Procreation in the context of "Generation"

⭐ In the context of biology, generation is considered…

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⭐ Core Definition: Procreation

Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the biological process by which new individual organisms – "offspring" – are produced from their "parent" or parents. There are two forms of reproduction: asexual and sexual.

In asexual reproduction, an organism can reproduce without the involvement of another organism. Asexual reproduction is not limited to single-celled organisms. The cloning of an organism is a form of asexual reproduction. By asexual reproduction, an organism creates a genetically similar or identical copy of itself. The evolution of sexual reproduction is a major puzzle for biologists. The two-fold cost of sexual reproduction is that only 50% of organisms reproduce and organisms only pass on 50% of their genes.

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👉 Procreation in the context of Generation

A generation is all of the people born and living at about the same time, regarded collectively. It also is "the average period, generally considered to be about 20–30 years, during which children are born and grow up, become adults, and begin to have children." In kinship, generation is a structural term, designating the parent–child relationship. In biology, generation also means biogenesis, reproduction, and procreation.

Generation is also a synonym for birth/age cohort in demographics, marketing, and social science, where it means "people within a delineated population who experience the same significant events within a given period of time." The term generation in this sense, also known as social generations, is widely used in popular culture and is a basis of sociological analysis. Serious analysis of generations began in the nineteenth century, emerging from an increasing awareness of the possibility of permanent social change and the idea of youthful rebellion against the established social order. Some analysts believe that a generation is one of the fundamental social categories in a society; others consider generation less important than class, gender, race, and education.

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Procreation in the context of Antinatalism

Antinatalism or anti-natalism is the philosophical value judgment that procreation is unethical or unjustifiable. Antinatalists thus argue that humans should abstain from making children. Some antinatalists consider coming into existence to always be a serious harm. Their views are not necessarily limited only to humans but may encompass all sentient creatures, arguing that coming into existence is a serious harm for sentient beings in general.

There are various reasons why antinatalists believe human reproduction is problematic. The most common arguments for antinatalism include that life entails inevitable suffering, death is inevitable, and humans are born without their consent (that is to say, they cannot choose whether or not they come into existence). Additionally, although some people may turn out to be happy, this is not guaranteed, so to procreate is to gamble with another person's suffering. There is also an axiological asymmetry between good and bad things in life, such that coming into existence is always a harm, which is known as Benatar's asymmetry argument.

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