Fives steps to doing good
(as an antinatalist)
If you’re reading this you’re likely an antinatalist – or at least sympathetic to antinatalism – and want to do good by taking action to help others. This guide contains five clear steps for how you can start to do that.
Before continuing, we want to be clear that this guide is not an all-encompassing blueprint for life – it’s simply a broad guide to how you can get started doing good. It’s also not exhaustive – there will be other things you can do to increase your positive impact. We just believe these five steps provide a solid foundation for anyone who wants to do good. And finally, these steps do not need to be taken in any particular order, we have just sorted them into an order we think makes sense (and not being able to do one step doesn’t mean you can’t do the others).
Don’t have (any more) children.
One of the few things antinatalists agree on is the immorality of procreation. We may have different motivations, but our conclusion is shared.
Refraining from reproducing avoids imposing the harms of existence on a new person, but it also means the time and resources that would have gone into raising that child are available to do good. Some of the avenues for doing such good will be explored in the later steps.
Note: We say “don’t have any more children” because some antinatalists may have already procreated. People come to antinatalism at different stages in their life, and antinatalist parents should be just as welcome to the antinatalist community as anyone else.
Become vegan.
Speciesism is an arbitrary form of discrimination (like racism and sexism) and should be rejected as such. In rejecting speciesism, we believe antinatalists should be opposed to the creation of any sentient being (not just human beings).
Over a lifetime, someone who eats animals (and uses them in other ways) could be responsible for thousands of sentient beings being brought into existence. Becoming vegan is the simplest way to avoid contributing to the breeding of other animals in industries like animal agriculture. Whilst not procreating likely avoids bringing between 1 - 3 children into existence, becoming vegan avoids being responsible for orders of magnitude more animals being brought into existence (to lead much worse lives too).
You can find more information about becoming vegan here.
The first two steps of this guide could be seen as us simply aligning our actions with the core obligations that follow from (non-speciesist) antinatalism: not bringing sentient beings into existence. These are often referred to as negative duties.
The remaining three steps are positive actions – going beyond an avoidance of causing harm, but trying to do good. We don’t claim these actions to be duties, but they are things we believe are good for people to do if they wish to have a positive impact.
Plan your career.
Over the course of your life, you’ll likely commit approximately 80,000 hours to your career. Needless to say, it’s important that you think about how you use this time, and how you can use it to do good.
There are two broad avenues that people tend to pursue in using their career to do good.
Work directly for organisations doing good. Work at an organisation that seeks to directly address the problems you care about. This could mean working in the charity sector, but also politics, medical research, journalism, research and development, among other sectors.
Earning to give. Work in a higher-earning career and give a large proportion of your income to effective charities and causes. The best fitting job will depend on your skills, interests and circumstance. And we should be wary to not overstep sensible ethical boundaries in pursuing larger incomes, as happened in the collapse of FTX.
When planning your career, we recommend seeking tailored advice, taking your time, and reading widely before making any life-altering decisions. You can find more information on our careers page.
Start donating.
There are many effective organisations working on a range of high-impact causes in an evidence-based way. We’ve listed some on our donations page.
The most difficult thing to do often is make that first donation, but setting up a regular, automatic donation doesn’t need to be difficult at all. Start small and overtime, as you become more comfortable (and can afford to give more), increase the amount you give. There’s also wisdom in making sure you’re generally financially stable before you start giving larger amounts. It can also be good to think about donating as giving a significant amount over your lifetime, rather than a large chunk in the short-term.
Antinatalists could be in a particularly good position to donate to effective charities because many of us don’t have children. As such, we’ll have more time and resources than if we were raising children. In the UK, a conservative estimate for the cost of raising a child is approx. £200,000. That amount of money could do an extraordinary amount of good if donated to the right organisations. For example, £10 given to MSI Reproductive Choices could avert an unintended pregnancy (that could have resulted in a birth).
Build the antinatalist community.
This step doesn’t necessarily mean building a bigger antinatalist community, although this will likely happen; it means building a better community. A community that has a larger capacity to do good.
What could this look like? Take these five steps yourself and encouraging others to do so is a great start. Hosting fundraisers and creating opportunities for antinatalists to do good together are great ideas. Hosting discussions around our impact and sharing resources on how to do good are also good things to do.
To help you further, we’ve written up ten suggestions for building a healthier community.
Thanks for reading our five step guide to doing good. If you have any feedback, please use our contact page.