How do the philosophies of Antinatalism and Misanthropy relate to environmental matters?

Chris H

Do misanthropes and antinatalists think that recycling is worthwhile or a waste of time?

I've heard arguments that people should not have kids in order to prevent or reduce further environmental damage. But does this mean that antinatalists care about nature and the environment?

Likewise, I've also heard arguments that the act of recycling is 'philanthropic' in nature but that would imply that you have to like humanity in order to care about the environment?

According to David Benatar, anti-natal arguments can vary from philanthropic and misanthropic in nature, with the former arguing for the avoidance of the potential suffering that would be experienced by new life, whilst the latter argues for the avoidance of suffering caused by that new life. Thus one reason why some people may dislike humanity, or may argue against procreation, is because of the negative impact that human beings have on the natural world.

If so, then this would suggest that people who score highly on anti-natal and misanthropic scales (questionnaires designed to measure these beliefs) may score highly on pro-environmental scales. The reason I mention this is because I am a psychology student with The Open University, and I am particularly interested in what motivates people to act in the a pro-environmental way.

Feel free to let me know where you stand on these topics and whether you feel there is any connection between them. I already asked similar questions on an anti-natalism and misanthropy forums elsewhere and it was pretty surprising to see how environmental concerns were relevant to some AN and misanthropic arguments but not others.

However, as far as I can see, there is currently no psychological literature on misanthropy or anti-natalism as predictors of pro-environmental behavior, so I have designed a short survey that measures peoples opinions about nature, human nature, procreation, and the act of recycling. The idea is to see whether levels of any of these beliefs correlate with recycling intentions, attitudes and behaviors.

If you are 18 years or older then you are welcome to take part in the survey by clicking on the link below.
https://openss.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9GEysYaMzXrKygK

This link will take you to the Qualtrics website where the survey is hosted. The survey will only take roughly 5 minutes to complete and is completely anonymous. There is more information at the start of survey that you can read before deciding to take part.

Thank you to anyone who replies to this post or does takes part! This research project will contribute to my final degree.

P.s. I hope I have not broken any of the forum rules by posting a link here but if there are any issues please let me know. I have already posted a similar link on other forums and it sparked interesting discussions and a lot of people also completed the survey too!

TheMadMan

↪Chris H

I can't consider misanthropy as a philosophy. It's more an emotional reaction to negative life experience coated in "philosophical" language, which makes it intellectually dishonest. Thus I don't put much value in its arguments.

Antinatalism makes good logical points but they fall short within the context of the whole human experience.

The problem of environmental damage is real but the solution of antinatalism and misanthropism is irrational. If you have a thorn in your foot the solution is not to cut it off.

As for your survey I'm sorry to say that I couldn't go on with it.
In your questions you made too many assumptions of one's situation. i.e in my country/culture recycling is not a practical matter yet, it is just talked about, so I didn't know how to answer.
Also the way your questions were asked I felt answering each of them as "it depends", it was all very context-depended.

Chris H

↪TheMadMan

You make some valid points but regardless of how impractical or irrational you feel the misanthropic and ant-natal 'solutions' to environment damage would be, what I am particularly interested in is whether these belief systems may impact people's positions towards recycling; whether it would make sense to recycle if you hold these positions.

In regards to the survey, thank for your feedback and I am sorry to hear you had problems with it.

The survey essentially consists of 4 different scales that measure anti-natalism, misanthropy, self-perceived connection to nature, and several aspects of recycling intentions, norms, and perceived behavioral control. I didn't write statements in these scales, but they have been validated in previous research to establish (within reason) that they are measuring what they are supposed to measure.

Naturally, the nature of an online survey means that it can be challenging to design statements that are relevant to everyone involved.

In any case, thank you very much for at least attempting it.

TheMadMan

what I am particularly interested in is whether these belief systems may impact people's positions towards recycling; whether it would make sense to recycle if you hold these positions. — Chris H

If X is not misanthrope/antinatalist and does not recycle, I don't see how X becoming misanthrope/antinatalist makes them recycle.
I think pro-environmentalism precedes misanthropy/antinatalism in a misanthrope/antinatalist who recycles.
I see correlation but not necessarily direct causation.

Chris H

↪TheMadMan

Yes and a survey would never be used to draw causal links anyway. What I mean is if witnessing the negative impact that human beings has on the environment is anyway related to their misanthropic and anti-natal beliefs.

The survey collects scores related to these four beliefs, and then a multiple regression analysis reveals whether any of these beliefs (as variables) co-vary. (i.e. if scoring in a particular way in variable A correlates with scoring in a particular way on B,C or D). The idea is by combining several predictor variables together and one outcome variable (recycling scores), we can explain or predict some amount of this variation in the outcome scores.

unenlightened

There is something interesting going on here. The centre of environmentalism - and it's reflected in the questions on the survey - is that humanity and the environment are inseparable. But the terms philanthropy and misanthropy tend to make that separation. I think they are not very good terms to be using here and not even normally understood to be opposites. In particular, it is generally considered philanthropic to donate to and support animal or environmental charities. whereas I wouldn't expect a misanthrope to be very charitable in any direction.

↪Chris H

Anyway, please let us know if you get some interesting results.

Chris H

↪unenlightened

Thats interesting. I guess i was using assuming people would consider philanthropy-misanthropy as a continuum in the way that Benatar uses it in the context of anti-natal arguments, but yes in reality 'philanthropy' doesnt quite represent a purely pro-humanity sentiment.

Nevertheless, opinions about humanity does still seem to be intuitively linked to environmentalism as, humans exist in the environment and will therefore unavoidably have an impact, either positively and negatively, on that environment.

The survey will be part of my dissertation that is due in around the end of April so I should have analysed the results by that point. I will do my best to let you know what they are but if you do not hear from me, you can contact me through my student email address: zw293028atoudotacdotuk

schopenhauer1

Antinatalism makes good logical points but they fall short within the context of the whole human experience. — TheMadMan

This itself is so value-laden and personal in its opinion, that it self-refutes the earlier point here:

It's more an emotional reaction to negative life experience coated in "philosophical" language, which makes it intellectually dishonest. Thus I don't put much value in its arguments. — TheMadMan

So rather, it is actually quite a "rational" response to the problem of suffering, and deontological questions of not causing unnecessary harms unto others, and ideas of autonomy, so it's much more complicated than your characterization.

↪unenlightened

↪Chris H

So I write a lot about antinatalist topics and pessimism on this forum, and very familiar with Benatar and the notions of misanthropic and philanthropic antinatalism and I do think they are useful distinctions.

Environmentalist antinatalism falls under misanthropic. This means humans are a problem, and antinatalism in either limited or universal forms, are meant to solve environmental degredation, species-extinction, animal suffering (as far as domesticated animals), pollution, and other such things.

I myself am not this kind of misanthropic antinatalist. I am more on the philanthropic end. That is to say, I think that there are deontological (and perhaps consequential) reasons that procreating a new person is wrong (mainly because of following the non-harm and autonomy principles and considering the dignity of the person being born). Environmental / Misanthropic antinatalism too easily disregards the human element for other elements, as if making this switch confers a superior position. I am not sure in ethical terms if discounting human ethical considerations for abstract "environmental" or animal suffering is really the proper focus of human ethics. Rather, ethics is always human-centered first, as we are the social agents that are conferring the very idea in the first place. It is self-refuting to not consider other humans first as ethical concern, as the very being conferring ethical value is the human.

However, I do have sympathies with the notion that humans are causing mass suffering for other animals. As far as the planet, it is not an ethical agent. It is just the place where ethical agents live. Thus it would still have to be attached to how it is harming living beings (plants, animals, humans). Otherwise, it is an odd idea that the Earth itself (without these things) is conferred some sort of ethical consideration detached from this.

At the end of the day, philanthropic antinatalism simply being followed, would positively impact the goals of misanthropic antinatalism, so they can be mutually beneficial even if starting from radically different starting points.

TheMadMan

This itself is so value-laden and personal in its opinion, that it self-refutes the earlier point here: — schopenhauer1

You make too many assumptions of my statements and prematurely reached your conclusions on me self-refuting.

schopenhauer1

You make too many assumptions of my statements and prematurely reached your conclusions on me self-refuting. — TheMadMan

Well, when you make broad statements with no reasoning behind it, kind of makes sense then that I would do that with just a claim without support.

TheMadMan

Well, when you make broad statements with no reasoning behind it, kind of makes sense then that I would do that with just a claim without support. — schopenhauer1

Some things I take to be obvious to people that's why I don't go on trying to explain every statement.
I prefer parsimony when possible.

So if my statement is unclear to you that why don't you ask questions to me for clarification instead of jumping to conclusions.

Chris H

↪schopenhauer1

Yes I do agree that AN can be accurately described as a philosophy and that aspects of the anti-natalism argument are quite rational and that as a whole.

Thank you for clarifying the distinctions between forms of anti-natalism for too, that was very helpful for me. However, I am not sure about planets status as an 'ethical agent'. That may represents something a little beyond my philosophical understanding, but as far as I can tell people and anthropomorphize things that don't have agency and assign symbolic meanings in animate objects. I don't see why some people cannot be acting in the interest of the planet in its own right in a sentimental way.

schopenhauer1

↪TheMadMan

Your claim about human experience. Very broad.

schopenhauer1

Thank you for clarifying the distinctions between forms of anti-natalism for too, that was very helpful for me. However, I am not sure about planets status as an 'ethical agent'. That may represents something a little beyond my philosophical understanding, but as far as I can tell people and anthropomorphize things that don't have agency and assign symbolic meanings in animate objects. I don't see why some people cannot be acting in the interest of the planet in its own right in a sentimental way. — Chris H

Sentimental and then providing a whole ethic to justify action for it, are two different things. Writing a poem about and then taking very serious actions for something, for example seem very different in the import that the term “sentimental” carries. It’s purely aesthetic at that point but it’s the humans viewing that. The planet itself is not knowing. It’s the planets relation to a knowing aware subject that confers it with a value.

TheMadMan

↪schopenhauer1

Exactly, very broad. And you expect me to "give the reasoning behind it".

Ø implies everything

The problem of environmental damage is real but the solution of antinatalism and misanthropism is irrational. If you have a thorn in your foot the solution is not to cut it off. — TheMadMan

You assume humanity is the foot; what if the life on Earth in general, and/or some notion of nature, is the foot in which humanity is the thorn?

TheMadMan

You assume humanity is the foot — Ø implies everything

No I don't separate humanity from the rest of life on earth.

what if the life on Earth in general, and/or some notion of nature, is the foot in which humanity is the thorn? — Ø implies everything

What if...?
Do you have arguments that humanity is the thorn.
You would also have to prove the pointlessness of humanity in existence and the value of the rest without humanity.

unenlightened

So I write a lot about antinatalist topics and pessimism on this forum, and very familiar with Benatar and the notions of misanthropic and philanthropic antinatalism and I do think they are useful distinctions. — schopenhauer1

Yes I understand the distinction being made. But when that is transposed to a psychological as distinct from philosophical context, I think ordinary language needs to be at least acknowledged, because the terms are going to apply to pronatalists as well as antinatalists. That's the premise, at least.

Ø implies everything

Do you have arguments that humanity is the thorn. — TheMadMan

One does not necessarily need an argument. What if the misanthrope simply values all non-human life more than humanity, and thus their anti-natalist views are not irrational in that they defeat their purpose.

Basically, I am claiming that you're making the implicit assumption that anti-natalist hold their views because they want what's best for humanity. What if they do not? Perhaps you think not wanting the best for humanity is itself irrational, but then you'd have to answer to Hume's Guillotine.

schopenhauer1

Yes I understand the distinction being made. But when that is transposed to a psychological as distinct from philosophical context, I think ordinary language needs to be at least acknowledged, because the terms are going to apply to pronatalists as well as antinatalists. That's the premise, at least. — unenlightened

Granted, I just think it's a matter of defining the terms and making sure we are not playing language games- Wittgenstein stuff.

It's philanthropic because it is out of empathy with humanity. It is misanthropic because it is out of "frustration" with humanity, for lack of better term.

TheMadMan

Perhaps you think not wanting the best for humanity is itself irrational — Ø implies everything

Yes its is irrational.

Ø implies everything

Yes its is irrational. — TheMadMan

On what basis?

How do the philosophies of Antinatalism and Misanthropy relate to environmental matters?

Welcome to The Philosophy Forum!

Categories

More Discussions