#Antinatalism

Most people don't seem to think about consent in regards to childbirth, but it's quite a serious issue.

Everyone who was ever born did not give consent to be alive. 

The largest issue with this is that if someone has a miserable life, perhaps even ending up killing themselves and regretting the whole ordeal, that would not only be: 1) a bad life, but 2) one that was imposed upon them. There are many variations of bad lives, too: toddlers getting cancer and dying at the age of 4, double amputation required at the 7 leading to death, being abandoned by both parents and being bashed every day by adopted parents etc. In short, there are plenty of lives we can look at and say, 'that wouldn't be a desirable life to live at all', and this is made worse by the fact that this life was forced upon them without consent.

It's also ethically dubious to bring people into existence, even if their life ends up being great. The ethical problem is that a great life isn't guaranteed, whereas suffering is. So, bringing people into existence would be effectively gambling a person's wellbeing without the person's consent, and winning the gamble. 

Even in it's simplest form, bringing people into existence is done without consent, so there is that issue, too.

I haven't ever seen a coherent, logically constructed argument that addresses this large ethical issue. I would love to read what people think.

Ever since I lost my Christian faith at a young age, I've struggled with this topic a lot. Mainstream intellectuals either don't ever address it or mangle their understanding of arguments in favor of antinatalism, so antinatalism always seemed a rather large beacon of truth to me.

Overall, I don't think human life can be argued as acceptably good. Negative affect is a prerequisite to positive affect, at least in humans (probably other sentient creatures, too). A drink of water doesn't feel good (positive affect) without first being thirsty (negative affect). In other words, you're always going to have more instances of negative affect than positive affect.

You can add to this conundrum by realizing that people generally experience more units of negative affect when bad things happen, than the inverse. We see this with loss aversion in regards to financial decisions, wherein someone will prioritize avoiding losses Prospect Theory and Loss Aversion: How Users Make Decisions (nngroup.com) You can also theorize about the best thing that could happen in life (e.g. winning a massive competition) versus the worst things (e.g. early onset Alzheimer's). 

I think a possible solution to the antinatalist argument involves humans being radically genetically engineered to not have this deprivation mechanism that has them have more instances of negative affect and experience more units of negative overall in their life. Effectively, you'd be removing the desire part of the human psychology, whatever that comprises. If tasks still needed to be done, you could replace the deprivation mechanism model with an algorithmic one, of which simply does required tasks without the need for motivation (the thing is done because it is logical to do so). I guess this new being would be far enough from a human to be considered post-human.

Another solution is to simply have humans in a dream state or virtual reality world that allows for unrealistic levels of deprivation fulfilling, of which doesn't come at the expense of other real humans (e.g. you win a gold at the Olympics in your dreams, but you don't realize than you are dreaming, so no real human actually lost and feels the negative affect). Perhaps we could even pre-program a device/human to allow the human to experience a life they think is real but is a linear progression that allows the human to feel better and better as their perceived life continues (e.g. winning the Olympics in one category, then in two in the next Olympics). The pre-programming would protect against unwanted negative affect because the perceived life is pre-determined. 

Without concretely proving it, antinatalism appears to have the framework to be correct, without having all the concrete required to fill the framework:

1a) There is always a negative affect before a positive affect, in regards to all humans as a whole (not necessarily to individual humans -- one person's gain can come at the expense of others). Happiness, pleasure, joy etc. (positive affect) are the result of relieving oneself/people of sadness, pain, sorrow etc. (negative affect).

For example, we don't feel relief in drinking unless we were previously thirsty. You can drink without being thirsty, but you won't experience positive affect in that. It's the preceding negative affect which allows for the creation of the positive affect.

Furthermore, when someone is relieved, boredom slowly creeps in (which is negative affect). So, even if you achieve your goals and relieve yourself of the negative affect, you'll soon be hampered by boredom! And you know what is required to counteract boredom? A goal (i.e. something that produces negative affect). So, both achievement of goals AND working towards goals creates negative affect (and only offers the chance of positive affect).

You can further compound this negativity by the existence of comparison, of which makes positive affect have a limited ceiling. In other words, because you can compare your lot in life to others, even if in isolation you would experience positive affect, you may experience negative affect if you see your lot in life as less than others (and will be particularly aggrieved if you deem this difference unfair). An example of this: people prefer being objectively poorer if they are relatively richer compared to those around them -- not everyone can be relatively richer than everyone else around them Is more always better?: A survey on positional concerns - ScienceDirect 

Thus, negative affect is guaranteed whereas positive affect is not.

Therefore, there will always be more instances of negative affect experienced than instances of positive affect experienced.

The question now becomes: despite having greater instances of negative affect, do they outweigh the fewer instances of positive affect?

1b) Per unit, negative affect outweighs positive affect

Albeit, this is an exercise in estimation, as we cannot (currently) measure and compare ever instance of positive and negative affect to have been experienced by humans (it's framework without the concrete).

But, nonetheless, we can estimate.

What do you think of drinking water? If you could flip a coin to (heads) experience your quenched thirst or (tails) to experience dehydration, would you flip the coin? According to current loss aversion theories, people would prefer not to flip the coin because they don't like risking their status quo Higgins_et_al-2018-Journal_of_Consumer_Psychology.pdf (columbia.edu) . In fact, people would be far more willing to take risks to avoid dehydration, than they would to gain a more pleasant drinking experience (perhaps a sugary beverage instead of water). Hence, we have the backing of research to suggest that per unit, negative affect outweighs positive affect.

Since per unit, negative affect outweighs positive affect, and from argument 1a we saw that there are more instances of negative affect, it follows that there is a larger value of negative affect than positive affect in life, thus human life shouldn't be brought into existence.

2) Humans are totally unable to consent to life. This problem is amplified by the entirety of the arguments above, but it's also a problem in itself.

It's morally questionable to impose upon people serious conditions (in this instance: life) without their permission. Even if you think it's a good idea, and even if the life ends up being a good one, there is guaranteed risk involved (e.g. cancer, disease, childbirth complications, death etc.) which parents impose without consent.

It would be like someone using your money to go to the casino. Would you like it if someone did that? We already know they're playing against the odds (see my above argument 1a + 1b). Even if the person were to double your money, they still used your money without your permission. They still risked your money without asking you first. This is analogous to bringing humans into existence -- no consent beforehand.

Thus, parents gambling with the wellbeing of others without their consent is immoral. Therefore, childbirth is immoral.