#1255 Teresa Baron: The Ethics of Procreation, Pronatalism, and Antinatalism

00:00 Ricardo Lopes: Hello everyone. Welcome to a new episode of The Dissenter. I'm your host, as always, Ricardo Lops, and today I'm joined by a return guest, Dr. Teresa Barron. She's assistant professor of at Nottingham University, and today we're going to talk about the ethics of procreation. So Dr. Barron, welcome to the show again. It's always a pleasure to everyone.

00:24 Teresa Baron: Thank you. Lovely to be back.

00:27 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so first of all, uh, let me start with the general question. What is the ethics of procreation? I mean, what kinds of questions do you tackle there?

00:38 Teresa Baron: Well, it's a, it's a pretty broad area, I suppose. But if you had to boil it down to one kind of key question. It would be, um, how and why do we bring children in the world? And is it OK? Uh, SO, you know, the moral question of, um, bringing other people into existence, something that It's I think a fairly new question for humanity. If you look at the the the the lifespan of philosophy, um, procreation has been almost an inevitability. It it's only been something that we have been avoiding and very carefully managing on a larger scale for less than 100 years. Um, AND so this question of how and when to have children and why, um, is Only a few generations old as as a broad thing, you know, it's it's something that people have always been thinking about, um, at a smaller scale, but. I think the the. Regularity with which people are now asking, should I have children, when should I have children, why am I having children is much newer.

01:54 Ricardo Lopes: But are you saying that it's much newer within philosophy, academic philosophy, particularly, or do you think that also in the broader context of our societies, people are also now asking those questions more often?

02:14 Teresa Baron: I think it's a bit of both. I think philosophy that there's been the occasional scholar digging into this question for, you know, hundreds, thousands of years. But as a more general question, um, I think this has really entered the social consciousness much more recently. And of course that then has an effect on philosophy. So philosophers have been more interested in procreative ethics and in larger numbers over the last sort of 50 to 100 years, partly because of these changes in You know, uh, social structuring and medical availability, um, different kinds of contraceptives, IVF, all of these different advances in scientific technology that have made it possible to make decisions about how and when to have children that were not decisions at a large scale before. It used to be that for the vast majority of people. Um, Procreation was very much tied into sexuality. Um, AND on the converse side, if you wanted children and you couldn't have them through kind of natural means, there wasn't a lot that you could do about it. So I think it's only really in much more recent history that this has become something that people have to make decisions about that isn't just sort of up to fate. And I think as soon as something becomes An object of decision making, it has a deliberative quality that means you not only can think about it, but you have to think about it. I think this is where the ethical component comes in, that as soon as something is voluntary. Um, IT'S, it has responsibility attached to it. We, we acquire new kinds of obligation, not only when we do the thing, but when we're deciding whether or not to do the thing.

03:59 Ricardo Lopes: So let's perhaps discuss or go through some of the most common justifications we hear from people when they justify having children or wanting to have children. And see if they are philosophically, ethically solid. So one of them has to do with impulse or instinct. We hear very commonly from people that we have this sort of procreative instinct or there's An impulse or there's for example a maternal or a paternal instinct that people are just born or we have evolved to have this sort of want to create to procreate to have children so I mean how do you approach that kind of justification?

05:04 Teresa Baron: It's a really interesting one because it's something that is very widely reported, but it's also not reported as often as the kind of mythology around it would suggest. And when you're growing up, especially if you're growing up as a girl, you'll hear very often, but if you express the the the perspective that you might not want to have children, people will regularly say, oh, but you wait until that maternal instinct kicks in, you know, you won't be able to avoid it. Um, AND now that I'm, I'm now I'm 31, I'm at the age where one would expect this maternal instinct to be materializing all over the place. And very, very few women that I've met of this age, including the ones who do want to have children, very few of them describe feeling the kind of dramatic biological urge that is described in this kind of mythology around it, the kind that you would expect to sort of take over your life in in the way that people describe. And I'm sure there are people who experience an impulse that is that kind of that strong and that maybe overturns preferences they had earlier in life. But um, certainly anecdotally, it doesn't seem to be as powerful as people give it credence for. Um, WHICH then kind of opens interesting philosophical questions about it because for one thing, if it's not as powerful as people give it credence for, then it probably loses some justificatory power. But also, it's interesting that we have been giving it justificatory power for such a long time when there is no other area of life in which appeal to some kind of biological impulse is taken as. A moral justification. And in fact, we, we have a very dim view of appeals to instinct as a justification for other kinds of actions, particularly, um, you know, not that I want to draw a direct association, but, um, when people describe Impulse as the reason behind acts of violence or sexual abuse. We we do not accept that kind of logic. Um, AND we expect we hold ourselves to a very high standard as you know, um, the rational animal. We we generally think that people should be in control of their impulses and should be making decisions, particularly massive life decisions on the basis of Reasoned deliberation and careful choices rather than just sort of giving in to instinct or or impulse. So I think it's interesting not only that we expect that kind of maternal paternal instinct to kick in, but that we almost encourage it and we say no, no, well when it arrives, you you must give into it, you know, whatever your preferences were before, even if you didn't want children, once that maternal instinct arrives, you'll you'll end up having them. I think that's a really interesting flipping of our normal logic.

08:00 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, no, that's a very good point because I think that, or at least it doesn't come to my mind, any other area, any other kind of situation where people would accept a justification or a behavior or an action justified on the basis of impulse or instinct, particularly if it has a bad outcome. Outcomes like for example violence as you mentioned, I mean people usually say that if of course and this falls outside of the scope of this conversation and I don't want to get here into a discussion about whether really we have an instinct or an impulse or whether it's biological acquired or learned for us to be violent or for us to have this or. That kind of behavior, I mean that that's beside the point here, but I mean, people usually say that at least if you're about to do something, you're about to do something on the basis of impulse or instinct, you should take a step back. I mean, take a few seconds, think twice. I mean things like that, right? Yes,

09:16 Teresa Baron: exactly, exactly. We have this whole framework discouraging people from acting on instinct. In most areas of life, um, you know, even in areas as, uh, low stakes compared to having children as, you know, shopping, we say, oh, well, don't don't make impulse purchases, you know, wait, go back the next day if you still want it. But, but, uh, yeah, we, we give, um, we give so much power to the procreative instinct if there is one, And I'm not sure that there is or that there or that that kind of instinct manifests the same way for for lots of people. Um, AND that's I guess a different kind of question, you know, if there is such an instinct, what is it? But I think at least when it comes to this idea of justification, when it comes to why should we have children, um, saying, well, I had the instinct to do so is for philosophers at least is very poor reasoning.

10:13 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, and I mean that's actually another very interesting question. Do you think that we really have such an an instinct to reproduce, or is it just sort of an instinct, an instinct or an impulse that usually kicks in around puberty, adolescence to have Sex to feel attracted to either the opposite sex or the same sex that then I mean could lead to reproduction but it's not really us having having an instinct to reproduce or wanting to reproduce because I guess that. Those would be two different things. I mean, uh, having an instinct to have sex and having an instinct to reproduce, those are not necessarily the same thing.

11:14 Teresa Baron: They're definitely not the same thing, especially when we sort of look at the range of of sexual orientations and sexual practices in in human behavior and realize how many of those do not lead to procreation. Um, SO I think they're definitely separate. Um, AND of course, you know, we can look at our, we can look at our, our, um. Cultural conditioning now that we have had this sort of separation of sexual behavior from procreative behavior, um, for a few generations now that it's sort of been expected that people will manage their sexual behaviors to avoid procreation until the time at which they they are seen as responsibly procreating. Um, THAT'S, I guess, at least for for people growing up today. Part of the, um, understandings that we have about sexuality have very deliberately detached them from from procreation. But we can also look further back in our um in our evolution as as animals to see that at some point, That our our own biology began to separate sexuality from from procreation. So we can look, for example, at the fact that humans are one of only a small number of mammals that don't go into heat. We don't have the same kind of Easter cycle in which, uh, You know, if you, if you imagine, uh, your, your cat at home, if before you get it fixed, um, and it starts yowling and scratching the walls and demanding to get out, your cat becomes very, very horny because it's now fertile and that fertility window changes its sexual behavior. Um, HUMANS work very differently. We don't have, uh, an Easter cycle. We can essentially put ourselves into heat, um, very regularly because we have evolved with erogenous zones that are, are sort of much more, um, much more like buttons that can be turned on and off rather than something that is tied directly to our fertility. Um, AND that evolutionary at that evolutionary journey. Has enabled us to develop sexual practices that have nothing to do with procreation and sexual desires that have nothing to do with procreation to the point where we can detach them quite comfortably from each other. So it's, I think, partly a question of culture and social conditioning, but I think you can, you can go all the way back for hundreds of thousands of years and find the beginnings of that in our evolution. Um, JUST, you know, we, we, uh, I guess can become that we have a much more regularly occurring fertile window than other animals that only go into heat once or twice a year and are then ready to go. But we can become sort of sexually aroused much more often than we have those fertile windows. So yeah, I think biologically, there there's also part of the explanation lies there.

14:12 Ricardo Lopes: What about justifications based on meaning, and these ones are kind of interesting because sometimes we also hear them from scientists themselves like evolutionary biologists, for example, when they say that our purpose, or at least in their specific case our biological purpose is to prove. Create and other people, I mean lay people, I mean it's also very frequently that we hear that that we are here to procreate. That's our purpose. That's what's, that's what gives meaning to our life. So what do you make of that kind of argument or justification for procreation?

15:04 Teresa Baron: I think it's a very strange argument to make if you don't believe in some kind of Destiny or or or ultimate creator, you know, people who who, for example, have a religion that says, well, you have been designed by a higher being to follow this path. I can see how that might, you know, that that kind of narrative around it might make sense. But I think to speak about a purpose of human existence, if without that backstory, without the idea of a creator who gave us that purpose, um, is is very difficult to to ground in anything. And I think that You know, humans are incredible in their capacity to find purpose and to find meaning and to create meaning. I think that if there's anything, um, that we You know, quote unquote might be designed to do. It will, it will be to create, I but I don't think necessarily to procreate. And I think that our capacity for storytelling and design and for making art and tools and stories. Um, AND just the fact that we feel really bored when we're not doing things and making things. Um, I think that might be if there is some kind of purpose or some way in which we've evolved to feel that we need to be doing things. I think creating might be it, but I'm not sure that procreating, uh, is there. And I think that one. Uh, YOU know, piece of evidence for that is that we have a falling birth rate in so many countries now that there are more and more opportunities for people, particularly for women, to gain an education, to create, to invent, to pursue other other things. Um, AND I think there is an impulse to to create meaning, but I don't think that the only way that we get that meaning is is through having children. Uh, YOU know, the, the, the sort of the cynical person might look at the idea that our purpose is to procreate as as almost an outsourcing of meaning, you know, rather than creating your own meaning, you're putting it onto your children. I, I think that we have so much capacity to do so many things. Um, IT would be almost sad to think that. Um, THE only way to have meaning and to have purpose is, is through procreation.

17:20 Ricardo Lopes: What about that kind of argument, and this one is really very common, that people say, oh, but everyone does it, or I mean there's even cases unfortunately where people feel socially pressured, particularly women, to procreate because everyone Around them is saying that they should do it or they see everyone around them having children, but arguments based on, I'm not sure what I should call this kind of argument based on popularity or whatever. I mean, the, the idea that, oh, everyone does, uh, what do you think about that?

18:02 Teresa Baron: I think it's a very, it's very common way to to reason your way into a habit or a or a life practice or a major life decision. Um, BUT I think that it's one that in sort of the generation that is now coming of age, there has been there have been enough generations before them that had to sort of make a more active choice about having children and the number of older pairs around them who are not having children or older single people who are choosing not to not to have a partner or children. Is giving them role models of the way that that can be. And making that a more available option, because of course peer pressure has played a massive role or or social expectations have played a massive role in setting people's life trajectories. And the question of whether or not to have children, I think we can compare to the question of whether or not to be married, um, you know, maybe two decades earlier, if we imagine these these, uh, social patterns moving. At about the same pace, but I think the marriage question opened a little earlier than the whether to have children question. Um, AND of course, for a long time, people were married, well, women were married because they didn't have a separate option to be financially secure for a long time. But I think for a long time men were getting married because it was the done thing and because it was it was expected that you you get a job, you get married and you have children. And I think that You know, there was a a a huge opening up of that question, um, in at least in, in Western Europe, um, in the 70s and 80s about why is it that we are all getting married and what is the meaning of this? And of course part of that had to do with shifting cultural conceptions of of marriage and movements away from um from religion as a key part of that because of course for a long time marriage wasn't just a social practice, it was a sacrament and we can't forget that aspect of things. Um, AND I think that In the same way that people Started thinking more critically about why and whether to get married, you know, do we need to involve the state in our relationship, that kind of thing, um. PEOPLE are now thinking more widely about whether or not to have children. But it's I I think it would also be a mistake to think about this is purely a question of choice, because one phenomenon that is very much attributable, um, when it comes to the falling birth rate in a lot of countries is the cost of having children and the practical burdens of having children. Um, AND I think that the falling birth rate is not only down to people's Deliberate choice to go and pursue other things out of sheer desire. It's also because it's become really, really, really difficult to raise a child, and we see a lot of, Uh, countries trying to impose pro-natalist policies in order to reverse the falling birth rate, but they are very much prob policies rather than pro parenting, pro child rearing. Parents are not going to take that kind of burden on without sufficient social support. And it means that people who would have really liked to have children are increasingly not able to do so. So that's a separate part of the The coin, I guess another side, this coin now has so many sides, but um there's another side of of the coin when it when we look at. The choice of parenthood, um, and the fact that so many people are not making that choice now.

21:35 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, and of course I mean we could get here into a discussion about how perhaps we should change our economic systems for people to have better economic conditions which would of course also translate into their decision to procreate or not, but I think that if Uh, unfortunately, people find themselves in, uh, economically complicated situations and they decide to not procreate, uh, they're making a responsible decision,

22:16 Teresa Baron: correct? I mean. In some ways, yes, that is an answer to that question. If you can't afford to raise a child, then many people would see that as a responsible decision. On the other hand, people have been raising children in poverty for generations, and I would never want to say that, uh, those people are behaving morally wrongly. I think that it's incredibly unjust that there are so many people in a, you know, in in the lowest economic strata who through through no fault of their own, through the failings of society should be seen as as moral failures if they have children the same way that people in more privileged economic strata are are doing. So I I, when it comes to the the question of, well, should you have a child in poverty? Should you have a child in a war zone? I think that it's not just about individual responsibility. There are also really important questions about social justice, um, and, and privilege versus oppression that come into that picture. For many people who want to have children, uh, that is one of life's great pursuits and great joys. And to say, well, it's just irresponsible of you to do that, um, is, I think, deeply unfair.

23:34 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, also because we have to take into account that apart from what we've already talked about when it comes to cultural and social pressure put on people to procreate, there's in the specific case of people who live in poverty or in diver. Your socioeconomic circumstances, it's also, we also have to take into account the fact that they don't have more many times they don't have the access to the necessary educational resources and to birth control, contraception, and so on.

24:15 Teresa Baron: Yeah, exactly. I mean, access to reliable contraception, access to abortion. These are these are not just personal choices, but they're also political facts and economic facts. And if we levy blame and and accusations of irresponsibility against those who have children in less than ideal circumstances, because they did not have access to the tools for making a genuinely autonomous choice, then we're just layering injustice upon injustice at that point.

24:47 Ricardo Lopes: No, no, that's definitely a very important point to make. And what about when people say that, oh, I want to have children because I will eventually grow old and I want to have someone to take care of me.

25:05 Teresa Baron: I think it's an absolutely bananas justification. I, I, for one thing, um, I think that at that 0.1 is almost treating the, the hypothetical future child as a social safety net. Um, AND that is a form of instrumentalization, but it's also putting expectations on your child that they may not be in any position. To fulfill or may not want to, um, you're neglecting the possibility that the child might be the one needing care, you know, disabilities exist, illnesses come out of nowhere, accidents happen, it may well be that. You know, an aging parent is, is caring for their, um, chronically ill or disabled child well into their 60s, 70s, 80s. Life doesn't just hand you that sort of, uh, idealized, um, linear storyline. Um But there's also the the kind of the the fairly cruel facts, I suppose, and disappointing fact for for many people that, um, Children are their own people, and if you Have a child expecting that that child will dutifully stay at home and care for you in your old age, you're overlooking the possibility and a possibility that one would think that good parents should be encouraging that that child might want to make their own life, might move abroad, or or have their own family who needs care themselves. You kind of 11 shouldn't impose a certain expectation on a child that hasn't even been born yet that will constrain their life opportunities. Um. Because for one thing, I, I, I, I guess. You know what, if you're if you're having a child, you would hope that part of being a good parent to that child is to want as many doors to be open to them as possible. And if you're having a child already mentally closing the doors that might take them away from your hometown or would make them unable to care for you in your old age, um. It does seem that one is not going about procreation with the open mind that that we would associate with this this idea of good parenthood. But of course, what makes someone a good parent is a whole other field of philosophy separate from, well, not entirely separate from procreative ethics, the two are obviously intertwined. You know, there are, there are entire reams of books about this this other question of what is good parenthood. So, um. Yeah, I, I could be talking about that all day as well.

27:53 Ricardo Lopes: What about the idea, and this is sort of an argument from duty that we see coming out of the mouths of many, particularly right wing pro-Natalists, and some of them politicians who even try to promote pro-NATOism even through policy where they say that as part of, for example, a particular nation or as part of the human species more broadly, you have a duty to procreate, you have a duty to contribute to the continuation of our species or of a particular nation, society, community, etc.

28:42 Teresa Baron: Yeah, I mean, this is certainly an argument that you hear from right wing politicians in places like Hungary, and places like the US, um, Poland, um, in the UK we have our own pro-natalists, uh, in, in the Reform Party. Um, AND this question of whether one has a duty to the nation. It It opens a new set of questions and possible tensions between duties to duties to the nation, or, you know, what what we might call civic duties. Um. As something that can come up in tension, perhaps with our duties to um other people around us, uh, someone who already cares for their their own parents or a or a sibling. Uh, HAS duties that might come into conflict with duties to to care for a child, but also the duties we might have to those children. Uh, AND of course, you know, the, the, the, the classical philosophers will be hammering at the walls at this point going, you can't have duties to someone who doesn't exist. But we do talk about, uh, you know, an idea of procreative responsibility as something that can apply to to hypothetical children. Um, THE idea that we might have a duty to society to procreate is one that I think only. CAN only be made sense of if we also build in duties that society has to parents. So I don't think we can make straight the idea that anyone has a duty to to bear that the bear the next generation to bring forth the children of the state, unless we also have a really strong idea of, uh, you know, society as having shared obligations to those children. Um. And, and the, you know, the bringing the the the the idiom that it takes a village to raise a child into state infrastructure in a very real way. Um, BECAUSE if you're going to expect that people bring forth the next generation, but also leave them alone to do it without any resources, without any help, you're essentially suggesting that there can be a duty to take on a massive asymmetric burden. So that the next generation or so that the aging generation who who will need doctors and nurses and carers in the future, so that they can benefit without them having having to do that work, or to put anything into the shared pot. And there are some philosophers who who have kind of explored the idea, um, that children are a social resource. And that there might, you know, it's very, it's very difficult to to square the idea that someone could have an obligation to create other people. Um, IT'S one that, that, you know, we have to answer questions like who do you owe that duty to? Why is it that, uh, someone's body can be a a a national resource in a way that creates these these incredibly burdensome individual duties. There's a lot of a lot of things going on there. Um, AND I think that one can put that philosophical conversation aside to some extent and think, OK, practically speaking, we do need more people if we're going to maintain certain kinds of social structures, if we're going to have people who, you know, provide care for for aging populations, and so on and so forth. But just suggesting that individuals have the duty to take on procreation and child rearing in order to fix that, rather than saying, OK, if this is a social problem, it needs to have a social solution. And we need to think about how everyone is going to pitch in to, to, um, complete the jigsaw, then it will, it just falls apart at that point. You, you, you can't, um, can't patch the patch the hole by just saying, well, you know, individual citizens should take this on.

32:29 Ricardo Lopes: Mhm. Yes, also because, uh, and I'm not completely sure whether this question still falls under the rubric of reproductive ethics, but I imagine that at least partially so. Also when it comes to pro-natalism, as you referred to there, I mean it usually. ENTAILS the state, the nation, having some sort of control over people's bodies, and that usually manifests or translates into control over women's bodies or the bodies of people who can get pregnant and produce children. And so some of those policies that are promoted by pro-Natalists go against or violate the reproductive rights of women, and that's also an issue that we should consider.

33:38 Teresa Baron: Absolutely. I think there's broadly speaking, two kinds of pro-natalist policies and one of those kinds is, as you just mentioned, the kind of policy that tries to encourage childbearing by reducing people's access to contraception and abortion. Um, AND you can't, uh, I in my, in my view anyway, you can't justify. Encroaching on someone's rights as a citizen, uh, because, you know, removing access to abortion does, um, Make women unequal citizens. Um, IN the eyes of the state, at that point, you are treating their bodies as a as a social resource rather than something that they should be autonomously deciding on. Um, So I, I don't think you can impose that kind of, uh, policy on the basis of, of a claim that people have civic duties to to to bear children. I think at that point, it, it just completely falls apart, um, that the internal logic doesn't work. The other kind of pro-natalist policy is the the kind of Paternalists encouraging people to have children by providing incentives. Um, SO tax breaks for, for people who have 4 or more children, um, or as is the case in, um, in Hungary a few years ago, Orban introduced this, this policy that a woman who had, uh, 4 children or more was exempt from income tax for the rest of her life. And the interesting thing about that policy is that it's only the woman who is exempt from income tax. But of course, if you have 4 children, and you live in a country like Hungary, in which the gender wage gap is, is fairly atrocious, um, the, the mother in that family is almost certainly not going to be the one going to work. And so her partner will still be paying income tax. So it's a, um, a pro-natalist policy disguised as this very generous tax break for for families who Complete their civic duty and and procreate for the rest of the nation, but it, it doesn't actually do anything. So there's that kind of policy. There's also the subset of that kind of approach, which, uh, our, our lovely reform politicians here in the UK have recently been been on record as suggesting, which is to impose an extra tax, of punitive tax on, uh, child free women. Um, AS a sort of punishment either for their their infertility. I'm not sure how they would go about this to make sure that women who haven't who who've had, you know, recurrent miscarriages, for example, or who have not been able to get pregnant are not punished in the same way as as women who simply choose not to have children. But again, a very punitive approach and one that targets women. So by nature, incredibly, uh, Un-egalitarian and anti-feminist. Um, AND any policy that focuses on procreation will inevitably have a greater effect on, on women's bodies because, you know, as the site in which we create children, um, the female body is always going to be the object of the most scrutiny, the most surveillance, the most control in any of these, uh, sort of. Policy based frameworks for trying to change the way that people procreate.

37:03 Ricardo Lopes: OK, so for the last part of our conversation, I would like to ask you about anti-Natalism, which is the opposite of pro-Natalism. I mean, I know that there are different arguments that people use to defend anti-Nalism or their own anti-Nalist positions, but what do you think about anti-Nalism as a Um, position in reproductive ethics.

37:38 Teresa Baron: Well, it's certainly not a very popular position. I can tell you that there's a, there's a couple of sort of predominant antenatalists, um, on the scene. Um, BUT it's, it's, uh, It's an approach that many people will use as a as a lens for other policies as a kind of reductio ad absurdum, or um or will use. As a contrast position for their own view, but there are very few people who actually defend the idea that we should all simply stop procreating. Um, AND part of the reason for that is. I think that. Antenatalism. WILL be very, very, very hard to defend as a as a persuasive position that people should genuinely adopt. I think philosophers, like everyone else knows that know that so many people will want to have children, that you're you're simply not going to get the whole of humanity on board with your with your proposal. Um, AND Uh, well, of course, there are many philosophical positions defended at different points that are not taken up by the whole of humanity, you do sort of want your position to be one that you could at least theoretically see people taking up and going, yeah, do you know what, we think this guy is right. Um, SO I think part of the reason that people have been veering away from really strongly defending antenatalism is that they think that it's just not plausibly going to be persuasive for the vast majority of people. Um, I think the other sort of major reason, um, that people don't want to defend antenatalism is that for all of the internal logic in some antenatalist arguments, people find it very difficult to accept the final conclusion that it will be for the best if humanity simply goes extinct. I think a lot of people are still quite attached to humanity and to the human species, whether out of uh Sort of strong survival instinct or a kind of hopeful optimism that despite everything in history, humanity can somehow turn this around and make things work. Um, YOU know, the idea that there is something very valuable about our continued existence is strongly embedded enough and and widely shared enough that I think that prevents people who might otherwise see the. The reasoning in a in an antenatalist argument and go, OK, well, I sort of see how that broadly works, but not want to accept that final conclusion that there that there is, um, Really like a a benefit somehow to humanity going extinct or that or if not a benefit that that is at least a less bad outcome than people continuing to have children. Um That said, of course, these are philosophical positions. They are broadly theoretical, uh, and without naming any names. Um, ONE of the most predominant voices in antenatalism himself has two children. So I think there's a kind of an irony to the fact that people can promote this kind of philosophical perspective. Um, BUT even then not fully subscribed to it, not, not be able to, to follow through. So, um, yeah, it's a it's certainly an interesting field of philosophy. And there's a few different ways that people go about defending antenatalism and some of those I think are are more persuasive, um, than others. Um, AND some of them are the kind of positions that one can look at and go, well, but that wouldn't necessarily apply to me. I would be a I would be a much better parent or I would have the circumstances that could avoid. That kind of harm. Um, SO one of the kind of big arguments for antenatalism is the idea that pretty much all life involves a little bit of suffering or a lot of suffering. Um, AND so if you bring a new person into existence, you're sort of inflicting that suffering on someone who couldn't possibly consent to be exposed to it. Um, AND I think that's a position that many people might look at and go, OK, I can see the reasoning. But I would be able to protect my child from that or I think that, you know what small amounts of suffering are inevitable in a human life, I think could be outweighed by all the good things that I could provide to my child. I think that's that's a way that people can. Even if they're convinced by the philosophy, they might be able to think their way into an exception and go, yeah, but it would still be OK for me.

42:05 Ricardo Lopes: I mean, one of the arguments, or I think perhaps even the argument from anti-atalism that I find the most convincing is the argument from risk. I mean that argument that basically says that. Uh, THERE'S always, uh, even if people say that, oh, but my child might have a good life, uh, I mean, there's always that possibility, but the argument from risk says, OK, but uh, you're not sure that, uh, if that's going to be true. I'm, and there's a big, big, big risk that your child will suffer or, or to uh to different degrees across life. And you're putting he or she through that kind of risk unnecessarily. Basically, uh, if you decide to reproduce, you're sort of playing Russian roulette, so and uh Russian roulette with, with, with, uh, um, I mean a lot, a lot of bullets there because the the probability of suffering is very, very, very high. What do you think of that?

43:18 Teresa Baron: I think it's, yeah, it's it's interesting. I think the way that people understand risk, um, in the field of reproduction is detached from the real picture. And I think that we sort of keep things that way almost deliberately. I don't think people know the full picture of reproductive risk when they are actually trying for a baby. It's the kind of thing that many people will never sort of really look up all of the the the statistical data on. Um, AND it's certainly something that we, we don't broadcast. Um, WE now, let, let me give you an example. I think most people, if you said to them, if you have a baby now, there's a 50% chance that baby will have a, a serious disability. Most people can understand that risk and go, oh well, I, I don't, I don't want, I don't want to do that then. The actual pictures when it comes to childhood disability are so far removed from that. And we have so much, uh, infrastructure now available to us that allow us to sort of assess the risk of things like, uh, like childhood disability when you are trying for a baby and when you are pregnant. What I think people don't bring into that picture is the monumental proportion of childhood disability or lifelong disability. That has nothing to do with the gestational period or the circumstances under which one conceives. There are far, far, far more disabilities caused through childhood illness and accidents after the age of 4 than are congenital or that are caused by, uh, deficiencies or injuries during gestation. I think a lot of people think about the risks involved in procreation. With a very isolating lens on the period during which you are making the child, but we don't factor in the possibilities of of illnesses or accidents after the child is born. But I think the thing that makes that level of risk tolerable, the kind of the risk of things going on later, is that once you have the child, most people really, really, really love their children. Um, AND I think that that is something that helps people to deal with the, the sorrows and the burdens that can arise once the child already exists. So in some ways, it's very irrational of us to focus our our risk-based reasoning and our our lens of what could go right and what could go wrong purely on the period in which we're trying to make a child. But on the other hand, it's, it's completely logical because once you have a child, now there is this person who is alive, has, has interests that can be kind of weighed up and down, um, and who is the object usually of a huge amount of love. Um, AND that I think changes not only our experience of, of risk and, and, uh, the ways that we understand what can go right or wrong, uh, in, in child rearing, but it also reframes pretty much everything important about the decisions that we then make about our children. Uh, YOU know, the same kind of question about, 0, 50%, you know, if would you still have a baby? Parents no longer think that way once the child exists and is in their arms, you know, we we we change our entire mindset between the the hypothetical child and the real child.

46:41 Ricardo Lopes: Yeah, and when it comes to suffering and pleasure, I mean, I guess that it's very easy for us to imagine almost an endless number of ways that we can suffer in life. I mean, there are also, of course, many ways that we can experience pleasure, but it seems to me. More or less obvious that they are much fewer than the number of ways we can suffer, and as a very famous antenatalist philosopher says, I'm paraphrasing, there's such a thing as chronic pain, but there's no such thing as chronic pleasure.

47:22 Teresa Baron: So that's David Benatar, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, I, I, I understand his reasoning, but Um, I think there is such a thing as chronic pleasure. We just don't call it chronic because it's a good thing. Um, WE tend not to, you know, someone who can't sleep at night constantly has chronic insomnia, but someone who just falls asleep at night like a log and and has their 8 hours and is up and ready to go and has that every night. It's not chronic. It's just good. It's just nice. We don't comment on it. We think, oh, yeah, great. You know, what, what, what kind of tea do you drink to to get to sleep that way? It's, it's just a good thing. And we don't comment on things that are just consistently good and nice. Um. And that doesn't mean that there aren't lots and lots of ways in which life can be good and nice. So, you know, no disrespect to David Benatar, but um, I think that. Yes, much as there are. Hundreds of different ways in which one can be injured or ill or or or upset or depressed. There are hundreds and thousands of ways in which one can find joy in life. Um, AND I agree that they're they're not, uh, They don't balance each other in the same kind of way. I I I agree with Benatar's idea that there is an asymmetry between harm and and pleasure in the sense that we don't have any obligation to produce a happy child. Um, BUT we do have an obligation, um, to prevent the birth of a miserable child. Like if we knew for sure that a child would be unhappy. I think most people would agree there isn't there is a moral duty not to bring that person into existence. But if we had a duty to bring happy people into existence, it would cause havoc with any ideas of. Responsibility and bodily autonomy that we might have. So I I I agree with the asymmetry, but I do think that it's quite a Unfair and maybe slightly pessimistic outlook on life to say, well, there's very finite ways to be happy, but infinite ways to be miserable. I think that there's just so many ways to to to find joy in life. And maybe the answer to the kind of chronic pain versus chronic happiness thing is that we just need to start talking about when we are happy a bit more and and and start naming it and pointing it out. Then what we might be a bit more aware of it then.

49:42 Ricardo Lopes: Well, I hope you're, you're correct. Anyway, let me just ask you one last question in regards to anti-natalism. I mean, philosophically, ethically, putting aside for a second the fact that probably no one will ever be able to convince all of humanity to stop reproducing and. Do you think that antenatalism is a philosophically sound position and philosophically and ethically a position that should be taken seriously?

50:23 Teresa Baron: Oh, that's a, that's a big question. I think that at least as far as the actual argument is concerned, um, I do think that, uh, Benetta's sort of he he has two separate arguments for antenatalism. I think this one that focuses on the asymmetry between harm and pleasure is one that's worth considering seriously. Um, IF for no other reason that it helps us to to dig into these ideas of what a good life might be and what a sort of What kind of life is worth bringing into existence or what kind of life isn't. Um, AND I think that part of the reason we should be taking it seriously is precisely what I said at the beginning of of our discussion that these are now questions that the question of should I have a child is a question that now that we can deliberately and consciously make that choice, we should be very deliberately and consciously thinking about it. Um, AND I think that You know, for all the, the intuitive, oh my goodness, what is he thinking, uh, that antenatalist arguments might provoke. I think it's really helpful to be provoked in that way and to open the question more broadly of what kind of reasons we might have for having children and whether they are good reasons. Um, BECAUSE now that we can choose to bring someone new into existence, we should be thinking more carefully about, well, what, what right do I have to bring someone into existence? And am I going to, am I choosing to do that in a way that is good for that person? Lindsay Porter has a wonderful um account of the the responsibilities of parenthood in which she she does describe it through this lens of choosing for someone. And she says that, you know, you imagine. On a very low stakes kind of case, you're, you're in a restaurant with your friend and they have to go and take a phone call, just, you know, and then the waiter comes. You're, if you choose for your friend, you have a responsibility to choose well. You can't just pick the first thing off the menu for them. You have to, you know, think about what you know about them, what they like and and try and make that choice as well as possible. So multiply that by a million, and that's making the choice to bring someone into existence. And you have to make that as good a choice as possible, not just by choosing the circumstances under which you make that child might bring them into into being, but also all of the choices you then make to follow up on that, you know, how are you going to make that choice in retrospect, a good choice? Well, you're going to try and do everything you can to make their life worthwhile. Um, AND so, yeah, the antenatalist is not, I think going to persuade many people, but many people should read the antenatalist. I think we should be having that that discussion more openly and more frequently, because the broader discussion of how and why we have children, I think is so important to have and so valuable. Um, AND one that we, we don't have all of the the conceptual framework for yet. It's not something that people still feel comfortable opening up in, in, in that way and subjecting it to the kind of scrutiny that we subject so many of our other life choices to. I think people put so much more consideration on the kind of um. I'm making a big generalization here, but in the public consciousness, we have, uh, huge discussions on a regular basis about the choice to to to fly or to eat meat or to to buy fast fashion, these kind of choices that we make, and their impact on on the world and on other people. I think we need to get more comfortable with having that discussion about making new people.

54:00 Ricardo Lopes: Great, so let's send on that note then and uh I will be linking of course to our first interview, which was on your book, The Artificial Wombon Trial. And uh would you like to tell people where they can find you and your work on the internet?

54:18 Teresa Baron: Absolutely, um, my website is Teresa Barron.co.uk and I'm also on Phil People and Google Scholar. Um, SO you can find my work there.

54:28 Ricardo Lopes: Great. So thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show again. It's been a very fascinating conversation and it's always a pleasure to talk with you.

54:36 Teresa Baron: It was my pleasure too. Thank you so much, Ricardo.

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