Is our "common sense" notion of justified suffering/pain wrong?
So the common sense notion of suffering I am going to posit as this:
1) If a pain is caused due to contingent circumstances that are very much seen as out of the realm of human decision-making, then it is unjustified. So Mr. Job is a standup citizen but all these natural disasters and calamities happen to him and his family. This seems unjustified pain brought upon poor Mr. Job.
2) If pain is caused due to contingent circumstances that are very much seen as in the realm of human decision-making, then pain/suffering is seen as justified. So Mr. Job makes some poor decisions that lead to financial, social, and physical ruin for himself. This seems justified pain brought upon the deserving Mr. Job.
I just see this split in justified and unjustified pain/suffering as not seeing the bigger picture. The very fact that any suffering can befall someone, that someone can even make bad decisions that lead to ruinous consequences, the fact that conditions are present whereby one can have natural or human decision-making causes for pain is all considered equally bad. One may try to mitigate bad decisions, but the very fact of its existence, and its intrinsic part of being human, makes it de facto also an inevitable pain/suffering that will befall most/all at some point. This all seems like unjustified pain that humans must endure as conditions of being born in the first place.
1) If a pain is caused due to contingent circumstances that are very much seen as out of the realm of human decision-making, then it is unjustified. So Mr. Job is a standup citizen but all these natural disasters and calamities happen to him and his family. This seems unjustified pain brought upon poor Mr. Job.
2) If pain is caused due to contingent circumstances that are very much seen as in the realm of human decision-making, then pain/suffering is seen as justified. So Mr. Job makes some poor decisions that lead to financial, social, and physical ruin for himself. This seems justified pain brought upon the deserving Mr. Job.
I just see this split in justified and unjustified pain/suffering as not seeing the bigger picture. The very fact that any suffering can befall someone, that someone can even make bad decisions that lead to ruinous consequences, the fact that conditions are present whereby one can have natural or human decision-making causes for pain is all considered equally bad. One may try to mitigate bad decisions, but the very fact of its existence, and its intrinsic part of being human, makes it de facto also an inevitable pain/suffering that will befall most/all at some point. This all seems like unjustified pain that humans must endure as conditions of being born in the first place.
Comments (217)
Its not meant to blame parents per se, just point out that poor decisions are part of the process of being human, and that people will make them is part of the inevitable suffering of existence. It should be taken into consideration as much as natural disasters or pandemics, for the misery or negative that can (will inevitably) characterize life.
Quoting Albero
Cool, make sure you rub it in your own face in your next bad decision :lol:!
But why should I not feel responsible for this poor decision just because it's a certainty that some of the decisions I make in my life will be poor ones? If, in this specific case, I could have acted otherwise, I'm responsible, whether it goes in the good-decision bucket or the poor-decision bucket.
If, up to this point in my life, I have only made good decisions, whether I now make a good decision or a poor decision will determine whether I have made only good decisions or not, but that is not the choice I face. Responsibility doesn't simply attach to the conjunction of all my decisions, but to each according to the circumstances and my capacity to act freely in each case.
Yes, I think you got the gist. Sometimes we are callous to ourselves. We have our own pathologies, tendencies, bad information, indecision. Life can be hard in all regards. Some times more decisions is more stultification, not more freedom.. The more choices in beds, the more choices you have to be discomforted with the wrong choice. It's a very first-world example, but just shows you that there is no escaping bad decisions via technology and output- it may increase overall micro-dissatisfactions. In corporate environments, you may say the wrong thing to a client, customer, or boss-wrong decision. You swerved left instead of right-wrong decision. Make a wrong decision in a tribal society, you are liable to simply die or get seriously injured. This too is part of the suffering of human existence. Though we may say that the locus of our ethics is indeed based on individual accountability, decisions themselves aren't exempt from the very causes of suffering, just because moral loci are based on them. The very fact that bad decisions lead to poor consequences, whether accountable to someone's actions or not, are still negative realities humans face.
Yes, so my point was don't be too hard on yourself or others, as your examples point out, we can barely make heads or tales sometimes. We get by and make do.
I was not saying the individual wasn't accountable for that decision, just that the very fact of bad consequences in decision-making are a thing, are just one more thing to add to the suffering. It is not necessarily justified that poor-decisions are a thing, though in moral matters, it can be said to be the basis for the locus of moral accountability.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
And again, not disputing accountability, just that suffering from bad decisions, when looking at the bigger picture, is a part of the overall suffering and can lead to bad consequences. As far as being a part of the whole suffering ecology, it is just one more facet that humans face. Suffering can be brought about from contingent external forces or our own detrimental decisions. The origin of the suffering doesn't negate the suffering and certainly doesn't make one more justified. Again, not saying people aren't responsible for their moral actions, just that if those actions lead to detrimental outcomes, it is bad in the same way as other bads. It's just one more negative part of life that humans face.
It's like if I threw you in a game and you didn't ask to play it, can't escape, and aren't particularly good at it. In fact, you have a defect that can prevent you from playing well in many ways. Then I say, "Well, it's justified that you are suffering based on your poor ability to play this game". Yeah, no.
I took the "common sense" understanding of whether some particular suffering is justified to be the difference between "I brought this on myself (it's my own fault)" and "I don't deserve this".
In order to challenge that distinction, what else is there to talk about besides responsibility?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Then no one would say you are playing the game voluntarily, and consequences of you playing at all can't reasonably be laid at your door.
But what about things you do in the course of playing? If someone forces me to play hockey, do they also force me to knock someone's teeth out? We tend to assess responsibility more finely than that.
If I chose freely to play hockey, am I freely choosing to have my teeth knocked out? I'm choosing to risk it, certainly, but I'm not choosing for it to happen in the same way that I'm choosing to skate, since that's an unavoidable part of playing hockey.
I agree, of course, that suffering is suffering, no matter the origin; I'm just not convinced there's a common sense view that it's different if you brought it on yourself. That looks to me like assessing responsibility, nothing more. It's even perfectly consistent to say, "It's a damn shame what he's going through, but he brought it on himself."
And so his suffering is justified? I guess the price of being a human born in existence right? Shame indeed.
Did I freely choose to be born?
Nope
Then why bring it up? Is someone claiming that the pain and distress of being born is justified because the fetus chose to be born?
They are claiming that if you just made better decisions you wouldnt be so bad. Oh regret and remorse can be added too.
Okay. In one sense, that's just obvious, and in another it's ridiculous. If I don't deliberately crush my hand with a 2-pound sledgehammer, then my hand is fine, or it ends up getting crushed some other way, or something worse happens to me because I didn't crush my hand, or something amazing and wonderful happens to me because I did crush my hand, or happens because I didn't, or ..., or ..., or ...
Counterfactuals are tricky enough without trying to do some kind of double-entry happiness bookkeeping on top.
If I freely choose to crush my hand with a sledgehammer, we can at least say that the pain I suffer is my own fault, and if I never regain the use of that hand, that's mostly my fault too, though I suppose we could discount a little for medical science not being more advanced than it is.
I'm still not sure I understand what you're arguing for or against.
Yes you created some ridiculous scenarios, but that's not how these things usually go.
Let's say you decided to make a purchase. In the store, the purchase seemed something you would like. Your friend recommended it. You tried it in the store and it seemed good at the time. You brought it home and you realize you don't like it. You didn't read closely enough at the fine print and you cannot return it. You are stuck. You made a wrong decision.
Let's say you decided you made a decision that was much more detrimental. It can go on and on.
Have you ever heard a teenager complain "I never asked to be born!" when asked by their parents to carry out some chore? Schop has unfortunately found a medium for dragging this pubescent whine into four and a half thousand posts.
Isn’t all pain and distress a result of being born? Because it seems to me like you’re saying all pain and distress is unjustified.
No. But "result" is a weasel-word, isn't it?
Being born is a necessary condition of being alive; being alive is a necessary condition of suffering; therefore being born is a necessary condition of suffering.
Does that make being born the sole sufficient condition of suffering? Obviously not.
Certainly being alive is also a necessary condition for making poor decisions. Is it a sufficient condition?
What exactly would that mean? Even granting, and I see no reason not to, that everyone makes poor decisions, does it make any sense to say that being alive caused those decisions?
There's a lot going on between most decisions and the consequences of those decisions.
I think we all shoot ourselves in the foot, but some of us are given a BB gun when we're born and some of us are given a shotgun. I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, none of which led to prison or homelessness.
I think your observation that everyone makes mistakes is a reasonable founding principle for a society that is more supportive and even forgiving. We could live in a world more obsessed with human flourishing than justice.
Good one. You don't have a good answer to it, so you if you call it pubescent, and attack it by not having an argument, you feel you diffuse the argument. Nope. Cowards way.. I can just say all of philosophy is masturbatory rhetorical nothings being spewed by a bunch of (possibly?) grown adults who haven't gotten past the stage of trying to showoff their empty rhetoric to the rest of the (clearly pampered private school) class. Anything can be manipulated to look a certain way. The fact that you wanted to comment on it in that way, shows more about you.
Agreed, but we are generally our own harshest critic. No one else will know how much that decision affected you to the extent that it did.
Quoting khaled
It's like the analogy you give about being thrown into a game you didn't ask for and perhaps can't play well (for a variety of reasons). Except this game is inescapable. Poor decisions are part of the ecological landscape of being born at all, just like natural disasters.
You misunderstand. I agree that all pain and distress is unjustified ultimately. But I also think that it is best to act as if it was not in personal life. If I see the world as a dark and cruel place where I suffer no matter what I do I won't do anything, which will only confirm my paranoia. So I choose to not think that way. It is the only way to play the game well now that I'm stuck in it. However that doesn't justify me forcing other people to play just because I found a way to make the game bearable which may or may not work for them.
Playing the role of concerned mother at a PTA meeting, isn't philosophy. Make an argument or don't. I give you credit for being concerned (if that really is the case rather than rhetorical tactics). Rather, I am trying to chip away at oft-used arguments. It's not recruiting but making a slow, plodding case with various examples. Just ignore if you don't like and answer threads about whether mind is matter or matter is mind, or something about physics.. the ones you think have an air of legitimacy (precisely the type point I have been making if you pay attention regarding minutia-mongering). But ultimately, sometimes the truth is indeed something that can be hard to hear. Even if that is the case, it doesn't mean it must be hushed. It's not meant for any demographic to commit suicide to anymore than any other philosophy or art or form of communication that may convey negative views of existence.
Nor would I claim it is, that detracts neither from the point I made nor the justification for posting it. If you'd have posted neo-Nazi propaganda I would have responded likewise with a non-philosophical opposition.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's already been made, yet you persist, are you suggesting that your previous (I'm going to go with hundreds) of posts on the subject have gone uncontested? An argument with which you do not agree doesn't cease to be an argument simply by virtue of your disapproval.
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's not your intentions I'm imputing it's your presentation of genocide as a solution to teenage angst.
No, I agree. My main point is that people often view suffering as external, and exclude suffering made by oneself through poor decision-making. There is an idea that if the result is something from a deliberative act, that it was justified, since it came from the person. All suffering is part of the picture. As far as how this understanding affects daily life, I agree, one doesn't have to make it color everything, it is more descriptive of the ecology than trying to be prescriptive of any way to think of it daily.
Antinatalism is not a hate group. It advocates no discrimination, harm, or violence on any particular group of people. And passively arguing for not procreating is not any of those things, so don't even try with that. If you are implying it's causing teen suicide, that seems a straw man you pulled out of your ass.
Quoting Isaac
Uncontested? I never said that. I am well aware of the many many interlocutors who disagree. And I have rarely started threads that I never defended over and over. So I would never say it is uncontested. Rather, I am focused on the many arguments people make for why people should keep procreating and taking various angles to dispute these commonly held notions and to chip away at them. It is also to present things people might not consider.
Quoting Isaac
This is where you are arguing out of bad faith. Clearly none of my posts have anything to do with "teenage angst". That is the presentation YOU are imputing, and its just a way to delegitimize with labeling. I am not sure if this is a joke to be funny or real. If real:
A) Genocide is not passively not having children.
B) Solution to suffering isn't a solution to teenage angst.
But you knew this and are being a troll it seems which is very much what an angsty teenager would do :wink:.
What it advocates and what it's philosophical positions end up encouraging are two different things. As I said, it's not your motives I'm talking about.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I'm not implying it's causing teen suicide, but if you can't see a link between that and a cult advocating that non-existence is the only way to avoid suffering then you really don't understand the issue at all.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You're doing neither. The arguments which have been presented you just leave hanging and then open a new thread. You're not 'chipping away' at anything, you're ignoring contrary opinion that cannot be disputed and hunting for 'fresh blood' who might be more gullible. That's why it comes across as recruiting. The arguments you make have already been made, the counterarguments have already been made yet rather than think of new angles on those difficult positions, you hawk a new thread with the same flaws hoping someone new might not notice them.
Quoting schopenhauer1
As I've said, it's not what you intent, it's what's implied. If I were to strongly advocate that immigrants should be steralised and imprisoned, do you think I can really wash my hands of any violence against immigrants which then ensues by claiming "well, I never actually advocated violence"?
Your arguments are undermining the basic sanctity of human life, I find it very hard to believe you can't see the philosophical consequences of arguing that all human life is worth less than nothing.
I would say that it's not fair to put ALL of your suffering on being forced to play the game. Birth is the first cause of all suffering but not the only cause. Currently people don't count suffering they inflict on themselves as suffering at all but I don't think it's fair to go from that to counting all suffering as a direct result of being born. If you lost your house due to a volcano I'd understand blaming the game, but if you sold your house at a less than ideal price I'd say it's not fair to blame the game solely.
And since you're already part of the game I'd say there is no point in blaming anything on the game because that pragmatically makes the situation worse even if it makes sense. But anyways this isn't really philosophy I'm just talking about attitude towards life in general.
Just an interjection here. First off antinatalism doesn't say that non-existence is the ONLY way to avoid suffering and secondly it is not the goal of antinatalism to avoid suffering but merely not to inflict it. If you knew you child would cure cancer an antinatalist would still say that having them is wrong. Even though having them would relieve more suffering.
Quoting Isaac
That is already advocating violence (what with the forced improsonment and all) so no. Antinatalists do not advocate suicide.
Quoting Isaac
When was that implied? It is very easy to look at a philosophical position like materialism and blurt out something like "sO YoU'Re sAyiNg wE'Re AlL jUsT MAchinEs???" when the reality is often much more complicated. I think that's exactly what you're doing here.
Quoting Isaac
No matter how sanctified human life is all that serves to do is to make a case against murder, assault, etc. No amount of sanctity will make an argument FOR having children without sounding ridiculous. "Human life is so sanctified each person must at least have 3 children" sounds pretty ridiculous no? Bringing up sanctity of human life here is like providing a proof for the the sum of angles in a triangle in a debate about free will. Completely unrelated even though it's correct.
I'm not going to just keep repeating myself here. I'm not talking about what anti-natalism actually says. I'm talking about the implications of their line of argument. So the fact that it doesn't say "that non-existence is the ONLY way to avoid suffering" is irrelevant if that's what the arguments imply. The fact that it doesn't say "we advocate suicide" is irrelevant if that's what the arguments imply. The fact that it doesn't specifically mention the sanctity of human life is irrelevant if undermining it is what the arguments imply.
Quoting IsaacQuoting Isaac
Where is this implied? Which part of the argument can be used to reach this conclusion? I asked you this already and you didn't asnwer.
I think you're saying "implies x" where it's more like "sounds vaguely close to x from a quick skim of the arguments". The way you use the term, it would not surprise me if next you say "Veganism implies that animal lives are more valuable than human lives" or something like that.
I can't speak to all anti-natalist arguments, obviously, it was lazy of me not to specify. The argument here, and in previous such posts, is that we cannot alleviate suffering by our actions toward each other sufficiently to overcome the advocacy of doing so by avoiding procreation. That either implies that avoiding birth is the only way to alleviate suffering, or the human life is so trivial a thing that we need not consider its extinction a good reason to seek alternative methods.
Non-existence can't be flawed after all according to the anti-natalist and if in even the most perfect universe or society imaginable we'd still be de facto non-consenting to annoyances (say when it comes to waking up or having to walk somewhere) so non-existence is clearly preferable. Of course no one actually acts this out and kills themselves because of this, nor should they. It's just a nice thought experiment predicated on being super critical of everything.
That is not an either/or. Rather, I have a different perspective on how to look at ethics than what you have stated. The way you phrased it right there is that human life is some kind of mission, and by having new people, we are fulfilling this mission. Rather, at least this form of antinatalism that I am discussing, would look at the individual's worth and dignity rather than a cause (e.g. humanity, human life). How so, you say? Because in the procreational decision, one can prevent all future harm from befalling a future individual, without any negative consequences to that future individual. That would be actually affirming the worth, by considering that one is not foisting negative consequences, or perhaps a game that the future person would not want to play (or even have a tendency to play poorly). [And these are the reasons why I make these threads, to change perspectives on these things which only SEEM counter-intuitive. Luckily something like a PHILOSOPHY FORUM would be the place to posit these kind of counterintuitive notions.]
Anyways, under your perspective as written here, we would be affirming a cause (i.e. humanity), over and above the consideration of suffering of the future life. And here is another perspective change I would like to propose. Even if the future life wouldn't be agony all of the time [which who knows, there could be pretty bad lives created inadvertently anyways, so there's an argument there as well], it is that we should consider that if an alternative is not creating conditions/capacities for suffering to creating conditions/capacities of known and unknown quantities of suffering for a future individual, then the moral choice is to always prevent creating conditions/capacities of suffering when one is able.
Even further you might say.. How is negatives weighted so heavily? I'd go back to the idea that it doesn't seem intuitively bad that no beings exist on Mars. We don't hold vigils for the non-happiness situation there. However, if we were to learn Martians exist and live tortuous lives, then we might feel some empathy for this and start some advocacy group or something. But why? Because not creating a new situation of happiness is not weighted as much as not creating new situations of harm. It is moral to prevent harm, but there is no obligation to create beings who experience things like happiness.
Actually I'd like to amend what I said above. I should say, what is SEEMINGLY counterintuitive (antinatalist) stance, comes from very intuitive understandings of harm and positive states (like happiness). I wanted to say this so as not to create a performative contradiction. I don't think I made that clear when I mentioned "counterintuitive". I meant, what SEEMS counterintuitive.
Agreed. This seems like a specific instance of the broader asymmetry and deprivationalist account (re: intra-worldly balance) of pleasure and pain. Is it better to be put in a situation where there is a right choice and a wrong choice, or to not be put in that situation to begin with? If there is no reason or need for someone to make choices, why give them this burden?
It seems clear that someone who makes a very bad choice would have been better off had they either made a different choice (an empirical truth), or never had to make that choice to begin with (a metaphysical truth).
Yes, exactly!
Quoting darthbarracuda
I like the way you categorized the empirical outcome vs. the very decision-making situation itself as a more metaphysical aspect of having to be in the situation at all.
I'm just curious as to what you would say if someone said the inevitable, "But we can learn from bad decisions, ergo, they must be good". I know there are many things wrong with that statement, but that seems to be the kind of argument that would put forth as a response. I think I know what your answer would be, but just wanted to put it out there.
Yeah, and this sums up exactly what I'm saying. You're not compelled by unassailable logic to look at things the way you do. Absolutely every single one of your arguments proceeds from some unusual axiom which you have simply chosen to hold despite being free to choose otherwise There are any of a dozen different ways to interpret that silly 'life on Mars' intuition, for example. You've chosen a set of frames which leads you to the annihilation if the human race as an answer. Anyone in their right mind would see that as a sign they might have taken a wrong turn somewhere.
Dude, I JUST said above what you are objecting to, thus anticipating it:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting Isaac
It's called an argument. Almost no argument posited, even "This is my hand" has ever been uncontested. So the fact that you can say something otherwise, is not news, and is AGAIN ARGUING IN BAD FAITH. You just find my philosophy and my frequency of posts odious to you, and thus you pick on this argument more than others. It is literally the stock-and-trade of philosophical arguments to present what SEEM to be counterintuitive arguments that are contested back-and-forth over many articles, over many years over many posts, or whatever the forum of communication.
Quoting Isaac
That is just, like, your opinion man.
By making sure that individual doesn't exist, what a court might call an "overly broad remedy".
Quoting schopenhauer1
I'm sure you don't consider the argument against procreating to be an argument for murder, but you must rely on some other principle right? Without something else you have an argument for mercy killing on a global scale.
Ah, but the procreational decision is the only one where one would be recognizing the dignity of the person, without doing something against their consent.
The dignity of a person who doesn't exist and cannot give or withhold consent?
Yes respecting what could be by NOT foisting a game on them without their consent nor "gifting" them the conditions whereby they have the (known and unknown) capacity for suffering. Correct.
Respecting "what could be"? But that's not an individual, and they have no consent to give or withhold.
At any rate, it turns out you don't need a extra principle to block mass mercy killing, because you start from respect for the individual life, and believe anti-natalism can be derived from that. Yes?
You can repeat it like I don't understand, I get it. You can respect someone by NOT doing something to them. Because they don't exist YET, doesn't negate this principle. For example, if someone was to be born into KNOWN horrifying circumstances.. like literally a woman gives birth to a baby and the baby falls in a pit of doom or something... would you not consider that? Now extend this idea to a lifetime of known and unknown suffering. It's as if your capacity to understand future circumstances (like a future existing being) STOPS only when it comes to this argument, because you don't like it.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No rather, not foisting a game without consent (cause as you acknowledged, cannot do this de facto), and not causing conditions of all suffering, is recognizing the dignity. Once born, certainly there is a being for which consent can be had, and thus mercy killing would be not respecting this aspect, yes.
I think you're right on the money here, Isaac. I've always been a little suspicious of people who espouse views that they can't (or refuse to) actually live out. If someone really thinks that non-existence is the preferable state of being they're free to kill themselves (not that I am suggesting this.)
Even if society was perfect and we had eliminated war, poverty, and disease humans would still be subject to terrible, non-consensual forces outside of their control, like having to wake up from a pleasant sleep or go to the bathroom. We solve these problems by destroying humanity. /s.
So I stated before, that it is perhaps not worth being brought into a world that is not a paradise or utopia. So, you seem to be describing one that isn't even if more flagrant forms of suffering are eliminated. Actually, I still think it would be bad to a certain extent as the way this often works is that more "refined" versions of suffering will simply become the biggest forms of suffering and be the new "standard" for suffering.
I often acknowledged, a utopia or paradise would probably be akin to some sort of Buddhist nirvana, a nothingness or complete fullness of being, which one cannot really imagine in our current something, or non-complete state.
I get how the logic works: you are only entitled to do something to someone with their consent; therefore not existing is functionally equivalent to withholding consent. But it's still a little odd: my moral duty is constituted by the claim others have on me to respect their autonomy; but then somehow I end up having a moral duty to people who don't exist.
The inference only holds because one or more of the premises fail, so it's vacuously true, which doesn't seem like much of a foundation for an ethical position.
If that's really it, then no wonder no one ever persuades you (your position is logically defensible) and you never persuade anyone else (the key inference is only vacuously valid, but not sound).
Yeah, I feel like you're talking about a utopia/perfect society that is very far removed from our current understanding of society. What you're saying kind of reminds me of that scene in one of the Matrix movies where Neo goes into the "real world" and he discovers the humans are housed unconscious in these gel pods living out their own virtual reality elsewhere. But on second thought maybe they could still suffer in that virtual reality, who knows.
I am content to hear that even if, for all intents and purposes the problems in our society were eliminated you'd still hold to your position. It shows that we're both on the same page that the anti-natalism objection is less to do with society and more to do with just a general objection to being.
It has nothing to do with intuitions at this point. The intuition that we are not upset about the lack of life on Mars is uncontested (though it could be). It's about your interpretation of that intuition (and others like it).
Quoting schopenhauer1
Why? This is the question I'm really getting at. Why would you do this. We've just established that the axioms which lead you here are chosen voluntarily. Yes, if you choose to look at things a certain way you could logically end up with anti-natalism. Why on earth, then, would you choose to do so, let alone try to get other people to look at things that way too?
Yes.
Quoting Isaac
But I don't think this part is correct. The first "implication" is a reasonable position to hold already, and doesn't rely on the above argument really. We know of no way to alleviate suffering 100% nor have we even come close to it. No matter how much easier we make life suffering seems to still be there. Right now, even among people who have no material difficulties, have loving parents, etc, there still seems to be suffering.
And the second "implication" is not implied. If you offer an antinatalist a button that makes sure no children will ever be born again and a button that makes earth a utopia he would pick the utopia without hesitation. It's not so much that there is not a good reason to seek alternative methods as: We have no right to force others to seek alternative methods without even knowing if they are possible just because we want said methods.
How would you feel if you were born into some dystopian society forced to work to the bone, hating your life and it was all justified by: "Your great great great grandchildren MAY not experience suffering". A bit of an extreme example just to illustrate the point.
Quoting Isaac
This is the case for every single ethical argument. So why do you have such a problem with this one?
And might I add that the main premises antinatalism relies on are already adopted widely:
1- Life has suffering in it
2- It is wrong to inflict suffering on others without consent
3- Commiting an act in the present which one knows will result in harm in the future for someone else without their consent is still wrong (EX: setting a bear trap in a public park)
Those are really all you need to argue for antinatalism.
Quoting Isaac
You are not compelled by unassailable logic to look at things the way you do :wink:
Quoting Isaac
"Why not?" is a possible answer. You cannot on one hand stress how moral interpretations are subjective and baseless and on the other hand try to imply that this particular interpretation should be changed to a "better" interpretation.
Mine is: "Other interpretations reek of self-deception to me. To pretend that one is completely not responsible for their child's suffering just because they tried their best to raise him/her is something I can't do. And I don't think life is an easy enough or short enough undertaking so as to force people through it who may not want to." But since I recognize that this is a personal view I don't spend time trying to convince others of it so unlike many antinatalists I would NOT press the "Instant global vasecomy button".
And I don't think shope is really trying to recruit here. It is very common for people to post on this site to debate the beliefs they already hold. This post isn't even exactly about antinatalism, and as you said, even though this post implies that all suffering is unjustified to some extent, you don't have to take that and argue for antinatalism as a result. IMO you probably just think shope is recruiting because he's known for being an antinatalist and if some other member posted this you wouldn't react this way.
I didn't mention 109% or utopia. It is only necessary that suffering is outweighed by pleasures unless you hold to something like asymmetric valuation, which brings me back to the question of why anyone would maintain such axioms.
Quoting khaled
Fine. How would you feel about the prospect of the entire human race becoming extinct? I expect your answer to that question will seem as unlikely to me as my answer to your question does to you.
The point here is that you can't use some human intuitions to base an argument on (here, rights of autonomy) and then later when your conclusions clash with other intuitions (here, that annihilating the human race is a bad thing) claim to have demonstrated those second intuitions to be thus wrong. If intuitions (no matter his strong) can nonetheless be wrong, then the whole project of applying logic to them to get sound conclusions is a complete non-starter.
Quoting khaled
Because it leads to the annihilation of the human race. That you personally might have no issue with that says more about your own psychology than it does about ethics.
Quoting khaled
See above.
Quoting khaled
Yes, I absolutely can. That's the whole point of moral relativism. I don't have to present an argument from some God-given objective moral code in order to make a moral argument. Morals are not 'found' by mathematics, they are the reason we do the mathematics.
Quoting khaled
You can't debate a belief, that's the point. You can debate the validity of a conclusion presuming shared axioms and an agreement as to what constitutes a rational step and what doesn't. Absent of such an agreement one is persuading, not 'debating'. That is the issue I have. One might persuade others of a course of action one is sure is for the best, but the more sketchy the argument, and the more serious the consequences, the more careful one should be about pursuing such rhetoric. Here the argument is based on some flimsy logic applied to unpopular axioms and the consequence is the end of humanity forever.
Agreed. And currently we cannot know that for any given child.
Quoting Isaac
Pretty sad. Not as sad as seeing someone going through severe depression though.
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
First off, intuitions are neither right or wrong, we all have different "amounts" of them. And secondly I never said that the prospect of human extinction doesn't make me sad. You just expected I would because you have some preconceived notion about all antinatalists and you are arguing with that caricature rather than actually trying to reach a conclusion with the person you're talking to.
It's just that I don't think the sadness that I will feel over human extinction gives me a right to have a child to prevent it. Because that's just another form of harming someone ELSE to alleviate MY sadness. And worst part is, that child will ALSO likely be saddned at the prospect and so pass the harm on to someone else ad inifnium (That's why a "logo" for antinatalism that I see often is a broken circle with the letter A breaking it). If we were to quantify sadness due to extinction as (x) then the choice is "Experience x or likely inflict way worse than x on a member of your family tree"
Quoting Isaac
What I interpreted was you saying "You can hold any position you want but you shouldn't hold that position because it's objectively bad". If you had said "You can hold any position you want butI think antinatalism is some fundamentally depressed and messed up philosophy that should be exorcised" I would have had no issue with that. But you are implying that somehow DESPITE moral relativism being the case than one should not be an antinatalist.
Using moral relativism to undermine an ethical position doesn't really work because it undermines all ethical positions not just the one you take issue with. Instead of knocking down a building you move the whole playing field downwards.
Quoting Isaac
And what shope is trying to do is trying to debate whether or not a shared axiom is correct. I don't see a problem with that. If someone makes a post about how he thinks god doesn't exist you wouldn't mind that would you (I know we don't have many theists here but it is still a commonly held axiom in the general population)?
Mind you you don't need the axiom that "Self inflicted pain is still unjustified" to argue for antinatalism at all which is why I'm saying that you likely wouldn't have even minded the post if it wasn't shope's
Quoting Isaac
As I said before (and you conveniently ignored), the axioms antinatalism needs are not unpopular at all. And I don't think the logic is flimsy. I don't like replying to empty statements that are just blurted out like these so if you want to argue this then I ask you to at least present the unpopular axioms and why you think the logic is flimsy or you've effectively said nothing.
I'm not sure many would, but I don't see that's relevant. It's quite an unusual principle that one's personal emotional response is what provides the basis for rights, so if you did have a 'right' to have a child to prevent the extinction if the human race it would be because of the intrinsic value of humanity, not because you might be sad about something.
Quoting khaled
I think you've misunderstood moral relativism. I still think you ought to behave a certain way, it doesn't stop being about how others ought to behave. I just don't think there's a logical method by which I can derive that feeling.
Quoting khaled
How do you propose to debate whether an axiom is 'correct'? What measures would we judge it by?
Quoting khaled
It needs the axiom that annihilating humanity is an acceptable conclusion, that not having children is an acceptable conclusion. I've not done the surveys but I think that's about the most unpopular axiom there is.
Whatever intuition(s) you start from you've arrived at a conclusion which clashes with one of our strongest intuitions. You're faced with either a) intuitions can be very wrong - in which case your argument is built on air, or b) intuitions like the ones you start from are to be taken seriously - in which case the clash involved in your conclusion should indicate that your logic has gone very wrong somewhere.
This is typically overwrought rhetoric. Your logic like others, goes something like this "Even if I was to know a being would be born into certain torture, I would not consider this future event because that being doesn't actually exist yet, so how can I consider a future being or event if they don't exist yet!" Thus, the person would have ONLY exist and be tortured in order to have any consideration for harm towards the being. Obviously there is something wrong there, no matter how crazy you say my claim is. This is philosophical gaslighting.
I'm not sure about all antinatalist philosophies, its not monolithic. The way I explain this version is to split up necessary and contingent suffering. You seem to be talking about getting rid of contingent (circumstantial) suffering. However, there is a necessary deprivation to being- that doesn't go away. That is the Suffering as discussed in Schopenhauer/Eastern philosophy: "Always becoming but never being".
Oh yeah if you're talking about the "suffering" or whatever you want to call that is inherent in being (i.e. the way that humans experience the world) that's not going away anytime soon. If you want to be hyper sensitive to it that's on you. I hate to say it but you're free to enter into non-being at any point and regardless we'll all be spending billions upon billions of years in non-being after we die (assuming no reincarnation or afterlife) so if non-being is the preferable state then things are probably looking pretty good in your view given the time spent in both states.
Sure.. But this sounds like justification for bringing people into being, because, well there was eternity before and after.. so why not ?-100 years of being, right?
Here is the thing.. I can agree with you conclusions can show something is wrong, if those conclusions actually indeed cause harm to someone or a negative. But quite the opposite and an example of obstinate assertion and indignation without reason behind it. Your objection is, "The conclusion would mean no humanity!!!". Then of course the response is:
"What obligation do we have to humanity as opposed to individual people?
But you see, you have no good answer to that except going back the obstinate assertion and indignation.
I'm not trying to argue with you here. We've already agreed that being inherently involves "suffering" and certainly the individual being subject to forces beyond their control (i.e. non-consensual forces), you're just much more sensitive to it than me.
I'm not trying to justify procreation here. I'm not sure if I need to.
Ok, I don't have any argument then. It's basically the Lucretius argument that we had eternity before and after our birth. I just don't see that as comforting during the actual being part, ha.
Why is my view that humanity should be preserved "obstinate assertion and indignation", but your view that "cause[ing] harm to someone or a negative" must be avoided at all costs not similarly unsupported assertion?
They're both just moral assertions about what ought and ought not be done.
But you've changed your argument. Where is consent?
We start with the intuition that I have a moral duty to respect the autonomy of others and take actions that affect them only if I have their consent.
We then infer that if I do not have the consent of an entity, I must do nothing to them.
If an entity cannot give consent? Children and animals for instance? We make special rules. Rocks and trees? We make different special rules.
Beings that don't exist? No rule needed, since I can't do anything to them.
But, you argue, I could cause the non-existent entity to exist; the entity I cause to exist could not possibly give consent, because at the time I cause them to exist, they don't exist.
To you that might look like an absolute moral truth but to most people, I submit, this will look like a bit of sophistry, or dorm-room philosophy, or stoner profundity, or, in the best case, a paradox. However it's taken, it doesn't look like the foundation for an ethical position, nothing on the order of respecting the autonomy of others.
My point was that the way you're relying on consent in this argument may be logically defensible (or may not -- there are logical challenges I'm not bothering to mount) but it is not persuasive.
If you want to abandon the reliance on consent and just ask me if it's moral to bring a being into the world knowing with certainty they will be tortured continuously, that's a different question.
The basis is on the idea that preventing harms are more important than whatever other excuse you have to procreate someone. In any other realm, this makes sense. No humans just seems like something of a panicky vision, but the actual operation of morality isn't "visions of humanity", but "What is this going to do to someone else?".
As I said right at the beginning (and indeed the last time we discussed this) if one agrees with your idiosyncratic axioms then maybe one is indeed compelled by logic to agree with your conclusion. My question is, given such a massively counter-intuitive conclusion, why would you persist in holding such an heterodox premise?
Quoting schopenhauer1
From where did you get this notion of what morality really is?
I don't see the problem here. You cannot ask for consent, yet you go ahead and make the decision for them that it would be okay to cause the conditions whereby suffering takes place.
If we were to go the other direction, essentially your argument is: "In order to consent to be tortured or not, one must be born to be tortured, so they can consent not to be tortured".. So the inverse of your argument is essentially, "As long as no one exists at the time of the decision that affects them, the decision is justified on behalf of that person". However, you probably agree that certain decisions on other people's behalf are wrong, like the decision that they will be born into direct and immediate torture. However, the antinatalist, recognizes that life spread over a whole lifetime, has many instances of pain and suffering, and (in my version at least), there is always some inherent suffering no matter what (that's another debate though). Either way, these are decisions that have no consent that are affecting (majorly!) another person's whole state of being. You cannot get consent, that is the case. Yes or no? The next move that you seem to disagree with is, when you cannot get consent, you are not then permitted to affect a person's state of being. Rather, by not procreating, de facto, no ONE is being affected, and thus consent is not being violated.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Sure, my argument doesn't even rely on consent, though I did use it in this example. The basic premise is that one can prevent the conditions of all harm for another person. One is not obligated to procreate for any X, Y, Z reason. By not affecting a future person, that is recognizing that there is suffering in the world as a living human being, and that the world for humans has a lot of "dealing with" situations. And to foist this burden and "dealing with" on another, would not be respecting that indeed an individual will be affected negatively by this decision.
You have to start somewhere. I get the notion that morality is based on a foundation and at some point you can't go much further. I will say this though- where if you follow my argument's premises, you literally create no new lives of suffering in the world. If you follow your argument's premises, more people who will suffer will be created. To then say, "But in an interview, the person born said 51% of their life was good, not bad!" is not a justification for thus creating the conditions for suffering for someone else. We can go into that if you want.
Since you don't seem to find anything logically suspect in non-existent entities, let's look at a related case.
You arrive on the scene of a car wreck. There is before you on the ground a young man whose heart has stopped. As he is unconscious, he cannot give consent for you to perform CPR.
Your position suggests that there is no issue here at all, that it is absolutely immoral to perform CPR.
That's not a sufficient justification for any given starting point. Notwithstanding that, you having personally chosen such an odd starting place is also not sufficient justification for trying to convince others of it. You've not answered my question (not that you're obliged to) as to why you've decided to persist with this odd premise despite the magnitude of the conclusion.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Why not?
This is why it's not just about consent, but about what the consent is about. This person was ALREADY created. Thus, you are harming him, by waiting for consent. But that's not the case of birth. It's more like.. If I put you in a deadly, harmful, difficult, game without your consent, and then I saved you from some of the pitfalls that I have put you in in the first place, without your consent.
This is essentially your argument over and over. They also ridiculed Galileo.
Yes, that's correct.
Quoting schopenhauer1
So. Some people are deserving of ridicule, others aren't. I'm not seeing the relevance here. Your starting premise is odd, you've given no reason at all for preferring it over more commonly held ones, and it leads to a conclusion which most people find ridiculous (if not outright repugnant). So why should we take it seriously?
See, you THINK I ought to behave a certain way. Now I have no complaints. It sounded like you were objectvely saying antinatalism should be changed.
Quoting Isaac
Even more base axioms. What shope is doing for example is clashing multiple intuitions against each.
Quoting Isaac
Wait, so when you argue for a conclusion, one of your premises has to be "This conclusion is acceptable?". So if you want to find the sum of 2 and 2 but you think "2+2=4" is an unacceptable conclusion then 2+2 does not equal 4?
There is no such thing as "acceptable conclusion". You start with premises and you reason through them. And whatever you get at the end is true as long as the premises and logic are true. The truth value of an argument does not change because one thinks the conclusion is unacceptable.
Quoting Isaac
Not really. Why would a clash of intuitions somehow lead to a logical inconsistency? Our intuitions are not non contradictory. Our brains are not as brittle as a logical system. They can handle some amount of internal inconsistency.
Quoting Isaac
That's not the argument. The argument is that my right to have children provided by the intrinsic value of human life is trumped by the child's right not to be harmed. And I think most people would agree that in MOST cases, the right of an individual not to be harmed trumps most other "rights" unless said individual is harming others. Tell me of a situation where harming others is considered acceptable other than self defence, and when the alternative to not harming a few individuals is harm to many individuals.
I am aware a child doesn't exist until they're had but the rights of a hypothetical person must also be respected. Which is why, for example, planting a bomb with a 15 year timer in a fetus is wrong. Even though at the time of the action no one existed to have right not to be harmed.
So the alternatives are:
1- Perform CPR: very low chance of harm, very high chance of benefit
2- Don't perform CPR: very high chance of harm, very low chance of benefit (that is counting successful suicide as a benefit)
Both alternatives are "risky" but one is clearly more risky. Consent is required when it is a "risky" alternative vs a "safe" or "safer" alternative and you want to perform the riskier one. That is not the case here. Whereas for procreation it is:
1- Have children: low chance of them leading a life they hated (overall negative), high chance of them leading a life they find meaningful (overall positive)
2- Don't have children: Nothing
So you would need consent to have children here because it is more risky than not. It's not that it's very risky, we don't life in a terrible insufferable world, it's just more risky.
For taking any action at all of any kind that may ever effect anyone else in any way:
1. Do something: some chance of good effect (impossible to calculate); some chance of negative effect (impossible to calculate).
2. Do nothing: no effect.
If you take any action, you incur a risk that you may produce a negative effect, because of your uncertainty, therefore it is better never to take any action at all of any kind that may ever effect anyone else in any way.
Not in this case. And not in most cases. This is what I'm saying. Doing nothing to the guy in the car crash scene will result in his death. Passivity has consequences.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Numerically, yes it's impossible. But relative to other actions it is possible. For example if you have to kill one innocent person vs kill 5 innocent people you can't sit there and say "Gee, I can't tell which is better because this is impossible to calculate"
Suppose I keep him alive until paramedics arrive and they revive him, he looks at his crushed hands and says, "Oh God! Why didn't you just let me die!" because he's a pianist and the rest of his life will be miserable. How can I possibly know, especially if he's just been in a car crash, whether he will consider the rest of his life good or bad?
Or suppose he's evil, and by saving him, I allow him to do appalling amounts of harm to others. How can I possibly know whether others will suffer because he lives?
Or, perhaps, I should not guess at the sum worth of lives I know nothing about, and the effect those lives have on other lives.
I can also deny, no matter your arguments, that my not acting must be counted as an action. I can deny responsibility for his death all I like. I did not act; if I did not act, I caused nothing to happen.
Or I could agree and say the only way to be sure I am not, no matter my intent, causing more suffering in the world, is to have no dealings with other people at all -- so I should never have been there to face the choice of saving the man or not.
But I may still have a negative effect on others, however indirectly, just by living, and the only way to be sure I'm not doing harm, no matter my intent, is to make sure that I do not exist.
Or, perhaps, I should not guess at the sum worth of my life, and the effect my life has on the lives of others.
Quoting khaled
But are you saying I must only make these obvious short term calculations? That I have no business wondering about what those involved think of their lives? Or guessing what might be awaiting them around the corner? Or speculating about the effect they have on others? What if I choose to kill the one, but he was happy and made many others happy, while the five I save are miserable and make others miserable? Are you saying I shouldn't speculate about such things when I make moral decisions?
And how do we decide which of these clashing axioms trumps which?
Quoting khaled
Yes. If you were working out the length of timber needed for a table cross brace using trigonometry and you got the answer 204m would you unquestioningly proceed to the timber yard and ask for a 204m length of timber for you furniture project, or would you presume you'd makde a mistake somewhere in the calculations?
Quoting khaled
OK, so let's start with the premise that being allowed to have children is an inalienable right and that the human race has an intrinsic value and ending it would be wrong. Having children causes (by your principle - not one I agree with) harm without consent. Therefore it must be OK to cause harm without consent. The premises are true the logic flawless so the conclusion must be true, right?
So how come the 'true' conclusion changes depending on which intuition I start with?
Quoting khaled
Hang on - a minute ago it was all "2+2=4", now you're saying the our intuitions can all be right or all wrong even if they're contradictory. Which is it - calculus or para-consistent? If the former then how do we know which intuition to start with as that seems to affect the 'truth' of the conclusion, if the latter then (as I said earlier) the whole project is pointless as you can't show one intuition to be false using another.
Quoting khaled
Having children.
You can't. But you know statistically that the majority of people are not pianists. And you know statistically that most people with disabiliites learn to live with them in a couple of months or years. So you can surmise that it is more likely that this person would want to be saved.
All your other "or"s can be adressed in such a manner. If I had known that the person was a pianist for example that would add some complexity to the situation. But you didn't give me any extra info.
I do not rely on somehow knowing what the future holds for the person I save but simply on knowing that it is more likely they'd see being saved as a benefit. Work with the information that you have.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Responsibility =/= consequences. I said there are CONSEQUENCES to passivity not that you're responsible for those consequences. In the case of the car crash I see it as: You are not responsible to save him but saving him is not immoral (for reasons stated above).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
And then you would simply be incorrect. Inactivity is a form of activity. Choosing not to save a drowning person WILL MOST LIKELY cause more harm in comparison to save him. That is an example of causing suffering even though you're not responsible for it and can't be blamed for it.
In my view the damage that you're responsible for is a subset of the damage you cause. The distinguishing factor is: Would the damage have still been done if you had not intervened. If the answer is yes then you're not resonsible but you still cause the damage by choosing not to intervene.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
But that would still be doing more harm most likely. Suicide is most often the more harmful option to yourself (which counts) and others.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No. I just gave a single variable for simplicity. These:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Should also be considered. And in the car crash example you gave all I had was "Man in accident save or no save?". So I have to use the info that I have, that being that it is more likely for the general population that not saving is the worse option therefore consent to save is not required (because it's the safer option)
As I said, by reasoning from even more basic axioms. For me "It is okay to risk harming others" is much harder to believe than "It is not okay to have kids". Therefore when it comes to procreation, the former wins, since I consider procreation a form of risking harming others.
Quoting Isaac
The difference here is that in the case of antinatalism the logic has been revised over and over and the premises do directly lead to the conclusion. And what you are proposing is changing the premises to get a different conclusion. Which is perfectly valid in ethics, but I would rather not do that (because as I said it reeks of self deception)
Quoting Isaac
What? Complete non sequitor. You could say "Therefore it must be OK to cause harm without consent in this paticular case because I believe the "right" to have children trumps the child's right not to be harmed" and that would make sense. But you can't just contradict one of your own premises in the conclusion.
Quoting Isaac
Because, as I said, we all have different "amounts" of these intuitions. My intuition that I shouldn't cause harm trumps my intuition that I should have children. Because the former is much more basic. It was much easier for me to believe that having children is not okay vs believing that harming people is completely fine. And I suspect that that is the case for you too. Because although you think that having children is fine you probably don't think that harm without consent is fine. The key difference is that you don't see having children as causing any kind of harm while I see that as self deception. Especially since we have many cases where having children is immoral, for exmaple if you have a terrible genetic disease.
Quoting Isaac
No. A minute ago it was all: "You can't just tell yourself that 2+2 does not equal 4 just because you don't like the fact that it is even though the logic adds up." That's all I was saying.
Quoting Isaac
As I said before. Intuitions are not right or wrong. Intuitions tell us what to do in different moral situations. However they are not specific about which is applied when. So for example, we all have the intuition "It is wrong to steal from innocents" and the intuition "Benefiting yourself is good". So most of us don't steal. However if you consider everyone living in a capitalist society is already a thief and a scoundrel, stealing will come much more easily to you since the people you're stealing from are no longer innocent so the intuition doesn't apply.
Quoting Isaac
Is that your only example? Because if it is then that's my problem. I can't live my whole life abiding by certain moral codes and then just make an exception in one spot because I feel like it.
That's not 'reasoning'. There's no 'reasoning' taking place there at all, it's simply a declaration of how you happen to feel at the moment.
Quoting khaled
Nonsense. Are you suggesting that there's been no opposition to anti-natalist arguments on the grounds of faulty logic? The arguments simply seem to you to be flawless. To others they seem flawed. You can choose whether to consider yourself to have made a mistake or others to have done. One of the ways you do that (as in my timber example) is to look at the degree to which the conclusion you reach is in the range you expected. "We should end the human race" is, by anyone's standards, a rather extreme conclusion, one worthy of a thorough re-check of the calculations, and a presumption in favour of those who've reached a more moderate conclusion.
Quoting khaled
Why is it "self-deception" to choose one starting premise, but coldly rational to choose the other?
Quoting khaled
Where have I contradicted one of my premises? I only have two premises in that argument - that is is a right to have children and that it is wrong to end the human race. Which of those premises have I contradicted in my conclusion?
Quoting khaled
Who said anything about 'liking' the fact. I'm talking about it being a moral intuition that ending the human race would be bad. If you equate that moral judgement with simply 'liking/disliking' (which I'm not opposed to) then your moral intuition that we shouldn't harm other is simply you not 'liking' to do so (or not 'liking' other doing so). You can't just ascribe some moral intuitions to mere self-deceptive preferences while exulting others as more important than the human species which created them.
Quoting khaled
Again, it's not 'because you feel like it' any more than the moral code in the first place was 'because you felt like it'. From where are you getting this sharp distinction such that 'not harming others' is some objective moral code divorced from your personal preferences, but continuing the human race is some trivial preference akin to preferring vanilla to chocolate ice-cream. There's no sense at all in humanity that people feel this way about those two things. They are on a par at least. either they're both trivial preferences, or they're both really important moral intuitions.
None that you have presented. And none that have seemed reasonable to me from what I saw.
Quoting Isaac
The 'reasoning' bit is whether or not you consider procreation a form of harming others.
Quoting Isaac
I didn't say coldly rational. It's just that I can't pretend to believe that procreation causes 0 harm or that "the interests of humanity", trump actual real life suffering.
Quoting Isaac
Sorry, that was a mistake.
Quoting Isaac
I don't mean to say they are OBJECTIVELY self deceptive in nature. It's just that I would be tricking myself if I said I believed them.
Quoting Isaac
Both are preferences. Neither are objective. But for ME one is much more basic than the other. I have never implied that one is objective and the other isn't. If for you the survival of humanity is a good enough reason to harm others you do you. Though I will think that that's a stupid belief.
Anyways I'm sort of getting tired of this thread. Believing in moral relativism and then attempting to mount an attack against a moral position is basically like a discussion of whether or not you prefer vanilla or chocolate ice cream.
The attack I'm mounting, such as it is, is not against the moral position of 'antinatalism'. It's against the idea that such a position is somehow a logical conclusion from commonly held premises. If some odd people hold harm-avoidance to be more important than the entire human race (the only things that would benefit from this lack of harm in the first place), then they're welcome to such a notion.
My objection here is to the way clearly idiosyncratic preferences which lead to conclusions most people consider repugnant, are repeatedly (and I think deliberately) disguised as some reasonable argument from commonly held intuitions, knowing full-well that at some point the argument relies upon an intuition which is not commonly held. The only reason I can think of for such a practice is the hope of 'recruiting' people who've not noticed this hidden premise, or griping about the world without actually having to bear any responsibilty for doing anything about it. Either I find reprehensible.
What are you even arguing?
Are you seriously attributing to me, standing at the site of a car crash, the ability to correctly calculate the conditional probability of a crash victim's future happiness drawing on my knowledge of established base rates of happiness among people with traumatic injuries that resulted in disability? And this is what I do to overcome the requirement that I seek his consent before saving his life?
If he's conscious but bleeding out, do I still ask for his consent to save him, or do the calculations anyway? Should I discount because he's likely in shock and just apply pressure to his open wound, even if tells me to let him die? No, wait, I need to calculate the conditional probability that he would later endorse his own withholding of consent while in shock, again considering my knowledge of the base rate of changes of heart among people who were saved having asked not to be.
Gotta say, it's starting to look I'd best just stay out of it.
On the other hand, this little exercise makes anti-natalism much more appealing. I mean, if figuring out what the right thing to do requires so much work -- and my god, what about the chance of a mistake in my calculations! -- then the simplicity of there being nothing to think about if your kids never exist is really appealing. I totally get it.
The thing is, I have kids, and I can tell you for a fact that the world is a better place for having them in it.
But I did violate their rights back when they didn't exist yet, so shame on me. Oh and their mom, she did too. We'll apologize, but I'm pretty sure they're cool with it.
Of course, as soon as they were born I took all the rest of their autonomy away. Their mom too, we both did. And we still haven't given all of it back. Thing is though, the kids did get parents in exchange, and I think they're mostly happy with the deal.
Do you think this might be a pretty common situation? You know, I violate a non-existent person's rights by bringing them into the world, and I continue to violate their rights for years, but in return I accept considerable responsibility for their well-being, at least up until the point where they're ready and willing to take if not all then most of that responsibility themselves?
That could be a reasonable set-up couldn't it? Just as an alternative to anti-natalism, which is still an awesome choice and a lot simpler.
No, it sounds okay, but where are the conditional probabilities? I can't even tell you the base rates of offspring happiness! Clearly, this approach is far too slipshod, and we should stick with anti-natalism. At least I know how to calculate 0. And while the world would be less good, less exciting, less interesting, less beautiful without my kids in it, none of us would know what we were missing, so who cares, amirite?
I don't speak for Khaled, so I am not answering for him, but I will explain what I see. He may have a different response. But you would have to answer why causing the conditions for others being harmed is acceptable when considering your preference for "humanity" (what I am going to deem a third-party/abstract cause).
Antinatalism respects the individual person that will be created. That is what is being considered. It is not an abstracted third-party. Even if one doesn't mean it, one is then using the individual for some abstract reason. It is no longer about the person who will actually be affected by the decision, but for a cause. Antinatalism respects the fact that the person who will be born will inevitably experience suffering, and therefore, with NO negative consequences for that individual (by abstaining to have them), has prevented any negative conditions that will befall that individual. I don't see how obligations of not causing harm are not really a consideration and that obligations to a third-party cause like "humanity" would be.
You keep thinking, clutching your pearls that this isn't what most people think, is a philosophical argument. Most of philosophical debate, especially on something like a philosophy forum convincing people about the validity and soundness of an argument with reasoning and having a general dialectic about a line of reasoning. It is also about explaining ideas. Suck it up buttercup.
Oh and because it might lead to paths that are counterintuitive to what you find to be respectable doesn't make it not so because YOU think it isn't and it is odious, or whatever bullshit you're peddling as a defense to the "nefarious" antinatalists.
Oh and "suck it up buttercup" is actually a terrible phrase.. just thought it was funny when juxtoposed with your value-signalling pearl-clutching remarks of odiousness against antinatalism.. In fact, I think many anti-antinatalist philosophies just come down to that.. "So why are you creating known conditions of harm for someone else..""
Answer: I don't know people are too sensitive to harm.. they got it suck it up buttercup.. is essentially the answer. That's what you pretty much said here: Quoting Isaac
We can debate whether or not they are commonly held but if that's your opposition, and you don't think the premises are commonly held, then sure I don't have an issue.
Quoting Isaac
Again, why don't you specify what you mean? You are saying nothing unless you do so. And since when is an uncommon intuition false?
Quoting Isaac
Or simply that the antinatalist does not think his premise is hidden at all or that his argument is flawed and just wants to talk about it on an online free philosphy forum? I don't really care what you think shope is doing though. As long as you're fine with antinatalism existing then what we're both doing is just wasting our time.
Quoting Isaac
I hear this a lot from people as if it were an opposition to antinatalism somehow. Since when does not having kids imply you don't want to bear any responsiblity for the world? Since when were people obligated by responsibiltiy to have kids?
Basically. I don't expect you to pull out a calculator. This is just another way of saying "I expect you to choose the option that you think minimizes harm done" which isn't really an unusual thing to ask. How would YOU go about deciding in all these situations actually? Ignore everything I have argued, how many variables would YOU try to process?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
But then you still have to do the calculations on what will happen if you stay out of it :razz: Assuming there is some harm that you would be responsible for and so can't just sit back and watch happen. Example: A life guard choosing not to rescue people.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Now you're getting it :wink:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Let me ask you this. If they weren't happy with the deal whose fault is it? And should we pretend that this risk is non existent or that it is not worth considering?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I have no doubt that it's common. But it is not always the case.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No not really. What do you do if your kids hate their existence? What gives you the right to take that risk in the first place? To say "I'll take a risk at harming others because it'll probably turn out okay" is not enough of a justifaction for me. Especially when it can get so bad.
I'm not trying to attack you here but you're the one that brought your kids into the argument.
My cockamamie ideas are not under discussion here.
Quoting khaled
I think my oldest son almost hated his existence for a little while in the Spring. He's a musician and had begun thinking that live music might never be a thing again. Pretty depressing stuff for a young man to deal with. He's in fine form these days.
Generally speaking, I don't know. One or two of the kids tend a little toward melancholia, but it's just personality not pathology. So far as I can tell, there's neither mental illness nor despair among my children, though the ones that are old enough have had their moments. Mostly they are wild, creative, gutsy, fascinating little and not so little people.
Having children is of course a roll of the genetic dice, but parenting is not. The way you talk about the risk involved is just meaningless to me. Having and then raising children is not spinning a roulette wheel or something, just one action and then you get the result: loves life, hates life, mostly hates life, mostly neutral, ... Like it's on a scale from 1 to 7. That's not my experience of life or of raising children, or the experience of anyone I know. There is no result, so no risk of the result being one thing or another. We're just alive.
Quoting khaled
Parents don't just guess how things will turn out, they work at it, they take responsibility. Obviously can't speak for all parents -- most people only know what their parents were like and what they see on TV. If you are a parent, you know a couple more examples, and you tend to know other people with kids and know at least a little about what they're doing.
If you told my kids that I harmed them by bringing them into the world without their consent, I'm gonna guess they would love that. There would be a fair amount of "Yeah Dad, what about that? You violated my rights. You owe me." But once you were gone they would probably all blurt out that that was an amazingly stupid idea.
It's just that you seem to find "Do what you think will minimize harm" so ridiculous that I wondered how you operate in these situations.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This doesn't address the question.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
The "result" is whether or not your children would rather have not been born. In other words whether or not the "deal" that is life ended up panning out for them in their eyes. That is how you evaluate the consequences of an action right? Thankfully, your children seem to be doing fine. But I'm asking what would you do IF your child did have a severe mental/genetic illness? Whose fault was it that life is so difficult for him/her? And are you responsible for it or not? Saying "my children are doing fine" does not address this.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
That doesn't remove the risk of suffering. "I will take a risk with someone else's life becaues I will then try as hard as I can to reduce their suffering" still is not a good enough justification for me.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
You didn't harm them overall though. So that's why they'd think the idea is stupid. Overall life was a good deal for them. It's more like "You risked harming them by bringing them into the world without their consent". I think they'd find that idea a lot less stupid. There is a non zero chance they would have still hated every minute of their lives despite your best effort be it due to genetic/mental illness or some accident, etc, etc.
What does that even mean though? Are we asking them at the end, "So, what'd you think? Worth it?" Should we survey them weekly? I don't think any of them have ever thought this, but it could be, there have been some rough times. Is the question, did you ever, over the course of your life, wish that you hadn't been born? What would having had that thought prove?
Quoting khaled
You guys always throw around this "hating every minute of their life" thing. Is this just a thought experiment or are you talking about something real like major depression?
Is this the actual substantial argument for anti-natalism? That there is a non-zero chance your child will experience major depression therefore no one should ever have children?
Can be seen as either.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Among other things but yes. The argument is that there is a non zero chance that they won't think their life was worth it.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
We're not but the answer to that is what this concerns. There is a non zero chance that at the end of their lives they won't think it was worth it overall. Or they commit suicide, in whichcase the answer to the question is a very clear "no"
I'm sorry, what?
There are the end-of-life decisions of the terminally ill, which is a sound-mind answer of "no" to the question, "Do you want to continue living this way?" not to any other question like, "Do you wish you had never been born?" or "Was life worth it?"
There may indeed be cases of sound-mind decisions to take your life that should count as answers to questions like that, but I don't happen to be familiar with an example.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, suicide is not so much something a person does as something that happens to them, because of mental illness or extreme mental duress, something they cannot stop themselves from doing and no one else does either. This is not a sound-mind judgment of anything, not an answer to any question, and it's callous to treat it as such.
From your side, the existence of conditions in which people take their own lives is unjustifiable, so it still counts.
But this is really strange, because it's as if you are substituting the ideation of major depression for the thing itself, or the desperate thought for the conditions that gave rise to it. Major depression is a disease to be treated and managed; the stresses of life are something people need help to cope with. The fact that there is propositional content associated with these conditions is not a moral fact to be taken into account; it's a side-effect.
Quoting khaled
That doesn't strike me as much of a position, but then the whole argument has a sort of fluidity to it, may or may not be based on actual facts, as if it makes no difference. Are we talking about suffering? Or about the idea of suffering? Or about what we think about suffering? Makes no difference.
And so it goes with the hypothetical person at the center of it all. We wouldn't presume to say of anyone living that they shouldn't be, that their life is not worth living; we would respect their view on the matter. We wouldn't presume to decide on behalf of someone suffering that they should die; we respect their decision. Then what are we to say about the hypothetical person? We can't respect their views and their decisions, for they have none.
So we go around that and make it an epistemic problem for us. I can't know whether my hypothetical child wants to become real, whatever that could mean. I can't know whether, once living, they will always want to go on living. I can't know whether they will at some point wish they had never been born. And then we switch it all around and construct a duty out of things that I cannot know not because they are private but because they are not facts at all.
But then those non-facts are treated as somehow determinate, as if having a child is drawing a world-line from the proverbial urn of marbles. My child's life will be a red or a blue, it's just a matter of probability, and we can confidently assign probabilities to the different results, probabilities of a very vague sort like "> 0". What justification is ever offered for this absurd formalization?
I just find this to be where the disagreement in intuitions lie. Most ANs would say that this is akin to creating the game for someone else, and then trying to ameliorate the very deprivation that was placed upon them. There is no escape except indeed unintentional death (starvation.. not functioning well in life) or intentional death (suicide.. which as you point out may only occur due to mental illness.. another contingent form of harm, if that is the case).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This is equivalent to saying that you know someone who will encounter immediate torture upon birth shouldn't be considered, because they are not born yet.. No, in this view, you'd wait for the person to be tortured for you to say, "NOW, we can consider that person". Doesn't make sense.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No you are not understanding the argument. There is no violation of anything to anyone prior to birth. That is recognized. No ONE exists.. therefore now harm, no foul (literally). Once born, consent has been violated, and not causing unnecessary conditions of harm has been violated. If you don't believe in those two things.. that would be where the argument ends, that I will give you.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
This kind of argument only make sense if we are talking about possibilities that affect no one. You can't equate this with something like "The pink unicorns should be prevented from existing because they might kill the green leprechauns".. Yeah since none of those things actually exist or ever will.. then that is indeed nonsensical to talk about as if it is real.. But an act that WILL create an ACTUAL person if it is followed, DOES have considerations for a future being, so your rebuttal is null.
But this is exactly my problem. An actual person could have any sort of life, but for your argument you need to talk about it this way:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Is "immediate torture upon birth" one of the marbles in the jar you imagine me drawing from? You're not talking about an actual person, but about a very definite though hypothetical person.
This continual flipping between empirical claims about human life and bizarre thought experiments leaves me wondering if you might have an airtight argument that happens not to apply to real life, like one of those old models in economics with perfect competition and utility-maximizing agents who have perfect knowledge, etc. etc.
I think there is a real argument to be made about the sort of suffering humans actually endure. I'm not sure how to respond to it, but in part that's because I can't quite see how to construct the inference from an understanding of what real people go through to anti-natalism without taking liberties that puzzle me. If one of you ever manages to make just that argument, then we'll see. I would make it myself for you, but I'm not sure how.
Maybe we should just leave it there. The formalism of the argument, which is crucial, just doesn't resonate with me, but you've given me some things to think about.
Yes I get your problem. However, you didn't address the argument itself which is not about whether someone MIGHT enjoy it (or even if they are likely to).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No no, you are taking this out of context, ugh. IF this was the case, would you not consider the circumstances? ANs are essentially considering all suffering over a life time rather than just immediate torture, but same sentiment.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Ha, interesting analogy. However, the mentality that says, "What's a little causing of suffering, there's happiness. too! Am I right?! Ami I right?! (elbow poke to ribs)" Doesn't really hold. Indeed, just because life is a variety of circumstances, doesn't mean "Thus AN reasoning is wrong". You still have the major normative ethical claim to contend with.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
That's fair enough. As I said, just because life is a panalopy of various circumstances, doesn't override the claim that unnecessary causing for the conditions of suffering is taking place for another person. I've stated it many times.. you know it.
I do have one final thought I'd like to hear your thoughts on.
The asymmetry of effects (conditions of possible harm to person if born, no one to be harmed if not) is the real fulcrum of the argument; I see this as paradoxical but you don't. (I'm also not granting this.)
There is a mirror asymmetry, that no one benefits from anti-natalism. A person who is not born can no more benefit than they can be harmed. If no one is ever born again, eventually there is no one to benefit from your ethics.
An ethical proposal that by design benefits no one strikes me as paradoxical.
Absolutely correct. No one is benefited. But that is better than having many harmed.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Saying "it's not a sound minded judgement" implies that objectively speaking life is always bearable for everyone which is not necessarily true. "They killed themselves because of a mental illness" is another way of saying "They hated life so much they went against their own survival instinct and decided to die".
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I was just about to say that.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Fantastically put. But that doesn't justify bringing in more people just so they can cope. Why cause a problem that requires coping in the first place? Taking on challenges is fun and all but forcing others into a state where coping is required just to exist is a different matter entirely. What other situations is it considered acceptable to deprive someone forcefully so they can cope (aside from raising children but even that is just done to help them cope in the future)?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
There is no hypothetical person at the center of it all. There is just a simple premise that: Doing an act in the present that will result in harm to someone in the future is wrong even if that person doesn't exist in the present. Answer me this (and it's a bit of a ridiculous example I know but I don't have too much time right now): Why is it wrong for someone to plant a bomb that is set to explode in 15 years inside a fetus? (The timer is just to avoid the whole "Is a fetus a person" debate)
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
You can't know whether or not your child will experience a disproportionate amount of pain after they're born. So don't take the risk since you're not going to be the one paying the consequences. It is not about a "hypothetical child" whatever that means.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
"What justification is ever offered for this abusrd formalization?" What do you mean? Does it or does it not make sense should be the question. Why is formalization a problem.
You seem to find the whole argument abstract and wishy washy so let me ask you a couple of questions instead to make it more concrete. I'd prefer you answer these primarily:
Is it moral for a couple that finds out that they both have hidden genes that will result in their child having a severe mental/genetic illness to have children?
Why or Why not or Is there an arbitrary point at which you would consider that illness "bad enough" for them having children to be wrong?
I like this argument. I think if it were me I would choose not to, but I cannot muster a definite approval or disapproval for someone else. Is that odd? If they asked my advice, I don't know what I'd say.
Maybe it's just that I'm not used to thinking of reproduction as a moral question at all, so I'm simply lacking intuition here.
Make the affliction only probable and I'll be completely at sea.
Quoting khaled
And I just don't get here. I've got nothing.
On the other hand, ask me how I feel about bad parenting; I have a truckload of moral intuitions about that.
Not me. It's been exhausting and I'm ready to let it settle for a while. I'm not sure my reactions are worth much because I haven't read the literature.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Same here to be honest. I don’t know why I keep commenting on these threads when it usually ends in both sides getting too tired to care. Just look at Issac. I don’t know how Shope does it
I never have before, and I really appreciate your effort.
It's a very odd thing all around. It walks and talks like a logical paradox to me, so that triggers particular instincts, but the strangeness of it seems to come from somewhere else.
But seriously, I can absolutely imagine an encyclopedia entry in a generation or two that calls this argument "The Anti-Natalism Paradox".
Thanks again for the arguments.
Yes. You've made your neo-liberal individualism pretty clear a number of times already. What is absent is any reason at all why we should think this way. Why do the rights of the individual trump the pursuit of wider causes?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, that's exactly what I'm asking for - the 'reasoning'. All I'm being given is the assumptions (the moral intuitions, the assumptions of priority) I'm not getting any reasoning or explanation at all, just "this is the way I feel". For which, I suggest therapy.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Nothing here is 'so' or 'not so'. These are not empirical matters. You're talking about moral intuitions. My feeling that is is not respectable or that it is odious is no less a moral intuition than your feelings about the rights of the individual.
Quoting khaled
I already have, several times. I'll try to just list them here for convenience.
1. That it is morally acceptable to end the human race
2. That the rights of the individual trump the pursuit of other social objectives.
3. That absence of harm is a moral good, but absence of pleasure is not a moral bad
4. That absence of harm continues to be a moral good even in the absence of any humans to experience that absence.
5. That we ought obtain consent from others whenever our actions might affect them in any negative way even if they don't yet exist.
None of these intuitions are common. The main proof of which (among others) is that most people consider it morally acceptable to have children.
Quoting khaled
This is not the first such discussion and all that I've been involved with have ended in the same way.
Quoting khaled
Pop psychology. It seemed de rigueur. I see a lot of threads from the same people about anti-natalism. I see few about economic inequality, environmental issues, prejudice, human kindness...
On the off-chance that Srap really is ducking out, I hope he won't mind me answering some of the points in that fork of the thread. Having listed the uncommon assumptions, we can just refer to them by number.
Quoting khaled
Number 4.
Quoting khaled
Number 5
Quoting khaled
Number 5 again
Quoting khaled
Number 3
Quoting khaled
Number 2 (most people find this approach repugnant for other reasons - namely that it implies disabled people are living worthless lives on account of their disability, when a lot of the time they're living difficult lives on account of our failure to accommodate them).
All of these also present an example of number 1 of course, because pursuing them will lead to the extinction of the human race.
What I've yet to hear is any support or justification for holding any of those five moral positions.
You can ask "But why should we think that" ad infinium for any position ever.
Quoting Isaac
That's not the premise used. The premise used is: The suffering of the individual trumps the "goals" of a concept such as "the human race". Why should we believe that? Again, that is not an objection. All antinatalism has to do is be internally consistent for it to stand on par with other moral theories.
Quoting Isaac
Not used. I think benetar's asymmetry (what you refer to here) is complete bs. Which shows, again, that you're arguing with a caricature not me. You have yet to even bother to ask what my argument for antinatalism is because I doubt you care. Because you seem to just want to have a yelling match over the internet rather than an actual conversation but I'll entertain you for a bit longer.
Quoting Isaac
Do you think it is wrong to genetically engineer a child to be disabled? Probably yes. Why is that? What about engineering them to be geniuses?
I have yet to see someone answer "No, it is not wrong" to that question.
Quoting Isaac
Not used. The absence of both is neutral since there is no one to experience them. This is another form of the asymmetry which, again, you assume I use. Antinatalism has been around way before benetar.
Quoting Isaac
This one is sometimes used. But not really. In order for something to be a "social objective" citizens of said society must believe it is worth pursuing. And if all said citizens were antinatalists then there would be no "social objectives" past a single generation. Heck if everyone on earth suddenly became an antinatalist "Ending the human race consentually" would become the social objective.
You make it sound like there exists a "checklist" for every society independent from the intentions of its members.
And what is the inverse of this premise? That everyone must have children even if they don't want to so that social objectives are accomplished, even if the parents don't want to pursue these apparently objective objectives? That sounds like it'd be way less popular to me.
Quoting Isaac
Most people don't think about the morality of it at all.
Quoting Isaac
Okay so shope wants to talk about the same topic multiple times. Why do you take issue with that?
If you see someone arguing over and over about whether or not Jesus was resurrected would you care to intervene? I doubt it. You seem to take personal issue with these posts.
Quoting Isaac
The number of threads relating to kindness posted on an online philosophy forum is not indicitive of the level of responsibility that a person has so please stop saying nonsense. If you want to make this claim please back it up with some actual evidence. And once backed up this claim is nothing short of a roundabout ad hominem. Even if me and shope are lifeless irresponssible morons that doesn't make the argument any more or less valid.
Quoting Isaac
Then you're not thinking of the same approach I'm thinking of. There is a difference between whether or not a life is worth continuing and whether or not it's worth starting. "Giving birth to people can harm them so don't do it" In no way implies "Your life is worthless because you're disabled". I am getting sort of tired of replying to willful misinterpretations like these so if I see one more I probably won't reply.
Edit: I have more time now so I'll explain a bit. Once someone exists who has the disability his options are:
1- Commit suicide - very painful
2- Keep living - usually a lot less painful
So it is worth it to keep living for him. Aka, life is worth continuing
But before such a person exists when someone is considering whether or not to have children his options are:
1- Have a child - risk of sever disability among other things
2- Don't have a child - nothing happens, good or bad
In this case, the safer option is obviously not to have the child. Aka, life is not worth starting.
Just because it is possible to cope with disability does not justify risking causing it in the first place.
Quoting Isaac
Let's call a moral premise you believe in A. Why should we believe A? OH WAIT, don't answer, I don't actually care, let's call whatever you were about to say B. Why should we believe in B? OH WAIT, don't answer, I don't actually care, let's ca....
This is not an objection to antinatalism this is an objection to every belief ever. Best you can get out of asking this over and over is circular logic.
You're not obliged to respond, I won't be offended if you just don't.
Quoting khaled
You asked me to list the assumptions which were uncommon, I didn't just volunteer them. What was the point in that request if your response was going to be "well anyone can have any assumptions they like as long as they're consistent"?
If it's true that...
Quoting khaled
... then why would one even start a thread on it (which was my original question). It would be akin to starting a thread on the fact that I prefer chocolate to ice cream. Bear in mind, because it's important, these threads are not antinatalists defending their position against accusations that they are wrong. These threads are started by antinatalists telling the rest of us that we're mistaken about some issue. The burden is on the OP to make their case, not on the respondents to withhold a defense of their position lest it be seen as offensive.
Quoting khaled
You started this discussion by asking me about my objection to @schopenhauer1's positions. If you want now to talk about your personal position you'll have to lay it out for me, but that was not originally the topic of conversation.
Quoting khaled
You've yet to ask me about my position either, do you feel like all you want is a yelling match? I've no doubt at all that I've mischaracterised your position on occasion, I've no doubt I've attributed beliefs to you which you do not have, and I've no doubt I've responded to positions I find offensive with a tone which belies that offence. It happens. Do you seriously think I could not look back over your posts and find examples of exactly the same issues? No. So lets drop the 'who wants to have the most serious conversation' crap. If you've got an actual concern about something I've said, raise it, with a quoted example, and I'll do my best to correct the issue. Otherwise characterising all opposition as just 'looking for a fight' is a weak defence.
Quoting khaled
So? The premise I highlighted was that it was "we ought obtain consent from others whenever our actions might affect them in any negative way", not " there are no situations in which we ought consider the effects of our actions on others yet to exist". The premise as it is used in antinatalism requires that there can be no exceptions, that thus rule is not applied pragmatically, but universally and above all others.
Quoting khaled
As I said, you started this discussion by objecting to my response to schop. If you want to discuss your position you will have to lay it out for me.
Quoting khaled
Yep. And? Again schop's objection (my original topic) was that we (natalists) cannot use the pursuit of a social objective to trump individual rights. It was not that he'd personally prefer not to himself and would like us to stop making him do so. No one is making him have children. Once more, the threads to which I object are started by antinatalists telling natalists they're wrong, not the other way round.
Quoting khaled
Yes. This would indeed be the inverse of that premise. Should such a bizarre and unlikely situation ever arise then it would create such an obligation. Luckily for us our moral intuitions are not a randomly occurring set of rules drawn from a book, but a muddled and fuzzy set loosely connected to our culture and biology so we needn't really plan for such odd eventualities.
Quoting khaled
Wow. And you thought I was being harsh on schop? You're prepared to sit there and judge the majority of the human race as having given no moral thought to the decision to start a family. On what grounds?
Quoting khaled
Read the OP. It is not a investigative discussion about some philosophical issue. It is a direct, and at times pretty blunt, declaration that we (natalists) are morally wrong for seeing things the way we do, and wrong by way of inconsistency. This not only justifies a robust defence in itself, but is disingenuous when the poster has had it previously shown that we're not wrong by way of inconsistency, but rather simply by way of holding moral intuitions which he does not.
Had the OP been of the form "I hold X unusual premise to be true which you might not have heard of, what do you guys think?" I would have far less objection. All the antinatalist threads I've read have followed exactly the same pattern, they start off implying that natalists are inconsistent, they end up agreeing that we just have different values, then a few weeks later another one turns up, ignoring the conclusions of the first and declaring again that natalists are inconsistent.
Antinatalists aren't just people who've decided not to have children. They're people who accuse others of having unjustifiably harmed their own children. It's no trivial conclusion, it turns the majority of the world into child abusers. Just to be clear (since we've had thus trouble before) I'm not suggesting any antinatalist actually said this, nor even intended it (though I think some do), only that it is an implication of labelling the having of children as causing unwarranted harm to them.
Quoting khaled
Indeed, but it wasn't your arguments at issue here was it? The topic of the paragraph to which I was responding was your motives.
Quoting khaled
It is not in your authority to simply declare what a thing implies and what it does not. It is very difficult to see how you would get around the fact that avoiding a life (because it would not be worth the harm) and suggesting a life already lived is not worth the harm, seem to most people exactly the same proposition. Especially if you're suggesting you can do so without Benetar's asymmetry.
"The disabled life is not worth creating" and " The disabled life is not worth having" are different how?
Quoting khaled
I've no idea what you're trying to say here but it sounds vaguely like you're suggesting that my position might make all fundamental beliefs equally valid. Maybe. But you keep acting as if I voluntarily launched an attack on antinatalism. The thread (and others like it) are launching an attack on natalism, I'm only defending the position.
I've seen crazier things on this site tbh
Quoting Isaac
But in this case the issue isn't even directly related to antinatalism the title of the post isn't "we are wrong about this notion" but "Is this notion wrong". The first implication that this had anything to do with antinatalism was by you in the first place not shope. Which is why I say again: If it wasn't shope you probably wouldn't have minded.
Quoting Isaac
Quoting Isaac
I started because I wanted to correct some of your understanding:
Quoting khaled
I never intended to convince you of anything only to show that the position is not some nonsensical bs as you were making it out to be. That there is a set of beliefs which consistently lead to it which aren't completely ridiculous but all have real consequences if absent.
Quoting Isaac
Fair enough. Sorry about that. I was pissed off IRL when I wrote the reply
Quoting Isaac
Can you think of any other exceptions other than having children? If you want to have a moral rule with a single case exception that goes unexplained (or maybe it does though I wouldn't know how you would do it) go ahead but I don't want to do that.
Quoting Isaac
I don't really get the second part here after "an obligation" but you seriously think that people have an obligation to have children to keep their society afloat? I see it the other way around. Society, its rules and goals is made to keep the population afloat. It is a vehicle not a goal in itself.
Quoting Isaac
That I haven't seen a parent yet who thought much about having kids. Most people I know just decided "Let's have 2 kids, no 3" without really putting much thought beyond that and whether or not they can afford it. People just feel obligated biologically and socially to have children and that's all the reason they seem to need. This is just my experience though.
Quoting Isaac
It is not directed at you (natalists). And as I said, even if shope is right here that doesn't lead to AN.
Quoting Isaac
The post literally has with "I am going to posit" or "I see as" at the beginning of each paragraph.
Quoting Isaac
ANs don't necessarily accuse though I know most do. In order to accuse someone of being morally "wrong" one must believe in some form of objective morality which I don't believe in. Can't speak for shope but I don't think he does either.
Quoting Isaac
As I said in my comment. The reason life is worth it when you're already here is because it is very painful to get out so continuing to live is the best option. The reason it is not worth it when you are considering bringing someone else in is because that someone else doesn't experience any sort of deprivation due to not having it. I don't see what's unclear. If you go back and read "edit" portion I don't think anything there didn't make sense or relied on the asymmetry.
Quoting Isaac
In the case of creating: nothing happens if it goes uncreated. So the best option is to not risk harm. In the case of living there is a lot of harm experienced when commit suicide. So the best option is to live.
It's sort of like how even a bad movie is worth watching if you already bought the tickets and are close to the cinema. But it was not worth the tickets in the first place.
Quoting Isaac
I think we both think the other is attacking our position when that is not the intention. At least I don't intend to attack natalism. It just sounded like you were doing exactly what you were accusing shope of doing. You bring antinatalism into the conversation then imply that there is an inconsistency in it by saying that "Many posts have responded to this already so stop posting it". That sounds like "This has already been proven false, move on". Just as long as you recognize that there are a set of fundamental beliefs that lead to antinatalism consistently then that's all I really expect, I don't care what you think beyond that. I don't think either shope or me are trying to attack natalism though I can't speak for him.
Yes, using threads in this site as a measure of reasonable activity is certainly not advisable!
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I'll deal with all the stuff about whether this thread (and others) are attacking natalists or not first.
The title of the thread is "Is our "common sense" notion of justified suffering/pain wrong?" - not "Here's another way of looking at our notion of justified suffering" - it sets, right at the outset, the idea that our position might be actually wrong.
I agree it's not directly about antinatalism at first, but that's the main reason why I responded in such an exasperated fashion, because we all knew it was going to end up that way. Virtually all of the other similar threads have done so, it's part of this whole insidious approach which I find obnoxious. The issue is sidled up to quite deliberately (I suspect) because we've had the actual antinatalism discussions a dozen times before and it didn't end well. There's a bunch of posters who do this on various pet subjects (nuclear weapons comes to mind) and it annoys me. I was on a long train journey at the time, so I picked up on it to pass the time. I might have chosen another, but didn't. As to whether I was right, I don't think the ensuing discussion with Srap was initiated by my comment, but before the first page was even done it had become about antinatalism.
You seem to have avoided the issue of how antinatalism atttacks natalists simply by positing a moral harm. It's not like two different positions on the trolley dilemma which no-one will ever find themsleves directly in. Claiming that creating conditions for harm without consent is always and in all cases morally unjustified makes everyone abusers of their own children. Having just established that this is not an inescapable conclusion but rather just a preferred set of axioms surely you can see how repeatedly announcing this opinion might come across as antagonistic?
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Quoting khaled
'The position' being 'it is possible to have some set of axioms which lead to antinatalism'? I don't think any such claim was ever at issue. If it was it seems trivially easy to defeat. It's possible get to any conclusion at all given the right axioms. 'The position' as it comes across is that antinatalism results from moral intuitions we all agree on, that it's a surprising but inescapable conclusion from widely shared premises. Otherwise it's entirely unremarkable and just odd.
Quoting khaled
How are we determining what is and is not 'completely ridiculous' in this sense?
Quoting khaled
Yes, if I want to fell a tree I don't typically have to ask for the consent of every potential future person who might shade under it's boughs. Examples are two a penny. I'd go as far as to say that the vast majority of the time we're not morally obligated to consider the consequences of our actions on potential persons. When such consequences are clearly negative, uncomplicated by weighing in a lot of uncertainty, and affect a very obvious single potential person then we'll often feel obliged to consider them. In most other cases it's simply too impractical to try to weigh all the issues.
Quoting khaled
Yes. But my personal view is not the point. The point was that there's no logical method of deriving antinatalism. It's not the conclusion of a Modus Tollens or something, it's just a moral feeling (or set thereof). I raised this in opposition to the frequent assertions that there was some 'conclusion' which I just didn't like so I was denying the logic. Nothing like that is happening here.
Quoting khaled
What more is a moral judgement than a feeling of social or biological obligation?
Quoting khaled
Nothing is unclear, it's offensive. The idea that the only thing making disabled people's lives worth living is the difficulty of suicide is deeply offensive.
That's simply your (bad) mischaracterization of what I stated. I stated this in the OP:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting schopenhauer1
Clearly stated is a viewpoint from a different perspective.. There is nothing chastising strongly or admonishing anyone as your whole characterization seems to indicate. This was very mild. I stated what I thought the common notion of justified suffering was, and why I think it is not the way. I simply stated another view of the situation presented. This is a case of YOU reading into it in some bizarre way that makes it very personal to you.
Oddly enough, YOU yourself said you were not even criticizing my intentions, as you stated early on here:
Quoting Isaac
But here you are clearly trying to put a very negative spin on my intent.. That I am somehow highly admonishing people.. when I did nothing of the sort.. I simply posited a different view of a common notion.
Quoting Isaac
So many of my posts are rather themes/topics on philosophical pessimism, not necessarily antinatalism. For example, this thread is intended as more just a general pessimism theme, yet you took this for an immediate defense of AN proper.. All of this goes back to some grudge against this poster (me) in general. This amounts to a large AD HOM in disguise. You aren't attacking the topics at hand as much as characterizing a poster. In fact, you yourself are hijacking the topic by not actually posting much about it, but rather taking this as a chance to vent your feelings about my posts in general.. That itself is uncharitable, and goes against the spirit of dialogue. So either go F off and write about other topics, or have something meaningful to say about the topic itself. Don't just crowd out the space with uncharitable spewing of hatred towards me and the posts I like to discuss.
Quoting Isaac
This is even crazier stuff. So now, anytime a fuckn' person posits a moral normative theory, they are ATTACKING some group of people? That is just nuts man. So Kant was ATTACKING people because he had a normative theory that people violated? He wasn't positing a theory? Or maybe you think he is. If so, then at least you're consistent. Honestly man, you are gaslighting, crazy-making right now. You are literally ginning up controversy and strife in this thread to make people angry because you yourself are angry (uncharitably and unreasonably).
Quoting Isaac
If its unremarkable and just odd.. cool.. then all this strife for nothing. I did say that the intuition to not cause unnecessary suffering towards another (conditions of or capacity of in this case), and violation of consent will take place (but only if the person is born). This is indeed interesting I think.. But I have ALWAYS maintained in these threads that if we don't agree on certain premises than indeed, there's not much else to argue. For example, if you stated that you thought harm was acceptable to place upon other people unnecessarily.. Then I could not go much further except explore that idea with you on why you thought suffering was acceptable. However, if we do agree on that, then that is where it does indeed get interesting as implications.
Quoting Isaac
I don't know, I don't usually use symbolic logic. If that's your jam, you haven't even tried to post anything about.. Either shit or get off the pot.. Make a logical argument showing this.. and perhaps someone who like symbolic logic can counter it.. I will be honest and say probably not me.. but I can try. Anyways, this posturing is exhausting and shows more about you than your thoughts. So it is about your personal view actually, cause you aren't doing anything...
The only thing you have posted of value here was this:
Quoting Isaac
If you JUST posted that.. we could have had some lucrative discussions.. Instead..posturing, ad hom, posturing, ad hom.. just not necessary. Even if all the AN discussion would have been tangential to the point of this thread (as khaled brought up), at least those more clear statements could have been debating points.
Good point. That seems totally fair.
It's not specific to disabled people. That's the case for everyone. Life is worth living because living it to the fullest is the best alternative once it has begun.
Quoting Isaac
That there are consequences that are not very intuitive if you don't believe in one of the premises. For example: If you believe that social goals should take precedence over personal freedom then enforcing a two child rule sort of like china did would be ethical. It would somehow be ethical to force parents to raise kids when they don't want to.
Quoting Isaac
I haven't avoided it. Again, it is only an attack if both parties agree that there is some measure of objectiviety so only one theory can possibley "fit". But since neither of us seems to agree that there is an objective morality, I can posit that it is wrong to have kids because x and y and if you disagree with x and y that is no longer an attack then is it?
Quoting Isaac
In all the previous threads that I've seen shope doesn't mention antinatalism until someone brings it up. They end up that way because people take them as an attack.
Quoting Isaac
This is all I really care about. That people understand that the argument is internally consistent.
Quoting Isaac
But they have no right or special claim on the tree so although that is harmful, you are not responsible for it. And I doubt people would be harmed by the non existence of a tree they never saw. If the tree was in their backyard though....
But yes we do actually have to consider the consequences of indiscriminantly cutting down trees or else we get global warming.
Quoting Isaac
Agreed
Quoting Isaac
When I eat I don't do so because it is morally right or wrong. And from what I have seen that's most people's position on having kids.
Yet...
Quoting schopenhauer1
Before the first page is even out it had become about antinatalism,
We cannot justify any harms on the basis of poor decisions => all harms must therefore be unjustified => we therefore must cause unjustified harms just by having children. You couldn't have made the garden path you wanted to lead us down more obvious if you'd have lit it up with neon signs.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Pretty much, yeah. Although it's not you alone, it's a certain type of poster of which you're an example, The topic itself is ludicrous and engagement with it would have just fanned the flames of this fantasy that your position is somehow amenable to, or a result of, rational discussion. What interests me is the thought processes that goes into the defence you mount - the moves you make, the methods you use, where you switch between concession and repetition, which counters are ignored, which are woven into the narrative... The topic itself is dull and amounts to nothing more than "I have some unusual premises, look at the unusual conclusions which result from following them" - well, no shit! Who on earth would be interested to find that unusual conclusions result from unusual premises? No, the manner in which you defend them is the only interesting part here.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, but when they posit a moral theory which condemns a known group of people as having acted immorally, then that is exactly what it is doing. Kant condemned a nebulous group of people, those who couldn't universalise their maxims (apologies to any Kant scholars for what I'm sure is a crass oversimplification of Kant). Anyone could think themselves not in this group, nor could Kant know who the target of his condemnation was. Your position holds that anyone who has children has caused them unjustified, immoral harm. You know exactly who your position condemns, and everyone reading knows inescapably whether they fall into that group. You are declaring to the public "I think anyone who has had children has caused them unjustified harm which no amount of kindness can now undo". That's a horrible thing to say. If you feel that way but you have no reason to think anyone else would (ie the premises which lead you there are idiosyncratic) then why on earth would you keep telling people?
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, on previous experience we could not. In fact that was the least useful thing I posted and I only did so because I felt to continue to refuse would be laboured.
All of those points have been made before, they serve only to cement the position which you already know - you have some very unusual premises, some very unusual conclusions result from following them. This is neither surprising nor philosophically interesting and, given that one of the main conclusions is quite offensive, continuing to repeat it in spite of this is cantankerous to say the least.
The example here was about disabled children, not children in general. You were implying that disability was a harm which it would be immoral to cause with foreknowledge. this is offensive to disabled people because many feel that their disability is a harm because of society's failure to accommodate them, not the circumstances of their birth. Turning it back into something which presents a good example of a harm which could be avoided undermines this project.
Quoting khaled
I don't understand your point here. Are you saying that a set of premises is completely ridiculous IFF they lead to consequences which are not very intuitive? You seem to go on to give an example unrelated to anything that's been said (some kind of legally enforced obligation to have children) as if that's what you were suggesting, but then that would without doubt include antinatalist premises in the same boat (since the conclusion there is the extremely counter-intuitive "we should end the human race". As I've said a dozen times before now unusual premises tend to lead to unusual conclusions. Why this continues to surprise people is beyond me. What I was actually looking for in asking this question was the grounds on which you'd claim the premises of antinatalism were not 'completely ridiculous', yet you'd want to reserve the term presumably thinking it possible for some premises to be 'completely ridiculous'. The premises of antinatalism lead to a very counter-intuitive conclusion, so that can't be the deciding factor, so what is it?
Quoting khaled
As I said before, I think you've misunderstood moral relativism. A moral claim is a claim about how others should act, not a claim about one's personal prefernces. If you personally don't want to have children, but you think it's fine if I do, you're not an antinatalist. Antinatalism is a moral position, it states that other people should not have children (ie they are wrong if they do so). Otherwise what distinguishes antinatalism from just 'not wanting to have children'?
If I were to tell everyone I meet that they're fat and ugly, the social condemnation for that behaviour is not avoided by me saying "well that's just my opinion, if you don't think you're fat and ugly then no harm done". Stating to the world that you think anyone who has children has caused them an unjustified harm is an unpleasant thing to do, it needs at least some just reason to do so. But if there's no compelling argument (other than just "well that's what my unusual premises lead to") then I can't see any good reason why someone would repeatedly say something so unpleasant. It being their opinion isn't sufficient justification.
Quoting khaled
You've missed the point. You asked about examples of situations where consent is not asked of non-existent persons for actions which may harm them. Finding no shelter from the rain where there might have been shelter definitely harms a future person. I did not ask their consent before removing that shelter. The specifics don't matter. the point is absolutely everything I do has the potential to harm future people by the absence of some resource which I've used that they might have benefited from. I do not ask their consent. Every structural alteration I make to the world might harm a future person who so much as trips over it. I don not ask their consent before doing so. Thinking of the consequences is not the same as asking their consent. Your argument fails if it becomes simply a matter of thinking of consequences. It relies on there being a general intuition that we should ask the consent of those who might be negatively affected by our actions even if they don't exist. We simply do not generally have that intuition.
Quoting khaled
So what is the difference then, you haven't answered the question, only shown that social or biological obligations are not sufficient. That doesn't in itself prove that the decision to have children is the same as the decision to eat. I don't think anyone would disagree that it is a moral duty to look after one's children, yet most people do so without questioning it out of a strong biological instinct. You'll have to provide some distinguishing feature if you want to argue that any decision made instinctively without question cannot therefore be a moral one.
This is true @schopenhauer1. (I've decided I like it on the sidelines better, but I'm still watching the game.) I hadn't read back so I wondered if somehow I had started it. But @Isaac is quoting your very first response to my very first post in this thread. (My post was the 4th response, yours to me the 6th.)
I knew what you were getting at with the "thrown in a game" bit, but I addressed it anyway as if it were on-topic, gave you a chance to talk about what you claimed the thread was going to be about -- whether there's a distinction between suffering we bring on ourselves and suffering we don't.
Then you responded to that. Remember what your second post addressed to me was?
Quoting schopenhauer1
(9th response in the thread)
So maybe this was true
Quoting schopenhauer1
for the OP and the first few posts, but you are the one who almost immediately dropped what you claimed the thread was going to be about and turned it into an AN thread.
I mean, I understand that your views all hang together, and that you might start off intending to talk about one thing and but everything else is connected to it, but the very first things you said to me weren't "general pessimism" but went full-steam-ahead toward an argument about AN.
So what's up with that?
So is life. That's what antinatalism means. Quoting Isaac
And everyone has occassionally felt that half the harm they're going through is due to society's failure to accomodate them. Antinatalism does not treat giving birth to a disabled person any differently from giving birth to an abled person.
Quoting Isaac
Letting go of them invidividually causes problems. Example: We shouldn't do something to harm people in the future even if the affected party doesn't exist in the present. NOT believing this will mean malicious genetic engineering is fine. Etc. Each premise leads to some unintuitive conclusions when not believed.
Quoting Isaac
That you can not want to have children but not think it's wrong to have them.
Quoting Isaac
And the "relativism" bit means that there is no moral claim that applies to everyone. So why do you care what I think you should or shouldn't do if I don't try to enforce it (which I won't because I recognize that my view isn't objective)
Quoting Isaac
Again, how can you have a MORE compelling argument than this? It is impossible to have an argument that says anything meaningful if the premises are all indisputable. Whatever moral theory you believe in I know that the most compelling argument for it is "That's what my premises lead to". That's by definition the mort compelling argument for anything. That's as compelling as it gets.
Quoting Isaac
Again for the 100th time. Shope didn't make this abount antinatalism you did. Using your analogy that's like if someone tells you "Hey did you know the salad they serve here is excellent" and you replied with "So you think I'm fat and ugly huh?"
Quoting Isaac
No offence, but I'm tired of repeating myself. I don't think I'll respond anymore because you seem to me like you're going around in circles and I don't even know what you're trying to achieve anymore. Once again, not all harm done is your responsibilty. This argument would work if the persons in question had some right to the resource that you're taking. Since they didn't you don't need consent. I'll say it again, not all harm done is your responsibility.
Quoting Isaac
For something to be a moral judgement it has to be reasoned about. For most people I've met the "reasoning" doesn't go beyond "Can I afford it" and "Do I want another child".
But if believing them leads to antinatalism then each premise leads to counter intuitive conclusions if believed too. You haven't removed the counter intuitive conclusions by believing them. The only way to remove the counter intuitive conclusions is to accept the fact that moral imperatives are not simple rules which can be universally applied but rather are complex multi-faceted guides which must be carefully interpreted in each case.
Quoting khaled
Ah. Then we have different ideas of what moral relativism means. That explains it. I'm not a moral relativist in the terms you're using. I don't think that my morals don't apply to you, I think my morals do apply to you. I just recognise that you will have different morals that you (might) think apply to me and that there's no objective means of determining who's right. I don't really understand this conception of morality that you're describing, it sounds indistinguishable from just doing whatever you feel like and letting others do the same? If so I don't understand...
Quoting khaled
But maybe a discussion of your moral framework is too much of an aside here. Point is It's not like mine. If I interpret your saying something is immoral as just meaning that you personally wouldn't do it but you don't care if I do then I'm certainly much less offended by your defence of antinatalism but then you weren't really the target of my inquiry...
Quoting khaled
By using premises which are not so odd, then your argument will apply to the people reading it. "If all unicorns are white then my pet unicorn is white" is a compelling argument, but of absolutely no philosophical interest whatsoever
Quoting khaled
I've already demonstrated that he did, and others reading the thread got that impression too. One only need look at previous threads to see the same trend. I'm not tilting at windmills here, this is a real trend.
Quoting khaled
We weren't talking about responsibility. You asked about consent-seeking. The two are not at all the same. If you're claiming that your premise is actually that we should seek consent from those potentially harmed by our action where we have a legal responsibility to do so, or some legal right may be infringed, then your premise no longer leads to antinatalism.
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There seems to be a general trend, which that last issue picked up on, but earlier ones have too. Some moral imperative is announced "Do not harm others" and then extreme cases of this are examined to see if they lead to counter-intuitive consequences. When they do, the imperative is modified. When applying "Do no harm" we found that would prevent us from defending our own lives, we add the caveat "...unless in self-defence". When applying this new rule we find it would prevent us from carrying out life saving surgery we add the caveat "...unless it's for their own good and you can reasonably assume they would consent", and so on until we end up with "Do not do harm to others... unless it is for their own good, and they can consent to it or would consent if they could but have no choice to not be put there in the first place, and don't have any legal rights which contravene the harm, and not more people will be harmed if you don't and and you're not defending yourself, and...".
To me this just points to the naturalism of morality - we already know what's right and we just try to make maxims to fit it. But I accept that to others we're refining some set of rules to get at 'the truth' or whatever. That's neither here nor there. The point is that everyone does this. Except antinatalists. Antinatalists do it to a point but then seem to reach "end the human race" as a conclusion and instead of adding another caveat to avoid such an obviously wrong conclusion, they just accept it. We didn't do that with any previous counter-intuitive conclusions, why this one?
This assumption isn't a conclusion that needs to be there. It's not obvious. It's exasperated Isaac desperately trying to say so.. It's the Village Green Preservation Society trying to clutch its pearls and scream of the indeceny. LITERALLY screaming.."But what about the children!".
This was my full response..
Quoting schopenhauer1
So we were talking about accountability in regards to decision-making:
I was trying to get at:
1) Though I recognize that the locus of accountability is at the individual level
1a) Decision-making itself is part of the ecology of harm, similar to natural disasters in that it is part of the human experience. It's a call to be more empathetic to this fact.. We all make bad decisions, and it is part of being a deliberative animal... much more deliberative than other animals. Bad decisions for other animals are more instinctual "If/then" responses (not saying that is all it is, but more akin to that). We have pathologies, habits of mind, bad information, etc..
That's a good question. Honestly, I can't recall, but I am sure I have had some pretty good debates that I actually enjoyed, and wasn't like pulling teeth.. I'd have to get back to you on that one. I will say, I enjoy posters like @Bitter Crank.. I don't mean to impugn him in the more respectable circles of PF who wouldn't not want him associated with me. His style is humor, and even in disagreement has some fun things to say which make the dialogue interesting. There are also people like @Badenand @Benkei who I've debated or discussed with, which I totally think had respectable styles and some interesting ideas that made me think and analyze my position for more. So yes, I think there have been respectable and interesting interlocutors here.
Thanks. I can't remember being respectable, but I'll take your word for it. :starstruck:
How do you judge which conclusions 'need' to be there?
If you thought Ray was only holding up the VGPS to ridicule, you could not have more totally missed the point of that record. I take umbrage, sir! On Ray's behalf.
Terribly odd that you invoke the Kinks because when @khaled first mentioned genetic engineering I had the same two thoughts I always have on that subject: Gattaca and "God's Children", Ray's great anthem against such things from just a few years after Village Green, and yesterday I listened to "God's Children" for the umpteenth time, one of the most beautiful recordings ever made.
And everyone knows @Baden is a well respected man about town, doing the best things so conservatively.
Quoting schopenhauer1
But you'll recall I challenged you on bringing up "being born" because no one thinks this is the free choice of the then non-existent person, so for the purposes of the OP even if being born is a harm, our only interest would be to classify it as external, or as an external source of suffering. There is no need in this thread to consider the choices of others who might be responsible for that putative harm.
You made a post I believe I never responded to which included this:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Considering some of @khaled's thought experiments, this is priceless.
I made a post neither of you responded to which included this:
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
See how I'm still talking about the OP?
As it turns out, @khaled sort of responded, but to you not me, and I think I missed it:
Quoting khaled
Only he doesn't address my very first claim in this thread, that it's just not true that "people don't count suffering they inflict on themselves as suffering at all". It's patently false. Of course people think suffering is suffering even if they brought it on themselves. The distinction people are making, I submit, is between harm to themselves they feel responsible for and harm they don't; and people make the same distinction about others, that indeed those other people are suffering but either brought it on themselves or didn't deserve it. Neither of you have ever substantiated the claim that anyone thinks it doesn't count, or it's not "really" suffering, or whatever. The premise of the OP was never actually defended by anyone apparently. (And note how @khaled is talking here about the first-person perspective, whether the person suffering counts it as suffering, but at the end of that post says this part isn't even philosophy just "attitudes toward life".)
What both of you did want to talk about -- not with each other but with the rest of us -- is that there is someone else who is responsible for that harm, someone who is motivated to deny that this suffering is suffering because otherwise they'd have to admit that they are the cause of it, someone who has to argue that it doesn't count if you brought it on yourself long after I brought you into existence.
So it turns out the OP was being defended, but the OP was in fact always about a single group of people in one particular sense: parents.
You said to @Albero:
Quoting schopenhauer1
because he also immediately saw the point of the OP and said so:
Quoting Albero
But when you responded to me with this
Quoting schopenhauer1
it turns out there's only one group that's a plausible candidate for being "they" and it's parents.
It was an anti-natalism thread from the OP.
No, I'm a trouble-maker really, always drinking arsehole's milkshakes, which is why respectable conservatives should never vote for me for President. :razz:
(Damn, which thread am I in??).
There is only one thread. The manyness of threads is an illusion created by the PlushForums software.
Cooooooool... :sparkle:
That claim wouldn't have been made if the topic of the thread hadn't drifted to antinatalism. And I never made that claim. I never said that if your child bangs his head against a wall despite you warning him of the consequences that you were responsible for that.
When I said "applies to everyone" I meant "that everyone believes in".
Quoting Isaac
This bit is not necessary but I don't have the "zealotry" required to try to change others' morals without having an objective criteria by which to convince them because then it's just a "vanilla or chocolate" debate
Quoting Isaac
Correct. I am not here to say that antinatalism leads to intuitive conclusions. I was saying that not believing in its premises also has consequences so that is the justification for why you would believe them. It then becomes a matter of which is the least counterintuitive which is of course subjective. But I would also add that the premises of antinatalism are not unpopular individually.
Quoting Isaac
I didn't say legal. But I think we'd both agree that regardless of whatever criteria I use to determine whether or not consent is required that requiring consent when you're about to harm someone is pretty reasonable no?
Quoting Isaac
Because it seems the least wrong to them. Usually because they don't value the good of "the human race" (as if it is some entity that can be benefited or harmed) nearly as highly as the wellbeing of a real person. But I wouldn't call that a minority belief. Many are disgusted by "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" for example and the example of the roman colosseum is a famous argument against classical utilitarianism through absurdity.
It's pretty clear I don't believe it drifted anywhere.
Quoting khaled
I know. I quoted you.
What is your claim anyway? You must consider parents responsible for something, or you'd have nothing to say. I could guess, but you could just say what that is.
That antinatalism an in internally consistent system that doesn't rely on premises that are too unpopular.
As to what parents are reponsible for, they are partially responsible for every kind of suffering their child experiences except in the case where the child willingly brings harm to himself despite being warned by them that that would happen. If the child is harmed in any way that he didn't bring upon himself fully they are partially responsible.
Yes, but this is part of the main point I'm trying to make. You seem to have this sharp line between a moral intuition used as a premise and a moral intuition used to reject (or choose between) counter-intuitive conclusions. I can't see any justification for such a divide, they're all just moral intuitions.
Quoting khaled
No, not in the least bit. Self-defence, emergency surgery, corporal punishment, vaccinations... And that's just physical harm, which doesn't cover the definition of 'harm' used in antinatalist arguments. If we extend 'harm' to any discomfort there's punishment of criminals, all laws affecting under 18s, all laws affecting anarchists, any use of shared resources, walking in the same space someone else wanted to walk in... The number of situations where we 'harm' others without their consent vastly outnumbers the situations where we ask for consent. As I said earlier, none of these maxims are applied in their simple form, every single one has a huge list of caveats and addendum. Treating them as simple is what leads to odd conclusions.
Quoting khaled
It isn't. It relies on premises (moral intuitions) taken without the usual caveats which is not at all popular.
I honestly have no clue what you're talking about or how you got that relates to the quote. You just pick the intuitions that have the most intuitive conclusions. And for antinatalists, antinatalism IS the most intuitive conclusion.
Quoting Isaac
Fine fine. Let me limit harm to "Psychological or Physical damage done to an innocent party (not self defence) that is not done with the intention of helping that party (not surgery, vaccines, etc)". Resonable? If so, and assuming giving birth to someone is harming them, that harm is done on an innocent party and is not done to help them (because they didn't exist to want help) so is not permissable.
Quoting Isaac
It uses all the same caveats except "Ending the human race is to be avoided at all costs". Actually, what caveats would YOU put on "You should ask for consent before harming someone". I'd rather you answer that first even if you don't reply to anything else.
What's the difference between an intuition and an intuitive conclusion?
Quoting khaled
Well then it relies on intuitions which are very uncommon. I fail to see how whether the intuitions it relies on relate to the premises or the conclusion makes any difference to its philosophical interest. Either way, no one with a relatively normal set of intuitions is going to be in the least bit interested in the argument because it has nothing to do with them. The only people you're addressing here are those who already agree.
Quoting khaled
Why are you adding that particular set of limits and not some other common constraints such as harm done in the pursuit of wider social objectives (like punishment for crime), or harm done where the harm is considered 'character building', or harm done where a greater harm would befall if not done... All common caveats to the definition of 'harm' in this context, many of which could be used to mitigate the harm of conceptions, all of which you conveniently leave off your addendum.
Quoting khaled
No. I know antinatalists have this weird idea that you can't do anything for a person who doesn't yet exist, but tell that to the parent who's saving up children's toys for their as yet un-conceived grandchildren, or planting a woodland, or putting money into a trust fund. Who are they imagining will enjoy these things? Of course you can do things to help people who don't yet exist. The idea that you can't is ludicrous, you do so on exactly the same grounds as the surgery. As @Srap Tasmaner has already highlighted, the emergency surgery we might perform on an unconscious victim of a car accident is done with exactly the assumption that they probably would like to be kept alive. We might, perfectly reasonably, have a child on the grounds that they'd probably like to enjoy some of what life has to offer. Neither can actually consent to this (one is unconscious, the other doesn't exist yet), but in neither case do we have any trouble imagining what their feelings might be, as and when they have any. I'm not going to re-hash the arguments Srap has already made, but it comes down to a very convoluted treatment of not-yet-existence which is neither intuitive nor useful so one is left again wondering why the antinatalist would create such an edifice.
Quoting khaled
Yes but why, is the question. Once you accept caveats to your overarching principle, why select out one of those and discard it? (Oh and it's not "...at all costs" - this superfluity is the real problem here. It's like absolutely every other moral feeling - complex and full of caveats. I'm sure if, somehow, the entire human race became infected with an awful disease passed on to the next generation which rendered life unbearable and all agreed it was so, then ending the human race would become a viable moral option).
Quoting khaled
1. That the person exists, is conscious, is able to respond, and is judged to be of their right mind - absent of either you have to guess what they might want done (where the harm might be weighed against benefits).
2. That no wider important social objective is undermined by avoiding that harm, if so a balance might need to be made - we're a social species, not just a bunch of unrelated individuals.
3. That you don't have good reason to believe you already have consent - I add this one because the 'before' bit is ambiguous - how much before, to what specificity?
Suppose while I was at the store you finished building a model of the Eiffel Tower out of popsicle sticks, and left it sitting on the kitchen table so that I would see it when I got back. I come in with bags of groceries and put them on the kitchen table as always, in the process knocking your model, which I hadn't noticed, to the floor; it will need considerable repair.
You might get mad at me for knocking over your model, and I might defend myself by saying you shouldn't have put it there in the first place. You say it's my fault; I say it's yours. One way people resolve this sort of dispute is for both sides to admit they were "partly responsible".
What's going on here? Is there a fact of the matter about who is responsible?
We can analyse what happened, in the old-fashioned sense of splitting up the sequence of events that led to the model's injury: it's clearly only on the table because you put it there and you could have done otherwise, so that's on you; it only fell to the floor because I knocked it over and I could have done otherwise, so that's on me. Neither of us intended the final event in the chain to happen, and the final event in the chain would not have happened if we had not both done things we accept responsibility for.
Is that a proof that we each bear "partial responsibility"? Are we both logically compelled to accept this answer? I think no, and no. Either of us could dig in and argue that it's "really" the fault of the other. (I'll spare you the arguments, and assume you can fill them in yourself, though I find them pretty interesting.) I think both accepting some "share" of the blame is just a way of saying we've decided not to argue about whose fault it "really" is.
But is there a fact of the matter about whose fault it really is? If so, is it something we could discover? (Maybe we abandon the search not because there's no answer but because we know it's probably out of reach.)
If a drunk driver kills somebody, is the bartender who served them partly responsible? What about the dealer that sold him the car? If a man shoots some people at a nightclub for some idiosyncratic reason, is the gun dealer who sold him the weapon partly responsible? What about the company that manufactured the weapon? If I'm prone to take your books without asking, and you know this, and you leave a book you know I want in the living room, are you partly responsible for me taking it? I'll bet most people who read such questions have a gut reaction of yes or no to each, but that they're not all the same, and some people would think they need more information before they can judge. There are so many "variables", and your judgment of responsibility can swing back and forth with each detail I could add to a story; why is that?
It seems to me you feel compelled by logic to say that parents are partly to blame for any suffering their child experiences because the child could not experience that suffering if they hadn't been born -- though you also carve out a really precise exception to that. (And exactly the same argument could apply to any joy that child experiences, any harm that child does to others, any good that child does for others, and so on.) Are you compelled by logic to specify that exception? @schopenhauer1 isn't. Is one of you right? What about the grandparents? Partly to blame? I think you'll say no, but schop will say yes. Same for the grandkids. And so on. Whose fault is everything really?
I think you have it in mind that genuine responsibility can be assessed, though in practice it might sometimes be impossible, through a careful analysis of causes. And you're willing to make distinctions: people are only responsible for a subset of what they cause -- namely the subset that nothing else would have caused if they hadn't. And you'll keep going like this, making finer distinctions if necessary.
So what's wrong with that? Don't we have to analyse causes to assess responsibility?
Broadly, yes, but it's nowhere near all we do, and we certainly don't think we can just derive our moral positions from a completed analysis of causes, not in the way you expect to be able to. How we go about analysing causes is shaped from the beginning by our moral intuitions, and this is clear in the disagreement I posited, accurately or not, between you and schop over your exception to the rule. Why that exception? Why in that form? You've clearly iterated here to add the "parents explicitly warning against" bit. Are you sure you're done? Couldn't we parse that further? Couldn't I still be partly responsible if I warn you not to do something but I'm not certain you understood me? What if I give you a blanket warning to do nothing that might lead to you suffering, is that okay? Am I now absolved of all responsibility for you?
On top of that, our moral intuitions are themselves part of the story of what we do and why we do it. But not on your approach; you intend to complete the analysis of causes first and let the chips fall where they may. Neither you nor schop are willing to consider our intentions. Sure that's a minefield for ethics, and some people choose just to go around it, but from a strictly causal point of view you could take into account beliefs and where they come from. If I tell you something and you believe it and act on it, why am I not partly responsible for what you do? Or am I? Oh wait! We've already been here, because this is precisely the territory of your exception.
If you need further proof that there is more to moral judgment than a moral principle (do no harm) and an objective analysis of causes, consider anti-natalism. It's a dead simple argument that almost no one accepts. Your explanation is, I believe, that people just don't think about it. (And if your mood or personality is especially pessimistic, you might explain that by their selfishness or stupidity or laziness when it comes to thinking about anything. Or not.) But you know for a fact that's false, because hardly anyone you've ever presented the argument to accepted it, right? So now you need to claim that they're not logical, maybe not even capable of being logical (again, some extra pessimism), or that they're capable of it but engaging in motivated reasoning that blocks the inference they really should make.
As far as you're concerned, the only option available for rejecting anti-natalism is denying the principle that is applied after the causal analysis is done: if someone wants to say, yeah I'm down with causing unjustified suffering, you pack up your argument and leave. They can fail morally, fail intellectually or they can agree with you. But you're wrong. It's a stupid argument, and that's the reaction you're getting from almost everyone you present it to. It is literally stupid, in the sense of not knowing or pretending not to know something everyone knows, that if you're going to talk about who caused what to happen you're already swimming in moral seas.
I could ask you the same question. This is a vanilla vs chocolate argument.
Quoting Isaac
Because I think those caveats are BS in other words, very unintuitive.
Quoting Isaac
It would still be wrong to say that they are doing them for "Non existing children". Did you read that sentence? It makes zero sense. You can say they are doing it for the benefit of people will exist but definitely not for the benefit of literal nothingness.
In which case I'd say: I'm sorry but are you trolling? The whole basis of the argument of antinatalism is that the actions you do have moral weight even if the person they affect doesn't exist yet and on the basis of THAT you shouldn't have children because it will result in them being harmed in the future. This is a central belief to antinatalism so it baffles me that you think every antinatalist doesn't believe in it. I suggest you educate yourself on the argument because you keep ciminally misinterpreting it.
Quoting Isaac
Not really reasonably. If you admit that an act has moral weight even if the affected party doesn't exist yet then what do you do about the fact that the child would be harmed as well. I could now argue "It is perfectly reasonable to not have a child on the ground that they'd probably hate some of what life has to offer". You can't just ignore that aspect and only focus on the good things life offers. You are literally one step away from arguing FOR antinatalism.
Quoting Isaac
Hmmmm. It's almost as if you're saying that if everyone on earth agrees that having children is wrong then ending the human race would become a viable moral option. Let me ask you this: Why does there need to be a disease AND everyone agree that ending the human race was preferable for ending the human race to become moral? What is the use of the first statement behind and? Why does the disease get a say in what is moral? Does a volacanic eruption count? What about a meteor? Wait, what if the entire human race agreed that life is bad enough that ending the human race is fine (no catastrophe involved)? Because that is the exact situation under which antinatalism would ever amount to ending the human race and here you admit that with everyone's agreement, even ending the human race is a viable moral option. This really undermines your premise that "Anything that ends the human race is bad and should never even be considered" as it shows even you don't believe in it. You seem to believe in the much more common premise that "Anything that ends the human race AGAINST ITS MEMBERS' WISHES is bad and should never be considered"
Quoting Isaac
And here you confirm this. So what exactly is your problem if everyone tomorrow became an antinatalist and jointly decided that the human race should end. Because you've raised this issue from post one, implying that "ending the human race" is an unacceptable conclusion a jillion times but here you add the very important caveat "against its members' wishes". Antinatalism does NOT end the human race against its members' wishes so what is your issue with it now?
Quoting Isaac
So do you approve of malicious genetic engineering? Because it is not wrong according to caveat 1. I know you don't but the question is: How do you modify the caveats now?
The first statement doesn't lead to the second. Just because you didn't dig in doesn't mean that the responsibility is not partial but is solely on one side. You are not compelled by logic to accept that responsibility is only on one side either
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Negligably yes. Neither the bar tender nor the dealer forced or encouraged the guy to drink in the first place and neither forced or encouraged him to drive while drunk.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
So having a model that changes blame based on the amount of information available is weird somehow? So if I told you: Someone murdered your dad. You would think that he is wrong. Then I add "In self defence". Well now what? Don't you change your judgement? Or do you just stick with whatever you got first?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I'll say yes lol. Though definitely not as much as the parents.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I don't. And as I said you are not compelled by logic to accept that a single party is responsible either, you choose to do so. So there is no reason to change my belief that responsibility is shared until you give me an actual reason to do so.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No, Yes, Yes, but at that point we're arguing about very minor variations in responsibility that it basically doesn't matter. Sure you're partially resonsible depending on the extent to which your child understood you but as long as you tried to warn then that variation is very small in comparison to the variation of whether or not you tried to warn in the first place. Basically: An attempt at good parenting is leagues better than straight up negligence.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
No because you've supplied literally no new information. Every CREATURE knows that.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Incorrect. You just haven't given an example where they are a major variable to consider. An example would be someone breaking into a house to rescue someone because from the window they look like they're having a seizure vs to rob them
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Is that to be unexpected? Most people want children. And if someone told them "Having children is wrong" of course they'd think he's a clown. Additionally, they know the position is not popular and often associate it with pessimism, so they think I'm just about to argue out of some messed up premise like "Life is a disease"
What I can tell you for a fact though is that no one I've talked to so far has been able to show that the argument is ridiculous or not worth considering or to dismiss any of its premises as inconsequential. It's different from an argument such as "Life is a disease so we should kill everyone to spare them". It doesn't have repulsive premises, nor does it have logical inconsistencies, nor can you easily dismiss its premises without ending up with abusrd examples such as "It is fine to genetically engineer a child to be severely disabled" (resulting from the dismissal of "Acts still have moral weight even if the affected party doesn't exist yet").
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Or that they have different moral premises. But that is rarely the case as most discussions about AN are characterised by roundabout ad homs:
Quoting Isaac
Or severly misunderstanding it on multiple occasions:
Quoting Isaac
But once in a blue moon ANs are blessed with someone actually willing to listen to their argument like you.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Yes. But first off, isn't that the case for any argument? The only way of rejecting it is by rejecting its premises or critiquing its logic? This isn't an AN specific thing. And secondly usually people ADD premises rather than critiquing AN's premises. Oftentimes they have something like "Ending the human race is completely unacceptable" which I can't argue with though I think is very stupid.
I am more interested, however, in why people feel the need to reject AN. Why people cannot simply recognize that the argument makes sense and still not believe in it anyways (by using extra permises or disagreeing with the ones used, or heck just not believing it because they don't want to). Most ANs don't go after people trying to convince them but simply try to defend the belief (actually I don't have the statistics on that but it applies to me at least). In my experience though people continuously come after AN like it's the plague even if the antiantalist isn't trying to convince anyone.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
In order for someone to "fail" morally that would imply some way to "succeed" morally which would imply some form of objective morality which I don't believe in. So no, no one fails morally, not even serial killers as far as I'm concerned.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Which is?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
So how do YOU assign responsibility then? Or at least what's a way of assigning responsibility that you don't think is stupid?
I add the caveats so that I'm not forced into repugnant conclusions by following the rule. we've already established that what we personally find appealing and repugnant varies and has no logical method by which it can be derived. Why are we going over this again? The question is why on earth anyone would publish their personal preferences in a public forum when those preferences are the metaphorical equivalent of saying one prefers mud-flavour. We've no cause to say you shouldn't, but it's just a really weird position with nothing in favour of it.
Quoting khaled
You're not following the thread of the argument at all. I'm not questioning your bizarre 'intuitions' at all, you raised the un-appended version as if it lead to obvious conclusions. It's antinatalists who raise these partial rules and try to claim they lead inexorably to antinatalism. If you know already that there are perfectly reasonable caveats which avoid antinatalism (just ones which you happen to find unintuitive) then there's nothing philosophically interesting here - psychologically interesting, certainly.
Quoting khaled
Makes perfect sense to me. I can guarantee you if you asked any of these people who they're doing it for they would answer "my grandchildren" without confusion, not "my future grandchildren who might exist but don't yet". We are capable of talking about acting for the benefit of imaginary beings, it's quite a normal part of humanity. If you wanted to say "ah but you're really benefiting them in the future when they exist", that's fine (but unnecessarily clumsy), I don't see how that changes anything.
Quoting khaled
Where have I suggested the antinatalist doesn't believe this?
Quoting khaled
Balance that against the pleasures they might experience.
Quoting khaled
Again, you're not following the argument, just reaching for knee-jerk prepared responses. I'm not laying out the complete reason to have children, I'm answering a specific point you raised. There's no call to assume I mean "...and don't include any other factors other than this one" at the end of every answer I give. I've already stated when you asked me directly about it that one need weigh the advantages against the harms when deciding something for someone not capable of giving consent. If you want me to take more care not to misrepresent your position you might lead by example.
Quoting khaled
Because morality is not something decided by majority, it's decided by feelings I have, and I would allow for the possibility that everyone in the human race at the time had made a stupid mistake in their agreement to end it. Likewise, I don't trust myself to know everything with such certainty that I'm going to advocate ending the human race without widespread agreement. Hence both a reason I find plausible, and widespread agreement that such a reason is plausible are necessary.
Quoting khaled
I've literally written the exact opposite of this in a comment you even reply to further down. Please read my comments carefully or not at all. I've nowhere said "...never..." and have specifically said that such absoluteness is to be avoided.
Quoting khaled
See above. Also, none of this has been about a lot of people independently arriving at the conclusions that we should end the human race. It's entirely about why anyone would want to actively persuade others not currently of that opinion to change their view.
Quoting khaled
Yes it is. Do you even read what I write? "1. That the person exists, is conscious, is able to respond, and is judged to be of their right mind - absent of either you have to guess what they might want done (where the harm might be weighed against benefits" - in what way might someone want to be genetically engineered to have a disability?
Your whole post has just blatantly ignored most of what I've written and returned to lines of argument we've already established positions on as if we hadn't. There's little point in continuing if, no matter what I say, you're going to give me a short essay on "everything I know about antinatalism". The arguments I'm making (the only ones I've ever made) are -
- that antinatalism proceeds from, or relies on, some very uncommon moral beliefs and as such the fact that it reaches uncommon conclusions is neither surprising nor philosophically interesting.
- that upon seeing the conclusion resulting from these unusual beliefs are repugnant to many, and insulting when presented as anything like an objective moral (as they often are, but not by you), it is particularly anti-social to publish them on a philosophy forum (given the above lack of philosophical interest).
If you have any arguments against ether of those positions, I'd be glad to hear them, but so far all the lines of intuitions you've opened up have ended up admitting that these are 'vanilla vs chocolate' cases, thus supporting my first argument. The second doesn't even relate to you, but you started out defending a person to whom it does relate and then dropped that line of argument.
What I've no interest in is what strange moral intuitions you might have which lead to antinatalism. The only interest there would be if you had common intuitions which lead to antinatalism, but since one common intuition is that ending the human race would be morally bad (in all but the most extreme circumstances), that seems categorically impossible from the start.
This is actually your problem, right here.
Anti-natalism is not a moral position at all. It is, as I said before, a logical paradox. It might also work as a paradox of game theory, but I'm not going to work that out. [hide="*"](Not in this post anyway.)[/hide]
What is morality anyway? What is it for?
There are some aspects of morality you can describe as rules, but the rules aren't much, and they are not the fundamental thing. Those are just summaries of our moral practices, maxims to quote or rules of thumb to remember or something for philosophers to misconstrue and argue about. Practice comes first, and theory after. (Thanks again @unenlightened for reminding me.)
And what is the practice?
It is us living together in communities. Morality is how we manage to do that, and how we manage to go on doing that, generation after generation. It is the web not just of choices and actions, but of expectations and obligations, of sympathies and resentments, of approbation and outrage. It is how we raise our children.
What you present as a moral idea is a bit of logic and a few words borrowed from morality, but it's clearly no part of morality. It's not about how we manage to live together and how we can go on doing that; it's about all of us dying together. There is no room for community in your theory; there is barely room for people: a couple of them get a walk on part, one stays offstage, and soon enough the curtain comes down.
Please do at some point though. It would be an interesting process to follow.
So being logical when it comes to ethics is a problem now? If that's what you think then I don't really value your opinion much.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Why do you get to decide what morality "really is". I don't think the main purpose of a moral framework is to insure we continue the human race. That in itself is a moral premise. For me it is a result that has to come out of a description of how we should act as individuals based on moral premises.
That's a question you should ask shope not me.
Quoting Isaac
Agreed. Though I said this like 6 replies ago. Which is why I thought we were done. When you replied again I thought we were now talking about the arguments themselves not why anyone would have a reason to persuade others of them or believe them. But if we're still talking about that then I wasted about 1.5 hours misreading you, sorry about that.
Quoting Isaac
Clumsy? Maybe. Accurate? Yes.
Quoting Isaac
The problem is that you somehow thought antinatalists don't think in that way too.
Quoting Isaac
Here:
Quoting Isaac
Which is why I said this is a criminal misinterpretation of the argument.
Quoting Isaac
But that's not what you do irl is it? If I really really like a game and I know you would probably really like it too, it is still wrong for me to tape you to a seat and force you to play it for 5 hours. IRL we require consent in these situations which is not provided in this case. Now, you sidestep the need for consent by adding "guess what they would want" but I don't. And I'm not implying that you shouldn't by saying this.
Quoting Isaac
It wouldn't be a stupid mistake if everyone believed it because that includes you and if you believe it it is obviously not stupid from you POV :wink:
Quoting Isaac
Sorry, I reply to a comment bit by bit I don't read the whole thing first.
Quoting Isaac
I have no excuse for this one. I just straight up misread. Sorry for all the trouble.
I guess we're done for real this time as I don't really have an opposition against the two points you're arguing.
In a sense, actually, yes, but not in the sense you think, because you're also confused about philosophy.
Are there genuine moral questions? Questions we might work out the answer to logically from moral premises? No. But there are things that look like that.
Being primates, humans have lived in social groups from the very beginning, millions of years ago, but no other primates live in communities counting among their fellows millions or billions. The core of social groups is always immediate kinship. (You might note here: no reproduction, no social group.) Beyond that, natural selection alone is enough to extend your group capacity to near kinship. (Enter game theory.) Beyond that?
Beyond that, it's hard to say, but it's obvious that by the time you get to communities on the scales humans handle, we must be talking about culture, Human civilization itself has had many thousands of years to evolve moral customs and institutions. We moderns have a double moral inheritance.
Genuine questions arise when we face situations never contemplated before in the long history of our living together in communities. We're talking about medicine mostly, and bio-ethics, but other situations where our forms of interaction have changed dramatically due to changes in the material conditions of our lives have a claim here too. (Thinking here of debates over social media, for instance, but that's muddled because a lot of the issues that arise there relate more broadly to human psychology. Big changes in technology often take a while for our collective psychology and morality to adjust)
When we explore such a novel problem, sometimes we feel our intuitions, derived from the double inheritance, come up short. We can, then, think through things carefully, calling on maxims and principles that summarize our moral practice in a rough and ready way ("Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," that sort of thing). But this is not really a logical exercise, and moral situations are not logic puzzles. When a thought experiment is proposed ("What if it was your daughter?") the idea is to activate our intuitions, give them something more concrete to work with.
The premises in such exercises simply do not have the sort of standing that you think of the premises in a logical argument as having. We know from the start that they are not exactly what we believe, but are a sort of rough generalization. "Don't take other people's things" is not a rule for behavior; it's something you tell a child as they're learning how our community works.
No one expects to work through the puzzle and just get an answer. The answer itself must be tested against our intuitions. [hide="And so on."](So it is elsewhere in philosophy; the famous Gettier problems have no bite at all unless you have intuitions about what knowledge is, and the point of the argument is that the formula on offer doesn't fully represent those intuitions. Even the axioms of mathematics are intended to capture our intuitions about what numbers are, what collections of things are, what shapes are.)[/hide] If it doesn't feel right, or if several of us, or millions of us, reach different conclusions, all we can do is try some other starting points we think generally right and talk to each other.
That hasn't been enough to resolve debates over abortion, but that failure is instructive. Participants in that debate sometimes take the moral principles they reason from as actual rules, for reasons we needn't go into here, and thus take their conclusions as logical results, much like you. I suspect one unintended consequence of those debates is that many people who might not otherwise have held commitments to moral rules as absolutes come to think this is how morality normally works: you have your premise, I have mine, and we try to out-infer or out-thought-experiment or out-premise each other. But remember: we wouldn't be having this debate at all if it weren't for advances in medicine and other opportunities due to the changes in the material conditions of our lives. (Putting a child up for adoption by total strangers, who may live in another city, is not an option in hunter-gatherer societies.)
What is the question anti-natalism is offered as an answer to, and where did it come from? Is having children a new phenomenon among human beings, something our double inheritance has left us ill-equipped to deal with? Compare it, again, to end-of-life decisions, or the effects of human population growth on the planet, or the effects of the technology by which we achieved that growth, and it's clear how genuine moral questions arise. The answer in every case is about what kind of community we are, what we want to be, what we will pass on to our children. That's why it's one thing to say we should be having fewer children than we do so as not to force future generations to live in an ecological hellscape, and another thing entirely to say that humanity should make itself extinct. One is a genuinely moral position, concerned with how we live together in communities and can go on doing so; the other is either a renunciation of life or a logical toy.
I thought I was answering a version of "no", but mainly pointing out that his question was based on a misunderstanding of the difference between "I brought this on myself" and "I don't deserve this".
That the question he asked was not the question he actually wanted to discuss is not my fault.
"There but the grace of God go I."
A moral claim is a matter of cause and effect.
No one helped the Little Red Hen make her bread so she didn't share it.
The Little Red Engine made it over the hill because he didn't give up.
The Fox didn't get the grapes because he did give up and comforted himself by deciding they were probably sour anyway.
That is a little different from judging what others should or should not do. It is not the individual that is judged but the action and consequence.
Fair point.
Quoting khaled
No problem, I'm sorry for any sloppiness in my writing which may have mislead you.
Quoting khaled
The premise we were talking about was whether one can consider harms which may befall an as yet non-existent person. I believe one can, and it's my understanding that antinatalists do too. The premise I described above as 'wierd' was that we cannot consider benefits which might accrue to an as yet non-existent person. A different principle, and one which I've been told many times is a crux of antinatalist thinking. If that's mistaken then I'm lost as to why a simple weighing of pros and cons on behalf of their future selves (as they cannot do so themselves) is not entirely reasonable.
Quoting khaled
Yes, but only because it's possible to ask my consent. If, for some reason it weren't possible to ask me, and yet strapping people into games (or not) were a normal part of life, then yes, I would hope that you'd choose to strap me into the game, if you've good reason to think I'll enjoy it better than the alternatives. Why would I want to miss out on a good game just out of spite for not being asked when it wasn't even possible to ask me anyway? Being asked is my number one choice, second would be someone making a good balanced choice for me, not someone defaulting to 'no risk of harm whatsoever', for some reason. It's not how I make decisions about my life when I can do so, so why would I want it to be how decisions are made for me when I can't?
Just saying this to clarify my position, consider the questions rhetorical. I haven't forgotten you're not trying to push an agenda.
Quoting khaled
Fair point. My comprehension failure.
Quoting khaled
No trouble. It happens.
Quoting khaled
Cool. It was interesting to hear what you had to say.
That's the main difference between us then. If, for example, I was unavailable and a friend of mine thought I was looking for a suit and he found a very good sale on a good suit, I would still not think he should buy it with my credit card before asking me even if the sale will run out by then. What if I already went to the interview I had but he just didn't know yet.
And I think you'd also think the same way if the object to buy was, for example, a house.
Similarly then, I think life is just about the most serious thing you can get someone without their consent (meaning that if they don't want it, it does the most damage out of anything else) so, similar to a house, I don't get it to people without their consent. I don't think life is easy enough to justify that.
I'm just highlighting differences here, not trying to launch another discussion.
And I would say procreation is one of them. It is hardly contemplated. And there are countless examples of things we do for generations that we then later decide were wrong so it's not like this would be the first (racism, eye for an eye, slavery, etc)
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I kept repeating myself that moral premises are not set in stone and can be changed depending on you intuitions or even whims.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
So why would you not have a child if you and your spouse knew you had hidden genes for severe genetic disease? I already posed a thought experiment.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Antinatalism DOES feel right to antinatalists. Antinatalists don't (all) choose to hold a conclusion they themselves think is weird just so they can debate about it on the internet with strangers. And as far as I know this is what I've been doing or at least tried to.
It's just that when I gave you a thought experiment you refused to hold a position on it and then proceeded to keep critiquing my position anyways without having an opposing view really. You clearly showed that you have the intuition that procreation is wrong sometimes but refused to dive in and try to figure out what makes it wrong and what doesn't while being more than comfortable with saying that my analysis is false and confused.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
If you are implying that whatever humans have been doing for a long time must be morally right since the older generations must have already considered it, you are demonstrably wrong.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I don't think you needed so many words to basically say: "One of the jobs of morality is to preserve the human race" which you know I disagree with but you just call that "confused". That isn't very convincing.
This is my argument all stripped down:
Morality is social. Always has been. The whole point of morality is to make social groups sustainable.
An idea that, if carried out by the members of a social group, would lead to the disappearance of that group, cannot count as moral for the members of that group.
Don't know what it is, but whatever it is, it is not a moral idea; it's just not the right sort of thing.
If every member of a group comes to believe that the group that they are a part of should not exist, and they collectively decide to disband the group, then the group will no longer exist. There is nothing inherently wrong with this, it is very common.
By group, did you mean specifically a species? i.e. whatever contributes to the preservation of the species is moral, and whatever threatens this is immoral?
I say: evolution produces animals that are capable of thinking about and acting in accordance with morality. Evolution did not create morality. Just as evolution did not create light, but rather eyes that can sense light.
Antinatalism is in accordance with a set of perceived moral laws that transcend the survival of the species. From the perspective of natural selection, it is a malignant adaptation. That does not make it incorrect.
Insofar as a club or a voluntary association relies on morality to be possible, that's indirect: to be a member of the club, you have to be a member of a community, of a society. And the point of morality is to make those social groups possible. Clubs just piggyback on that.
As for species -- humans spread across the planet behave to some degree as if they are members of the same community. There's obviously some fine points to that, but we recognize all other humans as moral agents or as falling into a special category, children for instance.
Even if that were not the case, and humanity were segregated into distinct social groups, each of those groups would certainly have moral practices that make the group possible, and each of them would reject anti-natalism as a possible moral principle.
So, just to clarify, for you my second caveat to "Get the consent of others before doing something potentially harmful to them", the one about taking part on wider social objectives, that's just completely irrelevant?
You have moral intuitions about sacrificing your preferences for the sake of others I assume, so is it just that any such duty must be secondary to one's personal preferences?
What I'm getting at is, for me, the other reason why I'd not feel the need to ask consent of a person before buying them a house (on their credit card) would be if, for some reason, the community really needed them to buy a house. I'd feel perfectly within my moral bounds just going ahead and making that purchase on those grounds. That's how communities function, they have a goal which is more important than any individual.
A community needs members to carry out it's functions (and those functions are important to the existing members). We each play our part in those (as we each benefit from them being done), we know that one day we'll die, yet the part we play is still going to need playing, so we have children, to carry on that role.
Of course all this is post hoc storytelling to explain feelings which are originated either before birth or in our first few years of life and about which we can do very little except try to make sense of them. But the quality of the story matters, it doesn't trivialise it to say it's storytelling, stories are the glue that holds us together (I mean 'us' here as both community and as an individual - you'd be nothing but a contradictory set of incoherent impulses without a 'self' story to hang it all together).
The point I'm making is actually no different to Srap's (I think). Morality is a story we tell ourselves to explain the feelings our biology and early childhood experiences have left us with. It can't be 'worked out', but it is vitally important, and that story is about the community, not the individual. The morality story wouldn't even make sense at an individual level.
Then what did create morality? It's not obviously like light (which is made of the sorts of fundamental particles which evidently emerged from the big bang, affect other fundamental particles in predictable, measurable ways etc...)
We have very good reason to believe the fundamental particle's existence. In fact it would be almost impossible to construct a prediction-robust theory without it's inclusion in some form.
We have absolutely no such compulsion to posit the existence of some transcendental force (object?) 'morality'. Nor is it in the least bit difficult to create a prediction-robust theory without it. So I'm curious as to why you would create such a convoluted and unnecessary edifice? How is it helping us understand the world?
Quoting darthbarracuda
How do you judge what is and isn't in accordance with this universal set of laws? Let's say I said one of the laws was indeed 'keep the human race alive at all costs'. How would you show that it wasn't there in the codex?
I am aware that this is your argument and I disagree with it. I think sustaining the society is a byproduct that has to come out of individual action. Just because it doesn't come out doesn't mean that the premises are wrong or should be abandoned.
I'm not sure about this but I heard somewhere that when Kant was asked: "If a man was stranded with a woman and they were the last remnants of earth after a cataclysmic event, but the woman was a known criminal, should they try to rebuild the human race or should the woman be executed?" And he replied "Executed". So I guess Kant wasn't talking about morality either then?
Similarly if you use the categorical imperitive, lying to hostile aliens about the location of earth is wrong but telling them the exact coordinates which will result in them wiping us out is correct.
That's just one example of a well known moral system that results in our extinction. And I'm pretty sure people would call the subject of the categorical imperative "morality" not "something else". Which is why I say that that the subject of morality is not exactly to sustain society but that that is a result that has to come out of it.
But you have the "correct definition" of morality so I guess Kant was just confused too.
What I'm hinting at is that maybe your "correct definition about what morality is about" is no more than a personal preference and that there is no such definition written in stone.
Not just irrelevant, I find it repulsive. I don't care how much a society wants to achieve a certain goal it shouldn't force its members to do it. That seems backwards. It is the members that decide the goal, and if some of them don't agree with the majority what gives the majority the right to force them to pursue it?
Quoting Isaac
I don't see how that follows from me thinking that social goals are not a good enough reason to force people to do things they don't want to do.
Quoting Isaac
Again, I find that repulsive.
Quoting Isaac
There is no rule written in stone that the part needs to be played.
Quoting Isaac
Well, I have seen family members with severe disabilities and I have been to children's hospitals in my home country (third world) a couple of times so the "feelings of my biology" are "Having kids is wrong when it can go so badly".
So, seeing how strongly you feel about communities having moral coercion over individuals, I don't understand how you explain or figure duty. If your community provides you with boons, do you have no duty in return?
If you do, then it seems to follow inexorably that the community can exert a moral coercion contrary to the wants of an individual.
Otherwise what prevents an individual from benefitting from a community's protection, safety-net, shared resources, etc., and then when the time comes to give something back saying "you've no right to tell me what to do"?
The fact that someone can't exploit his community. If you don't have a job you will end up homeless and "safety nets" are hardly safe usually. In my opinion, a country should only provide a safety net for those it deems to at least intend to eventually earn or pay back what they were given.
What I find repulsive is forcing someone to do something for a "boon" they didn't ask for or don't want. So for example, forcing pro lifers to pay tax for abortions. Instead, pro choice people should be paying that and allowed to have partially state paid abortions in turn (which the pro lifers don't get). Note: I am pro choice.
I think the prices of these "boons" should never be paid by those who never asked for said boons and in return they shouldn't enjoy said boons. Now, this is probably highly exploitable and realistically impossible but ideally that's what I would wish for.
But to be honest I've never actually thought about how a society should be formed, I always preferred to keep that to the politicians so what I just said may sound completely crazy.
I'm still not quite clear how your system would work. As a child I benefited from a considerable amount of societal boons, right from birth. Should society have asked me as a newborn whether I was OK with this deal? No, obviously not. So how should I handle the duty that accrues, in your system? Similarly, I benefit from the fertility put into my soil several generations ago, how should I absolve my repayment of that debt? How, under your system would anyone undertake any project whose benefits will only accrue to future generations?
Societies exist, and their mere existence benefits their members. It seems you've developed a moral system which just can't exist. The child above shouldn't ever have been put in that position because they should never have been born. But in this case it's not so much your moral system leading to antinatalism as antinatalism being required in order to make your system coherent.
Well spotted -- but I wouldn't say he was confused, just wrongheaded. He had the example of Hume right in front of him, but was unable to follow it because of his religious convictions. So he tries to reconstruct the sort of thing he believed God hands down to us but without mentioning Him. I know almost nothing about Kant, but yes, in the trade my view would be considered "anti-Kantian". I've got some big hitters on my side too though: besides Hume (and Smith), there's Aristotle and Confucius. My guys also find it quite natural to talk about politics and to see continuities there. Don't people read "Freedom and Resentment" anymore? You can also see my way of thinking on display there.
It's neither here not there, but I'm going to tend to think the sort of code Kant had in mind is largely my kind of thing, just attributed to divine authority. Have a peak at the ten commandments:
1-4 are a reminder of Who's boss, but what are the rest of them about? To me they look like the sort of maxims you might come up with if you wanted a community of people, not all of whom are closely related, to last more than a couple months.
Quoting khaled
Your idea is that people act out of their convictions about what is right, not with the intention of maintaining stable communities, even if that's a typical side effect.
Well yeah. My position is that the "conviction" that kin-harming is wrong almost certainly comes wired in, but it doesn't come wired in as a belief. It shows up in our behavior (and in the behavior of ever so many animals), and it shows up in our feelings: we feel mistreated when wronged and uplifted when we help someone, we are disgusted by callous and selfish behavior but moved by heroic altruism, and so on. We bring up our children to find these feelings and accompanying ideas appropriate not just within our immediate family, but in all their dealings with members of our community, whether that's just our neighborhood or all of humanity. More or less. That's just what it is to live a moral life.
The rules, as above, aren't really the substance of the thing at all, and you end up in a mess if you take them for absolute and universal. Even God only made those up to teach His children how to behave properly.
And then from those feelings we come up with beliefs that explain them and inform us on what to do in novel situations. And antinatalism is one such possible belief.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
It's not about who's got the biggest hitters. I was just citing an example to show that my way of thinking isn't this alien, confused thing you've never heard of before
And you knew that eventually you'd have to hold a job and make your own living as a contributing member. And I'm willing to wager you didn't protest because the terms are very very good. Way better than living in some jungle at least.
Quoting Isaac
By being a contributing member when you grow up, as the "deal" specified.
Quoting Isaac
I doubt whoever fertilized the land expected anything out of YOU specifically so no deal there. That's just a gift.
Quoting Isaac
I don't see how this relates. You just do the project what's so weird about that?
Quoting Isaac
And I don't get this bit at all. Remember this line of argument started from "I find it repulsive for societies to force their members do fullfil "societal goals"". This argument isn't even needed for antinatalism it's a whole different debate. Unless of course you're proposing that a given society should enforce a rule where everyone must have children, THEN we'd have to compare how strong the premise that "societies can force their members to fulfill societal goals" compared to "giving birth is a form of harm".
Only in that case does my position on how far societies should have an impact on personal life matter. But I bet forcing everyone to have x children is a bit of a stretch even for you. In Japan for example, the population is natrually declining, so do you think a: "Every male must have 2 offspring" law should be implemented?
Not alien, no, and not unheard of, but I still think the Kantian approach is wrongheaded.
Quoting khaled
But to me this is clearly a mistake -- it's just a case of the tail wagging the dog.
If the whole point of the underlying system is lost by abstracting principles from it and then spinning out new deductions from those principles, either your inferences are faulty or your principle-abstraction process has gone wrong. I think you can see the same thing at work in utilitarianism, but I've not studied it much.
Maybe someday somebody will come up with just the right set of principles that perfectly captures the moral sense we all have without any theory at all, but so far there's no evidence this is going to happen. I'm against the whole project.
But even if you're all for it, you have to have a way of judging how well you have reconstructed our moral sense as a system of principles and anti-natalism will fail any such test spectacularly.
If you must develop moral theories, because like Kant you want a Newtonian science of morals, hold yourself to the same standards of model building that scientists use.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I'm not trying to convince you otherwise. That's all I wanted to hear. The "to me" bit. I get irritated when people claim to somehow have a hotline to truth so I keep critiquing until I hear a "to me".
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Well what if someone starts with the intuition that having children is not intuitively moral but needs to be further examined and upon listening to and posing some thought experiments finds it intuitively wrong? Then would that adhere to your definition of "moral theory"?
Thing is though, most people haven't even attempted this and often prefer to just dismiss the position out of hand without actually even considering procreation a moral question. Even though there are easy to find thought experiments that show that it is moral (Like the one I already posed)
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Examining how well a robot programmed with those principles would be able to mimic what we call "moral conduct".
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
The above is exactly that. The scientific process is:
1- Do tests (see what people do in ethical dilemmas)
2- Pose a hypothesis (a set of principles)
3- Test the hypothesis (see if following the principles still matches moral conduct in novel situations)
4- Repeat upon failure
Yeah, that's kind of the point. Do I not owe society anything for all that?
Quoting khaled
Exactly. He did it for humanity in general (his future community more specifically). People do things for the good of the community. If they were to formalise this feeling I'd wager it would be something like seeing the perpetuation and well-being of the community as a good in it's own right. I doubt anyone putting a lot of effort into improving the community's resources for future generations is doing so with the expectation that those people will take whatever they want from that common good and give nothing back.
Quoting khaled
I only mentioned the birth thing because I'm trying to understand your position and I know that's an important part of it. The relevant portion of what I'm saying here is that without the idea of avoiding conception your moral system doesn't make sense. Once born you will inevitably be looked after by 'society' and benefit from its boons, without your consent. The people who give this support do so because they see their community as a moral good in its own right, but they wouldn't be so keen to contribute to that good if those who benefitted most from it incurred no duty to similarly nurture it.
I'm fairly certain that your neo-liberal 'morality' would lead fairly rapidly to a vicious and unpleasant world of ruthlessly competing individuals, but I guess as no one would want to live in such a world this somewhat serves your purposes.
Well I can say that your paradox had the sort of result I always hope for: gave me an opportunity to think through my ethical intuitions and understand them better; for instance, at the beginning of this thread I didn't know I was an anti-Kantian. Now I have many avenues to explore further, and I have a pretty good sense of what approaches to ethics are consonant with the rest of my views. I'm pumped.
Any takeaways for you? Anything you've learned from participating in this thread?
Based on the last series of posts the main thing I see here is a debate between humanity vs. individual. Some thoughts on this:
1) I find it interesting that often the individual is indeed the locus of blame/responsibility/accountability when it comes to making bad decisions, working a job, obeying laws (like paying that speeding ticket let's say), but this same individual that will be born (such as myself and you and him and her and any one) cannot (in decisions surrounding procreation) be considered (apparently to some) for the suffering, burdens, general "dealing with life" that will incur to them, except as lumped in as a vague part of continuing the goals of "humanity" in general. Well, shit, then I guess it's humanity that should be going to work, obeying the laws, and paying that speeding ticket, not me, you, him, her or any individual! But of course, we are not the Borg and are not coalesced into one entity of "humanity". Rather this goal of continuing this abstract cause (humanity) is instantiated in individuals who are the locus for whom this burden will be carried out. It is the individual which should be considered in this crucial of decisions that will affect that person, not an abstract cause, where the locus or carrying out of the burden is actually carried out.
2) As I (and I believe khaled) have reiterated over and over, moral theories at some point rely on one's intuitions and premises. Thus at some point, there is no going past the initial premises. To not recognize that we have stated thus and laid that out from the beginning is willful ignoring of what was said (to score rhetorical points perhaps?). As khaled rightly pointed out, this is the case with famous (standard discussed) moral theories like Kant's ethics, and also applies to utilitarianism, virtue theory, etc. At some point there is a logical premise. We can debate meta-ethics to go a step beyond, but if we are doing so, then that would be on a different topic and should delineate that this is happening. The point is not to castigate ONE moral theory for doing what most (normative and applied level) ethical theories do.
Yes, see my last post that kind of addresses this. I find it interesting that the individual is considered for blame, accountability, going to work to keep themselves alive/comfortable/entertained (via consumption), punishment for not obeying the laws, and then are to be overlooked for rather a "social" reason locus whereby procreation should be considered.
Mainly that I've put too much time into this. And a couple more ways to not be an antinatalist.
As I said, you owe it to become a productive member. Or to at least try to.
Quoting Isaac
Agreed. But "nurturing it" doesn't have to take the form of having kids. As proven by the fact that people don't scoff at those who choose to not start a family nor suddenly think that those people are taking from the community's resources without giving back. As I keep saying, being a productive member is good enough payment.
An even better example is that we still give these societal boons to people who can't have children. Which shows that "having children" is not required payment.
Quoting Isaac
You don't need consent to benefit someone if you know that it will be a benefit. And I'm pretty sure that for every human ever, the societal "boons" are much better than leaving said person in a forest somewhere. If they weren't a sizable portion of our population would still be hunter gatherers.
Quoting Isaac
I don't see how.
Under what circumstances are they 'not considered' for these sufferings. Why do you think people are so worked up about climate change, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, pollution...literally every social and environmental movement of that last hundred years has been out of concern to reduce the suffering of future generations.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Nonsense. This implies that the benefits accrue to something other than the individuals. If you break up 'society; into it's individual component parts for the purposes of assessing burdens, then you can do so too for the purposes of assessing benefits. The social goal of maintaining a society in an amenable manner benefits the members of that society in the same way as it burdens them with the responsibility of doing so. The only difference between your view and mine is that you have this distasteful notion that we should keep some kind of 'accounts' of who put what in and make sure they get the same out.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No-one has said that this is not the case. The argument has been entirely (I even wrote the damn thing out in a single paragraph a few posts ago) that the premises are unusual, and that the conclusions are repugnant to many. This is quite significantly not the same as merely pointing out that your conclusion relies on your premises.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Antinatalism does not do what most ethical theories do. Most ethical theories attempt to formalise that which we find ethical, and to thus help resolve dilemmas which we find difficult to otherwise see the right course of action in a way we find satisfying. They do not attempt to use some sketchy logic based on selectively filtered premises to reach a conclusion no-one finds in the least bit satisfying.
So if that debt can accrue to me for benefits given without my consent to the deal, then why cannot the same debt be assumed for an imaginary non-existant person in the same way we imagine harms and benefits they might have when deciding whether to bring them into existence?
Quoting khaled
I'm not trying to show here that having children is required payment, I don't quite know where you got that impression from. This line of argument proceeds directly from your comment...
Quoting khaled
and...
Quoting khaled
If "being a productive member is good enough payment." for the boons that previous generations gave then that is almost literally the definition of doing something for a boon they didn't ask for. The issue I'm enquiring about here is to do with how people are motivated to do things which help future generations in your system where there's no duty at all on the beneficiaries of those actions toward the common good that has been thus built.
Quoting khaled
We don't 'know' they'll benefit. We just have good cause to believe they will. If that's still all that's required then it's OK to bring someone into being without their consent on the same grounds - that we've good cause to believe they'll overall benefit from that action.
Quoting khaled
Have you been to America?
They don't accrue if you don't consent to the deal. But I have yet to see someone not consent to living in a society.
Quoting Isaac
Again, I've never seen someone reject the "deal" that is society. But if someone says "I don't want to live in a society where I must work to survive after I become an adult" they're welcome to leave. I always thought there should be some service that does that, allow people to just leave and dump them in some random jungle somewhere since they hate society so much.
Quoting Isaac
No one can possibly be harmed by me making land fertile. Whereas someone can be harmed by brining them into existence. In the former case consent is not required as it is not a risky act, and even if you argue it was then consent is still not required because the future generations don't have any more of a claim on the land to be fertilized than I do so I can fertilize it all I want. In the latter case someone can get harmed so consent is required and is unavailable.
Quoting Isaac
I don't understand how what I said leads to America. Which part of "You don't have to pay for things you don't want" leads to a "toxic and hypercompetitive society"
Quoting Isaac
They're not motivated in my system. As there would be no future generation.
Quoting Isaac
So you DO argue that somehow someone fertilizing land can harm someone else in the future. Well even if we accept that the situation is still different. People have a right not to be harmed, they don't have a right to having every acre of land look how they want it to.
That's exactly the problem and the difference between our thinking. The benefits, while better than nothing to an individual who is born are NOT a moral consideration for something that does not exist yet. By moral here, I mean, no one is obliged to make happy people exist. Rather, affecting someone else by causing them to have the conditions for suffering, burdens, "dealing with", et al. is of moral consideration. If no one existed to be benefited, NO ONE is harmed. Humanity may not exist as a consequence, but humanity not existing is not about any ONE where the locus of ethics does take place. Humanity does not suffer- you, I, him, and her do/does. You can play the indignity card all you want, and this will not change. Actual suffering and benefits takes place for individuals.. even if it is in the context of a whole society with institutions, historical contingency, technology, ideas, and the like. Again, institutions et al. do not suffer. They don't carry out 0-100 years of life of actually living it out. To then go a step beyond and to say that individuals NEED to be born so that these institutions et al. can be carried forth is also immoral because individuals are thus used by society to keep it going- disregarding or foregoing the individual that is being affected (which did not have to be unnecessarily) for the cause of something outside that individual.
You can claim that this is just how it is, and because it exists, it must be good, but that is simply not the case. As @darthbarracuda pointed out, even if that is indeed how humans operate due to evolutionary circumstances (humans survive through cultural memes and institutions), that doesn't make it "good" for people. What is the case, is not always what is right. Yeah, lions tear the living flesh off zebras, while the zebra writhes in agony, zebras stomp out rival zebra babies.. In this case, since there is no deliberation, morals aren't involved, but I would not call it "good" for the zebra being eaten at that time, and the baby being stomped on by the other zebra. That's classic appeal to nature or the naturalistic fallacy.
Quoting Isaac
And again @khaled brought up that Kant had some what some might characterize as "unusual" conclusions. Kantian ethics is a major ethical theory discussed, and the practical implications are written about in thousands of pages of journals. This just seems like a case of you being biased.
Quoting Isaac
Again, the same thing can be said of Kantian ethics. As far as "we find satisfying" that is quite dubious as I can give plenty of examples of things that "we find satisfying" that might not be "ethical". So the way you characterize ethics leads you to only conclusions that YOU Isaac find satisfying. Argument from indignity is not an argument, it is a preference is wielded to try to exasperate the interlocutor. It's like you think you are this pragmatic Cicero clutching your robe appealing to the "decent sensibilities" of your crowd rather than actually engaging in the topic. Its posturing. Ditch it, and engage in the reasoning. I will not argue with you further if you use the "appeal to indignity" fallacy. I will ignore it, as its not even worth typing words over. I will engage more with you if you want to go the individual vs. society route, as that is actually relating to the topic and not about your personal indignation and clutching of robes/pearl, appeals to crowd over decency schtick.
You simply restating what you consider immoral doesn't get us anywhere. We all know what you consider immoral, we've established that such a limited view is not widely shared, why are we going over this again as if it were a debate? You repeatedly telling us what you think regardless of what anyone else has said is not a discussion.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Where have I claimed anything like this?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Naming it a fallacy is an insufficient argument. You'd have to show how morality is something other than feelings which are, in part, biological.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Unusual and repugnant are two very different categories. As I was very careful to say, ethical theories can sometimes be useful when they highlight a solution to an ethical dilemma, or perhaps motivate us to do what we, deep down, knew was right. This is an order of magnitude away from reaching the conclusion that we should end the human race and, rather than doubting one's route there, doubling down and insisting it's right.
Notwithstanding that. If Kant's conclusions are truly that unusual then there is little point in discussing them either.
Quoting schopenhauer1
No you can't. You can provide me with examples of things some people find satisfying which others don't. The search to prove anything is objectively 'ethical' has been ongoing for two thousand years and has come up with absolutely nothing.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You've just repeated the same unsupported assertion I called you out on before (which you just ignored). Why is what I find repugnant (like ending the human race) labelled as pearl-clutching 'indignation' and not worthy of consideration, but what you find repugnant (like causing harm without consent) is somehow raised to an objective law?
Just want to add for clarity.
1. Private language argument - private meanings for terms don't make sense in the context of what a language is.
2. The terms 'moral', and 'ethical' are not soley used to mean only 'harm avoidance'.
Limiting a discussion about what is moral to what causes harm is just a misuse of language.
How are we to understand this?
If it's an element of the social contract, then other parties to the contract have a corresponding duty not to harm you. Neither are absolute, though; we balance them and the other rights and duties that flow from the contract. If you're harming someone, they have the right to harm you to make you stop. If you violate our laws, we may take away your liberty for a time, or some of your possessions, harming you. Those decisions aren't easy, but working out those trade-offs is what we do in order to live together.
But does this right extend beyond that? Beyond, that is, a duty of others like you to respect it? Do you have a right not to have a tree fall on you? Surely not, else the tree would have a duty not to fall on you, and we don't think of trees as parties to the social contract.
Quoting khaled
People do reject their duties under the social contract all too often; besides simple criminality, it's the source of the tragedy of the commons that you and @Isaac have been dancing around.
But what you want is a right to opt out of the social contract altogether, and best of all would be for society to recognize your right to opt out and have a State of Nature Zone set aside where they could dump you if you so choose.
But if this is somehow related to anti-natalism, I would think the argument is something like this:
1. Being born is all it takes to be a party to the social contract.
2. By coercing someone to be born, you coerce them into becoming a party to the social contract.
3. No one should be coerced into becoming a party to the social contract.
4. Therefore, no one should be coerced to be born.
Quoting schopenhauer1
And I claim that the substance of morality is how we must treat each other if we're going to live together in social groups, and nothing else. I don't know what else it could possibly be -- well, short of it being your duty to God or something I assumed is not on the table here. I don't see how ethical questions arise at all if not among groups of individuals. I don't claim morality is your duty to some abstract thing, but to the others you live with and among.
And that's why I conclude that whatever anti-natalism is, it cannot be a moral claim at all, because its only possible result is for there to be no people let alone groups of them.
Here's a question: How are we to treat those that aren't in our group or even directly oppose our group?
No, here you are doing a debate tactic of turning substance into rhetoric (when honestly, that is what you do with the "this is what we think vs. you think thing").
I claimed that morality is done to the individual. If you want to debate that, go ahead, STOP POSTURING.. That is all that is. If you have a substantive issue with it, say it. Shit or get off the pot, as I said earlier.
Quoting Isaac
Deriving it from things you said like this: Quoting Isaac. You say it as a natural fact, as if this is how humans have developed. I mean it is true, humans need community to survive through cultural transmission of information. That is essentially what that quote is getting at. However, just because that is how we function, doesn't mean people must be born to carry it out. Circular reasoning.
Quoting Isaac
You just claimed above you were not doing this.. now you are doubling down and then saying that a fallacy isn't one just because I named it as so. First I am claiming that you are recognizing that humans need a community/society to function and carry out survival. That we can even agree upon. However, your next move to then enshrine it as moral or good because of it being the way humans survive, is the appeal to nature fallacy. Something isn't good or moral just because it is natural or the way humans survive. You would then have to prove that this is indeed the case, other than pointing to the fact that it is the way people survive. That would be again, circular reasoning.
Quoting Isaac
Just a lot of assumptions made by Isaac about things that Isaac agrees with regarding how Isaac thinks. You do a lot to explain Isaac not moral theory.
Quoting Isaac
Again, allusions to the appeals to nature I was referring to earlier, so not going to reiterate it. So why is "the human race" a locus of morality and not individuals? The human race is not being harmed, individual humans are being harmed.
Quoting Isaac
Fair enough. This is more then about what should be doing. We can discuss that, but then realize were are veering into meta-ethics in order to elucidate the topics at hand. So you have to at least consider that this is one of many moral theories doing what moral theories often do. Drop the indignant act about this particular one, and we can play for once on mutually respecting terms, even if we disagree. I don't care and expect people to disagree on weighty matters.. It's the indignant only at this philosophy when philosophy is full of unusual ideas, that makes me think it is some sort of odd bias and thus debating out of bad faith. If you put it in the same terms as other moral theories that can be debated and disagreed with, fine, that is okay. But then let us look at the theory itself rather than how unusual it is.
Now that (maybe finally?) can get past that, if you want to debate the meta-ethical claim that ethical theories have to follow some "common notions", fine. I will simply point out that there are many instances where what we thought of as "unusual" is not as unusual. For example, I can see veganism being something that is embraced by more people in the future. The American Civil War technically abolished slavery. There was/is still much racism, but at what point could society then say, "slavery is definitely wrong"? At one point much less than 50% of America believed that. There are turning points which then make "common notions" change. Slavery was always wrong, whether common notions held a certain way or not. Who knows, historical trajectories can swing a certain way. Obviously a notion that no one has ever fathomed cannot even be recognized as moral because it doesn't exist. It's an impossibility. However, even if just one human holds it, it is in the realm of possibility. Something can now be considered. Perhaps they are right, but it hasn't been worked out yet. Slavery only became the reality as "right" through a Civil War- a violent act. It took many years and still more forceful legislation to make it a part of reality and a "given". WWII, you would have thought that the German society would have appealed to common notions of morality.. Apparently between 1933-1945 a (not so small) segment of the population gave sway to other ones, until they were utterly defeated in a total war, and then realized their error. There are moral intuitions, sure, and I believe we agree on this.
So yeah slavery and mass murder are obviously bad, and you would think as intuitions even, but those concepts took violent wars to become as mainstream as it has become. If those more obvious things took so long to take hold as mainstream, well I can see why something that might be considered very little (like the morality of procreation) is almost completely overlooked. As I stated, veganism is a good middle ground on this, where it is not so obvious but may be moral. Antinatalism is even that less common (and seemingly "obvious"), but may be moral.
Quoting Isaac
So Vikings and Genghis Khan and his men didn't find utterly annihilating and sometimes torturing their enemies satisfying? How about dog fights? A lot of people find them satisfying but dogs get injured. I mean you are saying that you cannot find any instances where what people find satisfying is wrong? Now whose being the odd one.
Quoting Isaac
I don't you see. I recognize we have differences on this. The difference is I am trying to put out a line of reasoning and moral theory and not framing it as pearl clutching. If I provide different perspectives it has not been in the manner the personal manner you are doing. I am laying out ideas that chip away at commonly held notions, but that isn't indignant pearl clutching. You are trying to equivocate this your righteous indignation whereby my theory shouldn't even be considered in a philosophy forum. Then in that case, either is Kant for his unusual conclusions. Either is utilitarianism. Either is virtue theory. Let' just take all speculative theories that have any unusual ideas out. But no no.. I am different. Mine somehow has some personal cache that the others don't because its about procreation. Oh dear. What's ironic is that procreation being such a large, impersonal topic is almost the definition of something that is impersonal. If I said.. These specific kinds of people procreating, you would have a point. But you don't.
No, you assume that I don't know ethics can be based on other premises. However, I indeed do think harm is the basis for most parts of morality, so you are right on that. If harm/suffering is not involved, it seems to be rather outside morality and into preferences. Again, great debate to have.. but to pretend we are now having a fun romp of it now with mutual respect is a bit disingenuous. You have already tried to characterize this as a horribly unworthy, unrespectable claim masking as a theory of ethics, and due to its unusual nature, is unlike anything else in the philosophy world, because in the philosophy world, there has never been any (seemingly) unusual claims :roll:. You see, by characterizing as such.. everything is muddied and fucked. Can't just debate.. have to make it to the man,, right?
I don't understand why social groups have to be in the equation, and not just how we treat each other. Why is preserving social groups a part of morality and not something like "Do not force conditions of harm on another" not? Social groups aren't living out suffering, people are. Social groups aren't the locus of what is doing what, people are. Social groups are a byproduct of how humans survive, sure. Thus, to survive well, it is probably a good idea to keep institutions going that promote the welfare of people. However, that doesn't negate the concepts at hand. One doesn't need to make people exist SO THAT we can now live in social groups. Why? And further, one doesn't need to make people exist SO THAT people can now live in social groups, IF THAT MEANS that people will be forced with harms, burdens, "dealing with", etc.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Many of us believe there is a pretty straightforward story that starts at kinship, which natural selection takes an interest in, to the great variety of human communities today, which are not products of evolution. This story gives us a basis for understanding the existence of moral sentiments and moral behavior. I do not believe morality is just ideas we have about right and wrong, and I believe the evidence supports this view.
Leaving all that aside, the result is that what engages our moral sentiments is other people, moral behavior is behavior that involves other people in some way, and that it doesn't even make sense to talk about morality outside the context of people interacting with each other.
Thus while you seem to take the admirable moral position of standing up for not mistreating certain individuals, something is clearly wrong because your position calls for there to be no individuals.
I do not have to pinpoint what's wrong with a paradoxical argument to know that its conclusion is absurd; figuring out how you got there is interesting, but we know something is wrong somewhere, because we know from the start that the conclusion is absurd. That's why it's a paradox.
Agreed here.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Just because morality entails other people doesn't mean that thus we need to create other people so we can have morality. Do you see the difference?
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
I'm not sure the absurdity. I am not sure why there needs to be the social groups, other then in the actually absurd conclusion that we need people so that we can have morality.
How on earth would we 'debate' that. What arguments could we possibly bring to the table. You think 'morality' is done to the individual, it isn't. People use the term 'morality' to refer to a wider set of objectives than just individuals. If 'morality' is just what is done at an individual scale then how is it these people use the word in the way they do and are understood? The only possible way to debate the meaning of a word is by examples of it's use.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Of course people must be born to carry it out, how else would it get carried out? If you mean 'must' in the sense of morally, then yes. As I've said literally all the evidence we have on the matter suggests morals are feelings generated by our biology and our early post-natal experiences. If you think morality is some fact external to our basic feelings then lets see some evidence of that.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Why? Not that I'd have a great deal of trouble demonstrating the evolution of brain regions associated with moral decision-making, but I'm wondering why I have to prove this and yet we've not had a shred of evidence from you that morality is...well, whatever the hell you think it is, we haven't had that yet either.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Being repulsed at the thought of ending the entire human race is not an 'odd bias'. What fucking planet have you been living on?
Quoting schopenhauer1
The effort it takes to change a societal practice is neither here nor there. The 'morality' of both those practices clearly had nothing to do with avoiding harm. They had everything to do with (screwed up) ideas about how to perpetuate the communities from which they arose. Fortunately for all, better ideas prevailed. Veganism may well be the next societal change. Antinatalism is unlike any of these because it seeks to annihilate that which it benefits. The campaigns for all those changes were made for the good of the community, they all had a similar goal in common (a better society).
Quoting schopenhauer1
Can you really not see it? Yours is advocating the end of humanity. About the weirdest thing Kant advocated was the we should never lie. The oddest thing to come out of utilitarianism is that we should all give everything away to charity. I'm flabergasted that you see ending the human race as being on a par with this level of oddity.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Then how do you explain divine command theory, Calvinism, virtue ethics...
Quoting schopenhauer1
It's always to the man. Anyone pretending otherwise is just kidding themselves. Morality makes claims about what we ought and ought not do, it constrains us and judges us. It's entirely personal and always has been.
The paradox is immediate: the only way to make sure others are treated as they should be is to make sure there are no people at all. (As I said a very long time ago, this is to prefer the vacuous truth: no balloons are popped if there are no balloons.) That cannot be a moral claim because it leads directly to the end of the circumstances in which moral claims make sense. (But if we allow the vacuous truth any force, we have paradox at best.)
I am not answering now. I have tried to debate, but you have not in tried in good faith. You have not tried to debate with respect. I can go on and on, as I have with you and others, but until you are more respectful in the debate itself, I am not debating you.
I didn't see that until now.. Yes, certainly this is your debating style and it just makes this all unpleasant rather than interesting. I rather not keep this unpleasant debate going with you, if that's your style.
Yep, the paradox isn't really one though. If there's no person, there is no suffering. The logic entails, if there is no person, there is no people, but then so what in that last part. I don't get why that last part matters.
Are you under the impression I'm defending the existence of the abstract object "set of all persons" rather than the existence of the individual members of that set?
And I'm not actually doing either; I'm saying if your vision of morality requires there to be no individual persons, or collections of them, then that's not what we mean by "morality".
If you want to call it "advice", fine.
I'm trying to figure this out ;).
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Again, why? The vision is not to create no people, but not to harm individuals. The outcome is no people.
I actually do really want to respond to some of what you said, but my point is you have to be more gracious and charitable. You are trying to negate the whole argument while you are arguing. Do you see how I am frustrated with that? You could simply not say anything if you don't like the argument or even think it reasonable to respond to. Instead, to the man.. to the man.. posturing.
Ugh, I do have to respond to this.. How could slavery and mass murder not be a harm to those individuals done to? Of course it is about harm. And I will clarify as I was using too much brevity. Harm and force, and their relation is more in the realm of ethics. But I have said that in many of my arguments if not in that direct post, which I admit was trying to be brief (too brief as there are a lot of nuances for whether we are judging a future person or someone who already exists.. such is the case in CPR to unconscious or something where the harm to the person would be to not do CPR cause they already exist.. Forcing unnecessary harm is the matter here). Antinatalism, does NOT SEEK too annihilate humanity. Rather it seeks the prevention of forcing unnecessary conditions of harm on a future person. If that ends in annihilation of humanity, that is a resultant not what is sought. If you want to conflate the two, that is a different matter.
Yeah. That is not a possible result for a "moral argument" if there is such a thing. Morality is for people dealing with each other; if you've got an argument that concludes with there being no people, either you've messed up somewhere or whatever that is, it's not morality.
Where did I say it wasn't a harm? I said the 'morality' of it had nothing to do with harm. The extent to which the people carrying out these atrocities thought they were 'moral' was to do with protecting and perpetuating their community, or carrying out God's wishes, or creating a 'pure' society...whatever. The point is that whether these things cause harm didn't even enter into the moral justification.
So...
Quoting schopenhauer1
...is not a moral theory, it's just a 'plan'. The idea that what is moral is just that which causes least harm (with a few caveats) is just not what the word means. If you want to end this type of harm then yes, ending the human race will do that. Why you would have no other objective in life than eliminating this particular type of harm is a mystery to us, but if that's what you want to do...
I find planning to end the human race just to satisfy one idiosyncratic objective pretty difficult to see as anything other than borderline sociopathic.
I'm not looking yet, makes me want to respond. First you have to stop muddying the waters with "too the man" shit... Agree to the terms and argue civilly or don't and we just won't debate.
I just don't get why this sentiment in any way negates antinatalism's claims.
Suppose you're supposed to figure out how to sort a bunch of playing cards; the answer you come up with is throwing all the cards away, on the grounds that there are now no unsorted cards remaining.
See how that might be unsatisfactory? Even if other competing methods include phrases like, "So long as there are unsorted cards, ..." It's clearly not what we wanted.
Bringing about a world in which no one is harmed because no one exists is not what we were looking for in a morality.
Again, why? What are we "looking for"? No one is throwing anyone away. Rather it's more like:
"If I bring these cards out, they will cause harm. I am not going to bring these cards out".
But you don't end up with a sorted deck, which was the whole point. You've redefined the goal, and maybe the way you redefined it almost works, maybe not, but your redefinition left room for you to propose a solution that meets your criteria but is not a solution to the original challenge.
I have insisted that moral questions have the form: how should we treat each other?
An answer that leads to there being nobody to treat anybody any way at all is not the right kind of answer.
Yes, you keep reiterating. I keep giving an answer that answers this question. The answer is, do not harm or force burdens onto others unnecessarily, and without the ability to ask (that's kind of the more full version than the just no harm). Please give me why the right kind of answer is for people to have to exist. That's the part I don't get. It's got to have something to do with preserving society or something, but I don't know cause there hasn't been an answer. I know that no one will exist, and therefore morality won't be necessary, but how is this somehow not the right kind of answer other than again, somehow preserving society or something like that. But that would have to be justified for why that is indeed moral and then moral above and beyond not causing unnecessary harm or forcing burdens and sufferings onto someone else?
Morality is premised on people existing, presupposes them as the cards to be sorted are presupposed in asking for them to be sorted.
There are no moral issues without people; eliminating people undercuts what is presupposed in any moral position. You're cutting off the branch you're sitting on and insisting it's the same thing everyone else does, but it is not.
Thou shalt not have children, but if there be no people then do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law.
Do people exist in order for moral theory to exist though? Yes, I agree people need to exist for moral theory to be a thing at all, but there is some hidden thing you are presuming when you say "undercuts".
No it isn't because the question of morality is 'how can we all live together?', and your answer has us cease to do the very thing the question seeks.
No, I'm just saying a prescriptive claim that would, if followed, lead to the presuppositions of moral claims being unfulfilled and unfulfillable cannot itself be a moral prescription.
The parody theory I posted is a rejection of morality that is indistinguishable from anti-natalism, despite having a different motivation.
So why would moral claims be unfulfilled? If a person exists, do not cause harm or force a situation of burdens onto a future person. If a person does not exist, then yes, a moral claim doesn't matter. What is wrong with that?
The presuppositions of moral claims, viz. the existence of human beings interacting with each other.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Maybe that you state it as if the two are unrelated; one brings about the other.
But let's talk about you.
You submit that a person ought to be spared suffering. Why? We do usually have an answer for that: not suffering is better than suffering. The person who's pain we relieve, for instance, is that much, let's say, happier.
But that's not what you're talking about. You want a person who does not exist to be spared existence in order to be spared suffering. They do not benefit. Their non-life is no better than it was before by being kept at the non- stage. So why do it?
To repeat: there is a commonly accepted justification for the idea that we should avoid causing suffering to others and to relieve suffering when we can. We do it because it is better for that person. And we can be pretty specific about this: if I catch a brick that was about to land on your foot, I know a lot about what you were going to suffer and when, and I know in what way your life is better than it would have been if I had not caught the brick. If your shoulder aches and I get you an ice-pack and an ibuprofen, I know exactly what you were suffering and when your life became a little better than it was.
What justification is there for preventing a person's suffering by making sure they don't exist?
That isn't being violated with how that is phrased. If there are humans, then this principle applies. You are putting another presupposition that there has to be humans in order to have this principle in the first place. That last part is not necessary for morality.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
That no one is suffering is what matters.
Quoting Srap Tasmaner
Because life inevitably contains the whole set of Suffering. You do not need to know the specific instances of suffering to know that there are instances of suffering, known or unknown that will occur. Procreation = creating capacity to suffer.
There is another aspect here, and that is forcing onto someone burdens. Creating someone entails that person must play the game of life. Forcing a game on someone, is not justified.
Another way to look at is that your idea of morality does not allow for procreating new people as part of the equation. You are claiming that my focus on procreation doesn't allow for what happens after procreation. However, you can have morality consider both. Procreation happens to be one of THE most important decisions as it is affecting another person's whole state of being (they are now alive). However, morality of course then takes on the intra-wordly affairs morality that ensues once this has already occurred to someone. So it is more like inter-wordly ethics (the more important one to me) vs. intra-wordly ethics (what happens after the decision has been made and someone is born already).