Comment by Aryanking on Is it immoral to have children? · 2013-10-26T19:13:18.300Z · LW · GW

This argument against having children is framed within a flawed economic and social system of belief and behavior, and suffers under the basic assumption that there is actually a famine, one whereby donating money to charity will provide a relief of and has moral value, and therefore falsely concludes that choosing to procreate over donating to famine relief charities during this perceived famine ( what i refer to as the famine problem) is bad for humanity.

In reality, the famine problem is predominantly caused by one moral problem split in two and will persist as long as our relief efforts are focused on the more indirect causes and therefore on more uncertain solutions :

ONE MORAL PROBLEM SPLIT IN TWO :

A LACK OF :

1/ moral education (thought/values/beliefs)

2/ moral behavior (resource sharing habits - intent/action/effects)

MY REASONS:

1/ It takes basic resources (not necessarily money) to raise a child ( Imagine the wide variety of people that are raised all around the world - from the isolated jungles to the congested cities) (i am not aware of the world being in any shortage of resources)

2/ Scarcity and greed are only mindsets and psychological states (beliefs) , which the existence of the famine problem depends on , therefore mindset substitution ( thought/values/beliefs) through proper education, and developing resource sharing habits (intent/action/effects) through moral behavior is the only true moral relief of the perceived scarcity and by extension the famine problem

3/ Conceiving and raising children properly (i.e. with moral eduction and behavior ) is a necessity condition for the continuous existence of a moral humanity and by that measure is a virtue . Its virtuous nature does not depend on a practitioners decision to chose it over addressing the the famine problem ( Though In the case of the actual argument against children and for famine relief donations, i don't believe either of these two (2) choices/actions are moral in and of itself as i think action or choice is only one subcomponent to assessing the moral aspect of human behavior (intent,action,effect) , and i can imagine many situations when the act of conceiving and raising a child, or making donation to a famine relief charity can be considered immoral - On reflection of these situations, the following proverbs came to mind - all that glitters is not gold ; don't judge a book by its cover)

4/ In Conceiving and raising children you have more and direct influence over the moral effect or outcome of your behavior than you would have when making charitable donations for famine relief. There is more moral value uncertainty (many more variable at play) with the charity option due to the fact that one has less and indirect influence over second and third order moral effects in the causal chain of the expected moral goal (e.g. whether the charity will distribute fairly, whether the real cause of the famine problem (i.e a lack of moral education and behavior) will get worst or better regardless of charity donations , whether the beneficiaries are or will be morally abiding citizens, etc) ( On Reflection of the moral value certainty of both options, i imagine pouring water into a cup with holes at the bottom, where the donate option has many more holes that the procreate option)

NB: I also believe there are some condition under which procreation and raising a child can be immoral: 1/ Done by people with immoral beliefs and behaviors (the kid and society will suffer) 2/ Done by people with high genetic and biological predispositions to giving birth to infirm offspring (the kid and society will suffer)

But even under these conditions, the immoral attribute or value is causally independent of a practitioner's decision to choose it over addressing the famine problem through charitable donations.