Category: Anti-Natalism
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Anti-Natalism, Zombies, and the Role of Consciousness in the Question of the Value of Life
Extreme anti-natalism is the view espoused by David Benatar according to which "it would be better if there were no more humans" (David Benatar and David Wasserman, Debating Procreation, Oxford UP 2015, 13). This is an axiological thesis. From it follows the deontic conclusion that "all procreation is wrong." (12) Procreation is obviously a biological…
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Prudential Anti-Natalism
Karl White writes: If one assumes life has a negative value, or at the very least is a problem that needs solving, then surely it would follow that antinatalism is the prudential course. If we are unable to discern a meaning or a solution to life, then there can hardly be any justification for dragging…
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Zapffe Must be Popular!
This weblog averages about 1,350 page views per day. But yesterday it snagged 10,695 views, and now at 6:20 AM local time it has already racked up 3,200 or so. What explains this? Reddit got hold of my Zappfe post, scroll down a bit, and that must be driving the surge. Perhaps we philosophers need…
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The View from Mount Zapffe: The Absurdity of Life and Intellectual Honesty
Gisle Tangenes describes the life and ideas of a cheerfully pessimistic, mountain-climbing Norwegian existentialist, pessimist, and anti-natalist, Peter Wessel Zapffe: Thus the ‘thousand consolatory fictions’ that deny our captivity in dying beasts, afloat on a speck of dust in the eternal void. And after all, if a godly creator is waiting in the wings, it…
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An Anti-Natalist Speaks
"Pretty girls make graves." (Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums, 1958) Admittedly, there is a certain tension between the quotation and the stone inscription.
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Merton Quotes Evdokimov
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p. 308: Evdokimov demands a virile ascesis, not simply gentlemanly retirement into leisure. The monk does not build his monastic city 'on the margin' of the world, but instead of it. [. . .] He frankly regards monastic chastity as a refusal to procreate and to continue the…
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Contemporary Anti-Natalism
A tip of the hat to Karl White for bringing to our attention a 2012 issue of South African Journal of Philosophy devoted entirely to the above-captioned topic. Free online access!
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A Problem of Evil for Atheists
Suppose you are an atheist who considers life to be worth living. You deny God, but affirm life, this life, as it is, here and now. Suppose you take the fact of evil to tell against the existence of God. Do you also take the fact of evil to tell against the affirmability of life? …
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Sophistry in True Detective: On the Supposed Illusion of Having a Self
The other day I referred to the following bit of dialogue from the new HBO series, True Detective, as sophistry. Now I will explain why I think it to be such. Here is the part I want to focus on. The words are put in the mouth of the anti-natalist Rustin Cohle. I've ommitted the…
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Pessimism and Anti-Natalism in True Detective
True Detective is a new HBO series getting rave reviews. This bit, I am told by Karl White from whom I first learned about the series, is from the first episode. It's good. I'll leave it to you to sort through the sophistry of Rust's spiel. Here is some TD dialog about religion. I'll say…
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Kierkegaard: Some Extracts with an Anti-Natalist Flavor
My 1995-1996 Turkish Journal contains quotations from, and commentary on, some of S.K.'s journal entries. Unfortunately, I don't have complete bibliographical data, just the entry numbers. What sent me back to my Turkish Journal was London Karl's request that I dig up Kierkegaardian passages that smack of anti-natalism. S. K. on Women, #4998. ". .…