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If your ethics include reducing human suffering, deciding to conceive is unethical due to the quantity of pain your child is almost certain to endure.

• GuiA 9y ago
  Procreation is unethical; adoption is a moral imperative.
• RhysU 9y ago
  This argument neglects that net suffering might be reduced by having children. Humans judge the time-value of suffering weirdly. That's part of why few save enough for retirement.
• sp527 9y ago
  Interesting viewpoint. I disagree in that I don't believe pain and suffering are the same thing. A lot of philosophy that's been top of mind for me recently suggests we can experience pain without choosing to suffer. Suffering is avoidable but pain is necessary and arguably desirable. However that's a nuanced issue, and you were probably just treating them as semantically equivalent out of convenience/habit.
• flavio81 9y ago
  I almost never complain regarding downvotes, but I can't really understand why on a supposedly civilized place like HN, your comment is already displaying grey (downvoted). Your argument is quite powerful, really.
• dragonwriter 9y ago
  > If your ethics include reducing human suffering, deciding to conceive is unethical due to the quantity of pain your child is almost certain to endure. If your ethics are limited to reducing some simplistic measure of suffering, that seems clear. OTOH, under such an ethical system, if there were a means to immediately and painlessly eradicate humanity, it would be ethically obligatory to execute it. If, to go to an opposite extreme, your ethics is limited to maximizing human joy, refraining from having a child would, in most situations, be unethical. Real world ethical systems (both as expressed and the things people actually believe) tend to be more complex, though, than either extreme simplification.