Why people choose to have children is a question becoming increasingly more relevant as birth rates decline globally. In the United States, birth rates are declining by 2% annually. This challenging philosophical idea, among others, was addressed during the Nov. 16 iteration of Night Owls, titled “What are Children For?” The event featured Anastasia Berg, an assistant professor of philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. Berg recently authored a book on this subject alongside Rachel Wiseman, and spoke in conversation with Swarthmore’s own Jonny Thakkar, associate professor of political science. Thakkar and Berg both received their Ph.Ds from the University of Chicago and are editors of “The Point,” a magazine focused on philosophical writing. Thakkar started the Night Owls series at Swarthmore last year, inspired by a similar series at UChicago. Night Owls lectures are hosted on select Saturdays in Sci 199 from 8 to 10 p.m. and focus on philosophical questions with personal or political impact.
In his introduction to the discussion, Thakkar noted that, with the advent of reliable contraception, reproduction has in many cases shifted from a natural phenomenon to a deliberate decision. He also discussed how this shift raises both political and philosophical dilemmas, including questions surrounding the ethics of wanting children in the first place.
After the lecture, Thakkar discussed “What are Children For?” in an interview with The Phoenix.
“There’s something in ‘What are Children For?’ for people with different intellectual interests and styles of reasoning, from survey material on the history of feminism to the image of motherhood in contemporary literature and philosophical arguments,” Thakkar explained. “It’s a growing trend over the last 50 years in the American political context that the Republicans have become the party that talks about family values and protecting the family as an institution. It’s not obvious that the Democrats should give up that ground. One of the things I think Professor Berg was trying to say is that childbirth should be of concern to everybody and should not, in itself, be a political issue.”
Berg began by addressing the global decline in birth rates, emphasizing the personal concerns individuals face, which is one of the core focuses of her and Wiseman’s book. “Our approach is not to offer a [French socialist Émile] Durkheim-like social explanation,” she explained, “but to begin with what’s truly on people’s minds and build from there.” According to their survey, the top self-reported obstacles to having children were financial constraints, the lack of a suitable partner, and concerns about climate change. However, Berg noted that the first two reasons were often less concrete, sometimes murky, and subjective.
“[When asked about the precondition of having children], people were oftentimes not talking about concerns with the actual affordability of having children, but rather a kind of financial stability, career stability, and success that was so high that one was unlikely ever to actually attain it,” she said.
Berg also addressed the concept of “slow love” and its impact on individuals’ childbirth decisions; in today’s dominant dating paradigm, people tend to “postpone every milestone of the relationship for as long as possible” and separate their romantic timelines from their family ones. “These two factors,” she concluded, “together contribute to the problem where it’s not just a question of deciding whether to have kids, but rather, people having that decision made for them [because they leave themselves with little time to prepare for childbirth].”
Berg mentioned French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir’s dualistic view on motherhood. de Beauvoir was critical of the institution of motherhood, but also acknowledged the immense personal significance of nurturing another human being.
“These two sides of her thinking then became the seeds of the two strands within the feminist tradition … One strand of feminists takes up the critique and radicalizes it, the other attempts to think about how motherhood for women could be valued or universalized, or even [to state] that the restricted social conditions of motherhood that we structured today are not necessarily universal,” Berg explained.
Berg also countered two prevailing anti-natalist challenges posed by Thakkar, which she called “the argument from suffering” and “the argument from evil.”
“The argument from suffering is the claim that the world is so full of suffering, so much pain, and so much either potential or actual risk, that it is morally irresponsible to subject someone to that fate of misery, and, as contemporary philosophers would argue, without their consent,” Berg said. “The whole framework depends on a very particular kind of metaphysical framing that a parent is responsible for everything that happens to their children. But in fact, as we argued in our book, we’re responsible for raising them so that they’re in a position to face whatever challenge, suffering, risk, difficulty, or opportunity the child might encounter.”
The argument from evil is based on the belief that human lives are what “got us into this mess.” “[They would say that], as human beings, we’re so false and completely rotten that it would be unjustifiable to bring more of us,” Berg explained. “What we argue is that, despite the temptation of this morbid pessimism, where we are so fallen that nothing here is worth reproducing, despite the fact that none of us is perfectly morally virtuous, we are still in a position to appreciate that there’s not just a possibility but an actuality of moral goodness, and there’s real reason to think that we deserve a better future that we’re actually capable of building,” she responded.
Thakkar continued by presenting another frequently raised argument: due to climate change and limited resources, some people are choosing not to have children based on a moral obligation, hoping that future generations could thrive only with a smaller population. “Perhaps there are difficult collective decisions we can make together about how to manage the population,” Berg replied. “But that’s very different from a person having the moral responsibility and pressure not to bring a child into the world so that you can affect that big structural and historical development.”
“If you’re familiar with arguments against the myth of ethical consumerism, they’re very similar. It’s a myth, and its own form of narcissism, that a change in your personal choices can effect global change. There might be reasons to make good or responsible choices, but you as an individual cannot effect that global change,” she stated.
Finally, Berg stressed that the aim of the discussion was not to persuade people to have children but to alleviate and clarify some of their concerns.
“Having children is not the most important thing a person can do, but the idea of someone in the world having children is the condition for every other kind of future-dependent good activity,” Berg said. “It’s like eating. While nourishment is the condition for every other valuable thing in your life, you wouldn’t say that it’s the most noble or the most significant activity.”
To strengthen this stance, Berg juxtaposed childbirth with other essential elements for a thriving future. “Many things are required to presuppose a robust human future, including social justice, environmental health, equality, and more. [Having children is one of them]. All of those [other] things are valued in accordance, and I think a lot of times, we find ourselves in a position where we’re happy to affirm other kinds of activities that presuppose a robust human future while remaining very ambivalent and kind of agnostic about the question of children. That is where I think tension exists.”
“I don’t think anyone has a duty to have children,” she added. “There are a lot of ways to affirm humanity without being a parent. You could be a mentor, an adoptive parent, a godparent, an uncle, a journalist, a politician … Having children is not more important.”
After a coffee break, a Q&A session followed, during which students inquired about and challenged Berg’s argument from different angles. This discussion time is a key part of all Night Owls lectures.
Thakkar noted that most classes at Swarthmore have a single-sided format, with one lecturer speaking while students listen: “That is good, but it potentially leaves quite a big gap between the professor and the students, because while the professor is challenged by their students, that’s different from being challenged by a peer. [Night Owls] is self-consciously meant to complement [the classes].”
Thakkar also noted that it can be difficult to get students to disagree with him and each other in classrooms. “That’s partly because we’re in quite a polite culture at Swarthmore. We’re trying to be kind to one another, so the students also have a hard time disagreeing with each other,” he said.
One asset of Night Owls, Thakkar said, stems from the occasional dissent between him and the guest speaker, which models intellectual discourse in a respectful and productive way for the students. “In fact, disagreeing with people can be the highest form of respect because you’re taking them seriously as fellow intellectuals,” he added. Thakkar also mentioned that Night Owls is where students can model active listening. “Sometimes it’s good to do that [listening] where it’s not about grading or trying to impress the professor, but just as an end in itself, to get clearer on a topic,” he said.
“The goal is to create a reflective space where we can come together and talk about difficult ideas and concepts that relate to our everyday lives in a way that’s structured but, at the same time, isn’t a class. The idea is to have rigor in what we’re doing, but it’s clear that we’re doing it not for the sake of getting a better grade, nor for ticking a box, but because we’re genuinely interested in the topic and because the topic addresses our own lives,” Thakkar said.
“I think that’s really what intellectual life should be about,” Thakkar commented. “This is the kind of thing that you miss when you leave college — the opportunity to have intellectual conversations as an end in themselves about things that matter.”
