A collection of papers & books making arguments for antinatalism
By Type: Book (5) Paper (52) View All →
By Topic: AI (1) Animals (3) Antifrustrationism (1) Asymmetry (12) Consent (5) Harm To Others (7) History (1) Risk-based (7) Utilitarianism (2)
By Author: David Benatar (9) Gerald Harrison (4) Matti Häyry (4) Jeroen Robbert Zandbergen (3) Asheel Singh (3) View All →
New to antinatalism? Visit our sister site antinatalism.net for an introduction into what antinatalism is all about.
Paper by Erik Magnusson, published on May 4, 2026 in Philosophia
According to the consent-based argument for anti-natalism, procreation is always morally problematic insofar as it involves imposing serious and protracted harm on children without their consent and without an appropriate justification, for unlike other cases in which we are morally permitted to harm others without their consent, imposing the harms of existence is not necessary to prevent children from experiencing greater harm. In recent years, several philosophers have issued responses to this argument that attempt to avoid its anti-natal implications. For instance, some have rejected the principle that it is wrong to non-consensually impose harm on persons who are not otherwise at risk of experiencing greater harm; others have sought to demonstrate that this principle is not in fact violated in the case of procreation, either because we are permitted to act paternalistically on behalf of the children we create and so do not require their consent to the harms of existence or because we are normally justified in inferring their consent hypothetically; and others have sought to demonstrate that procreation may nevertheless be permissible if parents perform compensatory duties to their offspring or take sufficiently robust measures to minimize the harm they are likely to experience over the course of their lifetimes. My objective in this paper is to show why these arguments are less persuasive than they initially appear, and hence why the consent-based argument for anti-natalism still presents a serious challenge to the moral permissibility of procreation.
Paper by Andrea Sauchelli, published on May 20, 2025 in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
A form of pessimism can support the claim that we have a collective duty to prevent the creation of additional human beings. More specifically, I argue that axiological pessimism, which suggests that human existence is overall bad (for humans) because of a form of evil it causes, implies that we should end human procreation, provided that we do not thereby generate further such evil. In turn, this conclusion can support anti‐natalism, the normative view that we should refrain from procreating.
Paper by Matti Häyry, published on February 17, 2023 in Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics
This article presents a revised version of negative utilitarianism. Previous versions have relied on a hedonistic theory of value and stated that suffering should be minimized. The traditional rebuttal is that the doctrine in this form morally requires us to end all sentient life. To avoid this, a need-based theory of value is introduced. The frustration of the needs not to suffer and not to have one’s autonomy dwarfed should, prima facie, be decreased. When decreasing the need frustration of some would increase the need frustration of others, the case is deferred and a fuller ethical analysis is conducted. The author’s perceptions on murder, extinction, the right to die, antinatalism, veganism, and abortion are used to reach a reflective equilibrium. The new theory is then applied to consumerism, material growth, and power relations. The main finding is that the burden of proof should be on those who promote the status quo.
Paper by Joona Räsänen, published on February 11, 2023 in Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics
Ethical vegans and vegetarians believe that it is seriously immoral to bring into existence animals whose lives would be miserable. In this paper, I will discuss whether such a belief also leads to the conclusion that it is seriously immoral to bring human beings into existence. I will argue that vegans should abstain from having children since they believe that unnecessary suffering should be avoided. After all, humans will suffer in life, and having children is not necessary for a good life. Thus vegans, and probably vegetarians as well, should not have children. I will consider several objections against this controversial claim, show why the objections fail and conclude that it would be best for ethical vegans to abstain from procreation.
Paper LinkNo open access PDF link available.
Paper by Matti Häyry, published on December 13, 2022 in Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics
I present a qualified new defense of antinatalism. It is intended to empower potential parents who worry about their possible children’s life quality in a world threatened by environmental degradation, climate change, and the like. The main elements of the defense are an understanding of antinatalism’s historical nature and contemporary varieties, a positional theory of value based on Epicurean hedonism and Schopenhauerian pessimism, and a sensitive guide for reproductive decision-making in the light of different views on life’s value and risk-taking. My conclusion, main message, to the concerned would-be parents is threefold. If they believe that life’s ordinary frustrations can make it not worth living, they should not have children. If they believe that a noticeably low life quality makes it not worth living and that such life quality can be reasonably expected, they should not have children, either. If they believe that a noticeably low life quality is not reasonably to be expected or that the risk is worth taking, they can, in the light of their own values and beliefs, have children. The conclusion is supported by a combination of the extant arguments for reproductive abstinence, namely the arguments from consent, moral asymmetry, life quality, and risk.
Paper by Ludwig Raal, published on April 1, 2022 in Stellenbosch University, MA thesis
Most people have an idyllic view of nature and believe that wild animals have good lives. But nature is a hostile place. In addition to the suffering inflicted upon prey by their predators, many wild animals are victims of infectious disease, extreme weather, starvation, and parasitism. Yet it is often claimed that an abundance of wildlife is desirable. The aim of this thesis is to challenge this premise. My argument will proceed in four parts. Firstly, I will show that the lives of most wild animals are characterised by a surplus of negative experiences, and that there are a myriad of ways in which wild animals suffer. Secondly, I will challenge the notion that wildlife has intrinsic value by considering, and arguing against, two related claims: that the lives of individual wild animals have intrinsic value, and that wild species as wholes are of intrinsic value. Thirdly, I will consider whether wildlife has instrumental value, and if so, whether it is sufficient to justify traditional conservation methods. I conclude that this is not the case. Finally, I will argue that it may be best for most wild animals not to be born at all, a view I refer to as weak wildlife antinatalism. While such a conjecture may strike many as deeply counterintuitive, I will make the case that it is both technically feasible and morally desirable.
Paper by David Benatar, published on March 19, 2022 in The Journal of Value Inquiry
Another response by David Benatar to several of his critics.
Paper by Oliver Hallich, published on March 16, 2022 in The Journal of Value Inquiry
The asymmetry argument, expounded in chapter 2 of his book Better Never to Have Been, is the backbone of David Benatarʼs anti-natalism. If correct, it lends support to Benatarʼs central claim that it is always a harm to be brought into existence. Accepting this claim does not decide the question whether bringing someone into existence is only a minor or a grave harm. However, in conjunction with Benatarʼs quality of life argument – i.e., the argument that our positive judgements about the quality of our lives are systematically distorted because the quality of our lives is much worse than we usually think it isFootnote 1 –, the asymmetry argument yields the conclusion that each of us has been not only slightly but very seriously harmed by being brought into existence. In this paper, I offer a qualified defence of the asymmetry argument. It is a qualified defence because I defend the argument only after criticizing it, and I attempt to offer a defence of the argument that incorporates this criticism. My claim is that the argument is basically correct, but that it needs to be refined and qualified in the light of this criticism. After shortly recapitulating the asymmetry argument (1), I criticize it in two steps (2). First, I argue that, in contrast to what Benatar claims, we can harm potential persons by not bringing them into existence (2.1). Second, I criticize Benatarʼs attempt to defend the asymmetry argument as an argument from the best explanation for other moral intuitions that we normally hold (2.2). In part 3, I defend the argument in a way that is compatible with this criticism. The first step in my defence is to apply a distinction between harming de re and harming de dicto. When we harm potential persons by not bringing them into existence, we harm them in a de dicto, not in a de re, sense. This, I argue, shows that my claim that we can harm potential persons by not bringing them into existence is compatible with the claim that existing persons could never have been harmed by not having been brought into existence (3.1). Moreover, this latter claim is true: no existing person would have been harmed by not having been brought into existence (3.2). In sum, the asymmetry argument, together with plausible empirical assumptions, shows that each of us has reason to regret our existence, though it does not establish the truth of anti-natalism (4).
Paper by Erik Magnusson, published on March 2, 2022 in The Journal of Value Inquiry
In his paper Magnusson analyzes several risk-based arguments for antinatalism, before arriving at the following version of one, which he considers the most robust:
According to this argument, procreation is impermissible because it involves imposing a risk of catastrophic harm on the resultant child that is not necessary to advance their essential interests. This type of argument notably departs from the tenets of Benatar’s other arguments for anti-natalism—it does not assume that existence is always comparative worse than non-existence nor does it assume that existence is always non-comparatively bad—though given the controversy surrounding those arguments and the subsequent need to develop an independent risk-based argument, this counts as a significant advantage.— by Erik Magnusson in "On Risk‑Based Arguments for Anti‑natalism"
Paper by Jeroen Robbert Zandbergen, published on December 9, 2021 in Journal of Ethics and Emerging Technologies
In the present work I explore the unignorably momentous responsibility of contemporary philosophy to conclude the project of humanism as inherited from Enlightenment-era thinking. I argue that there are presently two avenues open to us. On the one hand there is antinatalism, according to which humankind must be gestured towards self-imposed extinction and thereby overcome. On the other hand, there is transhumanism which inspires the hope that we may transcend any limitations to our being and flourish as a result of radical enhancement, thereby also overcoming humankind. On both accounts, the ‘human’ is something to be overcome, either negatively (antinatalism) or positively (transhumanism). As both have a common ancestor in radical Enlightenment-era humanism, this choice between radical resignation and affirmation becomes all the more pertinent now that we find ourselves in modernity’s wake and in the ruins of morality’s collapse.