A new argument for antinatalism
I think there are lots of arguments for antinatalism and a thoroughgoing case would appeal to numerous of them. What I am going to do here is just focus on one argument that, I think, is original. (I am fairly familiar with the literature - with Benatar and Shiffrin and such like).
First, some distinctions: we can distinguish between deserved, undeserved, and non-deserved suffering. Likewise for pleasure.
Generally speaking it is morally good if someone gets what they deserve and bad if they do not. It can also be good if someone gets some non-deserved pleasure, and bad if someone gets some non-deserved pain. But - and again, this is a generalization - the goodness of pleasure is greater when it is deserved and the badness of pain is greater when it is not deserved.
I'll give some examples to illustrate. If I punch a wall in frustration at just how stupid some people can be, then that will cause me some suffering. But that suffering seems to be of a non-deserved kind. By contrast, if I punched someone else in frustration at their stupidity, then the suffering that would create would be of an undeserved kind - the person I hit did not deserve to suffer. Even if the quantity of suffering that these two acts create is identical, the first kind seems far less morally bad than the second. Why? Well, because the suffering caused by the first act was of a non-deserved kind, whereas the kind caused by the second was of an undeserved kind.
Now to acts of procreation. It is undeniable that, by subjecting someone to a lifetime's existence in this world, one will be creating lots of undeserved suffering. There's the suffering that can reasonably be expected to attend any human life. And then there's all the suffering we humans inevitably visit on others, not least other animals, in the course of our lives. All of that is undeserved suffering. And there's a lot of it. And it's very morally bad.
What about all the pleasures though? Well, although one will also be creating pleasures by procreating, those pleasures - most of them, anyway - do not seem deserved. They are of the non-deserved variety. For just as it would be implausible to think that, prior to being born we deserve to suffer, so too it would be implausible to think that prior to being born we deserve pleasure. Prior to being born, we don't deserve anything.
So, an act of human procreation can therefore be expected to create undeserved suffering and non-deserved pleasure. I personally think it's quite obvious that they can be expected to create consideable undeserved suffering, and a much lesser quantity of non-deserved pleasure. But even if - implausibly - we assume that they create equal quantities of both, they would create more moral bad than moral good. For undeserved suffering is the worst kind, morally speaking. Whereas non-deserved pleasure, though good, is not especially good. And in most other contexts we seem to recognize that it doesn't offset the creation of undeserved suffering.
So, what do you think? Does the fact that acts of human procreation can reasonably be expected to create lots of undeserved suffering and non-deserved pleasure imply that they are overall morally bad?
First, some distinctions: we can distinguish between deserved, undeserved, and non-deserved suffering. Likewise for pleasure.
Generally speaking it is morally good if someone gets what they deserve and bad if they do not. It can also be good if someone gets some non-deserved pleasure, and bad if someone gets some non-deserved pain. But - and again, this is a generalization - the goodness of pleasure is greater when it is deserved and the badness of pain is greater when it is not deserved.
I'll give some examples to illustrate. If I punch a wall in frustration at just how stupid some people can be, then that will cause me some suffering. But that suffering seems to be of a non-deserved kind. By contrast, if I punched someone else in frustration at their stupidity, then the suffering that would create would be of an undeserved kind - the person I hit did not deserve to suffer. Even if the quantity of suffering that these two acts create is identical, the first kind seems far less morally bad than the second. Why? Well, because the suffering caused by the first act was of a non-deserved kind, whereas the kind caused by the second was of an undeserved kind.
Now to acts of procreation. It is undeniable that, by subjecting someone to a lifetime's existence in this world, one will be creating lots of undeserved suffering. There's the suffering that can reasonably be expected to attend any human life. And then there's all the suffering we humans inevitably visit on others, not least other animals, in the course of our lives. All of that is undeserved suffering. And there's a lot of it. And it's very morally bad.
What about all the pleasures though? Well, although one will also be creating pleasures by procreating, those pleasures - most of them, anyway - do not seem deserved. They are of the non-deserved variety. For just as it would be implausible to think that, prior to being born we deserve to suffer, so too it would be implausible to think that prior to being born we deserve pleasure. Prior to being born, we don't deserve anything.
So, an act of human procreation can therefore be expected to create undeserved suffering and non-deserved pleasure. I personally think it's quite obvious that they can be expected to create consideable undeserved suffering, and a much lesser quantity of non-deserved pleasure. But even if - implausibly - we assume that they create equal quantities of both, they would create more moral bad than moral good. For undeserved suffering is the worst kind, morally speaking. Whereas non-deserved pleasure, though good, is not especially good. And in most other contexts we seem to recognize that it doesn't offset the creation of undeserved suffering.
So, what do you think? Does the fact that acts of human procreation can reasonably be expected to create lots of undeserved suffering and non-deserved pleasure imply that they are overall morally bad?
Comments (93)
Personally I would depart from the argument at the premise one should feel morally responsible for suffering by creating life, but it might be convincing to those who are able to reduce life to suffering.
You didn't distinguish what a "deserved", "non-deserved" and "undeserved" pleasure is. Maybe an example from each?
Quoting Bartricks
If you're only considering the child and parent, yes. But it becomes less clear when you generalize to the consequences of both acts. If you are a good parent, your child can be expected to alleviate a lot of undeserved suffering throughout their lifetime as well as create a lot of pleasure. By not having them, you are thus still causing undeserved suffering, to the people they would have helped.
Seems perfectly deserved to me.
Like more traditional arguments for antinatalism, this looks circular. The asymmetry detected is in fact entered by hand. A person treats people with kindness and as a result, on her birthday, is thrown a lovely surprise birthday party which she takes pleasure in. But we define this pleasure to be undeserved without reason, making it qualitatively the same as a bully who steals a winning lottery ticket.
More broadly, the argument rests on the notion of justice as being central to ethical decisions about reproduction, although you claim an unjustified link to morality here in a second circular argument:
Quoting Bartricks
No matter how coherent the argument beginning from this premise, the argument can be dismissed as being not well-grounded: justice is not a concern in the ethics of reproduction.
In some schools of Buddhism, they would probably something like that, yes.
For whom? Says who?
Says anyone who doesn't consider justice when deciding whether it's ethical to reproduce. Anyway, Says who? is not an argument for accepting a proposition. Since the proposition is presented without grounds, and no grounds are obvious, it can be dismissed without grounds.
Secondly, antinatalism must make its case based on either absolute terms (life is suffering) or the alleged hedonic asymmetry (life has more suffering than happiness). Your argument is a variation of the latter.
You introduce a new variable into the hedonic equation viz. deservedness of pleasure/suffering. Considering the fact that this notion figures prominently in the weltanschauung of the majority, hats off to you. After all, speaking from a religious point of view, the ticket to heaven has to bought with good deeds and the passage to hell has a similar arrangement although the currency in this case is immoral conduct.
It's true that undeserved suffering is the worst kind and also true that undeserved pleasure isn't as enjoyable. Does the world generate more of these kinds of hedonic states than deserved suffering and deserved pleasure? I don't know but...there's always a but...take note of the fact that given our circumstances, the first order of business is to get pleasure and avoid suffering; we can leave the deservedness question for another time...perhaps a couple of thousand years in the future. Before we tear our hair out on the matter of ice cream flavors, there has to be ice cream first.
A utilitarian measure, and not sure about the premise that a person's life realizes more pain over suffering is sound. But then, the entire argument ignores the qualitative distinctions between pleasures and pains, as well as in the grounding these have in ways unseen. The dismissal of undeservedness or deservedness antecedent to being thrown into an existence is an assumption that needs to be argued.
Not good deeds, good intentions. But then, this goes further: good intentions affirm the good, but what is this? Metaethical questions always haunt in the presuppositions that underlie talk about utility. this makes the whole affair sound preposterous in terms of sound think, for there one is arguing, and at the center of it all is a term that one cannot even begin to fathom. A bit like talking about economics but having no working definition of wealth.
To convince people at large not to have children?
To justify why one doesn't have children?
?
Because the purpose of an antinatalist argument factors in its content.
Although I think it is almost certainly the case that an average human life will cause much more suffering than pleasure overall, I was very clear in saying that I would not assume this and would instead assume that the quantities are equal. That is, I will assume - for the sake of argument alone - that the average human life creates as much pleasure as pain.
I do not ignore qualitative distinctions, they're simply not relevant to the argument I am making and so I didn't mention them (for the point is about our deservingness of the pains and pleasures involved, a point that cuts across qualitative distinctions).
As to this: "The dismissal of undeservedness or deservedness antecedent to being thrown into an existence is an assumption that needs to be argued". That too is both incorrect and irrelevant. It is incorrect because the burden, surely, is on you, not me. That is, the default is not that we are born positively deserving to suffer, or born positively deserving pleasure; the default is that we are born 'innocent' - that is, we do not positively deserve to suffer, nor do we positively deserve pleasure. If you think we are born deserving to suffer, or born deserving pleasure, then you need to provide us with some justification for that belief.
But anyway, it's beside the point. For whether we are born deserving to suffer or not, my question was a 'what if'. So, 'if' people are born innocent, and 'if' the quantities of pleasure and pain a life creates are equal, then does the fact that most of the pains will be positively undeserved whereas most of the pleasures will be non-deserved imply that such acts are morally bad, other things being equal?
Indeed, good intentions and not good deeds but Christian morality revolves around deeds, don't they?
Depending on the Christian sect.
I'm not talking about soundness, but content.
Surely you can imagine that you will provide a different line of reasoning if you are asked why you personally don't have children, as opposed to if you're asked to explain why people at large or some particular person or group of persons should not have children.
Can you break it down for me? How many Christian sects are there and which Christian sects subscribe to which beliefs. You can keep it short and stick to the relevant bits.
Imagine someone who is living a kind, generous and honest life. That person, I'd say, deserves to be happy.
Or imagine someone who, through no fault of their own, has suffered considerably up to now. That person deserves to be happy.
So, one way of coming to deserve pleasure is through one's deeds, and one way is through being a victim of undeserved suffering. No doubt there are other ways too, those are just the ones that occur to me.
When it comes to undeserved pleasure - well, the case that comes to mind is that of Dr Mengele. Dr Mengele performed many horrific experiments on concentration camp victims. But he escaped after the war and lived the rest of his life in, it would seem, happy retirement in south america. His happiness was positively undeserved. That is, the fact Dr Mengele had a happy life is not a fact that makes the world a better place, but a worse one. Why? Because he did not deserve to be happy. His pleasure, then, is positively undeserved.
And as for non-deserved pleasure - well that's just pleasure that sits in the middle of the 'deserved pleasure/undeserved pleasure' spectrum. So if I'm just walking down the street and I find some money or am given a nice compliment or something - well, it's not that I positively deserve the pleasures those things give me (it doesn't seem 'unjust' if I go for a walk and no one gives me a nice compliment, for example, or I don't find any money). So those pleasures - which I think will be the vast bulk - are non-deserved. They're good - I'm not saying anything against them. But they're not positively deserved, at least not typically.
If I invest in the stock market, make a fortune and incidentally support a company that does good deeds, it isn't reasonable to say I have some stake in the goodness of the deeds; and then, I scrimp and save to support Doctors Without Borders, but find I have been hoodwinked by some intermediary and all the money went into some billionaire's pocket, regardless of my money's "deed" I am on morally superior ground.
But this is simply a reasoned point. Does Christianity talk like this? It's somewhat debatable for them, considering how morally ambiguous it has been. Assuming a version of Christianity that isn't bats^^t crazy, I think this reasoning applies. I take Kierkegaard to be the source of wisdom for all things Christian, and I think he would agree.
Come to think of it, it's a mistake to look at the issue in an "either...or..." way. We could take both - thoughts and deeds - into account when we judge the moral status of people.
Therefore by your own definition their pleasure is deserved.
Quoting Bartricks
Sure, it can sometimes be morally justified to make one person suffer for the sake of the welfare of others. But that doesn't mean that the person who suffers 'deserved' to suffer.
Whether some suffering is deserved or not can make a big difference to whether we are justified in bringing it about. For instance, the suffering we cause to criminals when we incarcerate them is suffering that we are justified in subjecting them too in part, at least, because they deserve it.
And the major reason why we insist on a presumption of innocence in a trial is precisely because if we incarcerate someone innocent, then we will be subjecting someone to undeserved suffering.
So the moral significance of some suffering is radically affected by whether or not it is deserved. And as the presumption of innocence shows, we typically consider it extremely important not to be the agents of undeserved suffering.
Applied to procreation: procreating undeniably creates a large amount of undeserved suffering. Even in the unlikely event that procreating creates an equally large amount of pleasure, most of that pleasure is going to be non-deserved. And that, I think, is going to operate to make procreative acts immoral, other things being equal.
But even ignoring that, it won't make much of a difference. Assume, very implausibly and just for the sake of argument, that every experience of pleasure in your life is deserved due to a prior experience of an undeserved pain. I don't think that's going to make it ok to have created those pains and pleasures.
Imagine, for instance, that we can reasonably expect that if Tim is unjustly imprisoned for murder, he will commit a murder in prison that will subsequently justify us keeping him there. Is it right and good for us to imprison Tim? Surely not. The fact that 'if' we imprisoned him he would subsequently become deserving of that imprisonment doesn't seem to cut it. What seems important is that Tim is innocent and doesn't deserve to be imprisoned. Pace Shakespeare, all is not well that ends well.
You want to meaningfully talk about pleasure and good/right without reference to people??
In general, it is the Protestants who value faith above deeds, and the Catholics who place a greater value on deeds than do Protestants.
See here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sola_fide
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Good_works
What is the difference here between these two? I don't think you're saying anything particularly interesting here other than we should not hurt others to where there's no utility in doing so. I think we are in some form of agreement.
Quoting Bartricks
Quoting Bartricks
I'm just saying no one deserves to suffer where there is no utility, not particularly talking about 'justified' suffering, but suffering that serves no optimization benefit.
Someone desiring to be raped doesn't need to be, even if they put themselves in position to be vulnerable to it.
But that's not what I'm saying. I am unclear how you got that from anything I said. I have not expressed a commitment to utilitarianism. indeed, far from it - I draw a distinction between deserved and undeserved pleasure/pain, which is a distinction that no classic utilitarian would recognize (to the discredit of the theory). Desert is typically said to be a 'deontological' notion, precisely because whether or not you deserve something is not a function of the consequences of giving it to you. So, the fact that giving me X would maximise happiness does not entail that I deserve X.
Nevertheless, I agree that the premises of my argument are uninteresting in that they are quite uncontroversial. Most recognise that moral desert exists and that whether a pleasure or a pain is deserved or not makes - or can make - a radical difference to the moral justifiability of an act that creates it.
But my conclusion - that antinatalism is true or at least lent weight by what I have argued - is, of course, extremely controversial. And I suppose I'd say that the interest lies both in this - that is, that some very uncontroversial and highly plausible premises imply a controversial and widely disbelieved conclusion - and the fact that the argument in question is a novel one.
I think there is a problematic assertion here, which is present in most anti-natalist arguments, that by creating a person you thereby also create their eventual suffering. Of course suffering is a predictable consequence of existence as a human. However, suffering is a personal experience. It's not a physical property, of which it could be said that if another person has it, the total amount of suffering has therefore increased.
We wouldn't say that, the more people in the world that experience the colour red, the more redness there is. Suffering is bad, but suffering does not, by that token, get worse if someone else also experiences it.
Pain is essentially experienced. That is, it exists 'as' an experience. ("I'm experiencing some pain, but am I actually in pain?" makes no sense).
But this is all by the by. What's relevant to my case is that a) pain often matters morally (that is, the fact an act will create some pain is often a fact about an act that has great moral significance), and b) that whether pain/pleasure is deserved or undeserved also makes a great difference to whether an act that promotes it is right or wrong.
Quoting khaled
In reality I think that things are not equal at all, and that the average human life creates considerably more pain and suffering than pleasure (we just have a myopic tendency to focus only on human pains and pleasures). But once one factors in all the suffering we cause to animals, I think it's clear that we record a negative balance, and quite a big one at that. (Not that I'm blaming us too much for that - most of the blame lies with our parents)
If I understand you correctly, you are suggesting that the average human can be expected to prevent a great deal of undeserved pain. I don't think that's true. Most humans are not justice warriors (and nor, I think, are they obliged to be). I think we create far more undeserved pain than we prevent. I mean, most of us are not dedicating our lives to preventing undeserved pain from occurring. And, as I say, I don't think we are under any obligation to either, as that would be beyond the call of duty.
Using this myopic tendency:
Quoting Bartricks
I think this is demonstrably false. If this were true then humans would be each better off living as hermits. And you would expect that when they live around each other that they’ll all be miserable since they create more undeserved suffering than they prevent. But this is not the case. So it must be that the average human is a positive influence on others.
It doesn't look circular, and nor is it. But perhaps you do not know what a circular argument is or maybe you are using the term in an unorthodox way.
I have no idea what your example was supposed to illustrate. The person you mention probably deserves the pleasure she receives. Why do you think I would think it "qualitatively the same asa bully who steals a winning lottery ticket"? I can't fathom how you could think anything I said implied such things.
Actually, early Buddhism teaches something similar (and it prescribes celibacy as a prerequisite for liberation from suffering).
Quoting khaled
Or perhaps this is backwards, and we ascribe positive influence of one person on another because to think otherwise, while inevitably living with one another, would be demoralizing.
How does that follow? It's not better 'for me' to live as a hermit. It is better for me to live as I am - which is in a manner that causes a great deal of undeserved suffering to other creatures (for I live a comfortable western lifestyle).
But let's say I decide to live as a hermit. Okay, well now my life would contain a great deal of undeserved suffering, for living such a life would be extremely unpleasant.
Of course, it is entirely unreasonable to expect anyone to live such a life, and unreasonable to expect that any offspring one creates will adopt it. Most of us live our lives in ways that cause considerable undeserved suffering to other creatures. Our lives also contain much undeserved suffering - but if we went out of our way to prevent causing undeserved suffering to other creatures, then our lives would contain even more.
As far as I understand, it teaches that life is suffering not that people are on average bad for each other. On the contrary, Buddhism also emphasizes the Sangha or “community” as a very important tool for your journey to be free of suffering, definitely not as its cause.
Quoting baker
Well first off, it’s not inevitable at all. Maybe in the modern day it’s difficult to live as a hermit, but if humans were always a bad influence on each other on average we would have never formed groups. And secondly if it was inevitable, and it was also true that humans are a bad influence on each other, then you’d expect the average human to be miserable which is also not the case.
I am ignoring any non human suffering for now. I’d be very concerned if you were causing a great deal of undeserved human suffering...
As I said, ignoring non human suffering, you cannot deny that the average person is a positive influence. And so not having them risks becoming more harmful than having them.
No, it doesn't.
Life Isn't Just Suffering
Associating with run of the mill people (the average) is conducive to suffering, which is why one is told to avoid false friends and fools, and to instead seek noble friendship.
A band of gangsters are a bad influence on eachother, but they still stick together. Living with others is a mixed bag of experiences: some good, some bad.
You think the average human isn't miserable?? They are enlightened?
I was just quoting the first noble truth. I know it’s not meant to be taken literally.
Quoting baker
Highly doubtful.
Quoting baker
That’s not what I meant by “good influence”. I meant “advantageous to live with”.
Quoting baker
But if it was bad on average we wouldn’t do it. Unless the alternative is worse. In which case we would do it and be miserable doing it. Which is not the case. Which is also why it is highly doubtful that associating with the average person is conductive to suffering.
Quoting baker
Yes. And they seem to agree when surveyed about it.
Quoting baker
Not necessarily. Just not miserable. Heck, happy on average even, as it turns out.
The Jains propose to have a solution for this.
They aspire to live the lifestyle you describe and they seem to be happy with it.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, it is. You force an asymmetry in by hand, then claim to have discovered an asymmetry. That is circular.
This is where you introduce an asymmetry by hand:
Quoting Bartricks
And here you uncover an asymmetry from which antinatalism apparently follows:
Quoting Bartricks
But you avoid the more vital point, which is your unjustified jump from justice to morality. If a meteorite lands on my leg while I'm sunbathing, that is undeserved suffering, but there's no moral agent involved. You will no doubt respond that in fact there is: the parents who chose to have me. But again that's the conclusion.
I'm not so sure, this is the full story. We certainly are drawn to socialize, but I think the picture is more accurately captured by Schopenhauer with his "Hedgehog Dilemma":
Quoting Arthur Schopenhauer
Quoting Hedgehog Dilemma
That would have to be determined by some impossible hedonic calculator. As I recall, Bentham did insist that some pleasures were superior in their cash value than others. I lean toward the romantic: Living a life of deep, Wordsworthian experiences or, as Mill would have it, the philosopher's, exceeds that of the brute mentality.
Quoting Bartricks
It would ground suffering in a metaphysical justice if our joys and ills were antecedently accountable. Of course, metaphysical details about such a thing is hogwash, but the posting of an ethical grounding for all the horrors and injustice beyond what can be empirically observed does, say, establish meaning where there would otherwise be none, and the hedonic balance of all things is shot to hell. If we consider that being human in the world has value beyond the world, then the justification for having kids is, in one way or another, altered.
Also, not to forget that an analysis of responsibility, desert, accountability, guilt, all make no sense at all in this world, hence the call for metaphysical thinking.
I go either/or on this one: If a person is simply pouring all thought and sentiment into doing the right thing, and gets it all wrong, I am entirely impressed, and if it had turned out better, I would not think one scintilla less of this person who just didn't have the wit to work things out, a deficit that is morally arbitrary.
No it wouldn't. There's nothing 'impossible' about a hedonic calculator incidentally. But like I say, I stipulated that, for the sake of argument, the average human life creates as much pleasure as pain. My focus was on desert and how deservingness can make a radical difference to how much such pleasure or pain counts, morally speaking.
And it wasn't Bentham but Mill who distinguished between higher and lower pleasures. But like I say, that's not the issue. For there can be deserved higher pleasures, undeserved higher pleasures and non-deserved higher pleasures.
You then say that desert makes no sense in this world. Well, I think that's demonstrably false. Certainly the burden of proof is on the desert denier, not me. But note too that if someone can only resist my argument by rejecting moral desert wholesale, then it must be a very strong argument. It's a bit like rejecting my argument by saying "but we can't know anything!"
What other pains and pleasures are there other than those in a life of one who has been subjected to life?
Quoting Bartricks
Why 'implausibly'? You've admitted the being subject to unjust suffering puts someone in a position of deserving happiness. You've said that to that be born is to experience unjust suffering.
To be honest I think your deserve-o-meter must need recalibrating because I put all the figures for everyone who's ever lived and everyone who will ever live into mine and I get a 6.24 for deservedness, which is actually slightly higher than the 6.15 reading I'm getting from my suffer-o-meter on suffering. Maybe just pop all those figures in again and recalculate, you might need to send yours back.
Just tell me again, in case I'm putting the wrong figures in - exactly how much pleasure does one deserve as a result of being subjected to unjust suffering of being born - I've got 3.2 written here on my device's instructions, have they upped it in the upgrades?
Yes. I wasn't intending to put words in your mouth. But I think here is an [I] implicit [/I] premise in your argument that creating additional people also creates [I] additional[/I] suffering. That is suffering is worse if there are more people.
Quoting Bartricks
But you need to get from here to the conclusion that creating people is creating pain, deserved or not.
A hedonic calculator would have to reflect the subjective actualities of engaging the world. This is not possible. Of course, there are good guesses, but take Mill's own being a pig satisfied vis a vis the philosopher dissatisfied. He favored the philosopher, but is this right? Put the pig aside: is it really so much better to ponder arguments than to have, say, a good mud fight?
I will not take sides on this. The point is that standards of evaluating pleasure, affect, interest and the nuances of these are embedded in a private world that resists objective measurement. Objectifying people's experiences in the way you are suggesting works to reduce things to general ideas which is, granted, done all the time, but this is rather a pet peeve of mine: the reduction of a person to the generalities of a culture.
Not really to your point, but since you defend the idea of a hedonic calculator....
Quoting Bartricks
Well, I would agree if the matter were kept away from the more interesting questions of the nature of desert, responsibility, accountability, guilt, innocence. These concepts are questions begged: what does it mean at all for someone to deserve his or her fate? Such a question turns the matter over to existential theory.
Quoting Bartricks
Not that we can't know anything, but that the foundation of the moral dimension of our existence is absent, while our affairs virtually scream for justification, redemption. Put down Bentham's calculator and behold the world of horrors and delights. These are present, undeniably, but the value, the actuality of being, say, burned alive at the stake, presents a profound deficit in our ability to "account" for it's possibility as an actual event. This takes things far beyond the trivialities of counting hedons.
Why would such lives contain far more undeserved suffering than pleasure? Can you explain?
You are seeking to make an argument in favor of antinatalism. If you want to argue that not having children is a good thing, then you need to explain why is it wrong for people to be unhappy without children (ie. why it would be wrong for them to refuse to live a celibate monastic-style life).
No, the First Noble Truth says "There is suffering", not "Life is suffering".
Then do reflect how come these, on average, happy (although unenlightened people) whose company is not conducive to suffering have made the planet the mess that it is.
No contradiction there
Happy people fuck up the planet, and that's okay?
A more skeptical person would suspect that something isn't right here.
Note that when I say “most people are happy” I’m referring to the 1st world countries, because that’s where these surveys are taking place, and that’s where basically everyone on this site lives.
The pains and pleasures caused to others, obviously.
Quoting Isaac
No, I said that's one way in which one might come to deserve pleasure, I did not say that it was inevitable that it would.
But yes, subjecting someone to a life here creates lots of undeserved suffering. Not, note, just the suffering the liver of the life endures, but the suffering imposed on others. Now, most - most - of that is going to be undeserved. Most doesn't mean 'all'.
Some of the undeserved suffering a person who has been subjected to a life here will endure may well make them deserving of subsequent pleasures. That is not being denied.
But I then gave an example to show that even if 'all' of the pleasures in a life come to be deserved in that way, it would probably still be immoral to create that life, because it is generally wrong to do bad that good may come of it. The example I gave was of an innocent person, Tim, whom we imprison. That was an unjust thing to do even if Tim subsequently murders someone in prison and thereby comes to deserve to be there.
Because most people don't want to live such monkish lives of self deprivation. So they will suffer considerably if they live such lives. And that suffering is unjust, for by hypothesis they are subjecting themselves to such deprivations becasue and only because they live in a world in which not doing so would visit even greater sufferings on others. None of that was their doing, so their suffering is undeserved.
This would be true even if it were the case that they were morally required to live lives of deprivation.
But that's trivial. Yes, if we ignore all the ways in which we have a negative impact and focus only on the ways in which we have a positive impact, then yes, I would say that we have a positive impact. But that's to do no more than say "a positive consequence is a positive consequence". It tells us nothing about the morality of procreation.
In fact procreating is clearly an activity that creates both suffering and pleasure. Even putting aside the quantities involved, what I am noting is that most of the suffering that such acts create is undeserved - which is the worst kind of suffering, morally speaking. That is, of all the kinds of suffering we have moral reason to prevent, the kind we have weightiest reason to prevent is undeserved suffering. By contrast, most of the pleasures procreative acts create are non-deserved. (Indeed, many are positively undeserved, for if procreative acts are immoral, then the pleasures that those who commit such acts derive from having done so will typically be positively undeserved).
Non-deserved pleasures are still good or can be. But their being non-deserved typically means that we do not have any weighty moral reason to create them.
And undeserved pleasures are positively bad and we typically have moral reason to prevent them.
I’m of the mind that we have no moral obligation to create pleasure. Period. Furthermore that we’re not even obligated to alleviate all suffering, only that which we are responsible for. So I don’t find your distinctions very impactful.
Quoting Bartricks
I wouldn’t say it’s obvious that we should weigh animal suffering nearly as much as human suffering.
Well, all you're doing there is expressing a belief in a prima facie implausible view.
Even if your view is correct - and I see no evidence that it is - one would be responsible for the suffering that one's procreative acts create, wouldn't one?
It's irrelevant too, because what I'm talking about is the moral value of the pains and pleasures such acts create, not the responsibility of the procreator.
Quoting Bartricks
Why do you think it's implausible?
Quoting Bartricks
Yes. But not procreating brings about arguably worse suffering (if you only look at human suffering). It depends on what your "system" consists of. If you are only concerned with the suffering of the child and the parent, then having children will always come out the more harmful option, so it would never be right. But if you consider the people the child would help, then you realize there is a risk both ways. So there will be situations where it is acceptable to have the child.
Quoting Bartricks
So you believe we are obligated to reduce world suffering everywhere all the time? That all undeserved suffering everywhere should be treated equal? Caused or uncaused by us?
Quoting Bartricks
Pretty relevant for me because I don't think the amount of pain and pleasure is created provides a basis for a moral obligation as long as it's not my responsibility. Example: By not donating to charity someone out there is getting harmed. Despite this, I don't have to donate to charity. Because that person is not my responsibility. However I still can, and it is good to do so.
Intuitively one of the considerations that informs the morality of our actions is how much pain or pleasure they produce. Not the only consideration, obviously, but one of them.
If a child is drowning in a pond, and all you have to do to save it is reach down and pull it out, you ought to do so, yes? I think the intuitions of virtually everyone will concur. Yet on your view there is no such obligation. Your view is prima facie implausible - grotesquely so.
Quoting khaled
That's a different point, though equally implausible. And you keep saying 'if you only look at human suffering" - that's like saying "yes, but if we ignore most of the suffering this act causes, then it doesn't cause much suffering".
Quoting khaled
Er, no, and that in no way followed from anything I said. If i reject as implausible the view that we are in no way obligated to promote pleasure, that doesn't mean that I think we are always obligated to promote pleasure. Likewise, if I reject as implausible the view that we are in no way obligated to prevent suffering that we're not the agents of, that does not imply that I think we are always obligated to prevent all suffering.
Again, you're once more appealing to your belief in a prima facie implausible moral theory (we obviously do sometimes have moral obligations to do alleviate suffering that we played no part in creating - that's why I ought to reach down and save the child who accidentally fell in the pond and is now drowning).
And again, it's beside the point anyway, as I am talking about the relative moral weights of the suffering and pleasures that procreative acts create.
Yup.
Quoting Bartricks
What would be grotesque is if I said "You must not reach out and help". But that is not the case.
Quoting Bartricks
Because it's not clear to me other forms of it matter.
Quoting Bartricks
If the average person was a negative influence on others, then we wouldn't form groups, and we'd be better of as hermits. Or, at least, we'd be miserable in groups. Both are not the case.
Quoting Bartricks
What you were rejecting is that we are only responsible for certain sufferings and not others. I thought this meant that you think we are responsible to alleviate all undeserved sufferings.
Quoting Bartricks
I disagree.
Quoting Bartricks
But to someone who doesn't take created pleasures into account in the first place, it's not a compelling argument.
But if you want to consider non human harm then yes any form of procreation will be unethical right off the bat, people have to eat. Have a good day.
All of whom have been born, presumably. Or are you including Jesus - yes, I didn't think of the immaculate conception of the spirit of the son of god. My mistake. Oh, and there's androids too. I see I've just not thought this through properly...
Quoting Bartricks
So now some people who are born do not deserve pleasure as a result of their being made to suffer. Poor sods. What did they do have such a reward taken away, was it something in a past life?
Quoting Bartricks
So how much? You've not answered my question about your deserve-o-meter. How much is one entitled to in compensation for being born, and how much does one actually get (and is there somewhere I can make a claim if I feel I've been short-changed)? Presumably you've done the maths, let's have it laid out for us.
Quoting Bartricks
Why is it 'bad'? Your whole argument for it being 'bad' is that it causes undeserved suffering, but only undeserved pleasure in balance. If it actually delivers deserved pleasure in balance, then there's nothing left making it 'bad' is there. So this counter doesn't work.
Well, you're the one making an argument in favor of antinatalism, so you have to find a way around people refusing to live monkish lifestyles.
Yes, all of whom have been born.
Quoting Isaac
Yes, not everyone who suffers comes thereby to deserve pleasure. This is because some of the suffering we undergo we deserve to undergo by dint of our behaviour. Suffering that you deserve to undergo doesn't, at least not typically, make one deserving of pleasure.
Quoting Isaac
Well, I haven't been talking about what we deserve in terms of compensation for the injustice our parents did to us - for that presupposes that procreative acts are wrong and yet whether they are is what I am interested in finding out and what my argument is supposed to provide some insight into. So your question puts the cart before the horse. But anyway, I'd say that parents owe their children a decent living for having, of their own free will, subjected them to a life in a world in which having a decent living is needed if one is to have a reasonable prospect of happiness.
Quoting Isaac
What I've assumed is that most of the suffering procreative acts create is of the undeserved kind. Some of the suffering contained in our own lives (though not all, of course) is undeserved, especially virtually all of the suffering that befalls us when we are children (for we are not responsible agents at that point). And the suffering - which is magnitudes greater - we visit on others, including other animals. The vast bulk of it all is going to be undeserved (I mean, animals lack agency, so all suffering that they undergo is undeserved).
It's also worth noting, I think, that there's a 'direction' to desert. Past undeserved sufferings can't become deserved by dint of one's future actions. So, let's say you suffer a lot as a child, but then you go on to do terrible things in the rest of your life. Well, that suffering was still undeserved, and all your subsequent career has done is make your subsequent sufferings deserved and your subsequent pleasures undeserved.
As for pleasures - well, most of suffering we create is, I think, suffering visited upon other animals, whereas most of the pleasure we create is pleasure that we ourselves enjoy. And I think that, in general, our own lives contain more pleasure than pain - thankfully quite a lot more. So, that's why I think most of the pleasures in our lives are non-deserved, other things being equal.
The more I think about it, however, the more doubtful I become about that. For it occurs to me that most people do something terribly wrong in their lives, namely they procreate. And it seems to me, that once a person does that - once a person freely decides to subject someone else to the same risks of unjust harm that they themselves were exposed to - they come to deserve everything they get in the way of suffering. That is, to procreate is to make oneself deserving of all the injustices that subsequently befall you. And all the pleasures that befall you subsequent to that act - well, they seem undeserved now. So, procreate and everything switches, at least in the context of your own life. Procreate, and the pleasures that would otherwise have been non-deserved become undeserved, and the pains that would otherwise have been undeserved, become deserved. Perhaps that's too harsh though. Not sure at the moment.
This then would make it sound like the amount of undeserved please (the pleasure not accounted for by undeserved suffering) is dependent on a person's behaviour. Behave well and you will unlikely put yourself in a position of not deserving your pleasures because any suffering you undergo will be undeserved (and therefore continue to yield a debt of deserved pleasure to make up for it).
Quoting Bartricks
How have you calculated this? What maths have you used to work out that the sum total of pleasure deserved (in return for the all the undeserved suffering being born brought about) is 'a decent living'. I want to see your workings.
I'm presuming you haven't just posted to a nationwide public forum to tell us all that you reckon 'a decent living' is a bout the deserved quantity of pleasure appropriate for 'all the suffering one endures in life that isn't itself deserved', using quantities you've just pulled out of your arse.
I presume you've done a fairly substantial amount of research using, say glucocorticoids as a proxy for suffering and maybe oxytocin, serotonin, adrenaline, prolactin, norepinephrine or dopamine as you proxies for pleasure - with some sensible threshold quantities, based on the literature.
Or, maybe, you've quite reasonably decided to eschew the contentious neurological approach and stick to self-reports, that would be understandable. You've conducted a series of wide ranging surveys, or perhaps just relied on the thousands of such that have already been done, to give some quantitative score to these otherwise qualitative measures - did you perhaps use ordinality inducing questionnaire formats, they have a fairly good reputation for generating significant quantitative values in such cases?
Or maybe yours was an historical approach, a meta study of the social and political changes societies have striven for as a measure of pleasures they pursue and suffering they're willing to endure for them. Yes, that would make a good aggregate comparison without getting bogged down in ironing out individual differences. Of course then you'd have to account for the disproportionate influence of he powerful, but...
...No? Please don't tell me you've just written to a public forum advising that all parents owe their children in compensation for being born is 'a decent living' based on absolutely nothing but the fact that you 'reckon' that's the case.
You're the one making an argument in favor of antinatalism.
That means you have to find justifications for why people should not have children, and you have to find a way to convince them of that.
The better you behave the more undeserved the suffering you undergo becomes and the more deserving of pleasure you become. There's the desert of pleasure generated - at least typically - by one's undergoing undeserved suffering, and then there's the desert of pleasure generated by the fact one has behaved well. So, someone who leads a very saintly life may well deserve much, much more pleasure than they received in their life - which is terrible, of course, for it is a great injustice if a person does not get the pleasure they deserve. And any suffering they endure will be, from a moral perspective, much much worse than it would be if they hadn't behaved so well.
The rest of what you wrote was just silly. But to reply in kind, I assume you've done extensive research into the nature of desert and the nature of morality and haven't just posted on a public forum from a position of philosophical ignorance?
Right. So a population of well-behaved people are perfectly likely to deserve all the pleasure they get (and more) and thus there is no 'badness' in giving birth to them because the pleasure they will revive in life truly does outweigh the suffering, morally, because it is all deserved pleasure. It is a god thing to give birth to them because it will create a situation of greater deserved pleasure than otherwise, whilst at the same time, (given that one strong component of behaving well is reducing the suffering of others), this same population will be working to reduce the amount of undeserved suffering in the world, which is also a good thing.
Quoting Bartricks
...is not replying in kind. Another person experiencing suffering and/or pleasure is a fact about the world. It can only be determined empirically and therefore there will be some body of knowledge about it (a collection of such empirical observations). Whether someone deserves such suffering/pleasure or not is not an empirical observation, it is determined by the assessment of the person considering it. As such there is no body of knowledge, no collection of observations the learning of which would increase the accuracy of such a judgement. If I were critiquing a particular named philosophical position, then there would constitute a body of knowledge about exactly what that position is which I would be well-advised to apprise myself of prior to comment, but this is no such situation,
If you have no aim to convince people of the truthness of your argument, then why on earth are you developing it?
I don't see how you get to that conclusion. First, you need to be more than merely well-behaved. Being well-behaved is morally required, not morally superlative. Yet it is the latter that makes one positively deserving of pleasure as opposed to merely non-deserving. And it is unreasonable to suppose that one's offspring will live morally superlative lives. So, the suffering that a well-behaved person undergoes prior to becoming an agent is undeserved, and the suffering they undergo through the rest of their life - well, most of that is going to be undeserved as well. That may well operate to make many of their subsequent pleasures deserved (though not necessarily - desert is not a simple matter), but it's not going to tip the balance in any particular case. That's because although the goodness of a deserved pleasure is greater than that of a non-deserved pleasure, it is not going to be better than not having suffered the undeserved suffering. We typically recognise this at an intuitive level. For instance, let's say I know that, other things being equal, Janet is going to experience 10 units of non-deserved pleasure tomorrow. I reason that if I subject Janet to 10 units of undeserved suffering right now, then those 10 units of pleasure that she'll experience tomorrow will become deserved and thus will count for more, goodness-wise. Now, does that give me some moral reason to subject Janet to that suffering? No, of course not. That's why knowingly creating undeserved suffering that deserved pleasure may come of it is wrong, at least in most of the cases I can conceive of.
Note as well that if one lives a superlative life, that operates to make the undeserved suffering that you experience even worse, morally speaking. As I said, the better you behave, the worse your suffering becomes - not necessarily in quantity or quality, but in its moral badness. For the better you behave, the more undeserving of suffering you become.
So I think you need to re-sit your moral accountancy exams.
It can often be hard to appreciate a good argument - hard to recognise just how much probative force it has. Most people prefer soundbites and simplicity and don't have much time to give a view the amount of thought it needs to uncover its problems or to see its truth.
Imagine trying to convince a 12th century detective of the value of DNA evidence as opposed to dunking people in ponds and seeing if they float. It wouldn't fly. Does that mean DNA evidence isn't good evidence - or wasn't in the 12th centruy? No, of course not. Yet it wouldn't have convinced anyone back then.
Why?
Quoting Bartricks
Why not?
Quoting Bartricks
So why the whole song and dance about deserved pleasure, it's completely irrelevant to your case, which, it turns out, is just standard antinatalism. It's wrong to cause suffering even if it also causes pleasure, so don't have children. Nothing 'new' at all. If no amount of later pleasure justifies the suffering, then it's utterly irrelevant whether that pleasure is deserved or not.
All you have here is bog standard antinatalism.
An argument in favor of not having children is specific in that it is aimed at people making an important change in their lives.
This means, among other things, that such an argument needs to be formulated in such a way that people of all walks of life can accept it, and with minimum effort, at that.
IOW, you need an argument that will convince even the average Joe and Jane, in a commercial break while they watch tv.
Because most people do not live morally superlative lives (nor ought they, of course). Kind of obvious.
Quoting Isaac
I explained. It's the wordy bit that followed-on from that quote.
Quoting Isaac
How?
This is a philosophy forum, not a rhetoric forum. Philosophy involves using reason to try and find out what's true. The test of a good argument is its rational plausibility, not its persuasiveness. Like I say, bad arguments can persuade people and good arguments can leave people cold.
Most people are going to have kids and aren't remotely interested in whether it's ethical to do so or not. I mean, have you met people?
Most people are not grade 8 pianists either, but one could almost guarantee one's children would be if one were to train them from birth. That most people are not something does not in any way lead to the conclusion that it's not possible to ensure one's children are that thing.
Quoting Bartricks
The bit I wanted explaining was ...
Quoting Bartricks
So what I'd need was not your further opinion of what the balance might be but an explanation of why it could not be any other way.
You simply declared that...
Quoting Bartricks
...without support, and then went on to say that all this showed...
Quoting Bartricks
Yet the statement in want of explanation was not about making future pleasure deserved, it was about balancing suffering with pleasures.
Quoting Bartricks
I explained. It's the wordy bit above the conclusion.
Beside the point. Yes, most people are perfectly capable of leading morally superlative lives, the point is that they're a) highly unlikely to and b) they're not obliged to (they wouldn't be morally superlative otherwise) and c) even if they did, that would only operate to exaggerate the badness of the suffering they undergo, for the better one behaves, the more unjust it becomes that one suffers.
Right. So if their life was full of 'deserved' please (because they're morally good people), or if their life is full of undeserved pleasure (because they're not), make no difference at all to the extent to which birth is justified - it's unjustified either way.
So why bring it up at all? You've just wasted three pages which could have been summed up by saying "I agree with Benetar's asymmetry argument" which you claimed to have read.
The only conclusion you're drawing here is that birth is unjustified because it causes an amount of suffering which no amount of pleasure in life is sufficient to justify.
It's not the same as Benatar's argument. I reject his argument.
It is the same as Benatar's argument.
Please. Why do you want to add to the bad image that philosophy already has in culture at large, and rightfully so?
Apparently, you want to produce a valid argument but for which you foresee no practical application in the real world, even though the content of the argument has everything to do with the practical application in the real world.
If you'd be arguing for something like whether there is an unlimited number of simple substances from which the universe consists, or whether that number is limited, I wouldn't object. But you're taking a subject with enormous real-world implications and treating it as if it were trivial.
All along, you have been the one emphasizing the people at large don't want to live monkish lifestyles nor are they required to do so.
So what gives?