Antinatalism equips us, intellectually, to prevent danger and harm. And when it comes to preventing suffering in those who are never brought into existence, the philosophy works 100% of the time. Evolution has equipped us with the ability to feel pain to avoid danger and further harm (it doesn’t have a great track record, by the way). This is built into our biology.

My point? Well, in this specific respect, evolution’s biological mechanisms for avoiding harm have something fundamental in common with antinatalism’s intellectual approach to preventing it. While you can’t say evolution aims to end birth, you can say that antinatalism is not an alien concept to mankind’s evolutionary history. It extends a principle already deeply embedded in our biology. Further to that, you could argue that the fundamental goal of antinatalism isn’t the end of reproduction, but the prevention of pain and suffering. Refraining from reproduction is simply the means by which it achieves that goal.

In this sense, antinatalism can be understood as a philosophical extension of an evolutionary mechanism: the avoidance of harm. Ironically, evolution has given us the intellectual capacity to question whether perpetuating the very process that produced us is morally justified.

But it remains that antinatalism is NOT evolution which directs us to reproduce most of the time (sometimes evolution prevents us from procreating). The difference is, antinatalism is intellectually directed with more conscious choice in the equation than raw evolution. Evolution tells us simply how and why we reproduce, but antinatalism gives us a moral reason to not reproduce – evolution can’t provide a moral reason to reproduce.

Just as a couple deciding whether to childproof their house or not is an intellectual exercise so too is antinatalism. The philosophy is a very human philosophy. Sure, there might be sociopaths that decide not to have children, but there are also sociopaths that do have children. But this is beside the point. Antinatalism is a thorough thought-out philosophical argument and, as with any other philosophical stance, there will be people who distort and bend it for their own benefit.

If at this point your argument shifts to antinatalism as mental illness, I’d first remind you that mental illness is yet another evolutionary risk of suffering imposed on people who are born. Secondly, our mental distortions included in being human, whether they be mental illness or not, can be avoided altogether if we were never born. We can’t pretend we, or at least some of us, live perfect lives and make all the right decisions without consequences. That would be disingenuous.

More importantly, if we recognize that we’re ALL victim to mental “distortions” via a flawed evolutionary process, that should at least make us agnostic on antinatalism. However, if you are agnostic on the subject, the safest way forward is antinatalism because the alternative involves gambling with precious human life.

Evolution also accommodates pleasure and this is the crux of most people’s arguments against antinatalism. Don’t forget that evolution also allows for excess. Obesity, substance abuse, violence, pornography, social media, status-seeking, power dynamics, gambling, etc. all hook into evolutionary desires. But good wholesome fun is alright. It’s the asymmetry between pleasure and pain that’s the issue. While it is important to note that there is an empirical asymmetry between the two, there is also the idea that someone who doesn’t exist (someone who was never born) will never miss the pleasures of life. In order to experience the pleasures of life, they would necessarily have to experience the pain and suffering that evolution has afforded us.

Evolution can only tell us how things work, but there is no cosmic “why” to be extracted. Antinatalism can’t tell us the cosmic meaning of life either and is constantly under attack by all sorts of people. Notwithstanding the attacks and politics surrounding it, it does give us a moral reason not to procreate. If the goal is to avoid gratuitous suffering in hell and on earth, the philosophy gives you a surefire way to do so.