I have consistently noticed one thing about the flaming pronatalists who make their way over here to attack me that differentiates them against antinatalists and effectively reduces their case to nothing. Here is the key difference I’ve noticed:

Antinatalists: Use evidence-based arguments for their position.

Pronatalists: Use emotionally-based arguments for their position.

I’m dead serious, read any work by an antinatalist philosopher. They all observe the cardinal rule of academic writing perfectly, namely to not interject one’s self into the work. I don’t know a damn thing about what kind of a life David Benatar lives. All I know about him I know from his books (namely that he’s an antinatalist and that he’s an advocate for the men’s rights movement). I don’t know what kind of life he lives outside of this. For all I know he might have a really exciting life and going out there living life to the absolute fullest. He could be one of the happiest people on earth. That wouldn’t be a contradiction to being an antinatalist, for one’s own emotional attachment to life is irrelevant in determining whether it’s better to be born or not to be born.

On the contrary, I’ve never seen an evidence-based refutation of antinatalism from any pronatalist authors. They all invariably interject their own emotions and talk about how great their life is witout an ounce of logic or cold, hard evidence for their view. We all know what kind of lives all of the pronatalist authors live, which is a direct violation of the cardinal rule of academic writing. Does that mean, however, that all pronatalists are happy in life? The answer is absolutely not. Most of those that fall into that category also use religious arguments for their position, which again have no merit. Emotional and religious arguments have no place in the world of academia.

And that is the difference between antinatalist arguments and pronatalist arguments and why the pronatalist position is reduced to all but nothing. There is no hardcore evidence in favor of pronatalism but an abundance of it in opposition of pronatalism and in favor of antinatalism, thus antinatalism wins.

Quod erat demonstrandum.