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My Children, Their Children, and Benatar’s Anti-Natalism

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Notes

  1. See David Benatar, Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), and Christine Overall, Why Have Children? The Ethical Debate (Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 2012).

  2. Benatar 2006, op. cit., p. 61.

  3. See ibid., pp. 89-92.

  4. See ibid., pp. 69-70.

  5. See ibid., p. 65.

  6. See ibid., p. 67.

  7. See ibid., p. 68.

  8. See also David Benatar, The Human Predicament: A Candid Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions (New York: Oxford, 2017), pp. 67-69.

  9. Ibid., pp. 203-204.

  10. See, for example, Thomas Young, “Overconsumption and Procreation: Are They Morally Equivalent?” Journal of Applied Philosophy 18 (2001): 184-192; Trevor Hedberg, The Environmental Impact of Overpopulation: The Ethics of Procreation (Abingdon, UK: Routledge, 2020); Tina Rulli, “The Unique Value of Adoption,” in Françoise Baylis and Carolyn McLeod (eds.), Family-Making: Contemporary Ethical Challenges (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 109-129.

  11. David Benatar, “Still Better Never to Have Been: A Reply to (More of) My Critics,” The Journal of Ethics 17 (2013): 121-151, p. 125.

  12. See Benatar 2006, op. cit., pp. 22-28.

  13. Hedberg, op. cit., p. 124.

  14. See Benatar 2006, op. cit., p. 212.

  15. See Christine Overall, “Parental Licensing and Pregnancy as a Form of Education,” in Jaime Ahlberg and Michael Cholbi (eds.), Procreation, Parenthood, and Educational Rights: Ethical and Philosophical Issues (New York: Routledge, 2016), 246-267.

  16. Benatar 2017, op. cit., p. 52.

  17. See ibid., pp. 35-36 and 22-33.

  18. Hedberg, op. cit., p. 114.

  19. Alison Wearing, “A Sentence and a Breath” Open Book (2020). http://open-book.ca/Writer-in-Residence/Archives/Alison-Wearing/A-sentence-a-breath.

  20. Benatar 2006, op. cit., p. 86.

  21. Benatar 2017, op. cit., p. 53-54.

  22. For a somewhat similar view, see David DeGrazia, “Is it wrong to impose the harms of human life? A reply to Benatar,” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 31 (2010). (Online; no page references.)

  23. Benatar 2006, op cit., p. 62.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Benatar 2017, op. cit., p. 69.

  26. Benatar 2013, op. cit., p. 141.

  27. See ibid., p. 143.

  28. Benatar 2013, op. cit., pp. 142-143.

  29. Benatar 2017, op. cit., note 10 of ch. 4.

  30. DeGrazia, op. cit., his emphasis.

  31. Benatar 2006, op. cit., p. 63.

  32. Ibid., p. 218.

  33. See Benatar 2013, op. cit., p. 142.

  34. Ibid., p. 130.

  35. David Benatar, “Not ‘Not “Better Never to Have Been”’: A Reply to Christine Overall,” Philosophia 47 (2019): 353-367, p. 363.

  36. John F. Helliwell, Richard Layard, Jeffrey Sachs, and Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, eds. World Happiness Report 2020. (New York: Sustainable Development Solutions Network, 2020). https://worldhappiness.report/ed/2020/social-environments-for-world-happiness/.

  37. See Benatar 2006, op. cit., p. 79; Benatar 2017, op. cit., pp. 85-86.

  38. Benatar 2013, op. cit., p. 147.

  39. Benatar 2006, op. cit., p. 147.

  40. Benatar 2017, op. cit., p. 84.

  41. Benatar 2013, op. cit., p. 143.

  42. Benatar 2017, op. cit., p. 83.

  43. Christine Overall, “Not ‘Better Never to Have Been’,” at the conference, “Bearing and Rearing Children: The Ethics of Procreation and Parenthood” (University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa May 28, 2008).

  44. Overall 2012, op. cit., p. 217.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6, Canada

    Christine Overall

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Overall, C. My Children, Their Children, and Benatar’s Anti-Natalism. J Value Inquiry 56, 51–66 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-022-09886-6

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