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If one views the continuation of the species as a good that overrides the evil of creating life without consent then you can decide that having children is justified. Yes exactly. It's my choice .not theirs .so how can that be moral ? It would be like being forced to attend a birthday party without your permission. You could want to go or you could not want .but in any case you shouldn't be forced to make that decision from outside. Bringing new bundles of mostly unmet needs into this already overpopulated world seems selfish, foolish, or careless to me, depending on whether you do it on purpose or just follow the natalist programming as most people end up doing. I think that too many people don’t consider how big of a deal it is that they can create someone who might wish they didn’t exist. As someone who has struggled with depression I can’t say that I’m altogether thankful that I was born. Depends on the day lol

Look ..i have no problem with people having kids . My objections are ethical ones .and its for myself primarily. I don't want to bring kids into this cruel world to suffer and die in without taking their permission. I say I won't do it .I'm not preaching that everyone should do it .

Then why put more gas on the fire ?

I'm a realist .I don’t recommend fantasy. Love ? That sounds like Santa Claus. I'm not an advocate for pink unicorns and butterflies. Reality Is tough. At some point it will hit you . Maybe because you are still young and healthy and have received a good care from your parents and society. But you wil get sick .you will get old .you will die .think about that .picture your own death. The levels of fear and mania will reach infinity. Think about all the absolutely insane and fucked up scenarios that your life could turn into if you are not being careful. I'm simply rejecting the whole gamble. Sorry life is harsh. I would be a bitch if i Bring an Innocent soul to this universe to suffer all the weird shit we humans have to face inevitablely in our life.

Very profound question. Why is there “something” instead of “nothing”? You can ponder this for a while, and most of us have, to greater or lesser degree. But those of us who have not gone crazy trying to answer this, have eventually come to the conclusion that “It just is!”. In answer to the question “Yes but why?” we have to accept everything has a cause, some things just are, and “everything” (that exists) simply exists! Sorry! No more answer. These are no longer questions about reality itself, these are questions about our own mind, and how it can possibly understand anything. Well this is one “thing” that our mind will never understand, you can choose to agonize over it for the rest of your life, or you can just accept it as a given fact and and move on. Good question! Very profound! Had me cycling for many cycles before I finally gave in to factual reality and the rest of my life. Still worth asking, even if there ain’t no answer! Good question none the less

Yes .ceasing to exist forever is the perfect state. That's what Leo calls "melting into infinite love " . He doesn't want to blunt about it and tell you that you will have no form forever. Do you remember before you were born? Weren't you peaceful back then? I don't see why people are afraid of it. Either it's the beginning of another exciting part of a human being's life or it's nothingness and you won't care because you won't know. So I don't think it's anything to worry about. I answered below :

Global suffering. But in the opposite of the way you described .because I live in a country 1.3 billion people people. With more immigrants and rural to urban migrants coming in every day, it’s a very bad idea to have kids. The schools also have metal detectors so you can’t bring a cell phone. I will be honest..I fucking hate humans and i think we're the worst thing that could ever happened to earth and nature in general. Look at those selfish bastrads killing each other throughout the whole bloody history .WWl and WWll and this Russo-Ukrainian War. Maybe not all humans coz there's still true “good” people out there or at least what i consider not be a piece of shit, i truly hope coronavirus fucks us all and nature can finally be in peace just as it was before we came into existence.

I don’t have the credentials to answer this question. I have, however, read a little and find Schopenhauer's stance on this topic quite persuasive: “The pleasure in this world, it has been said, outweighs the pain; or, at any rate, there is an even balance between the two. If the reader wishes to see shortly whether this statement is true, let him compare the respective feelings of two animals, one of which is engaged in eating the other.”

maximizing happiness does not guarantee that suffering has actually gone down, just that the ratio between the two has tipped in happinesses favor. You could turn one area into a complete utopia while another part remains a third world wasteland, the suffering in the third world wasteland hasn’t decreased

Bringing a conscious being into this crazy world without consent is saddstic and selfish. When many people think of having children they picture the child only. They don't picture the adult. the years of working in menial jobs and living in mediocrity, uncertainty and desperation. Most parents are under the illusion that their child will be special, that they will have a good life. Then the child doesn't turn out as they expected and you then have miserable parents and miserable children. Having a child is akin to playing roulette, you are gambling with someone's future.

This world is horrible and when you bring an innocent person into this world just because you want to, that’s equally as horrible. There are kids who are already here (the ones in foster care and adoption agencies). Why does no one care about those kids? The world is overpopulated. Humans contribute to the emission of greenhouse gases, which are harmful for the planet and us. They say childfree people are selfish, but yet they’re having kids all because they want to. To submit someone to something as bad as existing is extremely selfish. My ethics are utilitarian. I’m the most pure utilitarian I’ve ever met. When people ask me the gotcha! questions that are supposed to trip up utilitarians and make them realize that they actually think murder is wrong (or whatever), I’m never tripped up. My mind just seems to naturally work along utilitarian lines, and when I first started studying Moral Philosophy, I had a shock of recognition. Oh! There’s a word for what I am. To a utilitarian, the only moral principal is maximizing universal happiness and minimizing universal suffering—with everyone’s happiness and suffering having equal weight. By my utilitarian calculus, it would be better if no one was ever born. Not all utilitarians agree with that. It depends on some subtleties of how you balance happiness and suffering and whether or not you care about potential happiness of beings that don’t exist but could. My calculus says that the Universe would be better off, on balance, if no one was born into it. But I literally never think about this..and barely care about it..except as a dorm-room Philosophy discussion. I don’t walk around thinking my friends shouldn’t have children (I don’t even secretly think that) and I certainly don’t lecture anyone about that. Well, I never lecture anyone about anything. I mostly apply my ethics to myself. I’m not really a judgmental person. The main reason why antinatalism is a non-starter for me is because I’m(I don’t know if there’s a word for this) what I’d call an ethical realist. Or a practical ethicist. I’m not a utopian idealist. I’m only concerned in what it’s likely people will reasonably do. People are not going to stop having children. There’s no possible argument that will make people stop. We’re biologically wired to want to procreate, and that’s not likely to change. I don’t expect it to change. It seems so unrealistic, I don’t even wish it would change. And, while I agree with antinatalism intellectually, I’m so profoundly convinced people will always want to have kids, I don’t even find myself wanting an antinatalist outcome. I can’t feel it emotionally.

IF I believe there NO morality exsists .. can I believe in the importance of doing the right thing, rather than behaving in a negetive way? Can I still believe in good over evil? Even though I don't believe morals exsist, minimising our impact on this earth is important to me. I believe in choosing to do the right thing over the wrong thing is. I believe in avoiding cause harm to others.... If moral nihlism is my thing, can I believe in that? Can I believe causing harm is bad? Especially if it's unnecessary harm? If you take the position of (moral) nihilism. Does taking up that position mean that you can't believe that there is a difference between right and wrong? See currently I believe that there are no morals. But I also do believe that there is a difference between right and wrong. If I take the position of moral nihilism, can I still value doing what I believe is the right over what I believe is the wrong? Can I believe in doing good over evil? Is there a difference between acting in the right way and acting in the wrong way, compared to what is moral and immoral? If I believe there are no morals, can I still claim to believe in doing the right thing is important? ... do un-towards others as they would to you etc etc, can I apply the golden rule to moral nihilism?

No we are on the same wavelength. So basically you are saying Morality is entirely subjective. We made the term. If you look at wild animals, they leave their children alone in fields. And guess what? We do that very same thing, some of us at least. Most of us consider it immoral, yet some of us do it. I mean, we literally burnt people for praying to the “wrong God” as if there’s one in the first place. So, yeah. Morality, eh? So much for that. I’m not saying go kill people, but I’m saying that there are some who believe it’s fine to kill people. If morality were objective, everyone would think the same way and have a universal system by which they could categorize people with ease. For example, apparently, it’s wrong to criticize religion (in certain cases, like insulting the Bible) because it’s unholy, but when religious people say that gays are spawns of Satan, they use the excuse of having the right to practice religion under the 1st Amendment. So, yeah. Morality is nothing more than just a twig which we bend and twist and cut in half whenever we feel like it suits our purpose.

No there is a difference..Judaism believes that only belonging to semetism is the ticket to be cherished by god. Which is just a local god. Only for the Jews. And Christianity fucks with your IQ by saying 1=3. It's one god but in three forms . Jesus is both god and the son of God at the same time . You don't get that in Islam. Islam makes more sense than Judaism or Christianity. Although its still just fantasy and nonsense.

I didn't understand anything.

Actually Islam is the most senscial religion that exists today. Its very straightforward in its ontology. There is a one and only god who created everything. And created human beings to worship him .and whoever worships him will go to heaven and have an endless sex with hot women (not sure what's the equivalent of that for women lol). And if you don't worship him or disbelieve in him he will send you to the hellfire to burn and cry for eternity . Seems pretty straightforward. Not implying that this bullshit is true per se .just that it's the most straightforward bullshit(religion)from all the kinds of other bullshits(religions )out there .

Yes I agree . We had morality long before Judaism or Christianity was a thing. Civilisations that have never heard the word of God have moral and ethical systems. And the reason is much simpler than a god: we need morality to have social cohesiveness if the group is big enough. So every time the tribe becomes bigger than the “monkey sphere” ,the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships .. it invents some form of morality.

I define Morality as a system of principles and values concerning people's behaviour, which is generally accepted by a society or by a particular group of people. I don't think It would be wrong to say that morality comes from spirituality because if one is aware of spirituality then the person will be familiar with what is good ..bad and he will know that wrong doing results wrong and good doings gets good result. For most people religion is the source of morality .because we all know that there is some supernatural power of this universe which has created and and operating this universe, it gives us the fruits of our good and bad deeds. That's according to the religious worldview. But today's society has completely forgotten moral values & We can say that distance of new generation from spiritualism is the main reason behind falling the moral standard day by day . In ancient times, our ancestors used to take spirituality as an important aspect of their lives, but today there is only hypocrisy and hypocrisy left in the name spirituality in the present time. Spirituality is coming to an end in the human being. As a result of that moral values are decreasing day by day. But I think we can have morality without God. the nice thing about morality without God is that it can actually be based on wholly objective standards such as the innate sense of empathy that most humans are born with and empirical evidence of what sorts of behaviors are conducive to our working together successfully as a highly social species.

Yes but the whole problem is where do you get your high values from ?you take them from the bible (the 10 commands )? Or do you just come up with them ? See because for religious people, morality doesn't make any sense without God. And that's what lead to moral nihilism. Which is the subject of this thread . Some people think : what? God doesn’t exist? Whoohoo! I’m free to kill, rape, thieve, and litter, and won’t have to worry about consequences after I die. Also, I have heard “God will forgive me” so many times from believers that I’ve come to the conclusion that belief in God has a negative impact on morality. If you can do anything you want, and God will forgive you…why would you want to be moral? Is there be morality without a belief in an entirely imaginary being?(aka the god ) Yes, there can. I have an excellent moral understanding. I don’t steal, lie, cheat, murder, rape or defile anyone or anything, and I manage to not do any of those things without the abiding fear that if i do, I might spend an eternal afterlife being tortured by a loving creator. I just don’t do them because I’m not a dick.

Yes .you see, my friend was not moral, and used religion as a crutch for his lack of morality up until that point, and had to learn the hard way that you need to develop a morality all on your own. If you think morality comes only from God, you’re making the same mistake. You’re amoral, but doing as you’re told. (Note: Not immoral. Amoral.) Im not saying sex is a bad thing absolutely. But relative to the religious world-view. All three Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) actually prohibit sex before marriage. So there's that .

I have a friend who used to be Muslim. When he stopped being Muslim, he said to me “I can now have sex and drink without consequence”. I have never facepalmed harder. Some people are really so animalistic and primitive in their behaviour that they need an external authority (in most cases a religion )that tells them what's right and what's wrong . They can't derive them for themselves

I actually agree .Long before there were governments or religions the various tribes and extended families of mankind had rules of behavior and rules of sharing. Humans are by their nature social beings and some set of protocols will emerge in any human community.

@Kksd74628 Law is simply codified and enforced morality. If a society feels strongly about a particular moral value, it would create a law to enforce it. If it doesn't, then it won't. Law is not possible without morality, but morality will exist with or without law.

So are you saying that morality is intuitive? Why can't morality be selected consciously? Why do we need prisons and law to make order between people? Are we still not mature /evolved enough to handle morality and be kind and good to each others without fearing the law (or the hellfire in the case of religious people)?

@Judy2 this is not something new I come up with . I've had similar ideas about reproduction and not bringing new lives into this world for almost 12 years now,and I was almost always ridiculed for that by my friends and family. I didn't know back then that philosophers old and new have spoken along the same lines. Now having read the works of Schopenhauer,Cioran and Benatar I'm more than convinced that I am right,but I also do not want to impose this view on anyone else.if someone wants to bring a child into this bleak and mostly hopeless world,they should do it and let their most prized creation suffer. Even Jesus could not avoid the excruciating misery of this world so a mere mortal will most certainly face very serious hardships here. my main question here..: is it ethical to bring a new life into existence without asking for their permission to live in this bleak world? I think that it becomes immoral to have children when one realizes how screwed the world is, that it is going to be a trying place for future generations, and yet one’s selfish desire to be a mom or dad outweigh the likely challenges their children will experience when they’re gone. I think having l children is one of the most selfish acts you can do bringing another life to this world when there are other children out there in need of a loving home. I hope I’ll never see the appeal of having a genetic mini-me. To deny a child a home in order to fulfill your fantasy of having a DNA descendant is entirely self-serving. People don’t bear children because they want to sustain the species, they do it because they want a child. Overpopulation is already a problem. There are already too many children and not enough safe, adequate homes. I can’t see why people aren’t screaming this from the rooftops; why there aren’t billboards everywhere telling people to adopt.