Arguments for having Children
I cannot see any reason to create a new child and I have not had any children myself.
What possible reason could there be for creating another person?
The only reasons I can imagine are completely self centered around the parents personal desires.
I have no reason to have a child and it is not something that is going to aid my personal survival or prevent my inevitable death.
Having a child may prevent the immediate extinction of humans but not your personal extinction. People who have left children here had no idea what the future held for humans.
What possible reason could there be for creating another person?
The only reasons I can imagine are completely self centered around the parents personal desires.
I have no reason to have a child and it is not something that is going to aid my personal survival or prevent my inevitable death.
Having a child may prevent the immediate extinction of humans but not your personal extinction. People who have left children here had no idea what the future held for humans.
Comments (182)
Human beings are a resource (human resources) and therefor subject to supply and demand. The fewer there are, the higher the price. The more there are, the lower the price. When you are stuck in growth/progress model that doesn't perceive alternative directions of growth (i.e. growing smaller) and progress (i.e. not viewing people and nature as resources) then you want breeders slinging semen far and wide.
Good? No. But Mother Nature controls, notwithstanding our silly belief that we are exempt and can save ourselves with the current model. After all, if you are in the air, you must be flying and not falling, right?
We all know that life here is fraught with risks and that we have to work to survive and that for large portions of our lives we have no dignity and must depend on others to care for us. So those who, knowing that, nevertheless subject someone else to a lifetime here are doing something seriously immoral, other things being equal.
And their motives for doing so are often very bad indeed. For instance, they just want a project, or they are megolomaniacs who want their own little tribe to lord over, or they want a distraction from their grotty life or relationship, or they are egomaniacs who want to be loved blindly, or they are sick in the head and want someone else to depend on them, or they're just unbelievably unimaginative and like the fact that if you breed your life is suddenly all mapped out for you.
Anyway, it is - upon a bit of reflection - a clearly highly immoral thing to do, other things being equal.
There are those who harp on about the environment and the damage we all do to other creatures and their habitats and how we should divest ourselves of the luxuries of modern life and live like Neanderthals but who nevertheless think nothing of breeding (even though short of starting up a rubber burning plant, that's about the most environmentally unfriendly thing one can possibly do).
The simply fact is that it is our parents' fault that we exist and so they owe us a living, and owe it to others to protect others from us if we turn out to be a bad apple, and any sacrifices that need to be made to make-up for the harms we do to others just by leading an enjoyable life are sacrifices they owe, not us.
The only upside to their unjust decision to breed is that they thereby render all the risks of harm that they subsequently face in their lives fully deserved. For by breeding they do unto others what was done unto them.
All of that sounds pretty persuasive to me. However, I have met people who are genuinely, sincerely in love with life and want to share it with new life. I know there is other life around they could do that with (adopt), but they feel driven to breed. Just as suicide is relatively rare due to the desire to live, so too some people think breeding is part of evolution's (not grand but site-specific) plan. It would take intellect to override the desire to eat meat, so why fight it?
Ted Bundy. Parents good (as parents). Him, not so much.
Anyway, even if kids are cool - and they're not, it is an undignified state to be in as most kids themselves recognize (when you were a kid, did you want to stay one?) - the simple fact is other people are not our toys. To subject someone to a life - a life here, of all places - simply because you want something cool to have around is flagrantly immoral. Buy a motorbike instead. It'll cost you less and isn't immoral, so far as I can tell.
As for wanting to share love - well, let's be clear: they want someone to love. That's fine - nothing wrong with that desire. But there's everything wrong with deciding to satisfy it by forcing into existence here someone you know will unthinkingly love the first faces they see. If you want to be loved, find someone who already exists and try and make them love you by doing your best to inspire those feelings in them in ways they could agree to.
I mean, what if I want to be loved and so I manufacture a love potion and put it in Jane's tea. Is that okay? Obviously not. So there's wanting to be loved and there's how one goes about satisfying that desire. 'Making' someone love you by means that do not involve appealing to their own informed judgements - so methods that involve bypassing their rational faculties - are wrong, or at least are wrong when used intentionally. Yet isn't that what a parent who wants sincerely to 'share the love' is doing?
But childhood is the smallest proportion of life.
People talk about wanting to have a baby or child but not about wanting to have an adult or adopt an adult. But your children are all these adults.
I would prefer to make an existing human happy rather than creating another billionth human to make them happy.
I've met those who love life. They don't want a kid to love them. They want to share what they have found, and feel guilty keeping it all to themselves. I suppose if I were a Christian I might say the reason I go into the Amazon and totally fuck up bunch of lives is because, you know, Jesus and all that. I just have to share. Or, closer to home, when I find an absolutely stunning secret place I want to share it. Knowing, intellectually, such sharing will result in it's destruction, I don't share. But the urge is there anyway. I know some folks who love life the way I love this secret place I found, or like some bible thumper might love Jesus. To have a clean slate to share it with (a kid of your own) would be a lot safer than sharing it with someone who may not appreciate it the way I do (and then trash it) or who might ruin it.
Edited to add: I'm not defending it. I'm just providing a motivation that is not all mercenary or self-serving.
My guilt is that what I enjoy is clearly created by mass exploitation and inequality.
I think your concept of sharing is great but with billions of humans existing now there is no danger of things not being shared. At the same time people have different preferences so sharing something does not ensure the person who recieves the share will appreciate it.
I have a lot of minority preferences such as baroque music and philosophy also am gay and throughout my life I have had to accept that I am in minority in many ways.
I think people are propogating majority preferences as opposed to propogating a diverse enjoyment of a multifaceted reality.
Especially now, with social media. Word travels fast. While many folks are satisfied with the cyber world, others will definitely "get out there" and see it, and when they do, that's often the end of it.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
True. That's another reason people want kids. They think the kid is more likely to appreciate X than another person might. While kids are known for appreciating the ass-opposite things their folks appreciate, they are less likely to actually trash it. Some of the upbringing will instill a modicum of respect, if not appreciation. Especially if it's something outside of and independent of the parent. Daddy takes you fishing and you hate to fish, but you don't go back and ruin the lake. Share that lake with Billy Bob and Cletus, though, and, well, you get the picture.
I fully endorse everyone who has commented so far not having children. The thought of any of you having children makes me shiver. Please make sure that all of you with any chance of being involved in a sexual relationship with a member of the opposite sex use effective birth control. Please.
Deciding to have children is not usually a rational decision while deciding not to often is. My brother and his wife decided not to have children. My daughter did too. Most people want to have children. Why? I'm sure it includes a combination of biological urges and social conditioning. It also includes a sense of wanting to contribute to our communities and families. I see my children as a gift to my extended family and I think they agree. I feel that way about my nieces. Having children is seen as a good thing and many of us, probably most of us, agree. When we get down to it, it doesn't matter why we want children, we do.
No pleasurable Experience I have had has made that think I must have children.
I think that the reason people have children is largely cultural/social.
The worst scenario is that people have children to validate themselves.
Sometimes they even kids just to save a broken marriage... what happens at the end of the day? A kid raised in an unbalance family where nobody cares actually about him and probably he will end up with a lot of traumas in their adulthood
True enough, some people decide to have no children. They are bucking nature. Some people decide to have several children, and do so quite consciously because they think god wants them to have many. Or they are patriotic, or suffer from some other major delusion.
Mostly though, children are the result of sex, and people like sex--as nature intended.
Nature has always been on the side of more life, a preference it has upheld for billions of years. We've been around a vanishingly short period of time, and we are as bound up in nature as every other species.
Interesting quote. So, in this context, we can argue that sex is a trap created by nature just to promote human species.
From the beginning of life on earth, nature opted for MORE and VARIED species (personalizing nature, here). Among complex plants and animals sex and reproduction have been mandatory, It might be unsuccessful (late frost might prevent fruit trees from being pollinated; mates may not be available this year for xyz species) but the imperative is still there: TRY.
Humans didn't invent having children--obviously. We didn't invent the mechanics by which children get born. We didn't invent the primal urges that drive men and women to mate. We didn't invent the attachment that parents feel for their children. We have behaved as nature led us to behave.
We did invent some ways of not having children. Some people have opted to use those methods. Besides that, some people are/were insufficiently motivated to reproduce, or are/were not fit partners. Gay men like me, for instance, are/were not fit partners for heterosexual women. Some straight men and women were also not fit partners.
Mostly though, not having children is bucking (defying) nature. I think there are too many people on earth, and I wish everyone would buck (defy) nature and reproduce at less than the population replacement level. Fat chance of that happening. When I started high school in 1960, there were about 3 billion people. 60 years later there are close to 8 billion. Too many in Europe; Asia; Africa; and the Americas. Everywhere.
It is now way too late for Zero Population Growth. If we do not shrink our population, nature will eventually find a method for reducing our excess population. Nature has done this before with other species and it will do it to us if necessary (or maybe we will do it to ourselves). I guarantee that we will not like it.
Childless myself, the only reason to procreate is there is no reason, just urges and her prerogative.
Quoting javi2541997
:up:
Quoting Bitter Crank
:clap: :100: Can't spooge in a cup any more drip-free than that.
I am heterosexual and yes I am not a fit partner for anyone. This is why sometimes I doubt about the true nature of sex. I mean, it could be that little percentage of people that somehow do not get laid for a lot of reasons. When this happens, someone like me is being told that "I should go to a therapist because it is not normal at all not having affection or motivation for anyone"
Excuse me, why this has to be bad? Why don't we consider it as normal too? This situation of not fitting partner, as you explained, can happen too.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes! Agreed. I going to sound pretty totalitarian but I like the chinese idea of 1 kid policy. There are a lot of people in Earth that nature is getting upset with us. Back in the day, for better or worse, we had a lot of wars so we compensate it. But now, living in the most long run Era of peace, it is clear how overpopulated the Earth is.
To be honest, it is true that I don't know which is the feeling of having kids and being a dad so I could sound ignorant. Nevertheless, my statement still be that we should be toughest about promiscuous sexuality
:100: :up:
There is no reason to require a reason for everything, and the creation of this miserable thread is as unreasonable as the procreation of children. My own children are completely useless and a pain it the butt. This makes me virtuous and stands as an awful warning to all you youngsters not to enjoy yourselves except with addictive drugs.
:100:
We're nature's, life's, only hope of extricating itself from being at the mercy of chance. With our brains, excuse the hyperbole if one feels there's one, we can, given enough time and a decent amount of luck (??!!), get to the bottom of how evolution works and perhaps learn to control and give it a direction that would make it more efficient, more resilient, and more likely to survive catastrophic events. Ergo, in my humble opinion, if only to keep the torch of human progress in relevant fields burning, we should have children. Oddly, these very brains that seem to hold the key to success for life as a whole are also the source of life's biggest problems. Life, nature, is playing a game or risk...as usual. Keep the ball rolling, cross your fingers, wait and watch.
To continue improving the fate of those who remain after your death through projects that take longer than one generation to complete.
Now, If you had 100% certainty that your future kid would cure cancer, having them wouldn’t exactly be self centered.
I like what you said but what about the Principle Of Sufficient Reason?
Better to plant trees than to add more people. “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit." Old Greek Proverb.
Who, then, will tend the trees?
The trees will tend themselves.
Well then why do we need to plant them? They do that themselves too you know.
To make a family is the main reason I opted for children. The benefits include support, relationship, security, and a chance to shape a human life.
They will if we get the F out of their way. But since we've trashed X% of the worlds lungs, we could replant with the 7 billion parasites currently killing the host. Then, when we've scaled back to a sustainable level, like 35 people per 10k square miles of temperate zone, they'll have some descent shade and air.
Is all that worth the pain the child will have to go through in life? The way things are going - prevailing values which put money and power first - the present is a basket case and the future looks even bleaker and that's being optimistic.
I have five children. It is the most difficult task/responsibility you can take-on, and because of that, it gives the most rewards.
Many things in life are intuitive. I believe having children is one of those. If you meet the right woman, you'll know whether you want to start a family with her.
If you over-intellectualize, you'll never want to do anything. Try to see (and live) the good (in all things).
I think so. One could raise his children in such a way as to deal with those pains, and at the same time combat the proliferation of such values.
I suppose you're right. Most of those who make up the human tribe will manage to live relatively happy lives but an unlucky few will have to face the ugly side of nature and suffer for it, miserably so. The one's who manage to avoid extreme misery and expect a similar existence for their children shouldn't be held at ransom just because a handful of us got a raw deal.
"The principle of sufficient reason states that everything must have a reason or a cause."
Fucking is the cause of children. Job done.
So, we keep cutting the pie until such point that the last slice is thinner than the blade we propose to cut it with, and somebody is still happy with the piece they got. They don't know any better. And if it every becomes not worth it to go out, there's always VR.
We all know better when it comes to what we are doing, but we don't know better than what we have.
What about it? Without begging the question (or infinite regress), there cannot be a "sufficient reason" for the PSR (plus quantum uncertainty e.g. virtual particles, radioactive emissions, etc); so why bother with anthropocentrizing against the mediocrity principle in space, time & causality?
I prefer my take on Rosset's principle of sufficient reality (PoSR) instead – to wit: the real consists only in contingent facts (i.e. conditional relations) which both constitute and encompass reasoning (i.e. algorithmic compression (i.e. totality), prediction & control) and which, in turn, reason (i.e. explicability) can neither encompass (i.e. exhaust à la Eudoxus) nor transcend (i.e. be unconditional); or (in sum) necessarily there cannot be non-immanent – separated, bounded, total-complete – ontologies (e.g. "real beyond/behind the real", "deeper/ultimate real", "realer real", "reals/forms projecting appearances/shadows", etc).
And so, therefore, no "unconditional" PSR either.
(Okay, fight me, Fool! :razz:)
It has been noted by others, notably the philosopher Seanna Shiffrin, that when it comes to conferring benefits on others without their prior consent, this is wrong unless needed to prevent the person in question coming to harm. Persuading or inviting an existing person to share in a pleasure you have discovered is one thing, but subjecting someone to it is quite another. If I am enjoying the heroin, that doesn't justify me in injecting you with the stuff without your consent.
And isn't that what benevolent procreative acts are like? Life here is addictive like heroin (people typically want more of it even when it isn't going well for them). And benevolent breeders are akin to those who want to share their addiction with someone else and so inject others with it even if they haven't asked.
Nobody should have kids, it's both immoral and, in most cases, imprudent too. But of course, it requires some thought to recognize such things. Hence the thoughtless procreate and thoughtlessness gets passed on. Oh joy.
For example:
The Holocaist ( one of my main reasons for not having children if not the top reason).
The Transatlantic slave trade. Slavery.
9/11.
The Rwandan genocide
Multiple scelrosis (my older brother had primary progressive MS and died recently 2019 in his late 40's completely paralysed unable to eat, drink or talk after 25 years of illness)
Anxiety, depression, suicide and autism. (all my own experince.)
Cancer and HIV
ISIS Homophobia
Gendercide/misogyny/the oppression and persecution of women.
Two world wars.
and I could go on.
So I think a reason to create a child would have to be really really compelling to mitigate all this.
If you bring attention to all these facts you are considered "negative" If you ignore it all you are heroically optimistic.
First - I wouldn't characterize most of the people who have posted on this thread as particularly rational. At least their arguments aren't. You all seem to think since you don't want children, it's somehow irrational that most people do.
Second - A decent society doesn't have to be especially rational in the sense you mean it. What holds neighborhoods, communities, nations, and societies together is a sense of common purpose and values. Where that really comes into focus is when we are dealing with our children. Children hold communities together. Communities are made for children. As members of neighborhoods, communities, nations, and societies, our children are or purpose.
Now, you don't feel that way and you'd like to change things. Please don't expect to be taken seriously by those of us who try to understand and care about people other than ourselves.
Benevolent motivation can pre-suppose the person is not aware of the down sides we are all waiving for them too see. But likewise, is it not possible that they see an upside we don't see, or are we just more woke about how bad shit is? I mean, I see them waiving their flags all over the place, and half the time I roll my eyes. I perceive a bunch of touchy-feely shit that seems like a Kool aid they are selling themselves, or some after-the-fact justification for why they pretend to be happy. But who am I to say what is in their heart? Maybe life is a bowl of cherries and I'm just aberrant stick in the mud.
Then there's the ontological problem, where we are all but playthings made of straw. C. Stone.
In the end, another person is taking up space that I think could better be used by nothing. It is a swing at my face where my nose begins. But we all enter into evil agreements which inure to our long term detriment, even if that is only making excuses for each other. "I won't interfere with your desire to do X if you don't interfere with my desire to do Y. Oh, and we can tell each other we do it all for the children, while we actually buy another muscle truck, jet ski and snow machine for ourselves."
Yes but the question the OP's asking isn't about causes. The OP wants to know if there's a reason why we should have children i.e. in what way does being born benefit anyone including the child faerself? What do children get out of life and what do we get out of children that we must make them?
Quoting 180 Proof
I'm a believer in the mediocrity principle of course but just because there's nothing special about something doesn't mean it doesn't have a reason, right?
The PoSR (principle of sufficient reason) is a default stance - it must be assumed in all cases in which it matters. Think of it, suppose there's something, an X, that's uncaused, inexplicable, or unjustified. The only way we can come to that conclusion [uncaused, inexplicable, unjustified] is by first looking for causes, explanations, or justification; only if the search results = 0 can we say X is uncaused, inexplicable, unjustified. It's very much like the legal principle of innocent until proven guilty - we begin every time by affirming the PoSR until it's contradicted.
Quoting 180 Proof
:up: :clap: but, just so you know, I ain't looking for "deeper/ultimate real" although I must confess such a notion did appeal to me as it does to so many others I believe.
Quoting 180 Proof
Trying to. :lol:
Having said that, I don’t regret having and raising my own children, slow and inefficient though the effect may be. It was in part this parenting process that helped bring me to this conclusion.
You seem to think - question beggingly - that if you have kids you're thereby showing concern for others! Er, seriously? It's those of us who have decided not to have kids for moral reasons who are showing concern for others. I think you're suffering from what Satre would call 'bad faith'. I doubt very much moral reasons played any role whatsoever in your decision to breed, because most parents when asked why they had kids do not appeal to any moral considerations at all. My experience politely listening to parents drone on about their banal decision to breed is that most of them decided to do so for either no real reason at all - they just sleepwalked into it - or for the kind of utterly unhealthy self-indulgent reasons some of which have already been surveyed above. Concern for others wasn't in the mix. Yet they don't hesitate to give themselves a big slap on the back for doing something that was unbelievably easy, namely the act of breeding itself (sex isn't hard, is it?) or else they want praise for doing something they jolly well ought to have done, such as dedicating time and effort to looking after the poor victims of their immoral and self-indulgent decisions (you forced them into being here, 'of course' you now owe it to them to do all in your power to ensure their existence here is a nice one - you owe them a living for christ's sake!!). Maybe you're an exception. But for whose sake did you have them? Did you think the kids you had already existed somewhere and needed rescuing? Or did you think the kids you had didn't already exist, in which case how on earth could you be doing it for their sake given they didn't exist to have sakes until you created them?
Quoting T Clark
I don't expect to be taken seriously by those who have already procreated. For they have a huge vested interest in telling themselves they haven't committed a serious wrong, but are instead saints who are privy to some profound insight into the meaning of things thanks to their decision to let some ejaculate linger in a womb for too long.
So the principle of sufficient reason does not apply. People fuck for fucks sake. The folly of the wise is a wonder to behold. Philosophers demand a sufficient reason to smile or dance. The tragedy of the inadequacy of reason to life.
I wonder how people can care about the welfare of the children they did not have. It looks just like caring about no one to me.
The point is that if, for whatever reason, we're needed to do the replanting, we'll also be needed to do the tending. You can't invoke a self-sustaining nature to do the tending, but assume it incapable of doing the seed sowing. Both are natural processes, no categorical difference. I get your point about that fact that ecological systems have been damaged to extent that they might not perform normal functions, but it seems contrived to say that seed sowing is such a function but seed aftercare is not, without any evidential basis.
Repairing the damage we've done to the environment is exactly the sort of project I was referring to. It will definately take more than one generation.
Like coincidences. Like merely correlated events (e.g. heuristics). Like noise (sans signals). Like radioactive emissions. Like the uniqueness of each person. Like black swans. Blah blah blah ...
The "default stance" comes from humans being probability / change-blind and intentionality-biased. We fill in the gaps with intentional/causal stories by default. Btw, what's the PSR for the PSR? What's the cause for every cause? Why everything has to have a why?
The PSR applies to human judgment & conduct; however, what warrants projecting that human bias onto facts of the matter, or the world, or universe as a whole? Our psychological utility = (meta)physical law, really?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
That's an inadequate response from where I am sitting.
I know or have known survivors of the Holocaust; sex slavery; Rawanda; MS; Islamic fundamentalism; World War One and Two; Cancer and many more terrible scenarios.
Each survivor I've known was pleased to be alive and thankful for being born. My own father spent a couple of years in a Nazi camp. He found the experience an aphrodisiac for living. He considered himself (for good reasons) lucky to be alive and never looked back.
Personality is a key issue. Some people are crushed by a simple office job. Some people are empowered if they survive a concentration camp. Humans are extraordinary and we can never assume the outcome.
I would argue that antinatalists like @Andrew4Handel @Bartricks and myself are to a large extent caring about other people, by wanting to prevent their suffering and de facto forced sutuations. If life is not a paradise, should we be creating more beings who not only suffer, but are often self-aware of their own suffering? Even if you don't agree, there is a goal of preventing negatives, and violating dignity of the potential person, so that is "other" centered, it's just that its counterintuitive because the compassion for that potential person manifests in the advocacy for their prevention of being born.
My question about Schopenhauer was basically why the PSR coincides with atemporal/ acausal Will at all. Whence Maya if all is Will? How is Will playing tricks on itself in such a regimented fashion such as, space, time, PSR etc. The inevitability and persistence of the world as Representation, would conteadict that it is somehow illusory. Why then a "structured" and necessary illusion?
Then why risk.other peoples lives who have such widely varying evaluations and such possibilities of horrible experiences? Why should others assume another person should be forced to play the game of life? I find it hubristic and callous to think that as a parent you are some harbinger of suffering, so that your child can feel the redemption of that very suffering- the conditions of the suffering being created from the procreational decision. Sounds like a maniacal scheme. How about prevent the suffering in the first place?
Essentially you are saying you want to create the suffering subject so that they can be the hero of enduring that suffering.
This statement reflects a disregard for an obvious fact. While the matter of whether the universe and life have any purpose or whether there's a reason for them isn't cut-and-dried, one has to be raving mad to believe that the various organ systems of living organisms and also our behavior, including smiles and dance, have no purpose i.e. there are no reasons why they are what they are.
I don't know how or why it is but our brains seem built for discerning purpose; in other words, our brains seem to be made for detecting and grasping reasons why this or that. Perhaps one reason for this our brain's ability is it comes in handy when survival is a big issue. When we figure out the reasons why something looks, behaves, etc. the way it looks, behaves, etc. it marks a turning point in our relationship with reality - we can bend nature to our will and the power to do that is the stuff that evolutionary success is made of, right?
Come to think of it, even inanimate matter finds a cozy niche in the world of reasons. I'm backtracking as you can see but it's the right thing to do given what's observable in the world around us. Take a look at pebbles and stone you can freely pick up from a river bed. Aren't they roundish and smooth while those found deep inland are rough and jagged? WHY? You get the idea.
If there's a point to all this it's that reasons are an intrinsic part of the natural world and all we've done is made that a cornerstone of our weltanschauung. The payoff is a heretofore unseen and obscence level of control over our environment. This, I suspect, is why we've made the principle of sufficient reason what it was and is - the bedrock of our understanding of the world.
Quoting 180 Proof
Yes, indeed. Coincidences are events that can't be causally connected. That's to say, the first order of business is to look for a causal relationship and then if none can be found, we might say, "oh! it's just a coincidence."
Notice what happened here. We had to assume causation and only when that turned out to be untrue did we conclude coincidence. The same applies to the PoSR. We must always assume the PoSR and then, if our search for a reason is unsuccesful i.e. no reason can be found, we can justifiably assert that we've found something that lacks a reason.
Quoting 180 Proof
Please read my reply to unenlightened.
Someone as learned as you would know that our brains are pattern-detecting meat machines. You see a tree with all its branches bent to the west and you ask why? The reason you deduce is a constant easterly wind. You hear your pet dog barking loudly. Why? You quickly realize you have a visitor. You see someone laughing in the other room. Why? Oh! quite possibly the person was told a joke. The motif that unites these disparate experiences is reason and thus the PoSR.
Reason =
1. Cause - I yawn because I am tired.
2. Motive - I go to bed to get some rest.
3.Justification - if I rest I will be less tired and more able to explain things.
4. Function - rest allows the body to repair itself.
You equivocate the various meanings and confusion results. This thread is about "arguments". It's the first word of the title. So it is not about causes, or motives or functions, it is about justification.
The cause of having children is usually fucking.
The motive is usually that people like fucking and like children.
The function of children is to continue the species.
The justification for having children is that life is a good.
The justification in this case does not amount to an argument, it is a mere dogma. but it's as near as I wish to get. Someone will press me, and I will admit that suffering is good, because suffering is part of life. And then if someone pursues the matter I will have to stray from the topic and discuss the relation of pain to suffering. My children will suffer, and they will die. We all do. I see it and say 'yes'.
No, it will not, not for trees.
Quoting Isaac
That does not follow.
Quoting Isaac
I did not assume nature was incapable of doing the sewing. Quite the opposite. If we'd simply do nothing except get out of the way, nature will both resew and tend itself. But if we want to do a favor for succeeding generations of people, then, rather than sewing the succeeding generations of people we could sew succeeding generations of trees in the areas that we've destroyed and then get out of the way.
Quoting Isaac
Have you ever heard the old saying "Stop helping!" It is usually followed by "If you want to help, . . ."
Anyway, while this has all been fun, I think you and I are missing each other, or you are conflating my position with someone else. My position is this: While extinction of homo sapiens might be an attractive option for nature, I've got no truck with simply bringing our population back to a more sustainable level. That population will be way more than enough to tend, and even more effective in doing so, if it isn't saddled with the teaming hoards.
I guess someone would question it and say, should the parent be the harbinger for someone else's suffering/overcoming-suffering game? Because YOU deem it as a good thing, should another be the recipient of your preference, especially if the consequence is a whole lifetime of unknown variations on a theme of possibilities of suffering?
I act on my deeming as I suppose you act on yours. What other course do you suggest - that i act on yours and you on mine?
Oh, yeah?!
Quoting Bartricks
One characteristic of rational people is that they respond to the argument that's actually made rather than one they imagine. You should go back and read what I wrote in my previous post more carefully. I didn't say anything about morality.
Quoting Bartricks
I think this is at the heart of it. I can see your opposition to having children includes rational reasons, but, based on the quoted text, it also includes a lot of resentment. I recognize that questioning a persons motives is not a valid argument, but you're the one who started it. I'll lay off if you will. Argue the argument, not my personality, morality, or shoe size. It's what rational people do.
Quoting Bartricks
Let me translate. I have a vested interest in being right, so that proves I'm wrong. Argue the argument. It's the rational thing to do.
This is basically the message of every argument you ever make, every post you ever post. I've gone through it with you several times. I'll never convince you. You'll never convince me.
Really? You think we could repair the damage we've done to an ecosystem like the rainforest in less than one generation?
Quoting James Riley
I don't think you've quite grasped the nature of habitat restoration. Sowing (or planting) is really very low down on the list of jobs that would help. Land needs to be legally protected, markets for unsustainable resource extraction overturned, illegal activity prevented, pollution reduced, climate change reversed...
Quoting James Riley
I can't think why, homo sapiens has managed to have minimal impact for the first few hundred thousand years of our existence. I don't see anything inevitable about our current destructive spree.
Quoting James Riley
Agreed. But the OP isn't suggesting we should have fewer children, it's suggesting there's no good reason to have them at all.
If we plant the trees and get out of the way (i.e. don't cut the down again because our numbers demand the resource) then yes. No doubt.
Quoting Isaac
Two points: Here is where we've got our disconnect. You were thinking of trees metaphorically, as a representation of all our damage/repair. I was talking about trees. Secondly, even applying the tree example to all restoration of other damage (burial of toxic waste, etc.) my proposal stands if we bring our population back to a sustainable level (I suggested, above, 35 people per 10k square miles) then the repair would take care of itself. You don't need to legally protect anything if it's protection is part of the ethic. Laws are only needed to reign in the wayward children who externalize their costs. Markets go away when there is no demand. Illegal activity is absorbed (like the wolf pack that over kills the pray base). And climate change: That brings us back to the trees and our getting out of the way (i.e. stop pumping shit in the air).
Quoting Isaac
I think original sin was domestication of species. Maybe agriculture, but that is neither here nor there. I'd say the burden is upon you and your next generation to show the continuation of the current spree is not inevitable. If we don't correct, we will be corrected.
Quoting Isaac
There isn't a good reason, at least as far as nature is concerned. The only reason is our own subjective reason, and that has yet to be proven as an objectively good reason. I have some thoughts about what we do contribute, and what our animal peers might think of us, but that is beyond the scope of this thread.
Yeah, and I've said as much to you here (below) and on other threads.
I'll let @unenlightened sort you out ...
Don't cherry-pick to occlude me, Fool, answer:
Quoting 180 Proof
How would that repair the damage? Large canopy trees take hundreds of years to grow so the ecosystem would certainly not be 'repaired' within one generation, just no longer being destroyed.
Quoting James Riley
No, I was talking about trees too. Literally. They plant themselves, have done for millennia. It's those other issues which are the problem.
Quoting James Riley
Maybe, if we did so instantaneously, but since that's impossible without genocide, doing nothing (no inter-generational projects) in the meantime would lead to a massively impoverished environment for those 35/10k^2, which would take many hundreds more years to recover than it would if, rather than ignore it, we protect what we have whilst such a reduction in population density was slowly enacted. Walking away is not the best way to do that.
Quoting James Riley
Indeed.
Quoting James Riley
Reasons are not the sorts of things which concern nature in any case.
Quoting James Riley
What would an "objectively good reason" be? What would the truthmaker of 'Good' be objectively?
I'm not quite sure where you got the idea that the repair needs to be complete within one generation. Just no longer being destroyed will aid in the repair.
Quoting Isaac
That's the point. I was not talking about those other issues. You were. I was talking simply about trees and you took that and ran with it to other non-tree damage/repair considerations.
Quoting Isaac
I disagree. Doing nothing (i.e. stopping the damage) would aid in the recovery of biodiversity much faster than our active assistance in the recovery while burdened with a gradual reeducation in our population. And there need not be any genocide if we put our dicks back in our pants and left them there.
Quoting Isaac
That's Christopher Stone's ontological problem. But as you've agreed, nature doesn't concern herself with such things. If our goal is to create a self-sustaining, habitable planet, the expert need only be left to her own devices. Our help is a hinderance if we must drag our baggage along on the project. Pack light, and don't add more mouths to feed.
I have no problem with the creation of suffering as you describe it.
Anti-natalists are just mass murderers who don't like to see blood.
I'm curious if animals matter. If they do, don't they suffer? And if so, should we roll them into the mix and help them stop breeding/suffering?
Thanks. This is my first exposure to a philosophical analysis of antinatalism.
Just as a nit-picker though, it would seem to me that a lack of self-reflection, no need to strive, etc does not necessarily equate to an animal's suffering being a lot different than ours. So the antinatalist is not yet off the hook. The suffering could remain the same. Or, who knows, maybe it's worse.
That is all assuming animals don't self reflect (what are they doing with all that idle time chewing cud?) and maybe, like the monk, their lack of striving has been arrived at by means other than being innate to their species.
I'm wet behind the ears on this one, but it is interesting to me.
Well, the deeming is on behalf of the future person. Why not go with the minimum amount of harm? Why create the suffering/overcoming-suffering game for them?
Thanks for the leads. I've had a lot of thoughts running around the old brain pan on the animal thing all my life. It will be interesting to see the thoughts of those who have actually thought about it with a more analytic thoroughness.
Yes, Platonic forms. Then how did THAT get into the equation with Will?
But that is exactly the position that AN would say is not acceptable in terms of not creating unnecessary suffering on behalf of someone else. Why create unnecessary suffering on behalf of someone else then? Any answer seems to be overlooking the person that will experience this suffering for something other.
@Albero already pretty much answered it how I would.
Not much of a philosophical case, but I see you have made your personal stance known.
For example my parents are religious and I grew up in a fundamentalist hell and damnation household.
I left Christianity at 17 and discovered biblical contradiction in my early 20's. I feel my parents brought us up in a cult based on false beliefs. I think (as I am trying to pursue in another thread) that it is possible to critique peoples beliefs and reasons and find them wanting or problematic.
What I think is nihilistic is the thought that humans are wandering around living based on false beliefs, unconcerned, when their lives are therefore meaningless. The meaning is just an illusion they have created but is falsified under examination.
The only thing I can think of that might make me consider creating a child is if life had a meaning and purpose. Even then I would balk at causing suffering to another person.
We've already discussed the issues. I am now at the don't give a fuck point. Nothing wrong with that.
No, resentment plays no role at all. But, even if it did, that's to focus on my motives and not the quality of my arguments (something you seem unable to avoid doing). Note as well that it is question begging, as resentment is an appropriate attitude to adopt towards acts that have wronged one. So if it is wrong to procreate, then it appropriate to resent the fact that one's parents have subjected one to a life.
Quoting T Clark
I don't think you do recognize that at all, as you did it in the preceding sentence! (See above) But just to be clear: you started it when you said that the thought of me having kids made you shudder. That's a personal slight, not a rational consideration.
So far as I can see you have not have advanced any argument at all. I, on the other hand, have.
It is widely recognized that it is wrong, other things being equal, to do things to others without their prior consent. We ask people if they'd like a coffee, we don't ram one down their throat.
There are lots of exceptions. But the exceptions aren't arbitrary. They seem invariably to be cases where a person is unable to consent and furthermore not doing the thing in question would most likely result in them coming to serious harm. That is, it doesn't seem sufficient that the act will benefit the person. If the person can't consent to what you're proposing to do, then the default is you are not morally permitted to do it unless that's the only way to prevent this person from coming to a serious harm.
Acts of procreation clearly involve doing something to someone else without their prior consent, for none of us have asked to be born.
Is it an exceptional case, though? No, for although we can't consent to be born, not bringing us into being here can't reasonably be considered to be something that would likely result in us coming to serious harm. For either we do not exist prior to birth, in which case our non-existence poses no risk of harm to us. Or we do exist prior to birth, but given our total ignorance of what pre-birth life is like, we are not entitled to assume that it is any worse than life here. Either way, procreative acts come out as acts that we are not morally entitled to perform.
That's just one of a whole battery of arguments that can be made for the antinatalist conclusion.
What have you got?
I'm not equivocating. To the extent that I'm aware I haven't made an argument in which I switch the meaning of "reason" from purpose/function to something else in my premises.
Function/purpose is a good basis for justifying existence. For instance, the existence of colorful flowers is justified by its function/purpose which you already know is insect pollination. A similar function/purpose-based argument can be made for having children. A counterargument, however, maybe grounded in suffering - an inevitability of life.
As for the motive for having children, it'll depend on the analysis of the various arguments made by natalists and antinatalists and seeing which side makes the best case for itself.
Coming to cause of children, only a fool would argue against f**king being the culprit and, if you really think about it, sex, since it's one of the most pleasurable activities people can engage in, seems highly apposite to the matter of why we should procreate. It's just too much fun.
Quoting 180 Proof
I already gave you my views on that. It's obvious that the natural world is filled with objects and phenomena that have reasons with respect to their existence and states. To illustrate what I mean, take the seeds in a sunflower - they're arranged in spirals that follow the golden ratio (1.1618...) because that way the flower can maximize the number of seeds per flower. This is just one example of countless many occasions when nature behaves in a certain way for a reason. It's not gonna take long for people to go from that to the PoSR.
Quoting unenlightened
Is what one deems to be good a justification for making major decisions on behalf of another?
If so, why?
I think it is good for you and other readers if I answer this question. It brings me no joy, and it will probably bring you none either. Nevertheless, there is no justification for doing anything at all other than that one deems it good. This post will change the world forever in a very minor way, and the full consequences are unknowable. Who knows, my daughter my yet become the antinatalist that finally convinces the world to stop making babies? Such is the terrible risk one takes in making a post or a child. but the same risks go with doing nothing at all. There is nothing for it but to do what one deems good and refrain from what one deems bad. "It seemed a good idea at the time ." is the only justification of anyone for anything. You seem to argue that I should have refrained from giving life to another from a place of even more ignorance than me. At least I know my daughter somewhat.
Some people wish they had never been born. Some people live lives full of pain and suffering. Others like myself are privileged and lucky. It isn't fair. We could make it more fair if we tried; we could massively reduce suffering if we cooperated, but I do not think we can end it or that we would want to end it. Our current guest has a project, but it makes no sense to me. I don't like suffering, yours or mine, but I love life and I choose to pay the price, and I have to choose one way or the other for untold future generations. I make the best choice I can in ignorance. I respect that you make the opposite choice in your ignorance. I do not even seek to change your mind.
I am arguing no such thing. I'm here to test my own ideas and there's no reason my comments should be seen as a personal attack on anyone's life choices.
Back on subject:
This fundamental ignorance you speak of, isn't that a serious reason to refrain from making major decisions on behalf of another?
No. One must either have a child or not; that is the decision one must make if the choice is available, or else let nature take its course. One decides to have a child or not, and one does not decide not to have a child on behalf of the child one does not have, nor does one decide to have a child on behalf of the child one has not yet had, and might never have. How many more times would you like me to answer that question?
A person once told me about a deer that was flopping around in a ditch, having been hit by a car. I got a 45-70 and went to put him down. As I approached, he stood and stumbled. I shot him, point blank, right through the heart. He stood again, and stumbled again. I shot him through both lungs. He stood and stumble through a barbed wire fence and finally collapsed and died. In hauling off to a better location for the coyotes and ravens, I noticed all four legs had compound fractures (bones broke through and through). He also had a large chunk of skull hanging off the side of his head, held on only by his hide. I could see his brain.
After that, I resolved to live.
So I was perplexed about these guys: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/04/06/texas-family-murder-suicide/
Suicide is a thing. I get it. But when I heard they killed their family so their family would not have to deal with their suicide, it made my think of this thread. I guess I don't get. I'll roll with the deer.
Having said that, I'm not sure how many people know just how bad the situation is climate wise, I'm not so confident anymore than after a certain amount of years, perhaps 8 years, perhaps less, it would be a good idea to introduce new creates to the world with no prospects of a good life at all. In fact, it looks to me to be a quite cruel act. But again, it's far from clear just how much people know about how bad the situation is, and how little time we have to prevent the worst outcome.
And virtually no one speaks about the increasing nuclear threat, which the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, not a organization to take lightly, has not shifted from using minutes to seconds, and warns us that, if we do not cooperate on a global level, we are 100 seconds away from midnight, meaning, the end of it all. Of course, this news is so bleak, it makes it easy to ignore. I think this is a mistake, just look at how we've reacted the pandemic, surely the lightest of warm-ups for what's coming very soon.
It's not a pretty picture, and questions such as the one posted by the OP now gain an existential urgency that would otherwise not have existed.
The choice to have a child is akin to choosing on behalf of that child that it must experience life.
One might say that there is no child yet on whose behalf choices can be made, but one knows it to come about as a direct result of one's actions.
Quoting unenlightened
Well, it is a rather odd position.
It implies one should not take into consideration the future conditions one knowingly brings about as a result of their actions.
I think it is quite commonplace; antinatalism is the odd position. The only oddity on my part is that I even bother to articulate the view.
Rather, I Think it odd that you take ignorance as a reason not to have children and knowing as another reason.
I agree, my argument about your resentment was invalid, which, as you note, I acknowledged. That doesn't mean what I said was wrong.
Quoting Bartricks
I agree that it is a personal slight and unbecoming someone as mature and rational as I am. But my comment about you having children was not part of my argument. That's the difference. Also, I was talking about my feelings, not about you.
As you will note, I didn't make any case against your argument at all because that, according to the OP, is not the subject of this thread. Note, from the OP -
Quoting Andrew4Handel
What I did was to answer Andrew4Handel's question. My answer - It is human nature to want to have children. Then I made some comments about what I think the reasons for and value of that is. People have children, I had my children, because we want them. Nuff said.
As I've noted, you haven't made any response to that comment at all.
No, you did not acknowledge it, you just made it in ignorance of the fact you were committing the very fallacy you had just mentioned. That's how inept you are at being consistent.
Now, you also said this in your earlier post:
Quoting T Clark
I then responded with an argument. Here:
Quoting Bartricks
You then reply:
Quoting T Clark
So I take it that you admit that by your own lights you are not rational? For you had accused me of making no arguments - false, I made one and made it again and again - then you accuse me of not being rational, then you identify a characteristic of rational people, and then you demonstrate that you lack it. Good job! Like I say, totally inept.
You also do not seem to understand the OP. In the OP the question is whether there are any reasons to have kids. Normative reasons. I am saying that there is positive reason not to have them. Moral reason. Instrumental too, but I am focussing on moral reasons. (Moral reasons are among the normative reasons that there are).
I'll repeat - the subject of the OP was the question:
Quoting Andrew4Handel
You have identified reasons for not having children, which was not the issue raised in the OP. I answered that question. An appropriate response on your part might be to question whether the reason I identified was valid. You haven't even done that.
You still haven't responded to how I addressed the issue raised in the OP.
For example you could say "why did you drink that water?" If the person responds "because I was thirsty" that would satisfy your question.
I think that I do a lot of things to make me feel good. I think this kind of hedonsistic, self-protective motive is somehwat understandable and logical.
The problem is using other people for pleausre. I cannot force someone I am attracted to to be my partner/lover It is only in having children that you are permitted to exploit someone else to fulfill your desires with limited protest.
What is happening now due to fertility technology is that people do not need to be in a consensual relationship to create a child.
Having said that, I've only read a few threads, seen a few YouTube videos and the like, so I may be missing out on important themes. But, what I most see highlighted is the tension or the problem of the pain/pleasure ratio, which no doubt is important. But surely there is more to consider than pleasure and pain? Honor, honesty, struggle, sacrifice, ideals and the like do not fit in neatly to such a pleasure/pain schema, but it's not talked about much in these arguments, at least none that I have seen.
I think these things also merit mention, because they are also important in the life debate.
But I guess the question would be whether YOUR values should be bestowed on someone else, who may not share them. Further, even if you do not use pleasure/pain, or suffering, that will be a factor in the person who is born, and thus you have now created the conditions where someone else will suffer. YOU deem the challenge/overcoming challenge game as good. However, is it RIGHT to recruit another person into this inescapable game? Isn't this overlooking the person being born (their dignity) in the pursuit of YOU seeing SOMEONE ELSE go through a game that YOU value?
Well, If I was not already clear, I'm somewhat sympathetic to the argument. Not completely, but I think it's not unreasonable, so I'm not sure why you frame the question as if I were attacking anything. The question of whether my values should or can be attributed to a non-existent entity doesn't arise. It only arises after a person is born.
That's just the thing, if the argument is based inherently on pleasure or pain, then these are the main metrics that will be used to judge whether a life if worth living. I agree that a lot of life consists in suffering. But that surely misses out on a lot of other aspects of life too.
Whether these other considerations are enough to justify a person having children varies. For those who do have children, or want to have them, the issue of potential pain can be answered with potential pleasure.
But there's a way out and it's a viable option for everybody. Whether people can overcome the biological imperative for wanting to stay alive, is person dependent.
I've already written a lot on this so don't wish to go into another argument, but surely we can consider a future state where a person will exist by our current actions, correct? Just because there is no person suffering NOW, doesn't mean that the current action can't lead to a future person who suffers, which clearly it would in this case.
Quoting Manuel
Does it matter if no "one" experiences a life that has a balance of pleasure or pain? "Who" exactly is suffering from this loss?
Quoting Manuel
Ah, so you "bestow" an inescapable game on another person, one where the only way out is killing yourself. That seems pretty cruel.. Force into game that can only escape via extreme self-harm, one which is not easy to do for inbuilt fears of pain and the unknown. However, just because people don't commit suicide at the drop of a hat, doesn't mean that this is fair either. It just shows more that humans have a hard time inflicting self-harm and getting over death anxiety.
Correct. But this focuses on the pain side, there are other considerations. Unless you think pain is the only metric that matters in human life. It's a very important metric, though not the only one.
Quoting schopenhauer1
We can say anything about non-existent entities. But that can quickly turn pointless. No one is suffering the loss, and no one is is gaining the pleasure.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That's not the only way out. You can choose to struggle and look at the good aspects, that's always a possibility. But suicide is an option for anybody who thinks life is unbearable. And a good option to have too. Your perspective would strengthen substantially if we could not kill ourselves, that is, the only option for death is old age or injury/disease.
Of course it's not fair. Then again, if we could kill ourselves through mere strong willing, almost everyone would be dead, cause at one point in life, the option must have flashed in one's head. But people managed to find a way out of being at such depths. I'm not saying life is easy, nor is suicide, nor is pain trivial. But to assume that what you think is correct, and what I am somewhat sympathetic to (in part), is what other people should do, doesn't follow. Other people have different judgments.
If suicide isn't tenable because it's difficult, then one can look forward to death as salvation, as Mainländer argued. Though he killed himself to make it quicker.
I think preventing pain is more important than bestowing pleasure, certainly. There is no obligation for providing pleasure, but certainly if one is ABLE to prevent pain, one should. If that means no human in the first place, what does that matter (for THAT human)? Pleasures missed out, to me, isn't a thing for anyone. But certainly pain that is had, is pain that is had by SOMEONE.
Quoting Manuel
Yes that is cruel too. I like baseball, therefore I want to force recruit you into the game. Your only escape if you don't want to hit, slide, and catch all day is kill yourself or get better at it and "accept" it. OR you can not put someone in the game in the first place. However, this game is the "challenge/overcoming challenge" game which is more than presumptuous to assume OTHER PEOPLE must play.
Quoting Manuel
And THAT is a major point. If other people have different judgements, then certainly putting people into existence is a MAJOR judgement you are making on SOMEONE ELSE'S behalf. However, if you choose not to put someone in existence, someone else is not living out the collateral damage. Also, going back to the game. Even if someone else likes the game, is it right to assume that force recruiting them is okay because YOU deem the game so good, that everyone else should play it?
Well, if you stick to pleasure without specifying what this entails, then the argument is obvious. But what fits under the term pleasure isn't trivial, unless you have in mind feeling good. If that's what pleasure is, then anyone can surely get very high on heroin and live a very short, but mostly very pleasurable existence. But that view is absurd. If we consider pleasure to include other things besides feeling good, such as, growing up in a nurturing, healthy environment and society, then it should be as much as an obligation as preventing pain.
Quoting schopenhauer1
As much as I may want to, I cannot say what other people should want in life. Sure they will not want pain, meaning unnecessary suffering, but I cannot tell other people not to have children for this reason. It should be a huge consideration, given the current state of the planet, I agree. But life isn't reducible to pain and pain avoidance alone, this should be evident.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Again, you only consider pain as the sole reason for games at all. It's way too narrow. What should be done is to make this place better for others now, instead of talking about pain alone. We'll all be dead soon anyway.
This thread {and all the others} repeats this question over and over again. The answer I and most people give is YES.
Life is good and life is a gift, and if you are ungrateful, and some other people are ungrateful, that is an unfortunate consequence, usually of a life lacking in challenge and engagement, or occasionally of traumatic events. Not much I can do about that, but it is no reason to end all life. We disagree about this, but your endless question has no more force with me than my repeated answer has on you. The question is a complaint, not an argument.
I disagree that it is not an argument. However, I can accept that the insistence of it (the complaint) is part of the pessimistic process of catharsis perhaps. But that is also bad faith, because people may argue it forcefully because they feel as passionately about it as vegans for animal rights issues, etc.
You are wrong to disagree. It is a simple matter of grammar, that a question is not a proposition, and has no function in an argument as either a premise or conclusion. Rather it is a rhetorical device that attempts to put pressure on the interlocutor to make statements that can be attacked without stating an argument that can itself be attacked. A question can be wonderful opening to an open discussion, but as an argument, it is a trick and a cheat.
:100:
Well stated sir.
Ironically, you did not make an argument for why my particular argument is not an argument. Poor form if you want to show what you are accusing.
Quoting unenlightened
I don't need to make an argument, I am stating a fact about what makes an argument. Do you dispute the fact? Go consult an elementary logic text. Or just ignore the facts and me too. Or whatever.
But I am saying to apply your critique of why my argument is not an argument not just a general critique of how a question isn't an argument or something like that.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Fuck it, dude I can't be bothered any more. Carry on without me.
Why? Not why the assumption, but why the agreement? If life itself is good, and if diversity of species is conducive to life, wouldn't life be better off without us?
And assuming there is not life on other planets that we'd ruin too if we get there.
It wouldn't change my mind. But I have to qualify my position here: I'm not necessarily antinatalist. I'm more for rolling population back to a sustainable level, like 35 people per 10k square miles of temperate zone, or less than a million world wide. That's assuming our current rate of consumption for each individual foot print. If we could scale back the sucking rate of resources, then maybe more people.
When I was a little boy some guy from the Fish and Game came to our school and taught us about the food pyramid, with very few apex predators at the top, and an ever-widening structure as it went down the food chain, with countless trillions of tons of insects, grasses, etc. When you turn a pyramid upside down, it won't take much of an earthquake to knock it all over. I figure with 7b+ apex predators sitting atop an ever-shrinking prey base below, we are looking at what Wall Street would call a "serious correction."
Anyway, I've spent a great deal of time roaming "wildlands" (HA!) of the American West. I think about 35 people could travel 50 miles from the center of their territory to link up with another group doing the same, once a year, to trade mates and keep the gene pool viable. That would be ideal for a hunter-gatherer society. So with today's tech, we could live in a few cities around the world and continue our tech advancements, etc. while still living a great lifestyle and not jeopardizing the Earth upon which we depend.
But, short a compromise like that, if it came down to 1. self-induced, intentional extinction vs 2. continuing on our current trajectory, I'll take what's behind door number 1.
Quoting unenlightened
...just a note to say that this conversation between you two has made my life worthwhile.
The only people who think preserving the humans species is a good thing are, you know, humans. By any objective assessment, we are not a force for good in the world. We cause an obscene amount of suffering to other creatures. The idea that our absence from the world would be bad is laughable, as laughable as suggesting that the extinction of cancer would be bad.
Imagine that the only way to preserve the species, would involve creating humans who'll live in absolute agony for their entire lives. So, we can preserve the species, but the species would exist in agony thereafter. I think now even most prejudiced humans would agree that it would be better if the species went extinct. The brute continuation of the species doesn't really matter much, not compared the amount of suffering such lives create. More important to prevent suffering, then, than to preserve the species. As there's no reason to think our suffering matters more than the suffering of other creatures, and as even happy human lives cause masses of suffering to other creatures, it is better if we go extinct.
I think there's no reasonable way of avoiding that conclusion.
But anyway, even if the extinction of the human species would somehow be morally bad, that wouldn't automatically mean it is justifiable to procreate to prevent it. I mean, imagine no-one wants to procreate. Is it morally justifiable to force people to breed to prevent extinction? Surely not. So, it seems more important to respect another's autonomy than it does to preserve the species. Well, breeding itself violates another's autonomy - for those who are brought into existence here have been forced to live here by other people's breeding decisions.
So, imagine no one wants to procreate. And the species consequently goes extinct. Well, even in the unlikely event that this is a bad thing, no-one did anything wrong, did they? People just voluntarily decided not to breed. No-one was wronged. No injustice was done. The species went extinct. But that did not wrong anyone. We do not have obligations to the species, but to each other.
Humans cause vast amounts of suffering. It is more important to prevent that suffering than it is to preserve the species.
And the point of the example of everyone voluntarily deciding not to procreate was to show that a) there is no positive obligation to preserve the species and b) that it is more important not to impose significant things on people without their consent than it is to preserve the species.
As it is more important not to impose significant things on people without their consent than it is to preserve the species, and as procreation clearly involves imposing something significant on someone without their consent, it is more important not to procreate than it is to preserve the species.
I thought these points were obvious.
It is impossible to get the consent of something that does not exist to bring it into existence. That's an impossible burden to meet.
Let's say I like coercing other people. Well, the nature of coercion is such that one cannot consent to be coerced. So, if I want to coerce you, I can't get your prior consent. Does that imply that it is morally okay to coerce people? Er, no. The opposite. Coercion is default wrong precisely because it can't be consented to (a point Kant made much of).
You can't consent to be coerced. So it is default wrong to coerce you. You can't consent to be brought into being here. Therefore it is default wrong to bring you into being here.
Corollary: The only consistent-from-first-principles antinatalist is the successful suicide who has not procreated. Otherwise, it's just bullshit sophistry.
Quoting unenlightened
:up: :100:
Would successful homicide, suicide who has not procreated be even more consistent?
Ok, you can just try to explain how my particular argument is not an argument.
I believe the Joe Pesci line belongs here...
Since you didn't explain why, I will assume because the homicide would create more pain (among the remaining loved ones) than it would remove by the killing? If so, wouldn't that apply to suicide also? And what if more people are killed than are left to suffer because of the killing? (i.e. pressing the button in D.C. and Moscow.) Again, I'm new to this antinatalist stuff so I'm trying to understand the various arguments.
It is clearer, and it confirms my assumption set forth in the post to which you just responded.
So, as asked in that post, if one can kill more others (stop their suffering) than would be left behind to suffer the loss, would the net justify the killing in the eyes of an antinatalist? And likewise, if one found a person who no one would miss at all (Earl, in Goodbye Earl, Dixie Chicks) would it help to take him out?
One does not have to be an aggregate utilitarian to be an antinatalist. Thats where your conclusion went wrong.
:up:
I didn't think I had a conclusion? But now that you mention it, is the antinatalist only concerned with heading off the suffering of one? And if more than one, then why? Wouldn't aggregation be a consideration, even if not utilitarian? Or maybe even then?
I get that. I was talking about a net. I apparently have not been able to explain myself, let me try again: There are 7b people on the planet. Joe and Vlad press he button and wipe out 6.5b. Therefor, .5b are left to suffer, but 6.5b no longer suffer. Where the guy who had no kids and then kills himself is consistent, and the guy who has no kids, kills a few people and then kills himself is less consistent because he creates a net increase in suffering, is the guy who has no kids, kills more than are left behind to suffer, and then kills himself more consistent? Or, substitute the 6.5b with one "victim" who has no loved ones and who no one would miss.
This is a Monty Python routine. Really, it is.
:100: Humor is necessary. No, it isn't. Yes it is.
It was that antinatalists only worry about the greatest good for the greatest number (classic utilitarianism).
Quoting James Riley
No, while there is debate about the "Big Red Button" and the "Benevolent World Exploder Argument" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_utilitarianism#:~:text=Some%20replies%20to%20the%20benevolent,perhaps%20in%20a%20worse%20way.) Actually, our guest speaker, David Pearce even wrote about this, so you may want to ask him more his thoughts.
That would be a caricature of the most extreme and not a majority view (as far as I know). For example, my antinatalism is more based on a deontological foundation whereby one does not cause unnecessary harm while still respecting the dignity of the persons involved. Dignity is important here because the harm isn't just some abstract thing we are trying to prevent but is inhered/experienced-by an individual person. Once born, this person has interests, goals, fears, etc. One would be overlooking this individual by simply killing them off for a "greater goal". Thus, preventing unnecessary harm has to be coupled with dignity for morality to be actually "moral". So YES harm prevention is a large part of it, but the level at which morality takes place is the individual, and recognizing them qua them, and not as some vehicle for a greater good.
Thus, killing people off would be violating ANs (my conception at least) own morality of viewing people having some dignity. One of the major reasons for AN is the decision to have a child is overlooking the lifetime of harm that will occur for that child. Also, it is assuming that because YOU believe life's challenges/overcoming-challenges game is good to play another person should have to play this game too. It's a game that would be inescapable except for severe self-harm, something people can't do very easily without fear of pain and the unknown. Thus, killing a person for some greater good is in the case of people "already born" overlooking that person's dignity whereas creating a new person, would be violating the dignity of a future person by overlooking the fact that one is putting that person in "harms way" and forcing them into a nearly inescapable "challenge/over-coming challenge" game.
Also, as just another AN viewpoint, death itself can be considered its own harm, thus causing death is itself causing unnecessary harm to an individual.
Okay, I need to put that in my pipe and smoke it for a while. Initial thought, though, is that it seems to address unborn child issue, but when it comes to suicide, it's placing the dignity of the individual who is doing the choosing over the dignity of the individuals who are left behind (like the old saying "Suicide doesn't stop the pain; it just transfers it).
AN wouldn't necessarily have a theory of suicide, that would have to be part of the person's overall ethical theory. So, in the case of the dignity variation, one is choosing one's own time/place to die, and one wants to do it, thus one isn't violating one's own dignity. Are you using other people for this act? No. Well, then it is permissible. It is indeed causing harm to others, but its debatable if it is "unnecessary" and it isn't violating dignity. So it would be something to consider, but perhaps not totally a moral consideration as much.
However, you can make a case that suicide is causing "unnecessary suffering" to other people, but I'm not sure if it passes the dignity test. It is forcing others to deal with something, but does it meet the threshold of "force"? That is a harder question. I do see dignity as a threshold and analog of degrees rather than digital binary violated/not violated. For example, if a kid was drowning and I had to wake a lifeguard up to save the kids life, I have slightly "harmed" the lifeguard, and "forced" him to wake up, but I don't see that as violating the lifeguard's dignity. However, if I was to force the lifeguard to only teach lifeguarding lessons for the rest of his life because I thought the greatest amount of good would come from that for the greatest number of people, that would be violating the lifeguard's dignity.
While that was a sensible choice for them not to have been conceived, it appears now at least, it leaves me in the bizarre situation of having no family (all my family reached the same conclusion and are dead) and no one to inherit from me. This has become the biggest problem for me in my life, and I still dont have a resolution to it after years of trying to figure out what to do about it. Currently my life savings just default to whatever the state decides to do with them, I could find no better choice, because lawyers, on learning I have no blood heir, dont want to be responsible for managing my estate when I die. I didnt think this was going to be such a big problem, I thought, eventually I could find a lawyer, but aftertrying for a very long time, then covid happening and trying even harder, I still havent found one. It was rather unexpected.
I guess I'm conflating you with 180 and his statement about consistency. I then ran off on speculating about what might be more or less consistent, and this was based on the notion that negation of suffering could be placed in a calculus of more or less. If it's not that simple, and graduations of dignity are thrown in the mix, then that is what I need to put in my pipe.
As a piece of tobacco I'll be throwing in the pipe, a parent might deem the suicide of a child to be an insult to their dignity, the fruit of their very loins (i.e. themselves). They might be wrong on that, but that is an argument.
You can always adopt. You can even leave your estate to Gretta Thunberg or the like.
I don't know where you live, but generally you don't need a trust. You just write a Will and say within it what you want done. It can be holographic but there are a metric shit ton on the web, specifying the jurisdiction you live in. If there is anything left after expenses, it goes where you said you want it to go.
On the other hand, leaving it to the state is not so bad. I'd rather the state tax and spend, than rely on the Plutocracy to decide where they want to throw their scraps.
An executor will milk the estate for expenses of execution. If you don't have anything worth it, then yeah, you'll not find one. But if you have anything worth the executor's time, then it should not be a problem finding one. Name the homeless guy down the street under the bridge. The court can't make him do it if he doesn't want to. But it it's worth his time, he will. Hell, the court might even help him.
You could always give away all you've got before you die. Timing is key.
Anyway, you are right. It's no reason to have kids.
I would say it revolves around dignity (which consent and forced actions can fall under) and causing unnecessary suffering. Was putting someone into existence causing unnecessary suffering on someone else's behalf? If so that person's dignity was violated. Is someone causing another person to play a game (i.e. the game of being presented unwanted challenges and overcoming them) on someone else's behalf? That person's dignity was violated.
Putting the five dollar bill in someone's pocket is not violating dignity, even though it was without consent. The force was not to the threshold where the dignity was violated.
Actually Schopenhauer was not an advocate for suicide. He sympathized with it, but was against it as a "way out". Schopenhauer thought that suicide was the Will "willing" against itself and thus still willing. The only "way out" for Schopenhauer was living an ascetic life and denying the will to a point of enlightenment or salvation from Will's grasp or effect.
Plus the option is far from always available.
Is it wrong to slip someone 5 dollars? Well, normally yes. I mean imagine you wake up and find five dollars on your bedside table. I sneaked in at night and left it there for you. Was that ok? No.
What if I've got a suitcase with 2 million dollars in it . It is heavy and I am on the top of a very tall building. Nevertheless I want to share my wealth and I am in a hurry, so I decide just to throw it off the building and onto the busy street below. I know that it'll injure - possibly very seriously - whomever it strikes. But what the hell - they'll be 2million dollars up on the deal, so they can't complain, right? No, they can complain and throwing the suitcase off was wrong.
This seems to be how some of you are reasoning. It goes like this:
"Dur, here's a really stupid moral theory - utilitarianism - and applying it consistently implies both that we ought not procreate (antinatalism) and that we ought to kill ourselves (pro-mortalism). Therefore any case for antinatalism will also imply pro-moratalism."
It's just ridiculous. Most antinatalists are not straight utilitarians. Why? Because utilitarianism is a stupid theory. That you can reach the antinatalist conclusion via utilitarianism does not mean that antinatalists are utilitarians. I mean, here's another stupid theory about morality: any act beginning with 'p' is wrong and any act beginning with 's' is obligatory. That also gets one to the antinatalist conclusion because 'procreating' begins with 'p', and to pro-mortalism as well, because 'suicide' begins with 's'.
Why does there have to be a "reason"? Shaping the future generation of human beings seems pretty important to me, although I myself still have no kids.
I really can't abide by the cheap and easy nihilism that pervades your post. Perhaps it's best if you don't have kids. On the other hand, all that will be left are people who don't think at all and end up with 8 kids. If that's where things trend, we'll end up with an Idiocracy type situation.
So the question embedded in your inquiry about children is this: do we care about the future or not?
I, for one, do.
Assuming suicide is available, the alternative to non-existence is available anytime the victim of consent feels the consent violation outweighs the benefits of existence. There's no analogue to other consent violations, like say rape. Suicide is uncreating yourself, which was the consent violation: creation without consent. The rape victim cannot un-rape herself. She can kill herself, but that doesn't remove the consent violation. It just terminates her existence. Suicide negates the consent violation (assuming the person's existence was, on balance, neither good nor bad).
Now, you can say that there is a harm in even putting someone into a situation where they have to go through the ordeal of suicide. And I would agree that that's a serious harm. However, how do you handle the fact the vast majority of people don't kill themselves and don't want to kill themselves? If you ask most people, they might not be happy with their existence, but they certainly don't want to end it. So how can you do harm to someone who continues to exist yet you brought them into existence without consent? Are you claiming that such people are addicted to existence?
There's another category of people that truly enjoy their life. I got lucky in that my son is one of these people. He's very computer science minded and I explained the argument to him, but he said even if I should have gotten his consent, he's glad I had him. Did I harm him in bringing him into existence without his consent? I think a utilitarian or consequentialist would say no.
Discovering money on the table would lead to psychology distress, which is a harm. Suppose I add $5 to your bank account, and then change your memory of your account by $5. Was there a harm?
There's a harm in that situation. I'm talking about situations where charity is given to someone without their consent and without any harm resulting. Are charitable violations of consent that don't result in harm immoral?
Where are you going to be in the future? One hundred years from now?
No one exists in the future.
I think death is one of the main reasons not to have children. I believe it to be the one unavoidable harm and death appears to make life pointless which ends all your aspirations and undoes whatever you have done.
People use terms like "saving lives" to describe things like cancer treatment but I refer to them as prolonging life because you can't save anyones life from inevitable death.
I am somewhat frightened of dying and like Ernest Becker I think a subconscious fear of death is a key motivator rather than enjoyment of life.
If that's what you wish, let it be so. However! If you're willing to open up this back and forth toward a non-biased third party (myself at first, and of course any who wish to join, let us do so.)
What is your point, refuted or not, and what is his? Philosophy and yes even the most strict of disciplines, science itself, is about making mistakes and then learning from them. With this in mind, will you not continue?
Oh but apparently your truths and ideals do. This is encouraging, at least to a discernible degree.
I don't have a point or an argument, I have a judgement and a motive. Other people make other judgements and have other motives.
My judgement is that life is good; that a poor life is better than no life, and a long life is better than a short one - at least as a general rule. And the natural shape of human life includes procreation as a necessary part of its continuation. Antinatalism makes the opposite, negative global judgement of life as a whole, that existence is characterised as a whole by suffering and is as a whole evil.
My life is winding down towards its dissolution in death, but I am still motivated to spread the joy of philosophy, of love, of communication, to the extent I can, to you, to my children, natural and adopted, and to anyone else around. Dry arguments of moral principle seem to me to already presume this global judgement that life is either a gross imposition, or a gift of great value.
In the exchange above, I did make a point that this thread and others similar make too much use of challenging questions, and that such questions are rhetorical devices not arguments. I will not waste more time on that, or on the rhetorical questions.
You're essentially saying you don't like the philosophy's arguments so you won't engage in it. I know you think antinatalism as a rhetorical question rather than an argument, but you never spelled out how specifically antinatalism is not an argument. You have only asserted that human life includes procreation. Human life also includes a lot of nasty things, so? Where is your argument against antinatalism other than it is currently something people do?
At the same time you did mention part of the basis of the argument for antinatalism which is that suffering is something not to bring lightly into the world for another person. Why that is not an argument I don't know. It seems like now you are using rhetorical devices to try to wave off the argument you don't like.
Don't force a nearly inescapable game on someone. Don't cause conditions for unnecessary harm on someone. That right there can be discussed in much more detail as a premise. I give a foundation of violating dignity when creating great amounts of unnecessary harm on someone else's behalf. Others have other deontological or consequentialist approaches. Some people also employ the Benatarian asymmetry of it being "good" that no one was harmed, sub species aeternatatis. Either way, you can't just say there's no argument when clearly many people are putting one out there. It just seems a rhetorical device that you are using to try to not have to deal with it.
No, you just think you know that. In fact I was rather specific in my criticism, not antinatalism is a rhetorical question, but questioning is a rhetorical device, overused in this thread. If you would read what I say, you would understand more and be less insulted. I respect antinatalism as a legitimate position; I take another view. what I do not respect so much is the proselytising.
Fair enough, it looked like you were talking about AN in general.
Quoting unenlightened
:up:
Quoting unenlightened
Well I think this whole "antinatalism is proselytizing" thing is unfair and just based on strong biases against it. This too would be a rhetorical tactic. Perhaps we should stop talking about Forms because Platonists are proselytizing. The next argument about Platonic Forms should be stopped. Perhaps all talk of Aristotle's virtues should stop. Perhaps all applied ethics dealing with murder and stealing should stop. All political philosophy dealing with communist ideas, capitalist ideas, and specific philosophers who advocated this to stop. You see, it becomes a slippery slope to calling any repeated discussion of a stance you don't like as "proselytizing". I think this is a cop out. You have options.. Don't read the threads if you don't like it. I mean, if it is popular enough, it can have its own section. But this proselytizing claim seems to be more bias against the a philosophy you don't like. Let me give you a counter example..
If David Pearce's transhumanism ideas became popular, and I saw a whole bunch of threads about transhumanism.. I would simply say, "Oh that has become popular philosophy and is something people want to discuss in various forms". Even if I disagreed with it, what the hell does it matter to me if there are 50 threads on this, and only a few on Bertrand Russell's view on mathematics or some other more classically well-known philosophy? Anyone who brings up Wittgenstein one more time and his Logical Investigations.. shut it down. Next time I even hear the term "eliminativist materialism", that's gotta go.. I can't stand that stance, so then next person who has a thread about that, I am going to cry proselytizing.
So your next move is to say that it's the posters not the topics.. So then any specialist..anyone who has an interest or expertise in a certain subject or field.. they gotta go too because I don't like their interest.
Actual proselytizers try to look for people easy to convince. Almost everyone on this forum seems to be cantankerous disagreeable people that argue everything. Seems a pretty inhospitable place for proselytizing. Rather, it is a place for dialectic on particular topics to take shape, form, and nascent ideas to come out in thesis-antithesis-synthesis Hegelian fashion that happens if (good) philosophical discourse takes place.
FOR FUCK'S SAKE. I DID NOT SAY "antinatalism is proselytizing". PLEASE DON'T MAKE UP SHIT AND QUOTE IT AS IF I SAID IT.
I'm going to stop responding to you for a bit, because you are wilfully misunderstanding me.
We can discuss in any number of threads; we can argue it back and forth. But now you are again misrepresenting my position, and that is an unfair and unreasonable practice. It is another rhetorical trick, and it stinks. And it is not antinatalism that stinks, it is your debating style, and your use of illegitimate means to try and convince others of the strength of your position. And that is what I am calling 'proselytising'.
Then what was the intention of this quote?
Quoting unenlightened
Was that again only to a specific poster or antinatalism? That one seemed aimed at AN because it was right after your reference to AN as a legitimate philosophy (general not specific).
So, did you read my last post where I address this?
Quoting unenlightened
I'm not trying to. Unless I am misreading you, and you can try to show where this is, you are saying that repeated discussions of a topic (like AN) is proselytizing, and I rebutted this in a long post.
Quoting unenlightened
This has move to another argument that was just brought up now that is specific to me and not antinatalism, but that was not what you seemed to be referring to before. What about my style is "illegitimate"? It seems, you just don't agree with the position.
How very profound.
Actually, you do exist in the future. The future is now. Grandchildren will exist a hundred years from now. People will exist -- provided we don't go extinct.
Basically what you're saying is that since there's death, life is meaningless. But to paraphrase Nietzsche: it is only YOU who is meaningless, and your one way of looking at the world.
Since nothing matters, by all means quickly die off.
Absolutely we both can be correct. We are voicing opinions, you can only be wrong if you voice an opinion you don't believe, and really, why do that?