SCHOPENHAUER: Why Having Children is Wrong (Antinatalism)

Antinatalism is the philosophical belief that assigns a negative value to birth. Antinatalists believe that having children is morally wrong and that one shouldn’t do it. There are a variety of possible ethical arguments to make, but the general tone of the antinatalist position is that existence itself has a negative value. In other words, that it’s better to not exist at all. If non-existence is preferable to existence, then it follows that it’s morally wrong to create new life and doom another being to a life of suffering. This video is not about antinatalism in general. Rather, we’re taking a look at Schopenhauer’s position on this question. There seems to be a great misconception regarding Schopenhauer’s views on procreation. There is this idea that Schopenhauer was not a complete antinatalist. One philosophy magazine, for example, called Schopenhauer a “proto-antinatalist.” While it’s definitely true that Schopenhauer directly influenced those philosophers who are most famously associated with antinatalism today, like Emil Cioran, in this video we want to argue that there is nothing half-baked about Schopenhauer’s antinatalism. In other words, we want to argue that Schopenhauer was a full-fledged antinatalist, even if the term did not exist at the time. The two arguments presented in this video take us to the origin of suffering an Schopenhauer’s ethical recommendations. We take some ideas from Arthur Schopenhauer’s main work, The World as Will and Rpepresentation, and read between the lines a bit to find out Schopenhauer’s reasons for his anti-natalist views.