The End of Human Reproduction?

The pessimistic Norwegian philosopher, Peter Zapffe, argues that human consciousness exposes us to the brutal meaninglessness of our existence. We therefore attempt to anaesthetise ourselves so that we are rarely forced to experience what Zapffe describes as ‘cosmic panic’. Zapffe lists four techniques by which we seek to achieve this: isolation, anchoring, distraction and sublimation. Though we rely heavily on these techniques, Zapffe believes they offer a limited protective value. Zapffe regarded women as being less susceptible to ‘cosmic panic’ because they are “…in general less cognition-prone and hence more secure in their living than men”. In this paper, I show that reproduction has served to fulfil a powerful anchoring and distraction strategy for the avoidance of the kind of horror that Zapffe discusses. Once we achieve gender equality so that women are freed from the shackles of uncontrolled fertility, we may be better able to recognise women’s accounts of their pessimism and despair. But not only does this free up half of our species’ members to join in the collective despair, it threatens the status of reproduction itself as one of our most effective anchoring and distraction techniques.