To be or not to be?

Consider a case in which a 14 year old girl tells you of her plans to get pregnant and deliver a baby as soon as possible. Such a plan would likely shock you. Doing such a thing seems not only harmful to the potential child, who would be raised by a mother who is still, herself, a child, but also to the girl herself, who would inevitably need to abandon other valuable life plans (such as graduating from high school) to raise this child.

You voice these concerns to the girl, urging her to wait until she has the necessary maturity to make such a major decision, but she believes that your concerns are irrelevant. After all, if she does not have a child, that child would never exist, and wouldn’t that be worse than having a child who may suffer hardships but is, nonetheless, alive?

This argument has influenced discussions about procreation for about as long as such discussions have existed and, when taken to its logical conclusion, can be used to justify bringing a child into even the most dismal of circumstances. Rivka Weinberg, however, believes this concern does not hold adequate weight. She argues that, “Nobody needs to exist,” so existence itself cannot be factored into the scale of what is good or bad for a person, but instead acts as a prerequisite to such a scale existing at all. Thus, “[Existence is] not hanging in the balance and it can’t be used to justify procreative negligence.”

A view that does not consider the value of existence, however, may lead to the conclusion that some, most, or even all lives are not worth living. One such view is that of David Benatar, who argues that being alive exposes people to more pain than pleasure and is therefore a net harm to them. Following from this assertion, not existing is good in principle because it prevents pain. Therefore, he argues, it is always better to not bring new life into the world.

Weinberg, however, does not align herself with this view and proposes a thought experiment to combat it. She suggests a reality in which humans created a species of sentient, emotional, and intelligent beings that she calls, “Peeps.” These peeps, like humans, have moments of great joy and great despair. For the most part, though, they are happy to be alive and, if asked during a moment of great struggle whether they would prefer not to exist, they will adamantly state that they are still happy to exist, despite their suffering.

The question, then, is whether the human creators of the peeps did anything wrong by creating them. By a view such as Benatar’s, the answer must be yes. As long as the balance of pleasures and pains is the same as that of the typical human and, therefore, weighted towards pain, then creating the peeps is wrong because it causes net pain.

Weinberg, however, argues that human intuitions point to the answer being no. The peeps, despite all their suffering, want to be alive and are happy to be alive, so how could it have been a morally better choice to have deprived them of their life?

Using this example, Weinberg derives what she sees as a flaw in Benatar’s argument, which is that it is not the rational evaluation of pain and pleasure that justifies existence, but the belief of those who are alive that being alive is worthwhile. As long as someone says their life is good, how can anyone else argue with such an assertion? The most qualified person to determine if a life is good is the person actively experiencing it, and so if most people are happy to be alive or value their existence as a good thing, it is safe to conclude that living a life is not inherently bad for people.

It could be said, of course, that a person who is alive is not, in fact, the most qualified person to evaluate the worth of being alive because people are irrationally inclined to enjoy being alive. What if it’s the case, for example, that people are only happy to be alive because there is an evolutionary motivation to want to be alive and, if people were truly rational, they would not value life at all?

We can examine this criticism by similarly applying it to the case of the peeps. Imagine that these artificial people are programmed to always be happy to be alive regardless of the circumstances of their life. We may easily say that, in such a case, the belief that it is good to be alive is irrational as it will be held regardless of any evidence. If it is the case, however, that we would still not think it was wrong to bring the peeps into existence, then we arrive at the same conclusion as before and must concede that it isn’t wrong to bring people into existence.

Abandoning the typical views highlighted in these two thought experiments, Weinberg opts for a risk-avoidance model of procreative ethics. By her argument, when one chooses to procreate, they, “impose the risk of a life and all the good things and bad things that could happen to the future person that you’re going to be creating.” All of these risks should be rationally weighed against the costs of not having a child. To effectively weigh these risks, Weinberg suggests considering the risks as if they may occur to the person bearing the child, rather than the child itself.

Weinberg considers the case of a 42 year old woman considering whether or not to have a third child, who would have a 20% risk of being born with Down Syndrome. By this model, the woman should not have a child because if the woman herself were to suddenly have a 20% risk of developing Down Syndrome, that would be worse for her than the relative good of having another child when she already has two.

However, appetites for risk are variable. A woman who relishes risk taking may be spurred on to have a child by the possibility that she a harm may occur. Would her personal preference make it acceptable to impose such major risk onto an unborn child?

Weinberg still argues that this would be objectionable because a procreative decision should be not only personal, but also rational. Thus, if someone is considering having a child in such a high risk circumstance and the majority of people would opt not to take on the child’s risk themselves in return for receiving all the good that may come to the child’s parent, then it is still not permissible to impose such risk onto the unborn child.

The same objection may be made to this as that made to the peeps example: namely, that no one can objectively and rationally evaluate the amount of risk that should be taken on when procreating because people are likely biased towards being alive. This will also, however, be true of the person resulting from procreation, who will most likely evaluate their life to be worthwhile regardless of its conditions. The question remains to be answered, then, if irrational happiness should be evaluated differently than rational happiness. Thus, if we consider it wrong to bring peeps into existence who will always be happy to be alive, we should also consider it wrong to bring people into existence who are only happy to be alive because of their irrational tendencies. Conversely, if it is not wrong to create the irrational peeps, it should also not be wrong to bring a child into existence who will be irrationally happy to be alive.

Could Weinberg’s view, however, fall into the same anti-natalist position that she denounces? After all, every person is subject to infinite small risks every day. When taken all together, the risk to anyone who is alive is incredible. If this risk is so high, then how could having a child ever be justified?

Anticipating this objection, Weinberg draws an analogy to driving a car. Driving is a notoriously dangerous activity that, like life itself, imposes a high amount of risk on anyone who practices it. Nonetheless, it is common intuition that driving is permissible because the cost of not driving would be so substantial for most people. Similarly, the risks of harm coming from existence are numerous, but the positive risks of existing and the cost to the parent of not having a child are similarly great and can, in many cases, overcome the risks.

Weinberg also stipulates, however, that not procreating is still the most morally conservative choice, even if procreation can be justified. Additionally, she argues that children come with diminishing returns for the parent, so having a first child is far more easily justifiable than having a second. Her view effectively manages to justify a median position in the procreation debate by allowing for flexibility that does not commit people to never having children or having as many children as possible, as implied by the view that existence itself is almost always a moral good.