Is having children a philosophical problem?

And why do all works on this topic include a question in their title?

Around the time I started studying for the GRE, I began to notice that when I learned a new word, it would suddenly appear all over the place. “Egregious” and “problematic,” the moment I mastered their definitions, started popping up in every other lecture and paragraph I came across—like they were the glasses-wearing nerdy girl in the rom-com who is completely invisible until she gets contacts, and then everyone is like, “Hey, look at that supermodel in my algebra class!”

The same thing has happened with the topic of having children: I started reading What are Children For? on a whim, curious if they had a reason besides, “passable levels of housecleaning,” and then before you know it, the subject had taken over the news cycle.¹ The authors of the book, Anastasia Berg and Rachel Wiseman, lead their readers through a survey of sociological studies, feminist theory, and literary works grappling with the pros and cons of motherhood (fatherhood and men are hardly discussed at all, except in so far as they participate in a woman’s decision). The women they have in mind are not all women, but instead highly educated, professional women, those most likely to see children as a possible life path inevitably in tension with their professional and creative pursuits.

What are Children For? has been referenced repeatedly in recent news cycles, as the book has provided fodder for the culture war that seems to be raging between the Trump/Vance and Harris/Walz camps. But I found myself drawn to another book on the topic, Begetting: What Does it Mean to Create a Child?, that considers the issue from the perspective of the unborn child. Instead of focusing on what childbearing means for mothers, as Berg and Wiseman do, Begetting’s author, Mara van der Lugt, wants to put the question of begetting on the other foot: not whether it is good for us to have kids, but whether it is good for kids to be had by us (well, not by you and me per se, dear reader, but you get the idea).

It’s a unique angle that is worth considering: after all, whether we think about the question in light of our personal happiness, global replacement rates, or the stability of Social Security, it is the child himself who will ultimately have to live with our answer. Thus, van der Lugt sets a high bar for prospective parents clear to clear, picking apart a range of points that they might raise, like “wanting to pass along one’s genetics” of “affirming life.”

She also borrows heavily from the anti-natalist philosophy of David Benatar, who argues that it is immoral to bring children into the world on utilitarian grounds. His argument, in short, goes like this: a child who is born experiences both pleasure and pain; in a utilitarian calculation, it is essentially neutral. But the calculation works out better for a non-existent child because such is spared both pain, which is a positive outcome, and pleasure, which is a neutral one, since there is no child for whom the deprivation of pleasure could be considered a loss. Thus, Benatar argues, parents are unjustified in bringing a child into this world.

It’s an interesting parlor-trick, but I can’t help but think of Cormac McCarthy’s Anton Chigur here: “If the rule you followed brought you to this, what use was the rule?” If taken to its logical conclusion, the argument must conclude that the end of human society would be a net gain—but a net gain for whom? Arguing for the end of humanity on utilitarian grounds is going to find that ground slipping away pretty quick.²

Let’s bring another ethical approach to bear on the question. Consider, for instance, the argument from deontological ethics, or the argument from universal principle: what should any reasonable person do in this particular situation? While van der Lugt entertains Benatar’s anti-natalist argument, she is ultimately comfortable with people having kids, under certain circumstances. The rule van der Lugt seems to move towards is something like 2 kids max per couple—something that would replace a pair of parents without exponentially adding to global ecological crises.

But of course, 2 kids per couple is not replacement level, because not everyone becomes a couple and has children. And if you are going to hold that humans existing is a net positive, then it seems like you would have to ask the question, “Given that not everyone will procreate, if I am in a position to have children, am I morally bound to do so?” van der Lugt would argue that you are not morally bound to your potential children, but even she cannot help but let other moral duties sneak in to the equation.

For instance, she writes, “And so, even if our own genes are not to be continued—is this such a terrible thing? There are other things we can aim for, things which can be gathered and nurtured and eventually passed on to friends and loved ones and even strangers. There are alternative ways of finding meaning in our lives. There may not be the feeling of generations growing, of life continuing, through us and around us. But some things will continue. There may not be lineage—there may yet be love.”

But if everyone adopted her argument, then some things—maybe even all things—will not continue. van der Lugt is trying find universal conclusions, but she seems to take it for granted that other people will ignore her reasoning, step up to the plate, and make sure that there may yet be people to love and be loved. Yet if it is necessary for some people to have children in order for “things to continue,” then is not everyone who is in a position to do so also responsible to step up to the plate? As Shakespeare’s Benedict exclaims, “The world must be peopled!”³

van der Lugt wants to the thread the needle such that one can be anti-natalist—or at least a very skeptical pro-natalist—without being misanthropic. But it becomes impossible to isolate the decision of an individual (or a couple) to have a child from what that decision means for other members of the human race. Even though we should consider what life will look like for a child we might create, such consideration cannot focus begin and end with that child. Other ethical goods and values are inevitably at stake.

1. Just yesterday, two podcasts in my feed (both from the NYTimes, The Ezra Klein Show and The Conversation) released episodes on this topic.

2. At the very least, it seems like there could be an empirical response to this argument: poll a bunch of people, and ask, “All things being equal, are you glad you exist, or would you rather you had never been born?” While, sadly, no doubt some will prefer the second, my hunch is that by and large, most people will prefer to have existed. Even if, in Benatar’s framework, they never could have had that preference if they had never existed, the fact that human existence is generally given two thumbs up by said humans at the very least raises some questions about Benatar’s approach.

3. Passages like this one gives me the nagging sense that van der Lugt is less interested in reasoning about the question of begetting universally and more interested in providing philosophical cover for people who could have children but, for whatever reason, decide not to (she includes, for instance, a strange self-help type chapter about how to turn the tables on people who ask why you are not having kids).