He was a philosophical idealist, believing that the existence of external nature depends on our self-consciousness of it. And he was clear about the result if everyone obeyed: “The human race would die out.”īut what about the pain of non-human animals? Schopenhauer had an answer, but it wasn’t a convincing one. Schopenhauer saw existence as pain so he believed we should stop bringing humans into existence. He did so 200 years ago, in 1819, urging that we “spare” the “coming generations” of “ the burden of existence”. Probably the first person to advocate human extinction in this way was Arthur Schopenhauer. You’d have to be motivated exclusively by removing suffering from nature, without any promise of gaining supernatural rewards.
If you don’t believe in an afterlife, this becomes a less attractive option. He endorsed this, however, because he wanted to hasten the Last Judgement and the eternity of joy thereafter.
Around 1600 years ago, Saint Augustine suggested that humans stop procreating.
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