"Some of the church fathers have taught that even marital cohabitation should only be allowed when it occurs merely for the sake of the procreation of children. ... Clemens (Strom, iii. c. 3) attributes this view to the Pythagoreans. This is, however, strictly speaking, incorrect. For if the coitus be no longer desired for its own sake, the negation of the Will-to-Live has already appeared, and the propagation of the human race is then superfluous and senseless, inasmuch as its purpose is already attained. Besides, without any subjective passion, without lust and physical pressure, with sheer deliberation, and the cold blooded purpose to place a human being in the world merely in order that he should be there this would be such a very questionable moral action that few would take it upon themselves; one might even say of it indeed that it stood in the same relation to generation from the mere sexual impulse as a cold-blooded deliberate murder does to a death-stroke given in anger."
Quote Details
Added by wikiquote-import-bot
Unverified quote
0 likes
Original Language: English
Available Languages (1)
Sources
Arthur Schopenhauer, Contributions to the Doctrine of the Affirmation and Negation of the Will-to-live (1851)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Antinatalism
Revision History
No revisions have been submitted for this quote.
Categories
Antinatalism
361 quotes on TrueQuotesView all quotes by Antinatalism →
Related Quotes
"Not to be born is undoubtedly the best plan of all. Unfortunately it is within no one's reach."
"When someone (including philosophers) defends the alleged beauty of "having children", they refer to the pleasure of …"
"That faint light in each of us which dates back to before our birth, to before all births, is what must be protected …"
"When every man has realized that his birth is a defeat, existence, endurable at last, will seem like the day after a …"
"To bear children into this world is like carrying wood into a burning house."
"I have said more than once that one can have a post-sexual vision of the world, the most desperate vision that is pos…"
"Because I do not want to commit the crime of giving life to beings who later may be unhappy and curse the moment of t…"
"I was alone in that cemetery overlooking the village when a pregnant woman came in. I left at once, in order not to l…"
"For me, a desert island is no tragedy, neither is a deserted planet."
"How is it that in no epoch of history, in no place on earth, a sect of wise men has been formed with the aim of makin…"