Every Cradle is a Grave: Rethinking the Ethics of Birth and Suicide

by Sarah Perry

Millions of years ago, humans just happened. Accidents of environment and genetics contributed to the creation of sentient beings like us. Today, however, people no longer "just happen;" they are created by the voluntary acts of other people.

This book examines several questions about the ethics of human existence. Is it a good thing, for humans, that humans "happened"? Is it ethical to keep making new humans, now that reproduction is under our control? And given that a person exists (through no fault or choice of his own), is it immoral or irrational for him to refuse to live out his natural lifespan? All these questions are answered in the negative - not out of misanthropy, but rather out of empathy for human suffering and respect for human autonomy.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Psychology, Death, Politics, Essays, 21st Century

220 pages, ebook

First published July 16, 2013

Reviews

[Anita Dalton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sarah Perry wrote this book from a place of philosophical intellectualism and factual integrity. She exhaustively researched the hows and whys of suicide and procreation and makes a very compelling case for making suicide accessible for people who do not want to live and for considering whether or not it is ethical to continue to create new humans whose lives may be more a burden to them than a gift. As she deftly picks apart the arguments against suicide and antinatalism, she bestows upon mankind a dignity and respect for self that anti-suicide and pro-birth crusaders deny us as we are asked to suffer and to mindlessly recreate ourselves because of tyrannies of tradition and religious mores.


This is a super-long discussion, some may say heinously long, so you can read the entire thing here.

[S̶e̶a̶n̶ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every Cradle Is a Grave is an important work, in particular because even now, 10 years after its publication, there is still a relatively narrow range of published material on the topics it addresses, and much of what does exist is written and published for an academic audience, placing it out of the reach of many general readers in terms of readability, accessibility, and affordability. However, the book is not without flaws. While Perry makes a lot of good points, she occasionally tempers a dry academic tone with more casual, snarky comments or observations. Although I thought most of her humor on point and found it to be a relief after certain especially tedious sections, it felt somewhat out of place given how the majority of the book is written. I think it may have been a more effective text overall if it had been written in a more consistent style with some additional editing to reduce repetition. That said, I still liked the book a lot, for it gave me the opportunity to read the words of someone who has thought critically about ideas often at the front of my mind and who shares some of my own views that deviate radically from the mainstream. My favorite section was probably the appendix, 'Living in the Epilogue: Social Policy as Palliative Care', which I found to be spot on and a strong ending to what amounts to a sincere, thoughtful work.

[The Brain in the Jar · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two ideas are hard-wired into our minds. We believe life is good and that forcing people into existence is a positive thing not because of rational thinking. Genes make us think this way, because this is how they progress. Without these ideas, an organism kills itself and doesn’t produce offspring. Genes die, and genes’ purpose is to continue.

People always killed themselves. Some cultures even claimed it’s virtuous in certain situations. We’ve made huge ‘progress’ (Or, more correctly, changes) over the years thanks to doubters who kept tearing down ideas and replacing them with new ones. The general ideas about the value of life and birth remained the same, though. One famous philosopher talked about how we shouldn’t have kids, but is there any major literary work that asks this question?

You can’t blame Perry for not digging deep enough. She’s in the toughest stage of philosophy. Ethics and the meaning of life are both hard subjects, and going against your own genes is even harder. Few people made that journey – many who tried just said suicidal people got some chemical imbalance and called it a day. If her exploration is sometimes a little shallow, it’s only because she has few sources to draw from.

Her section about suicide is the most disappointing one. It’s a shame, because it’s also the most important one. Of all the ideas in this book, assisted suicide is the most practical one. The suicide prohibition is harmful and no different than oppression of minorities.

We treat suicidal people like criminals. Voicing misogynistic or racist thoughts is less dangerous than voicing suicidal thoughts. People can be hospitalized against their will for wanting to die. No suicide prevention is willing to actually talk to suicidal people, to deal with the arguments behind why suicide is a valid option. At least when people argue against misogyny, they got science and philosophy behind them. When people talk about suicide, they write people off as ‘irrational’.

There are a lot of ways to look at this tricky subject. Suicide is a private action that causes great distress to the environment. Perry doesn’t delve enough into why suicide should be protected. The main arguments suicide are the value of life and the harm it causes to others. The harm it causes to others is especially important, since ethics often blur when freedom, pleasure and pain mix.

While Perry explains briefly the principle of consent that transform murder into assisted suicide, it’s not enough. Suicide causes extreme pain and we need more allegories, more rephrasing of why it’s okay for a person to kill themselves. There’s a whole chapter about the suicide contagion which feels a little pointless – sure, it’s a thing but not as central to the debate as other things.

The chapter about social pain is fantastic and too short. It’s a new way to approach the problem of suicide and is informative even if you don’t believe in the right to die. The common narrative is that people kill themselves because they’re depressed is common and pretty comfortable. It makes the problem more complex – how do you solve depression? – but it erases responsibility. Perry’s idea that people kill themselves because of failed social belonging demands a revolution in suicide prevention. Suicide prevention should start earlier, and constantly happen. If people kill themselves because they don’t belong, we need to create a more welcoming, a more social society.

This type of idea is easy to explain, since people experience a lot of social pain. Suicide is causing social pain, actually – you reject people, deeming them not worth the time. It’s also the only moral type of suicide – suicide prevention by improving life, rather than stopping the act itself.

Suicide is a difficult subject. There are the practical side of how we make assisted suicide available – who’s fit, who loses the right to die, whether there’s an age of consent. The issue of how people feel after someone dies to suicide cannot be ignored. No matter how integral the right to die is, suicide leaves a huge pain (In fact, it’s considered the worst way to lose someone). Perry doesn’t do enough to explore such an alien idea to many.

Her writings about antinatalism is far better. She does write off the subjective perspective too easily, though. This higlight the core difference between the right to die and antinatalism. Both rely on different versions of morality. The former values freedom and the subjective perception, the other one is about preventing harm.

So even if life is overall bad, the fact people perceive it overall to be worthwhile is important. People who behave in a ‘suicidal’ way, according to her, may just be optismitic enough to believe it’ll be worth it in the end. Maybe they take these huge gambles because they value life so much that even if the gamble fails, life is still worthwhile.

Nevertheless, her anti-life arguments can’t be written off easily. They demand questioning our genes. Picking apart our daily schedules is important even if you believe life is worthwhile. By showing us how much time we waste on doing nothing, how much of our life is actually unpleasant she motivates change. If you truly think life is worthwhile, then you must act in ways that’ll prove it. If social pain encourages suicide, we must build a more friendly, communal society. Our morality relies more about not doing harm than actually doing good. What kind of society is it where we only avoid harm but don’t do good? A good life isn’t defined by lack – happiness due to absence rarely lasts. We’re happy when we have friends, but we’re not happy because we’re not being bullied.

The chapter about the natural world is also essential reading. It’s a radical and rare view of nature – not as a friendly, optimal place but one whose behavior is actually anti-life. So many animals die so young. Yet we don’t interfere when the female mantis eats the male’s head. How do animal rights work in this context? Why is it wrong to kill animals, or to ignore murder but okay to ignore it when it the organism aren’t human beings?

What makes the book so valueable is that even if you don’t agree with Perry’s thesis – many won’t, since they either love life too much or they can’t resist their genes – the ideas here are still useful and thought-provoking. It’s not just about how bad life is, but what to do with it. The last chapter, “Living in the Epilogue” is both horrifying and comforting. If things are really that bad, we can at least speed up life by enjoying it. Also, who has it worse? The person who’s about to die or the person who has 90 unwanted years ahead of them?

It’s an incomplete book, but antinatalism and suicide are difficult subjects. Perry at least confronts them instead of writing them off. Maybe someday in the future – if we have one – this book will become slightly outdated because of some basic sections. For now, this is a book that stares at difficult subjects in the face, provides tough answers and plenty of room for discussions or to move forward. You don’t have to agree with Perry to enjoy this. Many of her ideas can be used to improve society. As she said in the beginning, and something we often forget – we’re all humans, and what drives ethical philosophy is compassion for others.

4.5 cradles out of 5 graves

Also posted on my blog:
https://brainweapons.wordpress.com/20...

[adrestia · Rating 5 out of 5]

First off, it probably is important to understand the author's background. After multiple failed attempts at suicide, she seems to have become frustrated with a world where social nicety prohibits you from even speaking about suicide. This book is her attempt to change this.
While I don't want to charge her with being biased in favor of one position, you might want to keep this in mind while reading the book.

Nevertheless this little book, only a little more than 200 pages in length, is dense with intriguing ideas. Even if you think that death is a fundamentally terrible thing, it should at least enable you to come to some form of understanding about why anyone would hold the position that life might not be such a great thing.

Antinatalism, negative Utilitarianism and related positions aren't particularly new perspectives. But the author does a good job of elucidating the economic, psychological and philosophical foundations necessary to understand why it might be rational -- in an economic sense, as well as an evolutionary one -- to kill yourself.
While the author herself calls the book a work of philosophy, it is not the terrible kind of philosophy which often makes people outside the field think that philosophy is a absolutely useless. Rather, the book is empirically grounded no-nonsense philosophy.

While I definitely liked this book, that is not to say that all the arguments are flawless. At times, the author contradicts herself about the main reasons for death, seemingly changing her angle from lack of personal connections, to lack of perceived control, to bad economic situations, to whatever. At other times, her arguments are based on assumptions which are not as clear as she makes them out to be. It is *not* clear that everyone will die (in the foreseeable future), depending on who you believe with respect to the future of biotechnology, artificial intelligence etc.
However, in the context of the book, this is not all that bad. The point she tries to make is not that one reason is the most important, but that there are "rational", or at least decent, reasons why some of us kill themselves. And the intuitions that people have about suicides' motivations usually doesn't hit close to the mark.

Even if I thought that all her arguments about suicide, antinatalism, etc. were terrible -- which I don't -- her discussion of the origins of meaning itself was sufficiently delightful to believe that my time reading this book was well spent.

[Jacob Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hope to write a longer review of this at some point. In short, I object to both of her main conclusions, but there is one theme in here that I really like, discussed primarily in chapter 10 and the appendix:

Why are drugs, prostitution, gambling and suicide illegal, when they clearly give so much relief to suffering people? I think it is because, at a societal level, we are deluded into thinking that happiness is possible, maybe even easy or likely, without these things. I have called this “cheery social policy.”

The fundamental problem with this sort of cheeriness is the assumption that a good life—a pleasant life—is relatively easy to achieve. Cheery people are able to hold such a belief because they are able to ignore—and perhaps can’t even conceive of—the suffering of a significant minority of the population. A good life is not easily achieved for many of us.

Of course, there are other arguments against legalizing those things. But I do think it's true that our expectations of ourselves and each other are often shaped by an unstated assumption that a normal person in normal circumstances should find their life at least moderately satisfying. Those who don't may then think there's something deeply wrong with themselves. But the assumption might be wrong; how to enable even a decent life for the average person may be an unsolved problem.

At a personal level, I think what this suggests is: if you find yourself deeply dissatisfied with life, you should be open to making radical lifestyle changes that seem very abnormal. "Normal" might just not actually work very well. At a societal level, the implication is that we should not be complacent: our culture, our government, our economy, our technology may all fall short of what's necessary to ensure that most people live adequate, let alone excellent, lives, and we should be actively seeking ways to fix that.

[Chris Beiser · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a peculiar one. Probably not for the faint of heart, but I highly recommend it. I didn’t find myself agreeing with every line, and I think Sarah is guilty of (unintentionally) minimizing the number of suicides that may be impulsive, but I walked away with a very different view of the ethics of birth and suicide.

After finishing it, I had a brief conversation with Sarah— you can see the start of the thread here: https://twitter.com/ctbeiser/status/6...

[Jason Roy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thought-provoking, insightful, and very well written. Highly recommended for people interested in moral philosophy, bioethics, or who just like to have their sacred beliefs challenged.

[Carrie Poppy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Someone remind me to review this book.

[Anmol · Rating 4 out of 5]

A lesser-known text which, in my opinion, deserves to be counted as one of the pillars of internet antinatalism (think of Benatar, Ligotti, and Thacker).

Perry writes within the context of analytic philosophy, which continues to believe in moral obligations. What surprises me is that this new pessimism can disregard so many myths (or "sacralities") about the world - about the stigma against suicide, the divinification of motherhood and children - but then, how can it continue to believe in the myth of morality? What if we don't have an obligation to prevent wild animal suffering, because no one has an obligation to do or not do anything? What if we don't have an obligation to not give birth to children, even if we know that our children will suffer - if, in giving birth, we only display our own power, our own will to immortality, in our instincts which serve the denial of death? All births an outcome of the ego of the parent... What if every child is an outcome of this instinct, and the question of obligation does not arise at all? Every birth an irrational act, yes, but not, for that reason, made immoral, because morals died with God...

On a sidenote, I find it absolutely fascinating that in her preface to the book, Perry describes herself as an "adorable housewife" who makes great risottos. The imagery of such a person writing a serious work in pessimistic philosophy is very appetizing, if only grotesquely.

[Very · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every line screamed out my inner thoughts saying “yes!”. The book masterfully reveals the “socio-memetic constructs” we devised to protect us from confronting our own existence. A terribly underrated book and Sarah deals with this emotional topic with objectivity. Even without having read much Benatar yet, I can confidently say this is a solid contribution to antinatalist literature. Its integration of philosophical, sociological, and psychological perspectives is particularly praiseworthy

[David McLeod · Rating 5 out of 5]

This, as Perry points out in the preface, is a book about ethics. She doesn't aim to persuade the reader to change their views on suicide or birth as much as pose inquiries and poke holes into long-held ethical beliefs that many are too (self) satisfied to question. She illuminates every dark alley in Suicide city. Did you know that successful suicide rates among women are equal to or greater than men in places where lethal poisons and other non-violent methods are readily available? Neither did I.

She vacillates between thoughts on suicide and antinatalism, taking a refreshingly existential (and funny) stance. The central question, in a nutshell, is whether "Life, perhaps, would be more enjoyable and less miserable if it were not mandatory."

You will probably find, in reading this, that you hold certain values and practices sacred. Things that you take to be givens or common-sense. The book will reevaluate these values and treat you to a vantage point askew-yet-striking.

[Jem The Voracious (Jem Bindi Sandhu) · Rating 3 out of 5]

The legal and moral arguments set out in this book will be of use to lawyers, policy-makers, and anyone else looking for counterarguments to the "pro-existence bias" present in conversations around, for example, abortion or euthanasia. However, this is far from a scholarly work: Perry cheapens her arguments with snide remarks about the life projects that people choose to give their lives meaning, preferring those undertakings that fit with her biases. So, graduate school is a "gamble", but housewifery, marriage, and writing books (she does all three) are valid choices. That said, her idea of "social policy as palliative care" is intriguing and offers a more compassionate stance toward people who are simply trying to ease the pain and suffering of existing in the world.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book about ethics. However, Sarah Perry is clear that people do not change their views on ethics from exposure to reasoned argument; so she is not out to persuade. She is also very clear that she is arguing points that most people would consider evil. Basically, that life is very bad and that people should not have babies or create aware beings (whose interests are very hard to predict before that being is created) and that suicide is not bad but an ethically rational response to the badness of life.

She believes (and I agree) that childbearing is a moral decision affecting a new human being, rather than an event that just happens to the new parents. Do we prevent harm and suffering by staying childless?

She methodically posits the evidence for her argument. And she is extraordinarily thorough, bringing forth all the arguments that are pro life and against the right to end of life and answering each one.

What I LOVED about this book was her exposition about the filters we inherit or absorb from which we perceive and experience life (values, status, social belonging, religious beliefs etc). All of these filters become sacred cows, and she is definitely having fun skewering EVERY SACRED COW that we hold dear. If you do not want your preciously- held assumptions questioned, then this is not the book for you.

The essence of consciousness is the story we tell ourselves about ourselves. The ability to create a narrative has been a key to our evolutionary success and is hard-wired into each of us. But these stories are not real. There are no stories in the universe, no gist or hidden meaning. Our need for meaning in order to have life be “all right” creates the social and cultural taboos, the social policies regarding not breeding, abortion, suicide, that reinforce the illusion that life is worth participating in. It is the ultimate “party line” and most of us march in tune with it.

This is a fascinating book. Written by someone who is not only extremely intelligent and articulate, but someone who has been through the hell that life can be, and knows what she is talking about.

And I have to say; she had me with her dedication. For Dread Pirate Roberts.
You gotta love it.

[Daniel Hageman · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The prevailing views on birth and suicide, I will argue, are very misguided. But they are misguided in characteristically human and evolutionarily adaptive ways. In order to reject them, we must approach what David Eubanks has called the Frontier of Occam--the highest intelligence achievable by a civilization before it figures out better ways to achieve its ends than by continuing to pursue the goals of its alien creator, evolution."

Special shoutout to Perry for highlighting the tragedy of wild animal suffering, in her final chapter.

[Art Staraverov · Rating 1 out of 5]

250 pages of depression masquerading as philosophy and logic.

The authoress wasted their time because they said in 250 pages what can be said in a single sentence: every child will suffer and die, therefore creating children is bad. Does that mean creating scientists is bad because then scientists will suffer and die? Scientists make vaccines which increase the population, and thus the number of children, so according to the authoress, even the scientists are bad themselves! Clearly, the authoress and their beliefs are invalid.

Their whole philosophy is a consequence of being depressed and not being able to function when faced with reality. There are many like her out there and they are the enemies of Mankind. They want there to be no scientists, no artists, no music, no value, no true beliefs...

Moreover, not once in 250 pages did they address the obvious fallacy of their thesis: The Baker's Fallacy. Just because a specific something is bad, and an absence of said something causes said something, does not mean the absence of said something is bad like said something is bad. That sounded convoluted so here it is in formal notation: (0=bad->(0->(x->0)->x=bad), where x != 0. That is The Baker's Fallacy. That is the fallacy the authoress, and her type, are committing.

[Emile · Rating 2 out of 5]

one of the easier anti-natalist positions to be completely unconvinced by if your not also inclined to believe oversimplisitic and at times wilfully ignorant and contradictory narratives like 'zeitgeist' and hypernormalisation

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best books I've ever read. An unflinching, jarring book that took a lot of courage to write. If you want to challenge/doubt your most sacred, unquestionable beliefs, read this.

[Tija Bija · Rating 3 out of 5]

"since only a million people per year commit suicide, creating life is obviously the right choice."

And obviously the author says this with a little smirk and this statement shows very well the style of her writing in this book.

Although this is the first Antinatalism(shortly -the idea that bringing sentient beings to life is immoral) type of book I have read, I gained more thoughts on topics I didn't look for:

chapterSacredness Old and New
Religion and other meaning- creating groups as “social technology”, the "tool" for grasping/ignoring our sufferings.
"The heavy modern self has a hard task: it must do for itself what human religion and community did in the past. It must provide itself with meaning," to be self-as-source-of-meaning, and thus may fall into existential pit if doesn't succeed to make meaning above the suffering.

chapterAesthetics and Religions: A Minor Distinction
Aesthetics and religions as natural experience machines for humans in order to create meaningful experiences.

chapterWhat Really Causes Suicide
Investigates some most occurrent reactions, mainstream opinions on suicide and attempts to debunk some stigmas and myths regarding the causes.

chapterOn Contagion
Some examples of suicide being contagious. And some arguments going against this pro-life reason for suicide prohibition.

...

Some people say that it's selfish, ignorant, or courageous, or cowardly, or insane, or tragic, shameful or other, anyhow this book tries to show that there must not be one "appropriate way to speak of suicide, one appropriate attitude toward it". The same with birth. Author dares to question unquestionable axioma of "life is good", "life is sacred", "being born is a good thing".

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

I knew nothing about Perry going into the book, and her arguments seemed at first to be wide-ranging and disconnected from each other. Connecting the book to her personal history, however, ties it together much more effectively. She settles into a kind of absurdism: we are here, we want meaning but can't have it without making it ourselves -- she deviates here from absurdism by choosing not to make meaning, or be part of a story -- living instead in an "epilogue." Maybe a third way between herself and Camus.

I certainly can't consider myself an antinatalist. It's an unrealistic philosophy that ultimately shrugs its shoulders and lives in impossibility.

[JY · Rating 3 out of 5]

The parts on (apparently) free disposal of life, moral foundations of suicide and benefits/harms asymmetry are insightful but the following concerns could be addressed for the thesis' robustness:

1) The position against procreation and in favour of suicide is contingent on the fact that suffering is an inevitable facet of life but what does that mean? Is suffering inevitable on the subjective or objective level? If the reply is that this distinction is not necessary, then why establish it to challenge proponents of the inherent meaningfulness of life (i.e. chapter 4)? Similarly, why would, say, death be one of the great harms of life? On what bases/values do we argue that sufferings are harmful to existence or even that they are sufferings, and that sufferings are inevitable? Ultimately, like the conceptions of meaning/purpose and pleasure in human life, the case for suffering as a concept needs to be made before suffering can be convincingly weighed against human life's meanings and pleasures.

2) At one point, the author stated that '[t]he suicide victim being "glad it happened" after the fact does not render interference morally justifiable.' How so?

3) Anthropomorphism is still very much present in the final chapter, despite the author's awareness of her position being as such, and it is present in a way that does not serve her argument. In particular, what is the end goal for human action to prevent suffering of individual animals in the natural world? There is a larger point to be made from this reasoning given that it runs contrary to natural developments (not that natural = good, but that natural = leaning toward some sort of equilibrium that is always shifting) but it is not made. Also, tying in again from 1), the case for suffering (whether in the human world or the natural world) as a concept needs to be made.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

excellent introduction to suicide and antinatalism

Before I had finished this book, I thought it was written by a Professor in philosophy or ethics from some fancy University. Imagine my surprise when the author turns out to be "a housewife in San Antonio, Texas". Apparently she has a blog too, which, I'm sorry to say, I haven't read yet.

The author's credentials aside, this is an excellent introduction to the ethical side of suicide and creating new life. I was particularly impressed with Mrs. Perry's arguments pro-suicide, which doesn't mean that we shouldn't help people who are in emotional or physical pain, but which does allow each individual the decision about the value (meaning, happiness, or whatever you like to call it) of their own lives and if a person decides it would be better for him/her to end life, then society should provide the means for it. I realize that this isn't a particularly popular idea, but it is definitely worth thinking about. And the author certainly gives us plenty of things to think about.

P.S. But please change that hideous cover of the book (a painting by the late Dr. Kevorkian).

[Professor_lgd · Rating 2 out of 5]

The first chapter is great for someone who has never been confronted with the immense stigma of suicidality and doesn't understand it.

But reading the next chapter I had to put it down, because her use of terms like "meaning, value, purpose, belonging, status, self-worth, etc.." shows - in my opinion - that she has not really constructed a solid philosophical framework to build upon. She doesn't define these terms, or not sufficiently, uses them interchangeably, uses them too loosely. Since this is advertised as a philosophy book I was really disappointed by her shallow analysis.

Well I gave it a shot.

[Maher Razouk · Rating 5 out of 5]

المسافة بين وهم التصرف الحر وعالمنا هي مقياس لعبء الحياة الملقى على عاتق أي شخص يولد في مجتمعنا. في عالمنا، ينتحر حوالي مليون شخص فقط سنويًا بنجاح؛ وفي غياب القيود والتكاليف، فإن هذا العدد سيكون أعلى من ذلك بكثير. إن "استدلال الجدوى الأسهل في العالم" الذي وضعه برايان كابلان غير صحيح. إن ولادة الإنسان تلقي عليه حملاً قد يضطر إلى تحمله بالرغم من رغبته الحقيقية في التخلص منه. إن تربية الأطفال بطريقة متعجرفة وطائشة ليس خياراً مسؤولاً أخلاقياً. يجب أن ننظر بشكل أعمق لتحديد ما إذا كانت ولادة طفل معين هي في مصلحة ذلك الطفل.
.
Sarah Perry
Every Cradle Is a Grave
Translated By #Maher_Razouk

[Ben Arzate · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a controversial book, for sure. However, it's one well worth reading. Perry's conclusions on the ethical implications of suicide and birth go completely against the grain. Even if you don't agree with them, this book will force you to rethink your views on life, meaning, and how the human mind works.

Full Review

[Vaibhav Agarwal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crisply and intelligently written. Refreshing to get a clear-eyed view of these weighty topics that are unfortunately grossly neglected or mistreated in dominant culture.

[compassion_for_all · Rating 5 out of 5]

'If human life were a video game, would anyone choose to play it? '

Now what a trip this book is. Surprisingly funny at times and full of great one-liners.

Do I recommend it? Well, it is a book at the border of philosophy, a book that will bring up many uncomfortable ideas and, likely, even more uncomfortable solutions. But this is why we have philosophy - to explore such ideas.

Her discussion of suicide is very insightful in how our societies make this a worse problem. I find her please for assisted suicide convincing.
'The person contemplating suicide has more to fear from the hospital than from incarceration. If he survives his suicide attempt or is discovered before he has died, then a progression of paramedics, nurses, doctors, and perhaps even surgeons will attempt to foil his plans by saving his life. [...] A person is not 'free' to do something that he must either get away with in secret or be forcibly prevented from doing it if caught. '

'It gets worse. Those brought back from the brink of death often suffer debilitating injuries that significantly decrease quality of life - below a baseline that was already not worth living. '

The discussion on the ethics of birth is more of an introduction to anti-natalist thought. Very interesting, especially the part on social pain, abuse of substances and poverty. I wish all of these topics were discussed more.

'Not many people commit suicide, but many people act as if their lives are not very valuable to them. '

'I think it a valid hypothesis that poverty is actually dreadfully painful -not only physically, but emotionally and socially.
There is only so much pain we can expect a being to endure before his attempts to relieve it through future-damaging means become perfectly understandable and, in fact, rational.'

There are, of course, some flaws in the book - it sometimes feels rushed and I would personally have preferred if the author used the word 'sex worker' in stead of 'prostitute'.

[Alexander Graden Kalamaroff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think of Perry's writing a continuation of Camus's claim that "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide." Perry's perspective can be categorized as anti-natalist, that is she argues that human beings should seriously consider ceasing to reproduce as it's morally bad.

Part of the antinatalist that I've never fully understood is this: Even if life is fundamentally bad, even if suffering and pain are inherent and overriding aspects of life, even with the guarantee that suffering outweighed pleasure or happiness or any other positive value, even then, couldn't life be preferable to nothing, to nonexistence, at least some of the time? For antinatalists, nonexistence seems to be treated as a zero-value and existence is treated as a negative value. Like: life is going to be somewhere between -3 (a life with very little suffering) or -1,003 (a life with tremendous suffering), but no matter what it's going to be in that negative range and whoever says otherwise is fooling themselves. What follows, then, is that since 0 > -3, nonexistence is preferable; therefore, as a species, we should seek nonexistence while minimizing the amount of suffering necessary to achieve this nonexistence. However, it's fairly easy for me to imagine that -3 or -67 or even -999 are preferable to 0, to pure nothingness. This is a bit of a messy argument I'm making, but simply put I don't understand the valorization of nonexistence. If nothing else, nonexistence is quite dull and I disfavor pursuits of dullness.

Still, Perry is a brave, ardent, and challenging philosopher and folks would benefit from reading her, if only because she requires that we ask deep, "truly serious" philosophical questions about life and the ethics of living it.

[Gabriel Avocado · Rating 2 out of 5]

the author had me in the first chapter not gonna lie. the first chapter was extremely promising. i thought the book would be about the futility of certain attitudes about suicide that ironically end up being useless in preventing or encourage suicide. the author has extensive history with suicide, as do i, and so i was willing to hear her out on why we should be more permissive towards the ending of ones own life. i soon realized that perry was very much arguing from a libertarian perspective that bordered on eugenics.

this is massively reductive but the basis of perrys argument is that human rights are not intrinsic or inherent. while i agree with that to some extent, she is extremely selective about what is or isnt a social construct and which human rights she considers legitimate and which are political correct social justice made up nonsense in her eyes. sarah perry very much views a certain kind of person to be the default human being and all her politics derives from that understanding. ironically she does not fall into that default yet speaks of herself as if she were part of them anyway. her views on rape are an aberration and nonsensical and i think shes aware of that but lacks either the chops to better explain herself or the courage to really fucking go there.

i would read the first chapter because i think the reflections on suicide prevention are actually effective. ironically theyre relatively easy and low cost ways to prevent people from killing themselves. however, beyond that i dont think sarah perry really understands what shes talking about. i went into this perfectly willing to hear her out on why suicide is actually okay and even reasonable but her deeply conservative politics are rather concerning.

[Elyrria · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, I think Sarah Perry did a good job of presenting many different viewpoints for both suicide ethics and antinatalism arguments. Rather than driving a single point home, she presents many options for the reader to consider and gives "contact points" (books, research etc.) for the reader to explore on their own time.

In Part I, Perry discusses Jonathan Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory, but I think she needed to explain that this idea is the work of a psychologist who opines about the differences between Republicans and Democrats (for the most part). His theory failed to support Democrats in their initiative to see Trump go unelected in 2016, and it is simply not corroborated by empirical data/evidence. Republicans and Democrats are equally problematic in the sense that they each misunderstand how they are perceived by each other. Republicans generally do not have an edge over Democrats in the loyalty or purity category, unless you define loyalty (narrowly) in terms of in-group hierarchies. This is patriarchal and hierarchical, and I don't think it's a great way to apply the definitional underpinnings of "loyalty" to a political landscape that is so broad in scope. Haidt also conflates equality with perceptions of positionality, which Perry seems to echo.

However, Perry does a good job of exploring sacredness and how it impacts human social groups and psychology. As a broad look at some of the ideas facing and supporting suicide and antinatalism ethics, the book does a good job of elucidating those concepts. I just wish that Perry had not clung so deeply to an ethical modality that is unsubstantiated by current research.

[Niko · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book examines suicide and birth from sociological and moral perspectives. The sociological part is very interesting as it points out some misconceptions, lies, and deep-rooted beliefs regarding the perception of suicide, suffering, and joy. The author paints a very persuasive picture of a society that forces people to live as it couldn't exist otherwise, but all of that is blamed on the suffering individual.

The end of the book dives entirely into the ethics of suicide and, while it makes some good points, it creates a lot of unaddressed questions. The book is at its best when it shows how an individual has no real reason to find his life worth living but it breaks down when it proposes some "global" moral framework that would apply even to animals. The fundaments of the proposed ethics are not explored enough to mean much.

What this book lacks is a distanced, philosophical, look at the issue. This is masterfully provided by Thomas Ligotti in The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. Sarah Perry suggests in passing that animals are machines, forgetting about humans. Ligotti shows that there is nothing but machines and that by merely wanting to be happy we commit ourselves to an insane delusion. Together, these books provide a great basis for thinking about suicide and antinatalism.