The Kantian case against procreation
There has been a lot of discussion of antinatalism here, but what I am trying to do here is create a more focussed discussion on just one argument - the deontological or Kantian argument - against procreation.
It is, for me, the most compelling of the arguments as it appeals to intuitions whose probative force is hard to deny.
If an act is going to have a great impact on another person then it is standardly wrong to perform it unless the person in question consents. And if such an act is performed, then the fact the person it significantly affected did not consent is typically going to be a morally bad feature of that act.
For instance, spiking another person's drink is standarly wrong. Having sex with someone who is incapable of giving consent is standardly wrong. And making false promises to others is standardly wrong. And plausibly all of these actions are made wrong precisely by the fact that they are acts that affect others in ways that they have not consented to.
There are no doubt exceptional circumstances, such as where a great harm will come to the person unless the act is performed or where the person in quesiton positively deserves to be treated in this way. But that's why I said 'standardly'. We might say that an act is 'default' wrong/bad if it has the above qualities, though not necessarily wrong. As such we can reasonably assume an act that has the above qualities is wrong until or unless we are provided with reason to think that the act in question is an exceptional case.
The act of procreation has this feature. It seems undeniable that in procreating one significantly affects another person, for one thereby commits someone else to living an entire life. And it also seems undeniable that the person who is affected in this way has not consented to it.
So, it would seem that on these Kantian grounds - Kantian because it is something about the nature of the act, namely the fact the act is one that has not been consented to - we have reaosn to believe that procreation is wrong.
And it is no good pointing out that it is impossible to consent to be born. For there are many acts that, by their very nature we cannot consent to, but this does not stop the fact we have not consented to them from counting as a moral negative. One cannot consent to be coerced, for instance. Yet coercion is standardly wrong and standardly wrong becusae the affected party has not consented to it.
And having sexual relations with someone who is incapable of consenting to them is wrong, and wrong precisely because they did not consent to those relations.
And no good arguing that we cannot affect people by bringing them into existence, for that falsely assumes that to be affected by something you need to exist prior to being affected.
And no good arguing that by procreating you prevent the affected party from coming to a great harm. For by hypothesis, they did not exist prior to you creating them. So you did not rescue them from some worse fate.
And no good arguing that most of those who have been created are glad about it and probably would have agreed to it had they been able to. For even if that is true, it does not prevent the fact that they actually did not agree to it from making the acts standardly wrong and bad. For example, if you spike someone's drink then you have standardly done something wrong to the other person, and that doesn't alter if later they so enjoyed themselves due to the alcohol or drug that they would give you retrospective consent to put it in their drink. Liikewise, if you have sex with someone who has not agreed to it and they later give you retrospective consent, that doesn't alter the fact you raped them and that what you did was serously wrong.
It is, for me, the most compelling of the arguments as it appeals to intuitions whose probative force is hard to deny.
If an act is going to have a great impact on another person then it is standardly wrong to perform it unless the person in question consents. And if such an act is performed, then the fact the person it significantly affected did not consent is typically going to be a morally bad feature of that act.
For instance, spiking another person's drink is standarly wrong. Having sex with someone who is incapable of giving consent is standardly wrong. And making false promises to others is standardly wrong. And plausibly all of these actions are made wrong precisely by the fact that they are acts that affect others in ways that they have not consented to.
There are no doubt exceptional circumstances, such as where a great harm will come to the person unless the act is performed or where the person in quesiton positively deserves to be treated in this way. But that's why I said 'standardly'. We might say that an act is 'default' wrong/bad if it has the above qualities, though not necessarily wrong. As such we can reasonably assume an act that has the above qualities is wrong until or unless we are provided with reason to think that the act in question is an exceptional case.
The act of procreation has this feature. It seems undeniable that in procreating one significantly affects another person, for one thereby commits someone else to living an entire life. And it also seems undeniable that the person who is affected in this way has not consented to it.
So, it would seem that on these Kantian grounds - Kantian because it is something about the nature of the act, namely the fact the act is one that has not been consented to - we have reaosn to believe that procreation is wrong.
And it is no good pointing out that it is impossible to consent to be born. For there are many acts that, by their very nature we cannot consent to, but this does not stop the fact we have not consented to them from counting as a moral negative. One cannot consent to be coerced, for instance. Yet coercion is standardly wrong and standardly wrong becusae the affected party has not consented to it.
And having sexual relations with someone who is incapable of consenting to them is wrong, and wrong precisely because they did not consent to those relations.
And no good arguing that we cannot affect people by bringing them into existence, for that falsely assumes that to be affected by something you need to exist prior to being affected.
And no good arguing that by procreating you prevent the affected party from coming to a great harm. For by hypothesis, they did not exist prior to you creating them. So you did not rescue them from some worse fate.
And no good arguing that most of those who have been created are glad about it and probably would have agreed to it had they been able to. For even if that is true, it does not prevent the fact that they actually did not agree to it from making the acts standardly wrong and bad. For example, if you spike someone's drink then you have standardly done something wrong to the other person, and that doesn't alter if later they so enjoyed themselves due to the alcohol or drug that they would give you retrospective consent to put it in their drink. Liikewise, if you have sex with someone who has not agreed to it and they later give you retrospective consent, that doesn't alter the fact you raped them and that what you did was serously wrong.
Comments (143)
So, if I plan on spiking someone's drink but the drug I am using only stands a 20% chance of having the desired effect on my victim, I have still done wrong if I spike someone's drink with it despite the fact it is a matter of chance whether I succeed in my plan.
Re being glad we're alive - I think we can be glad about something and still think the act that brought it about was wrong. That's certainly what Kant thought anyway, and I think our rational intuitions concur. For example, imagine I am in a hospital and I desperately need a vital organ if I am to survive. The doctor - who thinks I'm just great - decides secretly to kill the patient next to me so that the necessary organ becomes available and I survive. He does this and I live on. When I become aware of what has happened I might be very glad that I am still around yet at the same time think that what the doctor did was seriously wrong. Indeed, I might even be very grateful to the doctor - he saved my life - and still think he did wrong.
So I think there the fact we may be glad we're alive - and perhaps even grateful to our parents for having created us - does not imply that they did nothing wrong in creating us.
Deontology, if I understand it, would look into other morally relevant features of an act. Kant would've checked whether anitnatalism could be universalized or not.
What do you think? Can anitnatalism be universalized and made a duty for everyone? China's one-child policy comes to mind. Europe's declining birth rates?
You cannot just call something "Kantian deontology" without actually looking at Kant's reasoning. There's not even any mention of the categorical imperative here.
What maxim are we talking about? At what level does it fail the categorical imperative?
Kant's moral system relies on reciprocal acceptance of others as moral subjects. How can future people take part in this?
1.) law can have no exception whatsoever, otherwise it be merely a rule;
1A.) every human is endowed with a will, therefore every human is a moral agent;
2.) if procreation were deemed an immoral act, the imperative corresponding to it for any moral agent must be as if it were in accordance with a universal law for all moral agents;
3.) the universal law must be that no moral agent shall make the immoral procreatic act;
4.) that no moral agent, re: no human, shall make the procreatic act leads necessarily to the extinction of the human species;
5.) it is contradictory that the extinction of the human species shall follow from a universal law;
6.) it cannot be in accordance with a contradiction that cessation of the act of procreation be a moral imperative;
7.) the procreatic act, in and of itself, cannot be deemed immoral.
It seems anything BUT undeniable. There is no other person that the people procreating are doing anything to.
Yes. This is just the same old anti-natalist argument as we've seen in five other threads recently. Those have all been combined by the moderators into one thread, which is still active. This discussion belongs there.
I disagree with 5 - 7. Actually, I don't even know what that means.. a better formulation:
Kant's First Formulation: Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.
If everyone coerced others into a game/challenge that they thought was best for the other person then everyone would assume they know what is best for everyone else. The very ability to coerce others would be coerced by yet another person who knows better than yourself. Coercion itself would be nullified and contradict itself.
There are other applications too, but that is one I thought of right now.
Kant's Second Formulation: Act in such a way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, never merely as a means to an end, but always at the same time as an end.
Assumption- One is looking out for the ends of a potential person (who has no interests or personality yet) when one is concerned about a potential future person that does not exist yet. Thus, in the procreational situation, prevention of harming a future person is the highest priority as there is no actual person who has interests yet. Thus, having a child for ANY reason is putting the parent's/society's agenda above and beyond the interest of the future child (which is to not be harmed).
Better application...
If you can prevent all harm with no cost to any actual person (no one exists to be deprived of not experiencing good, let's say), and you have the ability to do this, this would be the best choice in terms of looking out for any future person. If you do anything outside of choosing this optimal scenario (preventing all harm to future person with no cost of depriving an actual person), you are putting your own agenda above the ends of someone else.
@Bartricks @Sunnyside @TheMadFool you may want to comment.
All I wanted to show was Kant wouldn’t consider the act of procreation, in and of itself, as immoral.
But I was trying to show the contrary.
Which presupposes you think that Kant thinks no one should procreate. I mean, if it’s immoral, right?
And how can a thing with no will be a member of the kingdom of ends? How would you know what the benefit is to a merely possible person? And who would formulate an imperative based on a universal law that obliterates the species?
And even if it did, how is that any kind of 'contradiction'? No moral agent would be willing his/her own demise.
Imagine that tomorrow all the world's women freely decide that they do not wish to have children. Is it respectful to rape them? No, obviously not. It would be wrong to rape them and wrong, in no small part, because rape, by its very nature, is something one cannot consent to.
If one fails forcibly to impregnate them then, forseeaably, the human species will most likely become extinct. That, we might agree, is bad. But the whole point of a deontologist position is that it matters what means you use to prosecute an end. The fact - if it is a fact - that the demise of the human species would be a bad thing does not justify doing anything and everything to prevent it. We are only permitted to prevent bad outcomes using means that pass the categorical imperative. And clearly acts of rape do not. Again, why? Because the nature of such acts is such that those affected by them cannot consent to them.
Well, that applies to procreative acts themselves. The fact is it is the most important thing, if one is a Kantian deontologist anyway, is to honour the intrinsic value of persons by not treating them in ways that they cannot consent to. Seeking to create a person, precisely because it is something that cannot be consented to by the person who is to be created, therefore fails to demonstrate that respect.
Imagine you know that any child you have will live a life of total agony from the instant it comes into existence until the end. Well, are you seriously maintaining that the child is not affected by the agony it suffers because it did not exist previously? That's just silly.
I don’t care about any of this. It is absurd that one would consider that Kant thinks procreation to be an immoral act, and one who uses Kant to justify his ignorance is even worse than absurd.
“....It might deserve to be considered whether pure philosophy in all its parts does not require a man specially devoted to it, and whether it would not be better for the whole business of science if those who, to please the tastes of the public, are wont to blend the rational and empirical elements together, mixed in all sorts of proportions unknown to themselves, and who call themselves independent thinkers, giving the name of minute philosophers to those who apply themselves to the rational part only-if these, I say, were warned not to carry on two employments together which differ widely in the treatment they demand, for each of which perhaps a special talent is required, and the combination of which in one person only produces bunglers....”
But notice something. Consent is relevant only to the extent it affects consequences of birth and being alive.
If the world was a utopia without any suffering consent would be irrelevant. Everyone would want to be born.
Yes I agree consent (deontology) is an essential aspect of morality but it's a second fiddle to happiness/suffering (consequentialism)
The choice to be born or not (consent) is relevant only if we can't guarantee a happy life for the baby.
It's like giving icecream to a child. If we know for sure that the child likes chocolate then his choice is immaterial. However, if we don't know the ice cream preferences of the child then it becomes important to ask for consent.
If one, on the way to procreating, person reads this argument and does not have a child, that will change the lives of future generations in millions of ways we cannot predict. Their child might have been the best friend of someone, the police who shot a serial killer before what turns out to be 10 more torture deaths. And yes, it might be the next Hitler. But regardless you are performing an act of persuasion that will affect a lot of people, most likely, if we look forward in time thousands of years, say. but here you are performing that act without their permission,and without ours.
Sorry for labeling you a vague communicator in that other thread. You can be (can't we all), but this is just one of many examples where you are clear and direct. I also happen to like this argument, but mostly, I am just apologizing, as I don't think calling out yourself and poeticuniverse helped my argument much.
I'm sure I owe @PoeticUniverse an apology too, but he just uses so much poetry...so I don't want to :grin:
How is that a false assumption? It's exceedingly obvious both as a matter of logic as well as general language use that only something that does exist can be affected. If you want to argue otherwise, the burden to establish that logic is on you.
Quoting Bartricks
It does if it's universalised. Which is the whole point.
Quoting Bartricks
"Means" are not input for the categorical imperative.
Quoting Bartricks
Are you claiming that only maxims that can assume the other party consents can pass the CI? Because that would be wrong.
Deontologically, consent is integral to treating a human as having intrinsic moral worth. From a consequentialistic perspective, if consent is not considered then it would lead to a lot of suffering.
So, we have two possible routes to antinatalism. One is deontological and the other is consequentialist.
A consequentialist would make the usual arguments about how there's suffering disproportionate to happiness. Whether one agrees is not important. What must be noted is the ease with which an antinatalist argument can be crafted. You will notice this when we compare it to a deontological antinatalist argument below.
The deontological antinatalist hits a huge roadblock in that the affected party is absent/nonexistent. Can we then say antinatalism is justified because the child didn't give consent? Well, we can say that the child didn't consent i.e. affirm a choice to be born BUT don't forget that the child also didn't say no to life. In other words the accuser is guilty of the same crime as the person accused. Yes to think the child would have chosen life is an unwarranted assumption but so is the assumption that the child would've preferred nonexistence. The deontological argument fails to justify antinatalism.
To summarize, the consequentialist argument for antintalism is better than the deontological argument. The latter shoots itself in the foot by being unable to prove that a child would've wished not to be born for the very same reason it's unable to prove that a child would've chosen life. After all consent is impossible.
If you've procreated, so that you've made a child come into existence, something can happen to that child at a later time. That's fine.
The point is that procreation isn't doing anything to anyone (other than the people who are procreating). You can't thus argue that procreation is doing anything to anyone nonconsensually.
Antinatalists want to argue against procreation. You can't do that by claiming that we're doing something to someone nonconsensually.
Antinatalists are trying to appeal to completely ignorant metaphysics--namely, the notion that there's someone that something can be done to prior to procreation. As if there are souls floating around waiting to be captured or some such.
Thanks, and, don’t be too sorry; I can get.....er.....obscure, shall we say?
I'd just like to address the argument here that anti-natalism is somehow intrinsically or then thematically Kantian.
First, Kantianism doesn't have a monopoly on "the nature of the act", which I understand you to mean the act in itself apart from it's consequences. The reason Kant rejects only considering consequences is that it just pushes the problem over, we then have to judge if those consequences are good. For instance, utilitarians strive to find consequences that make as many people happy as possible, with various schemes of how that could be in principle or in practice calculated, but it just begs the question "is it good to be happy" and what's "true happiness" (i.e. how do we test it).
Kant's famous passage about this kind of reasoning mistake is the idea that "someone who is pleased to accomplish a duty is only motivated by the resulting pleasure" doesn't work because the person needs some idea of the duty independent of the pleasure of accomplishing it to identify it as a duty in the first place; otherwise, anything fits the bill equally well.
Utilitarianism has the same problem that it needs to avoid "people are happy when they see the situation is good" -- i.e. "people are happy when they live in a good society, have good friends, and good things happen and they do good deeds", if any of those statements are true then utilitarianism gets stuck in a loop, unless a definition of "good" is inputted to close the loop (which the whole point of utilitarianism is to side-step, even the question of whether utilitarianism itself is good).
Anti-natalism is fundamentally a utilitarian argument, just trying to get around the above argument by substituting "minimizing suffering" for "maximizing happiness".
Kant, I would wager, would object on the same grounds, that the anti-natalists have not defined what the good is and hence nor the bad. This would be the start of criticizing anty-natalism from a Kantian point of view. Unless human existence is not more nuanced than "any suffering, tested by pain signals to the brain, at all makes life worthless and not worth living" the basic argument doesn't follow, on suffering grounds at least as suffering does not immediately equate to "evil / bad" (the athlete suffers, etc.).
However, what's clear is anti-natalism is fundamentally anti-Kantian, the basis of the categorical imperative is that others have intrinsic value which is the basis to assume one's own intrinsic value (which is a necessary assumption to assign value to anything about oneself including any philosophical conclusions). Due to this foundation of Kantianism, the argument can't be derived that people shouldn't have babies as then one is arguing oneself should not have been born and one has no value. I.e. the maxim that "no one should have babies" cannot be universalized without collapsing the foundation of Kantianism; likewise, the maxim "people should have babies all the time as much as possible" also can't be universalized as that would convert people to the means to the end of making more babies, but people are ends in themselves; in other words, 'maybe people should have babies sometimes" is the only Kantian position here.
No one is obligated to the species, only individuals. If the outcome is no species, that would simply be the consequence. No one is beholden to a species though. As far as kingdom of ends, it would be about a future person who WOULD be the recipient of harm. All that matters is, that someone would be harmed when it could have been prevented. The kingdom of ends is not bypassed because at point X that person does not exist yet. Putting someone in a condition of harm, when it could have been prevented would be indeed a violation of the categorical imperative.
Kantian moral philosophy relates to present rational beings endowed with a will, and nothing else.
“.... rational beings, on the contrary, are called persons....”
End of story.
Great, so Kantian philosophy would think that if person A did not exist in second 1, but what person B did in second 1 would affect negatively person A in second 2 when person A did exist, then it would be ok, because in second 1 person A did not exist yet? I don't think so.
If no one existed in sec 1, how would they do anything in sec 1?
Doesn’t matter. You’re perfectly entitled to think what you like, interpret Kant any way you wish.
I rewrote the post to be a bit more clear.
Having sexual relations with someone is forbidden if the ruling authority would object to that. In the end, that is all that matters, because who else could be in a position to enforce anything to the contrary? There are lots of situations where women are not even asked for their opinion. History is full of them.
Occupation by Soviet troops. When Yugoslav politician Milovan Djilas complained about rapes in Yugoslavia, Stalin reportedly stated that he should "understand it if a soldier who has crossed thousands of kilometres through blood and fire and death has fun with a woman or takes some trifle." On another occasion, when told that Red Army soldiers sexually maltreated German refugees, he reportedly said: "We lecture our soldiers too much; let them have their initiative."
The sexual relations that Djilas complained about were not illegitimate because the ruling authority approved of them. It is not realistic to expect soldiers to be more disciplined than strictly necessary. Furthermore, the ruling authority had better approve of sexual relations whenever practical, because otherwise it will not stay the ruling authority for long.
By a Kantian ethics I mean one in which it is the nature of the act - as opposed to its actual consequences or the character of the agent who performs it - that is the focus, and additionally where consent plays a central role in determining the ethical quality of that act.
Er, the person you will have created exists at the time you create them - and can thus be affected by the act of creation.
People - lots and lots of people - are grateful for having been created. Are they irrational? (No) If being created is not something that affects you, what are they grateful for?
Again, assume you know that any person you create will live a life of immediate and unending agony. If you create that person the first moment of pain negatively affects them, yes?
Imagine Jane knows that if she ingests a certain drug prior to conception, then any person that results will be deaf and blind and mentally retarded. She takes the drug. Has she negatively affected the person she creates? (Yes, obviously).
Presumably you would agree that killing someone affects them - yes? So if taking someone out of existence can affect them, then so too can bringing someone into existence.
But really this is beside the point. I mean, just imagine that those who procreate are not creating new persons but rather bringing into this realm persons who already exist in another. After all, that's possibly true. Well now even you would surely agree that procreative acts significantly affect someone without their consent, yes?
Now we do not know whether acts of procreation genuinely create a person who did not already exist or whether they force someone who already exists to live a life here. But it seems implausible to think that the morality of procreation hangs on which one of those possibilities is actual.
Why might that be? I suggest it is because either way, the act of procreation significantly affects someone without their prior consent and that is the morally relevant feature of such acts.
Labels ultimately do not matter. But 'Kantian ethics' and 'Kant's ethics' are not the same, the former being far broader than the latter and not held hostage to the letter of what Kant's writings.
An argument, such as the one I have made here, that focuses squarely on the nature of the act rather than the character traits of the agent or the actual consequences of the act is deontological and, because it focusses on consent, is Kantian in spirit.
Unfortunately, this isn't an accurate summary of Kantian ethics.
Quoting Bartricks
Clearly they do not. The word "creation" refers to bringing something into existence. If whatever we are talking about already exists, we are not creating it.
You can even see that you are contradicting yourself by looking at the grammatical construction of this sentence. Things you [I]will have done[/I] cannot be already done.
Quoting Bartricks
But only because they already exist at the first moment of pain.
Quoting Bartricks
But the person would - could - never have been anything other than deaf, blind and retarded. How can we establish this is a negative affect without a comparable alternative?
Quoting Bartricks
This does not follow. The two statements have no logical connection.
Quoting Bartricks
Sure. If we're baselessly speculating, that's possible.
Quoting Bartricks
So, if we have to consider all possible options, what about the possibility that the souls, before they are incarnated, exist in a living hell much worse than this life, and all desperately wish to be born? Or maybe only the souls that press the big red button of consent are incarnated?
My point is that that Kantianism is not synonymous with deontological ethics. Your title is "The Kantian case against procreation".
If Kantians here on the forum let is slide, people may assume anti-natalism is easily derivable from Kantianism. I'm not saying it's impossible to make such an argument, but I'm pointing out you haven't provided one which you yourself admit:
Quoting Bartricks
Well labels do matter, else you wouldn't try to make the distinction between 'Kantian ethics' and 'Kant's ethics' in the next sentence. And indeed all words are labels for things, be those things objects or concepts or cultural processes of some sort. "Labels" don't matter is an adage usually about labeling people and then assuming those labels constrain those people's actions, beliefs or potential for growth. A pharmacists would certainly defend correct labeling of things in their context.
As for the content, I agree Kantian Ethics is not synonymous with Kant's ethics, which is why my response focused on core principles of Kantianism, not simply pointing out that if Kant was an anti-natalist he probably would have said so.
Kant places fundamental value, more fundamental than the categorical imperative, on one's own value as well as society as a body politic. The direct corollary to that is that propagating society through births is also good (though not obligatory as that would turn people into the ends to the means of propagating society: i.e. it's not an obligation but it's not immoral to have babies, nor separate from circumstances).
I don't see anyway to go from Kants core principles to anti-natalism, and since that's not even your objective I'm just clarifying to the people unfamiliar with Kant that the title of your post does not match the argument you are trying to make. It's reasonable people dropping in here maybe expecting Kantians to weigh in on your title, so I am contributing this.
For your argument in terms of a different, not-Kantian, deolontologic argument for anti-natalism, I don't have any major contribution that other posters don't already seem to be getting at; but if I see something amiss I will contribute.
If you ask my own position, it would be the Kantian argument of "babies sometimes" outlined above; the consent argument (again which is not a core Kantian principle, as civil society, which Kant is for, does things people don't consent to all the time; is the defining feature of government), other posters seem to be adequately addressing.
Anyway, I do not want to get embroiled in a pointless debate over labels. I have not incorrectly used the term 'Kantian' in referring to the argument I am focusing on in that way. But by all means put whatever label you like on the argument - called it 'Terry' if you like - just focus on it.
If you cannot affect someone by creating them, kindly explain how you can affect someone by destroying them - and explain in a way that will not allow me to say the same about creating someone or that will not just involve making some arbitrary stipulation that has no support from reason.
As you think you like logic, here's an argument and you tell me which premise you dispute, or the first premise you dispute if you dispute more than one of them.
1. It is default wrong to do something to someone that significantly affects them without their prior consent and wrong because it significantly affects them without their prior consent.
2. If people exist before they are born into this world, then procreative acts significantly affect others without their prior consent.
3. Therefore, if people exist before they are born into this world, then procreative acts are default wrong and default wrong because they significant affect others without their prior consent.
I am just trying to get clear whether, for you, the success or otherwise of the Kantian argument I have made depends crucially on whether people pre-exist.
No. Kant is all about respect - respecting that which has value, rather than 'promoting' that which has value.
For example, Kant is all about respecting free will. How does one do that? Well, not by creating lots and lots of creatures who have free will. That's what a consequentialist would do - they figure out what's valuable and then seek to create as much of it as possible. That's precisely NOT what a Kantian - or Kant - would do. You respect the intrinsic value of free will by allowing others to make their own decisions. What your free will allows you to do - make decisions - you should allow others to do with theirs, otherwise you're not respecting their free will because you're acting as if your free will is special.
So, the fact you think that, having established that X is valuable, Kant would then proceed to promote that value shows that you don't understand Kant's view, or a Kantian view.
Anyway, let's put all this blither blather to one side and just focus on the actual argument. I mean that was the point of this threat - to focus on the argument, not discuss what label to put on it or what some long dead Prussian might have thought about it.
Your title is "The Kantian case against procreation" then you go on to say that you don't really mean to bring Kant into it, just want to discuss a deontological argument you propose. I have no problem with this, but it seems reasonable for Kantians to point out the argument doesn't seem to follow from Kant's framework and outline the reasons why (for people interested in Kantianism who click on a thread starting with the word Kant).
My argument of why it's difficult to derive anti-natalism form Kant's ethics was an outline, to backup my claim that your OP maybe a deontological argument for anti-natalism but does not seem to me Kantian. You provide no reason in your OP of why your title is an accurate description and then clarified you just want to discuss your argument as it is, that the label Kantian doesn't matter to you, which is fine, I just don't have much to add on-top of other posters who have already spoke.
Now it seems the label Kantian does seem to matter to you, and discussing that is fine too, it seems relevant to the title of the thread.
I do not say Kant places "supreme value" on the individual, but fundamental value.
This fundamental value is posited in order to assign value to thoughts and conclusions. If I have no value, my conclusion that I have no value has no value; which is a problematic starting point for thought and action.
Kant also places fundamental value on civil society, that duties and justice depend on participation in civil society. If one were to "opt-out" of civil society, Kant basically accepts that "law of the jungle" arguments would be valid, and so places a moral obligation to enter civil society relation if one can, in order for right action to be determinable.
Kant doesn't necessarily say these are the "supreme good" but they are good things in Kant's system.
The typical problem of anti-natalism in Kant's system is that it implies oneself and society should not exist, this undermines the above core principles. Oneself and others have value in Kantianism, "one does not wish for oneself to not-exist". In other words the principle is not universalizable, one wishes ones own existence despite one not "deciding to be born", and therefore one gives the benefit of the doubt that other people who likewise did not "decide to be born" also merit existence.
These value argument about oneself and society precede arguments of "right action" in civil society, which depends a lot, as you say, on respecting everyone's free will and as ends in themselves.
Keep in mind also that Kant is a deist, and holds typical views that creation has meaning and humans are created from a divine source, so "being born" is perhaps mysterious but isn't bad.
Now, you can take away Kant's deism, take away assigning value to society, take away assigning value to civil society, take away assigning value to oneself, and with these qualification and still call such as system Kantian. If you make it clear you're not interested in these aspects of Kantianism, ok (if you explain your label, I have no problem discussing henceforth with that explanation for this discussion).
Or, you can attempt to show that anti-natalism follows reasonably from deism, assigning value to oneself and one's birth, assigning value to society and it's continuation (up until now at least).
But I have not seen such an argument; your argument seems very focused on consent, which plays a part in many moral and legal questions in Kantianism but isn't fundamental; Kant does not try to derive all moral questions from consent. Maybe other Kantians view things differently, or you are able to cite any of Kant's writing that would lead us to take consent as fundamental in Kantianism.
As a clarifying note, free will and consent are not the same thing. There's lot's of things civil society allows and other people do generally that I don't consent to, and there's no argument in Kantianism that my consent is required; sometimes consent is relevant and sometimes not.
Quoting Bartricks
The concept of value doesn't somehow disappear in Kantianism or deontological system generally. When Kant says "treat others as ends in themselves, not means to an end" this is assigning value to individuals beyond the value they can contribute to some other goal. Individuals have value and thus should be respected. Kant values a lot of things.
Kant values justice and then promotes justice, maximum justice. Kant values truth and promotes more truth being discovered and being available to people, maximum truth (too maximum truth for some people, that this is the usual criticism of Kant). Kant values the individual's moral autonomy and promotes respect for individual moral autonomy. Kant value society and promotes the continuation of society.
Kantians generally don't view consequentialists as doing something fundamentally different in moral philosophy, just doing it in a seemingly clever but actually stupid way. It seems clever to talk of "happiness maximization", but if this concept can't be actually be constructed without reference to the good (and no consequentialist, utilitarian, emotivist has ever done so), then you require a deontology to input into your "happiness maximizing" scheme: the same moral philosophy would result (if one wasn't so happy to be doing economics in the interim that the scheme actually gets completed someday). That consequentialists require determining what is valuable does not somehow exclude deontologists, much less Kantians, from also determining what has value.
As mentioned, having "as many babies as possible" is not universalizable as this turns people into the means to the end of having babies, but neither is "no babies including myself should ever be born" without collapsing the basic premise of Kantianism (that oneself has value, enough to reason and draw meaningful conclusions and the capacity for right action), so the straightforward Kantian conclusion is "babies sometimes". I do not see any counter argument to this in what you have written.
A.) “....Kant is all about respect - respecting that which has value, rather than 'promoting' that which has value. For example, Kant is all about respecting free will...”
B.) “......You respect the intrinsic value of free will...”
Antithesis, and for the correcting of the record:
A1.) “...The immediate determination of the will by the law, and the consciousness of this, is called respect...”
A2.) “...The object of respect is the law only, and that the law which we impose on ourselves and yet recognise as necessary in itself...”
B.) “...There is, however, something so strange in this idea of the absolute value of the mere will, in which no account is taken of its utility, that notwithstanding the thorough assent of even common reason to the idea, yet a suspicion must arise that it may perhaps really be the product of mere high-flown fancy...”
Like bringing an antithesis battleship to a thesis knife fight.
So you're bringing a picnic to a knife fight.
Yes, it is, because what you said he said, or what you think he means by what he said, is wrong.
I don’t care about your procreation foolishness; I care about butchering Kant by associating him with it.
——————
Quoting Bartricks
I am under the impression by another, you mean an unborn human person. Is that correct?
And you’re implying Kantian ethics either supports or contributes to that argument, Correct?
You might be right. But I’m correcting what you think Kant means, using Kant’s words for what he means, and they are not the same.
But anyway, the claim is that if an act affects someone else in a significant way then it is default wrong if the affected person has not consented to be affected in that way.
So not all acts that affect others without their consent are wrong, because some affect others in utterly trivial ways. And not all acts that affect others in significant ways without their consent are wrong either, because in many such cases there are other considerations in play that either cancel the wrongness that such acts would otherwise have, or countervail it with greater rightness.
For example, it seems self-evident that, again by default, we do not have obligations to do things we are incapable of doing. If, as you falsely claim, everything I do will inevitably affect another person without their consent, then this does not give rise to any obligation for me not to do anything, for that is not something I am capable of doing.
This is consequentialism not deontology. You are deeply confused it seems.
Now, do you believe that it is default wrong to do something that will significantly affect another person without their consent?
If your answer is 'no' then THAT will be our focus. If your answer is 'yes', correct - you get a Kant-shaped cookie
cheap bar tricks, in other words the sophistry of the barrister.
If my case is a sophistry, show me.
Quoting Bartricks
So being affected in a significant way without consent to it is not a real-world consequence?
Kant would not say raping someone is wrong because they suffer pain on account of the act, but because it is wrong to treat another as merely a means to an end...i.e. as merely a means to gratify one's own desires.
Rhetoric, hyperbole, histrionics, playing to the emotions of the jury, defending a client they may believe or even know to be guilty? That's not cheap and tricky behavior at the bar?
Yeah, I know. The blah blah blah is due to the lack of consent from the unborn person, and such is quite frightful to Kantian deontology because it de-values his intrinsic humanity. I am a Kantian deontologist, which presupposes I understand Kantian moral philosophy, which in turn is necessarily predicated on understanding his definitions, one of which is: “....rational beings, on the contrary, are called persons..”
An unborn person, in your usage, is not yet, and may never be, a rational being, and the entire Kantian deontological thesis is predicated on “...Rational beings in possession of a will...”.
Therefore, to a Kantian deontology view, procreation is not anathema, nor is it immoral, nor does it infringe on the intrinsic value of an person, because the unborn isn’t a person because it isn’t a rational being.
You shoulda referenced Bentham instead of Kant; you’d have been better off. Or even Ross, for that matter.
Enjoy your knife fight; you’re slashing at 65,000 ton shadows. Mothballed as it may be.
So, if they don't tell any outright lies or permit their clients to do so they have done nothing wrong from a legal point of view, but if they know the client is guilty, and they allow the client to plead innocence then that would already amount to allowing the client to tell a lie, would it not?
Even if they merely believe, as opposed to know, the client is guilty and yet defend him anyway would that not constitute a lie, since to defend someone is, by implication, to profess their innocence? How could doing that be understood to be serving justice?
And no, I mean what I say; I am not "fooling around". And I'm Australian, not English (thank God!).
It's one thing to say "alas, then, for you know a lot less than I give you credit for.", do you have anything else to say in the way of argument against anything I have said? Sure, none of what you said about protection of society, or about rules and understandings, or about serious crimes or about the justice system "making the world a better place for all" "counter any Kantian categorical imperatives". But then so what?
Are you denying that some lawyers defend those they believe or even know not to be innocent? Do you deny that to do so is morally, as opposed to legally, wrong from a Kantian perspective, because it constitutes telling a lie? Do you, in general, deny a distinction between what is legally wrong and what is morally wrong? If you say there is no such distinction, then I will have to return the compliment and say that alas, you know much less than I gave you credit for.
( Was there any need for you to indulge in insult, rather than argument, in the first place)?
But I had not denied having the common knowledge that you laid out there. The issue is over how we judge the general moral rectitude of the courts and the law, as they are, not in principle but in practice. So I was not being "disingenuous".
Quoting tim wood
The moral obligation is to do one's moral duty, which may conflict with one's legal duty, since there is, as you have acknowledged, a distinction between moral and legal duties and the two may certainly conflict sometimes.
I agree.
If someone takes £20 from someone else's wallet without asking, then that's wrong because they should have obtained consent.
If someone has sex with a three year-old, then that's wrong, not because they should have obtained consent, given that they can't have possibly done so, but because it is exploiting the child for sexual gratification, and the effects of child sexual abuse can include depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, complex post-traumatic stress disorder, propensity to further victimization in adulthood, and physical injury to the child, among other problems. An adult who engages in sexual activity with a child is performing a criminal and immoral act which is not considered normal or socially acceptable behavior.
And procreating an embryo, foetus, baby, or child, is simply not wrong, generally speaking. But if it was, it wouldn't be because consent had not been obtained. That makes no sense. It can't possibly have been obtained. You couldn't tell me that I should have gotten consent first, like in all other such situations.
Your argument is fallacious, as it commits a category error. It's no different in form than arguing that we shouldn't mow the lawn without first having obtained consent from the grass.
Your argument is dead. Let it rest in peace.
You seem to be again back to abandoning your argument as "Kantian", and simply focusing on the consent.
Other posters have outlined the problems in principle that you need to overcome, but you seem genuinely flustered by the people here not agreeing to your premise, which you have finally been kind enough to reveal that "lack of consent is wrong by default".
I've already mentioned that the, pretty big example in my view, that the basic nature of government is based on not getting everyone's consent of people affected by government actions, which are very, very significant. There are various theories that society in general or governments in particular can propose to prop-up "consent of the governed" ... but people don't have to consent to those theories. I.e. the government didn't ask my consent to tax me and threaten me with jail if I don't comply, and if the government or anyone else offers a rational justification that my consent is implied, well I didn't consent to have a significant and painful challenge to my belief system thrown at me.
Now, I think most would agree here that there can be just governments and unjust governments, but even concerning only just governments, an argument defending a just government can't possibly be based on the consent or everyone that government significantly affects. Not only a single person not consenting then makes the government "default wrong", but many can't consent, in particular unborn children. Now, I of course realize your advocating children not be born, but insofar as it's likely children will continue to be born anyway (for at least a time) how are the significant actions government takes in the meantime possibly justifiable if the (unfortunate as these births may be from the perspective of anti-natalism) unborn children aren't obtained.
I use the government as an example because anti-natalists are usually not for actively destroying society as it is now, but propose we get along, which includes having these governments around, and just let society peter out through not conceiving and giving birth. Insofar as this is the case, that your anti-natalist proposal is not by extension advocating throwing in the towel on any social organization at all mean-time, an idea of justice and good governance is required, which cannot be predicated on the consent of everyone, it just doesn't work as shown above. So, how do you deal with government actions that significantly affect people that do not consent, not only people alive today but the unborn?
To be perfectly clear, the lack of consent of the unborn in your proposal is relevant to it being right not to conceive them and wrong to conceive them, so it seems to follow that the lack of consent of the unborn (whether born to people that are acting wrongly and birthing new people or then to anti-natalists that made a contraceptive mistake) likewise cannot be obtained for government action today and so no government action (that significantly affects future people) is justifiable.
This is one hurdle, and I use government as the example because your idea that you can live peacefully and never significantly affect people without their consent is not because that's not what you do, but because those actions of yours are performed on your behalf through the agency of government you support through your quotidian arrangement, out of the way as it maybe, and participation in society. You are living in a dream world if you think this is not the case, and your peaceful tea drinking is the limit to your affect on others.
But there are other hurdles as well. For instance, it's generally recognized that surgeons should have the consent of their patients ... unless they can't get that consent, the default is not "this operation is a significant affect on this person and therefore wrong without consent" but the presumption is to save people's lives even if they are unable to consent, such as due to being unconscious, because individual life has value. Likewise, even when consent is possible it is not in itself sufficient to close the debate. Fairly young children can make informed consent, but the government does not respect the moral autonomy of children, but places it with the parents and even then can overrule the consent of the parents if there is sufficient cause to (i.e. that the parents are not acting in the interests of their children, as we usually suppose, and that interest cannot be derived from consent, as we've already decided that's irrelevant for this issue to even arise, but rather that the presumption that life has value; if we did not both A. presume a child's life has value and B. the child's consent to action required to protect that value is irrelevant, then there is no basis to intervene to protect children from harm, nor basis to intervene to protect children from self-harm that they do not consent to, and the argument simply repeats when we want to remove the consent society has displaced from the child to the parent).
Not only is the above lack of relevance of child consent in lot's of things a major cliff you'll need to scale (as other posters have already pointed out), since if we don't seek the consent of children to protect those children from harm on the presumption of their right to live then why is consent suddenly relevant before they are even alive for us to ignore their ability to consent until we decide otherwise? But it doesn't end there.
First responders and surgeons not only save the lives of the unconscious, but also the failed suicides, so if "well, we presume injured people would consent to live ... but we presume the unborn don't want to live!" is even an argument, how do you deal with saving the lives of failed suicides where there's strong evidence that there is no consent for such significant life saving measures.
Now, you can advocate for doctors not saving unconscious failed suicides, that the presumption that unconscious people want to be saved is not valid and therefore the presumption the unborn want to be born is not valid on similar grounds, that all actions significantly affecting children require their consent (i.e. feeding a baby requires consent as it significantly affects the baby to be fed or not), that no government action is justifiable if one person significantly affected does not consent to it including the unborn, and you'll still have the problems of principle to deal with that other posters have brought up.
My purpose here is to point out the enormous nature of the task you have set yourself; consent, as practiced today in society, is not straightforward at all like a "default wrong" that you suggest -- we easily cast it aside when more important things are at play (from arresting criminal suspects without their consent, to coercing everyone to pay taxes regardless of consent), when we don't find the consent credible (children and mentally ill), or consent is not available (unconscious or yet to be born) -- so you'll need to show us why when society ignores consent it maybe "default wrong" but actually right for other reasons that don't simultaneously undermine anti-natalism (the "right wrongs" that has been described to you), or then accept what seem like the obvious implications of your position which is no "significant actions" are ever justified including to do nothing and die (as loved ones are significantly affected by you thirsting to death too); which can be a coherent anti-natalist position as far as it goes (if we shouldn't be alive, we are perhaps in an impossible moral bind and nothing at all can be justified, except through careful reasoning that avoids the pitfalls of self-refuting nihilism, somehow we can still know that the only action that "for sure" is not justifiable amongst all the equally not justifiable actions, more wrong among only wrong actions, is to have more children).
:-\ :-/
It's an ontological statement, about what (or rather who, in this case) exists at time Tx.
You can't perform an act on a nonexistent at time Tx.
You have. It's quite annoying to see you butcher Kantianism in order to make it fit your preconceived notion. But since you blithely refuse to even consider any other view, there is no point in continuing.
Quoting Bartricks
Making people that exist no longer exist affects those people, since they loose everything.
Quoting Bartricks
If by "default wrong" you mean that exceptions have to be justified, like in the cases of self defense or implied consent, I don't have a problem with that argument. I wouldn't personally structure it that way, but it's fine for the purposes of argument.
......is “default wrong”: everything from birthday presents to battlefield dressings to....EGAD!!! Sending us to school without seeking our permission. No wonder I hated my parents.
It’s all so clear to me now.
But anyway, those who are fundamentally uninterested in philosophical discussions for fear that they may discover something is true that they don't want to be prefer, in my experience, verbal quibbles.
I am not going to reply to you any more until you address the actual argument rather than the label I have applied to it.
Engage the argument or go away and start your own thread in which you use whatever labels you want to attach to things.
It is often perfectly justified to do something to someone that affects them significantly without their consent. Often - though not invariably - it is justified to do something to someone without their consent if doing so is the only way to prevent them from coming to a significant harm, for instance. That's why it is morally justified to force kids to go to school. But a) it is regrettable that we have to do this and b) it is not justified to create a situation in which this has to be done. That a large portion of our lives will have to be lived under the paternalistic dictactorship of our parents and state authorities is part of what makes forcing someone into this existence such a significant thing to have done to them.
This has surely got to be one of the worst kinds of ethical reasoning. Reasoning based off of purely imaginary and impossible (or practically impossible) alternatives. Like, yeah, parents and teachers are so bad, because ideally little children should be free to look after and educate themselves.
As for what you say about governments and surgeons - which premise are you trying to challenge with these examples? Presumably this one:
1. It is default wrong to perform an act if doing it will significantly affect another person without their prior consent.
Yes? Well, a) how does it challenge that premise given that the premise does not say that it is always and everywhere wrong? You need to show that it is not even default wrong, not just that there are a whole range of scenarios in which it is overall justified - for by definition, that is consistent with premise 1.
Of course surgeons are often going to be justified in performing operations without a person's consent. But a) it is regrettable that they have to do without it (if, for instance, a surgeon performed an operation without getting the consent of someone who was perfectly capable of giving it, then we'd all recognise that what the surgeon did was seriously wrong; and when consent is impossible its absence is still bad, it just doesn't operate to make the act overall wrong because there are countervailing moral positives that make it overall right.
b) in the case of governments you can't seriously be maintaining that consent is irrelevant to their legitimacy? I mean blimey, there's a vast, vast literature on what it takes for governments to be justified in their activities and a great, great deal of it focusses on the issue of consent. So the fact that most citizens in a community have not, in fact, given explicit consent to be governed is an age old problem - now, I am not saying that some kind of extreme anarchist position is right, I am just pointing out that it speaks to the overwhelming plausibility of premise 1 that virtually every political philosopher there has ever been recognises that there is an issue here that needs to be thought about, not just dismissed.
I told you what's wrong with it.
Quoting Bartricks
You are actually, by logical implication, because you're arguing for your ideal, and in your ideal there are no children being educated. There are no children at all. There isn't anyone at all, for that matter.
Yeah, that sounds lovely.
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, I am. And yes, I know. Not all things are default wrong, but one of the things you claimed as a default wrong, isn’t, the rebuttal sustained by the premier, original, foremost Kantian kind of response there could possibly be, therefore consistent with your argument. Attempted argument. Stab in the dark argument.
The acts I mentioned align with your qualification for what are particular examples of default wrong, insofar as a significant act is done without consent from the object of the act, so I am arguing in accordance with the first positive major premise......and successfully refuted it, by proving the doing of a significant act is not wrong by mere default of non-consent. All without invoking Kantian ethics or labels, as you have so graciously disallowed.
Anywhooo.......Talk about someone not liking a philosophical discussion for fear he’ll find out something he doesn’t want to be true. Which of course you will deny with just the right amount of foot-stompin’ righteous indignation, but I’ll be in Canada by then, so.....have a ball.
An example: Tim only exists because his mum was raped. Now, to be in favour of Tim being educated do we have to be in favour of rape? Er, no - Tim wouldn't be here unless rape occurred, because that's what brought him into being. So, by your irrational lights that means that being opposed to rape is to be opposed to Tim and everything we might think we'd otherwise be obliged to give Tim. But I don't think as badly as that, and it seems quite obvious to me - and to anyone else who can reason their way out of a paper-bag - that it does not follow from one being opposed to Tim's mum being raped that one is opposed to Tim or to educating Tim. Blimey!! Try again.
I said I would accept the argument for the purposes of this discussion. Now, what next?
That's not what I said. Nor is it what you said in your last reply. You added the part about "those who have been brought into existence" as though no one would notice. Well, I noticed.
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, and it isn't difficult, through this thing you may have heard of called logic, to get from that to you being against children being educated, children playing on bikes, children being told bedtime stories, children going on holiday, children watching television, children gathered around the table eating dinner, children going swimming, children playing board games, children going camping, and so on, and so forth. You are very obviously against all of that, ultimately. I hope you've thought this through properly. It would be disingenuous to make out as though you are fine with all of that, when your ideal consists of none of it.
And that's why your stance will always be infinitely more silly.
You don't want to argue your point about the label, but you're certain your right about that point and arguing about it?
Maybe, in other contexts, against less experienced debaters, maybe you'd be scoring a point by trying to "be above labels and focused on content", and maybe you're imagining even now that because in some hypothetical realm you've scored a point that you've scored a point in this realm. Well it's time to get for realz.
I've already said that if you don't want to discuss the label, fine, let's discuss the content, but then you have to accept that people may point out why you may have mislabeled your argument. If you don't care about labels, then your point of "go make another thread about it then", is a good one, another point in the hypothetical realm where nothing needs be connected or your discussing with people who don't know how to argue.
But you do care about labels as you insist your right about the label and I'm wrong. Your insistence is incompatible with your claim you don't care about labels and is also incompatible with your claim that people who want to argue about the label should do so in another thread: You are arguing about the label!
Quoting Bartricks
This is exactly what arguing about the label looks like. You say you're right and I'm wrong, the exact format we'd expect of a difference that merits arguing.
Simply cause you started the thread doesn't give you some "last word right" about a claim. If you really do want that argument to be elsewhere, what's coherent with that desire is "well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't, people can start a new thread to discuss that, but I'm not interested in the label so let's get back on track". But you don't say this, you insist you're right, without citing Kant, any secondary sources of Kant, anyone defending the idea that the name Kant now represents a whole class of ideas that may include things radically incompatible with anything Kant ever said, nor have you offered such a commentary.
Furthermore, I've already stated I'm fine with you continuing to call your argument Kantian if you clarify what you mean by that. I've described, in my view, the core elements of Kantianism that make Kantianism incompatible with your argument. If you said, well "my version doesn't include any of that, and Kantianism to me is just about respecting consent", I've already stated I'd be willing, for the purpose of this discussion, to continue with your definition of Kantianism.
It may surprise you that I also don't care about labels, I care about meaning; it just so happens that we can't just magically infuse our words with the meaning we want, we need to use social conventions to get started (i.e words and what they would usually mean in the given context). To me Kantianism is not a social convention describing what you want in this context, and so just liable to just create confusion; now, if you want to give me a long history lesson to show I'm mistaken, and most people are not confused by the social convention (i.e. words) and how your using it, great; maybe I am wrong. Now, if you don't care about history or what the social convention is, you can just say "well, maybe it is and maybe it isn't, but I'm making a new social convention and by Kantianism I mean such and such"; or you could follow the convention in such contexts and coin a new term like "anti-natalism Kantianism" to indicate your attempting to make the intersection of these two concepts.
There are lot's of options other than just insisting that your right but also insisting that you need not back up your reasons that you think your right because the point doesn't matter to you. That's just a silly position.
Quoting Bartricks
Probably? Literally the reference to your premise is in quotes in the second paragraph of my argument:
Quoting boethius
Again, maybe in another hypothetical realm where I mentioned you "revealed your premise" but then went onto argue something without making explicit what premise I'm talking about, point for you. In this realm, unfortunately, it's a silly mistake to not read someone's criticism and then take the high ground of linguistic accuracy (again, incompatible with the wanton labeling move, a very imprecise game).
I'm not even citing myself way-back somewhere, but the exact post your replying to.
Quoting Bartricks
No, I don't need to show anything.
You don't understand my point, read it again.
I'm saying, let's assume it's default wrong; first question for you, what principles come into play that override the "default wrong" for cases of surgery? If it's the presumption that the person wants to live, why not apply the same principle to the pre-conception unborn. Why does the "default wrong" not important in one case, but suddenly is important in the next?
These are questions for you, based on your premise.
And you explain:
Quoting Bartricks
Ok, so it's regrettable we can't ask the unborn pre-conceived, let's assume that's bad, just like the surgeon who still operates because of countervailing moral positives, anyone wanting to conceive can invoke the same countervailing positives to justify conceiving a baby.
Or not? What are the countervailing positives, why do they matter in one case and not the other?
Quoting Bartricks
Did I say that? Please cite me if you think I said that.
Quoting boethius
I explicitly say "an argument defending a just government can't possibly be based on the consent or everyone that government significantly affects". Everyone, does this imply I'm saying "consent is irrelevant", or am I saying literally " an argument defending a just government can't possibly be based on the consent or everyone that government significantly affects" because that's what I literally said.
I'm aware governments try to seek consent of people on occasion, sometimes even most of them.
That leaves whole classes of cases where the government ignores consent. Consent of individual that disagree with the government and don't consent to anything (do we care about that, no). Consent of suspects under arrest. Consent of children.
Most importantly ...
Quoting Bartricks
Yes! There is a lot of literature and theories, and none of them obtain the consent of unborn preconceived children!
If it's not legitimate to conceive a child without their consent, what's the legitimacy basis of the government which also operates without consent of the unborn preconceived? And in so operating, significantly affecting these future children of parents that didn't get the anti-natalist message as well as anti-natalists that made a mistake and birthed a child.
Isn't the whole government default wrong by your definition? What's the countervailing moral positives to justify it compatible with your premise? (a great many theories incompatible with your premise don't help your case)
If "perpetuating society in a coherent fashion possibly with the consent of, if not everyone, at least a bunch of people (but not children, never children)" is a countervailing moral positive that makes government ok, why can't parents chime in and say "we're perpetuating society too and that's a countervailing moral positive that makes it all overall good, despite the lack of consent of the unborn preconceived being in itself regrettable".
Quoting Bartricks
Again, read:
Quoting boethius
I say "but even concerning only just governments", so I'm not even talking about dictatorships and bad governance. Of course political philosophers have thought about consent, it's called democracy. But does democracy represent even everyone alive consenting to it? No. Does democracy represent the consent of people yet to be born? No.
What's the justification of government based on your premise?
It seems to me there is no justification based on your premise, and why would you even be concerned about that? Why not embrace the end of society that anti-natalism entails?
Now, one option you have is to indeed say "that's correct, we should not have babies and we should not have government, let's speed up the end when and where we can".
Another option is to bring in more premises that somehow justify government but not having babies. You've referenced the "vast, vast literature on what it takes for governments to be justified" which parts of this vast literature view the preservation of society as irrelevant to government? I think you will find if you cared to read part of this vast literature, most of the authors assume preserving and perpetuating society is a good thing and the main activity of government (if not actively, making conditions favorable to it happening); if they (these political philosophers) are backing you up about justifying the idea of government, why are you dismissing anything they've said about preserving society. Can you find even one theory that's justifying government to preserve society but ... only until everyone is dead of old age because there are no more children.
You want anti-natalism to be true but you also want government to continue in order to live your comfortable tea-drinking life, it's up to you to show how these are compatible. You can't just say "well, people have justifications for government"; it's likely a great many of them would disagree with anti-natalism, so some new arguments are required.
Anyway, here is the argument - the Kantian argument (that you can call Terry if you prefer) - again.
1. If an act will affect another person in a significant way without their prior consent then it is default wrong
2. Procreative acts significantly affect another person without their prior consent
3. Therefore procreative acts are default wrong
Note, the conclusion is not that all procreative acts are wrong, or even that any are, for it is possible that all procreative acts are ones in which there are other morally relevant considerations in play that make the act overall morally justified or simply cancel the otherwise wrong-making quality of the feature described in 1. (If you think that is in fact the case, say and explain what those other features are).
Note too that premise 1 does not say that if an act affects another person in a significant way without their prior consent that it is therefore wrong. It says it is 'default' wrong.
Premise 1 is very weak, which is precisely why it is going to be extremely hard to deny. I mean, I just don't see how one reasonably can deny it.
Nevertheless, that does not establish that procreative acts are wrong, but it does set up a burden of proof. They are wrong 'other things being equal'.
What you need to do is describe a case taht is relevantly analogous to a case of procreation - that is, a case in which another person is significantly affected without their prior consent - but which is obviously morally fine.
If or when you present such a case I will simply look and see what the most plausible explanation is of why the consideration mentioned in 1 is not making the act wrong and see if that consideration is present in typical procreation cases.
For example, take the case of a surgeon operating on an unconscious person without their prior consent.
Well, for this to be a case in which the surgeon's actions are obviously morally fine, it would need to be a case in which failure to perform the operation would result in something significantly bad happening to the patient. Yes? I mean, let's say I am ugly and I happen to be unconscious. A surgeon decides to give me facelift without my consent. Now, obviously that's wrong and seriously so. And it is wrong even if I actually like the resulting face. It's wrong.....wait for it......because the surgeon didn't get my consent.
But in a case where I will die, or even one in which, unless the surgeon does something, my face will be scared for life, and there is no time to wait for me to regain consciousness, then I think virtually all would agree that the surgeon would be morally justified - probably obliged - to operate on me, despite the lack of consent.
Do examples of that kind suggest that procreation is morally okay? Not at all, for it is blindingly obvious why, in this case, the surgeon ought to operate - it is to prevent something incredibly bad happening to me. Yes? So, although acts that significantly affect others without their prior consent are default wrong, they are sometimes right when not performing them would result in a significant harm to the person in question.
Clearly this does not apply to procreative acts. Procreation does not prevent something bad happening to the person who otherwise would not be created - as I said in my opening post (maybe you should re-read it).
So arguing that surgeon cases like the one I described provide some kind of telling evidence that procreation is morally fine is as unreasonable as thinking that they provide some kind of telling evidence that it is fine for surgeons to go around giving unconscious people facelifts willy nilly.
What about your government cases? Well, exactly the same applies. They're simply not relevantly analogous to procreation cases. So all you're doing is pointing out that sometimes we are plausibly justified in doing things that significantly affect others without their prior consent - which isn't in dispute.
If it's not about labels why insist you're right about the label? You keep going on discussing the label all while denying that it's important to you to discuss.
Quoting Bartricks
You do not seem to understand the discursive method being employed here.
I hope it will become clear to you in time.
Quoting Bartricks
Where do you see me denying your conclusion? Please cite me.
My first goal is to explore what your premise implies in other areas.
I agree that if your premise is true, and your premise implies "babies are bad to conceive because we can't get the yet-to-born-and-grow-into-an-adult person's consent makes it default wrong" then your premise also implies "government is default wrong be we likewise cannot get the consent of yet-to-be-born-and-voting-citizens".
Now, to solve the surgeon issue of consent on unconscious patient you invoke "more good than harm" so "default consent is regrettable but we don't care about it in that situation, and you can apply the same to government "more good than harm", but then parents can also apply it to children "having children does more good than harm".
My argument is that your premise and reasoning structure to get from "lack of consent is default wrong" to "conceiving babies is default wrong", if consistently applied also applies to governments being default wrong.
Your only counter argument to this is a vague reference to "arguments somewhere that justify governments" that reside in a vast literature, or then simply denying it's relevant:
Quoting Bartricks
Did I say it's an analogy? No, I'm trying to apply the principle of morality of "lack of consent is default wrong (if it significantly affects the person)" to government. You've proposed a principle, but you seem to think principles can't be applied elsewhere.
Quoting Bartricks
Great, this isn't in dispute, so I guess you agree that as long as parents are plausibly justified in having children then all's ok, even if that significantly affects their yet-to-be-born baby. That argument structure isn't in dispute. Case seems to be closed.
But keep in mind, I am not denying your premise here, you're denying your premise by arriving at contradictory treatment of your premise.
What I am trying to demonstrate to you is that your argument does not live in a quarantine.
You seem to be perfectly happy over-ruling your premise in the case of the surgeon, in the case of children, in the case of government. But then what does "default wrong" even mean if we dismiss it so easily?
You want to live in a status quo world where the water runs and the tea flows, and you want to rely on completely normal and usual arguments that prop-up the status quo, but then, with surgical precision, you want to excise the minimum out of the status quo where it concerns people being happy about parents conceiving babies, most of the time, and carefully insert a stent of your new premise that implies conceiving babies is always bad, no one should do it, without disturbing any other organ of the body politic.
This is an incredibly difficult task. Any tiny mistake and you end up with uncontrolled bleeding of the status quo: that a surgeon is wrong to force their (much less the government's) view of right and wrong onto their unconscious patient to make a plausible case that their doing more good than harm, that of course we need to ask children consent about everything (if we are worried about consent before their born it's preposterous to then immediately ignore it when they can make some physical sign of what they want), and certainly government's need just as much as parents the consent of the unborn for any action that will significantly affect the unborn (it takes a village to raise a child and so the whole village is default wrong not getting consent about any actions that significantly affect the unborn child).
Once you navigate through all these issues, what I think you will find is that your argument is transforming with everyone of your posts to a consequentialist argument that the consent isn't really the problem, we easily ignore consent in every other case that it's logically impossible to resolve a situation based on consent, but rather the problem is the presumed harm the baby will eventually encounter.
Quoting Bartricks
This is your actual argument, and it does not mention consent, but rather not-procreating necessarily avoids all harm to the not-born-infant ... but it also necessarily avoids all good things too.
If the surgeon is "overall justified" in carrying out the surgery on the unconscious parent because it's likely to be more good than bad (saving the life, probably, is more good than the resulting pain and scars from being saved, in the moral system of the surgeon and not the patient, who we know nothing about and may have even just attempted suicide from which we can imply a disagreement with the surgeons ethics) then why not the parent if they too feel it's plausibly good conditions for their child; likewise, if we ignore consent of real children because it does more good than harm to them why can't we ignore the consent of the unborn-child on the same grounds; and, finally, if we view government and social institutions, despite their problems, as overall justified if they have a plausible case for doing more good than harm concerning the future of their citizens, again why aren't parents allowed to make the same judgement call to their future citizen (if you allow me for a moment to make the Kantian claim that people are sovereign, i.e. have rights, over their own bodies).
These questions are not simple to answer. Your premise is and your way of reasoning to your conclusion is a radical departure from how society has gotten along and what most people think is true.
Are you convinced that not only is your argument true but that it doesn't affect much the rest of the status quo, because you have some plausible grounds to assume "sure, this is a very different thing than most people believe and radically alters the course of society (to no longer existing), but of course has no other radical consequence" because you've really thought it through? Or, rather, because you prefer a cowardly disposition and don't want to be a position of advocating for the ceasing-to-exist of society but then potentially living uncomfortable tea-lacking situations of society ceasing to function due to insufficient consent of the people that would be significantly affected by society's activity to those ends.
Quoting Bartricks
Again, in another realm where you have actually put in the work to understand your own argument and it's implications, maybe this would be a point for you.
However, in this realm, you've just ignored most of the criticism you've encountered here, not just from me but the other posters (and I don't even have the worst criticism, of principle, just showing that lot's of other things seem to be implied by your principle which a brave person, if they were honest, would simply accept), which indicates a psychology in denial and doesn't want to question its world view, but wants the argument to be right to satisfy ulterior motives that the argument serves or then your own ego.
Or so is my hypothesis about your state of mind. Let's put it to the test, can you deal with not only the criticism in this response but can you go back and actually deal with all the criticism you've already received? Surely, someone who "don't 'want' antinatalism to be true" would take all criticism offered very seriously.
Thanks.
Though I did make one mistake on second reading ... I don't think it matters much, I'll still be up by a few dozen points. I do hope Bartricks sticks with the debate despite being pointless so far.
Quoting boethius
No I didn't. Why might a surgeon sometimes be justified in performing surgery on someone who cannot consent? When not doing so would result in a great harm to the patient.
Now, compare that to a procreation case. Does not creating someone result in a great harm to them? No.
So, sometimes - sometimes - we are justified in doing something that significantly affects another person without their prior consent when failing to do so would result in a great harm befalling them.
Quoting boethius
Yes, obviously. My point is that they are not. It is default wrong to do something that significantly affects another person without their prior consent. That's what procreating does. Thus, it is default wrong.
That does not mean it is actually wrong, as there may be other factors involved. But it means some kind of justifying reason needs to be supplied.
Return to the surgeon case. Is it default wrong to perform surgery on someone without their prior consent?
Yes. But often it is overall justified to do so because in many cases consent cannot be given and yet failure to perform the surgery would result in serious harm to the patient.
But that kind of justification does not apply to standard cases of procreation, does it?
Quoting boethius
That's just staggering arrogance masquerading as an argument. It's you matey who have not understood my argument.
My argument is very simple: it is default wrong to do something to someone else that has a serious affect on them and to which they gave no prior consent.
That's obviously exactly what procreating does. So it is default wrong.
What's Boethius done? Well, just pointed out that there are sometimes cases where it is not overall wrong to do something that will seriously affect someone else and to which they gave no prior consent.
Er, that's not something I deny.
So, what you applauded was a huge miss. Do you cheer at a football match when your side misses a goal?
I think it's a reasonable point to make, if one assumes what you call Kantian grounds. These grounds assume something like a utopia of free and equal adults. And that's strange, because it's the sort of utopia one would probably enjoy living in.
In our world, we're used to decisions be made by/for others. Parents punish children. Generals send soldiers into harm's way. We have people in cages for selling plants (with THC in them.)
So your point is logical given your assumptions, but I don't think people are swayed that way. There's an overall attitude about life being bad or good, parenthood being respectable or not.
I personally don't have kids. I was/am afraid of the expense, worry, and responsibly. So I am not 'pro-breeding' in my response.
Moving past that since I’m not a kantian and digging right at antinatalism.
The Hypothetical consent scenario; You have a time phone. It rings, it’s your parents. They want to know if they should use contraception. What is your answer?
Now before you answer, keep in mind that even if you say yes, and you are never born, it might not save your parents moral standing as they may change their mind a year later and all you’ve done is made sure you weren’t the sperm that made it.
Oh and you can’t sterilise the entire population either because you run right back into consent. Of which, you will not get 100% as I said before.
Yes. It. Is. Name the philosopher who drew the distinction between 'Kant's moral philosophy' and 'Kantian' moral philosophy.
If you can't, you're ignorant of what you're confidently pronouncing on.
Imagine I'm the product of rape. the rapist phones me and asks me if they should rape my mother. Would my answer - whether positive or negative - tell you anything about the ethics of rape?
No.
Likewise with your example.
Quite frankly though, if you’re going to make Consequentialist arguments I’d expect you to have read cummiskey at least since he’s one of the few people that believe kantian ethics is compatible with consequentialism.
Are you the product of a rape? If not I don’t see how this view is relevant to you and how you answer tells us a lot about how you view your parents which in term impacts your view of antinatalism.
So mr Antinatalist, why are you so angry with your parents?
To be honest I think the reason you won’t answer that question is because you don’t want to lie but don’t want to tell the truth either. The truth is, if your parents called and asked from the past you would probably say they should still have you, which doesn’t support your antinatalism view. However to say that they should use contraception and end your existence would be a lie for you wouldn’t it? The truth contradicts your own belief in Antinatalism though.
What I take exception to is people confidently pronouncing on matters they demonstrably lack knowledge about. You tell me confidently - as if you're my teacher or something - that what I have described as Kantian is not in fact Kantian. You just assume you know more than me. You demonstrably know less.
It is Kantian. You are clearly - clearly - unaware of a distinction commonly drawn between Kant's ethics and Kantian ethics. A distinction drawn by Onora O'Neill and that is now widely appealed to. This thread is not about Kant's ethics. It is not about Kant. It is about a consideration that is Kantian and about how it implies procreation is default wrong.
Note too, when a lot of equally ignorant people insist that someone who knows more than them is wrong, that's not good evidence that the person who knows more is wrong.
Anyway, this thread is not about labels - but don't keep insisting I am misusing them when you don't actually know what you're talking about or how to use them. Address the argument, not the label.
Then you say this:
Quoting Mark Dennis
Er, I'm not. Not remotely. You don't seem to understand the point I am making at all.
What point are you making? The antintalist view I hold is normative. That is, it is about how we 'ought' to behave.
Murders happen. They probably always will. That isn't evidence that murder is morally okay, is it? Likewise, even if most people will continue to procreate in the light of arguments that imply it is wrong, ,that isn't evidence that it is right. It is evidence - if any were needed - that most people are a bit rubbish.
And as for sterilising the whole population - well, I haven't argued for that, have I? But if it is seriously wrong to procreate then it could be justified to sterilise the whole population. Why do you think it wouldn't be?
But we make all kinds of exceptions to that norm. Parents control children 'for their own good.' The insane can be held against their will, etc. So your argument makes sense given you assumptions. But the Kantian norm itself is not binding. It's just one attempt among others to crystallize a vague moral intuition.
Quoting Bartricks
I agree that truth != what persuades.
These sorts of consideration do not apply to forcing someone into existence however. Failing to force someone to exist does not result in them coming to great harm, for they don't exist to be harmed.
So it is still unclear to me how you are challenging my case.
Also have you actually read Onora O'Neills work? She understands kantian ethics better than you do it seems.
After reading “Between consenting adults” it seems clear to me you do not understand Kant or O’Neills view on Kantian ethics, nor are you able to pickup on the class and political bias within the paper it seems.
Just so everyone else is aware, Onora O'Neill Is not an antinatalist, she’s a baroness in the House of Lords.
https://instructure-uploads.s3.amazonaws.com/account_100000000083919/attachments/24032268/2265350.pdf?response-content-disposition=attachment%3B%20filename%3D%22Onora%20O%27Neill.pdf%22%3B%20filename%2A%3DUTF-8%27%27Onora%2520O%2527Neill.pdf&X-Amz-Algorithm=AWS4-HMAC-SHA256&X-Amz-Credential=AKIAJDW777BLV26JM2MQ%2F20191023%2Fus-east-1%2Fs3%2Faws4_request&X-Amz-Date=20191023T221704Z&X-Amz-Expires=86400&X-Amz-SignedHeaders=host&X-Amz-Signature=a67f35f75c8aa3b15aedac92258765d5c0d8eebc3b250f12f527e5b81b612256
In conclusion Bartrick, you’re full of it. If this had been called “The deontological case against procreation and hadn’t brought up Kant you might have had an easier time of it. However since your arguments keep flipping between that and consequentialism whenever anyone points out the flaws in your reasoning and labelling it’s clear that even Kant and O’Neill would say you’re incapable of rationally consenting to anything, because you’re insane. So from that, in a hypothetical consent scenario if the insane person is claiming they wouldn’t want to exist, then we can logically surmise that the rational person would probably want the opposite.
I think if you were to ask anyone who has hit rock bottom, if they wanted to die or want their life to get better, most would answer the latter.
You shouldn’t want to force sterilisation on people by your own argument yet you’ve actually suggested that it would be justified even though by your own admission it is a default wrong.
This is my last, this is getting too laughable now.
Btw this is why in real philosophy we cite our sources. Do you think anyone would have taken Kant seriously if he hadn’t cited other philosophers in his work? O’Neill at least cited Kant.
Learn how to admit you’re wrong and people will judge you less for it. That’s my advice. Bye now.
Are you a representative of 'real philosophy'? I really don't think so.
I did not claim that Onora O'Neill is an antinatalist, I simply pointed out - for your convenience so that you can in future do a better job of pretending to know things you don't know - that she is the one made the now widely adopted distinction between Kant's ethics and 'Kantian' ethics.
I do not know why you have pointed out to me that she is a baroness rather than an antinatalist. The opposite of an antinatalist is not a baroness!
Why would I admit I am wrong when I'm right? You're wrong and your advice is rubbish.
Unless you’d care to admit that the person you brought up is wrong in her approach to Kantian ethics? Which would mean any work you’ve based on her is probably going to suffer from similar or in your case worse approaches.
Yes, so clearly widely adopted by all your critics here. I’ve actually got a Masters in applied ethics and your claim that it has been widely adopted is just not true.
If you understood how education in the UK worked, you’d know that her position as part of the elite meant that her being awarded a degree was going to happen whether she deserved it or not. Therefore should be met with extreme skepticism.
What do I know though, is you need to go back to school.
I don't believe anyone with an MA in philosophy would reason this badly. You seriously think all Kantians agree on substantial normative matters? Blimey.
Show me what's wrong with my argument. You know, do some actual philosophy like wot you did in your MA.
I guess I have a scattershot reaction. An antinatalist would, it seems, be against all procreation as consent violation. This entails a goal of preventing, if only by argument, and convincing others, all future human life, or perhaps any life that can experience suffering. These prevented lives are prevented without the consent of the potential life forms.
Second, as at least a partially consequentialist person, though actually I don't believe in objective morals, I prefer a universe with life, even life that can suffer,and I would guess that most life can suffer. IOW I do not accept consent violation as the value that overrides all other values.
Third, I think life carries with it its own consent. Life forms want to live, it is inherent in their nature. A person may change their inherent drive to live and thrive once they have been faced with experiences X and Y. We are not creating or causing a life that is reluctantly entering existance, but something that struggles with tremendous energy, the whole organism, to develop into more complicated forms, in the womb, and then to succeed at life once it is out. It may at some point change its mind, but we have no brought into existence some neutral entity. We have brought in another entity that also is scrabbling to have more life and will complain, from very early on, when anything remotely seems to be inhibiliting its development. It is not a tabula rasa, but something seeking to live and thrive from the get go.
Fourth, we are constantly doing things that potentially violate the consent of others. If we wish to remove the chance of violating the consent of other people, especially if we include the consent of people not yet existing, then we need to die. Any act of mine in the world, including putting forward antinatalist arguments, can have all sorts of unforseen and some forseen effects on potential beings and other present ones. I leave my house, I may set in motion effects that lead to people dying, even if that is not my goal If I argue against birth, then I am making choices for potential beings. If I vote, I am making decisions that will very likely affect future beings. I vote for Trump or I vote against Trump, either may lead to war or policies, in fact pretty much have to lead to some effects, that will kill or prevent the thriving of current or future children.
Of course a lot of these effects are side effects, whereas choosing to give birth - or at least to have sex - may very well entail the coming into existence of a being. But we are still bulls in china shops with all the actions we take in terms of the side effects of our continuing to live and make decisions. My being a pedestrian in a crosswalk can lead to the swerving of a car that kills a child. I need to erase myself as soon as possible to prevent myself from contributing to the consent violation of other people.
Sex and procreation are part of a flow that we desire, many of us. Antinatalism is asking us to override the desires involved. Heterosexual penetrative sex is pretty much ruled out, since pregnancy can result in a foetus. An organism now present in the world and already showing development, homeostatic regulation and if not destroyed a tendency towards becoming an independent life form. To stop it via abortion would be a consent violation. It is already here striving towards independent life. To say that heterosexuals should not have penetrative sex and potential parents should not have children, is to say that my value, if I had it, of no children being born, should override their values. Most people do this, iow most people do argue that their values should override the values of others and/or try to argue that the other people are being hypocritical. But as someone who doesn't see morals as objective, I don't see solid grounds for saying the values of people who want to have penetrative heterosexul sex or want to have children should bow down to the antinatalist value. And since I prefer a world with life and heterosexual penetrative sex, my preferences and the seeming preferences of life in general would be violated by the antinatalist meme. I can't say that it is wrong, since I don't believe in objective morals, but I prefer it not to hold reign over humans, though any individuals who don't want to procreate I don't have an issue with.
Imagine the last women alive do not want to have sex. Is it ok to rape them to continue the species? No. Why? Because it is important to respect their autonomy. It is more important to respect autonomy, than it is to continue the species - hence what our intuitions tell us about this kind of case.
Now, in arguing that it is wrong to rape the last women I am not thereby committing myself to the view that life is not worth living, nor am I committing myself to the view that all procreation is wrong. There may be exceptions.
Quoting Coben
So, by your lights nothing is actually right or wrong - we can just do as we like?
Quoting Coben
This is incoherent. The fact that someone might subsequently consent to what you've done to them does not mean you didn't disrespect them in doing it. Take rape. It is wrong to rape someone even if that person subsequently doesn't mind.
Quoting Coben
Yes, and it nearly always needs justifying (and often can be). The point is that it is default wrong, not that it is always and everywhere wrong.
For instance, take unavoidability itself - that often justifies what would otherwise have been wrong. But that doesn't work in the procreation case does it, because procreation is avoidable.
Quoting Coben
That's a wild exaggeration. The demand to remain childless is hardly overly burdensome (indeed, having children is burdensome as virtually all parents seem to confirm). And one can take reasonable precautions and, having done so, one is not then responsible should a pregnancy occur. And plus pregnancies can be terminated.
An analogy: it is wrong to knowingly infect another person with a venereal disease. Does that mean that one is obliged never to have sex 'just in case' one has one? No, that's absurd - there is just a responsibility to take precautions. Likewise in this case.
I'm not convinced of this statement, but that of course does not make it untrue.
Quoting Bartricks
You don't seem to have bothered to have read the argument.
Greater harm according to who?
Isn't letting the unconscious person just die avoid harms? Isn't this a lucky case where a person has returned to pre-conscious state and without intervention we can avoid all the harms that this person may experience if they continue to live?
This is the point in this example. The surgeon cannot know what the patient's definition of harm and not-harm is; the surgeon may also even have a basis, in some situations (such as attempted suicides), to assume the patient does not want to be saved.
Saving the patient cannot be based on the patient's consent and guarantees further suffering of one sort or another.
Therefore, if we don't know, and lack of consent is "default wrong", then the default position should be to do nothing for the patient if "default wrong" is to mean anything at all.
The surgeon is imposing their idea of morality on the unconscious patient without any thought at all of what the patient may or may not consent to. If the surgeon considers the the consent of others it will not be the patient but first the governing laws and who applies them, and only if these laws allow family members' thoughts to matter (cutting life support in brain-dead cases for instance) will the surgeon consider the thoughts of family.
You previously stated it's default wrong if there's no consent and it significantly affects the person; isn't the unconscious patient in such a position of no consent and any life saving action significantly affects them?
Aren't parents doing the same thing? Aren't they imposing their idea of morality on their future children in deciding to have and birth a child, without any thought of consent?
You have not explained how "default wrong" affects the case of parents but not of surgeons.
You want to fall back on "of course surgeons will save the patient, more good than harm" and have a completely normal view of the thing, but the normal view of parents having children is likewise viewed by society as, in itself, a good and happy thing. Most people, such as yourself, are not concerned about the consent of unconscious patients, but, likewise, most people are not concerned about the consent of the yet-to-be-conceived.
Furthermore, now your position seems not to have to do with consent but is:
Quoting Bartricks
Not only is this the consequential argument, not having children avoids harm to them, but it's an extreme version where it is assuming all children suffer great harm.
Parents obviously disagree. If you're argument is the birth process is painful to the new-born and there will certainly be other instances of pain, regardless of whether on the whole the infant grows up to be happy about life or not, as stated above we can say the same for the unconscious patient.
Please note, this seems to me exactly the same as for the unconscious patient: recovering from surgery will be painful, one maybe in chronic pain indefinitely, if living is generally bad we can assume this person's life will be generally bad if revived. Doesn't letting the unconscious person just die avoid these harms?
If you're argument is that others would be sad, isn't that incompatible with your Kantianism as everyone should actually be happy that all further harms to the individual has been avoided? And it's certainly not a Kantian's business if people are mad about being wrong about something?
Are you reverting back to your original argument that it's the lack of consent that's the problem? Or are you changing your argument to the extreme consequential argument that living entails lot's of suffering?
Please clarify.
Quoting Bartricks
First, to simply recap what I say above: doesn't letting the unconscious person die avoid further harm, especially if life in general is more harm than good? Where exactly is the harm if the surgeon let's an unconscious person drift off to death?
Second, whatever your answer to the above, why isn't having children one of these exceptions?
If a couple invokes your exception rule because either not-having children will make themselves sad and the potential-grandparents sad, or then because they view life in general more good than bad, or then because without children the old will suffer when there is no new generation to keep society running, or all of these and more reasons, seems they can just invoke your "sometimes - sometimes" rule.
Furthermore, if "more avoiding greater harm" can overrule consent, isn't avoiding greater harm the default principle? I.e. consent doesn't matter, what matters is the avoiding harm principle as the usual consequentialist anti-natatlist position?
And none of your answers even addressed the issue of government significantly affecting people, both currently living or yet to be born, all the time without consent. If you're reverting back to consent being the real issue rather that the presumption that being born is harmful (which seems to be the basis of your argument now), why are you fine with government disregarding the consent of children, the yet-to-be-born, anyone who rejects the social contract and refuses to consent to anything, why does "lack of consent is default wrong" not bother you in essentially any other case where we ignore consent without a second thought?
What was the point in saying that? It is true. I'm in an epistemically special position to know its truth, by dint of being me and thereby knowing far more about why I do things than you do.
Quoting boethius
I did, it is just not very good.
Your reply is also not very good. You are just blithely assuming an individual subjectivist position on harm - which is an absurd position in its own right and is also clearly not a view assumed by anything I have argued.
It is prima facie wrong to do something to someone else that significantly affects them without their consent.
My opinion that that is the case is not what makes it the case. It is self-evident to the reason of most people that it is prima facie wrong to do something to someone else if that act significant affects them without their consent.
IF someone has the opinion that what I have just said is false, their opinion is almost certainly mistaken. Why? Not because I say so. But because there is plentiful evidence their opinion is false. Namely, the widely corroborated rational intuitions of virtually all people.
In syaing that it is 'prima facie' wrong I am not saying that it is always and everywhere wrong. There will be lots - lots, note - of exceptions.
Pointing out these exceptions - which is all you've done so far - is, then, to ignore my argument.
It is as if I have said "2 + 2 = 4" and your reply is "no, for 2+ 3 = 5". I have said that to significantly affect another without their prior consent is prima facie wrong. You have replied by pointing out that there are many cases in which it is morally permissible, even morally obligatory, to do something that significantly affects another without their prior consent.
Er, yes. I know. That's consistent with it being prima facie wrong.
The point is that in the exceptional cases, we can 'explain' why this kind of act is overall right by pointing to the fact that, say, had the act not been performed the affected partly would have been even worse off, or some such.
Yet that is not the case in procreative acts.
Thus your examples provide no evidence against my conclusion. Deal with it.
What do you mean 'reverting'? I have said repeatedly that my case for antinatalism is 'cumulative'. That means I think there are numerous arguments - no one by itself decisive - that imply procreation is wrong.
Sometimes consequences matter. Although it is prima facie wrong to do something to someone else without their prior consent, it is not always wrong. And sometimes it will be right - often in cases where failure to perform the act in question would have dire consequences.
That's what explains why it is often morally permissible - sometimes morally obligatory - to perform life-changing surgery on unconscious patients, or to force children to go to school, and so on. In those cases - and many more we can conceive of - failure to perform the act would have dire consequences.
Dire consequences do not always make those acts that prevent them right. But they sometimes do.
However, in procreation cases there is typically no dire consequences that performing the act averts. Thus, what explains why many other act that affect others without their prior consent are morally permissible (sometimes morally obligatory) does not apply to most cases of procreation.
Being unable to defend many arguments does not a stronger argument make.
If lack of consent is a problem, switching to the suffering argument does not provide support for the consent argument. This thread (that you started) is on the topic of lack of consent. If you are acknowledging in your reply here that your lack of consent argument is insufficient to justify antinatalism, then we are finally in agreement. We have come a long way, but I am happy with the destination.
If you believe a bunch of arguments together justify antinatalism, I suggest you make a new thread with this "cumulative" argument and referencing the arguments that accumulate; either debates such as this one, which, though insufficient to justify antinatalism on its own, play some part in the cumulative argument scheme or then new debates that will to occur in the context of your cumulative structure.
I can - and have - defended each one! But all you do, when I make one argument, is point out that the argument does not entail that procreation is wrong. Er, I know. In each case we have an argument that implies procreation is prima facie wrong. And together they constitute a very powerful case. That's how cumulative cases work.
There's a Kantian case; there's a consequentialist case; and there's a virtue-ethics case.
All you've done, so far as I can tell, is respond to the Kantian case - a case that appeals to the fact we cannot chose to be born - by pointing out something that I accept and that poses no problem for my argument, namely that sometimes it is morally ok, even morally obligatory, to do something to someone without their prior consent.
No, that's an absurd suggestion. To make a cumulative case one would need to show that each argument had some probative force, and that would require making each argument. And so the opening post would then have to be thousands of words long.
Let's say I was writing a book on procreation - what would I do? Would I make the cumulative case in chapter 1 and spend the rest of it dealing with objections? No, that would make chapter 1 ridiculously long. I would devote a chapter to each argument and deal with objections to them as they arise. Likewise then, it is sensible here to make a case for each argument, rather than presenting them all at once in an overlong OP that no-one would read.
So anyway, what you should do is focus on the argument in the OP, which is a perfectly respectable argument. Pointing out repeatedly that the argument only establishes that it is 'prima facie' wrong and that sometimes an act can be justified overall even though it is one that was not consented to - and to represent that point as if it were a refutation - is ridiculous (yet that seems to me to be all you've done). No, what you should do is try to find a case that is relevantly analogous to a case of procreation - that is, an act in which something very significant is done to someone else without their consent - and that seems nevertheless overall justified by other features that are also present in cases of procreation. That you have not done, so far as I can tell.
This confused me a bit. How is it not the case that to be affected by something you must exist priorly?
Can something/someone nonexistent be affected by something/someone else?
What would that even mean? What would be the thing be affected if it's nonexistent?
No, something non-existent cannot be affected by someone else. But if you create someone, then that person exists.
So, although the non-existent cannot be affected, the act of procreation affects someone existent: namely, the person who has been created.
Our rational intuitions support this. For example, most people are grateful to their parents for having created them. What's one grateful for if the act did not affect one?
Plus, consider this case: imagine that Trudy knows that if she has a child, it will be born in agonising pain and die shortly thereafter. Now, surely Trudy does wrong if she has that child, and does wrong because of the harm her act causes to another. Yet if, to be affected by an act one needs to exist prior to the act being performed, then Trudy did not affect the child by creating it - and the first agonising moments of its existence will also not affect it. Yet that seems obviously false.
So it seems that although you need to exist to be affected by an act, you do not need to exist prior to the affecting act.
It seems to me, then, that you are conflating the 'existence condition' (which says you need to exist in order to be affected) with what we might call the 'prior existence condition' (which says you need to exist prior to an act in order to be affected by it). The 'existence condition' is true (I think), but the 'prior existence condition' is not.
This is correct. It is amazing that many people dont understand this concept that you dont have to exist prior to a certain point to be harmed ONCE you are actually brought into the world.
I guess Im not necessarily ready to forego the "prior existence" condition.
On the following basis:
It seems to me that there needs to be a certain sort of temporal symmetry when you affect someone.
The two agents need to exist simultaneously, in the same temporal reality before we can talk about any party affecting the other one.
Were you to claim otherwise, would that not be falling into a category mistake?
For instance, in your thought experiment, I would have a somewhat different interpretation. Whereas it seems that you would conceive that Trudy is affecting her child, I would construe it as Trudy doing something that will affect her child in the future.
It's a somewhat subtle distinction, but one nonetheless.
But all the same, that child will be affected once that future X time happens.
This is morally relevant. If I launch a rocket launcher at someone, surely they will be affected. I believe that would be relevant being that in future time X something probably negative will occur to that person.
It's in no way absurd. Plenty of people have written thousands of words to make an argument.
I also have zero problem with you not making such a case; you can if you want, but I'm not going to argue against a case you're not even making.
So an objection arose, that consent is not sufficient basis for antinatalism, you concede that this is the case but there are other arguments that together with this insufficient argument win the day.
You are free to make the next argument in your cumulative series in a new thread and you are free to insist on making it here, but in the latter case I do not continue; I like threads to stay somewhat on topic, that I am committing to a position relative the OP and not indefinitely committing to any alternative of "cumulative" argument apart from the OP (unless of course the OP presents some cumulative project). There's already a thread on the consequentialist argument for antinatalism, and if you don't want to continue that thread for some reason then you can make a new one on your next argument.
My suggestion of making a thread about your cumulative argument is if you want to discuss that; you now bring it up as representing your actual position, but if you don't see how to summarize it, no problem.
I don't see how, once you've failed to establish any one of these arguments individually justifies antinatalism you will be able to make some sort of meta-argument that uses the inadequacy of each by itself to form a formidable argumentative force together. Rather, it seems more likely to me that you are simply creating a perpetual goal post moving machine upon which you can ride away from each opponent to new greener pastures, confident that winning this race away from the previous field is the true strength and metric of victory. However, I am patient and am willing to wait to see if your project succeeds in ever getting to "this cumulative argument justifies antinatalism".
Here I'm concerned with your claims in the OP, and we agree your claims about consent are not sufficient to justify antinatalism. If you want to believe there exists a cumulative case that is too absurdly long to write for any critical investigation of it to happen ... but is nevertheless true, then I have no problem with you believing that.
As for your book analogy, though I agree many intellectual hacks go about writing books in the way you propose, there is, however, another approach to writing philosophical texts which is to assume the case is not one way or another until critical review of all the arguments are carried out to a sufficient standard. You seem to think that because you can imagine writing a book justifying your position that your position is justifiable; however, no such book maybe feasible to create, but rather key arguments (or even all the arguments) may have fatal and insurmountable flaws.
Your position now seems to be "I have no argument to justify antintalism to offer, but I am totally right about my antinatalism position and once I make such an argument over a long, potentially infinite period of time, the justification will have proof".
The alternative point of view is to see things as not justified until the sufficient proof in question actually exists.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Myself, and most of the earlier posters, have no problem with actions now affecting future children. This is even the basis of one of the main criticism of the OP; that there are plenty of actions other than conception and birth that affect not only future children but children in the here and now, a significant portion of such actions for which we are not bothered by a lack of consent (for instance, the functioning of government too affects future children without their consent).
However, if by "amazed that many people dont understand this concept" what you really mean is that you are just haphazardly throwing shade in random directions without any definition of what constitutes 'many' and what might justify amazement without any methodology to speak of, then I concede the point; it is amazing, as is a great many things.
They do exist simultaneously. The act of procreation is the act of bringing into being a person - so the person exists at the same time as the act does. The person does not exist prior to the act, but they do exist concurrently with it. And note that is all the existence condition requires. It is the 'prior existence condition' that requires prior existence - yet that condition simply seems false. For what would evidence of its truth look like? Well, the evidence would be that acts of procreation do not seem to affect those they bring into being. Yet acts of procreation clearly do seem to affect those they bring into being, for Trudy harms the baby by creating it (else why is her act so wrong?), and to be harmed is to be being affected.
So, there's positive evidence that the prior existence condition is false.
I like the way you don't actually address the point I was making. There's nothing wrong with using thousands of words to make a case. But there is something wrong - or at least unwise - in making one's OP thousands of words long.
And again, my other point was that you have not done anything to challenge my Kantian case. All you've done is point to different cases - cases that do not share relevant features with cases of procreation - and point out that in those cases it is overall justified to do something to someone else without their prior consent (something I have never disputed).
You also do not seem to understand how cumulative cases work. Now, I think the Kantian case is strong just by itself. And the same for the other cases. But let's imagine that each one is relatively weak by itself - that is, let's say that, taken individually, they only create a 1 in 6 epistemic probability that the act of procreation is wrong. Does that mean that the cumulative case - that is, the combination of all of those three cases - creates a 1 in 6 epistemic probability that the act of procreation is wrong?
No, obviously not. I mean, take a dice. If you roll it you have a 1/6 chance of getting a six. But what's your chance of getting a six if you have three attempts?
I think you're overestimating how big "thousands of words are"; it seems fairly common on the forum to see posts thousands of words long, unless by thousands you mean closer to a hundred thousand than a thousand.
Be that as it may, I was not recommending you write the entirety of this "cumulative argument", but if you wanted to discuss it, to write it's outline and reference or sketch these sub-arguments that would compose it and what conclusions you believe those sub arguments have. In other words, to proceed with "if all these other arguments conclude favourably for me, then by this cumulative argument I conclude with antinatalism".
For instance, some posters may believe that the structure of such as argument is unsound, and so regardless of the premises being true or not (perhaps all the sub-arguments really do conclude favourably for you) the conclusion does not follow from it's premises.
Likewise, some may discuss one weak link in the chain or then argue other links would not be necessary for you scheme to work (leading you either to perhaps focus on the most critical aspects or then to alleviate the work of defending other sub arguments if you become convinced they aren't necessary).
For instance, now you are saying that this consent argument in itself justifies antinatalism, so, through this discussion of your cumulative project, I have already relieved you of the burden of needing to write a whole book to defend your position.
Quoting Bartricks
I did answer the point, insofar as what's relevant to your OP.
We agreed this consent issue is insufficient to justify antinatalism.
Now that you've changed your position I'll restate again my criticism.
It's going to be the same as before, and I'm not sure when I'll have time to re-make the same points. Here, I'd just like to quickly note my method of debate.
When I encounter a position, I am not at first concerned with proving if the position is true or false, but rather I am concerned at first of exploring if the arguments proposed to defend the position are fairly applied elsewhere. For, if the principles put forth are not coherently applied to all of life, then it is a pick and choose philosophy (simply starting with various conclusions and picking and choosing what arguments seem best to justify them given the situation); if this is the case, it is useful to debate the issue further but rather to switch to whether this pick-and-choose approach to philosophy is justifiable (if the person simply defends the method) or then to debate whether it proposed in good faith and not some sort of propaganda to serve ulterior and unsaid motives.
I am so far not satisfied that you fairly apply your principle of consent to all ethical issues where it would seem relevant to do so. So far you simply state "sometimes you do, sometimes you don't", which for me is simply describing how you apply your principle, not introducing a new principle upon which you decide when consent matters and when it doesn't. You say, "well, consent doesn't matter if it prevents harm", but you have not dealt with the argument that letting the unconscious patient die is what prevents harm (as life is suffering and it is better not to exist) nor with the argument that birthing new children prevents harm by enabling society to run and the elderly not to all die in horrific conditions as society disintegrates. Likewise, you have not, in my view, responded to governments likewise not caring about the consent of future children; again, you position seems to be simply "of course we need government". As I said, antinatalism is a radical position and I am not satisfied it would not, if directly and honestly applied, lead to other radical conclusions. You can propose a scheme to avoid these radical conclusions or then you could embrace these radical conclusions: that yes, governments aren't justifiable, yes surgeons should let unconscious patients die if they don't have explicit consent from them before hand. You can also say "well, I find these criticism satisfactorily dealt with and I'm moving forward to the next step" in which case perhaps I'd continue on the basis of "assuming so, which I disagree is so, but assuming it, my critique of the next steps is such and such".
Yes, I have not yet presented an argument that your conclusion is false. I am at this stage trying to discover your premises, which do not seem adequate to me to lead to your conclusion. If such premises emerge, I may have issue with the soundness of the argument, issue with the premises, or be completely satisfied and accept your conclusion. At the moment, it is not at all clear to me how you intend you argument to work, other than allowing you to simply jump to your conclusion.
er, where? No, the fact procreative acts are ones that those who are created by then have not consented to is a fact that makes them 'prima facie' wrong - 'default' wrong. That is, they will be wrong unless there is some other feature they possess that either annuls or overcomes the wrong-making power of the feature I have identified. So, arguing that the Kantian feature is prima-facie wrong making is consistent with believing it is sufficient to make acts that have it wrong overall.
Quoting boethius
Er, what!? I have not changed my position one iota!! I mean, where have I changed my position? I think the problem here is that you don't understand my position or you're wilfully misinterpreting it.
The Kantian case is, I suspect, sufficient by itself to show that antinatalism is true. But by itself it would leave open a very reasonable doubt about the matter. Just as, by analogy, one witness statement saying that Boethius robbed the bank provides us with good reason to think you did it, while leaving open a very reasonable doubt about it. By contrast, three or four witness statements saying you did dit would make it far more reasonable than not to believe you did it. The Kantian case is equivalent to one witness statement.
Quoting boethius
You have no evidence to support that - it's just wishful thinking on your part. Again, you need to provide real evidence that this is the case, not simply point to the brute possibility. Pointing to cases that seem relevantly dissimilar to acts of procreation - cases, for instance, where doing something to someone without their consent was necessary to prevent them from coming to a great harm - and pointing out that such acts often seem justified is not such evidence, for reasons I explained.
But because I'm a patient kind of a guy, I'll explain again. If a kind of act - such as an act that significantly affects another without their previously having consented to it - is prima facie wrong, then one is consistent if one default assumes those acts that are of this kind are wrong until or unless one has some reason to think that, in a particular case, the act possesses some other feature or features that either annul or overcome the wrongness inherent in such deeds.
You haven't done this. All you've done is point out that sometimes acts of this kind are not wrong. Again - I know. I know, I know, I know. But the acts of that kind that are not wrong have features that are either overcoming or annulling the wrongness otherwise inherent in them. And - importantly - those features are not present in most procreative acts.
Quoting boethius
Totally dishonest. That's not a quote from me! Those are your words, not mine! I am not an absolutist and I don't believe there are any hard and fast moral rules. I've thought that for years and years so I would nowhere here say that consent doesn't matter if it prevents harm, rather I'd say the more nuanced "consent sometimes does not matter, and sometimes does matter but is eclipsed by other considerations that - in the given context - are mattering more".
You seem to have difficulties with subtleties like this. If I say that in some contexts the fact an act will prevent some great harm eclipses the importance of getting a person's consent, then you take that to mean that if an act will prevent some harm then consent doesn't matter, or will always be eclipsed by the significance of the harm it prevents (that is, that preventing harm is lexically more important than respecting consent). I do not believe such things.
It will be inconvenient for your objections, but my view is that lack of consent is a prima-facie wrong-making feature. That does not mean it is always a wrong-making feature. Sometimes it doesn't matter. And sometimes it matters but other things matter more. Note the 'sometimes'.
The point, however, is that it 'default' matters and so if an act is an act of such a kind, then it is reasonable to suppose it is wrong until or unless we have evidence that some other feature also present is either annulling the prima facie wrongness of the lack of consent involved, or eclipsing it.
Yes, I understand your argument structure, what I am pointing to is a lack of principles to decide what "other feature they possess" are and on what basis do these features override your "prima facie / default" wrong.
As far as I can see, you have not presented a coherent and sound argument. You have responded to weaknesses in your first principle by postulating that other principles could exist to solve the problem of the initial criticism. I am asking what these other principles actually are.
If I say "it's fine to murder people unless there is some reason not too" this is not meaningful theory. If there are good reasons that cover all potential murdering motivations and scenarios, this would not be incompatible with the previous statement. Likewise, "a surgeon should not do surgery without consent ... unless there's some reason to do the surgery" is not a meaningful theory for the same reason.
Quoting Bartricks
Well, you obviously believe it in the case of having babies that all these principles play out to conclude babies shouldn't be had. As noted above, what you haven't done is present on what basis you do this evaluation.
You seem to think that I am attributing things to your position and so are justified in getting defensive and explaining what that you don't believe this or that. I am not attributing things to your position, I am presenting situation and attempting to apply the principles you have presented.
If you're reply was "yes, the surgeon should let the unconscious patient die because they have returned to the pre-conscious state of a yet-to-be-born child and it is better that they die than potentially live without consent" and likewise if you replied "yes, the government is not justifiable because it does all sorts of things that significantly affects people who don't consent to the social contract, not to mention yet-to-be-born future children, without their consent, among other things promoting and enabling this whole giving birth enterprise humanity has" I would accept that you are applying your consent principle consistently and I'd move on to the next issue.
However, you invoke new principles to justify surgery without consent and government without consent. I an inquiring as to what these principles are and why I am unable to apply them to justifying having birth. If there's greater benefit to people who know the unconscious patient that the surgeon save the patient and this outweighs the harm in ignoring consent, or then we can simply presume consent without having consent, why can we not simply apply such a principle, in either case, to having children (that the good a child brings to the community outweighs the harm of ignoring consent). Likewise, if the government is justified in ignoring consent for the good of the community, doing things like promoting and subsidizing births to have a workforce to not break pension schemes and the like, then why isn't the would be parent justified in conceiving and having a child for the good of the community? Moreover, is the government invokes "the good of the community" to justify it's child subsidizing schemes (from maternity leave to free schooling) why is it wrong to do so in the case of child births but completely fine in things like police and roads?
You have answered none of these questions, you have simply made reference to the potential to answer them. Maybe you can, maybe you can't. It's only in actually answering them that they will be actually answered. You seem to miss subtleties like this.
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, I have noted a few times that your principle for ignoring consent seems to be summed up in "sometimes". This is not an argument that justifies ignoring consent, it just describes what you are in fact doing which is "sometimes ignoring and sometimes not".
Quoting Bartricks
Yes, as I have noted other situations where you claim there's this "eclipsing feature", but you have not explained why it is an eclipsing feature and how it is employed to do the eclipsing.