Anti-antinatalism

“… raises serious ethical concerns about suffering and the responsibilities of parenthood. These are not trivial questions. But the antinatalist position, as often expressed, collapses under its own absolutism. It demands a kind of perfection – a life without pain – but rejects or ignores the very pleasures that might make life worthwhile even in the midst of pain. It dismisses joy as a false positive, efforts to induce pleasure as chemically mediated, and meaning as contingent. But in doing so, it reveals a deeper discomfort, with the very texture of life: its ambivalence, its contradictions, and its refusal to be all good or all bad. A more robust (and honest) philosophy of life would accept this ambivalence, not flee from it. It would recognize that joy can emerge unbidden, that love is sometimes worth the grief it entails, and that the richness of existence lies in its imperfection. To live is to risk, yes – but it is also to discover, to connect, to create, and to care. From the Buddhist perspective, suffering arises not from existence itself, but from our untrained minds’ attachments, and the Buddhist path to liberation is not rejection of life, but its transformation through mindfulness and compassion. Similarly, Erich Fromm reminds us that isolated existence is unbearable because we are sentient social beings. For such beings it is the experience of connection – a profound oneness with others – that makes life meaningful and beautiful. So perhaps antinatalists are so because they’re caught in a form of existential isolation, mistaking their painful state for the totality of life’s meaning. Yet it is precisely through forging connection that life’s ambivalence may become bearable, even worthwhile. And perhaps that, in itself, is enough justification to continue.” © DENIZ KOSE 2026 Philosophy Now