This post is a part of an ongoing biweekly series on philosophical pessimism and related positions. You can find other posts in the series here.
Life is a mixed bag of pains and pleasures, setbacks and victories, distress and delight. But does this mixed bag contain more good than bad, or more bad than good? All told, is life a gift or is it a burden? And if it is a burden, is it permissible to impose it on children by bringing them into the world?
The optimist says that life is a gift—it contains more good than bad, and on balance it is good for us that we came into existence. The pessimist says that life is a burden—it contains more bad than good, and on balance it is bad for us that we came into existence. I want to set aside the question of whether the optimist or the pessimist is correct, and instead focus on the potential implications of pessimism.
At first glance, the implications seem rather gloomy. In particular, it is natural to suppose that, if the pessimist is correct, then we should stop having children. For it is natural to suppose that if life really is a burden, then it would be wrong to impose that burden on innocent people. But I will argue that this thought is mistaken. It probably is permissible to have children, even if the pessimist is correct to think that children are worse off for coming into existence. For even if we are worse off for having come into existence, many of us are glad to exist. Future people are also likely to be glad that they exist, and our respect for their attitudes can make it permissible for us to create them.
The general thought is that it can be permissible for us to act in ways that make people worse off in part because those people will be glad that we acted as we did. To illustrate: Suppose that you are watching a meteor shower late at night, and you want to wake your sleeping sister so that the two of you can watch together. You know that your sister has not been feeling well, and that she needs her rest. She will be worse off if you interrupt her sleep, and the costs of being awoken in the middle of the night will be significant. Her symptoms—nausea, headaches, bodily aches—will be intensified and prolonged. Ordinarily, that would be a decisive reason for you to refrain from waking her. But you also know that your sister will be glad to have been woken up, despite the fact that she will be worse off. You know her well enough to know that she will be glad to see the meteor shower, even if she would be better off getting a full night’s rest.
In such circumstances, it is permissible for you to wake your sister. It is true that, in virtue of the fact that you will be making her worse off by waking her, you have some reason to refrain from waking her. But the force of this reason is weakened by the fact that you know she will be glad to have been awoken. You are not exactly doing her a favor by waking her—she needs her rest!—but you are not doing anything wrong, either. So if you really want to watch the meteor shower with her, you can go ahead and wake her up. Because you know and appreciate how she will feel about being awoken, you can at least somewhat overlook the fact that waking her up will make her worse off.
Before getting to the analogy with procreation, there is something important to clarify regarding the sister case—namely, that it matters whether your sister will be glad to see the meteor shower because she is under some sort of mistaken impression. If she is, then presumably the fact that she will be glad cannot justify you waking her up. Suppose, for example, that your sister does not realize that her symptoms will be intensified and prolonged as a result of losing sleep. She does not realize that, on the whole, she will be worse off if she is awoken to watch the meteor shower. And, crucially, if she did know all this, then she would not be glad to be awoken. In that case, you should not wake her. If your sister’s gladness would be based on a mistake, then the fact that she would feel glad if you woke her should not lead you to overlook the fact that waking her up will make her worse off. We have to imagine that, in the case where it really is okay for you to wake her, she would be glad to be awoken even if she knew that being awoken makes her worse off.
With all these clarifying points in place, we can return to the analogy with procreation. The idea is that, if pessimism is true, then creating a person is like waking your sister. If some potential parents decide to create a person, then the person they create will be worse off as a result of being created. In virtue of the fact that they will be making their child worse off by creating them, they have some reason to refrain from creating that child. But the force of this reason is weakened if the parents know that their child will be glad to have been created. The parents will not exactly be doing their child a favor by creating her—assuming pessimism is true, the child really is worse off as a result of being created—but the parents are not doing anything wrong, either. So if the parents really want to raise a child, they can do so. Because they know and appreciate how their child will feel about being created, they can at least somewhat overlook the fact that creating her will make her worse off.
A few questions immediately arise. First: Can parents really know that the children they create will be glad to have been created? Second: Even if children are glad to have been created, can we be confident that their gladness is not based on a mistake? In particular, can we be confident that they would be glad to have been created even if they knew that they were worse off for being created? I can’t answer either question with certainty, but I am optimistic. There is good reason to think that many parents can know that the people they create will be glad to have been created, and that those people’s gladness at being created will not be based on a mistake.
Start with the first question. I take it that many dedicated parents believe that their children will be glad to have been born, and have good reasons for believing this. They are committed to providing a safe and loving environment for their child, including meaningful relationships with friends and family. These commitments justify them in believing that their child will be glad to have been born. And many such parents turn out to be correct because many people are in fact glad that they came into existence. This is not to deny that some people sometimes wish that they had never come into existence. Though it is difficult to find psychological research that deals directly with these questions, the data on suicidality is sobering. Recent studies suggest that more than fifteen percent of American adolescents have seriously considered suicide within the past twelve months. It is likely that many of these respondents sometimes also wished that they had never come into existence. But this is consistent with the claim that most people, most of the time, are glad to have been born, and that many of those people’s parents were justified in believing that they would be glad to be born.
Now consider the second question: Given that many people are glad to have been born, can we be confident that their gladness is not based on a mistake, even if pessimism is true? Recall that if your sister’s gladness at being awoken is based on her mistaken belief that she is not worse off for being awoken, then the fact that she will be glad to be awoken does not make it okay for you to wake her. Similarly, if people’s gladness at having been born is based on their mistaken belief that they are not worse off for having been born, then the fact that they will be glad to have been born does not license us to create them. Our respect for future people’s agency could only justify us in creating them if, in the full light of the truth, they will still be glad to have been created. So the question becomes: Would people still be glad to have been created in the full light of the truth, even if pessimism is true and we are worse off for having been created?
Here, too, I believe there is cause for optimism. This is because, as philosopher Camil Golub has noted, people tend to have “conservative attitudes” toward their own lives. That is, people tend to be glad to have the particular lives that they have, as opposed to radically different lives that would be better for them. To illustrate, consider the fact that your life might have unfolded in a radically different way. You might have been raised by a different set of parents, in a different part of the world, with very different friends and hobbies and achievements. And these different parents, friends, hobbies, and interests might have been better for you than their counterparts in your actual life. In light of this possibility, are you glad to have the life that you have, or do you wish you’d lived the very different life that would have been better for you? I think that most of us—not all of us, but most of us—do not react to this question by wishing we’d lived the very different life. After all, our own well-being is not all that we care about. We also care about our actual relationships, in ways that are not reducible to their effects on our well-being. So, if being better off in a certain way would mean lacking our actual relationships, then we will tend to not wish that we were better off in that way.
Given that we tend to have these sorts of conservative attitudes toward our own lives, it is plausible that most of us would be glad to have been born even if we believed in pessimism—that is, even if we believed that we were all worse off for having been born. For if we had never been born, then we would lack much of what we care about, including our actual relationships, friends, hobbies, and achievements. Plausibly, then, this is another case in which most of us will not wish that we were better off in a certain way—by having never been born—because being better off in that way would mean lacking much of what we care about. Of course, this is to some extent an empirical question. The fact is that many people are glad to have been born, and it’s an empirical question whether they would or would not continue to feel this way if they believed that they would have been better off had they never been born. But the fact that our attitudes toward our own lives are “conservative,” in Golub’s sense, provides substantial grounds for thinking that many of us would continue to be glad that we were born.
Therefore, it is permissible to have children even if pessimism is true. Many parents know that their children will be glad to have been born. And it is probable that, if those children will be glad to have been born, their gladness will not be based upon a mistake. So parents’ consideration of their children’s attitudes can make it okay for them to overlook the fact that those children will be worse off for being born.
There is one final point worth mentioning. Although I have claimed that many of us are glad to have been born, and would probably continue to be glad even if we knew that we were worse off for being born, I have not argued that we should be glad. If I had claimed this, then I could argue that it is okay to have children precisely because those children should be glad to have been born (perhaps because they should appreciate the various benefits that life has to offer). Something like this view is considered by Asheel Singh, who describes it as “paternalistic.” I agree with Singh; it is paternalistic to justify having children on the grounds that those children should be grateful for the benefits of life. But the argument I have defended is, I think, anti-paternalistic. My argument is not that people should be glad to have been born, but only that as a matter of fact many people will be glad to have been born. And this fact is so important that it makes it okay for us to ignore, to some extent, the question of what is best for them.
Daniel Pallies
Daniel Pallies is a postdoctoral fellow in philosophy at Lingnan University. His research focuses on ethics and consciousness, especially on issues at the intersection of those topics. His dissertation explores the nature and value of pleasure and pain.
