Child birth should be considered immoral

Hopefully, I can provide not only an interesting argument or two, but a cogent, formidable argument overall. Discomfort is bad In a world where there is only discomfort and comfort (i. e. no context), no rational sentient animal would choose discomfort over comfort. It is only with context that discomfort could ever be considered preferable, such as a deal that if you were to be uncomfortable now, you would be comfortable for twice the amount of time afterwards. Therefore, it appears to be no less than a truth. Life is (almost certainly) more discomfort than comfort I will now argue that life is essentially a ‘negative-sum game’, in which there are states of comfort that all fall below the ‘0’, rather than anything that is truly positive. In other words, positives and negatives are not opposites, rather, states of discomfort. Anything that is positive is, overall, a result of overcoming a negative. To feel happy, you must have no lingering, serious discomforts. To feel healthy, your body cannot be burdened with ailment. To feel pride for your son/daughter, he/she must overcome something and you must be hoping that he/she will overcome it to begin with. It is not sufficient a counter-argument to say that for every negative there is an equal positive always met, because discomfort requires ‘no alignment of the stars’, rather only the sentient psychology feeling deprived; whereas, elimination of discomfort is not necessarily assured. For example, you cannot be sure that you will be hired for a certain job, yet you can far more easily wish that you could. Certain actions can produce more positive than negative, but only within themselves. For example, going to the fridge to eat whilst starving, would be an enormously positive trade (the discomfort of having to go the fridge and select food to eat etc. , versus the elimination of starvation). However, given context, it would be apparent that you were unable to satisfy discomforts to begin with, hence the starving state that you found yourself in. Overall, the sum can never reach a true positive, as you have, in reality, only experienced great relief by suffering greatly beforehand. Conclusively, relative to this section, it would be virtually impossible to reach the ‘0’, as every possible discomfort would have to be accounted for. Therefore, in the event that you cannot eliminate every discomfort, you will have an overall negative sum, meaning that your life is more discomfort than comfort. Permanent state of discomfort Through our perception, our mind gives us tasks. Production of these tasks are like the ‘building of broken chairs’, in that there exists no problem in reality outside of our perception. For example, a woman’s nails need not be coloured or manicured; it is only through a combination of a sexual drive and vanity does this ‘broken chair’ seem to need fixing. In other words, if you were without the filter of sentient psychology, you would be able to see that these ‘problems’, in reality, do not exist. Furthermore, the illusion that these broken chairs need to be fixed, need not exist. Does it really achieve anything to say ‘thank you’ after someone has done something nice for you, other than satisfy ego and other products of sentient psychology? Is there some greater purpose for this psychology that ordains its existence? Why must the psychology exist if it is designed to produce these broken chairs that need not exist in reality, yet only serve as discomfort? It will never be enough to acquire one million dollars as you could have ten million dollars, and for all the brilliance of earning such a large amount, as soon as the psychology becomes accustomed to it, more will be required. If you are able to resist the natural urge for more, then it will be another field of desire that will strike your attention, such as the growing of a simple garden, or the gathering of family. Either way, your sentient psychology will always want more of or ‘one more time’ of anything. And such, it is apparent that a permanent state of discomfort rules whenever a sentient psychology exists. Seeing as coming into existence will almost certainly bring about more negative than positive, it follows that it should be considered immoral to bring any sentient animal into this. That is all for my main line of argument It is better to have never been Benatar’s Asymmetry: (1) If a person exists, then his/her pain is a bad thing. (2) If a person exists, then his/her pleasure is a good thing. (3) What does not exist cannot suffer (therefore this non-existing pain is a good thing). (4) What does not exist cannot be deprived of any pleasure (therefore this non-existing pleasure is not a bad thing). This is a simplified version of David Benatar’s work, found here: [1]. This argument does not hinge on my above arguments, rather it is stand-alone, mathematical proof that not existing should be preferred over existing. The first two lines should be accepted by all, but the latter two is where the asymmetry occurs. I think this version of Benatar’s Asymmetry is so simple that I could only repeat it in trying to explain it. From this, it is better to not bring people into existence, making child birth immoral. I would like to use a couple of analogies to express some other issues with child birth. Again, these two analogies do not rest upon any argument above, thus should be taken as arguments within themselves. Gambling Analogy If you go gambling (procreating) with another person’s life inheritance (state of being), without his/her consent, that is immoral. You do not own the person’s inheritance, so you should not have the final word in how it is used. Even if the likelihood of you being able to increase the inheritance via using the inheritance is high (the child will likely have good health/a good life etc. ), it would still be immoral to gamble with it without permission, much as it is immoral to sign contracts for people without their permissions. Driving Drunk Analogy Many societies have rules against drunk-driving. This is because drink-driving causes unnecessary risk. Let’s assume that it is necessary to drive a car. It is not necessary to drive-drunk in order to drive. Similarly, it is not required of your life to procreate in order for you to live/ experience pleasure. The risks of causing harm increase substantially in drunk-driving (procreating), and even if the risks are low, the ramifications that result could entail catastrophe (serious disabilities, a truly nasty experience in life etc. ). Conclusion Discomfort is bad. Since life is basically about experiencing discomforts and then feeling the need to fix them in order to experience some kind of positive, it seems as if you can only lose the game of life. The best you could possibly do with your life is reach ‘0’ in the negative-sum game. Besides, it is better to have never been than to be thrown into this silly life game, without giving consent, in order to try and feel some kind of comfort when it is the function of sentient psychology to be uncomfortable. References ‘Negative-sum,’ gambling, driving drunk and ‘Broken chair’ analogies taken from the Youtube channel ‘Inmendham’. [1] . http://francoistremblay.wordpress.com...