Antinatalism

Antinatalism or anti-natalism is the philosophical value judgment that procreation is unethical or unjustifiable. Antinatalists thus argue that humans should abstain from making children. Some antinatalists consider coming into existence to always be a serious harm. Their views are not necessarily limited only to humans but may encompass all sentient creatures, arguing that coming into existence is a serious harm for sentient beings in general.
There are various reasons why antinatalists believe human reproduction is problematic. The most common arguments for antinatalism include that life entails inevitable suffering, death is inevitable, and humans are born without their consent. Additionally, although some people may turn out to be happy, this is not guaranteed, so to procreate is to gamble with another person's suffering. There is also an axiological asymmetry between good and bad things in life, such that coming into existence is always a harm, which is known as Benatar's asymmetry argument.
Antinatalism as a philosophical concept is to be distinguished from antinatalist policies employed by some countries. In antinatalist population policy, it is not always implied that coming into existence is a universal problem and is an ever-present harm to the one whose existence was started.
There exists a taxonomy that divides the so-called "antiprocreative" thought into four major branches: childfreeness, the Voluntary Human Extinction Movement, efilism, and antinatalism itself. Only the latter one is philosophical antinatalism per se, meeting the definition of philosophical antinatalism and having no other features on top of that, whereas the first three items can only be deemed antinatalistic in the sense that they oppose the alleged duty to procreate.

Etymology

The term antinatalism was used probably for the first time by Théophile de Giraud in his book L'art de guillotiner les procréateurs: Manifeste anti-nataliste. Masahiro Morioka defines antinatalism as "the thought that all human beings or all sentient beings should not be born." In scholarly and literary writings, various ethical arguments have been put forth in defense of antinatalism, probably the most prominent of which is the asymmetry argument, put forward by South African philosopher David Benatar. Robbert Zandbergen makes a distinction between so-called reactionary antinatalism and its more philosophical, originary counterpart. While the former seeks to limit human reproduction locally and/or temporarily, the latter seeks to end it conclusively.

History

Antinatalist sentiments have existed for thousands of years. Some of the earliest surviving formulations of the idea that it would be better not to have been born can be found in ancient Greece. One example is from Sophocles's Oedipus at Colonus, written shortly before Sophocles's death in 406 BC:
From Gustave Flaubert, The Letters of Gustave Flaubert 1830–1857, 1846:

Schopenhauer and antinatalism

There is a debate whether Schopenhauer can be considered an early forerunner of antinatalism. Some scholars link Schopenhauer to antinatalism and even to David Benatar explicitly. Schopenhauer makes claims that could support categorizing him as an antinatalist: he says that everyone would not agree to come into existence but would reply "no thank you very much", that "life is a business that does not cover its costs", and that if people were rational they would not have children in his poignant rhetorical question:
On the other hand, one can support the opposite claim, that Schopenhauer rejects the antinatalist conclusion. His worldview sees individual human beings as mere appearances, and who do not come into existence upon birth. Similarly, dying also does not lead to annihilation. So, on a fundamental metaphysical level, it's impossible for us to never exist.
The way to reconcile the two positions is to put importance of coming into existence as a specific individual, who leads life full of suffering, instead of focusing on the metaphysical essence. This, however, does not decide the matter as Schopenhauer explicitly rejects any unconditional moral "oughts", which are necessary to convey the antinatalist position that we have a duty not to bring people into existence.
Furthermore, the new future child, Schopenhauer explains, already strives to exist in the world of appearances. And from the perspective of the parents, the moral judgment of an action depends on the mode of willing: if the motive is not malicious nor selfish, then the action cannot be morally wrong.
But in the most important sense, preventing someone from existing as a person prevents them from negating his essence, which is will. Will can only be abolished through a person by getting to know the essence of the world. And this is the only real everlasting redemption. This is also the reason by Schopenhauer rejects suicide as the solution to the condition of life.
So, Schopenhauer presents reasons for two opposing views, each having merit from a different perspective. From the perspective of the individual, it would be good not to bring him into existence to spare him suffering. But from the more fundamental perspective, it's good to allow them to come into being so they can grasp the fundamental truth of the world and attain redemption through annealing the will to life. In this way, he shares the sentiment of antinatalists in their basis but does not follow them to their conclusion.

Arguments

In religion

Buddhism

The teaching of the Buddha, including the Four Noble Truths and the beginning of Mahāvagga, is interpreted by Hari Singh Gour as follows:
The issue of Buddhist antinatalism is also raised by Amy Paris Langenberg. She writes, among other things:
Buddhism was understood as antinatalist by Jack Kerouac. Masahiro Morioka argues that ancient Buddhism was both antinatalist and anti-antinatalist:

Christianity and Gnosticism

Church Father John Chrysostom states that spiritual perfection implies virginity:
Augustine of Hippo wrote:
Gregory of Nyssa warns that no one should be lured by the argument that procreation is a mechanism that creates children and states that those who refrain from procreation by preserving their virginity "bring about a cancellation of death by preventing it from advancing further because of them, and, by setting themselves up as a kind of boundary stone between life and death, they keep death from going forward". Søren Kierkegaard believed that man enters this world by means of a crime, that their existence is a crime, and procreation is the fall which is the culmination of human egoism. According to him, Christianity exists to block the path of procreation; it is "a salvation but at the same time it is a stopping" that "aims at stopping the whole continuation which leads to the permanence of this world."
The Marcionites, led by the theologian Marcion of Sinope, believed that the visible world is an evil creation of a crude, cruel, jealous, and angry demiurge, Yahweh. According to this teaching, people should oppose him, abandon his world, not create people, and trust in the good God of mercy, foreign and distant.
The Encratites observed that birth leads to death. In order to conquer death, people should desist from procreation: "not produce fresh fodder for death".
The Manichaeans, the Bogomils, and the Cathars believed that procreation sentences the soul to imprisonment in evil matter. They saw procreation as an instrument of an evil god, demiurge, or of Satan that imprisons the divine element in the matter and thus causes the divine element to suffer.
Shakers believe that sex is the root of all sin. Thus although not strictly antinatalist, they see procreation is a sign of the fallen state of humanity.

Taoism

Robbert Zandbergen compares modern antinatalism to Taoism, stating that they both "view the development of consciousness as an aberration in an otherwise fluid and fluent universe marked by some sense of non-human harmony, stability and tranquility." According to Zandbergen, antinatalism and Taoism view human consciousness as something that cannot be fixed, for example, by returning to a more harmonious way of life, but rather it has to be undone. Humans are tasked with a project of a peaceful, non-violent dismantling of consciousness. From the Taoist perspective, consciousness is purpose-driven, which goes against the spontaneous and unconscious flow of the Tao. Hence, humans have an imperative to return to the Tao. Humans have to do it spontaneously, and it cannot be brought about from "the outside". Zandbergen quotes John S. Major et al. 2010 to make the parallel between Taoism and antinatalism even clearer:
Water is a traditional representation of the Tao, as it flows without shape. Ice represents the arrest of the natural flow of the Tao in rigid human consciousness. Taoist sages return to the flow like ice melting to water. But it would have been better if human consciousness never had appeared.

Theodicy and anthropodicy

considers the issue of being a creator in relation to theodicy and argues that just as it is impossible to defend the idea of a good God as creator, it is also impossible to defend the idea of a good man as a creator. In parenthood, the human parent imitates the divine parent in the sense that education could be understood as a form of pursuit of "salvation," the "right path" for a child. However, a human being could decide that it is better not to suffer at all than to suffer and be offered the later possibility of salvation from suffering. In Cabrera's opinion, evil is associated not with the lack of being, but with the suffering and dying of those that are alive. So, on the contrary, evil is only and obviously associated with being.
Karim Akerma, due to the moral problem of man as creator, introduces anthropodicy, a twin concept for theodicy. He is of the opinion that the less faith in the Almighty Creator–God there is, the more urgent the question of anthropodicy becomes. Akerma thinks that for those who want to lead ethical lives, the causation of suffering requires a justification. Man can no longer shed responsibility for the suffering that occurs by appealing to an imaginary entity that sets moral principles. For Akerma, antinatalism is a consequence of the collapse of theodicy endeavors and the failure of attempts to establish an anthropodicy. According to him, there is no metaphysics nor moral theory that can justify the production of new people, and therefore, anthropodicy is indefensible as well as theodicy.
Jason Marsh finds no good arguments for what he calls "evil asymmetry"; that the amount and kinds of suffering provide strong arguments that our world is not an act of creation made by a good God, but the same suffering does not affect the morality of the act of procreation.