What Is Antinatalism? Definition, Arguments and Scope
By Nume for Nume's Blog on
Antinatalism is the view that choosing to bring new sentient beings into existence is ethically wrong or unjustifiable.
It is usually stated about human procreation; this post defends the broader version used by r/antinatalism, where I am head moderator.
In short:
- Some say creating a sentient being is always wrong; others say almost always, or never adequately justified.
- The main arguments: asymmetry, quality of life, consent, risk, and harm to others.
- On the broader definition defended here, it covers any sentient being someone chooses to create, including bred animals.
- It does not cover births no one chooses, such as those of wild animals.
- It does not support forcing anyone not to reproduce, or wishing anyone dead.
- It is not the same as being childfree, or as population-control policy.
What does antinatalism cover?
It covers any deliberate act of bringing a sentient being into existence: having children, breeding animals, deliberately letting animals in one's care breed, and building artificial minds, once a system can feel. A sentient being is one for whom things can go well or badly from the inside. "Wrong or unjustifiable" covers strong and weak versions: Asheel Singh, for example, defines antinatalism as holding that it is "(almost) always wrong to bring people (and perhaps all sentient beings) into existence." [1]
Who coined the term antinatalism?
"Antinatalism" was introduced as the name of a philosophical position in 2006, independently, by the philosopher David Benatar and the Belgian writer Théophile de Giraud, according to the philosopher Amanda Sukenick. [2] The adjective "antinatalist" was already used for population policy. [3]
What are the arguments for antinatalism?
Antinatalists argue from five main grounds, plus a newer one:
- Asymmetry. Benatar argues that "the absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone," while "the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation." So never existing has an advantage over existing that existing cannot match. [4]
- Quality of life. Benatar argues that even good lives contain more suffering than people judge, partly because of the "Pollyanna principle," "a tendency towards optimism" in how people rate their own lives. [4]
- Consent. A child cannot agree to the serious harms of existence before existing. Singh argues that imagined ("hypothetical") consent cannot stand in: "procreators cannot appeal to hypothetical consent to justify exposing children to the harms of existence." He builds on Seana Shiffrin, who herself stops short of antinatalism. [1]
- Risk. Benatar compares procreation to Russian roulette aimed at someone else: "You trigger a new life and thereby subject that new life to the risk of unspeakable suffering." [5]
- Harm to others. In what he calls the misanthropic argument (about the harm humans cause, not contempt for them), Benatar holds that each new human will cause serious harm to others, so having children is "presumptively wrong," meaning wrong unless something outweighs it. [5]
- Answerability (a newer argument, my own). Whoever creates a being owes it an answer for that choice, yet cannot ask it first, and the good of the life to come cannot settle that answer in advance. I develop this in The Act Creates Its Addressee.
What are the main criticisms of antinatalism?
- The asymmetry is arbitrary. Critics doubt that anything can be "good" for someone who never exists. Jeff McMahan objects that Benatar treats the absence of pain as good and the absence of pleasure as merely not bad "apparently without any theoretical justification." [6]
- If existence is a harm, why not suicide? Benatar answers that "a life worth living" is ambiguous between "a life worth continuing" and "a life worth starting." [4] Antinatalism concerns starting lives, not ending them; it is not a wish for anyone's death or a hatred of people.
- A harm is not yet a wrong. David Wasserman concludes that "none of the anti-natalist arguments establish even a presumptive wrong in procreation." [5] Consent-based antinatalists, and my answerability argument, answer that the wrong does not depend on the harms outweighing the goods: it lies in imposing a life, with its risks, on someone who could not be asked. Critics counter with the "non-identity problem": the child could not have existed any other way, so it was not made worse off. The point remains disputed.
- The arguments are not convincing enough. Some antinatalists agree. Matti Häyry and Amanda Sukenick argue that the standard arguments fail to give "a concrete, understandable, and convincing moral case for not having children," and turn instead to how pronatalism, social pressure to have children, imposes on people already alive. [7]
Is antinatalism only about humans?
Not necessarily, and this post argues it should not be. Most usage is about humans, but the consent and answerability arguments concern beings who can be harmed and cannot be asked, and nothing in them mentions species.
The test case is not the slaughterhouse but the best case. A dog bred into a loving home still faces illness, fear and death it could not be asked about, just as a child does. As I put it in The Consent Argument for Antinatalism: "To breed them is to choose existence on their behalf."
One might object that animals never consent to anything, so consent is the wrong test. But the argument needs only a being who will bear the costs of a choice made without it, as with infants. We can act for an existing animal because it already has interests; before it exists, it has none that creating it could serve. Some reply that a good life benefits the one who lives it, or that a child will one day be able to consent while an animal never will. But even if a life benefits its subject, its risks were imposed without asking, and a being who can never have a say is, if anything, more exposed.
The asymmetry and risk arguments extend to any being who can suffer; the quality-of-life argument only partly, since the Pollyanna principle concerns how humans rate their own lives; the misanthropic argument is about humans only. The stakes are large: nearly all of the roughly 80 billion land animals slaughtered for meat in 2021 were deliberately bred into existence (Our World in Data).
The scope is still contested, and this definition is a recommendation, not a report of majority usage. The strongest objection is Häyry's proposal of "a strategic bracketing of sentience," setting animals aside for now, because counting every sentient being seems to demand stopping all suffering, even in the wild. [8] On Benatar's asymmetry, wild births are harms too. But the definition here judges acts, not outcomes: a view about what we may create limits our own acts, so it no more requires stopping wild births than a ban on lying requires stopping all lies. Whether preventing wild suffering would be good is a separate question about outcomes, and this definition takes no position on it. Bracketing may win support more easily, but a definition should state what a view implies. I develop this reply in Risk Is Not Authority.
Does antinatalism support forcing people not to have children?
No. On consent and answerability views, the wrong is imposing on someone without their agreement, so forcing people not to reproduce would commit the very wrong the view objects to.
Forced sterilization violates bodily autonomy, and state control of fertility has a long record of being turned against the poor, disabled people and minorities. [3] Coercion also seriously harms people who already exist, which harm-based views must count too. Antinatalists who argue from harm reach the same line: Häyry says his conclusion "is purely moral and supports only voluntary extinction for humankind," [9] meaning humanity should end, if at all, only through people freely choosing not to have children, never by compulsion.
Is antinatalism the same as being childfree?
No. Being childfree is a personal choice about one's own life and makes no moral claim about anyone else; antinatalism is a moral claim about creating anyone, whether or not one wants children. A childfree person may think having children is fine for others, and an antinatalist may already be a parent. The relationship is like that between a plant-based diet and veganism.
Is antinatalism a population-control policy?
No. Government "antinatalist" policies aim to lower a population's birth rate for the state's own goals, and in practice have often targeted the fertility of marginalized women. [3] Philosophical antinatalism judges each act of creation by what it does to the being created, and, as above, rules out state force on would-be parents.
How do dictionaries define antinatalism?
The dictionaries I checked, Cambridge, Merriam-Webster, Dictionary.com and Collins, define it only through human children, and Merriam-Webster lists the philosophical, childfree and population-policy senses without labeling them. Wikipedia comes closest, noting that some antinatalists include "all sentient creatures."
About the author: Nume, an activist and software engineer, has been head moderator of r/antinatalism since December 2024 and writes the Standing Framework wiki on the ethics of procreation and animals.
References
- 1.Asheel Singh. The Hypothetical Consent Objection to Anti-Natalism (2018). Ethical Theory and Moral Practice. doi:10.1007/s10677-018-9952-0
- 2.Amanda Sukenick. The End of Sentience (2025). Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. doi:10.1017/s0963180126100127
- 3.Loretta Ross, Lynn Roberts, Whitney Peoples, et al.. Radical Reproductive Justice: Foundation, Theory, Practice, Critique (2017). Feminist Press at The City University of New York. ISBN 9781936932047
- 4.David Benatar. Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (2006). Clarendon. ISBN 9780199296422
- 5.David Benatar, David Wasserman. Debating Procreation (2015). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199333547.001.0001
- 6.Jeff McMahan. Asymmetries in the Morality of Causing People to Exist (2009). Harming Future Persons. doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-5697-0_3
- 7.Matti Häyry, Amanda Sukenick. Imposing a Lifestyle: A New Argument for Antinatalism (2024). Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. doi:10.1017/s0963180123000385
- 8.Matti Häyry. Human Antinatalism and the Limits of Bipolar Pessimism (2025). Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. doi:10.1017/s0963180126100061
- 9.Matti Häyry. Confessions of an Antinatalist Philosopher (2026). Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. doi:10.1017/s0963180123000634