[malvosenior]

I don't think you can separate what's human and what's evolutionary. All human actions are a by product of evolution. We evolved to want to reproduce (for selfish reasons or not). Regardless, it seems pointless to assign negative moral worth to reproducing since it's an inevitable drive and very likely the only reason we exist at all.

[ionised]

We separate plenty of human concepts from evolution and nature already. Choosing not to do so here seems arbitrary.

And I wasn't so much casting a moral judgement on the selfishness of the act. I was just pointing it out as a selfish act as in, it is done primarily for you and your genes whether you realise or not. You are no different than any other mammal in this regard.

(I'm referring to the collective 'you' here, not you specifically.)

That's just life and evolution. I'm not admonishing anyone for it, but I can't accept the idea that having children is somehow an altruistic act done to spread the concept of happiness when the rest of the natural world and mounds of empirical data on the study of evolution and biology screams otherwise.

That makes no sense whatsoever.

You are a mammal. You will mate and reproduce to ensure the survival of your own genes. Those are your instinctual drives. This also strokes the ego if you're successful. You get to see little versions of the your own genetics populating the world.

Some of us choose not to participate in this willingly, others will delude themselves into thinking they are somehow separate from the rest of nature in terms of their biological drives.

[malvosenior]

But the original post we're replying to said:

> Having children bestows the incomparable gift of life on other people (your children). Bestowing that gift is the part of having children that makes someone happy. It's not a self centered happiness; the day-to-day of raising children is frequently miserable.

They're not saying they're making the world a better place, they're saying that the person they gave birth to would be happy to be alive and that happiness gives joy to the parent (in addition to satisfying base survival needs I suppose).

> Some of us choose not to participate in this willingly, others will delude themselves into thinking they are somehow separate from the rest of nature in terms of their biological drives.

I don't see anyone deluding themselves other than the people who think not having children is a moral position to take. It's a valid personal choice but nothing more.

[ionised]

> would be happy to be alive

That's debatable, honestly. You can't possibly know the child will be happy to be alive or will live a life without suffering, it's a gamble.

Most people alive on Earth today I would wager experience suffering more than they do happiness.

> happiness gives joy to the parent

Not denying that, but you can't deny that that is a selfish thing, wanting to bestow joy to yourself.

Don't wince in disgust at the word 'selfish'. People do selfish things all the time for mere survival. Again, I wouldn't admonish anyone for it.

> I don't see anyone deluding themselves other than the people who think not having children is a moral position to take

I never said anything of the sort.

[malvosenior]

> Not denying that, but you can't deny that that is a selfish thing, wanting to bestow joy to yourself.

It's only selfish if you disregard other people and/or hurt them in the process of enjoying yourself. There's nothing selfish about bestowing joy on yourself if it's also a net positive for everyone else.

I don't think your use of the world "selfish" in this debate (with me or the other commenters) has helped your argument. It implies something negative where having children is going to be viewed subjectively and objectively positive by most people. Maybe a better term would be satisfying? That covers that the individual parent benefits but also doesn't imply that having children is hurting others.

[ionised]

> Maybe a better term would be satisfying? That covers that the individual parent benefits but also doesn't imply that having children is hurting others.

I certainly wouldn't say satisfying, because you are deliberately ignoring any negative impacts of having children and focusing only on the positives. You say so yourself above.

I don't know if you agree that there can sometimes be negative consequences but you're opting not to speak of them to spare the feelings of parents (perhaps including yourself) or whether you genuinely believe that child birth has no negative consequences on other people or society, ever.

I'd say that's debatable at best. It depends entirely on where you live and what the impact of that child is on society and the environment.

A child's immense carbon footprint throughout life is a good example of how a child being born can be detrimental to the ecosystems we all depend on. That will remain true until (if we ever do) find a way to reduce our carbon footprints to zero or negative and in my opinion, is a reason to limit the number of children you have.

Two kids seems like a good compromise. More than that and you are adding to the problem. 'Be fruitful and multiply' does not serve our species as a mantra as well as it once did.

[malvosenior]

I don't agree. Human's use resources and not all humans will make a massive impact directly but what if one of their grandchildren does? People should have as many children as they feel comfortable with, without judgement from others. There's a lot more to life than minimizing carbon footprint in the immediate term. Otherwise we could just wipe out the human race to create a utopia. Malthusianism has been thoroughly debunked at this point.