Procreation and the Problem of Evil
Many people think it is implausible that an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good god would create a universe like this one and then force innocent sentient creatures to live in it. I agree. Other things being equal that does seem quite implausible and thus I take it that the evils of the world do make it unreasonable to think it the creation of such a being.
Yet these same people - most of them, anyway - think nothing of creating innocent sentient life and forcing it to live in this place! That is, they agree that no omnipotent, omnisicent, morally good being would do such a thing. And then they do it themselves!
True, they did not create the universe into which they are forcing innocent sentient life to live. But really that wasn't the problem, was it? I mean, there seems nothing morally problematic in the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good god creating a universe similar to this one but devoid of innocent sentient life. It was the act of creating innocent sentient life and forcing it to live in this world that seems incompatible with being omnipotent, omniscient and morally good.
True, we are not omnipotent. But we do have the god-like power to create innocent sentient life. And we (most of us in affluent western economies anyway) can freely decide whether to exercise it.
True, we are not omniscient. But we do know that the world is an evil place for innocent sentient life to live.
So it seems to me that if an omnipotent, omniscient being would demonstrate himself to be something short of morally good if he created innocent sentient life and made it live in this place, then we too demonstrate a moral failing if we create innocent sentient life and make it live in this place.
You can't have your cake and eat it. If there's a problem of evil for God, then there's a problem of evil for you if you've procreated. You knew this world is a place full of horrors that no good God would suffer innocent sentient beings to live in, yet you did precisely that: you created innocent sentient beings and made them live in it.
Yet these same people - most of them, anyway - think nothing of creating innocent sentient life and forcing it to live in this place! That is, they agree that no omnipotent, omnisicent, morally good being would do such a thing. And then they do it themselves!
True, they did not create the universe into which they are forcing innocent sentient life to live. But really that wasn't the problem, was it? I mean, there seems nothing morally problematic in the idea of an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good god creating a universe similar to this one but devoid of innocent sentient life. It was the act of creating innocent sentient life and forcing it to live in this world that seems incompatible with being omnipotent, omniscient and morally good.
True, we are not omnipotent. But we do have the god-like power to create innocent sentient life. And we (most of us in affluent western economies anyway) can freely decide whether to exercise it.
True, we are not omniscient. But we do know that the world is an evil place for innocent sentient life to live.
So it seems to me that if an omnipotent, omniscient being would demonstrate himself to be something short of morally good if he created innocent sentient life and made it live in this place, then we too demonstrate a moral failing if we create innocent sentient life and make it live in this place.
You can't have your cake and eat it. If there's a problem of evil for God, then there's a problem of evil for you if you've procreated. You knew this world is a place full of horrors that no good God would suffer innocent sentient beings to live in, yet you did precisely that: you created innocent sentient beings and made them live in it.
Comments (111)
This entire argument is literal heresy. If you put forward it you are no longer taking about the God of abraham, which I assume you are because of the upper cases G in God.
How free are we in this hypothetically godless world? Personally I think the world is godless, but I also think that we are animals who exaggerate our freedom. Freedom is a potent fiction. It's a vague goal. We want to be like God, above the disgusting machine of Nature.
Anyway, you can't refute someone by labeling what they've said heretical. Why would I care?
You said we can 'freely' decide. In the same way an addict can 'freely' decide to stop using --which is to say ideally or theoretically. And yet for much of the rest of the time we experience our fellow humans are bound by implicit 'laws' of human nature. People are free when we want to blame them, but bound when we want to forgive or predict them.
So godlessness suggests that man is another beast caught up in nature who more or less cannot violate the 'prime directive' of feed-to-breed.
Does that scenario create a problem of evil? No. The act of creating a universe like that is as morally innocuous as me, say, building a cathedral out of matchsticks.
So, what creates the problem of evil is the fact that introducing innocent sentient life into a universe such as this doesn't, on the face of it, appear to be the kind of thing a morally good person would do.
Are you saying that no decisions are free and thus nothing we do is right or wrong, blameworthy or praiseworthy?
If so, then that's both implausible (for any case against free will is going to appeal to a claim that is less self-evident than our possession of free will) and too all-encompassing to be relevant.
I find something strange going on here.
What does the innocence of sentient creatures or otherwise have to to with the moral character of introducing life into the world? Should we find a way to make every baby a serial killer to allow our procreation to be moral?
But it doesn't, on your own terms: the evil must be there for innocents to be 'introduced' to it. What creates the problem of evil is the existence of evil. Seems odd that this needs to be said.
Quoting TheWillowOfDarkness
No, I don't see how that follows from anything I have said.
Perhaps there can exist evils absent any sentient beings. But if so, they're not the kind that typically motivate the problem of evil.
Anyway, do you think that a god who creates a universe that is similar to ours but devoid of all innocent sentient life has done something morally bad?
Like I say, such an act seems as morally innocuous as me building a model railway.
I know... but my pointed question was directed at whether the non-innocent deserve to suffer or lose their dignity? If the only evil thing in the world is if innocent life suffers, there is a clear path for a moral procreation: make sure there is no innocent life. If we are all heinously torturing each other, life is apparently fantastic. Suffice to say, this seems a strange conclusion about morality.
You don't make it clear perhaps, but I re-read your OP and now I take it that you are rejecting the problem of evil in order to defend some kind of theism?
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? In any case, your OP is not about the problem of evil, but something perhaps tangental to it.
Whether guilty sentient life does is another matter. It's irrelevant. For what I've said in the OP is that what seems to create the problem of evil is that this world does not seem to be the kind of place an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good person would suffer innocent sentient life to live in (and thus this in turn implies that we - as beings who have the power to bestow life and knowledge enough of the world to know that it will subject those we force to live in it to many evils - ought not to suffer innocent sentient life to live in it).
The philosopher Epicurus was the first to raise the problem, and he was a hedonist and thus cannot have considered the problem to consist of anything other than what I have said.
So it is about the problem of evil. And it is about procreation and the interesting implication that the problem has for human procreative activity.
Edit: I also do not understand your 'angels on the head of a pin' comment. I asked a question: do you think a world similar to this one but devoid of all innocent sentient life contains any evils?
I've explained why it raises a problem of evil for human procreation, haven't I?
Once more: it is not creating a universe like this one that creates the problem of evil (if you think otherwise, explain - for I have asked you twice now whether you think a universe like this but devoid of innocent sentient life would contain any evil but you haven't answered). But creating a universe like this one and, wait for it, making innocent sentient beings live in it creates the problem.
Why? Because an earthquake isn't bad until it starts maiming and killing people, yes? An eruption isn't bad until the larva starts burning people alive, yes? Viruses aren't bad until they make people ill. Innocent, sentient life.
Once more: it is introducing innocent sentient life into the world that creates the evils that we then think no good God would tolerate.
That is the problem Epicurus raised. it is the one discussed in the literature. The one the 'free will defence' is supposed to help alleviate. That one.
I am not denying that it might be possible for evils to exist absent innocent sentient life. But those evils are going to be controversial and are not the uncontroversial kind that motivate the problem of evil.
The etiology of evil is irrelevant to the problem. Or rather, that's the question that demands solving, not the given from which it proceeds.
Can you distinguish the two versions of the problem?
What I am saying is that human procreators face the problem too.
Of course, saying that something is a problem is not to declare it insurmountable. However, in this case I think those who face the original problem have far greater resources to deal with it than human procreators do.
The two versions that are traditionally distinguished are the 'logical' and 'evidential' FYI.
So "the problem" is (dis)solved either (1) by 'not believing one & the world were created' (or 'believing that one & the world were not created') or (2) by not procreating? (The dispositions of so-called 'Creator' or 'procreated offspring' are then only relevant for creationists & natalists?) Therefore, you agree it's not a problem for everyone, or 'fundamental problem' of existence per se?
A morally good, omnipotent, omniscient being might create a universe like this one but devoid of all innocent sentient life. For perhaps they just like seeing volcanoes erupt, like having beautiful viruses around, like earthquakes and so on. So, just creating a world like ours does not, in and of itself, seem like an act that is incompatible with being omnipotent, omniscient, and morally good.
But creating innocent sentient life and making it live in that world - a world of earthquakes, viruses, volcanoes and now in addition all the evils that sentient lifeforms can visit on each other - does not seem like something a morally good, omnipotent, omniscient being would do. They'd either redesign the world so that it didn't contain those evils, or they'd resist the desire to introduce innocent sentient life into it.
Do you agree with that?
I disagree with the OP - I'm no pessimist - but I think it's well-posed.
What do you think the world should be like? No predation? No possibility of disease? Nobody would ever die, get injured? How would that work? How could a world be like that?
I think it's important to distinguish between the motivations of the two. For the theist, the whole problem bears on how a Good God can allow Evil to be. That God is Good (and all the onmis) is key to the problem. Take that away and you don't really have a problem anymore: there is evil because well, it's not like there was any supposed guarantor of Good to begin with.
That: 'there is evil in the world, why would you procreate?' - is simply a different problem. Theodicists actually have to account for the fall - that's their whole problem. If you take the fall for granted and then ask about ways of dealing with the aftermath, you're simply dealing with a different problem altogether. Not saying that it isn't a problem, or can't be constructed as one.
Yes, that's what I'd expect it to be like. Just as if you told me that in the next room there is a meal by the finest cook conceivable, I would expect it to be nice through and through, rather than a luke warm pot noodle that tastes suspiciously like it might have been made with the chef's urine. If, then, I find in that in the next room there is a luke warm pot noodle with a hint of urine about it, then I'd conclude that I am not eating food prepared by the finest chef conceivable. I admit that it could be - for there are explanations that we can come up with of why the best chef conceivable might have prepared a pot noodle using his own wee rather than prepare a proper meal. But, on the face of it, it doesn't seem reasonable to think that you're eating something prepared by the best chef conceivable given that it appears to be a pot noodle made with urine. Why? Because the best chef conceivable knows how to prepare a wonderful meal, has the power to do so, and can be expected to be motivated to do so.
Likewise, if you tell me that there is a universe that has been created by an omnipotent, omniscient, morally perfect being and that this being has also created innocent sentient beings and made them live in it, then I'd expect that universe to be a paradise in which there is no predation, no horrible diseases, no major mishaps. I wouldn't expect this place. Why? Because a being who is omnipotent, omnsiceitn and morally good can be expected to be against all the predation, diseases and injustices and to have the power and knowledge to prevent them from arising.
Importantly for my purposes, it is not the creation of a universe like ours that creates the problem. It is creating it and then making innocent sentient life live in it. That's what creates the problem. There's no problem of evil confronting someone who believes that a universe devoid of innocent sentient life is the creation of such a being. It is the thesis that this universe - a universe that contains floods and earthquakes and diseases that kill and maim innocent sentient life - that generates the problem of evil, and it does so precisely because of the introduction of innocent sentient life.
To use a much hackneyed example, swinging your fists around is not a problem until you start doing it in the close vicinity of other people.
What's the moral? The moral is that a morally good being doesn't exercise the power to create innocent sentient life in a world like this one.
:chin:
The 'PoE' implies only that an 'Omnibenevolent Omnipotent & Omniscient God' does not exist, and doesn't touch g/Gs of e.g. the Bible, Qur'an, Vedas or the like which most believers have believed in for millennia as "Almighty" yet not (always) "All Loving" or "All Good" (especially to "believers of foreign g/Gs"). A 'PoE' only addresses Pascal's 'god of the philosophers', which is only an abstract concept and not purported to exist in re.
This does not follow, especially for those who believe in a g/G who commands "Be fruitful and multiply". To disobey g/G's "will" or "commandments" is "sin", and to compel - through action or inaction - another to commit "sins" is "evil" vis-à-vis that g/G. No PoE obtains, or makes sense, in this context: thus, in religious terms, having children (in the right ways, of course) obeys g/G's "will" and therefore cannot be "evil".
I think this objection defeats your argument, Bartricks. You may be right, but not for the reasons you've given. Only by showing that 'procreation is immoral' independent of theological & religious considerations can, I think, the antinatal argument be established.
You are misusing terms. A 'theodicy' is an attempt to explain why God has allowed evil.
Anyway, I do not understand what point you are making. Where is the error in my reasoning?
If you go to a restaurant and you are served a luke-warm pot noodle for a main course, is it reasonable to believe that you are in a restaurant run by the best chef in the world? No, not remotely.
If you go to an art gallery and all the pictures are scribble, is it reasonable to believe you are looking at drawings by Michelangelo? no, not remotely.
If you live in a world full of diseases and earthquakes that kill and maim innocent sentient beings, is it reasonable to believe you are living in a world created by an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good person? No, not remotely.
Okay. So if there is a creator g/G, it's not "morally good" (perfect); and we procreators are certainly not "morally good" (perfect) all or most - barely any - of the time. What's the problem we can solve? ... living in The Most Arbitrary of All Possible Worlds aka "shit happens, Sisyphus-like 'life is just shoveling one pile after another', so get on with and over it" as we do. :death: :flower:
:snicker:
And no earthquakes, floods, genocide, brutal dictatorships etc. You seem to have left these out in your hotel description.
Quoting Bartricks
This is an interesting take on the anti-natalist position. There is one issue though: an omnipotent God has the option to bring people into the world without suffering. Humans do not. So, for your argument to work, it has to apply to non-omnipotent beings. And then we're back to the old question of whether or not existence is worse than non-existance.
Well, there's not a problem so much as a normative conclusion that we can draw: namely, that we ought not to exercise our power to create innocent sentient life.
The 'problem' is that while many people recognise that it would be inconsistent with being good for an omnipotent, omniscient being to create a world like this one and make us live in it, they do not recognise that this implies that they, to be good, ought not to exercise their god-like power to create innocent sentient life.
Many recognise only too well the vices that an omnipotent, omniscient god would be instantiating were he to create a world like this and then make innocent sentient life live in it; but they don't recognise that they will be instantiating these same vices if they make innocent sentient life live in it.
As pointed out already the PoE points to what's "inconsistent" for only a relatively few philosopher-theists and doesn't trouble or persuade either secular nontheists or confessional/sectarian theists. Repeating your point, B, won't make it so.
No, I am not arguing that the problem of evil refutes the thesis that God exists. Rather, I am arguing that the problem of evil implies it is wrong for us to procreate. I am saying that good humans who have the power to create innocent sentient life but also know that were they do to so they would be making it live in a world of evils, do not exercise that power.
We're not omnipotent, but we have a god-like power to create innocent sentient life. We are not omniscient, but we know that the world is a dangerous place and that anyone we subject to living in it will suffer many evils and almost certainly create some of their own. So, we are not omnipotent, but we have enough power, and we are not omniscient, but we know enough, and given our power and given our knowledge, we would not be good if we did what we think no good god would do: if we created innocent sentient beings and suffered them to live here.
Yeah. As usual with @Bartricks's types of argument, they're based on one massive flaw, and this is it. The Problem of Evil is a question of why God brought Evil into the world - any amount of evil at all. The problem of deciding to procreate is one of whether there is too much evil in the world to outweigh the good.
God is deciding whether to put any evil at all in the world. Humans are deciding whether the evil there is outweighs the good. Two completely different matters.
Once God has made a world with evil in it, to say he is making the same choice (to populate it with people or not) is to miss the point of the problem of Evil, because (being omnipotent) he has an option available to him which we don't - remove the evil and then populate the world. The problem of evil is asking why he didn't do that.
A parent has to accept that the human journey involves pain. The capabilities of a human are brought forth by stress, fear, and making mistakes.
Earthquakes, floods and so on are natural calamities. Brutal dictatorships are perpetrated by humans. The former are unfortunate, the latter are intentionally evil.
I'd agree with that from the standpoint of an atheistic cosmology, but in the context of the theodicy argument, I don't think this distinction holds. In a created, "designed" world, everything is intentional, and hence natural disasters are "evil".
I definitely get your point (about more or less dealing with the Existential angst of it all).
Some people choose not to have children for the same reason you posit.
If you think about it as perhaps the good outweighing the bad, that might help. For example, thinking of evil as a lack of perfection in the world might be helpful. Lack of perfection in one's abilities, problem solving, obsolescence, natural disaster so on and so forth. And from a psychological view of Being, many folks would argue that the difficult times were there for a reason -- it promoted wisdom about themselves and the world. It challenged them, and ironically, made knowledge/pride possible... .
Regarding humanistic Being, how would one know which path to take if all the 'good doors' were opened simultaneously?
Idealistically, what are some things that encompass an Utopian society? Freedom for all, comes to mind....
I thought heaven was supposed to be the thing?
Forrest (@Pfhorrest) if you get a second, could say a little about Leibniz's answer to the PoE, and what he had to say about heaven?
Your assuming the Creators’ intentions are somehow comparable to that of a human executive - which I suppose i understandable, but, I think, mistaken nonetheless.
Let's switch domains of discourse for purposes of comparison, to Buddhism. What is the 'first truth' of Buddhism? Why, that life is dukkha, a word hard to translate but meaning unsatisfactory, suffering, sorrowful. As the remainder of the 'four noble truths' are spelled out, it becomes clear, however, that this suffering has a cause, and that there is an end to suffering, which is realised through the practice of the eightfold path.
I think it throws into relief the sense in which religions frame the 'problem of suffering' - that it is indeed intrinsic to mortal existence, but that there is a way out of it or through it, and finding that way is what constitutes salvation, deliverance, or liberation from suffering.
That said, some Gnostics believed that the Creator of this world (whom they identified with Jehovah, a demiurge or lesser deity) was indeed malicious, and that salvation could only be attained by uncompromising asceticism and rejection of the world.
But even so, the argument that because suffering exists, God must be cruel or unfair, doesn't comprehend how the problem of evil has been understood in various religions and philosophies. It's a distinctly modern and middle-class attitude towards it - as I said, the Hotel Manager theodicy. 'Hey, people are DYING here! There are droughts and pestilence. Whose in charge? I WANT TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER!!'
I agree with this statement, and its truth distresses me every day, but when I ask myself if I would give up all of the extraordinary pleasures of being alive to be free from all the agony and pain life brings...
I would have to say, I'm not sorry I was born. Life is frequently a struggle, sometimes quite painful. But the exquisite joys of: a praying mantis on my pitcher plant, love, music, the joys of being in the body, achievement, learning, helping others, and vaping Cannabis--all of it makes the suffering of being human worthwhile. I choose to live.
The best reason I can think of for not having children right now is global warming.
Yes, I accept that an omnipotent, omniscient being has more options than we do, for they have the option of either changing the world so as to make it a safe place for innocent sentient creatures to live in, or keep the world as it is and desist from creating innocent sentient creatures. So they have two options where preserving their own goodness is concerned, whereas we have only one. But still, we do still have that option. That is, if we lack the power to make the world a place free from evil, then we should exercise our power not to introduce innocent sentient life into it. After all, that is a way of preventing many evils from occurring.
I actually don't remember anything in Leibniz specifically about heaven, and some quick Googling to try to jog my memory mostly finds people asking similar questions (how does heaven fit into his solution to the PoE because it seems like it shouldn't) and commenting on how Leibniz' metaphysics isn't really trying to mesh perfectly with Christian doctrine, plus one paywalled article I can't read on Leibniz' view of purgatory, so it's possible that Leibniz never really said much about heaven per se and that's why I don't remember anything about it. Given his identification of souls with monads and the location of monads in the actual world, it seems like any kind of afterlife besides a rather naturalistic sense of reincarnation wouldn't be very compatible with his metaphysics.
As for his solution to the Problem of Evil, it seems to me like you mostly covered it. Leibniz thought that God could only create a universe that was logically possible (rather, that only certain combinations of things are "compossible" in the same universe, and all God can do is pick which such combination of things to make actual), and that God being all good would necessarily have created only the best of all of those possible worlds, so the actual universe that exists must necessarily be the best of all possible worlds, and whatever evils may still exist in it could only be done away with by instead actualizing a different possible world with different and still greater evils. Personally I don't find it very convincing, just kind of an abstraction of the usual free will type of theodicy ("God did the best he could, any better is logically impossible").
Plus, yeah, it seems to suggest that there can't be any kind of heaven that's better than this world.
As to the actual topic of this thread, I more or less agree with the thesis of the OP, and that's basically the reason why I don't have kids. I can't conscience bringing new life into the world when I can't be reasonably sure it would be a good life. I advise most other people to make the same choice, and I would have advised my parents to do the same. Basically only rich people should be having kids, and not even all of them. Which is not to say that everyone else should be prohibited from it, because while creating new life is risky (for that life) it's not guaranteed harm; nor is that at all to disparage the poor at all (of which I'm a part myself, hence my decision). Rather, it's an abject tragedy that this has to be advisable for so many people. Following that advice en masse would do something to ameliorate that tragedy for future generations though, much like the Black Death in Europe, as tragic as it was, did much to elevate the socioeconomic status of the survivors. To wit: if we poor don't make more poor people (by breeding), the rich who depend on us will eventually have nobody to depend on and will have to fend for themselves, and those future generations will be forced to be more egalitarian.
I do think that humans in general should continue to procreate though, even if we were all on hard times; it's just because of the fact that there's really no danger of us not having enough kids at this point in history that I can advocate for most people to not have kids. The reason I would advocate for humans in general to keep procreating even if life sucked for everyone right now is the same reason I advocate that individuals having hard times don't just kill themselves and end the suffering now: because it can get better. I have hopes that humanity can create a future world that is not so full of suffering as this one always has been, and in order for that to be worth doing, someone needs to be alive in the future in order to enjoy it.
None of this contradicts the Problem of Evil at all because God is supposedly omnipotent and so, if (he existed and) he wanted to create some beings to enjoy life, he could just create a world that was entirely enjoyable and had no suffering in it, and wouldn't have to just create life amidst suffering and hope that things got better eventually, like we do.
I don't know what massive flaws you're talking about. Perhaps the mere fact an argument leads to a conclusion you dislike constitutes a massive flaw as far as you are concerned - I suspect so. But it's Reason's view that counts, not yours. So, you know, get over yourself.
You say "The Problem of Evil is a question of why God brought Evil into the world - any amount of evil at all". Well, no. When you make such confident pronouncements you do nothing more than reveal your ignorance of the problem.
The problem is to do with unjustified evil. For it is only that kind of evil whose creation seems prima facie incompatible with being omnipotent, omniscient, and morally good. That's why those who believe in God attempt to tackle with the problem by showing that the evils that exist are 'justified' rather than non-existent (although showing them to be non-existent would also work, of course).
For example, take the standard free will defence against the problem of evil. According to this line of argument, God was justified in permitting the moral evils that we - we, free agents, that is - create because they were an unavoidable aspect of giving us free will and the value of free will is greater than the disvalue of the evils it creates.
Note, those who run the free will defence - and it is far and away the most popular line of reply - are not denying the existence of evils. They are not denying that God brought them into being. They are arguing, rather, than the evils in question are justified and thus do not redound to the moral discredit of God (and thus do not imply his non-existence).
Another example - another popular line of reply is the so-called 'soul making' theodicy, according to which the whole point of our being here is to cultivate and exercise certain virtues. And then the point is that we need to live in a world like this one - one that contains natural disasters and injustices and arbitrary reversals of fortune - in order to be able to acquire and exercise them. You can't be forgiving, for example, if no-one wrongs you; you can't be brave if there's nothing to fear, and so on.
THe point is not whether these attempts at dealing with the problem of evil work, the points is that in both of these cases there is an acknowledgement that evils exist, but a denial that their existence is unjustified.
So, once more: you're wrong. The problem of evil is not a problem to do with any evil whatever, but to do with apparently unjustified evils.
But let's assume - falsely - that you're right and that any evils whatever raise it. Well, that just makes my case even stronger. For it is undeniable that by creating new innocent sentient life you create some evils.
So not only are you wrong and, as usual, demonstrate that standard combination of ignorance and confidence, if you're right you've made my case stronger, not weaker. Good job!!
Some say (surely pessimists do) that no amount of pleasure or joy can compensate for the least pain or sorrow. Sounds overly narcissistic to me too. I couldn't say "I choose to live" because it doesn't seem to me I have a choice in the matter - that ol' switch don't flip itself, does it? - except in choosing how I play the cards I'm being dealt (& occasionally deal myself), so to speak. Homo ludens - one plays this 'mug's game' to win or lose or draw; in hindsight, now, it's clear to me I've chosen to play the Reeper to a draw. Amor fati? Not nearly 'the safe play' it seems - tightrope dancing - even after I've learned how not to look down ... Anyway, sometimes I regret not having played to win, but mostly I don't. And so it goes.
No doubt. My gift to oblivion is I remain childless by choice. Whatever instincts I've had are being spent to the dregs on my brother's cousins' & friends' children, and that, surprisingly despite everything, I find worthwhile.
:up:
I guess it does not matter then that I fornicated left-right-and-centre back in the late seventies and all through the eighties. And add to this about a thousand times more incidents of auto-erotcia.
God should be pleased with me.
But I, an antinatalist, am not arguing that life sucks. Antinatalism does not entail pro-mortalism (that is, the view that we have overall reason to kill ourselves). Antinatalists are against beginning lives; they are not thereby against continuing lives that are already underway.
For an analogy: someone who discovers that, were they to get pregnant, their child would suffer some sort of disability and decides on that basis not to have a child is not thereby expressing a judgement that those with disabilities do not have lives worth living.
And the problem of evil does not assume that life sucks either, only that the evils of life are unjustified.
If some kind of simple utilitarianism is the correct normative ethical theory, then the balances of pleasures and pains in a life would settle the matter of whether it is morally right to bring it into existence.
There would still be a problem of evil even assuming that kind of view is true, and it would still have some very odd implications in respect of procreation (it'd imply we ought to start breeding like rabbits if, that is, most lives record greater average balances of happiness over misery). But the point is that to show God to be justified in creating innocent sentient life one would only need to show that the pains were necessary to secure some maximal quantity of pleasure later.
But utilitarianism is false and certainly I am not assuming it is true and most of those who believe there is a problem of evil do not assume it is true either. Happiness is not all that matters. Dignity matters and it matters what kind of person you are. Better, for instance, to be a miserable kind person than a happy bastard. Better if wicked people suffer than good people. And so on.
For example, imagine two possible worlds. One is full of good people who are miserable. The other is full of wicked people who are happy. Which is the better one to create if creating one and one alone is the only option you have? Which one would a good god create? Surely it is not obvious.
But, importantly, if the god also had the option of creating neither, then surely the god would take that option?
Or imagine that only way to make everyone else maximally happy is to make one person utterly miserable. Would a good god create such a world? Surely not. For that world, though it contains maximum happiness, also contains a terrible injustice. And a good god would resist creating a world that contains an injustice like that.
In saying that am I thereby committed to the view that, if we live in such a world, our lives are not worth living? No, clearly not. Most of the lives in that world are most certainly worth living. Eminently so. Yet I think no good, omnipotent, omniscient being would create such a place.
And if we lived in such a world - that is, a world in which we are all happy bar one person whose miserable life is a necessary condition of our lives being happy - then though we have no obligation to kill ourselves we would, I think, have an obligation not to perpetuate the situation by breeding (assuming, that is, that breeding perpetuates it).
My point, then, is absolutely not that most of our lives are not worth living. I think most of our lives are worth living. My point is that it is reasonable to believe that an omnipotent, omniscient, morally good god would not create a world like this one and that, on that basis alone, it is reasonable to infer that we would not be good if we acted in a like manner and created more innocent sentient life and made it live here.
For example, imagine that in fact most people freely conduct themselves in ways that make them deserving of all the suffering and indignities that befall them. Well, now the universe contains more good than bad, for suffering and indignity is not bad when it is deserved. Yet would an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being create such a place? Surely not.
Thanks for the reply, just a couple quick thoughts:
1. As a Christian Existentialist, I don't know what an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent Being means, so I can't comment on that. In other words, I don't objectively know the true nature of the Mind of God. And I'm OK with that. I don't spend time reconciling those three in terms of judgment or judging people or otherwise making sense of that mystery.... . I don't measure our existence in that way, nor do I use those features as a guide to ethics. At best it's a metaphysical theory.
2. With respect to what I'll call 'law of attraction' or reaping what one sow's, I only agree that those cause and effect things have intrinsic value. The value would be gaining wisdom on how to be, and what to avoid or not do for a healthy lifestyle/health and well being.
What I do feel I know, is that in the OT Ecclesiastes we have that existential angst you describe. In the NT we have an 'answer' in faith with a savior Jesus, that is a model for Love. The connection to part of that quandary you've described, some of which is in the Ecclesiastes, gives follower's hope.
So maybe Hope is the concept one should hold onto here viz. your procreation concern... .
I do get what you're saying though for sure. With procreation comes responsibility.
Er, no - that's not implied by anything I've argued. It's your reasoning skills that are truly scary - there's really no telling where your reasoning will take you or persuade you to do.
See because of my ethical stance people actually know what I’m inclined to do. You however can’t be trusted around children or access to the human water supply. I wear my principles for everyone to see whereas you keep changing them to fit your own end which is humanity must die. You are the epitome of evil and an Antinatalist evangelical who really should just be removed from the site.
Also, if you had any understanding of moral psychology you’d stop blaming the species for whatever wrongs you feel life has personally slung at you. Grow up, learn how to have a little gratitude toward your parents. I don’t care what arguments you have anymore as there are a lot of not good reasons someone would actually believe sterilising an entire species without its consent is okay and then have the audacity to call it Kantian in another post. I care about what psychologically motivates someone to hold an Antinatalist view and it’s nearly always coming from a selfish egotistical place.
Hm, I am not sure I understand that. I mean, surely you have to have some idea about what you believe in, otherwise you don't really qualify as believing it?
But anyway, it does seem reasonable to suppose that a morally good being will not necessarily bring about the best of all possible worlds.
For, as in my previous example, if a good god has the power to actualise one world and one world alone, and the world in question is one populated by wicked people coming to suffering deserved harms and indignities, then though that world contains more good than bad, the god would not actualise it. Creating such a world - even though it is a world of great justice - seems like something a good person would not do.
What if the good god had the power to actualise a world in which sometimes the wicked get their just deserts and sometimes the good get their just deserts, but equally often the wicked prosper and the good suffer? Would a good god actualise such a world if that was the only world they had the power to actualize? I do not think so. if that was the god's only option, then I think he'd desist from creating it.
Yet that seems to describe the world we are living in. And so I think a good person, though they do not have the power to change the world, will at least have the decency not to create a new innocent life and subject it to existence here.
Of course, in a way by doing such a thing the person makes themselves deserving of living here - for now they are being done as they have done to another. But this just underscores that there are some goods that a good person does not try to bring about.
Quoting 3017amen
I am saying that it is wrong to procreate and that one way to recognise its wrongness is to reflect on the problem of evil and, upon recognising that it is not reasonable to suppose that an omnipotent, omnibenevolent, omniscient being would create a world like this one and subject innocent sentient life to living in it, that it is therefore most likely wrong for us to in effect do the same by procreating.
Quoting 3017amen
I have to be honest and say that I am not sure what 'existential angst' is. As I see it I am simply describing the moral implications of a well-known problem for our procreative decisions.
No, you're the one projecting.
You're attributing to me views I do not hold and that are in no way implied by anything I have argued. You are, I think, hopeless at reasoning about ethical matters. I mean, just laughably bad. How on earth - how on earth - does it follow from being anti-procreation that one is pro killing children? Present the argument - show me how that conclusion follows.
Quoting Mark Dennis
Arr, does Mark want a safe space where he doesn't get exposed to views he can't properly understand but feels very angry at? Must accommodate Mark. Grow up.
IT seems the problem of evil to which you refer is a human-made problem, primarily--not so much about volcanos and earthquakes. Humans inflict infinitely more suffering upon other sentient beings and seem to enjoy it for the most part. It does, in my estimation, render the "good diety" issue a moot point: No good diety would create such a potentially psychopathic species that tortures its own kind as well as other species. So perhaps we should consider whether if there were a diety, that it is characterized by insecurity, jealousy, ambition. greed, and all the other vices. And created humans in its own image.
I actually have a masters in applied ethics, so I actually do understand moral debate. Pity you don’t. I also have a degree in logic and it follows that if you are against procreation, you are against life, if you are against life, you are pro killing/suicide or at the very least will find it shockingly easy to convince yourself that killing is justified because of your stance against procreation.
Also, O’niell who you subjectively claim to be influential isn’t an Antinatalist and her understanding of Kantian Ethics is vastly different to your misunderstanding.
You’ve been told by multiple people that you are just wrong and that your reasoning skills are subpar yet comparatively few seem to be saying the same of my criticisms of you. You don’t have a grip on reality, you say the labels don’t matter every time someone here proves them to be incorrect.
I don't believe you do have a masters in applied ethics - not from a reputable university anyway - as you demonstrably do not understand moral debate.
Prove me wrong by providing the argument that shows how my antinatalist view implies that I think it is right to kill children.
Yes, although there are far more ways of dealing with the problem of evil as it pertains to God than there are to the problem of evil as it pertains to human procreators. One way is to revise the attributes - though in a way this does not deal with the problem so much as concede that God does not exist. But there are other ways, consistent with God being God. For instance, perhaps the only way to have a truly ecstatic afterlife is first to have spent some time here (perhaps that is some kind of necessary truth that even God is powerless to alter). That is one possible way of squaring the evils of life here with the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent being (not saying it works, just that it has legs). Yet we cannot say similar things about human procreators.
So I think that the problem of evil for God highlights a problem of evil for human procreators that is, in some ways anyway, more acute than the problem of evil for God.
The PoE, however, doesn't imply that procreators do not exist, so I don't see how it's relevant. Since "Be fruitful & multiply" theists handwave away the PoE with their ad hoc theodicies and therefore are not buying what you're selling anyway, try arguing on secular nontheistic / naturalistic grounds that procreating is immoral.
...well Bartricks, I must say that's a pretty extreme view, of procreation that is. And of course we would not share in that view, though I get your logic.
And sure, it occurs to me from time to time what it would be like not to live. And the problem of our finitude and imperfection here can be depressing (existential angst). And that coupled with folks who have kids without thinking about responsibility and who are just selfish narcissists wanting to create a clone of themselves is disheartening.
However, I myself, as you might too, conclude that life is worth living enough to consider the virtues of bringing someone else into the world. As Maslow suggested, reaching those self-actualized euphoric times of Being, where one truly feels that they've accomplished exactly that which they were born to do, validates fulfillment of living this life.
My recommendation would be (and I have a friend who is kind of glass half-empty and tends to be more cynical than not) is to not focus on your sense of ethical judgement about others and how the world works at its worst. The danger there is going down a path of interminable angst that cannot be healthy.
Not to sound idealistic; have you considered using that energy to make change happen?
And I wanted to briefly share my response to that statement you made above. Quite simply, I don't dichotomize and throw the baby out with the bathwater. Does that make sense?
My point is just that despite our lives being worth living it remains the case that an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent god would not have created a world like this one and made innocent sentient creatures live in it, other things being equal. And that in turn, this implies that it is wrong for us to force innocent sentient creatures to live in it by creating more of them.
For example, imagine a universe in which everyone is extremely happy bar one person, on whose utter misery everyone else's happiness depends. Well, I think God would not create a world like that one. But in thinking that I am not thereby expressing a pessimistic attitude or supposing that the lives of most people in that world are not worth living. Rather, I am simply expressing the view that creating such a world would be incompatible with being morally good, omnipotent, and omniscient. Even if, for some reason, the world I have just described was the best possible world among all of those the god was capable of creating, it would be wrong for the god to create it. A good, omnipotent, omniscient being would simply desist from creating it. But again, that is not a pessimistic judgement nor does it express a belief that most lives in that world are not worth living.
I think that is relevantly analogous to the sort of situation we find ourselves in.
Not to me, because you can't really believe in God if there's no content to your belief. It can be out of focus to some degree, but it can't not be there at all.
Zeroing in on exactly what omnipotence, omniscience and moral goodness involves may be tricky, but we know enough about each to know that this world's existence and our presence in it seems inconsistent with the existence of such a being. (Which is not to say that it is, in fact, inconsistent, just that it appears to be).
The problem of evil implies that God does not exist because omnipotence, omniscience and moral goodness are essential attributes of God. Thus one cannot, for instance, conclude that God is actually a bit immoral. For a being who is not morally perfect is not God.
We are not essentially omnipotent, omniscient, or morally good. Hence the problem of evil applied to human procreative decisions does not imply the non-existence of human procreators. Rather it implies their immorality (if and when those who procreate knew what they were doing and were free to do it).
And so that's the conclusion I draw - I don't conclude that human procreators do not exist, I conclude that they are immoral.
And again, Bartricks, this doesn't follow, at the least, for the "Be fruitful & multiply" JCI religious (as well as irreligious) procreators.
Quoting Bartricks
Which is a non sequitur.
It is not a non-sequitur. You've just said my conclusion does not follow. Explain.
I can't stress enough the importance of dropping all of this Omni nonsense. Why would you, or anyone, assume they know the mind of God? Otherwise I think it was Epicurus who rejected such ideas... .
It's meaningless/counterproductive in this context of rationalizing any sense of reconciliation between those two things in your OP.
Let's be a little more sophisticated shall we? For example do you believe the Bible is a modern physics, medical, and cognitive science book? Of course not.
If you dont know the mind of God, how do you know it has one?
If you want to define God as a potato, that's fine - then it is beyond dispute that God exists and there is no problem of evil. But then you believe in a potato and it would be grossly misleading to describe yourself as a believer in God, or a Christian, given that these words have well established uses that you are flagrantly playing fast and loose with.
It is not 'meaningless'. Rather, what you believe seems to be meaningless. You're calling yourself a Christian. But that clearly doesn't mean anything substantial in your mouth.
As for being more sophisticated - how am I not being sophisticated? You are the one who does not seem to understand what the term 'God' refers to, or to understand what it means for a being to be omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent, or to understand that the problem of evil arises for the view that God - understood as a being with the omni properties - exists and created everything.
Show me you are sophisticated and actually start explaining things.
Again, you're dichotomizing. Please pause momentarily, and reflect, accordingly. This is not providing any import to the aforementioned reconciliation.
But that is by the by. Let's not start discussing labels rather than philosophical problems, despite the fact most prefer to do the former.
The problem of evil arises for a believer in God, understood - as is conventional - as a being who is essentially omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent. And this thread is about the problem of evil and its implications for the ethics of human procreation. It is not about Christianity. It is not about labels.
That's a great question Frank. For all we know God doesn't have a consciousness like human consciousness. In a so-called metaphysical world, it's entirely possible completely different axiomatic principles would be used to define existence .
For example, if the current success in mathematic's still cannot crack the cosmic codes, it could follow an entirely different or novel metaphysical language would be used to describe things...
Trust me bartricks I really want to provide some helpful input. That's one reason why I wanted to contribute to your thread so that I can help out and mitigate some of your angst.
But regretfully the only way I'll be able to do that is for you to drop the Omni nonsense, and somehow re-word the OP
:up:
Anti-natalism is indeed a weird thing. It wants to snuff us out. In dark moods I can understand. The source of our suffering is life itself. So if the goal is to make suffering impossible, then the solution is to make life impossible. It's the gentlest genocide imaginable. No one need be hurt. Some philosophers even think of history as the species finally becoming mature enough to let go of existence, the very opposite of 'be fruitful and multiply.' 'Grow up and quit the game forever. '
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Robert_Eduard_von_Hartmann
Imagine this being taught in PHIL 101. It would make for an interesting class discussion.
Also, don't say something is a non-sequitur without explanation.
I am not rewording the OP so that it addresses you! It is about the problem of evil and its implications for human procreation. Either address the arguments it raises or don't.
I've often felt this, just not on a philosophical level. Observing people all over the place who don't love or take proper care of their children, are neglectful and abusive, thus bringing up another generation of abusive and neglectful parents. It's the greatest tragedy in the world.
Yeah. Live long enough and see ... too much you don't want to see ... repeated too often.
Okay great! Who said God is OmniX3 then?
Start from your premise there and the soundness of your argument. I will argue it has little import because the definition of God is a nonsensical reconciliation.
Question: why do you believe God is Omnix3?
This Bud's for you Frank, cheers!
Why not? Res ipsa loquitur, B. :victory:
:up:
So, once more, try actualy arguing for something.
No worries Bartricks. It's all good. Thanks anyway.
Bartricks,
In analyzing your argument regarding the problem of evil I first sought to outline your argument, noting the premises and conclusion below:
If God were omnipotent, omniscient, and morally good, then He would create a moral world that is suitable for innocent, sentient life to live without evil.
Our world is not moral for innocent, sentient life to live without evil.
Therefore, God is not omnipotent, omniscient, and morally good. (1, 2 MT)
In identifying your argument, it is important to recognize which evils exist in our world that you identify as being immoral for innocent, sentient life. In assuming you are referring to moral evils, or evils requiring human intervention (opposed with natural evils which require no human intervention), I will argue from the Free Will Defender perspective that the existence of moral evil is not incompatible with God’s omnipotence, omniscience, or His moral goodness.
Assuming individuals have free will from God, the choices they make can be deemed morally right or wrong. God could not have created a world with moral good without the inclusion of a world with moral evil. This is a challenge to Premise 2 of the outlined argument. For example, some decisions can be made that encompass both moral good and moral evil. Take for example animal experimentation. According to the Foundation for Biomedical Research, testing on animals has improved scientific research in diseases including but not limited to malaria, polio, ebola, smallpox, and cancer. This improvement in scientific research has required the deaths of many innocent, sentient beings in labs. It seems that cases similar to this one, encompassing both moral goods (scientific research to save the lives of humans) and moral evils (killing innocent, sentient animals), pose a problem for the complete existence of moral good without moral evil.
Your argument goes on to pose that it would be moral for God to create a universe like this one that is devoid of innocent life, solving the problem of eliminating moral evil. Although this resolution would eliminate moral evil, it would also eliminate moral good. Would it be moral of God to create a world with moral goodness but to not create any other being to experience that moral goodness? This does not seem like a morally good God, this seems like a selfish God. If God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally good, He would use His powers to create innocent, sentient beings that have the capabilities to experience moral goodness.
I pose the same problem for your argument that procreation is immoral because you are willingly imposing the moral evils of this world on your children. Although procreation does assume that your child will experience at least one moral evil throughout their life, procreation also not only assumes that your child can experience the moral goodness created by God but also continue to create moral goodness of their own. I would argue that failing to reproduce is a greater moral failing than reproducing as you directly prohibit future generations stemming from your child to experience moral goodness and to create that goodness of their own.
“Animal Research Achievements.” n.d. Foundation for Biomedical Research. Accessed October 26, 2019. https://fbresearch.org/medical-advances/animal-research-achievements/.
But even putting that to one side, you claim that the production of some moral goods requires the existence of evils.
I don't think the examples you give illustrate this convincingly.
But I concede that it does seem true that some moral goods require moral evils. For instance, it is morally good when an wrongdoer comes to harm. This kind of just-desert good clearly requires moral evils in order to exist.
But would a good god create a world full of wrongdoers and ensure that all come to harm so that the good of justice can come into being? No, that's not the act of a good person.
So even if there are moral goods whose existence requires moral evils, that does not demonstrate that a world containing them is plausibly the creation of God.
You also say that it would be selfish to create a world and not also create some innocent sentient creatures to live in it. But that is question begging and false. It is question begging because the idea of selfishness incorporates a moral judgement. That is, it assumes the wrongness of the act in question. So creating a world devoid of innocent sentient life can only be judged selfish - as opposed to just self-interested - if you assume one ought to create innocent sentient creatures. But that's precisely what's at issue.
It is also just plain wrong because there is clearly no positive obligation to create innocent sentient life.