efilism
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: /ˈɛfɪlɪzəm/
Etymology: From life reversed + -ism.
Senses: examples: text: They've identified a reference to the ancient Syracusian practice of banishment known as petalism, and what may or may not be a reference to efilism, a branch of the antinatalist philosophical position advanced by Schopenhauer, but what any of that has to do with the lyrics' subsequent allusions to Moby-Dick seems pretty open to question.
ref: 2014 July 24, Alexis Petridis, “Shabazz Palaces: Lese Majesty review – spectacular, way-out hip-hop”, in The Guardian, archived from the original on 25 Jul 2014:
text: The meeting, held at a cafe, had people from other lines of philosophy too, from feminists, vegans to efilists. Of which, efilism is another extreme.
ref: 2019 February 11, Barkha Kumari, “Stop making babies”, in Bangalore Mirror, archived from the original on 13 Dec 2022:
text: Efilism has a vague correspondence with utilitarianism but emphasizes the suffering of life over utilitarianism’s greater good.
ref: 2020, Patricia MacCormack, The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene, Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN, page 153:
text: Ahuman antinatalism is not efilism (the end-all-carbon-based-life fetishization of Buddhism) and it is not genocide, eugenics, or any other thoroughly human hierarchical form of violence.
ref: 2020, Rick Dolphijn, “The Non-Human, Systems, and New Materialism”, in Mads Rosendahl Thomsen, Jacob Wamberg, editors, The Bloomsbury Handbook of Posthumanism, Bloomsbury Academic, →ISBN:
text: [“Year”:] 2019 [“Winner and country”:] Raphael Samuel and Pratima Naik, India [“Description”:] Key members of Childfree India, an activist group that promotes the childfree choice, antinatalism, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, and Efilism
ref: 2022, Laura Carroll, “The Annual Global Childfree Event: International Childfree Day”, in Davinia Thornley, editor, Childfree Across the Disciplines: Academic and Activist Perspectives on Not Choosing Children, Rutgers University Press, →ISBN, page 108:
text: Sukenick says there are four distinct but overlapping philosophical positions that must be understood separately: Benatarian antinatalism, which argues it’s better never to have been born; Efilism, which extends antinatalism beyond humans to all sentient beings, arguing humans have a duty to prevent the continuation of all sentient life; Promortalism, which originally meant extinction advocacy but has since devolved into a confused and dangerous philosophy often associated with suicide advocacy; Antinatalism proper, which serves as an umbrella term for dozens of related movements questioning the ethics of creating new life. The key difference between the first two positions comes down to intervention. Benatarian antinatalists believe humans should stop reproducing and let animals inherit the earth naturally, while efilists argue humans must take responsibility for ending all sentient suffering before human extinction occurs.
ref: 2025 June 4, Katherine Dee, “The YouTubers Preaching Human Extinction”, in Pirate Wires, Pirate Wires, archived from the original on 24 Jun 2025:
glosses: An extremist, negative utilitarian pro-mortalist, antinatalist ideology proposed by Gary Mosher which endorses the forced extinction of all life on Earth.
Related terms: efilist
antinatalism
promortalism