On Antinatalism
Antinatalism seems like a popular topic hereabouts. There's something very psychologically satisfying about denying suffering to an unborn fetus. It almost strikes one as the ethical thing to do, and I do admit that I've been lured into the thought about not having children and burdening them with existence.
Mind you, I am somewhat in a contradiction between the empowering psychological appeal of creating less suffering in a world that we have very little control over.
But... I have realized that antinatalism is, in essence, an extreme form of psychological projection onto an unborn and unknown entity.
What do I mean by this? Well, we all have visions of the future, or perhaps the antinatalist has an overabundance of concern for the future (anxiety, dread, angst). Those of us who have been mired in their misery, unjustifiably so in many cases, have taken their experiences and have created a fictional entity that is an unborn child.
I don't know how far I can take this psychoanalysis, and perhaps @unenlightened or @Baden might be of help here; but, fundamentally, antinatalism is an extreme form of some cognitive distortion or psychological dissonance, that needs to find an outlet, which unfortunately manifests in the denial of life.
Thoughts?
Mind you, I am somewhat in a contradiction between the empowering psychological appeal of creating less suffering in a world that we have very little control over.
But... I have realized that antinatalism is, in essence, an extreme form of psychological projection onto an unborn and unknown entity.
What do I mean by this? Well, we all have visions of the future, or perhaps the antinatalist has an overabundance of concern for the future (anxiety, dread, angst). Those of us who have been mired in their misery, unjustifiably so in many cases, have taken their experiences and have created a fictional entity that is an unborn child.
I don't know how far I can take this psychoanalysis, and perhaps @unenlightened or @Baden might be of help here; but, fundamentally, antinatalism is an extreme form of some cognitive distortion or psychological dissonance, that needs to find an outlet, which unfortunately manifests in the denial of life.
Thoughts?
Comments (1871)
"Gross-overgeneralization," would be the first thing that comes to my mind...
You mean to frame anything in terms of "suffering"?
Well, not only that; but, also the issue of characterizing the life of an unborn fetus, which one never knows really how would unfold, as unworthy of experience. By what standards, or to what purpose?
Depression,anxiety, schizophrenia, two world wars, the holocaust slavery, cancer. MS etc . Noone has a right to inflict this on anyone or expose them to it and also to shore up gross global inequality.
I am am impressed that the Antinatalism Reddit now has 32 thousand subscribers.
Antinatalism in my opinion is also an enlightened view on the true nature and connotations of creating life.
Right, I agree with that. It's up to each person whether they think something is worthwhile or not. We can't decide that for other people (pro or con).
OK, so is this depression and anxiety speaking or an unbiased and 'objective' analysis of the current state of affairs in the world?
Quoting Andrew4Handel
What do you mean by that?
How is reading about the holocaust and other mass murders and tortures depression and not just an acceptance of harsh brutal facts?
I think I became antinatalist at 11/12 when I watched "Escape from Sobibor" about the Holocaust and I wasn't depressed then. Ironical I was being bullied by class mates who had watched the film, directly after in the changing rooms.
I see no reason why experience should not be a deterrent or ethical inhibition to having children. I know that several of the people that bullied me and watched that film have gone on to have children whilst leaving me with long term trauma.
I have not met any antinatalist who has reached the position in a fit of temper or angst. People in the community are often the most healthily skeptical about social norms and not just conformist followers.
What facts?
The facts of depression suicide, millions of people dying in war and slavery and genocides.
I'm not making this up. It's history Syrian civil war ISIS,North Korea,Iran etc
Yes, these are all terrible things; but, is this really an unbiased analysis of the world?
This reflects in a large part my own view on the matter.
I think antinatalists often perceive themselves as having to cope with some form of suffering they find unbearable, and, as they cannot find a legitimate reason to continue life for themselves, they seek to affirm their beliefs about themselves by delegitimizing the lives of others.
As such, they point towards all forms of what in their eyes constitute unbearable suffering and conclude for all those cases that those people would have been better off never being born.
What they fail to consider is two things:
1. The vast, vast majority of people on earth do not perceive themselves as suffering unbearably.
2. Even those who suffer unbearably at some point in their lives, are not necessarily of the opinion that never having been born at all would be a better alternative.
Another, more skeptical theory would be that antinatalists perceive themselves as having very slim chances of procreating, and seek to validate their situation by "hating that which has been denied to them," much in the same way that people who have faced rejection in their lives can come to resent the opposite sex.
I don't comprehend your notion of bias.
The fact that sticking my hand in fire will hurt does not create a bias in me. It is a factual piece of information about what reality is like.
I cannot think of a rational humane world view that can incorporate and justify famine, slavery and genocide etc.
I think that the majority of European Jews before WW2 imagined a genocide would happen but now we know this is a real crazy possibility. If they were more negative maybe they would have been more prepared. But now we have mountains of historical evidence to inform decisions.
I was depressed before I became an antinatalist it did not automatically make me antinatalist.
The depression creates antinatalism is merely an ad hominem. But it is not surprising the antinatalism would be associated with depressions because it is not a ringing endorsement of reality.
“The total amount of suffering per year in the natural world is beyond all decent contemplation. During the minute that it takes me to compose this sentence, thousands of animals are being eaten alive, many others are running for their lives, whimpering with fear, others are slowly being devoured from within by rasping parasites, thousands of all kinds are dying of starvation, thirst, and disease. It must be so. If there ever is a time of plenty, this very fact will automatically lead to an increase in the population until the natural state of starvation and misery is restored. In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
This sounds very similar to what I read as the antithesis of 'antinatalism', being logotherapy. Even in the most extreme forms of despair and powerlessness one's attitude or world-view can be controlled.
Have you read Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning? It details the life of a Jewish doctor/psychiatrist in an extermination camp, and how he was able to still choose what and how he felt to his predicament in life.
All of life? Who's reality? Yours or the unborn fetus?
What facts about life for you think are irrelevant when creating a new life?
Avoiding being burnt is relevant to all life. I am really puzzled how issues life war, genocide and famine would have no impact on someones decision to have children.
It seems like a lack of sensitivity and rationality.
Even if you are not at all antinatalist there are numerous factors you could consider before creating a child. But no one has to or no one is expected to consider anything other than their own desires before creating someone else.
It turns out that this group, the "happy" lot so to speak, aren't really happy at all. The first indication of this sad truth is the existence of religion and we all know religion is a thriving business. What draws people to faith? One thing only as far as anitnatalism is concerned- the promise of a better life - heaven. The question is simple: If people are truly happy why is religion such a thing with them?
Also from a philosophical point of view how many people have actually achieved eudaimonia, the supposed highest state of living the good life?
If one has to criticize anitnatalism then all that can be done is to say it's a bit too ancient in outlook. It comes very close to the Buddhist view that life is suffering and that was 2500 years ago. Who says Utopia is impossible?
If you were king of the forest, would you put restrictions on when and if other people could choose to have children? If yes, what restrictions?
There is absolutely no reason to have children
We all have to confront our own death.
In my opinion creating children is malicious. It is like if you were dying but started a fire to kill lot of other people rather than confront your own death and see what happens. Instead you left trails of continuing destruction (the random propagation of your genes) as an act of defiance.
We know for a fact we, you and all your children , grandchildren, and great grand children are going to die. For what conceivable reason?
There is no real immortality in leaving behind partial replicas of your genes to eventual go extinct.
In a sense I feel cowardly for not dying and seeing what life was about.
But the inevitability of death means you just have to sit and wait for the inevitable and creating children is not a pastime that would ameliorate this.
Well, you didn't answer my question, but then again, really, you did. The answer is "yes," if you were in power, you would prevent other people from having children. And that is the difference between an idea that is misguided and one that is evil.
What's the point of even bringing this up if you are only going to have, what, two antinatalists on this forum defend it against the hordes of non-antinatalists? That is a bit of trolling if you ask me. BUT I'll indulge your trolling attempts...
So the problem that @Andrew4Handel brings up is a real one for the individual in a society. That is that people cannot choose the historical development and societal institutions/setup that he/she is brought into. That is just a fact. There is no "really" escaping it either. Your options are... be beholden to the forces of this behemoth technological economic giant and get by with the six or so "goods" to overlook the cirucular productive forces that we are forced into, or do the following- kill yourself, become a part of the underclass (homeless), become some sort of monk/hermit. These last three are not great choices, and the main de facto choice of just complying with the circular productive forces with six or so goods, is the default. These are just not great choices to be forced into. Keep the productive circular thing going with six goods to tide you over, experience contingent harm, and deal with problems and overcome them. By the time you realize that you don't want to be a part of ANY of these choices, IT'S TOO LATE. There is no collateral damage being not born. Nor is it a mission to bring anyone into the world. People are not just more productive forces of labor to be ameliorated with the six or so "goods" of existence (physical/aesthetic pleasure, relationships..).. But that's exactly what they become. It might not be intended that way, but that is the situation people become when brought into the world. It's not EVEN a matter of perspective on this.
Despite his bitter protestations, I'm bringing in @Bitter Crank because I think he might shed some light on how we are circular forces of production.. He will shrink away from total pessimism on this.. but I think he has some wise insights on the whole shebang.
No trolling implied. I stand by what I said, that you didn't care to address.
Again, there are only two or three antinatalists here. Slim-pickins.. Of course you are going to have the satisfaction of almost anyone else who comments agreeing with you :roll:. So, I'm doing my own psychoanalysis here..as you were in your OP.
Anyways, I don't really know what your argument is, except vague assertions that antinatalists are projecting onto the fetus. Well, literally, that is all we can do when we discuss a future person, project onto that future person, so that's not saying much. The antinatalist at the end of the day, does not want to bring more people into the world due to some sort of either structural/contingent form of suffering, or combination thereof that the world either "is" or "contains". At the very strongest case, there would be an appeal to how the world is structurally suffering for everyone, no matter what contingent circumstances the person experiences. At the very weakest end, they can say that AT THE LEAST, no collateral damage to some future person occurred. But, you knew all this I'm sure. So, I don't know what you're getting at other than trolling for the sake of trolling.
See, and that's a form of black-and-white thinking along with overgeneralizing. You prevent the unborn fetus to make up their own mind in regards to the issue, and project a fatalistic, pessimistic, and highly negative outlook on their future life, which manifests in the form of denying the fetus ANY life. That's just wrong, and I'm the first to point it out or make explicit.
Uhh, really? I used to profess a negative outlook on life; but, this isn't trolling in the least. And, you shouldn't care about what others think. I admire your doggedness in regards to the issue.
First off, there is no "unborn fetus", unless we are discussing abortion. It's just a potential person. But, no you are not the first person nor the last to try to psychologize pessimism into a psychological stance rather than a philosophical one. I've written thousands of posts with probably hundreds of various arguments for pessimism. I can go over structural suffering of deprivation, how foisting challenges to overcome is wrong, no matter what the attitude of the foisted upon, collateral damage, you name it. Benatar's asymmetry is a good place to start- no one is deprived, but harm is prevented, etc. In fact, I just had another argument about de facto being used as a source of circular labor, that is supposed to be ameliorated by the inherent "goods" to justify being used as such. I can give many arguments, but you will then just say "that's black-and-white" thinking. Nothing will suffice at that point. No one has to go through any form of experience in the first place.
But, your position is inherently based on the subjective experience of suffering or strife, which you try to rationalize into an objective brute fact about existence. Is this at least correct?
There are beliefs that lead to have a more negative view of existence than some others. For instance the belief that we are biological machines blindly obeying unchanging laws, or that nothing comes after death, or that procreation is a selfish act to perpetuate one's own genes, or that suffering is more negative than happiness is positive, these seem to be beliefs shared by many antinatalists. But we can equally hold the opposite beliefs and have a rational justification for them too.
Rather than imposing on others what they should or should not do, maybe we should just listen more? Maybe the antinatalists could listen more to the natalists to hear about what makes life good for them, and maybe the natalists could listen more to the antinatalists to hear about their suffering and think about how to relieve it. Really listen.
So the antinatalist is psychologically projecting his own misery onto the unborn. But the antinatalist was himself once that very unborn child. The projection is therefore neither fictional, nor the (at least potential) quality of life of that child unknown, since the antinatalist is directly aware from his own case.
The quality of life of a yet to be born child is not a totally unknowable, transcendent mystery. As humans, we know the harms (and potential harms) potential humans will face, and we can choose to mitigate these entirely (at least in our own children's sake) by not reproducing.
Even if we grant the argument, why reproduce if there is a potential for a child to grow and become someone so miserable he projects his own misery onto the unborn, denying and regretting life? Antinatalists exist, therefore antinatalism?
The unborn aren't suffering. Those born are either suffering, will suffer, or have the potential to suffer. Every human struggles, suffers, ages and dies. You can call this psychological projection, but as a human I have some stake on the claim of what it's like to be one.
Is it Groundhog Day?
But, what is the antinatalist really telling us?
But, that doesn't give him the right to say that the unborn fetus should not live!
Wallows...
In my view, he tells us about his suffering and how he views his life.
I don't think it is at all evil to prevent someone having children. You are problem imagining some scenario like selective eugenics and genocide.
Lots of people have their children taken off them after they are born because they are unfit parents. There is not just one scenario where people intervene in reproduction.
You and I, and many others, have gone back and forth on this many times. Many of us, most of us, don't see things this way. And yet you are unwilling to accept our experience of the world. We like it here. It's worth it. That's the primary reason it's hard to take your position seriously.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is a great example of the disrespect you show other people. As for @Bitter Crank, notwithstanding his views on the economic system, he maintains a humane and balanced understanding of the benefits and costs of living. You ignore that because it doesn't support your position.
I don't think this whole "you're an anti-natalist because you're depressed" argument is a legitimate one. Whatever the psychological basis of @schopenhauer1's beliefs is, he is right to expect us to argue the merits of his ideas.
It seems clear to me that, to a large extent, all of us develop our understanding of how the world works based on our temperament and positive and negative experiences in the world. I try hard to see those influences in my own thoughts and take them into account when trying to understand the beliefs of others.
I have no problem with this statement of the issue, but anti-natalists, at least as represented here on the forum, take it a lot further. They draw harsh conclusions based on that evaluation, propose a draconian solution, and, some of them at least, want to inflict that solution on others who disagree with them.
Of course he has the right to say that. He just doesn't have the right to inflict his judgment on the rest of us.
I wasn't talking about specific situations that apply to a relatively small number of children, and, if I understand correctly, that's not what you are talking about either. You are talking about a broad consideration of the population at large. Unless I missed it, you have still not stated you would not stop people from having children if you had the power.
Quoting T Clark
Well stated. That was what I was trying to convey :up:
Antinatalism is the best solution for all the problems I have laid out over the years. It is draconian to force others into a system, without caring that this creates collateral damage. I'm going to be a broken record because some records are classics:
I. Keep in mind that no actual person is deprived if not born. However, some actual person will always experience harm if born (the Benatar asymmetry argument).
II. Being born means moving into a constantly deprived state. In other words, prior to birth, there is no actual need for anything, after birth, needs and wants are a constant (Schopenhauer's deprivational theory of suffering).
III. Life presents challenges to overcome and burdens to deal with. When putting a new person into the world, you are creating a situation where they now HAVE TO deal with the challenges and burdens. It does not matter the extent or kind of adversity, the fact that a parent forced a new person to deal with challenges and burdens of life in the first place, is not good. Forcing something to play a game that cannot be escaped, or to burden someone with tasks that cannot be escaped, including enduring one's daily life challenges, is not right, no matter how much people later "accept" or "identify with" the game they were forced into (i.e. the "common man's view" used so much to counter the antinatalists "extremism").
IV. Contingent harm is harm that is situational. You simply do not know how much harms there are in life for a certain person. This creates huge collateral damage that was not meant for the child to endure, but he/she must do it nonetheless. Some people will find the "love of their life" others will be loveless for life. Some will struggle to keep food on the table for themselves, others will become highly successful in a career. Having the capacity for achieving one's happiness, does not mean this will occur for any particular person. In fact, if we are to be really real here, the ones that will be successful with much of what most consider "happiness" are using the ones that will fail at this. Why? One cannot know who will be successful or not prior to birth, so you must take chances with peoples' lives to see the actual outcomes.
V. We are used as "technology/progress" advancers by a circular-production system. We rely on the productive forces to make stuff, and are forced into a system where we are constantly producing and forcing others to produce with our consumption. Once this system subsumes everything, there is no escaping being a part of its productive forces. We try to "self-help" people into accepting a "job that you like!!" so that this seems less painful, but we are just extensions of the machines we create. Plastics, chemicals, metals, materials of all kinds, mining, transportation, engine-building, building-building, any damn product in the world, manufacturing, utilities, engineering, etc. etc.
I can keep going, but I won't. You get the picture. Antinatalism prevents suffering for all, and forcing people into the world. No ONE loses out by not being born, but EVERYONE loses in some way by being born. My inaction to create someone hurts, literally NO ONE. Someone else's action to birth someone, always creates some harm, and if we believe that being deprived is a negative state, there is constant suffering there too.
Yes, and for those of us who remember what a broken record is, I will play my own - Your ideas are fine and you are welcome to them. I disagree with them. I plan to live my life based on how I see things rather than on how you do. As long as you don't plan on restricting my ability to do that, everything is ok.
On the other hand, if you want me to take your ideas seriously and deal with them respectfully, you should consider doing the same for me. A good start would be to acknowledge that your view is only held by a small minority of people and that there are other legitimate ways of seeing things.
I never advocate forcing restrictions. I liken antinatalism to veganism- you can present your views respectfully, but don't force them. Also, do not bring things up in contexts that are simply meant to hurt people. But I'm on a philosophy forum where many ideas can be shared, some seemingly radical. This is a perfect context for arguing, and honing one's understanding on philosophical and ethical issues. I think you'd at least agree there.
Quoting T Clark
It is held by a minority, I agree. So were many ethical views in the past (the idea of mass conquest, slavery, abuses of all kinds were taken as part of life for the majority in most places). I think one main thing going for philosophy is how it forces us to look at things in different perspectives than we might otherwise see them. Having kids and procreation is taken as a given as something that is positive. I am presenting a different understanding of this. Perhaps by having children, you are imposing something, not creating opportunities for something. Perhaps, we are being imposed upon, and we are continuing this for others. To say, "Suck it up", for those who say life is an imposition, is to do exactly the thing for why people should not be born in the first place.
True. You don't get to choose your parents, the world your ancestors made, or whatever catastrophes will happen once you are born. You also don't get to choose the refined pleasures and cultures and other satisfactions that will be available to you once you are born.
It is also the case that philosophers don't get to choose the rules of the universe into which they were born. In this universe consent was not, is not, and will never be an option for people who do not exist. The not-yet-conceived do not exist.
To the extent that antinatalism is founded on the denial of choice to people who do not exist, it is pointless. Beyond this point (where actual children come into existence) antinatalism begins to have some real value.
People who do exist have choices (up to a point). They can decide whether they will produce children or not. The amount of suffering in the world vs. the amount of pleasure and happiness in the world is something for potential parents to think about. As the human population increases toward 8 billion, as the concentration of CO2, methane, and other green house gases continues to rise; as global warming continues to heat up; as the problem of feeding, clothing, watering, housing, and educating 8, 9, or 10 billion humans becomes more and more problematic; as oceans rise; as glaciers melt; as all sorts of things get a hell of a lot more complicated and difficult; PROSPECTIVE PARENTS would do well to ask them selves, "Just how much 'excess' suffering will the present and future generations have to endure?"
There are quite a few groups around the world working to encourage potential parents to have fewer children. The people who work in population understand that too many people, more than the resources of the world can support healthfully, is a cause of future suffering and something that we can theoretically do something about.
I am pro 'antinatalism' to the extent that I think human population needs to be limited, and actually reduced. We don't have to decide how to reduce our population. Nature is going to solve that problem for us, as she does for any of her children who get to be too numerous for their support systems. She has a suite of options available to knock down excess populations, and as much as we will not enjoy the process even slightly, we are subject to Mother Nature's Final Decisions as much as every other creature.
Well-stated in terms of a moderate antinatalism. What are your views on things I mentioned earlier for reasons?
See below:
I. Keep in mind that no actual person is deprived if not born. However, some actual person will always experience harm if born (the Benatar asymmetry argument).
II. Being born means moving into a constantly deprived state. In other words, prior to birth, there is no actual need for anything, after birth, needs and wants are a constant (Schopenhauer's deprivational theory of suffering).
III. Life presents challenges to overcome and burdens to deal with. When putting a new person into the world, you are creating a situation where they now HAVE TO deal with the challenges and burdens. It does not matter the extent or kind of adversity, the fact that a parent forced a new person to deal with challenges and burdens of life in the first place, is not good. Forcing something to play a game that cannot be escaped, or to burden someone with tasks that cannot be escaped, including enduring one's daily life challenges, is not right, no matter how much people later "accept" or "identify with" the game they were forced into (i.e. the "common man's view" used so much to counter the antinatalists "extremism").
IV. Contingent harm is harm that is situational. You simply do not know how much harms there are in life for a certain person. This creates huge collateral damage that was not meant for the child to endure, but he/she must do it nonetheless. Some people will find the "love of their life" others will be loveless for life. Some will struggle to keep food on the table for themselves, others will become highly successful in a career. Having the capacity for achieving one's happiness, does not mean this will occur for any particular person. In fact, if we are to be really real here, the ones that will be successful with much of what most consider "happiness" are using the ones that will fail at this. Why? One cannot know who will be successful or not prior to birth, so you must take chances with peoples' lives to see the actual outcomes.
V. We are used as "technology/progress" advancers by a circular-production system. We rely on the productive forces to make stuff, and are forced into a system where we are constantly producing and forcing others to produce with our consumption. Once this system subsumes everything, there is no escaping being a part of its productive forces. We try to "self-help" people into accepting a "job that you like!!" so that this seems less painful, but we are just extensions of the machines we create. Plastics, chemicals, metals, materials of all kinds, mining, transportation, engine-building, building-building, any damn product in the world, manufacturing, utilities, engineering, etc. etc.
I can keep going, but I won't. You get the picture. Antinatalism prevents suffering for all, and forcing people into the world. No ONE loses out by not being born, but EVERYONE loses in some way by being born. My inaction to create someone hurts, literally NO ONE. Someone else's action to birth someone, always creates some harm, and if we believe that being deprived is a negative state, there is constant suffering there too.
You don't know what any individual is going to think about what you consider harms, especially relative to things they consider to be positives.
Nor would it matter, if they weren't born ¯\_(?)_/¯.
Depends on who you ask. Mattering is something each individual will make an assessment about, and they can't be right or wrong about what does or doesn't matter to them.
They don't exist. There is no actual person who is deprived here. That is the kicker ;).
Whether something matters is up to the people who do exist. So you can't say something doesn't matter in an unqualified way.
Yep, no mattering for someone who does not exist.
But it might matter to people who do exist. You have to ask them to know.
It.. what is it here? We are talking about potentially having someone who doesn't exist yet.
You know what you were talking about with "it" when you wrote "Nor would it matter," don't you?
It doesn't matter.. the assessment of good/bad for something that does not exist.
Again, it might matter to people who exist.
That is not the issue at hand. The issue is, no one needs to assess anything, if they don't exist.
The issue at hand according to whom?
Argument of antinatalism- not having children. There is no one who is deprived of anything. There is no one who exists to need...anything actually.
?? The reason that I quoted this: "The quality of life of a yet to be born child is not a totally unknowable, transcendent mystery" is because that's the claim I was addressing. I wasn't addressing any broader claim or argument than that.
The same actual person will also experience good--quite possibly much more good than suffering.
In the words of a song from decades ago, "I beg your pardon; I never promised you a rose garden". Life is a mix of good and bad. Everybody knows that.
Antinatalism, like perfect socialism, can become an [i]idée fixe[/I], an obsession of sorts.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Since we do not live in a system of continual homeostasis, that's true. We are always running short of something. If you stop breathing you will run short of oxygen. If you stop eating you will run short of calories. An idée fixe can lead one to be deprived of philosophical options.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Amen to that. Like the fucking grass is causing me to suffer because it is supposed to be kept short. What's wrong with long grass?
Quoting schopenhauer1
As I often say, "You just never know where the next disaster will strike."
Quoting schopenhauer1
Now here I think you have an excellent idea. Being the pinko commie I am, I naturally see capitalism as an evil system of continual expansion, an all-consuming juggernaut, moloch, gang of ravening thugs, etc. that subverts nature to its imperative for continually larger profits which turns out suffering by the megaton.
Capitalism manages to produce a good share of the suffering to which antinatalists object. When will you become a member of at least the Democratic Socialists of America?
Anti-baby. Pro-death.
Anti-life. Pro-green.
Anti-john, pro-rape.
Anti-sex, pro-abstinence.
Anti-reason, pro-stupidity.
Anti-good, pro-evil.
etc.
I never meant to imply that all antinatalists are all depressed blokes. But, that they are projecting their own concerns about the world onto the rest of humanity, and that this is a form of overgeneralizing, along with black and white thinking to do so.
Antinatalists are trying to save the world form overpopulation. Antinatalism is the key to prevent the complete destruction of mankind and possibly of all life on the globe. Whether through mental-emotional depression, or else due to having the whole thing thought through properly, is a secondary consideration.
This is new. I've never seen such an argument professed by any antinatalist...
More blatant overgeneralizing and black-and-white thinking. If you don't like those labels, then here's a new one: Your creating one hellova-straw man here. Besides, children don't live in isolation from their parents. Usually, every child has a parent that looks after them and raises them the best they could. That this sentiment doesn't always turn out as true is another matter.
That leads to a thought experiment. Say you stumbled across a time machine in your neighbor's garage, activated it and found yourself among the first modern human beings. You're also aware that like the Avengers, you can't actually change the future, you can only effect a different timeline. So here you are with the first humans, who naturally think of you as the great ancestral spirit come to give them advice. Now's your chance to preach antinatilism, which will be so persuasive that it works.
Do you convince them to not have kids knowing what's in store for the human race? Granted it's different time line but still good likelihood for war, genocide and capitalism. Also, reality tv.
The question is has it been worth it? Now that we're here, we make the best of it. But if you're Captain America, do you skip Peggy Carter and go back to talk the first humans out of procreating, so all the terrible things in history are avoided? Or do you think that hundreds of years of slavery are worth your doppleganger's enjoyment of sipping on some wine while watching The Bachelor?
Keeping in mind, of course, that effective, reasonably priced, and widely available contraception - a prerequisite for anti-natalism - wasn't available until about 60 years ago.
Okay, but you take some back with you, or bring a doctor to sterilize. With their consent after you've convince them, naturally. No reason to not start things unethically.
So would you create another world of human history?
I wasn't really quibbling with your thought experiment. It's just that, when I read it, it struck me that the whole anti-natalist argument is a product of our modern technological world.
Don't blame me. It's hard to be there 200000 years back when you were born only 65 years ago.
Gimme a time machine and I'll do it in a flash.
Descental spirit. Not ancestral. Otherwise, correct.
Okay, no pills. But maybe there were plenty of sheep and ducks in the fields and rivers.
Please see my previous post of geese and sheep.
Well, the primitive human view of time travel is such that they call it "ancestral", since you're from an alternate timeline, and therefore cannot be their descendant, particularly after you convince them to use birth control.
Well, there you go. (Hehe.) So... how is your species working out?
I was asked in several occasions in the past by very serious people which planet I had come from.
So we say, "Just stick with the nuts, berries, roots, herbs, and roast meat. It's keeping you healthy, strong, tall, and sexy. So just keep on keeping on. Forget about making bricks, planting corn, and domesticating horses. The dog is all you need, really. We will return every 1000 years to make sure that you don't get in over your heads and go all modern. If you do go all modern on us, we will commit suicide by lining you all up and shooting you."
Indeed, we are ignorant of the millions of ideas that some engineer-types thought of. Their ideas which satisfied their intellectual curiosity.. created millions of boring jobs for others who are less creative in the technology world.. We are mostly ignorant of the very outputs we consume from these engineers, we live an existence where we know we know when we don't like doing a task, but have to do it anyways (unlike other animals), and no there is no solution, including communism for the problem of work, and the existentially configured human who must deal with it. We have to find motivation. Other animals don't. We have to find meaning. Other animals don't. We are simply minutia-mongers pretending there's meaning in the mongering.
Why I became an antinatalist basically went like this:
1- Do I know my children would enjoy their life and find it worthwhile? No.
2- Would I mind if someone used any resource of mine (money, time, etc) without my consent to do something HE/SHE believes is worthwhile with it? Yes.
Therefore from 1 and 2, I should not have children as that would be risking someone else's resources for an investment I BELIEVE is worthwhile without their consent.
I think you misunderstand the argument of antinatalism. It's not that magic ghost babies are saved from harm by not having them. it's a lot simpler. The basic principle is: it is wrong to act in a way that WILL risk harming someone in the future (for no good reason). Hiding a bear trap in an empty public park isn't bad because it harms magical non existent entities as you put them, it's bad because there is a chance it WILL harm someone. Even though that someone isn't there yet
But, how is that sentiment for you to decide?
Quoting khaled
This is wallowsome. How is that a bad thing?
Quoting khaled
How does this make sense if you can only speak for yourself?
A good reason in my opinion is that the balance is on the enjoyment/pleasure side for most people.
I might talk with them about how they arrived at their conviction because people are interesting and an interesting life means talking to interesting people.
“But how is this sentiment for you to decide?”
???? Sentiment? What sentiment? I’m just making a statement of fact. Do I know my kids would not be miserable wretches despite my best efforts? No and neither do you. So this establishes that bringing someone into existence is a risk.
“This is wallowsome, how is that a bad thing?”
You wouldn’t mind if I stole your bank account to make an investment I think is worthwhile without consulting you? And we’re talking big investment here, like 90% of your life’s savings or something. I highly doubt you wouldn’t. This is just a metaphor for birth. You force someone to live for 80 years with very high emotional consequences on both parties if they try to commit suicide early while risking they have a miserable life. All of this for no good reason.
“How does this make sense if you only speak for yourself?”
So you don’t agree with the sentiment that’s it’s wrong to commit acts that will harm people in the future for no good reason? So it’s not wrong for me to poison your food for example?
That is not a good reason. Because I don’t care how small the chances of being miserable are (although I don’t think they’re that low) it’s still not a good reason to take a risk FOR someone else when they will pay the consequences. If you don’t agree then you wouldn’t mind someone stealing your bank account to invest most of your savings in a certain business without your consent just because “most people who have invested in this business have found it worthwhile”.
Also do you have kids? If so why don’t you have more? Why don’t you have as many as you can possibly provide for? Why don’t you work harder just to be able to provide for more kids? Because after all it is apparently your responsibility to take risks with other people’s lives as long as most people experience a positive balance of pleasure/pain.
A distinct reproductive disadvantage is not a reason to believe the philosophy will necessarily fail. There have been antinatalists since classic times and I don’t know anyone who’s seriously tried to address the position. That should tell you something. Also using the fact that a philosophy will likely lose is no good reason not to follow it yourself. Just because it’s a minor philosophy does not “prohibit” you from seeing the sense in it and sticking to it, that just sounds like an excuse to me
The risk to you or the unborn child?
Quoting khaled
What's to say that your child or whatnot is going to do that?
In the near term people who don't want kids not having kids might create a strain on the social security system. Not nearly enough concern or potential for impact to me to care. I'm not going to try to persuade those who don't want kids to have kids.
In the longer term, as has happened on this planet for the last 4.5 Byrs, those life forms and groups within species that reproduce persist. Those that don't perish. It is the foundation of life.
Risk to the child that will be born. In the same way that setting a bear trap in an empty park is a risk for people that will be there even though they're not there right now
Quoting Wallows
I didn't say they WILL have a miserable life. I said they might despite my best efforts
I think it is a good reason, because the odds are by far in favor of not being miserable. Maybe you don't take good bets, but I do. I think good bets are worthwhile to take.
Quoting khaled
We're not at all talking about doing something against anyone's consent. Consent requires someone capable of granting or withholding consent.
I have kids. I'm not against having more, although at this point, it requires younger women who are open to mating with an older guy and who don't mind relationships with someone who is married.
Quoting Terrapin Station
This right here is the main point. The point isn't "don't take bets", it's "don't take bets with SOMEONE ELSE". I like taking bets, I enjoy life for the most part but that doesn't justify taking that bet for someone else.
Quoting Terrapin Station
So it's ok to put bear traps in a park because you can't get consent from the people that will be there later because they don't exist right now and you don't know who they are? The point isn't going AGAINST consent. Any action that risks harming someone required explicit consent. If that is not given then it is assumed that person is effectively saying no. That's why you don't rape a sleeping woman even though "there is no entity to get consent from right now"
Quoting Terrapin Station
Why not? I thought your reason for having kids is that it helps the kid because of the balance of pleasure and pain they'll likely experience. Thus by your own logic you should work to your utmost to have as many kids as possible
People who exist are capable of granting or withholding consent, aren't they?
What about inactions? Should we get consent for not acting if this harms someone?
What if my kids would view never having had a chance to live as harm?
Why are pleasure and pain the measure of a life? I oftne set goals for myself that require dealing with more pain than if I was a hedonist. I do this because the life in me wants to experience certain things and be expressive in certain ways. Am I harming myself? And yes, I understand that I can give consen for this, but my point is that I think harm is being defined as if hedonism was the obvious choice that life makes. I dont think this is the case. Or if it is, the type of pleasure is so nuanced it is really not a good term for it. And pain too is misleading.
I have had a hard life, at least for a Westerner. Repeated trauma, as one example. But I am glad that I got this life. I am life. I want it.
An antinatalist wants life to stop. I think the universe is better with life and as far as I can see most life agrees, in its general avoidance of death. In its seeking out more life. And in us even creating challenges and goals that require suffering that we could avoid.
The antinatalist dislikes life. I have sympathy for that.
But the antinatalist talks about consent, when they try to convince life that life is bad and should not have been. Imagine if they were effective in convincing people. Where did they get the consent to try to end all future life? Do they have the consent of the unborn to try to convince the living not to have them?
In the end it is guilt in the guise of kindness. Life, you have committed a crime, because really Life you don't want to live.
It won't be effective, this proselytizing, but the goal of it is quite hypocritical.
Yeah, so I think this is the difference between you and the majority of other antinatalists that I have seen hereabouts. In that in your case you aren't overgeneralizing for the sum total of all people in the world, whereas others think that the structural suffering and constant strife is proof of making a choice as to not perpetuate it.
But, one has to realize the inherent illogicality of this whole rationale, being that how can one ad hoc provide reasons for not wanting to continue suffering in the world for an entity that has never experienced anything at all?
No because I didn't force them to read it. Unlike with children who you force into this world.
Quoting Coben
Then it's not your responsibility. It's not your responsibility to make someone happier, but to not make them suffer more. You don't have to donate to charity but you can't kill people. If someone asks you to give them money (or life) you don't have to but you can't take away money (or life) from someone else
Quoting Coben
I believe inaction should never be morally punishable.
Quoting Coben
I never used pleasure and pain and if I did I didn't intend to. I don't need to appeal to hedonism. I said "do you know your child will find their life Worthwhile? No". To elaborate, do you know for sure that your child will have a system of value that he himself finds satisfaction in, be that hedonism or whatever you're doing? No. You don't. So it's still a risk. There is a chance your child becomes miserable by his own standards and finds no meaning in any of it
Quoting Coben
No. That is a side effect. An antinatalist simply doesn't want to risk others' wellbeing for his own. An antinatalist would never murder. Because murder is taking away something from someone. However an antinatalist will never have kids because that risks harm (which he finds immoral to give others) and only has a chance of making a good life (which he doesn't owe anyone)
Quoting Coben
Most of life in middle class Western society agrees and if they're human. Look at how cattle are treated. And how some people in less developed parts are treated. I don't think your opinion of life is as universal as you think
Quoting Coben
The fact that life seeks more life doesn't mean life is enjoyable or worthwhile or whatever value you want to measure it by. We evolved to reproduce not to have fun or whatever that value you measure by. Look at cattle. They reproduce as much as they can despite miserable farm conditions.
Quoting Coben
An antinatalist doesn't necessarily try to convince that life is bad, but that propagating it is risky for no good reason. You can he as satisfied with your life or as miserable as you want, that doesn't justify causing everyone to go through the same experiences. You don't owe anyone a good life but you owe them not harming them. It would be great if you gave me money, but you don't have to, however it would be wrong for you to hurt me for no reason. And it would still be wrong if you gave me a mixed bag like "I'll beat you but I'll give you a 100" without my consent. That's what life is, a mixed bag
Quoting Coben
You don't owe future life it's existence. Or else it would be a moral imperitive to have as many kids as humanly possible and I think we can both agree that's ridiculous. You do however owe everyone not taking risks that might hurt them without their consent.
Quoting Wallows
I hear this so often but it's really not that hard to get. Antinatalism doesn't want to protect magic ghost babies from harm. It wants to protect real people from harm. Course of action A: have birth, results in harming someone therefore it is immoral. Course of action B: don't have birth doesn't harm anyone therefore it is better. That's all. Or to be more specific, course of action A guarantees harm that is not asked for while course of action B only denies potential people pleasure which isn't a bad thing because you don't owe anyone pleasure, refer to my last comment.
Is it wrong to poison someone? Why? No one is getting harmed right as the poison is being administered, they're harmed afterwards. An actions is moral or immoral depending on it's consequences EXTENDED THROUGH time not just right now. Or else placing bear traps would not be wrong
Yes
You haven't yet demonstrated (for the above in any way to be a sound argument) that existence is necessarily suffering.
Quoting Wallows
I don't need to. I need to demonstrate it's a risk of suffering. Which it obviously is. Have you ever suffered? Yes. Can your children suffer? Yes. Therefore having children risks harming someone therefore don't have kids. I thought we got over this when you said that unlike most antinatalists I don't take life to be suffering which is true, I don't. Life is a mixed bag of suffering and pleasure and it's wrong to give people these mixed bags without their consent.
The illogicality is really showing here. How can you ask for consent from a fictitious straw-baby?
Quoting Wallows
You can't. That's why you don't assume it. In the same way that you can't ask for consent from people that WILL go to a public park because you don't know who they are and yet we can agree it is wrong to place bear traps in said park. It would still be wrong to put those bear traps there even if you filled the whole park with money for people to pick up. Giving people money is generous and good for them but you don't have obligation to do it. Filling the park with bear traps on the other hand, risks harming someone and so it is immoral even though you don't know who that someone is and you can't ask them for consent beforehand.
If consent is not available it should be assumed that it is not given. That's how consent works. Unfortunately most people have some sort of cognitive dissonance that makes reproduction a special case to this rule. If you can't ask for consent you don't have it
There's a chance that your ideas will lead to the cessation of all life. The implications of antinatallism are that no one should be alive after we all reach natural deaths. What if that's an atrocity for all the life that would have happened?Quoting khaled
But you are. If you are effective in your polemic there will never be well being again.Quoting khaled
I know the developing world well having lived there half my life. I see people choosing to live, their children choosing to live and resisting having their lives ended with great passion, perhaps even more than in the pampered West. I have no denials about suffering and how horrible life can be, but I see life wanting life and fighting to keep it despite conditions. I see no basis at all to say that people in developing nations wish they'd never been born. There are people who feel this way, but not in general. If you were effective you would end all sentient life. And all future generations would not come to be without their consent.Quoting khaled
Nor does it mean that you somehow have the consent of future generations to try to eliminate their coming into being with what is basically a massive guilt trip based on anti-life.Quoting khaled
I missed this. Again, there is a pleasure/pain analysis implict in your position, even if you do not say it outright. This is you presuming you can measure, with your values, what people should think the measure of life is.Quoting khaled
According to your values that include an anti-pain hedonism, since you think you can dismiss my opinions since I come from the West.Quoting khaled
I never said I did. I am not saying any person must procreate. I was pointing out the problems with your position if it is effectively argued.Quoting khaledThen you are violating your own rule. And note the word 'hurt'. Pleasure pain is how you measure life. I see people, in both the developing world and elsewhere valuing life in much more complicated ways, of wanting to live anyway, of finding value even when there is struggle and pain. Meaning, love, creating, small successes, curiosity....there are so many things that keep people living and wanting to live. I see not the slightest indication they would prefer someone had decided not to risk their being allive.
If you are even slightl effective with your rhetoric, you are making some few parents feel bad and guilty about having brought their children into the world. That is a risk you take without their consent. If you are extremely effective, you may be ending all future sentient life. If a scientist antinatalist is influenced by your rhetoric, he might invent a tool to eliminate future generations.
We all take risks. Doctors take risks inventing drugs for children. It's true that once these drugs are made, some few children might die of the side effects while many others are saved. those children could not consent. I cannot see that doctor's work as per se immoral.
Most children will show they consent retroactively.
In your eyes, to live one must be perfect. Well, let me tell you, each time your write, each time you leave your apartment and do anything, you risk that your actions will cause harm without the other person's consent. Perhaps you will accidently drive and cause an accident. That accident would not have happened if you didn't leave your house. So presumably you don't drive. Because your actions might cause a death without the other's consent. And that will cause their families harm at the very least. But then even pedestrians can cause harm. And whatever job you have.
But I will bet you take risks everyday. Trying to be responsible, no doubt. But still your continued existence entails actions that might lead to to serious harm. yet, you continue to live.
Perhaps you will argue that your parents will feel bad if you die, but my guess is even if they pass you will continue to live. And you could have cut off relations with all others to minimize their loving you and being sad if you were gone.
Of course a lot of parents would suffer if they don't get grandkids. And a women who loves you might suffer.
we are not perfect, but life wants to continue. With great passion. There is a seed of hatred of life in anti-natalism, and trust me I have a lot of sympathy for that hatred. A lot. Despite my having been born int he West, I went through repeated trauma as a child. I am glad someone like you did not convince my parents to never have let me live. Because I do not share your values system. And I hope you do not undermine the coming existence of children, the vast majority of whom do not either.
Quoting Coben
That is still their choice not mine. I gave them consent to read my comment and they did. They didn't have to. And besides, by spreading my ideas I might stop one person from having children which will save generations of pain so that's a positive. Overall, my comment can cause just as much suffering as wellbeing and it's their choice to read it in the first place. Their curiosity is not my fault
Quoting Coben
Do you understand what consent means? You need consent when
A: You want to do something you think might harm someone
B: You're not sure if they would be ok with the risk or not
There is no such thing as "consent to stop life". That's like me saying "I give you consent not to give me money". Starting life and giving money to someone are both ways of IMPROVING current status of someone not deteriorating it therefore you don't need consent to do or not do those things (give money/life). Do you think I can say "I withdraw my consent to you not to give me money, so you owe me money now"? Do you think that makes sense?
Quoting Coben
I'm not but I think you'd agree with what I said. Or else you wouldn't be typing here because you'd be too busy fulfilling your apparent moral obligation to donate to charities all the time until perfect equality has been established. As I said, I think we can both agree that improving someone's state of affairs is good but not necessary while deteriorating it is bad and necessary to avoid. If you have an alternative I'd be happy to hear it
Quoting Coben
?
Quoting Coben
Then too bad. You don't owe future life it's existence. Just like you don't owe every human all of your money until equality has been established. Neither of us thinks that this would be an atrocity so why pose the question? If you truly think not having children is an atrocity against someone then you're commiting an atrocity right now by typing this as you're wasting time that could be used to have more children
Quoting Coben
Again, I don't need consent here. Hey, you aren't donating money to me are you? Oi that's not fair, I didn't give you consent NOT to donate money to me. Now give me money. I don't think this line of thinking works do you?
Also, again, you're wasting precious time typing instead of having kids which means you're having less kids than you can which means you're going against the consent of future generations right?
Quoting Coben
Tell me exactly who is HARMED by me NOT having children. I said HARMED not denied improvement in state of affairs because those are different things as I've been trying to explain. Who was once happy and is now sad that I didn't have children?
Quoting Coben
Lol YOU started making pleasure and pain analysis when you said that most life prefers more life and is happy, not me. I don't like this way of arguing either
Quoting Coben
See this here is the core of the issue. The decision ISN'T YOURS. It doesn't matter if only very few people would have preferred not being alive, they can't take the risk for someone else. That's like me saying "I'm going to take your bank account without your consent and I'm going to invest all your savings in this business most people say is a good investment capisce?". Obviously you would object to that wouldn't you?
Quoting Coben
Except thats exactly what you did. What right do you have to eliminate the lives of your future generations (you said this not me)? You must procreate by your own logic
Quoting Coben
They read the user terms and rules for this site and consented to reading my specific comment by opening it
Quoting Coben
Then he would be misunderstanding the core argument. It is simply this: You don't owe anyone to improve their lives but you owe them not to make it worse. Killing someone unwillingly is drastically making their life worse (because they didn't want to die obviously). So an antinatalist scientist would never make a weapon like that
Quoting Coben
Yes but ask those children if they want to take a risky drug or die terribly and all of them would prefer the drug. You have CONSENT from these people. One the other hand doctor's can't just administer random drugs to people in their food can they? We can agree to that. Why not? Because the doctors don't have CONSENT in the latter case. Idk what you're talking about when you say "those children cannot consent" of course they can
Quoting Coben
Yes but I must do that to survive myself. You don't HAVE to have kids. Heck you can even adopt if you really want to be a parent. If I hole up in my apartment I myself will suffer severely. In addition, me suffering severely won't help anyone so whether I leave my apartment or not doesn't impact anyone but myself. In that case I'm allowed to leave my apartment.
Quoting Coben
No. You consent to the small chance of dying of accidents when you decide to use public roads. You know the risk involved with using them yet you do. In the case of having children, an unborn child never agreed to even put himself in a position of danger and you propose putting him there for no good reason (I don't drive but that's beside the point)
Quoting Coben
See ALL of this suffering? It's a lot right. And I wouldn't blame anyone for wanting to alleviate themselves from it. As long as they don't cause THE EXACT same suffering on the future generation which is exactly what reproduction does. All the pain that comes with not having a kid is an argument FOR antinatalism not against it. YOUR pain doesn't justify harming someone else, especially when your literal only reason for subjecting someone to EVERY HARM IMAGINABLE is that you'd feel lonely without grandkids. I'd get stealing when you're starving, but this just can't pass
Quoting Coben
Yes this is all true and it is not an argument.Quoting Coben
Do you know your child will share yours for sure? No. So why are you taking a risk by bringing someone here who you know might hate it for no good reason?
PS: I don't get why everyone thinks I am using a pleasure pain analysis when I am explicitly trying to avoid those words. Instead I use "improve" or "deteriorate" state of affairs which is understandable under ANY value system. The point is: You don't owe anyone improving their state of affairs but you owe them not to worsen it. I think anyone with any value system would agree to that
Sure. So consent is an issue with respect to people who exist as they go into a park and what they encounter there.
That is fine. But it is a weak reason to bring someone onto this world. Or, in other words, create someone in this world.
It does create a straw-baby though, which can't consent/agree/vouch with or for their own life, though.
Course of action A: have children
Result: Someone is harmed or risked harm for no good reason
Course of action B: don't have children
Result: No one is harmed or risked harm
So why do you you still want course of action B do you mind explaining? If I had replaced the actual course of action to, say:
A:bet with someone else's money behind their back and
B: don't bet with someone else's money behind their back
Even though both courses of action in this case have the same result as the original, I'm sure you would have objected to course of action A. Why do you make a special case for procreation?
The only reason I was using consent is just for real life analogies. It works like this (I'm sure we can agree): if you are about to improve someone's state of affairs (however you mean that, either hedonistically or otherwise) you don't need consent but you don't have to do it. If you are about to deteriorate someone's state of affairs or risk doing so you need consent. Have children is the latter and there is no one you can get consent from so it is wrong to have children, just like the park example.
But more importantly, why is it wrong to hide bear traps in a public park? Who exactly is harmed by this action? You don't know do you? So does that mean that to say placing bear traps in a park is wrong creates fictitious straw-parkgoers?
The fact that you will be dead much longer than you will be alive doesn't justify me commiting atrocities onto you does it? We can both agree to that.
Quoting Neir
And antinatalism is an attempt at showing people that the only logical conclusion to the opinions they hold (most of them) is that procreation is wrong. It IS just another opinion but I believe it is the most universal, as all the premise it needs is: it is wrong to harm or risk harm onto others for no good reason (however you interpret harm)
Which everyone should agree to by their own definitions of harm.
Why are you typing here? Even though whatver point you're trying to make won't matter after everyone dies. It doesn't matter that all of this is just opinion, that won't dissuade anyone from thinking it is important as proven by the fact that you yourself found it important enough to type here
What about the people who really want to have children? Aren't they affected by not having them?
There is no situation in which no person is harmed. But there is a situation in which harm is minimized and ceased altogether for humans.
The pain people may feel by not having children can easily by topped by the pain created by having children. One couple having children can lead to generations of harm to people and, animals etc.
It undermines issues like not to harm and to respect consent.
My old brother has had over twenty years of debilitating illness that has left him paralysed and he has to communicate by blinking or slightly moving his head. It doesn't matter that parents did not intend this to happen. Illness and disability is always a risk and death is inevitable. I have also had a lifetime of problems
Parents can cause more harm, through their children having misfortune and illness, than your average criminal can,as well as through acceptable or hidden abuse.(For example my parents where abusive but will never be prosecuted for this)
It seems to be that most parents do not see themselves as responsible of the outcome of their child's life or of the state of the world.
I think death can only be perceived as a benefit when one is in great suffering. But that is not a positive thing because the goodness of death in this scenario is reliant on the badness of life.
Nevertheless I believe no one knows what happens when we die. So anything could happen after death from personal oblivion to any kind of afterlife.
I think if someone ceases to exist after death then that is no benefit to them as they don't exist to benefit from it and it also makes their life pointless because they won't even know it happened.
I think it is continuing to exist (as we all are now being able to type on here) that brings any value to life. I don't value events that I can't remember and things can only effect me when i am alive.
If like many religious parents have believed there is a hell, then the awfulness of the afterlife would overwhelm whatever positive experience a person had. And my parents for one literally believe in hell and a lake of fire. People that believe in hell yet create children still in my mind are probably irrational/stupid but also sadistic.
Also I don't think reproducing is any kind of immortality because you and your offspring will die and infinitum. Most people want to die before their children but that means that you won't know exactly how your child died and they could have a horrible end. And ironically parents dying before their children has left millions of young orphans who have to fend for themselves.
I get that you are trying to combat harm, but if the entity doesn't exist before you bring it into being, then you aren't in fact harming anything. You are granting it the potential to feel positive and negative experiences, i.e. life. The alternative is absolute nothingness, so it's just a balancing act.
Is art ethical? Crafting positive and negative images, granting the potential for enjoyment and disturbance, intending for the love but preparing for hate, it's a lot like bringing life into the world, and I don't think it's rational to judge any individual life until the work is finished, like letting an artist get into their groove and witnessing their eventual portfolio after they are finished.
I was responding to khaled, but I'm on my phone and can't quite figure out the quoting mechanic.
I was just pointing out that it's not the case that no one might be harmed when no one has kids.
You've pointed out before that the "calculus" you'd use simply ignores the "pleasure" side of the equation. So sure, if you do that, what you're saying follows. But of course, many people aren't going to adopt that calculus, and they will figure in pleasure, too.
Yes, but the degree to which the people that really want to have children is harmed is much smaller than the degree to which their children are harmed. For the obvious reason that their children will also really want children. Really wanting children is a SUBSET of the harm the child will be projected to if you have him. So although those parents are harmed, in the face of what the harm they propose inflicting to deal with their own harm it is nothing.
Replace "Pain" with "deteriorating state of affairs" and "pleasure" with "improving state of affairs" and all of the antinatalist arguments on this thread will still make sense, however you interpret what deteriorating or improving means. That should tell you something. In fact, I explicitly did this in my reply to you but it looks like you haven't read it (sorry it was that long but most of the points you're making now have been addressed in it)
Quoting Coben
Hey, did I give you consent NOT to give me money? I don't remember doing that. How dare you not give me money then? Isn't that risking imposing your value of private property on me?
Again, if anything (future life or current) is somehow asking you for something that would improve their state of affairs, you don't have to give it. However you owe them not deteriorating their state of affairs no matter what.
Keyword: CAN grant a good life. It is not guaranteed. If there was some way to measure with absolute certainty that your child will find life worthwhile I'd say procreation is ethical. But with a risk it is something else entirely. Imagine someone stealing your bank account to invest all of your life saving in a company that CAN succeed. Would you permit that? I highly doubt it. Now imagine if they used the excuse: I tried to call you but you weren't available at the time so I proceeded to invest without asking you. Would that be moral? Especially if you've never met this person before and you have no idea how their values and risk assessments differ from yours? I'm hoping you're catching onto the analogy
Quoting Neir
Yes because you don't HAVE to look at art. You consent to looking at it when you enter the art exhibit or look it up. If, however, a crazed artist staples your eyes open and forces you to look at his art I'd say that's unethical yes. Procreation is like the latter case not the former. I don't care how good the art CAN be, you can't show it to other people forcefully. Creating art and displaying it is a different deal because you don't force anyone to look at it
And more of your values. You keep repeating your values as if they are obviously universal/objective ones. That's why I felt we are at an impass and now address other people.
And your posts made me feel bad without my consent. :razz:
No but seriously. I don't see where you and I can go forward. To me it is an impass. To you, you are demonstrated it. I think your demonstration includes value assumptions and also not noticing risks that you take for others. IOW you continue to exist and take risks of doing harm or doing things that will lead to the deteriorating state of affairs of others without their consent yourself. You allow yourself this but not others, both when arguing for antinatalism, but also in general. And then you have an axiomatic moral that one cannot do anything that might lead to deterioration for someone. And present this as if it was a fact. And that's not even getting into whether values can be objective. Even if they can be, i see no demonstration that your axiom is the one that is objective. You thnk you have demonstrated this or do not need to. You think that your continued existence in general and the specfic acts of promoting antinatalism in general do not involve hypocrisy around risking deterioration in others without their consent. I disagree.
So, there we are. I mean, you do present a more nuanced case than I have encountered. I think it is the best one I have seen on the internet in discussion forums. I am not making some blanket rejection of you as a discussion partner. You're a smart cookie and treated me with respect even if perhaps we both came off a bit cranky here and there.
But I can't see going forward. I see repetition without advance.
How would we measure such things?Quoting khaled
There's no way to know this for any person until the person is around to ask them.
You're not assuming that everyone's harm in something is equal are you?
Good points.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You don't need to measure in this case. The harm of "wanting to have children" HAS TO BE greater than the harm of "wanting to have children" + every other harm. It doesn't matter how you choose to measure it
Quoting Terrapin Station
But it would be very unreasonable to assume that the desire for having children for one particular parent is so great that one can conclusively say it will be greater than all the suffering his child will ever experience don't you agree?
In fact, the fact that you can't know that a child to suffer until they are around to ask them is a central argument for antinatalism. You know there is a chance that your child will be severely harmed AND that he will hate it AND that he will not employ some morality that helps make meaning out of it despite your best efforts don't you? Then why do you take the risk when you could just adopt a child if you so want to be a parent. Also I seem to have lost where you were trying to go with this argument. Are you seriously suggesting that the reason having children is ethical is because the harm to the parents outweighs the harm to the child in every case?
If you think they are good points please read my first reply to Coben and point out faults with it if you find them. I explicitly try to avoid a pleasure pain analysis in my replies and if I still use it just replace "pleasure" with "improving state of affairs" and pain with "deteriorating state of affairs" however you interpret that to be. If you think finding meaning in your life and pursuing it despite the pain is improving the state of affairs go right ahead. It does not dent the argument of antinatalism in any way. That is because you don't know how your CHILD will interpret improving and deteriorating states of affairs, so it doesn't matter how you or others interpret them that is no excuse to risk creating someone that might interpret them in ways that cause him severe suffering.
Did you mean that the other way around? At any rate, what I was questioning re quantification was what I quoted: "the degree to which the people that really want to have children is harmed is much smaller than the degree to which their children are harmed." That's different than the "plus" statement.
Quoting khaled
I've not made any statements with respect to quantifying such things aside from asking how they could be quantified.
Quoting khaled
I'd say those two things are inseparable if they're not the same thing, by the way. But sure, there's a chance of that. I already commented on that above, by the way.
Quoting khaled
This part I don't think I get, though. Insofar as I get it, I don't think there are humans who don't employ morality or meaning, but maybe you have something in mind that's not clear to me.
Quoting khaled
Wait, but people have to be giving birth in order to adopt kids. With antinatalism, no one would be giving birth. At any rate, I'm fine with either option folks want to choose.
Quoting khaled
I didn't say anything like that and I wasn't making an argument per se. You had said that not having kids doesn't harm anyone. I merely pointed out that that's not categorically the case.
Quoting khaled
It doesn't seem like you realize that there's no way to make this stuff not subjective. That there are no correct arguments when it comes to this sort of stuff.
Yea sorry
Quoting Terrapin Station
How so? They sound like the same statement to me
Quoting Terrapin Station
Well some people interpret "harm" as "pain" in an almost physical sense then go on to say "but antinatalism only looks at this from a hedonistic perspective". The reason I added "and they'll hate it" is to clarify that this isn't one of those people striving for a "meaning" or a "calling" despite the pain and so see it as justified. By hate it I mean suffering that is not justified by any greater meaning
Quoting Terrapin Station
Again, I was being meticulous as I keep hearing people say that antinatalism makes sense only to a hedonist which is not true. My point with saying "and will hate it and will not employ a morality to give it greater meaning" is still just to clarify that I'm NOT talking about people struggling with hard lives that find them fulfilling. I'm talking about people that just have hard lives and have no moral code or anything that can give them meaning to justify their painful existence. The fact that your child can be one of those people despite your best effort is the risk I'm talking about.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes I know. I'm also realistic and I know antinatalism will not be implemented any time soon. In which case adoption is an option. It's the lesser of two evils. It's best never to have a child in the first place but it's better to care for a child that has been born rather than let them fend for themselves
Quoting Terrapin Station
Ok. I agree. But can we agree that having children harms the child SIGNIFICANTLY more than it harms the parent?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I know this stuff is subjective, however I do not believe anyone on this forum is the type of subject that would disagree with antinatalism, no matter the morality they employ. The only 2 premises antinatlism requires to make sense are (and I haven't seen anyone employ a system without these in this discussion so far):
1- doing X to someone is bad and doing Y to someone is good
2- You do not have to do Y but you do have to avoid X
It doesn't matter what X and Y are but so far I haven't seen anyone that challenges those premises. Then the argument goes:
3- Having children is doing both Y and X to the child (unless you employ a morality where EVERYTHING in life is good but I don't think anyone here does)
4- Per 2, doing Y is optional but not doing X is paramount. Thus, one should not have children to ensure one does not do X. Not doing Y is not a problem
Quoting khaled
??
So, say we have Jane, who really wants to have children, and who suffers because she can't have children for whatever reason.
But let's say that either in some other possible world, or in the same world where something has changed so that Jane can now have a kid, she does so, and for some reason the kid suffers.
"the degree to which the people that really want to have children is harmed is much smaller than the degree to which their children are harmed"
So that's saying that the degree to which Jane is harmed is much smaller than the degree to which her child is harmed. That's a comparison between Jane and how much she is harmed on the one hand, and her child and how much the child is harmed on the other hand. We'd need some quantification method to compare the two, to compare the amount of their suffering.
The other option is to instead say "the degree to which the people that really want to have children is harmed is much smaller than the degree to which those people are harmed PLUS the degree to which their children are harmed."
In that case we dont need a quantification method. We simply know that x is less than x + y, where both x and y are some positive, non-zero number. (Of course, we don't know that it's "much" less, but we can ignore that part.)
I want to start by saying that what you choose to do with this life you have and your capacity to bring children into the world or not is entirely up to you. Personally I have two beautiful teenagers - they bring so much joy and fear, challenges and rewards to my life, and as far as I can tell they value the opportunity to make something of their own life, regardless of how it pans out.
Having said that, I recognise that suffering is a fundamental part of life, and that our tendency to work so hard at avoiding experiences of suffering for ourselves and for others has in fact contributed much more suffering to the world as a result. Being aware of how you potentially contribute to the suffering of others, and taking what steps you can in your own lives to reduce your contribution to suffering has to be seen as admirable in my book.
Quoting khaled
This analogy is interesting, but I’m not sure it’s all that effective in getting your point across. To be honest, I would be furious that someone distrusted my capacity to choose what to do with my own life savings. You’ve called it ‘stealing’ - I’m assuming the investment was made in MY name, not their own? Despite the audacity of the act, I would nevertheless have a vested interest in that company from that point on.
‘Would you permit that?’ - this is the wrong question to ask. The deed is done. I can yell and scream and jump up and down at them, try to have them jailed (even though they’ve made no profit themselves from the act). I get that what they did was wrong, but now I have a choice: pull the investment (at whatever cost), or ride it out. A lot would depend on how the investment faired in the short term, but from this point on, control of the money is back in MY hands. Perhaps I would do what I could to ensure my investment in this company had the best chance of success. Perhaps I could embark on a mission to prevent this from ever happening to someone else again.
I’m not sure this is quite the same as bringing a child into the world, though. Can I try a different analogy?
Let’s say that your mother calls you and tells you that the money she planned to build up for your inheritance has been decimated in a financial downturn. She’d hoped to have a million dollars by now, but all that’s left is $150,000, and because of the way it was invested it might take a lengthy court case to even get hold of that. Would you wish she’d never intended to give you any money at all? Would you accuse her of an immoral act? Would you spread the word that it’s a bad idea to plan for your kids’ inheritance?
I do.
I like your arguments in favour of antinatalism. They are precise, clear and valid.
Not having children is an ethical personal choice based on a valid set of premises - I like that a lot better than the rather fuzzy preconception that having children is just "the natural thing to do".
And if all humans make that choice and humanity will cease to exist - well, then that's a consequence of free will.
Humanity will not endure eternal anyways, and this would be a rather dignified and elegant way to go. (I don't think it will happen... dignified and elegant are rather rare traits among humans)
I personally don't have children, and won't have any. But it's a more pragmatic and situational choice. I see no need to add to an already too large population count on earth. And anyway, my wife doesn't want children and my marriage is vastly more important to me than the theoretical joys of parenthood.
That being said, I promised to challenge your premises, right?
So here goes:
1- doing X to someone is bad and doing Y to someone is good
2- You do not have to do Y but you do have to avoid X
The Antinatalist position reminds me of ascetic Jainism... just refrain from an action altogether.
It's nice to have such clearly defined ethics, but I don't think they work that well in the real world.
Consider your statement "you do have to avoid X" - does that only count for future generations?
Or are you buying fair-trade goods exclusively as to avoid harm to exploited workers? Do you consume only your fair share of energy and water, so that you are not robbing fellow humans of necessary resources? Avoiding harm to others is not that easily done...
The "not having to do good" is another one I don't agree with. I believe that helping and caring for other human beings is as much a duty as the "do no harm" part.
We are not all independent entities, living our lives largely disconnected from each other - in which case the "avoid to harm" is all we need for a peaceful and ethical existence. Instead, we live in close relation. From the social bonds of friends and family, to our social circles, our nations, and even people on the other side of the globe: with all of our choices and actions we affect each other.
I think we need to acknowledge this and take responsibility for each other. Not doing harm is only one side. If you are in a position to help and don't do it, that's equally unethical.
And very often it's not even clear to us if a certain action is going to do harm or do good in the end.
For example: Buying shoes for a homeless person in my village: Good, isn't it? But buying cheap shoes supports those companies that produce shoes under horrible working conditions in Bangladesh, thus I'm perpetuating the harm done to other people there.
Not to mention issues of consent... if I a bring an unconscious person to a hospital, am I doing good? Or am I disrespecting their free will, as they are currently unable to give consent, and maybe they don't want medical treatment? Well, as long as I cannot obtain consent I will just have to go with my best guess... In daily life, ethical choices are horribly fuzzy and we constantly need to make decisions without having all the necessary data.
So I would personally put the premises like this:
1- doing X to someone is bad and doing Y to someone is good
2- You must try to do Y and you must try to avoid X
I recognize that it is both very difficult to truly avoid harming others, and to always obtain proper consent from those affected by your actions. And still I would not recommend inaction as being the solution but rather that everyone do their best and try to come out with a positive balance in the end.
Having a child means bringing some harm to that child. True. Having a child, it is impossible to acquire prior consent from them. True.
Still, if you have carefully considered the matter and estimate that your child will appreciate life more that he or she will abhor the related suffering, then it is an ethical choice to have a child.
But all of this ameliorating (helping, putting a bandaid on, etc.) can be avoided by simply not having a new person in the first place. Done, presto. No one exists to be harmed (or need help from being harmed), and no one exists to be deprived of good. Done.
Indeed that's what antinatalists are doing. I'd like to add, that it is ALWAYS bad to make challenges for others, when no challenges needed to be encountered in the first place. If no one exists, no one exists to need any challenges to make them "better, fitter, more rounded people". But that is not the case with birth. Birth brings people into the world, from essentially nothing, and THEN has them have to become better, fitter, well rounded people. People need to be challenged once born, some might say, otherwise XYZ. That is one claim. But in this situation, people are actually saying, "People need to be BORN IN THE FIRST PLACE to be challenged, made fitter, be well rounded". That is where the category error lies. Now you are putting a premium value on challenge on behalf of someone else which some might say is pseudo-sadistic (not torture, but still putting an obstacle in place on behalf of someone else who then has to endure or deal with it).
There are just so many errors like this made by those defending procreation. They assume people NEED to experience XYZ, when in reality, no one needs to experience anything prior to birth. It is a value that the parent just wants to see play out in someone else. But why this needs to be "played out" begs the question other than the parent just wants this to occur. No one needs nothing before birth. No one needs to experience anything in the first place. I don't get why people don't get that.
I would say this is not bad model there, but you are also missing that it is on behalf of someone else, and that part is central to @khaled's point. It is not just straight up hedonistic calculus as you are implying here.
One of Khaled's ideas I think here, is that you can never know what the child might think of life, whatever circumstances you are experiencing or are projecting for the child. Collateral damage in this case of being off by a little is not just like the collateral damage of some minor contingent event- it is a whole life time someone will have to live out that did not want to live it out.
Quoting Neir
And this is an important point. Nothingness is not a negative or positive. Nothing matters to nothing. There is no mattering even. As such, there is no deprivation for any actual person happening in the case of no-person existing (that very well could have).
Quoting Neir
I'm guessing you are saying life is like art- you never know what you're going to get. Great, but don't force others into it, prior to birth, there was no actual person deprived of this great "art" that just NEEDS to be experienced and "finished".
However, I still disagree on principle with preventing further births, as I don't believe a person is having suffering inflicted upon them. They are simply having the neutrality of the void polarized. Pleasure and pain are just two sides of a coin, and I consider them equal on a whole.
After the entity exists, any further action toward them would of course have to be either neutral or positive, unless consent is given, which I feel is just a natural progression of ethics in life. The reason I brought up art is that I still consider the act of creating to be a potential neutral thing.
Don't intend to do harm, and a neutral action remains neutral. However, with the way you see it, any procreation is by its nature, harmful, so I suppose you should avoid it, for ethical reasons.
I would be upset with someone taking the fruits of my labors, even if it was for a perceived positive reason, but that's because I already have a direction I'm going with life. I wouldn't expect to be that furious if I just started living at that moment. I would just be confused, since I would have little understanding of the positives or negatives.
That's why education is a useful tool. After starting off, shaping an existence out of genetic mishmash, the reasonable and moral thing to do, in this modern world, would be to work on educating that being. You have the greater potential to direct its view, and therefore its perceived pains and pleasures, in a useful and positive way.
Also, I don't really consider death to be such a great negative, since it just actualizes everything back to zero. It's just the end of the journey, the evening out of the highs and lows.
Take extreme examples like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pot etc. Were all there ancestors terrible? That's unlikely. Did any of there ancestors consider that one of there descendants could be a mass murderer?
Once you replicate your genes there is an extent to which it is out of your control. Having these terrible descendants is statistically unlikely but still you can give rise to a huge amount of descendants with all sorts of issues out of your control or concern. So it is not just a parent child issue.
Also your children are part of an exploitative economic system where they will cause and or be victims of exploitation of others such as sweat shop factory workers
Quoting Terrapin Station
No we wouldn't need some way to compare the two because: Jane's child will ALSO want to have children presumably to the same or similar extent
So one can say:
Jane's suffering due to not having children < Her child suffering due to not having children + Her child suffering due to other reasons
or x < y+z where x and y are very similar
But also something else: Jane's child is also likely to have children or to face the same dilemma.
So I think we can at least agree that:
Jane's suffering due to not having children <<<<< hundreds or thousands of people's lifetimes full of suffering
The only exception would be someone who has some sort of mental illness that makes it so that he/she suffers MORE from not having children than his child is likely going to suffer in his ENTIRE LIFETIME which I am not sure is a thing and in which case he/she can still use his/her condition to adopt someone means even that condition doesn't work as an excuse for having children
Ok great. Now what about the parents whose children hate them and whose children don't see a value of life? (note this isn't me I don't have children) You took the risk and it seems to be panning out for now. That doesn't justify having taken the risk for someone else in the first place
Quoting Possibility
Yes it's in your name not theirs
Quoting Possibility
Yes, great. I encourage you to live that way. Antinatalism doesn't say anything about how you should live your life after you're born aka how interested you should be in the company after your money has been invested. It simply tells you not to go on and invest SOMEONE ELSE'S money in the same business without their permission. You yourself called it audacious. So don't repeat it.
Quoting Possibility
No because planning your kid's inheritance is IMPROVING someone's state of affairs and you don't have to do it. First off, I am lucky my parent's investment in my money panned out. I have a pretty good life. So assuming I forgive them the initial discretion of having me in the first place, no I would not say this situation is the same as having children. Why? Because my parents do not HAVE to give me inheritance. That is a way to IMPROVE my life status. They don't HAVE to give me inheritance in the same way you don't HAVE to donate to charity. So if they suddenly become unable I wouldn't hold it against them just like if I was a beggar and someone didn't give me money I wouldn't automatically hate them.
What happened here was: A potentially better state of affairs was denied from me.
What happens in birth is: A definitely worse state of affairs was risked for me without my consent.
They are not the same situation
Man this is frustrating because it should be such a simple discussion. I'm saying if you write "the degree to which the people that really want to have children is harmed is much smaller than the degree to which their children are harmed." That sentence says something different than "the degree to which the people that really want to have children is harmed is much smaller than the degree to which those people are harmed PLUS the degree to which their children are harmed."
Okay, but the point was that I was addressing what the first sentence says, because that's what you had written. I wasn't addressing the different thing that the second sentence says.
Compare it with this: say that we're human resources employees looking at candidates' job experience. We say the following two sentences:
"Joe's experience is less than Frank's."
"Joe's experience is less than Joe's experience plus Frank's experience."
What information would we need to say whether each sentence is true?
This is different because me consuming slightly more or slightly less energy barely helps anyone. Even if I don't eat that much food, that doesn't mean it translates to a hungry child in Africa eating it probably just means more food loss. And besides, in this case it's I get harmed vs they get harmed which is different from the case of having children where it's: I barely get harmed and get harmed even less if I adopt and they get harmed SEVERELY for no good reason. One also has to consider that most of those exploited workers themselves would not want the capitalist system to cease despite the risks. So in a sense you could argue they consented to taking the risk of becoming exploited workers and got unlucky whereas a child never consented to taking part in a capitalist or socialist or communist system.
Quoting WerMaat
You are in a position to donate all your retirement savings to starving children in Africa. Does that make you obliged to do it? In my system of values, doing good is not a must but it is encouraged (because it's called doing GOOD) however never at the expense of harming someone in the process without them knowing.
Quoting WerMaat
But in this case even if you don't buy the shoes the working conditions in Bangladesh won't improve so you're not really helping anyone by not buying the shoes. It would be great if you started a petition to boycott those shoes until conditions improve, but you don't have to. If you think you have to then you're committing an atrocity by your own values by wasting time typing here instead of starting that petition
Quoting WerMaat
Yes but how exactly could you harm said unconscious person by bringing them to the hospital? I can't think of any particular way. On the other hand how could you harm a child by bringing them into existence? I could think of literally EVERY IMAGINABLE WAY. The stakes aren't even close. In this case you have all the necessary data to determine that 80 years of life is not a light transgression, no where near taking someone to the hospital which is a very light transgression. Besides you wouldn't have to take anyone to the hospital in the first case if there ain't anyone to take ¯\_(?)_/¯
Quoting WerMaat
It's not just a matter of risk it's a matter of stakes though. If I THINK you really want product X and it just went down to 2 bucks from 10 bucks and I use your money to buy it you likely won't be that mad considering it's just 2 bucks even if you didn't like product X in the end. On the other hand if it just went down to your entire life savings and I buy it I'm pretty sure you'd be furious REGARDLESS of even whether or not you really wanted it but especially if you didn't want it. Having children is literally investing all of the child's BEING on a product YOU LIKE. And I don't believe it is easy to estimate whether or not your child will appreciate life at all. Especially considering we literally evolved as perpetually goal seeking creatures. Most of the time suffering lasts way longer than pleasure. Compare the pleasure of getting a new car with the suffering of paralyzing your legs. Which will likely impact you more?
I'm not saying it's impossible to be happy or anything like that, just that
happy parents + happy neighbourhood =/= happy children
PS: I also never wanted to have children since I was like, 8 maybe that's why antinatalism came easier to me than others
You can't really confirm this is true. Idk if you mean experience as in job experience or some subjective experience. If it's subjective you can't confirm if it's job you can confirm with working hours
Quoting Terrapin Station
This is obviously true
Right. So the point was that with that sort of claim, we need a quantification for each in order to make a comparison. Whereas with the other statement it's simply logically true as long as Frank has any experience. We don't need anything quantified for the second sentence other than that.
Ok. And I am saying that no one here including you would employ a quantification that makes it so that a parent's pain due to not having children is so great that it is greater than all of the child's suffering do you agree?
Omg I hear this so often. I am not reducing life to pleasure and pain. Please read my last 10 replies or so because all of them had some reference to people saying this even though it's patently not true
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
I don't care what most newborns would grow up to be. To have children because they wouldn't be antinatlaists is absurd. You don't owe anyone to give birth to them. What if I told you I employ the value system that "giving me money is good and everything else is bad". Does that mean you are committing a crime by not giving me money? After all that's imposing your values on me isn't it? Obviously you don't owe me money in this case even though I may think you do. If anyone says "give me x" you don't have to give it to them so while it would be great for you to give me money (because that would satisfy my values) you don't have to. You don't have to do good, but you have to not risk doing evil is the basic premise.
Please read some of my earlier replies because you're the billionth person I've talked to who says those clichés about antinatalism. It doesn't reduce life to pain and pleasure. And it is not an "imposition" to apply your own values when dealing with others even if their values differ from you. If it was you're being immoral right now because there is someone out there who thinks you owe them money for you existing and you're not giving it to them
So having children is an evil act because they will suffer at points in their lives?
Does that mean I committed a crime because I had children and you don’t agree with it? Should I teach my children not to have children because they might suffer at some points in their lives? Do you not see that antinatalists aren’t just saying that they will not have children. They are saying that no new people should ever be born again. That’s a supposition that hasn’t been supported by your example. You ARE trying to impose your values on others, values that 99.99% of people don’t share.
I wouldn't say either way. I don't think there's any plausible way to quantitatively compare two different persons' suffering.
Yes. And because you do not have inflict that suffering to alleviate a similar amount from yourself. And because you don't owe them "potential pleasure"
Here is the thing. I think 99.99% of people do share these values but have some cognitive dissonance that prevents them from admitting the logical sense in antinatalism.
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
A crime in both of our eyes because I think you would agree with antinatalism if you read the arguments for it carefully
Quoting Noah Te Stroete
More precisely, they are saying that no new people should be born again under the moral assumptions 99.99% of people are employing.
So all that morality is is one's personal dispositions (of approval and disapproval) regarding interpersonal behavior that one considers to be more significant than etiquette. When I note that it's one's personal dispositions I'm not saying that those are not influenced by others, but influence is neither identity nor determination.
One's personal dispositions can be principle-oriented or not. It just depends on the individual. And if principle-oriented, it can be based on misconceptions, mistaken beliefs, etc. of course. These can include that there's a plausible way to quantitatively compare suffering and the like, whereupon one employs a principle-based approach based on a suffering calculus.
Personally, I'm not a fan of principle-based approaches. However, one idea I often return to in my own personal dispositions is consent, but consent where (a) someone normally capable of granting or withholding consent is required, and (b) we're talking about either (i) actions directly performed with or on someone, or (ii) actions performed that have a physical affect on someone through a material, causally-peggable chain--for example, putting toxins in a water supply, rigging a bomb to explode, etc. The basic idea here is that I'm excluding things like "observational consent"--it's not a consent issue if one doesn't like how other people are dressing, what other people's beliefs and behavior with other consenting parties is, etc.
Also, I only consider consent an issue, especially for legal purposes, when we're talking about significant physical effects. Physical effects that macro-detectably linger for, say, at least a few days. Thus if someone nonconsensually bumps into you, taps you on the shoulder, or even flicks you or something like that, it wouldn't be a legal or moral issue unless the physical effects detectably linger for more than a few days.
One thing I definitely do not do in my own ethical views is base anything on ideas of "suffering."
So with the psychopath, I don't at all look at relative suffering or anything like that. I see it simply as an issue of whether the "torturee" is consenting.
Re antinatalism, it's not an issue of consent, because when we're talking about nonexistent people we're not talking about someone normally capable of granting or withholding consent. We need an existent person for that.
Yes, that's the "I can't make that much of a difference on my own, so why should I try" argument. I hear that all the time when in try to talk people into caring for politics.
I think that we should just do our best, both in our personal conduct and in trying to change the system.
Quoting khaled
Yes, exactly. I try for an ethical conduct in that sense, but I often wonder if what I do is enough, if I should not try much harder and give away more of my money and time.
Quoting khaled
How come you don't think that doing good is a duty? Being caught up in an unjust system, is it enough to just draw back and not care? Shouldn't we at least try to make it a better world, to the best of our ability?
For example, I'd be totally with you on the not-having-children thing, if the reason was "reduce overpopulation" instead of "prevent the harm of living to befall the child".
Quoting khaled
Isn't that second part of the sentence rather impossible to achieve? All of our actions have effects on other people, and our inactions, too. And we cannot always know in advance what exactly is going to happen. We're human and we're not perfect. When we consider an action that we hope is good overall, I believe that the risk of doing harm must be carefully considered, but it's not enough to veto the action automatically.
Quoting khaled
Ah, so are you admitting then, that we violate other people's right to consent all the time? That we also cause harm, be it because we don't have the right data, because we need to choose the lesser of two evils, because we didn't even notice or simply because we don't care...
Then, you're saying, that it is a matter of scale and opportunity?
As in: Not having children is an easy step to take to prevent a lot of harm, so we should do that. And it's independent of whatever else we may or may not do in our lives. As when you state:
Quoting khaled
But as a consequence, you're still giving up on humanity as a whole.
If we don't take a risk with other people's lives without their consent, then we cannot keep existing. That's how it is, tough luck.
You say that it's not about any kind of balancing game, that the question is not whether the joys of life outweigh the suffering. But in the end, it is.
When someone argues that the joys of living may well be worth the suffering, you reply with "the absence of suffering is good, and the absences of joy is not bad", right?
Since human life will contain both joy and suffering, it's better for humans not to exist.
That's where I don't follow. In spite of all the horrible stuff I enjoy being alive quite a lot. I still have hope for us humans, and that includes future generations.
You could say that having children is like rigging a bomb to explode then. It risks causing direct physical harm on someone through a material causally-peggable chain. You have kid, they drink from a poisoned water supply, they suffer. The cause of suffering is as much the CAPACITY to suffer as it is the direct cause. In this case the direct cause is poisoning but the CAPACITY to suffer in the first place was caused by you.
Would you say it is moral if I rigged a bomb such that there is a 5% chance it explodes in your house without your consent? Also I think there is an inconsistency in your system between a and b. Why is planting a bomb to explode wrong? It doesn't seem to pass criteria a. Who exacly is the person from whom you ask consent before placing said bomb? You don't know do you? Same case with children
" consent where (a) someone normally capable of granting or withholding consent is required, "
If I write that that's required, it doesn't imply that it's optional or that we can just ignore it.
Also, why bring up suffering? I just wrote is "One thing I definitely do not do in my own ethical views is base anything on ideas of 'suffering.'"
Before we even get to that, I was going to bring this up: you're saying that conceiving children is physically harming them, right? (Re the bomb analogy) What exactly is the physical harm being done in that case?
(Also I need to do something at the moment, so if you don't want to have to wait for a response you need to be quick about it)
Cool. Great. Your kid might not think the same.
Quoting WerMaat
But I wouldn't say you're morally blameable for not helping more. What should be your sentence for being able to donate 10000 dollars to africa and not doing so? Should it be the same as your sentence for stealing 10000 dollars?
Quoting WerMaat
Yes. That is enough. Not commendable, but a passing grade.
Quoting WerMaat
But you see, when having children you are risking harming somenone for a life time to alleviate the harm you experience from not having children (as there is no other benefactor to having children than you) however, you children THEMSELVES will also have that pain.
So it must be true that (unless you have some sort of mental condition):
Your suffering due to not having children <<< The suffering you inflict by having children.
And I believe this is always the case because your children will face THE SAME DILLEMA. And not only that, you have to consider the pain of your grand chidlren and THEIR grand children. I hightly doubt your loneliness is enough justificiation for thousands or hundreds of thousands of people's lifetimes of pain.
Quoting WerMaat
I do not see anything bad about this. I do not assign value to "humanity" but individual humans. A humanity where everyone or most people are suffering has a negative value for me
Quoting WerMaat
Many people do. The point isn't whether or not you enjoy it the point is NOT enjoying it is POSSIBLE and you shouldn't take the risk for someone else. If you have a job you like that doesn't entitle you to force others to work the same job because "you'd like the company". That's not a good enough reason at all
I wasn't saying anything about risks. The bomb example has to do with if the bomb goes off. You don't have to be directly touching someone to do physical harm to them against their consent. There can instead be a causally-peggable chain to you, but someone still has to be physically harmed.
No, it has to be a direct action that you took.
If a bomb goes off in a concert hall, the guy who let you in to the concert hall didn't do anything to you.
Having a child is not the action that harmed you.
Again, If a bomb goes off in a concert hall, the guy who let you in to the concert hall didn't do anything to you.
If you intentionally/knowingly gave them HIV and we can causally show that HIV made you acquire the other disease (which would be very difficult to show causally).
Assume you can. So what's the difference between this and having children? Having children enables certain kinds of pain but doesn't cause them directly. Giving someone HIV intentionally enables certain kinds of pain but doesn't cause them directly. What's the difference?
As within 15 minutes you completely forget that someone normally capable of granting or withholding consent is REQUIRED for consent to be an issue.
I... Don't understand what you're saying at all. Are you saying consent is not required from concert goers and workers can force them in whenver they like?
And what about the HIV example?
Where did I say anything that suggested I'd have a moral problem with "enabling" anything ? Someone capable of granting or withholding consent is required, and even then, we need to be able to show a causal chain, which I said would be very difficult to do in the HIV example.
Holy moley. Okay, when I get back. I'm late for what i need to do.
Quoting Terrapin Station
So giving someone HIV and them dying of a seperate disease is completely acceptable for you? Assume it was done without the consent or knowledge of the HIV recipient. After all, it wasn't the HIV that killed him. Also assume that person was in peak physical condition and had died to a disease he had beaten multiple times before.
It's 10:34 PM here I gotta sleep. See you some other time hopefully
Ok, but the thing is, in this analogy your anti-natalist position is identifying with the potential $1m, not with the kid who lost their inheritance.
Quoting khaled
It’s the potential that I keep wondering about in your analogy. One assumes you have alternate plans for this money - this is where the real offence is here. But you’re saying: ‘Don’t take my money to invest on my behalf - I plan to flush it down the toilet instead, and you’ve robbed me of that opportunity, which would be a definitely better state of affairs’.
I’m not looking for justification for bringing children into the world - we chose to do so because we felt we had something to give the world that was so much more valuable than our DNA. We understood the risks and we’ve worked hard to minimise them, as well as to ensure their existence is most likely to have a positive net effect on the world. That’s part of our responsibility as parents, and I didn’t want kids unless I felt I was capable of that.
I also know that most parents don’t take that responsibility seriously. I think some people do believe that bringing a child into the world is their right simply because they have the capacity (plus everyone else gets to do it), and the extent of their responsibility is to fulfil society’s expectations, making sure the kid is fed and watered occasionally and kept out of immediate danger until they’re capable of exercising their own right to populate the world unnecessarily. In my opinion, this is what needs to be addressed.
So, you wrote:
"Also for the concert hall example, you CHOSE to go to the concert hall. If the guy forced you into the concert hall and it blew up it IS his fault"
You wrote that in the context of an analogy with having kids.
It doesn't work to point out that the person chose to go to the concert hall, because being born isn't a consent issue. Why not? Because for consent to be an issue, it requires someone normally capable of granting or withholding consent. That requirement is not met when we're talking about conception/birth, so consent isn't an issue there.
Quoting khaled
Re that, I already explained my view on it, in some detail, a couple times above.
What matters is:
(a) whether there was intent to give the person HIV,
or alternately
(b) whether there was negligence in giving the person HIV (because the person either knew or would be reasonably expected to have known that they had HIV--a specific health issue, where there's a significant chance of transmitting the specific health issue in question)
and
(c) they do wind up having health problems where that's causally-peggable to HIV
and
(d) we're talking about doing something to a person normally capable of granting or withholding consent.
Either (a) or (b) need to be met, and then in conjunction with either, both (c) and (d) must also be the case.
I think someone that overall enjoying life might struggle to understand this sense of imposition. There are experiences you have which you would not want anyone else to go through.
Suffering and pleasure are often in different people and one person's pleasure does not cancel out another person pain.
This is like a utilitarian ad absurdum. You could have a million people being tortured but then if you create a Billion Blissfully happy people that apparently balances out the cosmos.
I think even without if one is not an antinatalist there is a case for reducing the number of people to reduce the amount of suffering.
I've never been able to get petty cash to balance, so even thinking about balancing the cosmos is well above my competence level.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
On this I agree wholeheartedly. The growing number of people in the world are exceeding the globe's carrying capacity. Reducing the population by means beyond normal attrition will also entail great suffering. Population reduction is not something we need to plan for or execute. Natural processes will intervene at some point and carry out the reduction for us, on us.
We could work harder to reduce birth rates, however. Greater prosperity tends to lower birth rates, but it will not lead to zero population growth soon enough. Birth control must be pursued much more aggressively. More aggressive birth control--not for extinction of suffering--though fewer people means fewer people suffering--but for survival of the species.
Even if I was to distill this argument down to collateral damage- by having someone who did not want to go through life in the first place, you created a lifetime of collateral damage. This is not a minor type of collateral damage we are talking here, but a whole lifetime of existence. If no one is born, no actual person is deprived of anything, either. There is no person in a locked room going, "Let me in!".
What does that have to do with whether being conceived or born is a consent issue?
The problem of consent arises after someone is born because they did not consent to anything.
After you have created someone you cannot claim they consented to any aspect of their existence.
Your position seems unbelievable because we can discuss consent in the abstract. For example almost no one would consent to have there hand thrust in boiling water. Someone does not need to exist before you assess the probability of someone consenting to X. Preexisting humans give a good indication of what people may or may not consent to.
However even if someone does consent to X that doesn't make X good. And we don't know what kind of life someone is going to have to assess whether they would consent to it. So people are claiming life is great people are happy to exist so it is reasonable to gamble with someones welfare. However life is only great for lucky people it is not a guarantee and there are lots of counter examples.
So among reasons given together are:
Harm (this involves wide range of issues from mental illness to the issues below and illness)
Consent
Exploitation and inequality
Pointlessness and meaninglessness
War, famine, genocide and slavery
Work stresses and other survival issues
Death
Facts (statistical probabilities about life outcomes and historical facts)
Negligent parenting
Religious and moral claims
Preference
Because your little supposed paradox cuts both ways. No one exists to be deprived of anything either. That is David Benatar's main point in his Harm of Coming into Existence. However, if someone is born that did not want to go through life, that is a lifetime of collateral damage, with no loss to any actual person. His sub-points were also very astute empirical observations (outside the a priori logic), that people are harmed more than they a) think and b) report. However, the empirical observations are a separate argument. I'd like to focus on the main premise, that is no one is deprived.
Where did I mention anything like that?
You're going through a talking points script that doesn't have anything to do with what I was saying.
It absolutely does though. Your little paradox about no one existing for consent cuts both ways. You say, "People do not exist in the first place, prior to birth, to consent".
Ok, well I can also say, "People do not exist, prior to birth, to be deprived of the "goods" of life". So not having a child will not deprive any actual person of anything. There is no person to be deprived, or to feel deprivation of any sort.
However, if you DO have a child, and that child does not like life, that is a lifetime of collateral damage for that child.
Consent is an issue when:
(a) we're talking about a particular action that one is an actor in--either via performing actions on another or having actions performed upon by another
And
(b) we're dealing with an entity normally capable of granting or withholding consent for particular actions.
So what particular actions are you referring to?
Right. And what does that idea have to do with anything I've typed? I'm asking you twice now. I didn't say anything at all resembling potential kids being deprived of anything. Read my posts instead of checking off your prepared talking points.
Either you are being purposely evasive of what I have brought up as a consequence of your own argument, or you are really not understanding how much this has to do with it. Either way, I'm not sure how to help you more than the very simple way I just explained it.
If it's the case you truly don't understand, then I can only say that you are stuck on the consent thing, instead of the implication of what it means for someone not to exist prior to birth, which is the real core of the argument. Prior to birth no one exists. You say, "Thus consent matters not". Ok, but then "deprivation of goods for non-existent person, matters not" as well. Thus, not having a child leads to no loss to any actual person, but being born would be a great negative, or what I like to call "collateral damage" to someone who doesn't like life.
Knock knock--hello? What did I type that you think has anything to do with this? An intelligent response would quote something I typed that you believe has anything to do with the issue of potential kids being deprived of anything.
Quoting Terrapin Station
And what the fuck does that have to do with talking about nonexistent kids being deprived of anything?
Knock knock..hello..Because with your SAME LOGIC of NON-EXISTENT people, we can say that there is no harm to any actual person who is NOT born, but there may be CONSIDERABLE harm to those who ARE born... I'm using your very argument about NON-EXISTENT people to make an antinatalist claim, ala Benatar's asymmetry argument.
That has nothing whatsoever to do with anything I'm typing. I'm not saying anything even remotely resembling the notion of nonexistent people being deprived of anything. If you want to repeat the same garbage over and over don't use my posts to shit post in response like that. How about commenting on the actual content of my posts instead. Don't waste my time with the same old crap that has nothing to do with anything I was talking about.
Then I can't help you.. Keep on missing the point.
As I just added above: If you want to repeat the same garbage over and over don't use my posts to shit-post in response like that. How about commenting on the actual content of my posts instead. Don't waste my time with the same old crap that has nothing to do with anything I was talking about.
I don't want to enable your OCD nonsense. Comment on the content of my posts.
No one is going to stop procreation anyway.
Dude, I am.
I already said the point I'm getting at.. but I can walk you through it slowly, and in your case, in a circular holding pattern kind of way, where you will not see the forest for the trees of the argument, but here we go, baby-steps.
1) You think consent does not apply to a non-existent person, correct? It would be a category mistake or something of that sort, correct?
Yes, and I said nothing even remotely approaching the notion of nonexistent people being deprived of anything. So bringing that up in response to my posts means you're ignoring the content of my posts to start repeating the same prepared talking points for the thousandth time. You're using my post as an excuse to ODCishly launch into your telemarketing script that we could all repeat verbatim.
But your points feed right into mine, so to not demonstrate how your logic about non-existing things not having certain things apply to them (seemingly pro-natalist if one focuses on consent) actually implies antinatalist conclusions (if one focuses on the fact that no actual person loses from not being born). It is not a tenuous connection either, but at the very heart of the logic whereby your objection is being used. So what you think shuts down one argument actually facilitates a much stronger argument that is in favor of antinatalism.
And what anti-natalist is not risking the harm of other people every day? One can certainly avoid driving. But even pedestrians can cause accidents, voting could contribute to the next world war, selling or helping produce a wide range of products could cause harm, buying a wide range of products can and likely does contribute to companies that harm someone. (and these risks are often for those who have not consented, but then, consent is off the table, if both sides agree on that)
That would only be relevant if someone were saying something about depriving nonexistent persons of something.
You speak as though the way you see things is the way things are, period. So, are you saying that anti-natalism should be enforced by law? If you had the power, would you enforce anti-natalist law?
It's relevant when discussing nonexistent or potential people.
No I see antinatilism like veganism, advocate but not enforce. It's a matter of personal ethical understanding and philosophy.
I actually dont think consent is off the table, but that's another argument. Right now, I'm merely establishing how nonexistent people implies something about deprivation, similarly to how consent is claimed to be a category error.
As far as consent being off the table for circumstances where someone already exist, as your examples are, no I dint think it's off the table.
The point is about risking harm on behalf if others. ALL harm can be prevented if no one is born AND no actual person is deprived by not being born.
If anyone is making or in any way implying the claim you're addressing. Otherwise it's "Hey, here's a chance to do my telemarketing script mantra again."
That has nothing to do with anything I was talking about, but sure, there are no risks for anyone if no one exists. So if you were only concerned with preventing risks for some reason, that would be something you'd focus on.
Alright. Explain this one then. Why did you say planting a bomb to explode later in a public park is wrong? It meets (a), because there is an intention to kill, you're not sure who you're killing though. (C) is obviously met because the cause of death is exploding. But then (d) isn't met is it? Who exactly is the something or someone capable of granting consent in the bomb example? You don't know who will be there at the park do you? So if I set the bomb to trigger at a random time, it's totally fine because consent is not an issue in this case?
So by this logic, we can do nothing, as everything we do must first require consent. It is wrong for me to pat someone on the back until I obtain consent from him, in case I inadvertently harm him. It is wrong for me to flush the toilet in my house, in case I inadvertently drown a mosquito.
Sorry - I’m trying to understand this, really I am. I get that consent is an important factor here. But I get a sense of infinite regress - in order to gain consent, I must gain consent to ask for consent.... Otherwise I should just assume that no consent is given, and therefore not act.
As I mentioned in another thread about consent, I think it’s more the issue of exercising rights with no regard for responsibility that is causing unwarranted harm. When parents exercise their right (or some sense of misguided obligation) to bring children into the world for whatever reason, they regularly do so without an understanding of the full extent of their responsibility - not just to that child, but to the world at large. Guilt that our children did not turn out as we’d hoped is regularly expressed and then absolved in society. It’s not your fault that your kid is depressed and wishes they’d never been born - there’s something wrong with them. You did what you could, it’s not easy being both a parent and an individual. That’s okay: you look after you. They’re an adult now, they have to be responsible for their own life. I’ve often lamented that people need a license to be a parent, like they do to drive a car...
I don't agree with this, but i'l focus on: you are not eliminating your harm. Here you are at a bird's eye view looking at an 'if everyone agrees scenario'. I am looking at antinatalists in situ and seeing they are risking harm in the ways I mentioned and more. If they want to argue this in consequentialist terms - iow it is worth that risk to prevent greater harm - then they open the door for people risking harm in pronatalist ways.
It also assumes that we must look at values via harm.
This 1) presumes objective morals. It is simply a fact that one must avoid harm. That is THE CRITERION 2) begs whether this value should be one that rules over our choices amongst the many options available. 3) It also seems to run counter to the values most people have, since most people are willing to risk harm to others and also would prefer to live even if their lives include suffering or harm. I see almost no one who thinks they must eliminate all the potential harm they might create. Now this could be read as an argument ad populum, but in the absence of objective morals it carries weight what both antinatalists themselves and people in general are willing to risk, despite the former thinking we should never do this. It carries weight because the antinatalist is forming a position to, in a sense protect people who do not exist. But since the odds seem to me enormous that these people will, like people now not share the anti-natalists values, both about having children and also that removing potential harm is the value that trumps all others, there is an inherent disrespect even to the values of those who could come to be. I can see anti-natalism as a personal choice. I can't see why the anti-natalist values should dominate all other values. And I cannot see how an anti-natalist lives up his or her own philosophy, given that they risk harming others all the time. And since their values may be wrong - if there are objective values - they are risking causing a catastrophy, should they be successful if all future human life never comes into existence. yes, if the only or must value is not causing any harm is objectively GOOD, then preventing all future humans would be ok. But there's a risk you are not right about what is objectively good, but you take that risk and try to change the world. Unless you think you are infallible about such things, why do you get to take such an enormous risk along with all the day to day risks you take around harming others?
I do not see why an ethics regarding procreation, shouldn't involve harm, being that it is someone else's life that is in question here. In the case of the procreational decision, certain considerations are at play which are not at play when someone is already born. Starting a life has different considerations than continuing or navigating a life already started. The asymmetry in regards to harms vs. goods comes into play when making a decision to start a life.
Once it is seen that no actual person is deprived of anything prior to birth, any premium put on a value other than harm (to experience accomplishment and love, for example) would not matter for anyone but the parent putting a premium on this value being carried out. The actual person that the hopes for these values to be carried out for, is not missing anything- it is simply the parent wanting to see some outcome, and using the child as the vehicle for this outcome. To not consider harm, but rather consider some other value, would be using people to fulfill one's own desires. Harm is the only consideration that matters at this point prior to birth. It can even be characterized as callous and sadistic to overlook harm for any other value, when there is no negative consequence to an actual person prior to birth (except the parent's own desires..but again, the negative affect on the parent, is not an ethical matter so much as playing with other people's lives that de facto will be harmed, which now involves another person's life- and a lifetime of possible collateral damage). No person actually feels loss of not "getting to experience" life's other values of XYZ (love, accomplishment, flow-states, friendships, etc.).
Quoting Coben
Again, you are ignoring the a priori logic. No one is in a locked room saying "but I could be living!!". All that matters in the procreational decision, due to the glaring asymmetry of negative/positive in respect to people who don't exist, without being sadistic by overlooking harm done to another person, is that you are not bringing a lifetime of the possibility and inevitability of harm to someone. That is to say, that you are not procreating.
Quoting Coben
So, I could take the harder avenue and provide you theories that people can be harmed by life, but still identify it like a slave who may not mind their situation but is definitely harmed by their situation, but I'll simply take the easy road. I'll refer you to the thousands of posts I've made showing how we are harmed in very particular ways, despite our identifying with the very thing that harms us..
But let's talk the easy road. The easy road is that NO ONE will be deprived of ANYTHING prior to birth. Period. But SOMEONE will be harmed by being born. In light of non-existing people not being deprived of anything, the only consideration that matters here is the the lifetime of collateral damage of undue suffering and collateral damage. And no, there are no "people that want to be born" being put as hostages, as the asymmetry shows to respective non-existing people, they are not actually there to be deprived- nothing is deprived except the regret of the parent projecting a future child.
Quoting Coben
Because any other value besides harm to a potential child, would be using that child for a parent's X agenda and outcome they want to see carried out by that child. It is in a way playing with someone else's life for your agenda. I will be a broken record on this, because the logic dictates this- no actual person needs anything prior to birth. This is all the parent's agenda at this point- an agenda that most likely won't go the way the parent projected it anyways, and may be potentially very negative for the child at best (and if the child decides life was not worth it, even worse).
Quoting Coben
That is the thing, there is no risk with antinatalism. No person actually will be deprived of anything. We are not playing with other people's lives in antinatalism. ANY and ALL risks will ensue if someone is born, however. Once born, other considerations come into play, as the asymmetry of non-existing people is no longer part of the logic. It would be a category error to equate the two as using the same ethical logic in everyday life of those who already exist.
I didn't say that. You didn't understand that comment. That was an example of a consent issue that's not a direct action upon someone, but rather an indirect yet causally-peggable action that would be a consent issue once the bomb goes off and someone is significantly harmed by it.
In other words, the idea is that consent issues only arise with actions on or with other parties--we're ruling out observation, awareness, etc. as requiring consent. One's consent is not required for someone to wear sagging pants, for example, even though one might see the sagging pants and not at all like them. Or for another example, one's consent is moot for whether homosexual relationships are allowed, even though one might observe or be aware of them and think they're an abomination against God or whatever. We have to be talking about an action performed upon or with another person.
But it doesn't have to be a direct action--it doesn't have to be something where your body is literally touching their body. It can be indirect, however much the parties might be temporally and spatially separated. So, for example, you're not touching someone else when you shoot them. There's some temporal and spatial separation. The same thing goes for poisoning a water supply, planting a bomb, etc. But someone needs to actually be hurt for there to be a consent issue there AND there needs to be a causally-peggable chain back to your actions AND we need to be talking about entities normally capable of granting or withholding consent.
So I wasn't saying there was something wrong with merely planting a bomb. I wasn't saying anything about risks or potentials or anything like that. I was covering the base where someone isn't literally touching another person's body, but where there's an agent capable of consenting to things done to their body where there's a causally-demonstrable chain back to someone else.
The person in the location where the bomb goes off. That would be a person who exists who is normally capable of granting or withholding consent.
They're not "a person who doesn't exist yet."
I disagree. There is the rest of the family and anyone who cares about people who want kids. This is a core desire of many people, most. Then if everyone follows antinatalism, there are no future generations, which means anyone who wants to leave a legacy: scientists, artists, etc., cannot leave it. That would lead to a lot of feelings of meaninglessness, depression, etc. Then anyone who feels part of some long line of humans accomplishing, exploring creating, even if they themselves are not specifically adding directly to the legacy, these will also feel depressed in large numbers. So if you are effective you are causing harm.Quoting schopenhauer1
Your value. And one not shared by other people
Quoting schopenhauer1Apriori logic? In any case, I never said that or assumed it. I am saying that the very people who harm you are trying to prevent in the vast majority will not, if they come to existence, share your values. I am not saying you are harming them. I am saying that the people you want not to experience harm would not if they came to life share your values.
You are imposing your values on others who are alive and presuming what is of value to be prevented for potential others. It does them no harm, since they are not yet, but it is absurd since they are merely your values and not those you want to protect's values.Quoting schopenhauer1
Easy road? save the little ad homs. And seriously why would someone who presents preventing harm as the only value use an ad hom? Hypocrite. I am well aware of the vast ways one can suffer being alive and I am also aware that people can delude themselves. But again, you assume that harm is the only criterion we should use when making decisions. And two, just because it can be the case that people are deluded, who are you to decide that that possibility means homo sapiens should end`? That your values should reign and that you are in a position to evaluate the lives of others. What if you are deluded in your calculations`? You are being vastly more presumptuous than any single parent who decides to have a child. You are universalizing your priorities and your value. A value you cannot live up to yourself.Quoting schopenhauer1
The only consideration that matter to you.
You just have a value. Like someone who hates butterscotch icecream. In a variety of ways you keep saying that we must prevent harm to anyone at all costs, period. That's your opinion. And I suppose that's what apriori logic means to you. You know it, so you state it.Quoting schopenhauer1
Nope, see above.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You really don't read carefully. You are taking a risk that you are spreading a value that may not be the right one. Maybe your argument is all correct based on your apriori value that we must not create new life because it might suffer. I don't think you have made a case at all. But it is possible that you are right, since I am fallible, being a human and all. But you are also a human, and also potentially fallible, right. You know that right. And as I said above, you are now taking the risk that you will effectively spread a value as the value, but you are wrong about that.
I get it. You can't imagine how. But that's the point. Fallible humans often cannot imagine how they could be wrong.
You are taking a risk your ideas are wrong. And the ulitmate risk you anti-natalists are taking is that you convince people to agree with you, homo sapiens ends this generation
and you were wrong.
And actually what you did was a horrible mistake.
Because we fallible humans might be wrong about something.
Now because I know life involves risk regardless of what I do. My action, my inaction, my ideas, might lead to harming people alive or not alive yet. I know this. And yet I continue to live and try to both make things better and reduce harm. I take the risk that my total contribution will not be postive.
But you, since you think one should not risk anything are being a hypocrite. Both in your daily life, since you risk harming others born and not born, jsut walking down the street. And certainly arguing the end of the species, since, despite your inability to consider it, you might be wrong about what one should value. What you consider objective values might be wrong, even though you can't see it. Unless you are claiming omnsicience. Yet you take these risks.
It's hypocrisy
And it also is very much like the colonialist Christian thinking that others must follow their values.
No explanation why your value is objective.
No explanation how you live up to the rule of not risking harm.
No explanation why your way of evaluating value should apply to people who in the vast majority disagree with you.
Repetition of your apriori.
It's not a case.
You'e expressed an opinion, in a variety of paraphrases.
And you want to impose that opinion on all human life.
I am sure you are capable of paraphrasing your opinion in yet more ways, but I don't have interest in reading more and the ad hom was the icing on a cake I won't eat.
Take care.
A variety of reasons, which I refuted by demonstrating it is putting the agenda of the parent's outcome for the child at a premium over and above harm done to the child which is wrong due to playing with someone else's life so that a parent's agenda/vision for that child's life can be carried out in some way.
Quoting Coben
I never said it is "objective", other than the ironclad logic of not causing harm, and having no collateral damage for non-existing people. At the end of the day, if not causing unnecessary suffering (with no cost to any actual person) does not matter to you, and playing with other people's lives so that they can carry out an agenda of the parents (as there is no one with an agenda beforehand) does not seem unethical to you, then I can only keep on giving you examples and appealing to your emotions. That is why ethics is in the realm of debate and ideas. Same goes with ethical ideas like veganism. They are not held by everyone, but it is certainly in the realm of debate and idea-exchange. No one can provide an airtight anything in this, only present the case and offer reasonable explanations as to why the position is a basis for ethical action.
Quoting Coben
Now this response is totally unethical to me. This is precisely what I am talking about in terms of using people for the agenda of others. Now, people's lives are to be used for building legacies for the already-existing. Well, it's just too bad for them that they don't get to use people for their benefit and agenda. Guess what cost this has for the unborn? NOTHING. Why? No actual person exists to be deprived.
Quoting Coben
You overlook the very point, harm is prevented, with no actual loss to an actual person. However, by procreating, definite negative will befall an actual person. That is why, in the procreational world, where no one NEEDS anything (like love, accomplishment, pleasure, virtuous character, etc.) the only logic that makes sense is don't create collateral damage of putting people in a world with the possibility and inevitability of harm.
Quoting Coben
Matters not. If someone does not live to realize a certain set of values or experiences, there is no actual loss to an actual person. What does occur, however, is no actual person will suffer.
Quoting Coben
My values does NO HARM to ANYONE. Yours will inevitably cause harm. If harm doesn't matter to you, I can accuse you of mild sadism, and using others for selfish gain (even if the selfish gain is based on some sort of altruism for something that you want to live out an agenda.. which ironically would not need to take place, if the child wasn't born in the first place to need to have to live out). But again, I can only provide arguments. If I told you that I "know" the things-in-themselves, that would be pretty absurd right? But I can provide arguments for what the possibilities can be. There is no ironclad anything in philosophical debates. What I do know is new, foreign-sounding ideas are usually reviled at first being against people's enculturated sensibilities, then often violently opposed, and then (sometimes) considered as self-evident (pace Schopenhauer).
Quoting Coben
My value will lead to no harm to another person- playing with their life for my vision of an agenda that I want to see (at the least a new person born, at the most, a new person born that SHOULD have XYZ experiences). The kicker you can never jump over, and unfortunately for you, is irrefutable, is that no actual person exists to lose out, only a projection of a possible person in a parent's imagination. As the saying goes- no harm, no foul. Also, let sleeping dogs lie.
Quoting Coben
No, a priori means in this case, it is based on non-empirical basis. You may not think it is important, but the logic is sound- something that does not exist is not deprived of any goods. Something that does not exist is not harmed, which is good. But no, it is not like butterscotch ice cream because, butterscotch ice cream has no affect for someone else, harmful or otherwise. By procreating someone, you are incurring for someone else a whole life time of possible and inevitable suffering (and I think collateral damage).
Quoting Coben
I am fine with the idea that no new person will have to endure suffering, overcome challenges of life, and also know that there is no actual person deprived of anything. Win, win. Nothing matters to nothing (non-existing things).
Quoting Coben
Yet you can WHOLESALE PREVENT ALL SUFFERING by not having a kid. Part of the structural suffering too is that once born, we will inevitably not only be effected/affected by suffering but also effect/affect suffering for others. It is inevitable. All of it can be prevented (with no cost to an actual person who is deprived of good).
Quoting Coben
See what I said above.. This is just another reason people shouldn't be born, people inevitably will cause others to suffer.
Quoting Coben
I must say, you thinking that was an ad hom, is a bit unfair and taken the wrong way. The hard road and easy road was a way for me to say that I can try to give you a bunch of empirical evidence, which I have already sufficiently provided in abundance in thousands of posts (go look), or I can go back to a priori logical asymmetry which is simply easier to use for the purpose of posting for small debates like this that don't last a lifetime.
Anyways, putting another person in a lifetime of known harms and collateral damage, and using others for your agenda (whether the person born later identifies with life or your agenda matters not), and creating challenges that THEN have to be overcome (as life inherently has challenges that individuals must overcome), is the height of presumption in my opinion. Thinking that other people SHOULD have to navigate and deal with life, because another person's evaluation and projection of life, is the HEIGHT of presumption. The very presumption that you assume I have for other people leads to NO collateral damage and harm. However, other forms of presumption will ALWAYS lead to collateral damage and harm.
After someone is born and is old enough to understand or express consent then any thing happening to them has not being explicitly consented to unless they explicitly consent.
And once you start having experiences you didn't consent to these and cannot give retrospective consent. Usually consent comes before an event but experiences just happen continuously til we die.
So unless someone starts to give consent to x y and z all their experiences are non consensual. In my case I was forced to go to school and church my entire childhood without being asked about my preferences.
But considering the non consensual nature of existence it would be hypocritical to demand consent in some areas and ignore it in others.
Not "anything happening to them." It has to be an action upon them by another agent, or performed by them in conjunction with another agent.
Having a child is acting to impose experiences on someone else.
The person who lets someone into a concert hall isn't responsible for anything other than letting them into the concert hall. They're not responsible for the concert experience, for a drunk guy puking on the person, for a bomb that was planted in the hall going off, etc.
Consent is for specific actions. And it needs to be granted or withheld to the specific, pertinent actors.
Having a child is not letting someone in. It is starting a cycle of inevitable experiences. The parent is not like a taxi driver or doorman but is literally creating a new existence and a new sentience. There is nothing trivial about it.
This is why antinatalists exists because they recognize the onus and burden and profundity of creating someone. This can also be a reason for getting sterilized, using contraceptive or having an abortion.
I think he means that other people have different considerations and evaluations of life. Not knowing what those considerations are beforehand, abstaining from procreating is violating no actual person's sense of consideration or evaluations. No actual person loses out from not being born. But having someone who is then unduly harmed, or has a negative self-report will have collateral damage enacted on them from the decision. The inaction of not procreating would simply prevent any and all collateral damage from ensuing. It also does not create its own collateral damage of depriving someone, as there is no person to feel that deprivation in the first place. I see the logic as about the same if characterized in this way. It can all be added on to the same argument, essentially- even if andrew4handel might not quite be articulating it that way, i believe it to be in the realm of what he is talking about.
Consent is for specific actions.
Give an example of a specific action you have in mind.
Who? Andrew? khaled?
And if they're talking about that--"other people have different considerations and evaluations of life," then they're not talking about anything that I've been talking about. Do they not understand what I'm talking about?
I hope that's not a response to me asking you to give an example of a specific action you have in mind.
In this case, Andrew. Your current conversation with him.
Okay, but what would that have to do with anything I'm talking about?
The same with khaled, all their arguments can be subsumed in the one I just gave. It can be characterized in a way that still takes your objection into consideration, and as stated earlier, makes a powerful argument with that objection at the core of its logic.
I disagree with your characterization of consent. If you do not rape someone then you are refraining from an action because you respect someones consent. Refraining from actions not doing actions is the main way that consent is respected.
I gave my own experiences of being forced to go to church and school also I was forced to eat what my mother chose for me You are forced to work or either claim social security. You are forced to continue surviving or commit suicide.
I couldn't care less about any antinatalist arguments. I am interested in the consent issue, especially since people really don't seem to understand consent very well, and they're conflating all sorts of things.
None of that disagrees with anything I've said, though.
Quoting Andrew4Handel
So in those cases, if we're counting young children as agents that are capable of and need to grant or withhold consent for everything they're eating, for whether they go to school, etc., the person violating your consent would be whoever forced you to eat a particular food on a particular occasion, whoever forced you to go to school on a particular day, etc. Consent is relevant to a particular instance, a particular action, involving particular agents.
What if it was. What if someone set a bomb to exlode BEFORE a certain baby was born and set it to explode AFTER he was born. That's right of course by your standards? After all the baby wasn't around to ask when the bomb was being planted. Better yet, what if that someone implanted a bomb in a fetus and set it to explode 30 years later. Totally moral isn't it? After all the babey isn't around to ask for consent?
Quoting Terrapin Station
So is this case moral or no? The cause IS directly peggable to you BUT there was no person to ask for consent from at the moment the action was being committed. So is implanting bombs in fetuses ok?
This would be a big tangent, but I'm curious: I don't know if you had any kids, or if you plan on having any, but didn't or wouldn't you educate your kids, either by sending them to school or by home-schooling them, even if your kid would rather watch cartoons all day or whatever?
That's irrelevant. The issue is that when the person walks into the location where the bomb goes off, they're an agent normally capable of granting or withholding consent. Thus at that point, they either consent or not to being bombed.
Again, folks are not getting the idea of us needing to refer to specific/particular actions, by specific/particular agents who are capable of granting or withholding consent.
When a person walks into a situation that brings them ANY harm they are capable of granting or witholding consent. Therefore birth is immoral because there will be someone capable of granting or withholding consent for it in the future but that person's consent hasn't been obtained. Same with planting bombs in fetuses.
Did you just argue straight for antinatalism or did I misunderstand?
No. Not "any harm." That's way too vague. It has to be an action with particular physical effects, performed upon or with them in conjunction with other agents. It can't be just observational, or something no involving agents, etc. And it can't be someone who "will be" but currently isn't capable of consent.
Planting bombs is not a moral matter. Having them go off nonconsensually is.
You could make the whole world out of a bomb. If it doesn't go off, who would care? People care because they go off.
Yes. And it has to be nonconsensually. That means that we need an agent normally capable of consent. Otherwise consent isn't an issue. Something can't happen nonconsensually to an entity not capable of consenting.
(Well, or actually it might not be the person who planted it. It would depend on the exact scenario, actually, but we can simplify.)
Or do you not consider enabling harm a factor at all? For example, if someone places a bear trap somewhere, he isn't exactly fully responsible for harming whoever steps on it. The person who steps on it ultimately causes the bear trap to spring. So is the person that put the bear trap there at fault (assuming the person who stepped on it did not consent to the original guy putting it there)
Why, in your view, isn't part of the reason he was there the fact that the "WALK" sign was on to cross the intersection? So do you hold the traffic control light designers, manufacturers, etc. partially responsible?
The thing that would make an action immoral for me is
A) The results are known or knowable to a good degree
B) The results include harming someone
C) Consent from the person who is to be harmed has not been obtained prior
D) Action is intentional
Giving birth checks all 4. The sign designers don't check D
You don't intentionally cause the harm of someone getting run over by a car when you give birth.
You can be aware of the fact that that could happen, but traffic control signal designers, manufacturers, etc. are far more acutely aware of the fact that someone could get run over by a car by crossing a street.
Neither is intentionally causing the harm. The driver probably didn't intentionally cause the harm, either. It was probably an accident. It may have been negligent, and it may not have been.
On the other hand, having children causes much greater harm than it prevents. No one benefits from you having children except you. It is a risk you don't have to take and that no one has asked you to take.
What a f**ked view of the world. No one benefits from other people in any way?
Yes because having children is only delaying the inevitable. There will be a "final generation" of humans who will have to suffer from not having enough people. Having children is simply taking that burnden and putting it on somoene else. People definitely benefit from other people, but eventually there will be a time where lack of people WILL become an issue. Having children is giving that suffering for the next generation to shoulder until the last one finally collapses. There is no point in it.
Just to be clear, other people are awesome. But that doesn't justify making more of them if they might not like it. Which they very much might not
It's a problem of risking severe harm and pleasure without being asked to do so vs leave them alone. And I cannot think of a situation where people would rather risk severe harm and pleasure onto someone else without being asked to do so or see it as moral if someone else does
There are so many problems with this. First off, let's say that something is inevitable that people do not desire. The problem with delaying that is?
Quoting khaled
It's also a f**ked view that not only do you think that anyone is forcing anyone to "suffer" for 80 years, just the fact that you think that anyone is suffering for 80 years is f**ked.
That it's immoral. Because in this case you're not just delaying it you're relaying the pain to someone else. Delaying is different. If there was an option to "give" someone cancer and lose it yourself, I would say it is immoral to do so. Unless you have their consent
You can delay it all you want, but don't give it to other people
Again, no one is forcing anything on anyone by conceiving or giving birth to them. I don't know why you can't learn this.
What pain are you even talking about? Can you specify what you're talking about?
They force them to have the capacity for suffering which I think is just as big a crime as causing the suffering yourself. I don't know why you can't see this
Force is only an issue for specific actions. Not "forcing a capacity for x."
So what pain are you talking about anyway?
tbh idk what I was thinking when I wrote that.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Is taking away a capacity for x painlessly bad? So is paralyzing someone painlessly without their consent bad?
What exacly is a "specific action" that you consider as morally considerable. Does it have to cause pain/pleasure? What exactly does it have to do? Is planting a bomb in a fetus a "specific action"? If so unto whom is the action being done?
Anyways it's 12 am over here and I have to sleep. I am starting to make no sense
Okay, but just in general. I mean, Andrew is apparently an adult still whining about having to eat broccoli and go to school or whatever. Is that the sort of thing you mean?
Quoting khaled
If we're talking about an entity normally capable of consent and we're talking about performing a specific action on them that has long-lasting physical effects that they didn't consent to, sure. The pain part is irrelevant.
No nonono. I was talking about the exruciating pain of humainty as it flies towards extinction be it due to heat death or more likely internal strife. That outcome is inevitable statistically. You can have it now or your children can have it. I was refuting the common argument of "oh but humanity must go on for some reason or other" but then I realized you didn't say that at all. It is morally better we starve and suffer now than increase the population even further and have our children starve and suffer.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Having a child is an action that has long lasting physical effects that no one consented to. Think of it this way:
Is removing someone's ability to walk painlessly, bad? I think we'd both say yes because that's a long lasting physical effect.
Now how about amplifying someone's pain receptors and secretion of depressive hormones in their brain? I think we'd both say doing that is wrong because it is a long lasting physical effect.
The point we disagree on is that you seem to require "someone" whose pain you're amplifying or whose ability to walk you're taking away but all I require is for that ability exchange or capacity exchange to OCCUR.
I don't care if there was no child beforehand before you forced into the world something that can experience pain and suffering and I do not know why you don't think the same way.
Ex: Is it ok to implant a bomb in a fetus? No, because as the bomb is going off there is an entity that objects to the bomb going off. That's what we agreed on.
Alright: How about implanting the same bomb but this time it MAY go off? 15% chance. I still think we'd agree that's immoral
Now: Is it ok to have a child? I would say no, because as the child is experiencing ANY HARM WHATSOEVER, half the reason he is experiencing it is because he exists in the first place. And there is a chance the he might not consent to existing in the first place. This is like the bomb but it MAY blow up example. There is a CHANCE your child suffers severely enough that he may wish never have existed in the first place. Then what? Why you'd be at fault for having him wouldn't you?
Similar to how planting a bomb that MAY explode is wrong, having a child is wrong. Becuase in both cases there MAY appear someone capable of giving or withholding consent, in the first case about having a bomb implanted and in the second case about existing. I just cannot see a way to treat those situations differently and be consistent.
Also I'd appreciate it if you found that earlier example I was talking about:
"Also just out of curiosity. Can you think of any example where an action that produces COMPARABLE amounts of pain and suffering is FORCED onto someone who has absolutely no demand for either and where that is considered permissable? For example, is it reasonable to force an average, stable teenager into the hunger games? The chances of suffering are very high but so are the chances of pleasure if you win. So is it permissable to force them into the games? Because I think that life is to non existence what the hunger games are to the average stable middle class life.
It's a problem of risking severe harm and pleasure without being asked to do so vs leave them alone. And I cannot think of a situation where people would rather risk severe harm and pleasure onto someone else without being asked to do so or see it as moral if someone else does"
and to this:
"Also whether or not people benefit from others is not that important when determining whether to have more people. Just because I'd benefit or society would benefit form having a kid doesn't justify me risking forcing one to suffer for 80 years. In the same way that if I have shit job that doesn't entitle me to force more people to work for my company to make my job easier.
Just to be clear, other people are awesome. But that doesn't justify making more of them if they might not like it. Which they very much might not"
I seriously have to go now I'm going to hate myself in the morning
That sounds ridiculous though. You're not even talking about pain that anyone is experiencing?
Quoting khaled
I'd only say yes because it's a specific action, done by an agent to someone normally capable (now, not in the future) of consenting, and they didn't consent to it. It's not morally bad with anything less than those requirements.
Quoting khaled
But apparently you're not even really talking about pain and suffering there, but you're talking about "the excruciating pain of humanity as it flies towards extinction"???
I think this highlights the divisions and varying perspectives that cause us all not view this issue (anti-natalism) in the same way. Wouldn't EVERY situation where someone says or implies an "ought" be a situation where people are willing to "risk severe harm and pleasure onto someone else without being asked"? Kids should go to school. But kids hates school. They suffer there. And this "suffering" is separate from the increased "suffering" caused by a mass shooting. Maybe they shouldn't go to school because it is full of suffering?
Most of us view life like school. Sure it includes suffering. But it is better than no school. I think the antinatalists defend their position by suggesting that any suffering is real, whereas the pleasure NOT experienced by the unborn is a non issue. But wouldn't it be hypocritical for me to say that "I am glad I was born, but I can't be sure others will be, so I should promote the idea that all new birth is wrong"?
I plan NOT to have children. But I do not see a compelling argument in anti-natalism that would convince people of this position. Surely, few (ZERO?) humans would ever be able to get past their own subjective, "well 'I' am glad that 'I' was born" or vice versa.
Not only that but most people would ask just what suffering/harm the antinatalists are talking about, where they'd only accept specific examples as an answer. And if the answer turns out to be that someone didn't want to eat broccoli but was forced to, didn't want to go to school or church but was forced to, etc., the vast majority of people would say, "Give me a break" and see someone suggesting that as "suffering" that's still affecting them as indicative that they need counseling, because there's something wrong with them that isn't wrong with most people.
For sure.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It feels like an ad hom, but I would be lying if I said I never thought something along those lines.
dude you literally ignored the rest of my comment and focused on the first paragraph. Forget the that and actually address my points please. We can get back to the extinction thing later. I already said I misunderstood what you said as I wrote it
Quoting Terrapin Station
You'd be contradicting yourself then by saying (now not in the future) because before you said:
Quoting Terrapin Station
So let me be extra clear on this:
Is it ok to plant a bomb BEFORE a baby is born and setting it to explode after? There is no person to give consent at the time the specific action of planting the bomb is taking place.
Also please actually respond to my comment not the first paragraph because I don't want to copy paste
Yes, because all of a sudden you started piling a bunch of stuff on again with a long post. Remember "This keeps getting longer and longer and I hate when that happens, so let's do one thing at a time. I do want to get to the rest, but I don't want posts to keep getting longer and have to keep addressing more and more issues."
We were doing well with that.
Quoting khaled
I've said at least four or five times now that the problem isn't planting the bomb. It's the bomb going off.
I think fundamentally he is talking about the pain he feels when he thinks about the fate of humanity, which he sees as ending in a bleak way.
Quoting khaled
I disagree that that outcome is inevitable. That's one of the reasons why I fight against the lies put forward by scientists, they make the lives of many people worse.
The heat death of the universe is not an inevitable fact, it's a belief. It's not an inevitable fact because we don't know whether our current laws of physics will keep being valid in the future, we don't know whether they apply everywhere in the universe, and we don't know whether they are accurate enough that they allow to predict the fate of the whole universe.
Regarding internal strife, it might feel like we're going that way, but that's not inevitable either. It might become inevitable if we do nothing to change our course.
I would never have children so there is never going to be the question of what I might make my children do. The whole premise of antinatalism is that it is immoral to have children. Once you have had a child there is a limit to how much you can control their well being.
I have a friend who suffered from genuine school phobia but he was forced to go to school including because the educational psychologist encouraged his parents to do so. I also know someone one else who ended up stopping going to school because he couldn't cope.
You seem to have a trivial view of things that people find hard. I always went to school but I got badly bullied. If someone enjoys school then they are less likely to complain. I also mentioned being forced to church and throughout my whole childhood I went to church up to 5 times a week and had to read the bible and pray everyday.
I am getting the impression now that you don't value consent at all.
It does because you can respect consent without an action and without involving anyone else just restraining your own behaviour.
"I have not had a single happy day in my life. I have always worked hard, digging in the garden. I am tired," Istambulova told the Daily Mail. When asked about her secrets for longevity, she said, "It was God's will. I did nothing to make it happen.... Long life is not at all God's gift for me—but a punishment."
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/9k8ydd/earths-supposed-oldest-living-person-has-hated-every-day-of-her-life
?? No idea what you're saying there.
I don't believe her. I can believe that was her attitude when she was interviewed, but I know plenty of people who will say things in that vein at times and things completely inconsistent with it at other times.
Not doing something is respecting consent....such as not creating children.
You are aware that people commit suicide aren't you?
I hadn't made any comments about "respecting consent."
Ok. When you have a child and he experiences pain. How is that different from the bomb situation. Let's compare analogies here. I'm comparing having a bomb implanted in someone whcih explodes harming him without his consent with having children then them experiencing depressive thoughts which harms them without their consent:
Did PLANTING the bomb cause it to explode AND hurt the person? No, it only enabled it to explode, the act of planting did not harm anyone and you don't treat the planting itself as the source of the problem so neither will I. However you also say that the planter is at fault when the bomb explodes because the harm is causally peggable back to their fully intentional action of planting the bomb. So the act of planting the bomb itself is not the problem but it exploding is what makes the act wrong.
Did HAVING the child cause the harm that hurt the person? No, the harm came in the form of depressive thoughts (because that's the example of suffering I felt like using). You don't treat the act of giving birth itself as the source of the problem so neither will I. However you also SHOULD (i think) say that the parent is at fault when the depressive thoughts come because the harm is causally peggable back to their fully intentional action of having the child. So the physical act of giving birth itself is not the problem but the depressive thoughts are what SHOULD make the act wrong.
I see these situations as mirror images, I don't see why you treat them differently
You just logged on.... Ah shit here we go again. As you know, have to go soon it's 10 pm. Also as you know I probably won't be going soon
I've had five, maybe six (there's one that's not clear), people who were close to me commit suicide, and I dated a woman who had tried unsuccessfully a few times.
So, the reason I went into some detail about consent criteria wasn't so that I'd have to keep repeating it. So the first point here (I'll get to the rest of the post after we settle this--one thing at a time so that I don't have to keep repeating stuff), is what specific action are we talking about re whatever pain you're referring to? And re "experiencing depressive thoughts" you're claiming a causally-peggable specific action that gives someone a particular type of thought?
Wow. Okay, so take me through the causal chain.
The source of all suffering is as much that there is something there to suffer as as the real life cause of suffering.
Lol, no, you didn't. "Causally-peggable" isn't satisfied by saying "whatever caused it." It's only satisfied by pegging--that is, specifying and being able to demonstrate--each step of a supposed causal chain.
So you need to actually list, and be able to demonstrate, the specifics of the causal chain you'd be claiming.
Also can you explain to me exactly how a bomb operates? The actual chemistry behind it all? Or else the cause of it's explosion isn't causally peggable to the person that planted apparently? That's what you sound like to me right now. So would you need a degree in chemistry and human anatomy to be able to put guilt on that bomb planter?
Either you can specify the causal chain or you cannot. If you can, let's get to it. If you cannot, simply admit that.
I cannot. Now explain to me chemically how bombs work. Because unless you do that the bomb planter is innocent apparently. Can you do that? If not just admit that.
If we can't do that, then we can't say that the bomb planter violated someone's consent, right? How would that help your argument?
No we KNOW he planted the bomb. But you do not know exacly how it works and that makes him innocent?
Also I would say we CAN explain the causal chain between being born and feeling pain quite well, it's just that I personally cannot in the same way that you cannot explain how a bomb works. I don't have a degree in neurology. But it would be pretty ridiculous if a terrorist testifies to court that they cannot prove that he caused the bombing because the judge doesn't have a degree in chemistry
If x didn't cause the event, E, that nonconsensually, physically harmed y (assuming it was a consent issue), then x is innocent of performing E to y, yes. We'd have to blame the actual cause.
I explained all of this already, basically, just in other words. It's why indirect actions must be causally-peggable.
So the bomber is innocent until you personally get a chemsitry degree?
How bombs work is causally-peggable. I was just pointing out above that if they weren't, we wouldn't be able to take that bomb-planter to be the culprit--and that wouldn't help your argument.
In your case, mental states are influenced by all sorts of things, including environmental factors (including foods you eat, things you breathe, etc.), and including experiences and other thoughts that you'd need to eliminate free will for in order to peg them to some particular, long-ago action.
No, of course not.
For example:
"I broke my leg in South Africa."
Traveling to South Africa was a necessary condition for that to occur, but it certainly wasn't the cause of it. The cause was a motorcycle accident.
Other necessary conditions are that I was alive, that I had a leg to break, that physics and physiology are such that a leg can be broken via a motorcycle accident, and countless other things. Those are not the cause of my broken leg.
Causes are the forces that necessarily result in property F (of some entity x) obtaining versus some other property. If c is the cause of F, then c can't occur without F occurring.
You can travel to South Africa without breaking your leg. So traveling to South Africa doesn't cause you to break your leg.
Antinatalism simply pegs all forms of suffering to being born. It is a KNOWN that life contains various amounts and varieties of suffering and negative experiences. All suffering can be prevented with no a ACTUAL person being deprived. Win/win.
It doesn't causally peg it to that. Since that's not possible.
I dont have to show how every connection leads to birth. By definition, all forms of suffering come from being alive in the first place. If you want to refute the self evidence of that, despite what you know to be true, and die on your absurd molehill of bad reasoning related to "not being able to do d all causes leading back to birth" then be my guest. That would certainly be ridiculous though and not worth replying to.
You do for it to be causally-peggable, because that's what that term refers to.
Legal definitions dont need to apply here. That is one definition. Antinatism is clearly about decisions made at the procreational level. That is to say, suffering at the wholesale level, not the piecemeal.
Life also contains positive experiences. Some people see their life as a net negative, some other people as a net positive.
If you see negative experiences as what has to be eliminated, why don't you kill everyone? That would be more effective. You may convince a few people not to have children, but there are still billions having children.
However if instead of focusing on negative experiences we focus both on negative and positive experiences, the goal could be instead to reduce negative experiences and increase positive experiences, to make life a net positive for most people. And then life would be a net positive as a whole, and that's better than the absence of life.
If you break your leg on South African soil then South Africa was a causal factor in breaking your leg.
South Africa refers to the territory governed by South Africa and that territory contains hazards that can harm you.
South Africa is not a necessary and sufficient cause to harm someone but creating a child is.
Having children because it is "natural" justifies of free for all of anyone doing anything because they can.
In the same way slavery has gone on throughout human history by brute force.
I think it is nihilistic to have children without good argument and sufficient justification.
Do you mean force as in actual physical force? Are we talking pure physics here? Electromagnetic, Gravitaitonal, strong and weak nuclear? Then is lying in court wrong if it directly causes someone to get jailed unjustly? What is the force that causes his incarceration in that case? Can you peg it causally EXACTLY from the moment the sound waves leave his mouth.
What is the force that necessarily resulted in the property Dead (of the guy that got blown up due to having a bomb implanted in him) obtaining versus the alive property? Can you peg it EXACTLY? Including every physical interaction inside the bomb?
To be honest, I think your definition of cause and what actions are wrong to commit leaves ample ambiguity which you're happy to exploit in the case of giving birth but never in other situations. I'm intersted in what the direct physical force is in lying to court that makes it wrong. Unless you think lying purposefully in court isn't wrong. Even if it harms someone
You also have yet to explain what "causally peggable" means. And you haven't "causally pegged" any of the things you call wrong. Please causally peg the unfair incarciration of a person to another person's lie. And if you seriously think lying in court is morally permissable then please causally peg the death of someone by explosion to the planting of the bomb. With extra physics and chemsitry please. Because apparently unless YOU PERSONALLY cannot peg the crime to the criminal, he is innocent.
The point of antinatalism isn't that any act that causes suffering is bad. It is that risking suffering on someone else without their consent is always bad, with the possible exception of if it is done to prevent an even greater harm on them (ex: education). There is a positive aspect to every job and a negative aspect, however I think we can both agree that forcing people to work ANY job against their will is wrong. It doesn't matter how good or bad the job is. I have no right to FORCE you to work it.
Exactly. It just seems like a truism to me that all suffering is partially caused by existing in the first place.
Yes, physical forces. I'm a physicalist. (However, I'm not also a determinist. I buy that we have free will.)
Quoting khaled
Lying in court doesn't cause anyone to be jailed. People deciding to forcibly jail someone, and then physically carrying that through does. Morally, in that scenario, by the way, I'm strongly against the idea of prosecuting anyone on witness testimony alone. I'd require physical evidence.
Quoting khaled
Again, we can do this (it's weird that you'd not be aware of this--that you'd not know that we know very well how bombs work, we can do forensics very well, etc.), but again, if we assume that we can't, it in no way helps your argument.
I am aware of this but you asked me PERSONALLY to peg every form of suffering on being born as if that is an argument for why it is unpeggable so I'm asking you PERSONALLY to explain to me how bombs work lest the bomber remain innocent.
We can also peg every form of suffering causally back to being born. I cannot. But it is possible.
No, I asked you to give the specific causal chain for one example. Because that's going to require that you rule out environmental factors, free will factors, etc.
I can leave the job if I don't like it. It's not like people who are brought into being are doomed to eternal torture. If they don't like the experience they can just say fuck it and leave the world. I suppose the only case where people are forced to stay is when they're made to believe that if they kill themselves they will spend eternity in hell, but then you could focus on preventing that.
Also I think the idea of consent doesn't apply to people who don't exist yet. If you say risking suffering on someone against their will is bad, people who don't exist don't have a will so you're not doing anything against their will. Also it's not just risking suffering, it's also risking wonderful experiences.
Alright. So if I hire you to work as a sewage cleaner and make it so that in order to leave you have to cut your own wrists after going through extreme levels of suffering the likes of which you can't imagine and then you're not allowed to take any other job that's fair right?
Suicide isn't easy. If there truely were no obstacles for leaving life/the job I wouldn't be an antinatalist
Quoting leo
Two things to unpack here
1: Idea of consent doesn't apply to people who don't exist yet:
It very much does. Would you say it is ok to genetically modify a baby so that he is constantly in severe suffering? Maybe give birth to him with 9 limbs all of which are broken? After all he didn't object did he?
2: Risks wonderful experiences
Agreed. However you have a moral obligation not to risk giving someone negative experiences non consentually while you don't have a moral obligation to risk giving someone positive experiences. Ex: I don't have to donate to charity but I HAVE TO NOT steal money. This is what makes stealing money to donate to charities bad
How about this one: Childbirth causes severe pain for both the child and the woman. I think we can both agree that the pain of childbirth is causally peggable to childbirth? As there are no "free will" or environmental factors to consider here.
Therefore childbirth is wrong. Isn't it? By your standards
What would be the epistemic basis for childbirth causing severe pain to babies?
What is the epistemic basis for punching causes severe pain to the punched. I don't even understand what the question means
Which you know via?
How do you know that the guy that got bombed had subjective experience?
That's a strawman and classic trope against AN. AN is not promortalist. Decisions regarding birth are different than decisions about continuing to exist. One major difference is the asymmetry in respect to no actual person being deprived of good before birth while no person will exist to experience harm (which is good, even if no one exists to know this).
To overlook anything but harm to future person at procreational decision would be using child for an agenda. The child did non exist beforehand to even need the XYZ experiences that supposedly make it good for the child to be created in the first place.
What is the case however, is ALL harm can be prevented with NO COST to an ACTUAL person. No one would actually exist to be deprived of anything...only the parents imaginary projected vision of loss.
Oy vey.
In other words, I'm asking you because there's no way that you can know that a baby experiences pain at childbirth. Having a working brain doesn't imply that--lol.
And it can't be a scientific fact, because there's no epistemic method for seeing whether it's the case or not.
Ok. Then nothing is wrong because I'm the only mind and you can't prove otherwise. What was all that talk about things being wrong when you're going to pull out the "there is no way to say that they experienced subjective experiences" solipsist bullshit. What is with you and arguing for things we both know you don't even believe.
You clearly have a moral compass that assumes that people have subjective experiences. There is also ample evidence to suggest children have subjective experiences
Empirical claims aren't provable period--that's science methodology/phil of science 101.
And wrong in a moral sense is necessarily subjective.
You are despirately trying to argue that children have no subjective experience while not arguing that anyone else doesn't. You're making a special case for childbirth
No it doesn't. It doesn't meet any criterion of consent. Babies are not creatures normally capable of granting or withholding consent, I don't even consider babies prior to the childbirth process being completed to be separate entities from mothers, and there's no physical damage that's present for days afterwards anyway, even if they were entities normally capable of granting or withholding consent.
I wouldn't indulge Terrapin Station with his absurd consent rabbit hole. He likes to get conversations on a holding pattern loop. It reminds me of a lawyer's trick- poor philosophy, all sophistry. I've already given him the main argument- no loss to an actual person, but harm was prevented. No agenda was had on behalf of another person.hes just going to keep denying that consent matters for babies, etc etc.
Ok, that's good. I just know how these go sometimes. They eventually just lead to frustration as one side may not be trying to actually get anywhere.
But the inability to consent does not justify you doing anything you want to them. Some people use this arguments to defend the environment because they will say even though plants are not conscious we are not justified in wantonly destroying them.
You can morally criticize someone for their intentions unless you are a moral nihilist. You can prevent harm by thwarting someones intentions. Not creating a child is preventing future inevitable harm. Like I said to Station earlier not acting is a way of respecting consent and a way of not causing harm.
When someone starts to exist they have strong preferences usually and can reject life and feel imposed upon. It is this potential to feel imposed upon and have personal opinions and be imposed on that is being created.
I don't agree that it's a suitable analogy, because you don't have to go through extreme levels of suffering in order to leave. You can be fine and leave by jumping off a bridge, or by taking some medication that puts you to sleep and never wakes you up. It's rather that it's usually people who go through extreme levels of suffering who want to leave, those who feel fine usually do not.
Quoting khaled
That's not ok, but I'm still saying that consent doesn't apply to a being that doesn't exist.
There you're arguing for the idea that it's not ok to create a being who will be in a state of constant severe suffering, that's not the same as arguing for antinatalism, because the vast vast majority of babies aren't born like that.
Maybe you're arguing for the idea that if there is the risk that one baby out of a billion is born like that, then we should stop making babies, but then by the same token we should stop doing anything because there is a risk of causing suffering in anything.
Quoting khaled
Again, you risk giving someone negative experiences non-consensually in anything you do, just by driving your car or talking to someone, so by that logic shouldn't you stop doing anything?
My policy on actions performed on an entity that is currently not capable or granting or withholding consent, but that will likely survive as a consent-capable being, is that you'd not be allowed to unusually modify, outside of corrective measures for deformities, diseases, etc., or physically or psychologically abuse the non-consent-capable entity in a manner that would linger indefinitely/not be reversible during their consent-capable years. You can't overlook the word "unusual" there (as I'm predicting you'll do even with me pointing this out).
The problem is that you want me to be having conversations about antinatalism in general, partially because you want to be able to keep repeating your telemarketing/cult-recruitment script about it ad infinitum.
Re your comment above, we've already discussed that. If a person wants to have kids but is pressured or forced not to, there is a loss, there is harm or suffering for them, per the way that you're using those terms. So "no loss to an actual person" is false.
Aside from that, there's no reason to only care about the harm side of the equation and not the benefit side of the equation.
Quoting schopenhauer1
My goal is to get you folks to reason better, to not forward crappy arguments, etc.
The unconscious person is normally capable of granting or withholding consent. A "non-existent person"--in quotation marks because there is no such thing, isn't normally capable of granting or withholding consent.
How about overlooking everything except the suffering the future person might experience, isn't that pushing an agenda?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Indeed, the parents are actual persons and they would be harmed if they are prevented from having a baby. Note that parents don't see a baby as a toy (most of them anyway), it's not a selfish act, nurturing a baby and raising a child are selfless acts, sacrifices are made so that the child can have the best possible life.
If the parents already thought that their life was unbearable, why would they then proceed to make sacrifices for years and years for another being, why would they move on to have an even more unbearable life just so that another being can have an unbearable life as well? It's rather that they see the beauty in life, they see it as worth it.
I think most antinatalists suffer so much that they would have preferred not to have been born, and they project that feeling onto everyone else, and if others say that they don't have that feeling antinatalists attempt to rationalize it so that it fits into their preconceived world view.
It isn't right that some people suffer unbearably while some others live the good life at their expense, and that's what I see as the kind of problem to solve, rather than preventing people from giving love to their future child and destroying their dreams just so everyone can suffer along with the antinatalists.
Ironically, you are doing this by posing shoddy argumentation. So, there's that.
Quoting Terrapin Station
The parents "feelings" matters not in regards to starting SOMEONE ELSE'S life. You've already been given analogies by others. You know what the response is going to be to that bad objection. You also know that by "actual person" I meant the person who might be born from a parent if they decided to procreate. "That" person does not exist to be deprived. Notice the "quotes". To not notice that is lawyerly holding patterns and advancing nothing but bad sophistry.
An unconscious person is unable to give consent. Only a conscious person can give consent. Why should we respect an unconscious person during the stage they can't give consent?
If you think it is because the unconscious person will become conscious in the future that is speculative and you don't know that they will regain consciousness.
if you can be speculative about the future of unconscious person then you can be speculative about the futures of any new human that will be created.
Explain why it's shoddy in your view rather than just making the accusation.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What does this have to do with whether they're suffering, harmed, etc.?
Sure. Do you understand the difference between whether we're talking about someone who can normally grant or withhold consent or not?
Most human beings past, future, and present can give consent.
Someone who is unconscious cannot give consent in the present only in the future like the children people seek to create.
Imagine there is a person who has a huge fetish about someone having sex with them while they are asleep or unconscious. Their biggest sexual fantasy is that someone has sex with them whilst they are asleep or unconscious.
So they leave a note in their pocket saying "If I fall asleep or become unconscious please have sex with me".
Later you find this person lying unconscious in the street and are unaware of the note in their pocket.
Most people would not sexually assault this person assuming that no unconscious person wants someone to have sex with them. They would not base their judgment on an individual personal preference but on a general rule.
So when you respect an unconscious person you are usually basing it on a general rule not on their specific preference and so you can easily do the same in an abstract way with the unborn.
How are past or future humans normally capable of granting or withholding consent?
Your bad arguments about "causally-pegging" something for one. Irrelevant in the case of the procreational decision. It's simply a red herring... quick sand of pettifoggery.
Quoting Terrapin Station
"This" meaning: SOMEONE ELSE'S life? Because it is about starting a life that contains harm for someone else. There is no damage done to another person by not procreating. You don't get to cause a life that contains harm on someone else's behalf, because you will feel bad that you don't get what you want. I don't have to show how harm will be causally pegged to a life either (I really hate that term..sounds dirty anyways). You just have to know that life contains harm, period.
So who is right? Is life good enough?
From my perspective, anyone saying "yes" must either totally lack empathy, be completely unaware of the suffering in this world, or just have abysmally low, downright callous standards. The unborn have no need for life, so it better be pretty damn great in order to justify it's creation. But, it's not.
But those comments had nothing at all to do with "procreational decisions" and there was never any claim that they did have anything to do with that. That seems to be a reading comprehension issue on your end rather.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This statement is false. The damage doesn't have to be for someone else. The damage is for the person who wants to procreate but doesn't because they're pressured or forced not to.
And then the damage on the broader level if anti-natalism became the norm or the rule. From their perspective the end of the human race is fine, and perhaps the end of all life. That fits their single criterion of no harm can be risked for another, no life with suffering unless it is chose. Nothing else could possibly outweigh or counter that. It is the only risk. Other values about life and living and interests and participating in long term goals and achievement and the current suffering this would create in the last humans, mean nothing to them. They are of no value. Their value is, apparantly, the objective value that supercedes all other values, despite the vast majority contradicting this value in the way they choose to live despite suffering, despite the anti-natalists who find life not worth living but keep doing it. I know, I know, they don't want to hurt their relatives and loved ones. How conveniently empathetic all of a sudden.
Actually response above is a very good rebuttal to your comment. Not only his ideas, but add to that, one is "damage" from not doing anything TO someone else, and one will lead to negative consequences for someone else. That is the major problem with your thesis there.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Right, the antinatalism argument is at the procreation level, and you are arguing from some post-birth perspective about consent. Not the same.
Never existing and suicide are not the same. In fact, that is another pro-antinatalist argument. Either live out life, or kill yourself is pretty damn callous... but those are people's choices..If you don't like life, figure out how to cope. Yep, sounds great. Also, it makes no logical sense to CREATE people from NOTHING just so they can HAVE goals that they DIDN'T NEED in the first place. Putting an agenda like "long term goals and achievement" above considerations of preventing ALL harm (with no cost to the future child), makes no sense is using the child for an agenda. They have to have XYZ experiences because someone else projected this to be what has to happen for them.
I think you truly have a misconception about what suicidal people go through. Suicide is nothing like "Damn life sucks lemme just go jump off a bridge real quick". I think you are severely underestimating the resolve required to actually commit suicide
Quoting leo
This is the sort of twisted reasonsing I am surprised natalists are oblivious to. Do you hear what you're saying? "It is not ok to create a being that will be in a constant state of suffering" well no shit sherlock, I never thought someone would consider to set the bar THAT low. And then you say "One baby out of a million is born like that". WHY IS THIS BAR SET SO LOW? So as long as I commit an action that causes less suffering than a genetically engineered baby's suffering it's ok? What would you think if someone forced you to, say, cut a finger off and then said "Oh I'm not doing anything wrong here, at least I'm not forcing him to live with 8 broken limbs, this is totally negligable"
And this: "but then by the same token we should stop doing anything because there is a risk of causing suffering in anything"
sounds bonkers to me. Doing something that risks harming someone else is shunned upon agreed? Yet we do it to survive OURSELVES. The case with antinatalism is extremely different. You can always adopt, so the suffering due to not having a child is just an excuse and instead you spare someone a LIFETIME of suffering. Sure you also deny them a lifetime of pleasure, but as I've stated before, you have a moral obligation not to create suffering but you don't have to create pleasure. You have to not steal but you don't have to donate to charity. You have to not risk harming someone without their consent but you don't have to provide them opportunities to have pleasure either.
Quoting leo
No because I have to do that to survive. Antinatalism doesn't say "don't do anything that risks harming someone else". It says "Ok guys, I know life sometimes sucks and you have to hurt others to avoid getting hurt yourself but can someone please explain to me what's going on with having kids? You are literally dooming someone to a lifetime they didn't ask for that may or may not be terrible for no good reason whatsoever when you can adopt." Antinatalism is simply the view that the risks of harm associated with coming into existence are astronomically high in comparison to the rewards, which I'm sure everyone would agree with
From conversations with you previously, you count frustrated/unmet desires, especially where that causes emotional distress, as suffering, right?
Otherwise a lot of what you're classifying as suffering for offspring wouldn't count as suffering.
Right, those comments were about the concept of consent, because that's something I'm interested in that we don't talk about in 100 different threads every day. Those comments were not at all about antinatalism per se.
I would say that giving an entity an entire PHYSICAL BODY and SUBJECTIVE EXPERIENCE out of knowhere without being asked is a pretty unusual modification. Compare how long you were dead to how long you're alive. I'd say the unusual bit is the being alive portion. In addition, no modification to an entity not capable of granting or withholding consent is as potentially bad for it as giving it a subjective experience. Sure none are as potentially good either but:
I want to ask you if you agree with these 2 statements: "One is not morally obliged to improve another's state of wellbeing unless one made it worse previously and only to the extent that he made it worse. One is morally obliged not to deteriorate another's state of wellbeing without consent with the possible exception for when this deterioration is minor in comparison to the benefits gained by oneself"
What "improve state of wellbeing" and "minor in comparison" mean I will leave up to you, but do you think either of these statements apply to your morality?
You're giving an existent entity a physical body?
Yeah, I've got to run, too, but I don't know why you either can't come clean with metaphysical views you have that I don't at all agree with, or otherwise why you can't learn with respect to the ridiculous metaphysics you're (maybe unwittingly?) espousing.
So in your ethics, it's a problem to do things to inanimate matter?
What metaphysical views of mine would you be referring to?
Babies are not inanimate matter.
So in your view, it's a problem to do things to any arbitrary biological matter? For example, if you have a mole that's bothering you, it's an ethical issue to cut it off?
Obviously not the mole isn't conscious
You're not limiting this to conscious biological matter, are you?
The problem doesn't arise prior to sentience, though.
This=the stance you just uttered.
That it is a problem to make things sentient? Yes that's the whole point of antinatalism. If I somehow make a rock sentient and capable of suffering that's also a problem
Correct. So you agree that it's can not be an issue prior to having a sentient baby.
?? If it's not okay to you, then it's an ethical issue in your view. At any rate, obviously the stance of mine that you quoted doesn't apply to nonexistent entities or to any arbitrary biological matter.
Ok I'm consfused now. Is it or is it not ok to genetically modify a baby so that it is born with 8 broken limbs and suffers severely for the rest of its life?
It's not just because of that. I didn't type stuff superfluously.
It's also because:
(a) we have an entity that will likely survive as a consent-capable being
(b) we're modifying it unusually, outside of corrective measures for deformities, diseases, etc., in a manner that would linger indefinitely/not be reversible during their consent-capable years.
As long as it's going to continue to live to a point where it's normally capable of granting or withholding consent, and the limb modification isn't reversible, then yes, I'd not allow that legally.
You don't have to abort it, but if it's not going to survive to a point where it's normally capable of granting or wiithholding consent, then it's not a problem.
(a) we have an entity that will likely survive as a consent-capable being
Applies to the act of having a child
You mean giving birth? Because that definitely wouldn't be the case merely with conception. We can and should allow abortions.
Re giving birth, it depends on the health of the child, whether we'd allow infanticide (which I think we should in some cases), etc.
Agreed with you on that one
Frustrated because you aren't doing something that causes a life that contains harm for another person? I am okay, letting that person stay frustrated by not putting another person into that.
So the reason why birth should be immoral is:
(a) always applies. There always will be a subject capable of granting or withholding consent after birth.
As for (b): I would say modifying sperm/egg -> human is a problematic unusual modification. For proof, compare the amount of sperm that actually results in making a child with the net amount of sperm in the world.
I see that giving someone a physical body with 8 limbs is worse than giving them one with 4 (obviously) but giving one 4 is also problematic. This is because it creates an entity
1- capable of granting or withholding consent
2- capable of suffering
3- that will very likely suffer
How is this any different from the situation where you create a kid with 8 limbs that will very likely suffer severely?
Think about it: The kid with 8 limbs MAY find life good (although that is unlikely), but that doesn't justify taking the risk for him does it. Why doesn't it justify it exactly? Is it because he is MORE LIKELY to suffer? Or is it because there IS A CHANCE he does?
For me modifying a child to have 8 limbs is wrong not JUST because it INCREASES the chances of him suffering, but also because it ADDS THE CHANCE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
I don't see how you can draw the line at having a kid with 8 limbs but saying having one with 4 is fine. Why exactly is that? How do you draw the line where "unusually modify" lies. Who decides this "unusually". What if someone is a cripple with 8 limbs and enjoys life and so decides to have a kids the exact same as him? Would you allow that legally or ethically?
Your ethical system has a huge amount of ambiguitiy as to what exactly "unusually modify" means. Therefore I would replace "unusually modify" with "create". I do not understand how you can see it as wrong to CHANGE someone's chances of enjoying life for the worse but see it as ok to give him the chances in the first place when there was no need for them before he was born.
"There is an 80% chance this child will suffer severely so let's not have him/let's abort him/let's kill him. But on the other hand this child has a 20% chance to suffer severely. There is nothing wrong with having him whatsoever. I see no inconsistency here"
Why take the risk for someone else in the first place? Why is 80% not ok but 20% is ok? Who decides these percentages? It is more responsible to be safe and set the chance of suffering at which having children is unacceptable at 0%.
I know very well what suicidal people go through. You're still not addressing what I said, your analogy wasn't suitable.
You say that in order to leave this world, people have to go through extreme suffering, as if to say if they want to leave they can't do it without going through extreme suffering, and that's wrong. If they want to leave, they can do it in painless ways. The thing is that usually it is the people who go through extreme suffering who want to leave, precisely because of that suffering, but they can put an end to it in painless ways, they don't have to cut their wrists for instance. If you don't see why your analogy wasn't appropriate and as such why it doesn't support your argument for antinatalism, then I suppose you aren't willing to have a reasoned discussion on the subject.
Quoting khaled
I have a hard time uncovering your argument through all these appeals to emotion. Do you see appeals to emotion as a valid form of argumentation? Some straw men in there too, bundled with begging the question as you're basically assuming in the first place that having babies is wrong. Why is your bar set so low?
Quoting khaled
If living means that you risk harming others, why don't you kill yourself? Because that would risk harming others too? Then whatever you do you risk harming others. So risking harming others is not a valid argument for antinatalism.
You're assuming that an individual experiences a lifetime of suffering, many people wouldn't describe their life that way, so I disagree that having a child is creating a lifetime of suffering.
If you assume that it's ok to risk harming others as long as we do it to survive, many people would claim that they can't live if they don't have a child, so then it's ok for them to have a child right? There aren't as many children to adopt as there are people who need to have a child.
Also, if existence is a lifetime of suffering according to you, why don't you go around and kill babies? You would spare them a lifetime of suffering, you could even do it in a painless way for them, isn't that the compassionate thing to do according to you? That's how you become a monster.
Quoting khaled
You don't have to drive a car or talk to others to survive, you could live in complete isolation to risk harming others as little as possible, only eating plants. If life is as horrible as you say it is, why is it ok in your view to harm others to keep on living a horrible life? Wouldn't you want to make the life of others less horrible? Or you don't really care about other people who are alive now, you only care about people who aren't born yet?
Adoption is not always an option, if more people start doing it it will most often not be an option.
Your view that "the risks of harm associated with coming into existence are astronomically high in comparison to the rewards" is your view, many people do not agree with it, that's why many people are not antinatalists.
That's not how I react to people, professionally or regular every day interpersonally. I don't tell pregant women coming to term that they are being immoral. I presume you don't either.Quoting schopenhauer1I don't think that sentence make much sense, but I think that is a line of not reasoning well that Terrapin is handling well. In any case I am not an advocate that the not born need anything or that parents should have goals for them.Quoting schopenhauer1
I didn't put it on them. I see that others who are alive will suffer their lives and now seemingly pointless if you win, so to speak. You think they shouldn't look the future and bring anyone new into it. So you think their feelings are part so wrong view. However they will suffer and it will be experiened by them as harm. And this would be, if antinatalists were successful, an effect of your polemic, and one which might be, since you are fallible humans, based on values that are not prioritized correctly or the wrong ones, or based on some incorrect reasonsing, or based on false metaphysics.
But you take that risk because you are pretty dman sure you are right.
Which is what everyone does regarding their values.
You however seem to think you are taking no risks of causing harm on those who did not ask for it.
I think that is very confused. It would have to mean you assume you cannot possibly be mistaken and so risks are being taken. I don't know where this idea of your infallibility comes from. But we've covered this ground.
I'd count it as progress that you apparently no longer think that suffering is a trump card. You're prepared to effectively dismiss some suffering.
Then you don't understand what "unusual" is referring to.
Also, you have to be careful to not interpret my ethical views as principle-following. As I mentioned, I'm against that approach.
Yes, suffering by not using ANOTHER person's life that will cause all other instances of harm for that person, is irrelevant as it is suffering had from not playing with someone else's life.
So if suffering is not your trump card, what is?
So suffering is not qualified by "suffering that comes from.creating all harmful experiences for someone else?"
Not sure what you're asking there.
You can do absolutely anything without breaking your leg...except breaking your leg; so according to your argument breaking your leg is the cause of breaking your leg. That's real intelligent!
If you impact your leg with particular forces, under conditions where your leg isn't in armor, etc., you'd actually not be able to do that without breaking your leg. The cause is the forces that necessarily result in the effect in question.
And the cause is the forces that break your leg, which are not identical to your leg breaking.
The cause is not everything that's a precondition for breaking your leg in the circumstance that you broke it. For example, if you break your leg in South Africa, being in South Africa is not a cause of breaking your leg. This should be almost kindergarten-level simple, yet we've seen folks having trouble with it above.
Say you hit your leg with a sledgehammer sufficiently hard to break it; would you not say it is hitting your leg with the sledgehammer that breaks your leg? But hitting your leg with a sledgehammer such as to break it just is breaking your leg. The sledgehammer is the proximal means to be sure, but to say it is the cause is too reductive. What about your swinging it, or your desire to swing it, The sledgehammer alone cannot be the cause.
But then what caused you to hit your leg with a sledgehammer? The causes are not isolated in the way you claim. They exist in a series, or better, a network that constitutes the whole context of events that culminate in your leg breaking. If it includes going to South Africa then going to South Africa was part of that series, just as every other event in your life, including the fact of your being born was, more or less proximally.
See, you were criticizing this kindergarten-level stuff and you're having a problem with it, too.
So first, again, If c is the cause of F, then c can't occur without F occurring.
You can travel to South Africa without breaking your leg, so traveling to South Africa is not the cause of breaking your leg.
One thing you seem to be not recognizing is the fact that people make free-will decisions to do things.
Perhaps, but not if determinism is the case (which we don't and cannot know either way).
I'm not an antinatalist, but I'm criticising your argument against it, which seems to rely on the reductive idea that there is one isolated cause, or perhaps at most a few causes, of any instance of suffering or misfortune, and that we cannot count being born as a cause of suffering. Being born is undoubtedly going to result in much suffering. How that is determined to balance against (at least some inevitable) pleasure is not really determinable. But the antinatalists have a point that no one is disadvantaged by not being born; whereas it seems inevitable that everyone will be disadvantaged by being born. You could turn that around and say that no one is advantaged by not being born whereas it seems inevitable that everyone will, in some regard or in some way, be advantaged by being born.
Both arguments are mirror equivalents in a way, but since the percentage of suffering to pleasure is impossible to determine it would seem to be most harmless to refrain from having children. Perhaps I am an antinatalist if you consider that I personally never wanted to have children; or at least if there was any transient motivation at all to have them it would only have been egoistic as far as I can tell. But I don't count myself an antinatalist insofar as I have no particular desire to influence others either way. Having said that I do think it would be best all round, given the current convergence of crises humanity faces, if as many people as possible refrained from giving birth, and instead adopted from third world countries if they really want to have children in their lives.
Right on :up: . You get the absurdity of Terrapin Station's argument, and understand the AN argument, just as well. I don't understand why he can't.
OK, so you came off a motorbike and broke your leg. You can come off a motorbike without breaking your leg just as you can go to South Africa without breaking your leg. So you will probably retort that coming off a motorbike and hitting the road with sufficient force to break your leg is the cause of breaking your leg.
As I have said it may be the most proximal cause, but maybe you lost focus for a moment causing you to come off the bike. Or maybe you were going too fast, which meant that you hit the road with great enough force to break your leg when you came off. Or maybe you are not a sufficiently alert and agile person and were not able to land in a way such as to avoid breaking your leg. Or maybe you didn't wear sufficient protective clothing. Maybe you could have hit the road with the same force but at a slightly different angle and avoided breaking your leg. Perhaps your bones are "chalky". The list of possibilities, just those right around the moment of the accident are manifold. So, it's an artificial, reductive mindset that isolates just one factor as cause.
And regardless of what I said above about determinism, I have no idea what you think free will has to do with anything in this context.
First off, it's not an argument against antinatalism. It's simply a disagreement with considering a precondition for x a cause of x. I use "cause" in the way I described. With an important aspect of that being that if c is the cause of F, then c can't occur without F occurring. That criterion isn't met by preconditions, but it is met by some things. It's only the things that meet that criterion that I call "causes."
Yes, but not at the particular velocities etc. in question.
Yes. This is the suffering I was referring to when I said "They go through severe suffering". I wasn't talking about the act of commiting suicide itself
Quoting leo
Stating random "fallacies" that don't apply to what I'm saying at all (where is this appeal to emotion?) and then proceeding not to address what I'm saying in that paragraph isn't a valid form of argumentation either. My question was basically this: Why do you think it is permissable to cause someone so much suffering that they literally kill themselves? The fact that they can kill themselves to remove that suffering doesn't justify causing it does it?
Quoting leo
Logical fallacy. This is pure sophistry. First off, I never said I don't kill myself because that harms others (although that is obviously part of the reason), I count my OWN suffering as well as the suffering I would cause by any action. If I suffer severely for not commiting an action that causes minimal suffering (Ex: I would suffer severely if I don't drive but I DO risk running people over, however in terms of risks x harm done, my suffering from not driving > the potential suffering I cause by driving x the chance I cause it) then the action is moral. This however, does not lead in any way shape or form to saying "risking harming others is not a valid argument for antinatalism". The harm done in having a child will always be greater than the harm alleviated from the parent. Thus it is not that I would never do anything that harms anyone else, because I will. ONLY AS LONG AS the amount of harm I relieve off myself is significantly greater than the amount I cause (Ex: driving as i said). Having children causes much more suffering than it alleviates and is therefore immoral.
In short: Harming others isn't an automatic no in my ethical system, but having children is at a degree of harm that makes it almost always the correct call not to have a child
Quoting leo
No I am not. I am assuming this is a real risk that you're completely unjustified in taking for someone else without very good reason which you haven't presented me. I am getting tired of saying this over and over again. I never made the claim life is terrible, only that it can be
Quoting leo
No, because that child will also make the same claim. So this scenario would be like stealing food from someone to satiate yourself and starve them instead. We can agree that's immoral right?
Quoting leo
Existence is not a lifetime of suffering according to me. But it can be. Now as for your second point: Because a forced imposition cannot be fixed by another forced imposition. If someone asks me for assisted suicide I would oblige (as long as it doesn't harm me myself). However I can't just go around killing people because I THINK they might be suffering. And by the same token I can't just go around making people because I THINK they will like it. Antinatalism is only about not taking risks with others that you don't have to. Killing babies is out of the question for the same reason having them is: Because it risks harming someone without their consent
Quoting leo
Again. Stop this please. I am not saying life is horrible. Only that it can be.... And that there is no way to know that it won't be horrible for your child. And that you don't have to take that risk at all.
Quoting leo
But that wouldn't alleviate much pain from others would it? Even if I lived like a hermit that won't spare a single animal's life, or at least the chances of it doing so are extremely low. It would only add to food loss and reduce the amount of services I could have provided other people. On the other hand, me not having a child CAN (didn't say it would) spare someone an entire lifetime of suffering. And I am not one for taking risks for others without their consent, so I won't have children.
Quoting leo
It doesn't matter if they agree with it or not. It doesn't matter how much I like a job, I can't force you to work it. Especially if forcing you to work it entails giving you a "job keeping instinct" which forces you to continue working the job until you go through extreme suffering enough to finally make you quit. Again, I just don't see that an action that risks harming people to the point of them committing suicide without consent from them and only to satiate one's own desires is moral.
Please tell me what unusual was referring to. Also please actually respond to my points not literally a single line.
The literal entire post was detailing why having birth should count as "unusual" change. You can't just handwave that away
Quoting schopenhauer1
This argument assumes that avoiding harm is more important than having positive experiences, which many don't agree with. Also it doesn't take into account the fact that would-be parents are often deprived and harmed from not having a child.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Many people don't see their life as being in "a constantly deprived state", they would rather describe it as full of experiences and feelings, so I don't agree that life is being in a constantly deprived state.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Whether a particular experience is seen as a "challenge to overcome" or a "burden to deal with" is subjective. When you enjoy what you do, you don't see it as a challenge or a burden, it's when you don't enjoy what you do that you see it that way.
So again, you're focusing on the negative part (the unenjoyed experiences), and not the positive part (the enjoyed experiences). Whether you confer more weight to the negative part is a subjective view, not an objective one.
I could equally make the opposite argument and say that life presents wonders and joy. When putting a new person into the world, you are creating a situation where they will experience wonders and joy, ...
Quoting schopenhauer1
Again, you don't know how much wonder and joy there will be in life for a certain person. I think we can agree that a given person can see their life as a net positive or as a net negative. You're not saying why it is more important to avoid a potential net negative than it is to create a potential net positive. Especially if the parents believe that they can give a happy life to their child.
This is not to say that people should have as many babies as possible, if the would-be parents feel like they couldn't take care of one or couldn't make him/her happy then better not to have one.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes this is a problem, but it's separate from antinatalism. We are educated to become efficient cogs in a great industrial machine that progressively destroys nature and other species and cultures, and that's a huge problem, and a source of great suffering. Does that mean that to solve this problem the whole of humanity has to be thrown away and go extinct? No, some individuals are much more responsible for this state of affairs than others. That's what I see as the important fight, changing course, elevate consciousnesses, make people see this state of affairs and rise against it, against those who are responsible for it, for a great part of the suffering that antinatalists and people around the world experience, that's the important fight, not convincing people that life is fundamentally horrible and that it's better to put an end to it all, because then those who are destroying humanity and the world will have won and we will have lost.
Outside of human behavioral norms (where those are culturally relative).
Ohhhhhh. So your argument against antinatalism is "It's ok because it's a social norm, even though it causes harm in the same way genetically modifying babies causes harm"
Keep posts short if you don't want anything overlooked. You can type as much as you want, of course, but I'm not going to respond to multiple points per post.
How many times do I need to point out that I'm not arguing against antinatalism as an ethical stance? Ethical stances can't be objectively right or wrong, true or false, etc. They're always ultimately ways that people feel, dispositions they have re behavior.
That's not to say that I wasn't arguing anything, but I was arguing things like, "There's no one to do anything to prior to conception." Because that's an ontological fact. That ontological fact implies nothing about ethics, because no fact implies any value.
You understand that I was simply reporting my personal ethical dispositions to you re the "unusual" bit, right? No fact can ground any ethical stance. So if you're looking for a fact to ground an ethical stance, you'll never find one.
Didn't I point out to you that I do not do moral stances via principles? I do moral stances by dispositions for particular situations. No principle is ever a trump card for me. I think that approach is ridiculous. So there's no way to argue that I would think something is wrong via some principle I hold. That's not how I do moral stances. I pointed that out from the start.
I am not looking for a fact, just more sharply defined subjective reasons. For me "unusual" isn't bad but "harmful" is. Let's look at some examples to see exactly where you lie: Is circumcision ethical? Beware that it is scientific fact that circumcision provides no physical benefits whatsoever and in fact causes sever suffering and even brain damage to some children.
Any moral stance is going to ultimately come down to "because that's the way I feel about it." This is true for everyone, for every moral stance.
And I doubt that's actually how you feel about it. To illustrate: Is circumcision ethical? Beware that it is scientific fact that circumcision provides no physical benefits whatsoever and in fact causes sever suffering and even brain damage to some children.
"Unusual" is only bad re the full scenario I explained above. Because that's my disposition with respect to that (re modifications to an entity--we need to have the entity in question, where it's going to survive to a point where it's normally capable of consent, etc.) That can effectively be a foundational disposition.
Re circumcision, I'd prefer that it wasn't a norm, but sure, I wouldn't say it's unethical.
Personally, I think any act that risks harming someone else should be handled with care when it comes to moral situations. If it cannot be demonstrated that the act will alleviate significantly more pain somewhere than it will impose then it shouldn't be done. And birth and circumcision are examples of such things and so I consider then unethical
If you had started off by saying that you consider anything social norms dictate to be your ethical standard I wouldn't have bothered arguing with you in the first place, (for the obvious reason that having children is a social norm. For obvious reasons). Although I do think your ethical system is essentially mob mentality and is completely untenable, hey, who am I to judge.
Fun discussion though.
I could have easily told you that from the start. I didn't just start thinking about this stuff yesterday. I've been doing philosophy for over 45 years, and I have a formal and a bit of a professional background in it. It wouldn't be impossible for my views on anything to change, but it wouldn't be easy to change them and it would require pretty clever theorizing that's different than stuff I've heard over and over for decades, or it would take some novel insight on my own part. (An example of the latter is that I didn't use to reject principle-based approaches to moral stances, but then I had an insight that that was a form of theory-worship and that it was stupid--just like theory-worship in general)
Quoting khaled
Just for irreversible body modifications. Of course, this isn't a principle that I hold so that it would be a trump card. Could there be a cultural norm re body modification that I'd have an ethical problem with? Sure, but I'd not know that for sure until I encountered it.
As I've stated many times, I base no moral stance on either harm or suffering. Both are far too vague in my ooinion.
There is no way to convince someone who believes social norms are the basis for what makes actions against non consenting entities (that will become consenting) of antinatalism. Because having kids will never cease as a social norm (for obvious reasons) and so the only way to change their mind would be to convince them to change the underlying ethical positions they have. I am hopelessly bad at that, but it's just that most people who argue against antinatalism hold ethical rules that WOULD consider it wrong but they make a special case for some reason. For example: most people would say that modifications that risk harm are bad not that modifications that are "unusual" as you have defined them are bad. I was thinking you said unusual but actually meant harmful. It became clear to me you meant unusual as unusual with the circumcision example. So at that point there is nothing I can do. Most people I've seen on this thread however would disagree with that stance as far as I can tell.
For you though, all I can do is disagree. My only goal was to show people that hold contradictory ethical view that they're contradictory but you don't so kudos to you
Again, it's an ontological fact that you can't do anything to the entity in question prior to conception, because the entity doesn't exist prior to conception.
That's still straw men, are you doing it on purpose or do you not see it? Nowhere did I claim what you're implying I think.
Risking that someone might suffer a lot, while doing our best so that they don't suffer, is not the same as causing someone to suffer a lot. If I do my best to raise a child, and the child is happy, and because of unforeseeable circumstances he/she gets abducted and repeatedly raped and tortured by some monster, and as a result he/she suffers horribly and becomes suicidal, I'm not the cause of that, the monster is the cause. The happiness and the suffering would have been prevented by not having the child, but the suffering alone would have been prevented by identifying that monster beforehand, by understanding what leads people to commit this kind of atrocities, and by taking preventive measures so that people never get to the point that they become monsters.
In my view, people who do that kind of things suffer a lot themselves, it seems most antinatalists have also suffered a lot because of others, because of constant bullying or stuff like that, and in many cases people who have suffered that way either kill themselves, or become chronically depressed (and form the idea that bringing a being into the world is wrong because of the suffering they have experienced), or move on to commit atrocities themselves. If you have suffered a lot because of others, the solution is not that everyone stop having children, it is to understand why others caused you that suffering and what could be done to prevent it. In my view little is done to understand how suffering comes about, our society is immersed in the belief that medication or punishment or imprisonment is the best way to prevent and relieve suffering, but I see it as a really poor model, many people suffer because of others in ways that are socially accepted, and they internalize that suffering until they end up causing suffering to others later on. The suffering an individual causes eventually ripples through the world, but so does the joy that an individual brings. The solution isn't to make humanity go extinct, it is to spread joy and stop spreading suffering. And if you can understand that, maybe you can bring more joy and less suffering to the people who live now and to those who are yet to be born. Whereas spreading antinatalism is spreading your suffering.
Re this, by the way, most people don't actually believe that harm, unqualified, is bad as a "trump card principle." That's the reason that antinatalism will never be more popular. Antinatalists have the very unusual disposition that harm and suffering, in the broadest, most vague senses, are bad in principle, to a point where nothing else matters.
Normally, even if someone were to agree that harm and suffering are negative in principle, they're not going to agree that that's all that matters. They'll think that it has to be balanced against positive facts.
Again, my answer to this is that if pro-natalists are right, suffering will ensue for someone else- will be created wholesale for someone else. If antitnatalists are right, no new person will suffer anything. There is no "risk" in the antinatalist outcome, other then no people existing. But, what does that matter to anyone, literally?
Quoting leo
Interesting that khaled gave you a huge response, but you direct the post at me. Alrighty then, I'll answer you.
Quoting leo
What it is saying is that in the case of the procreational decision, no collateral damage of harm is done to someone else. Yes, at that point, all that matters is that harm is not foisted on someone else. Any other justification is using the child for the parent's agenda of XYZ projected reasons (on behalf of the child). The child will not be deprived, literally, of anything prior to birth. This brigs us to the bad argument of suffering of the parent for not having a child, the same thing that @Terrapin Station uses. If I was to put you in an obstacle course that you could not get off of unless you commit suicide, because putting people in various challenges and obstacle courses makes me happy, and maybe I think you will really like it, or get meaning from it, or whatever, it still doesn't make it right for me to put you in that obstacle course because I suffer less from doing so. That's just one of many examples I can use.
Quoting leo
Sure, you can say whatever happy fluffy things you want, you still need and want all day long. It's part of human life. Experiences and feelings are part of life too, but much of those experiences are feelings of need and want- even if just to be in some positive state (get there, maintain it, hope for it, etc.).
Quoting leo
Again, no one NEEDS to experience anything. Any negative experiences can be avoided, and ALL collateral damage, by simply preventing birth. That is a fact. No one is obligated to have make people with good experiences, but it seems to me, at the level of the procreational decision, it is best to prevent ALL harm. I am not the arbiter, a force that must bring happy experiences into the world. But I can certainly be a non-starter for someone else's negative experiences.
Quoting leo
Again, we are not obligated to create positive experiences at the procreational level, since no actual person will be affected. I think creating ANY negative experiences for someone else at that time, is bad being that the alternative is literally NO deprivation for that person who was not created. Being that life has more than trivial harm, that ANY is way more than just stubbed-toes... Also, to create challenges for someone else, because they may identify with the challenges, is not right. Go back to my obstacle course analogy. Nothing needs to happen for anyone PRIOR to their birth. It is simply the parents' agenda (to see their child have XYZ experiences). They think they should reasonable make decisions that affect other people, because they have a projected agenda for that person. Rather, don't have children, and let sleeping dogs lie. No harm ensues, no one is deprived. Win/win.
Quoting leo
Once the technology is created, we simply become growers and maintainers of the technology. We become minutia mongers. But please, lets have more people that must participate in this as employees. We must make more workers... People don't intend to do this, but of course, that is where they are heading when they are born. Otherwise they are just the financial class that underrides everyone else's work, or the underclass, a hermit/monk slowly dying, or commits suicide to escape it. But we put people into this position of complying by being good employees, or the other less optimal options.
It matters to people existing now. It might mean something that no sentient life continues. You have your values and you are universalizing and objectivizing them. You focus only on suffering as the only potential loss/risk. If you are wrong about all this - and yes, I understand that you cannot see how - your project could do lots of harm. You are assuming things like 'there is no God' 'there is no value in sentient beings per se' 'people's current interests in the future of the species are wrongheaded and need not be considered' 'the urge to procreate causes not harm if it is inhibited' 'reincarnation is not the case, there are no souls in line, so to speak ' 'precreation is natural and good' and likely many other values, some rather mundane, others involving belief systems other than yours. Now, with some bird's eye view, I could say 'Hey, perhaps you are right.' but even if I go to that bird's eye view, I MUST ABSOLUTELY note that you as a fallible human might be wrong. Since that is a possibility, you are taking a risk.
But your position is founded on the idea that no risks can be taken that might cause damage or suffering without the direct consent.
Now you may say that these other values and beliefs have the onus of proof.
But no they don't. Because there is a risk, as far as you know, that you are doing damage and harm with your position, the spreading of it.
You cannot seem to acknowledge this risk. And that risk is present regardless of whether other people mount perfect argument that these other values are the correct ones.
You want perfection and perfection in not causing harm. But that is out of your reach in situ.
It is another fundmentalism, in the broad sense, you are presenting, which presumes infallibility on your part, since no one should risk. But you are risking.
There's nowhere to go from here between us since you cannot admit to this basic fact that it is possible you are wrong, and if you are, and you are effective, even with a few people, but certainly as a movement that might be widely effective, then you will cause some or incredible harm. Just because you can't see how, is part of your inablity to imagine, even, that you could possibly be wrong and missing something. That's a risk I take when I go out of my house, and that act might even lead, unintentionally to the suffering of a child - I watched a bike accident where the child ran out and the women braked and had done nothing wrong. Of course, if she'd been walking, there would be less chance things like that would happen.
We all take risks, even you, that your actions will cause harm. In this case because of your spreading an idea. In everyone's case, mundanely.
But you allow yourself this while expecting others to never in any way risk non-consensual harm to others. We must adhere to your values or we are immoral.
It's just another religion, presumably without a deity.
If someone is making the decision for themselves, that's the case. If they're pressured into it--including by someone like you incessantly, repetitively nagging about it, or if there would be a law about it, that then that's not the case.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That's only an argument against the claim that no one is harmed or no one suffers just in case someone is pressured or forced into not having kids, when they want to have kids.
Exactly.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Someone suffering by not creating the causes or conditions that will occasion all other suffering for/ on behalf of another person makes no sense to qualify. I never said suffering alone is the only thing that matters. I usually frame it as causing suffering on behalf of another person. That is what is happening by having children, and you know it. You are lost in your own red herrings, that you have no argument against the actual antinatalist claims. That is what this thread is about. It's about consent in regards to the procreational decision. It's about causing (the conditions for) someone else's suffering, and not piecemeal in a case-by-case basis (after birth) but ALL suffering. All suffering for a future person can be prevented uniquely in the procreational decision. All suffering is experienced from being born in the first place. If you don't understand that being self-evident, I would just say you are just showing how much sophistry your many years in philosophy has afforded you.
All of these things would then assume that people are to be used (for reincarnation, for spiritual entities, for future of humanity as a whole, etc.). Why individuals suffering should be started for a third-party cause, is never stated. Creating the conditions for harm for other people, because they need to do XYZ things, is creating people for someone else's agenda. Why make people for a third-party's agenda? That seems wrong as well. Again, an analogy would be setting up an obstacle course (i.e. the challenges of life) and forcing people to participate in it. The only option they have to get out is to kill themselves. You have to deal with the obstacle course, because I want you to. You will suffer, but hey, I believe you will get so much out of going through the obstacle course. Something is not right about that. Making someone go through challenges, that did not exist in the first place to need those challenges, even if the person identifies with those challenges (like a slave who doesn't realize his persecution), should make one pause.
Was the comment about whether there is suffering when people don't have children an argument against antinatalism?
It's not an argument against antinatalism. I don't know how many times I need to say that in order for anyone to understand it.
It is, however, a way of saying that I don't consider being born to be the cause of, say, someone suffering via not wanting to eat broccoli but being made to eat broccoli, or, say, someone suffering from a broken arm they received from playing "king of the mountain."
That entity may not exist but there is another entity there that will grow to be that entity. The person might not exist but the fetus does. And I'm saying childbirth is harmful in the same way genetically modifying someone to have 8 limbs is harmful. The act of genetically modifying doesn't hurt anyone but it has consequences that WILL hurt someone. The act of having children doesn't hurt anyone but it has consequences that MAY hurt someone (most definitely will at some point)
I've asked you a ton of times what's harmful about it. What consequences will hurt someone? Specify what you're talking about (not exhaustively--just via some examples).
I would say you are a partial cause for having them in the first place. "I tried my best but the world sucks bucko" doesn't relieve you of responsibility.Quoting leo
Agreed. So let's do the safer solution that requires less suffering and is applicable with 100% chance of success: not have the child
Solution A to suffering: Don't have the child
Result: No suffering (good) and no pleasure (not bad because you don't owe future children pleasure)
Chance of success: 100%
Solution B to suffering: Prevent every instance of suffering by creating a utopia
Result: No suffering (good) and a lot of pleasure (good)
Chance of success: idk but I don't think it's that high
What happens if it fails: Suffering (bad)
So i'd rather go with solution A
Quoting leo
It definitely is more attractive to people with harsh lives but there are plenty of us perfectly content middle class antinatalists as well. I wouldn't dismiss us
As for the rest of your comment. I agree it would be great if any of those things happened but just remember that every single ancestor of yours has said words to that effect and where are we now relative to that utopia? Not much closer huh. It seems to me the safe option is better. Because remember for all those wonderful things you said (perfect mental health for the entire societ, harmony and cooperation globally), there is 5 times as many terrible alternative events so statistically speaking, the odds we actually make a utopia are pretty slim.
And what of the suffering in the way of GETTING that utopia? Would you agree to suffer a lifetime so that people 300 years later can live better lives? I doubt it.
Any harm you can think of can be causally linked to being born. In the same way that the specific harm of having 8 broken limbs can be linked to the genetic modification, so can ANY kind of harm be linked to the modification "birth" that allowed it. I say enabling harm and causing it directly are just as punishable. Setting a bear trap that someone someone steps on and personally hacking their legs off with an axe are just as punsihable
That's one of them. The other one is this whole cause thing. It is self-evident that being born is the one condition that allows for all other suffering. It is a category error to say non-existing children are suffering. It's nonsensical rather.But guess what? Existing people will be harmed. What causes someone to get born, to exist? Procreation.
But again, you know this. You can dance around and twist your arguments as much as you want to make it not the case, but indeed it is the case:
Being born allows for ALL suffering>>>> procreation leads to being born in the first place. You can't twist your reasoning enough to get out of this fact.
C'mon, you can't give a single example?
? It was a yes or no question. And the answer, given good reading comprehension, should have been "no."
It is an argument against the idea that being born can coherently be considered to be the cause of any particular instances of suffering, so it is an argument against the principal argument for anti-natalism, which I would say amounts to it being an argument against anti-natalism. It is also a tendentious, reductive, flawed argument, as I have shown.
I think realistically, until someone grasps the first noble truth of Buddhism, until they have that gestalt shift where their endless striving, grasping, and desiring reveals itself, antinatalism will just be seen as some fringe argument put forth by the depressed and mentally ill. You can endless argue about consent and potential people, but it's a waste of time if the opponent still fundamentally sees life as a good thing.
As I have used a different language game of sorts as presenting this as either an all or nothing zero-sum game of either living in a perfect world where nobody causes any harm or the alternative of living in a world where some harm occurs (How much? Can any antinatalist really resolve this issue with some objective measure?).
Actually, I'll just leave it at that. Let's see how the antinatalist resolves how much suffering is tolerable, or does the whole thing come off as some fundamentalism if no suffering or harm is demanded.
One thing about these arguments is that pro-natalism is taken as the default position, which the antinatalist must argue and combat against. But surely the onus is on the natalist to present and justify his/her case. She/he is the one creating a being that will be afflicted by dukkha, when there is absolutely no need or desire to do so (from the child's perspective). It is on the natalist to resolve this issue before procreating.
Edit: well maybe not a vast majority. I’m not sure on that, but they are very common.
Uhhhhh. Ok. How about: falling off a bike and breaking your leg. That was partially caused by you being born in the first place. Was it not?
Most are "pro death". Which means you should need a reason NOT to abort not a reason to abort. Abortion should be the default not birth.
This is inconsequential to the argument. "Let's see how much torture he can stand before it counts as doing something bad". It doesn't matter whether or not suffering is tolerable, inflicting any suffering for no good reason is morally evil.
None of this makes any sense. Surely suffering is unavoidable in the every day world we live in. So, the question again is when is living OK?
"Just in case having a child doesn't cause suffering, then there's no justification for antinatalism"--I don't at all agree with that statement. I'd need to agree with it to see my comments as an argument against antinatalism.
(At this, by the way, I wouldn't say that having a child can cause no suffering. But we'd need to specify the suffering in question and see whether we can peg the causal chain in question. Of course, I don't hinge any ethical stance of the concept of suffering, but that's another issue.)
At any rate, no fact can justify any normative, so pointing out that something isn't a fact also isn't going to undermine any normative--because the normative can't be supported by the fact in the first place. This is not to comment on rhetorical, persuasive power of anything, but that's simply a matter of whether we're appealing to someone's psychological biases.
And that you use "cause" in a manner different than I do doesn't make my usage flawed. As for "reductive," that would need to be defined better and why it's supposed to be negative would need to be supported.
So presumably, you don't buy that people have free will?
One of your bad arguments is the "suffering of parent" for not begetting someone else that would be harmed argument, yes.
No it would make it a huge category error. You would be applying it to specific instances, when at the procreational decision-making level, it prevents ALL harm for a future life. Again, self-evident that being born causes harm, and procreation causes people to be born.
It's a problem that you can't even understand or learn that that's not an argument about antinatalism on my part. If you can't learn that, how would it be possible for us to have a conversation?
How would you describe the category error in question?
No that is not the question at all. The question "when is living OK" is very different from the question "When is it ok to impose living on someone else". Living might be ok for most people most of the time but that doesn't mean it is moral to impose it on someone else. Example: Living is ok for most blind people, however that doesn't imply that it is ok to go around slashing people's eyes.
To quote from David Benetar (roughly)
"There is a huge difference between a life worth living and a life worth starting. No lives are worth starting but most are worth living"
How is that? Can you elaborate?
That is irrelevant. All I need for my claim is that suffering is inevitable at some point. Free will or not is irrelavent. It's either:
Person A was born -> Person A chose to do something stupid -> Person A broke his leg
or
Person A was born -> Person A was determined to do something stupid -> Person A broke his leg
Both cases can be causally linked to Person A being born. So being born is a direct cause of any specific instance of suffering, free will or not. Person A couldn't have chosen to break his leg if he wasn't born nor could he have been determined to do it
The problem with that argument is that you can't impose living on someone else. There needs to be a someone else to impose something on them, but there is no one to impose something on prior to the person in question living already.
You'd have to say that it's morally problematic to do things to materials that could turn into living things, but of course that would introduce a bunch of nonintuitive upshots that you don't want to introduce.
Putting people in a tolerable situation isn't automatically morally ok. If someone breaks my leg, it will heal in a while. That doesn't mean breaking other people's legs is ok just because the suffering inflicted is bearable. Most lives are bearable and are therefore worth living. However no lives are worth starting, because starting a life is a risk you take for someone else which is always bad assuming they have not asked you to take that risk.
I would actually as YOU to elaborate why you're setting the standard for having a child at "Is the life bearable?" I think you need to explain THAT one first. Because it sound to me like you're saying something along the lines of "How much can we torture this kid before it becomes a bad thing"
It's not irrelevant to saying that something caused something else.
If we buy that there is free will and I make a free will decision to do x, how does it make sense to say that I was caused to do x by anything other than my own decision?
I did. And so did you. You said genetically modifying babies to suffer is bad. Genetic modification and birth are both things you do to organic materials that turn into living things.
Of course it makes sense:
If you are presented with the option to pick between A, B, C and D and you pick C using your free will, you were caused to pick C by two things
1- Your free will
2- The fact that C was an option in the first place
Babies aren't living things?
If I was caused to pick C by the fact that it was an option in the first place, then how could I have picked another option?
You're not saying that a cause can obtain without the effect in question, are you?
I didn't say anything about sperm and eggs, though.
Well, because you seem to imply that life is not worth living because it contains harm in it. Does life then only make sense in some highly idealized utopia where no suffering is to be experienced? Hence, the all or nothing logic inherent here that I mentioned earlier
I did. Birth is modifying sperm and eggs so I'm not saying this:
Quoting Terrapin Station
Because it's not materials that are in question, it's living things. And we both agree modifying living things is morally considerable
That's fine. But you just argued that I said that it's morally problematic to do things to materials that could turn into living things. I did not say that.
I'm not. I'm implying life is not worth starting because it contains harm in it. If I was blind I wouldn't kill myself but I'd rather not be blind
Being blind is worth living through but it is not worth starting
Quoting Wallows
I don't get how life can "make sense" or "not make sense". Do you mean "make sense to start". In that case yes, it would only make sense to start new life in a utopia and even then it would not be an obligation.
It would be like donating toys to an orphanage. Sure the kids would love it but you don't have to do it. Aka it is morally good to do, not morally bad to not do. Same with having children in a utopia
No I did not
1- Sperm and eggs are living organisms not materials
2- You realize genetic modification is done on sperm and eggs right? Not on "the baby". So if you want to consider sperm and eggs materials then we're BOTH saying it is morally problematic ot do things to materials that could turn into living things
Dude, at least be honest.
You quoted me saying, "You'd have to say that it's morally problematic to do things to materials that could turn into living things"
You responded with "I did."
And then you said, "You did, too."
Sorry that was a misunderstanding. The "I did" was a response to when you said "But I said nothing about sperm and eggs"
"But I said nothing about sperm and eggs"
"I did"
Wait it's literally quoted right there m8
That was after the post in question.
(Perfect opportunity for you to bring up block time, by the way.)
Why don't you just say that you're "against procreation, not because it does something to someone else against their consent, and not because it 'causes' suffering, but because it creates people who are bound to occasionally suffer in some way or another," and either you consider that suffering sufficiently weighty to suggest avoiding it altogether, or you only care about suffering and its elimination, regardless of how slight the suffering might be compared to non-suffering, regardless of its exact character?
If you were to put it that way, the only counter to it would be for someone like me to note that I don't feel the same way about suffering that you do. I don't feel that it's the only thing that matters and/or I don't feel that it outweighs other things to an extent to suggest avoiding it altogether.
. . . I guess maybe the problem with that is that you don't just want to announce your stance, you want to persuade other people to have the same stance. But for someone like me, it's pretty much an impossible hurdle, especially since I don't do principle-oriented ethical stances, and especially since I don't have any ethical stance that's simply based on the ideas of "suffering" or "harm" per se. If I think something is a problem, it is because of a specific scenario, a specific set of properties that obtain in that situation, and for me, I also like to significantly "err" on the side of permissibility, so that some things I only see as a problem if they're severe enough--which is why I don't think that any physical violation is an issue if it doesn't have lingering--at least a few days--non-microscopically-observable (physical) effects for example.
I did that in the last post.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Even with your very callous and indifferent way of looking at suffering (for how other people may experience it versus you, let's say), YOUR decision is affecting SOMEONE else, not just your own life. That is the major difference, you often seem to bypass. You seem to think that the parent's projection is the child's experience. Of course, you and I know it is not. You can do the ad populum thing, but even a small percentage of people who don't want to go through life were brought tremendous collateral damage in their own perspective. The antinatalist is saying that no one is actually deprived of anything prior to birth, so there wouldn't be "losing out" for an actual person. No one is kept "hostage" from being born, so to say.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I think this is dubious. We know that life can contain various amounts of harm to someone, much of it unforeseen as to the amounts and kinds. Even if you don't believe in the structural suffering like "Dukka" that @Inyenzibrought up, and we are just going by crass utilitarian versions of what is defined as "harm" (usually immediately experienced physical or psychological harm), you do not know how much that would be or what their experience of it, or their subjective view of it would be. We know that it is not yours, and that you can't program the person to be like yours, even if you think you can sufficiently "educate" and "habituate" them to your view of it. That is the height of hubris as well.
The major point in all this is that life is the pre-condition, the platform for all this suffering to take place. We are just saying it is good to take away the platform, and that any reason to go ahead and procreate above and beyond that is putting an agenda above a person's experience of suffering, which is using someone to fulfill that agenda while not considering the harm foisted upon that potential person.
Quoting schopenhauer1
So starting with this, my view doesn't ignore other persons' opinions. Most people don't think that only suffering matters, and most aren't so miserable that suffering greatly outweighs everything else.
Every sentence in your post has something that needs to be addressed, so I'm not going to do it all at once. One thing at a time.
So you're the arbiter and interpreter of what most people think?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Ha, same for you
Just an observer. You must think it's possible to observe this stuff, via reports from people, otherwise what in the world would you be addressing?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Good to know that we'll be keeping things succinct and focused.
Besides the fact that people report more positively than actual lived moments day to day, besides the fact that people often identify with that which makes them.suffer, knowing nothing but what they are already used to, and fearing death...Focusing just on people who report negatively..there is a huge cost in creating unhappy person. Harm was created for that person. There is no cost to someone else, by not creating happy person.
However, I dont even buy this line of reasoning. Rather, as I've stated many times before, it's the fact that people are harmed in the first place, not their self report of those challenges. A gain, I use the analogy of the obstacle course, foisting an obstacle course on someone else because you enjoy watching them navigate it, and the only way out is suicide, is wrong EVEN if the victim eventually finds meaning in or identified positively with the obstacle course. Forcing challenges for someone else, when no challenges needed to be faced by literally anyone, is never right.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Well if that's code for focusing on red herrings, nope.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What? You're saying you know their actual experiences better than what they're reporting as their experiences?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollyanna_principle
Real phenomena.
More like I'm saying, people don't even know that they have a tendency for selective positive recall.
So first, that's about accuracy of recall.
What would it have to do with a claim that you know better than other people (per their reports) whether they've had positive or negative experiences?
Right..so restating what I said.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I'm not saying I know better, but that people reporting positive overall evaluations, often don't recall accurately their bad experiences when making those evaluations.
Okay, but the only way we can know that is by the person (a) stating that experience F was negative in their evaluation, while experience G was positive, then (b) recalling experience G in much more detail than experience F.
That tells us nothing about "reporting more positively than actual lived moments day to day."
Um, what you stated was the same thing.
experience 1 - positive
experience 2 - negative
experience 3 - negative
experience 4 - positive
experience 5 - negative
experience 6 - negative
experience 7 - negative
experience 8 - negative
experience 9 - positive
experience 10 - negative
So then we have two ideas:
(1) What "reporting more positively than actual lived moments day to day" says is that when we ask Joe at some later point to evaluate Day A overall, say, he says that Day A was positive--even though at the time, he would have said that more of his experiences that day were negative.
(2) What the Pollyanna principle says is that when we ask Joe about his experiences for Day A, he tells us that he had three positive experiences and seven negative, and when we ask him to tell us about those experiences, he remembers the three experiences that he reported as positive in a lot more detail.
Re (1), the only way to know what's being claimed there is to know that at the time, Joe said he had three positive experiences and seven negative experiences, but at a later time, he said that the day was overall positive for him (where he's forgetting some of the negative experiences and he's not simply reporting a weighting while remembering the 3/7 split).
Re (2), the way we know it is that we ask Joe to talk about experiences and say whether they were positive or negative, and then we note how much relative detail he gives, or can give, about each.
Ok.. sure. You definitely have to go deeper than the "overall" summed evaluation someone gives you is the point. Thus, "life is good" is often wrought with internal biases that distort events of the time versus remembered. Also, I think the question itself is biased, as it really doesn't allow for nuance and will go with the response that aligns most with societal cues.
At worst a little responsible for their suffering , and greatly responsible for their joy (in the case where I do my best to bring happiness to the child and it works).
If the child tells me he is happy to be alive, and is thankful to me, and tells me that he suffers because of some other people and not because of me, how can I be construed as being responsible for his suffering? The individual is the one who decides who to blame. It seems to me that you're blaming your parents for your suffering, but plenty of people do not blame their parents, they blame other people.
Quoting khaled
I disagree with the contrast between suffering and pleasure, I would rather talk of joy or happiness in opposition to suffering. Because some people (potentially many, including me) don't see pleasure as worth living for, but they see joy or happiness as worth living for, to me pleasure is not the same as joy.
And then I don't agree with the asymmetry that "no suffering" is "good" whereas "no joy" is "not bad", in my view "joy" is "good" and "no joy" is "bad". I don't see why we would owe "no suffering" to future children but not "joy".
Quoting khaled
You apply a double standard there. On the one hand you focus on the positive experiences you can provide other people, on the other hand you focus on the negative experiences you can provide to a child.
You take risks for others without their consent every second of your life. If you rationalize taking risks for others without their consent by saying that you can give them positive experiences (by providing services to them), you can rationalize having children in the same exact way.
If you justify taking risks for others without their consent by saying that you need to do so to survive, many people could apply the same principle to say that they need to have children to survive through the genes that their children will carry. Some people so badly need to have a child that they can't survive if they don't have one.
I don't see how you can get out of that double standard.
Quoting khaled
Life is not a job, that's only how you personally feel about it.
Quoting khaled
And yet spreading antinatalism and being successful in making parents believe that they are bad people for having children could precisely harm them to the point of them committing suicide, only to satiate your own desires.
The point remains that to know this, we'd need data about persons' evaluations at the two different time periods in question--the (1) scenario in my post above.
If we had the data in question, and it suggested what you're hoping/claiming it would suggest, we'd also need an argument as to why the evaluation at time T1 has precedence over the evaluation at time T2, rather than those simply being two different evaluations, where it's not the case that one is correct and the other is incorrect.
First off what's "block time"
Secondly, I don't know why you're wasting so much energy on this but look at the comment that's putting you in such a tizzy. I clearly quoted you saying "But I said nothing about sperm and eggs" and UNDER THAT. It says "I did". I never once said this:
Quoting Terrapin Station
Please stop putting words in my mouth
It matters to me whether we're having an honest conversation in good faith, and whether we're "with it" enough to be able to do so sensibly, coherently, etc.
The entire post in question reads:
===============================================================
?Terrapin Station
You'd have to say that it's morally problematic to do things to materials that could turn into living things — Terrapin Station
I did. And so did you. You said genetically modifying babies to suffer is bad. Genetic modification and birth are both things you do to organic materials that turn into living things.
===============================================================
It was only four posts AFTER that that this was introduced by you: "Sperm and eggs aren't living things?"
So the "I did" wasn't in response to something about sperm and eggs.
Because that's not what I am saying. I am saying that birth is a direct cause to suffering. And yes I am saying a cause can optain without its effect if the effect requires multiple causes. Ex: A door requires two keys A and B. Turning A is not the cause of the door openeing. Turning B is not the cause of the door opening. Turning A AND B is the cause of the door opening. In the same way: Being able to perceive/experience suffering is not the cause of suffering. The stimuli that cause suffering if perceived are not the cause of suffering. Being able to experience suffering AND there being a stimuli for suffering are the causes of suffering.
Let me ask you something: In your ethical system how is the following situation wrong:
A person kidnaps you at night completely painlessly and without any damage done then puts you into a torture chamber. You wake up, he gives you a button and says "Press this button and you will die" and then proceeds to torture you. Now you have two options
A: Die
B: Severe pain
I said before:
Quoting khaled
to which you replied:
Quoting Terrapin Station
So, in this scenario, if we're going to assume you have free will, you're ultimately responsible for dying or experiencing severe pain. Thus it cannot be said that the kidnapper is causing you severe pain while torturing you because, ultimately, it is your choice not to pick option A that is causing you this severe pain. It is POSSIBLE for the torturer to attempt to torture you WITHOUT it happeing (since option A is available) so how can you say the torturer is causing any physical deformations or pain? You're not saying a cause can obtain without its effect are you?
Quoting khaled
In a similar way, wouldn't you say that being conceived and/or born is not the cause of suffering with respect to breaking your leg when you're older?
Do you consider the big bang a partial cause?
At this point you had used "materials" to refer to sperm and eggs on multiple occasions and so I decided to roll with it. You are aware genetic engineering is done on sperm and eggs right? given that, and that you seemed to consider them "materials" I said that we would then both be saying that it's morally problematic to do things to materials that could turn into living things
sorry for all the confusion
yes
Remember when I said just above that I care about honesty in conversations?
Quoting khaled
There are two "I did"s. I truly don't mean to cause any confusion
Sure, so there's an uncountable number of causes for every event in your view, and "cause" need not even refer to something with a deterministic connection to an event.
So could you explain just what you have in mind with a "cause" and what any cause's significance is to anything in your view?
You're either being dishonest or you're an idiot or crazy. You don't have another option here, and none are satisfactory.
That was AFTER the post in question.
So it has no relation to "cause" in terms of culpability? For example, for legal purposes?
https://imgur.com/a/uF1MBQv
THAT'S the "I did" I thought you were referring to.
I say that you ARE culpable if you "caused" something by my terms. So for example: If someone turns key A and then someone turns key B in the last example a few seconds later they're BOTH culpable not just the guy that turned the last key
So if someone decides to commit suicide, say, you're holding not only their parents, but their grandparents, great-grandparents, etc., as well as the gun manufacturer, the builder of their home, the people who zoned that area as residential, etc. all legally responsible for the suicide?
I can see lawyers loving you, at least. "Hey, this is my kind of guy."
I never said legally culpable. What is practical to make legal and illegal and what's moral and immoral are not the same. And I would actually hold everyone on that list culpable to differing degrees. First off, direct reasons of suicide (if they exist). Ex: Bullies. Those would be all who get punished legally (because I can't track that suicide back to every single cause). Second: People who I believe have done something wrong but are not going to be legally punished for it: Parents, Grandparents, etc. Finally, the furthest causes: gun manufacturer, builder of home, etc.
First layer are people who caused direct suffering PURPOSEFULLY AND had no good reason to do so
Second layer are people who caused suffering without intent(unless the parents in question are direct bullies) AND had no good reason to do so
Third layer are people who caused suffering without purpose AND had good reason to do so. Although both the gun producer and home builder caused suffering, more would have been caused without their jobs (debatable for the gun manufacturer but still). By building the house the house builder stops even greater suffering, although there is a chance he causes some.
The further back the cause the less responsible the person that did it. So for ex: Building the house did not in any way guarantee suffering onto anyone. Same with the gun. Birth did. Bullying did.
What makes the difference on your view?
It seems like you don't really buy the idea of free will.
You don't believe that every preceding factor could be the same (hypothetically) in two different cases with person A deciding x and person B deciding y (which is not-x)?
(Or we could ask rather if you don't believe that in possible world W, versus actual world A, someone couldn't make decision y (not-x) in W at time T1 rather than decision x in A at T1?)
All I'm saying is self-reports don't necessarily tell the whole picture of what's going on. But, as I said to you, this empirical data, doesn't even matter to the argument. I know shocking, since that is what you will use..
Most people will self-report they want to be born, therefore it is is permissible to have children in mitigating economic household circumstances, is about as far as your argument goes, correct?
The reason it matters to me is, as I said, that my view doesn't ignore other persons' opinions. Most people don't think that only suffering matters, and most aren't so miserable that suffering greatly outweighs everything else. My view takes other persons' opinions into account. You don't have to do that, of course. There's not a right or wrong way to formulate an ethical view. I'm just telling you how I formulate mine on this particular issue.
Aside from that, as I've mentioned countless times, I don't formulate ANY ethical view merely on "suffering" or "harm"--those ideas, simply stated, are never an ethical hinge for me. Those terms are too vague for my tastes, and in that vagueness, they often refer to things that I don't feel are an ethical problem at all.
But a little responsible for EVERY INSTANCE OF SUFFERING. That adds up to a lot.
It's different if, say, a teacher (just using another fatherly figure) is very nice to you and you're grateful to him and you blame other people for your suffering. In that case he literally has no connection to your suffering so is not to blame. However if it turns out the teacher is the one that originally picked your classmates and knowingly picked bullies when he had other options, it would be a different story wouldn't it?
Quoting leo
Please don't put words in my mouth. I have never blamed my parents for anything. Nor other people for that matter and I don't see how it is relevant who I personally blame for what as to the validity of that blame
Quoting leo
Again, replace every instance of "pleasure" with "joy" and everything I said still makes sense. I'll continue to say pleasure but know that I use these words interchangeably. Again, as I said earlier, if you really want replace them with "improve" and "deteriorate" state of affairs and it would still make sense
Quoting leo
Oh you don't see that? What about all those starving children in africa who you know apparently OWE money to? How long of a sentence should you get for NOT providing as much joy as you could to other people. Stop typing and have more kids lest you deny them joy which is apparently morally punishable.
See how ridiculous it sound to say you owe others joy or pleasure? If you truly did you wouldn't be wasting time typing here as it is denying someone somewhere some pleasure potentially. The only thing you owe others is not harming them. Neither of us OWES the other a massage.
Quoting leo
No I am not. Look at the asymmetry thing. It clearly says that having children has both good and bad aspects to it. However, me participating in, or not participating in society has a negligably small impact on the suffering or pleasure of any one person so it doesn't matter which I do morally speaking. Note how I never said me not providing services to others is a bad thing. I just stated it to show how futile participating or not participating is on the suffering or pleasure of any one person
Quoting leo
But even if I don't they would suffer anyways due to some other bloke taking that risk. The case is not the same for having children. If I don't drive down the street, someone else will. If I don't have a kid I have effectively just prevented, potentially, generations of suffering. No one else will have that kid.
Quoting leo
??????????????????
Am I missing something here? Since when does having children give you immortality? Are you implying that if I have a child I will somehow "live on" consciously INSIDE their cells or something? Are you finally realizing how pointless and egotistical having children is and you started running out of reasons for having them the second you started thinking about them? Seriously, the only viable reason you have so far is "Because I wanna"
Heck, children DIMINISH your survival rate. Just look at how hard and costly it is to raise them properly. This arguement just falls completely flat on its face.
Quoting leo
..... No. And heck, if there WAS such a disease I'd say it is debatable to allow having a child in this case. In this case the suffering inflicted is not out of scope with that prevented. I'd actually be happy with a world where ONLY those people who need children SO BADLY they would literally DIE without them had children. That world will last about 30-40 years. Long enough I say.
Quoting leo
I never said this is how I feel about it. Again, stop putting words in my mouth. I am very happy with my life. And heck jobs can be fun. That was the point of the metaphor. They CAN be fun but they're not guaranteed to be which is why you can't force people to work them
Quoting leo
It's not "only to satiate my own desires". It's to stop more people from suffering. On the other hand, having children CREATES those parents you're so worried about upsetting, forces them to face dillemas like these, forces them to make very difficult life decisions, risks breaking them completely in a terrible accident, literally risks them being part of another holocaust, and all for what? Literally no other reason that to satiate your own desires.
Find me a valid reason or a valid benefactor to the act of having children other than the parents of said children. THEN come and claim antinatalists are selfish. How is it selfish to go against one's own bilogical wiring?
Legally culpable: A set of rules that allow society to function. Completely divorced form morally culpable although often related.
Morally culpable: Did an action classified as wrong under a certain set of axioms that evolve out of culture and survival strategies.
Quoting Terrapin Station
I don't but that doesn't matter. That's what's so convincing about antinatalism to me. ALL THE WORLDS A through Z WILL include some suffering (except for one world and its permutations which we sure as heck aren't living in). And in ALL THE WORLDS A thorough Z that suffering WILL start at birth. Birth will ALWAYS be a partial cause in EVERY instance of suffering. Although it might not be the most direct cause, it being a partial cause in EVERY SINGLE CASE adds up to quite the atrocity.
Let's look at this..
Quoting Terrapin Station
So two things here:
1) If you notice a couple posts back I asked if you were the "arbiter" of what is good. In other words, it seems like natalists think that parents think that they are deciding on behalf of humanity what humanity needs and wants- the ultimate politicians on behalf of the unborn and existence.
This to me, is the height of hubris- to think that new people in some way should be brought into existence, because another person decided this must take place for another person and they are the persons who must do this thing. But as I've said many times now, putting someone into XYZ negative circumstances and challenges because the parents want to see some sort of agenda take place for the child (prior to its existence), is putting some agenda above the child. If I made you go through an obstacle course that was not too dissimilar to life, and you eventually identified with the challenges of that course, or maybe experienced many negative aspects but self-reported "Oh, the obstacle course is a mixed bag, but I'm glad someone put me through it", it is still wrong to do this to someone else. That is the gist of it.
Also, the tremendous collateral damage to someone who might dare to report that life is not great. What about them? Too bad? Things MUST get done?
Quoting Terrapin Station
At the procreational decision level, any moral consideration should take into account the asymmetry of preventing ALL harm and depriving no future person of any actual good. That is all we are saying. To try to pretzel the logic so that it is permissible to procreate because there is some existential democracy and the parent is the arbiter of this democracy, is playing with other people's lives for the sake of an agenda that is not the child's. Being that life is all people know once born, of course they will eventually identify with it, and of course they would be bewildered or scared of any alternative- namely non-existence. But, this is not about post-birth, but prior to birth when the asymmetry is present.
Great point!
Focusing on that one first, you're claiming that a precondition like zoning an area as residential is classified as wrong where that evolved out of cultural and survival strategies?
Quoting khaled
The reason it matters is that there's no way to make sense out of saying that Betty, Joe's mom, is culpable, with respect to causality, for Joe's suicide, where Joe freely chose to commit suicide in world A at time T1, whereas in identical world (prior to T1) W, Joe did NOT choose to commit suicide.
If you did, I didn't see it. Probably because it was a long post. I can tell people that I'm not doing long posts covering a bunch of different points, but it's up to them whether they want to just go ahead and type long posts anyway, for whatever reason. At any rate, I'm not reading them. It's important to be able to learn that.
At any rate. Yes, I'm the arbiter of what's good, relative to me. You're the arbiter of what's good, relative to you. That's how it necessarily works for everyone. Good/bad and the like are judgments we make and dispositions we have regarding preferences. That includes if what someone uses for a guide is a consensus opinion or something like that. They're still deciding that relative to them/their opinion of good, they're going to go by what the consensus opinion is.
No? Under what set of axioms do you think zoning an area as residential is wrong?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Yes there is. If you use my definition of causality as necessary condition. Joe's mom had to have Joe in order for Joe to commit suicide. Therefore Joe's mom is accountable for his suicide (although partially). Joe's mom is also accountable for all suffering and joy Joe experiences
Also I want to take this problem to the extreme and ask why the kidnapper is wrong in this case:
A person kidnaps you at night completely painlessly and without any damage done then puts you into a torture chamber. You wake up, he gives you a button and says "Press this button and you will die" and then proceeds to torture you. Now you have two options
A: Die
B: Severe pain
I said before:
If you are presented with the option to pick between A, B, C and D and you pick C using your free will, you were caused to pick C by two things
1- Your free will
2- The fact that C was an option in the first place
— khaled
to which you replied:
If I was caused to pick C by the fact that it was an option in the first place, then how could I have picked another option?
You're not saying that a cause can obtain without the effect in question, are you?
— Terrapin Station
So, in this scenario, if we're going to assume you have free will, you're ultimately responsible for dying or experiencing severe pain. Thus it cannot be said that the kidnapper is causing you severe pain while torturing you because, ultimately, it is your choice not to pick option A that is causing you this severe pain. It is POSSIBLE for the torturer to attempt to torture you WITHOUT it happeing (since option A is available) so how can you say the torturer is causing any physical deformations or pain? You're not saying a cause can obtain without its effect are you?
Zoning an area as residential is a cause per your vernacular, where you're using cause to refer to culpability, for someone committing suicide at home.
Oh in that sense yes but there is a nuance here. Zoning an area as residential IS a cause for "Joe commited suicide at home" but not for "Joe committed suicide". It is a necessary condition for the area in which Joe commited suicide to be called "home" but not necessary for Joe to have committed suicide
The reason we'd not be able to make sense out of it is that all of that's identical in the two cases with different outcomes. So that makes mincemeat out of the conventional connotations of "cause" and "culpability." There's no way to make sense of it other than simply saying that it's a precondition, but that term doesn't at all have the same connotations.
The kidnapper in that case would not be the cause of the person choosing to die. The person deciding to push the button was the cause.
It's necessary for him to have committed suicide at home, though. It's the same thing as my South Africa example earlier, where you and Janus argued that traveling to South Africa was indeed a cause of me breaking my leg in South Africa.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Doesn't it? "Precondition" and "Necessary condition" sound like synonyms to me. That's exactly how I defined cause: A necessary condition. Aka a precondition
If Joe has a fantastic life, his mother gets some of all the credit as well, although it doesn't excuse the initial transgression.
Quoting Terrapin Station
So how is what the kidnapper did wrong? He wasn't the cause of death OR of suffering
Yea this is exactly the problem I have with you definitions of cause combined with free will. How would Hitler be culpable for anything? He didn't cause direct physical deformations did he?
If you simply define cause as necessary condition, then Hitler's orders and his government style were all partial causes to the holocaust. Hitler isn't responsible for each individual death but he is partially responsible for ALL of them which adds up to a huge atrocity. Same with birth
Heck, you can debate whether or not Hitler was a necessary condition for the holocaust but what you absolutely cannot debate is whether birth is a necessary condition for suffering. Again, it ALWAYS is. In every conceivable world.
Yea. I have been arguing for the same thing. Going to south africa IS a cause for breaking your leg IN SOUTH AFRICA. Not a cause for just "breaking your leg" though
Quoting Terrapin Station
He kidnapped someone. That's doing something against their consent, where the person is normally capable of granting or withholding consent.
You also stipulated that the kidnapper was torturing the person.
Right. He wasn't culpable on my view.
I'm not in favor of any "conspiracy" crime by the way.
No they're not they're sleeping. Also let me tweak the scenario then. Say he didn't kidnap you but set up the torture equipment around your bed? Totally guiltless now?
Is a rapist culpable for doing harm onto someone?
You might as well hold up a sign announcing that you don't understand why I'm using the term "normally"
It's bizarre just how dense you are with understanding the distinctions here. (It's kind of bizarre just how dense you are period.)
A rapist is physically doing something to someone else, aren't they? They're not only telling someone else to do something
Yea forget that situation. I thought you would say that a torturer and kidnapper would be culpable for BOTH torture and kidnapping not just kidnapping. Still I have 2 different scenarios
1- Also let me tweak the scenario then. Say he didn't kidnap you but set up the torture equipment around your bed? Totally guiltless now? Heck even add that he was a visitor so he was allowed to enter your house at the time by your consent
2- A rapes B. Did A do something wrong?
No they're not. The rape victim can always just bite their tongue off and kill themselves. Then, with that alternative in mind, the fact that they are suffering is directly caused by them CHOOSING not to kill themselves isn't it?
So was the kidnapper/torturer. But apparently the torturer is innocent because hey, if you don't like it just press the button and kill yourself
You asked me about kidnapping. So that's what I answered. I added that you had also stipulated that they were torturing the person, but you only asked about kidnapping.
Re (1), first off, did you grant permission for them to enter your property and do this? Aside from that, just what are we positing re the devices?
Goddammit you're a moron. You brought this up re the Hitler tangent. (Seriously though, you really are an idiot, or otherwise maybe a bit crazy or you're just trolling.)
I asked "So was what the kidnapper did wrong?" Obviously I was referring to both the kidnapping and the torturing.
"So how is what the kidnapper did wrong"
But okay, maybe you had in mind the torture, too. Again, I added that to the post in question awhile ago.
Please stop saying "the post in question" we have like 80
I have no clue what you're talking about
That's a big part of the problem, obviously. Either you're incapable of following a conversation very well, or you're simply not making an effort to.
If I quoted you saying "So how is what the kidnapper did wrong," then obviously I'm referring to the post where I responded to that question.
By this point, if you were not a moron, you should be able to know what my answer will be:
Its wrong if by torture we're referring to doing nonconsensual physical violence to the person, in a way that the macro-observable effects will linger, where the victim is normally capable of granting or withholding consent to such actions.
But the torturer is NOT the cause of torture is he. Assuming the victim has free will (which we have been doing) the victim has two options:
A: Kill himself
B: Suffer
The victim is actively choosing to suffer. Therefore he is the cause of his own suffering. So how is the torturer to blame.
I'm just trying to figure out how you can simultaneously say that one has complete free will and also that morally wrong actions are those that are causally peggable to a certain action. How is the torturer's actions and the victim's suffering causally peggable in this case? The victim is actively choosing to put himself in a position where the torturer inflicts suffering on him therefore is HE not the cause of his own suffering?
Let's put this in Jack and Jill terms for you.
Jill kidnaps Jack and tells him:
Either Kill yourself by pushing this button or I'm going to torture you.
Jack says, "Screw off and let me out of here."
Jill then makes a choice to torture Jack. Jack doesn't have the option to choose to not have the force applied to him that Jill is applying as she tortures him. It was Jill's choice to torture him. She could have chosen otherwise. She could have let him go.
Just to be clear, do you consider applying any force that leaves physical changes without consent bad because:
A: Just cuz it is
B: Someone is harmed in the process.
It has to be something where there are macro-observable effects for at least a few days after the event, and then it's also simply an issue of whether the victim cares enough about it to feel it's a problem.
It's a foundational disposition for me. It doesn't rest on another disposition. So "just cuz it is (the way I feel about it)"
Again, if you were paying attention, not trolling, etc., you could have already answered for yourself that B isn't the case, because I specified countless times that I formulate no ethical stance on "suffering" or "harm" per se.
It's caused by Jill because it's Jill's decision to apply the forces she's applying to Jack.
It's only Jack's responsibility if Jack gives his consent, although Jill still has to decide to cooperate.
the A and B choices above have nothing to do with causality. They have to do with why one feels that something is ethically wrong.
I started this whole situation assuming you would have picked B and was trying to understand how you can causally peg a force to someone's suffering directly. You don't have to do that if you picked A though.
So now I guess we're back at where we were like 3 days ago. You consider actions done on living creatures that are currently not capable of giving consent but will become capable of doing so in the future at some point morally considerable. Ergo you didn't think genetically modifying children to suffer is morally permissable. However you set the bar of what counts as "abnormal" alterations at "whatever society dictates is normal or abnormal" which by definition will never make birth abnormal. So if your argument justifying why fertilization (an action done on a living creature that is currently not capable of giving consent but will become capable of doing so in the future at some point) is morally permissable is because society dictates it. And if that is all it takes for something to be morally permissable then there is no chance you'll ever consider birth as morally problematic
I just want to get this point straight. Does fertilization fall under: an action done on a living creature that is currently not capable of giving consent but will become capable of doing so in the future at some point?
And if so is your reason for saying it is moral that society has decided it doesn't count as "abnormal"
And if not how is it that fertilization is different from genetic engineering. They are both modifications done on living creatures (sperm and egg) currently incapable of giving consent that will become capable of giving consent later. But you classify one as a modification and the other not
I said "at worst", as in not necessarily responsible.
Quoting khaled
What a bad analogy again. Choosing whether or not to have a child is not analog to a teacher choosing whether he's gonna pick bullies as your classmates or not. You keep bringing up stories as if they were valid analogies, they aren't.
Quoting khaled
So if some individual doesn't see his parents as responsible for his suffering, who the heck do you think you are to tell that individual he's wrong and his parents are really responsible for his suffering? What makes your subjective point of view more important than his subjective point of view?
Quoting khaled
Nice way to totally misinterpret and misrepresent what I said. You complain I put words in your mouth while you're doing worse. I said, in my view I owe joy to my future children, not just "no suffering", because in my view a life without joy isn't a life worth living. I doubt your children would be happy if you consider that all you owe them is "no suffering", but then I guess it's a good thing you don't want to have children.
Quoting khaled
Your existence doesn't have a negligeably small impact no, especially if you go around preaching antinatalism and convince future parents that they are bad people for wanting to have children and make them suffer greatly as a result. You're oblivious to the consequences and ramifications of your actions.
Quoting khaled
I'm not implying that, that's again you misinterpreting and putting words in my mouth, all the while ignoring what I was replying to.
You say it's ok to make other people suffer if you need to do it to survive. First that's your opinion, not a fact, some people see sacrifice as a good thing so others don't have to suffer because of them.
Second, again, if you want to risk causing suffering as little as possible, go live in the woods far from anyone and only eat plants, that's enough to survive, yet you don't do that, because you're inconsistent.
Third, other people besides you have their own subjective idea of what they "need to do to survive". Plenty of people indeed hold the view that having children is a way to transcend death, if you look around you will find them. Not everyone is like you you know? A few examples from the first page of Google:
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-big-questions/201202/children-and-the-quest-immortality
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/8080676-our-immortality-comes-through-our-children-and-their-children-through
https://pelos2016.wordpress.com/2016/04/30/the-immortality-trap/
Quoting khaled
I guess you don't know that infertility is correlated with depression and suicide. You don't care about infertility because you don't want children, most people care.
When you want something so much that it gives meaning to your life, and you can't have it, you suffer greatly. In your case, if you couldn't preach antinatalism anywhere I think you too would suffer greatly.
Quoting khaled
And the metaphor is shit because for most people life has nothing to do with a job.
Quoting khaled
Which is your desire.
Quoting khaled
You know plenty of children are happy to be alive right?
What a mess of not really paying attention to or understanding what I'm saying. There's too much stuff to address there. I'll stick with your "point you want to get straight," because we keep going over and over this, where you apparently are incapable of learning: fertilization/conception is NOT doing something to an entity that is normally capable or granting or withholding consent. Why that's so difficult to learn I don't know, but for some reason you have a mental block when it comes to learning this.
That's not what's written there.... I didn't ask this.
Remeber this:
Quoting Terrapin Station
Does procreation fall under: actions performed on an entity that is currently not capable or granting or withholding consent, but that will likely survive as a consent-capable being?
How are you not responsible for their suffering if you enabled it in the first place? If someone genetically modifies a child to suffer tremendously (extra limbs or fewer limbs or something like that) is he responsible for their suffering or no?
Quoting leo
I never said more important or less. I'm just trying to understand how that person manages to remain consistent if he thinks his parents have absolutely no part to play in his suffering. If a A does something that is necessary for harming B and then B gets harmed has A done something wrong?
Quoting leo
But that's different form saying you owe future children joy. Let me get this straight: Do you think you have a moral obligation to
A: Make your children happy
B: Make happy children
Because those are very different obligations. I'm saying you don't have to do B but you have to do A. And you have to do A because you forced the children to exist in the first place. The only time you owe someone something is when you harmed them and need to make up for it
Quoting leo
Those two statements are not contradictory. "It's ok to make people suffer if you need to do it to survive" and "Sacrifice is a good thing so others don't have to suffer" are not contradictory at all. In fact I agree with both of them. There are things you don't have to do but that would be good if you did them. Having happy children is an example. It would be good if you did it (see asymmetry) but you don't HAVE to have happy children in the first place
Quoting leo
Find me a person whose suffering will be alleviated significantly (significantly as in he would suffer much less than I would suffer by living in the woods) by me personally living in the woods and I'll take off to the woods. You keep ignoring my point that whether or not I participate in society is morally irrelevant because it doesn't help anyone. I'm not a world famous anything for my decisions to make that large an impact.
And besides, I said before that there ARE situations where you are allowed to risk harming others. Namely one: If you have consent from them beforehand.
Quoting leo
Yes but only crazy people mean "transcend death" in a literal sense. As in you literally continue to live consciously by having children. Figures of speech such as "transcend death" aren't to be taken literally
Quoting leo
It is quite a stretch to say from there that infertility CAUSES depression and suicide but even giving that (and I believe it does) are you SERIOUSLY suggesting that the harm done due to infertility is equivalent to the harm of an entire lifetime?
Are you saying that you, personally, will suffer more by not having children than you children will suffer their entire lifetimes? OBVIOUSLY that's false. Because if your children face the same dillemma they will suffer at least just as much. Also notice your wording. You literally said "some people want children so badly they would die without them". I took that to mean they literally have some brain disease that causes them to die if they don't have children and in a very painful manner at that. The way you said it implies an abnormality.
Infertility is correlated with depression and suicide but so is social media usage. But now one would go around saying "Some people need social media so bad they would die without it"
Quoting leo
You also sentence your children to this same dillemma. See, no matter how much I starved I would never steal someone else's food if I knew that was going to starve them (at least I hope). If your life lacks meaning without children you're welcome to try to find any way to alleviate that suffering. As long as, of course, you don't LITERALLY TRANSPOSE IT WHOLESALE ONTO SOMEONE ELSE with a side dish of extra suffering at that. That's a ridiculous solution
Quoting leo
Yes, my desire is to stop others from suffering but that's not a selfish desire is it? Especially when in doing it I am directly harming myself.
Quoting leo
Irrelevant. You don't get to take risks with other people's lives because you want to. What makes you think YOUR kid will be happy to be alive. If you can prove it to me with 100% certainty then I would grant that you have the option of having that kid but you still don't have to morally speaking
Quoting leo
I'd say it has plenty of similarities but if you don't like the metaphor you're free to propose a better one or at least point out WHY the metaphor is shit. What you said basically amounts to "This metaphor is shit because this metaphor is shit"
Right, that is the gist of the AN argument. It would be a category error to focus on pegging causal instances to the parent. It is only at the procreational level of decision-making that uniquely ALL harm can be prevented with no cost to an actual person (the Benatarian asymmetry).
Someone like @Terrapin Station is simply going to say something like, "I don't believe harm should be the only consideration or any consideration for moral decision making".
That is why my response goes something like, "Parents should not play with other people's lives. Anything other than harm at the procreational decision-making level would be forcing a projected agenda on someone else that would be using them for that agenda. It would be callous as it would be starting the very conditions and platform of harm for someone else, along with known and unknown challenges. All of these things are creating, wholesale, negative situations for someone else, that they did not need in the first place".
Until natalists can answer why starting negative situations on other's behalf is permissible outside of some idea that they are allowed to be the arbiter of such situations through ad populum notions, they don't have a good answer other than it is a current acceptable social norm.
That's fine, being your OWN arbiter of good relative to you and me, but this decision affects a whole lifetime for another person, so I don't think the matter is as simple or flippant as you are making this out, like buying a flavor of ice cream or even intra-worldly moral decision-making once already-born. This decision affects another person, and in many negative consequences, creating harms to overcome from wholecloth because YOU decided ANOTHER person needs to live out these consequences (again with the understanding that the alternative is no person existing who would be deprived of any collateral goods).
Creating negative situations for other people, even with intended good outcomes, or with positive collateral benefits is still what is being examined here in its moral consideration. Certainly the logic is there in the asymmetry, but the appeal to follow the logic and not simply what one wants to do, ad populum arguments, social norms, etc. is another matter. I can't force you to see harm in the matter of procreating another person as paramount, only present the logic.
Here's what you do when someone brings up a point like this: You acknowledge that you misread it and then address it again. See how easy honesty is?
So, addressing that again: no, it's not something done to an entity that will later be capable of consenting. The entity in question doesn't exist until conception.
By the way, re his comment that "However, through their decision to conceive and raise me, the very possibility of 'my harm' came into being," I definitely agree with that.
One thing I'm disagreeing with khaled about is calling that possibility, that precondition a "cause." If he'd just said "they cause the possibility of harm" or something like that, there would be nothing to disagree with.
At any rate, it's not just that I don't use "harm" as a moral hinge. Even if I did, I certainly wouldn't use "creating the possibility of harm" as a moral hinge. In general, I'm very much against legislating against and having moral proscriptions against possibilities/potentials. I'm not against negligence laws, but they have to be about something specific that actually happened, where the negligent party had a causal role in the occurrence, per the way I define cause.
Quoting schopenhauer1
That's not something that I'm either legally or morally against. I'm not categorically against manipulation, exploitation, etc. In fact, I think that both can be quite positive instead.
Quoting schopenhauer1
So the situation that parents start is life. If the kid in question sees life as a "negative situation," then we should get them some help--psychological help, basically. (Which can be obtained in a variety of ways, including other things to focus on--like philosophy in some cases, religion in some cases, etc.; it doesn't necessarily require a psychologist or psychiatrist, though it might.)
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's not flippant at all. It's an ontological fact. Good/bad and similar evaluations are simply ways that people feel about something (and/or its upshots per their understanding), dispositions they have towards it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't know if it would be plausible to say all, but probably the vast majority of decisions affect another person in at least some indirect way. There's nothing morally problematic about this in general.
Quoting schopenhauer1
"Negative situations" is way too vague, though. And any situation can only be negative to an individual, in that individual's opinion, which we can't know until we ask them their opinion. Anyone could consider anything negative. I don't think that a lot of what people consider negative is a moral problem. I often think that the problem lies with people considering things negative instead. For example, when people are offended by speech.
But that is the same in the case of genetic engineering which is done on the sperm and or egg not on "the baby". How do you genetically modify a baby? You can't modify the genetic code in every single cell in its body, you modify the first two.
So, now given that fertilization doesn't count as "actions performed on an entity that is currently not capable or granting or withholding consent, but that will likely survive as a consent-capable being?" because the baby doesn't exist as it is occuring, on what ground did you say abnormal genetic engineering is wrong? They are both modifications to sperm or eggs so why is one wrong and the other ok? Why are you counting one as a modifiaction and the other not?
If it's only doing something to sperm and/or eggs that are not fertilized, I don't have a problem with it.
I didn't ask if you had a problem with it I asked do you even consider it, morally speaking. DOES fertilization count as: "actions performed on an entity that is currently not capable or granting or withholding consent, but that will likely survive as a consent-capable being?" You said no. Now how does genetic engineering fall under that category? Because you also said it does previously
Both of them are actions done on living things that will grow into other living things that are capable of performing consent. Yet you claim that fertilization doesn't fall under this. Which rule does it break
A: done on living thing
B: Living thing will grow to become consent capable living thing
Which of these doesn't apply to fertilization itself because to me they both seem to apply
Now you're not very familiar with how English normally works? "I don't have a problem with it"--in other words, a moral problem. That's the topic.
Quoting khaled
I have no idea what the actual process is for genetic engineering. That's not my field. If it's only doing something to sperm and/or eggs that aren't fertilized then I don't have a problem with it. That's why I just typed that.
It could also mean "I don't have a problem with it" as in it is ethically permissable but it IS a moral issue. I am asking for clarification as to whether it is a moral issue or not. You have made a ditinction between something being morally permissable and it not being a moral issue in the first place before. I am asking which fertilization counts as: Moral issue but it has been determined that the act is permissalble or not moral issue at all
You can't simultaneously complain that I misread what you say and also that I ask for clarification.
Quoting Terrapin Station
So if it so happens that the WAY you genetically engineer a child to have 8 broken limbs on birth doesn't involve interacting with the embryo post fertilization in any way is it morally permissable to genetically modify a child to have 8 broken limbs on birth?
Also pretty sure this is gramatically incorrect: Quoting Terrapin Station
??? What in the world would that even mean?
Quoting khaled
How, in your view, does it make sense to say "This is a moral issue but it's morally permissible"?
Quoting khaled
I didn't complain that you misread what I said. I'm commenting on further evidence of your apparent mental and socialization issues--maybe evidence that you're an Aspie or something, in that you apparently are unfamiliar with and/or you're incapable of understanding, contextually, the very common phrase "I don't have a problem with it," so that now we'd have to hash that out.
Quoting khaled
It's morally permissible to modify the sperm and/or egg. You're not doing anything to a child at that point, because no child exists. Children only exist once an egg is fertilized. In order to do something to x, it's required that x exists. You say you understand this, but it couldn't be more obvious that you do not, because you keep going back to the idea.
So if it so happens that the WAY you genetically engineer a child to have 8 broken limbs on birth doesn't involve interacting with the embryo post fertilization in any way I take it it IS morally permissable to genetically modify a child to have 8 broken limbs on birth for you?
It's important that you are able to learn this:
If what you're genetically modifying is a sperm or egg cell at time T1, then you're not genetically modifying a child at time T1.
Do you agree with that?
Okay, so when we genetically modify sperm or an egg, are we genetically modifying a child?
That is what "genetically modifying a child" means yes.
Is that literally correct, though?
That being said, is genetically modifying children (genetically modifying sperm or eggs) an issue for you if it is done abnormally
Okay, but if we're going to be doing philosophy about this and formulating stances based on ontological points about it, we should probably say things that are literally correct, no?
Yes, I think it is, but not because we're doing anything to a child.
And it's problematic in just the same way that it's problematic for siblings to have offspring, in the same way that it's problematic to carry through a pregnancy when we know that there are particular medical problems with the baby, etc.
Why then?
This was already answered long ago. Because it would create an abnormal situation for the child that would create a lot of problems.
Cool and you define "abnormal" in a culturally evolved sense? As in whatever society decides is abnormal?
Not per a decision. Per contingent statistical norms.
Yes, of course. No ethical stance can be other than that. Ethical stances always come down to ways that people feel, dispositions they have. (So maybe "decision" isn't quite right--as it's not a conscious process...it's a way that you can't help but feel.)
Because you keep responding to me. ;-)
I don't think anyone literally meant "birth causes suffering". Everyone has a problem with it for the same reasons you have a problem with genetic engineering
Well, and you were asking me questions and so on.
At first, I reported my opinion in response to something you'd said, just in an off-the-cuff way, and then you wanted to launch into a big discussion.
No one is talking law though, just personal decision-making and heuristics. Life does contain structural harms in certain views, and certainly has inevitable outcomes for harm, not just potentials. To say life may contain harm at some point, is a bad joke at best- we know it will contain harm. What I think you are really trying to convey is you have problems with basing decisions on only considerations of harm and not the potential for good experiences as well. That is where the AN will always disagree. The AN will say that the parent has the ability to prevent all suffering with no cost. Any other "hinge" consideration would be selfish and of no moral worth. Keep in mind, this is all in the situation prior to birth, not after when someone already exists to receive benefits from good.
Quoting Terrapin Station
THAT view is a real problem for me. Creating people to manipulate and exploit them for an agenda is just wrong. Example: To force someone, who did not exist in the first place, to be thrown into a mixed bag of experiences of challenging situations or uncomfortable situations, because you like to see someone try to pull out of it a better person, is still wrong. Nothing need growth before it was born to need growth. To create situations from wholecloth of exploitation because it is fun to see someone come out of a struggle on the other side, is wrong. Even if it is "for" the person, prior to birth, there was no person who needed to grow or get the pleasure of feeling adversity in the first place. Creating adversity, where there was none before is wrong.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It's too late. You already created the life. As I've stated many times before, life is "dealing with" "overcoming" "coping", and so you indeed put someone in a situation where these strategies of mitigating harm must take place. No need for it in the first place before you chose to follow the dictates of exploitation and manipulation to provoke this situation to come about- values that you embrace apparently.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Your disposition affects someone else's entire ontological being's very existence, that is the point. It is not like other decisions which mainly affect yourself or if you want to be annoying about it, other people in a butterfly-effect sort of way (i.e. you picking ice cream flavor makes a chain reaction, etc.).
Quoting Terrapin Station
Oy. No, this creates a whole new life, that is major.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That is a slippery slope. The problem is the condition/platform for ALL negative conditions will be created. That is problematic if you care about creating negative conditions for others.
The reason I brought it up is that if one is curious, one might read " I certainly wouldn't use 'creating the possibility of harm' as a moral hinge," and then wonder what my stance would be on legislating against potentials, since that's a popular track that many people are in favor of, and that might lead to wondering what my view would be on negligence laws. I gave the info so folks wouldn't have to ask.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I wasn't trying to say that. I very literally did say that.Quoting schopenhauer1
"Of no moral worth" is not true, because that solely depends on what an individual assigns moral value to. Anyone can assign any moral value, positive or negative, to anything. And they can't be wrong in that, because there are no (normative) moral value facts. There's no valuation to get wrong.
You don't really believe that moral valuations are subjective, because you write things such as, "Creating people to manipulate and exploit them for an agenda is just wrong."
Hence we are philosophizing. I can only try to convince you that prior to birth, preventing harm for a future person is all that matters and I have presented a lot of arguments for this idea. I have argued why positive experiences being created does not matter in this procreational area, and I have stated the asymmetry argument. I have also stated the using people for agenda argument, one which does not need to take place in the first place. I have discussed collateral damage, and the idea of parents are not arbiters of existence, in some weird quasi-democratic committee that existence needs to take place for others because a "majority" dictates this. We have gone over the arguments. You can disagree with them, but I will present the case as I think it should be heard.
Mattering is subjective though. No fact can imply that anything matters or doesn't matter. It's an issue of what an individual values. The things they value matter to them. You can't "argue someone to different values."
Um, in philosophy, debates and arguments are pretty much its foundation. It's essentially built on dialectics, starting with Socrates. So your characterization is wrong there. I also think people can be convinced, though it is often very hard in a debate-like setting as this, where people will defend their view to the death as to not appear that their initial stance was wrong.
To your other point of individual values, again, values that effect/affect another person completely, that is to say starting another person's life is pretty huge. Your values majorly created a new ontological status for someone else, not just yourself or others who already exist in a minor way.
If you're just disagreeing with the notion that you can't argue someone to different values, show me an actual world example of doing so.
Are you asking, has anyone who has held one set of values been convinced through argument to hold another set of values?
Yes I'm asking for an actual world example of that if that's the part of my post that you're disagreeing with.
Note that I'm not saying that folks' values can't change. I've just never seen them change via arguing with them.
Before I do that, are we going to agree that philosophy is basically based on argument and dialectics?
Sure. I hadn't said anything about that, by the way. I just said that you can't change someone's values via argumentation. Most of philosophy isn't about the normative sense of values. And some philosophy that deals with values is only about values descriptively (so it's not the normative sense).
Please, normative ethics such as Kant's deontology, Mill's utilitarianism, and virtue theory are debated constantly, as are their applications, and applied ethics in general. Descriptive ethics is one study as is meta-ethics.
Anyways, if I'm on a philosophy forum, and philosophy is about dialectics often via debate with others, then I am doing what people who participate in philosophical activities do, so you can't blame me there.
As far as convincing others of the actual arguments I present, I will agree with you to the extent that argument is an extremely hard way to convince someone of a view. There are cases like "changemymind" on reddit etc, where it can happen, and if I did enough research I can give you probably some high profile or interesting cases, but I honestly don't feel like putting in that effort to prove this point to you right now. What I can say is that appealing to emotion is much more effective than purely logical ideas. It has to really affect someone's point of view from where they are at that moment in time in their thought and experiences.
What would you say this has to do with the comment of mine you're quoting? You seem to be presenting it as if you're disagreeing with something I wrote. Do you believe you're disagreeing with anything you just quoted from me?
You said: Quoting Terrapin Station
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normative_ethics
It's a thing man..one of the major branches of ethics in philosophy is normative ethics. How one "ought" to behave. Anyways...
My guess is that most people will be more convinced if it is a strong argument on something they never really considered before, and impacts them because it was something they didn't take into consideration before. In this case, you are coming into this with a set of values that you want to hash out. That's fine, but there are different scenarios as far as how arguments can convince. It isn't always X vs. Y, but just people absorbing value X and trying to see if this makes sense based on something they may never have tried to consider. Or perhaps, someone made an argument that presented something in a different way that made sense to them. Not everything is a knockdown brawl of values, as you seem to make things.
You're arguing that normative ethics is most of philosophy?
This is a good illustration that you're not reading others' comments very closely.
I said that MOST of philosophy is not about the normative sense of values. That's different than saying that NO philosophy is about the normative sense of values.
And then I said that SOME philosophy that deals with values is only about values descriptively. This doesn't imply that I'm claiming that ALL philosophy that deals with values in only about values descriptively.
I just don't get why you wrote that anyways. Because I referenced dialectics in philosophy, and ethics is a form of philosophy, ergo dialectics in ethics? Somehow descriptive ethics vs. normative ethics was brought up, but unqualified.. I don't know just more holding patterns and rabbit holes to go down. I warned khaled that is what you did, and you are true to form..
I don't know if you are sincere or you just like the contention and getting a rise out of people. Cannot tell in internet forums.
The context was a discussion about values and whether they're changeable via argumentation. For some reason you wanted to agree on what philosophy was first. So I thought, "Ohhhkay" and I agreed, but I pointed out that I hadn't said anything about what philosophy was in general, and just in case you were thinking that philosophy in general tended to imply something about normative values (otherwise why were you bringing up a characterization of philosophy in general?), I was stressing that MOST of philosophy isn't about values, period, and SOME of the philosophy that's about values isn't taking a normative approach. (Also not all philosophy about values is ethics, by the way.)
I know that. Axiology is often the term for value theories in general, which include ethics.
Quoting Terrapin Station
My point was that I am arguing because I am doing what people who do philosophy often do- argue a point in philosophy, specifically in this case in the realm of ethical decision-making. C'mon. It had nothing to do with what kind of ethical branch we were discussing here. Whether or not I convince someone or not is a different story.
You said that it is wrong to:
Quoting Terrapin Station
And you defined abnormal as whatever society dictates. I'll take that to mean whatever it dictates currently not what was statistically abnormal in the past. According to that is it wrong to genetically modify someone to be way above the average levels of intelligence? It is an abnormal modification isn't it.
Also, if in the future for whatever reason, it became a social norm to genetically modify all children to have 8 broken limbs on birth would you have a problem with that at all?
Good point. Apparently people want the children to face specific adversities in order so they feel the benefit of growing from them. This of course makes no sense since there does not need to be adversity in the first place.
The KO argument the natalist will use is that most people will self-report that they like life so case closed.
True. Also there is Pollyanna psychological bias to only remember past moments that were good in more detail. As you said, most people simply are habituated to affirm positive evaluations, no matter how mediocre or bad their life is on a day-to-day basis.
None of this will matter to the natalist. As long as they can point to the idea that "most people say their life is good or glad they were born" it is near impossible to win them over no matter how many arguments, how much suffering there actually is, etc. In other words evidence and sound logic doesn't matter if they can point to that as their full stop.
So, we just went over this a handful of posts ago. Here's what we said:
========================================================
Quoting khaled
Not per a decision. Per contingent statistical norms.
========================================================
Did you not read that? Why can't you remember it?
That said, I hesitate around the idea of having children. I am now approaching my mid 40s and so far have not had any children and probably won't. In some ways, this saddens me greatly. My life feels deeply impoverished by not having children for many reasons. I'll have noone to give myself to, noone to carry the history of my family, noone to tell about the wonderful people my parents were, noone to shower with gifts on Christmas, noone to show all of the wondrous things I've discovered in life. I won't get to discover who my children are. I won't be able to share the experience of raising kids with a significant other. One big one is that I've discovered in myself a deep feeling that I need children in order to feel that my life struggles have meaning. We need someone precious to us that we can give our lives for. What did I build all that I've built up in myself for if only to perish and give it to noone? When I struggle to earn a living, what is it all for, just my mere survival? If I have kids, I have a reason. All seems so much more pointless without children.
But is that a good reason to have kids? So that I can use them to give my life meaning? Is it for me or for them? How selfish if I have them only to better fulfill myself, to help me feel my life was for something! If there is a reason to have kids, it had better be for their sake, and not for my own immortality project or my own sense of meaning!
I feel sad and guilty though when I imagine my potential children. I find I love them. And I feel very sad telling these potential children that I believe they should not exist. Sure, I want to protect them from all the horrors of life. But I also feel terrible denying them the chance to become conscious, to experience love, to hear music, to inhale the intoxicating scents of a forest, to create something, to come to understand some things, even to be saddened at the injustice of death. Yes, even that latter one. There is a goodness underlying any suffering of a bad.
I have a hard time looking at the people around me and thinking, "Reality would be better off if you had never been born, if none of you had ever been born. Things would be better if Earth were like Mars, with not a trace of life." I can't think or say that while really meaning and believing it. But so much of life remains a horror show! I am deeply conflicted about it.
Life in many ways seems a great gift! I would be lying if I were to call it all bad. It is so deep and poignant! There are so many joys, so much to discover. Much in it has value. It is so incredibly dishonest to take all that life is and try to pack it into the word "suffering"! Even suffering itself isn't so simple as what the word implies. It isn't simply a negative, simply a pain. No pain is just pain. There is a whole complex human existential background that frames that pain. It means something. Often it is painful only because it threatens to negate some good or potential of life that never being born would surely negate altogether. What, you've gone deaf and can no longer hear Beethoven's Sixth, which you love? If noone had ever been born, there would never have been any music or hearing. Yes, loss is painful, but loss implies the existence of something valuable and truly worthwhile that can be negated by it. And there is some sort of hard-to-explain value even in the existential situation of there being a human confronting all that is difficult, even suffering the loss of beautiful loved ones. How horrible if we didn't suffer the loss of a beautiful being!
Regardless, I still hesitate at the idea of having children or recommending procreation. But I'd hate to tell my friends who have had children (all beautiful and valuable people) that their children should never have been born, that the world and the universe's experience of itself would be better off without them. And while I sometimes have wished I'd never been born, had never been saddled with all the burdens of my life, I don't feel angry at my parents for having had me. I feel grateful for the life they gave me. And I find, even in my darkest moments, I am glad to have lived and known what I have. What a trip it has been so far!
There is far too much to life to reduce it all down to a single, simple judgment, a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down. I suspect that asking yourself if you think life is good or bad is rather misguided and seems maybe to require a willful disregard of so much of what we know and feel about our lives, the lives of others we know, and so on. In doing this kind of thing, I think some of us are probably trying to justify something in ourselves and our lives, maybe something to do with our failures and disappointments, and possibly even our own suicides. Many of us would like to feel we can give ourselves permission to die, to escape the problems of our lives, to be free of what our lives ask of us. To be sure that life is all bad and nothing but futility and evil is to be able to cut one's own throat without guilt, and thus not to have to face our problems, ironically including our own death and our fear of it. Maybe more, we fear life and we are cowards and don't live as we know we should and we can't cope with this. We haven't been the heroes we wish we were. And the idea of suicide makes us feel even more cowardly and guilty. But if we can convince ourselves that none of it is any good, that nothing is worthwhile, that even the things we wish we'd do have no value, that all life is painful and meaningless, we promise to assuage our guilt over our past and the about the dark deed we might do. We maybe want to be free to die.
What motivates our collecting of evidence against life? Why do some of us go to such lengths to justify our rejection of life? If we are honest, I think we know.
What complicated creatures we are. And how richly baffling life! It certainly isn't simple or easy. And all of us are struggling in one way or another. But I see value in it all.
Exactly..I'm glad you brought that up because I was thinking that from your previous paragraph.
Quoting petrichor
Your mild sadism (which is what I call enacting suffering for others so they can "grow" from it) does not need to be enacted in the first place. You are displaying the exact projection that I discussed in earlier posts..All of this is your imagination, not the reality. The daily grind is the reality- even if an old pine forest smells nice. No one needs to grow from suffering if they do not exist in the first place to need to grow from suffering. To produce a life of suffering because you want to see someone suffer so they can grow is wanting suffering for another, which I don't see the point of prior to someone's actual existence.. Producing sufferers, is producing sufferers, whether there is "growth" at the end of it or not.
Quoting petrichor
Why does something need to exist to feel the "beautiful" pain to begin with? This "Beyond Good and Evil" shit is really grating to me, honestly. It's simple- no humans, no humans who "pine" for the beauty of suffering. Again, this is just projection. There is no need to put anyone through anything in the first place. Let sleeping dogs lie. You are not the arbiter of bringing more "meaning" into the world. That does not need to take place. It's just romantic sorrow-projection of your own ego.
Quoting petrichor
Yes yes, the party line.
Quoting petrichor
But that's exactly what we are doing when deciding whether to have children. In that decision, we are deciding if someone else should be born, and that is a thumbs up or down.
Quoting petrichor
Life asks nothing- simple survival and navigating society to the ends of survival is what there is. Otherwise slow suicide by asceticism or fast suicide by some method. Great choices- live a life one might not want, or suicide..you want to give someone that choice, you say?
Quoting petrichor
Just remember, procreation is deciding for another what value they should hold- they must be born and live with it or they should die (by suicide or otherwise). That is the choice you are giving them. The party line of identifying with life's struggles and overvaluing the good experiences is par for the course. Of course we must do this to cope, but it is coping. We have no other choice except death, and we usually fear pain, pain of death, and the unknown.
That's the sort of weird, anxious/neurotic dialogue I imagine most antinatalists going through frequently. Maybe try just try chilling out, not worrying so much, and just experience and enjoy everything for what it is?
Yea "contingent statistical norms" is what I mean when I say "what society dictates".
Quoting Terrapin Station
I can gather from this that you can't help but feel that any modification to an entity that will survive as a consent capable being that takes it away from statistical norms significantly is morally wrong to do right?
It's clearly not what I mean by that phrase. Otherwise it wouldn't have made sense that I was apparently making a distinction, right?
Don't worry then. Antinatalism will sadly never win because it is at a distinct reproductive disadvantage. Antinatalists aren't born or taught, they come to the conclusion on their one individually, though the fact that there has been an antinatalist in every society in every time should really clue you in on something. That maybe the logic is sound.
Quoting petrichor
That's not the point, antinatalism doesn't target individuals
Quoting petrichor
This is the point
Quoting petrichor
Antinatalism doesn't do that. It reduces it to "Could be thumbs up or could be a thumbs down, this kid didn't ask for the risk so I won't take it for him"
I find I can't name any other situation where people see putting someone in a more risky position for 80 years without their consent ethical. Even if said position promises as much rewards as pains.
Quoting petrichor
Antinatalism isn't a rejection of life, that's pro-mortalism. Antinatalism is the recognition that no matter how much we enjoy or reject life, we don't know what our children will go through and shouldn't take the risk for them
Quoting petrichor
Me too. But my kid might not.
The point is, do you see any modification done to an entity that will survive as a consent capable entity bad if it causes a deviation from statistical norms? Is that your position?
PS: 666 replies right now
That's not quite what I was getting at, this growing from suffering that you read into what I said. And I object to your accusation of sadism, as I don't get off on the fact of anyone's suffering, nor do I inflict suffering deliberately. I was speaking more to a sense that we embody goodness in simply being pained by evil. It is better that some element of the world actually cares what happens, isn't it? If I go from being a child who cares nothing about the injustice in the world to being an adult who cares, hasn't something improved? Isn't there now more good in the world? And isn't it good to be part of that good?
Suppose someone is being tortured and a crowd stands witness. Suppose, in world A, that this witnessing crowd feels no pain about the torture that is happening. They object not. They are unbothered. They do not suffer. In world B, they are horrified. They care. The feel the need to intervene. They suffer too, seeing this suffering. World B contains more total suffering than World A. But which is a better world? Is it about simply minimizing suffering on a balance sheet?
Is it better to be a caring person with a conscience than to be an uncaring person without one? Suppose the former suffers more because of this?
The pain of the loss of a loved one, as I alluded to, involves several things. First, the loved one must have value. Second, that value must be appreciated by another. That appreciator must be someone to whom it makes a difference whether this value is present or not.
Suppose I am to have a kid and I can choose whether they'll care or not, and I know that if they don't care about anything, they'll suffer less. Should I choose that they won't care? Suppose I can also choose that they'll be so mentally limited that they won't know they'll die, and so will be free of much anxiety. Should I choose that they'll be so limited?
Suppose I could snap my fingers and suddenly all living beings will simply be buried in the ground in safe little pods where they'll be only conscious of the continuous pleasure from machines stimulating their pleasure centers. Would bringing this about mean that I have improved the world?
Is trading consciousness and understanding and caring for pain-reduction always simply and obviously a good thing to do?
I expect that someone will likely point out the problem that in order for me to be the better person that I might be for being pained by evil, I need evil. I need others to suffer so that I might be good, making me a vampire of sorts. Yes, that is a valid point. But it really misses what I am saying. And if there were no consciousness to suffer to begin with, you might say there would be no reason to have people who care that there is suffering. The world would simply be better off dead. But this ignores all the value in life and the possibilty that it couldn't exist without all the suffering. It might well be the best of all possible worlds.
Also, I don't see the world as a dead world in which a few isolated, truly separate and distinct individual conscious minds appear for a short time, sort of distinct from the dead world surrounding them. I suspect that our consciousness is just a highly developed, highly integrated form of a subjectivity always already and everywhere present to itself. We are the universe becoming aware of itself, the world waking up. Isn't there some value in the universe coming to wonder what it is, why it is, and so on? Isn't there something more valuable and amazing in a pile of clay that stands up and asks what it is, even if pained, even if afraid, as opposed to a pile of clay that remains forever just a dead pile of uninteresting clay? If you were to witness such a pile of clay rising up, would you just cleanly terminate its consciousness, just put it out of its misery before it can even really get started, saying, "There! That's better!"?
Since you spoke of growing from suffering, perhaps it isn't just a question of individuals growing from suffering. Maybe it is also a question of the world as a whole growing from it and rising from the muck to become a morally conscious world and to maybe even eventually solve many of the problems of suffering.
Some often claim that the world is uncaring, that nothing matters, that nature is coldly indifferent, and they say this with a negative feeling about this lack of caring that they imagine in the world. But only a dead world is so indifferent. A living world is a world that cares. To eliminate all life that might suffer, and especially all higher, intelligent life, is to ensure that the world is indifferent and that nothing matters. If we exist, then at least part of nature cares what happens and things matter. Even the universe itself gains value and becomes something that can be appreciated and wondered at.
There is something paradoxical about valuing human beings enough to care enough about their suffering to wish them non-existent. That anything happening to them is worth caring about suggests value that wishing to eliminate their existence seems to ignore.
The kind of unconscious, thoughtless living that your recommendation seems to suggest is not in my nature. That's the problem with a lot of procreation. People are just too chilled out, not worrying, and not considering consequences, much like animals. Lots of horrible and needless problems ensue.
Just experience and enjoy everything for what it is? Enjoy everything? For what it is? Seriously? If I didn't know better, I'd be tempted to think you must have so far lived a fairly untroubled and oblivious life to say something like that. But I know that everyone has their share of shit to deal with and to witness, so I banish the thought. Rather, I suspect that this must be your coping strategies speaking.
Wow, I think you summarized Terrapins main problems astutely well here and yet I disagree with almost everything you wrote in the reply to my last post. I'll get to answering that soon.
I suspect that's probably not true for all antinatalists. I get the impression that many simply believe it is better to never have been born, period. But it seems to be primarily a matter of risk for you. Interesting.
So do you think a child should be born if the risks can be mitigated to such a degree that we can be fairly sure that things won't be so bad? What would you eliminate from a future person's life to meet this condition?
People care about pain is good? Yes.
Quoting petrichor
No it isn't. That has never been my position. These opposed to these holistic balance sheet approaches of aggregate suffering. That would be using individuals to simply be calculated aggregate- leaving the individual as just valued as an aggregator. I think even most natalists would agree with that idea. What is rather the case is uniquely, at the procreational decision-making level, there is a chance to prevent ALL future suffering for a future person and to NO COST to any actual living individual (outside the parent's projection of imaginary child that could have been). It is a ghost of what could have been or one's own selfish want for a child versus preventing ALL future harm for another person.
Quoting petrichor
Now this is an interesting question. I do think that if the world was indeed a paradise, and never had a chance of not being so, there may be room for the natalist argument to make sense. I still don't buy the argument that a best possible world with various bags of mixed pain and pleasure is a world one should bring people into. I also think that at a meta-level, knowing that the set-up of this world is such that we grow from pain, and we get meaning from pain, it is all the more reason to prevent people from being born in the first place. What makes a previous generation the arbiter that "It must be good" that new people should play this game of growth from pain? Isn't this the height of arrogance? You say it to me as if I did not know this is how the game is..I call it Nietzschean- the idea that it is "beyond good and evil" and "beyond pleasure and pain" to bring new people into the world as their existence is somehow "elevated" by the pain that they will endure and cope with. I get all this. I just don't buy the idea that this little growth from pain package (actual major) should be foisted upon an individual.
Quoting petrichor
And here I object as well. I see it again as arrogant to assume that parents are the arbiters of value in the world. Value MUST be brought into the world, you and others decry. Why? A world of nothing is nothing. No one to care there is nothing, nothing cares about nothing. This is incredibly myopic and from the point of view of someone ALREADY EXISTING. Of course you identify with the state of being that you already are. BUT future children are not in an already existing state. And thus assuming that the state of nothing is worse than this "best of all possible worlds" of value from suffering, mixed bag, whatever you want to call it, is in a way, foisting this ideology on another. Nothing needs to be saved from nothing. However, once born, one always needs to be saved from one or another situation. They have to cope, deal with, etc. Yet, you will say this is good. But this is not necessary nor is it necessarily good to make others cope or deal with because you find this mixed bag ideology satisfying for yourself (at a particular time).
Quoting petrichor
Again foisting value that something has to be better than nothing. Actually it's more than that, now you are using the very broad idea of pansychism to justify having more people as an inevitabilty since you think the world is consciousness anyways, so you are just giving it human form, etc. That is the tail wagging the dog, circular reasoning, and the ultimate self-justification.
Quoting petrichor
Again, I don't see how parents should be the arbiters of the "universe caring about itself". People should not be used as "carers" of the universe. Why should people be used at this end?
Quoting petrichor
Yes, I care about people's suffering. I know that nothing matters to nothing. There is not future person's existence until you actually create that future human. Thus this argument makes no sense. You are creating the people who care in the first place.
I will end by saying that even though I disagree with nearly everything you said, I welcome your arguments more than the offhand dismissals and basic trolling I see regarding this topic.
You like worrying, complaining, being neurotic, etc. basically, then?
Not "not so bad" but rather, "we know the child will find his own life worthwhile, fulfilling and just overall great most of the time". I don't think that's possible given how we've evolved in most cases. We don't experience much change from a standard level of happiness.
He wasn't complaining and he wasn't worrying about himself nor did he say he liked it. He was saying you lack worrying for the consequences of your actions, at least when it comes to procreation
This wasn't directed at me but let me make one thing clear. Antinatalism isn't about eliminating people. It's about not bringing in more people. Antinatalism doesn't eliminate, it just doesn't regenerate the population. The burden of proof is on natalists to prove that continuing the existence of a population in a world where pain is possible is ethical. I have not seen a good enough proof for that. The point isn't that life is suffering and bad and should end. The point is that your child might think so. So why risk it for him?
Find me one other situation where people find taking someone from a more to a less secure position without their consent morally ethical. Is signing up people for the hunger games forcefully ethical? I mean, there is a chance they enjoy it with all the fame and glory that awaits them if they win (keyword: IF). And the people that do the recruiting are often people who very much enjoy the hunger games so does that somehow give them licence to force someone else into it?
To me having children is exactly like signing people up for the hunger games. If you weren't asked to take a risk for someone else you shouldn't take it. You can take all the risks you want with YOUR life just not with someone else's (except in special cases where it is kill or be killed but birth is not like that). If someone wants to raise some sort of consent issue as in "the person being signed up for the hunger games is capable of giving consent and the recruiters didn't ask" then would basing the hunger game lottery on pregnancies be ok? As in certain pregnant women are suddenly told "your child will participate in the hunger games 18 years from now. I know he didn't ask for this but hey, the hunger games are so fun, I'm sure he/she'll love it. Besides, we can't ask him right now but I'm sure he would consent. And if he really doesn't like it he can just run towards the centre with a blindfold if you know what I mean"
(that depressed people can kill themselves and so it is ethical to risk creating depressed people is an actual argument I hear a lot by natalists ergo the last line about the hunger game participant killing himself if he doesn't like it. I also often hear "You don't have the right to make life decisions for someone else", the irony)
Great points. However, the natalist will retort, "But the majority of people like life!" and thus no other argument is deemed necessary.
You create risks for other people in every single thing you do.
Some obvious ones are things like driving, being in public if you might have any sort of contagious illness, building houses, building any sort of device/appliance that people might use, etc.
I don't think that any ethical stance is a rational conclusion. I'd say that's a category error.
Rationality doesn't have anything to do with preferences.
That's not a term I'd use because it's too vague--too many people use it to denote too many different things, with a lot of them being equally common.
I don't believe that there are any objective values, objective meaning, etc.
There are certainly subjective values, meaning, etc.
People subjectively feel that way sure, and they feel that way about different things, for different reasons. There aren't right answers there, just ways that people feel.
Quoting Baskol1
I don't. I think that "suffering" is way too vague, too.
So if you don't want to die in a month, you better eat something. And if you want to eat something, you better think of ways to find food. Say you decide you want to buy some rice (I don't like rice but that's what came up first.) So if you want to buy some rice, you better find a shop that sells it. And so on and so forth. That's an example of a hierarchy of goals. At the top of that hierarchy is a goal -- to be alive in a month. You chose that goal independently from any other goal. You don't want to be alive in a month in order to attain some other goal . . . you just want to be alive in a month. It's an arbitrary choice mediated only by external factors.
No other goal is telling you it's best to be alive in a month. You might as well just choose to not be alive in a month. Most people don't because they can't -- the need to remain alive is too strong.
And what if they had the ability to choose to die in a month? What would happen? Well, they would all die, and with them, the drive for death. Such people can continue to exist only if they are created or birthed by people who do not think like them or if they give birth to other people before they die (but then again, one must ask, what is the probability that such a strategy will be successful given the environment we live in?)
Yes but none of those risks can be reduced significantly by me not being there. And many of them risk providing more good through being useful than harm. I already said that inflicting suffering onto someone else is only permissable is it saves me SIGNIFICANTLY more suffering. Ex: I don't think stealing food from a billionaire if you're starving is morally bad when you know he won't be affected by it
Now let's look at procreation.
Harm inflicted: An entire lifetime's worth
Harm prevented: "Oh but I want kids so baaaaaadly"
Those aren't even close in magnitude.
Now to be fair let's look at procreation in terms of benefits
Benefits: Kids could help others. Most kids enjoy life. Better for you mentally. Keeps the human race (I don't see this as a benefit but maybe you do), etc etc
Now, we have a mixed bag. An act that inflicts great suffering but also likely even more pleasure. An act like that is wrong to commit. Why? Because you don't owe anyone to give them benefits but you owe them not to harm them. That's why robbing a bank to give to the poor is wrong. It has both good and bad aspects however you have no moral obligation to do good deeds but you do have a moral obligation to avoid doing bad ones. That means a mixed bag like procreation or robbing a bank to give to the poor is a definite no.
Again, as I said to Leo a while ago, find the specific individual who I am harming significantly by participating in society and I won't participate in society. On the other hand I can easily find the specific individual you harm by giving birth to them. (Or rather, who you "create an unfortunate situation for" later)
"But the majority of forced hunger games participants like it". Not only are both of these quotes straight up wrong, they are blind to what people truely suffering feel like. Sweatshop workers and the poor for example. "The majority of stable middle class people with access to the internet in a 1st world country like life" is a bit better though I still think it's not as obvious as it seems
But is it really so simple? Did I just burst from a parinibbanic state, taking form as this body only for this conscious experience to dissolve back into nothingness, eternally?
I started learning martial arts when I was really young. Through a couple teachers with an interest in it, that led to an interest in Zen, which I still have, though a very casual interest. Through interest in Zen, I of course ran into the "To be born human is to constantly . . . suffer" idea, but that never made any sense to me, and it still doesn't--at least not if "suffering" is supposed to have a negative connotation.
What's the alternative? Is this a nod to the idea of reincarnation?
Right, and since most of the people on this forum are middle class 1st worlders, they are going to say they should have more children, because their children will say that they like life. Thus they will say, case closed.
The other argument, like ones that Terrapin tries to argue, is that suffering, or not all forms of it are bad, so it is good that people are born and suffer, if suffer is qualified by certain forms of it which people like Terrapin don't mind.
Those are the basic arguments people will always use to defend natalism.
I would go further, though, and say that Pro-Mortalism is true. You can get from Anti-Natalism to Pro-Mortalism by realizing that Epicurus was right about the nature of death.
I don't think you can. Epicurus maybe correct about the nature of death if we could confirm death is the end to conscious experience but we cannot. Until we can determine PRECISELY the relation between chemical reactions and conscious experience we cannot know death is the end of conscious experience. The "dark screen" version of what life is like after death is just as absurd as the "eternal life in heaven" version, both have no evidence to support them. That's part of the reason why I think pro mortalism doesn't stand, because we do not know the effects of death so murdering someone is yet another case of taking a risk for someone else that they didn't ask you to take
It might make sense to your child just like it makes sense to many others. That's the point. It doesn't matter what YOU think of life you have no right to take the risk for someone else. You have no right to "put someone in an unusual situation" as you say or even risk putting them there. You said that your policy for beings incapable of giving consent that will develop into beings capable of giving consent is that any modification to the them is wrong as long as it takes them away from statistical norms in a negative direction. Well, birth RISKS taking someone away from the statistical norms in a negative direction so shouldn't it be wrong by your own standard?
Again, (you ignored this because it was a long post but), name me one other situation where people find it ethically acceptable to take someone from a position that risks little harm to a position that risks significantly more harm without consulting with or asking for their consent first.
You know that rights are something we make up, right?
Yes. But you expressed a moral principle and by that moral principle you shouldn't be allowed to have children as I've shown. You know we have a very basic desire to be consistent right? That's why people do philosophy in the first place. And I think that desire trumps even the desire to have children. I don't think you're being inconsistent right now.
Actually, I explicitly told you, a number of times, that I do not do principle-based ethics.
Just saying you're not doing principle based ethics doesn't mean you're not when you literally are.
Because I'm not going to restate every single nuance in every single post--that's like having to write "in my opinion" for every sentence. All the way back on page 6, I said to you, "Personally, I'm not a fan of principle-based approaches."
Again, Just saying you're not doing principle based ethics doesn't mean you're not when you literally are.
I'm trying to get you to stop talking really. "What will make this guy finally stop responding to me?" basically.
The reason why is because, for example, I told you 20 pages ago that I don't follow a principle-based approach, yet you can't recall that, you don't care that I told you that, etc.
Quoting Terrapin Station
You could do that by not replying but you're still replying. That tells me this isn't actually your goal and instead, you just do not believe in any principle morally (subjective or objective) and are literally just trolling everyone on this thread as you proceed to do principle based ethics while claiming you don't like them.
But I'm not doing principle-based ethics. It is amusing to me that you can't understand this, which is probably why I keep responding to you, but on the other hand, you're also annoying, and kind of stupid in select ways--which suggests that you're rather the one trolling.
There's no way you're not an Aspie, by the way. Maybe that's why you're an antinatalist.
Quoting Terrapin Station
“It is immoral to do certain action X to class of being Y when it is abnormal” is principle based ethics. It is amusing to me that you can’t understand this
So re you being stupid, didn't I just write, "I'm not going to restate every single nuance in every single post"?
Quoting Terrapin Station
That’s not what I said is it. I said it risks putting someone in an unfortunate situation. In the way that genetic engineering is wrong to you because it guarantees creating an unpleasant situation for someone.
You’ve never stated the nuance between “It is immoral to do X to Y” and a moral principle. Because there is none.
Here's what I mean by "selectively stupid," which suggests trolling. You apparently can remember some things I wrote 15-20 pages ago, but you can't remember something I wrote three or four posts ago, and you can't remember that you just wrote, "It doesn't matter what YOU think of life you have no right to take the risk for someone else. "
As you hold up a sign announcing that you don't understand what not stating every nuance every time amounts to. Nice.
Quoting khaled
You also seem to suffer from not being able to remember very recent posts
Who are you putting in an unusual situation by procreating?
Quoting Terrapin Station
You can’t explain something “every time” if you have never explained it before. Please enlighten my stupid mind with the difference between “having a policy towards certain actions against certain beings” and a moral principle
I didn't explain that I don't use a principle-based approach to ethics?
Quoting Terrapin Station
I said risks putting someone in an unusual situation didn’t I? And such unusual situations include: severe depression, abuse, accidents, etc. These are all deviations from statistical norms and having children risks putting someone in said situations
Procreating risks putting WHO in an unusual situation? Antinatalism is a stance on procreating, isn't it?
Quoting Terrapin Station
That’s not what I’m asking you to explain. I’m asking you to explain how having a “policy” towards certain actions against certain classes of beings doesn’t count as a moral principle
Quoting Terrapin Station
Genetic engineering puts WHO in an unusual situation. It’s that guy.
The nuances are that I don't use a principle-based approach, why I don't actually employ that as a principle, etc.
If I'm teaching you music, I'm going to explain that the set of notes C D E F G A B (C), centered on C, are the key of C major. I'm not going to explain to you at first that you might just as well find the five notes that aren't included in that list in the key of C major, and it would just as well be C major. That's nuance that's left out.
It's the same idea here.
Is this under what you said earlier where genetic engineering is done on a fertilized egg?
Genetic engineering is not done on a fertilized egg
That's what you said earlier.
Okay, so if not, it doesn't put anyone in an unusual situation.
That's easy, right?
So who does procreating do anything to re putting someone at risk, etc.?
Quoting Terrapin Station
Ok guess we’re doing this again
Quoting khaled
Let me change that a bit to “genetically modify sperm and eggs such that a child will have 8 broken limbs on birth ok for you?”
No, but not because of any principle. I don't do ethics by principle. I think that's a horrible approach, which is why you're spouting the inanities you are re antinatalism, etc.
You never said you don’t employ your “policy” as a principle. So are you saying you’re fine with changing your policy towards potential people on a whim?
Hold up that wasn’t your response last time
It was stated as a policy just like stating what notes are in the key of C major.
Hence why there's no way that you're not an Aspie. You're approaching everything like a robot.
Sorry this looks messy but I’m on iPad right now. Here you said “because it would create an abnormal situation for that child that would create a lot of problems”. That’s very different from “but not because of any principle”
It's almost as if you can't comprehend what I'm writing above about nuance, etc.
I can see that. However, you're thinking it's not your problem.
Pointing out that you’re giving radically different responses to the same question 2 days later is “approaching everything like a robot” sure
I can’t.
I never said that either.
So we'd need to do something much simpler to start over.
It would help to not approach the simpler start in an argumentative manner.
Okay.
Just for tomorrow, we could maybe start with these questions:
* "Should all suffering/harm be avoided?"
My answer is "No." (At least not on how broadly folks seem to use the words "suffering" and "harm.")
* "Is it wrong to do something that puts other people at risk?"
My answer is "No," certainly not categorically. It depends on the risk, the exact situation, etc.
We could also add:
* "Is it wrong to do something against someone else's consent?"
Again, my answer would be "No," certainly not categorically. It depends on what we're talking about.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Ibid.Quoting Terrapin Station
Ibid.
Good points.
Before someone is born, what on earth would possess someone to non-consensually cause all risk of harm to another person? What does someone need to go through in the first place in order for this to be justified? Nothing..just selfish want of that future person to be born to go through XYZ agenda (which may or may not happen the way you intended it to anyways).
You also clearly don't think humans are on some sort of mission to bring some value of some kind to the universe- you seem too skeptical for that kind of concrete assurance.
I just find it odd that you would believe a) preventing suffering is not a priority (and ipso facto, allowing suffering, where there needs to be none is good in this view), and b) not even thinking suffering is bad, is mildly sadistic. If you want to go the route of "I just want to put value in the world of some sort" that would be contradictory to your usual skepticism. If you somehow do want to contradict yourself and think that some value needs to be put forth in the world, then this needs to be justified above starting suffering for another in the first place.
But really, this just comes down to you think people should just do what they want to do as long as the public is generally okay with it. So your ethics isn't principle based other than ad populum basically. Because clearly you think other things are wrong, and if you do not base that on a principle than that too is just enculturated ad populum beliefs as well.. So you do in way have a belief, it is follow what is culturally acceptable at the time.
Quoting Terrapin Station
That should be the goal yes. For a living person this is impossible so in that case he/she should do whatever causes the least suffering/harm. Please give an example where there is a course of action available that produces less suffering for others as well as for oneself and where it is ethical to take anything but that course of action
Quoting Terrapin Station
Not categorically. However it is wrong to do something that risks causing someone significantly more risk of harm than the harm it alleviates elsewhere. And at some point of harm risked an action becomes immoral no matter what, ex: investing someone’s life savings without their consent is always wrong. I don't think it's immoral to steal food from a billionaire if you're starving although it's a risk of harm but I do think it's immoral to, say, shoot someone because "there is a chance the bullet might not hit, so this is really just risking harm". Betting that the bullet won’t hit is a ridiculous risk to take with almost no benefit (just your own amusement if you happen to be a sadist) and that’s why it’s bad. Not just because it’s a risk but because it’s a ridiculous one.
I say birth is not too bad of a risk to take for someone else because it risks causing too much suffering for the pleasure it provides and the lack of consent in taking a large (the largest) risk.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Depends on the thing. After a certain amount of cost however it should always be wrong. So it's always wrong to invest someone's entire life savings on anything without their consent but it's not wrong to, say, push someone out of the way of a car. In the first case, if you're wrong about the person's intentions you will cost them dearly in the second case you won't cost them much even if you're wrong and they were trying to commit suicide
It's not my fault if someone decides to read my post. That's their choice. They are aware there is a chance each post may make them depressed yet they read. That's the first point
Secondly putting forward antinatalism also risks saving someone from tremendous harm as well which makes doing so fine by me
You set a causal chain in motion. You made a choice to try to convince people of something. If you do this this leads to consequences, and ones which they cannot predict before they read it.Quoting khaledThey may or may not be aware of that. Just as when I leave the house I may or may not be aware that someone may accidently run over my foot or intentionally rob me. The fact that people are aware of what might happen, does not change the fact that deciding to drive is takign the risk you might hurt someone, you might drive unsafely, the act of driving might lead to risks for other people. You might not be as good a driver as you think. We all take risks for others. And these others may have children already.
Further it is not just that they might get depressed. They might make choices that you are certain are fine - like not having children - w hen in fact your arguments, while seemingly immaculate ot you, might not be. You should know that you are potentially fallible, as we all are. But you risk changing people's minds in ways that involve rather large decisions. If you happen to be wrong, then the risk, even at the level of an individual, is not a small risk. Yet, you take this risk. It might affect the spouses, however, of your readers, even if the reader makes this choice knowing they might get depressed.Quoting khaled
Right, and you just opened the door to taking risks. You went from being a deontologist about actions, to being a consequentialist. And once you are a consequentialist, we get to be. We get to take risks with the lives of others, just as you do. And we get to do it based on our values. And here we have a gap, because our values are not the same. And of course you get to argue your values. But in general in what I have seen in the thread, the anti-natalists present themselves as having a commandment. Thou shalt not take risks of harming others who cannot consent to it. But you do that when you think it serves a greater good.
Join the club.
This obviously does not mean you agree with the natalists on their whole position.
But on that one piece you cannot continue to present a purist deontological line. An asbolute moral line.
Yes but they decided to go to this site in the first place. Whereas the child never decided to be born. I have consent from then in spreading my idea because they're ultimately the ones that go to read it. I WOULD say it is immoral if I barged into people's houses and forced them to listen to me.
You also completely ignored that if my posts convince someone to become an antinatalist I will have saved someone from a lifetime worth of suffering which is fine by me.
Quoting Coben
They can't not be aware of that
Quoting Coben
I agree. But it's a risk the passerby consents to when he decides to use public transportation and roads instead of, say living in a jungle somewhere. If you want convenient transportation and good infrastructure you agree to the small risk of getting run over. The child never consents to being born beforehand
Quoting Coben
I could take these words and return them to you as they are. "Your arguments may be wrong therefore you're wrong" is not an argument
Quoting Coben
Then nothing bad will happen. If I don't have kids kids nothing bad will happen. If on the other hand YOU'RE wrong and having children IS immoral and causes severe suffering then you having children is very bad. That's another point for antinatalism. If the antinatalist is wrong and doesn't have kids: no one suffers except the antinatalist (unless you propose there are magical ghost babies waiting to be born that will suffer). If the natalist is wrong and has kids: the kid suffers.
Quoting Coben
Then they made the choice to expose their spouses to these ideas not me obviously. How is that my fault.
Quoting Coben
I never closed it.... I've always been arguing that birth is a risk too large and that's what makes it bad. Not just because it's a risk. I concede I take risks in harming others all the time. Yet I COULD close it because every example you’ve cited so far, I have consent in to do the potentially harmful thing.
Quoting Coben
That's not quite accurate it's "Thou shalt not take risks of harming others who cannot consent to it when it risks causing an entire lifetime of suffering for them just cuz you want kids and when you’re literally causing the same problem for your kids because they too would want kids. Fixing a problem by relocating it wholesale onto someone else is a ridiculous solution especially when you add a side dish of extra suffering for that person”
Quoting Coben
I never did. If it seemed like I did that's my bad. Having children is bad because it's a risk too large. The benefit to having kids is to the parent and society as a whole. Also to the kids. The harm done is also to the kid. I also say that the fact that the action risks harming the kid overcomes the fact that it is good for society, the parent, and maybe for the kid. Just making my position clear.
The argument goes:
P1: You don't have a moral obligation to improve someone else's life in any way (unless you’re the one that deteriorated it)
P2: You have a moral obligation not to take risks of harming others people's lives for no good reason (having consent from the person in question is a good reason)
P3: Having children has a chance of improving someone's life significantly (you, the child, and other people) but per P1 you have no moral obligation to have a child because of this
P4: Having children has a chance of harming someone significantly (the child) just because you want children (not a good reason) so per P2 you shouldn't do it
C: You shouldn't have children
Where do you have a problem with this
Before they're born--but do you mean after conception?
A lot of things that you and khaled are saying now sound like you're fine with conception, but you're advocating necessarily having an abortion after one has conceived.
You can take that as pre-birth or pre-conception. I don't want to debate abortion. That just goes down another rabbit hole. As a preview though, Benatar has an interesting idea about the antinatalist implication for pro-abortion. I'll just leave you with Benatar's position from his book Better Never to Have Been as outlined from Oxford Scholarship website:
[quote=oxfordscholarship.com, Better Never to Have Been] The conclusions of the previous chapters are applied to the abortion question. Four kinds of interests are distinguished: functional, biotic, conscious, and reflective interests. It is argued that beings are morally considerable only when they have at least conscious interests. Because consciousness only arises in human foetuses quite late in gestation (around 28-weeks), people do not come into existence (in the morally relevant sense) until at least that time. Thus, given the harm of coming into existence, it is wrong not to abort a foetus in the earliest stages of gestation. The ‘pro-death’ argument is then defended against two famous arguments that abortion is wrong — Richard Hare's ‘golden rule’ argument and Don Marquis' ‘future-like-ours’ argument.[/quote]
Okay, but I don't at all agree with that.
Quoting khaled
You're suggesting a quantification that I don't think is plausible, but at any rate, an example is saying something that offends someone else. I think it's ethical to not avoid offending others, and I think it's often preferable to offend. Offense is a problem with the offendee, something they need to learn to get past. It's not a problem with the offender.
Quoting khaled
Again, I do not agree with this.
Pre-conception, you're not doing anything to anyone by conceiving.
Right, I meant physical birth.
So then it's not a stance about conception. It would be an argument about bringing fetuses to term/giving birth.
It would best not to conceive in the first place but sure.
In that case I could say you’re making them get past said thing so there is a net benefit across time even if it hurts them right now. This doesn’t count as the example I’m asking for because it has long term benefits which you can argue alleviate more suffering overall than they inflict right now. I’m asking for an example where you can do something that doesn’t hurt anyone, but you choose to do something that does hurt someone and has no net benefit across time.
Quoting Terrapin Station
It seems to me you don’t agree because you’re not considering benefits across time. Please give an example of an action that causes severe suffering for someone for no good reason, as in it doesn’t benefit you, or anyone else nearly as much as it caused that person suffering and has no benefits for that person across time
Quoting Terrapin Station
I think it’s plausible in many cases. Especially in cases where you inflict the same problem you’re having onto someone else to alleviate it. Ex: stealing food from someone and causing them to starve to alleviate your own starvation. Or having kids that will also want to have kids just to alleviate your own desire to have kids. I’m these cases the harm inflicted is around equal to the harm alleviated which makes it morally ambiguous (some would say ethical some wouldn’t). But in the case of children you also offer a lifetimes worth of suffering along WITH the suffering of not having children which you transposed which is why I don’t think it’s ever moral
I really like a certain video game but I have no one to play it with. Therefore I will force you, someone I don’t know to play that video game with me for 80 years by tying you to the chair in front of it. If you do badly you experience a certain shock and if you do well your pleasure centers will be stimulated. The only way you can get out of this situation is if you try to rip through the ties which are designed to kill you if you try.
Obviously this is all justified because I like the game. And I am completely not responsible if it turns out you’re hopelessly terrible at the game and as a result suffer from these shocks for all 80 years. Also I’ll be teaching you the ropes of how to play the game so now you should be grateful to me.
I think a lot (all?) of these antinatalists threads are missing the voice and opinions of women - those that actually become pregnant, and then breastfeed 'potential people' - and then traditionally do most of the child-rearing. I assume all posters in these threads are male.
I can tell you my partners thoughts for wanting to "non-consensually cause all risk of harm to another person", are essentially along the lines of, "I love you, lets have a baby", "I want to have your baby/child", "lets make a family together". She does not think in terms of potential people, consent, harm, agendas (for the child to go through). But I think it's more complex than just a selfish desire to have a baby, considering the pain/burden of pregnancy/childbirth, and then all the work that is looking after a baby and raising it into a child and then adult. If anything it's more selfless than selfish. Not sure what to make of this.
You've said it yourself in the beginning, that it's basically for a selfish (& ignorant, short-term, simple-minded) reasons that most people (including women/female) 'decided' (if having sex could be considered as even a 'serious, thoughtful' decision at all) to have a baby/kid/children.
What you've said at the end, about "all the work that is looking after a baby and raising it into a child and then adult", it's basically just the consequences. There is nothing 'selfless' about it. As a parents, people basically are just eventually forced to do all those things. Not because of some noble selflessness. That's just another beautiful delusions/illusions people would like to believe.
It's not selfless to fix a problem you created. You created the problem of suffering for the child. Fixing it is the least you can do. If I accidentally burned down your house then helped buy you a new one that's not "selfless" that's the minimum that should be expected.
Quoting Inyenzi
That doesn't make it any less wrong.
This seems to forget that whether anything is a benefit or not is subjective. Anyone could interpret any arbitrary thing--or everything as a benefit or any arbitrary thing--or everything as a detriment. There's no right answer there. It's just a matter of how an individual feels about it. So there's a net benefit (to a particular person) just in case someone evaluates it that way. There's a net detriment (to a particular other person) just in case someone else evaluates it that way.
But in game theory, there is such thing as maximin decisions. The maximin decision would be the one that accounts for the worst case scenario (similar to John Rawls' idea of Veil of Ignorance in politics). You do not know what the child will face or think. The least cost to anyone with no knowledge, would be to simply never have the child in the first place.
However, this would just be an argument for those who focus on consequences. I think it is simply wrong to promote the conditions for all suffering, where it can be prevented, which clearly you disagree with. When ideas such that, suffering must take place (whether for growth, "flourishing", the drum march of civilization, progress, more people to "do" XYZ, someone to take care of, or another agenda of the parent), when in fact, no one needs to be the recipient of this in the first place, we cannot go much further. Unfortunately for your argument, you have to bite the bullet that causing unnecessary harm is good, using people for agendas is good, and most importantly, you would have to ignore the glaring asymmetry that no person is alive before they are born to need goods of life in the first place.
Agreed. Which is why you shouldn’t offend people unless you have good reason to believe it will help them later and good reason to believe they will appreciate said help later as well (as in subjectively judge your action to be good).
Also why are you bringing this up now? This could’ve been your first post on this thread. This is a whole new rabbit hole.
?? No idea how you see this as an implication.
Basically, there's a lot of stuff that people consider suffering that I think is ridiculous/laughable to have a problem with.
The problem was that: Quoting Terrapin Station
In other words "who decides what a benefit is?" and my answer is "The person on which the action in question is being considered"
So I'm saying an action is moral if you have good reason to believe that it will be seen as a subjective benefit to the person you're about to do it to.
Why would I necessarily defer to someone else's opinion?
As I just noted above, there's a lot of stuff that people consider suffering that I think is ridiculous/laughable to have a problem with.
Again who are you or anyone to decide what that is for anyone else. Smug assuredness isn't much of a justification.
Who is anyone to decide? The whole nut of this stuff being subjective is that there aren't right answers, and we all decide whatever we want to, or whatever we're compelled to (due to our dispositions--I wouldn't say that we just decide this sort of stuff on a whim).
No not at all. You can decide whatever you want or compelled to do for yourself, not for or to others.
Because?
We went over this :roll: and I pretty much answered you here
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/314833
So you can't decide whether something is ridiculous/laughable (as "suffering" for example) because of game theory? (seriously?)
Because it's not my job to judge that for someone else whose entire life regards the decision at hand and whose views, conditions, and contingent life-circumstances are not my own. Making suffering and challenges for another person, wholesale when there was no need to in the first place is no good. That's the point. It's not about my smug evaluations foisted on someone else.
That's just saying the same thing in a wordier way. What makes it your job or not?
"No good" is not a fact. It's your opinion.
I already presented the fork in the road, the impasse. I will keep answering in the same way as it is exactly my response to this question
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes it is. That is exactly what you are doing. You have made a subjective evaluation about suffering, and are arguing against and morally condemning other people (parents/would be parents) based on that evaluation (foist number one), in addition to making a decision on behalf of somebody else (anyone born!) based on your own evaluation about suffering. (Foist number 2).
So, I don't think you are seeing the logic of the asymmetry. Before someone is born, there is no actual person to be deprived of good. That is a fact. Once someone is born, there will be a person who suffers some harm. That is also a fact. Following this logic, not having children deprives literally no person, but harm would be prevented. No actual person is in a locked room in non-existence saying, "I want out!". That would be a projection of the already-existent parent.
This argument can be seen in Benatar's literature. See below:
[quote= Wikipedia, David Benatar article]Benatar argues there is crucial asymmetry between the good and the bad things, such as pleasure and pain, which means it would be better for humans not to have been born:
the presence of pain is bad;
the presence of pleasure is good;
the absence of pain is good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone;
the absence of pleasure is not bad unless there is somebody for whom this absence is a deprivation.[6][7][/quote]
That in no way addresses what I said.
Look closely, it does. But if I must explain it, no actual person is being foisted upon by not having them. That is not true if they are born.
Hey, you are not giving me money right now even though I may believe I deserve money on you. I would really appreciate it if you stopped foisting your values of private property on me. Now you owe me money.
See how ridiculous it is to say you are foisting something on someone by NOT doing something?
So basically, it's just your opinion that it's not your job (you seem to be forgetting that I'm talking about opinions on whether some things are ridiculous to count as suffering, but at any rate . . .), and you're deciding for me that it should be my opinion that it's not your job to have opinions contrary to others about what's worth or not worth counting as suffering etc.
He can't or won't interpret anything you said as anything other than an argument about antinatalism, because that would get him off his campaign/branding script.
Because you are acting on said someone so not deferring to their opinion as to whether or not they consent to your action would be directly going against the consent of a consent capable being
Quoting Terrapin Station
Well don't worry, birth doesn't fall under that category of "mommy I don't wanna eat broccoli" sorts of harm because it literally includes ever possible type of harm
I don't think we're getting anywhere. I'll try to put my arguments as premises and conclusions that'll point out discrepancies way faster
P1: Not giving birth results in no harm done to anyone and no pleasure enjoyed by anyone (or you can use whatever values you want, I'll use pleasure and harm for now) thus choosing not to give birth is a morally neutral act
P2: Giving birth results in harm done to someone and pleasure enjoyed by that someone as well (again, you can use whatver values you want) thus choosing to give birth can be either morally good or morally bad depending on which was experienced more often (pleasure or pain)
P3: One cannot know beforehand whether their child will experience more of pleasure or more of pain (redundant at this point but you can use whatever values you want)
C1: Thus giving birth is either a morally good or bad act and one cannot know the outcome beforehand
P4: When an act risks harming someone else severely and doesn't alleviate nearly as much harm as it risks to cause, consent is necessary before the act is done
P5: Giving birth is an act that risks harming someone else severely and doesn't alleviate nearly as much harm as it risks to cause and for which consent cannot be obtained
C: Giving birth is wrong
The point we disagree on I think is mainly that you find doing things unto others without their consent that may risk harming them severely allowed in some circumstances as long as you personally feel that thing is ok. And you find imposing life on someone else one of those "ok" things even though you have no input from someone whether or not they'd want to be born beforehand
First off, the topic here is whether, in my opinion, contra someone else's, it's ridiculous or laughable to consider some things suffering.
Let's make sure we have that straight. It's what I was talking about. (schopenhauer was having the same problem with not being able to stick with that idea.)
You can consider certain things laughable or ridiculous all you want but you can't do them on someone who expresses a clear desire not to have them done on him if you have no need to.
Actually you didn't even catch that I confused my conversation with you and my conversation with schopenhauer. With you, you were arguing that I need to defer to someone else's opinion re what's a benefit or detriment.
No I don't. I don't need to defer to someone else's opinion on that.
Whether someone else considers anything a benefit or detriment is irrelevant to consent on my view. Some I'm not sure why you've changed to talking about consent.
Message boards--how do they work?
I'm not going to explain my motivation for every post I've made in the thread. That would be way too long.
On that last post, my motivation was, for example, to tell you that you're wrong that by virtue of something, I need to defer to someone else's opinion on whether anything is a benefit or detriment. I don't need to do that.
And then another motivation was to explain that in my view, whether anyone considers anything a benefit or detriment is irrelevant to consent. So I'm giving you my opinion on something, because you're saying things that I think reflect conceptual problems on your part.
It would be too long to go into this sort of thing for every post.
By the way, I did write, in a post 20 pages ago, 22 days ago, in a response directed at you, "Personally, I'm not a fan of principle-based approaches."
Additionally, in the second post in the thread, from a month ago, I wrote: "The idea of any ethical stance hinging on 'suffering' isn't at all appealing to me, because I think that 'suffering' is both (a) way too vague, and (b) not something that's inherently proscribable ethically."
And then every post from me for a few pages was stressing how this stuff is all subjective, simply a matter of how an individual feels, etc.
Yet here you are still wanting to argue with me 3 weeks-a month later.
No bro, khaled and I have explained this to you before, simple reasoning. If I don't have a child no one except the parent's own agenda is affected. That is okay, another life (not an instance, or an event but life wholesale) is not affected by my decision of not having a child. However, you having a child would affect that person a lifetime, and in certain negative ways.
Now, the nature of those ways can be debated. I am a structural pessimist, so I do believe that deprivation itself is a harm as @Inyenzi mentioned some posts ago in a very thoughtful post. You seem to ignore those as deemed as not worthy of consideration. However, if we are going to simply rely on "usual" notions of negative and positive, it is really not up to you to deem for ANOTHER what is considered appropriate to find harmful. That I find, excuse my French, arrogant as fuck. And, it is cruel and callous to think that what you find laughable and another would not, should win out by default because your decision of having the child cannot be reversed. And no, suicide is not the reverse.
What does this have to do with what we're talking about. Again, I'm not talking about anything pro or con antinatalism in this tangent. I'm talking about something much broader than that.
When I wrote, "Basically, there's a lot of stuff that people consider suffering that I think is ridiculous/laughable to have a problem with," that wasn't at all focused on antinatalism. Can't you talk about anything else? What is wrong with you?
I was pointing out the double standard you are using (you did the same thing again just above, lamenting the arrogance of doing something that you yourself are doing.).
You contradicted yourself in your confused response as well, in one instance denying any possible consideration of the person to be (they arent born yet) then turning around (in other posts) and allowing that consideration (how they will suffer as a person after being born) when it supports your argument.
Not everything is so black and white.
You are confusing “not having a child” with “making a judgement on someone elses behalf”.
The two are different things, and im talking about the latter not the former.
I don't want to argue with you but the thing is the WAY you argue is what's so weird. You argue the principles themselves and then when it no longer works out you go back to your "But actually I don't use principle based approaches" crux. That's why I called you a troll. Because you DO principle based ethics, for a bit, by arguing why this principle is better than that or what motivation there is behind this principle etc but then you turn back to saying "But actually I don't use principle based approaches" at the first sign of inconsistency
If you don't do principle based approaches don't argue the principles themselves. Every time I argue with you I think you're suspending your disbelief and actually doing a principle based approach only for it to end with "but actually I don't do principle based approaches". If you don't, don't argue the principles themselves because that's called oing a principle based approach
I actually wasn't. I could see how maybe you'd interpret it that way. It's a bit ridiculous for you to tell me how I'm thinking of something though.
I thought you said that not having a child IS making a judgement on someone else's behalf when you said this:
Quoting DingoJones
And I was showing that that's ridiculous
I think everyone interpreted it that way.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Most of the time you were, in fact, doing principle based ethics because you were arguing with the principles themselves not the act of doing principle based ethics. I'm not saying you believe in or employ principle based ethics, I'm saying you were arguing as if you did one second then going back to arguing as if you didn't the next.
Again, if you don't do principle based ethics, you shouldn't be debating principles. And if you DO suspend your disbelief with doing principle based ethics and decide to debate principles then you at least should continue suspending your disbelief until the debate is over. Not go back to "But actually I don't do principle based ethics" the second a contradiction between a principle and your behaviour arises.
I seriously doubt that anyone was reading most of it except for me and you. And maybe just me for most of it.
Quoting khaled
Your interpretation is not a fact . . . at least not aside from the fact of it being your interpretation.
What did you ever think that talking with me was going to accomplish for you?
And what was that going to do for you?
I would say that's what I employ. However not as you formulated it here:
Quoting Purple Pond
I don't think this is good enough still. Would you agree to someone betting all of your life savings on some random business that has a 4 or 5% chance of failing miserably? Sure the chance is low but why take the bet in the first place for someone you don't know? Especially when so much is at stake
Haha, okay.
I post here because I don't have much chance in real life any longer to talk about philosophy with anyone who has any knowledge of it from an academic perspective. I see it as "keeping those muscles exercised" a bit, so they don't just completely atrophy.
I think this place is really, really lame for it for a number of reasons, but unbelievably, it's the best place I've found for it, with a requirement of being relatively active, in recent years. If I could find any place better, with people who aren't nearly as unintelligent and ignorant and who don't have near as much of that typical arrogant Internet asshole attitude to boot, combined with whatever mental ailments, obsessions, neuroses, etc. most folks here seem to have, I'd bail in a New York minute, but I haven't found anything better yet.
"Asshole attitude". Really dude? Because you have been the absolute pinnacle of gentlemanly, chivalrous conduct? "Asshole attitude" coming from you means absolutely nothing no offence.
Youre not nearly as smart, as you think you are. You should learn some humility.
And why would I consider you a qualified judge?
Its about the subjective judgement you are making in saying that person is going to suffer. According to you and your sense of suffering, not theirs. I do not mean the decision about having children and the the moral consequences, Im talking about you using your own sense of suffering and life not being worth the suffering etc and applying that to everyone.
Maybe that's a more subtle distinction than I originally thought, hopefully that's more clear.
Then there's your category error as you are dragging in two different situations- one where you are starting a life and one where a life is already-existent. It is important that the two not be mixed. That is much of your problem.
So this is Benatar's asymmetry that he pointed out. It's not about allowing consideration, but rather the absence of good vs. the absence of bad for potential people. The absence of bad for a potential person is always good, even if that good is not enjoyed by anyone. It is simply good that bad is not taking place. The absence of pleasure is not bad, unless there is an actual person for which this absence was a deprivation. The absence of pleasure is not bad, unless someone is actually existing to be deprived of it. The absence of pain for any actual person is good, no matter what.
You hit the nail on the head! I told you he argues like a troll and not with any sense of integrity or sincerity. Much of what he does is to try to dig rabbit holes and argue in circles. He does not argue in good faith and thus will never actually offer any real debate, just circular reasoning which you think is in a spirit of good faith, but is not.
Great observation!! :up:
:rofl: Either he is being completely ironic or has no self-reflective abilities of how he comes across.
I don't think you are considering everything. Just because a child is born with defects, she's not doomed to a miserable life. Parents can provide proper care and do the best to make their offspring's life as good as possible. For the most part, in modern society, illnesses can be treated and disabilities managed. As long as you're a caring parent and are willing and able to provide as much as you can for your child, I see no reason not to have kids.
Holy shit, im not talking about Benatars asymmetry. Im not even really talking about that part of the antinatalist argument at all.
In this last post, I was pointing out a contradiction that you made, and before that I was pointing out a double standard you keep trotting out. These are not based on the weakness of Antinatalism, they are based on logic and they attack the way in which you are making your argument. (With misapplied logic). Evidently you are completely clueless as to what you are actually saying and instead consider your points well made not by their merit but merely by the repetition of words you’ve read in Benatars argument.
So nothing you have responded with shows any comprehension at all about what is being said to you. (By me).
Go ahead, tell me what I'm missing and I'll tell you how I'm exactly countering your point. You said that it is about consideration of what is for the future child, and I am telling you my argument is about consideration of a potential child that is presently absent. That does change the way this argument goes, sorry but it does.
I just told you.
Quoting DingoJones
and
Quoting DingoJones
I am not foisting anything on the parent. Foisting is forcing someone to do something. I am not forcing anything, just presenting my argument. So that is wrong.
As far as foist number 2 there, it goes straight back to the point that no one exists who will be foisted upon. Look at the two scenarios:
1) A child is not born. There is no ACTUAL person who is foisted upon. I can have hundreds of potential children, NONE OF THEM have anything happening to them.
2) A child is born. An ACTUAL person is foisted upon. Something is actually being affected. Something is having a game/challenge/"adventure" of life put on someone. The escape is death from this, or cope, deal, identify with the game. Whatever you want to say, someone is being foisted something in scenario 2.
That’s not what I’m doing. I never said life isn’t worth the suffering. I think it is. That doesn’t permit me to force someone else into it though. See my analogy that starts with “for everyone here who is a natalist” which no one has replied to. It’s a page or 2 back
This is what I have a problem with, that the bar is set at “miserable life”. “It’s ok Timmy at least you’re not suffering as much as those Chinese sweatshop workers making your clothes”. Would you imagine if someone invested all your life savings on a mediocre deal that lost you money without your consent then had the nerve to say “hey, at least you’re not broke amirite?” I set the bar at near perfect life. Because it makes no sense to create the problem of suffering for someone then claim it’s ok not to solve it. And to claim they must be grateful to you afterwards also makes no sense
Quoting Purple Pond
“As long as you’re not broke, I see no reason for me not to invest with your life savings on projects I like no matter the consequences because after all, first world countries have a very good welfare system”
The point isn’t that the child might suffer tremendously, having a child while KNOWING they will suffer tremendously is monstrous. Having a child while knowing there is a RISK they suffer tremendously (in spite of your best care and effort) is pretty bad. Why are you taking the risk for someone else in the first place? Because YOU like life? That’s no good reason.
Ok not “life isnt worth the suffering” if thats not your view...doesnt matter, whatever your sense is about suffering is you are applying it to everyone. Not everyone views suffering the way you do, you dont get to decide for anyone else whats so bad about life that they shouldnt risk living it. Thats just the reverse position of the exact same thing your so upset about.
If I was able to talk to somebody who was there before I was born trying to convince my mom to make the ”ethical” choice and not have me, I would say “hey asshole, mind your own fucking business. Only one person gets to make this decision, me. If life sucks, there is a real simple exit option.”
Most people would, because most people do not view life and suffering the way an Antinatalist does. Or the way you do, or the way I do or the way anybody does. Its a subjective assessment, made in the sovereignty of a persons experience but its certainly not the case that most people wish theyd never been born.
No, Purple Ponds description of situational
Antinatalism makes much more sense, but it doesnt need its own special term, thats just good judgement really.
It is as if having children is taken to be the default position - against which the antinatalist must present his case and challenge. But it should be seen the other way round, with inaction as the default, and a case needing to made for taking such a morally significant action. What justifies creating a being with needs? Needs are a source of harm, and having needs is not a good thing. Although one might believe that they can provide for the needs of a child (well, until the child has grown and has the skills to provide for themselves), this does not justify the creation of a being with needs in the first place. It is as if the justification for creating a problem, is that one will do their very best to mitigate the harm caused by it.
Two things here. 1- you did not make the choice to be born by definition. And you said it yourself, only one person gets to make that decisions and it SHOULD be you not some stranger you get to know over the following years. 2- “there is a real simple exit option” is false. If it was true I’d have no problem with having children. The problem is when you have a child he will have a natural survival instinct that will keep him living despite how much he suffers. If suicide was as easy as “I had a bad week, lemme just go kill myself real quick” I wouldn’t have a problem with having children. The problem arises when you not only burden someone with solving the problem of suffering you’ve given them but also make it so that there is a very heavy exit cost
Quoting DingoJones
I don’t view life as suffering, but I recognize the possibility that my child might. That’s the point. How much someone likes life is not a factor when it comes to deciding if they should have kids or not. No matter how much I like my job I can’t force someone else to work it for example. Especially not a stranger
Quoting DingoJones
I never said it was. There is a difference between lives worth living and lives worth starting. Most lives are worth living but not worth starting. Ex: being blind is an experience worth living through. Most blind people are decently happy, so are most people with paralysis. Most debilitations become the norm for people after a few months and they no longer agonize over them. That doesn’t make it ok to go around hacking peoples eyes out or shooting their spines does it? That’s an example of an experience worth living through but not worth starting, I view life that way, but you don’t have to. My child might view life that way and who am I to take the risk for them
I’m not applying my subjective judgements onto anyone, all I’m saying is for people to stop applying their subjective judgements about life being good on their children. Just don’t apply subjective judgements to people you don’t know at all. It’s ironic for someone to argue AGAINST antinatalism by saying “who are you to make judgements for someone else” because all antinatalism is about is NOT applying these judgements on anyone anymore
I know right. In EVERY OTHER CASE inaction is taken to be default. It’s just that people have too strong a mental block when it comes to antinatalism
Quoting Inyenzi
Couldn’t have said it better
I wasn't talking about that at all when I made the comment about my opinion of what's called "suffering."
You can't stop thinking about it, so you interpreted my comment as if that's what it's about.
What would it amount to for something to be a "default position" on an ethical issue?
Still unable to grasp that there's no one to make decisions not only prior to conception, but for a while after birth.
What broader thing are you talking about? This debate has always been in the context of antinatalism. It's even the name of the thread. That is the subtext of all these sub-debates. Don't try conning me into thinking this isn't to some extent about antinatalism in some way, as that is where this whole conversation came from and leads to, whatever tangents we take in the meantime. I'm keeping it on point and the point I'm trying to make is that if we are talking about antinatalism, we do have to consider that the debate is whether a life is "worth starting" rather than "continuing" or in a state of "already-existing". People are making that category error in their analogies, and their characterization of the antinatalist position.
You may have some personal restriction that everything you say in a thread has to have some relation to the initial post of the thread or the thread title, but I don't. At least half of the time I don't even have any idea what thread I'm posting in, because I really couldn't care less. I prefer chatting. I have no personal restrictions that we have to stick with some topic so that every post, every comment (in every post) has to relate to that topic somehow.
I'm fine with a thread going in various directions. I don't necessarily have anything against that. What I do have something against is what khaled was implying in several posts back when you are talking about something else, and then you all of a sudden use that comment to talk about the topic at hand, thus you can always weave in and out and say, "no I wasn't using that argument for that topic then, but now I am". Which is more than a bit dodgy.
You just have to read stuff for what it says. If I make a comment about my opinion of the sorts of things that people consider to be "suffering," there's no reason to read it as a comment on antinatalism. You'd only do that if you basically insist that everything has to relate back to the initial topic/subject of the thread.
I'll gladly move on from that particular line of reasoning. It makes no sense to believe that one's own interpretation of suffering should dictate another's life so, yeah I'd gladly accept that you are not talking about that, because that might mean you actually take that position. Of course if it is, then the topic focuses on antinatalism again. But as you admitted, that particular reasoning is not about antinatalism.
Again, this isn't about antinatalism specifically, but I see it more as "One's attributions of what counts as suffering should not dictate what anyone else is required to do a la needing to make sure that you don't experience what you count as suffering."
Okay, are you applying that to the principle of starting a life (antinatalism debate) or someone who is already born (not antinatalism debate)? If it is the first or both, then it is an antinatalism debate.
There is no bar set because there's no theoretical limit to the amount of suffering a person can experience. It's all about tolerating risk. Is it worth the risk to produce an offspring? Like I said, it depends.
Quoting khaled
I'm finding it very difficult to make sense of this analogy. A potential baby is nothing, has nothing. So you can't deprive it of anything.
Quoting khaled
I disagree. If there's a good chance that the child will grow up to live happy healthy life, and a very small chance that they will suffer tremendously, it's worth the risk.
Quoting khaled
How about because you want a child? Children can give lots of joy to the parents. It also happens to be very likely that the child is grateful to be born, so it isn't selfish.
I'd say only the latter, since only people who are born and who have developed mentally a bit have notions of what counts as suffering.
But you clearly set a bar when you say that in most cases where money isn't a problem and where the children will likely live happy lives etc, that it is then fine to have children. You have decided that the amount of suffering experienced by the typical middle class first world country citizen is "good enough" to put someone else through that life. I believe that bar should be set at near perfect life, not a typical one
Quoting Purple Pond
Ok how about this one: I'm going to kidnap you and strap you in a VR video game that I really like. Why? Because I really like it. I won't ask for your opinion. Also, if you try to get out you die. Is that ethical?
Another one I heard elsewhere is: Someone takes your empty bank account and puts it 20 million in debt, then gives you 15 million and chastizes you if you fail to pay the remaining 5 million.
Quoting Purple Pond
Agreed
Quoting Purple Pond
Not in my view. Creating pleasure by creating new people that are happy is different from creating pleasure by actually helping a living person. That a potential child will live a happy life doesn't oblige you to have them morally speaking. However that a potential child will live a terrible life obliges you not to have them. Put those together and you get: You are obliged not to have a child because he might experience more suffering than pleasure.
To illustrate why "make a happy person" is different from "make a person happy" and shouldn't have the same weight (you're treating them as if they do):
Say there are 3 starving people and you are presented with 2 solutions to this problem. Which would you employ?
A: Feed the 3 starving people
B: Materialize 100 satiated people so that overall, you created more pleasure than you would have by simply feeding the 3 starving people
I think everyone would say A is the better solution, because B doesn't actually help anyone. That's my point. "making happy people" is morally neutral "making people happy" is morally good. You can't treat them like the same thing.
Quoting Purple Pond
Not enough. Because your child will also want a child. So saying that the suffering you experience from not having a child is going to outweight the suffering your child will have is bogus.
Quoting Purple Pond
Again, it doesn't matter what the living think of living, they shouldn't be allowed to add more people in the same way that no matter how much I like my job I can't force others to work it, even if this forced labor has had a history of producing happy employees.
However, that would be mediocre compared to anti-natalism. Which is the position that birth itself is evil. Sounds much like Gnosticism in a way. Where the position was that matter was evil. The question must be proposed in the same manner: if it is evil, why does it exist? In the same way- if it is evil, why does it exist and co-operate with nature?
Why would it being evil make it not exist
Quoting Riley
Why does it cooperating with nature make it not evil. Murder theft and rape are pretty natural
Quoting Riley
Antinatalism doesn’t “end” anything. It doesn’t start anything that’s different
But that is not even the debate when starting a life. The debate is, if you start the life then indeed you have foisted some version of what is good for someone else be de facto having them born. By not having them, there is no version of what is good for someone else foisted. So yeah, that is a different category than someone who is already born and you are dictating to them what is suffering or not. I disagree with you on both accounts. It is not good to decide for someone else that they will be harmed (antinatalism), and after they are born, it is wrong to determine what they should feel is harmed (but I agree perhaps that this is more for an adult human as decisions should be made for those who are not developmentally able to maneuver the social mechanisms of society).
Correct. Again, the comment wasn't about natalism/antinatalism.
Growth-through-adversity is defined by challenges faced by someone in order to attain a particular goal. For most people this at least involves survival/work along with goals involving entertainment/family-pursuits outside of survival/work.
Undue harm would be overriding illnesses, circumstances, accidents, disasters, etc. that otherwise would not be asked for outside the usual growth-through-adversity.
To be concise in these posts I am going to call growth-through adversity GTA and undue harm UH.
The GTA-UH model that is our reality, most people think is good to force other lives into. When a parent chooses to have a child, they are really saying, "I approve of the life of GTA-UH onto this new person and believe they should live X number of years of life in this kind of reality". There is no escape from it outside suicide. But no one asks why this is good for someone who doesn't exist in the first place to put this reality onto a new person. Oddly, the parent is an existential missionizer force-recruiting new people who, like religious families tend to do, try to enculturate the new recruit into identifying with the GTA-UH model so as not to regret being recruited.
Assuming the entire population abides by the antinatalist fundamental and stops giving birth. Within 100 and so years most humans would become extinct save for those in extremely remote locations. Within a number of milenia humans would likely repopulate earth and likely continue birthing.
Assuming somehow all humans could be coherced to comply and extinction was absolute. It would not be unreasonable to assume neture would do its thing and within a couple million years or so evolution would produce another sapiens being, and thus resuming the cycle.
Extending the fundamental to all sentient beings, as suffering can be reasonably extended to all living, how would one stop suffering universally, or or does the concern only encompass beings aware of their own existance.
Thanks
And suffering seems to be an unreasonable thing to want to stop. It's superfluous to want to eliminate It- or perhaps create a utopia. The term "life is suffering" originated from a Christian understanding of the world. It has been adopted by many others. Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Pascal... The idea was that suffering is intrinsic in the very nature of an individual, who suffers for a plethora of reasons. By himself, by others, by mother nature- mentally, physically and to some spiritually. If it is intrinsic ontologically, then it is preposterous. Perhaps transcendence is your best bet.
It's not much of a natural law if you can do something other than it.
It's my point that if we're talking about natural law, we can't have phenomena that operate in any way contrary to it.
I don't buy teleology at all.
Re the question, don't be a patronizing ass.
Just curious who you are addressing.
Anti-natalism doesn't have to be forced for it to be evil. The same way murder is evil. Precisely why it is evil... you chose to do it.
And it should be made clear: that the natural law is in relation to teleology. Not the will and not to the individual in-and-of-itself. But rather the parts to the whole than the whole to the parts.
The eyes for seeing, the heart for pumping. These all have their end. Which is why I see that you misunderstand precisely what is being said by the words 'natural law.'
Teleology is mistaken, though. There's nothing that eyes can do that's not part of their nature. Same for hearts, etc.
"There's nothing that the eyes can do that's not part of their nature."
Hmmm.... you just accepted the idea of teleology. Teleology is that which is the end of something in relation to it's ontology. Which you just verified.
.
So then how can anyone do anything contrary to natural law, which is what I asked you at the start?
Are you seriously implying that someone can be evil for not having children?
Quoting Riley
I’d give you a speeding ticket on that one. What does “oriented in nature” mean in the first place and why are you speaking as if “oriented in nature” is a requirement for any action to be good? That just sounds like a naturalistic fallacy to me.
Quoting Riley
You said the end of a “thing” by virtue of its essence. I thought that was referring to the child.
Quoting Riley
I don’t get what this is supposed to mean. Please elaborate
Quoting Riley
I ask the same question as terrapin then, how can one ever go against natural law if anything he/she does is natural by virtue of him/her being able to do it
Quoting Riley
Again, this sounds like a glaring naturalistic fallacy
You already stated what I was going to. Incidentally, did you see my post about the growth-through-adversity and undue suffering idea?
I already told you. You should give a look at Hegels idea of self-consciousness for these matters. Especially since this concept is that which manifests the will. It does not contradict the natural law. It has nothing to do with it. Which is why I said in a plain Darwinist view of the world, it does not exist. I should also note that Darwinism bases itself in teleology and natural law theory.
Yea. Makes it harder for anyone to give the typical “argument” that antinatalism “only looks at pleasure and pain” or assumes or pain is to be avoided etc
Well then you’d be doing something in the same “class” of argument as appealing to god if that’s not what you’re actually doing. But other than that I don’t think your argument works anyways. If anything one can do is part of “natural law” as you told terrapin then how is antinatalism going against it?
So we have
(1) "self-consciousness, which manifests the will, is contrary to the natural law"
and
(2) "Hegels idea of self-consciousness for these matters. Especially since this concept is that which manifests the will. It does not contradict the natural law. "
Um, what???
Oh my bad. I must not have caught that typo. Self-Consciousness possesses the ability to contradict the natural law because it manifests the will. But it Isn't inherently contradictory. As in "if this then that." It is also a non-sequitor to think that this disproves teleology and such. Considering they are not logically opposed.
I never said anything one can do is with the natural law- that is a strawman. And no, that is a false-comparison to say appealing to teleology is equal to appealing to god. The two can be exclusive.
Okay, but the nature of anything is always any and everything it can do. So if teleology is the same thing (any and everything something can do, which is its nature), and natural law is an expression of teleology, then how could self-consciousness or will do anything contrary to natural law?
The problem with using the GTA is that anti-natalism bases itself in the objective idea that it is immoral to have children. The GTA is a goal-oriented model (which is in its early stages), and has nothing to do with intrinsic evils. Penn state likes to quote 'what does not kill you simply makes you stronger' when referring to GTA. For the sole fact that it requires pain .GTA is also pro change through suffering and the like. It is also referred to PTG as well. Funny enough, Penn State quotes St. Paul when speaking of Growth through adversity."Suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character and character produces hope." An odd quotation if the view can be opposed to it, eh? UH also seems opposed to the GTA idea as a stand-alone concept.
Your combination of the two is interesting. What would prove difficult would be to define Undue hardships. As well as to not contradict the two.
By the shear manifestation of choice.
We should not confuse the end of a thing with another. As I said before. Rather we should focus on the parts to the whole than the whole to the parts.
Self-consciousness is that which simultaneously allows myself to be aware of my own individuation from an other, and be aware that they are aware of their own individuation and of me. The production of this is unknown to me.
However ...
Teleology should also be understood in two ways:
(1) by the end of an object or part. I.e the eyes, ears, heart.
(2) By the end of a collective goal.
Im speaking of number 2. You can never will to stop your heart from beating or your mind from thinking. However, you can stop the goal of this species (Its telos), which is its survival. Hence why I related it to anti-natalism.
I thought that’s what you said here
Quoting Riley
What did you mean then
Quoting Riley
I never said equal, I said same “class” of argument. By that I mean you appeal to some unproven concept to justify having children. Some do so with god. You do so by saying that reproduction has some “purpose” or teleology though you never explained what that might be. You just asserted that it’s idiotic to argue otherwise
I would say “intersubjective” because I don’t think morality can ever be objective but go on
Only individuals have goals.
If a goal can be stopped, then it's in the nature of whatever is stopping it to be able to stop it.
Thats false in the way I used the word. And I specifically added 'telos' as well. We already discussed that the eyes are for seeing, the heart for pumping - in which you made no objection. Unless you desire to take Hume's approach of causation, I see no reason for you to object either.
I don't know. Typically, anti-natalism argues that it is intrinsically evil rather than relatively evil or subjectively evil.
So, again, I think you're making a naturalistic fallacy here. Just because we have capacities to reproduce, why should we? That huge loose end hasn't been tied. Also, if we as creatures of "nature" have the ability to not reproduce, what makes that unnatural? You may need a good dose of Sartre and the existentialists. We are condemned to be free. Tying yourself to some Idea (like Natural Law), is just a decision on your part. We are not dictated by nature as what to do, because we have capacities that are derived from nature. That is indeed a naturalistic fallacy. I agree to some extent that we have a human nature, but human nature is of a broad extent- we have needs and wants that are universal, but to what specific actions we take to satisfy them, it is pretty numerous. There is no one action that nature dictates is the "right" action.
I have read Camus, Sartre, Kierkegaard and many others. Some of what they say is good.. and others is absolute rubbish.
Again: this is an argument based on ontology. It is not a naturalistic fallacy. Saying it is over and over has no foundation and gets us nowhere.
You should also understand the differences between teleology as I noted... we may not be forced to do anything but the parts to the whole are.... as I said for the 100th freaking time.
So for the last time: This is an 'ONTOLOGICAL' idea. Not one based In the perceptions of nature itself. Rather the end of a thing based in its ontology. If you cannot understand that this isn't a naturalistic fallacy- and yet you keep repeating that it is.. I'm going to have to end the conversation. Repetition is only good when the thing repeated is good. Right here is not an example.
You seem concerned with what everyone else believes. You aren't trying to make the silly argument from popularity are you?
What I said is that the nature of eyes is any and everything that eyes can do. That includes things like being blind. Everything.
Same goes for hearts. They can stop beating. That's part of their nature.
I don't know if you didn't understand my comment, but you said that per my comment, I accepted teleology. So that would imply that teleology simply says that the nature of things is any and everything that the things in question can do.
It's either: 1. The nature of the heart is to beat until it no longer can. Or 2. The nature of the heart is to beat, and by some other cause it stops it from doing so.
Either way, we must accept teleology in those regards.
No longer beating is something a heart can do. At which point it might start decaying, for example, which is something else it can do.
Both of those things are part of its nature. The nature of anything is any and everything it can do. You can't name anything that something can do, some state it can be in, etc. that's not part of its nature.
Why are you certain that it is something that it can do, rather than it is lacking in what it can do.. being caused by some other alternative cause to stop it from beating? If I squeeze a heart and crush it, is it lacking in its capability to beat, or is it simply stopping due to its nature?
When we talk about what things can do, states they can be in, we're not talking about them in isolation from the rest of the world. I have no idea why you'd be thinking something like that.
Being crushable is something that's in a heart's nature. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to crush it.
Again,. ANY and EVERYTHING that something can do, ANY state it can be in--being crushed is a state that something can be in--is part of its nature. That doesn't imply that there was no interaction with other things. There's always interaction with other things.
"No idea why I would think that."
What kind of stupid answer is that? Where did I isolate the object from the rest of the world?
And in any other sense... you accepted teleology 50 times over. If only you understood the concept of teleology, ontology and the natural law in relation to those two things- you'd be aware of it.
You're seeing x being in state y due causal interaction with z as indicative of something not in x's nature.
I'm fine with saying that I'm accepting teleology. It simply implies that teleology is positing that any and everything that something can do, any state in can be in for any reason, is teleology. You agree with that, right?
Secondly: you commit a fallacy in presuming that the state in which it can be in is teleological.. Or presumed to be intrinsic to it's nature on its own self. Which is blatantly incorrect.
Which is why I gave you the choice. A things nature is that which it ends itself towards. If it's end was to stop beating, it would stop. If it was to beat, it would beat. You also cannot account for substantial change in these regards.. Which is another error.
Another error you commit is when saying, "Being crushable is something that's in a heart's nature. Otherwise you wouldn't be able to crush it."
"Is in a hearts nature." Really? In what way is it IN it. As a secondary or primary mode of its ontology? Or is it substantial or accidental? Because the way I see it is: 1. The thing is stopped not by it's own nature and end to stop, but rather another cause. 2. I'm not saying that is not anything it can do.. I'm simply questioning this presumption you make without stating In which way it relates to it's ontology. I don't see any reason to believe that it isn't anything It has the possibility to do. However, I do not see any reason to believe that these things are the ends themselves. To stop beating and such.
Let's just look at this for a moment:
"A things nature is that which it ends itself towards."
I don't agree with that. Do you understand that I don't agree with it?
"You're seeing x being in state y due causal interaction with z as indicative of something not in x's nature."
Perhaps. That isn't isolating it from the rest of the world. Especially if it's possible.
I understand that. You just present zero evidence for the fact that you disagree. Do you understand that?
Evidence that I disagree includes saying, "I don't agree," and includes saying things like, "A thing's nature is any and everything it can do, any and every state it can be in, including states that are caused by other things."
And where did I say I disagree. Why can thing which has an end include that which it can do. Including stopping beating? I just disagree that this is teleological. If anything, that is a secondary principle in its ontology. Which is something that it has the possibility, even necessity to do- however, it does not prioritize it over the primary. For the sake of its teleology and for the sake of the goal of that in-and-of-itself.
1. For it to pump blood
2. For it to keep the person alive by virtue of that.
---
The secondary would be:
1. For it to stop pumping blood when it can no longer.
2. For it to stop keeping the person alive by virtue of that.
---
I don't think there is much to disagree on that notion
Huh?
Quoting Riley
Okay, but it's what I've been saying, over and over (that something's nature includes every state in can be in, including things like "not beating" or "being crushed" etc.), and you keep insisting that I'm simply endorsing teleology.
There is no "primary" thing that something does--every and anything that something does is just as "valid." And things like hearts do not have goals. Only people have goals.
So are you still insisting that we agree and that I'm endorsing teleology?
There is no primary thing which something does.
One word... evidence.
It is obvious that this Is the case: if something had two primary modes of teleology... That is to say, that it had two ends for two reasons- they would logically contradict each other in most cases. Especially here.
The heart cannot simultaneously stop beating as it also beats, guaranteed by it's own telos.
I'm actually starting to think a few things. 1. You've only investigation of minute amount of metaphysics. 2. You don't understand the basics of the language to which these topics produce.
*Goal- an end bases in its very own teleology. Also referred to as finale causation.*
As I said before: if you want to do what Hume did, that causes problems. Other than that I don't see any reason for us to disagree. But taking a look at your profile, I can say you like that pitiful thing people call an intellectual haha.
Hume is wrong for a few reasons.
1. A thing which does not have a finale cause is something that is without teleology, and therefore, has no end to which it exists.
2. Causation which does not happen at that level allows for unprovoked change. Both substantially and accidentally. Especially where the accidens have no nature to which it can change at any given moment. Of course, without a cause.
3. Hume's idea of causation and change doesn't allow for a thing to change in-and-of-itself. Considering the action for change is preceded by it's own will to change.
(i) The thing desires to change accidentally
(ii) causation is not required for a thing to change.
(iii) the desire to change itself is preceded by the actual change. Which happens out of change without a required cause.
----
By the mere desire to change, it changes. However, without any reason aa to why it changed other than it's will. Which denies the nature's of things ontologically speaking. This seems to object to much of what is observed and much of what the sciences have disclosed. But that was his point.
----
This is all said if you are leaning on Hume, of course.
Quoting Riley
So, to start off, I have no idea what this is saying. "There is no primary thing [that] something does" is something I said. So basically you're repeating something I said. And then the next line is "One word... evidence." I have no idea what that's saying in context. Are you agreeing with me? Disagreeing with me? Are you saying there's evidence that there's a primary thing that something does? What evidence?
Clearly the ability to detect certain things in language isn't something you possess. I was quoting you. I simply did not add quotations. Quite facetious of you in a way..
I'm asking you to provide evidence. I do not agree nor disagree. I simply won't accept something because you say it is true. So please provide evidence.
Okay. In my opinion, "One word... evidence" doesn't ask that very clearly. It would be better to say something like, "What is evidence that there isn't a primary thing that things do?"
The evidence is that you're using "primary" in the sense of a preference or goal, but preferences and goals are only things that individual persons have. They're mental phenomena. Things like rivers, say, do not have preferences or goals, they do not have mental phenomena.
My guess is he is going to say that natural phenomena have a "final causation" which is different kind of thing than a human goal. So, each natural phenomena is trying to "reach" some "end" and this "reaching" is in its nature. Thus, doing something that impedes this nature is immoral because it is "unnatural".
My critique here is that Darwinism doesn't work like that. This is assuming huge ontological beliefs that are not justified by how evolution and emergence works. Accidental changes to a phenomena become useful, otherwise the species dies out. Differential survival rates based on initial variation is the basic mechanism. The designs were bootstrapped from previous designs and they happened to work for a particular function of survival. Final causation then is a misattribution of what is going on. If the adaptations work to support the organism, it stays. However, with environmental changes, it may prove to be useless or even detrimental. That has nothing to do with evolution "reaching ends". It is more statistical and contingent than that.
However, you are also making a huge category mistake. Human minds don't have ends outside the goals that we individually make. Thus my end can be whatever it is I have decided. Now that does not mean I am saying, thus anything should go. Clearly being an antinatalist, I think that some principles have moral worth more than others. For example, forcing others to play your game, causing harm when there needs to exist no harm is not good, I believe to be important principles, for example.
Right. Which I don't at all agree with, but for some odd reason, he chose the tactic of trying to insist that I actually did agree with it.
Because morality is just that. What everyone believes. I don’t believe in an objective morality
Quoting Riley
Where did it seem to you like I did. All I said was: based on most people’s moral principles, antinatalism should be a logical conclusion to their starting principles. I didn’t say that makes it “objective” or “absolute”. I’m saying that most people who have children are being hypocritical to some of their beliefs.
An argument from popularity would be: “everyone believes this so it must be objectively true”
What I’m saying is: “everyone believes this so stop having kids already you hypocrites”
I wouldn't say that my life is full of suffering. I understand if you don't want to share personal info, but what suffering is your life full of?
We all could become disabled in life, horrible Ill, or just experience poverty, and many more bad things.
You could, although "this could happen" doesn't equate to "life is full of suffering" does it? And it's not as if everyone with those statuses sees their life as full of suffering.
[quote=Schopenhauer1]What's the alternative? Is this a nod to the idea of reincarnation?[/quote]
No, not necessarily. What I'm getting at is that a lot of antinatalist argument rests on an assumed view of self which is essentially, "I did not exist prior to my birth, at which I came into being to live a lifetime as the same ongoing self (which suffers and is harmed), and when I die this self will be annihilated forever." Yet there's nowhere stable within the flux of conscious experience for this self to be located. And so if it doesn't exist, to whom does birth harm?
Does procreation create selves?
I'd say no. It rather creates things that turn into selves.
It is odd to think about- you could not be anyone but you. But in the argument does it matter if you were a changing self? This argument is slippery slope into anything, right? So the person at point X is not the person at point Y. However, I can see if someone is so dramatically changed, that it would appear they are really not their previous self. I think the harm does not matter for any individual self, but that it is happening to a self at all that matters.
If no life = no harm, and life = harm + possible "flourishing", why should flourishing take precedence over no harm?
On the other side, "no life" state is invalid in any sense from the very ground. At least there then no meaning is possible.
Per what?
So we negate people's individual's harm by aggregating it into some utilitarian calculus? What's the point?
Quoting Dzung
Wait, the point is all the aggregating suffering might be worth it to some "higher beings"? Why should the individual care about that perspective? The individual is the one being harmed.
Quoting Dzung
Why does it matter if there is "meaning" in the world?
Listen Anti-Natalists, your argument sucks. It works 100% equally in the exact opposite direction.
Replace “suffering” or “harm” with “joy” or “pleasure” and then swap “it is wrong to procreate” with “it is wrong not to procreate”.
All your arguments now work equally well to prove the exact opposite of the Anti-natalism stance.
Have fun arguing with yourself.
But they absolutely don't. I direct you to the asymmetry if you really need it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benatar
The whole point is harm is only subjective to a particular witness and can be dynamic when we shift to another. Subjectivity makes sense only within the consensus group. The larger the group, the more sense it is.
But even with the largest group, say 7-8 known billion currently, it's nothing compared to divinity for a theist group.
Again I will ask, why should individuals suffer on behalf of a divinity?
assume. So the point stays but I don't think there's enough interests in theism, I just mentioned it for otherwise.
Meanwhile, the 7-8 billion compound view should be the upper limit and though not absolutely sure, it's safe to say it's likely not the same as your (or any agent's) group's "harm" view. I mean it (the "harm" view ) is not valid in a wide enough scale to be promoted.
P1: Creating happy people is morally neutral
P2: Creating suffering people is morally bad
C: Don't create people or else you guarantee doing something morally bad (because everyone suffers at some point)
People usually have a problem with P1 so I'll elaborate. Creating happy people =/= making people happy. Creating someone capable of experiencing pleasure then giving them said pleasure is not a good act, it's what is expected. It didn't actually help anyone. To demonstrate:
You have 3 starving people and are presented with 2 solutions:
A: Feed the 3 starving people
B: Materialize 100 satiated people so that overall, you created more pleasure than you would have by doing A
I think we can agree that A is the better solution right? Because B doesn't actually help anyone. That's the point, creating someone capable of experiencing pleasure then giving them pleasure is not a good act, it is what is expected. It is completely neutral, you create the problem of lacking or having pleasure to a certain person so the least you can do is fix it.
If you want to make this work backwards you'd have to make it:
P1: Creating happy people is morally good (which means you would pick B in the last question)
P2: Creating suffering people is morally neutral (which means you would have no problem with someone genetically modifying a child to guarantee they suffer as much as possible, or with having a child just to torture them)
C: You should have children
I don't think anyone would agree with the reprecussions of changing the 2 premises to what you're proposing, not even you
You can't do it in a moral way. We would have to completely nuke every part of the earth and make it uninhabitable for all life forever.
Also yes, antinatalism will always lose because all it takes is for 2 people of opposite genders to disagree or not care. That doesn't make it ok for someone who has heard the argument to turn a blind eye to it though if he agrees with it. "Everyone else is doing it" is not an excuse to do somethink one thinks is immoral.
My question was aimed at trying to understand what could motivate a belief in antinatalism, in all honesty I was puzzled by the belief after first hearing of it a few days ago.
It appears to me that humans, actually all life, is constructed to process and resolve suffering as a means to progress not only evolutionarily, but to enrich self worth (at least in the case of humans). Assigning moral value and therefore placing judgment on something that has no will of its own such as are natural processes seems misguided.
A life with zero suffering is as idealistic a concept as it is unattainable, furthermore, a "neutral" life without natural good/bad cycles seems to appear utterly meaningless...what would be the point of pursuing such a goal?
So I wrote a post that works as good as any as a proper response:
....I have this idea that this world can be characterized as "growth-through-adversity coupled with undue harm".
Growth-through-adversity is defined by challenges faced by someone in order to attain a particular goal. For most people this at least involves survival/work along with goals involving entertainment/family-pursuits outside of survival/work.
Undue harm would be overriding illnesses, circumstances, accidents, disasters, etc. that otherwise would not be asked for outside the usual growth-through-adversity.
To be concise in these posts I am going to call growth-through adversity GTA and undue harm UH.
The GTA-UH model that is our reality, most people think is good to force other lives into. When a parent chooses to have a child, they are really saying, "I approve of the life of GTA-UH onto this new person and believe they should live X number of years of life in this kind of reality". There is no escape from it outside suicide. But no one asks why this is good for someone who doesn't exist in the first place to put this reality onto a new person. Oddly, the parent is an existential missionizer force-recruiting new people who, like religious families tend to do, try to enculturate the new recruit into identifying with the GTA-UH model so as not to regret being recruited....
So the real question is, why foist the GTA-UH model on another person, when this does not need to take place? To use "nature" or some "force" as a reason, is to discard your responsibility as a decision-maker who can self-reflect. It is bad faith (not using your own freedom of thought), and the naturalistic fallacy if you think it is natural and we should do what is natural.
Quoting staticphoton
This is circular reasoning, as prior to anyone's birth, meaning is not required or necessary. After birth is only when humans look for meaning. So that question is a bit invalid from that perspective. The real question is why is it important to add new people who desire meaning in the first place? In fact, why does "meaning" need to take place at all in a universe? Because you imagine a lonely universe and need people to bring "meaning"? This is a fallacy of imagination (my neologism).
Consistency. Name one other situation in which putting someone in a risky situation (high risk of pleasure and high risk of pain) from a less risky situation without their consent is considered moral and where they do not benefit whatsoever from the shift.
Quoting staticphoton
Which part of antinatlism "Assigns moral value and places judegment on something that has no will of its own". I don't get what you're talking about
Quoting staticphoton
Antinatlism isn't about pursuing a world where there is no life. I quicker way to that would be pro mortalism which is another topic entirely. What antiatalism seeks to do is to stop introducing people who desire this "meaning" in the first place. Natalism creates a problem (meaning) and attempts to solve it (with good/bad cycles), antinatalism is the view that you shouldn't creat the problem in the first place FOR SOMEONE ELSE. You, along with most people find meaning in good/bad cycles. Does that entitle you to introduce more people into the good/bad cycle? Of course not, your opinion of life shouldn't entitle you to introduce more people into it for the simple reason that they might not share your attitude of finding meaning in good/bad cycles. Your child may suffer immeasurably and see no meaning in it. So why are you taking the risk for him? Why are you creating the same problem for someone else? Even if you will do your best to solve it? If you like life, good for you, I like it too, but in the same way that me liking my job doesn't entite me to force new people into it, me liking life doesn't entitle me to force new people into it. Even if this act of forced labor has had a history of producing happy employees.
First, antinatalism isn't about putting someone in a risky situation. There's no one to put into a situation until we get past the point that antinatalism wants us to not pass.
Quoting khaled
Aside from the above, this seems like a pretty loaded question. How would there be a high risk of pleasure while the person does not benefit whatsoever from the shift? That seems contradictory. If we're limited to talking about "where they do not benefit whatsoever" then that rules out any chance of pleasure.
I disagree, no significant portion of the population goes through such though process when deciding to have a child.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The real question would be how does one justify discarding as a fallacy the very nature that originated humans.
To make a statement that the very system (natural processes) that originated humanity are morally wrong, seems not much different than saying a rock is bad because it broke my toe.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Assuming personal meaning as the only reason for birth?
Quoting khaled
This assumes that search for meaning is a problem.
Quoting khaled
If you are saying that you will exercise your belief by not birthing any children, I see no issues with that. If you are saying that your belief trumps mine, and that I should not have any children, then I would have to respectfully disagree.
Indeed it does. Because it has all the properties of a problem. If you don’t solve it you suffer. Simple as that. Heck you don’t have to take my word for it, maybe your child would find searching for meaning problematic. Why take the risk for him?
Quoting staticphoton
I am saying the former and also I am saying that you’d be a hypocrite if you had children. Because you would be going against ethical principles you employ in every other situation.
A more risky situation simply means much more pleasure/pain is at stake. Just because more pleasure is at stake doesn’t make it a benefit. Ex: going to the hunger games vs playing a video game of the hunger games. The former is much riskier than the latter. There is also a much higher amount of pleasure at stake in the former (winning the real thing obviously feels better than the game assuming you’re the type of person to join voluntarily) but that doesn’t make it better does it? Because the risk of harm is also greatly amplified
Quoting Terrapin Station
No it doesn’t. When I say don’t benefit whatsoever, I mean the expected value of pleasure/pain doesn’t change but the standard deviation does.
Quoting Terrapin Station
Ok reword that to “creating a risky/riskier situation for someone” and everything still makes sense. I think creating a risky situation for someone and putting someone in a riskier situation should have the same moral value, negative. Because the end result is the same: someone is put in a risky situation. You don’t take “creating a risky situation for someone when they don’t benefit from it is wrong” as a principle so arguing with you on it doesn’t matter. Unless you’re willing to suspend your disbelief and follow the results of taking such a premise to be true all the way to the end.
I see it more like an attractor than a problem, finding meaning is what humans naturally do.
Quoting khaled
My personal case would be a very bad example because I have 3 grown up children who have done well for themselves and have provided me not only with a near-lifetime of joy (with the attached growing pains), but with 4 grandchildren who I also enjoy tremendously, and who up to this point are normal, happy, and playful children. But putting my joy aside, I would adventure to say if given the choice of not existing at all, all of these persons I contributed to put on this planet would choose to remain.
Huh? You'd need to explain that.
And if they hadn’t? Why take the risk? Also everything you said doesn’t stop you from being a hypocrite still
Quoting staticphoton
It doesn’t matter what you think of meaning as long as you’re willing to concede that “life has suffering”. That’s essentially all the empirical data antinatalism needs to make sense
It’s 4am here and I haven’t slept so I’ll say this real quick. Although standard deviation and mean are very easy concepts you can look up in a minute.
Situation A:
If you succeed in this game you gain up to 5 ounces of pleasure chance of success: 50%
If you fail in this game you get up to 5 ounces of pain chance of failure: 50%
Thus you are expected to gain a total of 0 pain/pleasure if you continue this game forever
Situation B:
If you succeed in this game you gain up to 2 ounces of pleasure chance of success: 50%
If you fail in this game you get up to 2 ounces of pain chance of failure: 50%
Thus you are expected to gain a total of 0 pain/pleasure if you continue this game forever
I’m saying it’s wrong to take someone from B to A
Good night
So we're always expecting a zero sum game?
Aren't you making far reaching assumptions to conclude hypocrisy based on nothing but my stated remarks on anti-natalism?
Quoting khaled
I suppose my problem is understanding what part of suffering precludes life. I can understand that an absolutely miserable existence in every aspect not be worth living, but to say any further new life should be avoided because some degree, any degree of suffering will occur, seems a little extreme to me.
Why? It makes perfect sense to me.
Is it good to create new people that are happy? No it isn’t. It is expected. Creating the problem of happiness/suffering for someone else then solving it is the least you can do. It doesn’t make you good. That’s why if someone has a child then leaves them on the street immediately we find that appalling. Another example is this: you have 3 starving people and 2 solutions
A: feed the 3 starving people
B: materialize 100 satiated people so that overall you create more pleasure than in A
I think we can both agree A is still the better solution here right? Because B doesn’t actually help anyone. That’s an example to show that making happy people =\= making people happy although people sometimes treat them like the same thing. The former is neutral the latter is good (Which is why you preferred A to B, because A is making few people happy while B is making a lot of happy people. The only way you'd prefer A to B then is if making people happy is good and making happy people is neutral)
Now let’s look at suffering. Is it ok to make suffering people? No, it’s wrong. We can both agree to that right? Creating the problem of suffering/pleasure for someone else then NOT solving it is obviously wrong. Which is why, again, we find dumping one's child on a street somewhere and leaving them there appalling
Put those 2 premises together and you get: having children is wrong, unless you can provide them with a perfect life as measured by them in which case it’s neutral.
Quoting staticphoton
Yes my bad. Forget about that. It’s just that most people I’ve talked to so far share the previous 2 premises except terrapin
Also, i assume antinatalism proposes to eliminate only human suffering, as non human suffering would continue indefintely after we are extinct.
That has no effect on whether or not antinatlism follows from the moral premises I mentioned. If, say a state had very few law enforcement officers and someone walked up to you and said "One problem I see with saying that murder is wrong is implementation. We don't have enough cops so it must be ok to murder right?" Whether or not a moral ideal is practical has nothing to say about whether or not it follows logically from its premises. You can disagree with the premises, but so far you haven't
Quoting staticphoton
I don't know, some say yes some say no. I don't care because an antinatalist would never become supreme ruler of the world for obvious reasons.
Quoting staticphoton
Not necessarily. There is just no use reasoning with cows. There is use reasoning with humans (hopefully). Cows will continue to suffer because they don't see the logic of antinatlism. Not much we can do about that. If cows were intelligent enough I'd be arguing with them too
But other than that. Do you see any problem in the reasoning of the previous post?
https://www.change.org/p/oed-uk-oup-com-make-antinatalism-a-word-in-the-dictionary
From a purely logical perspective your argument is coherent. For purely argumentative purposes I can go along with suffering = bad, and happiness = good, although it really reduces the depth of both circumstances to the thickness of a sheet of paper.
However I don't agree with the stance that personal interpretation and moral valuation of suffering/pleasure, despair/happiness, should dictate the outcome of 2 billion years of evolution. I also don't agree with the unstated conclusion that human existence is a mistake of nature that needs to be corrected by eliminating the species through voluntary attrition or any other means.
In my personal view, the fact that the matter, energy, and space-time that originated in the big bang has evolved to become aware of itself, is astonishing feat far beyond my comprehension. Although I am not a religious mas, I see homo sapiens and consciousness as a miracle of nature.
Using a simple line of reasoning to deliberately end what I believe to be nature greatest achievement over the fact that pain exists, would be unacceptable on my part, however that is just a personal belief, not a personal judgment against you.
You're not understanding the context of my comments to you at the moment.
I'm trying to understand how it makes sense to talk about any chance of pleasure if we're limited to talking about "where they do not benefit whatsoever."
You brought up the idea of a zero-sum game in the context of expectations. I'm trying to figure out how that makes sense of positing both a chance high risk of pleasure and being limited to talking about having no benefit whatsoever.
You don't need to but I agree let's start with that.
Quoting staticphoton
What else should dictate it? "2 billion years of evolution" is not a person with interests. So I don't see a reason why we shouldn't dictate what happens to it. We decide the course of our evolution. We already did so when we made societies, medicine, etc. Again, evolution doesn't have interests, humans do
Quoting staticphoton
That does not follow from the premises I laid out. I would like you to show me ho wit does.
Quoting staticphoton
Me too
Quoting staticphoton
Again. "Nature" is not a person. You're not harming anyone by not having children. Whereas you could harm someone by having children. That's what this boils down to
There is benefit if the expected value of a situation goes up. Example:
Situation A: 5 points of pleasure, 50% chance. 5 points of suffering 50% chance
Situation B: 6 points of pleasure, 50% chance. 4 points of suffering 50% chance
Situation B is a benefit from situation A because the expected value of the whole thing positive ((6-4)/2 = 1) while the expected value of A is 0 ((5-5)/2 = 0)
Situation C: 10 points of pleasure, 50% chance. 10 points of suffering 50% chance
Situation C is not a benefit from situation A because the expected value is still 0 EVEN THOUGH the possible amount of pleasure increases
I'm saying it's morally good to take someone from situation A to B but not from situatoin A to C. Because C, overall, is no better than A because both pleasure and pain are amplified equally. The only time when if it's ok to take someone from situation X to Y (for me) is when Y has a higher expected value AND less or the same amount of possible suffering. If those two conditions aren't met then consent is required.
You stipulated that we're talking about "where they do not benefit whatsoever from the shift," right?
I don't share that belief. I'm not speaking of social evolution, but natural evolution... social evolution has nothing to do with what I wrote.
Quoting khaled
Also disagree.
Accepting the premise and thinking it through the reality of implementation, it would be fair to assume that only those who are morally responsible would make the choice of not having children. The morally responsible would eventually disappear, leaving a world inhabited with the morally irresponsible. It would not be unreasonable to assume that suffering would increase in a world inhabited by morally irresponsible human beings.
So in reality, since there is no realistic method for both the morally responsible and morally irresponsible to participate proportionally, the best you can do is to reduce suffering by somehow making the number of morally responsible to increase at the expense of the morally irresponsible.
I suppose that A: Once the morally responsible have taken over the world, then B: They can stop having children and put an end to it. But I'm not seeing A happening anytime soon.
That's not how it works because "morally responsible" isn't the same as "blood type O". It can be learned. You aren't born with it. That's why there has been an antinatalist in most societies you can think of. Even though antinatalism is at a strict disadvantage when it comes to propagating itself across time for obvious reasons
Quoting staticphoton
That's impossible. Unless you're proposing killing the morally irresponsible
Quoting staticphoton
Me neiter. I never debated whether or not antinatalism is practical. I know it won't work. That doesn't mean it doesn't make logical sense from premises everyone employs. Again so far, you haven't disagreed with the two main premises of antinatalism the first being "making happy people is morally neutral" and the second being "making suffering people is morally bad".
Yes and by "benefit" I meant that the "mean value" of the situation goes up. Not that the maximum pleasure possible goes up. As I explained. I'm not sure why we're still talking about this when I already said "You can forget about the “and they don’t benefit from it whatsoever” bit. What about an example of taking someone from a less risky to a more risky position without their consent that is considered ok."
Sorry, I missed you saying that.
Okay, so one very standard example of that is sending a child to school.
Whether it is learned or not is of no consequence for my statement.
Quoting khaled
I can't agree or disagree because the key words on that sentence (happy people, morally neutral, suffering, morally bad) are ambiguous at best, their deeper meaning reduced to labels. I see nothing to gain by having anyone say "I agree" or "I disagree" other than your personal triumph in this argument.
Neither of which are true or false (since no moral stance is). Thus calling them "premises" doesn't even really work.
Why not?
but I thought we were reducing it to pleasure = good, pain = bad for the sake of argument?
Quoting staticphoton
Yes it is. Because a world of the "morally irresponsible" is impossible. The chances of it are highly unlikely.
Premises have a truth value. Logic doesn't make much sense outside of the notion of truth value.
If we were emplying the "doesn't benefit at all" limit then this would be a bad example because in every single instance of sending a child to school, they end up in a more beneficial situation.
But also asking the vast majority of children if they want to go to school or not will have them answer postively in the long term. So i don't think it's much of a forced decision anyway.
It doesn't make any sense to assume it's true, because that's a category error.
You just said to forget about that. If you're not forgetting about it then we're back to trying to make sense of the initial comment.
Quoting khaled
So something is consensual just in case most people would say they had a positive opinion of it in the long term.
But you're suggesting that most people don't have a positive opinion of life in the long term?
You're arguing that mathematical statements can't be true or false? That truth value is a category error for them?
No. I'm saying that in every single reasoned argument about anything there is a starting premise taken to be true. Math was an example. This starting premise can be anything. Including moral statements
Then the analogy doesn't work. Moral statements can not be true or false.
Ok let's go back
Because there's nothing to get correct or incorrect. It's simply an utterance re how an individual feels towards the behavior in question. You can't get that correct or incorrect. However one feels is how one feels.
A moral statement is not necessarily a statement of how one feels. I think moral statements arise from taking what many many people feel in common and trying to find the fewest possible principles to get you to that commonality
Yeah, it is. That's what they are ontologically.
So all thieves think theft is morally ok? Does that mean they wouldn't mind if someone robbed them? Just saying "emotivism is the case" doesn't make it the case.
Wait a second I don't think I'm making sense (it's 3 am)
You have an ask an individual to see what their moral views are. It's not as if everyone has the same moral views just because they fit under a classification such as "thief."
Quoting khaled
Surely some have views such as "Theft is okay in circumstance x" etc.
Quoting khaled
Of course. The way the world happens to be makes it the case. You say it because you want to get correct what the world is like.
P1:Murder is wrong
P2:Hiring someone to kill someone else is murder
C:Hiring someone to kill someone else is wrong
Because if the first statement has no truth value then what exactly did I just say here? (I'm not asking whether or not you agree with it. Just, if it's not a syllogism then what is it)
What you're saying is how you feel about murder. The way that you feel about murder has no truth value.
The other two would only be the case for an individual if they feel that way.
Ok then. How about this
P1: Creating happy people is morally neutral
P2: Creating suffering people is morally bad
P3: Giving birth risks creating either happy or suffering people
C: One should not give birth
Wouldn't C be the case for people who agree with P1, P2?
No. That has no truth value. (That's what I told you at first by the way.)
But wasn't that the same with
P1:Murder is wrong
P2:Hiring someone to kill someone else is murder
C:Hiring someone to kill someone else is wrong
And you said P2 and C would be the case for an individual who agrees with P1
Someone isn't reading very well.
Which bears absolutely zero resemblance to "would be the case for an individual who agrees with P1"
"P2" is the case for someone who feels the way described in P2
"P3" is the case for someone who feels the way described in P3
It depends on the individual in question and how they're thinking about them.
Look, basically, you're not really a subjectivist on this stuff. Which is something I pointed out a long time ago.
No no no, I'd say I am. I just don't think a moral statement cannot have a truth value. On the other hand, I think "truth value" is context dependent. Something is only ever true for a certain person.
Sure. I know that. But you're not really, because I don't think you really understand it. You wouldn't be arguing about moral utterances having truth values if you did.
Which is not realizing that it's a category error.
You wouldn't ask this if you really thought it was subjective.
So the answer is no? I'm just saying that not making sense from a subjectivist/emotivist standpoint isn't really a problem with antinatalism only
What does this actually mean though
So obviously you're not a subjectivist or emotivist. Why pretend to be one?
I probably do misunderstand it but can you please answer the question?
Obviously one is not going to adopt a philosophical view about something that results in that thing making no sense, right?
Thank you for finally answering the question. Now. For me to pretend I am a subjectivist/emotivist I would have to say that I believed that me thinking antinatalism is the case is any more than me expressing a feeling I have. I have never said that. All I ever said was that most people would come to share this feeling if they did not make an exception for birth from other feelings they have about other acts.
Okay, but you'd realize that someone could just as well think "Creating suffering people is morally neutral" right?
They COULD. Then I'd ask them "Is genetically modifying a child to suffer as much as possible ok by you?" And if they say no then they were lying initially (or are idiots) and if they say yes then I'd say "fair enough"
The point is, no one actually think creating suffering people is morally neutral. At least, no one I've talked to so far
For one, they didn't say anything about "suffering as much as possible" did they? So why would you change it to that?
but also it's 3:35 and I'm going to bed