W. D. Ross's Moral Theory, http://www.hu.mtu.edu/~tlockha/
hu329ov8.htm, Garrett, Jan, A Simple and Usable (Although Incomplete)
Ethical Theory Based on the Ethics of W. D. Ross, http://people.wku.edu/
jan.garrett/ethics/rossethc.htm, 2004
99
1. Fidelity;

2. Reparation;

3. Gratitude;

4. Justice;

5. Beneficence;

6. Self-Improvement;

7. Non-maleficence (non-injury);

I would like to augment W.D. Ross’ 7 duties with the (prima facie) duty of

side-effect prevention (or duty of precaution). Although the duty of side

effect prevention may be included in the duty of non-maleficence, I think it

is desirable to separate it from the duty of non-injury. The duty of

precaution may include, for example, the duty to prevent official

development assistance (ODA) abused to continue poverty in the poor

countries; the duty to ensure the alien the country admit is unlikely to

pose danger to its nationals and residents; and the duty to prevent

detrimental side effect certain technology (such as nuclear fission) would

precipitate.

I shall argue, in practically all cases of beneficence (humanitarianism), the

side effect is unavoidable. This is not to say such beneficence is unethical

100
or undesirable, but to note the moral dilemma philanthropic, zoophilic

and/or sentiophilic people (including the majority of effective altruists)

nowadays are facing, and our potential offspring may have to face.

Procreative externality of saving life

Holocaust rescuer Sir Nicholas Winton saved 669 children, and about

7,000 people are estimated to alive because of him. I.e. at least about

6,000 people are procreated as a result of Sir Nicholas' rescue. Whereas

669 rescued people were already condemned to death by their

progenitors, i.e. they will invariably die even if they were rescued, 6,000

resultant lineal descendants do not have to die at all if they were not born

(if not Sir Nicholas' rescue).

Similar trolley problem-like moral dilemma present in almost all cases of

saving potentially or actually fertile human (practically every human

except post-menopausal women). For example, donation of $28 billion by

Bill Gates are estimated to be saved 6 million people. Within just a few

decades, it would result in the procreation of millions and millions of

resultant descendants that will invariably die.

101
Carnistic97 externality of saving life

Average human in the world eats more than one thousand animals in the

course of their life. Average Americans eat 16,000 animals in the course

of their life. Because a saving life of one non-vegetarian human animal

has cost of thousands of animal lives, the person who would save a non-

vegetarian human life would need justifications for doing so at the cost of

animals.

That may include, (1) life in the imminent danger (duty of beneficence)

have priority over potential and uncertain danger to life in the future (duty

of side effect prevention); (2) moral duty toward genetically or socially

close to us should have priority (toward family, friends, acquaintances,

community, ethnic group, state, conspecifics); (3) human life is more

valuable than thousands of non-human life; and (4) non-human animals

do not have any moral standing and we can use them as we please.

97The term carnism was coined by Joy, Melanie, 2001, see https://
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnism and Joy, Melanie, Why We Love Dogs, Eat
Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism, Conari Press, 2009



Whereas the practice of eating animals can be described as ‘meat-
eating’, zoophagy or sentiophagy, but a conventional ideology on moral
status, and our duty (at least, duty of non-maleficence) toward non-
human sentient beings can be best described and defined carnism (see
ibid. in this footnote)
102
Argument (4) is an appalling argument which can be described ‘speciest’.

Such view has been applied to women, children, people of minority race

and followers of the minority religion. Argument (3) is more plausible than

argument (4), but although it sounds plausible to think human life is more

valuable than non-human animal life, it is very unclear how much weight

we should give to humans. Most people may agree human life is not as

valuable as one septillion (10^24) non-human animal life. It would be very

speciest/anthropocentric to think so. While it may be easily agreeable that

one human life is more valuable than one non-human animal life, the

weight of human life may vary hugely. Some may think the multiplier

should be 1.5, some may think 10, 100, 1000, 10000, 100000, 1 million.

But there’s no intrinsic reason the value of human life should be just

above the number of animals he would eat during his life. If the multiplier

could be 100000, why not one million, one billion, one trillion, one

quadrillion, one septillion (10^24), or one googol (10^100)?

The major views on axiology of human and non-human sentient beings’

value of (sentient) life can be outlined as below. (1) human and non-

human (sentient) life both have an infinite value; (2) human life have an

infinite value, while non-human animals have a finite value; and (3)

human life and non-human animal life both have a finite value. I shall

103
argue, that view (2) should be rejected because it is speciest/

anthropocentric. View (3) require us to think human life is at least about

20,000 times more valuable to justify saving a life, it is far from clear why

we shouldn’t think the multiplier is 200 or 2 septillion. View (1), the view I

hold, is the only view that is compatible with the idea of ‘intrinsic and

inviolable dignity of all sentient beings’. But it would require us to think the

value of one human life, seven billion human life, and one mosquito life

the same, as they are all infinite. It could justify not killing one mosquito at

the cost of two human dies from malaria as much as it could justify saving

one life at the cost of thousands of non-human animals.

Argument (2) may also be speciest. Although it is true we allow some

favouritism to some extent, we would not (and should not) think that a

nation saving a life of 1 citizen at the cost of 1,000 foreigners is justified. It

is as much far from clear we have the right to favour 1 conspecific at the

cost of 1,000 fellow non-human animals.

Argument (1) seems to be the only plausible argument to defend saving

human life at the cost of risking thousands of non-human animals. But it is

far from clear we would also save one human at the imminent danger at

the cost of risking thousands of humans.

104
Carnistic externality of poverty alleviation

‘Meat’ consumption per capita in South Korea 9-folded after 1970, and

‘meat’ consumption per capita in China 5-folded after 1982. It is more far

from clear alleviation of poverty (suffering) of one human animal is

justified at the cost of life and suffering of thousands of non-human

animals than saving human life at the cost of lives of thousands of

animals.

Philanthropic exploitation of non-human animals

The best example of philanthropic exploitation of non-human animals is,

of course, animal exploitation, although many experiments are conducted

for frivolous reasons. (this is not to say experimentation is justified if

‘necessary’) Many vegans or ‘vegetarian’ people seemingly are not aware

that a lot of poorest human animals make living by animal exploitation.

For example, in agriculture-based poor countries, people often procreate

a lot of children to exploit them in the farm. Farms in the developing

countries almost certainly use ‘pest’icide or ‘livestocks’ such as a cow. A

lot of people in poor countries make living by fishing. Bill Gates

105
announced his plan to ‘donate’ more than 100,000 chickens for poverty

alleviation in the poor countries.98

Unavoidable harms to non-human animals by even vegans

Even a vegan kill several vertebrates per year by crop cultivation, roadkill

etc.. The number of killed animals by vegans may be thousands if insects

killed by pesticide included. Also in this deeply interdependent economy, it

is practically impossible for vegans not to patronise animal exploitation.

By taxation, consumption, donation and etc. (e.g. gov't grant to animal

experimentation, food stamp to non-vegan food, etc.) vegans indirectly

patronise breeding of non-human animal for exploitation. Although death

by starvation for ethical reasons (to not to patronise killing of any animals,

even by crop cultivation or taxation) may cause immense amount of

suffering to family and friends, a decision to eat vegan food instead of

fasting oneself to death is a choice based more on duty of self-

improvement than strict adherence to duty of non-maleficence (if

bereavement caused by starving to death is not considered non-

maleficence).

98 Gates, Bill, Jun 7, 2016, Why I Would Raise Chickens, Gates Notes,
https://www.gatesnotes.com/Development/Why-I-Would-Raise-Chickens
106
Moral Dilemmas in Anti-natalism Advocacy

For example, if one convince 1000 people not to procreate, and as a

result of that, 200 couples break up because of disagreement on whether

or not to procreate, 150 new couples may be formed with different match,

if 100 out of 150 new couples marry and they have 2 children per couple,

200 people will be unsolicitedly-nonconsensually procreated with different

genetic composition and their procreation will invariably result in death.

I.e. even if one save 2000 potential people 'from life' by anti-natalism

advocacy, 200 people may be brought into existence as a side-effect of

such advocacy (similar problem with trolley problem), and such 200

victims of procreation are not 2,000 beneficiaries, because 200 victims

have different genetic composition with 2000 beneficiaries (because one

of the biological parents are different).

Furthermore, moral anti-natalist acting on anti-natalism by desisting from

procreation is creating strong selection pressure for genetic or memetic

tendency for pro-natalism among human animals, as David Pearce

pointed out. Opting-out procreation may cause wild animal habitat

recovery, thereby wild animal population may increase, and thereby

indirectly cause immense amount of wild animal suffering.

107
Maleficence on the sentient being for the beneficence of the same

sentient being

Sometimes, maleficence on the sentient being is required for the harm

prevention or the conferral of the intrinsic good (upon the same sentient

being). One good example may be a compulsory education. There is no

doubt that compulsory education is effectively a kind of ‘involuntary

servitude’. It is far from clear whether we should describe compulsory

education intended to prevent harm (of ignorance) or confer the good (of

knowledge/education). It should be noted, however, that even if the

benefit or harm prevention of the compulsory education outweigh the

deprivation of liberty (involuntary servitude) and other harms or

unpleasantness associated with compulsory education, the involuntary

servitude (of up to 12 years) is pro tanto bad.

Advocates for compulsory education, particularly compulsory education

as a ‘human right’, how much well-intentioned they are, advocating for the

involuntary servitude, which is pro tanto maleficence and, violence.

(Here I should elaborate again that the ignorance progenitors impose

upon their offspring so that purportedly necessitates involuntary servitude-

108
education is completely gratuitous since they can simply desist from

procreation not to create urgent need for the compulsory education)

Maleficence on the sentient being for the beneficence of the other

sentient beings

There are cases which maleficence which may not qualify as exploitation

of the sentient beings is required for the purported beneficence (more

accurately, harm prevention) on the other sentient beings. For example,

killing mosquito(s) possibly carrying malaria virus to purportedly protect

human animals is one of such cases. One problem of universal

justification of such violence which is purportedly intended to protect

human animals is that it is implicitly assuming human animals are (far)

more valuable than non-human animals. Even if human animal life is

more valuable than non-human animal life, it does not follow the interest

to preserve human animal life can override the interests to preserve non-

human animal life.

If we have the right to use insecticide to kill insects that are potentially

harmful to human animals, there is no intrinsic reason to think we are not

allowed to use anthropocide to kill human animals (such as non-vegans)

that are potentially (more likely, actually) (very) harmful to non-human

109
animals. (of course, this is not to suggest killing (non-vegan) human

animals, neither to say we should never use insecticide, but just to point

out our moral selfishness for its own sake)

Impossibility of universal beneficence

Universal beneficence, which can be defined as beneficence on one or

more sentient being while harming no sentient being, is de facto

impossible. I have shown that even saving life and poverty alleviation

have a substantial side effect on non-human animals. Even convincing

others not to have children, or going vegetarian or vegan has substantial

side effects, most notably possible increase of wild animal suffering by

wild animal habitat preservation or recovery.

Although utilitarians may be unconcerned about (harmful) side effects,

provided the benefit of the particular course of the action outweigh the

(harmful) side effects, in this ‘chaotic’ cosmos in which the causal chain is

so complex, it is impossible to tell whether particular course of action

increase or decrease the amount of total suffering (disutility) (for negative

utilitarians) or the amount of total utility (for classical utilitarians).

Particularly, if a utilitarian think that a death (annihilation) also has some

moral considerability, the objective axiology to convert annihilation of the

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sentience into a particular amount of disutility (physical pain and mental

suffering) is impossible.

Professional duty and non-professional duty

It should be noted that professional duty may dictate a different course of

action from what (non-professional, general) moral code dictates. For

example, for people outside medical profession or people who are not

rescue worker, et al., it may be desirable not to save Hitler’s life (e.g. by

CPR), or even it may be desirable not to save non-vegan’s life (this is not

to say it is desirable or permissible to kill Hitler’s life or non-vegan’s life).

But for medical doctors, they may have a professional duty to save

human life non-discriminatorily.99

Chapter 5. Miscellaneous

Pro-death view on abortion

David Benatar argued that combining anti-natalist view with pro-choice

view on abortion would lead to what he calls ‘pro-death view on abortion’.

The view abortion is preferable before the fetus become sentient.100

99 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Declaration_of_Geneva#Declaration
100 Benatar, David, Better Never to Have Been, Chapter 5
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According to Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (2010), “In

reviewing the neuroanatomical and physiological evidence in the fetus, it

was apparent that connections from the periphery to the cortex are not

intact before 24 weeks of gestation and,

as most neuroscientists believe that the cortex is necessary for pain

perception, it can be

concluded that the fetus cannot experience pain in any sense prior to this

gestation.”.101

Non-human animal breeding

Breeding of non-human animals for the reasons such as exploitation for

animal product production, animal experimentation, companion animal,

etc. have exceptional culpability compared to wild animal hunting,

because it creates an unnecessary annihilation of sentience, whereas

wild animal hunting (such as wild fisheries) only makes annihilation

happen sooner than later. Veganism (not just vegan diet but desisting

from using animal products, and also desisting from breeding non-human

animals) should be encouraged, if not required by the government.

101Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Fetal Awareness –

Review of Research and Recommendations for Practice, 2010, https://
www.rcog.org.uk/globalassets/documents/guidelines/
rcogfetalawarenesswpr0610.pdf
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It is curious why (most of) vegans and animal rights advocates oppose

breeding of non-human animals but not breeding of human animals. If

breeding of non-human animals to exploit them as companion animals or

economic purposes are wrong, breeding of human animals to exploit

them as human companion animals or for economic purposes (which is

quite the case in the developing world) are at least as morally problematic

as breeding of non-human animals for such purposes.

Legal personhood of non-human sentient beings

Although so-called self-awareness or other so-called high level of

cognition are important features of sentient existence, sentience itself, I

think, is enough to qualify a sentient being for an individuality and a

personhood as an individuality. Every sentient being is individual and

final.102 Because all sentient beings are individual and final, all sentient

beings are persons. What I mean by that every sentient being is individual

is, that the subjective phenomenal experience of individual sentient being

cannot be felt by another (aside indirect influences of one’s phenomenal

experience toward another). That individuality of sentient beings also

102 Gray, John N., The Silence of Animals: On Progress and Other
Modern Myths, Penguin, 2013, “Humanity is a fiction composed from
billions of individuals for each of whom life is singular and final.”
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applies to sentient beings’ annihilation. And what I mean by that every

sentient being is final is, that the annihilation of individual sentient being is

final.

Although it has been suggested some sentient beings lack the

personhood103, the threshold for the personhood can be arbitrary, and

such argument can be used as an argument for carnism.104

Legal personhood of pre-sentient sentient beings

Pre-sentient sentient beings are effectively disenfranchised of their legal

personhood to be considered of their best interests, as non-human

animals are disenfranchised of their legal personhood. In the principle of

the best interest of the child, procreation is inconsistent with the principle

of the best interest of the potential person, and therefore, procreation is

not justifiable.

Possible dysgenic impact of anti-natalism

103 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personhood
104Watch David Benatar, Jacques Rousseau, et al.’s debate,
TEDxCapeTownSalon: Should Animals Be Off South African Menus? (Full
version), Dec 2, 2014, Tedx Capetown, https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=lJYwN2X7IbI
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It is likely people who acquaint the term anti-natalism (which is perhaps

rarely known even by native speakers of English), and even act on it by

desisting from procreation, or independently think that procreation may be

morally problematic, may have much high IQ and/or moral goodness than

the average.

If we recognise genetic or memetic heritability of intelligence, moral

goodness, anti-natalism, veganism, it is true that anti-natalist acting on

anti-natalism by desisting from procreation may create selection pressure

for pro-natalism, carnism (the ideology that non-human animal (ab)use is

acceptable) and moral egoism/selfishness.

It does not follow, however, that such so-called dysgenic impact is

undesirable. Although it may be true that intelligence is an intrinsic good,

it does not follow intelligence tends to reduce the overall amount of

suffering of the sentient beings. It is true that higher intelligence gives

stronger capacity to reduce suffering, but it is also true higher intelligence

gives stronger capacity to inflict suffering. For example, ‘meat’

consumption per capita tends to be much larger in high-IQ, high-GDP per

capita countries. Although human animals may be suffering less in high-

IQ countries, and likely to have a higher prevalence of vegetarianism and

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veganism, carnists (people who think non-human animal ab(use) is

acceptable) of high-IQ, high-GDP per capita countries have a much

higher capacity to perpetrate non-human animals. And overall, ‘meat’

consumption apparently increased because of higher income in high-IQ

countries is far larger than ‘meat’ consumption vegetarians in high-IQ

countries reduced.105

A response to techno-optimists

Some transhumanists and techno-optimists suggested that technology

may abolish death and suffering in the future. Of course, certainly,

technology can possibly make coming into existence less bad. As

technology so far achieved partial improvement (and partial deterioration).

But I think there badness in birth (the initiation of sentience) that is not

entirely reducible to the harmful side effects of the coming into existence

(death and suffering)

For example, David Benatar recently argued the badness of death

consists of the badness of annihilation and badness of deprivation. I.e.

there's an intrinsic badness of death even if it will release the person from

105 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_meat_consumption,
https://iq-research.info/en/page/average-iq-by-country
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suffering, and give the person 'meaning', the person urgency, etc. I shall

say we can and should think birth (the initiation of sentience) intrinsic bad.

For example, if our government administer antidepressants in tab water

without us knowing and without our consent, we would and should think it

is wrong. Not just because it's side effects (possibly, reduction of

discontent toward government, side effect of antidepressants) but also it's

intrinsic badness (violation of people's (cognitive) liberty)

I think the same thing can be said for procreation like medicating

antidepressants without consent is bad, even if it do not harm and only

benefits the person. (Non-consensual and unsolicited) procreation is a

violation of (ontological and cognitive) liberty. One is deprived of

ontological and cognitive self-determination. Although it is true that pre-

vital nonexistence is objectively nonexistence, subjectively, pre-vital

nonexistence is neither subjective nonexistence nor subjective existence.

Contrary to the pre-vital nonexistence, post-mortem nonexistence is

somewhat subjectively non-existence. Although post-mortem nonexistent

person does not have any subjective phenomenal experience to

experience the nonexistence, post-mortem nonexistent person was used

to exist.

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Also, we do not know right now what kind of fate technology would lead

us. As much as probability of salvation (abolition of suffering & death),

there's non-negligible risk of annihilation, damnation, and anthropophagy.

Furthermore, we can not procreate in the hope technology may abolish

death; as we can not procreate or kill somebody in the hope there would

be an afterlife (which majority of humans seems to be believing). We

should err on the side of the caution (precautionary principle) on whether

or not technology will abolish suffering or whether or not there is an

afterlife.

Asymmetry in our capacity to reduce and inflict suffering

There is apparently a crucial asymmetry in our capacity to reduce

suffering and inflict suffering. An injury is quick, recovery is slow.106 Killing

a life is quicker, cheaper, and take less expertise than saving a life.

Whereas all sentient beings can be killed, only sentient beings under

immediate jeopardy of death can be saved. Even if we save a life, that life

would invariably die within a few decades. Aside cryonics and possibility

of the future abolition of death, ‘saving a life’ in fact only extend life for a

few decades, and procrastinate death for a few decades.

106 Benatar, David, Wasserman, David, Debating Procreation, p. 49

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Particularly, whereas we can alleviate or prevent suffering of currently

existing sentient beings or future sentient beings (which would come into

existence if we do not intervene), we can inflict suffering not just on

currently existing sentient beings or future sentient beings (which would

come into existence if we do not intervene) but also we are capable of

creating more sentient beings to inflict suffering upon. We are actually

creating billions of human and non-human animals for the selfish reasons

(i.e. exploitation), effectively inflicting an immense amount of suffering

upon them, even if the infliction of suffering is not intentional and it may

not necessarily involve malice aforethought (it depends on how you

define intention and malice aforethought).

If nematodes are sentient, it is estimated that there is 10^22 (10

sextillions) sentient beings on this planet.107 The best possible scenario of

technological singularity can only alleviate the current suffering of 10^22

sentient beings (of course, this assumes that only this planet in the entire

universe contains sentient beings). Contrary, the worst scenario of

technological singularity can inflict suffering upon not just 10^22 existent

107Tomasik, Brian, How Many Wild Animals Are There?, Essays on

Reducing Suffering, http://reducing-suffering.org/how-many-wild-animals-
are-there/
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sentient beings, but also create more sentient beings to inflict suffering

upon. In the case of the damnation, the disutilitarian superintelligence

may create 10^30, 10^50 sentient beings to inflict the excruciating

suffering upon. Possibly, the disutilitarian AI may create other universes to

get energy and material to create sentient beings and inflict suffering

upon them. In that case, a disutilitarian AI may create 10^100 (googol),

10^googol (googolplex), 10^googolplex (googolplexplex, googolplexian,

googolduplex), googolplexplexplex sentient beings to inflict an immense

amount of suffering upon, and so on.

Because a disuitilitarian AI may become able cheat the heat death of the

universe (the second law of the thermodynamics) by methods such as a

creation of the new universe, a disutilitarian AI may even cause an

immense intensity of suffering for an infinite time upon an exponentially

increasing number of sentient beings. (for example, the number of

victimised sentient beings can be (exponentially) doubled every second,

i.e. 1024-folded every 10 seconds, for the infinite duration of the time)

Considering that the damnation of the cosmos might possibly cause the

infinite suffering, even if the probability of the infinite suffering happen as

a result of technological singularity is one in one billion (10^-9) or one in

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one googol (10^-100), provided that technological singularity can prevent

or alleviate only finite suffering, the expected value of the technological

singularity under the negative utilitarian view is minus infinite (-∞).

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