Should you have children?

This is post examines the ethics of having children from a Christian and Effective Altruist perspectives. I will first lay out arguments against having children that seem especially relevant to Christian EA. I will discuss an argument from opportunity cost, both an EA version and a Christian version. I will then look at some antinatalist arguments, which might appeal to some people in EA who subscribe to suffering-focused morality or are expecting some big global catastrophe relatively soon. After that I will present some counterarguments and explore the positive case for procreation. This is a complex topic with a lot of nuance, and I can examine each argument only briefly. Discussion of a particular line of argumentation should not be read as an endorsement, or lack of it, unless otherwise noted.

Arguments against having children

Altruistic argument from opportunity cost

In an EA setting, discussion about the ethics of having children will almost invariably involve talking about opportunity cost. Raising children takes a lot of resources that could instead be used for impartial welfare maximisation. Instead of spending money on children, you could donate it, and instead of using time for childcare, you could work on the world’s pressing problems. One figure floating around in the community is that raising a child costs about $300,000 in direct cost plus opportunity cost. ^[1] You could save many lives with this amount of money. In addition, people who believe we are living in a pivotal moment in history might think they should concentrate on making sure humanity navigates this period successfully and only consider having children after the future is reasonably secure.

A similar case can be attempted from Christian principles: you can help “the least of these” more if you don’t have children. Jesus mentions giving up family, including children in Matthew 19:29 and parallel passages. In 1 Corinthians 7, Paul recommends celibacy so that Christians could more fully focus on pleasing the Lord. 1 Timothy 5 speaks of widows who did not marry again and apparently had some specific role in the church. There is a long history of Christian ascetics who choose to remain unmarried, and some instances of married couples living in abstinence for ascetic reasons. Jesus himself did not marry.

If we wanted to formulate this as one of those guilt-tripping consequentialist thought experiments, we could imagine a situation where you can save several lives at the cost of suffering an injury that will make you unable to reproduce. Should you do it? (Trying to imagine a realistic situation to fit the thought experiment lead me to comically convoluted scenarios—not that those are unknown in philosophical thought experiments. Perhaps it’s best to let this be one of those “A genie appears in front of you, offering you a choice…” situations.)

For a catchy formulation of the Christian version, we could try, “How come you have two kids when your neighbour has none?”—assuming the cause of the neighbour's childlessness is that her child died of a disease that could have been prevented by giving to a charity.

These arguments can be constructed either as arguing for an obligation not to have children, or more mildly as discouraging having children or presenting reasons to have fewer children. In a Christian context, the less stringent reading would seem more likely to stand.

The arguments apply in situations where a significant enough amount of good could be done with the resources spent on children in those situations. This seems true for many or most people with a middle class or higher income in rich countries and for people pursuing impactful careers. How much resources having children counterfactually consumes differs between countries and personal situations, but if we go with the $300k figure, donating this amount to AMF would statistically save between 50–100 lives using the current cost-effectiveness estimates from GiveWell.

Antinatalist arguments

Antinatalist arguments assert that human procreation causes harm by itself, not just because of opportunity cost. The ones harmed could be either the ones who are born, other humans or animals, or the environment.

Argument 1: Overpopulation

The most well-known antinatalist arguments are probably arguments from overpopulation. They are based on a claim that there will be or already are too many humans. One basis for this claim can be fear of resource depletion. Classic Malthusian versions of the overpopulation concern can be considered debunked since birth rates are falling in most of the world and global population is currently projected to stabilise around 11 billion instead of growing (and collapsing) indefinitely. Environmental harm, however, remains a concern. For example, this Founder's Pledge lifestyle report illustrates a naïve case that having fewer children leads to less greenhouse gas emissions.

Argument 2: Suffering to animals

Humans also cause suffering to animals, especially via factory farming and fishing (assuming mammals, birds, and fish are capable of suffering—if crustaceans and insects are included, the amount is even larger). You could raise your child vegan or vegetarian, but there's no guarantee they will remain so for the rest of their lives. Plant-based food production also causes suffering to animals by for example crushing rodents and birds during harvest.

But there’s a twist. Some EAs concerned about wild animal suffering think there is an unacceptable amount of suffering going on in natural environments because of animals killing each other, suffering from parasites, hunger and thirst, living in fear, etc. Increasing the number of humans could decrease the total number of wild animal individuals. If this were the case, having more humans around would actually reduce total animal suffering. This is highly uncertain, though, even if we accept the premise that nature is horrible. These kinds of views on wild animal suffering remain a controversial position even within EA.

Argument 3: Life being net negative

There are also arguments that being born is bad not (only) for others but also to the one who is born. David Benatar’s Asymmetry argument supposes that the absence of pleasure is bad only if there is somebody who is deprived of that pleasure, but that the absence of pain is good even if there’s nobody to experience it. In other words, it is not bad to not make more happy people, but it is bad to make more suffering people. According to the argument, it is better never to exist because:

If X exists, there is both the presence of pain (bad) and the presence of pleasure (good).

If X never exists, there is an absence of pain (good) and an absence of pleasure (not bad).

(Benatar 2006: 30, 38)

Ecclesiastes also 4:2–3 declares happy those who were never born:

And I declared that the dead,
    who had already died,
are happier than the living,
    who are still alive.
But better than both
    is the one who has never been born,
who has not seen the evil
    that is done under the sun.

However, the interpretation of the book of Ecclesiastes is fraught with difficulties because of its pessimistic outlook, so it’s hard to say how exactly this passage should inform Christian views.

Benatar’s argument might appeal especially to people with strong suffering-focused morality since they would likely think the absence of suffering is better than the presence of pleasure. The conclusion depends on whether the pleasures of life are enough to outweigh the pains, and opinions on this vary. Life after death will also have a great influence here since it could make being born worth it even if the time in this life were net negative.

Some people who believe an existential catastrophe is very likely to occur in the near future might think it is better not to be born than to be born and very likely die young. Those who think s-risks are significant for humanity might think it’s better not to create more people exposed to them. This brings to mind the apocalyptic words of Jesus, “Woe to those who are pregnant and to those who are nursing babies in those days!” (Matthew 24:19, NKJV), but these words appear to be more about the hardship the mothers will suffer because Jesus is lamenting their situation rather than speaking directly about the children.

Refutations of arguments against

Lack of precedent

Neither the EA community nor the Christian church have adopted a norm against having children. This fact by itself provides some evidence against the anti-procreation arguments; think of Chesterton’s fence. In the history of Christianity, many people reached radical ethical conclusions based on Christian principles, like John Wesley advocating for earning to give. Despite this, I am not aware of Christians who would have historically used the opportunity cost argument against having children, not even in the case of rich people who presumably would have spent a significant amount of resources on their children. There are many examples of Christians choosing celibacy for ascetic reasons, but this is different from voluntary childlessness for reasons of altruistic impact. For Christians who have a high view of the authority of the church, the fact that the church has not adopted a norm against procreation can be decisive. 

Some Bible passages could be invoked to support the opportunity cost argument (Matthew 19:29 and parallel, 1 Corinthians 7, 1 Timothy 5). While the epistolary passages contain the idea of choosing celibacy to serve the Lord and the church, extending the logic to having children would assume the cases are similar enough, which is not obvious; the verses contain no hints of this.

In Matthew 19:29, most translations speak of “leaving” family members. In 19:27, Peter uses the same Greek word ἀφίημι (aphiēmi) while telling Jesus that the disciples have quite literally left behind / given up everything to follow him. The verb seems to mainly point to leaving something that exists rather than giving up something in the future, even though this aspect cannot be ruled out entirely. In the early church context, people converting to Christianity could face exclusion from their family communities, which might lead to separation from their children (sadly, this also happens today). Ostracism and literally leaving one’s family behind to embark on a spiritual mission seem to me like the closest matches to the words of Jesus.

Duties and the vocation of marriage

There is a principle deeply held (theologically, if not always in practice) by many Christian groups across denominational lines that children are an important part of marriage. ^[2] Parenthood is a very valuable calling and something good and “part of the course” for people who are married. This theological stance is documented in classical and authoritative theological documents of various denominations and seems to correspond to the lived theology of wide swaths of contemporary Christians. From this perspective, choosing childlessness looks like neglecting an essential element of the vocation of marriage. Choosing to forgo procreation in marriage for impact reasons would be similar to other ways of neglecting a vocation for more impact, such as purposefully performing poorly in your job to run more impactful activities on the side.

Parenthood as an important part of marriage can be argued for in different ways. One is that when God instituted marriage, he intended it to produce children. Intentionally frustrating this would be a transgression against God’s intent for marriage. Another is procreation in marriage as a direct commandment of God. Some take “be fruitful and multiply” in Genesis 1:28 as such, and other passages have also been invoked as presenting the same duty indirectly. (Gen. 2:24, Ps. 127:3–5)

However, the existence of a duty doesn’t necessarily settle the case. Duties sometimes need to be weighed against each other (Alex Rattee has previously touched on this in a different context here), and a strong duty to help those in need exists (for a Biblical basis, see for example 1 John 3:17–18). But inviolable duties might also exist. God’s omniscience could guarantee that following a certain commandment absolutely will lead to the best result even if limited human analysis seems to disagree. Or if we break away from consequentialist justifications, God could issue absolute commandments that are binding by his authority alone. Unfortunately, investigating whether there is an inviolable procreation duty or what could be legitimate reasons to go against a strong but not inviolable duty would require a more involved discussion than is possible here.

Drawing the line

The opportunity cost argument assumes that having children and helping your neighbour are mutually interchangeable, or fungible. There are practical reasons not to think this way. Some Christians (and secular EAs) may divide their lives into separate spheres that are relatively independent of each other. Family life and the pursuit of impact could be treated as such, so that impact maximisation would not be allowed to encroach upon family life. This can be defended as preserving psychological health or on more metaphysical grounds. 

The case against having children could be logically extended into an even further-reaching case for abstaining from most human relationships since they cost time and effort that could be spent on impactful altruistic endeavours. Most people draw the line way before this point. The church has not demanded voluntary poverty from everyone, even though throughout the ages some have chosen it. There have also been those who renounced marriage for ascetic spiritual development or ministry, but it has never become a universal demand. ^[3]

There is also a counterargument based on impact maximisation. Many people deeply desire to have kids. Giving this up would make them very unhappy. Because of this, the argument goes, it’s likely better for them to have children so that they don’t lose their motivation to do good in the long run. EA is already very demanding and people do burn out. It makes sense that having to deny a deep desire for children could tend to make people disengage in the long run. A standard that you should not have children to be “a good EA” would also look very bad, create reputational damage, and filter out many potentially highly impactful people. ^[4]

Concluding thoughts on the counterarguments

Multiple lines of argumentation point towards rejecting the opportunity cost argument, but I am not able to fully address possible rejoinders to these. In any case, I think we can conclude that adopting a community norm against having children is unwise on practical grounds.

What if you still find the opportunity cost argument convincing and think it might be the right choice for you not to have children for impact reasons? Personally, as an Orthodox Christian, I would respond with what is almost an Orthodox cliché: “Talk about it with your spiritual father.” It’s a near-cliché for a reason. Many ethical conundrums are best addressed in the context of personal guidance with a discerning and trusted mentor rather than theoretical argumentation. This advice does depend on Orthodox theology, but people in other churches may find it applicable as well. In any case, acting based mainly on guilt and an abstract sense of obligation seems like a bad idea.

Next, I will explore the value of life and positive reasons to have children, especially from a Christian perspective.

Arguments for procreation

Selfish reasons

First the obvious benefit: many people want to have children. People who remain childless against their desire may experience great sorrow and other negative impacts. Children can bring deep contentment and a great sense of meaning to one’s life.

Having children could also have long-term benefits for your well-being. Bryan Caplan has argued that you should think about how many grandchildren you want to have because they can bring you much joy in the latter part of your life, without most of the trouble of everyday childcare. Having more children may also help your senior years go better since there will be more people to care for you.

There is also a very different kind of selfish reason. Having children has moral benefits. A Christian’s goal should be to grow in holiness. Parenthood helps in this by making you care about others more than yourself. It is an opportunity to build character. (Some articulations of this from a father’s perspective here.) This is a challenge, though, because parenting can also bring out the worst in a person.

Altruistic reasons

Having children can also have indirect altruistic benefits by enhancing the parent’s altruism. "Reproduction is a credible commitment to the future”, as an EA Forum commenter put it. Having children may make you more emotionally committed to taking the future seriously. Julia Wise talks about her experience with this here.

Children of EAs are also probably more likely to become EAs themselves and could grow up to have a large positive impact on the world. Regression to the mean is likely, though. If you are way above average in the “EAness” trait, your children will likely be closer to normal, so significantly less EA than you. In expectation, EAs having children still very likely increases the population’s EAs to non-EAs ratio, but there are currently much more cost-effective ways to get new people into EA.

A similar case could be made from Christian grounds. Your child could do lots of good things for the Kingdom of God, but it is hard to estimate how likely this is. Regression to the mean is less likely than in the EA case since being Christian is more common than being EA. Christians having children also helps preserve the Christian community. Children of Christians are much more likely to identify as Christians as adults.

Perhaps similar arguments could be made about EA community preservation. Patient longtermists especially might have a reason to consider this. Creating a community that endures over generations and could exert positive influence over centuries and millennia would be very good. A pronatalist mindset would seem very beneficial for creating such a community.

The goodness of life

Another reason to have children is that life is good. This depends on what kind of life is considered worth living, but it seems safe to assume that life is very likely net positive for the children of this blog’s readers. By having children, you would be adding a positive life to the world—”making happy people” is the phrase you might read in philosophical discussions of population ethics. I will talk about how taking the afterlife into account might affect this below.

In the Christian view, life is also essentially good because God’s creation is good in itself. In addition to the subjective value of life, there is a “God’s-eye view” value to life. This kind of objective value might be harder to fit into EA thinking influenced by standard utilitarianism, but it can fit into some other types of consequentialist frameworks. There is also value in being co-creators with God by participating in the creation of new human life. 

Life is eternal

As Christians, we also believe life is eternal. This means creating new lives could be extremely valuable. Applied naïvely, this would make creating new lives much more valuable than saving existing lives from (temporal) death. It would also put having children above any temporary disvalue to the parents.

However, infinities are notoriously difficult to plug into value calculations because they can’t be aggregated. Mathematically, two infinities added together is not greater than one infinity. Perhaps we could get around this by counting individuals instead of time. The number of people experiencing a happy afterlife is finite, and it seems better the bigger it is. But this kind of reasoning works best for people who already exist. This intuition is captured in philosopher Jan Narveson’s slogan, “We are in favour of making people happy, but neutral about making happy people”. The Bible speaks of a finite number of humans existing and no more procreation in the afterlife.

This gets us to the question of whether your child has a good or bad afterlife in expectation. Those who lean towards universalism are hopeful that most or all people will ultimately end up saved. Those who do not must contend (more) with the frightening chance that your child will not be saved and will experience a negative eternal life. This topic is too big to explore further here. How these considerations impact your decisions or not would seem to depend mostly on the kind of moral decision procedure you apply, i.e., whether you base your decision on weighing pros and cons, on consideration of duties, etc.

Concluding thoughts

Personally, I am most sympathetic to some approaches outlined in part two as responses against the opportunity cost argument. I feel like the abstract weighing of pros and cons is not the proper way to approach the question of having children. Based on the Bible, God has mainly prepared two ways of life for people: celibacy and marriage, and in the Bible, marriage is linked with having children—not only as a practical fact of life but also on theological grounds (Genesis creation account). There may obviously be exceptions to this two-paths schema. I’m painfully aware that not all couples can have children even if they want to, and that there exist all kinds of other situations where things do not work out neatly. Still, something like a virtue-ethical approach related to roles and vocations in life seems fit. You choose a path to follow in life and strive for holiness while walking on it. As people interested in EA we would probably think about pro and con arguments anyway, so there is value in listing them and examining them, but I still feel this is an area where the typical EA approach ultimately does not work best.

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Footnotes

1. This figure is originally from this 2012 essay by Brian Tomasik. It seems to apply in the US, though Tomasik doesn’t specify this. It also seems to me that this is less likely to appeal to people outside expensive metropolitan areas and lower earning potentials. From a continental Western European perspective, or at least a Nordic one, the number seems very high. In Finland where I live, education is paid for by taxes up to and including university level. Tax money is also used to pay child benefits, etc. This makes the personal financial cost of having children significantly less than in the US since you are paying the taxes in any case. The opportunity cost of time seems to remain similar, though. ↩

2. I am limiting the discussion to having children within a marriage in this post. Dealing with the ethics of having children in other situations would introduce additional questions that I could not adequately address here. ↩

3. In mainstream Christianity. Some Gnostic groups apparently did forbid procreation. It is perhaps not that surprising they are not around anymore. ↩

4. An EA forum poster writes: “[I]t could significantly detract from the general soft power or cultural influence of EA if we became known as ‘the people who think they are too important/busy to have children’”. They also point out the other side of the coin: “[T]he contrapositive is similarly powerful: If EAs were known for having high-functioning, responsible families, this may have the benefit of growing the community. It seems to be a key way that religions (Mormonism is an obvious example) attract members.” ↩