Why I no longer identify as an anti-natalist
I haven't posted much lately, but I thought I would share a slight change in my thinking on a topic of continuing interest to me. I say "slight" because it's not as drastic as you might presume from my somewhat provocative title.
To be brief, for some time I have made a distinction between strong and weak anti-natalism, roughly paralleling the same distinction in terms of atheism. The strong anti-natalist is someone who claims that having children is positively immoral or wrong. The weak anti-natalist, which I used to identify with, is someone who claims that having children may not be wrong but is not right/justified either. It could also be someone whose lifestyle negates the possibility of having children, e.g. if one is celibate, meaning that they practically assent to anti-natalism, if not theoretically.
The trouble, though, is with the prefix "anti." I think this necessarily entails or at least greatly implies what I call the strong version above. Moreover, the most popular definition of anti-natalism online says it is a position that assigns a "negative value" to birth. Birth and existence in general have no value in my estimation, and incidentally in Schopenhauer's as well, who is frequently but falsely thought of as an anti-natalist. Then it occurred to me that the weak view could be called "anatalism." So now I identify as an anatalist, both because I find natalism unjustified and because I happen to be celibate.
To be brief, for some time I have made a distinction between strong and weak anti-natalism, roughly paralleling the same distinction in terms of atheism. The strong anti-natalist is someone who claims that having children is positively immoral or wrong. The weak anti-natalist, which I used to identify with, is someone who claims that having children may not be wrong but is not right/justified either. It could also be someone whose lifestyle negates the possibility of having children, e.g. if one is celibate, meaning that they practically assent to anti-natalism, if not theoretically.
The trouble, though, is with the prefix "anti." I think this necessarily entails or at least greatly implies what I call the strong version above. Moreover, the most popular definition of anti-natalism online says it is a position that assigns a "negative value" to birth. Birth and existence in general have no value in my estimation, and incidentally in Schopenhauer's as well, who is frequently but falsely thought of as an anti-natalist. Then it occurred to me that the weak view could be called "anatalism." So now I identify as an anatalist, both because I find natalism unjustified and because I happen to be celibate.
Comments (664)
Perhaps "non-natalism" would be a better term? Interesting discussion. I'm with you on the weak-version; birth is usually merely unnecessary (and overrated imho), although in certain situations I do have to wonder what the fuck the parents were thinking having a child.
The strong-antinatalist tends to be associated with such movements as the complete eradication of all life on earth, permanently and immediately. I'm not sure if you have ever wasted some of your time reading some of the philosophy behind the fringe group "efilism" (life spelled backwards) but it is basically that life is just absolutely horrible and needs to be exterminated.
Quoting Thorongil
I hope I'm not being too personal here, but I would like to understand why this is. I share your views on birth, but I believe that sex is an important aspect of someone's health. Abstaining from all sexual encounters and/or actions is, in my view, unhealthy in that it builds up stress and perhaps even loneliness in some people.
Do you abstain out of asceticism? I see the attraction towards asceticism but have always been turned off in the end because the complete rejection of all pleasure seems very artificial, and only reminds me of why I'm trying to be an ascetic in the first place.
Yeah, that works too.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, I'm aware of those guys and find them very far from the position I would want to identify with. I started visiting the AN subreddit recently as well and found the community there not that great overall. In fact, pretty much the whole AN community, at least as it exists on the internet, I find to be irritating and disagreeable. And as for its manifestation in print, I'm not a fan of Benatar (since I'm not a utilitarian and have moral qualms about his advocacy of abortion) and find Ligotti, Crawford, and their ilk rather unsophisticated and pretentious.
This guy is perhaps the only one I find tolerable and even enjoyable.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I don't know about that. It seems to me that Catholic priests and monks, Buddhist monks, and Hindu ascetics are pretty fit, free of many illnesses common to the general public, and usually live extremely long lives. So it seems rather a boon than a detriment to one's health.
Quoting darthbarracuda
It need not do this if one replaces or redirects the sexual impulse towards other things.
Quoting darthbarracuda
This seems slightly oddly worded to me. I suppose I can say that I do try to live up to ascetic ideals, though.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Is it the rejection of all pleasure or only of a certain kind of pleasure? Asceticism need not lead to stoicism, in the common sense of that word. It certainly rejects the pleasures of the flesh, otherwise known as the "hedonic treadmill," so if you define pleasure only in this sense, then I suppose you are right to assert that asceticism involves the rejection of pleasure. But it still involves something positive, that of becoming closer to or reaching the goal for which one practices asceticism in the first place. The Greek roots of the word tell us that it is a form of exercise or self-discipline. If one has no self-discipline, one is effectively a slave.
Stay the hell away from some of those subreddits. They are toxic and filled with extraordinarily narrow-sighted people. I think I had maybe one or two "decent" discussions over on them; the rest were all a bunch of pretentious teenagers bitching about how much they hate their mothers or how they don't like having to wake up for school.
I have a weird position on Benatar. I don't know if his analysis works, for one (I expect considerable debate in the future). I think it is far, far easier to just say that it is wrong to inflict suffering on someone, even by proxy. Period. End of topic, moving on, no need of an asymmetry.
Also, is your problem with his promotion of abortion that of natural law?
Granted, though, I still find birth in most cases to be merely unnecessary instead of blatantly immoral.
Ligotti definitely has writing talent, I'll give him that. But he would get destroyed in any professional philosophical debate. Too much of his writing is unsophisticated nihilism born out of unrealistic expectations.
Quoting Thorongil
I'll have to check him out. From a quick overview, he seems likeable. I can't stand those petty debates over at YouTube (just a bunch of yelling and cursing, kind of pitiful imho); perhaps this will be a better alternative.
Quoting Thorongil
Yeah, except the ones that rape the alter boys ;)
Quoting Thorongil
I respect your lifestyle and I guess I might even be classified as somewhat of an ascetic in some regards in that I do try to limit my sensual pleasures (too much of a good thing is too much of a good thing), and I think you are spot on when you say that sensual pleasures make you a "slave", but I would say only insofar that you allow them to enslave you.
Without being too personal and graphic, I do release sexual tension occasionally, and afterwards I feel very relieved and relaxed. From my perspective, having all those (natural) pent-up urges and hormones makes me very unfocused and stressed. Now you could definitely make the argument that this is exactly what enslavement is, but is it enslavement if we are comfortable with it? The Buddha taught the middle path between extreme hedonism and excessive asceticism, and I think this might be a good time to invoke his teachings.
It could possibly imply that one is undecided or simply doesn't care about the debate of natalism v. anti-natalism.
Meow!
GREG
Haha, this was more or less my impression as well, from what little I've visited of it.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I think so, at least as far as I understand your question. A human fetus has the same natural right to live as its mother or any other sentient being. To abort it is to commit wrongdoing because to do so expressly denies the will of the fetus to live. Once a woman becomes pregnant, it is too late to bring up arguments about preventing suffering. The salient deed to which I would object has already been done.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, this is precisely my thinking on this.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Well, like birth, satisfying the sexual impulse is not necessary. It may not me immoral either, but it certainly does inhibit the achievement of certain goals that one may wish to strive for. The serious practitioner of Buddhism, i.e. the monk or nun, and even the Buddha himself, are still far more ascetic than even I am. The eight precepts forbid among other things all sexual activity. So the Middle Way is not to do with settling on the medium sized drink at the drive thru but forging a path between the extreme asceticism of the Hindu sadhus and all forms of worldliness. I suppose you could try to apply it as a sort of Aristotelian golden mean in daily life, but that's not how it was originally proposed.
To be comfortable in one's slavery is still to be a slave and to accept and rejoice in the fact. If one is not at the very least bothered by how much one is swayed by the passions and various external stimuli, then one has capitulated to them both mentally and physically. I don't wish to do so. On the other hand, I don't mind language, such as one finds in Christianity, about becoming a slave to virtue, Christ, or what have you. The whole idea of asceticism is to become a "slave" not to the world but its denial. But this is clearly to speak metaphorically.
Too much of a good thing can be wonderful. Mae West
I probably won't be a regular there, but his rant on cell phones struck a chord.
I don't think that's possible.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Well thank you. :)
YouTube isn't much better, haha.
Quoting Thorongil
The way I look at it, you can't lose something if you don't have it. A fetus does not have a "will", a "telos", to live. I find this entire conception to be anthropomorphization gone wild. Aborting a fetus does nothing unethical because there is nothing to feel saddened or disappointed, and since there is no god, there is no retribution for such an act if natural law theory even was true.
You argued that the fetus has a will to live that should be respected, but what if this fetus grows up to be a suicidal person who hates living?
Yeah, I've seen a few Gary videos, for example. At times he seems to make some good points. At other times, he seems woefully ignorant of what he's talking about.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I'm not thinking of "will" in terms of an end, but in terms of a desire. The fetus, like anything living, desires to live, whether it is conscious of this fact or not. So to abort is to harm it in that one is forcibly denying its will to live. We might have different preconceptions of what constitutes wrongdoing, though.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I don't think I understand the relevance of this. Regardless, the suicidal person still wishes to live. In fact, as I have remarked before, no one wishes to live more than the suicide. It's just that they perceive too many obstacles in the way of living.
I don't know if it necessarily follows. First, many priests do, for example, release sexual tension via masturbation. Also I'm not sure if it's the abstinence from sexual intercourse that leads to better health, or RATHER the avoidance of the many conflicts and stress that often result from sexual relationships. My hypothesis is that a strong relationship, when both partners care deeply about each other, are loyal and faithful, are of similar intellectual capabilities, etc. is the best for one's health. But, such a relationship is exceedingly rare. So the next best alternative would be celibacy. But naturally - it follows from all this that one should cultivate the ability to be celibate.
Gary pisses me off. He makes good points, though, and that's why he pisses me off even more because he makes far more idiotic points than decent ones, and he's the name that gets circulated around the community. Not to mention his personality and attitude is atrocious.
Quoting Thorongil
How can an unconscious entity have any desires?
Perhaps. I wouldn't make "possible health benefits" the only or even the primary reason to be celibate, though. It's more like an added bonus, if true.
Quoting Agustino
Maybe so. But I still wouldn't see the need for any consummation. In fact, I wouldn't be opposed to such a relationship myself. It's just that I would have no interest in consummating it. I'm not sure what one would call that either. A celibate marriage is a bit of an oxymoron, but that would be sort of the idea.
I'm tempted to say this ought to be self-evident. All living things have desires they seek to fulfill. This is simply the nature of life itself. Humans are unique solely in that they are aware of said desires. And even then, we are often not aware of many desires we have that lurk in our subconscious.
Aristotle thought that objects (not artifacts though) have a telos, or an end goal, that they strive for. It's actually rather similar to Schopenhauer's conception of a Will, except the Will is universalized while the telos is apparent in only the kind of object. So, for example, a penis' telos is to enter a vagina. An acorn's telos is to grow into a tree.
Obviously, Aristotle did not know about DNA, or he would have understood that this is why every acorn grows into a tree, and not a camel.
Aristotle's thought got taken up by Aquinas, who thought that since the universe seems to operate under this notion of a telos, or a pulling-causation, that to frustrate such notions is immoral. Thus, it is immoral to have gay sexual relations because the act goes against the "natural law" of the universe, or the telos of the penis. Thus, it is immoral to have an abortion, because the act of aborting goes against the telos of the fetus to develop.
Personally, I find all this talk of telos and natural law to be a bit unscientific and definitely problematic in terms of the is-ought gap. The Catholic Church tries to defend natural law by saying that natural, male-female sex during marriage is the only way to achieve human flourishing - a doctrine that I find blatantly absurd.
Priests don't assent to anti-natalism, but very specifically believe in being fruitful and multiplying, so much so that they object to any form of sexual behavior that interferes with it leading to pregnancy. That is to say that there are celibates who are clearly not anti-natalists. I don't think there is a consistent correlation between celibacy and an objection to having children, as the typical celibate (I would assume) is not celibate simply as a way to practice effective birth control. There are far simpler ways to avoid pregnancy than life long abstinence.
Those who believe that there should be no more children on the planet can have as much sex as they please without being logically inconsistent as long as they practice safe sex.
Why you've chosen not to have sex is your business, but I don't see how it bears at all on the anti-natalist position.
Marriage leads to longer lives for men. http://healthresearchfunding.org/married-men-live-longer-single-men/
Quoting Agustino
This strikes me as utter nonsense, to suggest that because most marriages are imperfect, we should all live in chastity.
The truth is that all relationships (sexual or not) are imperfect. If I'm already not having sex with all my friends, what do I do to improve those relationships if the panacea is to stop having sex with them? I'm already taking a healthy dose of the don't-fuck-my-friends medicine, so why do I still have occasional tiffs with them?
I wonder as I read these posts if there is some rationalization going on here. Do you guys really think that celibacy is the cure to your various physical and emotional challenges or is that just a comforting thing to tell yourself because you aren't getting laid?
It's not suggesting that, it's suggesting that people should work on improving themselves so that most marriages stop being disastrous (50% divorce rate in US, don't forget ;) ).
Quoting Hanover
A relationship cannot be improved by not having sex. If the relationship isn't good, then it's not good, full stop. And it's not good because of character defects (in one or both partners), not because of the presence or lack of sex.
Quoting Hanover
Celibacy is developing the inner strength to: 1. refuse to take that which isn't worth your time (refuse to engage in sexual relationships with people who will hurt themselves and hurt you), and 2. learn to live alone (because sometimes in life you may actually have to), and 3. learn to be patient and wait so that you may catch gold. Simple. And it's not my philosophy, it's the philosophy that has existed for reasonable men and women since Aristotle. A diamond cannot be found without patience, perseverance, learning to say no, and temperance and prudence. All of the former are virtues.
So my point is aim to get married. Keep looking for virtuous people. Stay in their company, and ultimately marry one. But do not marry just because you need to have sex. Do not marry just because other people are. Do not marry the wrong person because you cannot find better. Be of good courage and persevere in your search. And this is all greatly facilitated by celibacy until then.
And yes, "getting laid" in the right circumstances is good - but "getting laid" in the wrong circumstances will do you more harm than good. You should be aware that most people on the planet know that. Also, most people on the planet are not willing to do anything to get laid. The only ones who are willing to do anything to get laid are desperate people who cannot control or manage their own urges (a character defect by the way - a defect which will certainly not be solved by "getting laid").
The divorce rate is not actually 50%.
The 50% rate is a projected rate, using past divorce trends, and applying those trends to current marriages. It's not a "fact" it's a trend line. It doesn't apply to actual people.
*the 'age adjusted crude divorce rate' is 13 per 1000. This isn't a very useful figure since it includes single people who can't get divorced (since they are not married).
*the 'percent ever divorced' is about 22% for women, 21% for men.
*the 'refined divorce rate' is the rate of divorce per 1000 divided by 10; the refined divorce rate is 1.9, meaning 1.9% of marriages ended this year.
So, some people get married and divorced several times, some never marry, and many who marry don't get divorced. A small fraction will get divorced each year. There are identifiable factors that lead to higher rates of divorce, it isn't just "people who don't know how to have a relationship". Being too young, uneducated, poor, a pregnancy which only one partner is happy about, discordant views about marriage, and not being serious enough about marriage to wait for a license before bedding each other for an extended period of time.
The statistics indicate that there are problems in the way marriages are formed and conducted. ON the other hand, I can think of good reasons why some marriages should definitely be ended -- namely, a given marriage is neither in the best interests of that particular couple, nor in the best interests of society either. I am not in favor, either, of people having children without partners.
As a gay man, I am 100% in favor of straight marriage. Straight marriages produce gay men, so keep up the good work!
The other 50% end in the death of one spouse, which sounds more disastrous without proper context.*
*edit @Bitter Crank's response undermines my sass.
We would need a highly reliable and valid poll to answer this question.
Certainly, if one can't get laid, one could make a virtue out of current circumstances and declare one's self to be celibate--at least until one has the opportunity to get laid.
I think the Roman Catholic priesthood is a an excellent demonstration of how toxic celibacy can be, even for men who wish to be priests, even for men who have thought through the meaning of celibacy, and even within an institution that supports and upholds celibacy. I don't think that sex with children has anything to do with celibacy, but certainly the number of priests who have sexual relationships with other (and consenting) adults is related to celibacy, and so is the number of priests who are at least fairly unhappy in their priestly lives, and who have few good, close interpersonal relationships. When there were many more priests, there was more of a chance for priests to have supportive friendships and supervisory relationships with other priests to whom they could unburden themselves (none of this involving sex, of course). Those days are long gone and won't be back any time in the near future, if ever. Priests, in many ways, are in one of the worst of all possible worlds: Close relationships with parishioners are inappropriate (even if non-sexual), which leaves them the company of other unhappy, over-worked, and quite possibly fairly neurotic co-worker priests.
It's very difficult for priests to be the kinds of shepherds that their flocks need -- they are just too close to being undone by the circumstances of celibacy.
There are few avenues of validation more satisfying than the sexual. Good sex, whether in a long term relationship or with a stranger whose first name one knows not, and whom one will probably never see again, is affirming to one's sense of personal self-worth. It's not just "getting off". It's deeper than that, and yes, it is possible without being married.
Marriage usually provides the surest route to regular validation and affirmation, and it also provides the opportunity for one to give that gift to one's partner.
I think most lone wolves who decide to be celibate are deceiving themselves. I would think celibacy would work best in the corporate setting of a monastery, a priesthood, an order, or a calling in which other share. Celibacy is something one gives to a higher cause -- god, the church, the order, the shelter -- whatever it is to which one is so singularly devoted.
But just going about an ordinaryl life, but deciding to practice celibacy, just doesn't make sense to me. What would an accountant working for General motors and living in suburban Detroit, who doesn't belong to any organizations except GM, get out of deciding to never have sex again? A promotion? I don't see why that would happen. New friends? I guess the celibacy support group might be a friend-finding opportunity.
It's like someone who has one beer once a year without any untoward consequences swearing off alcohol forever. You could do that, buy why would you?
It just doesn't balance out, in accountant lingo.
Yes indeed. Celibacy is good only if a good and virtuous partner fit for one is unavailable. The Greek Orthodox priests, on the other hand, are free to marry.
Quoting Bitter Crank
This sounds quite neurotic. Life is much richer than mere sexual experience, and a man who has experienced sex and nothing else has missed a lot of life. Furthermore, sex should not be a means for validation and self-worth. At least it's not in a person who is well balanced. Why would any rational person seek validation in something that is, in the end, at the mercy of other people? One would have to be a fool - a perpetual slave to other people, in order to get what (s)he needs.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Sex is not a validation or an affirmation. Again, this is a neurotic point of view. We start from the assumption that someone needs validation to begin with, and second of all that such validation should be obtained from sex. This is questionable on multiple grounds. First, someone should not need external validation. Secondly, validation obtained from goods which cannot be obtained without the approval and assent of others is a form of slavery to the giver of goods. Not something desirable.
Quoting Bitter Crank
That's not what most sex addicts describe. They describe feeling quite empty after the act.
Quoting Bitter Crank
If one needs sex to affirm one's sense of self-worth then that person is to be pitied, for they shall suffer much. This sounds more like a nymphomaniac than a normal, well-balanced person. You should perhaps be aware that nymphomania is classed as a psychological illness, which is to be treated - not something to be desired. Nymphomaniacs are addicted to sex as they get their sense of self-worth from it.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Indeed I agree. But at the same time I think the accountant would be better off being celibate until he can find a stable partner, who fits him in intellectual capabilities, virtue and values than engage in casual sex with strangers. Better as this gives him the opportunity to develop self control, build a self-worth that is not dependent on other people (sex means other people), learn how to live alone, and explore, understand and develop himself much more. In fact, in most places around the world, people try to live like this, and those that can't, at least aspire to live so.
Quoting Agustino
Really? It doesn't strike me as neurotic at all. (We seem not to look at the world in the same way.)
Quoting Agustino
Nothing is mere. But, that said, of course life is much richer than sexual experience, and I can't imagine how one would even exist and experience only sex and nothing else.
It isn't at all the case that sex is everything; but sex is definitely a part. How big a part depends on the particular model you have of the human mind. I think Freud was right to identify the sex drive, or life force, as a critical component in human thought and motivation.
Quoting Agustino
Sex should certainly not be the one and only means for validation and self worth, of course. There are a range of human experiences where from other people we receive encouragements, emotional strengthening, love, sex, praise, rewards, validation--all sorts of things, especially for well balanced people.
Quoting Agustino
Virus are "obligate intra-cellular parasites". It is in their nature to live within cells. They have no choice about it.
Humans are obligate interpersonal actors. We have no choice but to interact with others to survive, to be nurtured, to be taught, to learn, to explore, to give, receive, to love, to have sex that is more than masturbation. We are not complete isolates unto ourselves. We are porous, and into and out of us flows all the interactions that make up a life.
We are, like it or not, to some degree "at the mercy of other people". We are also, like it or not, the beneficiaries of other people, and they of us.
Rational people do not curl up into a snail shell.
Quoting Agustino
One would be a fool to fail to recognize how much we depend on each other.
Why not? Compulsive behavior, and dependence are not the traits of a healthy mind.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I didn't argue we are complete islands. On the contrary, we should relate to each other as much as possible given that we do this rightly - virtuously. But this relating should not be at the loss of our dignity. Depending on someone for sexual needs is a loss of dignity, unless one has a medical condition preventing this from being otherwise. This doesn't mean that one shouldn't have sex - it means that one should be able to live without it if they must. Likewise, if someone depends on others for their food, this is a loss of dignity, unless they have a medical problem (for example a handicap), they are children and cannot work, they are too old to work, or otherwise there is some other external force preventing them from working. It is shameful, contrary to the nature of each person which is to fulfill their potential for freedom.
A man whose life depends on sex (meaning they cannot live without sex [will go insane, will become violent, will rape etc. etc.]) is a man who has not reached his full potential for freedom and independence. Only when one has reached their potential for freedom and independence can they truly enjoy sex - not as slaves running after something without which they cannot live - but as dignified human beings, sharing their freedom with one another out of a free choice to do so. People who are compelled to do so by their lust are not free. And such compulsion leads to a loss of self-esteem, as most sex addicts recognize, and not to well-being. What leads to well-being is freedom, independence, a coming together shaped by choice, and not by compulsion. That is the real freedom. Running to the closest woman because I cannot control my sexual impulse is shameful - a parade of my un-freedom, masking itself as a free decision, when it is no free decision, but a forced decision. What difference is there between someone putting a gun to my head and saying "have sex, now, with anyone!" and my desire forcing me to go out to look for anyone around to have sex with? It is one thing if I freely decide I will have sex - not forced into it by any sort of weakness in myself, but rather a decision born of my freedom and love for someone else.
Maybe they should find fellow addicts who are better at giving good vibrations along with the blow jobs.
Quoting Agustino
Well of course, to someone who has ceased eating, a half sandwich and a small salad is going to seem like gluttony.
If nymphomaniacs are obsessive compulsive, then they are not getting their self worth from sex. They are getting symptom relief. Repetition is the name of of the game for OCD people.
Whether there is such a thing as "nymphomania" (a decidedly 19th century term), sex addiction, hypersexuality, or merely a cultural bias against exceptional sexual behavior isn't clear. I always enjoy coming across bona fide examples of DSM categories, like obsessive compulsives, Tourettzers,, paranoid schizophrenics, people with truly loony but not pathological ideation, parkinsonianism, and so forth. It's surprising that there aren't more of these people to meet on one's daily rounds. I have met some, though, and they were usually quite interesting, often pleasant people.
I've come across people with some quite odd preferences, people whose impulse control was somewhat deficient, criminal predators, petty crooks, hustlers, prostitutes, guys that spent too much time thinking about sex, people who spent way too much time in bars drinking, and so on -- but maybe only three hypersexuals since 1968. There just aren't that many people out there who have THAT MUCH sex. They wish, but no.
Symptom relief, a temporary forgetfulness, of their low self-esteem.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yes I agree that there's not that many, that's why I stated that most people aren't like this. Of course then there's the danger of falling to the other side - some people, despite having someone nearby who is a good match for them, refuse to engage in any sexual behaviour. That is a different fear, a fear of commitment, intimacy, dependence; a fear of being open and truly relating to the other person, a fear of loss of autonomy. This is a symptom of too much self-concern, and too much self-love; narcissism; or again, a fear of inadequacy, and a fear of vulnerability. There's also the people who only want sex with strangers - presumably also this latter fear of vulnerability, combined with a fear of responsibility. But a strong man is neither of those two extremes, but a balanced middle. He will not be afraid to pounce, but only if the circumstances are right.
You just sort of announce things, as if they're self-evident. Relationships rise and fall for all sorts of reasons: stresses, incompatibility, boredom, or whatever, none of which are character defects. It's not like every person of upstanding character is compatible with every other person of upstanding character.
Your other comment here is striking for how incorrect it is. Sex can dramatically change a relationship, either improving it by bringing the people closer together or by destroying a friendship. If you don't believe me, go screw your best friend and see if everything is the same the next morning. The point being that sex is an important component of a relationship, but obviously one of many.
Quoting Agustino
It's really not important to me if you have sex or not, but at least make sense when you present your case. Your references to celibacy conjure thoughts of lifelong abstinence for spiritual reasons, but then you go on to say that really you're only advocating abstinence before marriage. And by "marriage," unless you're committed to the Christian concept of two souls melding as one, I assume you simply mean a truly committed relationship. If that is the case, then all you're telling me is that you don't want to have casual sex, but you want to be sure it's with someone you truly care about. What started out as advocating celibacy turns out really to be just a hyperbolic way of saying you object to promiscuity. I mean that's hardly a controversial position. Such a position avoids STDs, unwanted pregnancy, and a certain amount of guilt, regret, and heartbreak I suppose from time to time, so it's a fairly supportable position.
Where your argument makes no sense is in your correlation of celibacy (as you've defined it) with being alone. I'm not sure why celibates who are just waiting for marriage cannot have meaningful friendships or even romantic non-sexual relationships. Those who preach abstinence do not mean that you can't date anyone. They just don't want you to have sex until marriage.Quoting Agustino
I don't favor promiscuity, but your simple declaration that those who are out looking for meaningless sex are somehow flawed is nothing but a moral judgment by you as to what sex ought to represent to people. There are those who don't live by that standard and go happily on their way, which simply means that your advice may not be useful to a segment of the population.
The gift of being able to channel other people's experiences and declaring them inadequate is quite a talent of yours. I can only imagine the surprise of those who thought they were truly enjoying sex, but are now learning they weren't.
Quoting Agustino
It's not shameful as much as it might be embarrassing and futile. Although I am far from being one to offer advice on how to score with the ladies, sprinting up to them asking for sexual release might not be effective.
Ok, I agree to this by and large. However, I disagree that screwing my best friend will necessarily change our relationship, anymore than taking her on a fantastic boat ride would - it depends on the expectations which each has. There's many shared experiences which can change a relationship, and sex is just one of them.
Quoting Hanover
I think I said this in my very first post, sorry if this wasn't clear enough.
Quoting Hanover
Dating without sex doesn't seem to make much sense. I would just call that a form of friendship, albeit different than what is usually understood by friendship. And yes, by marriage I mean a strong committed relationship, not necessarily something approved of by a priest. I do think that friendship comes first, dating is merely a transition from just friendship, to something more. In a Venn diagram, dating is the intersection between the friendship circle, and the relationship/marriage circle.
Quoting Hanover
I'm afraid this doesn't follow. A drug addict may happily go his way and ignore my advice, but that is not an argument against my advice being useful. My advice is useful if he had only listened to it. Arguments against my advice being useful are intellectual, his not being helped by my advice is a problem of will; he makes a free choice to ignore it.
Quoting Hanover
Well perhaps they should think about it themselves, and ponder it carefully, and see afterwards if in fact they do not come to this same conclusion.
Quoting Hanover
You understand what I meant though - of course there are "socially acceptable" (read, effective) ways of sprinting up to them and asking for sexual release, obviously not directly.
Quoting Agustino
This wasn't very well phrased from me, my apologies. I mean to say that there's no abrupt change between the two (friendship and relationship), but rather a gradual transition which passes through dating. I don't really consider it a relationship until sex is also included; it would seem strange, at least to me, taking into account the culture of the place where I've grown up, for it to be considered a relationship prior to sexual contact. But I agree by and large - this view is something that can differ between people, there's no intellectual argument for it one way or another.
Quoting Hanover
True, but some things can be determined to be wrong. In this case promiscuity can be determined to be deleterious, both to the participants themselves, as well as to the society at large. If you would like I can provide a detailed argument for why this is so (I have just recently in fact provided the argument but only for social damage in a response to BC on the other forum http://forums.philosophyforums.com/comments.php?id=74551&findpost=1368094#post1368094
also post 29 in the same thread. )
Quoting Hanover
My ideas of virtue and righteousness are based on real life. In fact most people on Earth share those values by and large - if not in practice, then at least as an ideal.
Quoting Hanover
Yes but claiming that emotionally based behavior cannot be critiqued, and that right and wrong cannot be determined in emotionally based behavior is simply not true. Beating up your brother because he stole the keys to your car may be an emotionally based behavior, but that doesn't excuse it from being criticized, and being analyzed to determine whether it is right or wrong. Same for promiscuous sex.
Quoting Hanover
This was addressed before in this current post.
Quoting Hanover
No it's not like this at all. It's about an activity that is bringing you some harm, and yet you refuse to perceive the harm. Just like taking drugs does harm to a drug addict, and yet they often fail to perceive the harm, and overly emphasize the good feelings they get from it.
So what might one say about the rightness or wrongness of promiscuous sex (abb. PS)?
PS is inappropriate for the actor IF the behavior arises from a compulsion and not from a decision that one will engage in sex promiscuously. Compulsions need to be dealt with, since they can result in very bad outcomes.
PS is wrong for the actor if the behavior is intended to harm someone, such as a relationship partner with whom one has had a fight. Harm can be psychological, physical, or both. "Reprisal sex" doesn't have to be promiscuous, of course, once would be too often -- think of the vindictive sex in "Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe" by Albee.
Unprotected sex is risky for all actors who do not know (in detail) the health status of their partners. Most of the time we can not be absolutely sure of such matters (except for ourselves). However, people vary quite a bit in their risk aversion. Some people are willing to tolerate much more risk than others (and risks can be assumed only by one's self). If I am very risk averse and engage in unprotected sex, that is a risk I have assumed. If infection is the result, that is my fault more than the other person's. (No matter what he or she said, I am the only one who can risk my safety.) Of course, this view doesn't take into account trust which can be betrayed by dishonesty.
People who have AIDS can reduce their infectivity by faithfully taking the prescribed antiviral medicines. People who are HIV negative can reduce their vulnerability to HIV by taking Truvada*** as a prophylactic. Prophylactic Truvada is about 90% effective, but like condoms, is not 100% effective. There is little chance of a someone with AIDS who is taking antiretroviral drugs from transmitting the virus to someone who is taking Truvada, even without any barrier protection. It just isn't zero risk.
Engaging in PS and misleading one's partner(s) about one's promiscuity, is dishonest, deceptive, and therefore wrong for the actor. The actor's partners are well advised to decide for themselves how much risk the actor is worth, regardless of what the actor is saying.
Engaging in PS with partners who are also engaging in PS (or can be presumed from context to be so engaged) is right. People may choose how often and with whom they wish to have sex, and risk tolerant people can engage with many partners. There are contexts available for this kind of sexual behavior (gay bath houses, brothels, out-call services, parks, street prostitutes, etc.).
What this boils down to is this: IF people wish to engage in promiscuous sex, and they engage in promiscuous sex in settings where PS is expected, and the participants are risk tolerant, no one is being deceived, then PS is morally acceptable. No one could be harmed who was not aware that they were engaging in behavior that carried risks. PS is wrong where deception, deceit, or punitive intent is central.
***Truvada is an HIV nucleoside analog reverse transcriptase inhibitor and prevents HIV from reproducing within target cells. There are no significant side-effects at low dosage.
I do not agree with the connection that you seem to be making between celibacy and anti-natalism. I don't often talk about this, but I am also celibate, i.e. I abstain from sexual intercourse, and have done so for years. I have rarely sought sexual activity with others in my life, and the few sexual encounters that I've had with others were not genuine for my part. I am not like the vast majority of people. I have little-to-no desire for sexual intercourse. But I strongly reject the suggestion that I am - and others like me are - therefore "practically assenting to anti-natalism". That's false. That you "happen to be celibate" does not imply that you're anti-natalist - I for one am not. That one is celibate because one is anti-natalist makes more sense (although that'd be extremely cautious, given the availability of effective contraception - especially with regards to this so-called weak anti-natalism, since ending up being responsible for something that is merely unjustified is not as big a deal as being responsible for something that is immoral, and greatly immoral at that, as most anti-natalists would claim), but the converse makes no sense.
Anyway, I've just seen that the lizard beat me to the punch back on page 2, meaning that this reply is redundant. I expected that someone would.
The reason why I do not identity as an anti-natalist is, unsurprisingly, because I do not agree with anti-natalism. I don't agree with anti-natalism because it requires a short-sightedness or willful ignorance. I think that anti-natalism is better defined as the view that we should not procreate, because that seems to be what drives anti-natalism - whether strong or weak, i.e, whether procreation is claimed to be immoral or only claimed to be unjustified.
I took the relationship between celibacy and weak anti-natalism in @Thorongil's post to be one of indistinguishability in behavioural commitments, but not moral commitments. A person with a commitment to celibacy will in practice also be an "anti-natalist" in a weak sense by virtue of the reproductive upshot of celibacy. I don't think Thorongil wanted to commit to the position that celibacy entails a corresponding anti-natalist attitude.
No, it's not correct to state that a celibate is an anti-natalist, in any sense, simply by virtue of being celibate. The prefix "anti" means "opposed to" or "against", and natalism is the position that reproduction is acceptable. The abstention from sex is not the same as the opposition to reproduction, and the latter doesn't follow from the former. The distinction is clear. An anti-natalist doesn't need to be celibate, and a celibate doesn't need to be anti-natalist, and neither position implicitly supports, or conforms with, the other. To conform with anti-natalism, I'd have to oppose reproduction, and I do not, nor do I behave as one who does so, since I don't go around condemning it and trying to persuade others that no one should ever reproduce.
Quoting Soylent
It's an inappropriate use of that term, regardless. Are you anti-religious, just because you don't go to church? Are you anti-abortion if you've never had an abortion? Are you anti-drugs if you don't do drugs?
A celibate is neither anti-natalism nor pro-natalism by virtue of being celibate. Celibates are just a small minority which, if they vastly grew in size, would - inadvertently in some cases - benefit the cause of anti-natalism; [i]unless[/I] artificial insemination is ruled out by natalism, and I don't see why it would be, since my understanding is that it's about promoting birth, rather than promoting birth specifically through sex. So the two are irrelevant to one another, and the perceived connection is misguided.
Analog is so old school. Is this hipster medicine? When is the digitally remastered version coming out?
Which is why I think Thorongil settled on anatalism to describe the weak "anti-natalist" position. I think it would be analogous to calling a person who doesn't go to church as irreligious, but irreligious is indistinguishable from the weak anti-religious position, whatever that might be, in behavioural commitments. I'm not sure what purpose Thorongil's use of anatalism serves for describing celibacy, but it seems to be related to the shift away from the anti-natalist self-identification, which might be related to your criticism of "anti-religion" and "anti-abortion" being an inappropriate description (i.e., they're not opposed to it, they just don't do it).
RCA Victor is having problems with the 78 rpm master of "Transcriptase Gets In Your Eyes" (it has to be played in reverse). When they do that the nukuler side explodes. What to do, what to do?
OK. Good for Thorongil if he finds the term "anatalism" useful. I, on the other hand, do not find it particularly useful. I don't talk about anti-natalism very often (I find it a little odd that it seems to have become a popular talking point on this site), and when I have done, I've found it sufficient to simply state that I am not one.
As for your analogy, it is not a true analogy for reasons that I've already stated. The relevant behavioural commitments of the irreligious and the weak anti-religious might be indistinguishable, but that is not the case with regards to the celibate and the weak anti-natalist. I don't see how you can reach that conclusion unless you're confused about what the respective positions entail and/or have been ignoring the distinguishing features that have already been pointed out. I will point out the difference once more:
So no, they're clearly not indistinguishable in terms of behavioural commitments, nor are the positions necessarily compatible.
I'd also point out that if your celibacy is the result of inability, then you may want to work on those issues as opposed to philosophizing them away and convincing yourself that you're advancing some higher objective. I have the sneaky suspicion that all this "I'm not interested in such matters" would get turned upside down if the right person came along. Own it and fix it.
I understand the difference, I was also trying to understand Thorongil's position in relation to anatalism. I understood the celibacy comment to describe that Thorongil identifies as an anatalist both because it is not justifiable to have children, and also because the lifestyle commitment is unlikely to produce a child by the reproductive upshot. I take that to mean that Thorongil is celibate and will not use artificial insemination or any other medical intervention to have a child. It's a personal identification as anatalist not referring to the moral status of having children.
That might not have been directed at me, but I'll reply anyway.
Personally, I feel much better living a more comfortable and honest life identifying more as an asexual than anything else. I prefer to remain single, because I think that most people want something out of a relationship that I do not want. In public day-to-day life, I still tend not to reveal that information, but I started telling close friends and others a while back. Most people assume that I'm heterosexual, and some people think that I am - or might be - homosexual; and they assume that I want to have sexual and romantic relationships (and some people probably assume that I just can't get laid), and I often don't correct them and I will often go along with it.
I've moved on from the denial stage, and don't view this as a phase or a problem that needs to be fixed, if indeed it could be. Perhaps the right person will come along and change everything, but I very much doubt it. I can't imagine who the right person could be, given that I'm not attracted to people, whether male or female, in the way that others are.
If I got as much enjoyment out of having sex as the average person does, then I certainly wouldn't abstain from it. I am quite hedonistic and prone to excess, and I don't have much of a chip on my shoulder about such things, so I doubt that this would be an exception. I think that doing so for philosophical or - even worse - religious reasons is rather misguided.
Are you saying that he is saying that he is celibate because he is anatalist, or vice versa? It seems to me that it's vice versa, based on the following:
Quoting Thorongil
The first part makes sense to me, but not the latter part. The latter part seems irrelevant and not something that should determine whether or not one becomes an anatalist.
I also still reject the following:
Quoting Thorongil
Someone whose lifestyle negates the possibility of having children would just be someone who happens to inadvertently conform with the life choice of a weak anti-natalist. It has nothing to do with assent, which is a wilful acceptance, and without such explicit assent, it'd be a mistake to judge that they "practically assent" based solely upon said-lifestyle, unless it was clear that they held weak anti-natalist views without realising it. There are other, more likely, explanations.
I don't think the celibacy and the weak anti-natalism inform each other. They are different commitments that are cashed out as the same behavioural upshot for Thorongil. Or to state otherwise, Thorongil's celibacy as a lifestyle choice is unlikely to produce children (anatalist) and the moral position that having children is not wrong but also not right is unlikely to produce children (anatalist). Because of the two distinct positions, Thorongil identifies as anatalist rather than anti-natalist.
I do agree though that celibacy simpliciter does not preclude the option to have children, but it may be the case that a person that chooses celibacy has, at least in themselves, tacitly assented to the position that it is not the case that one ought to have children. It might also be significant that Thorongil hasn't committed to a strong position either by disclaiming the weak anti-nalalist position with the word "could". That is different than saying "the weak anti-natalist is also someone whose lifestyle..." Celibacy from inopportunity is not anatalist in the weak "anti-natalist" sense and neither is infertility.
But the former is a poor reason to become (or identity as) an anatalist, and should not influence the decision. It should be incidental.
Celibacy is one path that an anti-natalist could take subsequent to becoming an anti-natalist, but not the only path, and not necessarily the best path. For most anti-natalists, it will probably not be. For most anti-natalists, having a vasectomy or having only contraceptive sex will probably be the best path to take. Then they can continue to have worry-free sex if they so desire.
This underlying conflation of sex and reproduction is misguided. We naturally associate the two, but in this case it's problematic.
Quoting Soylent
That may or may not be the case. What matters here is the [i]assent[/I] (whether "tacit" or otherwise), not the celibacy.
Quoting Soylent
Yes, point taken.
Hanover, your response would be appropriate if this were a therapy group. You're right -- people do sometimes disown what they can not do, can not get, can not have--the fox and the sour grapes bit.
However, this is ostensibly not a therapy group and when thoughtful, articulate posters claim certain ground on philosophical principles, their position should not be gainsaid.*** Maybe antinatalists have discovered they are sterile, but I would doubt any such explanation. I am a pro-natalist (in principle, a total flop in practice), though I think it is definitely a good idea to reduce the world's population. Celibacy is appropriate for some people; it was (is) inappropriate for me and thee.
***This is gainsay/gainsaid's debut here. Middle English, 'gain' from 'against'. Perhaps Germanic by way of Old French, gaigne (noun), gaignier.
This being a philosophy forum, and my response being so obvious, I can only wonder (and admittedly out loud) why someone might try to draw a correlation when there isn't one. My thought was that the OP wasn't rational at all, but more of a rationalization; thus my response, which included a possible reason one might wish to rationalize.
I'd also point out that if a rule were passed requiring that I remain on topic, the world would have lost out on some of my most interesting insights.
If you think about his premise, his reaction is logical. If his premise is a sort of Schopenhauerian view that we are sort of manifestations of will- a principle that does not care about our happiness, and constantly needs to be "fed" with cravings, he is trying to lessen the principle by diminishing its power over him. So based on the premise, which is assumed is true by Thorongil, the reaction to it follows. Though a valid response, you may question the premise, or offer an alternative response. For example, you may claim that there is no will. The counter might be that if there is no Will in a metaphysical sense, behind the scenery of the universe- that is to say, outside of space/time in the Schopenhauerian sense, there is at least a less grand version of this in the form of the sexual appetite which, in its own way may make the person a "slave" to its demands. All the dramas of love, loss, and the sheer amount of effort put in the venture can be more than ample empirical evidence for this. To diminish its grip on our desires, may be what he and other ascetics are trying to do here. Being that it is a powerful force that was/is necessary to propel the next generation, I cannot see how it could be downplayed as less than a basic drive (that may or may not be able to be diminished through ascetic practices). If Schopenhauer and the Buddhists were right that desire can lead to pain and suffering, then if one is really serious about kicking the desire habit, one would try to become an ascetic. One might even attempt suicide to completely get rid of oneself. In a way, asceticism is a long drawn out suicide of one's giving into desires- diminishing it to a degree of indifference where one is fine simply dying from starvation. I think the only group that even contemplates this approach to asceticism are hardcore Jains who by a certain age refuse food and water and are content to die of starvation.
In your block of text, there is just a single sentence which is closer to the topic of discussion, which states that sexual appetite is "a powerful force that is necessary to propel the next generation". But it remains the case that you don't need to have sex in order to reproduce, so that comment is mistaken or beside the point.
Your whole reply seems to boil down to an attempted justification of a restrained will or desire, but fails to even address - let alone resolve - the erroneous association between anti-natalism and celibacy that Hanover and I have pointed out.
That's just, like, your opinion man.Quoting Sapientia
Well, this thread seemed to talk about celibacy more than antinatalism so I am sticking to that.Quoting Sapientia
Yep, I didn't address antinatalism. I just thought the point about celibacy makes sense in a Schopenhauerian context. Hanover lobbed some comments regarding the need to get laid or some such, and I was just giving some possible context for Thorongil's justification for ascetic practice. As far as antinatalism, I think it is quite clear you don't have to be celibate to be an antinatalist or a weak antinatalist or whatever you want to call it.
It seems to be the case that a high level of prosperity seems to discourage parenthood. It probably takes too much effort for most people to both raise lots of children and achieve a high level of prosperity. Plus, the 1 or 2 children born to prosperous parents are likely to survive, whereas a high percentage of the children born to those in deep poverty are likely to die in childhood.
How do we reduce the rate (or even reverse the rate) of population growth while maintaining that sex and children are a good thing?
We don't have the means to instantly create prosperity everywhere so that parents have fewer children. We don't want to impose draconian birth rate measures or reversal policies which would be extremely dehumanizing to live under or enforce. We don't seem to be able to persuade ourselves or other people to forego immediate pleasures for long-term survival. We also have zero likelihood of convincing a supermajority of the world's human breeding pairs to stop having sex and/or stop having children.
As part of my pro-nativity program, I wish for humans and the other species to thrive long into the future. More wolves will keep the deer under control, more owls, hawks, and eagles will keep the smaller vermin under control, but what will keep us under control, top predators that we are. Should we breed super-wolves and unusually smart lions to prowl our cities and prairies to reduce the human population? Put some teeth into those old rhymes, "Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf" or "Lions, and tigers, and bears..." ("But grandma, what big teeth you have! The better to eat you with, my dear.")
Bears? Cute little teddy bears? An adult bear can disembowel the toughest human with one swipe of their very strong, very long-clawed paw. (Well, to be precise, the appendage to which the long-clawed paw is attached is very strong.) And snarf up a 5 year old as a mid-morning snack. The howls and growls of what's lurking out there in the dark, and might come crashing through a window or door at any moment, should unnerve people enough that they won't feel like having sex. Populations drop; world is saved; future generations worship wolves, lions, and bears as their saviors.
Just joking, of course. Obviously. Right?
Perhaps so, but it doesn't make much sense to me in general. It seems, ironically, an excessive response to perceived excess, and one which is likely to result in increased stress due to unfulfilled desires - and to what end? Is that supposed to be a guide to self-improvement or misery? Or perhaps both. All I have to do is live a life of misery, and I'll be a better person.
You might say (per Freud) that civilization is powered by sublimated sexual energies. If we all pursued our most natural inclinations, we would still be hunter-gatherers living in caves and screwing our brains out. But, as it happens, we are not, have not been, and won't be.
There has been many a frustrated mate who found that having sex with their partner was just about impossible, because their mate's career (art, science, politics, law, the military, whatever...) always came first. When the mate finally got home from the office, the studio, the battle field, the store, whatever... they were too tired to make love. And when they were well rested they were reading about art, science, politics, law, the military, whatever... or they were on the phone all the time.
As Mahler said of Alma Mahler, "I'm writing Das Lied von der Erde, And she only wants to make love" for Christ's sake.
You'd have to ask Thorongil his reasoning. I think the point is to get off the merry-go-round of desire altogether. Whether that can actually happen, I do not know. But I think that is the goal. Liberation from Desire. I think the misery here is thinking that the obtaining of desires will make you satisfied when everything is in flux and impermanent. What seems satisfying at one point, may not be later and so forth. This is a long journey to stop the flux- diminishing it to null or near null so that one is at peace just "being" without becoming. Asceticism, I guess is the Iron Man's way of getting to this state. Someone who takes this route does not think that dinky meditation exercises to calm the mind alone is going to do it. Full mind and body has to be involved in diminishing the individual's thirst for the illusion of satisfaction. But, I don't know. I don't practice this nor necessarily think it will work, but clearly some do and perhaps it does or has. I'm just giving some reasoning of why someone might go to great lengths in ascetic practice. I would imagine the hermit living in the woods, meditating on nothingness, starving to death, but being in some sublime peaceful state where this as no affect, would be the picture here. The hermit is emaciated, dying, and is at peace with a mind and body that is fully liberated from any desire. This is a state, I would imagine that none could really grasp from the standpoint of the usual state of flux, where this would just seem like unnecessary self-torture. It is a journey only few, if anyone, can take. But again, this is an extreme version of this idea, but its ultimate conclusion perhaps.
Though I don't practice nor necessarily think it to work towards its goal, I am trying to get a justification for why one might think that it could work. The theory is perhaps, if one had the fortitude to stick it out, there is a more sublime state of being desireless I guess. I don't really know what that would be like, but that is the goal. Who knows, maybe for some people they can break through. My guess is that the struggle over one's own desires diminishes with practice. But again, the complete logical conclusion is ultimately starvation. If somehow, the "saint" is fully prepared, this will not matter. They are already free from any care.
What do you mean you don't know? Of course it cannot happen, unless by brain damage or death.
Quoting schopenhauer1
A foolish goal then.
Quoting schopenhauer1
So you're implying that satisfaction is not obtainable because what "seems" to be satisfying is only temporary? Well, that's mistaken. It doesn't merely "seem" satisfying to fulfill desires; it [I]is[/i] satisfying. And that it is only temporary is of little significance. The goal was not permanent satisfaction to begin with (which is, strictly speaking, impossible). It doesn't follow that temporary satisfaction is not worth obtaining simply by virtue of it's temporality.
Quoting schopenhauer1
But that journey only makes sense if you mistakenly assume that desire inevitability leads to a disharmony which outweighs the alternative in terms of overall benefit. It's better to live a life which includes the fulfillment of desires, within reason and despite the occasional disappointments, than the alternative which you've proposed - which is very unlikely to succeed. Someone mentioned the story of the Buddha earlier, and I agree with the moral of that story, as I understand it, which eschews this extreme and misguided way of living, without eschewing moderation and a balanced lifestyle.
- I have to get ready for work now or I'll be late!
That's not what they think. Can we turn the rhetoric down from 11? Perhaps to a cool 2 or 3?
The theory is that dissatisfaction comes from constant craving. I am not going to pretend that I can defend the whole corpus of ascetic thought. I'm sure others can do a much better job of this. However, from what I know cravings bring unhappiness because it can be frustrated, short-lived, and ultimately leads to more feelings of need and want. If satisfaction is temporary, then that means the longing for satisfaction is near-constant. This longing for satisfaction has its own suffering as now your happiness is dependent on obtaining something you do not already have. That is the normal state of things. This is trying to move to a non-normal state of things where one is not dependent on obtaining what one does not already have. One dies a death of starvation, but if one has prepared oneself for it, one will not find this disturbing but in some way sublime. Again, I don't know if this is ever obtainable myself. But as usual, because of the way people on this forum react (super high charged rhetoric, smugness, etc.) this now turns into a black and white issue without nuance or compromise.
For the record, it's easy to defend the common sense view of things and phrases like "everything in moderation, including moderation". This is what is so appealing about Aristotle's "Golden Mean" and pragmatists view of "do what works".
Anyways, maybe ascetics have come to some "realization" that the common sense view of things is not good. They turn away from it and this leads to asceticism. For those who think it's just fine, well, it really doesn't matter for them whether they turn away does it? Different folks, different strokes.
You've misunderstood. I didn't claim that that's what they think. That's my response to your point, which was "to get off the merry-go-round of desire altogether", and that you don't know whether that's possible. I was informing you that it's not possible, except via brain damage or death.
Yes, that will perhaps be the ultimate demise, but again, they supposedly wouldn't care at that point or right before they lose consciousness I guess.
What do you do when you realise you're desiring not to desire?
So, by implication, self-torture and then death. Is that what you're advocating? Or are you just describing the position? And again I ask, to what end? As if some unfulfilled desires outweigh the entire value of one's life! Not only is that absurd, it is a harmful philosophy.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, that may be the case, but I don't defend it because it's easy to do so; I defend it because it's what I believe. It appeals to me because it's sensible, and often yields good results - unlike the alternative position that you've been talking about, this asceticism.
But a massive fault with this theory is that it doesn't accurately portray the quality of life for most people based on their own assessment. Most people, I'd hazard to say, are content most of the time, and would affirm that that is the case, if asked. The satisfaction may be short-lived, but it's frequent, and adds to the overall value of life. And the state of unfulfillment is often insignificant, easily fulfilled, and doesn't outweigh the benefits that come with this typical lifestyle.
I think that the position that you've talked about has a skewed outlook, and it's take on life is one-sided as a result.
I also think that life is far too valuable to throw away in the manner that you've described, and that anyone who adopts such an outlook is not only kidding themselves, but missing out on life's goodness. It's a guide to self-impoverishment, rather than self-improvement.
And, as an aside, I think that you're reading into my style of writing a bit too much. I do like to be frank and to the point, and think that philosophical "problems" can often be self-created by (for example) overcomplication and a failure to accept things as they are. Believe it or not, there may actually be merit in this approach. I like to think of it as the literary equivalent of shaking some sense into my interlocutor. I'm doing this for your own good! ;)
You have to get up pretty early in the morning to believe this. Jesus.
I have a couple of points. Firstly, to state that it is "quite nihilistic and useless" doesn't make much sense to me, except in relation to a particular context, so I would like to know what context you have in mind here. And secondly, isn't whether or not such acts are "empty" a subjective matter, and hence will depend on the subject, and, more specifically, his or her values?
I think that nihilistic reasoning has a tendency to view things from a context which is itself rather meaningless, and puts things out of perspective. For example, the judgement that life is meaningless, given the vastness of the universe, and the expanse of time. This claim was frequently made by newcomers to the philosophy forum of which I used to be a part.
I wonder if you're doing a similar thing, but perhaps not as extreme as in my example.
The context would be life. What goal is life itself, the chemical reactions itself, leading towards? There is no goal. Life is without a goal and without a direction; it is therefore unnecessary.
Quoting Sapientia
I suppose it depends on how versatile one's mind is and how able they are to compartmentalize aspects of their life so that they can maintain meaning and purpose in a thoroughly nihilistic world.
Well, life is what you make of it, as they say. We set our own life goals, and choose our own direction. An objective purpose is not necessary, and life itself does not need to be necessary, in order for us to make use of this opportunity. [I]That[/I] we are alive is sufficient.
Your reply seems to confirm what I was saying about taking things out of perspective. Your comparison makes little sense. Why judge the meaning or use of life in comparison to this objective standard? It's like seeking something where you know you won't find it, and yet it's right under your nose.
Quoting darthbarracuda
We seem to be doing just fine without any purpose or meaning in the objective sense. It seems like a rather redundant notion and a fool's errand.
You shift gears here. Your first sentence is an argument for not living life, arguing that all pursuits are useless, so you should just sit on the front porch swing waiting to die. The second sentence adds the word "empty," which qualifies pleasures and needs, suggesting perhaps that there are some needs/desires that are not empty. Perhaps discovering what is empty and what is not might be the way to go here. What do you think?
I do think it's generally accepted that some pursuits are worthwhile and others not, like spending time with those close to you, developing relationships, helping others, thinking about the meaning of life, and engaging in intellectual pursuits. These would be in contrast to "chasing cheese" for whatever that entails.
Even should you disagree that the pursuits I've itemized are meaningful, I don't see how you can assert that starving yourself, shivering naked in the cold, or denying yourself sex are somehow meaningful. It's not like starving isn't a pursuit in itself, so I'm not entirely clear why starving is a good pursuit but eating is a bad pursuit. The only truly critical difference it seems is that the former is masochistic and the latter not. You'd have to explain to me why a masochistic philosophy is better than one that allows for personal comfort.
If starvation will free me from the binds of needing to eat, perhaps demeaning me and throwing trash on me would free me from the binds of needing kindness. And, if starving yourself provides you meaning in your ass backwards world, maybe we should deny you starvation and force you to eat just to really fuck with you. We can't allow you to become addicted to self-depravation because that would interfere with your free will. Every now and then we need to compliment a masochist just to piss him off.
The Amish actually have a word for someone who seeks too much simplicity as being proudly humble and therefore in violation of the Amish rule against pride. I don't know what the word is. My Pennsylvania Dutch is rusty.
Thank you for clarifying. This is not quite the same notion of natural law that grounds my position. Deliberate frustration of a being's will I call wrong. This is why I find abortion wrong, since it deliberately frustrates the will of the fetus to live. I think I spoke of harm earlier, but the harm here is metaphysical in nature, so my argument doesn't depend on the fetus feeling pain. In the case of homosexual acts, I would probably regard them as foolish rather than immoral, which is essentially how I view procreation. No harm has occurred, so they cannot be wrong, but in both cases, those engaged in such acts are operating under delusions about the nature of themselves and the world.
Hehe. This reminds me St. Jerome, who reputedly said, "I praise marriage because it produces more virgins." This might be the only argument in favor of marriage I could assent to.
There are two points you miss here: 1) based on my distinction, they practically assent to anti-natalism (or anatalism, as I would have it), if not theoretically.
2) Many Church Fathers and Christian theologians have not interpreted the command to "be fruitful and multiply" as relating to procreation. Some see it as urging the reader to multiply one's virtues. Others see it as referring to multiplying one's spiritual children, that is, as a call for evangelization. Finally, consider that man fell before this commandment could be realized, so that God’s ideal family was never realized. Biological children are only born after the fall, perhaps as a punishment for man's sin.
Quoting Hanover
This ad hominem is something I would expect a fraternity boy to utter, not someone on a philosophy forum.
No, for once again, these desires are not pent up but rather redirected towards other things or dissipated to such an extent that they no longer trouble one.
Excellent comment. I've long thought about just this very thing. Here too, though, I would answer this question by distinguishing between a notional or theoretical desire and desire as a lived, felt experience. So I desire (i.e. have the thought) not to desire (i.e. crave or become attached to impermanent things as if they were permanent).
This is what Freud said -- everybody ignored my deeply penetrating insight in mentioning Freud, which makes me just that much more of a bitter crank. Anyway, yes, libidinous desires can be redirected and dissipated, or sublimated.
Indeed, sublimation can be described as the bedrock of civilization. Libidinous energies, which are initially scarcely harnessed drives and desires for fulfillments, can be channeled into all sorts of productive activity besides procreation. Sublimation doesn't generally entail celibacy, (it could) but rather the displacement of sexual activity as the most satisfying enterprise we engage in.
The activities which displace sex are in a phrase, civilization building.
If you didn't mean to claim that you "identify as an anatalist, both because I find natalism unjustified and because I happen to be celibate", then why did you say so? I will give you the benefit of the doubt and grant that you genuinely didn't mean what you said, particularly the latter part, which is what I've criticised, and that'll be that. But if, on the other hand, you stand by your claim, then, this being a philosophy forum, you ought to at least give my criticism serious thought, rather than evade it. (Note that Soylent only went as far as to clarify what he thought you meant, rather than defend this specific point on your behalf).
You may start where he left off, on page 3, if you so choose. I stand by my claims.
This is an irrelevant aside. Surely you're not suggesting that there is not a single priest who is both celibate and who wants there to be more children in the world. That is all that is required. At any rate, my point was simply that there is nothing illogical about wanting there to be more children in the world and also wanting to be celibate.
Quoting Thorongil
And that too is an ad hom, but not terribly insulting, considering I was in fact in a fraternity (shocker I know). I'm not sure why that's a bad thing, unless, of course, you harbor some long term resentment from exclusion.
My point was simply (as I've noted) that your argument was illogical. There is no relationship to celibacy and natalism. You threw in a curious personal factoid about yourself in the OP, and now you complain when I commented on it and offered an alternate explanation for why you weren't having sex.
By analogy: If I told you that I don't bathe because I don't want animals to suffer, you might point out that the two are unrelated and that my lack of hygiene is probably because I'm a slob and not because I really care about the higher purpose of animal happiness. You then might tell me to go take a shower. Then someone else might tell you to stop offering advice because this is a philosophy forum. Then I might tell you to stop being mean because I have the right not to shower. And then we'd be where we are, but the point would remain: showering and animal suffering (just like celibacy and natalism) are not logically related, regardless of how cleverly we throw barbs at one another and regardless of how we sidetrack the issue.
Only according to you. Most everyone else who has commented seems to have understood what I meant. Of course, this still doesn't mean I was clear, and to the extent I wasn't, you have my apologies.
Quoting Sapientia
I don't wish to evade anything, dearest Internet poster. Would you care to summarize the main thrust of your criticism? In reading this thread, I thought you seemed to have come to some understanding of what I was trying to say in light of Soylent's helpful comments, but perhaps not. I will try my best to clarify whatever points confuse you.
Nor would I, and nor did I, deny such a thing. So here we agree.
Quoting Hanover
Perhaps, but what is asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
Quoting Hanover
No, it's merely ironic.
Quoting Hanover
I don't see that you've shown this. To be celibate is to be practically anatalist, though not necessarily theoretically. What is unclear about this?
But first of all, and most importantly, do you or do you not stand by the following statement that you made in your opening post?
Quoting Thorongil
Perhaps you would like to reword it. In any case, my objection to the above claim of yours was (and remains to be) that the latter part, namely that to identify as an anatalist because, in part, you happen to be celibate...
[quote=Sapientia][...]is a poor reason to become (or identity as) an anatalist, and should not influence the decision. [Rather, i]t should be incidental.[/quote]
That's all you're getting for now. I've already elaborated this point earlier, and there was another part about celibates "practically assenting" to weak anti-natalism which I reject.
Edit:
Perhaps this issue can be resolved if you concede that that was poorly phrased, but then, you've just said that you don't think that your opening post was unclear.
Here is the relevant quote, which, as you can confirm if you go back through this discussion as I have done, Soylent did not address in his reply:
Quoting Sapientia
I do.
Quoting Sapientia
Well, why do you reject it? Because that is indeed the reason for its inclusion and relevance in my labeling myself an anatalist.
A celibate person is someone who is not married and who does not engage in any kind of sexual activity. They are, practically speaking, anatalist, since they repudiate natalism by their actions, which don't include, by definition, having children. Now, they may still theoretically assent to natalism, or they may not, but this is a different kind of assent.
To flip it around just to show you what I mean, imagine an anti-natalist who has children. Is this manifestly self-contradictory? No, for it could mean that the person theoretically assents to the proposition "having children is immoral," but for whatever reason still had a child. Perhaps he was caught in a moment of personal weakness or perhaps his condom didn't function properly. At any rate, such a person would be a practical natalist, in that he had a child, but also a theoretical anti-natalist, in that he still agrees that having children is immoral.
Don't worry, I've done the work for you again, because deep down, I have a kind heart. Please see the edit in my previous comment.
I will address the rest of your post anyway, although in a separate post.
This is actually very close to what I am saying, if not exactly what I am saying.
Quoting Sapientia
Aha, so you don't think there is any such thing as "practical assent." I believe I've now pinpointed the issue you have. I can only ask why you think this, for I regard it as absolutely undeniable that one can assent in two different ways, one in a physical and active sense and the other in a mental and psychological sense. You can murder someone and yet agree that murder is wrong. You can be an alcoholic and yet also wish to be a teetotaler. You can not eat meat and yet not agree with veganism/vegetarianism. Each of these relies on the distinction in question, and I could proffer a million more examples, but you ought to get it by now.
You see, I genuinely don't understand why you would make such comments in light of the earlier criticisms made by Hanover and I. It's a simple matter of logic. Look:
P1. A celibate person is someone who is not married and who does not engage in any kind of sexual activity.
P2. It is not necessarily the case that the engagement of sexual activity is required in order to have a child.
C. Therefore, a celibate is not, qua celibacy, practically speaking, anatalist.
Female celibates, in light of artificial insemination, can have a child without engaging in any sexual activity, and both males and females can have children by engaging in sexual activity prior to becoming celibate. Thus, subsequent to the act, they can be celibate, and yet, practically speaking, they are not required for sake of logical consistency, to be anatalist, and can in fact be pro-natalist, both in theory and practice.
Quoting Thorongil
I understand what you mean. You're basically talking about a performative contradiction, yes? That one's actions contradict or undermine one's principles? But I don't agree with your argument for reasons previously stated.
Is this honestly the content of your objection? Female insemination? Sure, okay, I grant this very technical exception. On the other hand, how is this not simply an appeal to the extreme?
To label oneself celibate has for millennia entailed that one neither has, nor plans to have, children. Period. If you went up to a nun anywhere in the world and said, "ah, but you see my dear, I've discovered a looophole; you could still have children by artificial insemination and remain celibate!" - you would be met with a rather quizzical look and a reply in the form of, "do you know nothing of my vocation, dear sir?"
The problem with your reasoning, however, is that you erroneously conclude that [i]a celibate is, necessarily,[/I] someone whose lifestyle negates the possibility of having children. That is a non sequitur.
Quoting Thorongil
No, I think I understand what what you mean, and I believe that there is such a thing, but I doubt whether there are not better terms to use than "practical assent". I did qualify with "...unless it was clear that they held weak anti-natalist views without realising it". Perhaps "views" wasn't the right word to use. It can be reworded as follows: "...unless it was clear that they were in accordance with weak anti-natalism without realising it".
To me at least, the word "assent" connotes a willful or conscious act of acceptance or approval. So, to me, the term "practical assent" looks like an oxymoron.
Yes, that is the content of that particular objection, but when I raised it, I didn't forsee that what began as a mole hill would become a mountain. (Perhaps this lack of forsight is because my expectations are too high). You might view it as an appeal to the extreme, but it is nonetheless an exception which corrects the error implicit within your association of the two positions.
I have since realised that I don't personally fit the definition of a celibate if the definition contains the exclusion of [i]all[/I] sexual activity, but what initially motivated me to object was not just a pedantic urge to correct, but my disapproval of what I took to being lumped in with a position of which I do not agree, nor of necessity conform with.
Quoting Thorongil
But there was, of course, a very long period of time before contraception and artificial insemination even existed, or at least existed in a modern sense. These inventions are relatively recent, and that's bound to be consequential in terms of cultural awareness. As I said earlier, people naturally tend to associate the two. But the fact is, people are ignorant to varying degrees, and prone to error and common misperception. None of this refutes my argument, and I don't view it as being particularly relevant.
And one which I have granted, though your victory is only proportional to the size of your objection, which as you note, is quite small.
Quoting Sapientia
Sometimes, to be celibate can refer to someone who abstains from marriage, but it can also refer to someone who abstains both from it and from sexual activity, which is how I've been using it. Chastity is another word that has two slightly different connotations. Sometimes it refers to someone who abstains from sexual activity until marriage and sometimes to someone who abstains from sexual activity completely. You may have been thinking of one or another of these different meanings of said words.
But a victory nonetheless. Hurrah.
Quoting Thorongil
Actually, none of that quite sums up what I took it to mean, and I reckon that my interpretation is also quite common. I took it to mean primarily the abstention from sexual intercourse, but which can also include other sex acts which require more than one person, but not necessarily all sexual activity - including those typically done alone, such as masturbation.
You see, I abstain from most sex acts, and all sex acts that require at least one other person, because I don't desire others in that way, or in a way which is very diminished and uncompelling, and I don't desire to do such things. It isn't by choice or by principle. But I still have that natural sensation and accompanying urge which is like an itch, so I "scratch" it myself from time to time.
Odd. I've never heard this.
Merely not having sex is relatively easy compared to the requirement that one not even think about sex for one's self while encouraging married couples to be fruitful and multiply (which I think is all about fucking and having babies, not some medieval fantasy).
I am functionally celibate -- having not had sex with anyone for about...6 years? At least for the last 7 years I have either had no desire nor opportunity. I could have, of course, tried to create the opportunity to have sex. But, without a desire, what would be the point? I'm certainly not "chaste" -- I think about sex fairly often, masturbate occasionally (at 70, less often than I might like) and enjoy fleshly sights and fantasies.
At 25 or 35, even at 55, celibacy would have been utterly out of the question. (Actually, the loss of desire is something of a relief at times.) I'm not a-natal or anti-natal. I'm pro-natal, with the caveat that we (humans) really need to strategically reduce our reproductivity for the sake of our future. But that by no means means not having children at all, or thinking that life is suffering, and all that Schopenhauerian1 depressing baloney. My celibacy carries no universal imperative: I'm not having sex at this point, but please don't let me stand in your way! Just do it with risk-reduction guidelines in mind and at hand.
I gather that with more deliberation than I have made, this is Thorongil's position.
Me not having sex with men is not a practical assent of homophobia. So me not having children is not a practical assent of anti-natalism.
Here's why your position is nonsense:
1. You wish to redefine "assent" to mean "acts in a way that requires a specific result." What this means that a person who very much wants to have children but can't due to physical or social limitations (the largest group of celibates by far) is an anatalist because he's acting like someone who doesn't want to have children. That would mean he's "assenting" to the anatalist position.
2. This causes a problem because the word "assent" also (and actually) means "expressing approval for." That would mean that the celibate who wants children would be "assenting" to the natalist position.
Obviously #1 and #2 are contradictory. The same person is both a natalist and anatalist. That contradiction can be explained away as being the result of equivocation with the term "assent." In #1 the term is used differently than in #2.
This doesn't solve our problem, though...
A person who engages in wild promiscuous sex can be an anatalist as long as that person uses birth control. That is, you can have all sorts of sex, but by engaging in safe sex, you won't have children. So, every person who uses birth control "assents" (per definition #1) to anatalism.
So, to boil all this down, what you're saying is:
If you don't do what is necessary to have children, then you are acting in a way that requires (i.e. "assents" per definition #1) that no children will be born. That does not mean, however, that you prefer that no children be born (i.e. "assent" per definition #2). All you mean to say is that if you don't have sex, you won't have kids, but you offer no hint about whether that person not having sex wants or doesn't want kids. This means that certain anatalists really want children.
So, we now have two definitions of anatalism:
A. Those who don't want for there to be children.
B. Those who want for there to be children.
As noted, we have two definition of the word "assent" :
1. Behavior that requires a certain result.
2. Belief or agreement.
Let us now break this down and offer the 4 logical definitions of anatalism and the behaviors associated with it:
1A -- Those who behave in a way that there will be no children and who don't want children.
1B -- Those who behave in way that there be no children but who do want children.
2A -- Those who express agreement for the position that there be no children and who don't want children.
2B -- Those who express agreement for the position that there be no children but who want children.
2B is a bit of a problem.
Of course, it seems logical (since we've defined terms every whichaway) that there be a natalist who does not want for there to be children. That would be the person who engages in unprotected sex but who claims to hate children. After all, plenty of folks get pregnant who don't want kids. We could go through all this same analysis using the term "natalism" and list out the logical possibilities.
And on and on and on.
The way to avoid all this mess is to define terms in a realistic and meaningful way, which you've not done. In fact, my thought is that your attempt to redefine the terms was an attempt to save your theory that somehow anatalism and celibacy were related.
Quoting Michael
Alright, but does this mean you deny any validity between the distinction in question? I don't see how you could.
Quoting Hanover
No, I only wish to include this as one form of assent.
Quoting Hanover
Nope. You still apparently don't get that I am saying that there are two kinds of assent.
Quoting Hanover
Sure, but the anatalism is notional in this case.
Quoting Hanover
Yes, congratulations.
Quoting Hanover
Well, they are related, as you point out in formulations 1A and 1B. So wherefore art the alleged "nonsense," Hanover? I see nothing of the kind proven in your post.
Sure. For instance, donating money to a homophobic political party could be construed as a practical assent of homophobia. But this sort of thing doesn't seem to be the case when it comes to not having children and anti-natalism.
And unlike the example of being a murderer or alcoholic, being an anti-natalist is defined in terms of one's moral judgements rather than one's actions. So whether or not one is an anti-natalist depends entirely on one's moral attitude, not on one's behaviour (assertions in favour of anti-natalism notwithstanding).
As I said in another post, I regard procreation as rather more foolish than immoral. So I suppose this might be construed as a "negative value" judgment in the broadest sense of normativity, but it's not strictly a moral judgment and nor do I mean for it to be.
Did I? I thought I suggested divorcing strong and weak versions of anti-natalism, seeing as the latter does not live up to the implication of the prefix. Ergo, the new term "anatalist" for it.
Quoting Michael
Yes, indeed, that's why I've always argued, or tried to argue (forgive me if I didn't or wasn't clear) that it is practical assent to anatalism, not anti-natalism.
Then what's anatalism? Because I thought you were defining anatalism as a practical assent to anti-natalism.
In your opening post you said "It could also be someone whose lifestyle negates the possibility of having children, e.g. if one is celibate, meaning that they practically assent to anti-natalism, if not theoretically."
It's sort of like I'm a dog, where dogs are defined as people.
Yes, the weak form, which I then re-termed anatalism. What's your point?
Let's say a 10 year old girl just loves her dolls and loves everything about little kids, believing that a world filled with kids would be the most wonderful place. Being 10, she obviously cannot engage in any activity that would result in having children, nor would she want to. She is in fact an anatalist using your strained definition. Of what value is it in designating her as such, and how does it help you to put yourself (as a celibate) and those who detest children in the same general class as her?
My point was that not having children is not a practical assent of anti-natalism. But now that you've clarified anatalism as the doubt that having children is justified my point is that not having children is not a practical assent of anatalism. I might believe that having children is justified but still not have children.
What's your point? I don't see how that's supposedly relevant or detracts from what I've said. It's evident from various dictionaries that my initial understanding corresponds with a common definition, and is therefore a perfectly acceptable usage outside of the context of your stipulated definition.
If "justified" is understood as an obligation, then it's inconsistent to believe, "one ought to have children", and then act in a way contrary to that belief (e.g., practice elected celibacy).
If "justified" is understood as a permissibility, then it is equivalent to "it is not wrong to have children", which is contained in Thorongil's "anatalism".
Based on your comment, it seems you mean the latter.
Thorongil's anatalism is the position that doubts that having children is justified, and so doubts that having children is permissible. I can believe that having children is permissible and still not have children.
Yes you can, because not having children may also be permissible. Anti-natalism would seem to assert that having children is impermissible, or that "one ought not have children". Thorongil has rejected that view, which was previously held, or at least used to self-identify, for the weaker "anatalist" view, which falls somewhere in the middle. The benefit of anatalism for Thorongil is that it identifies a moral position (i.e., the permissibility of having children or not having children), while also describing the life-style choice Thorongil has adopted as practically "anatalist". There is some dispute about the latter, but for someone that will not seek out medical intervention to have children (Thorongil), I'm not sure where the doubt arises except in a general, "I want to use this label for everyone" sort of way.
But, as I said earlier, anti-natalism and anatalism do not seem distinguishable based upon the issue of whether or not one ought to have children, since whether one commits to the claim that it's immoral to do so, or just doubts whether it's justified, wouldn't it make sense to be of the position that one ought not have children?
It would matter a great deal what fuels the doubt. Doubt about the justification for natalism might be expressed as nihilism or another meta-ethical foundation that makes justification claims dubious. An anti-natalist is not going to express meta-ethical moral doubts while simultaneously holding that one ought not have children. An anatalist might hold both the pro-natalist and anti-natalist to task for any moral obligation. A nihilist might nonetheless have children, whereas Thorongil will not.
But you agree that they're indistinguishable in terms of the [i]conclusion[/I] that one ought not have children? That's what really matters here. I reject both positions if that is a logical implication.
I mean, that an anatalist would hold an anti-natalist to account for explicitly committing to the claim that one ought not have children, whilst they themselves do so implicitly, is like the pot calling the kettle black.
I think that the difference between the two is somewhat superficial.
This might get into territory that Thorongil is more suited to defend. It seems that anatalism, borrowing from weak anti-natalism, doesn't commit one way or the other in terms of the behaviour of the adherents. A weak anti-natalist as someone that believes having children is not wrong (permissible), can consistently hold the position and have children. In this sense, the prefix "a" meaning "without" might be a cognitive stumbling block to understanding the position since one might self-identify as "anatalist" and have children. In light of that, I'm not sure anatalism is susceptible to the hypocrisy criticism. There might be further obligations that an anti-natalist might feel is implicit in the position, for instance lobbying for policy change regarding infertility treatments.
One aspect I am having slight trouble understanding is the other horn of the position (i.e., but is not right/justified either). If "justified" is understood as "permissible" and "not wrong" is also understood as "permissible", the anatalist position seems to be: "having children is permissible and not permissible". I take "right" in the second half to mean "obligated" (i.e., it is impermissible to not have children), such that the anatalist holds it is permissible to have children and not impermissible (permissible) to not have children. The anatalist position is that having children or not having children are both permissible, and only in the sense describing the life-style commitment does it cash out as practically indistinguishable from anti-natalism, which I would say is a fairly uncontroversial claim.
I might identify as somewhat anatalist as I understand the position, since I have some sympathies to anti-natalism but ultimately feel the position over-reaches in the strong moral claim.
*edit* I have two children, whom I love very much.
For my own self-identification it would be better to stick with "weak anti-natalism" by virtue of my reproductive success. Since I have children, the "a" prefix is inappropriate, where some weak version of "anti" might be appropriate since I do have some sympathies.
Here's the addendum you all need:
The war of A-natalism vs. Anti-natalism was fought round and round the teapot, up the spout and dumped into a dozen demitasses. In the end, the tempest tossed combatants were all washed out to tea. And yet the war of unimportant terms about which no one sensibly cares greatly (including, no doubt, the soldiers in this fray) was finally inconclusive.
No ground was lost.
No ground was gained.
No heights were scaled
No depths plumbed.
A good time was had by all. Such is philosophy.
And that's all that matters! :D
It's not so much about commitment, but about whether, given their position, their behaviour is reasonable or makes sense. They may not, at least explicitly, commit one way or the other, but that [i]does[/I] have behavioural implications. If they don't act as someone sitting on the fence would act, then it's right to question whether their professed position is genuine.
Quoting Soylent
That reasoning is flawed because it doesn't take into consideration the full position of anatalism, which entails more than the belief that having children is not wrong. It can therefore be dismissed.
Quoting Soylent
Yes, it does seem so. However, the contradiction can be resolved if you replace both of the claims with a claim about one's doubt in the relevant regard. So, one could claim that one doubts whether or not it's justified or permissible to have children.
But - in regard to your earlier denial of the inconsistency/hypocrisy point - if you doubt whether it's justified or permissible to have children, then why would you intentionally have children? How is that not a performative contradiction? And why wouldn't you want to dissuade others from doing so, unless and until we know that it's justified or permissible? After all, according to the anatalist, it's possible that doing so is immoral, perhaps even greatly so. It is in this sense that the difference between the two positions is superficial. Under scrutiny, anatalism seems to be forced to collapse into anti-natalism, at least in practical terms, in order to make sense.
Quoting Soylent
What? That doesn't seem to be how @Thorongil described the position. It seems to me that it's more like the position that doubts whether having children is permissible, which is why it makes sense that Thorongil abstains from acts which might cause procreation.
That he is already celibate, on the other hand, is clearly a poor reason to identify as an anatalist (that is, someone who doubts whether having children is permissible). When thinking about the ethical question of whether or not having children is wrong, why, at that stage, would you take your celibacy into consideration? It would make life as an anatalist correspond with preexisting commitments, and perhaps make life easier, but that should not influence the reasoning behind one's decision. It's the truth that matters, not which position is more convenient. Thorongil has not approached this matter impartially, and I don't agree with that approach.
Alright, forget about celibacy for the moment. That is clearly a bugbear for many of you and is only of secondary importance to how I define anatalism. First, I stipulate that an action is wrong if it knowingly frustrates the will of another being. Second, I take anti-natalism to be the position that regards having children as morally wrong. So is having children (procreation) wrong? My answer is no, because the mere act of procreation (consensual, unprotected sex with a fertile female) doesn't frustrate the will of another being; one can't harm that which doesn't exist. However, does the fact that procreation is not wrong thereby make it right? Of course not, for one must provide reasons to have children, which is in effect to argue for natalism. In my case, I find none of the reasons for having children compelling.
Now, at this point, things can begin to get murky, but suffice it to say that I think we can establish that I am neither an anti-natalist nor a natalist. So what am I? Well, as I have said, I think the term "anatalist" fits best. Think of it as functioning like the word "amoral" which is between "immoral" and "moral." Notice, however, that it still occupies a negative position (though a different kind of negativity from anti-natalism): one does not commit to the natalist position. Could one still have children despite not finding any reason to? Sure, but this would be to act irrationally. Hence, because I do not wish to act irrationally, I do not have children. Again, it's not because I think it would be immoral to do so, but because it would be irrational to do so. I would also claim that it's irrational for everyone to have children, in addition to myself, but that depends on an argument I have not raised in this thread. For the purposes of this thread, I'm only speaking about myself.
By Zeus I hope this helps.
So succinct. Should be a meme.
Perhaps, perhaps not. Actions sometimes (maybe quite frequently) and properly precede positions.
How could that possibly be?
You may have a very frightening experience. Perhaps you are rock climbing with a friend who is much better at it than you are. You are led upwards on a vertical climb which is not too difficult. When you are at the top, you suddenly see how difficult getting back down is going to be. After much frightening experience you are back on safe ground, and you establish a position (which you stick with for life) that you are NEVER GOING TO CLIMB ROCKS AGAIN. And you don't.
You start graduate school because you have a vague idea that a higher degree would be a good thing. Over the next two years you have one discouraging, depressing, unhappy experience after another. There are some good experiences, but on balance, it is pretty bad. Based on experience you arrive at the position that graduate school (like life itself for some people) sucks way too much to put up with.
If you always avoid homeless people and places where homeless people hang out because they smell bad and the smell makes you feel ill, (an experience) you may arrive at the position that homeless people are disgusting--not just in their odor, but in their very being. Same thing goes for any group of people who you systematically avoid because of some feeling you have about them (repugnance, fear, annoyance, whatever). You avoid them and the act of avoidance leads to building a position to justify the avoidance.
My guess is that a lot of arguments in philosophy are based on positions which would have benefitted by the opposing philosophers having had some actual experience prior to developing their positions.
Well, no, you're not. A number of times you've said that the celibate assents to this position. That's the claim we've been arguing against.
You can't care that much about frustrating the will of another being, otherwise you'd set aside the trivial exception of the time in which there is not yet[/I] a being, and instead consider a little further down the line when there [i]will be a being, and a being with a will that'll inevitably be frustrated from time to time.
Quoting Thorongil
Not having children without good reason is the typical, "default" position. Believing that there is no good reason to have children is practically anti-natalism, if not technically. The only difference being that anti-natalism, as you've implied, is absolute, whereas your position is contingent. I suspect that "certain people" are sort of anti-natalists in denial, or "obstinately confused" halfway anti-natalists who won't follow the logic where it eventually leads.
Quoting Thorongil
Did you mean everyone or anyone? I suspect you meant the latter. I think that that argument would only work if it maintains that the overall cost of having children outweighs the overall benefit, and that, I believe, is not necessarily true, nor true of every case.
My thoughts exactly. He has made plenty of general points, the implications of which do not only effect him.
N.B. the celibate; not the Thorongil.
It's not trivial. You can't harm the non-existent. Therefore, no wrongdoing has occurred.
Quoting Sapientia
No, it's not. Did you really read my post above? The most common definition of anti-natalism is that it is the position that assigns a negative value to birth. So having children is morally wrong according to it. Not being convinced of any reasons for X is not to claim that X is morally wrong. If you don't understand the difference here, then it's futile for me to keep responding.
Quoting Sapientia
I'm not seeing any semantic difference between the two.
Merely repeating that which I've already acknowledged is pointless, and your denial is without explanation. How is it not trivial in light of what [i]will be[/I] the case [i]as a result[/I]?(Which, in accordance with your own implicit premises, entails harm (and therefore wrongdoing) to that which exists - namely a being). It's incredibly shortsighted not to take that into consideration.
Quoting Thorongil
I'm not surprised.
Look, I'm not a consequentialist, despite what appears to be your attempts here to make me one. I don't judge the moral worth of an action based on the consequences of the action. I've given you my criterion for judging the moral worth of an action, and based on it, I cannot judge procreation to be wrong. There's nothing more for me to say.
Quoting Sapientia
So enlighten me.
Why not? Seems like a cop out. Is there nothing wrong, in your view, with poisoning someone, if doing so does no immediate harm?
Quoting Thorongil
If everyone (as opposed to anyone) were to have a child, and especially if they were to have more than one, then that might, for example, raise concerns about overpopulation. And because of that, it might be considered irrational. But I don't think that that was what you were getting at. I think that you meant to claim that the principle applies universally, rather than address the hypothetical scenario of everyone having children. If so, then you meant "anyone", and not "everyone" in that sentence.
That's what I thought you meant.
Poisoning is undoubtedly wrong, once again because it deliberately frustrates the will of another being.
Quoting Sapientia
Yes.
You're missing the point, it seems. My example was specifically about cases of poisoning which do not frustrate the will of another being - not immediately, but later on, as a consequence. You must also commit to the claim that that sort of poisoning is also not wrong, otherwise you're being inconsistent and special pleading in the case of procreation. Intentional procreation also knowingly and inevitably leads to the frustration of the will of another being. Who has a child without being aware of that fact? No one literally believes that life is perfect and without frustration.
So, once again, you're in a lose/lose situation: you're forced into a dilemma in which you must either forgo logical consistency or forgo plausibility. (Actually, I think that you've already foregone plausibility, but the poisoning analogy emphasises this).
This is oxymoronical. You can only poison people who exist, whether the effects are immediate or not. You can't poison or harm in any way that which does not exist. Note also that the harm I'm talking about here is metaphysical, as I said in a previous post: it affects the will of a person. You can deny someone's will without harming them physically. In the case of poisoning someone, it doesn't matter when the effects take place, for if poisoning is inconsonant with the person's will to live, then wrongdoing has occurred.
I suspected that that would be your response: denying that there can be cases in which poisoning does not (immediately) frustrate the will of another being. It is not oxymoronical in the sense in which I meant it, and in which it would normally be interpreted, but you might not be using the word "will" in this way. And my point was obviously not that that which doesn't exist can be poisoned or harmed, so I don't know why you're wasting time pointing that out. I'm talking about one being poisoning another being without the latter's knowledge. Think of two (living) adults. Rather, I was attempting to show that you'd have to maintain that that sort of poisoning isn't wrong.
The verb "will" usually denotes a conscious intention or desire, and so in the poisoning example, if one is not conscious of anything which will negatively effect one's will to continue living, then it hasn't been frustrated, and it would not be frustrated as an immediate result of the act of poisoning (of which one is not yet aware), but possibly later on, when the effects of the poison kick in and do harm - likely both mental and physical.
It's not clear to me what you mean. How does this "will to live" differ from continued living? The act of poisoning - at least in cases of severe poisoning - clearly puts at risk the likelihood of continued living, even if one is unaware. I'm not sure where "will" factors in though. Do you mean that there is some sort of force or telos to live? Because that strikes me as a fanciful notion, unless it is reduced to, and backed up by, science and/or psychology.
And, by the way, you are in fact a consequentialist, because you're basing your judgements on whether or not this will to live is effected as a consequence[/I]. I just don't get why you don't extend this reasoning to include acts which [i]will effect one's will to live, but do not presently effect one's will to live (on account of there not yet being someone who has a will to be effected, in the case of procreational acts) - unless, that is, you have an agenda. You've been evasive when I've questioned this. I questioned how the short-term consequence isn't trivial in light of the long-term consequence, and you evaded my question. I questioned why you don't take long-term consequences into consideration, and you ignored my question.
I'm probably not. But see, I can tell from this post of yours that you are intent on arguing with me for its own sake. My intention, by contrast, was merely to explain a new label I apply to myself, one which involves various presuppositions. I suppose I could try to challenge the straw men you create for my presuppositions above, but I also must confess that I have no interest in doing so because of the very deep and long rabbit holes it will take us down. Since one of your presuppositions seems to be positivism, it would likely be futile anyway.
There's a lot of that going around these days.
You're probably not? What kind of answer is that? You either are or you aren't. How can you not be sure? Don't you know what you're talking about? And if you aren't using it that way, then did you not think that it'd be helpful to clarify the way in which you are using it?
Quoting Thorongil
You can tell no such thing. Do not presume to know my intent.
Quoting Thorongil
Another disappointing cop out. In the absence of a clear position from yourself, I addressed in parts of my post what I thought could be your position. If they don't in fact represent your position, then I would expect you to clarify what is and isn't representative of your position, or at least clarify your position without specifically going over these alleged straw men.
Quoting Thorongil
It is not.
It means just what it says; that I am likely operating under a different understanding of the term than you are.
Quoting Sapientia
No, and for the reason I already gave.
Quoting Sapientia
Ooh, what a tough guy. So you're not just trying to argue with me for the hell of it? Do you have a genuine interest and curiosity about me and what I believe? I find that hard to believe, especially in light of the fact that I don't much care what you believe. We're just two schmucks on an Internet forum. The truth about any given topic discussed is probably not ever going to be reached and so I post mainly to while away the time. Perhaps your intentions are much grander and purer, but I doubt it.
Quoting Sapientia
For what purpose? I don't think it's necessary for me to explain the entire philosophical system to which I subscribe just to show you why I apply one specific label to myself.
Quoting Sapientia
No? You wrote: "that strikes me as a fanciful notion, unless it is reduced to, and backed up by, science and/or psychology." Sounds like a form of positivism to me.
I've been thinking about this whole antinatalism thing recently.
First, I don't know if it is really necessary to be actively opposed to birth (or, really, any position for that matter), unless of course one has the passion and dedication to do so.
Second, as I've argued elsewhere, there is no need to be a moral vigilante regarding birth because we live in a society that values liberty, and thus we must understand that there are limits in what a person can do. Furthermore, it is entirely unclear that, with most philosophical positions, that this debate is over.
I'm by no means a social butterfly, and find people incredibly stressful too. I always wanted to have a good romantic relationship though, and someday have a family. I thought I was in love with someone last year, or convinced myself that I was for awhile -- things didn't work out, but it was still some great memories. I dated immediately afterwords, in kind of a rebound phase, but just wasn't feeling it, so haven't since, but I'll try to put myself back out there this summer.
Life is hard, and often miserable, so why demonize one of its few pleasures?
The issue is not sex per se or the pleasure that comes from it, but reproduction. It would be naive not to be wary of the connection between the two, but with the wonders of modern science, we're capable of having children without fucking (all the pain of childbirth with none of the pleasure, I suppose).
And the focus on reproduction is obvious: without it, there is no life, which even a natalist in his weaker (clearer?) moments will point out is miserable, as you just did.
All we want to hear about on the news is violence, grit, and drama, maybe capped off with a cute puppy. Paradise, without conflict drama and misery would be insufferably boring, and then it would be time for mass extinction. While there's still interesting conflicts afoot, it's worth sticking around.
We love and are entertained by music, television shows/movies, video games, literature, and even advertisements/propaganda that deifies the hero. We love conflict and drama, so long as we are not actually participating in it. We love watching war movies, but actually being in the scenario of the war movie would suck major. Some of us enjoy playing video games that worship the hero and paint violence, conflict, misery, and drama in an interesting light; it basically acts as a distraction to keep us from twiddling our thumbs out of boredom. But throw any one of us in such a scenario, and I can guarantee that only the psychopaths are the ones that will not want to immediately leave.
Basically, we require a heroic narrative, a story of success, triumph, and glory to continue to live.
We do desperately want to be involved, and play it out in fiction and fantasy, but simply lack the resolve, naivety, ignorance, and self-assuredness to play it out for reals. We don't want to be wrong, be the villain, fail, and risk ourselves in that way.
That's why you should latch onto your causes, fight bitterly their oppositions, never listen to anyone over forty -- and you'll never be bored again.
But sooner or later, and often more than expected, you get knocked down and disappointed, if not seriously hurt. It takes all the fun out of the game.
And making something interesting does not take away the pain of some situations.
It can be difficult to lower one's expectations indeed, particularly when they can't even conceive of the idea, and view it as tantamount to just expecting their over-blow expectations to never be fulfilled. The point is that lower expectations are easier to achieve, as in, your life will then be full of success.
If you have to actually temper your hopes and expectations for something less than adequate, it makes this whole thing seem quite pathetic.
It's called being reasonable. If you want to call being an unreasonable loser less pathetic than a reasonable winner, that's up to you.
That, or just luck.
Misery is not great. I's actually miserable.
The knots people put themselves in!
Yeah... I didn't say that misery was great, I said that it was one of the things that makes life great. Apples aren't pies, but they're one of the things that make pies.
I mean, you should look for apples if you want to make a pie, right?
Or is it only a specific kind of suffering/misery that makes you happy...?
Notice on its face how absurd the claim that misery makes you happy sounds. Maybe there's some reason you believe it, I don't know?
You are also misrepresenting what I said again. Misery doesn't equate to happiness, in a one to one correspondence, but boredom, lack of conflict and drama is always worse.
Isn't boredom a kind of misery?
I think maybe people falsely equate accomplishment, growth and challenge with suffering or misery, but they're really different.
It sure would be wonderful if we could get those feelings without the preceding misery, but that isn't how the world works. Equating life itself with suffering and misery is why one would want to escape, in order for the release.
I don't expect much, I enjoy my little pleasures, and am quite pleased about how things are going for me. I can't wait to be working hard again though, any day now... as relaxing just isn't relaxing until the point of complete exhaustion.
So, shouldn't you be looking for ways to make yourself sick on purpose, so that you can recover from it, since that's better than just staying healthy?
I don't see anything in the previous answers that addresses the question.
You can't eat a great apple pie without the apples. In fact, you can't eat an apple pie at all without the apples. The apples are an essential ingredient. Whether you look for them or not, you're gonna encounter apples.
The error in your thinking is your ideal of what you take to be a perfect pie. We can't make a perfect pie, so you conclude that it's not worth making. Scrap that ideal, I say. Not only is it an unachievable hindrance, it's not even a sensible notion of a perfect pie. For a pie without any filling is lacking something quite important.
I'm hungry, so I'm going to make an apple pie - hopefully a great one - rather than sit and sulk about my hunger for an apple pie.
Quoting Wosret
(Y)
He has merely rephrased his earlier loaded question, which, as you've already explained, is based on a flawed understanding of your position.
To practice contraception is to be practically 'anatalist', though not necessarily theoretically, so neither contraception nor celibacy are necessarily logically (theoretically or ideologically) connected to either a-, or anti-, natalism.
Now that is a perfectly coherent question, one which many people would answer in the affirmative. It is, however, irrelevant to the lived experienced of the individual. They are forever stuck with what happened in their life. Imagined worlds cannot alter what happened to them. Whatever suffering and happiness they are feeling/ have felt, they are stuck with. Your pontifications about a life which would have been better are entirely irrelevant to their lives. It's like walking up to a torture victim and asking: "Wouldn't it have been great if you weren't tortured?" - nothing more than a platitude on your part, which is irrelevant at best and insulting at worse.
Misery is important for happiness because, in some cases, that person's happiness occurs after misery and is an end to that misery. This is not to say that misery is what makes happiness possible, but rather to point out that many instances of happiness occur because a moment of misery has ceased. It is about the misery and suffering that the people in question are living through. For many people, to end a moment of misery is an accomplishment which brings happiness.
I'm of course not glorifying suffering, like it was a great thing to have been molested, or to have been in a concentration camp, I'm simply saying that if it happened, it's better to try to make something out of it than to be destroyed by it -- that leading a completely uneventful life is not so great either. There's of course excess in either direction, things are often good in certain amounts, but no matter how good we may imagine them to be, they'd become less so the more and more of it we got, until they'd eventually become destructive.
It's of course not glorious to have lived though horrible traumas, but it is more glorious to have survived them, and not have been destroyed by them than to have lived a completely uneventful life, filled with bored and unappreciated pleasures and security.
As far as I can see I neither said nor implied this, so I don't know what you're on about.
I don't even understand what you're trying to say. It sounds like you're just saying 'p, but not p.'
To a point, pain is necessary for life to have meaning, at least life in its current form. Perhaps theoretically we could change the chemical makeup of the human brain so that no pain is necessary for meaning. Perhaps in the theoretical future, the ancestors of our generations will view any kind of discomfort as pathological. But the point is that it's not a cosmic fundamental law that meaning requires pain/conflict, just that its a current fact based on our biological makeup.
The trouble here is that you can't seem to have meaning (or, as I like to see it, a heroic narrative), without there being risk as well as pain. There is pain, but there is also suffering. Suffering creates the risk. And so it seems like a Catch-22 in which, if we were to eliminate suffering but not pain, then there would be no risk, and therefore there would be no hero; for what would there be to overcome/triumph?
If life is set out in front of us with no risk, then there is no meaning because there is no conflict, there is no motivation. But if one should fail in their endeavors, and therefore suffer, suddenly meaning really doesn't have any part of the equation. Meaning goes out the window as soon as someone begins to profusely suffer. Existence, instead of being a heroic game, becomes a thing to endure and wish was better.
And this, in my opinion, is precisely why birth can be seen as a tragic event. The future is unknown, and therefore optimistic foreshadowing is useless and may lead to considerable harm.
Maybe someday they will come up with such a way to change our chemistry, and we can all lay stoned in a blissful stupor on the floor. When our loves die we can feel nothing but pleasure, and when our children are crippled in accidents we can grin with bliss. Oh what a wonderful world that will be... we won't all be nightmarishly insane at all!
You say that we can't have the meaning that makes life worth living without a real risk, and then say that it is precisely because there is a risk that life isn't worth living. A catch 22 indeed, the justifications for living, and not living being identical. I'ma arbitrarily side with the living.
Also, I doubt that the author comes from a back ground of a regime of "pain disease and unhappiness", so whence comes his special insight into the condition that allows for such righteous indignation? I'd like to see him go do missionary work to places he imagines is like that with that kind of attitude, and find out how the people react to him. Besides that, wouldn't it be better to actually work on the causes of pain disease and unhappiness, and mitigate, and arrest them where they are in excess, rather than forgetting and dooming them in favor of a future "intelligently designed" eugenics project?
I find that loon far less than persuasive.
The cause of all these is birth.
It's not arbitrary though, that's what you've been told so you believe it (and you tell it to yourself, obviously quite a lot).
In terms of the relevance of this statement to my thread, I don't care about whether one is passionately opposed to birth but whether this entails that one is an anti-natalist. I think it does, and so because I am not opposed to birth qua birth (there's nothing immoral about an organism leaving a birth canal), I don't feel I can call myself an anti-natalist despite the fact that I know of no morally justifiable reasons for having children.
Quoting Wosret
I wasn't demonizing sexual activity (though I have serious moral qualms about it just as I do with reproduction).
Quoting John
I can admit that practicing contraception and being celibate are both sufficient but not necessary forms of practical anti-natalism, yes.
I was pointing out that Darth's reasoning implies that his position was entirely arbitrary. I don't think it's arbitrary, as much as misanthropic, and crazy. One doesn't get to invent their own private morality, particularly when it is in direct opposition to the morality of the whole rest of humanity... and even more obviously so when this private morality's highest good is anti-life, apocalyptic all humans should just die type deal... that's some super-villain shit.
I don't see a distinction.
You set a very low bar for what counts as suffering, and you place a huge load of weight on this suffering, such that it outweighs almost any benefit. So, as a result, the bar to live a life worth living must be set very high up. So high up, in fact, that no one can actually reach it.
Death it is then, I suppose. But no! You (and others, taking a leaf out of Schopenhauer's book) then offer up the contradiction that it's better to continue to live life, albeit "aesthetically", and something vague about art is usually mentioned - which is basically a concession that life is worth living after all.
Birth does not cause suffering, it enables suffering. Building a house in Florida does not cause the house to be destroyed, the hurricane is what causes the destruction of the house.
To be sure, suffering would not exist without birth. But it would be equivocation to say that birth causes suffering when in fact it does not. These kinds of semantic word play arguments are meant to act like a "gotcha!" poke instead of actually proving anything.
The feeling of hollowness is also grounded in a chemical process in your brain. Presumably, all negative feelings could be banished, and the value arithmetic would be radically changed so that conflict is not required for meaning. It seems to me that technology like this is the only way to transcend the barbarism of daily life.
Chemically altering everyone so that you guarantee only inappropriate disproportional responses to the world is engineering insanity. Feelings aren't random occurrences, they're how all living things successfully navigate through the world. This transhumanist day dream is ridiculous nonsense.
That's just not following the logic where it leads, but rather stopping halfway. Not even halfway, actually. It's superficial to speak of birth [I]qua[/i] birth. The consequences of birth are of the utmost importance. And not accepting any reason for having children as morally justifiable is tantamount to anti-natalism, just as not accepting any reason for the existence of Jews as morally justifiable is tantamount to anti-semitism.
But we've already been over this, and to little avail. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it overcome it's denial.
And I doubt whether it even makes sense to speak of birth being against one's will. I doubt whether will enters the equation at that stage. If it doesn't, then it's not sensible to speak of will as if it retroactively applied.
But living is a lot like being tortured: for example, it forces you to go through a series of complicated and painful tasks in order to secure food, or be subject to a horrible pain of starvation. If some agent were likewise forcing you to go through those tasks or some equivalent, but inflicted the pain in a different way, say by whipping you to death rather than starving you to death, this would obviously be a case of torture.
--
Birth is against one's will because one cannot choose to be born. By the time one is born (not before), it is something that has happened without consent.
It's part of a chain of cause and effect, and @darthbarracuda's point emphasised its indirect and irrelevant nature within a certain context.
I don't think that's a far comparison. Tripping over a stick and scrapping one's knee isn't like being pushed maliciously to the ground by an asshole. We're social creatures, the emotion, and intention in their eyes, their cruel motivations are far more traumatic than the physical injury inflicted.
Also, it is much different to grow up under capricious, and cruel care than to be thrust under it recently. One becomes accustomed to it, does not expect anything different, and can even love, and hold little animosity or resentment towards their tormentors. That's just normal for them. An abrupt change, the expectation of respect and decency in the face of torture has a lot to do with its level of trauma.
But we are deliberately brought into the world by people, and those people know full well that we will be in circumstances that make it unavoidable that we will experience tremendous suffering. No person may deliberately cause the impetus toward starvation itself; but what they do is implicitly approve of it by continuing to place people deliberately in its path knowing full well how it works.
If you tortured someone by throwing them in a room full of swinging blades, and protested, 'but I don't push the blades!' that is obviously not a good objection. You knew that some blade or other would hit them, and so shoving them into the room is an expression of torture. The situation is analogous with deciding to birth people.
Quoting The Great Whatever
That's nonsense. As a necessary (though insufficient) precondition, there must be a will for it to be against. There were innumerable events which occurred without my consent and of which I could not have chosen, but it would be blatantly inappropriate to say that all of them happened against my will. You ought to take the connotations of that phrase into consideration. Consider, for example, "You cannot force me to come with you against my will!" and "Police searched my mother's bags against her will".
I suppose this is where it comes full circle! It is only in places that don't have reproductive control where one may wish to join the Christian missionaries in preaching abstinence.
You failed to consider my overall point, though. To say that birth causes suffering is misleading; it's catchy and easy to say that it does, but in fact it does not unless you are willing to equivocate and use the word "cause" outside of its usual definition.
Like I said, building a house in Florida does not cause the destruction of the house. The hurricane causes it. Can it be a bad idea to build a house in Florida right in the middle of a hurricane red zone? Yes. But that does not cause the destruction of the house, it only enables it.
Enabling can be just as bad, but it would be misleading to say that birth causes suffering because it conjures ideas that as soon as someone flies out of the womb, they begin suffering when it's nothing like that. External happenings cause someone to feel suffering, which is ultimately enabled by birth.
If you have alternatives as to where to build a house, and you intentionally build it somewhere where it is sure to be destroyed, I think it is perfectly appropriate to say of you, the person who made the stupid decision, that you (or your decision) is a cause of the house's destruction. Of course the hurricane is too.
Quoting darthbarracuda
One suffers just by virtue of being alive; there is no way to be alive without suffering or being threatened with suffering by that very fact. You would have to change very basic material circumstances, like ending the notion of hunger, to change this.
Not sure what your point is, there's nothing nonsense about what I said.
So poor people have more children because of child benefits allotted to them? Success seems most positively correlated with where one comes from in life, but I think secondly with their ability to put off present pleasures in favor of future ones. With their level of self control. People don't have sex primarily for the purposes of procreation, they have sex because it's fun. People that are taught good restrain, and future planning I think are more likely to be more caution than people that haven't. I don't want children (at least not right now), but in the heat of the moment, sometimes you just don't care enough to take proper precautions. I wasn't exactly raised in an environment of restraint.
Not planning to have children, and being willing to abort pregnancies are very different things. Not that I'm opposed to them, but I certainly recognize the latter as a much more difficult decision.
It's stupid because you enabled the hurricane to wreak havoc on the house.
According to your logic, parents must be murderers because they condemn their children to death since every life form dies. It's a nifty, catchy, angsty little aphorism that you might see in the works of Cioran or Ligotti and co., but outside of that it's really just desperate special pleading.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Bleh, you're equating pain to suffering. A little bit of hunger, a little bit of discomfort, can be seen as a notification. Extreme hunger is suffering. It's a matter of degree and also of kind; if pain becomes too great that meaning or purpose cannot be derived from it, it becomes suffering.
And the idea that sex is mostly a recreational activity for fun is hugely historically blind. Life was not always post-1965 America, and in many places it still is not.
I agree that when people have material circumstances that don't force them to have kids, they generally stop doing it: because having children is awful for everyone involved.
Obviously one cause of death is being born -- though murder would probably not be an appropriate term, because it is a primarily moralistic or legalistic term that takes as a background assumption that someone is already alive. Though yes, deciding to have a child also means to make someone that you are forcing to confront death at some point, and they have no choice in the matter. I would question your sanity if you denied that.
Oh, I misinterpreted you, yes that's definitely true.
I will also note that, at least for me, other people's suffering is many times more difficult to bare than my own. I do find the sentiment laudable, but the only one suffering when it comes to hypothetical people are we, among the living. Wishes to prevent their suffering is a veiled desire to mitigate our own. I find there to be many virtues to be had in having a family. I think that actually loving something more than yourself, and putting them and their well being ahead of your own offers a maturity, meaning and happiness that cannot otherwise be achieved. I have a special admiration for those that have done it.
Between what?
Quoting Sapientia
I'm not a consequentialist, mon ami.
Quoting Sapientia
The root word "natal" refers to birth. When the prefix "anti" is applied to it and used as a noun, it can only mean "opposition to birth." I'm not opposed to birth, so I'm not an anti-natalist. But not being opposed to birth is not to be in favor of it. That would be a non-sequitur. The natalist has all his work still ahead of him to convince me of any positive reason for why birth is necessary or good.
Recall that I did actually make a distinction between strong and weak anti-natalism, but felt the weak form, which would apply to me, did violence to the very clear and basic etymology of the term just explained to you yet again.
Ah yes, I remember now. You deny that, too. Even though some of your comments suggest otherwise. Well, purporting not to be a consequentialist doesn't make the consequences any less important; it just indicates your unwillingness to acknowledge their importance.
Quoting Thorongil
I used the word "tantamount" for a reason. It means "equivalent in seriousness to; practically the same as".
Your position is far from being in favor of birth, and is much closer to being opposed to it. You are in fact opposed to birth in a sense. If someone informed you that they were planning on having a baby, then you would probably be opposed to that plan on the grounds that it likely isn't justified or good or necessary. After all, you have clearly thought a lot about this issue and have discussed it at length, yet you remain unconvinced that there is any reason good enough to justify having a baby. It wouldn't make sense for someone in your position - which is not a position of neutrality - not to be opposed. You're not absolutely opposed or opposed in principle, but you're opposed nevertheless.
Demonizing and having "serious moral qualms" with something. Those are practically identical, although of course you would object to the former, as the phrase is indicative of my attitude that the "serious moral qualms" are unjustified.
Quoting Sapientia
On the contrary, if consequentialism is untrue, then consequences are not important in judging the morality of actions.
Quoting Sapientia
Yes, and it is this alleged equivalence that you haven't shown.
I was under the impression that you were relating "anatalism", and your moral qualms with natalism with abstinence, and celibacy... and others were assuring you that they were not related. Demonizer...
Quoting Sapientia
What? Try this on again:
Quoting Thorongil
Now please explain how I am wrong, otherwise you've no right to throw my accusations against you back at me like some parrot.
Edit: I see you edited your post. Very well. I will reply, but tomorrow, as I'm getting tired.
Oh it occurred, but apparently you didn't like. You hold moral qualms against sexual activity, but just claim that you have compartmentalized them from the point you are making in this thread... because you can remain unbiased by them, presumably... only others have pointed out to you that you've been drawing an illogical connection between sexuality activity, and the lack there of, natalism, and the justness/justifiability of one's position. The connection between the two, although not logical, is clear to me. Q.E.D.
Quoting Sapientia
Yes, as I clearly stated. Well done.
Quoting Sapientia
No, not quite. It's not up to me to decide who gets to have a baby or not, so I cannot oppose that which is not within my power to oppose. Hence, I am neither practically opposed nor theoretically opposed (which you already cede) to birth.
Quoting Sapientia
Quite so, but this is not to be opposed to birth.
Quoting Sapientia
It wouldn't make sense how?
Quoting Sapientia
So you say, but I seem to have missed the punch line. Again, why am I opposed to birth? All I've gathered from your post is that you think I secretly am, and so on this basis declare that I am. Well, I'm sorry, but I'm telling you that I'm not opposed and it is your job to show me why I am.
Quoting Wosret
So I do. But they're not set in stone and not relevant to the points I made in this thread, you confused SOB (if we must use infantile acronyms).
If something is not good, it is either morally neutral or morally bad. If you are to take the position that birth is morally neutral, then this means that birth is entirely unnecessary but is not at all morally problematic.
Since you said that you are not opposed to birth, it is assumed that you mean that birth is of neutral moral value.
If this is the case, then I think you have a large project ahead of you to prove this claim, as there is significant and difficult arguments that attempt to show that birth is actually of negative moral value.
And, you know, that big, long discussion that we had prior to that. Pretty sure I said a thing or two on that subject. That wasn't just an empty deflection.
Quoting Thorongil
No, you didn't. What you actually did in that post was imply that you're not in favour of birth, whereas my point was that not only are you not in favour of birth, you're far from it. You're further away than someone who is an anatalist largely from ignorance. You've considered and rejected as unjustified every reason for giving birth that you've thus far been able to conceive or have been presented with. It's like the distinction between implicit and explicit atheism, as coined by George H. Smith.
Quoting Thorongil
That's cobblers. The decision doesn't need to be up to you or within your power in order for you to be opposed to the plan. If that were the case in general, then it wouldn't make sense, for example, for any member of the general public to be opposed to a governmental plan. And I only ceded that you're not opposed to birth qua birth, or birth in principle, which I also said was superficial.
Quoting Thorongil
How would an outward stance of indifference make sense when that is not a reflection of your views? You don't think that having a baby is justified or that there's any reason good enough to do so. So, if I genuinely tell you that I plan to go out and impregnate a woman, and ask for your frank opinion or advice, it wouldn't make much sense for you to casually reply "Whatever, dude, it's up to you. I don't mind one way or the other" .
But then the only way to be opposed to it would be in a theoretical sense. How, exactly, am I "practically" opposed to it?
Quoting Sapientia
... Which would have to be theoretical opposition. Practical opposition would entail becoming a lawmaker, or voting for one, who would work to repeal or amend it.
Quoting Sapientia
Why, though? Why wouldn't it make sense? Once again, the punch line is missing.
I don't think that that follows. And you yourself have claimed that you're practically opposed to it, have you not? But anyway, you'd be practically opposed to it if you practiced what you preach, so to speak. Also, rejecting any and all reasons (thus far) for having a baby is exactly what an anti-natalist would do.
Quoting Thorongil
No, it wouldn't have to be. Practical opposition would mean taking action intended against it. Becomingly politically active. Having insufficient power doesn't stop people from trying, and that is very fortunate in many cases. That has sped up progress.
In this case, I just think that to avoid performative contradiction, you ought to do a bit more than shrug your shoulders.
Quoting Thorongil
To get to the other side! Ba dum tsh
How else can I get the point across? I don't think that you'd be justified to stab me in the eye. For virtually any reason that I can think of, I don't think that any would be good enough and that you'd be justified in doing so. So, if you told me that you were planning on doing so, is it not obvious to you that I would find that objectionable and wish to oppose your plan? That would be a sensible response, and one that almost every other person would make in that situation.
I am of the opinion that non-consequentialist normative positions, like deontology or virtue ethics, are quasi-consequentialist in nature. Furthermore, it is a psychological fact that the world and its contents we perceive can be split into three categories of useful, dangerous, or neutral regardless of the intrinsic nature or lack thereof.
And even if you take a non-consequentialist position, such as deontology, you can still have an antinatalistic deontological theory based upon a normative rule that one shall not harm another without their consent, which is an intuitive and simple law. Or you can say that one must not take risks associated with an agent without the agent's consent. The non-identity problem does not make potential agents not morally important, either.
Alright, in this sense, which was the sense I originally used, I can agree. Celibacy is to be practically opposed to giving birth, though not necessarily theoretically.
Quoting Sapientia
But that doesn't make me an anti-natalist, though. I share this in common with them, true, but I crucially lack the theoretical (moral) opposition to birth.
Quoting Sapientia
By doing what? Answering in the negative if some person randomly asks me if he should have kids? How about this: I might do this, but it would not be in a moral sense. If one ought not to do something, this could imply immorality or irrationality. I conceive of having children as irrational or foolish rather than immoral. Does this make me an anti-natalist? I still think not, since it is universally construed as a moral position or stance.
I don't think that you do, though. You oppose it in that way, but in a weaker sense than a strong anti-natalist. You consider the reasons, judge them to be morally unjust, and reject them on that basis. Rejection is a form of opposition, by the way. The "implicit anatalist" doesn't oppose it at all, but you do - at least internally if what you've said is genuine, and practically so if you were more consistent.
Quoting Thorongil
What matters is whether you conceive of having children as being an act of moral significance, rather than specifically that it's immoral, and you've given me good reason to believe that you do, and that you reject it on that basis (perhaps in addition to others). You've used ethical terminology to describe your position, and have set out views which I take to be ethical in nature.
Considering potential agents morally important leads to absurdity, and special pleading. Every time you whack it you kill a billion potential people without their consent. If you are saving them from the suffering of living then why can't you kill actual people for the same reason? If it's because it would cause them pain to do so, then there are ways to do it painlessly. If you can just assume a priori that potential people would rather be dead than alive, then why can't you assume this with actual people?
As you can see, such a position leads to inconsistency, and special pleading.
In the case of unsolicited mercy killings, you are enabling suffering that is ultimately in the realm of another person. In the case of potential people, you are causing suffering if you have a child.
Special pleading. Why does unsolicited mercy killings not violate liberty and consent of potential people? Why can't you kill actual people based on the assumption that there is a chance that they would rather be dead than alive?
You have to admit that you are treating potential and actual people entirely different, with entirely different (often opposing) moral obligations. You can kill people without causing them harm or suffering. You're right though that it's because it's in the realm of another person, and you must ultimately stay neutral and unpresuming about whether they want to live or die, because you know that they actually have their own will, and get to decide that. When it comes to potential people you can project all over them, because they don't.
So now you are the cause of their suffering? I thought you were just telling TGW about how that's straining the definition of "cause"? It must only be cool when you do it.
Because what if they actually don't want to die? Then you'd be harming them. It's none of mine nor your business to be involved in the continuation or lack thereof of someone else's life.
Quoting Wosret
You are correct, my mistake.
Anyway, if you throw a glass beer bottle out the window without concern about its trajectory, we would see this as neglect and immoral because you might kill someone. But expel a baby out of the womb of a woman without knowing the various trajectories in life the baby will have, and in fact knowing the ultimate final trajectory (death), for some reason this is supposed to be acceptable.
And if you asked the vast majority of living people if they'd rather have never been born, what do you think they'd say? If they said "no", are they wrong, or just confused? If the vast majority of people would say "no" (which I'm fairly confident they would), why would you expect a different answer from the unborn? If they're just wrong, and confused about wanting to be alive, again, why is it different?
It is none of your business, unless it's about their reproduction, and then it's all your business, despite good reason to think that the vast majority of potential people would rather be actual than not, if asking actual people is an indication.
There are very many scenarioes in which one takes every precaution, and isn't negligent, and harm still occurs which isn't in their control. Everyone frowns on negligent parents -- yet understanding that plenty that we do involves risk, and requires attentiveness, care and precaution. The implication being that no one should ever act in any way because of the risk of harm that may ensue, or that all actions are negligent unless one is omniscient and omnipotent in being able to avoid harm. That is clearly an unreasonable view.
For many antinatalists, I think that birth is a stand in for not just possible and unknown suffering that can or will occur, but has a large tie-in with the endlessly instrumental project that existence seems to represent. An antinatalist might think along the lines of "Another person is born, which means another instrument that has no reason for "this and that" pursuit other than that is alive and programmed to more or less fear death and seek goals". It is not the potential for happy or meaningful moments that the antinatalist sees, but yet another experiencer of the instrumental running-around nature of existence. Yes there are happy moments, and moments of goal-attainment, and lessons on living with not getting one's goals, and adjusting to realities while maximizing ones efforts for what one wants out of life, yadayadayada. However, it is the emptiness and vanity in all pursuits that are more vivid. Why should more vain pursuits be started in the first place when the alternative is to not even start it. So you see, that to the antianatalist is important. Even if non-antinatalists (or non-anatalists), don't see what antinatalists see as "the bigger picture". The antinatalists see this as a large problem.
That is entirely my impression, and is an honest reply. It isn't about the description of the wills, or dispositions of others, and a worry for this -- it is rather an imposition, and global evaluation of life made by the anti-natalist.
It has nothing to do with what anyone else wants, or feels. It's all about the anti-natalist being right, anyone else that disagrees just being wrong, and evaluating the whole of life as pointless, and negative.
Well, I'm not saying the antinatalist is wrong in thinking this though. Unless the antinatalist physically forces someone not to have a child, I don't see how it is an "imposition". In a community of free exchange, they are conveying their view of their evaluation of life, and thus why they think it would not benefit the child for it to be born. The receiver of this information can say, "fuck you", "hmm interesting, I kind of think that too", or any number of variations in between. There is nothing wrong with this.
Another point that can come from this is that antinatalists see something about the world that perhaps they think people are overlooking. It is not something that is simply kept to oneself once ones views the world in this way. It is something that often times has to be explained to others. That's how many things work. We are social animals after all, and we are often compelled to share our views, whether negative to the listener or not.
Further, not only is there a need to share the information, if they think the child is being thrown into the world as just another experiencer for vain pursuits, this would be alarming to them, and I don't see why someone (even if they disagreed) would not understand why the antinatalist would want to convey this notion to others if it is so alarming to them. To extrapolate from one's own life what appears to be a deep reality to the situation of life, is not an unfair move by the antinatalist, but makes sense.
No, no. That's why I said what you said was "honest", I don't think you're saying that antinatalists are wrong, I figured you were one.
The imposition is with respect to claiming that it's really what everyone wants, or that it's a violation of the wills of the unborn to force them to exist. Of course not to simply tell people about what they think, but to claim that everyone actually thinks it too, and are lying, or confused, or some such. That's an imposition of one's view on to others. It would be of course be a lot worse to try to sterilize everyone or something, lol, which would definitely be a more extreme case of it.
Yes, certainly everyone tends to think that everyone that disagrees with them about anything is missing something important. Personally, I'm fairly confident that I alone have sole access to the truth.
Well, I am not sure about the lying but I think it can be justified that the antinatalists may think those who do not see their view may be overlooking certain things that they themselves see and are trying to convey what it is they see. If the other person still does not recognize this, it doesn't mean that the antinatalist will then say "your truth is yours, my truth is mine". Rather, it is probably more along the lines of "you don't see the actual truth of the matter" or "if you do see the truth, you aren't seeing the implications of it". Antinatalists see it at every turn, in many successive moments. Now, you can counter that "but I don't!". But you see, potential child represents more continuation of this truth, and so will let you know about it. So, can you really blame them on telling people this understanding? Also, if it is seen as foundational, then all the more reason they will try in every way they can to make their case known.
I don't think that you're grasping the context of the particular point I was making. The claim was that it's appropriate to have moral obligations to potential people, and consider their wills, and well being, and this is why it's immoral to have births, because you don't know whether or not they will wish to be born. I was then pointing out that if this was true, then it's a better assumption that they would want to be born. Whether they're wrong to want that or not is neither here nor there. You aren't violating their wills, if anything not having children is violating the wills of the unborn, if actual people are any indication with regards people's dispositions towards wanting and not wanting to have been born. Whether they ought to want that, or are wrong to want what one wants is neither here nor there.
I don't expect people to be all "well, that's your truth, and this is mine". I expect the complete opposite of that, and find it trivial to expect that people think others are wrong, and missing something when they disagree with them, rather than all is relative.
I am not sure that you are characterizing the argument that antinatalists make correctly. I think the assumption is that life brings much harm, is instrumental (pursuits but in vain, emptiness, underlying angst, not sure why things keep going to go to go etc.) and if people did see this understanding, which is the truth of the matter, they would turn away from it. To bring someone into this reality, if they knew the truth of it, is not something that should be imposed. If the antinatalist thinks that the complete logical response to life is the pessimistic stance, then the assumption is, if the new person was completely logical in response to life, they would not have consented. Whether a majority of people would have this response to life might have nothing to do with the consideration.
In addition to this, Benatar also addressed this point. The absence of pleasure is not bad for something that does not exist yet, but certainly, the absence of pain is good, whether someone exists to experience that good or not. Adding in the instrumentality of existence (I'll just call IoE), this can also be used, the absence of the IoE is good, even if there is no one there to experience that good or not.
Probably not, since I was talking to a particular person about a particular thing they said.
I don't think you know what "logic" means. You mean something agreeing with your emotional evaluation, not logic, or facts. What information does someone that hates pie have that someone that loves it doesn't? Aren't they perfectly capable of having all of the exact same information, or facts about pies, agree, but still have different dispositions? How much sense does it make to say that one is illogical to like pie? Is it illogical to like or dislike anything, really? Tastes, or emotional dispositions aren't about logic, or facts.
I didn't realize that when you were talking about not thinking "this is your truth, and this is mine", that you were talking about tastes, which I indeed do think are relative.
You are confusing a life worth continuing with a life worth starting, and clumping them together as a life worth living. It doesn't matter if the majority think they are glad they are born. Furthermore, there are good reasons to think that people's appropriation of their lives are flawed and stem from optimism biases.
Antinatalism is not an unreasonable view because it doesn't tell people to radically change their lifestyles. It advocates a single change in action that people can live without.
Being a weirdo like me, I've always been surrounded by other people and their absurd notions of a natural or divine order, or teleology, attempting to impose on me the way things ought to be, what they're for, and how to feel about them, and myself in the world. The biggest relief is that they're all wrong.
No, I'm not conflating the two, I think attributing moral obligations to potential people is absurd in the first place. I'm more pointing out that if I had to guess what potential people wanted, the best guess would be based on what actual people wanted. What are you basing it on other than just your own private opinion, and nothing objective at all -- rejecting everyone's opinions instead, rendering your view in no sense descriptive, and entirely prescriptive.
It's an unreasonable view because it asks you to accept outrageous claims about the value of life, that disagree with what you feel and believe about life, while telling you that you just don't get it like I do.
Wow. It certainly isn't, at least the way that I see it, which I don't think is unreasonable.
That analogy doesn't match up. In the former, you speak of a lack of concern, implying recklessness, but in the latter, you speak of a lack of knowledge, which doesn't necessarily imply recklessness. To be reckless is to not give due consideration to the risks, or to act with disregard of the risks.
Also, you seem to be implying that death is bad, which is arguable. I don't think that death is, in itself, bad. Who actually wants to live forever, when they really think about it? Immortality is the epitome of the cliché "be careful what you wish for...". Death might mean the end to a fulfilling life: a life well lived. One might be prepared for it. It might even be quick and painless.
The mere possibility of a bad life is not sufficient grounds to make a sensible judgement. That also applies to many a situation as a general rule of thumb. Do you avoid crossing roads? Not a fan of any of the more extreme sports? I've been skydiving, and I don't have a single regret about it. It was well worth it. It was possibly the most exhilarating experience of my life.
Exactly. All anti-natalists set up a false dilemma: a life that's not worth living or no life at all.
Then that's where they go wrong. It does often seem as though they are blind to, or overlook, that potential.
Good point. I am of like mind.
But this is exactly what birth entails; an unnecessary risk imposition. The parent's process of "giving consideration" is usually quite little to even none at all, and it is always under the threat of optimism bias (it's always their child that gets the debilitating disease, not my child...and lo and behold the child ends up with a debilitating disease).
Quoting Sapientia
Death is bad only if someone does not want to die or is not ready to die. I would be willing to say that in most cases, people die either suddenly and when they do not wish to, or die after a grueling process of endurance. For people alive today, death is pushed back to the dark recesses of the mind in the same way taxes are pushed back (procrastinated). It is seen as a far-off problem that one must not focus on because there are "more important things to do".
Quoting Sapientia
In those examples, you personally consented to risking your life, and everyone on the road consented to risking their lives, so there's no problem with that. But say you forced someone to skydive, and their chute failed and they plunged to their death...is that acceptable?
I don't think you'd be a very good poker player. Judging by your reasoning, you'd fold every hand, or refuse to even join the game! But that's not a very accurate analogy, because there are far more people who profit from life than who profit from poker.
The risk imposition [i]is[/I] necessary. It's necessary for humanity to continue to exist beyond the current generation, and that's a goal that most of humanity believes is worth pursuing (so it's not an irrational pursuit for most of humanity, either).
To give birth is not necessarily a reckless act, but even if it were, we both agree that the consequences are important too, and I'd say more so in this case. Much good can come of such recklessness: we're talking about a human life, after all. It's a bit like finding a diamond in the rough.
Quoting darthbarracuda
For innumerable people, myself included, to live and die is better than the alternatives of either life without death or no life at all. Our testament should not count for nothing. You are not giving us enough credit.
Quoting darthbarracuda
For a balanced view, one must weigh this against the worth of the life that they've lived. Whether it would have been better not to have lived at all. Your error is to think that there can only be one right answer, which happens to be your own.
Quoting darthbarracuda
There is good reason for that. I'd recommend it.
Quoting darthbarracuda
That only makes sense because we're talking about a life, and a life that has value. Take life or value out of the equation, and it makes no sense. Yet there is not a life in the hypothetical scenario that we're considering, nor do you think that such a life would have value, or at least not enough value to have been created in the first place - which is pretty much the bare minimum in terms of value.
There's a category error here that you seem to have made, given this analogy, and that TGW has definitely made in some form or another. Consent doesn't apply. There is no one to either consent or deny or to even consult. For the same reason, it's either false or nonsensical to say that it's against their will.
This is not correct. I rather enjoy playing cards and know that there is a chance I may lose. Notice, I may lose, not someone else in the case of birth.
Quoting Sapientia
The risk imposition is completely unnecessary, as there is absolutely nothing of substantial value that is worth continuing without consent of those who must bear the burden of continuing the human race.
The value placed upon the continuation of the human race is purely irrational. There is no point in continuing it, and in fact there are good reasons to stop continuing it and allow it to fade out of existence. But the extinction of the human race (and other species presumably as well) is merely a by-product of antinatalism, not the overall goal. We're not pro-mortalists or pro-extinctionists.
And, ultimately, the human race will end, whether you like this fact or not. Entropy's a bitch. So continuing the species is merely kicking the can down the road.
Quoting Sapientia
Someone can live a life of luxury as a prince of a slave nation. They may be one of those very lucky individuals in which suffering is unheard of. But then the slaves rise up and brutally torture and execute the prince, during which all of the past pleasure are entirely unimportant. They are gone. And now the prince is in so much excruciating pain that he wishes he had never been born at all.
Quoting Sapientia
Do you think bringing a child into the world simply to torture it would be a violation of consent? You at least have to say that it would have been in the child's "best interests" to not have come into existence...but according to your argument, interests cannot be applied to non-existent entities. They have to first be born, and suffer, before they are morally important...what?
You'd lose if I were your opponent. That's for sure. ;)
Quoting darthbarracuda
OK, but I take it you don't approve of throwing surprise parties or giving presents. There's an unnecessary risk imposition. There's a chance that they won't want it.
Quoting darthbarracuda
:D
Sure.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Of course it'll end. Whether it's merely kicking the can down the road or coming along for the ride is largely a matter of perspective. If you fail to realise that, then that's your problem.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Riiiiiight. Is that supposed to be representative of everyone's life? There can be no happy ending? The world is a stage, but the play must be a tragedy?
Your narrative is impoverished, hyperbolic, and comically one-sided.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Pah! Torture?! More hyperbole. I'm sorry, but I'm finding it hard to take your position seriously.
True. This is an example of when the asymmetry and consent argument begins to break down. But a twenty dollar present is a small loss if they don't like it. That's why we don't spend a fortune on a gift that they may or may not like.
Quoting Sapientia
Nobody wants to be in this situation. Every parent wishes their child the best. And yet these situations, or analogous situations, do in fact exist. It's just that nobody wants to recognize it.
Most children don't develop debilitating diseases, as just a matter of statistical likelihood, so assuming that a child won't is hardly optimism bias, unless most of the children around them actually were. Otherwise the exact opposite is actually the case. As Sapient says, all of your examples are hyperbolic, and outlying unlikelihoods. If life was so bad, you'd had something better than death itself that was more commonly applicable to people.
Bringing me to death. For some reason it's not okay to not be totes bummed out by death in every moment, and no matter how much icecream and blowjobs someone is getting in the moment, that's just a distraction from thinking about the terribleness of death all day -- yet if one had a speculator life reminiscing, or distracting themselves with memories, and maybe even appreciating them good ol'days even more when the horrible end comes is inappropriate, or irrational. One should instead be all like "I wish all of that awesome stuff didn't happen to me along with this!", instead of "man, I wish all of that awesome stuff was still happening instead of this".
I plan my last words to be "totally worth it".
It's a bit of gamble, no doubt. Isn't everything? But it'd be sensible to factor in to the decision-making process what we know about the person; or, in this case, what we know about humanity and the world that we live in. Some of us acknowledge both the good and the bad in a more balanced way, and recognise that the gamble might pay off, and that it might just be worth throwing the dice. If the testament of innumerable people is something to go by (which it is), then it is indeed worth giving it a shot - at least if the circumstances aren't too bad. (I wouldn't readily advise having a baby in a disease-ravaged, famished and wartorn community, for example).
Quoting darthbarracuda
What kind of situation? The rather extreme one in your example about the prince? I do recognise it. But I also recognise that that's not the whole story; merely one aspect of it.
The sooner you realise this too, the better.
This is where you are mistaken. Negative experiences far outweigh the positives. Those who look at the Sun, smile and say "life is good" are walking on the bones of their ancestors, the ancestors that lived and died under the Sun, constantly eating other organisms to survive, or competing with others to survive. Suffering is guaranteed, exuberant pleasure is not.
Quoting Sapientia
Say you have a kid. The kid turns out to be an okay person with a decent life and no significant health problems. In all regards, this person is not incredible but neither are they shitty. Instead of it being an expectation that this outcome would occur, you are quite literally just lucky, and so are they, that they didn't turn out to have significant health problems or suffer immensely or turn into a psychopath that kills a ton of people.
There really is no excuse for having a child. It is completely unnecessary and is the ultimate risk.
I don't know, I liken it to seeing the actual source of the light rather than the shadows. I mean, perhaps a society that commits human sacrifice by ripping people's beating hearts out of their chests to make the sun go up again has a particular taste. Perhaps one person in the group sees it differently, is struck by the utter senselessness of it. "It's a matter of taste"- as you say. However, clearly that answer seems odd at best. So no, the analogy is clearly much more drastic, and this is much more subtle, but the same notion applies to the antinatalist position. Here is something they clearly see, but many others do not.
Better to measure twice and cut once than to measure once and cut twice.
I'm sure that you do liken it to that. I'm Enlightened too. High five!
I mainly am a moral emotivist, somewhat of a consequentialist, but consequentialism doesn't have any force without some emotivism.
I could make an argument that a society that kills its members is simply a less secure, and more dangerous society than one that doesn't. Just like torture, and others things. For the golden rule's sake, we don't want to support and promote those activities within our societies because they increase the likelihood that we ourselves will become victims of them. I can make this argument based solely on the premise that you give a shit only about yourself.
I think that veganism can be argued on this ground as well, that simply a more compassionate, sympathetic society is a better society, in the sense that it promotes more kindness, less exploitation and selfishness.
Someone disagreeing completely, like a murderer, or someone dangerous in an excessive fashion, even though I don't think that it's objectively written into the stars that they're wrong, will in no way prevent me from condemning them, and sanctioning action against them.
I don't need the universe's permission to enforce my moral sentiments, to have a good time, or to live a meaningful life.
I don't really get what you are getting at.
What about antinatalism, are you ranting against? Are you ranting that antinatalists don't persuade you? There are a lot of good points made by many people over many arguments that don't persuade people. The soundness of an argument doesn't necessarily make people automatically agree with it. If you are looking to be rushed on a stream of dialectic that will bring you to the understanding of an antinatalist, it is not going to happen.
No man... not agreeing with something isn't the same thing as failing to grasp it, this is just the conceit that you keep asserting to explain away disagreement. Sometimes shit's wrong, and it's your ass staring at cave walls. In this case, for instance.
You can grasp something and disagree with it, even if it is the truth. Sometimes, people both don't grasp it and don't agree with it. Either way, it happens all the time. It may be that most people don't really grasp it even if they think they do.
It may be, but pointing that out over and over again gets old fast, and doesn't add anything to the conversation.
Oh, I am just making the point that no matter how good a point I add, it's most likely not going to bring you to enlightened thinking on the matter. For every conterversial claim, there will always be endless defenses on both sides. So, I can go on and add stuff, but I am not going to do it thinking that if I only had the magic bullet of a winning argument you will now see the light. So with that said, we can move forward with the argumentum infinitum,
This is one possible interpretation. It's been pointed out that there are many people - not all benighted fools mind you - who do not agree with it and who would gladly sacrifice something of their lives for their progeny. Maybe that's part of the issue: starting from a subjectivist standpoint and failing to tie our own story in with a wider narrative or historical unfolding, we're left with the shopkeeper's cost/benefit mentality which is IMO totally unworthy of the magnitude and profundity of human existence.
My opinion (or truth) is that despite a great deal of suffering I'm thankful my parents brought me into this world. I would not presume to take my experience as the final word on human existence, or use the limited perspective I've acquired through the years to pass judgment on life generally. From what I've seen Anti-Natalists make many strong and rational arguments to bolster the position, but this tendency to make universal and unqualified claims about the undesirability of human existence strikes me as incredibly arrogant and condescending. Perhaps a better tack would be to re-examine the way we live before deciding whether it's worth anything or not. Yeah I know that sounds condescending too, but it comes from my own existential and 'spiritual' struggles, much different than yours perhaps.
My opinion may shift, but I hope that I'm never so entitled as to think that only a life free of suffering or death or anything that doesn't involve any occasional struggle or pain would be worth living. The more deeply I reflect upon it (like Heraclitus, Nietzsche, Dostoevsky et al have) the more I think that it is that life which would be pointless and absurd. I'm not so sure I'd even want to live forever as the thought gives me chills. I try to embrace the constant flow and shifting nature of things, even this self I'm so obsessed with protecting.
Anyhow the place where this refutation comes from is very intimate and personal. I totally respect others who disagree with it, but for some reason the respect isn't reciprocated and the assumption becomes that I - and others who think along similar lines - must be ignorant of the Truth. But the idea of some eternal, all-embracing Truth would seem to be an illusion. At the very least maybe what I'm trying to suggest is: let's acknowledge our own biases and assumptions and limited perspectives.
I'm not trying to sound cryptic, but I think the AN position - as I understand it - thinks both too much and too little of human existence. Too much in the sense that only a guarantee of eternal life untouched by adversity or pain would justify bringing a new child into the world. Too little in the sense that it works within a very narrow and seemingly hedonistic understanding of the aims and ends of human being-in-the-world. A radical reinterpretation or reevaluation of said existence is, to me, a prerequisite for the possibility of gaining a new perspective on such a big and important topic.
You say that as if it were an established fact. It isn't.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Sure, they experienced suffering. Some more than others. They also experienced pleasure. Some more than others. Both are guaranteed. And fortunately, they obviously thought that life was of such value as to try - successfully, as it turned out - to keep humanity going for some length of time.
Quoting darthbarracuda
That's not all entirely down to luck, so you're wrong there. There is probability, and factors such as genetics effect it. If there's a very high percentage that one's offspring will inherit a significant health problem, such that the result is predicable, and they do so, then to say that that was just bad luck is obviously inappropriate.
But yes, such things do occur, and can be hard to predict with accuracy enough to selectively prevent them from occurring. But that's life. Doesn't mean that we should end it, or that it would be better to do so. Your conclusion just doesn't follow, unless you objectify the subjective, like you seem to be trying to do, but you would be doing so in vain because it isn't possible. Your value judgements are subjective.
Actually, Schopenhauer's vision, whether you agree with it or not, is not just about hedonisitic calculus or the individual ego, but rather how we are manifestations of a larger Will or Principle that is essentially striving/strife. The "thing-in-itself" is Will, but when looked at from the the flip side of time/space/causality/Principle of Sufficient Reason it becomes individuated forms that are living out this principle in time/space etc. The Will becomes the will-to-live and is felt in our ever present goal-seeking, basic desires and wants, and the emptiness we feel with existential boredom. That is a very brief summary, but it is a much bigger picture than what you present. Now, not every antinatalist is a Schopenhauerian, and many might reject his overwrought metaphysics, but I was just showing an example of an antinatalist strain that is very much not about the particular but looking at existence from a holistic perspective. In fact, compassion, art/music, and ascetic practice are supposed get us out of our individuated experiences and into a more rarefied understanding of the whole.
You Schopenhauerians often speak of art as if you value it highly, and have a special appreciation for it, but you do not value or appreciate it as much as those of us who wish it to live on with us, rather than let it die a premature death. Who will create and appreciate art when we're all dead? No one. And there would not have been such a long history full of great works of art if we had cut it short by adopting your viewpoint. There could have been no Picasso, no Mozart, no da Vinci, no Shakespeare. Also, as a result, there could have been no Schopenhauer.
The Schopenhaurian perspective is that art temporarily relieves us of our individuated will's. However, it is not that life is a means to an end, which is art in itself. Rather art is a way to stop the will's inertia, once already born. The same applies to compassion.
But I do wonder where the original impulse to suppress the Will comes from? It would have to come from that very same Will (where else?) if it is in fact the noumenal thing-in-itself behind individual appearances. I don't know, but maybe the longing for truth and beauty and compassion that crashes into some of our lives somehow points to the contradictory nature of the Will, and that it is not all as horrible and evil (or amoral and indifferent) as some make it out to be.
As Heraclitus - the philosopher of strife - noted: without injustices the name of justice means what? And God is winter/summer, day/night, war/peace, etc. This is purely speculative on my part, but I get the intuitive feeling at times that without that initial fall or degradation or evil that afflicts us (both individually and collectively) there could be no redemption or hope or ultimate joy. Which side takes precedence? This is where I imagine I'd part ways with Schopenhauer.
What a silly thing to say. The planet is finite. The human species is finite. All this art you wish to preserve will eventually be obliterated one way or another. To say that humans need to be born merely to preserve it is not to understand the purpose of art, which is to release one, if only temporarily, from the suffering and boredom of life. Art is a ladder one climbs to help one flee from these things, which can then be thrown away once the destination is reached. That destination is a state of detachment from all things, for being attached to the ephemeral and finite (including art) is the cause of suffering and boredom.
Quoting Erik
Knowledge.
Pot, kettle, black.
Quoting Thorongil
I am always at least a little astonished when someone makes this fallacy. That it will eventually be obliterated is completely irrelevant. It obviously doesn't follow that we should not care about it's continuance or take action to ensure its continuance.
Quoting Thorongil
That's not what I said.
Quoting Thorongil
That is but one interpretation, and not necessarily one which everyone will agree with. In fact, that's very unlikely.
"It is a clear gain to sacrifice pleasure in order to avoid pain."
-Schopenhauer
This is Helen Keller's response to Schopenhauer:
"One who believes that the pain in the world outweighs the joy, and expresses that unhappy conviction, only adds to the pain. Schopenhauer is an enemy to the race. Even if he earnestly believed that this is the most wretched of possible worlds, he should not promulgate a doctrine which robs men of the incentive to fight with circumstance. If Life gave him ashes for bread, it was his fault. Life is a fair field, and the right will prosper if we stand by our guns."
Schopenhauer is not an enemy to the race, he is an individual who has decided that the rat race is not worth it. It is not necessarily his fault that life gave him ashes for bread, and it is far from fact that life is fair or that prosperity is guaranteed by determination. Keller, although admirable for her courage and perseverance, ultimately admits that Schopenhauer is right and that he ought to just stfu cause it's already bad enough. She is the perfect example of the human spirit and the drive for perfection, which is ultimately the only major part that I disagree with Schopenhauer on.
Nevertheless, if you doubt the claim that suffering outweighs pleasure in the world, you only have to look to the suffering of the prey compared to the pleasure of the predator (NSFW).
No, not an enemy to the race. More like a potential and highly unlikely enemy to the race. I don't think it likely that his views will spread to such an extent that it becomes an existential threat to humanity.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Your claim is ambiguous. Outweighs in what sense? The most relevant sense would be in terms of its effect on the overall value of life, rather than, say, in terms of the frequency of occurence or severity. It's arguable whether the weight of suffering outweighs the weight of pleasure and the weight of everything else valuable in life. Furthermore, you'd then have to successfully argue that the former outweighs the latter to such an extent that it renders the latter insufficient and dismissible.
Also, being human, I'm more interested in human life - and present human life, rather than that of nonhuman animals or our human ancestors, which isn't nearly as relevant. This talk of art, for example, doesn't make any sense in relation to nonhuman animals.
I don't see how.
Quoting Sapientia
It's not fallacious. I'm simply pointing out a fact. Do you dispute it?
Quoting Sapientia
Clearly not, since you seem to have a raging desire to preserve it in perpetuity, which as I point out, is impossible.
Quoting Sapientia
I appeal to anyone reading the post to which I replied to show how my interpretation was off base. I also appeal to you to show how it is off base. Here it is again: Quoting Sapientia
Quoting Sapientia
That people might disagree with me doesn't make me wrong.
Big surprise.
Quoting Thorongil
It's a fallacy of relevance. I obviously don't dispute it, as was clear from the following sentence in which I acknowledged it.
Quoting Thorongil
It seems that way to you because you have read that into my comments. You're attacking a straw man. The "in perpetuity" part is entirely of your own imagination.
Quoting Thorongil
It's quite simple, really. I mentioned "living on [i]with us[/I]", "a premature death", and "cutting it short", yet no where did I mention "going on indefinitely" or "in perpetuity". Your interpretation is very uncharitable, as it assumes that I'm stupid enough to think that it can be preserved forever, in spite of the strong evidence to the contrary.
It's trivially true that humans need to be born for art to continue beyond the current generation. That is part of what I was getting at. But I did not impy, or at least did not intend to imply, that humans ought to be born for that purpose, or for that purpose alone. Art is just one of the many things that can make life worthwhile. Not just bearable or tolerable or as a relief, but [I]worthwhile[/I].
Quoting Thorongil
A tedious and predictable reply. At some point, it boils down to subjectivity, especially something such as this. You seem to have somewhat of an inability to recognise this. You talk in an objective, matter-of-fact manner, which is quite misleading.
Mediocrity is not "good enough". Every one of us is in the condition that a sufficient amount of pain can befall us that leads us to question our existence.
I wasn't always an antinatalist.
Good, I'm glad you acknowledge this. But there is a difference between life being worthwhile once alive and creating more of it just so those creatures can experience worthwhile things. The latter is not at all necessary.
Quoting Sapientia
So you would prefer that I not try to speak as objectively and matter-of-factly? What a revealing demand, one to which I refuse to comply. I value objectivity, facts, and truth and make no apologies for it. I could be, possibly am, and certainly have been wrong about many things, but that doesn't mean I will stop telling what I take to be the truth or state what are the facts of the matter. Let's please not descend into some insufferable relativism here.
Fun, even though pointless, isn't it?
I can't always be around to make everyone's day. :D
1. The 'mediocrity' point is arguable. Life just simply ain't mediocre for everyone all the time. For some notable and renowned people, in particular, it hardly seems appropriate to say that they lived, or live, a mediocre life. But these things are relative and context-dependent, and not everyone will evaluate these things identically.
2. Good enough for who? It'd be pretty arrogant to consider yourself the arbiter of of what is and isn't good enough for the whole of humanity. We're not exactly talking about slavery or torture here; just mediocrity. I think it's sensible to realise and accept that life entails some amount of mediocrity, but that mixed in with the mediocrity are the more remarkable times, including those of value - sometimes great value - which can make life worth living. I mentioned earlier that I've been skydiving. If you judge even that to be mediocre, then your judgement is evidently skewed and discordant. There comes a point where you should very seriously consider whether it's not that you have some special insight that most others just can't or won't acknowledge, but rather that you're looking at things upside down or through a glass darkly.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, and I have done so in those circumstances more times than I wish to remember. Those were not good times. That can be symptomatic of an unhealthy state of mind. I am glad that I made it through some of the hardships that I've lived through.
Does the mere possibility mean that we should give up? No, certainly not, I say. That's a rubbish reason stemming from a defeatist mindset.
Don't compare your life to others, and want more than most people have. Maybe most people are getting too much as it is.
You're so spoiled... back in the day, bread was already cooked, they didn't need a fancy future second cooking.
The direction this discussion has taken doesn't make sense. The question of the worth of the lives of the already living is a different question to that of whether new life ought to be created. If you are already born, then the only questions are how you've been cooked (and sometimes burnt) and how you will be cooked (and sometimes burnt) in the future. Only the suffering of future lives can be prevented by eliminating new births. For the suffering of the living, it holds no consequence or solution. It says nothing about whether already living is worthwhile or not.
Not necessary, but it can be worthwhile. By having a child, one is granting them the opportunity to experience worthwhile things. And, given that most people, throughout multiple generations, would say that they are glad to be alive, and that they do not regret being born, there is reason to believe that the yet-to-be-born stand a good chance of reaping the rewards and arriving at the same conclusion.
Quoting Thorongil
I didn't demand anything of you. You're free to speak in that way, and I'm free to call you out when it's misleading.
How many people would have to not want to be born in order for it to be not a good idea to reproduce and possibly create such a person. Suppose to start it was 100%. Then would there be a problem, in your view?
No, as I said, it's merely a matter of probability. If a more significant number of people bemoaned their existence all the time, and not just occasionally and then got over it... then it would be a more pressing concern, but really I doubt most people even consider the possibility, it's so minute.
You know, I'm not even confident that Schop was totally serious about all of that, rather than just using poorly translated Buddhist ideas to be edgy, and controversial.
People don't suffer by virtue of being born, and there certainly are circumstances and environments which cause excessive, enduring suffering which needs addressing and mitigating -- but just having everyone die, or stop being born to fix the problem is like pulling out all of your teeth to prevent cavities.
Everyone suffers hardships, and feels terrible, maybe like dying, but yet, they then get over it. Nothing wrong with whining, and being at low points in life. I wouldn't attempting to lessen, or dismiss anyone's suffering, I was merely describing the fact that most people do feel those ways at times, but yeah, get over it.
Sure they do. It is not possible to be born and not suffer. Therefore, they suffer by virtue of being born.
Quoting Wosret
Everyone gets over everything in the end, because they die. I don't see how that makes the intermediate suffering worth going through or perpetuating.
People don't get over things because they die, lol. See, you have to just believe that everyone really hates life, and wants to die, regardless of what they say, and how they act. You just have to ignore that, and think they're lying or delusional. You're a True Believer.
Yes it does -- that is quite literally what it means.
Quoting Wosret
And the cause of that thing was their birth.
That last sentence is false. They both make the mistake of deciding the worth of the life of everyone, and everyone yet to be, rather than recognising that people have some say in the matter. They are both guilty of a sweeping generalisation.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Not if you're including passing moments and phases. If we all strongly and consistently wanted never to have been born, then that would change things, yes.
So even in your estimation of things (which is apparently weighing probabilities of possible future people's self-reported evaluations of life), the fact that collateral damage of the occasional pessimist, means that it is ok to then go ahead and have children? So, while 80+ years (if not suicide or premature death) of a person not desiring to be born is the cost of those who report they wanted to be born? Preventing birth has no effect on anyone while having a child will affect someone. It affects:
1.) The "minority" actual pessimists who reflect on life and value it as a not great by either seeing the negative of the the harms of life or the instrumentality/emptiness of our very own pursuits
2.) Those who value life as mediocre/good/great, but are yet still harmed by the events of life, contingencies of life, and the necessities of sustaining one's life.
The crux of your argument is on the idea of this self-report evaluation vs. the self-reported (or objective standards of) harm. Benatar laid out a good start to the idea that people can self-report all sorts of positive stories after an event that actually distorts the negative nature of what was happening to them in the moment of the event. What that means is, to get by, we often distort, adjust, etc. We live in a non-ideal world (in either a subjective or objective sense) and a world that is some grade of mediocrity for most people. We adjust ourselves to non-ideal circumstances, and have all sorts of sociological and psychological mechanisms to "get us through". Yes, we have the ability to recover from negative events. Yes, some people do not see the instrumentality of existence (staying on the surface of things), but most have some some moments of this understanding, even if briefly, before going back to the surface.
All this harm, the emptiness behind pursuits that we sometimes catch a glimpse of (in our more "depressed moods" as you would probably characterize it), does not affect an empty set (meaning a possibility that has not manifested to actual- i.e. a possible person that is not actualized). However, once you include a number in that empty set, whatever number ends up in that bracket, is now subject to the set's conditions. This is not to mention that not only do the very conditions of life (and its non-ideal nature) affect people, but people are not necessarily born with the same set of coping or survival tools. Brain chemistry can vary widely, even in the same family. Also, the contingencies of events create memories and pathways in the brain that make every human have every-so-unique spins on negative events such that, though we can empathize somewhat, the individualized nature of each individual makes it such that it is hard to say how the harm affects people differently. This goes back to our distorting nature. Self-reports can say one thing but the phenomenal/internal/introspective understanding of a phenomena can be quite different and varied for people (even articulating it to people in detail cannot necessarily get the listener to understand the internalized experience). How accurate are these reports? Do psychologists and social scientists do various experiments matching the self-reports to other reports that get at ideas of harm without directly asking the question "Do you think life is good overall?".
Even if people do somehow pass all tests that indicate "yep, they think life is good despite the harm", perhaps antinatalists are just showing the other side of the argument. Perhaps they are saying that all this harm does not add up and that perhaps, to entertain the notion that due to differences in brain chemistry, due to self-distortions, due to lack of perspective, that we should not make a hasty conclusion for another individual who may be
1) The actual pessimist as described above
2) Those who value life as mediocre/good/great but are still harmed by life
But the antinatalist decides the worth of the life of no one, since you cannot decide the worth of the life of someone who isn't born (i.e. doesn't exist).
Quoting Sapientia
Okay, so is there some amount of people who have to not feel that way for birth to be justified? What is that amount?
But it isn't necessary that people experience worthwhile things.
Quoting Sapientia
You do not speak for the yet to be born.
The yet to be born have no say in the matter.
Yeh, or throwing the baby out with the bath water.
Quoting Wosret
Indeed. This has already been pointed out to him, yet he persists.
That conclusion is false and doesn't follow. Obviously, like I said, they decide the worth of life for everyone alive, and they also decide what the worth of life would be for everyone of a possible future generation, all else being equal.
Quoting The Great Whatever
42.
I know. I've already said that. It doesn't need to be. I don't know why you keep bringing up these irrelevancies about necessity.
Quoting Thorongil
Quoting Thorongil
I know. I don't make out that it's this overblown travesty of justice. The living have a say in the matter, and we can base our judgement about bringing people into this world on the assessment of those already in it.
No, they don't. They decide nothing for anyone, since there is no person they are making the decision for (the unborn are not people, i.e. do not exist). On the other hand the natalist does make that decision for a real person who is born. The opinions they have on the worth of the lives of living people have nothing to do with antinatalism, which is abut procreation (it's in the name). Your other comment evidences a kind of confusion -- that a 'possible future generation' is somehow an actual generation of people the worth of whose lives can be decided. Again, I reiterate, possible future generations of people do not exist, and so nothing can be decided on their behalf.
Please don't respond to this with just another 'nope,' it bewilders me how you can put so much text on a page w/o making a point.
You're simply wrong.
Firstly, it's not true that the opinions that anti-natalists have on the worth of the lives of living people has nothing to do with antinatalism, because that is used by them as a premise in their argument.
Secondly, the only confusion here is your own, evidenced by your misinterpretation of, and mistaken assumptions about, my claim.
You have very clearly, time and again, either claimed or implied that the life of someone brought into this world would not be worth living. You have claimed, time and again, that this is because of the amount of suffering that they would experience. And you have stated your conclusion, time and again, that it would therefore be better not to bring people into this world.
I am in no way suggesting that possible people are actual people. You just apparently cannot grasp the meaning of a statement in the conditional mood, even though you say you're a linguist.
There are some expectations that just cannot be tamed, though. When you drive by a graveyard and suddenly get that sinking feeling that, yeah, you'll be there one day. Or watching a reality television show and then actually going out in reality and seeing how crappy it is. Or when you are all excited for your marathon only to break your leg the night before. The world is unable to provide for the expectations of the human psyche.
Life isn't fair, and it's easy to say this when things are going alright for you but as soon as things take a turn for the worse, it is you who gets the full-frontal assault and to say that this is not a bad thing is to be masochistic and delusional.
There's a reason why people need entertainment; it's a distraction from their lives. Otherwise we'd be bored out of our minds.
Because you're using them as reasons for having children? What, if not this, are you trying to say?
Fairness doesn't apply to life itself, it's an evaluation of judgment, and behavior, not the world. The world is neither fair or unfair, people are. I don't experience such an assault, and the person torturing themselves with negativity, threats that aren't imminent, and unreasonable expectations is less masochistic than the person that takes everything in stride? Yesterday buddy at work told me that he missed working with me, I'm always so upbeat and happy. I said that there's enough bullshit and negativity in the world for me to be adding to it. I like to keep things light and avoid unnecessary stress.
I don't particularly enjoy very much, really, at least not a whole lot more than anything else. I am generally bored, and unengaged, with distractions, or doing absolutely nothing. It's why meditating, waiting places, doing exercises and things don't really bore me more than most things do. I think that music is probably my favorite thing, and always increases my vitality. I really don't think that it would be all that difficult to live without modern distractions though, they aren't all that great to me. I would miss music, but that's about it.
Recall this: it is nonsense to require that unborn, i.e. nonexistent people, could, as an alternative, be given 'some say' in the matter. Nonexistent people can't be given 'some say' in anything, because they do not exist.
I'm saying that it can be worthwhile to have children because there are things in life that are worthwhile, and I'm further saying that there are, and have been, and probably will be, some cases in which it is worthwhile.
I'm not saying that it's necessary to have children, nor that it's necessarily worthwhile, nor that it's necessary for people to experience worthwhile things.
Is that clear enough for you?
How out of touch with reality does one have to be to say that and mean it?
So the statement: "Preventing birth has no effect (or affect) on anyone" is being out of touch with reality? Since when does holding that view lead to such absurd, out of touch reactions?
1) There is the possibility of birth (as long as the ability for procreation exists)
2) By preventing birth/not having kids/not procreating/not doing something that leads to the act of procreating, you are LITERALLY not effecting/affecting any ONE because there is a state affairs where no actual person was born (but with the possibility that it could happen) which will have its life effected/affected
3) HOWEVER, by not preventing birth/by having kids/by procreating/ by doing something that leads to the act of procreating, you are now LITERALLY creating a state of affairs where an actual person now exists (i.e. now, the possibility has become an actuality) which will now have its life effected/affected.
4) Now that it is born, this life can have negative affects/effects happen to him/her, you see. This was "enabled" "caused" or whatever term you want to use by its actual birth. Being that there are no charmed lives, and there are many unknowns, certainly by not preventing birth, you are effecting/affecting someone (with experiences of the negative). However, by not having kids, there is no one born to be affected, you see. There is no one born to care whether it did not experience positive things even.
All the empirical evidence I gave above can explain why the simple retort (in mocking childish tone): "But people experience positive things and most people say they like life.. nah nah nah poo poo" is not so open-and-shut (or wholly valid rather). I will just tell you to see my previous post and respond to some of the actual reasoning I gave for why it is not so simple as going off people's self-reports.
Ok, shall we put it to the test? We could go out, put it to people, and gather feedback, but the results would predicably be in my favour, i.e. it's effect (or affect) would be to provoke a negative reaction. Most people will find it objectionable or absurd. Like something from a disturbing piece of fiction.
Use the short version or the longer version, I don't care.
If by saying that no one is affected, you mean only to refer to the absence of a baby - a potential prevented from being actualised, which, it is of course true, cannot be affected - then why speak of the affect on others in the former case, but not the latter? That wouldn't be applying the same standard for some unknown and seemingly unjustified reason, i.e. special pleading.
Perhaps I've misunderstood.
So now you know what I meant from my longer version explained above..
Quoting Sapientia
The affect of what on others? Being born causes there to be an affect on the person being actualized. If no one is born, no actual person can be affected (though the possibility is there). We are simply discussing a life that may or may not be affected (by negative events).
It appears you cede my point about necessity. That's good, but you're still stuck arrogating to yourself the ability to speak on behalf of the non-existent, an ability neither you nor anyone else possesses.
I was speaking about the affect that preventing birth has on people, including other people, as opposed to a single person: the person-in-question, who is merely hypothetical, and doesn't actually exist if procreation didn't occur. I was referring to this:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Were you just saying that it'll affect the child, whether it's a pessimist as described in "1.)" or someone who values life as described in "2.)"?
Of course I do. I never denied it. I clearly acknowledged it. I merely objected to it's lack of relevance.
Quoting Thorongil
That's not true. I speak on behalf of the non-existent no more than you do. Being non-existent, strictly speaking, they don't get a say in the matter, nor are they entitled to one, nor are they missing out or being done an injustice. That wouldn't make sense. The decision is entirely up to the living. Pointing out that a child might well live a worthwhile life is not to speak on behalf of that child - whether this child actually exists or exists only in the mind of the would-be parents. There comes a point in life when someone can judge for themselves whether or not life is worth living, and they can take matters into their own hands. That's when they get a say in the matter, and your position, in practice, entails the removal of this potential.
If anyone is speaking on behalf of the non-existent, it's anti-natalists or whatever you want to call yourself. But I don't think that you do, strictly speaking. What you do do, however, is make a judgement which can be expressed in the conditional mood. For example, by saying that if someone existed, then their life would not be worth living. @The Great Whatever's error is to object that this is counter to what is factual, because this someone doesn't actually exist. Well, durr, [url=https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=you+don%27t+say&oq=you+don&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j0j5.3676j0j4&client=ms-android-alcatel&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8#imgrc=ETm9ggXE7KpE1M%3A]
you don't say?[/URL]
I was saying that it affects both types of people who are born.
An ascetic who starves themselves, and then accidentally dies out of hunger, is not suicidal, and yet they happen to act in such a way that their actions are compatible with a suicidal person's.
Yes, their life.
Quoting Sapientia
They get a say in the matter of their own life.
Quoting Sapientia
I have never said this. If you're still going to lump me in with anti-natalists, fine, you clearly have a pathological obsession with doing so at this point, but if there's one thing you ought to have realized from this thread by now, it's that not all anti-natalists share the same assumptions. I don't speak for TGW, nor does he for me.
Yes, and this is all I meant to say. You seem to have answered your own objection here.
Creating a state of affairs where a new (another) life is created and thus is enabled/caused to be affected by any and all types of possible negative events, when this state of affairs did not need to happen, for the sake of one's own personal preference, does not seem justified. This decision does not just affect the individual who made the decision, this decision does not just affect ANOTHER individual in probable negative ways, it CREATES/ENABLES/CAUSES the VERY STATE OF AFFAIRS for ANY and ALL negative events to take place for a NEW individual person, which did not need to take place.
The flip side, that this also CREATES/ENABLES/CAUSES positive experiences is irrelevant in that, by not creating a new individual, one is not causing a state of affairs whereby harm is a result. Even the harm of being deprived is not occurring by "preventing" birth and thus preventing a state of affairs whereby any and all positive experiences may result for a new individual.
The confidence, good feelings, and optimism of a parent at the time of the decision to have a child (if it is not an simply an afterthought after an accident) does not translate to the child by simple hope. When the child is born, perhaps it will have some of the "traits" the parent was hoping for in order to cope/thrive in life. Some people might genuinely be better equipped to be generally "happier" or to handle situations differently, or who have a brain chemistry that allows for less negative experiences, moods, feelings. They might have an easier time coping with necessities and contingencies of life. Some people may not be equipped in such a matter or have to work much harder at maintaining this. Of course, just because some people cope better, does not mean they were not harmed. It does not cancel out the harm, though it means they can bounce back from it a bit better.
Also, the contingencies of events create memories and pathways in the brain that make every human have ever-so-unique spins on events (negative or otherwise). This individualized nature of experience for each individual makes it hard to say how specific instances of harm affects people generally. Self-reports of positive evaluations of life can "say" one thing but the phenomenal/internal/introspective understanding of specific events in a life (as they are experienced) can be quite different and varied for each person. Even if the sufferer articulated it to people in detail, it might not be conveyed accurately to the listener as to what the experience is like. These harms can be quite personal and unrelatable. Some people might not be as happy as they report, because of the difficulty of conveying personal, internalized experiences. Most people probably distort the real events in one major evaluative statement (like "life is good") by filtering out the vivid realness of actual internalized experiences.
Yes...
Quoting Thorongil
It was just an example of a certain sort of statement. Talk about overreaction. Just use your imagination to replace it with a statement representative of your position. You do think along those lines, whether you're willing to admit it or not. You're just being picky. Why rabbit on about suffering so much if that isn't effectively what you're getting at? If it was simply true that life is worth living, then there'd be no problem with creating new life.
No, don't say "yes," because you clearly still don't get it on the basis of the following:
Quoting Sapientia
This is a non-sequitur.
No, I will say "yes" because I understand and agree with those statements that you pointlessly stated. What are you accusing me of not getting? And no, it isn't a non sequitur. There's a hidden premise which makes it valid. I didn't think it necessary to state the whole argument. You can argue that one or more of the premises or the conclusion is false if you so choose, but it is not invalid.
That is, the notion of doing something 'wrong' or 'unjust' to an animal, as a being who on it own merits does not recognize or desire anything like rightness, justice, etc. may just be a category error, while causing them to suffer is still terrible because their suffering, even on its own / their own merits, is still genuinely awful. There's a way in which I think as humans, animals aren't our problem, but if the whole planet were destroyed so all life became unsustainable, I wouldn't be like 'oh boo hoo!' about it, I have no abstract commitment to animals surviving. What's important to note here is that neither would animals be sad about the prospect of being annihilated.
The first argument is one of selfishness and desire, one that makes a child out to be an aesthetic object rather than a human being. The second argument is one of utter ignorance, as there is no way a parent can know if their child will come out fine. There are certainly ways of telling if they will come out poorly (by looking at a person's genetics), but that is not a fail-safe, nor does it protect the child from dangers that will happen to them "extra-genetically"; i.e. without the influence of genetics.
Now, there are excellent arguments against having a child, one of which is the risk that is involved in birth. This argument can be further developed by appealing to the utter lack of necessity of birth. There is no extra-emotional reason to have a child. The child is not fulfilling a prophecy, or contributing to the inevitable apotheosis of humanity. The child will become quite literally just another one of the billions of people on the planet, eating and shitting and sleeping their way to death. All of the positive aspects of life are not guaranteed, nor are they something that should be used as a reason for creating a child.
First a reasonable statement, then you plunge off the rails into the snake pit of twisted logic.
Quoting darthbarracuda
"Wanting a child" does not, in any way, shape, manner, or form, make a child into an aesthetic object. Most people want children because... they want children. They like children. They like the idea of raising up children to be good people. And, by and large, most children turn out to be "good people". They may be flawed; but they are basically "good".
The belief that "the child will come out fine" is justified by experience. True enough, some children are born with significant physical or mental deficits. The rate of normal births is, however, very high. The cause of childhood death is usually insufficient food and clean water or disease. Are disease and starvation good reasons not to have children? Quite possibly. If one is in the middle of a war, plague, or mass starvation, yes--probably a good time to hold off on having children.
I disagree. Certainly some may have children because they like the idea of contributing a positive influence in the community, but to say that all parents do this is a ridiculous generalization. Children are born all the time out of a pure desire for a child, and then later the parents end up hating the kid because they realize how much work it is.
If having a child was a purely rational action, no children would be born. There just is no good reason to have a child that justifies the risk.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Not only this, but what about when a community's supply of nutrients goes sour, or when the stability of society crumbles? All of this is unpredictable.
I'm sure if I asked you if you would want to go through any uncomfortable experience again, whether that be middle school or an interview for your first job, or if you would want to go through any uncomfortable experience for that matter, you would say no. It just makes me wonder why you then go on to say that it is perfectly acceptable to force another person to go through these trials, unnecessarily.
Forget about the inevitable aches and pains of life. What about the frustrated preferences, the frustrated idealism of every person? We live in a society in which every person has a different idea of how things should go. In the end, nobody gets what they want, nobody lives the life that they actually desired, because they were forced into strange and rigid social institutions and told that this is the way you live your life and that's that. You have to go to school, you have to go to an 8-5 job, you have to go to church, you have to pay taxes, you have to serve in the military (or at least you used to if you were a male of a certain physical strength), you have to put aside your dreams and your preferences and focus on all the various other things that keep this whole society thing falling apart.
From my perspective, existence is synonymous with limitations and deprivations. In the end, can we honestly say: was it worth it?
P1. If life is worthwhile, then life is good enough to live.
P2. If life is good enough to live, then life cannot be so lacking in goodness, or so bad, that it is better not to live.
P3. Procreation produces life.
C1. Therefore, procreation produces something worthwhile.
P4. Producing something worthwhile is itself worthwhile.
C2. Therefore, procreation is worthwhile.
P5. If procreation is worthwhile, then procreation cannot be so lacking in goodness, or so bad, that it is better not to procreate.
P6. If procreation is not so lacking in goodness, or so bad, that it is better not to procreate, then there can be no problem about procreation great enough to make it better not to procreate.
P7. If there is no problem about procreation great enough to make it better not to procreate, then there is no real problem with procreation.
P8. Life is worthwhile.
C3. Therefore, there is no real problem with producing life through procreation.
N.B. I don't think that it's simply true that life is worthwhile. Rather:
Quoting Sapientia
I think that most people are competent enough to grasp the logical link between thinking that life is worthwhile and having no problem with procreation without anyone needing to produce a lengthy argument.
There is a difference between a life worth continuing and a life worth starting. Giving birth to a child that turns out to have a life worth living is still a risk, but results in a lucky draw.
Nope, in these premises you're still equivocating on the word life. You fail to distinguish between individual lives that may or may not be worthwhile to continue living and the creation of as of yet potential lives, about which you cannot by definition decide the worth of.
To make it easier for you, what you have to do is the following: you must prove that life in general is an end-in-itself, i.e. something to be continued, created, and in a word, affirmed for its own sake. You have thus far conceived of life as a means to an end, where that end is to experience worthwhile things; things that are not life. In other words, despite saying that it's not true that life is worthwhile, this is precisely what you have to claim in order for your argument to work; specifically for P4 to do the work necessary to reach your conclusion. Moreover, if you want to enjoy and experience worthwhile things, then you can pursue this end without procreating. Even if you are a utilitarian who wants to maximize the number of people who experience worthwhile things, potential human beings are by definition excluded from consideration. Non-existent people don't and can't experience anything.
I say that it is good to have children because, in my personal -- and valid for me -- experience, life is on balance a good thing. Is it all good? Obviously not. Is it all bad? Just as obviously not. On balance... it's quite a bit better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick--which is more than I can say for the antinatalist argument.
All the arguments I have read here about how having children is an inherently bad thing boil down to "Life sucks" and "having babies is forcing them to suffer". This line of reasoning doesn't strike me as mature, insightful, wise, or anything of the kind. It strike me more as juvenile, uncomprehending, stupid, and... stop me before I say something harsh.
What I find remarkable, darthbarracuda, is that someone (you) who has written as many intelligent posts as you have is spouting this stuff.
Why isn't P4 a tautology?
How does one prove Quoting Thorongil? It seems like that life as an end in itself can be asserted, and then one has to stop. "End in itself" can't be proven, can it?
i'm content with the idea that life is an end in itself. What vouches for something that is an end in itself, other than that thing itself?
Yes, there is a difference, but both boil down to whether life is worth living. And yes, as I've acknowledged, there is a risk, as well as a possible reward. But no, it's not a lucky draw. There is an element of luck, but that alone is insufficient to rightly say that it's a lucky draw: which suggests that it's entirely down to luck, and not something that we have any control over.
Your charge of equivocation is incorrect, since I did not switch between senses in a misleading way. There is only one main sense in which I used the word "life", and one other sense, and the distinction between usage is obvious. The main sense is the quality of being alive, and the other sense is of a life or lives: those who possess such a quality. I don't need to make the distinction you speak of. My argument is about the worth of life, universally and absolutely. That is what I meant when I spoke of life being worth living as a simple truth.
And I've already explained why comments like the last part of the quote above are wrongheaded and irrelevant.
Quoting Thorongil
You don't seem to understand the point of the argument. We're assuming that life is worthwhile for sake of argument. That's not something that I need to prove or even argue in favour of. Remember that this stems from my claim that if it is simply true that life is worthwhile, then there is no problem with creating new life. That's all I need to defend.
The experience of worthwhile things is part of life, in the sense that it is part of being alive; part of living life. The only exceptions that come to mind are those who are alive, but who have yet to experience such things, and those who were unfortunate enough to have died before really having lived - and I'm not saying that in the loose sense of "Man, I'm forty-five, and I've never been to Vegas". I mean anyone who is alive but has not lived long enough to experience any worthwhile things at all, or who died too early to do so, or who were born incapable of doing so due to severe disability. This experience, like all experience, is exclusive to the living. It relates to possible future generations as potential - and that is what you're robbing them of, so to speak. (And don't take that too literally, for Christ's sake. In case you can't tell, my patience is beginning to wear thin).
That those who so desire can pursue the goal of experiencing worthwhile things without procreating is utterly beside the point, as is the fact that non-existent people are not part of the set of people who experience worthwhile things, as is the fact that non-existent people don't and can't experience anything. How many times do I need to point out that these things don't need to be pointed out, and that it's a waste of both of our valuable time to do so, and especially to do so persistently?
Oh such the bitter enemy of antinatalism. The same old cliches. Antinatalism has many well-reasoned positions. Provide me with a label to throw at your well-reasoned stances? I am sure you expect the likes of me to spout off this stuff. Pragmatism-style condescension is almost as tropey, don't you think?
Because "producing something worthwhile" and "being worthwhile" don't mean the same thing, and producing something worthwhile isn't necessarily worthwhile - even though that latter point seems to contradict P4. I admit that P4, in its present form, is not adequately constructed, but it's adequate enough to get the point across without making the argument even more complex than it already is. There are innumerable cases in which P4 is true, and the salient point relating to that part of the argument is that procreation is one of them.
It might also be worth noting, to all it may concern, that the point of my argument is more about validity than soundness. I was responding to the charge that my conclusion doesn't follow.
Having children is forcing them to experience suffering, whether you like to admit this or not. Having children is a risk-taking act that impacts someone else without their consent.
To all disagreeing, here is an analogy: say there are ten brownie cupcakes to choose from. You are not particularly hungry nor are you craving a cupcake, but let's say neither do you have diabetes and you wouldn't mind having a cupcake. There is a catch, though. One or two of the ten cupcakes are not fully cooked, and will thus food poison you, causing you to experience frequent visits to the bathroom and general discomfort.
Now, is it worth the risk? Is the little bit of enjoyment you derive from the cupcake really worth the risk of getting explosive diarrhea?
Perhaps the stakes aren't high enough. What if now, instead of choosing a cupcake for yourself, you had to choose a cupcake for someone else, say, your spouse, or a friend or relative. What about now? Would you choose a cupcake for them?
This is essentially what is involved in the act of child birth, except the stakes are far higher and the probabilities are skewed so far that there really isn't any way to guarantee that someone isn't going to come out fucked up, or live a fucked up life. It's easy to focus on how great someone's life might be, or how much meaning they may derive during certain aspects of their life, and forget about the drudgery, bullshit, and suffering that pervades the world we live in. It's not fun nor comfortable to look at this picture but it does no good to ignore it either.
Antinatalism is often paired with depression but it seems like this is only the case because those who are unable to see the obviousness of this position are typically the ones who have their heads in the clouds. The depression a person may have has no relevance to the arguments they present; I am not a hopeless depressive, I just make sufficient observations around me that lead me to a position that many would consider to be depressive.
"Blah blah from my life experience and thinking" pffffffHAHAHAA
Lol, but I'm special, and uniquely immune to such influences.
I'm not against improving the human condition. I won't deny that smallpox has been eradicated, for example. But neither will I deny that it is a far-fetched idea that we will ever solve the problem of suffering in general, or existential identity/boredom, or the ever-increasing and threatening entropy of the universe which will, if all of physics is to be understood, result in the eventual destruction of these improvements of the human condition.
Quoting Sinderion
A lot of us will contend that existence by structural necessity entails suffering. For example, to be alive means to have frustrated preferences. Sometimes these preferences actually get us emotionally distressed, and are often caused by other people. Simply existing can be ethically problematic, it seems, as people inevitably have different opinions.
Quoting Sinderion
I've argued elsewhere that above all else, liberty is to be understood as the highest of moral and political goods. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to pat you on the back for having a child, I just know that the state hasn't made it illegal (yet?) to exercise your liberty to have a child. Until then, there is absolutely nothing I am allowed to do that permanently affects you (I am not allowed to sterilize the water, for example)
Also, I'm not dogmatic in my philosophical positions: if someone has a good argument against antinatalism, I'll change my mind.
On a more serious note, I would likely argue that (human) suffering isn't sufficient grounds to argue for (human) antinatalism, in an absolute form (I.e. The right thing for everyone is necessarily and always not to procreate), because it's an inherently anthropocentric view that leaves out far too much for me to subscribe to it. No one aside from Bittercrank, I believe, brought up non-human factors into the equation. I think we have strong moral duties towards other things, animals being the most obvious, and I think AI would be a close hypothetical relative. I think the balance of probabilities right now regarding our treatment of animals in general heavily skews to the possibility that we are treating them extremely poorly, and (at least in the current state of affairs) there are far too many humans on this planet.
On the other hand, I don't see it as being a necessary truth that we will always be in this state of affairs, and particularly after an extended period of reduced birthing, it would be possible to conceive of a state of affairs where we would be obliged to continue our existence, in order to benefit remaining human and animal/AI life. Goes without saying, this position makes a LOT of assumptions about our possible relationship towards other beings and that it's possible to even bring about a situation where we can ensure our descendants fulfil their putative moral obligations. It also begs the question of what our duties towards other beings entail, and whether these would even require our existence.
However, if we assume that somehow, we can bring about an antinatalist state of affairs, I doubt it's a stretch to bring about a state of affairs where humans act in a morally respectful manner towards other possible forms of life. Even given the poverty of the human condition, that would not negate the moral duty we would have towards other forms of life; in fact, given that human life (if I've understood antinatalists correctly) tends towards necessary suffering through existence, then it would follow that the only reason for human existence to begin with would be to improve the life of other living things.
Tl;dr: even if humans suck and human life sucks, we still need to stick around to facilitate the best possible lives for animals. In fact, that's probably the only reason why we're even needed around, if antinatalists are right about human existence.
PS: Also, by no means does facilitating a good life for animals necessarily entail facilitating a natural one.
1) I think it's a non-trivial question whether it is possible for life to be fundamentally different from how it is now, that is, without being something other than life. It may be that there is something wrong with the structure of life or the world as such, such that there is no way to improve it in a fundamental way, as if it were a matter of stepping out of a hailstorm and into a house. Life could be better or worse, sure, and I'd rather be wealthy and healthy than poor and miserable -- but even the wealthiest and healthiest are guaranteed to be miserable at many points, and I think probably far more even than people are willing to admit (no one who goes on about how their life is worth living or the goods outweighs the bads wants us to actually watch them at every moment to see if their claim holds water). This is basically Schopenhauer's position, and in advocating what is essentially the destruction of the world, he is calling for 'Nothing,' but a relative Nothing, that is, what is Nothing to us, because all we know is life and its miseries. If such a radical solution or transformation were possible, I don't think philosophy has much of anything to say about it, though religion might. I myself favor a kind of Gnostic Christianity in this respect, and metaphorically the world is cast as a kind of prison or labor camp.
2) I don't think any laws should be implemented, because generally going from 'I want X to be the case' to 'there ought to be legislation mandating that X is the case' is fallacious. Laws don't have any real control over the way the world goes -- we can't legislate anything that's a real problem, like hunger, out of existence, it doesn't work that way. There's little correlation in my view between who runs a government or how and what goes on in the relam of the governed. Put simply, governments are not only impotent to stop such problems, but would likely, if we're talking about large-scale coercive measures to stop people from breeding, simply exacerbate and multiply human suffering. Even the question of whether the anti-natalist position entails some sort of legislation arises from a very fundamental delusion, that governments have a sort of world-shaping power by which they can through legislative intent change very basic features about the world.
For suffering I was thinking of something considerably worse than spoiled cupcakes or bitchy tasks like filling up one's gas tank. I was thinking of cases known to me among real people I know (knew) and love (loved). Some of these I've suffered too.
metastatic cancers in several people, producing death, but not before producing all the suffering of function destroying cancers
AIDS - people with shingles in their anuses, (immensely painful), tumors, nausea, diarrhea almost all the time, wasting syndrome, running sores, etc.
shattered bones, scraped flesh, ripped muscles (that from a bad bicycle accident)
concussions with significant loss of function among previous very intellectually gifted persons
heart disease, strokes, Crone's disease, Parkinson's, Alzheimers, blindness, cysts in the brain stem
burn victims, gunshot victims, auto accident victims
polio (resulting in partial paralysis), hepatitis, influenza, staph infections
manic depression, psychosis, schizophrenia, catatonic depression, OCD, etc.
That's the kinds of suffering I'm weighing here as a possible cost of being born. What sort of pleasures and satisfactions could possibly balance out all that?
Love, intellectual discovery, great sex (not once, but over and over again for years) laughter, religious ecstasy, art, film, opera (often about suffering -- like Madam Butterfly from the Met today), great books, wonderful bicycle rides, swimming in the ocean and almost drowning, beach combing, laying in the warm sun, desires both met and unfulfilled, wonderful food, like the lamb chops at Figlios (they stopped making them, so life is a bit less worth living), the scallops and clam chowder at Legal Seafood, the fried clams at the little fly-spec shop in Mattapan--Simco's on the Bridge, chocolate, blueberry pie, etc.) massage, beautiful handsome men (or for you, maybe, beautiful women), dogs, squirrels...
It's a long list--both suffering and joys. Each of them is thick, deep, rich--and in the case of suffering, harrowing; in the case of joys, heavenly.
The sufferers I have known never said that they wish they had not been born. Why not? Because they had lived enough (joys and sufferings both) to see for themselves that life is worthwhile.
If I may make a modest suggestion, why don't you stop this pointless philosophical sniveling about the hardness of life (life is hard, sure enough) and move on to the greatest possible enjoyment of the life you have. Do good. That is one of the satisfactions there is. Love. Be loved. Feast and feed others. Give great sex. Make music, or share it. Make art, or share it. Laugh. Tell good jokes (jokes that make people laugh.) Scratch an old dog's ears--hell, scratch the whole body -- the dog will be forever grateful. Go for a swim, go for a bike ride, do a workout at the gym -- and enjoy it.
Have you -- will you-- suffer? Oh, almost certainly. When it comes, endure it with grace.
Who knows what people would think watching me in every second, I'm not Buddha, or something, claiming to have a special emotional disposition, or some kind of super power, or that people really should be like me. All that matters is my own evaluation. Everyone's keeps up some level of appearance, everyone lies, paints this better than they are, themselves better than they are, and everything involved with them as more impressive and significant. People often also do the exact opposite of that, depending on how they want to make you feel, and their distrust in your ability to react, and feel the ways they want you to about things.
Give some examples and I might be more prone to agree
I don't have too much to add other than the counter-intuitive observation that, contrary to the view that the finiteness of life renders all things meaningless, it is precisely its finitude that opens us up to a world of value and significance. A life without limitations would be even more pointless than one in which our eventual death serves as a boundary spurring us to take a stand on things, to decide what's significant and what's not, etc.
This close proximity to death, to me (as someone who over the past 3 years has had serious health scares, had one close young friend die suddenly and another commit suicide) at least, explains why some people who've had a brush with death or some other traumatic experience oftentimes come out of it with a new appreciation for even the 'simple' things in life, many of which BC outlined above. At the very least I can say that life is not boring - more a vacillation between joy and terror for those 'awake' to the world and hyper-conscious....but definitely not boring.
And someone else mentioned frustrated desires as part of the inevitable psychological pain associated with living in addition to the obvious physical pain, but being ensnared to the overwhelming social pressure to conform can be overcome. In my opinion this is precisely what can, or may, facilitate a deep shift in our outlook on life, from utter despair to a sense of thankfulness for even the seemingly mundane and trivial. Generally speaking, for thoughtful people - like the antinatalists here perhaps - chasing after the latest consumer goods, doing whatever you have to do to gain social standing amongst people you can't really relate to, and other things of that nature would indeed eventually result in something akin to a living hell.
So while I don't consider myself an 'existentialist' by any stretch, I do agree with the basic idea (if I understand it correctly) that there could be a strong relation between an anticipation of my death and an 'inner' call to freedom from those 'external' forces imposing their will and dictating how we live, what we value, etc. Could there be some sort wider social awakening? Some romanticized cultural upheaval or yearning for authenticity? I don't know, but I do think that making a positive impact on the lives of others is probably the best feeling one can have, and that indicates, yet again to me, that this universe is not all horrible, that somehow the microcosm of humanity contains an incredible amount of nobility and compassion that must somehow already be contained in the larger cosmos. It's almost a performative contradiction when antinatalists argue for the ending of life on moral or ethical grounds.
I would reiterate that contingencies of life may change my view tomorrow (if something horrible happened to one of my boys, for example) and draw me into the antinatalist camp, but I can also envision a life well-lived whose end results in a joyous celebration. I'm not at all against suicide either in particular situations where one feels they are in too much pain or have nothing left to offer this world in any way. I agree with Nietzsche in this, that we should not cling to life when it's no longer desirable or beneficial to us or anyone else. Having said that I would not want any antinatalists here (or elsewhere) to kill themselves but instead to rethink and experience things anew, from a different perspective of awe and wonder.
Those are the final musings of what will be considered my naïve and/or masochistic point of view. Like BC said (or implied), again perhaps paradoxically, those who've suffered the most are often the least likely to turn antinatalist. A disputable position no doubt, but borne out through my experience - which is a million times more powerful than any argument which only speaks to my intellect.
Yes, it's also forcing them to experience joy and many other things. But if this forcing is problematic, it's not problematic [i]enough[/I] to warrant the purposeful extinction of humanity, or even all forms of life, as you would have it. That is ridiculously extreme. (Which better explains the ridicule than the explanation that you proposed. It's a common reaction to absurdity). Better to be forced for a period of time which is typically very brief relative to the length of one's life, and to then live one's life with the option of taking matters into one's own hands, than not to live at all. There is no realistic and sensible alternative.
You must be very privileged if you think that all those things you describe comes without costs or with as much as you purport here. Sometimes I think things like this come straight from feel good news programs that focus on someone who opened a new school for the disadvantaged and the guy who participates in an extreme sport, etc. This goes back into the idea of living in a non-ideal world. None of the things you so poetically describe there actually come in the idealistic ways in which you convey them in your list (one suggested great moment after another).
Love- much of this comes with strife as every other book/music/art reiterates over and over again in almost every culture since cave man. How much fighting, boredom, angst, awkwardness, selfishness, discomfort, and one-sidedness, also comes with pursuing, sustaining, love? Divorce is at more than 50%. For every person who has their ideal mate, there is a sad lonely person. Perhaps they have a mental problem, perhaps luck just was not on their side. The outcome is the same for these people. And, that is only people that do not attain love in the first place. Then, there are people who experience love, but then have it leave thus creating more pain. Perhaps it is better to have loved and lost than never loved at all. I guess both types are screwed. Then, there are the people who stay with someone they "love", but are bored or find that what was an intoxicating thing is now simply a utilitarian thing. This may be the pedestrian. But, I think this overcompensating need for the suffering to be stark or nothing at all, is misguided as much as cursing life for a stubbed toe. There are such subtle (what I call) micro-harms, that affect us negatively, I would not for the life of me see why they should be ignored in order to demand that unless one has debilitating cancer, then life is worthwhile.
Intellectual discovery- I think most of us here value this. But besides reading about the volumes of things other people have thought up, most people are cut off from actually participating by not being a part of the actual levers of change that make this. I mean, we all like bullshitting about philosophy, a few are probably professional philosophy professors. However, how many people usually get to be a part of the major discoveries that affected our technological/scientific knowledge? Usually you have to have a knack for a certain math or scientific discipline.
Great sex- Well, besides sexually transmitted disease, this comes with the cost similar to love. Some people have a lot of it, some get none or very little. I think I said in another thread that it is unevenly distributed. Actually, it is worse because here is this primal desire that most people have (from cultural cues or biological cues), it's all around us, but not necessarily available to all people. How could you not say that pursuits of sex/love does not bring great pain as well? Is it good just because the pain can be used for grist in millions of works of poetry/music/art? This does not seem the appropriate response. "Don't worry, just write a song- see it's great!"
I'll just use these as examples. This montage of "worthwhile" moments come at great costs which on balance might lead to more of a net negative, either looked at on the whole, or for individuals. The fact that first world problems are problems in the first place, means that there is something wrong with this ideal picture. We should all be living in a utopia of endless love, sex, laughter, and play, yet this is not the case.
No doubt, your greatest defense for all this is to probably say that the person not experiencing any of these things is just not trying hard enough or is simply not seeing the joy. A little hope goes a long way. The carrot needs to be there to keep moving forward. More self-help books to read about changing your habits, thoughts, to make positive things happen. "If only I was less defective in the whole outlook department and in my actions, my life would be better somehow". It is a fact that it is a non-ideal world. It is a conceit to think that you can think yourself into an ideal world. Yes, the world was not meant for our particular versions of an ideal world, we adjust and survive in it however we can. Perhaps we can find better ways to adjust. Perhaps we can find better ways to concentrate on a task so as not to think of life as a whole. Perhaps we try to run more smoothly on the surface. Perhaps we can find better coping mechanisms. This does not mean that it is good, just because we can adjust to non-ideal circumstances.
I've already replied to this claim of yours. There's no need to link it to me again, for I can merely link my own reply back to you.
Quoting Sapientia
Then how am I to take it? Where is the nuance? This claim is bullshit on stilts. Please do assuage my indignation as to your continued absurd declarations on behalf of non-existent people.
Quoting Sapientia
I don't understand why.
Quoting Sapientia
That wasn't your claim. You said: "I don't think that it's simply true that life is worthwhile."
Quoting Sapientia
Not that I think we're somehow going to reach it, but if you don't care about the truth (soundness), I can stop replying right now. You can make all the valid arguments you want, but if you don't like me objecting to some of your premises, then there's no point in continuing this discussion.
Is that masochistic?
The very definition thereof.
Suffering is guaranteed, joy is unlikely.
I have not lived a life of "privilege" at all. Good luck, yes; bad luck, yes. No privileges.
Quoting schopenhauer1
[s]None[/s] not all, the things I described [s]always[/s] come in [as you say] the 'ideal' package. Surely not. Once in a while somethings might come achieve the 'ideal'. But every experience doesn't have to be ideal or great. Sex and love are not peak experiences every time (that would undermine the very idea of peak experiences). But it the case that is either perfection or horror. There are a lot of pleasant gradations in sex and love after perfection and before one gets to the bad experiences.
If you and the other fatalists cum antinatalists can describe everything as inevitably leading to a shit pile, I don't see why I can't describe the same things as at least possibly leading to a rose garden--just no promises.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Maybe. Have you done a census and determined that the world is 50% perfectly mated and 50% sad and lonely? I've been sad and lonely. It happens to people. Being sad and lonely might be the fault of the sufferer, maybe not. I know for sure that some people are sad and lonely as a result of the way they look at the world.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Right, and you don't have to discover the next previously unknown sub-atomic particle or previously unseen star. Most (all?) of the territory 99% of us discover, somebody else has already lived on. Remember when you "discovered" Schopenhauer? I imagine that was a pretty good day for you.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Do STDs cause suffering? You bet. I've had STDs. Most men who were or are out there playing the field (especially before AIDS and condoms) got STDs. Ditto for women. People considered STDs a tolerable risk for having sex long before the discovery of penicillin. (I'm all in favor of individuals and institutions observing public health precautions, however. Recklessly spreading disease is a decidedly unfriendly action.)
There are no guarantees that one will get sex. Wanting sex, and not being able to find a partner, is an unhappy experience. In parts of the world where parents have skewed the birth rate in favor males, a lot of men are without partners -- just not enough women to go around. There are solutions to the problem, but don't hold your breath.
I've had gone for years without sex. When I was a young gay guy in rural Minnesota (way before Stonewall) finding suitable sex partners was a problem I didn't solve until I got the hell out of the rural midwest. Was I unhappy and miserable between the age of puberty and 26? No. One finds alternate means.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, happiness can't be forced. Happiness in this world is certain not automatic, but I don't think strenuous efforts can be counted on to produce happiness, either.
"Happiness" is not a state of the world, it's a condition of individuals, and we have some control over how they feel.
1. People can and do (at times) prevent happiness from existing in their lives. People have been known to torpedo their potential happiness by setting up self-fulfilling prophecies of doom, or of preventing the good by demanding the perfect.
2. People must be careful about "how they talk to themselves". Bad experiences are real enough, but one can enshrine the experience by dwelling on the event. Sometimes one has to say one's regrets and move on. Some people work hard at talking themselves into a negative view of life.
Millions of people have been subjected to horrible experiences, and are no longer intact. I don't expect victims of war-time atrocities (or peace time equivalents) to "just get over it". They might not be able to experience happiness. Such people are a suffering minority in need of care.
So at least you are willing to tone it down a bit. That's a start. "WORTHWHILE" with a definite head nod, becomes "worthwhile?" with a shrug and a question mark. Also, you did not directly address my point that love and sex is unevenly distributed, probably even more so than other things in life.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Actually, I suspect the number is pretty high but people are less likely to admit such a weak characterization to others.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Yep, reading Schopenhauer can be pretty satisfying. To be fair, I was addressing intellectual discovery in the sense of people actually discovering something new, and actually adding to our knowledge of the world or being able to advance technology. As far as actually affecting the world with intellectual discovery- it's pretty dismal numbers as you point out.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Ok, so we agree that STD's can cause suffering...
Quoting Bitter Crank
Ok, so we agree that pursuits of love and sex can lead to a lot of unhappiness..
Quoting Bitter Crank
This just seems like a non-sequitor. So, what is the subtext here? People should just stop complaining and learn to deal with not getting things they want or desire? Yeah, people do that all the time. It doesn't mean that it is not negative. It just means people have different coping mechanisms. This just reiterates the adjustments. All I know is you are throwing some sort of counterexample out there, that may or may not be true in part or whole.
Quoting Bitter Crank
Ok, so we agree, you cannot think your way into happiness...
Quoting Bitter Crank
This I disagree with. This is exactly where I predicted you would go. I will simply respond with what I said earlier:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Entropy, the acceleration of decay. The rose garden is a second-order establishment, built upon a pile of fertilizer (manure).
I don't know about the other people arguing here and what they think about happiness or contentedness or happy-endings, but in my opinion, the rose-garden, white picket fence, happy spouse and a charming lifestyle exist only in the movies. If they exist in the real world, they last for a short time, and are not guaranteed to everyone (some people have an unfair advantage over others, a "head-start" that actually keeps them ahead while pushing everyone else behind). Every once in a while you'll hear about the self-made man who built himself up from the shreds of poverty, and this is supposed to inspire and motivate people to work hard and achieve their dreams. It's all just a joke, unfortunately. It's a nice little narrative to keep people dreaming, and insofar as you are under the influence of the dream, everything seems alright. The hero that built himself up no doubt tried hard (which should be enough to show how faulty this system is...a person has to work their asses off just to make a living), but also was extraordinarily lucky. For there are tens of millions of people just like him who would kill for that kind of opportunity.
This is the crux of my pessimism: it is not that life is unbearably bad at all times and that at every moment of my life I wish I could die (can't say anything about anyone else here though), but rather that I have, at least from my perspective, taken off the rose-tinted glasses and seen life for what it is: it's an ugly, pointless, harsh, depriving, harmful and disgusting cycle of desire, disappointment, regret, conflict (competition), pain, and death, and the nature of the beast is hidden just in case you limit your attention to the incoming blows that threaten your very existence. It seems as though this evaluation can only occur if you are lucky enough to not have to scruple for crumbs every day of your life. Thus, why philosophers like Schopenhauer who lived a rather posh and privileged lifestyle were given the opportunity to reflect upon the lives of others and themselves.
I liken my pessimism (which leads to my antinatalism) to being a soldier in the front lines of battle, seeing his fellow platoon mates yell as more and more shells explode in front of them. I'm stuck in no-man's-land (just as everyone else is), viewing the pointless carnage, and then I hear the whistle as the captain, safe behind the trenches, sends another wave of men out to die (analogous to birth). You can hear the charade, the trumpet fanfare, the shouts of victory and triumph for the first initial seconds as the men sprint on the field, unaware of the nature of the game, high on adrenaline and ambition. Each man has dreams, each man wants to be a hero, but no man wants to die. But from the collective frenzy of fear and group habit, each man runs out anyway.
Hearing the scream as a bullet barely misses me, I sigh in relief even as I hear the squelch of the bullet hit a man next to me. But it's not me that the bullet hit. It's not me that is suffering. There's no need to worry about life!, just keep running blindly into the minefield! You'll be fine!...
But where to run to? Do we just keep running forward blindly? What's the goal? What's the end-point? There's hardly enough time actually stop running and appreciate some of the aesthetics of life before you have to go back to dodging and running. We are, in Heidegger's words, Beings-Towards-Death.
In the end, as each and every one of us lies dying on the field, never reaching the end, what will come to mind? Surely we have to justify this wreck. Surely there has to be a point to all this conflict. There's got to be a point...right? Those white-picket fences, those cute little puppies, the smell of fresh-cut grass...is that it?! What are we fighting for?!
Perhaps you and others think that this analogy is too dark and repetitive. To this I only have to say that if our lives weren't filled with suffering, we'd have to fill them with an empathetic substitute (entertainment). We enjoy seeing others squirm on television, so long as it is not ourselves that is squirming. And we enjoy drinking the kool-aid when we listen to the few lucky people who somehow managed to not get hit by a bullet during their run of life, because it helps us pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and keep us from questioning the unquestionable, from realizing how each and every one of us is a ticking time bomb, and that all of us have a delicate, precarious disposition to suicide.
This response turned out to be longer than I expected. But I'd like to end by saying that what I experience is a profound feeling of disillusionment and, at times, despair, regarding the hopelessness and pointlessness of the world, and that I have absolutely no desire to bring this upon another person and because of this I wish nobody wished this to be so. Perhaps this is why I enjoy amateur astronomy so much: I can look out into the heavens and know that the beautiful cloud of dust that I am viewing is most likely toxic to life as we know it and will not harbor the same horrors that exist on this planet.
Questions:
1) Why is it necessarily the case that entropy is in some sense a necessary evil, at least at the present time?
2) By the same token, in what sense is it the case that an objective purpose or goal to life is a necessary requirement to justify bringing in new life?
3) In what sense is existential suffering related to physical and emotional suffering? Is there a hierarchy of suffering? Is one prior to the others? What is the character of this suffering, and in what sense is it related to lack of objective purpose/goal?
4) I grant this world is terrible. I even grant that it is likely that some form of population reduction is necessary in order to improve the livability of the world. What I don't understand is the argument that there is some necessary and fundamental flaw in the world that makes it impossible to justify bringing in new life. So I'd like to ask a different question. In what fundamental ways would this world have to change in order to justify natalism (in the sense that it is morally permitted, though not required to have children)?
I have read @darthbarracuda's previous comment that states that there is some structural flaw in that preferences will necessarily be frustrated through existence. I'm not convinced that preference frustration is even intrinsically bad to begin with; or that it's impossible to engineer a hypothetical where everyone is able to satisfy their desires/preferences.
@The Great Whatever on the other hand intuits that it might be impossible to improve the world in some fundamental way, and that if there were some way to alter the world in this way, philosophy wouldn't be able to say anything about it. I'd like to know your thoughts on 4.
Wosret, I initially wanted to write out an entire post responding to you specifically, but I'd like to make some clarificatory statements regarding my views: It isn't necessary for me to assume that we all ought to be moral. I think you have some concerns regarding the conflation of the meaning/purpose of life with the moral goals. I'm agnostic as to whether there is any meaning or purpose to life, but I think it is undeniable that objective morality exists. At the same time, I don't worry about the is-ought gap too much, since morality need only describe what the right thing to do is without making any assumptions about how the world "ought" to be. With regard to specific examples, I don't see how those would be fruitful without context. Think along the lines of Kant's formula of universal law and the golden rule.
Doesn't matter whether or not morality is objective, since we often disagree about what is and isn't moral, there being an absolute right answer to every moral dilemma doesn't imply that you are the one that knows what it is, and everyone of a different opinion is wrong.
Real change, real improvement is bottom up. Beginning on the individual level, with your character, your generosity, your acts of kindness, your sustainable life, and personal reduction. Live your life in a moral way, have courage to stand for the things you believe and uphold, and have faith in humanity.
Furthermore, to dismiss all discussion on moral philosophy since none of us will have access to it/ it is an impractical exercise is to miss the point entirely. Given the range of impractical things we could be discussing on this forum (metaphysics, epistemology, logic, philosophy of art/science/math), in what way is discussing moral philosophy somehow inferior to any of those discussions? In addition, how many of these discussions aim to settle, once and for all the questions in their fields?
I think most of us here are primarily here because we enjoy discussing philosophy, and not because we are out to be moral saints (myself included). It goes without saying there are likely many other things we could be doing instead of arguing with one another on a forum or in real life.
However, I'm inclined to agree that for most of us, we're really only capable of minor actions and we can only hope to make some small impact on our immediate surroundings.
There is nothing written into the stars that makes you have to want to believe true things, or be rational either -- but usually no one needs to convince us, when we actually know what the words mean.
I suggest enacting your moral code in your own life, and to guide yourself, minding your own business, and letting people decide for themselves if your moral code is worthy of enacting in their lives, or ignoring it, allowing it to begin on the micro scale, and flourish into the macro scale, rather than attempt to impose, or not trust others to make the correct decisions, or force a better world on us, clearly because the damage down by being wrong in the first case is far less severe than being wrong in second case.
I didn't dismiss discussion of any kind, for any reason.
My suggestion wasn't something like our limited power forces us to only take minor actions, and make small impacts, but that this is the most desirable approach.
In addition, moral disagreement isn't proof of moral subjectivity.
Regarding truth and rationality, we make decisions based on emotions at times. Love is a good example of something that tends to override reason. Eating too much when you're trying to lose weight is another. We don't have to be, nor are we always rational.
Even so, what is it about the proper understanding of morality, or truth, or rationality necessarily compels anyone to be moral or rational? What is that founded on? Furthermore, even if there were some psychological explanation as to why we find certain things compelling, so what? How is that indicative of a way that we ought to be, as opposed to it simply being the case that these things are compelling, and we are simply compelled to be in a particular way?
Neither am I suggesting that any given individual impose any form of morality on anyone else, at least in this current state of affairs. I can imagine a few hypotheticals where I'd definitely subscribe to said imposition, but those would require some far-out assumptions.
Our existence in the world is at the same time fundamentally passive and fundamentally coercive. Passive because we can't choose to be born, and our primary, if not only, mode of experience is suffering -- things incorrigibly happen to us, and our being alive is shot through with pain, which is an experience that is terrible by its own criterion. We move about in response to that pain, and in so doing we interact with, i.e. cause (coerce) pain in, other people. The world, such as it is, just is that interlocking coercive institution of endless pain. If you somehow took that away, there would be no intelligible 'world' as we know it, and so the idea of fundamentally fixing the world to be something other than this doesn't make sense.
Have you? That's the first time that you've quoted that comment, from what I've seen, so I'm not sure where you have supposedly done so; and I'm not going to thoroughly examine your post history with the expectation of finding it. I might have replied to your reply, too. But the problem is that you keep making the same mistake, and you only quoted a small part of that post, avoiding perhaps the most important part.
Quoting Thorongil
It's only bullshit on stilts if its meaning matches a foolish misinterpretation. For the last time, I'll explain the nuance, so please pay close attention:
To state that you're robbing a possible future generation, in the way that I have done so, is to express [i]in a figurative manner[/I] something which can be expressed [i]in the conditional mood[/I], which avoids the contradiction which would be implied by [i]a literal version[/I] of the aforementioned statement.
Hence, I am not guilty of implying that nonexistent people are being robbed, which is obviously a contradiction, because nonexistent people cannot be robbed. Rather, I am expressing a point that I've already made, namely that [i]if[/I] we purposefully brought about the early extinction of humanity after the current generation had died, [i]then[/I] we [i]would[/I], as a consequence, be removing the possibility of future generations. I am further saying that this [i]would[/I], as a consequence, also remove the possibility of said future generations experiencing a worthwhile life or even anything worthwhile at all, which, in my judgement, [i]would[/I] be unfortunate.
Note my use of "if... then..." and "would" which are key indications of a statement in the conditional mood. I'm certainly not implying that future generations [I]are[/I] missing out, or that they [I]do[/I] object.
I'm not speaking on their behalf; I'm pointing out that we can obtain some knowledge about what their life [i]would[/I] probably be like [I]if[/I] they were to exist, and that we can use that knowledge to make a judgement. The funny thing is, you're doing exactly the same thing. The only difference is that we reach different conclusions.
Quoting Thorongil
Because that, in itself, doesn't say anything relevent about what my argument was about. That those who so desire [i]can[/I] pursue the goal of experiencing worthwhile things without procreating [i]doesn't[/I] entail that it's not also worthwhile to procreate, or that we should not procreate. But that is what it would have to entail in order to be relevant.
Quoting Thorongil
Are you being purposefully deceptive? That [i]was[/I] my claim. Pointing out a different claim of mine doesn't change that. Here is the proof:
Quoting Sapientia
Quoting Thorongil
That is why I provided my argument.
Quoting Thorongil
I assumed you already knew why I provided my argument, given our discussion prior to it, but yet again, apparently I've been expecting too much of you. You're free to object to any of the premises, but I myself do not believe that all of the premises are true. For example, you even quoted me saying that I don't think that it's simply true that life is worthwhile, and that is a premise in the argument. I've been very clear about this, so if you've misunderstood, you only have yourself to blame.
Also, given your one-line replies to lengthy sections of my posts and your repeated failures in understanding, there's already not much point in continuing this discussion. Don't ask me why I have been doing so. I must like banging my head against a brick wall.
No, both are so likely that they're practically guaranteed. Even in some of the most dire circumstances, there can be, and have been, times of joy. It's practically impossible to live an average life without any joy.
I don't think that that's relevant. It is indeed a threat to the idea of humankind existing indefinitely, but I don't find that at all threatening in a psychological or emotional sense. It doesn't affect me at all in a negative way. I don't expect to live forever, and I don't expect humankind to be here forever, so there's no big disappointment. And it's so - almost inconceivably - distant that it's incredibly far removed from day-to-day life and plans for the future. That things will end doesn't mean that they're not worthwhile. This is the fallacy that I spoke of earlier, and it's the epitome of defeatism.
Quoting Erik
Agreed. I think that that relates to the point I made above. You can't get meaninglessness or absence of worth from mere finitude.
I repeatedly told you that the ontological status of moral truths isn't relevant, just the epistemological status is. We can clearly be wrong, and that's all that matters.
We do not intentionally, and consciously chose falsehood, and irrationality. The prospect is all but an oxymoron. You continue to confuse being wrong, with intentionally being wrong, or the complete lack of rightness.
Nothing about a "proper understanding", just that morality, truth, and reason are operative. One does the things they think are good, believes the things they think are true, and thinks in ways they feel to be rational. No one can operative in an opposing fashion to this intentionally, even if they were completely senseless and loony in this way, they couldn't have decided to be without on some level operating in conduction with goodness, truth, and rationality to be able to be clear, and intently behaving as they do. One must see a good, a benefit, and value in it, they must know the difference between truth and falsehood in order to chose falsehood (behaviorally, as actually deciding to believe falsehoods intentionally is oxymoronic), and use reason in order to get there.
I guarantee you that at this moment, millions of lives are transpiring without any joy. I'd say billions, but let's be conservative.
Yup, lots of character building going on.
Not any of any significant length of time without having experienced any joy. If that's what you meant, then your guarantee counts for nothing. If, on the other hand, you merely meant that they're not experiencing any joy at this moment in time, then I agree, but I don't think that that changes anything. There are millions of others who are experiencing joy at this moment in time, and even those who aren't almost certainly have done so, and probably will do so again, all things being more or less equal.
We can kick the can down the road, sure. Maybe it's not a problem now, but eventually it will be a problem. Essentially by saying entropy/death/decay is not a problem, you are setting aside the issue (procrastinating) just like everyone does when they push aside homework or taxes.
Entropy may or may not be an issue in the current moment, but it is ultimately broad, structural, possibly even metaphysical in nature.
Clearly only all of the money will do. Unless I have infinite money, no amount is good enough.
I would be willing to deny this claim. One must only tell a joke or a funny story to see the brightness of the human spirit flourish.
The joy one feels when they celebrate their birthday or when they fall in love is, arguably, an "unnatural" experience that does not happen on a day-to-day basis. But a good, true laugh can make a shitty day a lot better.
The same goes with hearing your favorite song, or viewing a piece of beauty.
My own impression is that if you lot people's lives, and their mood, not what they say about these things (or say they say about them...), they're pretty sad, both in the psychological sense and in the sense of pathetic, desperate, etc.
So, for instance, say your goal was to experience extreme suffering. This is a really easy goal! There are so many ways to do it, you have an embarrassment of riches. Hit yourself with a hammer! Lick a cop! Put your hand in a fire! You can't go two steps without tripping over a way to accomplish that goal! In fact, you can just literally sit still and it will happen thanks to starvation! Everything tends toward extreme suffering perfectly naturally in the absence of other precarious and constantly applied controls.
Now suppose your goal is to experience joy. There is not even one reliable method of doing this, and people write lots of superfluous books claim to have found such a one. I cannot give concrete advice toward meeting such a goal, as I did above. All I can do is spout idiotic platitudes, none of which have any grounding in reality, and many of which you can find in threads such as these.
pfffttHAHAHAHA
And I agree that most people in general are in a negative state most of the time. But I disagree with your statement that the majority of people never experience any joy whatsoever in their lives on a day-to-day basis. This just strikes me as an absurd generalization.
Also, many of the negative experiences (like sadness, pathetic, desperation, etc) are often not entirely outside of the person's control. It's easy to say that people have shitty lives when you see how stressed they are. But it is an entirely other thing to claim that this is a structural part of the life of a human being, to be stressed out, to be desperate, to be pathetic and angry. It's what a key point in Buddhist (and other eastern religions and philosophies) point out, is that ignorance, attachment, and aversion (take your pick or add some) cause these negative experiences and if you purge your ignorance, purge your unnecessary attachment to materialistic oddities, and purge your fear of little conflicts, you'll be a far more stable and potentially even happy individual.
That's not something to laugh about. Maybe if your intention was to gloat, sure.
I acknowledge that it will eventually be a problem for any sufficiently intelligent life forms who live long enough to experience its detrimental effects. But it's not a problem now, nor will it be for countless future generations. It will be hundreds of billions of years before the degenerate era is reached. Hence, to say that your comparison to setting aside taxes or homework is misleading would be a massive understatement.
There is some truth in what you say about joy being harder to cause yourself to experience, but you'll stand a much better chance with an open mind, and a proclivity for it. It's not something that we have absolutely no control or influence over. If you actively set out to be a boring, miserable bastard, don't be so surprised if it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
We can get some amount of joy from even small things that are within our control, like eating nice food, for example.
So you think joy just sort of falls out of the sky? It's literally hard to avoid? It just happens as a result of being alive?
If you are able to do so and live your life free of death-related angst, fine. Not everyone has that psychological flexibility.
Also, if you adopt the Epicurean stance, then you have to accept that murder does not harm the one who is murdered.
No, it wouldn't be concrete [i]in contrast[/I]. It would be concrete [i]in addition[/I].
One way to bring about suffering is to purposefully avoid joyous activities: that is, activities known by someone, through experience, to stand a reasonable expectation of causing joy in that person. Virtually everyone has such knowledge. That is, without doubt, to be of a closed mindset to the many opportunities of experiencing joy.
I can give many concrete examples, but the best example would probably be to spend a significant amount of time in complete isolation in a bland, closed off area, with little space. No other people. No pets. No internet. No TV. No nature. No nice view. No food, or no nice food. There wouldn't be much joy to find in such a scenario.
Obviously, to be open to joy is, at the very least, to do the opposite of that. The things that I just listed typically bring people some amount of joy, and their extended absence can cause some amount of suffering. We aren't born into an isolated cell, destined to live a life without joy until death brings it to an end.
That you refuse to acknowledge such things doesn't mean much. You can deny and deny and deny until the cows come home, but it won't change the world. This is just a reflection of your blinkered view of the world - nothing more.
The coffin within which your brand of pessimism lies has been nailed shut. To continue this debate is like arguing with a blind person over the absence of light, or at least its alleged great difficulty to find.
"The negative human being has a greater familiarity with the terminality of being; he neither conceals it nor embellishes it, he thinks about it very frequently or almost always, and has full conscience about what is pre-reflexive for the majority, that is, all we do is terminal and can be destroyed at any moment. Negative life, in this sense, is melancholic and distanced (but never distracted or relaxed), not much worse than most lives and much better than them in many ways, a life with neither hope nor much intense feelings, neither of deception nor even enthusiasm. And, above all, without the irritating daily pretending that “everything is fine” and that “we are great”, while we sweep our miseries under the carpet. Therefore, it is usually a life without great “crisis” or great “depressions” (by the way, depression is the fatal fate of any affirmative life); negative lives are anguished lives, poetic and anxious, and almost always very active lives."
The first "if" is a very big "if". Thus far, you've shown that you have a talent for misunderstanding or twisting what I post. The above quote is yet another example.
A misery you can feel happy about.
Also reminds me of that quote by Russell about how people that are unhappy, like people that sleep badly, are always proud of the fact. Misery is noble, happiness is for the ignorant, deluded, or dishonest.
It's more about living a more responsible life though.
In what sense is that responsible?
Lol... because you realize the metaphysical truth, and then responsibility ensues...
I've actually not heard anything that I didn't know from any of you guys yet. The problem is just that it is insisted that one must feel awful about it, and obsess over it or they're not really getting it. Why it is anyone's duty to just feel shitty about the world all the time? What does that accomplish? If one is inspired to act in philanthropic ways on account of it (besides twisted "lets all just go extinct now"), or it aids in any way whatsoever to anything that couldn't be accomplished without feeling shitty all of the time because of your duty to think about death in every moment, then I've yet to hear about that.
Not at all, although such a position may induce a sense of melancholy.
There is no duty, at least in my view, to prevent suffering when such an action would significantly take away from your own life. There is a duty to not cause suffering, though.
It is not your duty to do anything; but it would be nice if you didn't procreate. What that would accomplish is not brining another generation of misery into existence because of whatever whims make you decide to do so. In other words, it's a matter of basic compassion -- if you think that's boring or lame or doesn't make you feel radical or whatever, fine, but there are real consequences to reproducing, and it'd be nice if you didn't.
I've always gots to feel radical brah. I have six siblings, and four nephews... plenty of my genepool is floating around, but I'm obviously the best, and it would really be a crime against nature and humanity if I refused to gift the world my progeny.
It seems from this that you believe in a kind of moral nihilism or moral sentimentalism. However, holding such a position seems to be mean that you can't actually condemn someone for having a child without being disingenuous or just being an ass in general. Without viewing suffering as something that at least should not be given (as a moral ought), there is no justification for debating this entire subject, and the debate is moot. You can't say that there is no duty to do something, and then turn around and say it'd be nice if nobody procreated, and expect everyone to accept this. For someone could say that it'd be nice if you had children, in which case you would argue against them and presumably bring up arguments related to the duty of not giving harm upon another individual without their consent. Essentially it's a non-starter.
Sure, someone can say that, but there being a moral objectivity, or absolutism doesn't force anyone to do anything either. They can still say no, it isn't as if moral commandments are magic, and literally force you to obey, you'll just feel more justified, right, and secure in your opinions, and able to dismiss dissent more easily if you believe that. I don't see how it has much to do with forcing compliance.
We prove our moral sentiments with our lives and characters, and how we effect, inspire, or disgust others. We ourselves are the proofs.
I am sorry you feel this way about your parents, and I am sorry that it seems that you have had a rougher life than most of us (even though all of us in the end have a rough life).
I'm not really either. I'm not saying that there are no moral truths, I'm saying that I am the truth.
And yeah, one problem is that each generation forgets the thrashing.
...and joy and anything at all. You should mention that too. You keep leaving it out for some reason, but doing so doesn't convey the full ramifications of your position. You endorse ending life altogether, and everything that life entails; not just suffering.
Quoting The Great Whatever
...and joy and all the other things.
You guys keep appealing to emotion and cherry picking negative aspects.
Life is mostly misery, there is little joy, for some people none. To focus on joy is cherry picking.
Pleasure also plays its part in propagating misery, of course, and is in the end a servant to it.
Unborn people do not exist.
Unborn people do not exist.
Unborn people do not exist.
They can enjoy a particular kind of existence, as fictional characters. Or barring discussions on the existence of fictional entities, or modal realism, they can still be quantified as negative existentials that are nonetheless causally efficacious.
I'm obviously jumping into this discussion very late, and perhaps someone brought this up before, but why should we look at suffering as something defective with the state of things? There are other ethical frames, such as Nietzsche's, that see suffering as a necessity for any meaningful form of human transcendence. Pleasure or pain might take particular values only in an instrumental sense.
No. Unborn people are not fictional characters.
Quoting Shevek
Even if one were a modal realist, unborn people would not be actual, and only actual entities can be affected by actions in the actual world.
Quoting Shevek
A negative existential is a kind of statement, not a kind of person. If a negative existential is true of an unborn person, this just means, as I've said, they they don't exist. Sapientia has difficulty wrapping his head around this -- he claims to understand it, and then makes posts that are only intelligible if he does not.
Quoting Shevek
What is good or bad does not depend on an impotent 'ethical frame.' It doesn't matter what ethical frame you have, suffering is still bad, precisely because it doesn't care whether anyone 'looks at it' as bad. What you think, or how you look at it, doesn't matter -- suffering is bad on its own terms, and no alternative belief system tat claims it isn't can change this, as if mere belief or framing could stop reality.
Pleasure and pain are intrinsically good and bad, while everything else can only be extrinsically so.
Why not? What would qualify an unborn person being a fictional character? Does it have to be in a published novel or short story? What about unpublished narratives? Or narratives that exist in the space of conversation?
Quoting The Great Whatever
Fair enough, and I'm not arguing that whatever kind of existence unborn/possible babies have is the kind that can be effected by actions in the actual world. I'm not sure I want (or need) to argue that, so maybe what I'm saying has little bearing on the discussion (i.e. moral duties to unborn children). But it does seem like a kind of existence that has effect.
Quoting The Great Whatever
That's why I said it can be quantified so. But I think first-order predicate logic viewed as operating so here kind of belies a less crudely materialistic view of existence. And then we get into broader questions of ontology, when we ask "what is there?" or what it means to exist. It's only further complicated when we ask "what does it mean for some being to exist such that moral duties could be applied to it?"
My comments were meant to draw attention to how, following this philosophical methodology, disagreements ultimately lead us to questions that go up the ladder of fundamental explanation, i.e. all the way to metaontology. They weren't necessarily meant to argue for a particular position, as much as they were meant to show why someone can have reasonable disagreements about what 'x doesn't exist' means, or entails in the context of the current discussion. Simply stating 'unborn babies don't exist' doesn't solve anything.
Quoting The Great Whatever
You're essentially just saying your metaethical view is true by bare assertion. This is a form of argumentation that has little purchase in my mind.
I feel like this question isn't worth answering. I don't need a complete account of fiction to know unborn people aren't fictional characters. To insist otherwise IMO is not to understand what fiction is, not even in a technical sense, but just in a vulgar sense.
Quoting Shevek
I mean, I disagree, but then, I think modal realism is fundamentally confused and is not really an account of modality so much as a science fiction story.
Quoting Shevek
These are not necessary to know unborn people don't exist. If your theory says otherwise, that is evidence agains your theory.
Quoting Shevek
It states a truth and removes confusions from the conversation that Sapientia, and other commentators, are prone to.
Quoting Shevek
It isn't 'my metaethical view.' Again, what metaethical view you have doesn't really matter. Pain's still going to be bad on its own terms without any care for your philosophy.
I'm not insisting otherwise, but just seeing why, in principle, unborn babies couldn't enjoy the kind of existence that some attribute to fictional characters. I'm asking for more nuance and sophistication in our ontology, which I see as opposite of asserting vulgar views.
Quoting The Great Whatever
The view I'm exploring is different from modal realism.
Quoting The Great Whatever
They're at least necessary to be clear on our terms and what we mean by being and existence. At the most, they constitute real substantive disagreements on what it is to exist. For example, you could be an eternalist who would say that unborn (presently nonexistent) babies exist. And you can't really appeal to intuition either, because a lot of people have the intuition that they're responsible in some way to their future children and family.
You can't just keep reasserting a premise that's under question. You have to make some argument.
Quoting The Great Whatever
And yet there are all sorts of people out there that think pain is good, because it teaches them a lesson, helps them grow, or they're just good old-fashioned masochists. If you think they're mistaken somehow, you have to explain why.
I always thought Nietzsche's idea that meaning needs pain is telling that one must choose between good old-fashioned "happiness" or "pleasure" or meaning through trial and tribulation on the other hand, or some bizarre mix of the two. I suspect the idea that suffering needs to be there to have a more rich life is often post hoc ways of coping with the painful event. Often, if given the choice, the less painful scenario would have been the preferred scenario- despite post hoc assertions that the pain was really necessary for meaning to flourish.
However, even if I was to grant you that meaning needs pain, then if one believes pain is intrinsically bad, than a world where pain is necessary for meaning, might not be an ideal one, and thus not worth starting for another person in the first place. To have a new human in order for them to be a "great" person by suffering trials of painful events, sounds unnecessary. Why does someone need to experience meaning in the first place, if pain is involved in the process? Having people exist to experience meaning, in spite of suffering seems an odd position. Meaning does not need to be experienced by anyone. In other words, this experience of meaning is not something that needs to be carried on by the next generation. Meaning is not a host that needs a home in the next person born. It may be something that is experienced once born, but how it is a compelling reason to have someone new, despite pain, does not seem to be explained.
You can say pain leads to meaning- then one can just say if meaning needs pain, then meaning is not all its cracked up to be. There could be many non-painful events that lead to meaningful experiences. Also, a lot of what might be "meaningful" that derives from pain or discomfort, is actually just maintenance. One must simply go through anxious, physically/emotional discomfort just to maintain their social position and out of not knowing how else to spend their time.
You can say that there are some pains that are suffering, and that do not even lead to meaning- this means that suffering can exist separate from the pains that lead to meaning. This happens in varying degrees and amounts with no way of knowing how much will happen for each individual.
It isn't in my case, because I acknowledge the suffering in the world, but I point out the joy to counterbalance the scales that you've tipped too far on one side.
Your first sentence is debatable. It isn't an established fact. I don't agree with it. But even if true, what really matters is the overall effect that such experiences have on the worth of life. It isn't up to you or any other individual to decide the worth of the lives of everyone that lives, or has lived, or will probably live. You're free to do so, but you lack the authority for your decision to be representative of those intended. And no evidence that has been brought forward about not taking what people say for granted is great enough to rule out the virtual certainty that some of those people are speaking the truth.
Even if suffering is disproportionate to joy in terms of quantity, it doesn't follow that it has such a detrimental effect on the overall value of life that it renders it not worth living (or at least would do so for any possible future generations if they were actualised).
Quoting The Great Whatever
Again, you say such things because of your one-sided way of looking at them. The other way to look at it would be to view pleasure as a reward, and the experience which motivates us to seek it out - which isn't necessarily misery, and in fact is not misery in typical cases, but something far less extreme - as an incentive.
You're guilty of bias and of hyperbole.
Ha! You still can't get your head around that point, I see.
Because unborn people aren't fictional characters? I don't understand the relevance of this question. As an example, Frodo Baggins is a fictional character. If you want more nuance, you should do it with a hypothesis that is at least plausible -- though I suspect the call for 'nuance' is here as in so many cases just a red herring that will license the denial of obvious truths (like that unborn people don't exist).
Quoting Shevek
'Being' and 'existence' are ordinary words of English. They don't need to be defined, and I'm not using them technically. If you understand the language, you need no definition (and in fact I could not provide one, since their meaning is not up to me, as if I made them up), and if you don't understand the language, then we can't have this conversation anyway.
The plea for definition is only relevant when one is inventing technical terms for some technical purpose. But that is not what is going on here.
Quoting Shevek
I could, but then I would be saying something patently false, and in general I try to say true things, not false things. 'Presently nonexistent babies exist' is a contradiction -- duh.
Quoting Shevek
You cannot decide to make whatever premise you want 'under question' by assaulting it with a slew of specious views and then insist that the discourse move where you want it to, though. I have every bit as much right to think that your purported objections to an obvious fact are red herrings and not worthy of consideration, as you do to insist that we ought to entertain that nonexistent people exist. That may end up with us parting ways without a productive discussion -- but then, insofar as you were serious in your claims (which perhaps you aren't -- this, like so much of philosophical discussion, already has the air of an idle game and round of 'position-citing'to me), you will still walk away considering something obviously false to be a possibility, which is your loss & not mine.
Quoting Shevek
What they think doesn't matter -- they're wrong.
They are mistaken because the phenomenon itself, i.e. pain, is bad on its own terms, and this is indifferent to whether they say it is good or bad. We are interested in the thing itself, not people's opinions about it, so citing their opinions as if it had some sort of bearing is absurd.
Okay, so why then is natalism, which makes precisely such a decision, justified?
Notice the absurdity of your position: to not have a child because you fear the child's life might not be worth living is to decide for a nonexistent person unjustly; yet to actually have a child and so decide for a real person this same thing, but in the opposite (your favored) direction is fine because...?
I mean, what the hell are you even talking about? Insofar as your argument works, it shoots you in the foot, and insofar as it doesn't, you should stop bothering with it.
Please don't make false claims about me or my posts. I'm willing to bet that others can understand my point, and thereby understand that it's not unintelligible, but rather that it has been uncharitably misinterpretated by the likes of you and Thorongil.
If future generations are not missing out, then no one is missing out, and therefore there cannot possibly be anything to object to.
You cannot simply claim over and over that you understand that unborn people don't exist, and then go on to make claims that can only be sensibly interpreted if you do believe this. My guess is that you want to make such claims, but have been beaten back by obvious and appropriate objections, and are now scrambling for a way to say the same thing without claiming that you're saying it.
If not, please inform me in what way not robbing anyone of anything can possibly be 'unfortunate.'
I don't think that you understand my position, despite my having explained it more than a few times. I wouldn't call myself a natalist. I'm a relativist regarding the issue of whether or not birth is justified: sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't, depending on context.
The answer to your question, to reiterate an earlier point, is that it's better, in my view, to give them the opportunity to decide for themselves, once they're able to do so, than to take away the opportunity altogether. Given that there's no other realistic alternative for the living, since we cannot consult non-existent people or babies, that's the best option.
It is not possible to give someone the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they want to be born.
Quoting Sapientia
The other option is not to procreate, which is also the best option.
Don't be so ridiculous. Of course that isn't the only sensible interpretation. That's not a sensible interpretation at all, in that it results in absurdity.
It's unfortunate that no one else would get the opportunity to live a worthwhile life. It wouldn't literally be robbing anyone of anything, but my figurative point still stands. To say that it's unfortunate is not to suggest that there are disappointed non-existent people or anything like that. That would be an idiotic interpretation.
Obviously. I said as much myself in the next part of what you quoted.
Quoting The Great Whatever
And that is where we disagree. This is where the disagreement is substantial, and can't be resolved merely by correcting a trivial misunderstanding, unlike the other issue, although apparently I haven't been able to get through to you on that one, and it has grown tiresome.
Hear, hear!
That is not what you say. What you say is:
Quoting Sapientia
If the issue is that of being born (and what else could it be, given that we are discussing anti-natalism), there is no way to give such an opportunity, since there is no one to give such an opportunity to. In other words, the qualification 'once they're able to do so' does not make any sense.
Hopefully you can see from this what I mean by your numerous confusions.
Quoting Sapientia
You claimed, falsely, that the only option was... (well, what Im not sure, since as I just pointed out, your suggestion is literally incoherent). You are simply wrong that there is no other option, since there is one, viz. not procreating. Perhaps you think such an option is not 'reasonable?' But okay, why? And why should I care?
Okay, then answer this: unfortunate for who? Can something be unfortunate simpliciter, without being unfortunate for anyone? Think carefully, and consider what you yourself have said, before you call something 'idiotic.'
Quoting Sapientia
No opportunities are being taken away by not procreating. There is nobody to take such opportunities away from. Get it?
What I said was that we cannot consult non-existent people or babies. What you said was that it is not possible to give someone the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they want to be born. I'll leave it at that. The audience can see for themselves.
And just to clarify, in that quote, I was talking about the opportunity for people to judge the worth of their lives and whether or not to continue to live, not the opportunity to decide whether or not they want to be born.
Quoting The Great Whatever
I've already acknowledged that non-existent people and babies don't have such an opportunity. They get the opportunity some time after being born when they're old enough. Possible generations can become actual and babies don't remain babies forever. That's consistent with what I said. They're not initially capable of making that decision, so it's nonsense to even bring it up, as if there were some realistic alternative in that situation. Either one gets the opportunity at some point or that opportunity never arises. There's a difference between allowing that opportunity to arise and preventing it. That was what I was getting at. Try reading between the lines rather than trying to superficially catch me out on my wording. Stop being such a sophist and try a little charity. When talking about all of humankind, I think that it's better for that opportunity to naturally arise than to artificially take it away.
Quoting The Great Whatever
I understand what you're saying, but you're only showing your own confusions.
Quoting The Great Whatever
And that's another example, or so it seems. I'm not sure whether your misrepresentation is due to lack of understanding or whether you're intentionally twisting my words. Again, I'll leave it at that. The audience can see for themselves what I claimed, and judge for themselves whether you're being charitable.
I get that you're too stubborn to let this go, despite my repeated clarifications, and that you're hell bent on picking the most uncharitable of interpretations. I didn't say that the opportunity is being taken away from anyone, let alone anyone that doesn't exist. The opportunity, or at least it's possibility, would simply be taken away: post-extinction, it would no longer be a possibility for anyone to live a worthwhile life. They would never get the opportunity, and could never take advantage of it. Without taking global anti-natalist action, all things being equal, this opportunity will remain, as will its possibility, and it will likely be actualised over multiple generations.
I do admit that the lack of pleasure is an unfortunate thing. If, for example, we could perfectly forsee how someone's life would turn out, and we saw that they would just experience pleasure all the time with a negligible amount of pain, I would not be opposed to their birth. In fact, if they go on to help other people, I might even urge the parents to have the child.
But that is entirely hypothetical. The ethical responsibility we have is to not bring harm upon another individual. By not giving birth to a person, you are avoiding imposing harm upon the individual. And by not giving birth to them, they are not deprived nor benefited by anything (this is where I disagree with Benatar).
You make it seem as though the suffering that is occurring here on planet Earth has some purpose. The "great cost" of minimizing suffering is a cost that affects nobody but ourselves and our ultimately short-sighted desire for the continuation of the human race (i.e. the continuation of the cosmic drama).
If there's nothing wrong with an empty desert island, then there's nothing wrong with an empty desert cosmos.
Unfortunate for who?! The unborn don't exist! Hurr durr.
Guess who?
And yes, I've never disputed the fact that it doesn't affect the non-existent, despite some people in this discussion trying to make out that I have. But, like you say, it does (or rather would) effect the continuation of the human race, and this effect isn't one that I approve of. I do think that that's what it boils down to: the subjectivity of approval or disapproval. Perhaps others think that it's more of an objective matter, but I think that they'd be mistaken.
I know. It was tongue-in-cheek. I was mimicing the criticism that keeps being directed at me by others in this discussion, and by one person in particular. Hence the "Guess who?".
You cannot take away an opportunity to live, without taking it away from someone. It makes no sense to say it is just 'taken away.' What does that even mean?
This is not what anti-natalism is about. It is about birth.
At the same time, though, if you can't take away the opportunity to live from a potential person, then neither can you save them from future suffering. This was Cabrera's criticism of Benatar's misuse of counterfactuals.
I missed this one. By the way, I've edited some of my replies for sake of clarity - not that I expect it'll do much good.
It's important to note that I can only speak hypothetically with regards to certain things here. I don't find the prospect of the early extinction of humanity appealing. I don't approve of the consequences. So I think that it'd be unfortunate for humanity. It would be unfortunate for some amongst the living - those who had wished otherwise; and, if you imagine a different parallel universe in which humanity did not go extinct after this generation, but lived on through subsequent generations in which some people lived worthwhile lives; and if you then reflect that in this world, that is a possible future, then it's unfortunate in that sense also. It would be unfortunate if no one else got the opportunity to live a worthwhile life, but instead had the possibility taken away by the purposeful actions of the living.
I don't think that that's unintelligible nonsense. It's understandable, it makes sense, and people can relate to it, and agree with it.
I already explained what I meant in the quote that you replied to. I meant that, as a consequence, what was a possibility would become an impossibility. The opportunity for the opportunity to even arise. Right now there is an opportunity to procreate and thereby grant others the opportunities in life. This would be taken away, removed, it would cease to exist as a result of our own actions.
Quoting The Great Whatever
C'mon, we all know that it's about more than just that. I suspect you're being a tad disingenuous. It involves other things, too. Pessimism. The two go hand in hand. Like I said earlier, it relies on certain premises about life and the world: about the effect that the suffering that exists in the world has on the quality of life.
Indeed, and that's a good point. It cuts both ways.
I do think that we can still say those sorts of things, without speaking gibberish, to get the point across, though. It's like saying that so-and-so is turning in his grave. So-and-so isn't literally turning in his grave; he isn't actually disapproving. No one's literally being robbed or saved. That isn't actually the case.
That isn't the point of figurative language or counterfactuals.
I'm not necessarily disagreeing with you.
He can't agree with that without conceding much of what he fervently disputed in the recent disagreement between him and I. Despite my qualification, he maintained that the only sensible interpretation of such a claim implies that unborn people exist. Any nuance is nothing more than unintelligible nonsense, apparently.
A state of affairs where there is a deprivation of pleasure is bad only if someone actually exists to be deprived. Otherwise, it is not bad (or good) if there is no actual person already born to experience good.
A state of affairs where there is a deprivation of pain is good in either the case where someone actually exists or the case where there is no actual person that the lack of pain is happening to.
At its core, the argument is saying that in the specific case of procreation, there is no duty to create people that may experience pleasure, but there is a stronger case that there is a duty to not create people that may experience harm. That is the logical crux of the argument. The rest of the book goes on with conclusions that derive from this initial asymmetry.
Benatar actually doesn't say this specifically, he uses counterfactuals to get around the absurd conclusion that the barren, icy wasteland of Pluto is overwhelmingly good because of the lack of pain. Unless of course you are willing to say that a barren, icy wasteland is good simply because there is no pain.
Unfortunately, this also leads to problems as we usually do not leap out of bed for joy when contemplating the lack of pain on Pluto. It's a "good thing" in an impersonal, "if-then" counterfactual sense, not in the actual sense.
However, if we use counterfactuals for the lack of pain, then we are obligated to use counterfactuals for the lack of pleasure. Otherwise it's begging the question.
But, his point was that it is not bad if there is no actual person who is deprived of good. That is the counterfactual. It is good that there is no actual person who is experiencing pain.
The implication with both of these is that you must believe that possibilities exist and that something different could have been the case. Really it should be expanded:
If there is a possibility of a state of affairs where an actual person could exist, and they do not actually exist, it is not bad if there is no actual person that exists and is deprived of good.
If there is a possibility of a state of affairs where an actual person could exist, and they do not actually exist, it is good if there is no actual person that exists that is experiencing pain.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Lack of pleasure is neither good nor bad, it is indifferent.
If it is not bad if there is no actual person who is deprived of good, then it is not good if there is no actual person who is deprived of bad.
That only makes sense if you think that pain is good. Clearly Benatar and others think that pain is bad. Again, you also must include possibilities. If good could have occurred to an actual person but did not (because a state of affairs where a possibility could have occurred but did not), this is not bad because nothing was affected by the non-experience of good. If bad could have occurred to an actual person but did not (because a state of affairs where a possibility could have occurred but did not), this is good because there was no one affected by the experience of bad.
And it only makes sense to say that a deprivation of pleasure is not-bad if you don't consider pleasure to be good.
I say, scrap the asymmetry, it's made things more confusing than anything and there's better arguments for antinatalism anyway.
This avoids the absurd conclusion that a pinprick voids a birth that would otherwise be filled with an omega-sequence of happiness.
I agree that there is no duty to create people that may experience pleasure, but I don't think that the morality of it depends upon it being a matter of duty. I don't agree that there is a duty to not create people that may experience harm. So, I'd argue that there is a symmetry, rather than an asymmetry, in terms of there being no duty in either case. I'd further argue that there is an asymmetry in terms of morality, for example, in that good can arise from the lives of subsequent generations, but no such good can arise from the extinction of humanity after the current generation.
I reject this:
Quoting schopenhauer1
For a similar reason to this:
Quoting darthbarracuda
The complete absence of pain, e.g. on Pluto, strikes me as amoral. The complete absence of pain from life strikes me as detrimental. And the complete absence of pain where that entails the early extinction of life also strikes me as detrimental. The cost outweighs the benefit. Reducing excessive suffering: good, but not at any cost. Wiping suffering out altogether: bad, especially when it entails the extinction of life.
But that is not the full argument. Benatar agrees that deprivation of pleasure is bad for actual people (or rather, the state of affairs where someone possibly could exist and they actually do).
However, the state of affairs where a new person could possibly exist and does not actually occur, means that the possibility of pleasure without it actually being experienced is not bad. This is unlike pain "not happening" to anyone being good even if there is no individual experiencing the pain "not happening" to them.
The asymmetry is that there needs to be an actual person for deprivation of pleasure to be bad. There does not need to be an actual person for the deprivation of bad to be good. It is simply "good" that no new person experiences pain. It is not bad or good if there is no new person to exist to experience good.
This also leads to the idea that during the procreation decision, one does not have a duty to create beings with happy lives, but one does have a duty to prevent beings who suffer.
I'm curious about what the argument for that is, because on the face of it, it looks like special pleading. But don't feel like you have to explain it. I suppose I could look it up myself.
Again, though, this falls into the counterfactual abuse. If there does not need to be an actual person for the deprivation of bad to be good, then there does not need to be a person for the deprivation of good to be bad. Benatar is putting the cart before the horse, i.e. begging the question. If you read Cabrera's paper on this, he shows how Benatar relies on a pessimistic outlook to validate the asymmetry.
You are correct, we have a duty not to impose sufficient harm upon another individual. But, I think you will agree with me that if we have a scenario in which we know (for sure, 100%, no doubt), that the person born will experience a single pain in their life (a pinprick) and then proceed to experience a limitless omega sequence of pleasure, we might feel the urge the have this child. In fact, we might even feel sad if we don't have this child, because we missed an opportunity. To not have this child because they would experience a pinprick would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
What this shows is that there is an asymmetry in the value we place upon pain and pleasure. If we use counterfactuals, the absence of pain is good and the absence of pleasure is bad, but we place more emphasis on the absence of pain. We consider the pain before we consider the pleasure. We do not take unnecessary risks. And so while the absence of pleasure may be a bad thing, the imposition of extreme suffering is an even worse thing, one that seems to completely over-rule the badness of the absence of pleasure.
Thus, the asymmetry heavily relies on a pessimistic outlook on life, in which life is filled with suffering (or the potential thereof).
Benatar uses the "not-bad" label for the absence of pleasure because it is a quick and handy heuristic, not because it actually reflects upon the reality of our ethical intuitions.
That's basically what I've been saying, but I don't think that it's necessary to go to such extremes. The point applies to any case in which the suffering doesn't render life unworthy of continuance over generations. We can cope with a hell of a lot more than a pinprick and still see the value in continuing life.
There is a difference between confronting opposition and rising above in triumph, and just mucking around in mediocrity as most people do in life. Ultimately the pleasure that life brings is not enough to justify the pain that life also brings, despite what the television shows tell you.
I never said there were not any initial assumptions. His assumptions are that ethics in the decision for procreation are only relevant when considering the prevention of someone from experiencing harm. He also seems to imply that the promotion of happiness in individuals that can possibly exist, but does not exist yet and is not relevant to ethics. Once born, then it is too late for wholesale prevention of a being that experiences harm, now the calculus changes to conventional maximizing of good and minimizing of harm as much as one could or wants.
I think he said something to the affect that, according to his logic, even a pinprick would not justify being born, if the initial state was not existing in the first place. Again, that is the assumption that preventing harm is an absolute intrinsic ethical line he is not willing to cross in this matter. However, he does not leave it there as he realizes most people will not agree to that. Therefore, he lightens it up by describing how we indeed do experience much harm but that coping and adjusting to harms is not an excuse for actually experiencing them in the first place. Hence, he goes into ideas about how we cope such as Pollyainism, adjusting to non-ideal outcomes, and comparing to people who are worse off to try to mitigate our own harm.
I think that is what he is kind of getting at. If you want to split hairs over "not bad" and a longer version of what you said to the effect of we place more emphasis on the absence of pain and we consider pain before we consider pleasure, then in effect, the logic is the same.
I do think he has a point though that since there is no perspective to even feel deprived, there is literally no harm done to anything by the possibility of happiness remaining not actual. However, since the possibility did not become actual, there is no perspective to even feel harm. This can be considered a good thing, as preventing actual harm from occurring is a good thing.
Again, the premium is that prevention of harm is the core of the ethics. The child did not need happiness. As I have said in the past, no one needs to live life to experience "x" this or that principle, especially when we know harm is almost always a guarantee.
I think that it's contorting things, and inserting one's self in the business of others too much to say that we have a moral obligation to prevent harm, or suffering. Much craziness and abuse seems to follow from that. Though I can see how this unreasonable extension may be necessary to make antinatalism sound more reasonable.
I don't think it is splitting hairs, though. I think it is pointing out flaws where flaws exist. Benatar's asymmetry has been systematically misinterpreted and rejected by otherwise intelligent people, and may be because it is not entirely coherent itself. Unfortunately, Benatar is made out to be like the Jesus of antinatalism and so to reject Benatar's asymmetry is often seen as a rejection of antinatalism, which is not the case at all.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Schop1, again, this is falling into the counterfactual abuse and assuming a kind of anti-frustrationism/negative utilitarianism beforehand. If preventing actual harm from occurring is a good thing (for whom?), then preventing actual pleasure from occurring is a bad thing. What differs is how much emphasis we place on the duty to prevent pain compared to the duty to impose pleasure.
I'll tell you honestly that it is difficult for me to find the lack of pleasure to be a "bad" thing, because pleasure comes at such a high price (pain, etc), and the pain is more severe than the greatest of pleasures. But imagine a modal universe that is completely different from ours, in which those born don't even feel pain at all, ever. Dissatisfaction, boredom, misery, death, etc are all unheard of, it is all bliss and harmony. I would be surprised if you responded that there is no impetus to create another person. It may not be the looming feeling of guilt that is associated with creating a child that will experience pain, but ultimately I do believe that you will concede that abstaining from bringing at least one child into existence into this perfect, blissful world is kind of weird.
Meh. Splitting hairs, I say. Not really flawed, so can't agree with that.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Well, I don't really care that other people think Benatar's arguments are not valid. There are things I think he can tweak to make the argument better, but the general gist of it is valid. Not to say that one shouldn't be critical of all arguments, I just don't think just because someone is critical, means they are right in their criticisms.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Correct, but I also think people have misinterpreted the argument on all sides, not just the ones that agree with him.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Again, I agree that there are always initial assumptions. Classic Utilitarianism- the assumption is happiness maximization, deontology- the assumption is duty or intent, moral sense theory- the assumption is a moral sense that most people have, etc. etc. The assumption here seems to be the following:
- Harm is bad/not desirable (and can be subjective or objective but not relevant to this point)
- Pleasure is good/ desirable (and can be subjective or objective but not relevant to this point).
- Prevention of harm is absolutely good
- Preventing happiness is only relatively bad as you need to have an actual person for this to be realized
As far as the hero-worship thing, I get it. I really do not need Benatar's asymmetry to justify antinatalism, but it certainly does not detract from it.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I do think most antinatalists would agree with this. If the world was ideal and blissful, there would be no reason to prevent birth. Obviously that is not the actual world, and a world that was built in an ideal way would be foreign to us. Even the notion of a world without suffering or pain is odd. It is something you can make a rough idea about, but cannot completely understand unless one was living in it, I would suspect. Of course, I doubt these types of debates would even be happening in that kind of world. But then again, I do not know. Ideal is a very broad term and can be used in many ways.
Ideal could be living in a world perfectly attuned to the individual's notion of what is good or pleasurable.
I certainly think people might have the assumption that life is supposed to be there to teach lessons (for what I don't know- maybe some idealized death-bed scene where one is fully self-actualized in all that they learned from life or something). That I think goes with many people's justification for suffering. Somehow, they might say it is elevating as it teaches perseverance, so should be celebrated and thus more people should be born in order to have to persevere through life. Perseverance, along with happiness, and a few other principles or qualities thrown in there are the usual mix of reasons why it is deemed acceptable or good to procreate.
Now you're sounding like TGW. I don't get my philosophy from television shows or McDonald's ads.
It is not hair splitting because it shows that Benatar has a goal in mind (to show that birth is immoral), and then proceeds to construct an argument that argues for this (cart before the horse).
If the world was not filled with excessive suffering, I wonder if Benatar would still have written his book.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, but if you are saying this as though you are agreeing with these premises, then I must only say that if the prevention of happiness is only relatively bad, then the prevention of harm is only relatively good.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Usually this is in addition to a belief in a god and an afterlife. An eternity of blissful heaven with a omnibenevolent (?) god would seem to make the petty toils here on earth seem unproblematic.
Really it's the depressive that gets their sentiments from cliche. The notions that happiness and stupidity are correlated, and intelligence, or artistic ability are correlated with misery. Even that mental illness is correlated with artistic skill/genius, or that truth is a terrible downer, and fiction is always pleasant. Most of that is demonstrably untrue, and that truth is always terrible, and fiction always good seems obviously wrong to me. Paranoia, and fear cause more damage than truth ever has. The cognitive evaluation, and belief that there is a nobility in feeling awful about the state of the world and life, I can't see doing anyone any good.
One is apparently super opposed to suffering, but if you're not miserable then you're ignoble, or delusional... which is bad...
Well, welcome to philosophy. There is no a priori argument that lacks basic axioms/assumptions. No math, no dialectics on ethics, etc.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I wouldn't see how he would. You have to know something exists, or at least its hypothetical existence to write about it, I would think.
Quoting darthbarracuda
You mustn't do anything. I do happen to agree that preventing harm is absolutely good and preventing good is only relatively good. That is the axiom which this particular argument rests. To put it another way, though happiness is good, depriving happy experiences is not ethically relevant (preventing the possible experiencer of happiness from becoming actual), but preventing harm is (preventing the possible experiencer of harm from becoming actual).
Quoting darthbarracuda
I suspect that is a view many people hold or have held in past generations.
There's a difference between starting out with basic axioms to argue on and the manipulation of axioms to fit your needs.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What I meant was if the only pain that we knew of were little toe stubs and a headache every now and then, I wonder if he would have constructed his asymmetry. The asymmetry largely becomes rather absurd if there isn't an overwhelming amount of suffering that effectively cancels out the pleasure in life.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I would argue that if there is a potential for sufficient suffering, this cancels out the opportunity for pleasure. Pleasure, in both our views, is supererogatory. It is only when the risk (of suffering) becomes sufficient that it is not ethically justified to partake in a certain action.
Where do you (think you) get your philosophy from?
If the principle of the prevention of harm is not absolute and at the core of the ethics, then necessity in that regard isn't necessary to counter the argument. It's sufficient to argue that it'd be a better alternative. This principle is the weak spot.
Do you think people get their axioms from divine on high? Whether people are influenced by other philosophers, their own inclinations, life experiences, anecdotes from others, their family, or otherwise, the axioms will come from somewhere. No axioms on ethics, however, are going to come from some purely logical goddess of logic whispering sweet formulations of pure truth. Even starting as an extreme skeptic on all matters of truth, any time you start a positive argument (that is, one that is not wholly there to find a contradiction in the original argument), starts from some axiom. I'm willing to bet most philosophers' axioms are biased towards the author's initial inclination, hopefully after being exposed to many other arguments. This is all the more so when value judgements in ethical matters are discussed. Benatar may have originally thought life was not so good before he formulated his asymmetry, but giving a "charitable" understanding of the argument itself, the argument, in my view, is valid. Now, whether the premises in which it lies are sound, that can be a different matter.
Clearly, Benatar is at least consistent. He thinks ALL harm is bad, in the most absolute terms. This, to me is not manipulation so much as it is a very particular kind of view of what is ethically bad. Therefore, he comes up with the conclusion that even a pinprick is enough to disqualify procreation. However, he does recognize that this is a view that most people will not hold, thus he seems to indicate that even if one is not an absolutist, but more lenient in the threshold of pain that is permissible to procreate, empirical studies demonstrate how humans tend to make excuses or discount harms that exist when reporting on the overall evaluation of life.
I'd also like to broaden the discussion beyond Benatar's asymmetry. I just happened to get stuck in the weeds in terms of defending an interpretation of his asymmetry. Though it is one argument, I would also like to discuss the instrumentality of life, the circumstances of a non-ideal world, or Schopenhauer's understanding of striving.
As an aside, there have been times when I stumbled into a philosophical conclusion that changed my view on things. In the course of discussing matters of science, for example, I went from a position on the philosophy of mind, that can be characterized as emergentist of sorts in the scientific naturalist sense to at least entertaining notions of panpsychism. So, I am not discounting that people will change their minds when presented with compelling arguments or with certain self-generated thesis' that come from a newly realized way of looking at the subject.
One can still apply the asymmetry in non-absolutist terms, so I don't see how this really matters.
I am apt to agree with him that all harm is bad, but to say that the lack of bad is good and the lack of good is not-bad is question begging. Benatar claims his asymmetry is independent of the pain/pleasure calculus of the world, but this is plainly false; a world where there was an overwhelming amount of pleasure compared to pain would obviously be worth being born into.
Benatar has a position: antinatalism, and uses a nifty tool, the asymmetry, as a heuristic to claim that all birth no matter what is always immoral. To a person such as myself and to assumingly you as well who see the world as filled with suffering and the potential thereof, the asymmetry is merely icing on the cake. (Actually the asymmetry was my first introduction to antinatalism and originally convinced me). But for others, the works of Schopenhauer and co. are not going to convince many people because most people don't have the time, patience, nor do they give a damn to read them. So Benatar comes up with a heuristic that starts out from a pessimistic axiom and creates an argument that can supposedly be used universally.
And I applaud his work (it initially convinced me and led me to antinatalism), but a flawed argument is a flawed argument. In the end, it comes back to a subjective calculus of life, the same subjectivity that Benatar was attempting to avoid via his asymmetry.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I'm not sure what you mean by the instrumentality of life. Can you elaborate please? Do you mean that life has no cosmic purpose?
I agree with the non-ideal world idea: the world is inadequate the human psyche's needs.
I tend to like to use the concept of tanha rather than the Will.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's all about property dualism bruh.
The argument, as presented, assumes a deontological ethics. Wosret has also criticised this view, at least regarding the prevention of suffering.
Perfect?! It would be nightmarish, for the same reason that a world of Stepford wives would be nightmarish, and for the same reason that a world in which we're all hooked up to pleasure machines would be nightmarish.
You are bringing in ideas of discord. There would be no discord. An ideal world would indeed be alien to us. You could not even characterize it, because it is so foreign to our perspective of our world, so descriptions like "Stepford Wives" would not even be fair to apply. We can only get at it through veiled notions of what a perfectly ideal world would be.
Clearly his intuition does not think this is plain or obvious. What this gets at again is that people have axioms. The axioms may lead to some jarring conclusions, but apparently, he thinks harm is never good in any circumstance, even one where there is a world with much less harm than is possible in our current one. What I really do not want to do is pretend to speak for Benatar, as right now it is a mix of his stuff and mine. I do not even have the book with me, so I really think it would be a discredit for me to attempt to defend his reasoning for his axioms. I can only give you my interpretations thereof.
Quoting darthbarracuda
We have a slightly different interpretation of how it is flawed. I do not think the logic is flawed, but the premises may be flawed. The logic can be tweaked with less absolute interpretations. I also think you may not give him credit for anticipating this when he goes on regarding empirical evidence why indeed the amount of suffering is much more than pinpricks and trivial harms. So, to use a phrase you like, "don't necessarily throw the baby out with the bath water". Certainly, I think there can be additions to his formulation that make it more accurate as to the premise. Even better, some people have done better reformulations, expanded the argument etc. As I think you have acknowledged here, his heuristic was innovative and has started other, possibly more detailed and accurate ones that reflect a similarity to his original, but with a bit different axioms than his absolutist premise of harm.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, this is my phrase for the emptiness of our pursuits. Here are some earlier quotes I said about it:
[quote=schopenhauer1]I use the word instrumentality because that captures the idea that there is some sort of emptiness/incompleteness at the end of all endeavors. We are doing to do to do to do. But this ceaseless flux and feeling of emptiness is itself a form of suffering. Now, again, we can argue that this is temperament, but certainly, at least some individuals see this throughout the history of civilizations and seem to not be contingent only on a few specific people, but is a relatively common viewpoint.[/quote]
[quote=schopenhauer1]When we get our goals, we quickly succumb to a sort of existential angst that reflects the instrumentality of existence in terms of the constant need to keep ourselves alive, comfortable, and entertained. Time presses on us and we feel its affects in our need for need and our existential angst when reflected on life itself without anything in particular to strive for. Schopenhauer's understanding is closer to home, it is the life we actually live, not a philosopher's dream of pure intellectual devotion. Schopenhauer's vision is closer to the reality of the human condition which takes into account the restless nature of the human psyche, the deprivation of contentment that motivates us all, and the contingent nature of existence impinging upon us. The contingent nature of reality along with our own inner restless nature is closer to what is going on.[/quote]
And here is an oldy but goody in my more grandiose days (but still pretty accurate I think):
[quote=schopenhauer1]Even if some fulfillment of the initial state of lack leads to some positive outcomes, these are usually temporary. Besides, even if there is happy moments, the basic lack of something should make you wonder if there is something suspect about the whole enterprise. There is simply a movement forward, what Schopenhauer would call "Will". The ceaseless striving of things has no overall purpose except perhaps to survive or continue to move forward, which begs the question (we survive to survive to survive, endlessly striving for nothing, but to keep it going). Look at ennui- boredom. This is a state of our striving having no particular aim. You can see it turn in on itself right before your very eyes. It is the weariness of the striving brought to the foreground- not distracted from any particular pursuit. This is the time for real reflection- not when one is occupied by this or that, but when one has run out of goals and simply stares at the void head-on. If happiness is coming from a state of dissatisfaction and lack of something, what is that telling you about the true nature of happiness? If we strip off our human emotions, we can see the inner-workings of pure Will or striving.[/quote]
Only from the perspective of this world we know. Also, perhaps your version of reality would have discord to make it less nightmarish. If you are a subjectivist in terms of ideality- than the condition of the world would be set up such that you would have whatever discord, perseverance, and the like you wanted and could be turned off at any instance as well. If you are a Schopenhaurian, then ideality would be a state of no lack of anything and no flux. Again, all these ideas (it could be many different versions) are foreign to us, and from a perspective of someone who has only experienced non-ideal situations would be understandably strange and even hostile to what we have grown accustomed to. But the very notion of a perfectly ideal world would make it a world in which whatever negative label you have for it would not even be a part of its reality because it is so perfect.
You do seem to have the assumption of a sort of telos. What I mean by this can be summed up in a recent quote:
Quoting schopenhauer1
If you have not already read Cabrera's paper, I would recommend you do so.
Benatar is attempting to avoid the subjective calculus of life that his pessimistic predecessors advocated. This is why he made the asymmetry; it is a universal heuristic. Additionally, he recently was chief editor of a book on "analytic existentialism" which, interestingly enough, fails to include any pessimistic continental philosophers.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, actually, I'm not assuming any sort of telos. I'm an existential nihilist. We can learn from life experience, but life isn't there to do the teaching. There's no purpose to be discovered, but we can create our own. Life is just life, it's just there, and is indifferent to whether or not we prosper or suffer. But I think that a life without any suffering wouldn't be as fulfilling as one with a proportionate amount. I do think that there is some truth to what you say about elevation and perseverance in the face of suffering. Nietzsche had some interesting things to say about that. But that isn't the line that I take. I don't think that it's necessary to try to turn the tables and claim that suffering is a good thing. It isn't so black and white. I think that it's sufficient to point out those cases in which the suffering doesn't render life not worth living or reproducing. I think that some amount of suffering is essential to life. A life without suffering would be unnatural, and isn't a realistic possibility in any case.
You have to qualify "essential". That seems to have some baggage which you claim to reject. However, you can try to prove me wrong. If you mean that suffering goes along with survival, then I guess I agree. However, this does not really prove a point for why life is worth starting or even continuing. No, rather, the perseverance principle seems to be some sort of transcendental elevating which I find unjustified. As you say about suffering, we just suffer, it just is. Same with perseverance. Yes, it is necessary to not go crazy, suicidal, or to not give up on any task or life in general. This is simply begging the question that we need life to life to life to life. This actually goes back to the instrumentality of things. We do need to persevere for life to persevere to life..etc. just because that is what we do. That amounts (if we strip all the verbiage) to "We do to do". This is not saying much.
Quoting Sapientia
I am not sure about your usage of "natural". One can say that anything that happens is natural because is what exists. As for being a realistic possibility, I agree that an ideal existence is not reality, hence why it may not be worth starting a life.
It's essential to live a healthy, fully functioning, and more fulfilling life. I reject only the metaphysical associations. I do, however, think that suffering serves an important purpose or function or role in terms of biology and psychology. But, just like an autoimmune disease, it can turn on the very organism that it's supposed to serve, as it does in cases of clinical depression.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It wasn't supposed to. Not in and of itself. I originally brought it up in response to the purely hypothetical scenario of a life without any suffering.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Transcendental elevating?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, yes, but that doesn't say much. It's also necessary to get the most out of life. Imagine if we all gave up after encountering the first hurdle. Think of all of the valuable things in life that we'd miss out on. And yes, there would of course be more hurdles, some of them seemingly insurmountable. I'm not denying that. I for one do not regret ultimately deciding not to throw in the towel after going through some particularly hard times.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Instrumentality isn't inherently bad, you know. I don't even think that it's all that relevant. I don't get your bizarre attempt to make out that there's some sort of devastating infinite regress at play. We persevere in the hope that things will get better. We persevere because we think that no matter how bad it presently is or seems, it's not worth giving up. We don't persevere for nothing or for the sake of it. We don't just go on living because it's what we do. Like I said, we create our own purpose in life, and sadly, some people choose not to go on living.
So, no, it's not like we're robots stuck on autopilot, or like we're some trivial commodity on a production line in the factory of life, being spurned out and disposed of after we expire, our only function being to live meaninglessly until we die. The opportunities in life are great and plentiful.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well, yes, there is a variety of legitimate ways in which the word can be used - some relatively narrow, others more broad. But one thing's for sure, if it hasn't ever occurred in nature, and is unlikely to do so for the foreseeable future, then it ain't natural. Hence, human life without any suffering whatsoever is indeed unnatural.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I think that that's an absurd way of looking at it. We can't obtain some false ideal, therefore it's better to just give up?!
Because of this reliance on pathos, I believe Benatar knew that any kind of philosophy that advocated anti-birth would be ridiculed or simply rejected out of a sheer knee-jerk disgust or by an attempt to appeal to the positives of life. Thus, Benatar developed an all-or-nothing analytic argument to compensate for the lack of pure logical rigor in the alternative pessimistic literature, although he still appeals to the pathos, Continental-like philosophy when justifying his asymmetry.
Curiously, as I pointed out briefly earlier, Benatar hardly includes any of the European, more Continental-like (or even transcultural) philosophies when he produced his book "Life, Death, and Meaning", although he does include work by Hume and Schopenhauer.
Later in another book on antinatalism produced by Benatar and Wasserman, Benatar formulates another analytic argument, this time from the misanthropic stance: what if you give birth to Hitler?
Overall, it is admirable how dedicated Benatar seems to be regarding making antinatalism a forcible and persuasive stance, even if his argument(s) are not, under further analysis, perfect.
.
See? This is why it's not all about birth, and why your earlier dismissal of my comment on that basis was unjustified. The alternative sentiment is also based on having been through life and knowing what it's like, but the conclusion involves the rejection of taking that decision (the anti-natalist decision, that is, namely, the decision to prevent human life from occurring* because you know better than they ever would that life - their life - wouldn't even be worth starting, let alone living through) into our own hands, and opting instead to go with the alternative, which would give someone else the opportunity, at some point, to judge things for themselves and take matters into their own hands.
(*I don't necessarily mean prevent by any means or against the will of other living humans).
Also, note how we can both talk about a hypothetical someone without talking nonsense. Remarkable, eh?
Quoting The Great Whatever
Perhaps, perhaps not.
The anti-natalist position is about birth.
Quoting Sapientia
You cannot decide that you know better than a non-existent person.
Quoting Sapientia
I am not talking about a hypothetical person. And it's still nonsense -- but at least you're admitting what you're doing now?
I don't think anything you've said here, or in this thread, is intelligible unless you imagine people so to speak 'lined up' at the gates of heaven waiting to be put into physical bodies, and the anti-natalist talking them and saying 'I know better than you that life is bad, so I'm not letting you come into the world,' and so turning them down or 'preventing' them from being born. But this picture is nonsense, so what you say is not intelligible.
A most salient admission. I'll take it as proof that my objection to you was correct after all.
Oh really? Thanks for pointing that out yet again. You should keep on repeating these comments ad nauseam, rather than actually address my points.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Oh really? Neither can you.
Quoting The Great Whatever
Oh really? Who were you talking about then? This should be good. You couldn't have been talking about anyone living, since, according to you, they're already "going through that", so it wouldn't make sense to say that you wouldn't want to put anyone else through that. You also couldn't have been talking about a hypothetical someone who could exist in the future, but doesn't actually exist in the here-and-now, because you've just denied it and have repeatedly claimed that that's nonsense. Conclusion: you're the one talking nonsense.
I reckon that it was the latter: you meant that you wouldn't want to put anyone else through that, and if someone was born, then they'd go through that. But you don't want to admit to it because then you'd have to concede.
Quoting Thorongil
Are you two high? Or is it just that you can't grasp the logic of what I said? Because noting that we can both talk about a hypothetical someone without talking nonsense doesn't logically imply that I've done the exact opposite. At least TGW didn't seem as cocksure.
If I want some feedback, I'll seek it elsewhere, from a source that isn't hopelessly biased.
Let's talk sleep/unconsciousness/resuscitation via CPR or other means: if you are of the opinion that coming into existence is always a harm, is waking up from sleep or being resuscitated while unconscious undesirable?
This will obviously include the discussion of personal identity, but I assume that most if not all of us are willing to accept that personal identity is at least partly (if not entirely) composed of conscious awareness (a feeling of selfhood).
Going further, then, when one goes to sleep or goes into an unconscious state and then awakes, is the individual who wakes again the "same" individual?
If not, then the strict antinatalist seems to be in a tricky situation as it would seem as though they would be obligated to make sure they do not wake up again. For if they do wake up again, they will have created a conscious entity without its explicit consent; that is, they will have brought into existence an individual that would have otherwise stayed in non-existence.
What about CPR/other means of resuscitation? Can the strict antinatalist be okay with resuscitating unconscious individuals? What if they didn't want to be resuscitated?
If one answers that the probability of them desiring to be resuscitated is high, this contradicts the antinatalist's (presumed) position regarding consent in birth, for someone else could easily just say that the probability of the child enjoying their life and appreciating being born is high.
Perhaps the bullet ought to be bitten. Perhaps we ought to have little cards that tell passerbys whether or not they should attempt to resuscitate us.
Yes. For me anyway, waking up is horrible. I really can't stand it, because then it hits me that I'm still alive and have another day to suffer through. It's not strictly speaking being alive that's unbreable, but being conscious, and waking up makes you conscious.
That said, I don't think it would be productive to kill anyone, including sleeping people, or force them not to wake up. That will just cause more misery among the living.
My god, it's so silly that I have to explain the difference between present tense and future tense. You really should know the difference already. To state that they DO not miss out doesn't contradict the claim that they WOULD miss out IF such-and-such bla-de-bla. Get it? If not, please go back to school and stop bothering me.
Yes, but that's obviously not the condition - or not the [I]only[/I] condition - I had in mind, so your reply is either an [I]ignoratio elenchi[/I] or a straw man.
I refer you back to my previous post where I provided an explanation in terms of future possibilities, and brought up a thought experiment involving parallel universes and hypothetical scenarios. You know, one of the many posts of mine that you ignored or failed to understand or twisted or replied with an irrelevant, short, single sentence truism that I've never disputed.
Then why did you say it?
Quoting Sapientia
This is irrelevant, isn't it? They neither DO nor WOULD miss out.
In a hypothetical scenario in which a child was born, that child WOULD suffer. In a hypothetical scenario in which no child was born, no child WOULD suffer. Do you understand the asymmetry? It is possible to subject an actual person to misery by birthing them, but not to deny anyone anything, hypothetical or otherwise, by abstaining from birth.
I can sympathise. That's how I feel when arguing against you.
I didn't. I said "IF such-and-such and bla-de-bla" because I'm tired of repeating myself. You've predictably filled that part in however you like, rather than spend the time and effort involved in grasping what I was getting at or simply asking me to clarify.
Quoting The Great Whatever
No, there is a sense in which it makes sense to say that they would miss out, but you'd have to interpret what I've said charitably, and take what I've previously stated into consideration, but it seems as though you have no interest in doing so, so why should I bother to explain myself again? You haven't actually argued against it. You've just denied it or claimed that it's nonsense without justifying that claim.
This way of talking is demonstrably not nonsensical if interpreted correctly, as in the example I gave earlier of the phrase "turning in one's grave".
Why you and Thorongil deny or fail to even grasp this is beyond me, unless it's a case of wilful ignorance.
This is the use of counterfactuals to describe a potential, possible world, which is plausibly at least a component of our ability to conduct debates about modality.
Anyhoo, it's pretty easy to see, at least to myself (and others here as well) that the valuable things "missed" are not as important as the terrible things "avoided". There is nothing wrong with keeping people in non-existence.
And we can further use counterfactuals by arguing that a potential person "has" the right to consent to exist. Since they cannot consent, do not give birth.
I don't agree with that second paragraph if you're suggesting that it's necessarily true and/or true of every case and would (or would likely) be true of every possible case in the future.
But the big problem here is that the other two can't even grasp, or won't accept, this counterfactual manner of talking as meaningful or true. We haven't really been able to move past it. They've consistently missed the point or twisted my words or outright dismissed it as false or nonsensical. I mean, just look at the next reply. But you seem more sensible.
Regarding your third paragraph, in the sense we're talking about, I agree with that first sentence, and the second sentence is also true, but only for a certain period of time. It's true that babies or hypothetical people can't consent to life, but capable adults can (or rather they can affirm or reject it, and they have a choice, and are at some liberty to take matters into their own hands and choose which path to travel down or to cut the journey short), so I don't see it as being as big of an issue as you do. As I said to you before, it's a cost that can pale in comparison to the benefits. (N.B. [I]can[/I], not necessarily [I]will[/I]. There are various factors and things to consider, and our own subjective evaluation comes into play, although some might wish to maintain the pretence of complete objectivity).
"In a figurative sense?" No, in no sense.
Quoting Sapientia
Then what are you actually saying? What does the word "actually" do here? Is anyone missing out? No. Would anyone be? No. So what's your point? What does it mean to figuratively miss out on something?
I'm glad that you acknowledge the subjectivity of it, but I suspect that you go further than I would with the appropriation part. I would say that some cases are more clearcut than others. If taken to extremes, we can more easily judge the value of a certain life - whether that be the life of an actual person or a hypothetical life. We can imagine a life of extreme misery, and in contrast, we can imagine a much better life. But there is a large grey area in between, and of course, although we can take certain factors into consideration, we don't have a crystal ball with which we can rightly appropriate the value of the lives of all of those within that grey area.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, that's at the heart of the issue. My answer is that it can be. So, we shouldn't rule it out.
Quoting darthbarracuda
The part in bold is what I think really matters. The former part could be conceded. It may well be the case that there is, in a certain sense, a greater and disproportionate amount of misery compared to fulfilment. But what matters is the effect that this has on the value of life. If the misery to fulfilment ratio was, say, 2:1, it doesn't follow that the detrimental effect that the former has on the value of life outweighs the beneficial effect of the latter. I don't think that you can successfully argue that that is true of every case, so I think that your position is untenable.
The fact that we don't have a crystal ball means that we probably shouldn't be messing around with stuff that affects other people.
Quoting Sapientia
Regardless of the misery/value distinction, there is a threshold that once stepped over, the value of life drops significantly. In fact I would be willing to bet (based off of psychological and anthropological findings) that the value people derive from their lives is post hoc at best, that is, a derivation of relief that allows them to comfort themselves.
Again, since there is no way to predict how a person will end up, we probably shouldn't be experimenting.
You can use that same reasoning to argue that we should let other people have children, and let those children live their lives unaffected by the actions of present-day antinatalists. (Of course, you and I both understand that they wouldn't technically be affected if they never exist, but I think that you catch my drift, bearing in mind what could be[/I] and what could cease to be a possibility). I also get that you don't argue in favor of [i]enforced antinatalism, but the point still stands when you once again consider what [i]could be[/I] if we were all antinatalists. It's hard to overstate just how catastrophic the consequences would be if you're not correct: we're talking about the extinction of humankind here. And what would otherwise happen? We'd continue to live on, through the good and the bad. Most people would affirm that they'd rather it be that way than not at all, and we should give them some credit.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes, and those cases in which life is ruined as a result are just a subset of the totality of cases, and it seems to be a minority, too.
Quoting darthbarracuda
I'm willing to bet against you, and to bet on your evidence being insufficient to support your conclusion. At best, it'll show that this is a phenomenon that occurs in some, but crucially not all situations.
Quoting darthbarracuda
If we had not have overcome our worries about experimentation in the past, then we might still be suffering from small pox. Fortunately, however, inoculation took off.
If we don't overcome our worries about experimentation now, then no else will get to live a life worth living. Setting aside the sophist objection that future generations don't exist in the present, you'd effectively be depriving them of the opportunity to live a life worth living. It's important to think of it that way, otherwise one might overlook the severity. It seems that some people in this discussion would rather turn a blind eye, and will construct arguments to try to explain it away.
Yes, hence why I use it to describe existence. The ends never end though. It is always a means to another end, and another end, and another end. If you do not get the sentiment of it, it's like not getting what someone means when they say existential angst vs. test anxiety, or situational depression vs. severe depression, or any other such situational usage vs. global usage. Perhaps it is a schopenhauer1 neologism, but it is one I am sticking to. It conveys well, I think, the understanding that we are striving creatures that work as if there is an end, but there is no end. I find it hard to believe you would not get that concept. To parse the term to try to make it its common usage when it was meant in its global usage would be an obvious misuse of what I am trying to connote. To say, for example, "But look.. I just accomplished and END, therefore everything is not instrumental!" would be misleading, and if you knew the global understanding of the way I am using this, it would be purposely misleading, and therefore a strawman. I am not saying you were going to do that, but just anticipating the possible strawman.
An appeal to the majority proves nothing in terms of the truth of an ethical doctrine. We do not have a crystal ball, and this means that we ought not to mess around with things that affect other people. This doesn't mean we get to just do whatever the hell we want. This is exactly why engineers follow safety protocol when building things, so the damage is minimized. In the case of birth, damage is minimized by not giving birth to anything, and while this may lead to the "loss" of pleasurable moments, the minimization of severe pain is more important, since there really is no loss at all and those who are suffering immensely don't give a shit about the supposed pleasures of life.
If there was a society filled with 99 happy people and 1 miserable person, we would be concerned about the 1 miserable person. The 99 happy people would be rather unimportant once we saw the misery the 1 person was going through. How much happiness will make up for the Holocaust, or for the day-to-day misery of the animals being eaten alive?
The whole point here is that since you cannot predict how a life will turn out, and that life itself is filled with unfortunate circumstances, accidents, and general suffering, and that there is indeed a chance that something severe will befall the born, that having a child is not a rational nor moral thing to do.
When it comes to a judgement of birth, I tend to be passive and view it as something that is just a product of human emotions and ignorance. But nevertheless I do not view birth as something to be cherished.
If you mean simply that there are countless means and ends in life, and that once one ends, another inevitably arises, then yes, that is true. But I don't think that that's a problem in itself. You have to smuggle in a certain viewpoint, such as your own, for it to be problematic.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I do get it. I was the one emphasising the sentimentality involved in your view of instrumentality. I'm just pointing out that your conclusion only follows given certain premises besides instrumentality. It's a bit like looking at an inkblot on a piece of plain paper. The inkblot itself is meaningless. How we interpret it is what matters.
Quoting schopenhauer1
There is a sense it which it is true that there is no end, and there is a sense in which it is false. It doesn't bother me in the slightest that there is no objective purpose. There is purpose nonetheless. We don't all have an overarching purpose to life, but many of us do, and besides, there are countless purposes that arise [i]within[/I] life - some of which get accomplished. That is enough for some.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I'm glad you've at least given me the benefit of the doubt.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, I'm not denying the instrumentality, nor that it occurs on a global scale. I'm denying what you think that implies. It's this misguided overestimation of one's own judgement that I have been objecting to: the one that fails to recognise the subjective limits, and attempts to transcend them. There is a typical and understandable reaction to pessimists, nihilists, and antinatalists - at least when they get carried away, as they often do: speak for yourself!
If you're suggesting that I've committed a fallacious appeal to the majority, then you're mistaken. What I was getting at is that the testimony of all of those people does not count for nothing. It's circumstantial evidence, and evidence of a very large scale. So, you aren't justified to simply dismiss it, and, given that the counter-evidence against this circumstantial evidence that yourself and others have mentioned is insufficient to justify the rejection of all - or even most - of these testimonies, then your argument fails.
Quoting darthbarracuda
There are always risks, even when health and safety protocols are followed to the letter. But we build buildings nonetheless, and this is no travesty. You, on the other hand, want to shut down the building project altogether, regardless. Bye bye, buildings. Bye bye, humanity.
It's hypocritical of you to say that we shouldn't mess around with things that affect other people, when you're arguing in favour of the artificial early extinction of humanity. If we leave things be, then, all things being equal, they'll naturally continue as they have done for hundreds of years, in at least that we'll carrying on having children, and those people and children will be virtually unaffected by the actions of antinatalists. So, yes, leave things be. But you obviously see this as a big problem.
Damage is [i]not[/I] minimized by not giving birth to anyone. Extinction is one of the most damaging things that can happen to humanity.
Also, you don't argue in favour of minimising pain [i]at all[/I] in the case of antinatalism. You may well contend that minimising pain is generally a good thing for the living, and I'd be inclined to agree, but that isn't really antinatalism. No, rather, when it comes antinatalism, you argue in favour of [i]eradicating pain altogether[/I] - and everything else in life - through extinction, and that is not a good thing for every single human that is alive or ever will be. In other words, it's not good for humanity.
And as for those who are suffering immensely, it's not as if nothing can be done about that. They were born: that can't be changed. But it's pointless, counterproductive and immature to fixate on that.
Quoting darthbarracuda
[I]Ignoratio elenchi[/I]. The conclusion is that we should care enough to reduce or prevent suffering in many cases, but it doesn't follow that we should apply that reasoning indiscriminately or without limitation. No, we shouldn't do so at any cost because humanity matters. Even if no amount of happiness will justify or make up for the holocaust, it's irrational to somehow leap to the conclusion that we should therefore bring about our own extinction. If you really care about the lives of animals, and if you're strongly against eating them for ethical reasons, then do something sensible about it. Become an activist if you aren't already. But don't pretend that extinction is the answer. If you said that in the company of serious political activists, you'd quickly become a laughing stock or get lambasted or both, and rightly so.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Obviously I don't agree, although I'm not simply arguing the opposite.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Good for you?
I am justified in dismissing it when it can be shown that people's own opinions of their lives are biased by rose-tinted glasses, hard-wired optimism and a pollyanna disposition.
Quoting Sapientia
There is very little redeeming features of the human race that I feel are worthy of consideration.
Not really. I doubt most people of a certain age have not felt this feeling of ennui about life. It might take some longer than others, or certain experiences to get to this realization. We are highly self-aware creatures (compared to others on this planet), and have the capacity for self-reflection. This is amplified with the extra time afforded by advanced civilizations. However, I do not doubt, most people find plenty of ways to shut this feeling out. This speaks to the psychological mechanisms of isolation, anchoring, distraction, and sublimation. It is simply about how much we want to let in these thoughts. I agree, however, that some temperaments do not allow for shutting these thoughts out as much as others.
[quote=Wikipedia article on Zapffe's "The Last Messiah"]
Isolation is the first method Zapffe noted, who defined it as "a fully arbitrary dismissal from consciousness of all disturbing and destructive thought and feeling" and cites "One should not think, it is just confusing" as an example.[1]
Anchoring, according to Zapffe, is the "fixation of points within, or construction of walls around, the liquid fray of consciousness". The anchoring mechanism provides individuals a value or an ideal that allows them to focus their attentions in a consistent manner. Zapffe compared this mechanism to Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen's concept of the life-lie from the play The Wild Duck, where the family has achieved a tolerable modus vivendi by ignoring the skeletons and by permitting each member to live in a dreamworld of his own. Zapffe also applied the anchoring principle to society, and stated "God, the Church, the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future" are all examples of collective primary anchoring firmaments. He noted flaws in the principle's ability to properly address the human condition, and warned against the despair provoked resulting from discovering one's anchoring mechanism was false. Another shortcoming of anchoring is conflict between contradicting anchoring mechanisms, which Zapffe posits will bring one to destructive nihilism.[1]
Distraction is when "one limits attention to the critical bounds by constantly enthralling it with impressions."[1] Distraction focuses all of one's energy on a task or idea to prevent the mind from turning in on itself.
Sublimation is the refocusing of energy away from negative outlets, toward positive ones.[/quote]
However, there is no doubt that this is the situation we are in. We are striving beings that go about from one end to another without any real resolution to our striving. Why the individual striving person needs to be created in the first place, makes no sense. Happiness, overcoming challenges, experiencing perseverance, does not make (what I take to be) any coherent sense in creating for another being in the first place. Giving another being experiences does not seem to make sense in light of the fact that
a) most experiences are not ideal and are tinged with slight discomfort to outright torture and everything in between b) most people experience maintenance of working/surviving/making a living, clearing their environments for future use, resting, etc. that really do not seem to have much deeper meaning than subsisting c) ideals such as "science", "discoveries", "knowledge" and "beauty" are not experiences unto themselves but are embodied in individuals who have many mixed emotions, pains, and otherwise and are thus not perfect nuggets of things that come out of life. Beauty in and of itself means nothing. We are also not vessels so beauty can be carried out. We are not vessels so that knowledge can be obtained. Rather, beauty is something that is nice to have since we are already born. Knowledge is nice to obtain once we are born. However, we do not live for these things- they are simply contingent to living.
The hard position: At the end of the day, why provoke all this chaos and striving? Undoubtedly, you will inadvertently or purposefully point to something similar to one of those concepts I mentioned in c. And yet again, I will point to the fact that no one needs the strife of life to experience any of those ideals if the alternative is to not even be born to be deprived of anything.
The soft position: Even granting that life itself should be lived for its pleasant experiences, or for some concept (i.e. overcoming challenges). This does not play out in the same optimal ways for everyone. You can have someone who does find beauty, love, and knowledge, someone who finds none of these things, or someone who finds these in much lesser or varying degrees. Not all experiences are as optimal as others. I am not even including the extreme cases of people with severe mental or physical disabilities or the cases of someone who lives life in the "normal" range of ability but becomes severely disabled as a result of some event or tragedy.
Either position should lead one to, at the least, question whether it is good to put someone in the position of these experiences in the first place.
When the flowers are not only contingent but also quick to pass, while the roots are necessary and permanent (until death), it makes one wonder if this is all worth it.
Shakespeare said it best with his To be, or not to be soliloquy in Hamlet.
Then please go ahead and do so, or link to a post in which you think you've done so.
But remember that for your argument to be strong enough to stand a chance of succeeding, you'd have to show that that is true of all people (or perhaps a large majority of people) every time they make a judgement of their lives; not just that it is true sometimes for some people in some situations. And, furthermore, for your evidence to support your argument enough to reject contrary positions, it would have to be both credible (Is it scientific? Does it come from an authoritative source? Is there a consensus? Does it stand up to scrutiny?) and not cherry picked (selectively picking evidence and ignoring or suppressing counter-evidence, e.g. judgements being biased in a contrary manner, by shit-tinted glasses, pessimism, depression, etc.).
I am quite confident that you will fail to meet all of the necessary conditions.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Okay. That you feel that way is irrelevant, though. Most people feel otherwise. The human race matters to most of the human race. This is much better reason to judge it as being worthy of continuance than the tiny minority who feel otherwise. Your feelings don't get special authority over the rest of the human race.
Then, again, you're not talking about instrumentality, but rather, judging by the rest of your post and by other posts of yours, a [i]particular[/I] emotional reaction to it. For example, you mention ennui, which, according to Google, is a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement, and is synonymous with boredom, tedium, listlessness, lethargy, lassitude, languor, restlessness, weariness, sluggishness, and enervation.
Of course some people feel that way. Many people feel that way [i]at times[/I]. So what? I don't feel like that right now, as it happens. This changes nothing. Neither pessimism nor antinatalism has won the day on that account, because of course that alone is insufficient, and because, in any case, other people feel otherwise, and many people feel otherwise at times.
Disclaimer: there might be more to your argument than that, but your post is pretty long and there's much to address.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Striving is part of life, yes. You can't rid yourself of it unless you kill yourself, which isn't something that I advise. It's not something that you should [i]want[/I] to rid yourself of. It's something that you should just accept as a part of life in at least a minimal form. If striving is bad, then strive for less or more realistic things. Simples.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, no. There is a difference between not being able to make sense of something and something not making any sense.
So then, your conclusion is that some people will not be dissuaded by these mere emotions, and thus we should create new people? Despite the fact that some people indeed are dissuaded by these mere emotions, the main point was the following from the above:
a) most experiences are not ideal and are tinged with slight discomfort to outright torture and everything in between b) most people experience maintenance of working/surviving/making a living, clearing their environments for future use, resting, etc. that really do not seem to have much deeper meaning than subsisting c) ideals such as "science", "discoveries", "knowledge" and "beauty" are not experiences unto themselves but are embodied in individuals who have many mixed emotions, pains, and otherwise and are thus not perfect nuggets of things that come out of life. Beauty in and of itself means nothing. We are also not vessels so beauty can be carried out. We are not vessels so that knowledge can be obtained. Rather, beauty is something that is nice to have since we are already born. Knowledge is nice to obtain once we are born. However, we do not live for these things- they are simply contingent to living.
The hard position: At the end of the day, why provoke all this chaos and striving? Undoubtedly, you will inadvertently or purposefully point to something similar to one of those concepts I mentioned in c. And yet again, I will point to the fact that no one needs the strife of life to experience any of those ideals if the alternative is to not even be born to be deprived of anything.
The soft position: Even granting that life itself should be lived for its pleasant experiences, or for some concept (i.e. overcoming challenges). This does not play out in the same optimal ways for everyone. You can have someone who does find beauty, love, and knowledge, someone who finds none of these things, or someone who finds these in much lesser or varying degrees. Not all experiences are as optimal as others. I am not even including the extreme cases of people with severe mental or physical disabilities or the cases of someone who lives life in the "normal" range of ability but becomes severely disabled as a result of some event or tragedy.
Either position should lead one to, at the least, question whether it is good to put someone in the position of these experiences in the first place.
darthbarracuda Quoting darthbarracuda
summed up my long-winded arguments nicely.
No.
Firstly, it's not about whether some people will or won't be dissuaded. It's about whether they should or shouldn't be. But it's about more than just that. It would be good if people were dissuaded to live by those emotions if their lives weren't worth living, so my conclusion is about the latter issue, which goes deeper than - and underlies - the former; namely, the worth of life - which isn't universal, either in degree or kind, but relative. Some lives are worth living more than others, and some lives aren't worth living. It's not a matter of all or nothing.
Secondly, I'm not a natalist, and my view isn't so simplistic as to claim that we should create new people. Rather, I think that in some cases it's worth it. Hence, I think that it would, at the very least, be less than ideal if no other new people were created, and hence my rejection of antinatalism, which is also too simplistic in positing that it's not worth it. Again, it's not a matter of all or nothing.
The "most" part is arguable, but even if true, it's cherry picked and its significance exaggerated.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It only seems that way to some, and it seems otherwise to others.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Again, we see the undue focus on and emphasis of negativity, by, for example, choosing to mention pains rather than alternatives, like pleasures. Mixed emotions, as the term suggests, entails a mixture of both positive and negative emotions. I have never denied this, nor have I claimed or implied that part about "perfect nuggets", so that's a combination of preaching to the choir and attacking a straw man.
Quoting schopenhauer1
More preaching to the choir. Yes, these things have only relative value.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, some people will attest that they live for such things, and it's evident that some people have gone as far as to dedicate their lives to such things. You can't just sweep that under the rug or hand-wave it away. Well, you can, but that wouldn't be reasonable.
Again with the exaggeration and appeals to emotion. Oh noes! Chaos, strife, pain, suffering, misery, deprivation, disaster! Yep, that's a fair way to sum up life.
I do believe I've already addressed the irrelevancy of this point about necessity. Bringing it up again won't make it any less irrelevant. Indeed, it's not necessary that anyone be born, but it's an option, and what is relevant is whether it's always a bad choice, or whether it can in fact turn out to have been worthwhile in at least some cases.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Granted. It's not like I've neglected to consider that. But it isn't enough to justify antinatalism.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Question, yes. It's an important topic. And deciding whether or not to have a child is a decision that shouldn't be taken lightly (although even if it is, and a child is born as a result, that doesn't necessarily damn the child to a life not worth living). I doubt anyone here believes otherwise (excluding the part in brackets, which antinatalists might reject).
Pollyanna Principle
Hedonic Treadmill
Repression
Terror Management Theory
So, something as complex as a human life can be determined beforehand based on a few standards such as environment, and family the child is born into? This is too simplistic. Even if you gave me some statistical analysis, then it is a bit odd to treat a new life like a possible insurance liability being that one is a whole human life with all experiences and the other is about a specific kind of liability that occurs once one is already born.
Why would it not be ideal? You sir, seem to smuggle the idea that life must be carried out for the sake of it. Or, replace the term "life" with "experience" "happiness" "knowledge", etc. etc... and you get the picture that I have been making over and over about not needing any x reason to experience anything in the first place. Also, no one NEEDS to be created simply because the people who already exist would mourn a future without people just as no one needs to exist to experience any particular thing. I'm not saying it is you, but many of this emphasis on continuance of human experience may stem from superstitions.. to deny what one craves (by default) by being born.. (like experiences, good experiences, etc.) seems to tempt bad things, death, and fate. Best not disturb the capricious gods that gave you your (so far) "good" experiences.. it must be fed with tribute, otherwise they will taketh away..
Quoting Sapientia
Really? Cherry-picked? I disagree. Again, slight discomforts to torture and anything in between covers enough for that to not be cherry-picked.
Quoting Sapientia
Really? So, doing tasks that one would not otherwise do for maintenance is not a common human experience? Hmm
Quoting Sapientia
But these peak experiences, including "happiness" seem to be a part of the idea that people must exist in the first place, when the alternative is not existing. However, the mixed nature of being an embodied human would make this seem to be a moot point, when we are discussing the idea of creating new people. People already born simply have to figure a way to deal with it. But to put a new person in a position to find a way to deal with these mixed experiences when the alternative is to not even have to deal with these experiences, seems to be overlooking this point. So no, not a strawman, just bringing up implications of the idea that we are creating lives that must "deal" with life.
Quoting Sapientia
No, that was not the point though. Some people AFTER THE FACT of being born might dedicate their lives to such experiences, but they did not need to be born in order to have these experiences.
Quoting Sapientia
Yes, it can be a bad choice for all situations because, no one needs to be put in a situation where they have to "deal" in the first place, even if it turns out that person learned to "deal" well, or in a lesser version, happened to be born in an environment to "deal" well or has to be a put in a situation where they just have to "deal" better.
This. ugh :s
Whoop-de-fucking-do. This isn't an argument about anything.
Correct. It's part of one that you've taken out of context. Well fucking done.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You're making some assumptions about my position that might constitute a misrepresentation of it. All I said was that I think that in some cases, it is worth it. This isn't because I think that we can determine beforehand whether or not someone will live a life worth living, but because many people have done so in the past, and many people do so presently, so we can reasonably infer that there is a certain likelihood that someone will live a worthwhile life. There are indeed certain factors which can effect this likelihood, but they can only tell us so much.
There is no 'safe option' or guarantee of success, but neither is failure an inevitability. You either take a shot at life or you adopt a defeatist attitude. I, like most people, think that the former is better in most cases. At least with the former, you stand a chance of success, and if things go amiss, you can back out. Whereas with the latter, you stand no chance of success, and you can't opt in.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Isn't it obvious? Because then no one would live a worthwhile life, and it's obviously good to live a worthwhile life. Therefore, it cannot be ideal. If you accept the premise that extinction would rule out the possibility of living a worthwhile life, as I do, and as many other reasonable and intellectually honest people do, then you cannot argue that extinction is an ideal scenario. You can argue that it would be better than the alternative, but you can't argue that it would be ideal.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Nice try, but nope, that's a straw man. I have never been of that position, and I even argued against it earlier.
TBC
Don't you remember my earlier comments rejecting precisely this notion that you brought up? I compared it to a production line in a factory. No, I certainly don't advocate this view, and I've in no way implied it, but whatever. Go ahead and read into my comments whatever you like. It's easier to attack a straw man than the real thing. And what makes this debate so much "fun" is that it's one against four, so not only do I have to explain myself once, but multiple times.
I miss the eye roll smiley.
So as of now, you still haven't argued that AN is false, nor that having children is justifiable. Well done.
Your mistake is tragic.. but my position does not even allow for a mistake. And a good life "missed"? Means nothing to no one.
Quoting Sapientia
Really? Because your quote right above it is not even smuggled but explicit:
Quoting Sapientia
Oh wait, you put "worthwhile" as a descriptor so that changes everything... Not really though. My point was that living involves dealing with things. You are not just creating worthwhile scenarios by having a new person, but a situation where that person must now, literally, deal with life. Why make someone deal with life in the first place? Worthwhile encounters are something after the fact. It is how we make due once born. Of course we are going to try to maximize good experiences. But does worthwhile need to be carried out by anyone in the first place? Why do worthwhile moments need to be experienced at all? What makes this a priority when we know that worthwhile also means mixed life experiences and the fact that humans are dealing and making due.
I am not quite sure what you mean by the alternative, but extinction means nothing to no one. It would only affect the few people left at the end, and I guess you can say there could be mediation on this scenario, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. The point is that it is not extinction that antinatalism cares about, just preventing future lives that will be forced to deal with life and suffer. Worthwhile experiences are not an end to themselves.
Your whole poorly constructed premise relies on two very flawed ideas. The first is the "self-reports" of the majority. Well, that just is not good enough. As Benatar, myself, and several people on this thread have shown- psychologically, the "dealing" with life is often misrepresented in the evaluator's mind due to cherry-picking worthwhile moments, and simply making due.
The other, and most egregious one, is smuggling in the idea that forcing someone to deal with life's problems, and facing life's sufferings can be overlooked because somehow, humans must perpetuate worthwhile moments..or what, the universe will shed a tear? Oh wait, I already explained this.. Why keep on having to rephrase what I have stated and you have not defended:
Quoting schopenhauer1
What a remarkable display of wilful ignorance.
Here's an easy yes or no question: Do you or do you not still stand by your original argument? And if you do, then explain why my objection is inapplicable.
No, it's not a red herring at all. It's a fitting assessment. It's not in the least bit plausible that you could have overlooked my arguments against antinatalism and in favor of having children except via wilful ignorance.
Quoting Thorongil
Yes, I do stand by my argument, but no, that's not how this is gonna work. It's quid pro quo. If you're gonna play ball, then go back and try harder. Otherwise it ends here. All you did was quote me out of context and give a curt hand-wave - the latter of which is a modus operandi that TGW is notorious for, and you seem to have followed in his footsteps - and I called you out for it. I offer no deeper explanation than that for the time being.
Honestly, do you expect leniency and serious consideration when you reply to my post by just quoting a tiny part of it - a single sentence - and declaring "Whoop-de-fucking-do. This isn't an argument about anything"? On yer bike.
I just checked out the first link to a Wikipedia article on the Pollyanna principle (or positivity bias). This is merely a tendency, and the very same article mentions a counter tendency: a negativity bias. Also, many of the links to sources either link to nowhere or link to material which isn't freely available.
If you can use a positivity bias to dismiss opinion, then I can use a negativity bias to do likewise.
Look, I can post a bunch of links, too:
Negativity Bias
Our Brain's Negativity Bias
Are We Hardwired For Unhappiness?
Negative Biases and Risk for Depression
Memory Bias In Depression
You seemed to ignore my post altogether.
Also, I do have a life outside of this forum. You can't guilt me into replying. It's my prerogative to decide whether or not to reply. I've spend a great deal of time in this thread as it is, and much of it seems like time spent unwisely. In case you haven't noticed, all of the other any anti-anti-natalists left long ago.
Who were they?
I know what quoting out of context means, and I stand by my charge and its accompanying explanation.