jess

I am wondering if there are any unslefish reasons to have children (biological, not adoption).

Any thoughts?

The best I can do is the 'only stupid people are breeding' line--- smart ones need to breed to protect human evolution from backsliding...

Thanks

bonduca

Given the amount of love and attention that a child appears to require, I am wondering if an impersonal, unselfish reason is actually the way to go about it. To have a child to make it into the jock/brainiac/prom queen one never was is a stupid selfish thing, but surely some sort of personal, passionate wish to nurture a child of one's own would be better than a disinterested desire to do something or other for the world?

But don't ask me, I talk baby talk garbage to my cat.

Mageth

What's wrong with having children for "selfish" reasons? In fact, I think it's better if one does. If one has to search to find an "unselfish" reason to have a child, and chooses to have the child for that "unselfish" reason (altruism of some sort?), isn't this, of itself, a bit selfish? After all, you would be choosing to bring a child into the world for an "unselfish" reason which you chose.

jess

I am not saying that selfish reasons are bad or good--- I just wanted to discuss unselfish reasons, if there are any.

Jesus Tap-Dancin' Christ

Condom broke.

Imhotehp

No way I would ever have a kid.

E_muse

Hi Jess - you ask 'good' questions.

I find myself asking a lot of questions at this point - and I'll always thank people for that!!

Firstly, why is it important to find totally unselfish reasons for having children? What is the purpose of the question? What would be the motivation for asking such a question?

Secondly, in evolutionary terms, survival is what matters. If something survives does it matter whether selfish or unselfish actions secured its survival? The immediate gratification of the adult male is still as an effective means of securing procreation as any rationalized arguement! So is a candlelit dinner!

Oh yes!!

But then of course this isn't unselfish. Passing on your own genetic code can never be unselfish can it?

'Smart' people who reproduce to prevent humans from 'backsliding' must see their own ways as superior to have this as their main motivation mustn't they? How is that unselfish? Why does Richard Dawkins refer to the selfish gene?

The fact that most people have the thought that 'there must be something more to life than this' might suggest that religious instinct is pragmatically superior at securing survival than rationalistic thinking.

To put it another way... on a rational basis we all know that one day our sun will turn into a red giant and the entire solar system will be no more. We know that life is the product of happenchance and doomed. This is a purely rational statement.

What it does attempt to demonstrate is that 'rationalists' depend upon instinct and that 'rationalization' won't necessarily secure survival. There may not be a 'reason' to go on living. In the form of humanity, matter questions the meaning of its own existence. If the answer is that there is no meaning life may be doomed. Random mutations do not prefer survival - natural selection does! Natural selection may promote instinct above rationalism.

This promotes other questions. How can processes which are void of both puprpose or meaning produce a form of life for which both seem so essential to its survival? How could the question ever come about?

Richard Dawkins says that survival of the fittest means those lifeforms which live long enough to procreate. If you procreate only to discover that life is meaningless and then kill yourself, life has achieved its purpose (except that it has no purpose).

Survival is what matters, not whether the reasons behind the desire for survival point to any external truth.

Will this lead to two forms of fundamentalism. Humanistic fundamentalism and religious fundamentalism? I don't know.

At the end of the day, it is what secures procreation on the individual level that matters!

Of course you could argue that rationalism is yet another human instinct... but I'm not stating fact, just opening up the debate!

Thank you!

[ January 25, 2002: Message edited by: E_muse ]</p>

Ms. Siv

In a way, your child is the only part of you that lives on, so to speak.

As skeptics, I think its our duty to produce at least one freethinking child per couple.

But all reasons ultimately have to be selfish - even if we're doing it for our species.

- Sivakami.

tronvillain

I think that reasons are ultimately selfish by definition, so no. Ah, I see it's already been said.

Vorkosigan

Unselfish? What about by accident?