Should Humans Procreate?

“Is a world with people in it better than one without?” asks Peter Singer of Princeton. How do we justify brining new human life into the world amidst so much suffering and unprecedented crises? “Few of us would think it right to inflict severe suffering on an innocent child, even if that were the only way in which we could bring many other children into the world,” says Singer, playing devil’s advocate, or more accurately, Schopenhauer’s. “Yet everyone will suffer to some extent, and if our species continues to reproduce, we can be sure that some future children will suffer severely. Hence continued reproduction will harm some children severely, and benefit none.”