Nonvoluntary Antinatalism

The following is the second part of my reply to Phil Torres’s article Can Anti-Natalists Oppose Human Extinction?
A quick reminder, Torres suggests a ‘no-extinction anti-natalism’ position for “people who, like myself, are sympathetic with the moral prescription not to procreate but are also inclined to think that human extinction would constitute an immense tragedy”.
In the first part I have addressed the arguments against human extinction that Torres specifies and finds convincing. In the following text I’ll focus on his attempt to avoid an internal contradiction in his ‘no-extinction anti-natalism’ position, as well as on the life-extension technologies he details and the various harmful possibilities involved in them.

Harming Humans, and Infinitely More Nonhumans, to “Save” Humanity

Since Torres is convinced by the arguments against human extinction as well as by the arguments against human procreation, he suggests his ‘no-extinction anti-natalist’ position, that calls to stop creating more people, while actively promoting the development of safe and effective life extension technologies that will grant the final human generation functional immortality, and so avoids human extinction.

He details two main ways that can achieve functional immortality. One is called “whole-brain emulation” or “mind-uploading,” which I’ll elaborate about later, and the other way is extending life through biomedical anti-aging interventions:

“For example, geroprotectors are drugs that decelerate aging; the anti-diabetes drug metformin, for example, has been shown to reduce “all-cause mortality and diseases of ageing independent of its effect on diabetes control” (Campbell 2017). And lifelong caloric restriction has been observed to “considerably [extend] both the healthy and total life span of nearly all species in which it has been tried, including rodents and dogs” (de Grey 2004, 724). A more speculative possibility involves what Aubrey de Grey calls “strategies for engineered negligible senescence” (SENS).
There are nine primary types of deleterious, cumulative changes that are associated with aging: cell loss (without replacement); oncogenic nuclear mutations and epimutations; cell senescence; mitochondrial mutations; lysosomal aggregates; extracellular aggregates; random extracellular protein cross-linking; immune system decline; and endocrine changes (de Grey 2003). Interventions to halt or reverse these changes using CRISPR/Cas9 and other synthetic biology systems could thus potentially halt or reverse senescence itself.” (p. 16)

Torres argues that for someone to attain functional immortality it is not necessarily needed that the senescence-stopping technology would be fully realized before or soon after its creation, and it is because of the idea of “actuarial escape velocity” (AEV), which refers to the defined moment when advances in new anti-aging interventions occur faster than one ages, using previous anti-aging interventions. So it may be the case that from a certain point, a person only needs to live long enough to live forever.

Torres speculates that AEV won’t arrive until 2110. Given an average lifespan of 80 years, by then, most people born today will die. That means that humanity would have to keep procreating, which is in opposition to his ethical stance against procreation, in order to achieve functional immortality, which is in accordance with his ethical stance against extinction. And Torres, whose antinatalism relies on Benatarian arguments, knows that he can’t justify further procreation to avoid human extinction for the sake of people who don’t yet exist, but only for the sake of people who already exist. In other words, procreation can’t be justified unless creating new people somehow reduces harm to already existing people. So he suggests to exploit this line of reasoning as a work-around to the problem of creating new people to reach AEV, if that were to be necessary. And he claims it can be argued to be necessary considering the suffering of the last generation, suffering that according to him functional immortality can prevent.

He suggests that all is needed is for three more generations to procreate in order to reach AEV:

“if the length of a contemporary generation is ~25.5 years, and if the average lifespan remains at ~80 years, then the last humans on a phased-extinction schedule would die in about 131 years, circa 2150. In other words, children born today would have children in 25.5 years, these children of children would have children 25.5 years later, and these children of children of children would refrain from having children but live another 80 years.” (p.21)

Although I don’t accept the anti-Epicurean position that death is bad for the person who dies (as explained in the text about the death argument), or the deprivation account regarding death (which I have shortly addressed in the text about the death argument as well in the text about Benatar’s relation to pro-mortalism), two positions that Torres holds, even if for the sake of the argument I’ll ignore my opposition, I can’t see how sacrificing three generations of people can be balanced by the harm to the last generation, especially considering that according to Torres, coming into existence is always a harm, and that death is almost always bad. If so, how is it plausible to condemn more people to the harm of being created and to the supposed harm of death for the sake of preventing only the harm of death from much less people by making them immortal?

Furthermore, Torres suggests that we ought to weigh the harm of the people from the last generation against the harm of procreation of the people who will need to be created until AEV, but that is a false equivalency. Procreation is not only forcing needless and pointless suffering on the created person, but is also, and in fact first and foremost, forcing needless and pointless suffering on thousands of other sentient creatures, since each person created is hurting thousands of sentient creatures during a lifetime, simply by eating, drinking, cooking, dressing, cleaning, cooling, heating, lighting up, dwelling, moving around, entertaining oneself, and etc.
Considering that every year about 150 billion sentient creatures are tortured in the most appalling ways in the food industry, and considering that that is only part of the suffering humans are constantly causing to others, practically by everything they do, then the suffering of the last generation of people can be balanced, at least in terms of the number of victims, by about two weeks in this hellhole.
Considering the harm to others caused by these three generations, not to mention for eternity, or at least for as long as humanity’s functional immortality lasts, the number of victims, and the extent of their suffering, completely dwarfs the suffering of the last generation.

I don’t at all take lightly the suffering of the last generation, I just fail to understand why it is more important than any other suffering, or how can it seriously be balanced with all the suffering that would be caused to the generations preceding it, all the suffering that all the preceding generations would cause to others, and all the suffering that the last generation would cause, especially if it would gain functional immortality.
And I think that there are ways to significantly ease the suffering of the last generation. Advocating for the right to die for example, if successful, can ease the suffering of many members of the last generation. If these people would have a relatively easy, simple, available, painless way to end their existence, I have no doubt that many would choose it and would spare themselves a lot of suffering involved with getting old.

Or more relevant to this issue, if all the resources needed for functional immortality to succeed would be directed at easing the suffering of the last generation, for example, by providing anti-ageing treatments to several representatives from each community, who would volunteer to ensure a ‘graceful exit’ for the rest of humanity, that can significantly reduce the suffering of the last generation of people. Each community can choose a group of people who would be responsible for the needs of the whole community, and to ensure that these people could indeed take care of the rest, they and only they would receive some treatment, only to ensure as far as possible that they would remain highly functional for another decade or so, and then would gradually perish like the rest.

Torres doesn’t speculate or even mention anything of this sort and I think it is not accidental. I suspect that way more than that Torres is interested in ways to save the last generation, he is interested in “saving” the species. Otherwise he wouldn’t have specified arguments against human extinction, but mainly emphasis that antinatalism has a problem and it is the suffering of the last generation.

But even if it was really the harm to the last generation that was in the center of concern in this article, not only the interests of this generation must be considered, but also the interests of everyone who would be sacrificed and otherwise harmed by this generation. We must consider their interests not to be imprisoned for their entire lives. We must consider their interests not to live without their family for their entire lives. We must consider their interests not to suffer chronic pain and maladies. We must consider their interests not to be deprived of breathing clean air, walking on grass, bathing in water, and eating their natural food. We must consider their interests not to be violently murdered so people could consume their bodies. We must consider their interests that their habitats won’t be destroyed, and that their land, water, and air won’t be constantly polluted.

How many miserable lives does it take for the continence of the human species to become ethically unjustified?

But it goes even further than that. What should be weighed against the interests of people from the last generation is not only the harm of procreation of the at least three generations until the point that functional immortality is possible, and not only the nonhuman animals who would be harmed by these at least three generations, but all the harms, and all the misery, and all the suffering that would ever be caused by humans if they won’t go extinct. The equation is between one generation of people, and all the victims of all the procreations that would ever occur.

The number of individuals who would have to endure all kinds of harms in the future if humans won’t go extinct, is practically infinite.

Objecting human extinction is forcing endless suffering on an endless number of individuals. Harm is unavoidable, the question is of extent. The harm of human extinction is for one generation only. The harm involved in the refusal for human extinction can last for as long as functional immortality lasts.

Even if Torres succeeded in finding a loophole that enables him to remain antinatalist while being anti-extinctionist, he doesn’t succeed in formulating an argument that enables him to remain ethical and anti-specieist while being anti-extinctionist.

The suffering of the last generation can’t serve as an excuse against human extinction. The human race must go extinct because there never was a species even remotely as harmful as humanity. But there can be a worse one and that is an immortal version of humanity. With many more years to live and with many more capabilities, there is no limit to how harmful humans can be in the future.

Digitizing the Problem

Earlier, I have mentioned, only by its title, the first main way to achieve functional immortality that Torres details. Now it’s time to elaborate.
Whole-brain emulation, or “mind-uploading,” involves:

“simulating the microstructure of the brain on a computer with sufficient fidelity to reproduce consciousness. This assumes that minds are multiply realizable, by virtue of being “organizational invariants” that arise from systems exhibiting the right functional organization, whatever the physical substrate (Chalmers 1996). If this “can be made to work,” it would constitute “the ultimate life-extension technology,” since uploaded minds “would not be subject to biological senescence” and “backup copies could be created regularly so that you could be re-booted if something bad happened (thus your lifespan would potentially be as long as the universe’s)” (Labrecque 2017, 166). There are three main forms of uploading: (i) destructive uploading (the original brain is destroyed either gradually or instantaneously), (ii) non-destructive uploading (the original brain remains fully intact while a copy is made), and (iii) reconstructive uploading (the original brain dies but the person is recreated based on historical records) (Chalmers 2010; see also Sandberg and Bostrom 2008).

One version of destructive uploading is the “microtome procedure.” This involves freezing a recently deceased brain to liquid nitrogen temperatures, slicing it into small sections, scanning the slices, transferring this information to a computer, and then simulating the brain. A nondestructive option is to scan the brain “from within … using nanobots” that transfer this information via wireless systems to a computer (Kurzweil 2005). A reconstructive option could become possible if, for instance, a future superintelligent machine were to collect enough data about a past person to design a program that instantiates the relevant functional-organizational properties of that person’s brain (Chalmers 2010). This is predicated on a distinction between clinical death and information-theoretic death, where the latter refers to the point at which no information about one’s nervous system is permanently lost (Merkle 2018).” (p. 16)

Some may recognize potential harm as well as contradiction to antinatalism, from these descriptions alone, and ironically Torres himself specifies some further problems involved in these options that contradict antinatalism and also his view on death:

“The most clearly problematic case involves non-destructive uploading, since this would yield two numerically distinct persons who are psychologically continuous with a single original (who continues to exist as one of these beings).
This leads to two issues:
First, if one maintains that persons, in the metaphysical sense, are intrinsically singular, then they cannot be organizational invariants, which means that the uploaded mind would in fact be a different person than the original; hence, non-destructive uploading would not enable one to achieve functional immortality. Why think that selves are intrinsically singular? Consider a case in which you visit a Digital Immorality Clinic. They pump your blood full of wirelessly connected nanobots that cross the blood-brain barrier and map-out the functional organization of your nervous system. This information is sent to a computer placed within a realistic android, similar to those in the TV show West World. You and this copy are later kidnapped and told that either you—the person that walked into the clinic—or your copy—the person that was created in the clinic—will be tortured for 48 hours and then murdered. Let’s say care most about your own well-being. No rational person would then say, “Pick one of us, randomly. We’re the same person, so it doesn’t matter.” To the contrary, someone acting out of prudence should exhort: “Torture the copy!” The idea that persons are singular entities makes sense of this situation.

Second, whether or not the uploaded mind is you, the fact is that post-upload there would exist two rather than just one conscious entity: the original and the functional isomorph. Hence, non-destructive uploading entails the creation of a new person, and since it is always wrong to create new persons, according to anti-natalism, it must always be wrong to non-destructively upload one’s mind. Call this scenario “digital procreation.” Anti-natalists should therefore strongly oppose this form of uploading independent of one’s view of personal identity.
The same goes for reconstructive uploading: even if the functional isomorph is the same person, it would entail the creation of a new conscious being—a new being at T3 based on the informational patterns of a being who existed at T1 but died at T2—which would be wrong. ” (p.24-25)

And about Destructive Uploading he says:

“Consider a piecemeal process whereby each biological neuron in one’s brain is replaced by a functionally isomorphic artificial neuron. Mark Walker (2008) calls this “gradualism,” and it seems intuitively plausible that it would preserve continuity of consciousness from the beginning to the end, at which point the whole brain has been replaced by non-biological matter. If continuity of consciousness is all that is needed to preserve personal identity, then the person at T2 will be the same as at T1. Benatarian anti-natalists should thus applaud this form of uploading, since it would enable the uploaded person to evade death. But if the person at T2 is different than at T1, the situation would be doubly wrong. The reason is that it would entail not only the creation of a new person, which would be bad, but the death of the original person, which would also (usually) be bad. ” (p.25)

And suggests that Destructive Uploading is anti-antinatalist:

“if one accepts the harm-benefit asymmetry, and if death is (usually) bad, then even a low probability that destructive uploading kills the original while creating a new person should be sufficient for anti-natalists to strongly oppose gradualism. ” (p.28)

Torres raises another potential concern and contradiction to antinatalism:

“A related problem concerns the possibility of duplication gestured at by Schneider and Corabi (2014). As they suggest, once a mind M is uploaded, it could easily be duplicated on multiple computers an indefinite number of times. This is orthogonal to the question of whether M would be personally identical to the original; what matters is that before M has been duplicated, the duplicate M’ does not exist, while after M has been duplicated, both M and M’ exist. Call this “duplicative procreation.”” (p.28)

And the hazardous potential of such an option is enormous, even if not malicious. For example, someone may wish to temporarily emulate its own mind a couple of times so to accomplish many more tasks, and when done to terminate these “spurs”. This scenario is disturbing according to Torres for many ethical reasons:

“Since spurs are numerically separate entities, terminating them would be tantamount to murder—a type of “mind crime,” in Bostrom’s (2016) phraseology. Furthermore, as Anders Sandberg (2014) notes, “if ending the identifiable life of [a spur] is a wrong, then it might be possible to produce a large number of wrongs by repeatedly running and deleting instances of an emulation even if the experiences during the run are neutral or identical” (Sandberg 2014, 288). Even more, since creating spurs entails duplicating mind-uploads, anti-natalists should be especially worried about this futuristic scenario obtaining, since it would mean both creating and killing a conscious entity.” (p.28)

And the malicious potential of such an option is simply inapprehensible. It opens the door for so many harms such as military uses, enslavement, sadism, and etc., that their limit is only the human imagination.

In one of the article’s notes Torres briefly mentions some more concerns in other areas such as:

“In brief, general problems include the question of how society will need to be restructured to accommodate people who will never retire and whether people with indefinitely long lives will suffer from crushingly oppressive ennui— especially if, Soren Kierkegaard (1852) speculated, “boredom is the root of all evil.” There are also concerns about overpopulation, associated today with climate change, ecological collapse, and other environmental ills, if humanity continues to procreate without older generations dying off (see Kuhlemann 2018). Yet ceasing to procreate could remove a major source of value for many people; as Larry Temkin (2008) writes, “if the cost of immortality would be a world without infants and children, without regeneration and rejuvenation, it wouldn’t be worth it.” Even more troublesome is the question of who gets to be included and excluded in the final generation? What happens if apocalyptic terrorists, deranged dictators, genocidal madmen, violent psychopaths, and dangerous lone wolves gain access to technologies that could essentially confer eternal life? Consider that, at the behest of Joseph Stalin, “life-extension became a central subject of Soviet medical research” (Medvedev and Aleksandrovich 2006).” (p.43)

And in another note he mentions that attempts to emulate entire nervous systems could themselves pose some serious ethical hazards:

“as Bostrom notes, “before we would get things to work perfectly, we would probably get things to work imperfectly” (Bostrom 2014b). The result could be that imperfectly simulated brains experience moments of truly intense suffering, perhaps in the form of psychotic hallucinations or delusions, grand mal seizures, and so on, before a normal state of consciousness and mentality is established. (Bostrom 2014b).” (p.44)

Yet for some reason, all of that didn’t convince Torres to abandon such a dangerous and problematic option. There are many other concerns, questions, fears and dangers involved with this idea, but the ones he mentioned are more than enough to firmly support human extinction, ironically, partly because of how potentially harmful human technology can be. And what makes it even more ironic is that such a position is coming from someone like Phil Torres, a scholar whose work focuses on existential risks, and who wrote articles about the risks of artificial general intelligence and space colonization, in which he expressed very deep concerns regarding both.

And many concerns, questions, fears and dangers are not directly involved with how potentially harmful human technology can be, but with how harmful human society already is. There is no reason to believe that all, or at least most of the current problems in the world won’t be emulated along with humans’ minds. Why wouldn’t many of them be transferred into the digital world?
There is no reason to believe that functional immortality, by mind-uploading and definitely by biological anti-aging interventions, would end war, exploitation, discrimination, racism, plunder, enslavement, and other atrocities.

Extending humans’ lives won’t solve their problems but would probably extend them, as people would have more time to suffer and to cause suffering to others. Life would remain terrible only that it would be longer. Extending human life may solve the issue of death, but given that people are addicted to life, even when life is utterly terrible, that is not a solution but a punishment, as they would have to live terrible lives for much longer time. Already people are living terrible lives for too long, so forever?!

Humans’ sick motivations won’t disappear when they would become functionally immortal.
Besides explicitly malicious motivations, possibly, other human motivations such as procreation, may not disappear, even when all humans would be digital. It is hard to imagine it now, but we can’t disqualify the chance that humans would still desire and would find a way to procreate despite not having a biological platform. They might find a way to create a digital being which is the combination of the digital emulations of two people, similar to the way biological procreation works. The desire to procreate is not merely biological in the substance sense. The motivations are coming from various areas, mainly the DNA, not from the ovaries and testicles. And even when the substance is no longer biological, it is highly likely that the DNA which would still be working behind the scenes of the digital versions of persons, as it is DNA that has structured their identities in the first place, would still push people to procreate.
And of course, in the case of biological anti-aging interventions, clearly such a pressure would still play a very significant role.

The fact that Torres doesn’t make an ethical dichotomy between the two main ways that functional immortality could be achieved, already indicates a basic failure. Assuming that the biological format would need the world to be quite similar to the current one in terms of food, clothes, transportation, cleanliness, waste production and etc., on the face of it, this option would be much worse than the digital option which would be less needy on the organic level but probably extremely more needy on the energy production level. On the other hand, as earlier mentioned the digital version has practically infinite potential of harm. Anyway there is a big difference which should be noticed when considering the two routes.

Another very important aspect that doesn’t get any attention in the article is socio-economic. Obviously many people, maybe even most, won’t have access or the required finance for any of the methods and so such technologies might cause the already extreme gaps between people to become even bigger. The danger of creating two kinds of humans cannot be disregarded.

There are many more potential dangers but the point is clear. The risk involved with his position is so great that it is not only to perpetuate the tremendous risk already involved with existence, but to add various more risks, some with a catastrophic potential.

And considering all the sentient beings on earth, we unquestionably already live in a catastrophic world.
Torres argues that some case of uploading may be involved with a potential killing of the original person, or in some cases of the emulated person, therefore he thinks that they might be unethical. However, he ignores that procreation, let alone of at least three more generations so to reach “actuarial escape velocity”, is involved not with the potential killing but with certain killing – mass killing. While it is speculative and arguable if some form of brain uploading may truly be considered as killing, the fact that every person kills many others during its life is inarguable. People are killing others on a daily basis, mostly to feed themselves but also to cover themselves, to move from place to place, to heat their houses, to build their houses, and practically through most of the things they consume.

Human extinction means the end of the whole – exploitation, pollution, confinement, mutilation,  humiliation, experimentation, enslavement, torture, slaughter, suffocation, plucking, trimming, dehorning, scorching, skinning alive – project that humanity have conducted more or less from its early beginning. All that would be over when they are gone. That’s why positions against human extinction are speciesist and cruel. Human extinction won’t be tragic but wonderful. Considering the tremendous misery that trillions upon trillions would be forced to keep enduring if it won’t happen, then if the human race would succeed in achieving functional immortality, this already nightmarish world would become an immortal nightmare.

References

Torres, Phil. (2020): Can anti-natalists oppose human extinction? The harm-benefit asymmetry, person-uploading, and human enhancement. South African Journal of Philosophy 39 (3):229-245 (2020)

Torres, P., Futures (2017): https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2017.10.004

Torres, Phil. (2017): Space Colonization and Existential Risks: On Why Following the Maxipok Rule Could have Catastrophic Consequences. Working draft: https://goo.gl/rvDdLj.

Torres, Phil. (2017): Facing Disaster: The Great Challenges Framework. Forthcoming in Foresight.

Torres, Phil. (2019): The possibility and risks of artificial general intelligence,

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.2019.1604873

In an article called What’s wrong with human extinction? Elizabeth Finneron-Burns addresses the question of whether or not it is morally permissible to cause or allow (by doing nothing to prevent it) human extinction to occur. Put it another way: “under what (if any) conditions would people causing or allowing the extinction of the human race be wrong?”

To answer this question Finneron-Burns examines the four reasons that could be given according to her, against the moral permissibility of human extinction. She considers them from a contractualist perspective, meaning basically that: “We wrong others when we fail to consider their interests in our moral deliberations and do not give them the respect they deserve by virtue of being rational people. This happens when we cannot justify our actions to them using acceptable reasons or when we act according to a principle that they could reject for similarly acceptable reasons.” This perspective is a type of person-affecting theory, meaning that what is important is the effect of principles/actions on persons, rather than ‘the world’. Acceptable reasons for either justifying a principle or rejecting one, must be personal – it must have an impact on a person or persons.

1. It would prevent the existence of very many happy people

 Many people find it intuitive that we should want more generations to have the opportunity to exist. They claim against human extinction since it deprives more people of something good which is to exist and enjoy happy lives.
However, Finneron-Burns rightly rejects this claim arguing that we can only wrong someone who did, does or will actually exist.

A possible person is not disadvantaged by not being created. In order to be disadvantaged, there must be some detrimental effect on a person’s interests. However, without existence, a person does not have any interests so they cannot be disadvantaged by being kept out of existence, “a principle that results in some possible people never becoming actual does not impose any costs on those ‘people’ because nobody is disadvantaged by not coming into existence.” (p.6)

No one acts wrongly when they don’t create another person, and hence if everybody decides not to create new people – which would eventually lead to human extinction – it is also not wrong.
Some might disagree, arguing that human extinction is a loss of positive value. However, under the contractualist perspective that Finneron-Burns uses in this article, something cannot be wrong unless there is an impact on a person. Therefore she concludes that “neither the impersonal value of creating a particular person nor the impersonal value of human life writ large could on its own provide a reason for rejecting a principle permitting human extinction.” (p.7)

2. It would mean the loss of the only known form of intelligent life and all civilization and intellectual progress would be lost

Many people claim that human extinction would be a terrible loss since humans are the only known intelligent, rational and civilized life.

As in the case of the first argument, Finneron-Burns also rejects this one for being impersonal.

Since the loss of intelligent, rational and civilized life would impact no one’s well-being or interests, it is not wrong.
She also quotes Henry Sidgwick who claimed that these things are only important insofar as they are important to humans. “If there is no form of intelligent life in the future, who would there be to lament its loss since intelligent life is the only form of life capable of appreciating intelligence? Similarly, if there is no one with the rational capacity to appreciate historic monuments and civil progress, who would there be to be negatively affected or even notice the loss?” (p.8)

Although I agree with the counter argument she presents, I think it’s unnecessary as the premises of the argument it counters are false. Humans are far from being the only intelligent and rational beings in the universe, and I am not basing this claim on encounters I’ve had with extra-terrestrials but with nonhuman animals here on earth. I don’t think that the loss of intelligent and rational life is by itself a valid reason against extinction, but even if it was, since humanity has no exclusiveness on either, to claim against extinction because of the loss of intelligence and rationality is definitely not valid.

On the other hand, human intelligence and rationality is definitely a valid and sufficient argument for human extinction. All along history humans have used their intelligence and rationality to use, abuse, exploit, manipulate, and control each other, and other animals.

All along history humans have consistently brought havoc everywhere they have reached.

Wars, pollution, torture facilities, concertation camps, factory farms and many many more examples, are the products of human civilization and intelligence.

Human civilization is an ongoing memorial of exploitation, domination and destruction.

Human extinction is not a loss but a benefit. A benefit to probably tens of millions of humans whose lives are extremely miserable, and surely to everyone who isn’t human.

3. Existing people would endure physical pain and/or painful and/or premature deaths

Basically this claim is that since it seems uncontroversial that the infliction of physical pain could be a reason to reject a principle, and since the ways in which human extinction might come about might involve significant physical and/or non-physical harms to existing people and their interests, extinction is wrong.

With this argument Finneron-Burns agrees. She also presents a counter argument to this claim, and then explains why it is wrong:

“Of course the mere fact that a principle causes involuntary physical harm or premature death is not sufficient to declare that the principle is rejectable – there might be countervailing reasons. In the case of extinction, what countervailing reasons might be offered in favour of the involuntary physical pain/death-inducing harm? One such reason that might be offered is that humans are a harm to the natural environment and that the world might be a better place if there were no humans in it. It could be that humans might rightfully be considered an all-things-considered hindrance to the world rather than a benefit to it given the fact that we have been largely responsible for the extinction of many species, pollution and, most recently, climate change which have all negatively affected the natural environment in ways we are only just beginning to understand. Thus, the fact that human extinction would improve the natural environment (or at least prevent it from degrading further), is a countervailing reason in favour of extinction to be weighed against the reasons held by humans who would experience physical pain or premature death. However, the good of the environment as described above is by definition not a personal reason. Just like the loss of rational life and civilization, therefore, it cannot be a reason on its own when determining what is wrong and countervail the strong personal reasons to avoid pain/death that is held by the people who would suffer from it. Every person existing at the time of the extinction would have a reason to reject that principle on the grounds of the physical pain they are being forced to endure against their will that could not be countervailed by impersonal considerations such as the negative impact humans may have on the earth.” (p.11)

Finneron-Burns’s rejection to the counter argument she presents is utterly wrong because it falsely switches the personal interests of trillions of sentient creatures with a non-entity abstract concept such as ‘the natural environment’.
But the case is not of humans being a harm to ‘the natural environment’ but of humans being a harm to trillions of individual sentient creatures. It is not a case of the impersonal environment which is weighted against existing persons, but trillions of existing sentient individuals weighted against existing people.
She is making such a false presentation of the situation in her premises so she could later conclude that the counter argument is impersonal, but it is not that “the world might be a better place if there were no humans in it”, but that the lives of trillions of persons would be better if there were no humans in it. It is not the fact that human extinction “would improve the natural environment”, but that it would improve the lives of other sentient creatures. Her rejection to the counter argument speciesistly nulls the interests of trillions of sentient creatures treating them as if they are an abstract concept and not individuals entitled with moral consideration.

Only because she falsely describes the harms to trillions of sentient creatures as a harm to the environment, Finneron-Burns can claim that this argument fails since it is impersonal. Obviously ‘the environment’ is not a moral entity as it has no interests. But the sentient creatures who live in the environment are moral entities, it is them who have interests we all must consider. When using a correct description, this argument is valid, firm and unequivocal. Human extinction would probably be consensually decided upon by all sentient creatures had their interests been considered.

But they are not. Trillions of existing sentient individuals matter so little to humans that even when they are allegedly being given as reason for human extinction, they are diminished to an impersonal reason. Instead of being trillions of strong independent reasons for human extinction, they are presented as one weak impersonal reason. That is human chauvinism. It is speciesism.

For humans to live, nonhumans suffer and die by the billions all the time. Human life has no value of its own outside of human life, and human life is not more important to humans than the lives of nonhumans are important to nonhumans. Thinking otherwise is speciesism.
Moreover, the harm humans inflict on other sentient creatures is so vast that practically there is no human action in modern society that doesn’t harm an individual, an animal person, somewhere in the world. Humans don’t harm the environment as there is no such option. The environment is not a moral entity. It is not sentient and it has no interests. The harm is inflicted on sentient creatures. The fact that these creatures are totally meaningless in humanity’s view, doesn’t serve as a justification to null each of these animal persons and turn them into an impersonal reason. They are all persons. They view themselves as persons just as the humans who harm them view themselves as persons. Only that no one considers their personal interests. To keep considering humans’ procreation interests means to keep ignoring all the interests of all the other creatures. And that’s why we should stop considering the personal interests of humans to procreate.

‘The good of the environment’ may not be a personal reason, but the good of each of its inhabitants, is. Unlike the loss of rational life and civilization, it can be a reason on its own when determining what is wrong with human extinction, and if we ask all of the inhabitants it would probably be that the only thing wrong with human extinction is that it didn’t already happen.

4. Existing people could endure non-physical harms

 The final reason against human extinction Finneron-Burns discusses is the psychological effects that might be endured by existing people who are aware that there would be no future generations.

One psychological effect she mentions is the negative effect on well-being that would be experienced by those who would have wanted to have children. “Reproducing is a widely held desire and the joys of parenthood are ones that many people wish to experience. For these people knowing that they would not have descendants could create a sense of despair and pointlessness of life.”

And she adds that “the inability to reproduce and have your own children because of a principle/policy that prevents you would be a significant infringement of what we consider to be a basic right to control what happens to your body.” (p.11)

As in the case of the third argument, Finneron-Burns agrees with this claim, and as in that case I think her agreement is wrong. In fact, in a way, supporting this argument is even worse, since it implies that because people would never voluntarily do the right thing and not procreate, it is morally permissible for them to procreate, and it is morally impermissible to force them not to.

fcoSince antinatalism necessarily entails human extinction, as obviously if everyone apply its ethical rule eventually the human race would go extinct, when arguing against human extinction, one must also counter antinatalism, as obviously the practical opposition to human extinction is procreation.
So among other things, to counter claims for human extinction, Finneron-Burns should argue that procreation is not a crime, not that people would be hurt if they are not allowed to commit that crime. Antinatalists know that people want to create new people, that’s why they are arguing against it. Had people not wanted to procreate there would have been no need for no arguments.

Lets’ take for example one of the most popular antinatalist arguments – the consent argument – which goes more or less like this: Causing harm to another person is morally justified only if that person had provided an informed consent, or in the case an informed consent cannot be provided but causing harm is in the best interest of that person since otherwise a greater harm would be caused to that person. Some also add the case of causing harm as a punishment for a crime. Since forcing people into existence is subjecting them to harms without their consent, and without it being in their best interest (for the obvious reason that before its existence a person has no interests, as there is no person), and it is also definitely not the case of punishment for a crime, procreation is morally impermissible.
Arguing that ‘reproducing is a widely held desire and the joys of parenthood are ones that many people wish to experience’ is not an admissible reply to the consent argument. It can’t serve as a counter argument to the consent based argument for antinatalism which obviously, as all antinatalist arguments, entails human extinction.

So for that matter, Finneron-Burns should have argued against the consent argument, not explain that people would be hurt if they can’t procreate because they want to, or at least try to explain how is it that the interests of the prospective parents subdue the interests of the potential child.

The question in point is ‘is it morally permissible to stop people from doing what they want’. And so the answer can’t be ‘no’ because they don’t want to stop.
If it is a valid reply then it should be valid in other cases of causing harms to others just as much. And then, all that any offender should claim is that by stopping him from committing a crime we are making him the victim. And that would be to nullify criminalness. Every offender would be hurt if they couldn’t continue with their offences, is it a justified reason to let them go on with their offences?
What is often called crimes of passion are not permissible since the offender would be hurt had s/he not committed the crime.
Rapists might feel hurt if they are not allowed to rape, or if they are caught, is that a reason not to do everything we can to stop them? Can the desire to rape be an argument in favor of raping?

Obviously people want to procreate, that’s why they refuse to stop, but that is a description of our dire reality, not an ethical justification of it.

Can people’s desire to eat animals be a justification for the torture which is factory farming?

Arguing that all factory farms must be closed down today for the pain and misery they cause can’t be seriously counter argued by claiming that people have a desire to eat meat, eggs and milk. Some might argue that eating meat is not like creating new people, but I fail to see the fundamental difference in this context as in both cases people do as they please at the expense of others without their consent.

The argument that since humans would suffer from fixing the dire situation they themselves have created (and refuse to fix by themselves), we are not allowed to fix it without their consent, is wrong. They keep intensifying the problem by creating more and more of them, with no consent from the ones they are creating, nor from the ones who are hurt by the ones they are creating, so why is it that the solution to the problem must be with their consent?
And don’t get this wrong, I am not suggesting it as a punishment or anything of this sort, but only to stop the crime, and the suffering caused by each procreation.

The second psychological effect Finneron-Burns mentions is a sense of hopelessness or despair that people would feel knowing that there will be no more humans and that their projects will end with them:

“Many of the projects and goals we work towards during our lifetime are also at least partly future-oriented. Why bother continuing the search for a cure for cancer if either it will not be found within humans’ lifetime, and/or there will be no future people to benefit from it once it is found?” (p.12)

First of all, despite that her specific example is obviously not the main issue, it is hard not to comment on the “Why bother continuing the search for a cure for cancer”, since it is so manipulative. There are currently about 8 billion people on earth, probably only a couple of thousands of them are searching for a cure for cancer, while many more are busy causing it, to themselves, to their children, to other people, and to other animals. Most people are not searching for any cure to any disease or any solution to any other problem, but live their selfish pointless little lives. They were born for no reason other than the desire of their parents, and certainly not so they can search for a cure for cancer, and they are forcing new people into life for no reason other than their desire, and certainly not so that their children would search for a cure for cancer or anything even remotely close.

What happened to Henry Sidgwick’s claim that things are only important insofar as they are important to humans? If there is no one who suffers from cancer, who would there be to lament the loss of searching for a cure? This example is awful since it is supposed to be good that there would be no longer a need to search for a cure for cancer. With no cancer patients there is no need to cure it. How can the existence of such a horrible disease serve as the basis for an example against human extinction? Searching for a cure for cancer is good only if there are existing people, and if some of them suffer from it. If there are no cancer patients then the problem is solved, not created.
And by the way, there would be cancer patients in the case of human extinction – nonhuman animals. Why not searching for a cure for them? Or at least ways to prevent some of the cases from affecting them, for example by searching for the least harmful ways to dismantle all the nuclear weapons and nuclear power stations before humans go extinct and animals suffer the consequences? Why? Because humans don’t care.

But much more important than her specific example, is her claim. Arguing that human extinction is wrong since existing humans would lose interest and meaning in their lives, is in my view like suggesting that people should force new people into existence to bestow their own lives with interest and meaning. Of course most procreations already are a result of people bestowing their own lives with interest and meaning, but this real reason is usually concealed by the fallacious proclaimed reason which is to bestow interest and meaning to the future child. Finneron-Burns on the other hand, suggests this claim as a moral justification for doing so. It’s using someone as a mean to others’ end, and it is wrong. Imposing lifelong vulnerability on someone, without consent, and with a certainty of harming others, so that the creators of that person would have interest and meaning in their lives, is not only wrong, it is cruel.

Conclusion

Examining the four reasons she suggests that could be the basis for reasonably rejecting principles permitting human extinction, Finneron-Burns rejects the first two which are:

(a) It would prevent many billions of happy people from being born.

(b) It would mean the loss of the only form of intelligent life and all civilization and intellectual progress would be lost.

And accepts the other two which are:

(c) Existing people would endure physical pain and/or painful and premature deaths.

(d) Existing people would endure psychological traumas such as depression and the loss of meaning in their pursuits and projects.

Probably the saddest thing about this article is that despite all its flaws, most claims regrading human extinction are even worse. Most people are against human extinction for all four reasons, and especially the first two. These claims are not only extremely speciesist as the latter two are, but are also entirely human chauvinist, as they see a value only in the human race’s existence, and no value in the world (inhabited with other sentient creatures) without it.
I agree with the claim that the human race has a tremendous value, only that it is a negative one.

The human race is with no proportion the greatest wrongdoer in history. And things are not getting better. And even if they were, they are currently so horrible that the harms to existing humans is marginal compared with the harms to existing nonhumans, which quantitatively speaking already by far exceeds the number of existing humans, not to mention when considering the harms to every nonhuman who would ever be born. There are more nonhuman animals in factory farms at any given moment than there are humans on this planet. For their sake alone human extinction is utterly justified. The harm to existing people by preventing them from procreating, can’t seriously countervail the harms to generations upon generations of sentient creatures whose suffering would be prevented in the case of human extinction.

The question in point shouldn’t be what’s wrong with human extinction but what’s right with human extinction. And the answer is that it depends on who we ask. If we keep asking humans only, then the answer of most would be there is nothing right about human extinction, and only a tiny minority would argue differently. But if we ask anyone who would be affected by human extinction, anyone whom this question is relevant for but is never asked, an absolute majority would unhesitatingly say that what is right with human extinction is everything.

References

Elizabeth Finneron-Burns: What’s wrong with human extinction? (Canadian Journal of Philosophy 2017)

http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00455091.2016.1278150

Not only pro-natalists misunderstand or misrepresent antinatalist arguments. In a former post I’ve addressed a position against human extinction for ecological reasons that totally misrepresents the environmental argument for antinatalism, by someone who declares that he has great sympathy for the antinatalist position.
In this post I’ll address another opposition to the ecological antinatalist argument, but this time by someone who is most definitely an antinatalist and a very articulate one. In a blog called Why I’m Sold On Antinatalism, the author – Filrabat, thoroughly and effectively explains the logic of being antinatalist for philanthropic reasons, only that he is doing it while misrepresenting the environmental argument for antinatalism. Same as Magnus Vinding which I have addressed in the former post, he presents the ecological argument as if its only version is the one expressed by VHEMT.

I don’t consider myself as ecological antinatalist, and as explained in the post Involuntary Human Extinction Movement, I don’t share the same arguments nor motive for human extinction as VHEMT, therefore I’ll not defend it here, but I do find it important to correct some of the false assertions presented in Filrabat’s article.

Basically Filrabat rejection to the ecological antinatalist argument is as follows:

“I do not find the ecological antinatalist arguments compelling because they (a) overlook that a much reduced human population with our technology level can be ecologically sustainable, (b) ignore that humans have at least as much right to exist as other lifeforms, (c) handwave away the fact that other species can and have disrupted ecosystems with no human involvement in the process whatsoever, even in recent times (d) apparently find irrelevant that, on a humanless earth, animals still would suffer greatly at the hands of other animals (especially predators), microbes, and natural disasters.”

So as mentioned I am not an ecological antinatalist since I don’t consider ecological systems as moral patients. Ecological systems, the environment, species, and similar terms often ascribed to the ecological argument, are not entities and therefore don’t hold any moral status. Their moral relevancy is only instrumental, not intrinsic, they are important only because they are important to sentient creatures who are harmed when they are affected. I think that people must stop creating new people because each person severely harms numerous other sentient creatures, not because humanity affects the insentient ecological environment in which sentient creatures live.
Anyway I reject his 4 rejections and I think their basic flaw is that they incorrectly present the claims they criticize (though to some extent that is because these claims are often falsely represented by their own supporters).

(a) overlook that a much reduced human population with our technology level can be ecologically sustainable

Filrabat’s first rejection demonstrates considerable and depressing ignorance regarding the harms caused by human technology. Most people know about fossil fuels, pesticides, lead, plastic and etc., but these are just the more famous harmful examples of human activities, while in fact all human activities are harmful. The current human technology level would still be very harmful even if human population would be significantly reduced.fragment their habitat

In the text about the harm to others, I specify some of the main causes of harms humanity inflicts on other animals, so please read it to get a better notion of how ridiculous this claim is. However, even focusing on “just” one aspect of human technology is sufficient to refute Filrabat’s first rejection. So in this text I’ll focus only on one aspect of human technology, one which is usually overlooked – light pollution.

Artificial light pollute the environment of other animals by humans’ use of public lighting, road lighting, buildings lighting, billboards, stores which are over-lit to attract customers, parking lots, sports centers, vehicles and etc.

Light pollution, often referred to as Photopollution, has various forms:
Light trespass – light falling where it is not intended or needed even by humans
Clutter – bright, confusing and excessive groupings of light sources
Glare – excessive brightness that causes reduced contrast, color perception, and visual performance
Skyglow – brightening of the night sky

The impact of light pollution on other animals is extremely harmful. By altering the natural cycles of light and by illuminating the environment, light pollution modifies the behavior, physiological functions and biological rhythms of other living beings. It affects animals’ orientation, navigation, feed, reproduction, and communication.
For example, exposure to artificial light causes nocturnal animals a repulsive response, meaning they move away from light sources. Since humanity’s light pollution is so intensive, the habitats of nocturnal animals which are constantly shrinking as it is by humanity’s expansion, further shrink by humanity’s light pollution.

Other animals are not repulsed by light but are attracted to it – they approach light sources.
Artificial light sources can outshine natural light sources, causing birds to be drawn to or fixate on the artificial lights. This results in birds deviating from their intended migration route, flying until they experience exhaustion and collapse. Marine birds such as albatrosses are known to collide with lighthouses, wind turbines, and drilling platforms at sea due to their bright lights.
The Fatal Flight Awareness Program has estimated that anywhere from 100 million to 1 billion migrating birds are killed every year because they collide with buildings, which in part is due to artificial lighting.
Other animals that use starlight to move in the dark are disorientated by artificial lighting, and often collide with large lighted structures, burn themselves in contact with lamps, or starve and are dehydrated as they limit their movements and their search for food and water to artificially lighted areas.

Reptiles such as sea turtles are greatly affected by light pollution. Female turtles nest on dark remote beaches, so bright coastal lights prevent them from finding safe nesting areas for their eggs. This leads the female turtles to deposit their eggs in an unsafe area or the ocean. Sea turtle hatchlings instinctively crawl toward the brightest part on the beach, which for many centuries was the moonlight and starlit ocean; however, excessive lighting on the beach or near the shore confuses the hatchlings and causes them to wander away from the ocean. The hatchlings may be eaten by predators, run over by vehicles, or die from dehydration or exhaustion. Artificial lights also disorient other nocturnal reptiles.

Light pollution also damages visual communication, especially among bioluminescent animals who communicate by emitting light signals. In the presence of strong illumination, the visibility of light signals is significantly reduced.
Michael Justice, a behavioral ecologist who studies how artificial light affects insects said that we must “Start thinking of a photon as a potential pollutant. Much like a chemical spill or gas leak, the photons being used to light your porch and street can unintentionally leak into surrounding areas and affect the local ecology at every level from plants to apex predators”.

Light pollution also contributes to habitat fragmentation. The example of nocturnal insects is a perfect demonstration of this. An artificial light source can attract nocturnal insects within a radius of 400 to 700 meters. However, in urban areas, streetlights are only 30 to 50 meters apart. Illuminated traffic lanes are therefore real artificial barriers that stand along people’s routes. Considering the attraction that artificial light exerts on nocturnal insects, these barriers therefore limit their movements and fragment their habitat.

And all that is only part of the effects of light pollution which is only part of all of humanity’s pollution which is only part of all of humanity’s harms.
For a more complete picture (but still very partial, as the list of harms humans are causing is practically endless) please read the text the harm to others.

Claim (a) is false since there is no way human technology can ever be ecologically sustainable, and since there is no way humans would voluntarily reduce their population, and since there is no way humans would voluntarily reduce their technology level, and since ecologically sustainable is not a metonym for a good thing in an ethical sense. An ecological system can be sustainable but violent and horrible. Sustainability is a euphemism for the constant struggle to survive under extreme environmental pressure. Sustainability is a product of constant violence and suffering. It is a biological description, not an ethical prescription.

Looking at the current level of human destruction it seems logical that if human population size decreases it can be ecologically sustainable, but that is only compared to the current unbelievably destructive state of affairs. Had this argument been claimed when the human population was more or less at the level Filrabat has in mind, minus the current technology level, suggesting to add the current technology level, obviously would have been considered a blunt violation of the ecological sustainability. In other words, only under the current horrible situation it seems reasonable to suggest that humans can preserve the current level of technology. But this is wrong conceptually and ethically.

It is conceptually wrong since it is not that the ecological system would determine when it is sustainable, or that each and every creature who is depended on each and every ecological system would participate in determining when each is considered sustainable, but that everything would be decided according to humans’ interests and perspective. They would decide what would be the initial population size in each ecosystem, and that would be the criterion from then on. According to Filrabat it sounds as if there is an external criterion for ecological sustainability and that it can be reached. But not only that there is no external criterion, there are only human ones.
The problem with that is not theoretical anthropocentrism, but practical speciesism. The problem is that humans would define sustainability according to their own interests. If they decide that a population of 40 million people in a specific ecosystem, living with the current level of technology is sustainable, then from now on, this ecosystem is sustainable if the human population is about 40 million people. But obviously before humans have invaded that particular ecosystem it had a whole different criterion for being sustainable. It is a human definition, set according to human standards and interests. Had other animals had a say in what is considered sustainable I doubt that the current level of human technology would be part of the definition.

And it is ethically wrong since what matters ethically is not how sustainable the ecosystems are, but how the creatures living in them feel. Under Filrabat’s false description, what matters are the ecosystems, despite that ecosystems don’t feel. Truly, this is how many supporters of the ecological antinatalism present the argument, so they are also responsible for the misrepresentation of the argument. But that makes only this particular rejection of Filrabat valid, and only under a false description of the issue. When considering humanity’s massive harm not to the sustainability of ecosystems, which are not moral entities, but to trillions of its inhabitants, who most definitely are moral entities, I fail to see how it is not wrong for humans to procreate.

(b) ignore that humans have at least as much right to exist as other lifeforms

First of all I don’t think there is such a thing as a right to live before one exists. But even if I’ll accept it for the sake of the argument, humans would have the same right to exist as other lifeforms had they lived like other lifeforms. But humans live as masters of the universe (and evil ones it must be added), not as other lifeforms. Their dominance and harmfulness is unprecedented. There is no other species that is even remotely as harmful as humans. No other lifeform is imprisoning other lifeforms for their entire lives. No other lifeform totally shatters other lifeforms’ social lives. No other lifeform prevents access to clean air, clean water, and natural environment. No other lifeform prevents access to natural food. No other lifeform is constantly genetically modifying other lifeforms to extract more meat, milk, eggs, skin, wool, feathers, fur and etc., from other lifeforms. No other lifeform castrates other lifeforms. No other lifeform burns numbers on other lifeforms. No other lifeform cuts the horns, tails and teeth of other lifeforms. No other lifeform rides, chains, and enslaves other lifeforms. No other lifeform forces other lifeforms to dance, do tricks, to dress up, to jump fences, to fight each other. No other lifeform experiment on other lifeforms.

Humans have an extremely high harm toll which makes supporting their right to exist a support in the violation of the rights of anyone who is hurt by them.

Filrabat presents the claim as if it is one human individual against one nonhuman individual and as if ecological antinatalism is choosing to favor the nonhuman, while practically it is one human individual against ten thousands of nonhuman individuals. It is very hard to estimate the harm other creatures are forced to endure for each human but in any case it is an enormous one under all circumstances (such as different lifestyles) and from several aspects, as humans are making the lives of many animals very miserable.

The human race is the only species ever who chooses to unnecessarily harm others, despite that it can easily choose not to. It is also the only species who can choose not to procreate. But I am in favor of human extinction not because it has no right to exist or because it is evil since it can choose otherwise (I don’t really think it can choose otherwise, the urge to breed is too biologically imprinted, and the indifference to other creatures’ suffering for the most trivial and needless pleasures is, due to several inherent psychological traits, to a large extent not really under its full control), but only because of the tremendous harm it causes to others, including other humans of course.

Filrabat writes that “We’re made of the same basic chemical elements and molecules, after all.” But that is a straw man argument. No one is arguing that the human race better be or must be extinct because humans are made of different basic chemical elements and molecules. The claim for human extinction, and that goes for the one expressed by VHEMT as well, is that the human race acts like a cancerous tumor in the planet, not that humans are actually cancer cells. The motive behind human extinction is their ecological harm, not their biological structure.

Later in the article Filrabat claims that rights should be ascribed to not yet exiting people despite the common objection to ascribe rights to non-existing persons. I am not necessarily against this position, but it is surly very controversial, even among antinatalists. However ascribing rights to existing persons is not controversial. So the question must be asked, how come according to Filrabat, humans, even if they don’t yet exist and might not exist in the future, should be gained with rights, but existent sentient creatures, who weren’t born to the “right” species, shouldn’t?

One of Filrabat main reasons for being an antinatalist is because he thinks it is morally wrong to create a person without consent. I totally agree. However, not only the person who is about to be born, is going to be harmed without consent as a result of its existence, but also thousands of others who would be harmed as part of providing the living support for that person. A “support” none of them has ever given consent for. Even if we could have obtained consent from non-existing persons before creating them, we first must ask for consent from everyone who would be sacrificed and otherwise harmed by these persons. We must get their permission to be genetically modified so they would provide the maximum meat possible for the to-be born persons. We must get their permission to be imprisoned for their entire lives. We must get their permission to live without their family for their entire lives. We must get their permission to suffer chronic pain and maladies. We must get their permission to never breathe clean air, walk on grass, bath in water, and eat their natural food. We must get their permission to be violently murdered so the to-be born could consume their bodies. We must get their permission to destroy their habitats, pollute their land, water, and air. But has any human ever received consent to harm any animal? Did anyone ask the chicken forced into the egg industry if she is willing to live in a battery cage? Were animals asked for their opinion on the number of people that should exist “sustainably”? Did anyone ask any animal what should be the level of human technology in their shared ecosystem? Did anyone ask for the permission of other creatures who are about to be poisoned? Do we have the consent of tree dwellers to cut their home? No one is asking them. And it is not even because everyone knows they would never give their consent, but because others’ harms matter so little to people, that no one even thinks they must be asked.

Another reason Filrabat mentions for being an antinatalist is that he opposes taking risks at others’ expense. Again I totally agree that the risk of serious suffering is a sufficient reason for antinatalism, however I disagree that there is a risk of serious suffering when procreating, as serious suffering is most certainly guaranteed. In terms of general harm, procreation is not at all a gamble or risk that harms would be inflicted, since it is absolutely certain that the person created would severely harm others. Even if the person created would have a great life which s/he is glad to have, it is absolutely certain that serious harms would be inflicted by that person. Therefore procreation is not taking a risk of causing harms, it is indifferently deciding to cause harms.

(c) handwave away the fact that other species can and have disrupted ecosystems with no human involvement in the process whatsoever, even in recent times

I find all of Filrabat’s claims for rejecting the ecological argument rather odd, and this one is probably the oddest. I think that if it was possible to accumulate the harm of all the creatures of all the species that ever lived, their disruption of ecosystems wouldn’t come near the level of human harm, even of the current human generation only. This claim is beyond ignorance. No one is that ignorant regarding humans’ harm to ecosystems compared with the harm of other species. I have no doubt that this claim is a consequence of the desire to strengthen an opposition to the ecological argument. I find it hard to believe that such an intelligent and knowledgeable person seriously believes in such a statement, which is not supported by any historical record.

Filrabat mentions beavers as an example of a significantly ecosystem disrupting species (along with elephants who have supposedly turned Africa from fairly thick woodlands into a savanna). However, the number, the effect, and the disruption of dams built by humans all along history dwarfs anything that all the beavers had ever done despite that beavers exist way longer than human dams are around.

It is estimated that there are 800,000 manmade dams worldwide. Dams are used to store water, for irrigation, to control floods, and for electricity production. Manmade dams have a tremendous negative impact.

The most significant effect of dams on other animals is the loss of land which includes forests, valleys, marshy wetlands, and etc. Flooding of areas drowns a great many shrubs and trees, which adversely affects many species of birds that nest in them, while marshland is a very valuable environment for other birds.

Every animal or plant tends to have a well-defined habitat, or situation in which it thrives and to which it has become adapted. Destruction of their habitats forces more and more birds and mammals to migrate to new environments where they have to struggle against the native animals, as well as readapt to the environmental conditions.

The migratory pattern of river animals like salmon, sturgeon, and trout are extremely affected by dams. Dams divide rivers, creating upstream and downstream habitats, but migratory fish, such as sturgeon, depend on the whole river. Dams block their ability to travel back upstream. Sturgeon fish also rely on temperature triggers and shallow areas for reproduction. Because dams change how rivers flow, the water temperature and natural conditions also change.

Other animals commonly affected by dams are egrets, who along with other wetland birds, depend on healthy river systems for food and shelter. They make their nests in the steep banks of rivers or floodplain thickets. Dams prevent the natural highs and lows of rivers.

River dolphins are also highly affected by dams as they need high quality water and safe migratory routes to survive. Poorly planned dams often reduce dolphins’ food supply, change water quality and destroy habitats. As dams are constructed, the dynamite and noise can harm river dolphins. Once the dam is up, increased boat traffic can lead to more injuries and deaths from collisions.

Another significant impact of dams is changes in temperature, chemical composition, dissolved oxygen levels and the physical properties of a reservoir, which are often not suitable for the aquatic animals and plants that evolved in a given river system. And so, reservoirs often host non-native and invasive species that further undermine the river’s natural communities of animals and plants.

Dams serve as a heat sink, as the water is hotter than the normal river water. This warm water when released into the river downstream affects animals living there.
Slow-moving or still reservoirs can heat up, resulting in abnormal temperature fluctuations which can affect sensitive species. Other dams decrease temperatures by releasing cooled, oxygen-deprived water from the reservoir bottom.
In addition, peak power operations (in dams for electricity production) can change the water level thirty to forty feet in one day and can kill the animals living at the shorelines.

Dams can also degrade water quality when organic materials from in and outside rivers build up behind the dam. When the movement of sediment is disrupted, materials build up at the mouth of the reservoir, starving downriver ecosystems of vital ingredients. These backed-up materials, when decomposing, often result in algal blooms that consume large amounts of oxygen, creating oxygen-starved “dead zones”.

Dams also contribute to global warming. Over 20 years, the warming impact of annual large dam methane emissions is equivalent to 7.5 billion tons of carbon dioxide.

Nearly 500 dam projects are currently in the pipeline worldwide. Within the next 30 years, thousands of new dams are expected to be constructed globally.

So, beavers’ ecosystem disruption is probably billionth of humans’ ecosystem disruption. And that’s only one disruption out of an endless list of harms that humans are constantly causing.
Comparing the ecosystem disruption of any other animal, or even all of them put together (and probably even all of them put together from the beginning of each existence), with humanity’s ecosystem disruption is simply ridiculous.

(d) apparently find irrelevant that, on a humanless earth, animals still would suffer greatly at the hands of other animals (especially predators), microbes, and natural disasters

Although it is true that animals still would suffer greatly at the hands of other animals even if humans would go extinct, that claim is only relevant if the ecological antinatalist argument was that if the human race goes extinct all the suffering would stop. That is not the argument and if it was, obviously it would have been false. The argument is that the human race is unproportionately the most harmful species ever in the history of the world and other creatures’ biggest problem, so it is best if it goes extinct, not that all the world’s problems would be solved if it did. No one thinks that, so I wonder why Filrabat chose to confront the weakest version of the argument. Clearly animals still would suffer greatly at the hands of other animals, and I wish there was a way to make everyone go extinct, but it is not that the argument is only valid if all the suffering stops, and if it doesn’t, then the argument loses all its validation. If an action can stop most of the suffering but not all of it, it is not a justifiable reason not to perform that action if possible. Human extinction cannot and is not presented as a perfect solution, exactly because animals would still suffer greatly at the hands of other animals, but that is not a reason not to do everything possible to help all the animals who otherwise would still suffer greatly at the hands of humans. It is like arguing against world peace because there would still be great suffering from car accidents. That would be factually true but ethically irrelevant as a case against world peace.

All that this claim shows is that the human race is not the only problem, not that it is not a problem, or that it is not the biggest problem. My focus on humans is not because I think there are no other problems, but because I think humans are the biggest one and because I think it is more solvable. I know that unfortunately the world would stay horrible after human extinction, but much less. Much much much less.

“If we assume humans deserve self-omnicide on the grounds that environmental damage they create causes animals to suffer, then we have to eliminate all other animals that cause ecological damage that causes other animals to suffer as well. It doesn’t matter if these animals are generally considered part of the “authentic” ecosystem. Furthermore, it’s also based on the assumption that one should reduce harm to the minimum reasonable.”

I am in favor of eliminating all other animals that cause other animals to suffer as well. I am not favoring nor idealizing life in nature or in general. Was it realistic to sterilize every creature on earth I would unhesitatingly fully support that. That could be the most wonderful thing that ever happened to life on earth. I am an efilist who focuses on human extinction for practical reasons.
The reason I advocate for human extinction is because they are by far the biggest harm, and since it is by far more realistic than the extinction of all other life forms that cause harms.
Following the logic of the last sentence in the quote above – since the human race causes the maximum harm, reducing harm to the minimum reasonable is to aim at human extinction.

I call for human extinction in the name of trillions of sentient victims per year, not in the name of their species, nor in the name of their ecosystems, nor since humans deserve to go extinct, or because I think it would solve all the problems in the world, or because humans have no right to exist. I relate to none of these claims. My claim and motive is the harm to others.
The human race is the biggest problem in the world more or less since their first step in it. That’s why I aim and hope that they would make their last one as soon as possible.

Every day the human race provides us with more and more reasons for its extinction. And every day it provides us with less and less reasons to believe it would ever happen voluntarily. For it to finally happen, we must make it happen.

References

Why I’m Sold On Antinatalism Personal Reasons Part IV Sunday, September 12, 2010

bbc.com/news/av/stories-43699464/i-m-not-having-children-because-i-want-to-save-the-planet

bbc.com/news/science-environment-36492596

Benatar, D. 2006. Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming Into Existence.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Biomass use, production, feed efficiencies, and greenhouse gas emissions from global livestock systems. PNAS, 110, 52

britannica.com/science/light-pollution

carbonpositivelife.com

Dams and Migratory Fish by International Rivers

Darksky.org

Destructive Dams by World Animal Foundation

ecowatch.com/u/ecowatch

Environmental Impacts of Dams by International Rivers

Environmental Issues, Dams And Fish Migration By Michel Larinier

Csp Cemagref Ghaape Institut De Mécanique Des Fluides

Fish Passage at Dams by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council

International Dark-Sky Association. “International Dark Sky Places.”

http://www.darksky.org/night-sky-conservation/34-ida/about-ida/142-idsplaces

Lighting Research Center. “Light Pollution.” Accessed November 19, 2013

lrc.rpi.edu/programs/nlpip/lightinganswers/lightpollution/abstract.asp

The Problems of Light Pollution – Overview

The Campaign for Dark Skies. “About the Campaign for Dark Skies.” Accessed November 19, 2013. britastro.org/dark-skies/about.htm?1O.

What are the Negative Effects of Building Large Hydroelectric Dams? By Chief Engineer Mohit Sanguri

 

In the article A New Argument for Anti-Natalism, philosopher Christopher Belshaw argues that antinatalism doesn’t necessarily entail – pro-mortalism.
Belshaw disagrees with David Benatar’s attempt to avoid pro-mortalism while arguing for antinatalism, and defines it as an ‘unstable anti-natalist and anti-mortalist mix’ which may made Benatar’s view more publically acceptable but also less consistent philosophically.

Basically, Belshaw’s criticism of Benatar is that if there is reason not to start lives, then there is reason to end them. And if the smallest amount of pain is sufficient to make life not worth starting as Benatar argues, given that everyone will experience at least some pain, Benatar’s argument for antinatalism entails pro-mortalism.
However, since I have addressed Benatar’s argument in relation to pro-mortalism in a former post, and since Belshaw himself doesn’t focus on Benatar’s argument but rather on his own argument for antinatalism, which he claims succeeds in avoiding pro-mortalism, this will be the focus of the following text.

Pleasure Springboards

Given that babies lack developed conceptions of time and of their own identities as persisting through time, Belshaw argues that as opposed to grown people who will often choose to endure pain in the present for benefits in the future, this can’t be the case with babies who don’t have desires about their longer term futures. Babies live only in the present, and have no desire to tolerate pain in order to acquire future pleasures. For someone unaware of its own future, a good future cannot make up for a bad present. Therefore, hurting babies in the present, for a benefit in the future, which they have no and can’t have an interest in, is morally unjustified.

According to Belshaw when it comes to whom who lacks developed conceptions of time, present pains are not justified by future pleasures. So babies suffer uncompensated pain. But the premise of his new argument for antinatalism goes way further than that. He claims that babies are distinct from the persons that develop from them. From his point of view the baby is one being, the person is another.
To illustrate and simplify the matter he suggests thinking about babies not as an integral gradual process of becoming a person but more in a sense of a distinctive transformation stage:

“Imagine that our relationship to a baby is like that of a butterfly to a caterpillar. Rather than a piecemeal emergence of complex psychological properties, and thus of the person, imagine instead that a baby is born, lives a baby life for about eighteen months, then falls into some sort of coma. Its life is over. After a year a pretty much fully-fledged person emerges. What should we think of this baby’s life? Is it worth living?” (p.124)

This distinction is of course very significant in an ethical sense, since not only that hurting babies is wrong because it is trading the present pains for the future pleasures of a creature who lacks developed conceptions of time, it’s a trade of pleasures and pains between different lives. And that is much worse, and highly questionable ethically.

Thinking about babies not from the point of view of the persons they supposedly become, but as a separate creature, then that creature – who has no developed notion of itself, or of time, no desire to live on into the future, no ability to think about pain and decide to endure it – experiences a lot of suffering. That is the case of even totally healthy babies. They all come into the world screaming, cry a lot, suffer colic and teething pains, stress, discomfort, emotional distress and etc. Therefore Belshaw argues that a baby’s life is not worth living.
Some may argue that a baby is an indispensable stage in creating a wholly worthwhile life, but this is not at all in the interests of, and brings about no compensations or benefits for – the baby. It would have been better for the baby had it never been created.

Belshaw argues that gradualism has no bearing here:

“Even if we come into existence by degrees, the two beings here remain distinct. And so the conclusion still stands. If we value our own lives, want there to be more people in the world, we may well continue to make babies. But what’s good for them isn’t good for us, and vice versa. We’re exploiting them, and exist only because this other creature has suffered. I may be glad that there was a baby. But it would have better for the baby never to have been born.” (p.124)

So basically his argument is that the creation of a person necessarily involves the creation of a baby which isn’t a person but is certainly a sentient creature, and one who suffers very much, without consent, and without compensation as the person that would develop from that baby is not a continuation of the baby. The creation of a person necessarily involves an exploitation of a baby. It is forcing suffering on a creature so that someone else would benefit, because it is not that the pleasures of the future person compensate the baby for its pains, and the baby has no concept or any interest in the future.

Arguable Conception and Unarguable Exploitation

Belshaw doesn’t seem to be bothered with a person being created, but with a baby being created in the process of creating a person. He is bothered with the harms caused to the baby, harms for which the baby would never be compensated. He is bothered with the harms that creating a person brings about not to the person created but to the baby which is according to him, although an indispensable stage of a person, still a separate entity.
Since Belshaw separates between a person and the baby that person had developed from, his argument is actually more of a version of the harm to others argument than it is a version of Benatar’s argument. Only that in Belshaw’s version of the harm to others argument, although there should be no disputes regarding the ‘harm’ part, there are many regarding the ‘others’ element. While his distinction between a baby and the person that grows from that baby is disputable, in the case of the original version of the harm to others argument, meaning absolutely unquestionable harms caused to absolutely unquestionable others, there is no room for any dispute. The only reason that nevertheless there is much dispute is because people are speciesist and careless about the suffering of others, not because the sacrifice of trillions of sentient creatures can ever be ethically justified.

The specific distinction Belshaw claims for may be arguable but the sentiment isn’t.
Even if it is disputable that each person necessarily exploits the baby that s/he supposedly developed from and that each person exists only because a baby has suffered, given that each person needs to feed oneself, dress oneself, clean oneself, clean oneself’s clothes, heat oneself in the winter, cool oneself in the summer, live somewhere, work somewhere, move around somehow, entertain oneself, consume enormous amounts of energy, produce enormous amounts of waste, and etc., and considering that each of these necessarily harm others, it is undisputable that each person necessarily exploits others and that each person exists only because others have suffered.

And people don’t even seem to care that much about the fact that numerous other sentient creatures are suffering so they can enjoy themselves. Most are still choosing, time and again, the most harmful ways to feed themselves and regardless of how harmful it is to others. Harming others while consuming food is inevitable, even if it is plant based, local, organic and seasonable, but most people insist on the worst kinds of food production, ones that involve the greatest exploitation and suffering. Therefore, in most cases, creating a person is sacrificing chickens to be cramped into tiny cages with each forced to live in a space the size of an A4 paper, calves to be separated from their mothers, and cow mothers to be left traumatized by the abduction of their babies, pigs to suffer from chronic pain and various diseases, sheep to suffer from lameness, turkeys to barely stand as a result of their unproportionate bodies, ducks to live out of water and in filthy crowded sheds, rabbits to be imprisoned in an iron cage the size of their bodies, geese to be aggressively plucked for their feathers, and male chicks to be gassed, crushed or suffocated since they are unexploitable for eggs or meat.

So even if you reject Belshaw’s distinction within a person, the following description he made is surly the case when it comes to a person’s relation with others “we are inevitably free-riding on the several misfortunes of small, helpless and shortlived creatures”.

Even if you disagree with Belshaw’s distinction between the future person’s supposed wholly worthwhile life and the baby’s lack of any interest, compensations or benefits for that, you can’t disagree that other creatures surly lack of any interest, compensations or benefits for a person’s supposed wholly worthwhile life. Even if we refuse to accept Belshaw’s distinction, the thousands of creatures overall that would be harmed so a person would benefit, will not be compensated. Therefore even without his distinction move, the creation of a person is indeed a trade of pleasures and pains across different lives.

Belshaw’s argument may be new but in some ways it reflects on an old problem. He deeply emphasis the exploitation of babies for the pleasures of persons, yet he deeply ignores the obvious exploitation – one that doesn’t require the metaphysical complexity of differentiating between a person and the baby from which that person had developed – of probably thousands of nonhuman animals by each human person.

Preventing that suffering is my main motivation. And people being so speciesist and careless about the suffering of others is my main reason not to wait for them to change.
If Belshaw’s main motivation is to prevent babies from being sacrificed for the sake of persons while avoiding pro-mortalism for persons, he can support a non-pro-mortalist option, but still ensure that people will stop sacrificing babies. Although for slightly different motives and perceptions than mine, he can support forced sterilization.

References

Benatar, D. Better Never to Have Been (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006)

Belshaw, C. A New Argument for Anti-Natalism South African Journal of Philosophy 31 (1) 117-127(2012)