Definition
Anti-natalism is the ethical view that it is immoral for people to have children. This principle has been supported and defined in various ways, and this entry summarizes what the construct is, some reasons for why anti-natalism may not be a popular idea, and why some people might choose to postpone or forgo procreation.
Introduction
While the origins of the term anti-natalism are unsure, much of the ideas found in anti-natalism were expressed historically by the nineteenth-century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. In his essay On the Suffering of the World, Schopenhauer said that the general rule of life is misfortune and suffering (1851). Because people are aware of the impending threat of death, they must struggle against both pressure from time and, in other moments, boredom or despair. As a result, Schopenhauer considered humans to not just be sentenced to death but also to life. He considered the state of nonexistence to be a blessed calm of nothingness, a stark...
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Brown, F.L. (2021). Anti-natalism. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_2912
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_2912
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