The source of suffering is desire?
I've long subscribed to the notion that the source of human suffering is desire. Yet, I am not by any means a Buddhist. I would call myself most closely a philosophical pessimist or a Cynic. I lack the compassion to care for other people, even myself included.
I would like to ask, therefore, what other philosophies incorporate the concept of human suffering, as originating from desire?
As a pseudo-Stoic, would I feel compelled to incorporate the teachings of Buddhism into my core philosophy?
I would like to ask, therefore, what other philosophies incorporate the concept of human suffering, as originating from desire?
As a pseudo-Stoic, would I feel compelled to incorporate the teachings of Buddhism into my core philosophy?
Comments (96)
Indeed, I've read my fair share of Schopenhauer. What makes you like him? I find his philosophy reassuring and comforting in how he presents the state of human affairs as in dismal and pathetic. Once someone understands how trivial are our hopes and dreams, insofar that they are never-ending, and the true source of happiness can be found in the pursuit of nirvana, then society becomes a charade or a pathetic show that is put on at one's expense.
Following this logic, one becomes extremely alienated from other people, and a sense of despair arises within the soul as to "run away" or "escape" to some place where peace and solitude can be found. I have entertained this idea many times myself; but, have come to the Stoic conclusion that there can be no place where peace and quiet and be cultivated than from within one's self.
"Desires are harmful to both body and mind, as Ji Kang emphasizes in “On Nourishing Life.” Purity of being, in contrast, entails the absence of desire or any form of emotional disturbance. Are all desires, then, unnatural? The essay drew a sharp response from Xiang Xiu, for whom desire arises naturally from the heart-mind. As such, it cannot be eradicated but only regulated by rules of propriety and ritual action. In reply, Ji Kang points out that although pleasure and anger, and the desire for fame and beauty may stem from the self, like a tumor they only serve to deplete one's qi-energy. Basic needs are of course not to be denied, but desires are shaped by objects and reflect cognitive distortions that consume the self. To quench one's thirst, one does not desire to drink the whole river. This is fundamentally different from the desire for power and wealth, which knows no rest. Further, the suppression of desire by artificial means may remove certain symptoms, but it does not cure the disease. It is only by recognizing the harmful influences of desire that one begins to seek calmness and emptiness of mind. Ultimately, nourishing life is not just about health and longevity but sets its sight on a higher, and to Ji Kang, more authentic, mode of being characterized by dispassion."
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neo-daoism/supplement.html
As a species that evolved to solve complex problems, living a life without problems leads to boredom. Having a life with no problems leads to the Hobson's choice of one activity that doesn't involve solving problems, or another activity that also doesn't involve solving problems....there is another choice, and that is to cause problems...and then there will be something to do that engages the minds we have ended up with.
things are only a problem if they have have some kind of negative effect in the world, and once the cat is out of the bag, some of those negative effects will lead to suffering.
I think that suffering comes more from not being able to fulfill one's desires than the desires themselves. Everyone has desires of some sort but not everyone suffers or is unhappy. The lack of capability or being prevented in some way from getting what you desire would make you sad and suffer.
I tend to agree with your Schopenhaurean stance about boredom. I always liked his metaphor of a pendulum swinging from the striving after a goal on one side, and the boredom on the other. Schopenhauer's metaphysical stance was that will is at the bottom of all things. Thus a restless striving after something is what we try to attain, but it is neverending. Once we get our goal, we need to move on with more complex problems to solve, goals to achieve, hope to attain. Otherwise, the baseline feeling of boredom ensues. Being a social and socialized animal, loneliness is a byproduct of being bored with having a lack of deep connection with others. Most of life is being unsatisfied, annoyance, toil, and looking for entertainment- the pendulum swing of goal-seeking and boredom, or as I frame it, "survival, comfort-seeking, entertainment-seeking". I remember someone said to me, the final conclusion to all this Schopenhauerean metaphysics would be that nothingness would be a sign of metaphysical peace, since it is the striving that causes the turmoil for the being-in-phenomenal-existence. Ultimate peace is no need for anything, but that ironically is not being whatsoever. Much of spiritual striving is to get to this state of peace.
I see there being a tension between pragmatic "this-wordliness" and trying to achieve some tranquility from this world in "otherworldly" spiritual striving. The this-worlders have solutions in changing your lifestyle- exercise more, do something that aligns with your interests in a community-setting, find a better job that fits your goals, etc. etc. The "otherwordly" is about seeing the bigger picture of life itself. It is trying to understand what is at the root of striving after this or that particular goal in the first place. It is trying to see the forest and not simply maneuvering around the trees. The problem is, if you look at it from this perspective, you just might see the futility and absurdity. One minute you are working on a spreadsheet in an office, the next you are laughing at how ridiculous human actions are. Then you realize this too is a human action- that of meta-analysis of your other actions. Then you realize that there is no escape, only going back in the fray, or coming out again for a little more meta-analysis. One can look at birth and say, "I don't want to spread the pendulum of absurdity to others". Why go through the game?
It is not the existential thinkers who are praised by most. It is the ones who spread the capital, who work the capital, who refill the labor pool for more capital, and keep the whole absurdity going. The ankle-biters who hate the cynics, existential thinkers, and the pessimists, don't like what they hear. Luckily for them, they are in the majority. The circle of capital and labor is still going strong. Most people still enjoy the trees and don't bother looking at the whole forest. The goal-seeking and boredom become habitual acts of life that squash meta-analysis of life itself. We can't have too much of that. Survival beckons, we need to make the donuts, and this somehow needs to continue for more people.
I think what is missing is a connection to a source of compassion. I mean, compassion can't necessarily be exercised on a purely volitional basis; well, I suppose one can decide to be compassionate, or to act compassionately. But it seems to me, unless it has a real source, then it's a very limited kind of facility.
If you think back to the ancient philosophies, both stoic and Buddhist, one recurring phrase that is found is the requirement to surmount 'the passions' (as per the quotation provided by ) . Quite what 'the passions' are in classical literature, is a matter of interpretation, but I am inclined to see them as moods and emotions. So the aspiring sage is required to get free from, or go beyond, the passions, moods and emotions. That leads to the state which I believe is called in stoicism 'apatheia'. But I think what's missing from our appreciation of that, is that it's not just a state of emotional indifference or emptiness or stasis, which is the state I think you're describing. That is a kind of equilibrium, but not one that is necessarily wholesome or beneficial. In stoicism, for instance, there's the requirement to live in accordance with the Logos; in Taoism, with the Tao; in Buddhism, with Dharma. In all cases, this requires something like a regimen or the making of an effort. But even then, in my experience, a sense of being open to compassion is required, which is not something that can necessarily be generated by will-power alone. But I think there has to be at least an awareness of something missing.
I do think it is possible to attain peace; like an old soldier who has lived a varied life; he has fought in wars, and survived; got back and lived an ordinary life of work etc; he has grown and matured a philosophy of life...but, there has had to be struggle in order to grow as a person, and although he might have found peace, there will be more people who are born who if they are lucky, they can grow as well, which may also mean they have to spend years of struggle.
With this continual process, some people will 'make it' and some won't...and at the root of it, is boredom.
My underlying belief is that God, in all his mysterious eternal existence, always risks being bored himself....it is inescapable if he is an intelligent being.
Perhaps the statement "desire causes suffering" means something else. I like to frame the statement in a possibility-impossibility context. The possible is attainable and to desire what's possible is acceptable as it can be achieved. However desiring the impossible is foolish as it is, by definition, unattainable.
Another aspect of desire that can be troublesome is excessive desire. I think Buddhists call it craving/attachment. This too is understandable in a possibility-impossibility context but has one additional truth that needs to be considered - the truth of impermanence. Everything has a beginning and, most importantly, an end. So, to crave/attach yourself too deeply to anything impermanence applies to, and that's everything, is to again be a fool. After all the object of one's craving is bound to vanish at some point in time.
What does all this imply?
Desire only the possible and always be aware of impermanence.
That's one of the reasons I'm an antinatalist though. Why put someone through the struggle (even for some sort of enlightenment) if they didn't have to go through it in the first place. I think our culture places to much emphasis on some damn Nietzschean notion that we must live to struggle. Either it is struggle to get something, or struggle for its own sake, and I find throwing more people into the world for either of these reasons as bad as it is purposely putting adversity/obstacles where there didn't need to be, for an idea of "someone must live so they can feel the good of struggling".
Quoting wax
Actually, this is very close to Philipp Mainlander's idea in his Philosophy of Redemption. According to Mainlander, God was so bored with his own being, that he objectified himself from a superbeing into this physical reality in order so that he can commit suicide through the process death in the beings born into the universe. The concept of heat death wasn't around at his time, but I think he speculated about something of the death of the universe at the end of time or something of that nature. Anyways, we are participating in the god's suicide by being a part of this process. The redemption is participating in the non-existence. Of course, it is no surprise Mainlander himself committed suicide by ironically hanging himself by kicking over a stack of copies of his recently published book.
but in that argument, is there a 'someone', before they appear to have come into this world?
I don't know the answer to that myself. I do think a person is a person at and after conception, but I do think there is the very real possibility that they exist in some sense before conception, and may have have had some form of eternal existence.
I'm not sure I personally would, or would have iiked to have brought someone into the world with the possibility of all sorts of suffering, and maybe at the end of that suffering they just didn't make it.
But people are brought into this world quite often with no sort of planning...ie unplanned pregnancy, so there seems like there will be struggle just as an outcome of the way people behave.
As for suicide, why do some people seem to think that it leads to peace?
It may for some, but I do think there is always the danger that they just end up taking their struggle and suffering into a post life situation.
As to God, I think that he is in a situation where there is no-one higher in terms of the reality of consciousness, and thinking, to refer to.
We can't really know what that is like, but maybe we could suggest the idea that his reality emerges from his own thinking and behaviour.....what he thinks then becomes part of his reality and his own reference frame of reality.
He can't for example think, 'what would it be like to think A,' without automatically thinking of A in some ways...and in this way his reality evolves....so I bring back my argument, that I made in another thread in an OP, that God has his own needs.
I would guess that one of those needs is to try an attain peace, and not having any problems to work on leads away from peace and into boredom....in a state of boredom he is still capable of thoughts and actions, but what is he going to think? So his desire for peace is not being met because he as nothing to think about...some of all that might be a bit circular, but I think most of us have experienced boredom.
One way that boredom can be alleviated might be to read a book, or listen to some music, watch TV, but this is God we are talking about; in a way, he has watched all the movies, read all the books, and is fed up with the same old music....and in that context, he still goes on thinking, and any thoughts he has form the framework of his future reality............
Perhaps God really is envious. He might be envious in that for people there is the possibility for an end of struggling, and to one day find peace. Whereas he is stuck in a state where he has to struggle to some extent, and also maybe have to take responsibility for any suffering that is inured by his actions......
In the idea of God having his own needs, he must live in hope that someday his struggle will end, and in that hope, that the struggle for every being he is responsible for can come to an end..
I mean 'jealous'..that's what the bibles says, isn't it..?
Fear of the unknown, fear of what we might do in a state of boredom.
What makes you think it is not necessary to go through? I mean, fundamentally, the sort of satisfaction and enjoyment you get from enduring through a struggle is made what it is by the suffering. If you were given a nobel prize for completely nothing, you would be missing out on something that Einstein wouldt've - the satisfaction becomes not just enhanced but partly made up of feelings of self-validation [i.e. that you really were able to do it] self-satisfaction and accomplishment. And these feelings don't simply just get forgotten, they're embedded in the entire experience which is impressed in memory and accessible in mind.
Secondly I really am struggling to understand the antinatalist premise. An unborn baby does not feel anything. It will never will know what it feels like to not have to go through pain. Secondly, not every individual evaluates suffering and non-suffering like you.. it's not some objective hedonic calculus, every individual makes a determination of the worthiness of living on their own. For some [if not all, barring antinatalists, the severely depressed and the oppressed] it is even un-quantifiably valuable to live even in spite of suffering. So the underlying argument for antinatalism seems just based on an impossible speculation.
And I think you are also completely discounting the fact that pleasure and value are separable concepts. Something doesn't need to be pleasurable to be a valuable or meaningful experience. I mean I find my entire college experience to have been incredibly formative and meaningful.. sure I would change certain things but I would never not go through the school because it sucked [and I did suffer] to study.. I actually, really, would chose the opportunity to go through it again because it made me.
That kind of rebuttal doesn't phase the argument, and I usually cringe a little when someone uses it. Unlike unicorns and actually things that cannot exist outside of conception, a future person can exist being that the components and ability is there to make a future person. Thus, one can talk about how a person will be affected by life if they are born.
Quoting wax
Well true, but that is the point, to actually think through the implications of having a future person.
Quoting aporiap
The main point is that in the procreational decision, there is an asymmetry as to the absence of an actual person in regards to an absence of suffering and pleasure. It is always good that someone did not suffer, even if there is no actual person to be around to know this or enjoy the not suffering. It is not bad (or good) if someone does not experience pleasure, unless there was an actual person who was around to be deprived.
Also, just in general, forcing someone else into existence to experience some form of adversity to get stronger is still wrong. It's like forcing someone into an obstacle course they did not ask for, and can never leave without killing themselves. Well, I guess it's okay to stay and try and do the best, but it was not necessarily good to give that obstacle course in the first place. No one needs to do anything prior to birth, being that, as you pointed out, there is no actual person before birth who needed to go through life in the first place, good, bad, or ugly. By not having the person, it is no harm, no foul.
Quoting wax
Suicide can be painful, and there can be anxiety to actually go through with it. The fact that some people do decide to kill themselves should tell you enough about burden of what it means to be a self-reflective being such as ourselves.
Quoting wax
Well Mainlander was using it as a metaphor for "being" itself. Being is trying to kill itself. It's a very German Romantic notion from the 19th century. I don't think it can or should be taken seriously. Even that gives some telos or cohesion to all we do. Even if it was a telos towards death, it's still a telos of the universe. I guess in a way via modern physics, we know that we are inevitabley headed towards a heat death but this would not indicate that a being that created the universe wanted the universe to run its course and die out so that it could stop being bored with its own being, however fantastically and cynically creative that story is.
Quoting wax
Why are we anthropomorphosizing some creator/sustainer/destroyer god-entity anyways? Why is this entity even in the equation. But again, your idea there is very much Mainlander.. If that's what you think, then his conclusion is the best answer you got.. He is so bored, he is waiting or the universe to kill itself in a final heat death.
It is not necessary for a being to be born to experience adversity, to get some positive reward from it. Rather, I believe that even if there is some overall reward that occurs (which it sometimes does not), or even if it was more generalized to experience itself is its own reward, I think that this is wrong to impose on someone. It is using someone to see them go through some X agenda that the parent wanted for the child. I don't believe in using people and making them suffer so that they can experience some X agenda.
Quoting aporiap
Again, I think that the absence of pain is always good, even if there is no actual person to enjoy this. However, the absence of pleasure is not bad, unless there is an actual person for whom this absence is a deprivation.
Quoting aporiap
Again, imposing a life that inevitably contains suffering is never good, whatever the person thinks or not. It is a negative utilitarian argument with some deontological elements of not using people.
Quoting aporiap
Sure, but this is about procreation not continuing to exist once born. Once we are born, we can make all sorts of calculative decisions. However, on the one decision to impose inevitable suffering for a future child is not good, as the suffering could have been prevented. The absence of suffering would be preferable. The absence of pleasure matters not when there is no actual person who is deprived in the first place. To impose adversity on someone else, when that did not need to occur, is not right. No one needs to be born to experience overcoming adversity.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I only use it because I have some belief in the idea of life before conception.
Quoting schopenhauer1
but the idea of death and suicide leading to peace is just a guess or hope in the people who see things that way. There isn't any guarantee that there will be peace, there isn't even, if you argue it, any guarantee of oblivion.
Well I think you mean uselessly or needlessly suffer here. I do not think people would agree with the bold if that suffering resulted in a net positive. If you restrict it to needless suffering then you would not get to an antinatalist position, unless you're in a situation where you can guarantee your child will uselessly suffer [you're pregnant in a concentration camp with no foreseeable chance to escape].
The way you're framing it makes it sound wrong. Nobody gives birth to force someone to experience adversity, this is different from the [inevitable] fact that they will face adversity. And, having the knowledge that your child will face adversity should be placed on equal value-ground as having the knowledge that your child, in existing, will experience pleasure. Else there's a double-standard.
Regarding the second bolded point, the problem is antinatalism isn't neutral with respect to having a child, it's defined as a negative stance on having children. This implies one is preferentially focusing on the negative aspects of living as opposed to weighing the negatives and positives equally. The fact that there are people that choose to live for the sheer enjoyment of it, and would prefer to live even in spite of their suffering, and that some even value their suffering implies you cannot assume a child's stance on the matter, so suffering shouldn't be used as a pretext to prefer not procreating [unless you're in a situation that guarantees they'll undergo useless suffering]
So, one useful thing Benatar does is he distinguishes between starting a life and continuing a life. He thinks that the threshold of causing suffering differs with respect to the two categories. Starting a life, in Benatar's conception is a much higher threshold as to the amount of suffering to cause. Starting a life that will contain inevitable suffering will always be bad due to his asymmetry. Being that no actual person is losing out, and that all harm could be prevented, there is no loss to any actual person. His argument takes the negative utilitarian idea extremely seriously. That is to say, harm is what matters, not pleasure. To restate this in a normative structure- potential parents are not obligated to bring someone who experiences joy/pleasure/positive value into the world. However, potential parents are obligated to prevent inevitable harms from occurring. One of his arguments comes from intuition. We don't usually feel pangs of compassionate sadness for the aliens not born to experience pleasure in a far away barren planet. We would most likely feel compassionate sadness, on the other hand, if we learned that aliens in a far away planet were born and were suffering. Suffering seems to matter more than bringing about pleasure in the realm of ethical decision-making. When prevention of all suffering is a guarantee and no actual person loses out on pleasure, this seems a win/win scenario.
Quoting aporiap
I actually don't know about that. Some parents are happy at the prospect that their child will go through adversity and will overcome it. This allows the parent to play the hero of guide. It also gives them something to do, some meaning, to watch a little version of themselves have to navigate the complexities of life and try to "ballast their own ship" and become socialized, and live a certain lifestyle. This overcoming adversity trope, though cherished and encouraged in most pragmatic mindsets, is actually to me like forcing an obstacle course as I said earlier. You are creating a problem for a new person to overcome it. As I've said elsewhere, to put adversity purposefully because you feel that it is good for others to experience is not right. Parents are not messianic figures bringing "happiness-through-suffering" into the world, or whatever other ridiculousness. You can never have a child for the child's sake, being that they didn't need to exist at all. Pleasures had at the expense of pain, while commonly thought of as appropriate or even morally superior, I argue are morally tainted. This whole blood-price for happiness trope is an excuse for allowing some forms of suffering, and is literally "sadistic" in that it is causing pain to others. Forcing it to to happen (by de facto inevitability of the discourse of life which always has forms of adversity built into it for the human being).
A third point I'd like to make, is that people aren't just used for a parent's X agenda, but also for societal institution's absolutely apparent agenda- that is to say, forcing more labor to be generated into the socio-economic system. People are born to be used by society to labor for its continuation. Communism and extreme socialist systems are simply transparent about this- people are here to work for society (again, something I consider a harm to be used as a source of labor). Capitalist-leaning economies tend to hide this with a thin layer of "the invisible hand". That is to say, the focus is on the consumer and demands "choices" and thus the focus seems to be that the economy is about the individual. Actually, it is not. The individual needs to produce output at some stage in the form of labor or capital investment from past accumulated wealth.. and that is what society really needs from people- more output. Also, the rich that have the investments rely on the labor of others for their system to be maintained. Thus rather than people using society to get what they want, if we pan out of this myopic view, we see the bigger picture, which is the individual is being born to produce and labor for society. That is to say, they are being used to labor.
Because most people think it's ridiculous to even talk about "persons who don't exist" as if they do.
I don't know; it is often an argument in meat-eating vs. veggism debates as in..'those sheep wouldn't have existed if they weren't brought into the world to be turned into meat.'
I often think that is a silly argument.
Do you think those people are literally saying that they existed prior to being "brought into the world to be turned into meat"? I don't think that would make sense if they're saying "They wouldn't have existed if not for . . ."
no I think existing before conception isn't part of their argument.
They are arguing that sheep find some value in their short lives...and that a being getting some value out of life, justifies the existence of the meat industry to some extent.
Okay, but we can't avoid that with Benatar's "asymmetry.".
"Pangs of compassionate sadness for the aliens not born to experience pleasure," to have any rhetorical impact, requires that we ever think it makes to talk about nonexistent entities as if they exist.
Otherwise, we can say, "Well, of course no one feels that, as no one thinks it makes sense to talk about nonexistent things as if they exist in any capacity."
This is the what Jesuits call the First Principle and Foundation - feel free to take out the God part - but adapted to ones own world view I always found some wisdom in this:
[i]God created human beings to praise, reverence, and serve God, and by
doing this, to save their souls.
God created all other things on the face of the earth to help fulfill this
purpose.
[b]From this it follows that we are to use the things of this world only to
the extent that they help us to this end, and we ought to rid ourselves
of the things of this world to the extent that they get in the way of this
end.
For this it is necessary to make ourselves indifferent to all created
things as much as we are able, so that we do not necessarily want
health rather than sickness, riches rather than poverty, honor rather
than dishonor, a long rather than a short life, and so in all the rest, so
that we ultimately desire and choose only what is most conducive for
us to the end for which God created us[/b].[/i]
This is going way off-topic, but why would something create something else to praise, revere and serve it?
Well, I can see the "serve" part if we're talking about something like machines or robots and a creator who could use/would like some help getting things done, but that's the only angle from which I'd say that doesn't sound wonky.
not evangelizing - just showing another philosophy on desire and suffering - just a cut an paste of the whole thing - as above telling all to feel free to take the God part out and sub in your own world view.
Yeah, I knew that was a big tangent. The idea of that just always struck me as bizarre.
As I mentioned, or hinted at, in my first post in this thread, I don't understand why we wouldn't focus on pain when we talk about suffering rather than focusing on desire. I can't really make sense out of saying that not having a desire met is sufficient for suffering when we also use the term "suffering" for, say, someone who has just been in a serious car accident and who now has a sharp piece of metal going through their trapped leg--especially where it's supposedly not a different sense of the term.
How about something like this. Robert Kraft and millions like him have what I would call a disordered desire when it come to sex. To satiate this desire they are willing to walk into strip mall massage parlors and exchange money for sex. To fulfill the demand for this disordered desire, other people with an equally disordered desire for money find ways to entrap vulnerable women into working in these places.
I would propose that the disordered desires above are causing great suffering - to the women, to the people entrapping/enslaving the women and to all the Robert Krafts that pay the woman.
I'd say that the only suffering happening there would be (a) if the women are really being held against their wills at least via what I'd classify as criminal threatening, and (b) the arrested Johns due to it being illegal to pay for sex.
But none of this makes desires sufficient for suffering.
Maybe a useful analogy could be the desire for food. We need food to survive, so take someone who doesn't have access to enough food. They still 'desire' food, and have access to some, and choose to eat some non-food items to try and stave their hunger, like eating clay or something.
The original desire isn't disordered, it is the way the person who is behaving to try and fulfil the desire/need which is perhaps symbolic with disorder.
Maybe food is a bad example as it is a complex issue...
But if you take the general case of a desire being based on something which isn't disorders, it still might lead to a disordered attempt to try and fulfil it...
And the thing is with having to try to fulfil a deeper need with something that isn't going to do it in the long run, is that the behaviour might just escalate, as they are never going to be satisfied.
Well, that's the point in regards to the absence of pleasure for a possible future person.
Am I correct that what you are saying here is there is no link between the desire to pay the coerced and trapped woman and the desire of money to enslave them - and the suffering of the people involved ??
I don't think anyone is lamenting the absence of pleasure for non-existent people. Some people are rather upset at not having kids, not being able to have kids, etc. If they'd not be allowed to have kids they'd be upset at that, too. (And people are also upset at being penalized by laws that put them at a disadvantage if they have more kids.)
I'd say the desires do not cause that specific suffering. What would cause it is someone falsely imprisoning someone else or criminally threatening them. Whatever reason they decide to do those things if they do is another issue. They could make a different decision.
Re that decision, by the way, the issue would be easily dissolved if we would simply legalize prostitution.
think I have to respectfully disagree with the above. I would still propose the disordered desires are the proximate cause off the suffering. "whatever reason they decide" seems an important concept to me. Certainly not one to be so easily dismissed with out reason. As far as " they could make a different decision" that again, for me comes down to if the desire is ordered or not, there is no good option, just less bad ones, to fulfill a disordered desire, except to eliminate or control the desire itself.
It seems you are saying the hammer drives the nail and ignoring the carpenter swinging the hammer.
Quoting Terrapin Station
not sure there is very good evidence to support this. Legalized gambling hasn't prevented folks gambling away the mortgage, legalized alcohol hasn't prevented alcoholism, etc etc. It may make it easier to tax, it may do any number of other things, but what it won't do is turn a disordered desire into an ordered one.
been thinking, and at least with my frame of reference - I cant think of an example of the above.
I think there is always some disordered desire at play that causes the suffering.
an example:
Jean Valjean's family is starving, they desire food ( taking a small liberty here for sake of argument - but such things as food, water and shelter I would describe as needs and not desires ). Jean being a loving father and seeing no other way - steals a loaf of bread. Gets caught and undergoes great suffering. First pass would say is desire to feed his family was ordered and I would agree. Even giving the benefit of the doubt that there was absolutely no other way to feed them other than stealing. I would propose the baker who would not give the bread to the needy has a disordered desire of money over charity. I would say the government and prosecutors and jailers had a disordered desire of punishment over forgiveness.
I'm excluding decisions from causes, as one could decide to do differently. The carpenter has to apply physical force to the hammer, though. (Just as they'd need to apply physical force to falsely imprison or criminally threaten someone).
Quoting Rank Amateur
??? I didn't say anything like "Legalized prostitution would get rid of prostitution."
If prostitution is legal, it would eliminate the illegal industry. There's no illegal alcohol industry to speak of, because alcohol is legal and there's no motivation to produce alcohol illegally.
I don't want to get rid of prostitution. I want to get rid of the absurdity of it being illegal.
and to me this all starts with the desire to drive the nail.
From that point, you can make a decision to drive the nail or not.
absolutely agree that legalizing prostitution would make prostitution legal. Not sure that is any great insight. My point was it would not make the desire to use one any more ordered, ( don't read religious here - not the intent) Much of the suffering that is part of prostitution would still remain at least IMO legal or not. As in gambling, alcohol, prescription drugs, etc etc.
That's the point he was trying to make. You really don't know how to agree with someone. :roll: .
Quoting Terrapin Station
Ok, a lot of people are unhappy about things that they may want to do to other people that they maybe shouldn't do.
I don't want to lessen prostitution. I don't think there's anything at all wrong with it. Rather I'm very much in favor of it. I think it's a good thing for people who want an alternate means of having sex.
Re your definition, I don't see how prostitution has anything to do with "lessening love," etc. . . . although I don't see why that should be the criterion, anyway. Re defining suffering with respect to ordered/disordered desires and then making the part of the ordered/disordered desire distinction a reference to suffering, that's pretty shallowly circular.
In making the point he was making, at least according to you, he talked about people not feeling sad for nonexistent people, as if that was significant. It's not. Because people don't think anything about nonexistent people.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Whether anyone should or shouldn't do anything is subjective, of course.
Don't see where i did any of that. What seems circular is you saying I proposed something circular and then said it was circular.
What I proposed was, disordered desires lead to suffering . And I only defined ordered desires as those that increase love in yourself or in others. I see nothing circular there - unless i am missing your point.
So I went back to review the "ordered/disordered" desire distinction you're making.
You said:
"A very Jesuit way of looking at this is not that desire causes suffering, but disordered desires do."
So a way to understand suffering that you're suggesting is that disordered desires cause suffering contra ordered desires. So we need to understand that distinction to understand what suffering is.
You say: "Ordered desires . . . are those desires that stated simply increase love, desiring things that increase love in yourself and in others will not cause suffering."
So you're defining ordered desires in terms of suffering (not just, however that was part of it), but you just defined suffering in terms of ordered/disordered desire distinction.
think this point from above addresses this point.
" As far as " they could make a different decision" that again, for me comes down to if the desire is ordered or not, there is no good option, just less bad ones, to fulfill a disordered desire, except to eliminate or control the desire itself. "
If one does not act on the desire than there is no suffering. However that does not eliminate the desire as causal in the cases where it is acted on.
I don't see how it addresses it unless you're claiming that one can't, in fact, make a different decision.
no we don't we just need to define suffering. I would hope some garden variety general understanding of suffering would do.
There is nothing circular here.
Ordered desires ( those that increase love ) = no suffering
disordered desires = suffering
the relationship is causal - not circular
Okay, so how do we determine whether a desire "increases love" or not?
If in your most honest self that is your pure motivation. ( that is the my attempt at a secular answer)
The Jesuit answer would be something called "a discernment of spirits". Is the source of the desire, feeling, emotion etc God, or some of evil. I understand that is not a very philosophical answer.
But that is his point. No one cares about non-existent pleasures. That is significant if people argue that we are "depriving" something of pleasure. Clearly no one exists to be deprived of pleasure, and no one cares about the millions of possible people that could exist who could experience pleasure. Thus, absent pleasure matters not if there is no ACTUAL person for which it is a deprivation. However, that harm is absent IS a good thing, even if there is no actual person to enjoy the not being harmed. His asymmetry only applies to the procreational decision when there is an absence of an actual person, but the possibility that someone could be born based on decisions.
If it's just a self-assessment like that, then any arbitrary desire could either be ordered or disordered, couldn't it?
I'd agree with that, but who argues that?
Quoting schopenhauer1
No one argues that the absence of harm for nonexistent people is a good thing, either. (I mean, outside of Benatar and some followers--I'm not saying literally no one on the face of the Earth. I mean, to characterize it as some common sentiment is completely unfounded.)
No, a fortiori because I don't buy the notion of unconscious mental content.
But I think that someone could think that any arbitrary action is "purely out of love" or not.
So I don't see how that would make prostitution an unordered desire. I can see how it would be in a religious context simply via stipulation, but outside of that I don't know if the distinction works very well.
There are people who argue that by not having children, are depriving people of pleasure, and they think that is a bad thing. I agree it is a misconception, but it is the case.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Well, part of the charm for me in antinatalism, is trying to convey a case that isn't immediately apparent to people. Anyways, it usually is accepted that we don't want to impose suffering on others. You can make the move that some suffering is good. I will make the move that all suffering is bad, and the attempt to force it onto a new person would be likened to sadism on behalf of another. We will be stuck in the same circle.
can you explain to me how prostitution increases love of yourself or of others? I may well be too deeply entrenched in my own point of view to think of one. I just don't see a lot of love involved for either self or others in the exchange of money for sex.
What concept in our discussion would you say in "unconscious mental content" I don't see, suffering, desire, or love meeting a criteria of some kind of a priori unconscious mental content. I think there a general conscious understandings of what such things as those are.
I was trying to imagine ways that it might make sense to say that someone is "lying to themselves."
First, love is simply an emotional disposition towards things, right? A very complex and variable emotional disposition (enough so that it's probably not a good idea to tag such a wide range of things with the same term), but it's an emotional disposition nonetheless. So it would just be a matter of having that emotional disposition towards oneself (and others, possibly, including the prostitute) when engaging in prostitution/solicitation.
yea - My posit was they really can't. how is your calling you not being able to think of a way they can a fortiori an argument back against that? I don't see it.
I'm asking who, though. (As in I was hoping you could give some actual examples, because this seems very dubious to me.)
Quoting schopenhauer1
Okay, but no one is going to accept that they don't want to impose suffering on a nonexistent person. They'd say that the person has to exist for that to even be a consideration.
I was agreeing with you. "A fortiori because I don't buy the notion of unconscious mental phenomena" was an emphasis of that, where I was trying to imagine how someone might even say that it would be possible.
if someone could truly and honestly in their heart believe that I would agree. I can't see how that is possible - but I admit i could have a blind spot there.
Do you really think it is possible for someone to truly love the prostitute and for the prostitute to truly love the john and it not be Richard Gere and Julia Roberts ?? Guess it is possible and in that case no one is suffering.
I think it's possible for someone to "truly love" everyone.
Can't we be talking about loving events, actions, situations, etc., too, though?
Think we are getting to a point of diminished returns on the discussion - just kind of saw that aspect of desire and suffering a significant part of Ignatian Spirituality, thought would share - as just one more world view.
Oh you know Joe, Bob, Suzy, Liz, Brian, and Barry.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yep, I'd agree. Someone will exist who will suffer. It is not happening to an actual person in the present. In fact suffering is occurring to nothing.
So it's not a common enough thing to argue that we could find a record of it anywhere?
Can you prove that people don't besides yourself? Is your evidence Tom, Dick, and Sally? Well, Joe, Bob, Suzy, and Liz beg to differ. Brian and Barry are just getting drunk. They are worthless.
I'm not going to scour internet sources and libraries for your question any more than you probably will. But is there a notion that people think that by not having children those children are denied the "benefit" of living? Yes, I've heard it from this forum. And no, I'm not going to do the digging for you. The whole point is that while it doesn't matter if no one benefits from life (unless that person already exists). It does matter if a person will not experience suffering.
I think my main problem with the argument is that bad/good ascriptions are not necessarily applicable to suffering or pleasure in themselves. Badness or goodness are separable from hedonic states. They should be defined in reference to some goal or [in the general human sense] with respect to whether something leads one closer to 'well being' or whether it leads them away from that. That makes intuitive sense from the utilitarian position [the good is a goal to which we reach, things are good if they result in the good], even in the case of a hedonic utilitarianism [which I assume is Barren and your position] where what's good is anything that minimizes suffering [your goal]. But that's just one utilitarian theory. Badden's argument would fail if you take anything else as 'the good', which many people do [spinoza's good is attaining freedom by managing passions; maslow's self actualization; societal stability; etc]. And even from the hedonic position, I simply disagree with his contention that there's an assymetry. I actually think many people do think the lack of an ability to experience pleasure [hell, even experiencing at all] is a wrong - it's what motivates my friend to get on my ass about not putting myself out of my comfort zone - because apparently I'm missing out. He [and other friends] feel obligated to push and challenge me, I'm sure you've had friends do the same. They are clearly operating under utilitarian assumption - that I'm not experiencing as much pleasure as I could because I'm limiting myself... a potential human would be limited in just the same way. Would you not say they intuitively feel missing out is a wrong in itself? If so then how is intuition alone enough to justify the asymmetry?
This "should" seems a moot point in light of the fact that in the case of whether to procreate someone, that person doesn't need to exist in the first place in order to be lead to "well being". In fact, that is part of the AN's point. There is no need to create someone for an outside agenda that then needs to be followed by the very person which was created for that reason. It's like giving a problem to someone because you like seeing them solve it.
Quoting aporiap
All of these schemas you mentioned not needed if people were not born. These are after-the-fact positions. A non-existent entity doesn't need to manage passions or self-actualize if not born. To be born in order to do these things would be using someone for this agenda, which seems odd to me. Like a journey that is inevitable for someone that didn't in fact have to be forced on that journey.
Quoting aporiap
Again, this doesn't make sense in the light that no one inevitable;y has to exist to experience anything in the first place. This is all after-the-fact of already being procreated and then trying to find cultural values to buy into to make do. First the schema needs to be agreed to be right by the individual, and then it is carried forthwith. Of course various individual personalities and temperaments may find these schemas not for them and switch to other ones. Or, the person simply falls into modern default mode- cobbling together the various cultural environs and values immediately at hand (pragmatic hedonism if you will the modern "default mode" of most).
Quoting aporiap
No, a non-existent potential person is not actually missing out. That is our projection on to a non-entity. However, if born, there is guaranteed suffering for that now procreated actual person. The projection of "missing out" is simply a misconception that anguishes an already existing person. The actual suffering that the procreated child will experience is actual and real though. Projected suffering for the already existing can be mitigated by the actual person who is already born.
Also, this projected feeling of "missing out" for the as yet not existing person, can also be taken to absurd lengths. If taken to the logical extreme then we can say the billions and trillions of yet to be born people are missing out. But that is silly. Even more absurd would be that it is people's duty to those billions of non-existent people to keep having more people to reduce those non-existent people's "pain" of not existing and missing out. Obviously that makes no sense.
The source of suffering is thought. Everything else discussed above in the thread are symptoms of the underlying mechanism. Thought operates by dividing a single unified reality in to conceptual parts. This process creates the "me" which is experienced as something separate from everything else, a perspective which creates a sense of isolation and thus fear, resulting in a desire to escape this experience. Desire isn't the cause of suffering, but rather a symptom of the isolating experience generated by the divisive nature of thought.
To translate Catholic doctrine in to my own language, ordered desires are a reach for love, and love is an attempt to overcome the experience of division which is at the heart of the human condition. The point of the love teaching is not so much to assist others as it is an invitation to enter in to a process which will help us weaken the illusion of division which is expressed in our experience of "me".
This is why Christianity (and similar teachings) have lasted for thousands of years. It's not that billions of people are so concerned about social order, the largest of questions and such, but because when people experience the giving of love they discover that this experience is in their own self interest, it helps relieve the pain that is being fueled by the illusion of division that thought generates.
Suffering has never been conquered by any ideology or action because it arises from thought, which is not an optional human experience. Thought is not only how we survive in the world, it is literally what we are made of psychologically. The volume of thought can be managed by pretty much anyone, and some experts are able to turn thought off for periods of time, but imho there are no credible reports of anyone being able to totally escape the reality of suffering.
Some level of suffering is the price tag for the power of thought, and so to some degree one just has to accept it, and try to develop a sense of humor about the human condition.
I'm sure we'll all agree that slavery is not about love, but that doesn't automatically equal all money for sex transactions being disordered. That's just a business transaction, and like any business transaction it can be conducted ruthlessly or in love.
I would agree that in the real world there is a great deal of ruthlessness involved in the sex trade. At least part of the problem is that Catholic doctrine over many centuries has resulted in this business being illegal, and thus just as is true in the drug business the illegality boosts profits, and attracts criminals.
As pot become legal in more places, fewer people will need to do business with the drug gangsters because they will be able to buy safe pot at sane prices at the local grocery store. Same with the sex business.
Imho, and apologies for this, Catholic doctrine has long tried to demonize sex because 1) virgin celibate Catholic clergy know nothing about sex and 2) sex is another way to reach for God which competes with the service Catholic clergy are selling.
There are a LOT of lonely people in the world. The Church does a good job of serving many of them, and sex workers do a good job of serving many others. It's not an either/or equation, but rather a variety of ways to reach for the same goal. Just as sex workers can be evil or kind, the same is true of Catholic clergy.
the one point I would make to you is the nature of ordered or disordered. It is not centered on the item or the action, it is centered on the motivation, on the why, on an honest discernment if the action (sorry for the foray into God) is for the greater glory of God, or the love of others or self). This is a pretty hard and easy evaluation all at the same time. Although we all can rationalize almost anything, I do think it is impossible to lie to yourself. So it is just a look into your self and what your true self says that matters.
Don't think you could possibly convince me of the case. But if you told me that the prostitute in his/her true self did not find it disordered, and if the john in his/her true self did not find it disordered, and if any other party to the act did not find it truly disordered - than I would say it is not disordered. i just can't see how that is possible.
I provided the alternatives to demonstrate that negative utilitarianism is itself just one of many theories, and that the antinatalist position depends on it. If bad does not necessarily equal suffering, then you cannot simply make the claim that we are obligated to prevent suffering. What makes us obligated here is the fact that suffering is considered bad. The implicit premise is that (1) we prevent something because it is bad (2) suffering is bad. If suffering is not itself intrinsically bad, there's no obligation.
Firstly, as I've said before, I think you're discounting that negative hedonic utilitarianism [the basis for the whole anti-natalist position] is itself a cultural construct. You'd be committing a naturalistic fallacy if you think just because suffering is uncomfortable it is forthrightly bad, and thus an unborn person is better in that state because it prevents him from suffering.
Secondly my point there was countering the intuition based argument for the asymmetry of suffering/pleasure. It seems the only basis is that we have an intuition that preventing suffering is an obligation while promoting pleasure is not, but I am stating here that there are people with intuitions that promoting pleasure is something that you should promote and that they feel a kind of compassion or sympathy for people who aren't in that state.
I can take the 'obligation to prevent suffering' to absurd lengths as well. Why do anything at all, knowing that moving from my comfortable bed now will inevitably lead to discomfort [suffering]? Why walk down 5th avenue or drive a car when you are both putting yourself in a less relaxed state and making yourself at risk for being hurt in an accident or hit by a meteor? Sure they can lead to pleasures, but this isn't necessary and we are nevertheless obligated to proactively prevent suffering whenever possible, so in fact we really shouldn't even leave the house.
Quoting aporiap
Quoting aporiap
Benatar does a good job separating ethical decisions related to starting a life vs. continuing a life. He sees these two decision matrix as requiring different weights for good and bad. For something that does not exist yet, no one is actually deprived. This is an important point. No actual person is around to miss out on anything. It is only in the parents' head. However, if born, an actual person will be born to suffer.
Now, to your point about suffering not being bad. There are certain limits to ethical claims. I can't go any further than saying that to expose someone to harm for some agenda (reason) is wrong to do to a person. No person needs to go through X agenda (that is deemed valuable), such that it incurs harm in the process IF it didn't need to be exposed to the harm, nor obtain the agenda in the first place.
If the person already existed, this might make sense since an actual person exists to be the benefit of some "greater good" had through suffering. But to create something so it goes through this "greater good" process of suffering/adversity for higher good, is akin to creating a problem so that it can be solved. No one needed to go through it in the first place. The obligations and sufferings of life, do not need to be had by anyone. No one is harmed, no one is actually deprived (except in the mind of the already living as a projection).
I can't go much further than trying to convince you that to create a situation where you are exposing someone to all forms of harm in order for them to go through some agenda/adventure/process is using them for the already-living's projection of what should be obtained. Suffering should be all that counts in ethics. Everything else is control, manipulation, and bestowing burdens to be overcome, for the edification of the already-living. Nothing noble happens by going through the process of life and then dying. It is simply a person exposed to harm that did not need to be.
That's because social strife and abuse is not about intent but the gap between ways of sense- making. Our failure to act 'ethically' is the result of our struggles in construing the other's worldview from their perspective. No amount of prorer intent or focus on suffering will solve this problem. Only progress at subsuming another's scheme of understanding as a variant of our own will free us from the need to blame t he other for their 'bad intent', , the current example being the alleged failure to prioritize suffering,(which just perpetuates the problem)..
Ok, no problem. I guess to me prostitution is a business transaction, and is thus subject to all the pros and cons of any business transaction. You know, licensed massage therapy (fully legal, no sex) is also a very personal physical service. Is it too automatically disordered, from the Catholic point of view? Anyway, just a perspective to share, not trying to convert you either.
Quoting Rank Amateur
For the record, I have no objection to a Catholic discussing God. Everybody else is selling their point of view, I don't see why you should exclude yourself from that.
Quoting Rank Amateur
I get ya, that makes sense.
Quoting Rank Amateur
Would you say the same thing about a licensed massage therapist and his or her client?
Sure, other than I would see it as very possible. I have ran a few marathons, could not have done it without deep tissue massage taking out the knots. The only thing it had in common with sex was a little bit of touch and me screaming
Obviously, there's the legal difference, but that doesn't seem to be your concern, best I can tell.
BTW, I once had a massage license, and my wife has been doing it for a living for over 30 years. Don't worry, you won't insult us no matter your perspective, feel free to speak your mind as you wish. Just sayin, it's not a theory subject for us here.
I thought most utilitarian ethical formulas were consequential not primarily intent-driven? Anyways, AN sort of bypasses all of this. If no one is born, there is no one to live in a world of conflicting views that cause strife. Life in general has an aspect of conflict built into it. Daily life can be full of it. No new person, means no actual person who must deal with all of this built in conflict and strife. Why expose more people to this strife then? Well, the answer has to do with what I was saying in my previous post about people putting an X agenda above suffering of the procreated individual. Somehow the goal of going through the life itself overrides consideration of harm. Why does a person need to go through this in the first place though, when they didn't even exist to need to go through this? There has been no good responses to this, and there will be no good responses to this without walking into the conundrum of the X agenda on behalf of the procreated person overriding considerations of suffering.
hehe, you must've been waiting to use that one :grin:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Sorry if this is a tangent, but it will be quick. Also, my question is not sarcastic or snarky, nor intending to be derogatory. Just the one glaring question that always seems to jump out at me when I read about anti-natalism. Why don't anti-natalists promote suicide? The paragraph above explains why they don't promote murder, but gives no reason why all these "suffering" people don't just end the suffering they so adamantly seek to save potential others from. If there is no reason to be born in the first place, why exist just to suffer?
Again, that is Benatar's point that there is a difference in decisions related to starting a life and continuing a life. There are different considerations and weights as to the goodness and badness of life. If one is born, one tends to develop a personality that also develops preferences-fulfilled, desires had, good experiences, etc. We are also creatures that mainly fear the unknown and possible pain associated with death. For these reasons- continuing to live is distinctly different from starting someone else's life. Starting a life deals in circumstances where there is no actual person- no actual person that is actually deprived, no actual person that needs or wants. When someone is already born, then it is simply making do. We create goals, we pursue wants and desires, we do that pendulum swing between survival, comfort, and entertainment within a socio-cultural background. The antinatalism position does not entail a promortalism position.
Also the source of pleasure, no?
Well I created a whole long argumentative response, but then decided I had better be sure I put some effort into understanding your position. After re-reading a couple posts, I think I have come to a bit of understanding. Is anti-natalism heavily attached to the Philosophy of "do no harm"? Like utilitarianism but where suffering takes heavy priority over happiness?That helps me to understand, but then I would still have a problem with the absolute nature of the argument (and for that no amount of our discussing is likely to bridge our gap).
Quoting Janus
Always my first thought :smile:
"I thought most utilitarian ethical formulas were consequential not primarily intent-driven?"
What would be the meaning of exhorting people to place the consequence of alleviation of suffering or the greatest happiness as the aim of a moral system unless one assumed that not everyone does consider such goals as their ethical aim? To assume that one person values alleviation of suffering more than another person when weighed in the balance against an alternative aim is intent-driven thinking, as is your assumption that some put agenda X over the suffering of someone. To get beyond this intent-driven thinking is to inquire into why it is that the other person construes agenda x and the nature and circumstances of an other's suffering in such a way that they end up concluding that they are not in fact choosing that agenda over avoidance of another's suffering.
In other words, when they put the alternatives at two ends of a moral scale(for instance, agenda x vs suffering avoidance), the intent-driven moralist assumes that the moral dispute is a result of the fact that both parties see the same quantities being weighted, as well as which way the scale is being tipped and by how much. Then the intent-driven moralist concludes that one party gives less moral importance to the quantity at one end of the scale than the other party does. Then the intent-driven moralist finds it necessary to somehow convince the other party to value the other's suffering more than the moralist assumes that party apparently does.
IF we abandon intent-driven moralism in favor of a sense-making ethics, we no longer assume that two parties agree on what quantities are being weighed, and we thus no longer assume they agree which direction the scale is being tipped and by how much. Does the homophobic moralist value the freedom of choice of the gay person less than a non-homophobic moralist? Do they appreciate the gay person's suffering less than the non-homophobe? Or do they lack a bio-sociological undestanding of the gay person's behavior as non-dysfunctional?
I think you are assuming that I think people who don't agree with antinatalism have bad intent. I don't necessarily think that. Rather, as you are sort of saying, I think they haven't seen it from the view that I am taking. They will say the same of me. However, at the end of the day, if my view is carried out, no procreated person will actually suffer, where in there's, someone always will. Those are just facts, whether it is weighted one way or the other how much suffering should be considered. Anyways, I don't see the other person as the enemy or bad. Part of my antinatalism stems from a rebellion of sorts manifested in an ethics about "being born". It is part and parcel of the larger view of our human predicament. Antinatalism in that regard is like existential therapy for one's already being born in to the human predicament.
If I wrote a book and anyone made the mistake of reading it, it would soon after find itself in a trash bin. No truer words have ever been spoken. Amen.